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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/38445-8.txt b/38445-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f4affb9 --- /dev/null +++ b/38445-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4628 @@ +Project Gutenberg's San Cristóbal de la Habana, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: San Cristóbal de la Habana + +Author: Joseph Hergesheimer + +Release Date: December 30, 2011 [EBook #38445] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LA HABANA *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: image of the book's cover] + + + +SAN CRISTÓBAL +DE LA HABANA + +_THE WORKS OF +JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER_ + +_NOVELS_ + +THE LAY ANTHONY [1914] +MOUNTAIN BLOOD [1915] +THE THREE BLACK PENNYS [1917] +JAVA HEAD [1918] +LINDA CONDON [1919] + +SHORTER STORIES + +GOLD AND IRON [1918] +THE HAPPY END [1919] + +TRAVEL + +SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LA HABANA + +_Published in New York by +ALFRED A. KNOPF +and for sale at all bookshops_ + + + + +SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LA HABANA + +BY + +JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER + + "_Many yeeres since I had knowledge by + relation of that great and golden Citie + which the Spaniards call El Dorado._" + + _Sir Walter Ralegh_ + +[Illustration: colophon] + +NEW YORK + +ALFRED A KNOPF + +1920 + +COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY +ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + _To + + H. J. B. BAIRD + + An + Havana + which he is free +to decline in every particular + save the + dedication_ + + + + +SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LA HABANA + + +There are certain cities, strange to the first view, nearer the heart +than home. But it might be better to acknowledge that, perhaps, the word +home has a wider and deeper significance than any mere geographical and +family setting. Many men are alien in houses built from the traditions +of their blood; the most inaccessible and obdurate parts of the earth +have always been restlessly sought by individuals driven not so much by +exterior pressure as by a strange necessity to inhabit a barren copper +mountain, a fever coast, or follow to the end of life a river lost in a +savage remoteness, hiding the secret of their unquenchable longing. + +Not this, precisely, happened to me, approaching Havana in the early +morning, nothing so tyrannical and absolute; yet, watching the silver +greenness of Cuba rising from the blue sea, I had a premonition that +what I saw was of peculiar importance to me. I grew at once impatient +and sharply intent on the resolving of a nebulous, and verdant mass into +the details of dense slopes, slopes that showed, from the sea to their +crowns, no break in a dark foliage. The sombreness of the leaves +immediately marked the land from an accustomed region of bright +maples--they were at once dark, glossy, and heavy, an effect I had often +tried to describe, and their presence in such utter expanses filled me +with pleasure. It was exactly as though the smooth lustrous hills before +me had been created out of an old mysterious desire to realize them in +words. + +Undoubtedly their effect belonged to the sea, the sky, and the hour in +which they were set. The plane of the sea, ruffled by a wind like a +willful and contrarily exerted force, was so blue that its color was +lost in the dark intensity of tone; while the veils of space were +dissolved in arcs of expanding light. The island seemed unusually solid +and isolated, as complete within itself as a flower in air, and +saturated with romance. That was my immediate feeling about Cuba, taking +on depth across water profounder than indigo ... it was latent with the +emotional distinction which so signally stirred me to write. + +At once, in imagination, I saw the ineffable bay of Guatanago, where +buccaneers careened their ships and, in a town of pink stucco and +windows with projecting wooden grilles, drank and took for figureheads +the sacred images of churches painted blue. On the shore, under a canopy +of silk, a woman, naked but for a twist of bishop's purple, bound her +hair in gold cloth. From where she stood, in dyed shadow, a figure only +less golden than the cloth, she heard the hollow ring of the caulking +malls and the harsh rustle of the palms. Drawing rapidly nearer to what +was evidently the entrance to the harbor of Havana I considered the +possibilities of such a story, such a character: + +She had her existence in the seventeenth century, when Morgan marched +inland to rape Camagüey--the daughter, without doubt, of a captain of +the Armada de Barlevento, the Windward Fleet, and a native woman taken +in violence; a shameless wench with primitive feelings enormously +complicated by the heritage of Spain's civilization, a murderous, +sullen, passionate jade, wholly treacherous and instinct with ferine +curiosity. The master for her, I decided, must come from the Court of +Charles, the London of the Cavalier Parliament, a gentleman in a gay +foppery masking a steel eaten by a cruelty like a secret poison. It +would be a story bright with the flames of hell and violent as a +hurricane; the pages would reflect the glare of the sand scrawled with +cocoanut palms, and banked with mangroves; and, at the end, the bishop's +purple would be a cerecloth and the gallows chains sound in Xaymaca. +But, above everything else, it would be modern in psychology and color +treatment, written with that realism for which the only excuse was to +provide a more exact verisimilitude for romance. + +The Cuban shore was now so close, Havana so imminent, that I lost my +story in a new interest. I could see low against the water a line of +white buildings, at that distance purely classic in implication. Then it +was that I had my first premonition about the city toward which I was +smoothly progressing--I was to find in it the classic spirit not of +Greece but of a late period; it was the replica of those imagined cities +painted and engraved in a wealth of marble cornices and set directly +against the tranquil sea. There was already perceptible about it the air +of unreality that marked the strand which saw the Embarkation for +Cytherea. + +Nothing could have made me happier than this realization; an extension +of the impression of a haunting dream turned into solid fact. The +buildings multiplied to the sight, bathed in a glamorous radiance; and, +suddenly, on the other hand, rose Morro Castle. That structure, small +and compact and remarkably like its numerous pictures, gave me a +distinct feeling of disappointment. Its importance was historic rather +than visible, and needed, for appreciation, a different mind from mine. +But the narrowness of the harbor entrance, a deep thrust of blue +extending crookedly into the land, the sense of crowded shipping and +massed city, the steamers of the world and broad shaded avenues at my +elbow, impressed me at once with Havana's unique personality. + +Nothing, however, was more ingratiating than the long coraline limestone +wall of the Cabañas on its sere abrupt hill at the left; ponderous and +stained brilliantly pink by time, it formed a miraculous complement to +the pseudo-classic whiteness below. A sea-wall built into a wide +promenade followed the shore, there was a circular pavilion on a flagged +plaza piled with iron chairs, the docks were interspersed with small +public gardens under royal palms, and everywhere the high windows had +ornamental balconies empty in the morning sun. I heard, then, the voice +of Havana, a remarkably active staccato voice, never, I was to learn, +sinking to quiet, but changing at night into a different yet no less +disturbing clamor. + +What I tried to discover, rushed through broad avenues and streets +hardly more than passageways, was the special characteristic of a city +which had already possessed me. And, ignorant of the instantaneous +process that formed the words, I told myself that it was a mid-Victorian +Pompeii. This was a modification of my first impression, a truer +approximation, for it expressed the totality of marble façades +inadmissible architecturally, yet together holding a surprising and +pleasant unity. No one, I thought excitedly, had ever rightly +appreciated Havana; it required a very involved understanding, a feeling +not entirely admirable. No, it wasn't Hellenic, not what might be called +in the first manner; it hadn't the simplicity of great spirit, a true +epoch; Havana was artificial, exotic: Spain touched everywhere by the +tropics, the tropics--without a tradition--built into a semblance of the +baroque. + +It was rococo, and I liked it; an admission, I believe, laying me open +to certain charges; for the rococo was universally damned; the Victorian +period had been equally condemned ... and I liked it. Why, God knew! +Ornament without use, without reference to its surface and purpose, +invited contempt. A woman in a hoop skirt was an absurdity; black walnut +furniture carved and gilded beyond recognition, nonsense. Yet they had +my warm attachment. Havana claimed me for its own--a city where I could +sit at tables in the open and gaze at parterres of flowers and palms and +statues and fountains, where, in the evening, a band played the light +arias of La Belle Hélène. + + * * * * * + +To illustrate further the perversity of my impulses: I was so entirely +captivated by the Hotel Inglaterra that, for the rest of the day, I was +indifferent to whatever might be waiting outside. The deep entrance with +its reflected planes of subdued light and servants in cool linen; the +patio with water, its white arches on iridescent tiles; the dining-room +laid in marble, panelled with the arms of Pontius Pilate, the bronze +lustre of the tiling and the long windows on the Parque exactly as I had +anticipated, together created the happy effect of a bizarre domain. The +corridor on which my room opened was still more entrancing, its arches +filled with green latticework, and an octagonal space set with chairs +and long-bladed plants. + +Yet the room itself, perhaps one of the most remarkable rooms in the +world, easily surpassed what, until then, I had seen. There were slatted +door screens, cream-colored with a sapphire-blue glass knob, topped in +an elaborate Gothic scrolling; and the door beyond, inconceivably tall, +opened on an interior that seemed to reach upward without any limit. It +had, of course, a ceiling, heavily beamed in dark wood; and when, later, +I speculated carefully on its height, I reached the conclusion that it +was twenty-five feet above the grey-flowered tiling of the floor. The +walls were bare, white; about their base was laid a line of green glazed +tiles; and this, except for the glass above the French window, was the +only positive note. + +The window, too, towered with the dignity of an impressive entrance; +there were two sets of shutters, the inner elaborately slatted; and over +it was a semi-circular fanlight of intensely brilliant colors--carmine +and orange and plum-purple, cobalt and yellow. It was extraordinarily +vivid, like heaped gorgeous fruit: throughout the day it dominated the +closed elusive interior; and not only from its place on high, for the +sun, moving across that exposure, cast its exact replica on the floor, +over the frigidity of the austere iron bed, down one wall and up +another. + +It was fascinating merely to sit and watch that chromatic splash, the +violent color, shift with the afternoon, to surrender the mind to its +suggestions.... They, as well, were singularly bright and illogical. +Such glass, such colors, had been discarded from present decorative +schemes; but I recalled hints of them in the houses of eighteen seventy; +I seemed to remember them in pagoda-like conservatories, and at once a +memory of my childhood returned. Not that there were, actually, such +windows at Woodnest, sombre under the tulip-poplars; yet the impression +of one re-created the feeling of the other, it brought back disturbingly +a vanished time with its figures long dead. + +Havana was identified as an authentic part of my inheritance. I was--in +a purely inner manner--to understand it, to have for it the affectionate +recognition, the sense of familiarity, of which I have already spoken. +The city was wholly expressed by the fanlight sparkling with the +shifting radiance of the blazing day. It was possible, without leaving +the room, to grasp the essential spirit of a place so largely unseen. +Then it occurred to me that, indeed, I had seen Havana, and that the +wisest thing to do was to leave at once, to go back with my strong +feeling uncontaminated by trivial facts; but a more commonplace impulse, +a limiting materialism, pointed out that, since I had come away for a +change of scene, I had best realize a semblance of my intention. Still +those colors, like a bouquet of translucent tulips, easily outweighed in +importance all that I subsequently gained; they gave the emotional +pitch, the intellectual note, of whatever followed--a mood, an entire +existence, into which I walked with the turning of a sapphire-blue knob. + +For the rest the furniture was scant--a walnut bureau with a long +mirror, necessary chairs, and an adequate bathroom like a shaft with +shining silver faucets at its bottom. From outside, even through the +heat of noon, the sustained activity of sound floated up through the +shutters--the incomplete blending of harsh traffic alarms and blurred +cries announcing newspapers. + +It was later when I went out on my balcony: across the narrow depth of +San Rafael Street the ornamented bulk of the Gallego Club--the Club and +the opera house in one--opposed a corner against the sweep of the Parque +Central; and to the right, between the glitter of shop windows, poured +an unbroken procession of motors. A great pillar of the paseo below was +hung with gaily covered magazines; a bootblack, wrinkled and active, +with a single chair on a high stand, was cleaning a row of white shoes, +obviously from the hotel; and the newsboys were calling La Politica +Comica in a long-drawn minor inflection. + +The sun, that I had seen rising on the undiscovered hills of Cuba, was +sinking behind the apprehended city; it touched the caryatids of the +Gallego Club and enveloped, in a diminished gold like a fine suffusion +of precious dust, the circular avenue, the royal palms, the flambeau +trees and Indian laurels, of the plaza. The whiteness of the buildings, +practically unbroken, everywhere took on the tone of every moment: now +they were faintly aureate, as though they had been lightly touched by a +gilder's brush; the diffused shadows were violet. The shadows slowly +thickened and merged; they seemed to swell upward from the streets, the +Parque; and the buildings, in turn, became lavender, and then, again, a +glimmering white. Only the lifted green of the palms was changeless, +positive, until it was lost in darkness. + +A great many people appeared below, moving with an air of determination +on definite ways. The faces of the men were darkened by the contrast of +their linen; I couldn't see their features; but what struck me at once +was the fact that there were, practically, no women along the streets. +It was a tide of men. This, at first, gave me an impression of monotony, +of stupidity--women were an absolute essential to the variety of any +spectacle; and here, except for an occasional family group hurrying to a +café, a rare stolid shape, they were utterly lacking. + +The reason, however, quickly followed the observed truth; this was, in +spirit, Spain, and Spain was saturated with Morocco, a land where women, +even the poorest, were never publicly exhibited. Havana was a city of +balconies, of barred windows, of houses impenetrable, blank, to the +streets, but open on the garden rooms of patios. And suddenly--while the +moment before I had been impatient at the bareness resulting from their +absence--I was overwhelmingly conscious of the pervading influence of +charming women. Here they were infinitely more appealing than in places +where they were set out in the rows of a market, sometimes like flowers, +but more often resembling turnips and squashes. Here, with extreme +flattery, women were regarded as dangerous, as always desirable, and +capable of folly. + +It was a society where a camellia caught in the hair, a brilliant glance +across a powdered cheek, lace drawn over a vivid mouth, were not for +nothing. In the world from which I had come these gestures, beauties, +existed; but they were general, and meaningless, rather than +special--the expression of a conventional vanity without warmth. There +was an agreement that any one might look, the intensest gaze was +invited, with the understanding that almost none should desire; and a +cloak of hypocrisy had been the result; either that or the beauty was +mechanical, the gesture furtive and hard. + +For Havana a woman was, in principle, a flower with delicate petals +easily scattered, a perfume not to be rudely, indiscriminately, spent; a +rose, it was the implication, had its moment, its perfection of eager +flushed loveliness, during which what man would not reach out his hand? +After that ... but the seed pods were carefully, jealously, tended. And +here, in addition to so much else, was another shared attitude drawing +me toward Havana--an enormous preference for women who had the courage +of their emotions over those completely circumspect except in situations +morally and financially solid. + + * * * * * + +My dressing for dinner I delayed luxuriously, smoking the last Dimitrino +cigarette found in a pocket, and leaving the wet prints of my feet on +the polished tiles of the floor. I was glad that I had brought a trunk, +variously filled, in place of merely a bag, as I might have done; for it +was evident that Havana required many changes of clothes. It was a city +which to enjoy demanded a meticulous attention to trifles. For one thing +it was going to be hot, April was well advanced; and the glorietas, the +brightly illuminated open cafés, the thronged Prado and operatic +Malecón, the general air of tropical expensiveness, insisted on the +ornamental fitness of its idlers. + +I debated comfortably the security of a dinner coat, slightly varied, +perhaps, by white flannels; but in the end decided in favor of a more +informal jacket of Chinese silk with the flannels. A shirt, the socks +and scarf, were objects of separate importance; but when they were +combined there was a prevailing shade of green.... I had no inclination +to apologize for lingering over these details, but it might be necessary +to warn the seekers after noble truisms that I had no part in their +righteous purpose. Even noble truths, in their popular definitions, had +never been a part of my concern: at the beginning I was hopelessly +removed from them, and what was an instinct had become, in an experience +of life not without supporting evidence, the firmest possible attitude. +A tone of candor, if my reflections were to have the slightest interest +or value, was my first necessity; and candor compelled me to admit that +I thought seriously about the jacket which finally slipped smoothly over +my shoulders. + +It was an undeniable fact that I was newly in a land of enormous +interest, which, just then, held the most significant and valuable crop +growing on earth. But that didn't detain my imagination for a moment. +The Havana that delighted me, into which I found myself so happily +projected, was a city of promenading and posted theatre programmes, of +dinners and drinks and fragrant cigars. I was aware that from such +things I might, in the end, profit; but I'd get nothing, nothing in the +world, from stereotyped sentiments and places and solemn gabbled +information. + +On top of this I had a fixed belief in the actual importance of, say, a +necktie--for myself of course; I was not referring to the neckties of +the novelists with a mission, lost in the dilemma of elevating mankind. +A black string, or none at all, served their superiority. But for the +light-minded the claim of a Bombay foulard against the solider shade of +an Irish poplin was a delicate question; for the light-minded the choice +of one word in preference to another--entirely beneath the plane of a +mission--was a business for blood, an overt act. And with me there was a +correspondence between the two, a personal exterior as nicely selected +as possible and the mental attitude capable of exquisite choice in +diction. But this was no more than a development of all that I first +admitted, a repetition of my pleasure at being in Havana, a place where +the election of a cocktail was invested with gravity. And, carefully +finished except for the flower I'd get below, I was entirely in harmony +with the envelopment, the adventure, to which my persistent good luck +had brought me. + +The elevator going down was burdened with expensive women, their bodies +delicately evident under clinging fragile materials, their powdered +throats hung with the clotted iridescence of pearls; the cage was filled +with soft breathing and faint provocative perfumes--the special lure of +flowers which nature had denied to them as women. It was, I told myself, +all very reprehensible and delightful: + +Here were creatures, anatomically planned for the sole end of maternity, +who had wilfully, wisely I felt, elevated the mere preliminary of their +purpose to the position of its whole consummation. More intoxicated by +sheer charm than by the bearing of children, resentful of the thickened +ankles of their immemorial duty, they proclaimed by every enhanced and +seductive curve that their intention was magnetic rather than economic. +They were, however, women of my own land, secure in that convention +which permitted them exposure with immunity, and here; in Havana, they +failed to interest me; their voices, too, were sharp, irritable; and +even in the contracted space of the elevator their elaborate backs were +so brutally turned on the men with them--men correct enough except for +their studs--the hard feminine tyranny of the chivalrous United States +was so starkly upheld, that I escaped with a sigh of relief into a +totally different atmosphere. + +The lower hall, the patio and dining-room on the left, were brilliant +with life, the wing-like flutter of fans; and it would be necessary, I +saw, to have my cocktail in the patio; but before that, following a +purely instinctive course, I walked out to the paseo in front of the +hotel. The white buildings beyond the dark foliage of the Parque were +coruscant with electric signs, and, their utilitarian purpose masked in +an unfamiliar language, they shared with the alabaster of the façades, +the high fronds of the royal palms and the monument to Marti, in the +tropical, the classic, romanticism. + +Hardly had I appeared, gazing down the illuminated arcade, when a man +approached me with a flat wide basket of flowers. There were, +inevitably, roses, tea roses as pale as the yellow of champagne, +gardenias, so smooth and white that they seemed unreal, heavy with +odor; those I had expected, but what surprised me were some sprigs of +orange blossom with an indefinite sweetness that was yet perceptible +above the thicker scents. I chose the latter immediately, and the flower +vendor, wholly comprehensive of my mood, placed the boutonnière in my +jacket. The moment, now, had arrived for a Daiquiri: seated near the +cool drip of the fountain, where a slight stir of air seemed to ruffle +the fringed mantone of a bronze dancing Andalusian girl, I lingered over +the frigid mixture of Ron Bacardi, sugar, and a fresh vivid green lime. + +It was a delicate compound, not so good as I was to discover later at +the Telegrafo, but still a revelation, and I was devoutly thankful to be +sitting, at that hour in the Inglaterra, with such a drink. It elevated +my contentment to an even higher pitch; and, with a detached amusement, +I recalled the fact that farther north prohibition was formally in +effect. Unquestionably the cocktail on my table was a dangerous agent, +for it held, in its shallow glass bowl slightly encrusted with +undissolved sugar, the power of a contemptuous indifference to fate; it +set the mind free of responsibility; obliterating both memory and +to-morrow, it gave the heart an adventitious feeling of superiority and +momentarily vanquished all the celebrated, the eternal, fears. + +Yes, that was the danger of skilfully prepared intoxicating drinks.... +The word intoxicating adequately expressed their power, their menace to +orderly monotonous resignation. A word, I thought further, debased by +moralists from its primary ecstatic content. Intoxication with Ron +Bacardi, with May, with passion, was a state threatening to privilege, +abhorrent to authority. And, since the dull were so fatally in the +majority, they had succeeded in attaching a heavy penalty to whatever +lay outside their lymphatic understanding. They had, as well, made the +term gay an accusation before their Lord, confounding it with loose, so +that now a gay girl--certainly the only girl worth a ribbon or the last +devotion--was one bearing upon her graceful figure, for she was apt to +be reprehensibly graceful, the censure of a society open to any charge +other than that of gaiety in either of its meanings. A ridiculous, a +tragic, conclusion, I told myself indifferently: but then, with a fresh +Daiquiri and a sprig of orange blossoms in my buttonhole, it meant less +than nothing. It grew cooler, and an augmented stir set in motion toward +the dining-room, where the files of damask-spread tables held polished +silver water-bottles and sugar in crystal jars with spouts. + + * * * * * + +The wisdom of the attention I had given to my appearance was at once +evident in the table to which the head waiter conducted me. Small and +reserved with a canted chair, it was directly at one of the long windows +on the Parque Central. This, at first sight, on the part of its arbiter, +would not have been merely an affair for money--he had his eye on the +effect of the dining-room as a whole, as an expanse of the utmost +decorative correctness, and there were a number of men with quite +pretty women, a great asset publicly, who had been given places in the +center of the room. Yes, where I was seated the ruffled curtains were +swayed by the night breeze almost against my chair, a brilliant section +of the plaza was directly at my shoulder, and I was pervaded by the +essential feeling of having the best possible situation. + +This was not, perhaps, true of characters more admirable than mine: but +if I had been seated behind one of the pillars, buried in an obscure +angle, my spirits would have suffered a sharp decline. I should have +thought, temporarily, less of Havana, of myself, and of the world. The +passionate interest in living, the sense of æsthetic security, that +resulted in my turning continually to the inconceivable slavery of +writing, would have been absent. But seated in one of the most desirable +spots in existence, a dining-room of copper glazed tiles open on the +tropics, about to begin a dinner with shrimps in the pink--the veritable +rose--of perfection, while a head waiter, a triumph of intelligent +sympathy, conferred with me on the delicate subject of wines, I felt +equal to prose of matchless loveliness. + +The dinner, finally, as good dinners were apt to be, was small, simple, +with--the result of a prolonged consideration--a bottle of Marquis de +Riscal. All the while the kaleidoscope of the Parque was revolving in +patterns of bright yellows, silver, and indigo. Passersby were +remarkably graphic and near: a short man with a severe expression and a +thick grey beard suddenly appeared in the open window and demanded that +I buy a whole lottery ticket; a sallow individual from without unfolded +a bright glazed sheaf of unspeakably stupid American magazines; farther +off, the crowd eddied through the lanes between the innumerable chairs +drawn up companionably on the plaza. At a table close by, a family of +Cubans were supplementing the courses of formal dining with an endless +vivacious chatter, a warmth of interest charming to follow. + +The father, stout, with an impressive moustache of which not one hair +seemed uncounted or mislaid, regarded his short fat wife, his tall slim +son, and his two entrancing daughters with an impartially active and +affectionate attention. The girls were young, one perhaps fifteen and +the other not more than a year or so older, though they both managed +lorgnons with an ease and impertinent frankness that an older woman +might well have envied, while they talked in rushes of vivid Spanish +with an emphases of delectable shrugged shoulders, and, recognizing an +acquaintance, exhibited smiles as dazzling as only youth knew. The boy, +however, engaged me more strongly; a tone darker than the others, in +repose his face, delicate in feature, was grave, reflective; his smooth +black hair grew into a peak on his brow, his gaze was considerate, +direct, and his mouth sensitive. Cuba, I thought, at its best; and here +that was very good indeed. Any such degree of mingled dignity and the +highly impressionable, of reserve and flexibility, was absent from the +cruder young of the north. + +He had, at the same time, an indefinable air of melancholy, a bearing +that, while not devoid of pride, belonged to a minor people, to an +island the ultimate fate of which--in a political word of singular +faithlessness--was hidden in shadow. An affair of mere simple courage, +of execution for an ideal by Spanish rifles in a Cabañas foss, he would +have borne with brilliant success; he'd have ornamented charmingly the +security of a great coffee estate in Pinar del Rio; it was possible that +he might be distinguished in finance; but there was not back of him the +sense of sheer weight, of ponderous land, that gave, for example, the +chance young Englishman his conscious security, the American his +slightly shrill material confidence. + +This Cuban's particular quality, it seemed to me, belonged to the past, +to an age when men wore jewelled buckles and aristocracy was an +advantage rather than a misfortune. He had about him the graceful +fatality now so bitterly attacked by the widening power of what was +heroically referred to as the people. He represented, from the crown of +his lustrous hair to his narrow correct dancing shoes, in his shapely +hands and dark fine skin, privilege and sequestered gold. Outrages, I +had heard, soon to be forever overthrown! It was possible that both the +charges and the threatened remedy were actualities, and that privilege +would disappear ... from one hand to another, and great lawns be cut up +into cabbage patches and Empire ball-rooms converted into communal halls +for village rancor. + +Not much, in the way of benefit, could follow that. And women in +starched linen collars, with starched theories of civic consciousness, +would hardly be an improvement on fragrant memories of satin, moments of +passion and frailty, and the beauty of tenderness. A maze of clipped +box, old emerald sod, represented a timeless striving for superiority, +for, at least, the illusion of triumph over the littorals of slime; and +their destruction in waves of hysteria, sentimentality, and envy was +immeasurably disastrous. All of this I saw reflected in the boy with +peaked hair at the next table. He took a cigarette from a black silk +case, and I was immediately reminded of my cigar. + +It had been chosen with immense care in the Inglaterra café for bonbons +and souvenirs, liqueurs and cigars. How remarkable it was, I had +thought, hovering above the case, which contained a bewildering choice +of shapes and colors, to be in a land where all the cigars were, in the +sense I knew, imported. I hesitated for a minute or more between a +Larrañaga and a banquet Corona, and finally decided on the former. It +was as long as the cigar called Fancy Tales, but slightly thicker and +rolled to a point at either end; and the first breath of its smoke, +drifting in a blue cloud away from the window, told me that until then I +had known but little of tobacco. Coffee so black that it stained the +white shell of its cup; a diminutive glass of Grand Marnier, the +distilled last saturation of oranges and fin champagne; and the +Larrañaga, the color of oak leaves freshly brown, combined in a +transcending magic of contentment. + +The point was--my special inhibition as a traveler--that I didn't want +to move; I had no wish to speak to anyone or see what, particularly, I +should have hurried away to view. That impatience I had served when I +was twenty-one, in Naples; a city uniquely planned for morbid and +natural curiosity. There the animated frescoes of Pompeii had been +posed, at two lire a figure, before my assumption of mature experience. +But now, past forty, I was without the ambition and desire to follow the +cabs of the American business men who, in the company of patient and +fatigued Cubans, were, in the interest of vague appointments, bidding +their families elaborate good evenings. + +Later it was inevitable that I should get to the theatres, hear whatever +music offered, and see all the dancing, Spanish and Cuban, in the city +of Havana, but not to-night. My present pleasure was not to be wasted in +the bother of movement and a probable mistake. The cigar continued to +veil me in its reflective smoke for another half hour, there was more +coffee in the pot. The tempered heat of the day lay over me like a +spell, like an armor against the chill, the gaunt winds and rain, of the +north. The scent of the sprig of orange blossoms was just perceptible, +at once faint and laden with the potency of a magical grove. + + * * * * * + +The weather, the temperature and special atmospheric envelopment of +Havana, was, I was certain, different from any other, its heat modified +by the winds that moved across the island at night, at least from this +shore, and the days flooded with an incandescent sunlight like burning +magnesium. Stirring slowly about my room before breakfast, the slatted +shutters bowed against the already blazing day, a thread of cigarette +smoke climbing hopelessly toward the far ceiling, I thought of the +idiotic popular conviction that the weather was a topic for stupid +minds. The reverse, certainly, was true, since, inbound with all the +settings of life, all nature, the weather offered an illimitable range +of suggestion. + +It had been the great discovery of imaginative prose--the novel for +which we care most had been largely the result of that gained +appreciation; and its absence in older books, placed in a vacuum, +entirely accounted for their dry unreality. What, for instance, were the +novels of Thomas Hardy but splendid records of the countryside weather, +for nature and weather were one. This, more than any other force, +conditioned men, stamping them out with an ice age, burning them black +in Africa ... setting royal palms by the doors of the Hotel Inglaterra +and willows along my lower lawn. + +The difference between Havana and West Chester was exactly that +difference in their foliage, in the low April green of one and the harsh +high fronds of the other. The quality, the weather, that made the trees +made equally the men, just as it dictated their lives, the houses they +lived in, their industries and planted grains. This was true not only +of the country but of the city, too, of George Moore as well as Hardy; +for though Moore belonged principally to salons and the discreet +interiors of broughams, a good half of the beauty of his pages was due +to his response to the quality of spring against a smoke-blackened +London wall, the laburnum blossoming in his Dublin garden. + +The slightest impression of Havana must be founded on a sensitive +recognition of the crystal light and printed shadows which, in addition +to its architecture of fact, brought another of sweeping illusion. In +the morning the plazas glittered in a complete revelation of every hard +carving and leaf and painted kiosk, but later the detail merged in airy +diagonal structures of shade. Modified, infrequently, by the gorgeous +cumulous clouds drifting from the upward thrust, the anchorage, of the +Andes, the entire process of the hours was upset. This was not simply a +variation of inanimate surface, it had an exact counterpart in the +emotions: bowed by an insuperable blaze or upright in the veiled sun, +the attitude of harmony was profoundly affected. The night was +altogether separate, a time, I gathered, when it seldom rained; and +there was never another city that took advantage of the night like +Havana. Released from the resplendent tyranny of the sun, everyone, it +appeared, disdaining sleep, lingered in the plazas, the cafés, and along +the sea-walls, until dawn threatened. Here the dark was not alone a +stage for nocturnal plans and figures: it was without strangeness or +fear for the Cubans thronging abroad, on foot and in motors, early and +late. The whiteness of the buildings, too, even where they were not +illuminated, defined spaces never obscure; the city was never wholly +lost, obliterated by the imponderable blackness of the north. All this, +every aspect of Havana's being, was the gift--the dangerous gift--of its +situation, its weather. The blinding day, the city folded in a sparkling +night, like a vision in blanched satin with fireflies in her hair, were +nothing more than meteorological. + +For myself, my entire attitude was different in the room I now inhabited +from the inherent feeling, in New York, of the Algonquin. I was, in +white flannels and brown Holland, with roses against the mirror of the +bureau, another man; not only my mentality but my physical bearing was +changed. Here I was an individual who, moving about for an hour or so in +the morning, spent the day until late afternoon in some quiet and cool +inner spaciousness. That, I appreciated at once, was one of the +comfortable peculiarities of Havana: it was always possible to be +cool--in a café