must not ask me now. This one plays a melody I do not know, a melody
plaintive and ingratiating, of clarinet arpeggios all compact. Some lay
of amour, I venture, breathing the hot passion of the Viennese Jew who
wrote it. But so heard, filtered through that golden haze, echoed back
from that lovely panorama of stone and water, all flavour of human
frailty has been taken out of it. There is, indeed, something wholly
chastening and dephlogisticating in the scene, something which makes the
joys and tumults of the flesh seem trivial and debasing. A man must be
fed, of course, to yield himself to the suggestion, for hunger is
frankly a brute; but once he has yielded he departs forthwith from his
gorged carcass and flaps his transcendental wings.... Do honeymooners
ever come to Waterloo Bridge? I doubt it. Imagine turning from that
sublime sweep of greys and sombre gilts, that perfect arrangement of
blank masses and sweeping lines, to the mottled pink of a cheek lately
virgin, the puny curve of a modish eyebrow, the hideous madness of a
trousseau hat!...
I am no stranger to these moods and whims. I am not merely a casual
outsider who has looked about him, sniffed deprecatingly and taken the
train for Dover--which leads to Calais--which leads to Paris--which
leads to youthful romance. I have wallowed in London as the ascetic
wallows in his punitive rites, with a strange, keen joy. I have been a
voluntary St. Simeon on its cold grey street corners. I have eaten so
often--and so much--at Simpson's that I know two of the waiters by their
first names. And I could order correctly their famous cuts by looking at
my watch, knowing at what hour the mutton was ready, at what hour the
roast beef was rarest. So long have I worn English shirts that even now
I find myself crawling into the American brand after the manner of the
woodchuck burrowing into his hole. Frequently I find myself proffering
dimes to the fair uniformed vestals of our theatres who present me with
programmes. I have read each separate slab in Westminster Abbey. I have
made suave and courtly love to a thousand nursemaids in Hyde Park. I
have exuded great globules of perspiration rowing on the Thames, while
the fair beneficiary of my labours lolled placidly in the boat's stern
upon a hummock of Persian pillows. I know every overhanging lovers' tree
from Richmond to Hampton Court. I have consumed hogsheads of ale at "The
Sign of the Cock." I have followed the horses at Epsom and Newmarket, at
Goodwood and Ascot. I have browsed for hours in French's book store. I
have lounged in luxurious taxicabs upholstered in pale grey, and ridden
interminably back and forth through the Mall, Constitution Hill and
Piccadilly....
All of these things have I done. And more. In brief, I have lived the
dashing and reckless life of a dozen Londoners. But--and here is the
point!--I have lived it _in the daytime_. When the shadows began to
drift into the fogs and the twilight settled over the grey masonry of
the city, I would generally fly to the theatre and afterward to my
garish rooms in Adams Street; or, as was often the case, I would merely
fly to my flat, giving up my evenings to the low humour of Rabelais, or
to deep, deep sleep.
Although for years one could not lose me in London, or flabbergast me
with those leaning-tower-of-Pisa addresses (the items piled one upon the
other in innumerable strata), I knew nothing of the goings-on when the
windows of London became patches of orange light. In fact, I assumed
that when I slept London also snored. To think of London and of night
romance was like conjuring up the wildest of anachronisms. Romance there
was in London, but to me it had always been shot through with sunshine.
It had been the hard commercial romance of the Stock Exchange. Or the
courteous and impeccable romance of polished hats and social banalities.
Or the gustatory romance of Cheddar cheese, musty ale, roast lamb and
greens. Or it had been the romance of the Cook's tourist--the romance of
cathedrals, towers, palaces, dungeons and parliamentary buildings. Or
the romance of pomp, of horseguards and helmets and epaulettes and brass
buttons and guns at "present arms." Or it had been the anæmic romance of
Ceylon tea, toasted muffins and _petits fours_. As for amours and
intrigues and subdued lights and dances and cabarets and sparkling
_demi-mondaines_ and all-night orchestras and liquid jousting bouts and
perfume and champagne and rouge and kohl--who would have thought that
London, the severe, the formal; London, the saintly, the high-collared,
the stiff; London, the serious, the practical, the kid-gloved; London,
the arctic, the methodical, the fixed, the ceremonious, the starched,
the precise, the punctilious, the conservative, the static; London, the
God-fearing, the episcopal, the nice, the careful, the scrupulous, the
aloof, the decorous, the proper, the dignified--who would have thought
that London would loosen up and relax and partake of the potions of Eros
and Bacchus?
