Driven from the cafeteria into the night, we motored fast and aimless, talking as we drove, talking, never ceasing, until we could drive no more. Our road led down a hill, straight like the road of the Nazarene swine, into the sea, and so we stopped; a great long white line of breakers confronted us, we left the car, and stood for a moment undecidedly. Then a long seaside bench came crawling past me. I thought for a moment that I was in madland. I remembered in a flash the sham village, the illusions of filmland, still so near me. Really one should not be surprised by anything any more. In the dim light I again looked at the walking seat and yet again, and then I realized the man who was sitting on it was really driving it. The seat was a motor seat. We jumped upon it and were carried miles, as it seemed to me, along the sea walk. In the distance were bright lights, we stopped when we reached them, and this was “Venice.” I have always longed to go to Venice, but I never knew it looked like this. Over-head a network of colored lights, and from no visible location, the music of a gramaphone. Before us a square stone stately building, called a “Bath house” and in large letters over a door “check babies here.” “Check” (I have learnt) is an American word which described what people do with their hats and umbrellas when they go into a restaurant. Further on, dazzled by the lights and laughter of Venice, we stopped for an ice-cream soda, and then took shots at sham rabbits and moving ducks with a rifle. Here too I was introduced for the first time to chewing gum, pleasant to chew, but unfortunately unpleasant to taste.
Saturday, October 8, 1921.
The Goldwyn Studio Co., having arranged my reservations for me, sent a car to take me to the 8 P.M. train for San Francisco.
When the hotel porter shouted down the line of parked cars: “Goldwyn Studio Car” the crowd of dinner arrivals simply stood still and stared. I had my parrot “General Baragan” on my shoulder and I stepped into the car with the self-consciousness of a recognized prominent film star!
On the train I did as directed by my hosts-to-be: I sought out the director of the train and told him “the Lark” would stop in the morning at Burlingame. I hadn’t a notion where or what Burlingame was, except that my friends lived there, and the train was to be stopped. The director looked at me, in a curious way, as though I were a poor lunatic suffering from hallucination. He had been, he said, on the train for 25 years and it never yet had stopped at Burlingame. However, the train did stop there in the morning and deposited me and Dick and Louise and the parrot with all our luggage in the middle of the track and hurriedly sped away. Then Constance Tobin, whom I had not seen for 15 years and who had been a school-mate of mine at the convent in Paris, appeared with her husband to greet me.
Six Days Later. Burlingame.
In a very short time it became evident to me that Constance had remained true to tradition and the environment from which we both had sprung. A social environment which is much the same in all countries. Meanwhile she realized that I had played truant. We had an amusing time renewing ourselves to each other. We began cautiously, but in the end, admitting totally different tastes and opinions, we have linked up a friendship that is now confirmed.
Meanwhile the social strenuousness of Burlingame cannot kill me physically, because I am a very strong woman, but it has killed me mentally. There is a pain at the back of my forehead and a void where thoughts should be. Burlingame has, collectively, the psychology of a great big girls’ school. The stranger arrives and is looked at, is accepted or ignored, as the case may be. Burlingame is independent of spirit and likes as it pleases. Like children, they seem to be care-free, happy and contented. Yes, surely these are happy people, they represent exclusively the prosperous,—they have no anxieties of life. Contentment is their most conspicuous quality—they would not be here, else.
It is a self-indulgent, happy-go-lucky community, not over-critical, the spirit of “live-and-let-live” which is rather rare in the East, thrives here. They lead an easy life in a kindly climate, they can afford to be generous. They all know each other very well, and they see one another every day. Sometimes three times and sometimes four. Their houses are close together. There are no big properties as in England to rouse one’s sense of inequality. They motor to each other’s houses and to the country club, although they are only a stone’s throw in distance, and every time they meet they are pleased to see each other.
I wonder they have anything left to say, yet they talk all the time. It is true they do not listen much, they all talk at the same time.