AN EVENING AT KOSTER & BIAL'S.
Before I actually engaged passage to any foreign port I thought it wise
to pay a parting visit to good Dr. Chambers. It was six months since I
had last called on him, for finding that I was gaining in every way I
did not care to fill myself up with medicines. His advice about
abstinence from things hurtful had been religiously followed, and I
presented the outward appearance of a man in fairly good health when he
came into his office and took my hand. Between us there has grown up a
feeling warmer than generally, I am afraid, exists between physician and
patient. I am intensely grateful for the skill that changed me from a
desponding invalid to one so nearly the opposite in spirits, and the odd
five dollar bills I have paid seem no equivalent for the great boon he
conferred upon me.
In plain terms, he saved my life and more. He redeemed me from a sort of
hell which I think the old romancers would have substituted for their
fire and brimstone had they ever had personal experience of it, as a
means of deterring the sinful from their ways. Money cannot pay for such
service, and I shall feel an affection for Dr. Chambers as long as
memory remains to me.
If you have the pleasure of his acquaintance, you know that the Doctor
is probably the handsomest man in New York. He has a good physique that
has not degenerated into mere muscle and brawn; a fine color which does
not lead you to suspect that too much old port and brandy is responsible
for it. His hair is nearly white, though he has hardly seen fifty years,
and has no other sign of age. His mustache and imperial would do credit
to a trooper and yet has not that bovine appearance shown in portraits
of the late Victor Immanuel. His manner is delightful, his voice
musical, though by no means effeminate.
I ascribe my cure partly to a perfect confidence in his powers with
which he inspired me on our very first meeting. He is not one to make
rash predictions, to tell you that he will bring you around all right in
a week; but rest on his superior powers with the confidence of a child
and the result will justify your faith.
No physician can cure a man against his will or without his assistance.
Go to Dr. Chambers with your heart open, tell him no more lies than you
would tell your confidential attorney, obey every injunction he gives
you, summon whatever of courage is left in your failing heart, take his
medicines according to direction. If you do that and die, be sure your
time has come and that no mortal could bring about a different result.
If you recover, as you probably will, be honest and ascribe the result
as much to the Doctor's intuitive knowledge of persons as to his eminent
acquaintance with the best medical discoveries.
One of the nervine preparations that he gave me is manufactured in
Paris, and I have heard jealous physicians say that no one here knows
the precise formula by which it is compounded; which is, it appears, a
technical violation of the rules of the Medical Society, and
consequently "unprofessional." If Dr. Chambers cures his patients by the
help of this remedy, and other physicians let theirs perish, his course
is certainly preferable from a layman's point of view. He has proved the
efficacy of the article. Whether it be composed of one thing or another,
or whatever be the proportions of the mixture, is of little interest to
the one it benefits and less still to the victims of more scrupulous
practitioners, after they have passed from earth for want of it. There
is a great deal of nonsense in the medical profession and the
establishment of set rules to meet all cases is bound to result in
disaster.
I asked Dr. Chambers to re-examine me in a general way, and to say, when
he had finished, whether he saw any reason why I should not go at once
on an ocean voyage. He devoted the better part of an hour to this task
and ended with the declaration that the sooner I went the better my plan
was.
"I have urged you before to take a long journey to some interesting
place," he reminded me. "At this time of year a warm country is better
than a frigid or even a temperate one. You will thus secure a natural
action of the skin on account of the perspiration, much better than any
Turkish bath, which is at best only a makeshift. You will be able to
partake of tropical fruits in their best state, fresh from the trees and
vines. Your mind will be stimulated in a healthful manner. The voyage
will do you great good. All I insist on now is that you do not go
alone. While you have made immense progress you must run no risks. A
bright, cheerful companion to fill in a dull hour is very necessary.
And, although I believe the year for which I interdicted some of your
habits has about expired, it does not follow that you are to plunge into
excesses. Use the common sense you have been acquiring. Take all your
pleasures sparingly. Still consider yourself a convalescent. I don't
want you coming here again in the shape you were last winter."
