Well, now that I have discoursed to you in this extremely reasonable manner, I may with a clear conscience extend my hands across the ocean and say, “Good luck, Magna.”
When the atmosphere becomes too hot to hold you, then take refuge with me. I live here, fourteen storeys high, on Riverside Drive. My name is on the door in characters as small as those on a postage stamp. It is the fashion here, and the letters are delivered to the porter. The house is magnificently arranged, and is as light as a studio. I steadily believe that I shall rest my bones in some peaceful burial ground here. And as it’s the custom to adorn and paint the dead till they look twenty or thirty years younger than when they were alive, you will comprehend how that appeals to the vanity of one who has warded off the burden of age. I should just like to know how any woman devoid of vanity could exist in this city of light and sunshine. I belong to two or three clubs where ladies of seventy and eighty congregate, with porcelain complexions, powdered coiffures, and Gainsborough hats. Don’t imagine for a moment that they are ludicrous. They possess a dignity and joy in existence which makes me think that they must pass their nights in a bath of youth.
There is a glamour of festivity hanging over this place. Not in the slums; but there of course, you needn’t go. New York’s poor have a totally different aspect and manner of behaviour from the poor of European cities, where they rub against travellers with their sores and crutches. In all these years I have only seen two human beings who didn’t belong to Fifth Avenue. An Italian and his wife lay and sunned themselves on the curb and ate dirty vegetables out of a rusty tin. No one sent them off, but the whole traffic of the street gave them a wide berth, as if they had been a pair of plague-stricken patients.
I ride on horseback every day till I am dead tired, in a salmon-coloured habit and a slouch hat over my eyebrows. My master—a pitiful wreck of a once brilliant Scottish nobleman—at first objected to my riding en cavalier. But as I remained obstinate, he left me to my fate till one fine day he was seized with admiration for my mastery of the horse, and now we are good friends. We ride alternately in Central Park, which is indescribably lovely when all the beds are aglow with rhododendrons in bloom, and in New Jersey, which is still unspoilt Nature. Sundays, as a rule, we form quite a cavalcade, and then we amuse ourselves like children. These people who are outwardly stiff and reserved, and inwardly do not overburden their souls with super-culture, have a wholly remarkable and infectious capacity for sucking honey out of the most trifling banalities of existence. We chat about the sun, moon and stars, about our horses, our ravenous appetites, and the recently discovered Rembrandt, and never about our neighbours. We never backbite.
At the end of such a day, when I am resting after my bath, I seem to myself like a being with life all before me.
In truth, I have found congenial calm. I play bridge through the long winter mornings at the Astor Hotel Club, or go to lectures on psychology, followed by luxurious luncheons during which Madame Homer and Signor Caruso sing to us, not in the intervals, but while we eat!
The waiters go round pouring out coffee the whole time, while we sit in a rosy twilight. Every one pays every one else little choice and sincerely-meant compliments. Call it an empty life, if you like, and I won’t deny that it is.
You ask what I have been doing since I took flight from my now desolate and dilapidated villa. If I only knew myself I would tell you. It all seems so long ago I travelled about with Jeanne, my young housemate and friend, and we really did nothing but kill time.
Rumours of my Monte Carlo period have no doubt penetrated to Denmark. I admit it was an ugly experience. Never in all my life had I imagined that I could become the prey of this passion, but I caught the fever so badly that I conducted myself as shamelessly as the most hardened professional gamblers. I certainly believe that during those days I was scarcely responsible. If the tide of fortune had not turned I should have gambled away every farthing I possess. But things went so well that I am living to-day on my winnings, without touching my dividends.
Jeanne is still in Paris, where she has been for the last two years. She intends to qualify for some industrial art, for she has an indisputable and highly original talent. Lately I have had a very significant letter from her, but I may not divulge its contents. If things turn out, as at present seems likely, my life may undergo a complete re-arrangement.