FOOTNOTES:
[2] In a later book, his biography of Oscar Wilde, Frank Harris tells us more about himself than he does about Wilde. C.V.V.
Chapter X
My story rolls on. As I gaze back through the years, gathering the threads of this history together, trying to weave them into form, I am amazed to recall how very few times, comparatively speaking, Peter and I met. Yet, I suppose, I was his best friend during these years, at any rate his most sympathetic friend. If there were no other proof, his will would offer excellent evidence in this respect. But we saw each other seldom, for a few hours, a few days, at best for a few weeks, followed by a period of vacuum. I had my own interests and, doubtless, he had his. It was characteristic that he never wrote letters to me, with the exception of the one or two brief notes I have already inserted in the text. His personality, however, was so vivid, the impression he made on me was so deep, that he always seemed to be with me, even when the ocean separated us. As I write these lines, I could fancy that he stands beside me, a sombrely joyous spectre. I could believe that he bends over my shoulder or, at any rate, that presently I will hear a knock at the door and he will enter, as he entered Martha Baker's studio on that afternoon in May so long ago.
The magic Florentine days marched to a close. I say marched, but the musical form was more exactly that of a gavotte, a pavane, or a stately Polish dance, imagined by Frederic Chopin. It was too perfect to last, this life which appeared to assume the shape of conscious art. One afternoon, Peter and I motored to the old Villa Bombicci, the design of which legend has attributed to the hand of Michael Angelo. Now it had become a farmhouse, and pigs and chickens, a cock and a few hens, stray dogs and cats, wandered about in the carious cortile. We had come to bathe in the swimming-pool, a marble rectangle, guarded by a single column of what had once been the peristyle. A single column, a cornered wall, and a cluster of ivy: that was the picture. We could bathe nude, for the wall concealed the pool from the farmhouse.
Peter was the first to undress and, as he stood on the parapet of the pool by the broken column, his body glowing rose-ivory in the soft light of the setting sun, his head a mass of short black curls, he seemed a part of the scene, a strange visitor from the old faun-like epoch, and I could imagine a faint playing of pipes beyond the wall, and a row of Tanagra nymphs fleeing, terrified, in basso-rilievo. Sometime, somewhere, in the interval since the days when we had pursued the exterior decorators on the Bowery and at Coney Island, he had discovered an artist, for now his chest was tattooed with a fantastic bird of rose and blue, a bird of paradise, a sirgang, or, perhaps, a phœnix or a Zhar-Ptitsa, the beak pointing towards his throat, the feathers of the tail showering towards that portion of the body which is the centre of umbilicular contemplation among the Buddhists. He straightened his lithe body, lifted his arms, and dived into the pool, where he swam about like a dolphin. It was Peter's nature, as I must have made evident by now, to take the keenest joy in everything he did. Almost immediately, I followed and we puffed and blew, spattering the crystal drops about in the air, so that it seemed as if showers of stones fell sharply, stinging our faces, as we lay on our backs in the warm water. Eventually, clambering up to the parapet, we sat silent for many moments and I remember that a fleecy cloud passed over the face of the sinking sun. It was very still, save for the soft lowing of cattle in the distant mountains, the cackling of the hens in the courtyard, and the sweet tolling of faraway bells.
Peter broke the silence.
I am not going back to the villa, he said.
Peter! I exclaimed. But....
I didn't know until just now. I love the villa. I love Florence. I love Edith and I love you. I have never been so happy, but it couldn't last. Just now when we were spattering water I had a premonition.... He laughed. There was once a singer—I do not recall her name, but it was neither Patti nor Jenny Lind—who retired while she was still in the best of voice, and those who heard her in her last opera will always remember what a great singer she was. So I am going away while I am happy, so that I can always remember that I have been perfectly happy—once.