On Saturdays and Sundays, and at night, there are men. These love their golf, their tennis and their bridge, and they dress like Englishmen.
In their midst is one strange man who does not belong. I met him, of course, the moment I arrived. My name being somehow associated in people’s minds with Russia, I must surely meet this Russian no matter what kind of Russian he might be.
“They” said he is the Russian consul, representing the Russian government. No one seemed to know that the Russian government is not represented in this country and no one cared.
True to type, I recognized at once that he belonged to the regime that’s gone. With all the charm and arrogance, the old world manners and impenetrable smile, this blasé cosmopolitan, appreciative, yet consciously superior, stood out—a stranger in their midst. No party seemed complete without him. But I too was a stranger and watched him and I watched them, and I saw that he too watched. Sometimes I thought I knew what he was thinking and ofttimes I gave it up.
Friday, October 14, 1921. San Francisco.
I got into San Francisco early, and took Dick to Dr. Abrams where George Sterling was waiting for me. George Sterling, as I understand, is the Swinburne of California. He has an exquisitely refined head, a nose that one sees on a Greek cameo, but a voice that labels him of his country.
Dr. Abrams is a doctor whom a great many doctors call a quack, and some superficial people laugh over. He is the man of whom Upton Sinclair raved to me, declaring that he had made the discovery that was to revolutionize the world. I am far too ignorant and unscientific to attempt an explanation of this theory. Suffice to say that it is entirely based on vibration. Each disease, he claims, has its own vibratory reaction, and it is only necessary to take a blood test to discover what the disease is, and then cure it.
I sat in his laboratory among a dozen doctors and watched and listened for two hours or more. I should have listened and watched for two weeks and then I might have begun to understand.
I have no right to an opinion, but I have a right to an open mind. Those two hours were among the most interesting I have ever spent.
He took a drop of Dick’s blood and tested it. “This is the blood of Richard Brinsley Sheridan,” Dr. Abrams announced to the laboratory! It reacted to the malaria vibration, this he explained, might be due to the amount of quinine Dick was taking. The cure he said, had the same vibratory rate as the disease. He recommended me to stop all further quinine and bring him back in a few days. He tested him for every other kind of disease but Dick had practically a clean slate. This is very rare, for most of us have something congenital, even if we don’t know it.