I assured him that there was no danger; that I had learned my lesson
well; and that I would make a sensible use of my liberty. Then, when he
had added that I need carry very little medicine--and that only for
emergencies--and made me promise to write him once in a month or so, in
a friendly way, I grasped his hand warmly and took my leave.
If he had been a woman I would certainly have kissed him. He will never
know, unless he happens to read these lines, how near my eyes came to
filling with grateful tears.
The next thing was a visit to my Uncle, Dugald Camran, that staid old
bachelor, who still possesses the virtues of our Scotch ancestry, that I
have put so often to shame. He has charge of my father's estate, which
he manages with the same acumen that he handles his own, and which is as
safe in his hands as in that of the Bank of England. Between my Uncle
and me there has been much good will, but very little confidence. Our
relations have been little more than business ones. He has no curiosity
apparently as to my personal conduct, and I would be the last to wish
him to know what it has been in some respects.
He attributed my late illness, as did most of my other acquaintances, to
over-study, and I had no intention of undeceiving him. There was no
attempt on his part to influence me in any way, when I gave up my course
at Yale without graduating. He only said that I was the best judge.
He could see well enough that I was not cut from the same piece as the
rest of the Camrans, staid, methodical getters together of money as they
are. Probably, bad as things went, he would have made them no better had
he interfered. His is not a nature that could understand mine. When I
became twenty-one years of age he handed over without demur the ten
thousand dollars that my father's testament said was to be given me on
that date, and although he knew well that I had not a penny of it left
at the end of a twelve-month he never uttered a word against my folly.
He was, as far as appeared, an automatic machine to obey the provisions
of the will.
For nine years to come there was the five thousand a year for me, either
in lump annual sums or monthly, as I might prefer. With the knowledge
that I could not retain my hold on anything in the shape of money I
decided to take it in the safer way. My illness had enabled me, in spite
of the special expense to which it subjected my purse, to get a couple
of thousand ahead, which I was foolish enough to think did me credit. As
a matter of fact, I was never extravagant in the necessaries of life,
and might have gained a reputation as a very careful fellow had I not
fallen into habits that sent my change flying like geese feathers in a
storm.
Uncle Dugald listened without approval or disapproval to my statement
that I was going on a sea voyage, which I took pains to say was advised
by Dr. Chambers. In spite of our relation he evidently regarded me much
as the cashier of my bank did when I presented a check--if there was a
balance to my credit, all right; if there was none I should meet with a
polite refusal.
It was not necessary for this canny Scot to turn to his books to see how
my balance stood. His head was full of figures and if a fire had
destroyed every account he had, I believe he could have restored his
ledgers accurately from memory alone.
"I shall want a letter of credit," I said, "and I shall be obliged if
you will attend to the matter for me. I suppose it is necessary to
deposit the amount with the firm on which the letter is drawn."
"That is the customary way," he answered, "but I can arrange it a little
better to your advantage, by guaranteeing payment through my banker.
That will save interest on the money. What size shall the letter be?"
My Uncle had no idea of being responsible for a penny beyond the amount
in his hands, out of my annual allowance. Ah, well, that would be more
than enough, probably. At the worst, my income was accumulating, and at
the end of a few months I could send to him for another letter, if I
remained away so long. So I told him to get a credit for $2000 and send
it to my lodgings at his convenience. Then having asked after the health
of my two maiden aunts, with whom he lived--as if I cared whether they
were sick or well; they never had bothered about me when I was at the
worst of my long illness!--I took my departure.
That evening I studied the advertisements of the steamship lines, both
in the Herald and in the Commercial Advertiser. There were excursions
going to the Mediterranean, which presented most attractive
prospectuses, but they did not convince me that they were what I wanted.
I never liked travelling by route, preferring to leave everything open
for any change of mind. There were the usual lines to England, France
and Germany, but I had seen those countries several years earlier, just
before entering college, and according to my recollection they were
anything but restful. The particular temptations I was to avoid were
rather too plenty on the other side of the Atlantic to trust myself
there. I was more inclined toward some of the South American countries,
till I happened to read in a despatch that yellow fever had broken out
there, and I knew that those quarantines were something to be avoided at
all hazards.