And yet--and yet--back of London's grim and formidable exterior there
lurks a smile. Her stiff and proper legs know how to shake themselves.
Her cold and sluggish blood grows warm to the strains of dance music.
Her desensitized and asphalt palate thrills and throbs beneath the
tricklings of _Cordon Rouge_. Her steel heart flutters at the touch of a
wheedling phryne. She, too, can wear the strumpet garb of youth. She,
too, in the vitals of her nature, longs for the gay romance of the
Boulevard Montparnasse ere the American possessed it. She, too, admires
the rhythmic parabolic curve of bare shoulders. Silken ankles and
amorous whisperings stir her--if not to deeds of valour, then at least
to deeds of indiscretion. London, it seems, cannot look upon the moon
without suffering some of the love qualms of Endymion. In fine, London,
the mentalized, is human.
It was only last year that the rumours of London's night life sank
into the depths of my sensitive ears. At first I put such murmurings
aside as psychiatric ravings of visionaries and yearners. Always at the
first signs of neurosis--the inevitable result of the simple life--I
dashed to Paris, to the golden-haired Reine at the Marigny; or else I
cabled to Anna of the Admiral's Palast in Berlin; or, if time permitted,
I sought the glittering presence of Bianca Weise at Vienna. (Ah, Bianca!
_Du süsser Engel!_) Never once did it occur to me that youth stalked
abroad in the London streets, that gaiety sang among the wine cups in
London cafés, that romance went drunk amid the mazes of abandoned
dancing. London had always seemed to me essentially senile--grey-haired
and sedate. And so I devoted myself to the labours of youth, as did the
youthful George Moore; and when the first crocuses of the spring
appeared, and the lilacs came forth, and the April primroses got into my
blood, and the hawthorn sent forth its pink and white shoots, I sought
the Luxembourg or the Tiergarten or the Prater. Why, indeed, I thought,
should spring come to London? Why should Henley, an Englishman, have
called Spring "the wild, the sweet-blooded, wonderful harlot"? And why
should the year's first crocus have brought him luck? Had he indeed lain
mouth to mouth with spring in London? Perhaps. But I doubted him.
Therefore, before the lavender appeared, I was beyond the channel.
But last spring I met the girl in the flat below me. Her name was
Elsie--Winwood, I think. Of one thing, however, I am sure; she had cold
grey eyes and auburn hair--an uncanny combination; but she was typical
of the English girl, the girl who had been educated abroad. This girl
and I came face to face on the stairs one day.
"Why do you always leave London at the best time of the year?" she asked
me.
"I am young," I confessed. "In the spring I live by night, and one may
only sleep in London at night."
"But you do not know London," she told me.
She smiled intimatingly and disappeared into the gloom of her studio.
That night I thought of Arthur Symons's "London Nights." Nobody in any
city in the world had more subtly caught the spirit of youthful
buoyancy, the spirit of romantic evanescence, the spirit of midnight
abandon. Could it be that he was but a "poseur," a dealer in false
words, a concocter of the non-existent? Did the eyes of dancers never
gleam in his? Did Renée never issue forth from that dim arch-way where
he waited? Did Nora never dance upon the pavement? Was Violet but the
figment of a poet's dreams? And was that painted angel, Peppina, a mere
psychic snare? Could any man--even a poet--write as he did of Muriel at
the Opera if there had been no Muriel? It seemed highly improbable.
Finally I decided that, ere departing for Reine or Anna or Bianca, I
would sally forth into the night of London and see if, after all,
romance did not lurk in the darkened corners.
At first I started without a guide, trusting to my own knowledge of the
city, intending to follow up vague rumours to which I had lent but half
an ear. Later I equipped myself with a guide--not a professional guide,
but a man of means and of easy morals, a young barrister in whose family
were R. A.'s, M. P.'s and K. C.'s.
"Shall we see it all?" asked Leonard.
"All," I replied. "From the high to the low."
We set forth. It was eleven o'clock, and the theatregoers were swarming
in the Strand. We were heading for a great arch of incandescent light.
I was beginning to be disappointed. Visions of the dark-eyed Reine, in
veils of mauve and orange, silhouetted against the synchromatic scenery
of the Marigny swam before my eyes. I gave vent to a cavernous yawn. I
had often had supper at the Savoy. But such a performance was not my
idea of romance. I had never considered that luxurious dining room in
the light of adventure. But with Leonard's suggestion I entered and
found that, when the mental lenses are focused correctly, it in truth
possesses much of that same gorgeousness and lavish spirit which no
doubt invested the banquets of Belshazzar.
