The Beautiful and Damned / Прекрасные и обреченные. Уровень 4

Anthony Patch

In 1913, when Anthony Patch[1] was twenty-five, two years were already gone since irony, the Holy Ghost of this later day, had, theoretically at least, descended upon him. Irony was the final polish of the shoe. Yet at the brink of this story he has as yet gone no further than the conscious stage[2]. He thought himself an exceptional young man, thoroughly sophisticated, well adjusted to his environment, and somewhat more significant than any one else he knew.

This was his healthy state and it made him cheerful, pleasant, and very attractive to intelligent men and to all women. In this state he considered that he would one day accomplish some quiet subtle thing. Until the time came for this he would be Anthony Patch.

A Worthy Man And His Gifted Son

Anthony was the grandson of Adam J. Patch. Adam J. Patch, more familiarly known as “Cross Patch[3],” left his father’s farm in Tarrytown[4] early in sixty-one to join a New York cavalry regiment. He came home from the war a major, walked to Wall Street, and he gathered for himself some seventy-five million dollars.

This occupied his energies until he was fifty-seven years old. Then, after a severe attack of sclerosis, he decided to consecrate the remainder of his life to the moral regeneration of the world. He became a reformer among reformers. From an armchair in the office of his Tarrytown estate he directed against the enormous hypothetical enemy, unrighteousness.

Early in his career Adam Patch had married an anemic lady of thirty, Alicia Withers[5], who brought him one hundred thousand dollars. Immediately she had borne him a son. The boy, Adam Ulysses Patch, became an inveterate joiner of clubs, and at the age of twenty-six he began his memoirs under the title “New York Society as I Have Seen It.”

This man married at twenty-two. His wife was Henrietta Lebrune[6], and the single child of the union was, at the request of his grandfather, christened Anthony Comstock Patch. Young Anthony had one picture of his father and mother together. It showed a dandy of the nineties, standing beside a tall dark lady with a muff. Between them was a little boy with long brown curls, dressed in a velvet suit. This was Anthony at five, the year of his mother’s death.

His mother was a lady who sang, sang, sang, in the music room of their house on Washington Square – sometimes with guests scattered all about her, and often she sang to Anthony alone, in Italian or French or in a strange and terrible dialect.

After Henrietta Lebrune Patch had “joined another choir,” as her widower remarked, father and son lived up at grandfather’s in Tarrytown. Ulysses came daily to Anthony’s nursery and was continually promising Anthony hunting trips and fishing trips and excursions to Atlantic City, “oh, some time soon now”; but none of them ever materialized. One trip they took; when Anthony was eleven they went abroad, to England and Switzerland, and there in the best hotel in

Lucerne his father died. Anthony was brought back to America, and a vague melancholy stayed beside him through the rest of his life.

Past And Person Of The Hero

At eleven he knew a horror of death. Within six years his parents had died and his grandmother had faded off almost imperceptibly. So to Anthony life was a struggle against death, that waited at every corner. He formed the habit of reading in bed – it soothed him. He read until he was tired and often fell asleep with the lights still on.

His favorite diversion until he was fourteen was his stamp collection; his grandfather considered fatuously that it was teaching him geography. His stamps were his greatest happiness; they devoured his money.

At sixteen he became an inarticulate boy. His private tutor persuaded to go to Harvard.

There he lived for a while alone – a slim dark boy of medium height with a shy sensitive mouth. He laid the foundations for a library by purchasing from a wandering bibliophile some books, finding later that he had paid too much. He became an exquisite dandy, bought a pathetic collection of silk pajamas, brocaded dressing-gowns, and neckties too flamboyant to wear. In this he could parade before a mirror in his room.

Curiously enough he found that he was looked upon[7]as a rather romantic figure, a scholar, a recluse, an erudite. This amused him but secretly pleased him. In 1909, when he graduated, he was only twenty years old.

Then abroad again – to Rome this time, architecture and painting. He wrote some ghastly Italian sonnets.

He returned to America in 1912 because of his grandfather’s sudden illness, and decided to put off the idea of living permanently abroad. He took an apartment on Fifty-second Street and settled down.