with the marble floor sprinkled with water; at the +entrance of the Inglaterra, where, however, the chairs were the most +uncomfortable in the world; or, better yet, with a book, a naranjada, +and pajamas, transiently at home. + +For the iced refrescos of Cuba I had been prepared; and at breakfast, +though that, I found later, was not its hour, I chose, rather than a +naranjada, a piña colado--a glass, nearly as large and quite as thin as +possible, of the chilled essence of pineapple. A remarkable, a +delightful, concoction. Later I heard the refrescos referred to +contemptuously by Americans whose attitude toward the Cubans paralleled +their opinion of the local drinks. They elected whiskey, at times +condescending to gin, and the effect was portentous. Some sat near me +now, with breakfasts of bubbling ham and crisped eggs, lamenting the +coffee. + +It was doubtless part of the hypnotism of my liking for Havana that +reconciled me to the coffee, poured simultaneously with hot salted milk +into the cup. I accepted it at once, together with a cut French roll +ingeniously buttered. Other efforts were made, through a window, to sell +a wallpaper of lottery tickets; the vendor of magazines now put forward +the Havana Post, printed in English; the curtains hung motionless, a +transparent film on the bright space beyond. + +There was nothing I had to do, or see, no duty to myself to fulfill; +and, watching the stir of tourist departure, I was thankful for my +total lack of uncomfortable incentive. I had, for instance, no intention +of ascending the height of Morro Castle, which--I had hardly needed the +assurance--included a fatiguing number of stairs; nor of becoming +familiar with Cabañas fortress. It had been quite enough to see in +passing that long pink wall and know that there were old batteries of +cannon embossed with the sovereign names of Spain. There were no picture +galleries; and in Havana the churches were rich in neither tradition nor +beauty, and the convents of early days had been turned into warehouses. +It was, on the whole, a city without obtrusive history; even its first +site was on the other side of the island; the wall, except for a +fragment or two, had gone; its early aspects were practically absorbed +by the later spirit that had captivated me. Here, if ever, was a place +in which honesty of mood could be completely indulged. + +A state not innocent of danger to the Puritan tradition--lately +assaulted with useless vigor--of suppression; for to the Latin +acceptance of the whole of life had been added the passions of the +tropics. Cuba had cynically realized this, and multiplied a natural +frankness with a specialized attention to the northern masculinity I had +seen leaving the hotel at odd hours last night. I felt even so soon, +with prohibition a reality, that our national prudery was a very +unfortunate influence indeed in Havana. The season was at an end--only a +few days of the racing remained--so I had missed the obvious worst; but +traces of the corruption of the dull, the dull themselves in diminishing +numbers, lingered. + +Havana, in common with other foreign countries, and with so many golden +reasons to the contrary, had no general liking for Americans. The few +who had understood Cuba, either living there or journeying with +discretion, were most warmly appreciated; and, characteristically, it +was they more than the natives who were principally disconcerted by the +released waggishness of Maine and Ohio and Illinois. But the majority +were merely exploited. There was, certainly, something on the other side +of the fence, for the Cubans were morbidly sensitive about their land, +their monuments and martyrs, not necessarily impressive to the +Anglo-Saxon heritage and temperament. There were fundamental racial +differences, with a preponderant ultimate weight in favor of continents +as opposed to islands. The fascination Havana had for me wasn't +inevitable; I was only considering with regret, æsthetic rather than +moral, the effect on Cuba of any prostitution. + + * * * * * + +As, in a temporary stoppage of its circular traffic, I walked across the +Parque Central, its limits seemed to extend indefinitely, as if it had +become a Sahara of pavement exposed to the white core of the sun; and I +passed with a feeling of immense relief into the shade of a book-shop at +the head of Obispo Street, where the intolerable glare slowly faded from +my vision as I fingered the heaps of volumes paper-bound in a variegated +brightness of color and design. In any book-shop I was entirely at home, +contented; and here specially I was prepossessed with the idea of +buying a great number of the novels solely for their covers--in short, +making a collection of Spanish pictorial bindings. But the novels, I +discovered, were, even in paper, almost a peso each; and since I was +reluctant to invest two hundred or more dollars in a mere beginning, the +idea vanished. Their imaginative quality, however, the drawing and color +printing, were excellent, far better than ours; in fact, we owned +nothing at all like them. + +They had a freedom of cruelty, a brutality of statement, of truth, +absent in American sentimentality: where women were without clothes they +were naked, anatomically accounted for, as were the men; and the +symbolical representations of labor and injustice were instinct with +blood and anguish. A surprising number of stories by Blasco Ibáñez were +evident; and it struck me that if I had read him in those casual bright +copies, without the ponderous weight of his American volumes and +uncritical reputation, I might have found a degree of enjoyment. There +were a great many magazines, mostly Spanish, gayly covered but with the +stupidest contents imaginable--the bad reproductions of contemporary +photographs on vile grey paper; although one, La Esefa, admirably +reproduced, in vivid color and titles, the Iberian spirit of the lighter +Goya. + +Though I had been on narrow streets before, I had never seen one with +the dramatic quality of Obispo. Hands might almost have touched across +its paved way, and the sidewalks, no more than amplified curbs, hardly +allowed for the width of a skirt. It was cooled by shadow, except for a +narrow brilliant strip, and the open shops were like caverns. The +windows were particularly notable, for they held the wealth, the choice, +of what was offered within: diamonds and Panama hats, tortoise shell, +Canary Island embroidery, and perfumery. There were cafés that +specialized in minute cakes of chocolate and citron and almond paste set +out in rows of surprisingly delicate workmanship, and shallow cafés +whose shelves were banked with cordials and rons, gin, whiskies, and +wine. There were bottles of eccentric shape holding divinely colored +liqueurs, squat bottles and pinched, files of amber sauternes, miniature +glass bears from Russia filled with Kümmel, yellow and green chartreuse, +syrupy green and white menthes, the Cinziano vermouth of Italy, Spanish +cider, and orderly companies of mineral waters. + +These stores had little zinc-topped bars, and there were always groups +of men sipping and conversing in their rapid intent manner. The street +was crowded and, invariably allowing the women the wall, it was +necessary to step again and again from the sidewalk. They were mostly +Americans: the Cuban women abroad were in glittering automobiles, +already elaborate in lace and jewels and dipping hats, and drenched in +powder. They were, occasionally, when young, extremely beautiful, with a +dark haughtiness that I had always found irresistible. + +In my early impressionable years it had continually been my fate to be +entranced by lovely disagreeable girls with cloudy black hair and skin +stained with brown rather than pink. Imperious girls with elevated chins +and straight sensitive noses! They had never, by any chance, paid the +slightest attention to me; and the Cubans passing by with an air of +supreme disdain called back my old interest and my old desire. I felt, +for the moment, very young again and capable of romantic folly, of +following a particular beauty to where her motor--a De Dion +landaulet--disappeared into a courtyard with the closing of the great +iron-bound doors. + +A marked, not to say sensational, transformation of my own person had +been a conspicuous part of that young imaginary business; for, though I +was fat and clumsy, I managed to see myself tall and engaging, and dark, +too; or, anyhow, a figure to beguile a charming girl. Something of that +hopeless process had taken place in me once more, now the vainer for the +fact that even my youth had gone. The quality which called back a past +illusion was very positive in Havana, and my feeling for the city was +greatly enriched, further defined. It was charged with hazard for what +men like me had dreamed, leaving the actuality for the pretended; the +pretended, that so easily became the false, was, in Havana, real. + +The Obispo under its striped awnings, with its merchandise of coral and +high combs and pineapple cloths; the women magnetic with a Spain that +had slept with the East, the South; the bright blank walls, lemon +yellow, blue, rose; the palms borne against the sky on trunks like +dulled pewter; the palpable sense of withdrawn dark mystery, all created +an atmosphere of a too potent seductiveness. The street ended in the +Plaza de Armas, with the ultramarine sea beyond; and as I sat, facing +the arched low buff façade of the President's Palace, my brain was +filled with vivid fragments of emotion. + +What suddenly I realized about Havana, the particular triumph of its +miraculous vitality, was that it had never, like so much of Italy, +degenerated into a museum of the past, it was not in any aspect +mortuary. Its relics of the conquistadores were swept over by the flood +of to-day. Yet I began to be vaguely conscious of the history of Cuba, +of that Cuba from which Cortez had set sail, in the winter of fifteen +hundred and nineteen, for Mexico. Later this would, perhaps, become +clearer to me; not pedantically, but because the spirit of that early +time was still alive. I made no effort to direct my mind into deep +channels. What must come must come; and if it were a gin rickey rather +than the slavery of the repartimento system, I'd be little enough +disturbed. + +The gin rickey proved to be an immediate reality, in the patio of the +Inglaterra--a stream of silver bubbles shot into a glass where an +emerald lime floated vivaciously. I had no intention of going out again +until the shadows of the late afternoon had lengthened far toward the +white front of the Gomez-Mena building across the plaza; and after lunch +I went up to the quiet of my room. I should, certainly, write no +letters, read--idly--none of the few books published about Cuba, which +were on my table; and I began the essays of James Huneker called +Bedouins. His rhapsodies over Mary Garden, as colorful in style as the +glass above the window, I soon dropped and picked indifferently among +the novels that remained. A poor lot--the thin current stream of +American fiction, doubly pale in Havana. + +The day wheeled from south to west. I was perfectly contented to linger +doing nothing, scarcely thinking, in the subdued and darkened heat. +There was a heavy passage of trunks through the echoing hall without, +the melancholy calling of the evening papers rose on the air; I was +enveloped in the isolation of a strange tongue. To sit as still as +possible, as receptive as possible, to stroll aimlessly, watch +indiscriminately, was the secret of conduct in my situation. Nothing +could be planned or provided for. The thing was to get enjoyment from +what I did and saw; what benefit I should receive, I knew from long +experience, would be largely subconscious. I had been in Havana scarcely +more than a day, and already I had collected a hundred impressions and +measureless pleasure. How wise I had been to come ... extravagantly, +with--as it were--a flower in my coat, a gesture of protest, of +indifference, to all that the world now emphasized. + + * * * * * + +However, the tranquillity of the afternoon was sharply interrupted by my +going, unexpectedly, to the races at Oriental Park. I had to dress with +the utmost rapidity, leaving the choice of a tie to chance, for the dun +car of the United States Military Attaché was waiting for me. The +Attaché, handsomely bearing the brown seal of Philippine campaigns, +abstracted in manner, sat forward with an imperturbable military +chauffeur, while the back of the car was flooded by the affable speech +of a Castilian marquis whose variety of experience in the realms of +expert and dangerous games had been limited only by their known forms. +It was unquestionably the mixture of my commonplace Presbyterian blood +and incurable habit of romance that gave me a distinct satisfaction in +my surroundings. I was glad that the Marquis was what he was and that +he held a trans-continental motor record; it pleased my honest +democratic instincts when other cars were held back for our progress; +and, finally, the deep chairs on the veranda of the Jockey Club were +precisely right for a lounging afternoon in an expensive sporting +atmosphere. + +The race track seemed to me long--was it a mile?--and, with the horses +at a starting post across from the grandstand, I couldn't tell one from +another. The grandstand was on the right, and beyond the park were low +monotonous lines of stables. It had been raining, the track was heavy, +and the race that followed the blowing of a bugle covered the silk of +the jockeys with mud. My pleasure, as always, slowly subsided at the +persistent intrusion of an inner destructive questioning. Incontestably +the racing, the horses lining fretfully and scrambling through the muddy +pools, left me cold. The sweep of the Jockey Club, too, was +comparatively empty of interest; the spectators there, though they were +more or less intent upon the results posted on the board opposite, were +not the immemorial onlookers at such affairs of sweepstakes, selling +plates and furloughs. + +The Cuban women present, elaborately dressed for shaded lawns and salons +de thé, were largely foreign to the wide-spread open spectacle. I +remembered English races where groups of dukes with ruddy features, in +rough tweeds, sat through drizzling afternoons on their iron-shod seat +ricks, and women of title, in waterproofs and harsh brogues, tramped +through the sloshing turf ... an attitude far removed from Havana. A +group of royal palms, lifted in the middle distance, alone gave the +races an exotic air; though they were, of course, promoted and ridden by +Americans, and their mechanics were quite those which operated in New +Orleans and Butte and Baltimore. Now I was annoyed because I had, +thoughtlessly, come; I might as well have gone to the baseball game in +what had formerly been the bull ring. + +Yet I could retire to my speculations for escape, and I thought how +peculiarly modern outdoor games, sport, belong to the British--to them +and their relatives beyond the sea. I remembered, in this connection, +the story of a French vicomte I knew, a man of imposing build, who, in +yellow gloves, shot field larks attracted by the flashing of a mirror +manipulated by his valet. Le sport! But the Spaniards, bred to the +delicate agility of bull fighting, trained in endurance on the +inconceivably fast pelota courts, were more athletic than the French; +though, as a race, they were inclined to delegate their games to +professionals. The sporting amateur, in spite of the Marquis, was a +rarity; rather they chose to be lookers-on at brilliant diversions which +retained an appreciable amount of a mediæval cruelty diversified from +our own brutal strain. + +This, naturally, had been influenced, strengthened, in Cuba by the +climate, the breath of the tropics; even the winters were not conducive +to violent exercise, aside from the fact that that was the prerogative +of stolid temperaments. It was the deliberate, the unexcitable, who +most excelled at trials of personal muscular skill; and neither of them +were at home below certain latitudes. For myself, I was grateful, for I +hadn't much in common with the exemplifications of field skill I had +met. They were very apt to pay for their success by the absence of the +attributes I particularly admired; often they were snobs of a very +exasperating type--monuments of college beef with irreproachable hair, +sacrosanct pins, and insensate conventional mentalities. + +A race at an end, the jockeys, carrying their saddles, trooped to the +judges' stand to be weighed, and I was shocked by their wizened, +preternaturally cunning faces. They were like pygmies of a strange breed +in red and yellow and blue satins; faultless for their purpose, on the +ground they were extraordinary, leather-skinned, with puckering eyes, +drawn mouths, and distorted bodies. They wrangled among themselves in +shrill or foggy voices--a very depressing specialization of humanity. +But the horses were magnificent, slender and shining. I admired them +from a distance, glad that it was no part of my responsibility to ride. +Long ago, under the pressure of an untender emotion, I had learned to +sit on a horse through his reasonable moments; but I had never become at +ease, and I stopped riding when, on the country road of a May Sunday +noon, a tall sorrel ran away with me so fast and so far that we passed +three churches with their scattering congregations. + +There were, on the veranda, drinks, and even they--the Scotch +highballs--translated into Spanish, had an unfamiliar and borrowed +sound. It was on my return, stopping at the Telegrafo Café, that I +learned the delightful possibility of a Daiquiri cocktail. It was twice +as large as ordinary, what in the north was called a double; but no +Daiquiri out of Cuba could be thought of in comparison. Only one other +drink might be considered--a Ramos gin-fizz. My extreme allegiance had +been given to the latter. I was not willing, even in the Telegrafo, to +depose it from first place; but the Telegrafo was a pleasanter spot +than the New Orleans Stag bar. I could see the beginning of the Prado, +with the swirl of cars on their afternoon round to the Malecón. Some +arc-lights, just turned on, were sources of color, like great +symmetrical lemons, rather than of illumination. After another rain the +bare flambeau trees would burst into fiery bloom. + +I was alone, and, sauntering back to the Inglaterra, through the gallery +that had once been the Paseo Isabel, I came on my flower man, who +advanced with a smile and a close nosegay of gardenias. A curious +flower, I thought, getting water for them in a glass. They didn't wilt, +as was usual, but turned brown and faded in the manner of a lovely +pallid woman--a simile I had used in Linda Condon. A flower that +belonged less to nature than to drawing-rooms, to rococo salons and the +opera loges of eighteen forty, and not at all to the present in the +United States. But worn low on the neck, it was entirely appropriate to +the black hair of the Cuban woman. Gold hair, the fair temperament, had +no business with gardenias: bouquets of white sweet peas looped with +pale green and silver ribbon, yes; and dark bunches of moss roses; the +old bouquets of concentric rings of buds in lace paper! They were the +property of the girls I had known, the frank girls with clear grey eyes +and the appealing girls with eyes like forget-me-nots. Something more +poignant, a heavier disturbing perfume, was necessary against a figure +seen only from a balcony or with a vague fleetness behind a grille +gracefully wrought out of iron. + +My shutters now were opened, and I could make out, against the dimming +sky, the languid folds of the Spanish flag above the entrance of the +Centro Gallego--the standard that had conquered the western tropics, +only, in turn, to be subdued by a freedom of the wind mightier than His +Most Catholic Majesty. + + * * * * * + +There was some question of where I'd go for dinner, for in Havana there +were many cafés to explore--the Dos Hermanos, the Paris, the Florida, +the Hotel de Luz, the Miramar; but, finally, I walked down to the Prado, +to the sea and the Miramar, a little because of its situation, directly +on the Malecón, but principally for the reason that it had one of the +most beautiful names possible, a name which called up the image of a +level tide so smooth that it held in shining replica the forts, the +ships, and the clouds. Tables were prepared for dinner in the +restaurant, while those on the terrace were without cloths; but there I +determined to sit, and the waiter whose attention I captured, after a +long delay, agreed. + +A solitary couple had their heads together by the window, and they, with +myself, were the only diners. It was, evidently, not now the place to go +to at this hour. Beyond the dining-room, a patio, or rather an open +court, was set for dancing, melancholy as such spaces can be, deserted +and half-lighted; but I saw that a considerable activity was expected +much later. + +I was glad that the terrace was empty, for, with the light now faded +from the sea and its blueness merging into black, the remote +tranquillity of evening was happier without a sharp chatter of voices. +The Miramar, considering its place--the most advantageous in all +Havana--and fame was surprisingly small: scarcely more than two stories +high, the sombre maroon walls with their long windows hardly filled an +angle of the Malecón. The dinner was slow in arriving, the silver made +its appearance, a goblet was brought separately, a plate of French bread +was later followed by its butter. The minute native oysters were no more +than shreds adhering to their shells, but they had a notable flavor; a +crawfish was at its brightest apogee; and an omelet browned in a +delicate perfection of powdered sugar. + +I deserted Spanish wine, the admirable Riscal, for champagne; for there +was about an air of departed charm, the whisper of old waltzes and +tarleton, that demanded commemoration. The Miramar had been the gay +center of that mid-century life which had folded Havana in the lasting +influence of its memories. A gaiety not even at a disadvantage compared +to the feverish society of to-day! The bodices then had been no more +than scraps of chambery gauze and Chinese ribbon below shoulders to the +whiteness of which the entire feminine age had been devoted. The +flounced bell skirts had swung airily on gracious silk clappers. + +The automobiles on the Malecón multiplied, for the night was hot; soon +there was a solid double opposed procession on the broad sweeping drive. +This was a triumph of American engineering and, I had no doubt, an +improvement on the informality of rocks and débris that had existed +before. Yet I should liked to have seen it when the promenade had not +yet been laid down with mechanical precision, in, perhaps, the early +seventies. Then there were sea baths cut in the live rock at the end of +the Paseo Isabel, at the Campos Eliseos, where the water was like a +cooler liquid green air, and where, after storms, a foaming surf poured +over the barriers. There were no motors then, but volantes and the +modern quintrins, with two horses, one outside the shafts, and a riding +calesero in vermilion and gold lace; and, latest of all, as new as +possible, the victorias. + +Neither, then, was the Prado paved, but the trees were infinitely +finer--five rows there were in fifty-seven--when the clamor of the city +was, in great part, peals of bells. This was a familiar process with me, +to leave the present for the past in a mood of irrational regret. But +never for the heroic, the real past; the years I chose to imagine lay +hardly behind the horizon; in Italy it had been the Risorgimento, at +farthest the villeggiatura of Antonio Longo or the viole d'amore of +Cimarosa in churches. And now, drinking my champagne on the empty +flagged terrace of the Miramar, facing, across the parade of +automobiles, the blank curtain of the night, starred on the right by the +lights of castellated forts, my mind vibrated with grace notes no longer +heard outside the faint distilled sweetness of music boxes. + +As if in derision of this, a loud unexpected music rose from the +bandstand in the Plaza, and I saw that a flood of people, seated or +moving along the pavements and through the lanes of chairs, had +gathered. Nothing, I thought, could have delighted me more; but my +anticipation was soon smothered by the absurdity of the selections: they +were not from Balfé nor Rossini, neither military nor the accented +rhythm of Spain ... the opening number was Parsifal, blown into the +profound night with a convention of brassy emphasis. + +At the total destruction of my pleasure I cursed the pretentious +stupidity of the band-master and a great deal else of modern Cuba. I +remembered particularly some regrets, locally expressed, that the +Spanish domination was no more. Things, it was said, were better ordered +then. But this was a position the vainness of which I couldn't join: it +was no part of my disposition to combat, or even regret, the inevitable. +My course--quite other--was to project myself into periods whose very +loss formed most of their charm. Gone, they took on the tender memories +of the dead, and were invested with the dignity, the beauty, of a warm +fragility. + +Two girls were now seated at a table by the entrance, and, though they +were alone for the moment, it was evident that they had no intention of +remaining in that unprofitable state longer than necessary. Their fleet +appraising glances rested on me and the silver bucket by my chair, and +one permitted the shadow of a discreet smile to appear on her carmined +lips. She was pretty, lightly dressed in a flowery summer stuff, but she +was as gold in coloring as corn silk; an intrusion in Havana I seriously +deplored. The other was dark, but she was, at the same time, +disagreeable; something had annoyed her excessively, and I made no move. +Such company was occasionally entertaining, in a superficial +conversational sense; but, I was obliged to add, not often. + +I went over all the informal girls I could recall who had been worth the +effort to cultivate them, either charming or wise or sensitive, and my +bag, unlike Chopin's or what George Moore reported his, was +discouragingly slim. They had been, but perhaps of necessity, +materialists, valuers only of the expensively concrete; yes, the +majority of such adventures had been sordid. It was due, without +question, to certain deterrent qualities in my own personality; but even +more, I was convinced, to the fact that, in America, girls, or at least +those of my youth, regarded emotion as portentously synonymous with +ruin. Emotion, for nice girls, was deprecated; their sense of modesty, +of shame, was magnified at the expense of everything else. This, +together with the tragic difference in the age of marriage in nature and +in society, had condemned the United States to very low levels of +feeling. + +Unfortunately I had been born into the most rigid of all societies--a +prosperous and Presbyterian middle-class; an influence that succeeded in +making religion hideous before I was fifteen, planting in me, too, the +belief that man was, in his instinctive life, filthy. I outgrew the +latter, but never the first; and now, looking back, I could recognize +how that lauded creed had nearly damned me to a hell far surpassing in +dreadfulness anything of its own bitter imagining. The cold metaphysical +fog had saturated us all alike.... How dreary my early experience was +... what detestable travesties of passion! A carful of young men soon +stopped at the curb of the Miramar, and the two girls, dark and gold, +were immediately invested with the politest attentions. There was a +chorus of laughter and protests and suggestions, in which a privileged +waiter joined; and afterwards they vociferously left to dance at +Carmelo. + + * * * * * + +Walking generally in the direction of my room, I left the Prado for an +especially dramatic, no, melodramatic, street, where the bare walls and +iron bolted doors were made startling by the white glare of electric +lights. Fixed to the walls, infrequently, were the wrought-iron brackets +of the earlier lanterns, converted, it might be, for the period before +the present, into gas jets. In that watery illumination such streets +must have seemed less amazing than now, and entirely natural with only +the oil lanterns lifting a small surface of masonry or an isolated angle +out of the night. Indeed, whole districts were dark, except for a rare +lamp privately maintained as an obligation of grace. That darkness, like +the streets, was mediæval; they belonged one to the other--ways through +which it was congruous to carry a flare and a sword, practical measures +both. + +These precautions had been long discarded, but the passages themselves +were unchanged, not a stone had shifted; they were, particularly at +night, the Middle Ages. And it was as though a sudden blaze had been +created by unholy magic; a sparkling and infernal radiance, throwing +into intolerable clearness the decent reticence of the time. The arc +lights gave the streets an absolute air of unreality and tragic +strangeness. Moving in them, I had the feeling of blundering awake into +a dream, of being irretrievably lost in an illusion of potential horror. +An open door with its glimpse into an inner room only increased the +oppression: it, too, was brilliant with electricity, a room of +unrelieved icy pallor, except for a warmer blur under an Agony on the +Cross, where a small company of men and women sat in a rigid blanched +formality that might have been death. + +It was quite natural, a commonplace of Havana; but rather than a picture +of familiar life, it resembled the memento mori of a grotto. My thoughts +turned to the symbols and representations of the Catholic Church--a +business of blood and torment and flame, of Sebastian torn with arrows +and a canonized girl, whose name I forgot, carrying her eyeballs in a +hand. Curiously enough, the spirit which had given birth to this +suffering had been popularly lost, together with any conception of the +ages in which it occurred; and all that remained was a pathological +horror. Italy and Spain were saturated by it--Italy in the revolting wax +spectacles of Easter, and Spain with the veritable crucifixions of +to-day. + +It was, I supposed, to a certain extent unavoidable in an establishment +whose hold on the ponderable present depended on threats and promises +laid in the future. But it seemed to me unfortunate, to say the least, +that a church whose business was life should be so concerned with smoky +death. Threats and promises! The early history of Cuba, I remembered, +was inbound with the administrative and protective powers of the Church: +in fifteen hundred and sixteen the native Cubeños were put in the charge +of the Order of Jeronimites, localized in La Espanola--Santo Domingo. +The double motive of the Spanish Christian kings in the western +hemisphere had been conversion and gold, but which of these was +uppermost it was impossible to determine. However, when the gold, the +temporal interest, decreased in one locality, the spiritual concern of +Seville shifted to the more productive regions. + +That was a period, a conquest, when a violent death was a greater +blessing than living in a state of damnable heresy; and so, between the +saving of their souls and the loss of their bodies in the king's mines, +the natives were thoroughly cared for. It must be said, though, that de +las Casas, a priest whose spirit was above any intimidation or venality, +denounced the outrages against the Cuban Indians to the shining heavens, +the cerulean sea, the Audencia, and the Throne. But his humanitarianism +was ineffectual against a system founded on the belief that a god had +given the earth and its recalcitrant people for the profit and glory, +the servants, of a single religious dogma. + +It was, possibly, a mental imperfection which gave impressions, +emotions, such a great suggestibility. Returning toward the Inglaterra, +I had no intention of losing myself in the mazes of applied theology; +and I speedily dropped such a sombre topic from my thoughts. Turning +back to the Prado, I found the walks filled with men, progressing slowly +or seated on the flat marble benches along the sides. Whenever a woman +did pass on foot, their interest and speculations were endless: heads +turned in rows, sage remarks were exchanged, and tentative simpaticas +murmured. Her mother--if she had the slightest pretensions to youth or +good looks--was fervently blessed for so fetching a daughter. Here, of +course, was the defect of the local attitude toward women--it put the +emphasis perpetually on a gallantry affecting the men more even than the +women. There was a constant danger of becoming one-sided. + +The Telegrafo and the Louvre were crowded, with more refrescos and ices +on the table than authoritative drinks; the cigarettes of the discursive +throngs in the Parque Central were like a sheet of fire-flies, and the +Marti and Pairet theatres were spreading abroad the audiences of their +second evening shows. The patio of the Inglaterra was well filled, and I +stopped there; not, however, for a naranjada. Some late suppers were +still occupying the dining-room, and a drunken American was gravely +addressing a table and meeting with a mechanical politeness that I +admired for its sustained patience. He left, finally, and wandered +unsteadily, a subject of entertainment for his fellows and a mark of +contempt to the Cubans present. Beyond me were some beautifully dressed +English--two men in the final perfection of easy masculine garb and a +girl, flushed with beauty, in pearls. On the other hand a young +Frenchman, decorated with the most honorable of war ribbons, and two +women, all in mourning, were conversing in the difficult Parisian idiom. + +I should have liked to be at either table--their attractions were equal; +but, forced to remain alone, I thought of how rude the English would +have been had I moved over to them. The English would have been boorish, +and the French would have met me with an impenetrable polite reserve. +Both would regard me as an idiot or an agent; to have spoken to them +would have been an affront. And yet I was confident that we should have +got on very well: I was not without a name in London, and the French +were delightfully sensitive to any practising of the arts. The English, +I gathered from their unguarded talk, were cruising on a yacht now lying +in Havana harbor; and I saw myself, the following morning, going off to +them in a smart tender and sitting under the white awning spread aft, +with a whisky and soda, talking or not, but happily aware of the shining +brass and mahogany fittings, the immaculate paint and gay pennants. + +I had always liked worldly pomp and settings, marble Georgian houses +with the long windows open directly on closed greens and statues of +lead; and to linger, before going down to dinner, on a minstrel's +gallery above a stone hall and gathered company. I'd rather be on a +yacht than on an excursion boat; yet I infinitely preferred reading +about the latter. For some hidden or half perceived reason, yachts were +not impressive in creative prose; there the concerns and pleasures of +aristocracy frequently appeared tawdry and unimportant. Even its +heroism, in the valor of battle and imperturbable sacrifice, was less +moving to me than simpler affairs. Yet there was no doubt but that I was +personally inclined to the extremes of luxury; and this apparent +contradiction brought to my life, my writing, the problem of a devotion +to words as disarmingly simple as the leaves of spring--as simple and as +lovely in clear color--about the common experience of life and death, +together with an absorbing attention for Manchu women and exotic +children and emeralds. + + * * * * * + +The following day, hot and still, with the exception of capricious +movements of air in paved shaded places, was overcast, the brilliancy of +Havana, of the white and green plazas, subdued. And this softening of +sharp lines and blazing façades seemed to influence, too, the noises, +the calls, of the streets, so that it was all apparently insubstantial, +like the ultimate romantic mirage of a city. I wandered along Neptuno +Street to Belascoin, and then to the Parque Maceo, where I ignored the +massed bronze and granite of its statue for the slightly undulating +shimmering tide. In the distance the sea was lost in the sky--a nebulous +gray expanse such as might have existed before the beginning of +comparative solidity. I lost all sense of time, the centuries were +jumbled together like mangos in a basket. Yes, they were no greater, no +more important or stable, than tropical fruit. + +The vivid spectacle of Cuba, for example, contracted to a palm's +breadth, the island became nothing more than the glimmer of a torch in +illimitable dusk. It had been discovered by Columbus, a presumptuous +term used arrogantly in the sense of created; an Arcadian shore where, +because food grew without cultivation, without effort, and the gold was +soft for beating into bracelets, the natives lived easily and +ornamentally and in peace. They wore, rather than steel and the harsh +shirts of the Inquisition, the feathers of birds with woven dyed quills +and fragrant grasses. They sang, they danced with a notable grace, loved +and died in the simplicity of bohios of palm board and thatch under nine +Caciques. + +Then, in the drawing of a breath, they were all destroyed, gone, killed +by slavery, in the name of God on the points of swords, by the +rapacity, the corruption, the diseases, of civilization. A Spanish Cuba +rose--Iberian and yet singularly different--a business of +Captain-General and Teniente Rey, of alcalde and alcaide, of Santiago de +Cuba and San Cristóbal de la Habana. The French under Jacques Sores, and +the English under Drake, sailed over the horizon. In less than a second, +the expiration of a sigh, Diego de Velasquez and Narvaez, Isabel de +Bobadilla, Rojas and Guzman, the merchant Diego Perez in vain laying the +guns of the Magdalena in defense of the past, had gone. The Cedula from +Madrid, in eighteen hundred and twenty-five, began the conspiracies, +Tacón came and went, the fiscals beat free colored men to death and +entertained the negro women naked at balls. The Lopez rebellion was +followed by the ten years' war of eighteen hundred and sixty-eight and +the peace of Zanjon, the great rebellion and Weyler. + +There remained now the indefinite sea and a city withdrawn, secretive, +made vaguely beautiful by intangible voices, all its voices that had +laughed and shouted, whispered and cried; and by the towers and walls +merged in a single pattern, the old and the new drawn together by an +aspect of impermanence, freed from the deceptive appearance of solidity. +Suddenly its history had been shown to me in a flash of emotion, a mood +of feeling. I hadn't come to Cuba ignorant of the land, but I had +determined to slight what was but written inanimate fact. I had no +disposition for instruction: books were powerless to create La Punta for +me, it must bear its own credentials ... it might become, to my +uncertain advantage, as important as a Daiquiri cocktail, as a Larrañaga +cigar, but hardly more. + +In any other case I should have cheated myself, not only of pleasure, +the relaxation possible to honesty of mind, but of any hope of future +material. The creative habit was the most tireless and frugal in +existence: there was nothing--no experience, person, disillusionment, or +pain--not endlessly sounded for its every note and meaning. No one could +predict what would be indispensable, just as it was impossible to +foresee, in the projection of a novel, where its fine moments occurred. +And, returning to the descriptive and historical books on Cuba, left so +largely unread at the Inglaterra, it was probable that they had omitted, +in their effort for literal and conventional emphasis, what might in +their subject be vivifying to me. + +This, however, was beyond spoiling--a history so picturesque, as I have +intimated, that its very vividness, its commonest phases, had become the +threadbare material of obvious romance. But, outside of all that, the +other Havana, the mid-Victorian Pompeii, a city that none could have +predicted or told me of, offered the incentive of its particular and +rare charm. In the Parque Maceo, on the sea wall, my imagination stirred +with the first beginnings of a story: it would take place in the period +when the avaricious grip of Spain was loosening, a story of secret +patriotism and the idealism of youth, set in marble salons, at the +opera and the cafés. It would not concern itself with any love except +the fidelity between two men, a story of friendship. + +There it would be different from The Arrow of Gold and Doña Rita; no +peignoirs, thank you, but a formality, a passionate propriety, in +keeping with the social gravity and impersonal devotion of the very +young. There must be crinoline--would I never escape from that!