_At the fifth gate, the warder stripped her; he took off the girdle
that encompasses her waist_....
I
Alfred Stone as he stood on the boardwalk opposite the
Marlborough-Blenheim asked himself why some bold thinker had not
elucidated the psychology of Atlantic City. It has no moral landscape,
he told himself, though it boasts the finest of seascapes. If there
had been invented, as there will be some day, a psychic cinematograph,
then, perhaps, a complete picture might be presented of this vulgar
and fascinating resort--for vulgar in the sense of popularity it
unquestionably is; monumentally vulgar, epically vulgar--epical, that
is the precise word. There is a sweep of colour, a breeziness of space,
a riot of sound and a chaos of movement that appal because of their
amplitude. All creation seems out-of-doors. You jostle elbows with the
man from Hindustan, the man from Newark, the man from London, and the
man from California. Black, white, red, yellow, brown and nondescript
races mingle on the boardwalk in that never-ending promenade from the
Inlet to Chelsea. Between the Pickle and the Million Dollar Piers the
course of humanity takes its way. In that section it is thickest. At
every other step you use the short-arm jolt. In ten minutes you long
for the comparative ease of the rush-hour at Brooklyn Bridge.
Atlantic City is a queer Cosmopolis, and a Cosmopolis that could
easily perish in a giant inundation, so closely does it hug the rim
of the sea. It is ugly, with the attractive ugliness of modern life.
It is also many other things. Not Ostend, Dieppe, Brighton in England,
Trouville, Scheveningen, Boulogne, nor yet Etretat, Naples, nor the
Riviera rival the infinite variety of Atlantic City. It is not a
retreat for those introspectively inclined. It is all on the surface;
it is hard, glittering, unspeakably cacaphonous, and it never sleeps.
If you long to loaf and invite your nerves, Cape May is preferable.
The medley of life, the roaring of megaphones, the frantic rush
and gabble of a babel-like chorus, the dazzling single line of
booths, divans, stores, holes-in-the-wall hotels, cafés, carrousels,
soda-fountains, side-shows, the buzzing of children, the shouting
newsboys, the appeals of fakirs, the swift glance of eyes feminine,
the scowl of beach-hawks and the innocent mien of bucolics--a Walt
Whitman catalogue would not exhaust this metropolis of the sea, this
paradise of "powerful uneducated persons," patricians, billionaires
and shabby folk. And the piers--a second city on steel and wooden
stilts, extending a half mile across the water, containing a hundred
diversions. These piers recall the evolution from the lake-dwellers
of Central Europe, whose lacustrine deposits we marvel over, just
as huge structures reared skyward, modern hotels, are the highly
developed habitat of the cliff-dwellers. Doubtless thousands of years
hence ardent archeologists will rummage into the deposits of ancient
Atlantic City and weave a philosophic system from the strange shapes
discovered; combs, coprolites, corsets, hairpins, shovels, flasks, and
other "kitchen midden" of the present time.
If the Coleridge of Kubla Khan, or the Poe of the Domain of Arnheim
could see the fantastic structures on the beach, those poets would
sigh with satisfaction. In our chilly aesthetic air, ruminated Alfred,
where utility leads beauty by the nose, the spectacle of an architect
giving reign to his fancy and conceiving such an exotic pile as the
hyphenated-hotel is a refreshing one. The author of Vathek, William
Beckford, could have wished for nothing richer. This architecture
might be Byzantine. It suggests St. Marco at Venice, St. Sophia at
Constantinople, also a Hindoo palace, with its crouching dome, operatic
façade, and its dominating monoliths with the blunt tops of concrete;
the exterior decoration is a luxurious exfoliation in hues; turquoise
and fawn. It is a dream-architecture, this, with its evocations of
Asiatic color and music.
But Atlantic City at night. Alfred recalled it as a picture for such
different painters as Whistler or Toulouse-Lautrec. A sight not to
be duplicated. Miles of electric lamps light up the boardwalk. Even
the darker spaces above the Pickle-Pier are festooned with lace-like
fire. It is a carnival of flame. You may start from the Inlet with
an open book, walk for miles, perusing it all the while, until you
reach the lower end of the promenade and touch the last wooden rail.
The enormous amount of electricity consumed seems to make the air
vital. Through those garlands of light moves a mob of well-behaved
humans. The women are more mysterious than during the day time. If you
are still youthful you encounter magnetic glances. Dazzling glances.
Sumptuous evening toilettes assault your nerves. Wealth envelopes
you. Apparently there is no poverty, no sickness, no unhappiness in
existence. The optimistic exuberance of the American is seen here at
its most depressing. Mark Tapley run to seed. There is a suggestion
of the overblown, of the snobbish, in this al-fresco display; yet if
you are not seeking the fly in the ointment you may enjoy as you would
enjoy the gorgeous tableaux of Aida or Salammbô. It is all as unreal.
How vulgar, how damnably vulgar! exclaimed Alfred, and he remembered
the women he had seen at his hotel, their fingers hooped with opals,
emeralds, sapphires, and diamonds, and holding green corn on the cob
to their sensual lips. A dozen mouths simultaneously opened, pink and
pearly traps; there was a snapping of dentals, a gnashing of corn. The
diamonds flashed, the emeralds blazed with murky green fire, and the
sinister opalescence of the unlucky stone matched the colour of the
succulent slaughtered vegetable. Surely no other vegetable but corn
could enjoy such a scintillating death at the teeth of those pretty,
overdressed matrons and silly maids. Alfred shuddered at the memory.