In 1913 Anthony Patch’s shoulders had widened and his brunette face had lost the frightened look. His friends declared that they had never seen his hair rumpled. His nose was too sharp; his mouth was a mirror of mood, but his blue eyes were charming. Moreover, he was very clean, in appearance and in reality, with that especial cleanness borrowed from beauty.

The Work

His apartment was kept clean by an English servant with the appropriate name of Bounds. From eight until eleven in the morning he was entirely Anthony’s. He arrived with the mail and cooked breakfast. At nine-thirty he pulled the edge of Anthony’s blanket; then he served breakfast on a card-table in the front room, made the bed and, after asking with some hostility if there was anything else, went away.

In the mornings, at least once a week, Anthony went to see his broker. His income was slightly under seven thousand a year, he inherited money from his mother. His grandfather judged that this sum was sufficient for young Anthony’s needs. Every Christmas he sent him a five-hundred-dollar bond, which Anthony usually sold.

Anthony always enjoyed the visits to his broker. The big trust company building linked him to the great fortunes. From the hurried men he derived the sense of safety.

Some golden day, of course, Anthony would have many millions. Let’s go back to the conversation with his grandfather immediately upon his return from Rome.

He had hoped to find his grandfather dead, but had learned by telephoning that Adam Patch was comparatively well again – the next day he had concealed his disappointment and gone out to Tarrytown.

Anthony was late and the venerable philanthropist was awaiting him in a parlor, where he was glancing through the morning papers for the second time. His secretary ushered Anthony into the room.

They shook hands gravely.

“I’m glad to hear you’re better,” Anthony said.

The senior Patch pulled out his watch.

“Train late?” he asked mildly. And then after a long sigh, “Sit down.”

Anthony felt that he was expected to outline his intentions. He wished that the secretary would have tact enough to leave the room.

“Now you ought to do something,” said his grandfather softly, “accomplish something.”

Anthony made a suggestion:

“I thought – it seemed to me that perhaps I’m best qualified to write – “

Adam Patch winced, visualizing a family poet with a long hair and three mistresses.

“ – history,” finished Anthony.

“History? History of what? The Civil War? The Revolution?”

“Why – no, sir. A history of the Middle Ages.”

“Middle Ages? Why not your own country? Something you know about?”

“Well, you see I’ve lived so much abroad – “

“Why you should write about the Middle Ages, I don’t know. Dark Ages, we call them. Nobody knows what happened, and nobody cares, except that they’re over now. Do you think you’ll be able to do any work in New York – or do you really intend to work at all?”

This last with soft, almost imperceptible, cynicism.

“Why, yes, I do, sir.”

The conversation came toward a rather abrupt conclusion, when Anthony rose, looked at his watch, and remarked that he had an engagement with his broker that afternoon. He had intended to stay a few days with his grandfather, but he was tired and irritated. He will come again in a few days.

Afternoon

It was October in 1913. It was pleasant to sit lazily by the open window. It was pleasant to yawn about five, toss the book on a table, and go to the bath.

“To… you… beautiful lady,” he was singing as he turned on the tap.

Through his closed lips he made a humming noise, which he vaguely imagined resembled the sound of a violin. Stripped, and adopting an athletic posture, he regarded himself with some satisfaction in the mirror.

Once accustomed to the temperature of the water he relaxed. When he finished his bath he dressed leisurely and walked down Fifth Avenue to the Ritz[8], where he had an appointment for dinner with his two companions, Dick Caramel[9] and Maury Noble[10]. Afterward he and Maury will go to the theatre – Caramel will work on his book.

Emerging from his bath Anthony polished himself with the meticulous attention. Then he wandered into the bedroom, and whistling a weird, uncertain melody, strolled here and there, enjoying the warmth of the thick carpet on his feet.

He lit a cigarette. His eyes were focussed upon a spot of brilliant color on the roof of a house farther down the alley.

It was a girl in a red negligée, silk surely, drying her hair by the hot sun of late afternoon. He walked cautiously nearer the window with a sudden impression that she was beautiful.

He watched her for several minutes. He felt persistently that the girl was beautiful. The autumn air was between them, and the roofs and the voices.

He finished his dressing. Then he walked quickly into the bedroom and again looked out the window. The woman was standing up now. She was fat, full thirty-five. So he returned to the bathroom.