Thus begins the night romance of London:
Souper.
Oeufs de Pluvier
Consommé Double en Tasse
Fillet de Merlan à l'Anglaise
Pommes Nature
Caille Cocotte Arménienne
Buffet Froid
Salade
Petit Glace Parisienne
Friandises
This is arbitrary, however. On the crested bill of fare we learn that
there are other things to be had, but that they must be ordered _à la
carte_. Glancing down the mammoth card we begin reading such items:
_Saumon Fumé_, _Pigeon Cocotte Bonne Femme_, _Rognons Sautés_,
_Champignons_, _Caille Royal aux Raisins_, _Tournedos Sauté Mascotte_,
_Noisette d'Agneau Fines Herbes_, _Poussin de Hambourg Vapeur_,
_Médaillon Ris de Veau Colbert_, _Terrine de Boeuf à la Mode Glacée_,
_Suprême de Chapon Jeannette_ ... and so on, almost indefinitely. I saw
nothing in the fact--nor had I seen anything in the fact--that the menu
contained not one English word; but later in the week these affectations
of French dishes became highly significant. They were really the symbol
of London's night romance. They were the tuning fork which gave the
pitch for London pleasures. For romance and gaiety in London are grafted
to an otherwise unromantic and lugubrious hulk. All joys in that
terrible city are lugged from overseas, and, in the process of suturing,
the spontaneity has been lost, the buoyancy has disappeared, the honesty
has vanished.
But no people can be without romance. No nation can withstand forever
the engines of repression. Not all the moral lawmakers of England have
succeeded in stamping out the natural impulses. Hypocrisy, that great
mediator, sits into the game and stacks the cards. There is no more
sensuous dining room in the world than the Savoy. There is no more
impressive vision of human beings in the primitive act of eating than
can be gained from the top of the stairway which leads into that great
double room. And nowhere on earth is there a more cosmopolitan gathering
than sits down to the Savoy supper when the theatres are over. Here at
least is visual romance; and when we inspect the people at closer range
we glimpse a more intimate romance. One catches snatches of conversation
from a dozen languages within the radius of hearing. Here is modern
civilisation at apogee--the final word in luxury--the _dénouement_ of
spectacular life. Go to the Aquarium in St. Petersburg, to the Adlon in
Berlin, to the Bristol in Vienna, to the Café de Paris; go wherever you
will--to Cairo, to Buenos Aires, to Madrid--the Savoy at the supper hour
surpasses them all. From the pantalooned giants who relieve you of your
outer garments to the farthest table in the room where the great windows
overlook the Embankment Gardens, there is not one note to mar the
gorgeous _ensemble_.
But we must not tarry too long amid the jewelled women, the impeccable
music and the subdued conversation of the Savoy. In fact, it is not
possible to linger. No sooner have we hastened through the courses of
our supper and started to sip a liqueur than we are suddenly plunged
into darkness. A hint! A warning! A silent but eloquent reminder that
the moral man must hasten to his bed, that midnight is upon us, that
respectability demands immediate retirement. When the lights come on
again there is a gentle fluttering of silken wraps, a shuffling of feet,
a movement of chairs. The crowds, preparing to depart, are obeying that
lofty English law which makes eating illegal after twelve-thirty. If you
tarry after this signal for departure, a Parisian born waiter taps you
gently on the shoulder and begs of you to respect the majesty of the
law. Within ten minutes of the darkened warning the dining room is
empty. Liqueurs are left undrunk. Ices are deserted. Half-consumed
salads are abandoned. Out into the waiting taxis and limousines pours
that vast assemblage. In fifteen minutes an atmosphere of desolation
settles upon the streets. The day is ended--completely, finally,
irrevocably. The moral subtleties of the fathers have been sensed and
obeyed. Virtue snickers triumphantly.
"And now?" I demand of my companion.
"S-s-s-h!" he warns. And, leaning over me, he pours strange and lurid
information into my gaping ear. "Now," he whispers, "to the Supper
Clubs, the real night life of London--wine, women, song and dance."
There is a mystery in his mien. And, obeying the warning of an
admonishing finger, I silently follow him into a taxicab. A low,
guttural order is given to the driver, the import of which is shielded
from the inquisitive world by my companion using his hands as a tube to
connect his mouth with the ear of the chauffeur.