--and +candelabra with glittering prisms; Spanish soldiers in striped linen and +officials with green-tasselled canes. My youth, he'd come from the +United States, would have his little dinners at the Restaurant +Française, in Cuba Street number seventy-two, and his refrescos at the +Café Dominica. In the end he'd leave Havana, having accomplished nothing +but the loss of his illusions for the gain of a memory like a dream, but +his friend, a Cuban--I had seen him that first night at dinner in the +Inglaterra--would be killed. How.... + +It was time to go back to the hotel, and the story receded. I walked +too far on Belascoin Street, all the way to Salud; and, past the Tacón +Market, came out on the Parque de Colon, where now there was a hot dusty +wind, like a localized sirocco, and I was glad to reach my room. The +reflection of the colored glass above the window was hardly discernible +on the tiles; the interior was permeated by a shadow which made the +ceiling appear high beyond computation; and my wardrobe trunk, standing +open, exhibited a rack of limp neckties. I turned again to the novels on +the table and again let them drop, unattended, from a listless hand. +Tepid water! And I wondered--a constant subject with me--when we should +have a new vigorous American literature, a literature absolutely native, +by men who had not, like myself, been to school to Turgenev and the +English lyrical poetry. Henry James had found the United States lacking +in background; the lack was evident, but not in the country of his +birth. + +This was not a complaint against The Velvet Glove except as it equally +applied to me; but an intense desire for a fresh talent, an ability to +which we could, without reserve, take off our hats. The fact hit me that +I was forty, although it was still the fashion among reviewers to speak +of me as a promising young man, and that there were patches of grey hair +on my temples. Yet I had been, everything considered, remarkably +successful; there was no need for sentimental regret, a trait of mental +feebleness. + +I decided to do something positive that evening, to go to the theatre, +or, if it were playing, to see the Jai Alai. The latter was possible, +and, by way of the Telegrafo, I reached the Hotel Florida for dinner; a +restaurant which, because of the windows looking down on it, had the +pleasant individual air of a courtyard. The music played, diners came +and went, and I gazed up at the shallow balconies in the hopefulness of +an incorrigible imagination. The Fronton Jai Alai--in Havana the game, +pelota, had taken the title of its court--was a long way from Obispo +Street, but I knew when we had reached it by the solid volume of +shouting that escaped from the high concrete building into the dim +neighborhood. + + * * * * * + +Inside, the court was an immense expanse with granite-laid walls, a long +rectangle, one side of which was formed by the steeply banked rows of +spectators. Regular spaces were marked by white lines on the playing +floor, and at one end the score was hung against the names of the +players, now two teams--the Azules and the Blancos. The boxes were above +the cement ledges packed with standing men, by a promenade, where the +betting was conducted, cigars sold, and a small active bar maintained. +It was the night of a gala benefit, for the Damas de Caridad, and I had +been fortunate in getting a single box seat. I was late, though, and the +game progressing; still, I was the first in our railed space; but the +others, who proved to be Americans, soon followed--three prosperous men, +manufacturers I thought, with wives in whom native good taste had been +given the opportunities of large resources. + +One of the women--who, in the arrangement of the box, sat beside +me--smiled with a magnetism that had easily survived the loss of her +youth; she was rather silent than not, but the rest swept into a +conversation in their best public manner. A man accompanying them, it +developed, knew Cuba and Jai Alai, and he secured for the amusement of +the others a cesta, the basket-like racquet worn strapped to the arm. It +was from him I discovered that the court was two hundred and ten feet +long and thirty-six feet wide; while the service consisted in dropping +the ball and, on its rebound, catching it in the cesta and throwing it +against the far end wall. From there, with a sharp smack audible all +over the Fronton, the ball shot back, if not a fault, within a marked +area, and one of the opposing side caught it, in the air or on the first +bounce, and returned it against the end wall. At first I could see +nothing but the violent activity of the players, frozen into statuesque +attitudes of throwing; vigorous figures in, mostly, white, with soft red +silk sashes. I heard the ball hit, and saw it rolling out of play; and +then, with some slight realization of the rapidity of its flight, I was +able to follow the course from cesta to wall and floor. + +There had never been, I was certain, another game in which instantaneous +judgment, skill, and endurance had been carried to such a far point. +There was seldom a fault or error; the ball, flying like a bullet, was +caught and flung with a single gesture; again and again it carried from +one end wall to the other, from which it was hurled on. Angles of flight +were calculated and controlled, the long side wall was utilized.... Then +a player of the Azules was hit in the ankle, and the abruptness with +which he went down showed me a possibility I had ignored. + +During this the clamor of the audience was indescribable, made up, for +the most part, of the difficulties of constantly shifting odds and +betting. The odds changed practically with every passage of the ball: +opening at, say, five to three against the favorites, as they drew +steadily ahead in a game of twenty-five points it jumped to eight to +four, ten to three, anything that could be placed. On the floor a small +company of bookmakers, distinguished by their scarlet caps, shouted in +every direction, and betting paper was thrown adroitly through the air +in hollow rubber balls. Those who had backed at favorable odds the team +now far ahead were yelling jubilantly, and others were trying, at the +expense of their lungs, to cover by hedging their probable losses. + +There was, however, toward what should have been the end, an +unlooked-for development--the team apparently hopelessly behind crept +up. An astounded pause followed, and then an uproar rose that cast the +former sound into insignificance. Soon the score was practically tied: +there were shrill entreaties, basso curses, a storm of indiscriminate +insults. Now the backers of the lesser couple scrambled vocally to take +advantage of the betting opportunities forever lost--the odds were even, +then depressed on the other side. When the game was over the noise died +instantly: men black with passion, shaking with rage, crushing their +hats or with lifted clenched fists, at once conversed with smiling +affability. My eyes had been badly strained, and I was glad to leave the +box and stroll along the promenade. The betting counters were jammed by +the owners of winning tickets, the men behind the bar were, in their own +way, as active as the pelota players. + +The majority of the boxes were occupied by Cuban families, but yet there +was an appreciable number of foreigners. A slender girl, in a low dinner +dress, was sitting on the railing of her box, swinging a graceful +slipper and smoking a cigarette--New York was indelibly stamped on +her--and, among the masculine world of Spanish antecedents, she created +a frank center of interest. For her part, she studied the crowd quite +blocking the way below her with a cold indifference, the personification +of young assured arrogance. + +A quiniela followed, with six contestants, one against the other in +successive pairs; but my eyes were now definitely exhausted by the +necessarily shifting gaze, and my interest fastened on the woman beside +me. She was at once intimately attached to the people with her and +abstracted in bearing: a woman not far from fifty, but graceful still +and, in a flexible black silk crêpe with a broad girdle of jet, still +desirable. It seemed to me that, in spite of an admirable manner, she +was a little impatient at the volubility around her; or it might be, in +contradiction to this, she was exercising a patience based on fortitude. +It was clear that she hadn't a great deal in common with the man who had +evidently been married to her for a considerable length of years. They +spoke little--it was he who had fetched the cesta--both immersed in +individual thoughts. A woman, I decided, finely sensitive, superior; +who, as she had grown older, had found no demand for the qualities which +she knew to be her best. + +A painful situation, a shocking waste, from which, for her, there was no +escape, for she had patently what was known as character. She at once +was conscious of the absolute need for spiritual freedom and bound by +commitments paramount to her self-esteem. But even if she had been more +daring, less conscientious, what could she have gained; what was there +for her in a society condemned to express the spirit in the terms of +flesh? She had too much charm, too great a vitality, to be absorbed in +the superficial affairs of women, the substitute life of charity. And +once married, probably to a man the model of kindly faith, she was +caught in a desert of sterile monotony. Even children, I could see, if +they existed, had not slain her questioning attractive personality. + +She smiled at me again, later, her narrow slightly wasting hands clasped +about a knee--a smile of sympathetic comprehension and unquenchable +woman. She would have been happier chattering in the obvious strain of +stupidity behind her: any special beauty was always paid for in the +imposed loneliness of a spoken or unspoken surrounding resentment. To be +content with a facile compliment, the majority of tricks at auction +bridge, mechanical pleasures, was the measure of wisdom for women in +her situation. The last quiniela over, plainly weary she gathered a +cloak about her shoulders and left the box, without, as I had hoped, +some last gesture or even a word: and I pictured her sitting listlessly, +distraught, in the café to which they were proceeding. + + * * * * * + +The pelota immediately vanished from my mind before the infinitely more +fundamental and interesting problem of marriage; and--remembering the +ominous sign of a woman's club on the Malecón--I wondered if the Cuban +women were contented with the tradition as it had been handed down to +them. In the life that I knew in the north, an infinitesimal grain of +sand irritating in the body of the United States, the sacredness of +matrimony had waned very seriously; it would, of course, go on, probably +for ever, since no other arrangement could be thought of conciliating +the necessities of both dreams and property; but, subjected to the +scrutiny of intelligence rather than sentimentality, it seemed both +impotent and foolish. The impotence certainly, for whereas my +grandfather had thirteen children and my mother four--or was it five?--I +had none. There had always been individuals unrestrained by the +complicated oaths of the wedding service--a strictly legal proceeding to +which the church had been permitted to add its furbelows--dissatisfied +ladies, and gentlemen of the commercial road. I wasn't referring to +them, but to the look, at once puzzled, humorous, and impatient, that +lately I had seen wives of probity turn on their husbands. + +They expressed the conviction that the purely masculine aphorism to the +effect that home was the place for women meant nothing more than a +clearing of the decks for unrestricted action. This was beautifully +displayed, confirmed, in Havana, where decks were without a single +impediment; and I speculated about the attitude of the Cuban women in +houses barred with both actual and metaphorical iron. Tradition weighed +heavily on their outlook; but there was that club on the Malecón. +Tradition had bound the farm wives of Pennsylvania, yet they were +progressively rebelling against the insanity of endless labor and +isolation. But, perversely, the married groups I saw in Havana were +remarkably close, simple, and happy. They sat in rows at the concerts on +the plazas, went off on small excursions, in entire harmony--a thing +impossible to the born American, with whom such parties began in +exasperation and ended in nervous exhaustion. An American husband, of +the class largely evident in Havana, escorted his family abroad with +truculence and an air of shame at being exposed in such a ridiculous +situation. If there was more than one household implicated, the men +invariably drew away together: there was a predominance of cursing and +the wails of irritably smacked children. The truth was that the citizens +of the United States, in their feverish passage through life, had +decidedly a poor time--either restlessness or ambition or +dissatisfaction destroyed their peace of mind. Labor, more highly paid +than at any other place or time, got less satisfaction for its money +than a Cuban mestizo with a peseta. + +My thoughts returned abruptly to the point where they had started, to +marriage, and I hoped that Cuba wouldn't be disorganized by the present +ferment; that the feminine element, discovering their wrongs, wouldn't +leave their balconies and patios for the dusty publicity of the street. +Already a decline had been suffered, first in the loss of mantillas and +combs, next in the passing of single-horse victorias for unrestrained +tin locomotives, and then in the hideous flood of electric lighting. +Still, a great deal of the charm, the empire, of Havana women remained; +while nothing but utter disaster approached them from the north. + +This was no new position for me, and it had never failed to be attacked, +usually with the insinuation that, spiritually, I was part of Turkey in +Asia ... a place of gardens where it was not inconceivable that I'd be +happy: certainly the politics there were no worse than those to which I +had been inured from birth, with murder on the streets at noon +distinguished by a white ribbon in its buttonhole. The Armenians were no +more precariously situated than the Albigenses under Innocent III. I had +heard, as well, that the governments of Cuba had not been free from +suspicion, but it was hoped that elections supervised from the United +States would institute reform. Rare irony! Elections, I should have +said, going back once more to the beginning, opening to emancipated +women. + +Gathering, in imagination, all the feminine world of Havana into a +fragrant assembly, I begged them not to separate themselves from their +privileges; I implored them even--against my personal inclination, for +there, at least, I was no Turk--not to grow slender, if that meant agile +excursions into loud spheres of lesser influence. Those others, I +proceeded, would rapturously exchange a ballot for a seductive ankle, a +graceful breast, or a flawless complexion. Complexion, or rather its +absence, brought immeasurably more supporting votes to the women's party +than convictions. And I added, reprehensibly, some of the things I had +been privately told, as a writer, by women newly in the professions: I +exposed the secret of a lecturer on civic improvement--or it might have +been better babies; I couldn't recall which--who carried a handbagful of +apostrophies to Paolo and Francesca, and that illogical lot, on her +travels. She permitted me to read them in a sunny orchard where the +apples were already, more than ripe, on the ground; and her gaze had +persistently strayed to the wasting fruit. + +The audience melted away--I was unable to discover if they were +flattered or annoyed--and I found myself actually seated at one of the +small tables on the fringe of the thé dansant at the Sevilla. The +Cascade Orchestra from the Biltmore, their necks hung with the imitation +wreaths of Hawaii, were playing a musical pastiche of many lands and a +single purpose; and there, foxtrotting intently among girls from the New +York Follies and girls on follies of their own, colliding with race +track touts from Jefferson Park and suave predatory gentlemen of San +Francisco, I found a whole section of young Cuba. + +They returned, in the intermissions, to chaperons complacent or secretly +disturbed, where they had, principally, refrescos; but their attitude +was one of progress and conscious, patronizing superiority to +old-fashioned customs. The daughters of what, in many aspects, was the +Spanish-Cuban aristocracy of the island, were dancing publicly in a +hotel. Here, already, was an example of emancipation. I disliked it, +naturally, not on moral grounds, but because it foreshadowed the +destruction of individuality, the loss, eventually, of Havana, of Cuba, +of Spain ... of everything distinguished that saved the world from +monotony. + +They danced--the Cuban youth--with notable facility, adding to the +hesitation waltz something specially their own, a more intense rhythm, a +greater potentiality; their bodies were at once more fluid and positive; +they were swept up into a mood unknown to the adamant ornaments of +Country Club verandas in the north. A cosmopolitan waiter, anxious to +have me finish and move on, hovered about the table, ignorant of a +traditional courtesy as well as of the requirements of the climate. All +the objectionable features of Broadway cafés, of public ostentation, +mingled servility and insolence, dishonesty--my piña colado was diluted +beyond taste--were being flung, with the air of a favor, into Havana. +Although, for the best, I was even then a little late, I was glad that I +had seen the city when I did, just as I was glad to have known Venice +before the Campanile fell, and the Virginia Highlands when they had not +been modernized. The change of Havana within itself, from palm thatch to +marble, was entrancing; but the arbitrary imposition of stupid habits, +standards, conduct, from outside, damnable. + +In the end the waiter was more forceful than my determination to remain +until my drink and thoughts were at an end, and I rose with them +uncompleted, in a very ill temper. If Cuba hadn't enough innate taste +and nationality to save herself, she must go the popular way to +obliteration. So much else had gone! But later, at the Hotel de Luz, +untouched yet by the hand of imported cupidity, my happiness in Havana +returned. + + * * * * * + +The Hotel de Luz, inimitably Cuban, with the shipping lying vaguely +behind an orderly foliage at the Muelle outside, had a dining-room +partly divided by wooden screens that merged informally into the +surrounding halls and spaces, and an air that was an accumulation of +tradition, like an invisible film lying over everything. A +multiplication of unexpected adventitious detail accomplished, in its +entity, the strangeness, at once enticing and a little sinister, +characteristic of Havana. There was, lurking about, in the darker +corners and passages, a feeling almost of dread, uncomfortable to meet. +And, exploring, I passed a room without windows, largely the color of +dried blood, the quintessence of a nightmare. The third floor, laid in a +triangle of, perhaps, ninety degrees, raised immense corridors paved in +black and white marble blocks, down the long perspective of which moving +figures were reduced to furtive mannikins and voices were lost in an +upper murmur. + +I sat, for a while, in a walnut rocking chair at an end of the sweep, +which amazed me by an architecture, the impressiveness of which +approached oppression. A wall was broken by a file of slatted doors, and +from one of these came the minute irritable clatter of a typewriter; the +bell at the finish of a line sounded like the shiver of a tapped glass, +and a child spoke. It was difficult to think of the Hotel de Luz as a +place of normal residence, as existing at all except in the mental +fantasias of Piranesi--it resembled exactly one of his sere vertiginous +engravings. Yet it was, I knew, the favorite hotel of travelers from the +Canary Islands. + +Continuing to rock slightly and smoke, I pursued the extremely recondite +subject of just such impressions as I had there received: a very +important inquiry, for it had to do with the secret, the unintelligible +heart, of my writing. There was, obviously, in the Hotel de Luz nothing +intrinsically terrifying, strange. My attitude toward it would be +dismissed as absurd by the Canary Islanders. But the effect it produced +on me was tangible, ponderable; it tyrannized over my imagination and +drove it into corridors of thought as sombre as that in reality before +me. I had seen the Piranesi engravings when I was very young and +painfully susceptible to mental darkness and fears; and they had +undoubtedly left their indelible mark ... now brought out by the black +and white marble squares diminishing with the walls in parallel lines. + +The reality of what I felt, then, lay in the combining of the +surroundings and my imagination--a condition, a result, if not unique, +at least unlikely to be often repeated. The sum of another emotional +experience and the Hotel de Luz would be totally different, but equally +true with my own; and from that confusion misunderstanding arose. The +actuality was neither concrete nor subjective; yet, woven of these +double threads, it was absolute. The individuality of places and hours +absorbed me; there was no word in English to express my meaning--the +perception of the inanimate moods of place. It belonged, rather than to +the novel, to the painter, and possibly occupied too great a space in my +pages. Certainly houses and night and hills were often more vivid to me +than the people in or out of them. + +But it was no longer possible, if it had ever been, to disentangle one +from the other, the personal from what seemed the impersonal; for, while +nature was carelessly free from beauty and sentiment and morals, it had +been invested with each of these qualities in turn by a differently +developing intelligence. The elements of nature, partly in hand, were +arbitrarily and subconsciously projected in set forms. I stopped to +think how the mobility of mind perpetually solidified, like cement, +about itself; how fluid ideas, aspirations, always hardened into +institutions, then prisons, then mortuary vaults. Religion had done +this signally, both profoundly and superficially--it was impossible to +picture the faith of John Fox under the frescoes of La Merced Church, a +Methodist exuberance in St. Michael's at Richmond; the Roman ritual was +as much a thing of its silver altars as the Episcopal Church in Virginia +depended on historic communion services and austere box pews. + +Not only was I specially intent on these values: my inability to see men +as free from them, as spiritual conquistadores, had been a cause of +difficulty in the popularity and sale of my books. I lacked both the +conceptions of man as an Atlas, holding up the painted globe, or an +individual mounting securely into perpetuity. If the latter were true, +if there were no death, the dignity of all the great tragic moments of +life and art, the splendor of sacrifice, was cheapened to nothing. I +would have gladly surrendered these for the privilege of continued +existence--in a sphere not dominated by hymnology--but, skeptical of the +future, all I possessed, my sole ideal, was a passionate admiration for +the courage of a humanity condemned to the loss of warm life. + +I had grown more serious than I intended, than, in Havana, was +necessary; what I had set out to discover was simply the explanation of +my feeling about the Hotel de Luz; but undoubtedly it was better for me +to accept emotions, merely to record them, than attempt analysis. + +I had had very little schooling in processes of exact thought, +practically no mental gymnastics. But this was not an imposed hardship +on which I looked back with regret--I had been free to fill my life with +scholastic routine, but balked absolutely: in class rooms a blankness +like a fog had settled over me, from which, after a short half-hearted +struggle, I emerged to follow what, namelessly, interested me. That, for +example, was precisely the manner of my stay in Havana. A course for +which the worst was predicted, specially since I persisted in writing. +And I could see how I'd be censured by the frugal-minded for such a book +as I was more than likely to bring to San Cristóbal de la Habana. + +There was, in reality, no practical reason to write about it at all, +since it had been admirably and thoroughly described, the sights, +pleasures, and sounds, in reputable and laudatory paragraphs, a source +of pride to the natives. Here no one could predict, in my search, what +would seem important, to be transcribed--the colored glass above a +window, the sugar at the bottom of a cocktail--and my moral sense, of +course, would be as impotent as my political position was negligible. +Yet the qualities ignored by a more solemn intelligence than mine were +precisely what formed the spirit of Havana; their comprehension was +necessary to that perception of an inanimate mood of place. + +I was constantly in a disagreement with the accepted opinion of what +were, at bottom, the more serious facts, the determining pressures of +existence; and it had always been at the back of my head to write a +novel built from just such trivialities as, it seemed to me, enormously +affected human fate. A very absorbing idea that had gone as far as an +introduction called A Preface of Imperishable Trifles; but the +realization that I had begun in that manner--a suspicious circumstance +in a novel,--where no shadow of an explanation, a justification, was +permissible, led me to put it away. It was the serious defect of the +novel that it commonly resembled the mechanism of an ingenious lock in +which the key turned smoothly for the flinging open, at the appropriate +moment, of a door upon a tableau of justice. It lacked almost entirely +the fatalities of sheer chance, of inconsiderable accidents, which gave +life its characteristic insecurity. + +I had left the Hotel de Luz for echoing stone galleries and streets and +empty paved plazas when I told myself that mine would have simply been a +story of shifted emphasis, for which I should have used my own memories, +since I recalled the wallpaper of a music room after thirty years more +clearly than the details of my father's death, happening when I was +practically mature. The unavoidable conclusion of this was that the +paper, in a way I made no pretence to explain, bore upon me more deeply +than my father; and, with that in view, it was perhaps as well that the +story had remained unwritten. + + * * * * * + +Some of these considerations returned to my mind the following +afternoon, when my fancy had been captured by a woman on a balcony of +the Malecón. The house was small, crushed between two imposing +structures that had been residences but were now apartments, scarcely +two stories and set back of the line, with the balcony at a lower +window. The woman was neither young nor lovely, but, folded in a shawl, +it might have been one of the lost mantillas, she was invested with a +melancholy dignity. It was possible, in the briefest passage, to see not +only her history but the story of a decade, of a vanished greatness +lingering through a last afternoon before extinction--a gesture of Spain +finally submerged in the western seas of skepticism. + +I was extraordinarily grateful to her for standing wrapped with the +shawl in immobile sadness. That was all I wanted from her, the most +indeed, she could give: apart from the balcony, hurrying along the +street with the black lace drawn closely about her head, she would have +been meaningless. The hour in which I saw her, too, the swiftly fading +radiance, had its inevitable part in the effect she produced. I had, I +realized, no wish to restore her to either youth or happiness, I didn't +want to improve her, or the case of Spain, in any way; she was perfect +for my purpose, so eminently selfish, as she was. In begging, in +imagination, the women of Havana to remain on their balconies, I hadn't +given a thought to their welfare or desires. + +The truth was that I regarded them as a part of their iron grilling, +figures on a canvas, the balconies and women inseparable from each +other. It might well be that this was no more than the intolerable +oppression of the past incongruously thrust upon the present, and that +at any minute the women, in righteous indignation and revolt, would step +down into life. But if they were to do that, I hoped it would be put +off until I had returned to the land of the feminine free; I didn't want +to be present when the balconies were definitely deserted for the +publicity of the Sevilla. I should regret their loss heavily, those +points of vantage gracefully ranged across the brilliant façades of +Havana. For there was no other city where balconies were so universal, +so varied, and so seductive. I recalled a balcony high over the Rond +Point de Plain-palais, in Geneva, where, on the left, could be seen the +blue line of the Jura and on the right, through the mounting Rue de +Carouge, the abrupt green cliff of the Salve. Curiously, there were a +great many balconies in Geneva giving on many beautiful prospects--the +Promenade des Bastions and La Treille, the Cité and bridged water; but +they were no more than pleasant, they had no deep significance whatever. +The balconies of Charleston were rather galleries turned privately on +gardens and not upon the streets; while those over the banquettes of New +Orleans, of the vieux carré, had long ago been emptied of their +flowered muslins. + +The popularity of balconies, their purpose, had remained, until now at +least, largely unchanged in Havana. On Sol Street, in the neighborhood +of Oficios and where it met the harbor, they solidly terminated their +tall windows, reached the heights of discreet tradition. There the way +was so narrow that a head above must be bent forward to see what was +passing, affording a clear view of high comb and bright lips, +provocative in the intimacy of their suggestion. The balconies of the +Malecón looked out, conversely, across the unbroken tide of the sea--in +the afternoon, when it was fair, a magical sweep of unutterable blue. +Yet they had suffered a decline--as though the constant noise of +automobiles had rent an evanescent spirit. + +The women there might see, as they chose, either the parade of fashion +or the grey walls and the far horizon; but from the balconies of the +Prado only the former was visible, the whirling motor cars and the +pedestrians in the rows of India laurels. Here the balconies through the +early and late evening were crowded; the chatter, the gesticulations and +smiles, evident on the street. The clothes, however, were no longer +Spanish in characteristic detail, but Parisian; while the essential +atmosphere, the color, of the balconies remained. In carnival--I had +just missed it--they were hung with serpentine and exchanged +bombardments of roses and compliments with the street; but now their +fastness, except to the flutter of a hand, was absolute. + +I saw a group of girls at an impressive window of the Prado, on the +corner of either Trocadero or Colon Street, all in white except for the +clear scarlet of one, like a blazing camellia among gardenias; and, for +a day after, their dark loveliness stayed in my mind. They had had tea, +probably, in the corner of a high cool room with a marble floor, +furnished in pale gilt. I had no doubt that a piano had been played for +a brief explanatory dancing, the trial of new steps neither French nor +Spanish, but American. Some of them, I knew, had been at school in New +York--probably Miss Spence's, where balconies were not cultivated--and I +wondered what they thought about the Havana to which they had returned. +Well, if the Cuban men, the fathers and suitors and husbands, preferred +to keep the historic architecture of their society, of their climate, a +convent of some Sacred Heart would be wiser than a celebrated American +finishing school. + +The New York scene, however carefully veiled and chaperoned, was a +disquieting preparation for the Prado, or even Vedado. What the life on +an estancia was, I couldn't imagine; I had been told that, for a woman, +oftener than not, it was still a model of Castilian rigidity. It had, in +fact, been suggested to me that I write the story of such a girl, shut +away from everything that she had been permitted to see and desire. +Unquestionably a splendid subject, one of the vessels that would hold +everything an ability could pour into it. I realized at once which, in +that individual struggle, must conquer--the heredity of Cuba would be +more powerful than an isolated feminine need. The other women, the +elders, who surrounded her, would be as relentless as any husband, and +in the end she'd become fat and listless. + +Widely different balconies held my attention--on one, flooded with the +morning sun, two women with carnation cheeks and elaborately dressed +hair, but for the rest strikingly informal, laughed an invitation to me +that took no account of the hour. They were, I suppose, tawdry, the +cheap familiars of a cheap street; but the gay orange wall where they +lounged like the painted actors of a zarzuela, their yellow satin +slippers and shoulders impudently bare above chemises pink and blue, all +gave them a certain distinction. Again, in the section of Jesus del +Monte, there were buildings brilliantly and impossibly painted, usually +with cafés on the ground, whose balconies, exposed to an intolerable +heat, overlooked dingy sun-baked fields. They were always empty.... I +could never imagine their use--for there was not only nothing to see, +but no one to be seen by. The houses of Havana, admirable in the +closeness of the city, possible in a bougainvillia-smothered suburb, +were depressingly inappropriate to any contact with the country. They +were lost, detached or strayed away from their fellows; for the happy +plan of the country house was that of exposure to all the favorable +winds that blew, to verandas and open halls rather than balconies and +patios: it was merged into vistas and not relentlessly and jealously +shut on every face. + +A fact that had nothing to do with the tropics or the outskirts of +Havana, where wide dusty stone avenues dropped abruptly in soft roads, +and the balconies were added purely from habit. My own balcony, at the +Hotel Inglaterra, was ideally placed, with its command of an angle of +the Parque Central. I often sat there before dinner, or past the middle +of night; there was always, then, a wind stirring over San Rafael +Street; but the balconies on either side of me, above and below, were +invariably empty, their purpose, it was plain, mistrusted. + + * * * * * + +The patios of Havana, turned so uncompromisingly