The Memoirs of a Failure: with an Account of the Man and His Manuscript

by Daniel Wright Kittredge

“On account of a common concubine. I had to be a foolish young man.”

By this time, we had reached the elevators, and the professor said that he would have to walk down, as he took with him the valise which contained the mechanism too sensitive to be taken upon an elevator. Whereupon, I insisted upon the three of us walking down, for I did not wish to be left alone with the Egyptian.

When at last we reached the street, I offered to take them to the opera, though I confessed that it would be nearly over. I hoped that even a few strains of music might soothe my troubled brain. I purchased three tickets, and we mingled with the magnificent assemblage in the foyer. After looking about him, the Egyptian suddenly stood aghast.

“Is that the best your women can do?” asked the Egyptian, turning first to me and then to the professor.

“What is the matter with them?” we asked together.

“After all these centuries, is the best they can do, the wearing of trinkets on their ears, bangles on their arms, and their fingers stiff with rings? Why, the barbaric brain of the early Egyptian perfected every known design of jewelry. Is woman at heart still a savage? And these absurd head-dresses! And that dirty powder on their faces! Have you not gotten beyond even that common sort of vanity?”

“I am afraid that your friend will not enjoy it here,” I said, fearing a scene, “let us leave.”

As it was now late in the evening, I took them to a famous French café. We had hardly seated ourselves at a table, when the place filled with people who came from the closing of the theatres. Soon the corks popped from the bottles, soon the men became noisy and drowned the music, and soon the painted women became vulgar.

“Is this the best your men can do?” asked the Egyptian, looking about him, as though a pall of ennui had fallen upon him, “after all these generations since I was foolish, is man’s chief diversion that of getting drunk with low women? I used to do this with the strumpets of Babylon; and those chartered courtesans were at least naturally beautiful.”