I had heard of these supper clubs, but they had meant nothing to me. I
rarely ate supper and detested clubs. Their literature which frequently
came to me, had left me cold. But, as I was carried in the taxicab
through dark alleys and twisted streets, certain intimations in these
printed invitations came back to me with a new meaning. Lest the
iniquity of the London pleasure seeker be underestimated, let me supply
you with the details of one of these supper club circulars. I will not
tell you the name of the club: it has probably been changed by now. No
sooner do the police put one club out of business (so far as I can see,
merely to gratify the demand of the moralists that all sinners be flayed
in public) than it changes its name and reopens to the old membership.
Let it be noted here that in order to eat or drink in London after
twelve-thirty at night you must be a member of something; and to become
a member of a London supper club is not so easy a matter as one might
imagine. Traitors are forever worming their way into such societies, and
the management exercises typical British discretion in selecting the
devotees for its illegal victualing organisation. The club of which I
speak, and whose circular--a masterpiece of low cunning--lies before me,
has its headquarters on a street so small that in giving the address to
even the most erudite of London geographers it is necessary to mention
two or three larger streets in the neighbourhood.
The object of this club, it seems, is "to cultivate a form of art
previously unknown in England--the Cabaret." A noble and worthy desire!
But in the next paragraph we learn that this aristocratic uplift does
not begin until eleven-thirty P.M.; and by reading further we note the
implication that it ceases at one-thirty A.M., at which hour the
cultivation of this unknown art--the Cabaret--is supplanted by a Gipsy
Orchestra, to say nothing of the International Minstrels. Farther on we
learn that once a month the club gives a dinner to its members, and that
this dinner is followed by a "Recital Evening" in honour of and "if
possible" (Oh, subtlety!) under the direction of Lascelles Abercrombie,
Frank Harris, Arthur Machen, T. Sturge Moore, Ezra Pound and W. B.
Yeats. (Note: Although during the last year I have supper-clubbed
incessantly whilst staying in London, I think, in all justice to the
above-mentioned illustrious men, that it should be stated that not once
have I had the pleasure of being personally directed by any one of
them.)
One evening during the month, so runs the forecast, will be devoted to
John Davidson (I missed that evening); one to Modern Fairy Tales (I
somehow missed that evening also); another to Fabian de Castro and "Old
Gipsy Folk Lore and Dance" (Alas, alas, that I should have missed that
evening, too!). But this loss of culture, so far as I personally was
concerned (and other, too, I opine), was not accompanied by any physical
loss; that is to say, the statement on the manifest that during the
performance there would be available "suppers and every kind of
refreshment" is eminently correct, and veracious almost to the point of
fault. Even when the performance was not given--as seemed always to be
the case--there was no cessation in the kitchen activities. Suppers
there were and, what is more to the point, every kind of refreshment.
The most important item on this manifest I have saved until the last.
There is in it something of the epic, of the beyond, of the trans and
the super. I print it in capitals that it may the better penetrate:
NO FIXED CLOSING HOURS
Such is the unlucky star under which I was born that I have escaped at
these clubs all of the artistic and cultural performances. When I have
attended them no light has been thrown on the Drama, Opera, Pantomime,
Vocal Music, or "such delicate Art of the past as adapts itself to the
frame of an intimate stage, and more especially all such new art as in
the strength of its sincerity allows simplicity." Nor has it been my
luck to be present during the production of "Lysistrata," by
Aristophanes, or "Bastien et Bastienne," by W. A. Mozart, or "Orpheus,"
by Monteverde, or "Maestro di Capella," by Pergolese, or "Timon of
Athens," by Purcell. Nor have I been present when an eminent technician
has rendered Florent Schmitt's "Palais Hanté," or Arnold Schoenberg's
"Pierrot Lunaire." All of which are booked for production or rendition.
And yet I cannot feel that my money has been entirely wasted. It has
bought me "every kind of refreshment," and catering by Frenchmen, and
the company of lovely ladies--ladies, who, I fear, are more familiar
with the works of Victoria Cross than the works of Aristophanes, and
whose ears are attuned to the melodies of Theodore Moses-Tobani rather
than to the diabolical intricacies of Schoenberg's piano pieces.
Let us indulge ourselves for a moment in what is known to ritualists as
a responsive service, thus:
Q.--What is a Supper Club?