“To… you… beaut-if-ul lady,” he sang lightly, “I raise… my… eyes,”

Then he left his bathroom and his apartment and walked down Fifth Avenue to the Ritz.

Three Men

At seven Anthony and his friend Maury Noble are sitting at a corner table on the cool roof. Maury Noble is like a large slender cat. His eyes are narrow, his hair is smooth and flat. This is the man whom Anthony considers his best friend. This is the only man whom he admires and envies.

They are glad to see each other now. They are drawing a relaxation from each other’s presence, a serenity. They are engaged in one of those conversations that only men under thirty indulge in.

ANTHONY: Seven o’clock. Where’s the Caramel? (Impatiently.) Still writing? I’m hungry.

MAURY: He’s got a new name for his novel. “The Demon Lover “ – not bad, eh?

ANTHONY (interested): “The Demon Lover”? No – not bad! Not bad at all – do you think?

MAURY: Rather good. What time did you say?

ANTHONY: Seven.

MAURY: He drove me crazy the other day.

ANTHONY: How?

MAURY: That habit of taking notes.

ANTHONY: Me, too. One day I said something that he considered important but he forgot it. So he said, “Can’t you try to concentrate?” And I said, “How do I remember?”

MAURY (laughs noiselessly.)

ANTHONY: Do you remember him in college? He was just swallowing every writer, one after another, every idea, every character.

MAURY: Let’s order.

ANTHONY: Sure. Let’s order. I told him -

MAURY: Here he comes. (He lifts his finger as a claw.) Here you are, Caramel.

Richard Caramel is short and fair. He has yellowish eyes. When he reaches the table he shakes hands[11]with Anthony and Maury. He is one of those men who invariably shake hands, even with people whom they have seen an hour before.

ANTHONY: Hello, Caramel. Glad you’re here.

MAURY: You’re late. We’ve been talking about you.

DICK (looking at Anthony): What did you say? Tell me and I’ll write it down. I cut three thousand words out of Part One this afternoon.

MAURY: And I poured alcohol into my stomach.

DICK: I don’t doubt it. I bet you have been sitting here for an hour talking about liquor.

ANTHONY: So what?

DICK: Are you going to the theatre?

MAURY: Yes. We intend to spend the evening thinking over of life’s problems. The thing is called “The Woman.”

ANTHONY: My God! Is it?

DICK (As though talking to himself): I think – that when I’ve done another novel and a play, and maybe a book of short stories, I’ll do a musical comedy.

MAURY: I know – with intellectual lyrics that no one will listen to.

ANTHONY: Why write? The very attempt is purposeless.

DICK: Well, I believe that every one in America should accept a very rigid system of morals – Roman Catholicism, for instance.

(Here the soup arrives and Maury’s words were lost.)

Night

Afterward they bought tickets for a new musical comedy called “High Jinks[12].” In the foyer of the theatre they waited a few moments to see crowd.

After the play they parted – Maury was going to dance, Anthony homeward and to bed.

He found his way slowly over the evening mass of Times Square. Faces swirled about him, a kaleidoscope of girls, ugly, ugly as sin – too fat, too lean, floating upon this autumn. Anthony inhaled, swallowing into his lungs perfume and the not unpleasant scent of many cigarettes. He caught the glance of a dark young girl sitting alone in a taxicab.

Two young Jewish men passed him, talking in loud voices. They were wore gray spats and carried gray gloves on their cane handles.

An old lady borne between two men passed. Anthony heard a snatch of their conversation:

“There’s the Astor, mama!”

“Look! See the chariot race sign!”

“There’s where we were today. No, there!”

“Good gracious!”

He turned down the hush, passed a bakery-restaurant. From the door came a smell that was hot, and doughy. Then a Chinese laundry, still open, steamy and stifling. All these depressed him; reaching Sixth Avenue he stopped at a corner cigar store.

Once in his apartment he smoked a last cigarette, sitting in the dark by his open front window. For the first time he thought New York was not bad. A lonesome town, though. Oh, there was a loneliness here.

Portrait Of A Siren

Crispness folded down upon New York a month later, bringing November and the three big football games. Anthony, walking along Forty-second Street one afternoon under a steel-gray sky, met unexpectedly Richard Caramel emerging from the Manhattan Hotel barber shop. It was a cold day, the first definitely cold day, and Caramel stopped Anthony enthusiastically, and, after his inevitable hand shake, said:

“Cold as the devil, I’ve been working like the deuce all day till my room got so cold I thought I’d get pneumonia. That darn landlady is economizing on coal.”