from the street, were, +perhaps for that reason, even more engaging than the balconies. I saw +them, except those of the government buildings and others semi-public, +through opening or half open doors, or sometimes I looked down into them +from superior heights. They, too, were countless in variety, from the +merest kitchen areas and places of heaped refuse to lovely garden rooms +of flowers and glazed tiling and fountains. This sense of privacy, of +enclosure, in a garden was their most charming feature; and the +possibilities and implications of a patio created a whole social life +with which I was necessarily unfamiliar. They were, usually, in the +hours I knew them, empty but for passing servants ... obviously their +time was late afternoon or evening: fixed to the inner walls were the +iron brackets of lamps, and it was easy to imagine them dimly lighted +and flooded with perfume, with the scent of magnolias and the whisper of +the fountains. + +These details, separately, were not rare, but shut into the masonry of +Havana, their beauty shown in momentary glimpses on streets of blank +walls, their fragrance drooping into unexpected barren places, the +patios stirred my inherent desires. As usual, I didn't want to be gazing +at them from without, but to be a part of their existence: I wanted to +sleep on one, in a room nothing but a stone gallery, or watch the +moonlight slip over the leaves of the crape myrtles and the tiles and +sink into the water. But not to-day, for there were discordant sounds +through the arches with slender twisted Moorish pillars--the subdued +harshness of mechanical music, the echoes of that dissatisfaction which +was everywhere now recognized as improvement. I demanded guitars. + +The masculine chords of the guitar, the least sentimental of +instruments, as the Spaniards were the least sentimental of people, the +deep vibration of resinous stopped strings, was the perfect +accompaniment to that color visible and invisible. Invisible! Always +that, first and most potent. The perpetuity of atmosphere through +transmitted feeling was far more absorbing than the other chimera, of +incorruption. It was tradition, more than moonlight, that steeped the +patios with kindled obscure romantic longings. Within their formal +squares they held the spirit of a great history and of two great races, +two continents. They, the patios, were the East in the West, the +Moroscos on the Peninsula. + +The dress of the present, even the floating films of the women, was +misplaced; these were, in reality, the courtyards of the Orient, and +they needed the dignity of grave robes and gestures, bearded serenity. +In them, initially, women had been flowers lightly clasped with bands of +rubies and dyed illusory veils; there had been no guitars then, but +silver flutes. However, I had no desire to be a part of that time; it +was Spain that possessed me, and not in Grenada but Cuba, during the +Captain-generalship of the Conde de Ricla, in the seventeen sixties +when the British conquests under Albemarle were returned to the island. +That was a period of building and prosperity, the fortifications of San +Carlos and Atares were established, Morro and the Cabañas refashioned, +and the streets and houses of Havana named and numbered. The decline of +Spain, a long imperceptible crumbling, had already begun, but its effect +was not visible in Cuba; there still was a Castilian arrogance burned +more brown, more vivid, by the Caribbean. + +A little late for the plate ships sailing in cloudy companies and +filling Havana with the swords of Mexico and Peru; but my mind and +inclinations were not heroic; I could dispense with Pizarro's soldiers, +fanciful with the ornaments of the Incas, for the quiet of walled +gardens, the hooped brocades of court dresses; all the transplanted +grace of the city and hour. Climate was greater than man, and the first +Cubeños, dead in the mines of Cobre, were being revenged for the +usurpation of their happiness and land; the negroes of the slave trade, +too, were repaying their chains to the last link of misery. But these +counter influences were not perceptible yet in the patios, just as the +French Revolution had still to scatter the polite pastorals only to +survive in the canvases of Boucher and Watteau. + +It was, in Havana as well as Seville, the farewell of true formality, +for after that it became only a form. No one, afterwards, was to bow +instinctively as he left a room or dance to the measures of Beethoven +and Mozart. A useless plant cut down by a rusty scythe! The elegance of +Cuba, however, changing into later Victorianism, was, in the time of de +Ricla, greatly enhanced by its surrounding, by the day before yesterday +when there had been only thatched bohios where now were patios of +marble. Those quiet spaces were sentient with all this, just as the +patios of the churches held the sibilant whisper of the sandals of the +Inquisition, an order already malodorous and expelled from the island by +Antonio Maria Bucarely, the following Captain-general. + +But even yet it would be possible, with the details carefully arranged, +to find an emotional situation in a patio undisturbed since the middle +eighteenth century; for the revenge of the Cubeños and of Africa, of the +red and the black slaves, was that, with the faint or full infusion of +their bloods into their conquerors, dwindled unintelligible desires and +dreamlike passions entered as well. A discoloration of the mind as +actual as the darkening of the skin! And I pictured an obscure impulse +buried in the personality of a sensitive and reserved man, such a trait +as, at moments of extreme pressure, would betray him into a hateful +savagery; or it might be better brought out by a galling secret +barbarity of taste. The Spain of Philip, primitive Africa, and a +virginal island race constrained into one body and spirit must be richly +dramatic. + +It was imperative to regard the patios in such a light, with a strong +infusion of reality, for, half apprehended, they produced that thin +tinkling note of sham romance; they evoked, for a ready susceptibility, +the impressions of opera bouffe ... a danger constantly present in my +thoughts. As it was, I should be accused again of avoiding the actual +and the difficult for an easy unreality; but there was at least this to +be said for what I had, in writing, laid back in point of time--no one +had charged me with an historical novel. + +There was another, perhaps safer, attitude toward the balconies and +patios of Havana: to regard them in an unrelieved mood of realism, to +show them livid with blue paint and echoing with shrill misery, typhoid +fever, and poverty. If I did that, automatically a number of serious +critical intellects would give me their withheld support, they would no +longer regard me as a bright cork floating thoughtlessly over the opaque +depths of life. Well, they could--they'd have to--go to the devil; for I +had my own honesty to serve, my own plot to tend--a plot, as I have +said, where, knowing the effort hopeless, I tried only to grow a flower +spray. If I could put on paper an apple tree rosy with blossom, someone +else might discuss the economy of the apples. + +Or, in Havana, of the oranges. In the meanwhile the patios gave me an +inexhaustible pleasure. Sometimes the walls were glazed with tiles and +the octagonal surface of the fountain held the reflected tracery of +bamboo, while a royal palm towered over the balusters of the roof and +hanging lamps were crowned with fretted metal. Another, with its flags +broken and the basin dry, was deserted except for the soundless +flame-like passage of chromatic lizards; still another was bare, with +solid deep arcades and shadows on the ground and a second gallery of +gracefully light arches. There was, in one, a lawn-parasol in +candy-colored stripes with low wicker chairs and gay cushions; on a +table some tall glasses elbowed a syphon, English gin, and a silver dish +of limes, and a blue-and-yellow macaw was secured to a black lacquer +stand. + + * * * * * + +That, evidently, was not characteristic of Havana, and yet the city +absorbed it, made it a part of a complex richness, a complexity as +brilliantly blended as a rainbow. At first I had been entranced by the +sudden colorful display, it had seemed to be in one marvellously high +key; but now I recognized that it was composed of the entire scale, and +that there were notes profoundly dark. I should have known that, for I +had been, when I was much younger, a painter, and I had learned that +surfaces which seemed to be in one tone were made up of a hundred. The +city, of course, was an accumulation of the men who had made it, the +women who had lived there; and it was possible that Havana had as +intense and varied a foundation as any place that had existed. + +Not in the sense, the historical importance of, for example, Athens; I +had already said that Havana was a city without history, which was true +in the cumulative, inter-human meaning of that term. But it had, within +its limits, on its island like a flower in air, an amazing and absorbing +past. In the beginning, where Spain was concerned, Cuba, a fabulous +land, had promised fabulous gold; but the empires of the Aztecs and +Peru, incalculably richer, and the fatal dream of eternal youth in +Florida, had robbed it of royal interest, of men, food, and ships. It +had settled back, lost to most concern beyond a perfunctory colonial +administration, into a region of agriculture, affected only indirectly +by, and affecting not at all, the universal upheaval elsewhere. Within +Havana itself, then, moulded by the burning sun, the cooling night +winds, and the severing water, a peculiarly essential human development +had taken place. And its history was, for this reason, elusive, most +difficult to grasp; hopelessly concealed from a mere examination of +bastions. + +One by one the colors of its fantastic design grew clearer to me; period +by period the streets and people became intelligible, until they reached +the middle-century era to which I was so susceptible. To arrive, with +the ingredients of a tropical Spain and the pirates of the world, at an +early Victorianism was a mystery which demanded a close investigation. +That air enveloped all the center of the city, its paseos and plazas +and buildings, and still influenced the social life. This, I finally +decided, came from the fact that the architectural spirit which +dominated Havana was of the period before Eastlake; or at least I was +not familiar with any structures erected in such a style, so lavishly +marble, since then. + +There was no absence of modernity in the wharfs and streets, but that +loud impetuous tide poured through the ways of a quieter water, and in +the side passages the sound diminished. Havana was a great port, but the +steam shipping along its waterfront was incongruous with the low +tranquil whiteness, the pseudo-classicism, of the buildings that held +along the bay. The latter particular, elaborated from my first +impression, carried the city back to the end of the eighteenth century +and the beginning of the nineteenth. I had no intention of examining the +dates of numerous structures, but the stamp of their time was on the +Ionic entablatures. Then women, as well, had copied in their dress the +symbol of the Greek column, of sculpture instead of painting, except +for the charming and illogical innovation of turbans; and they went +about in sandals and gowns falling straight from their looped breasts. +Such a figure, with her head bound in vermilion, must have been enticing +in the great shaded bare rooms. There must have been, too, an +extraordinary assemblage of negro pages and majordomos in ruby silks and +canary and velvet. + +The feminine silhouette changed remarkably in thirty years, from a +column to a cone, from the ultimate in flowing lines to a bouquet-like +rigidity; and the severity of furnishings, of incidentals, expanded in +queer elaborations. It was, notably, a period of prudery, of all which, +objectively, I disliked; while at the same time there had been the +undercurrent of license that always accompanied an oppressive hypocrisy. +This, I could see, was true of its age in Havana: men--the real +prudes--had been heavily whiskered at home with a repressed morality, +and betrayed in another quarter by heredity and the climate. Two periods +that, except for some beautiful books, had been steeped in an ugliness +from which the world had not recovered. Indeed, while it was now +fashionable to deride them, the present was, in some ways, perceptibly +worse: Literature was, perhaps, bolder in scope, but it showed hardly +more than a surprise at the sound of its comparative liberty of speech. +The art of painting had burst into frantic fragments that might or might +not later be assembled into meaning; the architecture had degenerated +into nothing more than skilful or stupid adaptation. + +In the large disasters that were sweeping the world, the mad confusion +of injustice and revolt, of contending privilege, the serene primness of +Havana, its starched formality of appearance, offered a priceless +quietude. It was, at once, static and mobile, a place of countless moods +that merged at the turning of a corner, the shifting of a glance from La +Punta to the circular bandstand at the foot of the Prado. Never +pedantic, it was a city more for the emotions than the intellect; +intellect, in its astigmatic conceit, had largely overlooked Havana; +and Havana had missed little enough. Its monuments and statues, where +they were complacently innocent of art, had been brought into harmony of +tone by the atmosphere vivid like the flambeau trees, the inconceivable +blueness of its sea. The colors of the houses, glaringly or palely +inappropriate, were melted and bound into inevitable rightness. Even the +cemetery, frosted with tombs like a monstrous iced cake, its shafts that +might have been the crystallized stalagmites of the caves of death, +resembled nothing more disturbing than the lacy pantalets of the time it +celebrated. It was the final accomplishment of mid-Victorian horror, +with its pit of mouldering bones and solemn ritualistic nonsense; yet +the thought of the ponderous gold and black catafalques rolling in +procession between the horizontal white slabs, of the winking +candles--all the ghastly appendages of religious undertaking--and the +clergy in purple and fine cambric, with amethyst rings on their fat or +their thin fingers, gave it the feeling of a remote mummery. + +The cemetery from which I escaped with relief and the café that I +entered with pleasure--again the Telegrafo--flowed together in the +city's general impression. I could see the statue of Marti, and, as I +looked, it changed into the statue of Isabel; then that, too, vanished. +The broad paved avenue, the flagged walks, became a gravelled plaza +about which the girls promenaded in one direction to pass constantly the +youths circling in the other. The vision flickered and died, and I went +on to lunch through the Havana of so many days smoothly packed into one. + +I felt that my first sense of instinctive familiarity had been +justified; yet, in the corridor of the Inglaterra, asked by a traveler +how to get to a restaurant, the Dos Hermanos, I was unable to reply; and +a third American, brushing me aside, gave him voluble instructions. It +ended by his being taken out and seated in a hack, while the other, in +angry execrable and fluent Spanish, told the driver where to proceed. +Whatever I had learned, it seemed, was of no practical value; my +multiple sensations were not reducible to the simplest demand. A woman +passed with a copy of an ultra popular novel, and this recalled the long +struggle of my early books for the smallest recognition. If that dark +frame of mind had fastened on me in the north, it would have burdened me +for a day; but in Havana, with the Marquis de Riscal and a Por +Larrañaga, I envied no mediocre novelist her stereotyped laurels. It was +impossible to get anywhere a better wine or a cigar that changed more +soothingly from the brown of fact to blue fancy. + + * * * * * + +The Cuban cigarettes, however, were too strong for pleasure; for, while +the preference for a strong cigar was admissible, cigarettes should be +mild. All those famous were. Strangely enough, good cigarettes had never +been smoked in the United States, a land with an overwhelming preference +for the cheap drugged tobacco called Virginia. No one would pay for a +pure Turkish leaf; with the exception of a few hotels and clubs it was +not procurable. There was a merchant on the Zulueta with a large +assortment of Cuban cigarettes, made in every conceivable shape and +paper, hebra and arroz and pectoral. They had tips of gilt or silver +paper, cork, straw, and colored silks, and were packed in enticing ways +and odd numbers. But, after trying their apparent variety, they all +seemed alike, as coarse and black in flavor as their tobacco. + +There were, of course, men who disagreed with me--though women never +liked a Cabañas or Henry Clay cigarette--and a connection of mine, a +judge, long imported from Cuba, through Novotny of New York, the +Honoradez tobacco for his cigarettes. He had been in Havana during the +Spanish occupation, and later; and, recalling him, I could see that he, +like myself, possessed an ineradicable fondness for it. In his case, +even, his memories might have affected his exterior, for he had a lean +darkness more appropriate to the Calzada del Cerro than to Chester +County. In summer particularly, with his immaculate linens, and the +brown cigarette casting a pungent line of smoke from his long sensitive +fingers, he was the image of a Spanish colonial gentleman. + +He had known Havana at a better time than now, when it was more +provincial, simpler; the hotels then were uncompromisingly locked at ten +in the evening, and if he returned later he was forced to call the negro +sleeping in the hall. I don't remember where he stayed--probably at the +Inglaterra. I was young and ignorant of Cuba when I saw him, with a +certain frequency, before he died; and I heard his talk about the Parque +Central with no greater interest than his discussions of salmon fishing, +of Sun and Planet reels and rods split and glued. I realized sharply +what I had missed, both in the way of detail--the detail most important +to a mental picture and always missing--and in intimate understanding of +Cuban affairs. For he had a tonic mind, rare in America, unsentimental +and courageous, and touched with a satirical quality disastrous to sham, +social, religious, or political. + +The cigarettes came to him in bright tin boxes of a hundred; and, after +his death, I bought seven from Novotny and smoked the contents almost by +way of memorial; for he was a personality of a type almost gone. Judges +of County Courts no longer wore immaculate high hats to the Bench, with +the vivid corner of a bandanna handkerchief visible in the formality of +their coat tails. + +The silk-tipped cigarettes were for women, but the silk was principally +a villainous carmine, a color fatal to the delicate charm of lips, and I +hoped that I should see none so thoughtless as to smoke them; while the +cigarettes all of tobacco were, frankly, impossible. Why, I couldn't +say; they simply wouldn't do. What women I saw smoking in public, in the +cafés and at the races, were not Cubans. They, on view, neither smoked +nor drank anything but refrescos. But a different feminine world, at +their doors or over the counters of bodegas, enjoyed long formidable +cigars. + +An amusing convention, a prejudice really; an act, in women, condemned +from the associations in men's minds, synonymous with that gaiety they +so painstakingly kept out of their homes. Yet, in spite of them, women +smoking had become a commonplace in the United States. In Havana men +were still paramount ... and Victorian. On the Obispo cigarette-cases +from Toledo, of steel inlaid with gold, were for sale; but I'd had +experience with Toledo work--the steel rusted. For years I'd bought +cigarette cases and holders before I finally learned that the former +were a nuisance and that the latter destroyed the flavor of tobacco. I +had owned cases in metal and leather and silk, patented and plain, and +one by one they were mislaid and given away. I had smoked with holders +of ivory and jet and tortoise shell, wood and amber and quills, and +they, too, had disappeared. All that could be said for them was that +they looked well and saved the fingers from nicotine stains. + +The Turkish cigarettes in Havana were unremarkable, yet, for the Cuban +youth, the sign of worldliness. They disdained the local brands, but +even Cuba was powerless to depreciate her cigars, the best of all +countries and all times. Here was an accomplishment, a possession, of +unique importance and excellence, for tobacco belonged to the +irreducible number of necessities. I had survived prohibition, with the +assistance of a forethought unhappily limited in execution; but if the +absurdity of my country abolished tobacco, I should be forced to move to +England; that would be too much. I could imagine, in this case, what +comments would appear in the press, reminding the virtuous and patriotic +that my books had always been chargeable with immorality and a blindness +to the splendor of our national ideals. + +In the past I had suffered a particularly wretched nervous breakdown--it +hit me like a bullet in the Piazza della Principe in Florence; and when +I had politely been sent to Switzerland to die, an English doctor at +Geneva cured me, for most practical purposes, by impatience, black +coffee, and Shepherd's Hotel cigarettes. I had no doubt that smoking +was, in many ways, a very deleterious habit; but life itself was a bad +habit condemned to the worst of ends. I was, as well, very apt to have +little in common with men who didn't smoke, or, I should say, with men +who had never smoked. They were, with practically no exceptions, +precisians, and ate, lived, for their health rather than for the tang of +delicate sauces and sensations. And a long while ago a wise and charming +woman had lamented to me the fact that all the generosity and +attractiveness she met in men belonged to what were colloquially called +drunks.... Her feeling was the same as mine. + +I wasn't defending drunkenness or attacking the statistics against +smokers; what I felt, I think, in such men was the presence of a +fallibility to which, at awkward or tragic moments, they yielded and so +became companions of sorrow and charity, the great temperers of +humanity. At any rate, I demanded enough liberty, at least, to fill my +system with smoke if I willed. The possibility that my act might hurt +someone else failed to excite me--why should I bother with him when I +wasn't concerned about myself! There was too much officious paternalism +in the air, too many admonitions and not enough lightness of heart--of +tobacco heart if necessary. + +In addition, I wasn't sure that I wanted to be perfectly sanitary in +mind and body, any more than I was certain of the complete desirability +of a perfected world, of heaven. At once, there, my lifelong occupation +would be gone--novelists never stopped to think what would happen to +them if all the reforms for which they shouted should go into effect; +and I had a disturbing idea that a great deal of my pleasure in life +came from feelings not always admissible in, shall I say, magazines of a +general character. A clean mind and a pure heart were not without +chilling suggestions of emotional sterility. Since men had hopelessly +and forever departed from the decency of simple animals, I wanted to +enjoy the silken and tulle husks that remained. If there was a sedative +in cigars, an illusion in a Daiquiri cocktail, I proposed to enjoy it +at the expense of a problematic month or year more of life always open +to the little accidents of pneumonia or spoiled milk or motors. + + * * * * * + +What might be called the minor pleasures of life, though in their bulk +were vastly more important than the great moments, Havana had carried to +a high state of perfection; yet with, where I was concerned, an +exception not in favor of the theatre. I went, as I had determined, to +whatever offered, swept along by the anticipation of Spanish dancing and +music: the first was immeasurably the best in existence, and I liked the +harsh measures of Spanish melody, both the native songs of the +countryside and the sophisticated arrangements by Valverde. A great many +skilful writers had described the dancing, and their accounts were well +enough, but, politely, they all lacked the fundamental brutality of the +jota and malagueña, just as the foreign operatic variations on Spanish +themes were reminted in a smooth and debased universal coin. + +I purchased a ridiculously flimsy scrap of paper, which, I was assured, +made me the possessor of a grille principal at the Pairet Theatre--a +box, as huge as it was bare, within the stage. I could see, under the +hood, the long dramatic hand of the prompter waving to the droning +monotony of his voice through the stupidest performance I remembered. It +was, by turn, a comedy, a farce, a pantomime, and a comic opera, and a +complete illustration of the evils of departing from national tradition +and genius--a dreary attempt at the fusion of Vienna and New York, +planned, obviously, for a cosmopolitan public superior to the rude +familiar strains of gypsies. + +At intervals a chorus of young women, whose shrill excitement belied +their patent solidity, made an incongruous appearance and declamation; +they grouped themselves in feeble designs, held for a moment of +scattered applause, and went off with a labored lightness that +threatened even their ankles. This was bad, but a revista--I could +think of nothing else to call it--at the Marti was, because it was so +much better, worse. There I had an ordinary palco, enclosed by a railing +from the promenade and elevated above the body of an audience composed +of every possible shade from fairest noon to unrelieved midnight. The +evening was divided into two performances, for the second of which, +Arco-Iris, a largely increased price was demanded. This was, again, +Vienna and Broadway, but with, in addition, an elaboration of color and +lighting ultra-modern in intent. + +I had seen the same effort ten years before in Paris, and the failure +was as marked in Spanish as in French. Mr. Ziegfield, assisted by the +glittering beauty of the girls he was able to secure, had made such +spectacles brilliantly and inimitably his own. The Latins knew nothing, +really, about legs: they showed them with what was no more than a +perfunctory bravado, while it was a peculiarity of shoulders--the art of +which they so daringly comprehended--that their effect was lost in +mass. The display, the extravagant settings and costumes, of Arco-Iris, +were, throughout, mechanical; the coryphées were painfully aware of +their dazzlements; and an Andalusian number, looked forward to with +weary eagerness, had been deprived of every rude and vigorous suggestion +of its origin. + +When I returned to the Inglaterra I demanded of a clerk where I could +find a vulgar performance of, for instance, the habanera, but he shook +his head doubtfully. At intervals, he admitted, Spanish dancers came to +the National Theatre; but--his manner brightened--Caruso was expected in +May. I had no intention of staying in Havana through May; and, had I +been there, I'd have avoided Caruso ... a singer murdered by the +Victrola. Already the seats for his concerts were a subject for +speculation, and it was clear that they would reach a gigantic price, +between forty and sixty dollars for a single place in the orchestra. In +this depressing manner Havana made it evident that it was a city both +fashionable and rich. + +There had been a time, too, I was informed, when all the uncensored +moving pictures of the world found a home in Cuba; pictures where +embraces were not limited to a meagre number of feet, nor layettes, the +entire ramifications of procreation, prohibited. But these were gone +from the general view. The films, though, had not been destroyed, and +for some hundreds of dollars a private performance might be arranged. +But this I declined. The moving picture industry had been brought +entirely from America, the theatres plastered with Douglas Fairbanks' +set grin, William Farnum's pasty heroics, and Mary Pickford's invaluable +aspect of innocence. Never, in the time I was in Cuba, did I see a +Spanish actor or film announced; although a picture, appropriate to +Lent, of the Passion, hinted at a different spirit. + +I became, then, discouraged by the formal entertainments. As usual, I +was too late; the process of improvement had everywhere marched slightly +ahead of me, substituting for the genuine note a borrowed false +emphasis. To-morrow I should hear the Salvation Army bawling in Obispo +Street. In a state of indifference I went to Carmelo, a dancing pavilion +with an American cabaret, and drifted to the table where the singing and +dancing profession were having their inevitable sandwiches and beer. A +metallic young person with brass hair, a tin voice, and a leaden mind, +conversed with me in the special social accent of her kind, ready in +advance with a withering retort for any licentious proposals. Beside her +sat a Mexican with an easy courtesy and an enigmatic past. He was, I +gathered, the son of an official who, in one of the exterminating +changes of government, had escaped over a wall in his pearl studs and +dinner coat but little else. + +I liked everything about him but his indulgence for soda blondes; yet in +the serious conversation we at once opened--connected with a projected +trip of mine to the City of Mexico--we forgot the girl until, +exasperated by our neglect, she lost some of her manner in an inane +exclamation made, she announced, for the sake of Christ. Her companion +immediately returned to his engagement, and I watched the Americans more +or less proficient in that dance the name of which had been borrowed +from a woman's undergarment. It had begun as a chemise, but what it +would end in was problematic. + +Was it a healthy rebellion against the prudery of repression or the +adventitious excitation of imminent impotence? Whatever had brought it +about, it was stupid, an insensate jiggling of the body without +frankness or grace. I hadn't yet seen the Cuban rumba, with its black +grotesque negrito and sensual mulata; but I was confident that if a +rumba were started at Carmelo, the shimmy would resemble the spasmodic +vibrations of a frigid St. Vitus dance. The men and women doing it, +galvanized by drink and the distance from their responsibilities, +animated by the Cuban air, were prodigiously abandoned. They were, +mostly, commercial gentlemen and stiff brokers investigating sugar +securities, or the genial obese presidents and managers of steamship +companies. The presidents, the managers and brokers, were invariably +accompanied by their wives, who, for the most part, endeavored to +re-create the illusions and fervors of earlier days; but heaven knew +from where came the women for whom the representatives of Yankee +merchandise were responsible. + +Their origins were as mysterious as their age--strange feminine +derelicts stranded by temperament and mischance, caught in the +destructive web of the tropics. The dresses they wore were either +creations or makeshifts, but their urbanity was as solidly enamelled as +their hair was waved or marcelled. There was still another variety--I +had seen them before at expensive fishing camps--tightly skirted, +permanently yellow-haired, with stony faces and superfine diamonds. +Drunk or sober, their calmness was never changed by so much as a +flicker; they caught sail fish in the Gulf Stream, danced, ate, talked, +and now, certainly, were flying, with the same hard imperturbability and +display, in gold mesh bags, of their unlimited crisp money in high +denominations--the granite women on the wall of the Gallego Club. + + * * * * * + +My interest, however, in the American in Havana had vanished, my +position in life, avoidance rather than protest, and I surrendered him +to the hospitality of Cuba and the gambling concessions. I wanted, from +then on, only the local scene: there were cities where the foreigners, +the travelers, made an inseparable part of the whole, but this was not +true of Havana; it remained, in spite of the alien clamor, singularly +undisturbed, intact, in essence. But a few streets, a plaza or two, knew +the sound of English, and beyond these the voices, the stores, the +preoccupations, were without any recognition of other people or needs. I +began to wander farther from the cafés of the Parque Central, the open +familiarity of the sea, and found myself in situations where, in my lack +of Spanish, I was limited to the simplest, most plastic, desires. + +It was in this manner that I found ear-rings which I secured with a +sense of treasure--they were in the shop of a woman who sold embroidered +linen from Madeira and the Canary Islands, lying haphazard in the lid of +a paste-board box. The patio opened directly from the front room, the +store, an informal assemblage of dull white folded cloths and frothy +underclothes, and outside a very large family indeed was eating the noon +breakfast while a pinkly naked pointer dog lay on the cool tiles with +his feet extended stiffly upward. + +I was paying for some towels, and regretting--in a singular composite of +inappropriate words and banal smiles--the interruption of the meal, when +I saw the ear-rings; and immediately, in the face of all the warning and +advice wasted on me, I exclaimed that I wanted them. At this they were +laid on the counter, a reasonable price murmured, and the transaction +was over. I gathered that they had been left for sale by some member of +an old Cuban house, perhaps by a Baeza y Carvajal or Nuñez: they were of +pale hand-carved and drawn gold, aged gold as yellow as a lemon--one +pair of open circles an inch in diameter, with seed pearls; the other +the shape of small delicate leaves, with pearls and topazes. + +A store unmarked in exterior but surprising within attracted me by some +Chinese-Spanish shawls, mantones, in a dusty show-case; and I discovered +a short, heavily-built Spaniard stringing the hair of a wig against a +background of scintillating costumes for the carnivals, balls, and +masques. We were unable to understand each other, his wife wrinkled her +forehead in desperation over my Spanish; and then, gesticulating +violently, she vanished to reappear with a neighbor, a woman who seemed +to have suffered all the personal misfortunes reserved for school +teachers, who made intelligible a small part of what we said. + +They had, it developed, other shawls, shawls worth my attention; one, in +particular, finer even than any of Maria Marco's. This engaged me at +once, for Maria Marco was the prima donna of a Madrid company which had +sung in the United States two years before, and which had given me, +perhaps, as great pleasure as anything I had seen on the stage. But not +so much for the singing--it had been the dancer, Doloretes, who +captivated me, a woman as brilliant as the orange-red shawl draped +before me over a chair, and suddenly, tragically, dead in New York. + +The wig-maker had had charge of the wardrobe of The Land of Joy, and he +assured me again that not Maria Marco.... Abruptly there was spread the +sinuous fringed expanse of a blazing green shawl heavily embroidered in +white flowers. I had never encountered a clearer, more intense green or +a whiter white; and, before I had recovered from the delightful shock of +that, a second shawl of zenith blue was flung beside it. The body of the +crêpe-de-chine, the weight of its embroidery, the beautiful knotting of +the short fringe--long fringe was an error--and their sheer loveliness, +made them more desirable than jewels; and, prepared to buy them at once +at the price of whatever fiction anyone wanted me to write and would pay +absurdly for, I was lifting their heavy folds when a third mantone was +produced burning with all the gorgeous and violent colors imaginable. + +It was, I suppose, magenta--a magenta of a depth and wickedness +impossible for any but Eastern dye; the magenta of a great blossom of +hell--and it was embroidered with flowers like peonies, four spans +across, in a rose that was vermilion, a vermilion that was scarlet; and +the calyxes were orange and gamboge, emerald and peacock blue and +yellow. There were, too, golden roses, already heavy and drooping with +scent in the bud, small primitive blossoms with red hearts, dark green +leaves, and dense maroon coronals starred in white. The dripping fringe +was tied in four different designs.... + +I asked its price at once, in order to dispose of what couldn't help +being painful in the extreme, and he told me with an admirable +appearance of ease and inconsequence. The shop, that had been only half +lighted by the door, was now tumultuous with color, with China and +Andalusia; the shawl was the Orient and Spain, brutal in its superbness +and as exasperating, as audible, as castanets. However I might act, +hesitate, visibly, I knew that I'd buy it--in an instant it had become +as imperative to me as a consuming vice. It belonged, rightfully, to the +mistress of a Zuluoga or of a Portuguese king, to someone for whom money +was not even an incident; I couldn't afford it even if I wove it into a +story with a trace, a glimmer, of its splendor; but the next day the +shawl was in my room. + +Oppressed by a sense of monetary insanity not unfamiliar to me--I was +very apt to buy an Airedale terrier or a consol table with the sum +carefully gathered for an absolute necessity--I set about turning my new +possession into paragraphs and chapters; and it occurred to me that it +had a justified place in the Havana story I had already, mentally, +begun. The polite young men of the time, the decorative youth of all +times, were apt to have collectively a passion for a fascinating or +celebrated actress; and I saw that such a person--Doloretes--would be +important to my plan. Yes, my young figure and his fellows would go +nightly to see her dance. + +Afterward, crowded about a marble-topped table and helados, they would +discuss her every point with fervent admiration. Yet she would be too +vivid, too special, to take the foreground--I had wanted no paramount +women in the first place--and I decided ... to kill her almost at once, +to have her as a memory. My boy, most certainly, would find her shawl +exactly as I had; and, bringing it to his room, solemnly exhibit it to +his circle. More than that, I realized, it had given me a title, The +Bright Shawl. I instantly determined to cast the story in the form of a +memory told me by an old man of his youth; and that time, torn by +unhappiness, indecision, and hopeless aspirations, should be made, in +remembrance, brilliant and desirable, wrapped in the bright shawl which +transformed the lost past. + +A remarkably good story, I thought enthusiastically; and I fell to +speculating if George Lorimer would print it. He would give it, I told +myself, a wide margin of chance; but, in writing, uncomfortable +necessities often turned up in the course of narrative--I could leave +them out, and damn myself, or keep them and, maybe, damn the story in +the sense of its making possible my writing at all. Not that Mr. Lorimer +personally had any regard for emasculated chapters, but he was addressed +primarily to another integrity than mine; our purposes were not +invariably coincident. A fact which he, with his energetic candor +scoring pretentiousness, had made clear in his generous recognition of +where our paths met. + + * * * * * + +What was noticeable in The Bright Shawl was that I hadn't gone out for +material, but it had come to me, scene by scene, emotion by emotion. I +had never been able deliberately to set about collecting the facts for a +proposed story; I could never tell what impulse, need, would be strong +enough to overcome the laborious effort demanded for its realization in +words. For this reason I was free to see what I chose without reference +to any ulterior purpose; and when, on a Sunday morning with the heat +tempered by a breeze lingering from the night, I started for the +cock-fighting at the suburb of Jesus del Monte, I was completely at +ease. I had decided in favor of the cock-pit both because it was +essentially Cuban and because I had always detested chickens, +particularly roosters. + +It was a thing of total indifference to me what--with steel spurs or +without--roosters did to each other. Alive, they were a constant galling +caricature, a crude illuminative projection, of men at their ridiculous +worst. Their feathered tails, their crowing, their propensity to search +for bits in the dung, their sheer roosterness, together with the sly +hypocrisy of hens, had always annoyed me individually. And, rather than +not, I looked forward to seeing them victimized by their own belligerent +conceit. + +I had to leave my cab for an informal way behind some buildings and +across grass, and, as I approached a false stucco façade, a determined +ringing crowing filled the air. Beyond the arched entrance there was an +area of pavement with tables and a limited café service; and, seated +near, was a grave individual with a shovel beard and a thoroughly +irritated rooster upside down in his lap. He was cementing a natural +spur over one that had been injured, and drinking, now and again, from a +cup of coffee at his hand. Beyond was the pit, like, as much as +anything, a tall circular corn-crib, painted white, with a cupola. There +was place for about three hundred, with box-like seats whose low hinged +doors opened directly on the sawdust of the arena, more casual chairs, +and--as at the pelota--space for standing on the middle tiers. There was +a box above the entrance, and another opposite, and this an enormous +woman in white embroidery and carpet slippers, and I occupied. + +A main had just been finished, and there was a temporary lull in the +noise inseparable, in Cuba, from sport. The sawdust was being freshly +sprinkled when a negro entered the ring with an animated bag; and, +noting the elaborate polished brass scales that hung from the center of +the roof, I gathered that the birds were to be weighed. The second was +produced, tightly bagged, by a highly respectable-appearing man of +unimpeachable whiteness and side whiskers, and the roosters were left to +dangle from the yard. It was to be a battle al peso, by weight and equal +spurs; the first condition satisfied, the spurs were measured, by a +graduated set of pewter tallies; and the uproar was released. + +It was deafening--a solid shouting of bets offered in a voice of fury, +together with acceptances, repudiations, personalities, and the frenzied +waving in air of handfuls of money. The two men with the roosters +advanced toward each other and wooden lines laid in the pit, prodding +and otherwise increasing the natural ill humor of their birds, and held +the shorn heads close for a vicious preliminary peck. The roosters' +legs, shaved to an indecent crimson, were bare of hold, every +superficial feather had been clipped; and when they hit the sawdust +there was a clash as of metal. The methods of their backers were +different--the negro, in one of the local coat-like shirts with a +multiplicity of useless pockets and plaits, squatted on his heels, +impassive, fateful, and African; but the man with the orthodox +side-whiskers became at once the victim of a hoarse whispering +excitement. As the other's bird reeled drunkenly about--they were badly +matched and the main no affair at all--his pallid face flushed and he +suggested new atrocities to his champion. + +This, it seemed to me, was totally unnecessary, for a wickeder rooster I +was convinced never lived. He was deliberate in his tactics, unwilling +to be robbed of his pleasure by a chance coup de grace, and confined +himself to the beak. Soon his opponent leaned helplessly against the +wall of the pit, while the victor methodically pecked him to death in +small bloody pieces. The negro's face, couched on a charcoal-black palm, +was as immobile as green bronze; but the white was positively epileptic +with triumph. And, when the defeated bird sank in a spoiled dead knot, +he picked his up and, with expressions of endearment, sucked clear its +angry eyes. The preliminaries were again gone through with, and two +large handsome roosters were confronted by each other. As the surging +clamor beat about them I saw that one was undecided in his opinion of +what promised. He flapped his wings doubtfully; and then, as the other +made a short rush forward, he turned and ran as fast as his shorn legs +could carry him. This, considering the contracted round space of his +course, was very fast indeed; the second, pursuing him with the utmost +energy, was unable to get closer than a fleet dab at the stripped tail. +It was a flight not without a desperate humor; but this, it was clear, +was appreciated by no one besides me. + +The execrations, the screams, that followed the retreating bird were +beyond belief; the entire banked audience was swept by a passion that +left some individuals speechlessly lifting impotent fists. Unaffected by +this, the rooster, slightly leaned toward the center of gravity, went +around and around the pit with an unflagging speed that should have +commanded an independent admiration for itself. Occasionally the +pursuer, in a feat of intelligence, cut directly across the sawdust, and +a collision threatened ... but it never quite arrived. I lost interest +in the hurled curses, the hats twisted in excesses of rage, in +everything but the duration of the running rooster. It was remarkable; +he had settled down to putting all he had of strength and reserve into +his single purpose. + +He had no will to fight, and, personally understanding and sympathizing +with him completely, I hoped his wish would be respected: while he had +provided no main, he had faithfully substituted a most unlooked-for and +thrilling race; making for all time and nations and breeds of chickens a +record for a thousand times around a cock-pit. In some places he would, +perhaps, have been released, returned to the eminence of a barn-yard; +but not in Cuba. When it had been thoroughly demonstrated that he was +uncatchable by his rival, he was incontinently seized and both roosters +were carried, panting and bald-eyed, to a subsidiary ring beyond, not +half the size of the principal pit, where running, or any discretion, +was an impossibility. + +I saw him go with regret; he deserved a greater consideration, and I +hoped that, metaphorically in a corner, he would turn and be victorious. +A new individual, a small brown man in soiled linen, had entered the +box, and he at once, in a slow, painful, but intelligible English, +opened a conversation with me. He had, he said, a consuming admiration +for Americans, and as an earnest of his good will he proposed to let me +in on what, in the North, was called a good thing. It was no less than +the cautious information that in the next fight a dark chicken, a +chicken carrying a betting end as long as the Prado, had been entered by +President Menocal's brother. I could, with a wave of the hand, make a +small fortune: for himself, he was unfortunate--he possessed but eleven +dollars and odd pesetas. + + * * * * * + +I made some non-committal remark and turned a shoulder on his +friendliness for Americans, conscious of a distinct annoyance at having +been mistaken for, well--a tourist. There was no inherent inferiority in +that transient state of being; but it was a characteristic of the +settlers of any given place--settlers of at least forty-eight +hours--that they should regard with tolerant amusement the new and the +uninformed. He did, I thought, my clothes, my cigar, my whole air of +sophisticated comprehension, an injustice; he should have recognized +that I was not an individual to accept readily public confidential +information. + +The birds were brought in and weighed, and the person in the box with me +and the billowing white embroidery and carpet slippers excitedly +indicated a lean cream-colored rooster with brown points. I fancied the +other more, and thought something of betting on him when the main +began--the brown bird of the brother of Menocal flashed forward, +launched himself into the air with a clash, and drove both spurs +through the head before him. It had occupied something more than five +but less than ten seconds. Too bad, a deferential voice murmured in my +ear, that I hadn't taken advantage of such an excellent opportunity to +get the better of all the too-wise ones. With but eleven dollars and +some silver he had been cramped.... My interest in cock-fighting faded +before an annoyance that drove me away from the Puente de Agua Dulce, +calculating how much, at the odds I missed, I should have gained. + +Money won at sheer gambling, at games of chance which involved no +personal skill or effort, always seemed hardly short of miraculous to +me--magical sums produced at the waving of a hand. Their possession gave +me a disproportionate pleasure and glow of well being; they seemed to be +the mark of a special favor; the visible gesture, the approbation, of +fortune and chance. I had had a lucky night at the Kursaal in Geneva, +playing baccarat, and the changier, a silver chain about his neck, had +reconverted my bowl of chips into heaped gold and treasury paper. But +with that exception, and for some small amounts, I was unlucky. The +occasion just past was an illustration--I was never really disastrously +overtaken, but equally I never reached sensational heights. + +There were, certainly, numerous places in Havana for roulette, and +always the American Club for auction bridge and poker; but I found my +way to none of these: there were men who could hear the soundless turn +of a wheel, soundless but for the fillip of the pith ball on the wood +and metal, through the streets and walls of a city; and there were +others who, merely pausing in a hotel or club corridor, would +immediately form about them all the adjuncts of poker--the cards, the +blue and yellow and white chips, the bank president, the shifty polite +individual with pink silk sleeves and a rippling shuffle, the rich +youth.... But, indebted, I suppose, to my spectacled benevolent +appearance, such occasions let me pass unnotified. + +I made, however, some effort to find a billiard academy, with the hope +of seeing the professional games and their audiences built up on the +four sides of the tables, common to the Continent; but if there were any +in Havana, they, too, eluded me. I hoped to see bearded champions +embrace each other after chalking their cues and then drive the ivory +balls in red and white angles across the deep green or nurse them about +the intersections of the balk lines. It was very different in America, +where the billiard parlors were a part of hotel life--great rooms with +the level green of the tables fogged in smoke through which the lights +resembled the diminished moons of Saturn; the audience, entirely +masculine, seated on the high chairs about the walls. + +The types of women lingering outside, waiting patiently on convenient +benches, were far different from the Latins. Occasionally a youth would +put up his cue, dust the chalk from his fingers, assume his accurately +fitted coat, his soft brown hat, and go out to some girl with whom he +would plunge into a subdued council marked by a note of expostulation. +Strange youth and unpredictable girl! A term of endearment would escape, +there'd be a quick clinging of hands; and, from an imitation gold purse, +some money would be transferred to an engulfing pocket. + +But the men of Havana, it seemed, were quite contented to talk, to sit +in a café over refrescos or in a parque with nothing at all but cigars, +and discuss eternally, with a passionate interest, the details of their +politics and city. Their contact with life at every point was vivid and, +in expression anyhow, forceful; they argued in a positive tone to which +compromise, agreement, appeared hopelessly lost; and there was in the +background the possibility of death by quarreling. That, in itself, gave +their whole bearing a difference from the conduct of a land where a +drubbing with fists was the worst evil to be ordinarily expected. They +looked with contempt on a blow, the retaliation of stevedores, and we +regarded with disgust a concealed weapon. But where we might still, in +simpler places, defend what was locally called purity with pistols, no +one, to-day, took his politics seriously. + +Politics, in the United States, was looked on with cynical indifference, +where it was not a profession, but in Cuba it was invariably the cause +of fiery oratory and high tempers. This had been true of America; even +in my own memory, in the Virginia Highlands, shotguns had been out for a +difference of principals; but patriotism of that stamp had fallen away +before civilization, as it was optimistically termed--the end finally +brought about by prohibition. Discussion in general, that rose in such +volume on the Cuban night, had little part farther north; my own +friends, the men specially, almost never said anything except as a +direct statement; we never met to talk. + +They had a particular, a concrete, interest in living, but no general. +Further than that, there was almost no individuality of opinion; the +subjects which made good conversation were definitely and arbitrarily +settled, closed. To open them, to challenge public opinion, was not to +invite argument, but to send men away to the greater safety, the +solidity, of the herd. A good story, the humor of the latrine, was a +better key to respectability than an honest doubt. For those reasons I +wanted to join the arguments, the orations really, flooding the circles +of green-painted iron chairs on the Havana plazas; and, solitary, I +passed envying the ingenuous welding dissent. + +I imagined myself suddenly and completely changed into a Cuban, slight +and dark, in white linen, with my hat, a stiff English straw, carefully +laid beside me on a ledge of the paving, smoking a cigar of rough shape +but excellent tobacco. Not rich, certainly, but securely placed in life! +I was, in fancy, the proprietor of a small yet thoroughly responsible +oculist's establishment on Neptuno Street. Since I was no longer young, +and a member of organized society, with a patron or two from the Prado, +I was conservative, but little heated by patriotism; and in favor, +rather than not, of annexation to the United States. My private view was +that Cuba hadn't been conspicuously worse off under Spain than +liberated. The politics of the present, when office-seekers descended +to the ñañigos.... Here was the substance of violent argument and +recriminations; the voices, the ideals, of young men beat on me in a +high indignant storm; the names of Cuban patriots, martyred students, +and Spanish butchers were shouted in my ears. Sacred blood flowed again +in retrospect, which should never be allowed to sink infertile; but when +the words Free Cuba were pronounced I waved my cigar with hopeless +derision. + + * * * * * + +How significant it was, I thought, that, in imagination, I had pictured +myself at fifty. I saw the Havana oculist clearly; his name, by all +means, was Rogelio, Rogelio Mola, and he had a heavy grey moustache +across his lean brown face which gave him an air of gravity that largely +masked the humor, the satire, in his quick black eyes: Spanish eyes with +no perceptible trace of the soft iris of Africa. It was past one o'clock +when his tertulia scattered, and I accompanied him toward his +home--walking to get rid of the stiffness of long sitting--over +Dragones Street, in the direction of Vedado. Not yet, never now, would +he have a house in Vedado itself; that was reserved for the bankers, +planters, and Americans; but he was nicely situated in a new white +dwelling of the approved style, overlooking a common that in turn +commanded the sea. + +The approved style was white plaster, a story and a half high, with an +impressive portico--a portico, attached to a small private residence, +that would have done honor to a capitol building. There was but little +ground, principally extended in a lawn across the front, and banked, +against the house, with the spotted leaves of croton plants, purple +climbing Fausto, and Mar-Pacifico flowers deeply crimson. He had, it was +plain from his walk, a touch of rheumatism, of sciatica really, and he +halted in the Plaza de Dragones to press his thin hand to a leg and +curse, by the Sacred Lady of Caridad, the old age overtaking him. + +That, it seemed to me, would not carry his mind toward his dwelling, his +wife grown inordinately fat, and their three daughters, all long ago +asleep; no, it would send his thoughts backward, over the way he had +come--not from the Parque Central, but from youth. He would brush his +moustache reminiscently, I was confident, at a train of gallant +memories, chiefly of New York, where, on the pier of a fruit importing +house, he had spent some tremendous months. That experience had given +him an advantage, an authority, in everything that touched the great +republic, and lent his politics an additional sagacity, his cynicism an +edge difficult to turn. He had intended to stay in America, a journey to +Havana was to have been but a temporary affair; but there he had +attached himself to a wife, the daughter of a grinder of lenses.... And +here he was at fifty, going back, after listening to a lot of nonsense +in the Parque, to his family--in the general direction, too, of the +cemetery. + +It was sad, and, for a moment, there was a debate, a conflict, in his +mind: though his age was beyond denial, and his hip troubled him--but +only after he spent an evening on the cold iron chair of a plaza--he +showed no signs of having passed the middle of his life. The grey hair +was distinguished; Madame Nazabal, who was a Frenchwoman, had assured +him of that. The handsome girl in El Corazón de Jesus, the Vedado bakery +where English was spoken, flushed when their hands accidentally met over +the counter. But this mood, his courage, was fictitious; it sank and +left him limping palpably, with an oppressed heart. He was, simply, an +old fool, he told himself, vindicating the humorous comprehension of his +gaze. + +If he wasn't careful, the young men of his establishment, over whom he +kept a strict parent-like discipline, would laugh at him behind his +back. They were inclined to be wild as it was, and he suspected them of +going to the carnival balls, the danzons, in the opera house. God knew +that he had seen them in the company of no better than the girls from +the cigar factories. When he was younger--young--that dangerous company +had given a dance on the last Thursday of every month, except when it +fell in Lent, and he had held his place there with the most agile among +them, once even pressing an argument with a man who was reputed to have +been an espada of Castile. A knife had grazed his throat and slit the +left shoulder of his coat through to the skin; the mark remained, a +livid welt under his collar, but the assailant had vanished before he +could kill him. All memory of the girl had gone; but she was beautiful, +he was certain of that, or else why should he have noticed her? + +The girls of those days had a--a quality, a manner, lacking in the +present. Their hearts had been warmer, they were less mercenary. Rogelio +Mola detested mercenary women. Now, as far as he could make out, nothing +was possible but rounds of the expensive cafés: the fact was, the girls +only wanted to be taken to the Dos Hermanos, or the Little Club, where +the Americans could see them, and, perhaps.... Then, in about eighteen +eighty, there was some fidelity, some honor, some generosity. There was +romance--that had disappeared more utterly than anything else: he was +more than a little vague in meaning; his romance was an indefinite +state; the glow, in reality, of his own youth. + +At that time, in such discussions as had passed this evening, he had +been on the side of revolution, of expeditions to the Trocha, secret +associations; but simply because his blood was hot, his age appropriate +to revolt. He had been, without doubt, difficult; his elders had +predicted a cell in Cabañas as an ante-room, a sort of immediate +purgatory, to hell. He raised expressive shoulders slightly at the +thought of the holy legends: a business for women and priests. The +Church, temporarily, had had some rare pasturage; but the fathers were a +shade too greedy; they had gobbled up so much that it was necessary to +drive them out. Women and priests, priests and women! The latter had +suffered no diminution of their privileges; they had too much for which +the young men, for all their self-opinion, got nothing or next to +nothing in return. Rogelio Mola wondered if the old houses of pleasure +were unchanged. + +He had not thought of them for years, and he was contemptuous of men of +his age who did, still, consider them. Not that he was puritanical and +condemned all such institutions, though he had a strong suspicion that +they had deteriorated. For the youth of his day they had been very +largely places of meeting and conspiracy, where traditionally the +sentiment supported attacks on authority. Yet a girl from Lima had +betrayed Marío Turafa, his friend, in hiding, to the Spanish Government. +It was said that Marío had been deported, perhaps to the very Peru from +which came his Delilah, but it was more probable that he had been shot. +There had been one whom he, Rogelio, had liked.... Her name came back to +him, Ana, and the fact that she sang quite beautifully ... nothing else. +The words of a song formed from the melody for a moment audible among +his memories: + + "Clavales, clavales + de mi Andalucía! + Mujeres, mujeres-- + de la Patria mia!" + +It was evident from this that she had come from Andalusia. Thirty years +ago! He wished her the best of luck. Hadn't they been young together, +with at least the innocence of true affection? His thoughts turned +guiltily to his wife, to his daughters white like flowers of the Copa de +Nieva. The twinge in his leg resembled a hot wire; and resolutely he +marshalled his attention forward. How dark, how depressing, certain +reaches of Havana were, and he pictured the cemetery ghostly, icy, in +the night; women, with their confessional, their faith in the +forgiveness of sins, were fortunate. Yet no one must say of him that he +was a coward, that, at the last, he had been borne into oblivion on the +oil of the priests he had disregarded in life. Deep under his +skepticism, however, a low inextinguishable hereditary flame of hope +burned, independent of his intelligence. + + * * * * * + +My mind returned once more to Rogelio Mola as I was standing outside an +impassive door, waiting for admittance, not far from the Arsenal. It +was the entrance to what he had called a house of pleasure, and, long +established in Havana, unknown to America, one that he might easily have +frequented in the reprehensible period of youth. I had adequate abstract +reasons for my presence, but Rogelio, correctly insistent on a saving +generosity of emotion, had needed no ponderous explanation. Indeed, I +was there in his interest, since, after all, I had imagined him; I +wanted very much to have completely the material of his setting, of the +surrounding from which his friend, betrayed by the Peru that had +centuries before despoiled Cuba, had been led out to be, doubtless, +shot. Not that, pressingly, I felt the need for an excuse, or that I was +essentially making a descent. The very bitterness, the revilement in +solemn terms, of my early instructions, had, reacting, defeated itself. + +What was before me, in a world where the pure and the impure were +inexplicably mixed in one flesh, was inevitable; its ugliness lay not +with it, but in a society which, constantly tearing it down, as +constantly projected again the penalty, the shadow, of a perfunctory and +material estate. In addition, as long as the age of marriage, of love, +was so tragically different in society and in nature, an informal +interlude was unavoidable. But I had no need to apologize for anything. +I had been spared the dreary and impertinent duty of improving the +world; the whole discharge of my responsibility was contained in the +imperative obligation to see with relative truth, to put down the colors +and scents and emotions of existence. What, pretentiously, was called +the moral must shift for itself; that depended on what, beneath +consciousness, I was--the justice and sympathy, the comprehension, of my +being. + +A slide opened mysteriously on the blank darkness before me, a bolt was +drawn; and immediately I had left the street for a little entresol +filled with lamplight, the breath of scented powder, and the notes of a +piano played by a girl whose cigarette burned furiously on the scarred +ebonized top of the instrument. She half turned, scanning me +indifferently, and went on with her unelaborate music. The woman who had +admitted me, a figure whose instant scrutiny resembled the unsparing +accuracy of a photograph by flashlight, after a polite greeting, ignored +me absolutely, and I was left to follow my fancy. + +This led to the patio, larger and more entrancing than any I had before +seen; it was paved in blocks of marble, and the white walls, warmly and +fully illuminated, made a sharp contrast with the night, the sky and +stars, above. There was a tree growing at one side; what it was I didn't +know, but it hung large intensely green leaves into the light before +climbing to obscurity. A great many people, it seemed to me, were +present; and, as I found a seat on an ornamental iron bench, the +formality of a civil greeting was scrupulously observed. The company +was, to every outer regard, decorous to the point of stiffness. +Opposite, two officers of the Spanish navy, in immaculate white with +gilt epaulettes, were drinking naranjadas and conversing with two girls +who nodded in appropriate sympathy. Farther on, a Cuban exquisite, his +hands, in spite of the heat, cased in lavender grey gloves, was staring +fixedly at the shining toes of his shoes. Others--yes, Rogelio in his +youth--their hair faultlessly glossy, were more animated; their gestures +and voices rose irrepressibly and sank in confidences to ears close +beside them. + +A row of doors, I then saw, filled one side of the patio, the interiors +closed by swinging slatted screens; the wall at my back was blank, an +exit at the rear, while on the right was the entrance. Scattered about, +with the benches and chairs, small tables held a variety of glasses and +drinks ... the entire atmosphere was pervaded, characterized, by utter +ease. That was, to me, the most notable of the effects of that +enclosure--an amazing freedom from superficial obligations, from the +burdensome conventions which, so largely a part of existence, had come +to be accepted either subconsciously or as a necessary evil. I realized +for the first time the inanity of imposed pretences, the thick, the +suffocating armor of triviality that criminally and ludicrously muffled +life. + +There were present, of course, all the poses of humanity, and a great +many of its conventions; the girls were not hippogriffs, but +girls--timid, bold, religious, skeptical, feminine, sentimental, happy +and unhappy, hopeful and hopeless. Yet, in contradiction to this, the +air offered a complete release from a thousand small irritating +pressures. It came, partly, from the sense that here I was outside the +order, the legality, the explicit purpose, of the forces organizing the +world. I had stepped, as it were, from time, immediacy, to timelessness. +The patio into which I was shut might have been on that earth the +ancients conceived of as round and flat as a plate. No discovery, no +wisdom accumulated by centuries and supreme sacrifices, had any bearing, +any importance, in my circumstances now. I was contemporaneous with the +lives precariously spent between the ebb and flood of the ice ages. The +animals knew as much. But if I had nothing to gain from all that was +successively admirable, nothing was lost that had been implicit in the +beginning, nothing at the last end would be changed. + +The conversation fluctuated about me, the glasses were carried away and +brought back refilled; the smoke of cigars and cigarettes floated +tranquilly up and was lost above the illumination, and I completely +dropped the embarrassment which came from an uncertainty in such minor +customs as existed. I was, in fact, extremely comfortable when I +understood that I was left entirely to my own desires. These included +the offer, in clumsy Spanish, of a general order of drinks; and there +was a revival of polite phrases. Not all, by a half, accepted; the +others bowed, gravely or cheerfully; and I retired again to my +speculations. + +These were mainly gathered about the regret that the scene before me was +practically forbidden to American novels. It had, in reality, no place +in the United States, and, therefore, could claim no legitimate page in +American literature. There, anyhow, it could be said for public morals, +such things were nearly all that the word vice implied. What, exactly, I +was lamenting, was the old fundamental lack of candor in the American +attitude. This, beyond question, proceeded from the people themselves, +and not from commissions; an enormous majority, except for that national +whispered currency of obscenity, was prudish beyond reclamation. For +them, it was probable, the innocence of the body had been branded +eternally. And I was neither a martyr nor a reformer. The loss to me was +considerable--as it was, dealing with only the outer garments of fact, I +had been accused of lasciviousness or something of the kind--and I +envied the French the cool logic of their mentality, the cultivation of +the French audience. + +My mind reverted to Jurgen, the remarkable narrative of James Cabell's, +that had been suppressed; a summary act of disturbing irony. For Mr. +Cabell had spent a life, practically, reaching from the imagination of +childhood to the performance of maturity, in a mental preoccupation +with disembodied purity. He had set up, in his heart and in his books, +the high altar of mediæval Platonism--an image of desire never to be +clasped, reached, from earth; a consolation, really, for the +earth-bound. But that, in the mind, the characteristic mind, of America, +had not had the weight, the value, of a dandelion's gossamer seed. It +was, definitely, a land that cared nothing for literature, the casting +of transient life into the permanence of beautiful form. As the world +advanced in years, the general importance of literature, it seemed to +me, diminished; the truth was that people didn't care for it. + + * * * * * + +The ladies of pleasure--the merest identifying phrase, since, in the +first place, they were practically all at the age of immaturity--were +dressed in evening satins, cut generally with an effective simplicity, +or the lacy whiteness still better adapted to the young person. In the +tropical patio with its canopy of broad green leaves and night, the +marble pavement and alabaster walls, they were brilliantly effective; +it was only after an extended regard, carefully casual, that I +appreciated the amazing diversity of their individuality, the gamut of +bloods run. There were no Anglo-Saxons--they were faithful to the +traditions of their latitude--and there was no positive Africa; but +there was Africa in faint dilutions, in attenuations traced from lands +remote as Tartary: + +There was, for example, a girl so blanched that I saw she wasn't white +at all; her face, even without its drenching of powder, was the color of +the rice-paper cigarette she smoked, walking indolently by; and her hair +was a blazing mass of undyed red. Her features, her nose, and the +pinched blue corners of her eyes, the crinkling tendency of her piled +hair--its authenticity unmistakable in a strong vivid sheen--showed the +secret that lay back of her exotic appalling splendor. Her progress +across the patio was a slender undulation, and her gaze was fixed, her +attention lost, in an abstraction to which there was no key. No +imagination could have pictured such a striking figure nor placed her so +exactly in the ultimate setting: + +Here she was artificial--there were long jet ear-rings against her +neck--and savage. In her silk stocking, I had every reason to suspect, +there was a knife's thin steel leaf; but who could predict the emotions, +no--instincts, to which it was servant? Who, trivial with the +trivialities of to-day, could foretell, trifling with her, what +incentive might drive the steel deep up under his arm? Hers would be a +dreadful face to see, in its flaming corona, in the last agonizing +wrench of consciousness. + +Seated, and talking earnestly to a Cuban with worried eyes, was a small +round brown girl in candy green, whose feet in childish kid slippers and +soft hands bore an expression of flawless innocence. Clasped above an +elbow was an enamelled gold band, such as youth no longer wore, with a +hinge and fine gold chain securing the lock. She touched it once, +absent-mindedly, and I wondered what was its potency of association; +when, at a turn of her wrist, she drained a glass of brandy, an act of +revealing incongruity. She was, I recognized from her speech, Spanish, +from the Peninsula; and another, who told me that her city was Bilbao, +dispassionately, for a little, occupied my bench. Bilbao, she explained, +was not beautiful ... a place of industry and money. Nor was she +charming, she was too harsh; but her personality had an unmistakable +national flavor, like that of Castell de Remey wine. I was relieved when +she rose abruptly and disappeared into the entresol, where the piano was +still being intermittently played. + +The screen door to a room swung open, and a large rosy creature; +negligent and sleepy, appeared momentarily, gazing with a yawn, a flash +of faultless teeth, over the assemblage. She was without a dress, but +her hair was intricately up, and a froth of underclothes with knots of +canary yellow ribbons and yellow clocked stockings made a surprising +foreground for the painfully realistic Crucifixion hanging on the wall +within. The cross was ebony and the figure in a silver-like metal, the +Passion portrayed by a gaunt rigidity of suffering. The screen closed on +the tableau of contrast, and the patio resumed its appearance of a +vaguely distorted formal occasion. + +Whatever my feelings should have been, there was no doubt that--if for +the extreme pictorial quality alone--my interest was highly engaged. My +interest and not my indignations! I was not, it must be admitted, +commendably outraged, or filled with the impulse to rescue, to save, +anyone, however young. I seriously questioned my ability to offer +salvation, since I lacked the distinctly sustaining conviction of +superiority; I couldn't, offhand, guarantee anything. Suppose, for +argument, I took one--the youngest--and haled her away from her +deplorable situation: what was open to her, to us? Would she have +preferred, stayed for an hour in, any of the tepid conventional Magdalen +homes, if there were such establishments in Havana? + +I had a vision of appearing with her wrapped in a frivolous cloak, +before the experienced wisdom of the Inglaterra manager, in the +corridor of American salesmen, among the wives of the vice-presidents of +steamship companies, and explaining that I was delivering my companion +from the wage of death. I should have been, and very properly, put under +restraint and Dr. Lainé hurriedly summoned. In all probability, and with +the utmost discretion, they'd have sent Pilar, or Manuelita, back to the +patio with the doors, explaining to her that I was demented. + +There