A.--A Supper Club is a legal technicality--a system whereby the
English law is misconstrued, misapplied, controverted, disguised and
outdone. Specifically, it is a combination restaurant, café, and dance
hall, the activities in which begin at about one A.M. and continue so
long as there are patrons whose expenditures warrant the orchestra being
retained and the electric lights being left on. A Supper Club is usually
downstairs, decorated in the cheap imitation of a grape arbour,
furnished with small tables, comfortable wicker chairs, suave and
sophisticated waiters, an orchestra of from six to ten pieces and a
small polished floor for purposes of dancing. Supper Clubs are run to
meet every size of pocketbook. There are those whose patrons do not know
the titillating effects of champagne; and there are those where the
management serves no other form of febrifuge. Club members naturally
need no introduction to one another, with the result that such
formalities are here entirely dispensed with. In the better grade Supper
Clubs the ladies are not admitted unless in evening dress, while at
other establishments even such sartorial formalities are not insisted
upon. The object of a Supper Club is to furnish relaxation to the tired
business man, profits to the management, usufructs to the police and
incomes to the lady patrons. The principal activities of a Supper Club
are (1) drinking; (2) dancing; (3) wooing.
There you have it. In the Astor Club (or is it the Palm Club? Or has
the name been changed since spring?) one finds the higher type of
nocturnal rounder. Evening clothes are obligatory for all. Champagne and
expensive wines constitute the only beverages served. The orchestra is
composed of very creditable musicians; and the lady patrons, chosen by
the management by standards of pulchritude rather than of social
standing, are attestations to the good taste of the corpulent and
amiable Signor Bolis, owner and director. The men whose money pours into
the Signor's coffers are obviously drawn from the better class of
English society--clean-cut, clean-shaven youths; slick and pompous army
officers; prosperous-looking middle-aged men who, even at a supper club,
drop but little of their genteel dignity. On my numerous visits to this
club I failed to find one member who did not have about him in a marked
degree an atmosphere of deportmental distinction. Even during those
final mellow hours, when the dawn was sifting through the cracks of the
window above the stairs, there was little or none of that loud-mouthed
boisterousness which follows on the heels of alcoholic imbibitions in
America. Surfacely the Astor Club is an orderly and decorous
institution, and so fastidious were the casual "good evenings" between
the men and women that only the initiated would have guessed that ere
that meeting they had been strangers. Even under the protection of
membership and the police, the Englishman does not know how to laugh. He
is decorous and stilted during the basest of intriguing.
I had become a member of the Astor Club after as much red tape,
investigation and scrutiny as would have been exerted by a board of the
most exclusive social club. I had signed my full name, my address and
business, beneath which had been appended the names of two of my
sponsors. I had had a blue seal pinned beneath my coat lapel and an
engraved card sewn in my chemise. After which precautions and rigmarole
I was admitted each evening by the gorgeous St. Peter in red zouave
breeches and drum major's jacket who guarded the outer portal.
Have I given the impression that, once inside, I assumed virtues which
ill became me; that I sat apart and watched with critical eyes the
merriment around me? Then let the impression be forever blasted. I am
not a virtuous man according to theological standards. I have been a
hardened sinner since birth. I gamble. Beer is my favourite drink. It
has been flatteringly whispered into my ear that I dance beautifully. I
read Cellini and Rabelais and Boccaccio with unfeigned delight. I am
enchanted by the music of Charpentier and Wolf-Ferrari. I smoke strong
cigars. And I do not flee at the sight of beautiful women. In short, I
am a man of sin. Born in iniquity (according to the moral fathers) I
have never been regenerated. Therefore let me admit that the spirit of
the vice crusader was not mine as a member of the Astor Club. I spent
many a delightful half-hour chatting with Héloïse Dessault, formerly at
Fouquet's in Champs Elysées; with Mizzi Schwarz, one-time frequenter of
the Café de l'Europe, in Vienna; with Hedwig Zinkeisen, of Berlin's
Palais de Danse....
Here is a characteristic thing about the London supper club: the
majority of the girls and--to London's shame let it be noted--the more
attractive girls are all from the Continent. Without these feminine
importations I doubt if the supper clubs could be maintained. At the
musical galleries--a third-rate supper place run by the Musical and
Theatrical Club at 30 Whitfield Street, near Tottenham Court Road, W.--I
was approached and greeted by a little French girl, whose knowledge of
English was almost as limited as is my knowledge of Russian.