The next few weeks have left a rather confused impression in my mind,
perhaps because Peter himself seemed to be confused. He never spoke
of his book. Occasionally we went to the theatre or to a concert. I
remember a concert of Negro music at Carnegie Hall, when there were
twenty-four pianos and thirty banjos in the band and the Negroes
sang G'wine up, Go Down, Moses, Rise and Shine, Run Mary, Run, and
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, with less of the old plantation spirit than
either Peter or I could have assumed, but when the band broke into
ragtime, the banjos twanged, the pianos banged, the blacks swayed
back and forth, the roof was raised, and glory was upon us. Once,
coming out of Æolian Hall, after a concert given by Elena Gerhardt,
we were confronted by a wagon-load of double basses in their trunks.
Two of the monsters, with their fat bellies and their long necks,
stood vis-à-vis on the sidewalk and seemed to be conversing, while
their brothers on the wagon, a full nine, wore the most ridiculously
dégagé air of dignity. We will not sit down, not here at any rate, they
plainly said, but they did not complain. Peter laughed a good deal at
them and remarked that the aristocrats in the French Revolution must
have gone to the guillotine in much the same manner, only the absurd
double basses in their trunks had no roses to smell. Never have I seen
inanimate objects so animate save once, at a rehearsal in the darkened
Belasco Theatre, when the curly gold backs of the ornate chairs,
peeping over the rails of the boxes, assumed the exact appearance of
Louis XIV wigs on stately gentlemen. We heard Toscanini conduct the
Ninth Symphony at the Metropolitan Opera House and we went to see Mrs.
Leslie Carter play Paula Tanqueray. Often, in those days, we dined
at the Pavillon d'Orient, an Armenian restaurant on Lexington Avenue.
Peter particularly enjoyed a pudding called Tavouk Gheoksu, made of
shredded chicken-breasts, pounded rice flour, powdered sugar, and
cinnamon, and Midia Dolma, which are mussels stuffed with raisins and
rice and pignolia nuts. Studying the menu one night, it occurred to
him that the names of the dishes would make excellent names for the
characters of a play. The heroine, of course, he said, would be Lahana
Sarma and the adventuress, Sgara Keofté; Enguinar is a splendid name
for a hero, and the villain should be called Ajem Pilaf! There was a
negro café in the basement of a building on Thirty-eighth street, which
we frequently visited to see a most amazing mulatto girl, apparently
boneless, fling herself about while a pitch-black boy with ivory teeth
pummelled his drum, at intervals tossing his sticks high in the air and
catching them dexterously, and the pianist pounded Will Tyers's Maori
out of the piano. Occasionally we patronized more conventional cafés,
one especially, where Peter was interested in a dancer, who painted her
face with Armenian bole and said she was a descendant of a Hindu Rajah.
It was during this period that Peter nourished a desire to be tattooed
and we sought out masters of the art on the Bowery and at Coney Island.
For hours at a time he would examine the albums of designs or watch the
artist at work decorating sailors and stevedores. One of these young
men came nearly every day until his entire body, with the exception of
his eye-balls, lips, and nails, had become a living Persian carpet, a
subtle tracery of arabesques and fantastic beasts, birds and reptiles.
The process of application was interesting. First, the pattern must be
pricked out on glazed paper, smeared with lamp-black; this was laid
on the surface to be tattooed and the outline left by the lamp-black
was worked over with needles. The artist utilized a piece of wood into
which were fixed with wires, nine or ten sharp points. The victims
seemed to suffer a good deal of pain, but they suffered in silence. It
was not, however, fear of pain that caused Peter to hesitate. I think
he would have been frescoed from head to foot, could he have once
decided upon a design. Day after day, he looked over the sketches,
professional symbols, military, patriotic, and religious, symbols of
love, metaphorical emblems and emblems fantastic and historical, frogs,
tarantulas, serpents, hearts transfixed with arrows, crosses surmounted
by spheres, and cannon. He was most tempted, I think, by the design of
an Indian holding aloft the flag of the United States.
Late in March, he suggested a trip to Bermuda.
We must go somewhere, he explained, and why not Bermuda? It's not too
far away.
I had been working hard and welcomed the idea of a vacation. To the
question of a destination I was comparatively indifferent. It was,
however, not too easy to arrange for even a brief leave of absence
from the Times during the busy Winter months. By pleading incipient
nervous prostration, however, I managed to accomplish my purpose.
On the day marked for our departure, I set out, bags in hands, for the
office of the steamship company on lower Broadway, where Peter had
commissioned me to stop for the tickets. There, a clerk behind the
counter gave me a note. It was from Peter.
Dear Carl, it ran, I've cancelled our bookings. I can't go. Come in to
see me today and we'll arrange another trip.
An hour later I found Peter in bed in his room on East Broadway. He was
consuming a raw-beef sandwich but he laid it down to grasp my hand.
I'm sorry, he began, but I don't know how I ever happened to hit on the
idea of Bermuda. When I awoke this morning, the thought appalled me; I
couldn't get out of bed.
The counterpane was strewn with pamphlets relating to foreign travel.
The telephone rang.
Excuse me, he said, as he clutched the receiver. Then, by way of
explanation, It's the agent of the Cunard Line. I want to ask about the
southern route.
He did. He asked about sailings for Italy, Africa, India, and even
Liverpool and then he told the agent that he could not decide what to
do but he would let him know later.
Carl, he exclaimed suddenly, let's go to Alaska!