He had seized Anthony’s arm and drawn him briskly up Madison Avenue.

“Where to?”

“Nowhere in particular.”

“Well, then why?” demanded Anthony.

They stopped and stared at each other. After a moment they began walking again.

“You know,” Dick was looking and talking emphatically at the sidewalk. “I have to talk to someone.”

He glanced at Anthony apologetically.

“I have to talk. I do my thinking in writing or conversation.”

Anthony grunted and withdrew his arm gently.

“I mean,” continued Richard Caramel gravely, “that on paper your first paragraph contains the idea you’re going to enlarge.”

They passed Forty-fifth Street. Both of them lit cigarettes and blew tremendous clouds of smoke into the air.

“Let’s walk up to the Plaza,” suggested Anthony. “Come on – I’ll let you talk about your book all the way.”

“I don’t want to if it bores you. I mean you needn’t do it as a favor.”

Anthony protested:

“Bore me? I say no!”

“I’ve got a cousin,” began Dick, but Anthony interrupted.

“Good weather!” he exclaimed, “isn’t it? It makes me feel about ten. Murderous! Oh, God!”

“I’ve got a cousin at the Plaza. A nice girl. We can meet her. She lives there in the winter – with her mother and father.”

“I didn’t know you had cousins in New York.”

“Her name’s Gloria. She’s from Kansas City. Gloria Gilbert. She goes to dances at colleges.”

“I’ve heard her name.”

“Good-looking – in fact attractive.”

They reached Fiftieth Street and turned over toward the Avenue.

“I don’t care for young girls as a rule,” said Anthony, frowning.

This was not true. Any nice girl interested him enormously.

“Gloria is nice – and not a brain in her head.”

Anthony laughed.

“You mean that she can’t talk about literature.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Dick, you like earnest young women who sit with you in a corner and talk earnestly about life. When they were sixteen they argued with grave faces as to whether kissing was right or wrong – and whether it was immoral to drink beer.”

Richard Caramel was offended.

“No,” he began, but Anthony interrupted ruthlessly.

“Oh, yes; who sit in corners talk about the latest Scandinavian Dante available in English translation.”

Dick turned to him.

“What’s the matter with you and Maury? You talk sometimes as though I am a fool.”

Anthony was confused.

“Dick,” said Anthony, changing his tone, “I want to beg your pardon.”

“Why?”

“I’m honestly sorry. I was talking just for fun.”

Mollified, Dick rejoined:

“I’ve often said you’re a boaster.”

A clerk announced them over the phone, and ascending to the tenth floor they followed a winding corridor and knocked at 1088. The door was answered by a middle-aged lady – Mrs. Gilbert herself.

“How do you do? Well, I’m awfully glad to see you. Mr. Pats? Well, do come in, and leave your coat there.”

She pointed to a chair.

“This is really lovely – lovely. Why, Richard, you haven’t been here for so long! Well, do sit down and tell me what you’ve been doing. Are you a writer too, Mr. Pats? Gloria’s out,” she said. “She’s dancing somewhere. Gloria goes, goes, goes. She dances all afternoon and all night. Her father is very worried about her.”

She smiled from one to the other. They both smiled.

“I always say,” she remarked to Anthony, “that Richard is an ancient soul. We all have souls of different ages, at least that’s what I say.”

“Perhaps so,” agreed Anthony.

“Gloria has a very young soul – irresponsible, as much as anything else. She has no sense of responsibility.”

“Aunt Catherine,” said Richard pleasantly. “A sense of responsibility would spoil her. She’s too pretty.”

“Well,” confessed Mrs. Gilbert, “all I know is that she goes and goes and goes.”

Mr. Gilbert entered. He was a short man with a mustache resting like a small white cloud beneath his nose. His ideas were popular twenty years ago. After graduating from a small Western university, he had entered the celluloid business, and he did well for several years.

He disapproved of Gloria: she stayed out late, she never ate her meals. His wife was easier. After fifteen years of war he had conquered her. Mrs. Gilbert introduced him to Anthony.