were, undoubtedly, better places for girls of fifteen, and they +would have been the first to choose them if a choice had been +possible--some would have been wives and some opera singers and all, +with wishing so free, uncommonly beautiful. I had an idea that a number +of them would have gone no further than the last, and, as well they +might, left the rest to chance. But their ideas of beauty must have been +stupid compared to what they actually possessed. + +There was a girl with a trace of Chinese in the flattened oval of her +countenance, and heavy black hair, as severe as a metal casing, +redolent with fascination. She sat withdrawn from the others with her +hands clasped in the lap of a fine white dress. She was delicate, but +not thin, though her neck was so slender that the weight of her head +seemed bent a little forward. I had never before seen skin so faintly +and evenly golden; there wasn't a flush, a differently shaded surface, +anywhere visible. A sultry air hung about her mouth, the under lip +brushed with carmine. Her eyes, lowered and almost shut, were large, and +their lids were as smooth as ivory. But she wasn't, otherwise, +suggestive of that; she more nearly resembled the magic glow of an apple +of Hesperides. + +If I had encountered her twenty years earlier, my experience would have +been richer by a glimpse of her involved image-like charm. She was, +conceivably, to the superficial West, dull: it was evident that she +almost never talked--the girls about were not her friends--but she had +qualities, aspects, infinitely preferable to a flow of words. I should +have asked of her hardly more than, at present, she was, sitting quite +a distance from me and fundamentally unaware of my existence. I debated +whether she would be more attractive in the sleeve coat and jade pins of +China or in her virginal white muslin.... That now was the circumference +of my duty toward her--to put her in such colors, such surroundings, as +would infinitely multiply her mystery. + +It was, I realized, time for me to leave--I wasn't Rogelio Mola in his +youth--and I paid the inconsequential price of the drinks I had ordered. +There were adieux, as civil and impersonal as my welcome, and the door +to the street was opened to let me, together with a breath of the +scented powder, out. The arcade before me sounded for a moment with the +smooth falling of a latch, and then all trace of the near presence of so +much lightness was obliterated. In memory it seemed slightly unreal, a +dangerous fantasy of murmurs and subdued, knife-like passions--the +bleached soul of Africa with massed red hair; a frivolity of yellow +ribbons against a silver tormented Christ; the inertia of the East in a +heavy-eyed child; but, to balance this, I remembered the girl, like a +harsh native wine, from Bilbao, an industrial city and very rich: she +restored to the scene its ordinary normal reality. + + * * * * * + +The high empty austerity of my room enveloped me in a happy +tranquillity; its effect was exactly that of increasing age, +substituting for the violent contrasts of life an impersonal spacious +whiteness. I very placidly prepared for the cool fresh linen of my bed, +my mind filled with fresh cool thoughts. More definitely than ever +before I was accepting and accommodating myself to the passage of time. +I was not only reconciled to having left forty forever behind, but I +welcomed a release from the earlier struggles of resentment and desire. +The joys of youth, or anyhow in my case, had been out of proportion to +their penalties: I had failed at school, at the academies of art, and, +more conspicuously still, as a citizen. I was even incapable of +supporting myself, a task so easy that it was successfully performed by +three quarters of the fools on earth. + +The failure as a painter was serious, but I had never had the least +interest in those qualities included in the term a good citizen. I knew +nothing about the government of the United States, and made no effort to +find out; as an abstraction it had reality for me, but as a reality no +substance. The priceless right of vote I neglected for whoever it was in +the Republican machine that regularly discharged that responsibility for +me. All that interested me, that I deeply cared for, was first the +disposal of paint on stretched canvas and then the arrangement of words +with a probable meaning and possible beauty. + +An extremely bad period, that, when I tried to write without knowledge +or support, reaching from twenty until well after thirty, when I managed +to sell a scrap of prose. From then until forty the time had gone in a +flash, a scratching of the pen: it seemed incredible that the seven +books on a shelf bearing my name had been the result of so brief, so +immaterial, a time. Now, stranger still, I was in Cuba, gazing +peacefully into the dim expensive space of a room in the Hotel +Inglaterra, congratulating myself on the loss, the positive lapse, of +what was called men's most valuable possession. + +No better place for the trying of my sincerity than Havana existed; no +other city in the world could so perfectly create the illusion of +complete irresponsibility, of happiness followed for its own sake, as an +end, or as the means of forgetfulness. Its gala walls and plazas and +promenades, its alternating sparkle and languor, like flags whipping in +the wind or drooping about their staffs, always conveyed a spirit of +holiday and of a whole absence of splenetic censure. At the bottom of +this the climate, eternally sunny, with close vivid days and nights +stirring with a breeze through the galleries, concentrated the mind and +body on pleasure. + +Night had always been the time for gaiety, when the practical was veiled +in shade; and Havana responded with an inimitable grace to the stars. +It was constructed for night, like a lunar park of marble and palms and +open flooding radiance; with, against that, streets packed with darkness +and doors of mystery to which clung the faint breath of patchouli. The +air was instinct with seduction, faintly touched by the pungency of Ron +Bacardi and limes, and bland with the vapors of delightful cigars. The +clothes, too--the white linens and flannels and silks of the men; the +ruffled dresses on the balconies, the flowery laces, like white +carnations, in the automobiles; the wide hats of Paris and the satin +slippers tied about the ankles, with preposterous heels; the fluttering +fans--all, all were in the key of light sharp emotion, of challenge and +invitation and surrender. + +Yes, any strictness of conduct in Havana, any philosophy in the face of +that charm, was unaffected beyond dispute. I had been, in a farther +development of this, tacitly left to my own devices and thoughts, as if +there were a general perception of my remoteness from the affair in +hand. I was suffered to come and go without notice; no one, much, spoke +to me; even those not unaware of the possibility of a book, of San +Cristóbal de la Habana, in which their city would find praise, were +hardly stirred to interest. The moment to go to Havana was youth, the +moment for masked balls and infidelity and champagne: its potency for me +lay in its investment of memories; I regarded it as a spectacle set in +the tropics. I was an onlooker and not a participant. But I had, as I +have shown, no regret; I had become reconciled not only to the fleetness +of time, but equally to the fact that my rôle was necessarily a +spectator's. Hour after hour, year after year, I sat writing at the low +window which looked out over my green terrace and clipped hedge, to the +road, to life, beyond. + +Above everything, then, I was satisfied with the Havana I knew. From the +standpoint of actuality my comprehension was limited--I was familiar +with only a certain narrow part of the city, for it was my habit to go +back to what I had found rather than discover the new--perhaps ten +streets and a handful of houses, parks, and cafés. Too much to get into +a score of books. What I had lost, I thought further--if, indeed, I had +ever possessed it--was a warm personal contact such as I should have had +dancing with a lovely girl. I never danced, but remained outside, +philosophically, gazing at the long bright whirling rectangles. + +At the Inglaterra there were many men older than myself who danced +persistently and had the warmest sorts of contacts; they too, wore +flowers in their coats, but aggressive and not reminiscent blooms. They +formed most of the element of foreign gaiety; there wasn't much youth +among them, but I didn't envy them in the slightest. They were, if +possible, more absurd than the women unmindful of thickening waists and +dulled eyes. Their ardor was febrile and their power money; and every +time they escorted with a quickened step their charmers past young dark +men, the charmers glanced back appealingly. It was different with the +Cubans, who regarded such things more naturally, and did not, +practically, in consequence, get drunk. + +The noise from San Rafael Street never slackened, the clamor of the +mule-drivers and the emptying cans of refuse took the place of the motor +signals; the slats of my lowered shutters showed streaks of dawn. I +turned once, it appeared, and the room was filled with indirect +sunlight, the hands of my watch were at ten. It was eleven before I was +dressed, with the morning cup of black coffee empty on a table; at +twelve I had breakfast, and until five I idly read. The evening as well +was idle--a thoroughly wasted day, judged by obvious and active +standards. I thought, with no impulse to return, of the house near the +Arsenal, which had, in effect, been open for centuries and which, unless +life were purified, would never close. The purity I meant was not a +limitation of passion, but its release from obscene confines. It didn't +matter what I meant and, again, I was becoming too serious ... or not +serious about the correct things. There was perpetually the danger of +being overtaken, in spite of my impetuous early flight, by the +influences, the promptings, of my heredity and strong first +associations. What an amazing climax to my records of chiffon textures +and moods of chiffon that would be: shouting the creed of a bitter Scots +induration from the informal pulpits of the streets! Or I might publish, +to the dismay of every one intimately concerned, a denunciatory +sermonizing book. But what the subject was wouldn't matter, as it had +not mattered with Jeremy Taylor, if it were written with sufficient +beauty. Disagreeable books, too, in spite of the accepted contrary +belief, were always very highly esteemed. + + * * * * * + +It was easy enough to account for Jeremy Taylor by the vague +generalization of beauty, and I forced myself to a closer scrutiny of +that term and my meaning. The words beauty and love, and a dozen others, +like old shoes, had grown so shapeless through long mis-wear that they +would stay on no foot. I tried to isolate some quality indisputably +recognizable as beautiful and hit, to my surprise, on intellectual +courage. The thought of an undeviating mental integrity was as +exhilarating as the crash of massed marching bands. Then, searching for +another example, I recalled August nights at Dower House, with the +moonlight lying like water between the black shadows of the trees on the +lawn. There was a harsh interwoven shrilling of locusts and the +echo--almost the feel rather than the sound--of thunder below the +horizon. This, too, stirred me profoundly, brought about the glow +transmutable into creative effort. + +Another excursion found nothing but a boy and a girl, any boy and any +girl, fired by shy uncomplicated passion.... A mental, a visual, and a +natural incentive, each with the same effect, the identical pinching of +the heart and thrust to a common hidden center. What had they each +alike? Perhaps it was this: that they were the three great facts of +existence, the primary earth, the act of creation, and the crowning +dignity, the superiority of men who, somehow, had transvalued the sum of +their awarded clay. Somehow! I had no intention of examining that. The +fact was, for me, enough. + +There was, however, another phase of beauty still, one peculiarly the +property of novelists, which had to do not with life at all, but with +death, with vain longing and memories and failure. All the novels which +seemed to me of the first rank were constructed from these latter +qualities; and while painting and music and lyrical poetry were +affirmative, the novel was negative, built, where it was great, from +great indignations. Yet, while this was obvious truth, it failed to +include or satisfy me; for there were many passages not recognizable as +great in the broadest sense, both in literature and life, that filled me +with supreme pleasure--there were pages of Turgenev spun out of the +fragile melancholy of a girl, a girl with a soul in dusk, far more +enthralling than, for example, Thomas Hardy. It may have been that there +was the perception of a similitude between Turgenev's figure and myself; +certainly I was closer to her mood, her disease of modernity, than to a +sheep herder; and there was a possibility, for my own support, that the +finest-drawn sensibilities, not regarded as emotions in the grand key, +would turn out to be our most highly justified preoccupation. + +I was, at present, in Havana, submerged in its fascination, and when I +came to write about it there would not be lacking those to say that I +had been better occupied with simpler things. Hugh Walpole had warned me +of the danger, to me, of parquetry and vermilion Chinese Chippendale; +and I was certain that he would speak to me again in the same tone about +idling in a mid-Victorian Pompeii, celebrating drink and marble touched +by the gilder's brush of late afternoon. Perhaps Walpole--and Henry +Mencken's keen friendly discernment--was right; but, damn it, my +experience was deficient in material essentials; I was dangerously +ignorant of current reality, and I doubted if my style was a suitable +instrument for rugged facts. + +What remained for me, an accomplishment spacious enough for anyone, was +the effort to realize that sharp sense of beauty which came from a firm +delicate consciousness of certain high pretensions, valors, maintained +in the face of imminent destruction. And in that category none was +sharper than the charm of a woman, so soon to perish, in a vanity of +array as momentary and iridescent as a May-fly. The thought of such a +woman, the essence, the distillation, of an art of life superimposed on +sheer economy, was more moving to me than the most heroic maternity. I +couldn't get it into my head that loveliness, which had a trick of +staying in the mind at points of death when all service was forgotten, +was rightly considered to be of less importance than the sweat of some +kitchen drudge. + +The setting of a woman in a dress by Cheruit; a part of the bravery of +fragile soft paste Lowestoft china and square emeralds that would feed a +starving village, on fingers that had done no more than wave a fan; the +fan itself, on gold and ivory with tasselled silk--the things to which +the longing of men, elevated a degree above hard circumstances, +turned--were of equal weight with the whole; for it was not what the +woman had in common with a rabbit that was important, but her +difference. On one hand that difference was moral, but on the other +æsthetic; and I had been absorbed by the latter. + +This, however wide apart it may seem, was closely bound to my presence +in Havana, to my delight and purpose there. It was nothing more than a +statement, a development, if not a final vindication, of my instant +sense of pleasure and familiarity--a place already alive in my +imagination. My special difficulty was the casting of it into a +recognizable, adequate medium. There, in the plaiting of cobwebs instead +of hemp rope, I particularly invited disaster. It wasn't necessary that +I should sustain anyone, but only that I should spread the illusion of +the buried associations and image of a brain. That, if it were true, I +held, would be beauty. + +Here, at least, I was serious about the correct things, direct rather +than conventional; all that mattered was the spreading of the illusion, +the spectacle of what part of Havana I did know interpreted, realized, +not in the spirit of an architectural plan, but as sentient with +reflected emotions. Otherwise the most weighty charges against me were +absolutely justified. If I couldn't make Havana respond in the key of my +intrinsic feelings, if I had no authentic feeling with which to invest +it, my book, almost all my books, were a weariness and a mistake. + +Novels of indignation or of melancholy, of a longing for the continuity +of individual passion confronted with the inevitable--it was that, the +perishability of all that was desirable, which gave to small things, a +flower in the hair, their importance as symbols. The love story, once +the exclusive province of fiction, had disappeared; it was now +practically impossible for the slightest talent to fill a book in that +manner. The romantic figment, like a confection of spun sugar with a +sprig of artificial orange blossoms, had been discarded; the beauty of +love, it had been discovered, wasn't the possession of a particular +heart, but the tenderness, the pity, that came from the realization of +its inescapable loss. No man could love a woman, no woman could love a +man, who was to live forever; a thousand years would be an insuperable +burden. The higher a cultivation, a delight, reached, the more tragic +was its breaking by death; the greater knowledge a mind held, the more +humiliating was the illimitable ignorance, the profound night pressing +in upon every feeble and temporary human lamp. + +Yes, the novels, the books I wanted to write, were composed, now, not so +much from among the brasses, the tympani, as from the violins. The great +majority, like the great books, were dedicated to the primary chords; +but my reaching the former had been always hopeless. I didn't mind this, +for I told myself that, while the structure of approbation I had +gathered was comparatively modest, its stones and masonry were +admirable; it was, if not a mansion, a gratifying cottage firmly set on +earth--what was in England called, I believe, a freehold. It was mine, +and there was no lease dependent on the good will--or on my +subserviency--of any landlord. + + * * * * * + +Most of this went through my mind as I sat looking at my trunk, open on +end in an alcove near the door, for I was gathering my clothes and +thoughts in preparation for leaving Havana. One thing only that I wished +to see now remained--the danzon at the National Theatre. I kept out a +dark suit, one that would be inconspicuous in a lower spectator's box; +for I had been told that it was desirable to avoid unnecessary +attention. There was, briefly, an element of danger. This I doubted--I +had heard the same thing so often before without subsequent +justification--but I could believe it possible if there was any violent +discharge of primitive emotion. Here the spirit of Africa burned remote +and pale, but it was still a tropical incomprehensible flame. + +A strip of red carpet led from the outer steps, across a large +promenade, to the circular wall of the theatre; and though it was past +eleven, the ball hadn't yet assumed an appearance of life. But just +within the entrance a negro band began suddenly to play, and in the +music alone I immediately found the potent actuality of danger. I was +without the knowledge necessary to the disentangling of its elements: +there were fiddles and horns and unnatural kettle drums, and an +instrument made from a long gourd, with a parallel scoring for the +scrape of a stick. The music was first a shock, then an exasperation +hardly to be borne, but finally it assumed a rhythm maddening beyond +measure. + +It was Africa and something else--notes taken from the Moors, splitting +quavers of Iberian traditions, shakes and cadences that might have been +the agonized voice of the first Cubeños; with an unspeakable distortion, +a crazy adaptation, of scraps of to-day. There was no pause, no +beginning or end, in its form; it went on and on and on, rising and +falling, fluctuating, now in a harsh droning and then a blasting +discord--the savage naked utterance of a naked savage lust; it was a +music not of passion, but of the frenzy of rape. Nothing like it would +have been possible in writing, allowed in painting; only music was free +to express, to sound, such depths. Nothing but music could have conveyed +the inarticulate cries of the stirred mire that flooded the marble space +of the opera house. It had lost the simplicity of its appropriate years, +the spring orgies in the clearings of early forests; time had made it +hideously menacing, cynical, and corrupt. + +At an aisle to the boxes within, a negro woman with a wheedling tainted +manner tried to sell me a nosegay; and two others, younger and pale, +their faces coated with rice powder, went past in dragging satins. They +were chattering a rapid Spanish, and their whitened cheeks and +dead-looking mat-like hair, their coffee-colored breasts and white kid +gloves, gave them an extraordinary incongruity; and behind them, as +sharp as the whisper of their skirts, a stinging perfume lingered. +Leaning forward on the rail of my enclosure, I gazed down over the +floored expanse of the auditorium: + +The stage was set with the backdrop and wings of a conventional operatic +design--a scene that would have served equally Aïda or La Favorita: it +towered, like a faded dream of pseudo-classic Havana, into the +theatrical heavens, expanses of bistre and sepias and charcoal grey, of +loggias and peristyles and fountains; while in close order about its +three sides were ranged stiff chairs in a vivid live border of dancers. +They were of every color from absolute pallor, the opacity of plaster, +to utter blackness. The men, for the most part, were light, some purely +Spanish, the negritos, at least to me, conspicuous; but I could see no +indisputably white women. There was a girl in a mantone of bright +contrasting colors, a high comb and a rose in her hair, about whom there +was a question. However, her partner was one of the few full negroes +there; and, as they revolved below my box, it seemed that her skin had a +leaden cast. + +The danzon itself had, at first, the appearance of a sustained gravity: +it was danced slowly, in very small space, following the music with +arbitrary reverses, and pausing. There might have been, to the +superficial view, a restraint almost approaching dignity had the dancers +been other. The men, without exception, wore their stiff straw hats and +smoked cigars through every evolution; and the dresses, the dressing, of +the women were fantastic: a small wasted girl, dryly black, had copied +the color and petals of a sunflower. As she revolved, her skirt flared +out from legs like bent bones, and a hat of raw yellow flapped across +her grotesque ebony countenance. + +The danzon, for a moment, in spite of the music played continuously and +alternately by two orchestras occupying a box on either side of the +stage, seemed formal. Then, abruptly, a couple lost every restraint, and +their maddened spinning and furious hips tore the illusion to shreds. +And slowly I began to be conscious of a poisonous air, a fetid air as +palpable as the odors and scents--the breath, the premonition, of the +danger of which I had been warned. It lay in an ugly hysteria of rasped +emotions that at any illogical accident might burst into the shrillness +of a knife. It wasn't dangerous so much as it was abjectly wicked--the +deliberate calling up of sooty shapes that had better be kept buried. It +was unimportant that the men below me were, in the daytime, commonplace +clerks; the women could be anything chance had made them: here, to the +spoiled magic of Carabalíe nights, they were evoking a ceremonial of +horror. + +Personally, since I had no hopes to save or plans to protect, I hadn't +the desire, like Sampson, to pull down the pillars of the roof on their +debased heads. I enjoyed it remarkably; the more because I saw, +scattered among the crowd, figures of unreal and detrimental beauty--a +creamy magnificence in creamy satin with a silver band on her forehead; +a yellow creature with oblique eyes in twenty white flounces and a +natural garland of purple flowers; a thing of ink, of basalt carved by +an opulent chisel, on whose body clothes were incidental; and corrupt +graces perfect in youth and figure weaving the patterns, the wisdom, of +Sodom. + +One o'clock passed, then two and three, but there was no abatement in +the danzon. A middle-aged man, with an abstracted air, danced without +stopping for an hour and fifty minutes. His partner, flushing through +her dark skin, was expensively habited: her fingers and throat glittered +coldly with diamonds and her hat was swept with long dipping plumes. She +had a malignant mouth and eyes a thick muddy brown, and it was clear +that she hated the man in whose arms she was turning. I wondered about +her hatred and the patience, the indifference, of the other: how +revolting she would be in a few hours, livid and ghastly in the morning. +He, probably, would then be standing at a high desk, counting dollars +with integrity or adding columns of figures, precise and respectable in +an alpaca coat. An older man still was dancing by himself, intent on the +intricate stepping of his own feet. His agility soon won an admiring +circle, and his violence increased with the applause: he jumped in the +air, clapping his heels together, and his arms waved wildly--a +marionette pulled convulsively by wires in strange merciless hands. + +I imagined a fetish, a large god, on the stage, drooping over his +swollen belly, with a hanging lip and hands set in his loins. His legs +were folded, lost in flesh ... a squatting smeared trunk of hideous +service. Around him were the seated rows of worshippers, on either hand +was his jangling praise; and before him revolved the dancers in his +rite. The music throbbed in my brain like a madness that would have +dragged me down to the floor. I speculated fleetly over such a +surrender, the drop, through countless ages, of that possible descent. + + * * * * * + +It was, however, only just to add that the idol of Guinea suffered +unduly from his surroundings and the age in which he was exposed; in his +place, his time, he had been neither a monster nor unnatural, but +nothing more than the current form of worship. He, Bongó, had had the +misfortune to be catapulted, together with his congregation, through +twenty, forty, centuries, in a breath, on the magic carpet of greed, and +put down in a day where he was not only obsolete, but repudiated. Men +saw him with the sense of horror generated by a blasting view of their +own very much earlier selves. For the difference between the negro, the +Carabalíes, or Macua, and the Spaniards of the sixteenth century in Cuba +was, at heart, historical in time only. They were members--we were all +members--of one family. The innocence of a bare black, torn like a +creeper from the support of his native tree, tatooed with necessary +charms, medicines, against jungle fears and fevers, had more to dread +from Amador de Lares than any later Christians owed to an arbitrarily +imported savagery. What, in reality, occurred, was implied on the wide +floor of the opera house, was that the negroes, unable to change their +simplicity as easily as they superficially diluted their skins, kept +their innocent habits, their tastes in noise and religion and +misconduct; but, in the dress of civilization, these took on the aspect +of a grotesque defiled horror. With this, too, in an earnest effort to +assimilate as much as possible of their enforced land, they caught such +bright fragments of life as struck them--the glass beads and bits of gay +cloth--and copied them prodigiously. The confusion which followed was a +tragedy in the comic spirit--a discordant mingling that provoked +laughter, quickly stopped by a deeper understanding and by pity. The +past vital still: with the entrance of the African slave into the West, +it was exactly as though a figure in the paint and feathers of voodoo +had been thrust into a polite salon. + +The spectacle had none of the comfortable features of a mere exhibition; +for the revulsion came from a spiritual shudder in the beings of the +onlookers; while the other injured individuals saw that, as clothes, the +crude partial imitation of a rooster was insufficient. They, the latter, +commendably hurried into trousers and pot hats, into satin trains and +pink tulle and white kid gloves; but the transition was too hurried, too +optimistic, and the resulting incongruity ... I was not a student of +ethnology, I had no theory of races, but, gazing down from my box, it +seemed to me that yesterday could not be instantly combined with to-day; +it was evident that there was no short way by a long and painful +business of evolution. + +Nothing more unfortunate could well be imagined; for, in the retributive +manner I had already mentioned, the Africa buried in the West, so long +forgotten, took life again, and the danger to everyone had been acute +through a long period of Havana's years. We, in temperate zones, in +weathers that had no need of the protection of a special dark pigment, +had been lucky; but we were trying our luck very severely by subjecting +it to the old potencies not yet entirely lost. The danzon was, actually, +in a way beyond legislation, a masked ball in black and white, where the +unmasking was involuntary and fateful. + +One, I thought, spoiled the other, like an incomplete experiment in +chemistry where nothing but an opaque liquid and an intolerable stench +was evolved. Perhaps, with acute necessity, a successful clear result +would reward the future with peace; but it wouldn't happen in my +knowledge; I hadn't a thing in the world to do with it. What occurred to +me then was the useful fact that the present scene afforded the right, +the only, ending for my story, The Bright Shawl. It would have to be +tragic, but only indirectly; nothing, I had decided, should happen to my +principal character beyond a young moment of supreme romance. No, the +mishap, death, must envelop his friend, the patriotic Cuban. He'd be +killed by a Spanish officer, through a woman--a woman in the bright +shawl of the dancer that had been preserved as a memento of tender +regard. + +Some arrangement was necessary, perhaps a prostitute. Well--I had seen +her, in virginal white muslin, with the weight of her head, its oval +flattened by the hand of China, her heavy hair, inclined on its slender +neck: a figure, in my pages, impassively fateful, remote as I had seen +her seated in a gay company. That finished the story, for the youthful +American, after a vain public effort to secure for himself the dignity +of a heroic end, would be ignominiously deported from Cuba. I had been +often asked how I arrived at my plots, but more often accused of never +reaching an intelligible plan, and, until now, I'd been incapable of +giving an explanation satisfactory even to myself; but here was one +accounted for to a considerable degree. It had begun by an instinctive +attachment to a city, to Havana; and the emotions brought into being had +crystallized into a plan, for me, unusually concise. + +There was a temptation, to be avoided, to tell it in the first person; a +version that had come to be disliked almost as universally as a set of +letters. Some celebrated stories had been written that way--Youth--but I +felt that it was an unnecessary charge on sympathy. While the creation +of character was no longer the tyrant it had been, a certain air of +veracity was most desirable, and the limited scope of a single +intelligence discussing, explaining, himself was too marked. The great +trouble with the romantic novels up to the very present had been that +there was never a doubt of the ultimate happiness of all who should be +happy and the overwhelming misery of those who should be miserable. No +peril was the father of a thrill, because from its inception it was +plainly impotent to harm the lovely and the brave. The pleasure had from +witnessing a dexterous job was lost in an artifice that seldom +approached an art. But we'd improved that, an improvement expressed in +the utter loss of the word hero; no man, or woman, was now entirely safe +in the hands of his romantic author; the two manners had come creditably +together. + +I had become, subconsciously, interested in a girl pausing on the floor, +and, in response to my scrutiny, she glanced up with a shadowy smile. I +gazed with instant celerity and fixedness at the ceiling, then at the +upper boxes opposite, since below, indiscretion was laid like a trail of +powder, of explosive rice powder. There was no cutting in at that ball. +She was more than charming, too, with her mixed blood evident in her +carriage, her indolence, rather than in feature. She wore blue, a wisely +simple dress that showed small feet, like butterflies in their +lightness, and the instinctive note of a narrow black velvet band on her +throat. + +An air of sadness rested on her, on, principally, a superiority anyone +could see. Her fan opened and shut in a thin pointed hand. A maid, I +told myself, reflecting the aristocracy of the closets of delicate +clothes in her charge, scented from the gold-stoppered bottles of her +mistress. She was another phase of what had been going on at such length +through my mind--a different catastrophe, since she was denied the +reward of the virtues in either of the races that had made her. In +Boston she would have become a bluestocking, a poet singing in minor +cadence to traditional abolitionists become dilettantes, but in Cuba, +tormented by the strains of the danzon: + +There, her flax burning in resentment and despair, she might be +extinguished in the tide restlessly sweeping to the troubled coast of +Birrajos: or, at Havana, carried into the secrets of the Ñañigos: in the +black cabildo of that society, provision was made for a woman. + + * * * * * + +It was significant that the first organization of ñañiguismo in Cuba was +purely African, for the hatred of its members, Carabalíes, for the white +race made the admission of even mulattos impossible. This +society--tierra or juego--was formed during the administration of +General Tacón, in the village of Regla, and called Apapá Efí. It was, +against the protests of its originators at sharing the secret with too +many, enlarged, and spread through the outskirts of Havana. There the +mulattos greatly outnumbered the blacks, and they formed a society of +their own, its oath sworn in Ancha del Norte Street, named Ecobio Efó +Macarará. They insisted on a common brotherhood and their right of +entering the fambás, the ceremonial rooms; but there was a determined +opposition, open battle and murder in Perserverancia and Lagunas +Streets. After this there was a general meeting at Marianao, the early +bar to color, as distinguished from black, removed, and the infusion of +the dark ritual of Efi into white blood began. When, ten years after, an +indiscriminate society, the Ecobio Efó, was terminated by the +authorities, Spanish nobles and professional men were assisting in the +rites. + +What had started upon the African river Oldan as a tribal religion took +on, in Havana, a debased version of Rome, and the veneration of Santa +Barbara was added to the supreme worship of Ecue, a figure vaguely +parallel to the Holy Ghost, created in the sounding of a sacred drum. +And what, equally, in the Carabalíe Bricamó was Dibó, God, became in +Cuba an organization of criminals and finally, when its more obvious +aspects were stamped out, a corrupt political influence. There, in the +clearest possible manner, was traced the eventual effect of so much +heralded superiority, such enormous advantages, on native belief. + +There could be no doubt, though, of the fact that, in any pretence of +civilization, the ñañigos were detrimental; it was unavoidable that they +should have degenerated into a savage menace, not only in overt acts, +which were not lacking, but in practices of mental and emotional horror. +Their ceremony, with its strange vocables and distortions of meaning; +the obscene words that were but symbols for obscenities beyond +imagination; the character of their dance, which gave them the name +arrastrados, men who dragged themselves, reptilian, on the ground--all +combined in a poison like a gas sweeping from the morass of the past. It +held, beneath its refuge and defiance of society, the appeal of a +portentous secret, bound in blood, the fascination, the fetishism, of +orgiastic rituals, and, under that, stronger still, delirious barbarity. + +Its legend was not different from the others which formed the primitive +bases of subsequent elaborate beliefs: the miracle, with an attending +baptism, was consummated by a woman, Sicanecua, who found a crying +fish--the fish was a sacred Christian sign--in her jar of water. In +recognition of this she was sacrificed and her blood put to a holy use, +and the fish skinned for the drum, sounded by the fingers, used in his +praise. Here Ecue, the divine, was baptized by Efó in the Oldan, who in +turn signed his disciple. And about that tradition, guarded--with its +instrument--in the altar, Ecue sese, the degenerate elements and +characters of modern ñañíguismo gathered. There were, necessarily, +changes in the Cuban form of worship--the skin of a goat was substituted +for the unprocurable variety of fish, and the timbre of the original +drum secured by an artifice. The need, as well, of finding another +anointment than human blood, difficult to procure in Havana, led to the +sacrifice of the rooster or a goat. This, now, had a crucifix, with the +profession that God, Dibó, must be over everything, and a sacramental +singing; but not the Te Deum or Laudes ... Efore sisí llamba, and the +reply Ho Isueribó éngomo ... Mocongo! while the Empegó, the clerk of +the service, shifted brightly colored curtains and enveloping +handkerchiefs and marked with yellow chalk the head and body and palms +of the initiates. + +A diablito had in charge the offices of the catechism--Come with me; +where did you leave your feet; where I left my head! Enter where Bongó +is and cry with your brother! Look at your brother because they want to +choke him. He conducted the sacrifice of the goat, which, in a memorial +of Guinea, was eaten with pointed sticks, with the drink Mucuba, made +from sugar-cane rum and bitter broom. A strange procession followed, led +by the Insué, with a woman in a shift, Sicanecue, and the diablito +skipping backward. The sese, a silver crucifix with four black feathers, +was carried, and later the remains of the feast were thrown into a +cemetery. + +The effort to end ñañiguismo in Havana began in eighteen hundred and +seventy-five, when its gatherings were forbidden; but, deeply +traditional, it flourished in hidden places, in the jail where ñañigos +were confined and the cellars of Jesús María. Long before that the poet +Placido had been killed; within a few years the Llamba named Hand on the +Ground was judicially executed; and following the assassinations during +the carnival of eighteen hundred and sixty-five, sweeping deportations +were enforced. In Maloja Street a juego, Acaniran Efó Primero, with +officers drawn from reputable quarters, was surprised; the next year the +Abacuá Efó was exterminated; a public clash of diablitos resulted in +apprehensions; and twenty-five ñañigos were taken on Vista Hermosa +Street. + +It was, in reality, Africa in Havana, brought against its wish and to +its tragic misfortune; and, planted in an alien soil, but among a common +genus, the mysteries of religion, it grew into an aberration of all that +gave it birth. Aside from this, its significance, for me, lay in its +amazing language, an idiom, specifically, composed of the Carabalíe +Bricamó and a Spanish without articles or conjunctions, equally +incapable of exact images and the expression of abstract thought. But +taking the place of its omissions, was a congealing power of suggestion, +of creating, through, apparently, no more than the jumbling of common +terms and sounds, sensations of abject dread. The four bishops of the +ritual, in their order, were Insué, Illamba, Mocongo, Empegó. In +ñañiguismo man was momban, an idiot was sansgueré, a knife icuá +rebesine, a pistol etombre, immortality embigüí, the night erufie, war +ochangana, the sun fansón, and worms cocorico. The language took short +rigid forms, phrases; it had little if any plasticity: Amandido +amanllurube, The day goes and the night comes. Efiquefi que buton efique +Ename onton Ellego Efimeremo Iboito, Eurico sangacurici eurico sanga +quimagua sanga ñampé, ñampé sanga mariba, The owl drinks the blood of +the dead and flies to the sea. + +The terms of the acts of worship were particularly heavy, sultry, and +held in their sound alone the oppressive significance of fetishes as +black as the night from which they were shaped. The minister of death +to Sinanecua, a ceremony which became traditional, was named +Cuañon-Araferrobré, and the act of sacrifice the Acuá Meropó. The +singers before the altar, making visible the sacred stick, Bastón +Mocongo, intoned Mocongo Machevere, Mosongo moto cumbaba eribo, and +Erendio basi Bome, I believe in God and God is great; with, at the last, +silencing the profession of faith, the voice of the drum, tarinibongó. + +The ñañigos had been driven from the streets through which, at first, on +King's Day, Dia Reyes, they were permitted, once a year, to parade with +native costumes and instruments--atables and marugas and ecous, a +flattened bell struck by a thin stick. Their fambás were destroyed and +hysteria cooled; but I wondered about both the secretiveness and the +persistence of the primitive spirit and the delicate melancholy that +veiled the girl so faintly tinged with carabalíe, resting below my box +through the rasping strains of the danzon. Had her gain been greater +than the loss, the ruin, of her simplicity; had she, dragged abruptly +from saurian shadows, been made white by an arbitrary papal sun? + + * * * * * + +A glimmering dawn, faintly salt with the presence of the sea, was +evident in the Parque Central when I walked the short distance, not more +than a few steps, from the opera house to the Inglaterra, my head filled +with the resonant bos and bongos of ñañiguismo. Havana, for a moment, +seemed like a cemetery--its own marble cemetery of Colon--where a black +spirit, buried in a secret grave, walked and would not be still. I +speculated about that same spirit in another connection--in its +influence on painting and music, on Western literature. It had affected +dancing profoundly, making it, in the United States, almost wholly its +own; and the Spanish, with whom, in the richness of a tradition and +perfect expression, no others could compete, owed a great debt to +Africa. Our music, too, it had influenced to such a degree that it was +doubtful if we had any outside the beat of negro strains. + +Stephen Foster, a great composer in that he had enclosed the whole +sentiment of an age within his medium, was often but a paraphrase of a +darker melody. Foster, like Havana, was Victorian, a period that dreamed +of marble halls, set in a pitch impossible now, and yet, curiously, +charged for an unsympathetic world with significant beauty. This negro +contribution was in a melancholy and minor key, the invariable tone of +all primitive song; in poetry, as well, a lyrical poetry nearly +approaching music, there was an analogous coloring between the race and +its shadowed measures. + +The reminiscent emotions that, with us, were mainly personal, in the +negro were tribal; he had not been individualized, brought to a separate +consciousness; and, in consequence, his song, practically lacking in +intellect, dealt only with instinctive feelings. Growing shrill with +passion and sinking to the monotonous laments of formless sorrow, it +belonged equally to all the men, the women, who heard it--it was their +voice and comprehensible triumph or pain; without artifice it wasn't +artificial nor ever insincere; and, as a means of gold, a medium for +lies, it had no existence. The voice of all, an instrument of natural +beauty, shared by villages, its pure quality, brought in slave ships +that rotted with their dead on the sea, gave the shallow and vitiated +West a fresh earthen tonic chord. + +The negro, naturally, hadn't grown more cheerful in his new imposed +setting; and it was possible that his music had gained an added depth, +at any rate for our perception, from the weight of banishment and +shackles. He had not turned with any success to creative accomplishment +that needed mental independence and courage, or to forms, like the +novel, wholly modern. On the other side, the novel, with all its +trumpeted young freedom, had never, with even relative truth, expressed +the negro in the Americas. This, a subject of appalling splendor, had, +in the United States, been turned over to the comic spirit and short +impressions--stories, superficially, falsely, pathetic. The fact was +that we had enormously harmed the negro, and for that reason, in the +familiar process of human self-esteem, nationally we were uneasy, +resentful in his presence. We saw him, when we escaped from absolute +hatred, as a figure, a subject, without dignity: we lacked there the +penetrative sympathy which was the soul of imaginative fiction. Such a +novel, I thought, was perhaps of everything that offered the best worth +writing. + +Certainly nothing more difficult could be well attempted; my knowledge, +in Havana and through the ñañigos, had been perceptibly enlarged, and I +was not unfamiliar with the state in which, I decided, the story must be +laid--not in Virginia, but upon a level grey reach of Louisiana, cut by +tideless bayous and saturated with the fever of cane and cypress brakes. +A bitter novel like the broom herb put in the ceremonial drink Mucuba, +pages from which it would be hard to exclude a fury of hopelessness! And +what an angry disturbed wasplike hum it would provoke! No magazine, of +course, would touch it--it would be sold, for a week or ten days, from +under counters, and then we, my novel and myself, metaphorically burned. +A magnificent project: + +A huddle of cabins at the edge of a wall of black pines beyond a deep +ruined field--but perhaps this was South Carolina--infinitesimal ragged +patches of corn, a sandy trail lost abruptly in the close forest, and +half-naked portentous shapes. There would be a town back in the country +with a desolate red square of great sprawling water-oaks smothered in +hanging moss, a place at once old and raw, and ugly with vindictive +ignorance.... The negroes were infinitely happier in Havana, where the +heat, the palms, were their own; and I was surprised that they didn't +desert the United States in a body for a suaver spirit in the air and +man. Cuba, to a large measure, with what final result I wasn't +concerned, had absorbed them in the manner that Spain had absorbed the +Moors. Havana made some denial of this, and prided itself, with entire +justice where it was true, on unmixed Castilian blood; but the other was +perceptible in the gait, the very whiteness, of Cuba's principal +city--the whitest walls on earth. This didn't bother me; I liked Havana +from its farthest view to its most intimate façade, and I was grateful +to whatever had made it. + +In my room the negro, with the danzon, faded from my mind; and I only +paused to speculate dimly about his overwhelming preference, where a +choice existed, for the Protestant religions instead of Roman +Catholicism. I should have thought that the color, the imagery and +incense, of the Catholic Church would be irresistible. Yet there were, +in the United States, thousands of colored Methodists and Baptists for +one adherent of Rome. It might be that the hymns of Methodism, +sufficiently melancholy and barbarous in figure, God knew, were the +reason--the character of the hymns and congregational singing, the loud +pictorial shouts. The later religion of the negroes, in addition to what +I had already considered, was a subject to be avoided; but running +through my mind was the memory that in Richmond, not long ago, it was +common in the evenings of spring for bands of negroes to go through the +streets singing spirituals and constantly gathering others who dropped +their work, their responsibilities, to join the passing chorus of hope. + +That was lost now, I understood, a vanished custom, killed by +self-consciousness; but it would have been a fine thing to hear +approaching and receding through the dusk, a stirring resinous volume or +a mere vibrant echo, a dying whisper. Perhaps that, a dying whisper, +would be the solving of the whole tragic difficulty--disease and winter +and relentless natural laws. The latter moved with great deliberation +through unlimited centuries, but the impatience of men demanded instant +release from trouble. They wanted black black and white white, with no +transition, no blurring of the edges; this was their dream, but they +constantly defeated it, betrayed their ideal. Yes, it might be that the +humility of that defeat, in the far future, would accomplish a +universally white city. Only one other way offered: a different humanity +from any which had yet appeared outside rare individuals ... but that +vision seemed, to me, as fantastic as the sentence in Carabalíe Bricamó +that gave it expression, Eruco en llenison comunbairán abasí otete +alleri pongó--We of this world are all together. The truth was, honestly +at heart, that I couldn't commit myself to all, or even a quarter, of +what this would have demanded. Impersonally I was able to see that, as +an idea, it was superb, I realized that something of it must inform my +pages; but it was useless to pretend that I could begin to carry it out +or that I was, in practice, a Christian. I was tired, and my thoughts +grew confused, but dimly in my mind was again the consciousness of the +remote fate of the creative writer, an individual without even the +desire to be a part of that for which he cried. + + * * * * * + +Certainly I had no marked love of humanity the following morning, caught +with a small mob in a narrow passage of the wharf where I was waiting to +board the steamer for Key West. I was between the water and a wooden +partition, the heat was savage, and a number of youthful marines, +returning home from Camagüey, were indulging in a characteristic +humor--the dealing of unsuspected blows, of jarring force, among +themselves. They shoved each other, in a crowd shoulder to shoulder, +disregarding entirely the indirect results of their vigor, and exchanged +threats of fulminating violence. They were not more annoying than the +others, but only more evident; and, as the advertised time of departure +was past by an hour, and then a second hour, and the sun found its way +into our walled space, even the marines subsided. Every trace of +dignity, in that heat, ran away from the people about me. While, on the +whole, they were uncomplaining, even relatively considerate of others' +discomforts, wondering, with weary smiles, when the boat would be off, +I had no such kindly promptings.... I hated them all, the ugliness of +the women and the men's dull or merely sharp faces, with an intensity +that wasn't normal. When I was very young indeed, scarcely past two, I +had been nearly crushed in a throng after the Sesquicentennial parade in +Philadelphia; long afterward I had been, to all practical purposes, +asphyxiated in a train that broke down in an Apennine tunnel; as a +result, I had an unreasoning fear of crowded bodies or limited space; +and this dread, before long, on the Havana wharf, turned into an acute +aversion for every individual and thing about me. + +The surrounding insistent good nature developed in flashes of exchanged +homely wit, varied by the attitudes of restraint, and, of them both, I +couldn't tell which I resented more. The present position of the waiting +people, the long exposure to the intolerable sun, was the result of +their patience; of that and their personal inefficiency reflected in +their official management. All the bad governments in the world, the +dishonesty and universal muddles, were nothing more than monuments to +the immeasurable stupidity and greed of the people; they were betrayed +politically not by powerful and unscrupulous parties and men, but by +themselves; perpetually and always by their own laziness and +superstition and jealousy. + +The Cubeños, the original inhabitants of Cuba, were parcelled in the +bondage of encomiendas, exterminated by the passion of the Spanish Crown +for gold; when they had been sacrificed, Africa was raked by slavers for +labor in the mines and planting; beneath every movement, instigated by +hope or supported by returns, riches were the incentive and power. Men +had never, within history and their secret hearts, cared for anything +else: an ineradicable desire. There was a facile public gabble about the +qualities of the spirit, about soul; but the solid fact of money, both +as an abstraction and what conspicuously it brought, was what the people +worshipped, wanted, what they schemed or stole for, or in the service +of which they performed the most heroic toil. + +This was not, necessarily, an ignoble or negligible pursuit, but it was +corrupted by an attending hypocrisy which forced a fervent denial, the +pretense of an utterly different purpose, to be worn like a cloak. It +was possible that, admitted, the sovereignty of gold would be the most +beneficial rule applicable to man. It was preëminently the symbol, the +signature, of power; with the late sugar crops it had revolutionized +Cuba. Havana was for the moment, in a very strong sense, the capital of +the world, and the visible mark of that was the stream of automobiles on +the Prado and Malecón; individually, money was counted by the +million--the recognition, the desired reward, of the fact that Cuba +controlled a necessity of life. The instinct to profit by such turns of +fortune was deeper than any charitable impulse; there was a tendency to +speculate in wheat more general than the impulse to give loaves to the +starving. + +There was a sudden surge toward the gang plank of the City of Miami, and +I was borne onto the steamer, away from Havana, in an exasperated and +bitter spirit. I had entered the harbor happily, saturated by its +beauty, but I was leaving blind to the marble walls on the blue water. +However, it was cooler on an upper deck; and with my back +uncompromisingly turned on humanity, on my fellow passengers over a sea +like a tranquil illusion of respite between stubborn realities, I picked +out from the panorama of the city across the harbor, diminishing in its +narrow entrance, familiar buildings and marks. Havana vanished, I +thought, far more rapidly than it had come into view; soon nothing of +Cuba could be seen but the dark green hills and thinly printed +silhouettes of mountains. I had it, though, in my memory; Havana was now +woven into the fibre of my being. + +The Inglaterra Hotel took its place with all the remembered spots where +I had lived: the bare pine-sealed room in the Virginia mountains, the +tall narrow house in Geneva, the courtyard in the Via San Gallo, the +brick house in a suburb from which, in a rebellion against every +circumstance of my life, I had escaped. I recalled days on end when I +had tried to write without the ability to form a single acceptable +sentence, when the floor was heaped and littered with pages crushed and +flung away. Then, it had seemed, I should get nowhere, and see, do, +nothing.... Havana was a singularly lovely city. A rush of small +mementos of its life flooded my mind--the aroma of the cigars, the +coolness of the Telegrafo Café and the savor of its Daiquiri cocktails, +the burning strip of sunlight that, at noon, found its way into Obispo +Street. It was still possible to get Ron Bacardi in the United States. I +was carrying back a large provision of exceedingly fine cigars, not from +the Larrañaga factory, but a slender Corona, a shape specially rolled +for a discrimination as delicate as any in Cuba. Yet, away from Havana, +they wouldn't taste the same; in the United States they'd deteriorate; +and, where I lived, there were no fresh, no emerald-green limes, and +without them a Daiquiri was robbed of its inimitable flavor. + +But what, more than those, I should miss was the atmosphere of Havana +itself, the gay urbanity and festive lightness of tone. It had almost +wholly escaped the modern passion for reform changing America, pretty +much all the western world, into a desert of precept and correction; in +many senses Havana was an oasis in an aridity spreading day by day. Any +improvement wouldn't occur during my life--the habit of lies and +self-delusion had become a fundamental part of society--and all I could +hope for was the discovery of rare individuals and cities in which +existence was more than a penalty for having been born. I wanted them as +a relaxation, as short escapes from a tyranny from which, really, I was +powerless to turn: + +I didn't want to live in Havana, nor to be surrounded by exceptional +people; for they were both enemies of what, above everything, I wanted +to do--to write into paper and ink some permanence of beauty. For that, +Chester County and the solid stone block of my house were necessary, a +temperate climate indispensable. At heart, in spite of my constant +fault-finding, my threats of leaving, I was bound by associations deeper +than mere intelligence. No, nothing so powerful as an obsession had +overtaken me approaching Havana; I was not, in actuality, an adventurer, +but only a seeker for charm, for memories, to carry back to the low +window to which I had already referred. The charm of Havana was its +strangeness, the vividness of its sudden impression on me, the temporary +freedom, grace, it offered. It was characteristic of freedom, too, that, +in the end, it became slavery; while slavery had, at times, +extraordinarily the appearance of freedom. Not a month ago I had +dropped, with a sigh, a gasp of relief, a pen heavier than anything else +on earth, and now I could scarcely restrain the eagerness--the +confidence, at last, of success--with which I wanted to take it up +again. + + * * * * * + +When I turned, looking back, Cuba had vanished, sunk below the line of +the sea. The Gulf Stream was indigo; along the side of the steamer, foam +hissed with a sharp whiteness, and at the bow miniature rainbows hung +shimmering in the spray. The perpetual soft clouds of the Gulf Stream +were very high and faint. In my imagination Havana assumed a magic, a +mythical, state--a vision that, I was certain, had no absolute +ponderable existence. It was a city created on a level bright tide, +under lustrous green hills, for the reward of cherished and unworldly +dreams. It was the etherealized spectacle of the sanguine hopes of all +the conquistadores who had set sail for the rubies of Cipango; they had +had great desires of white marble cities in which the women were lovely +and dark, and gold was worked into the forms of every day. + +They, different from the frugal Dutch, making, with no less daring, the +Eastern Passage in the interest of associated merchants and of +commonwealths, sailed, in a more picturesque phrase, for their Catholic +Majesties and for Spain. The Dutch names, Bonteke and Schouten and +Roggeveen, had a solid bartering sound compared with Francesco de +Cordoba and Miruelo and Angel de Villafañe. Holland had its deathless +tradition of the sea, sufficiently colored with extravagant adventure; +but its spirit was sober, the visions of its navigators would never have +lingered in a marble city. + +Havana was, perhaps, a Saragossa of souls, with the acts and thoughts of +its early vivid years, of Careñas, forever held in the atmosphere, +audible in the restless volume of sound that was never still. Its +history had flashed through my mind with the turn of a wheel, its +duration seeming no more than the opening and shutting of a hand; but +now I had an impression not of the transient, not of walls and names and +voices, but of qualities impersonal and permanent, of something which, +while individual men died, resisted death. It had existence, that was, +as long as humanity drew a continuous thread of memory through time. +Havana had, outwardly, changed from its first huddle of bohios and +fortified tower; but the form it had taken, so different from the +discovered reality, had beyond any question that odd similitude to Marco +Polo's reports of the Grand Khanate. Its final architecture, +pseudo-classic, was more abstract than any other imaginable order: all +the dress that had ever paraded through the successive stages of the +city--the Cacquies, girdled in feathers, the brocades of Maria de Toledo +and her lady-in-waiting, Captain Godoy in steel and lace, the floating +crinoline of the Prince of Anglona's year, painted black ñañigos--was +equally possible against a background at once fantastic and restrained. + +There was never a more complex spirit than Havana's, no stranger +mingling of chance and climate and race had ever occurred; but, +remarkably, a unity of effect had been the result, such a singleness as +that possessed by an opera, in which, above the orchestra and the +settings and the voices, there was perceptible a transcending emotion +created from an artificial and illogical means. For while Havana had a +record dignified in its sweep, it could never be long dominant either +as a city or in its men; it had ruled an island but not the world, it +had never been--in that latitude--a Captain-general of a hemisphere. No, +it wasn't symphonic, but the lesser, more pictorial, performance; it +had, I thought, very much the appearance of a stage. + +This, however was not a denial of the reality of the blood it shed, nor +of the sharpness and danger of its emotions; it had been a profusely +bloody city with tropical passions often reaching ideals of sacrifice. +It had, too, suffered the iron of oppression, spoken its word for +liberty, the state which, never to be realized, by its bare conception +elevated life. Now, in addition, it was a great port ... and yet, though +it might have been the fault of my limitations, I continued to see +Havana as more dramatic than essential; I heard persistently the +overture with the themes of Seville, the crying native airs, the drums +of Guinea played with the fingers. The shining crooked bay was filled by +the plate ships of Mexico and Peru, with their high-decked sterns and +yellow cannon. The curtain fell to rise again on Don Miguel Tacón! + +It was impossible to determine what I had seen of Havana and what was +merely my reflected self; even hard to decide if I had seen Havana +objectively at all, since my attitude toward it had been so purely +personal. My memory was composed of what I'd experienced and the +reflections, the thoughts, that had given birth to; and, of them, the +latter were the more real, solider than the Prado, more tangible than +the dining-room of the Inglaterra. Without them Havana would have been +meaningless, sterile, simply a museum about which nothing could be +written but a catalogue. It was its special charm to be charged with +sensations rather than facts; a place where facts--not, of a kind, +absent--could be safely ignored. Further than that, ignoring them was, +for any measure of pleasure, absolutely needful: the pedantic spirit in +Havana was fatal. + +What, almost entirely, I had been told to view, expected to enjoy, I had +avoided; yet not that, for it implied a deliberate will, and such a +planning or triumph of character had been as far as possible from my +drifting: I had seen what I preferred and done what I was; anyone, +following me in Havana, could have judged me with exactitude. I had +spent money lavishly--as though I were rich instead of extravagant--for +visible returns that would have only provoked the other passengers on +the City of Miami. They, where they were not driven to staterooms by the +dipping of the steamer, were vociferous with knowledge about Cuba, their +bags were heavy with souvenirs--the Coty perfumes from France and the +table-linen of the Canary Islands. The pervasive salesmen, flushed with +success and Scotch whisky, smoking the cigars long familiar to them in +northern hotels, hinted together of the Parisian girls and criollos, to +whom they referred as creoles in the meaning and vocabulary of American +burlesque. Some officials of transportation and sugar manipulators sat +aside, with double Coronas, exchanging in short sentences their hardness +of knowledge, speaking of Cuba as an estancia of which they were +absentee owners. A flight of winged fish skittered over the sea, and the +clouds following the Gulf Stream turned rose with the dropping of the +sun; the horizon bore a suggestion of Florida. Once Cuba, regarded as +the shore of India, had been the center of the West, and Florida no more +than a chimera: how ironic such errors and reversals were! Now it was +Juana that was legendary, and Florida resembled the significant hooked +finger of an imponderable power. The day slid rapidly into water that +had lost its blueness for expanses of chalky shallow green, and the flat +roofs of Key West and masoned arches became slowly visible across the +sea, and a stir of departure filled the decks. + +I was, for a moment, depressed at the definite leaving behind of +Havana--for the tranquil passage had seemed only an extension of its +spirit--and by the imminent reshouldering of my burden of +responsibility. I had never wanted that, but, without choice, it had +been abruptly thrust on me--a responsibility, impossible of fulfilment, +which I couldn't put down. When I was young I had looked in vain for a +perpetual Havana, hoping for nothing more; and now, when my youth was +dead, I had found the perfection of my desire. But, as always, the +discovery was too late; I couldn't stay in the covered paseos, the +plazas with flambeau trees and royal palms or idle in a room of Moorish +tiles with a dripping fountain, over a magic drink; my time for the +actualities of charming liberty, the possession of uncounted days, was +gone. But this mood was nothing more than a gesture, a sentiment, thrown +back to romance. + +[Illustration: image of the book's back cover] + + +The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext +transcriber: + +beginninng of the Prado=>beginning of the Prado + +like a harsh native wine, from Balbao=>like a harsh native wine, from +Bilbao + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's San Cristóbal de la Habana, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LA HABANA *** + +***** This file should be named 38445-8.txt or 38445-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/4/4/38445/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: San Cristóbal de la Habana + +Author: Joseph Hergesheimer + +Release Date: December 30, 2011 [EBook #38445] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LA HABANA *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<p class="r"> +SAN CRISTÓBAL<br /> +DE LA HABANA</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="345" height="550" alt="image of the book's cover" title="image of the book's cover" /></a> +</p> + +<p><a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a></p> + +<div class="msl"> +<p class="c"> +<i>THE WORKS OF<br /> +JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER</i></p> + +<p class="c"><i>NOVELS</i></p> + +<ul><li>THE LAY ANTHONY [<small>1914</small>]</li> +<li>MOUNTAIN BLOOD [<small>1915</small>]</li> +<li>THE THREE BLACK PENNYS [<small>1917</small>]</li> +<li>JAVA HEAD [<small>1918</small>]</li> +<li>LINDA CONDON [<small>1919</small>]</li></ul> + +<p class="c"><i>SHORTER STORIES</i></p> + +<ul><li>GOLD AND IRON [<small>1918</small>]</li> +<li>THE HAPPY END [<small>1919</small>]</li></ul> + +<p class="c"><i>TRAVEL</i></p> + +<ul><li>SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LA HABANA</li></ul> + +<p class="c"><i>Published in New York by<br /> +A L F R E D A. K N O P F<br /> +and for sale at all bookshops</i></p> +</div> + +<p><a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a></p> + +<h1>SAN CRISTÓBAL<br /> +DE LA HABANA</h1> + +<h2>BY<br /> +JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER</h2> + +<div class="block"> +<p class="nind"> +"<i><b>Many yeeres since I had knowledge by<br /> +relation of that great and golden Citie<br /> +which the Spaniards call El Dorado.</b></i>"<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 25%;"><i><b>Sir Walter Ralegh</b></i></span></p> +</div> + +<p class="cb"><br /> +<img src="images/colophon.png" +width="130" +height="80" +alt="colophon" +title="colophon" +/><br /> +<br /> +NEW YORK<br /> +ALFRED · A · KNOPF<br /> +1920</p> + +<p><a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a></p> + +<p class="cright">COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY<br /> +ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc.<br /> +<br /> +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p> + +<p><a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> +</p> + +<p class="cb"> + <i>To<br /> +<br /> + H. J. B. BAIRD<br /> +<br /> + An<br /> + Havana<br /> + which he is free<br /> +to decline in every particular<br /> + save the<br /> + dedication</i></p> + +<p><a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a></p> + +<p class="rt"> +SAN CRISTÓBAL<br /> +DE LA HABANA</p> + +<p><a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a></p> + +<p><a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a></p> + +<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HERE are certain cities, strange to the +first view, nearer the heart than home. +But it might be better to acknowledge +that, perhaps, the word home has a wider and +deeper significance than any mere geographical +and family setting. Many men are alien +in houses built from the traditions of their +blood; the most inaccessible and obdurate +parts of the earth have always been restlessly +sought by individuals driven not so much by +exterior pressure as by a strange necessity to +inhabit a barren copper mountain, a fever +coast, or follow to the end of life a river lost +in a savage remoteness, hiding the secret of +their unquenchable longing.</p> + +<p>Not this, precisely, happened to me, approaching +Havana in the early morning, nothing +so tyrannical and absolute; yet, watching +the silver greenness of Cuba rising from the<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> +blue sea, I had a premonition that what I saw +was of peculiar importance to me. I grew at +once impatient and sharply intent on the resolving +of a nebulous, and verdant mass into +the details of dense slopes, slopes that showed, +from the sea to their crowns, no break in a +dark foliage. The sombreness of the leaves +immediately marked the land from an accustomed +region of bright maples—they were at +once dark, glossy, and heavy, an effect I had +often tried to describe, and their presence in +such utter expanses filled me with pleasure. +It was exactly as though the smooth lustrous +hills before me had been created out of +an old mysterious desire to realize them in +words.</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly their effect belonged to the +sea, the sky, and the hour in which they were +set. The plane of the sea, ruffled by a wind +like a willful and contrarily exerted force, +was so blue that its color was lost in the dark +intensity of tone; while the veils of space +were dissolved in arcs of expanding light. +The island seemed unusually solid and isolated,<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a> +as complete within itself as a flower +in air, and saturated with romance. That was +my immediate feeling about Cuba, taking +on depth across water profounder than indigo ... it +was latent with the emotional +distinction which so signally stirred me to +write.</p> + +<p>At once, in imagination, I saw the ineffable +bay of Guatanago, where buccaneers careened +their ships and, in a town of pink stucco and +windows with projecting wooden grilles, +drank and took for figureheads the sacred +images of churches painted blue. On the +shore, under a canopy of silk, a woman, naked +but for a twist of bishop's purple, bound her +hair in gold cloth. From where she stood, in +dyed shadow, a figure only less golden than +the cloth, she heard the hollow ring of the +caulking malls and the harsh rustle of the +palms. Drawing rapidly nearer to what was +evidently the entrance to the harbor of Havana +I considered the possibilities of such a +story, such a character:</p> + +<p>She had her existence in the seventeenth<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> +century, when Morgan marched inland to +rape Camagüey—the daughter, without doubt, +of a captain of the Armada de Barlevento, the +Windward Fleet, and a native woman taken in +violence; a shameless wench with primitive +feelings enormously complicated by the heritage +of Spain's civilization, a murderous, sullen, +passionate jade, wholly treacherous and instinct +with ferine curiosity. The master for +her, I decided, must come from the Court of +Charles, the London of the Cavalier Parliament, +a gentleman in a gay foppery masking +a steel eaten by a cruelty like a secret poison. +It would be a story bright with the flames of +hell and violent as a hurricane; the pages +would reflect the glare of the sand scrawled +with cocoanut palms, and banked with mangroves; +and, at the end, the bishop's purple +would be a cerecloth and the gallows chains +sound in Xaymaca. But, above everything +else, it would be modern in psychology and +color treatment, written with that realism for +which the only excuse was to provide a more +exact verisimilitude for romance.<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a></p> + +<p>The Cuban shore was now so close, Havana +so imminent, that I lost my story in a new interest. +I could see low against the water a +line of white buildings, at that distance purely +classic in implication. Then it was that I +had my first premonition about the city toward +which I was smoothly progressing—I +was to find in it the classic spirit not of Greece +but of a late period; it was the replica of those +imagined cities painted and engraved in a +wealth of marble cornices and set directly +against the tranquil sea. There was already +perceptible about it the air of unreality that +marked the strand which saw the Embarkation +for Cytherea.</p> + +<p>Nothing could have made me happier than +this realization; an extension of the impression +of a haunting dream turned into solid +fact. The buildings multiplied to the sight, +bathed in a glamorous radiance; and, suddenly, +on the other hand, rose Morro Castle. +That structure, small and compact and remarkably +like its numerous pictures, gave me +a distinct feeling of disappointment. Its importance<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> +was historic rather than visible, and +needed, for appreciation, a different mind +from mine. But the narrowness of the harbor +entrance, a deep thrust of blue extending +crookedly into the land, the sense of crowded +shipping and massed city, the steamers of the +world and broad shaded avenues at my elbow, +impressed me at once with Havana's unique +personality.</p> + +<p>Nothing, however, was more ingratiating +than the long coraline limestone wall of the +Cabañas on its sere abrupt hill at the left; +ponderous and stained brilliantly pink by +time, it formed a miraculous complement to +the pseudo-classic whiteness below. A sea-wall +built into a wide promenade followed the +shore, there was a circular pavilion on a +flagged plaza piled with iron chairs, the docks +were interspersed with small public gardens +under royal palms, and everywhere the high +windows had ornamental balconies empty in +the morning sun. I heard, then, the voice of +Havana, a remarkably active staccato voice, +never, I was to learn, sinking to quiet, but<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a> +changing at night into a different yet no less +disturbing clamor.