Then he saw something that gave him a start and caused him to whistle,
interrogatively. Coming toward him was Mona Milton keeping in tow a
blond youth in flannels. Evidently she had spied Alfred first. She made
a friendly signal, then turning on her escort, she spoke words that
acted as would a magical formula for disappearance. He faded into the
crowd and Mona was soon shaking hands with the critic.
"You! What good wind blew you down here"? "You of course, how can you
ask"? He spoke in his accustomed cynical strain. She passed it over.
Something distracted her. "Did you see Milt recently"? she asked, but
she did not look him in the eye. She means Ulick, was Alfred's interior
comment. "Why yes", he briskly replied. "Yes, Milt was with us the
other night at the Arena." "At the Arena"? she faintly echoed. There
was a pause. He proposed that they should walk toward the Inlet. The
air is fresher there. He told her that he had felt his feed, hence
his unexpected appearance and he politely inquired as to the state
of her mother's health. "You see," she said, "Hot Springs proved too
enervating for mamma, and I proposed a spell of salt air. We shan't
stay longer than a week or two. Poor papa--alone with his metaphysics
and his eternal chess at the Century. I don't mean to say that he can't
get along without us, vous autres, you men are always more self-centred
than the women. You have your clubs, your games, and as a final resort
your library. Still, papa must miss mamma. So home we go by the
beginning of July----" "And to the most heated time in the season."
"Oh, I don't much mind the heat. I read. I play a little. There is the
park a block away and...." "And Ulick?" "Ulick? Mr. Invern? What in the
world makes you drag in his name?" She was cool, unblushing, but her
eyes glowed expressively.
"Come, come, Mona, you can't pull the wool over the eyes of this
citizen. I know all about your promenades, your luncheons in darkest
Martin's, your park rides and presumable holding hands in three
languages. I will be frank with you. I don't approve of the intrigue."
"Intrigue!" she cried, visibly moved. He noticed it and continued,
rather elated: "Yes, that's what the affair is, Mona, understand
me, I don't mean intrigue with vulgar connations. That Master Ulick
reserves for his mistress Dora Anonymous. I beg your pardon, Mona, I
didn't mean to startle you." She had relinquished his arm, abruptly
turned to the rail of the boardwalk and gazed seaward. Alfred was
furious with himself. He knew that he shouldn't have so awkwardly
blurted out the facts of another man's private peccadilloes, but
he couldn't help himself and now he had hurt the one woman in the
world that he thoroughly respected. He meditated. Her back didn't
invite conversation; worse still, she was humming. That he knew was a
storm-warning. A schoolmate of Milt's, he had been a visitor in the
family for a decade and more. He threw away his cigarette. Then he
grasped Mona's left arm. She did not repulse him. She still hummed
a tune, one that he recognized. Carmen's song of defiance. "Mona, I
humbly apologize for my imprudence. I didn't mean to give Ulick away,
but I hate to see you throw yourself at his feet." She turned; he
noted that while her eyes were wet--such lovely, appealing eyes--she
was smiling. "You dear stupid old Alfred. With all your clairvoyance,
can't you see that I don't care whether Mr. Invern has one or ten
mistresses? I'm annoyed only because you venture to scold me because I
dare go about with him. Pray, since when are you become the keeper of
my conscience? You--of all men? I'll keep company with Ulick--with Mr.
Invern as much as I please. Yes, and hold hands with him if I care to."
She was amused. "I suppose you will tell Milt." He was confused and
murmured: "I've told him already. Don't go away Mona--he took it quite
calmly, I assure you." But she was aroused. He had never seen this
charming girl with the placid temper in a rage. She stamped her foot
crying: "Go away, go away from me at once, and please don't come to our
house while Milt is away. I shall refuse to see you." Then she cut into
one of the side streets and Alfred found himself in turn looking at the
sea and watching with vague eyes the chugging motor-boats. He went over
to Atlantic Avenue, to the "Extra-Dry Café" and drank whisky cocktails.
That same evening, undaunted, he called at the St. Charles and asked
for Mrs. Milton. She received him with her accustomed undemonstrative
cordiality; she possessed to an unusual degree the tact of omission.
Mona on her return--long after the dinner-hour--hinted that Alfred and
she had indulged in an absurd quarrel. But she did not divulge the
cause. Alfred is always Alfred, she explained and went upstairs to
change her walking attire for evening clothes. From the corner of her
eye she saw him talking to her mother. She had her youthful cavalier
of the afternoon at her side and, as if to show Alfred that there was
more than one man on the globe besides Ulick, she flirted and gossiped
to such effect that the young man lost his head and squeezed her hand,
blushing as he did so. She did not move for she saw that Alfred had
witnessed the scene. He nodded in her direction, lifting ironical
eyebrows. That decided her. She beckoned to him much to the disgust of
her infatuated companion. She again waved her magic wand of dismissal.
He evaporated into thin air; he was hardly more substantial himself.
"Come here Alfred if mamma will spare you. I have something to tell
you." Her mother, pleased to see that the best friend of her beloved
son was to be taken again into the good graces of her daughter, moved
indoors, giving sleepiness as an excuse. "Don't you young people stay
up too late. The salt air is very damp. Good night Alfred. I hope to
see you in the morning."