“This is Mr. Pats,” she said.

The young man and the old shook hands. Then husband and wife exchanged greetings-he told her it had grown colder out; he said he had walked down to a news-stand on Forty-fourth Street for a Kansas City paper. He had intended to ride back in the bus but he had found it too cold, yes, yes, yes, yes, too cold.

“Well, you are the hero!” she exclaimed admiringly. “I wouldn’t have gone out for anything.”

Mr. Gilbert He turned to the two young men and began to talk to them on the subject of the weather. Then he rather abruptly changed the subject.

“Where’s Gloria?”

“She will be here any minute.”

“Have you met my daughter, Mr…?”

“I haven’t had the pleasure. But Dick spoke of her often.”

“She and Richard are cousins.”

“Yes?” Anthony smiled with some effort.

Richard Caramel was afraid they’d have to leave.

Mrs. Gilbert was tremendously sorry.

Mr. Gilbert thought it was too bad.

Would they come again soon?

“Oh, yes.”

Gloria would be awfully sorry!

“Good-bye!”

“Good-bye!”

Smiles!

Smiles!

Two disconsolate young men are walking down the tenth-floor corridor of the Plaza in the direction of the elevator.

A Lady’s Legs

Maury Noble was purposeful. His intention, as he stated it in college was: to use three years in travel, three years in leisure – and then to become immensely rich as quickly as possible.

His three years of travel were over. Back in America, he was searching for amusement. He taught himself to drink as he taught himself Greek – like Greek it would be the gateway to new sensations, new psychical states, new reactions.

He had three rooms in a bachelor apartment on Forty-forth street, but he was there. The telephone girl[13] had a list of half a dozen people to whom he was never at home, and of the same number to whom he was always at home. Foremost on the latter list were Anthony Patch and Richard Caramel.

Maury’s mother lived in Philadelphia, and there Maury went usually for the week-ends, so one Saturday night Anthony was overjoyed to find that Mr. Noble was at home.

There he was! The room warmed Anthony. Maury filled the room, tigerlike, godlike. The winds outside were stilled.

“What keeps you here today?” Anthony asked.

“I was at a tea-party. I missed my train to Philadelphia. And you?”

“Geraldine[14]. I told you about her.”

“Oh!”

“She called me about three and stayed till five. She’s so utterly stupid.”

Maury was silent.

Anthony had known her a month. He considered her amusing and rather liked the chaste and fairylike kisses she had given him on the third night of their acquaintance, when they had driven in a taxi through the Park. She had a shadowy aunt and uncle who shared with her an apartment. She familiar and intimate and restful.

“She gets her hair over her eyes some way and then blow it out,” he informed Maury; “and she likes to say ‘You cra-a-azy!’ when some one makes a remark that she does not understand. It fascinates me.”

Maury spoke.

“Remarkable that a person can comprehend so little and yet live in such a complex civilization.”

“Our Richard could write about her.”

“Anthony, surely you don’t think she’s worth writing about.”

“As much as anybody,” he answered, yawning. “You know I was thinking today that I have a great confidence in Dick. If he sticks to people and not to ideas, I believe he’ll be a big man.”

Anthony raised himself.

“He tries to go to life. So does every author except the very worst. The incident or character may be from life, but the writer usually interprets it in terms of the last book he read. For instance, suppose he meets a captain. He already knows how to set this sea captain on paper…Whose tea was it?”

“People named Abercrombie[15].”

“Why did you stay late? Did you meet a girl?”

“Yes.”

“Did you really?” Anthony’s voice lifted in surprise.

“Yes. She seemed the youngest person there.”

“Not too young to make you miss a train.”

“Young enough. Beautiful child.”

Anthony chuckled.

“Oh, Maury, what do you mean by beautiful?”

Maury gazed helplessly into space.

“Well, I can’t describe her exactly – except to say that she was beautiful. She was tremendously alive.”

“What!”

“Mostly we talked about legs.”

“My God! Whose legs?”

“Hers. She talked a lot about hers.”

“What is she – a dancer?”

“No, she was a cousin of Dick’s.”

Anthony sat upright suddenly

“Her name is Gloria Gilbert!” he cried.

“Yes. Isn’t she remarkable?”

“I don’t know – but her father…”