Well, I kept my word. We were married and a beautiful boy came "to cement our union." From the time that that youngster, Nat C. Goodwin, III, came into the world until the law separated us, she was a changed woman. Up to that time we were happy. I purchased a fine residence on West End Avenue, New York, and our home was the rendezvous of some of the brightest lights of the artistic world.
And then she became insanely jealous of our darling boy and it is here that I drop the curtain upon our lives.
It is not my mission in this book to say anything unkind or harsh of any of the women who have married me. I wish to confine myself to speaking in terms of fullest appreciation of their virtues and merits, leaving it to wise censors to judge me. By some power of reasoning all men and women elect themselves the judges and juries of my actions. Their harsh criticisms I leave unanswered, being thoroughly satisfied in my own mind that I have committed no offense whatever against humanity, knowing that I have treated honest women as they should be treated, with all due deference and respect to womankind.
Poor Nella Baker! She abandoned the glitter and glare of the world of fashion to seek refuge in the bosom of Bohemia. She extricated herself from the vortex of society to get a glimpse of Real Life! The pet of drawing rooms, she became the wife of a comedian. She sought the atmosphere of Henri Mürger, but, alas! found it not.
Marriages are made in Heaven—cancelled in Reno!
Perhaps some will object to a number of my attitudes in this book, particularly as regards my marital ventures. I have "no right to refer" to the sanctity of marriage—"a union of two souls," cemented by a (paid) preacher, "ordained by the Deity," etc! But these good people will mistake my attitudes. I do not recognize as sanctified any ceremony that can be annulled by a five-thousand-dollar-a-year judge.
Reno is known as the Mecca for vacillating souls. New York makes it look like thirty cents!
New York, by comparison, makes Reno look like a Mormon Mausoleum!
All you have to do in New York is to call at the Captain's office, behind closed doors, whisper "Guilty" and, presto, you go as free as the birds! If you are hoarse, send someone in your place, it's all the same. And yet people prate about "the holy bonds of matrimony!" Holy? Yes, with holes big enough to crawl through!
I leaped through my last one and had the aperture sewed behind me!