Thinking of quarantines suddenly brought back the memory of a trip I had
taken three years earlier to the Windward and Leeward Islands, where I
had been detained in the most comfortable quarantine station in the
world--the one at St. Thomas.
I smiled to recall the discouraged feeling with which I and my
travelling acquaintances heard, at the little town of Ponce, in Porto
Rico, that we would have to be detained under guard fifteen days when we
reached St. Thomas; how we had the blues for twenty hours; how the
indigo darkened, when we were taken from our steamer and landed from a
row boat, bag and baggage, at the foot of a long path that led up to the
Station.
And then the revulsion of feeling when we found the cosiest of homes
awaiting us! The hearty welcome of Eggert, the quarantine master and
lighthouse keeper; the motherly smile of his wife; the cheery welcome of
his daughter, Thyra; the bright little faces of Thorwald, his son, and
of the baby, Ingeborg; even the rough growl of "Laps," the Danish hound,
had no surliness about it.
Then the comfortable beds in the little rooms, curtained from all
obnoxious insects; the five o'clock sea baths in the morning, inside the
high station fence that we must not pass; the meals an epicure need not
have scoffed at; our first acquaintance with a dozen varieties of the
luscious fish that abound in that part of the Caribbean.
I remembered them all, as if it were yesterday, and at this juncture
that meant but one thing: I must see St. Thomas again, if only to
determine whether that fortnight was a dream or a reality.
The craze which this decision inspired brought to my mind the fact that
I was still liable to excitements from which I must free myself. The
great desideratum for which I must strive above all things was repose.
It was mere suicide to go wild over everything that happened to please
me for the moment. The chance was more than even that if my feelings ran
away with me over the delights of the Antilles I would awake the next
morning with an aversion to that part of the world. It was one of the
penalties of my illness that the pendulum of a wish could not swing
violently in one direction without swinging just as far in the other. I
was afraid this would be the result in the present instance; and I sent
for a ticket to Koster & Bial's, while I went to take my dinner at the
Club, in order to get a diversion that would be effective.
Among the entertainments presented at the great Vaudeville house that
evening was the startling sensation known as "Charmion," and I was not
sorry to see it, even though I had to hold my breath during part of the
exhibition. At the risk of relating what a large number of readers must
already know, I will describe briefly the act given by the young woman
appearing under that title.
When the curtain rose nothing was visible except a trapeze about twenty
feet above the stage, and a rope hanging loosely beside it. Presently
there entered a woman in full street costume, who inserted one hand
nonchalantly in a ring at the end of the rope and was drawn lightly to
the trapeze. Here she sat comfortably for an instant; and then, as if by
accident, fell backward and hung head down by one leg, bent at the knee.
Her gown and skirts naturally dropped in a mass over her head, leaving
the hosiery and minor lingerie in full exposure, with a liberal supply
of what was undoubtedly silken tights, but was meant to simulate the
flesh of her lower limbs, in full view. For a second she remained in
this posture, and then regained her seat on the trapeze, smoothing her
skirts into place, with a pretended air of chagrin at what was intended
to be considered her accidental fall.
Next, with a bit of pantomime which indicated that concealment of her
charms was useless after what had happened, "Charmion" stood up on the
trapeze and began deliberately to disrobe, in full view of the audience,
composed nearly equally of well garbed men and women, and completely
filling the house.
She took off first her immense "picture hat," black with great ostrich
plumes, and let it fall into a net spread beneath her. Then she slowly
unbuttoned her basque and removed it, exposing some very shapely arms
and shoulders. Next came the corset, followed by a delicious rubbing
with the hands where the article had closed too tightly around the form.
The skirts tumbled to the feet, then the remaining garments, and the
woman stood in her long black stockings, blue garters encircling the
lower portion of the thighs.
At this stage I noted a special expectancy in the occupants of the front
seats--men leaning forward, with outstretched hands--the cause of which
was soon apparent. The fair occupant of the trapeze seated herself,
untied her garters and, with a moment of hesitation, cast them, one
after the other, into the crowd, where they were seized by the most
agile or most lucky of the spectators, and retained as souvenirs. Then
came, last of all, the hose themselves, and the actual work of the
performer as a trapeze artist began in earnest.
