“A land of summer hotels this, and summer boarding houses,” I said.
“Those are all old maids or school teachers,” insisted Speed with Indiana assurance, “or I’ll eat my hat.”
In the midst of our flight Speed would tell stories, tossing them back in the wind and perfumes. Miss H—— was singing “There Was an Old Soldier.” In no time at all—though not before it was dark—we were entering a region compact of automobiles, gasoline smoke, and half concealed hotel windows and balconies which seemed to clamber up cliffs and disappear into the skies. Below us, under a cliff, ran a railroad, its freight and passenger trains seeming to thunder ominously near. We were, as I could see, high on some embankment or shelf cut in the hill. Presently we turned into a square or open space which opened out at the foot of the hill, and there appeared a huge caravansary, The Kittatinny, with a fountain and basin in the foreground which imitated the colored waters of the Orient. Lackeys were there to take our bags—only, since Miss H—— had to make her train, we had to go a mile farther on to the station under the hill. To give Franklin and Miss H—— time Speed parked the car somewhere near the station and I went to look for colored picture cards.
I wandered off into a region of lesser hotels and stores—the usual clutter of American mountain resort gayety. It brought back to me Tannersville and Haines Corners in the Catskills, Excelsior Springs and the Hot Springs of Virginia and the Ozarks. American summer mountain life is so naive, so gauche, so early Victorian. Nothing could be duller, safer, more commonplace apparently, and yet with such a lilt running through it, than this scene. Here were windows of restaurants or ball rooms or hotel promenades, all opened to the cool mountain air and all gaily lighted. An orchestra was to be heard crooning here and there. The one street was full of idlers, summer cottagers, hotel guests, the natives—promenading. Many electric lamps cast hard shadows provided by the trees. It was all so delightfully cool and fragrant. All these maidens were so bent on making catches, apparently, so earnest to attract attention. They were decked out in all the fineries and fripperies of the American summer resort scene. I never saw more diaphanous draperies—more frail pinks, blues, yellows, creams. All the brows of all the maidens seemed to be be-ribboned. All the shoulders were flung about with light gauzy shawls. Noses were powdered, lips faintly rouged, perhaps. The air was vibrant with a kind of mating note—or search.
“Well, well,” I exclaimed, and bought me all the truly indicative postcards I could find.
CHAPTER VI
AN AMERICAN SUMMER RESORT
I have no quarrel with American summer resorts as such—they are as good as any—but I must confess that scenes like this do not move me as they once did. I can well recall the time—and that not so many years ago—when this one would have set me tingling, left me yearning with a voiceless, indescribable pain. Life does such queer things to one. It takes one’s utmost passions of five years ago and puts them out like a spent fire. Standing in this almost operatic street, I did my best to contrast my feelings with those of twenty, fifteen and even ten years before. What had come over the spirit of my dreams? Well, twenty years before I knew nothing about love, actually—ten years before I was not satisfied. Was that it? Not exactly—no—I could not say that it was. But now at least these maidens and this somewhat banal stage setting were not to be accepted by me, at least, at the value which unsophistication and youth place on them. The scene was gay and lovely and innocent really. One could feel the wonder of it. But the stage-craft was a little too obvious.
Fifteen years before (or even ten) these gauche maidens idling along would have seemed most fascinating. Now the brow bands and diaphanous draperies and pink and blue and green slippers were almost like trite stage properties. Fifteen or twenty years before I would have been ready to exclaim with any of the hundred youths I saw bustling about here, yearning with their eyes: “Oh, my goddess! Oh, my Venus! Oh, my perfect divinity! But deign to cast one encouraging glance upon me, your devoted slave, and I will grovel at your feet. Here is my heart and hand and my most sacred vow—and my pocket book. I will work for you, slave for you, die for you. Every night for the next two thousand nights of my life, all my life in fact, I will come home regularly from my small job and place all my earnings and hopes and fears in your hands. I will build a house and I will run a store. I will do anything to make you happy. We will have three, seven, nine children. I will spade a garden each spring, bring home a lawnmower and cut the grass. I will prove thoroughly domesticated and never look at another woman.”
That, in my nonage, was the way I used to feel.
And as I looked about me I could see much the same emotions at work here. These young cubs—how enraptured they were; how truly like young puppies with still blinded eyes! The air was redolent of this illusion. That was why the windows and balconies were hung with Japanese lanterns. That was why the orchestras were playing so—divinely! To me now it tanged rather hollowly at moments, like a poor show. I couldn’t help seeing that the maidens weren’t divinities at all, that most of them were the dullest, most selfish, most shallow and strawy mannikinesses one could expect to find. Poor little half-equipped actors and actresses.