Friendship usually creates onerous obligations. Our friends are inclined to become exigent and demanding. They learn to expect attentions from us and are hurt when we do not live up to these expectations. Friends have an unpleasant habit of weighing on our consciences, occupying too much of our time, and chiding us because we have failed them in some unimportant particular. Is it strange that there are moments when we hate them? Friendship, indeed, is as perilous a relationship as marriage; it, too, entails responsibility, that great god whose existence burdens our lives. Seemingly we never escape from his influence. Each newly contracted friendship brings another sacrifice to the altar of this very Christian divinity. But there was no responsibility connected with my friendship for Peter. That is why I liked him so much. When he went away, he seldom notified me of his departure; he never wrote letters, and, when he returned, I usually re-encountered him by accident. In the whole of our long acquaintance, there never was a period in which he expected me to telephone him after a decent interval. We were both free in our relationship, as free as it is possible for two people, who are fond of each other, to be. There was a great charm in this.
A whole month went by, after Edith Dale's party, without my hearing from him. Then I sought him out. By this time, I knew him well enough to be prepared for some transmutation; but I was scarcely prepared for what I saw. His room on East Broadway had been painted ivory-white. On the walls hung three or four pictures, one of Marsden Hartley's mountain series, a Chinese juggler in water colour by Charles Demuth, a Picabia, which ostensibly represented the mechanism of a locomotive, with real convex brass piston-rods protruding from the canvas, a chocolate grinder by Marcel Duchamp, and an early Picasso, depicting a very sick-looking pale green woman, lying naked in the gutter of a dank green street. There were lovely desks and tables, Adam and Louis XIV and François I, a chaise longue, banked with striated taffeta cushions, purple bowls filled with spiked, blue flowers, Bergamo and Oushak rugs, and books bound in gay Florentine wall-papers. The bed was covered with a Hungarian homespun linen spread, embroidered in gay worsteds. The sun poured through the window over George Moore's ample back and he looked happier.
Peter was wearing green trousers, a white silk shirt, a tie of Chinese blue brocade, clasped with a black opal, and a most ornate black Chinese dressing-gown, around the skirt of which a silver dragon chased his tail. He was combed and brushed and there was a faint odour of toilet-water. His nails were manicured and on one of his little fingers I observed a ring which I had never seen him wear before. Later, when I examined it more closely, it proved to be an amethyst intaglio, with Leda and the Swan for its subject. It has been said, perhaps too often, that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. It is even more true that you cannot make a sow's ear out of a silk purse.
I rose to the room: It's nicer than Edith's.
It's not bad, Peter admitted. I didn't get it fixed up at first. I like it better now, don't you?
I liked your friend, the other night, he continued.
You mean Edith?
Yes, you must take me there again.
I'm sorry but that is impossible. She has given up her apartment and returned to Florence. But, I added, I didn't know that you had talked together.
We didn't exchange three words, not even two, he said, but I took her in and she took me in. 'We like each other, I'm sure, and some day we'll meet again. Look, he added, sweeping his arm around, see what her glamour has given me, a new life!
But why did you leave so early?
I met a girl. . . .
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 Belasce 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!
I shook my head.
It may be that we shall meet there by chance some day, but I don't believe you can make up your mind to go there this week.
I'm afraid not, he assented ruefully. I suppose it's hard for you to understand.
I understand well enough, I replied, but under the circumstances you will have to travel alone or get some one else to go with you. While you are deciding, my leave of absence will expire.
A few days later he telephoned me.
I'm really going to Bermuda, was his message. I've had bookings on every boat sailing for Europe the past week and cancelled them all. My first idea was the right one. Bermuda is a change, it's near at hand, and I can get back quickly if I don't like it. Come to Bermuda with me, Carl!
When are you sailing? Iasked. I'll come down to see you off.
On the day set, I went to the wharf, and to my great surprise, found Peter there, just as he had promised he would be, an hour before sailing time. If he kept an engagement at all, he always kept it on time. He had made preparations, buying new summer clothes, he explained, and a new innovation trunk. As he never knew how long he would stay in one place or where he would go from there, he always carried a great deal of apparently unnecessary baggage. This time he had five trunks with him and several bags, including two for the cats. As we stood on the wharf together, we saw these trunks being hoisted aboard. Then we walked up the gang-plank and went to seek out his cabin. He did not like it, of course, and he hunted up the purser and asked to be transferred to another part of the boat. The ship was crowded and no other cabin was vacant, but the purser, spurred to extra effort by the tip which Peter handed him, promised to try to get him one of the officers' rooms. A little later this transfer was effected and, before I left the boat, 'Peter was installed in his new quarters. As I bade him farewell, I thought he looked a little wistful. I watched the boat pull out into the river.
Five hours later, as I was working in the tower of the New York Times, I was called to the telephone.
I said, Hello, and almost dropped the receiver, for I had heard Peter's voice from the other end of the wire.
I'm back on East Broadway, he groaned. Do come down.
When I arrived, I found him propped up in bed, drinking tea, which he shared with me.