I will do Charmion the credit of admitting that her act was truly
wonderful. Suspended first by the insteps and then by nothing,
apparently, but her heels, she passed easily from one round of a
horizontal ladder to another, backward and forward, hanging head down
in mid-air.
But it was easy to see that the marvellous exhibition of skill was not
what had drawn the immense audience. It was the risqué undressing which
had done that. So far as I can learn, she had gone several paces beyond
anything in this line hitherto permitted in any reputable American
theatre.
For myself I am glad I saw it, though I would not care to see it again.
I was like the young lady who consented after some demur to take a ride
on a very steep toboggan slide. "I wouldn't have missed it for a
thousand dollars!" she exclaimed to her escort. "Let us try again," he
suggested. "Not for a million!" she responded, with equal fervor.
If such things are to be allowed in metropolitan theatres, I want to
"size up," by that means, the taste of what are called the respectable
men and women of my time. But I certainly felt a dizziness in the brain
when that corset came off in the presence of a thousand individuals who
seemed to represent a fairly average respectability of our women.
I saw young girls of seventeen or eighteen there, middle-aged matrons
and several elderly ladies, and I did not detect in a single face the
agitation I knew showed in my own. Perhaps I may ascribe my extra
nervousness to the neurasthenia from which I had so recently recovered.
While at this point I hope I may be pardoned a word in reference to the
growing taste among our theatrical audiences for what was once called
indecent exposure. Our elders relate that New York nearly had a fit
when, in the late sixties, the first "Black Crook" company opened its
doors at Niblo's. To see women in flesh-colored tights reaching to the
hips was so awful that only eye-witnesses would believe it possible, and
to make sure it actually occurred, everybody had to go. Then came the
"British Blondes," who wore longer tights, and filled them in a more
satisfactory manner than those who had preceded. Soldene followed, with
a new and startling sensation, in Sara, the skirt dancer, who pulled her
underclothing up to her forehead, to the delight and scandal of the
bald-headed row--just as a hundred others do now without attracting
special attention.
The demand kept ahead of the supply of indelicacy. Dancers vied with
each other in so garbing their lower limbs as to give the impression
that they were partially nude, and Mrs. Grundy merely bought spectacles
of increased power and engaged a front seat.
Then came the "Living Picture" craze. As Clement Scott said in his
London paper, "We are told that these women are covered with a tightly
fitting, skin-like gauze, but this is a matter of information and belief
and not of ocular demonstration." The nymph at the fountain stood night
after night, like her marble prototype, with the water running down her
breasts and dropping from the points thereof. She refused to follow
Beaumont and Fletcher's advice, to--
"Hide, oh, hide those hills of snow
That thy frozen bosom bears,
On whose tops the pinks that grow
Are of those that April wears."
Venus rose from the sea, with all the appearance of absolute nudity. The
glorious curves of the tempter of Tannhauser were revealed in their
fullness to cultured audiences. The North Star came down that men might
admire her shapeliness, while the three Graces proved Byron's words:--
"There is more beauty in the ripe and real
Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal."
And then a daring manager went all this one better. He posed his women
as bronze figures, with nothing between them and the gaze of the
audience but bronze powder. The sensation lasted but a short time,
spectators not caring for mulatoes when there were white forms to be
seen at the same price. Next came the "Wedding Night," which I saw in
Paris, and which still seems to me comparatively sweet and innocent--and
it was suppressed, perhaps for that very reason. And now we have
"Charmion"--meat for strong minds, but not, I fear, for the average
young man.
What will come next? I would not dare predict, but really within ten
years we may expect anything. "The leaves are falling--even the fig
leaves," says George Meredith. They have fallen long ago from most of
the male statues in European galleries, and there at least I am in
accord with the sculptors. Perfect nudity never stirred the beast in any
sane man. Why should we not have afternoon or evening receptions by
professional models in their native undress? It would be better for
morality than the ingenious titillation of the senses induced by your
Edwinas and your Charmions!
Confound Charmion, any way! She spoiled a night for me that I needed for
refreshing sleep. In my brief snatches of slumber I was with those silly
fellows in the front rows, clutching wildly in the air for the garters
she flung from her perch above our heads.