without prayer. In an uptown café, we had a strange adventure with a Frenchwoman, La Tigresse, which I have related elsewhere.[1] Peter refused, in these last months, to go to concerts, especially in Carnegie Hall, the atmosphere of which, he said, made it impossible to listen to music. The bare walls, the bright lights, the sweating conductors, and the silly, gaping crowd oppressed his spirit. He envied Ludwig of Bavaria who could listen to music in a darkened hall in which he was the only auditor. Conditions were more favourable in the moving picture theatres. The bands, perhaps, did not play so well but the auditoriums were more subtly lighted, so that the figures of the audience did not intrude.
Peter was more of a recluse than ever. It had been impossible to persuade him to meet anybody since the Edith Dale days (Edith herself was now living in New Mexico and, owing to a slight misunderstanding, I had not seen or heard from her in five years). He was even sensitive and morbid on the subject. He made me promise, as a matter of fact, after the Louis Sherwin episode, that in case we encountered any of my friends in a restaurant or at a theatre, I would not introduce him. There was, I assured myself, a good reason for this. In these last days, Peter faded out in a crowd. He lost a good deal of his personality even in the presence of a third person. I begged him to go with