I just couldn't go! It wouldn't have been right to go feeling the way I did about it. Something dreadful would have happened.
But I saw the boat cast off her moorings.
Peter grinned.
We were steaming down the river. I was very tired and, having the desire to rest in bed, I began to undress. Suddenly it came over me that I had made a great mistake. I put my clothes on again rapidly, dashed to the deck, and hunted up the purser. You know, he had already befriended me. I told him that I had just opened my mail and my telegrams and had run across one informing me of the violent illness of my father—you know how much that would really worry me!—and that I must go back. He informed me that this was impossible, but another bill—a very large one this time—made him more sympathetic and my disembarkation was arranged with the aid of a tug-boat. I even got my trunks off, but I had to cry a good deal to do that. I'm very sorry for you, Mr. Whiffle, the purser said. He will never forget me, I'm sure.
The telephone rang. Peter lifted the receiver from the hook and I heard him say, Please reserve me a deck cabin on the Kronprinz Wilhelm sailing tomorrow. He turned, as he put the receiver back: I'm not crazy about the North German Lloyd but I've already sailed this week on the French Line, the Holland-American, the Cunard, and the White Star. I had to change.
By telephone the next day, I learned that Peter had not sailed on the Kronprinz Wilhelm.
Do you know, he said, I've hit on a solution. I could not decide where to go—every place has its faults—but it has occurred to me that I am not compelled to go anywhere; I can stay on right here!
There is still a pendant to this part of my tale. In May, Peter informed me that he had rented a house on Long Island, a small cottage near Great Neck, with a big fire-place and furniture that would do. He took me out with him the first night. He had engaged a man and his wife, Negroes, to care for the place and cook. We enjoyed a very good dinner and he seemed to have settled down for the summer but in the morning, at breakfast, I, and the Negroes, learned that he was dissatisfied.
I don't like the place much, he explained, at least, I don't think I do. At least, I'm not going to stay here.
He paid the servants two weeks wages and dismissed them. Then he telephoned an expressman to call for his trunks, none of which had been opened. Carrying the bags, two of which contained cats, we caught the 9 o'clock train back to town.
Before this last fluctuation, some time in April, I think it was, Peter's father really did die. Peter did not go to Toledo for the funeral but, after it was over, Mrs. Whiffle came to New York and I met her one day at tea. There was no change in Peter; certainly not a band of black on his arm.
He did seem to have one fixed idea that spring, an idea that centred on marriage.
I'm not particularly in love with any one, he admitted, and so it is rather difficult to choose, but I want children and my children must have a mother. There is Mahalah Wiggins . . . and there is the Rajah's grand-daughter. Well, I don't know that they will marry me, but I must decide what I am going to do before I give them a chance to decide what they are going to do!
A week or so later: I've been considering this question of marriage. It's a serious step. I can't rush into a thing like that. Mahalah doesn't like cats. You know, I couldn't give up my cats. I can't marry a woman who doesn't like cats. Luckily I haven't asked her.
A few days later: I will marry Mahalah, I think. She understands me; she doesn't seem to mind the crazy things I do. She is beginning to like the cats. She is healthy and she might produce fine children.
Another interval and then: She has accepted me. Isn't it wonderful for her to love me at my age for my money alone!
The preparations for the wedding were portentous, although it was to be celebrated as quietly as possible. There were clothes to buy and an apartment to be furnished. He left the decision of the day and place to Mahalah—fortunately that was her affair—but there was endless discussion about the honeymoon. He considered in turn nearly every spot on the globe, including Patagonia and Abyssinia. As the day in May set for the ceremony approached, Maine was mentioned rather more frequently than any other locality, but I had no real conviction that they would ultimately go there. I was to be the sole attendant at the wedding. That much seemed to be settled.
The great day dawned and brought with it a windy rain. I knew that Peter detested windy days; one of his superstitions associated them with disaster. He did not telephone me in the morning and his silence seemed ominous. Nevertheless, I put on a morning coat and a silk hat and presented myself at his rooms an hour before the minute set for the ceremony, which was to be celebrated in a little church in the neighbourhoed. On another day, I would not have been surprised to find a note from Peter instead of himself but when, on reaching the top landing, I discovered the door open, and an old charwoman, packing up books and bowls inside, handed me a note with the superfluous information that Mr. Whiffle had gone away, my knees shook to such an extent that I wondered if I had suddenly become afflicted with tabes.
I managed to ask, Where?
I dunno, sir. He took his trunks.
I opened the letter.
Dear Carl, it ran, I just couldn't do it. It wouldn't be right to do it, if I feel that way, would it? And I do, indeed, I do! I told you I was not in love and it's hard to make up your mind if you don't feel strongly enough, and I never feel strongly enough about anything until afterwards. You know that. Now, that's soon enough about Bermuda or a house in the country, but it's too late in marriage. So I've just called it off. I've written her a note which doesn't exactly explain anything but some day she'll be glad, I hope, and so all you have to do is to make her feel that it's all right. Somehow, I believe she will understand. Anyway, I don't think she will be surprised. I'm going to Africa and, if I ever have an address again, I'll send it to you.