</p> + +<p>What I tried to discover, rushed through +broad avenues and streets hardly more than +passageways, was the special characteristic +of a city which had already possessed me. +And, ignorant of the instantaneous process +that formed the words, I told myself that it +was a mid-Victorian Pompeii. This was a +modification of my first impression, a truer +approximation, for it expressed the totality of +marble façades inadmissible architecturally, +yet together holding a surprising and pleasant +unity. No one, I thought excitedly, had ever +rightly appreciated Havana; it required a +very involved understanding, a feeling not +entirely admirable. No, it wasn't Hellenic, +not what might be called in the first manner; +it hadn't the simplicity of great spirit, a true +epoch; Havana was artificial, exotic: Spain +touched everywhere by the tropics, the tropics—without +a tradition—built into a semblance +of the baroque.</p> + +<p>It was rococo, and I liked it; an admission,<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> +I believe, laying me open to certain charges; +for the rococo was universally damned; the +Victorian period had been equally condemned ... and +I liked it. Why, God knew! Ornament +without use, without reference to its +surface and purpose, invited contempt. A +woman in a hoop skirt was an absurdity; black +walnut furniture carved and gilded beyond +recognition, nonsense. Yet they had my warm +attachment. Havana claimed me for its own—a +city where I could sit at tables in the open +and gaze at parterres of flowers and palms and +statues and fountains, where, in the evening, a +band played the light arias of La Belle +Hélène.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>To illustrate further the perversity of my +impulses: I was so entirely captivated by the +Hotel Inglaterra that, for the rest of the day, +I was indifferent to whatever might be waiting +outside. The deep entrance with its reflected +planes of subdued light and servants in +cool linen; the patio with water, its white +arches on iridescent tiles; the dining-room laid<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> +in marble, panelled with the arms of Pontius +Pilate, the bronze lustre of the tiling and the +long windows on the Parque exactly as I had +anticipated, together created the happy effect +of a bizarre domain. The corridor on which +my room opened was still more entrancing, its +arches filled with green latticework, and an +octagonal space set with chairs and long-bladed +plants.</p> + +<p>Yet the room itself, perhaps one of the most +remarkable rooms in the world, easily surpassed +what, until then, I had seen. There +were slatted door screens, cream-colored with +a sapphire-blue glass knob, topped in an elaborate +Gothic scrolling; and the door beyond, +inconceivably tall, opened on an interior that +seemed to reach upward without any limit. +It had, of course, a ceiling, heavily beamed in +dark wood; and when, later, I speculated +carefully on its height, I reached the conclusion +that it was twenty-five feet above the +grey-flowered tiling of the floor. The walls +were bare, white; about their base was laid a +line of green glazed tiles; and this, except for<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a> +the glass above the French window, was the +only positive note.</p> + +<p>The window, too, towered with the dignity +of an impressive entrance; there were two sets +of shutters, the inner elaborately slatted; and +over it was a semi-circular fanlight of intensely +brilliant colors—carmine and orange +and plum-purple, cobalt and yellow. It was +extraordinarily vivid, like heaped gorgeous +fruit: throughout the day it dominated the +closed elusive interior; and not only from its +place on high, for the sun, moving across that +exposure, cast its exact replica on the floor, +over the frigidity of the austere iron bed, +down one wall and up another.</p> + +<p>It was fascinating merely to sit and watch +that chromatic splash, the violent color, shift +with the afternoon, to surrender the mind to +its suggestions.... They, as well, were singularly +bright and illogical. Such glass, +such colors, had been discarded from present +decorative schemes; but I recalled hints of +them in the houses of eighteen seventy; I +seemed to remember them in pagoda-like conservatories,<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a> +and at once a memory of my childhood +returned. Not that there were, actually, +such windows at Woodnest, sombre under the +tulip-poplars; yet the impression of one re-created +the feeling of the other, it brought +back disturbingly a vanished time with its +figures long dead.</p> + +<p>Havana was identified as an authentic part +of my inheritance. I was—in a purely inner +manner—to understand it, to have for it the +affectionate recognition, the sense of familiarity, +of which I have already spoken. The city +was wholly expressed by the fanlight sparkling +with the shifting radiance of the blazing +day. It was possible, without leaving the +room, to grasp the essential spirit of a place +so largely unseen. Then it occurred to me +that, indeed, I had seen Havana, and that the +wisest thing to do was to leave at once, to go +back with my strong feeling uncontaminated +by trivial facts; but a more commonplace impulse, +a limiting materialism, pointed out +that, since I had come away for a change of +scene, I had best realize a semblance of my<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a> +intention. Still those colors, like a bouquet +of translucent tulips, easily outweighed in importance +all that I subsequently gained; they +gave the emotional pitch, the intellectual note, +of whatever followed—a mood, an entire existence, +into which I walked with the turning +of a sapphire-blue knob.</p> + +<p>For the rest the furniture was scant—a walnut +bureau with a long mirror, necessary +chairs, and an adequate bathroom like a shaft +with shining silver faucets at its bottom. +From outside, even through the heat of noon, +the sustained activity of sound floated up +through the shutters—the incomplete blending +of harsh traffic alarms and blurred cries +announcing newspapers.</p> + +<p>It was later when I went out on my balcony: +across the narrow depth of San Rafael +Street the ornamented bulk of the Gallego +Club—the Club and the opera house in one—opposed +a corner against the sweep of the +Parque Central; and to the right, between the +glitter of shop windows, poured an unbroken +procession of motors. A great pillar of the<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> +paseo below was hung with gaily covered +magazines; a bootblack, wrinkled and active, +with a single chair on a high stand, was cleaning +a row of white shoes, obviously from the +hotel; and the newsboys were calling La Politica +Comica in a long-drawn minor inflection.</p> + +<p>The sun, that I had seen rising on the undiscovered +hills of Cuba, was sinking behind +the apprehended city; it touched the caryatids +of the Gallego Club and enveloped, in a +diminished gold like a fine suffusion of precious +dust, the circular avenue, the royal +palms, the flambeau trees and Indian laurels, +of the plaza. The whiteness of the buildings, +practically unbroken, everywhere took on the +tone of every moment: now they were faintly +aureate, as though they had been lightly +touched by a gilder's brush; the diffused shadows +were violet. The shadows slowly thickened +and merged; they seemed to swell upward +from the streets, the Parque; and the +buildings, in turn, became lavender, and then, +again, a glimmering white. Only the lifted<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> +green of the palms was changeless, positive, +until it was lost in darkness.</p> + +<p>A great many people appeared below, moving +with an air of determination on definite +ways. The faces of the men were darkened +by the contrast of their linen; I couldn't see +their features; but what struck me at once was +the fact that there were, practically, no women +along the streets. It was a tide of men. +This, at first, gave me an impression of monotony, +of stupidity—women were an absolute +essential to the variety of any spectacle; +and here, except for an occasional family +group hurrying to a café, a rare stolid shape, +they were utterly lacking.</p> + +<p>The reason, however, quickly followed the +observed truth; this was, in spirit, Spain, and +Spain was saturated with Morocco, a land +where women, even the poorest, were never +publicly exhibited. Havana was a city of +balconies, of barred windows, of houses impenetrable, +blank, to the streets, but open on +the garden rooms of patios. And suddenly—while +the moment before I had been impatient<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a> +at the bareness resulting from their absence—I +was overwhelmingly conscious of the +pervading influence of charming women. +Here they were infinitely more appealing +than in places where they were set out in the +rows of a market, sometimes like flowers, but +more often resembling turnips and squashes. +Here, with extreme flattery, women were regarded +as dangerous, as always desirable, and +capable of folly.</p> + +<p>It was a society where a camellia caught in +the hair, a brilliant glance across a powdered +cheek, lace drawn over a vivid mouth, were +not for nothing. In the world from which I +had come these gestures, beauties, existed; but +they were general, and meaningless, rather +than special—the expression of a conventional +vanity without warmth. There was an agreement +that any one might look, the intensest +gaze was invited, with the understanding that +almost none should desire; and a cloak of hypocrisy +had been the result; either that or the +beauty was mechanical, the gesture furtive +and hard.<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a></p> + +<p>For Havana a woman was, in principle, a +flower with delicate petals easily scattered, a +perfume not to be rudely, indiscriminately, +spent; a rose, it was the implication, had its +moment, its perfection of eager flushed loveliness, +during which what man would not reach +out his hand? After that ... but the seed +pods were carefully, jealously, tended. And +here, in addition to so much else, was another +shared attitude drawing me toward Havana—an +enormous preference for women who had +the courage of their emotions over those completely +circumspect except in situations morally +and financially solid.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>My dressing for dinner I delayed luxuriously, +smoking the last Dimitrino cigarette +found in a pocket, and leaving the wet prints +of my feet on the polished tiles of the floor. +I was glad that I had brought a trunk, variously +filled, in place of merely a bag, as I +might have done; for it was evident that Havana +required many changes of clothes. It<a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a> +was a city which to enjoy demanded a meticulous +attention to trifles. For one thing it +was going to be hot, April was well advanced; +and the glorietas, the brightly illuminated +open cafés, the thronged Prado and operatic +Malecón, the general air of tropical expensiveness, +insisted on the ornamental fitness of +its idlers.</p> + +<p>I debated comfortably the security of a dinner +coat, slightly varied, perhaps, by white +flannels; but in the end decided in favor of a +more informal jacket of Chinese silk with the +flannels. A shirt, the socks and scarf, were +objects of separate importance; but when they +were combined there was a prevailing shade +of green.... I had no inclination to apologize +for lingering over these details, but it +might be necessary to warn the seekers after +noble truisms that I had no part in their righteous +purpose. Even noble truths, in their +popular definitions, had never been a part of +my concern: at the beginning I was hopelessly +removed from them, and what was an instinct +had become, in an experience of life not<a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a> +without supporting evidence, the firmest possible +attitude. A tone of candor, if my reflections +were to have the slightest interest or +value, was my first necessity; and candor compelled +me to admit that I thought seriously +about the jacket which finally slipped +smoothly over my shoulders.</p> + +<p>It was an undeniable fact that I was newly +in a land of enormous interest, which, just +then, held the most significant and valuable +crop growing on earth. But that didn't detain +my imagination for a moment. The Havana +that delighted me, into which I found +myself so happily projected, was a city of +promenading and posted theatre programmes, +of dinners and drinks and fragrant cigars. I +was aware that from such things I might, in +the end, profit; but I'd get nothing, nothing in +the world, from stereotyped sentiments and +places and solemn gabbled information.</p> + +<p>On top of this I had a fixed belief in the actual +importance of, say, a necktie—for myself +of course; I was not referring to the neckties +of the novelists with a mission, lost in the dilemma<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a> +of elevating mankind. A black string, +or none at all, served their superiority. But +for the light-minded the claim of a Bombay +foulard against the solider shade of an Irish +poplin was a delicate question; for the light-minded +the choice of one word in preference +to another—entirely beneath the plane of a +mission—was a business for blood, an overt +act. And with me there was a correspondence +between the two, a personal exterior as +nicely selected as possible and the mental attitude +capable of exquisite choice in diction. +But this was no more than a development of +all that I first admitted, a repetition of my +pleasure at being in Havana, a place where +the election of a cocktail was invested with +gravity. And, carefully finished except for +the flower I'd get below, I was entirely in harmony +with the envelopment, the adventure, to +which my persistent good luck had brought +me.</p> + +<p>The elevator going down was burdened +with expensive women, their bodies delicately +evident under clinging fragile materials, their<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> +powdered throats hung with the clotted iridescence +of pearls; the cage was filled with +soft breathing and faint provocative perfumes—the +special lure of flowers which nature had +denied to them as women. It was, I told myself, +all very reprehensible and delightful:</p> + +<p>Here were creatures, anatomically planned +for the sole end of maternity, who had wilfully, +wisely I felt, elevated the mere preliminary +of their purpose to the position of its +whole consummation. More intoxicated by +sheer charm than by the bearing of children, +resentful of the thickened ankles of their immemorial +duty, they proclaimed by every enhanced +and seductive curve that their intention +was magnetic rather than economic. +They were, however, women of my own land, +secure in that convention which permitted +them exposure with immunity, and here; in +Havana, they failed to interest me; their +voices, too, were sharp, irritable; and even in +the contracted space of the elevator their +elaborate backs were so brutally turned on the +men with them—men correct enough except<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> +for their studs—the hard feminine tyranny +of the chivalrous United States was so starkly +upheld, that I escaped with a sigh of relief +into a totally different atmosphere.</p> + +<p>The lower hall, the patio and dining-room +on the left, were brilliant with life, the wing-like +flutter of fans; and it would be necessary, +I saw, to have my cocktail in the patio; but +before that, following a purely instinctive +course, I walked out to the paseo in front of +the hotel. The white buildings beyond the +dark foliage of the Parque were coruscant +with electric signs, and, their utilitarian purpose +masked in an unfamiliar language, they +shared with the alabaster of the façades, the +high fronds of the royal palms and the monument +to Marti, in the tropical, the classic, romanticism.</p> + +<p>Hardly had I appeared, gazing down the +illuminated arcade, when a man approached +me with a flat wide basket of flowers. There +were, inevitably, roses, tea roses as pale as the +yellow of champagne, gardenias, so smooth +and white that they seemed unreal, heavy with<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a> +odor; those I had expected, but what surprised +me were some sprigs of orange blossom with +an indefinite sweetness that was yet perceptible +above the thicker scents. I chose the +latter immediately, and the flower vendor, +wholly comprehensive of my mood, placed the +boutonnière in my jacket. The moment, now, +had arrived for a Daiquiri: seated near the +cool drip of the fountain, where a slight stir +of air seemed to ruffle the fringed mantone of +a bronze dancing Andalusian girl, I lingered +over the frigid mixture of Ron Bacardi, sugar, +and a fresh vivid green lime.</p> + +<p>It was a delicate compound, not so good as +I was to discover later at the Telegrafo, but +still a revelation, and I was devoutly thankful +to be sitting, at that hour in the Inglaterra, +with such a drink. It elevated my contentment +to an even higher pitch; and, with a detached +amusement, I recalled the fact that farther +north prohibition was formally in effect. +Unquestionably the cocktail on my table was +a dangerous agent, for it held, in its shallow +glass bowl slightly encrusted with undissolved<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> +sugar, the power of a contemptuous indifference +to fate; it set the mind free of responsibility; +obliterating both memory and to-morrow, +it gave the heart an adventitious feeling +of superiority and momentarily vanquished +all the celebrated, the eternal, fears.</p> + +<p>Yes, that was the danger of skilfully prepared +intoxicating drinks.... The word intoxicating +adequately expressed their power, +their menace to orderly monotonous resignation. +A word, I thought further, debased by +moralists from its primary ecstatic content. +Intoxication with Ron Bacardi, with May, +with passion, was a state threatening to privilege, +abhorrent to authority. And, since the +dull were so fatally in the majority, they had +succeeded in attaching a heavy penalty to +whatever lay outside their lymphatic understanding. +They had, as well, made the term +gay an accusation before their Lord, confounding +it with loose, so that now a gay +girl—certainly the only girl worth a ribbon or +the last devotion—was one bearing upon her +graceful figure, for she was apt to be reprehensibly<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a> +graceful, the censure of a society +open to any charge other than that of gaiety in +either of its meanings. A ridiculous, a tragic, +conclusion, I told myself indifferently: but +then, with a fresh Daiquiri and a sprig of +orange blossoms in my buttonhole, it meant +less than nothing. It grew cooler, and an +augmented stir set in motion toward the dining-room, +where the files of damask-spread +tables held polished silver water-bottles and +sugar in crystal jars with spouts.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>The wisdom of the attention I had given +to my appearance was at once evident in the +table to which the head waiter conducted me. +Small and reserved with a canted chair, it was +directly at one of the long windows on the +Parque Central. This, at first sight, on the +part of its arbiter, would not have been merely +an affair for money—he had his eye on the effect +of the dining-room as a whole, as an expanse +of the utmost decorative correctness, and +there were a number of men with quite<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> +pretty women, a great asset publicly, who +had been given places in the center of the +room. Yes, where I was seated the ruffled +curtains were swayed by the night breeze almost +against my chair, a brilliant section of +the plaza was directly at my shoulder, and I +was pervaded by the essential feeling of having +the best possible situation.</p> + +<p>This was not, perhaps, true of characters +more admirable than mine: but if I had been +seated behind one of the pillars, buried in an +obscure angle, my spirits would have suffered +a sharp decline. I should have thought, temporarily, +less of Havana, of myself, and of the +world. The passionate interest in living, the +sense of æsthetic security, that resulted in my +turning continually to the inconceivable slavery +of writing, would have been absent. But +seated in one of the most desirable spots in existence, +a dining-room of copper glazed tiles +open on the tropics, about to begin a dinner +with shrimps in the pink—the veritable rose—of +perfection, while a head waiter, a triumph +of intelligent sympathy, conferred with<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> +me on the delicate subject of wines, I felt +equal to prose of matchless loveliness.</p> + +<p>The dinner, finally, as good dinners were +apt to be, was small, simple, with—the result +of a prolonged consideration—a bottle of +Marquis de Riscal. All the while the kaleidoscope +of the Parque was revolving in patterns +of bright yellows, silver, and indigo. Passersby +were remarkably graphic and near: a +short man with a severe expression and a thick +grey beard suddenly appeared in the open +window and demanded that I buy a whole +lottery ticket; a sallow individual from without +unfolded a bright glazed sheaf of unspeakably +stupid American magazines; farther off, +the crowd eddied through the lanes between +the innumerable chairs drawn up companionably +on the plaza. At a table close by, a family +of Cubans were supplementing the courses +of formal dining with an endless vivacious +chatter, a warmth of interest charming to +follow.</p> + +<p>The father, stout, with an impressive moustache +of which not one hair seemed uncounted<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> +or mislaid, regarded his short fat wife, his tall +slim son, and his two entrancing daughters +with an impartially active and affectionate attention. +The girls were young, one perhaps +fifteen and the other not more than a year or +so older, though they both managed lorgnons +with an ease and impertinent frankness that +an older woman might well have envied, +while they talked in rushes of vivid Spanish +with an emphases of delectable shrugged +shoulders, and, recognizing an acquaintance, +exhibited smiles as dazzling as only youth +knew. The boy, however, engaged me more +strongly; a tone darker than the others, in repose +his face, delicate in feature, was grave, +reflective; his smooth black hair grew into a +peak on his brow, his gaze was considerate, +direct, and his mouth sensitive. Cuba, I +thought, at its best; and here that was very +good indeed. Any such degree of mingled +dignity and the highly impressionable, of reserve +and flexibility, was absent from the +cruder young of the north.</p> + +<p>He had, at the same time, an indefinable air<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a> +of melancholy, a bearing that, while not devoid +of pride, belonged to a minor people, +to an island the ultimate fate of which—in a +political word of singular faithlessness—was +hidden in shadow. An affair of mere simple +courage, of execution for an ideal by Spanish +rifles in a Cabañas foss, he would have borne +with brilliant success; he'd have ornamented +charmingly the security of a great coffee estate +in Pinar del Rio; it was possible that he +might be distinguished in finance; but there +was not back of him the sense of sheer weight, +of ponderous land, that gave, for example, the +chance young Englishman his conscious security, +the American his slightly shrill material +confidence.</p> + +<p>This Cuban's particular quality, it seemed +to me, belonged to the past, to an age when +men wore jewelled buckles and aristocracy +was an advantage rather than a misfortune. +He had about him the graceful fatality now +so bitterly attacked by the widening power of +what was heroically referred to as the people. +He represented, from the crown of his<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a> +lustrous hair to his narrow correct dancing +shoes, in his shapely hands and dark fine skin, +privilege and sequestered gold. Outrages, I +had heard, soon to be forever overthrown! It +was possible that both the charges and the +threatened remedy were actualities, and that +privilege would disappear ... from one +hand to another, and great lawns be cut up +into cabbage patches and Empire ball-rooms +converted into communal halls for village +rancor.</p> + +<p>Not much, in the way of benefit, could follow +that. And women in starched linen collars, +with starched theories of civic consciousness, +would hardly be an improvement on +fragrant memories of satin, moments of passion +and frailty, and the beauty of tenderness. +A maze of clipped box, old emerald sod, represented +a timeless striving for superiority, +for, at least, the illusion of triumph over the +littorals of slime; and their destruction in +waves of hysteria, sentimentality, and envy +was immeasurably disastrous. All of this I +saw reflected in the boy with peaked hair at<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a> +the next table. He took a cigarette from a +black silk case, and I was immediately reminded +of my cigar.</p> + +<p>It had been chosen with immense care in the +Inglaterra café for bonbons and souvenirs, +liqueurs and cigars. How remarkable it was, +I had thought, hovering above the case, which +contained a bewildering choice of shapes and +colors, to be in a land where all the cigars +were, in the sense I knew, imported. I hesitated +for a minute or more between a Larrañaga +and a banquet Corona, and finally decided +on the former. It was as long as the +cigar called Fancy Tales, but slightly thicker +and rolled to a point at either end; and the +first breath of its smoke, drifting in a blue +cloud away from the window, told me that +until then I had known but little of tobacco. +Coffee so black that it stained the white shell +of its cup; a diminutive glass of Grand Marnier, +the distilled last saturation of oranges +and fin champagne; and the Larrañaga, the +color of oak leaves freshly brown, combined in +a transcending magic of contentment.<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a></p> + +<p>The point was—my special inhibition as a +traveler—that I didn't want to move; I had +no wish to speak to anyone or see what, particularly, +I should have hurried away to view. +That impatience I had served when I was +twenty-one, in Naples; a city uniquely planned +for morbid and natural curiosity. There the +animated frescoes of Pompeii had been posed, +at two lire a figure, before my assumption of +mature experience. But now, past forty, I +was without the ambition and desire to follow +the cabs of the American business men who, +in the company of patient and fatigued Cubans, +were, in the interest of vague appointments, +bidding their families elaborate good +evenings.</p> + +<p>Later it was inevitable that I should get to +the theatres, hear whatever music offered, and +see all the dancing, Spanish and Cuban, in the +city of Havana, but not to-night. My present +pleasure was not to be wasted in the bother of +movement and a probable mistake. The cigar +continued to veil me in its reflective smoke +for another half hour, there was more coffee<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a> +in the pot. The tempered heat of the day lay +over me like a spell, like an armor against +the chill, the gaunt winds and rain, of the +north. The scent of the sprig of orange blossoms +was just perceptible, at once faint and +laden with the potency of a magical grove.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>The weather, the temperature and special +atmospheric envelopment of Havana, was, I +was certain, different from any other, its heat +modified by the winds that moved across the +island at night, at least from this shore, and +the days flooded with an incandescent sunlight +like burning magnesium. Stirring slowly +about my room before breakfast, the slatted +shutters bowed against the already blazing +day, a thread of cigarette smoke climbing +hopelessly toward the far ceiling, I thought +of the idiotic popular conviction that the +weather was a topic for stupid minds. The +reverse, certainly, was true, since, inbound +with all the settings of life, all nature, the<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> +weather offered an illimitable range of suggestion.</p> + +<p>It had been the great discovery of imaginative +prose—the novel for which we care most +had been largely the result of that gained appreciation; +and its absence in older books, +placed in a vacuum, entirely accounted for +their dry unreality. What, for instance, were +the novels of Thomas Hardy but splendid records +of the countryside weather, for nature +and weather were one. This, more than any +other force, conditioned men, stamping them +out with an ice age, burning them black in +Africa ... setting royal palms by the doors +of the Hotel Inglaterra and willows along my +lower lawn.</p> + +<p>The difference between Havana and West +Chester was exactly that difference in their +foliage, in the low April green of one and the +harsh high fronds of the other. The quality, +the weather, that made the trees made +equally the men, just as it dictated their lives, +the houses they lived in, their industries and<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> +planted grains. This was true not only of the +country but of the city, too, of George Moore +as well as Hardy; for though Moore belonged +principally to salons and the discreet interiors +of broughams, a good half of the beauty of his +pages was due to his response to the quality +of spring against a smoke-blackened London +wall, the laburnum blossoming in his Dublin +garden.</p> + +<p>The slightest impression of Havana must +be founded on a sensitive recognition of the +crystal light and printed shadows which, in +addition to its architecture of fact, brought another +of sweeping illusion. In the morning +the plazas glittered in a complete revelation +of every hard carving and leaf and painted +kiosk, but later the detail merged in airy diagonal +structures of shade. Modified, infrequently, +by the gorgeous cumulous clouds +drifting from the upward thrust, the anchorage, +of the Andes, the entire process of the +hours was upset. This was not simply a variation +of inanimate surface, it had an exact +counterpart in the emotions: bowed by an insuperable<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a> +blaze or upright in the veiled sun, +the attitude of harmony was profoundly affected. +The night was altogether separate, +a time, I gathered, when it seldom rained; and +there was never another city that took advantage +of the night like Havana. Released from +the resplendent tyranny of the sun, everyone, +it appeared, disdaining sleep, lingered in the +plazas, the cafés, and along the sea-walls, until +dawn threatened. Here the dark was not +alone a stage for nocturnal plans and figures: +it was without strangeness or fear for the Cubans +thronging abroad, on foot and in motors, +early and late. The whiteness of the buildings, +too, even where they were not illuminated, +defined spaces never obscure; the city +was never wholly lost, obliterated by the imponderable +blackness of the north. All this, +every aspect of Havana's being, was the gift—the +dangerous gift—of its situation, its +weather. The blinding day, the city folded +in a sparkling night, like a vision in blanched +satin with fireflies in her hair, were nothing +more than meteorological.<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a></p> + +<p>For myself, my entire attitude was different +in the room I now inhabited from the inherent +feeling, in New York, of the Algonquin. +I was, in white flannels and brown +Holland, with roses against the mirror of the +bureau, another man; not only my mentality +but my physical bearing was changed. Here +I was an individual who, moving about for +an hour or so in the morning, spent the day +until late afternoon in some quiet and cool +inner spaciousness. That, I appreciated at +once, was one of the comfortable peculiarities +of Havana: it was always possible to be cool—in +a café with the marble floor sprinkled with +water; at the entrance of the Inglaterra, +where, however, the chairs were the most uncomfortable +in the world; or, better yet, with +a book, a naranjada, and pajamas, transiently +at home.</p> + +<p>For the iced refrescos of Cuba I had been +prepared; and at breakfast, though that, I +found later, was not its hour, I chose, rather +than a naranjada, a piña colado—a glass, +nearly as large and quite as thin as possible, of<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> +the chilled essence of pineapple. A remarkable, +a delightful, concoction. Later I heard +the refrescos referred to contemptuously by +Americans whose attitude toward the Cubans +paralleled their opinion of the local drinks. +They elected whiskey, at times condescending +to gin, and the effect was portentous. Some +sat near me now, with breakfasts of bubbling +ham and crisped eggs, lamenting the coffee.</p> + +<p>It was doubtless part of the hypnotism of +my liking for Havana that reconciled me to +the coffee, poured simultaneously with hot +salted milk into the cup. I accepted it at once, +together with a cut French roll ingeniously +buttered. Other efforts were made, through a +window, to sell a wallpaper of lottery tickets; +the vendor of magazines now put forward the +Havana Post, printed in English; the curtains +hung motionless, a transparent film on the +bright space beyond.</p> + +<p>There was nothing I had to do, or see, no +duty to myself to fulfill; and, watching the +stir of tourist departure, I was thankful for +<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a>my total lack of uncomfortable incentive. I +had, for instance, no intention of ascending the +height of Morro Castle, which—I had hardly +needed the assurance—included a fatiguing +number of stairs; nor of becoming familiar +with Cabañas fortress. It had been quite +enough to see in passing that long pink wall +and know that there were old batteries of +cannon embossed with the sovereign names of +Spain. There were no picture galleries; and +in Havana the churches were rich in neither +tradition nor beauty, and the convents of +early days had been turned into warehouses. +It was, on the whole, a city without obtrusive +history; even its first site was on the other +side of the island; the wall, except for a fragment +or two, had gone; its early aspects were +practically absorbed by the later spirit that +had captivated me. Here, if ever, was a place +in which honesty of mood could be completely +indulged.</p> + +<p>A state not innocent of danger to the Puritan +tradition—lately assaulted with useless +vigor—of suppression; for to the Latin acceptance +of the whole of life had been added<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a> +the passions of the tropics. Cuba had cynically +realized this, and multiplied a natural +frankness with a specialized attention to the +northern masculinity I had seen leaving the +hotel at odd hours last night. I felt even so +soon, with prohibition a reality, that our national +prudery was a very unfortunate influence +indeed in Havana. The season was at an +end—only a few days of the racing remained—so +I had missed the obvious worst; but traces +of the corruption of the dull, the dull themselves +in diminishing numbers, lingered.</p> + +<p>Havana, in common with other foreign +countries, and with so many golden reasons to +the contrary, had no general liking for Americans. +The few who had understood Cuba, +either living there or journeying with discretion, +were most warmly appreciated; and, +characteristically, it was they more than the +natives who were principally disconcerted by +the released waggishness of Maine and Ohio +and Illinois. But the majority were merely +exploited. There was, certainly, something +on the other side of the fence, for the Cubans<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> +were morbidly sensitive about their land, their +monuments and martyrs, not necessarily impressive +to the Anglo-Saxon heritage and +temperament. There were fundamental racial +differences, with a preponderant ultimate +weight in favor of continents as opposed to +islands. The fascination Havana had for me +wasn't inevitable; I was only considering with +regret, æsthetic rather than moral, the effect +on Cuba of any prostitution.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>As, in a temporary stoppage of its circular +traffic, I walked across the Parque Central, its +limits seemed to extend indefinitely, as if it +had become a Sahara of pavement exposed +to the white core of the sun; and I passed with +a feeling of immense relief into the shade of +a book-shop at the head of Obispo Street, +where the intolerable glare slowly faded from +my vision as I fingered the heaps of volumes +paper-bound in a variegated brightness of +color and design. In any book-shop I was +entirely at home, contented; and here specially<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a> +I was prepossessed with the idea of buying a +great number of the novels solely for their +covers—in short, making a collection of Spanish +pictorial bindings. But the novels, I discovered, +were, even in paper, almost a peso +each; and since I was reluctant to invest two +hundred or more dollars in a mere beginning, +the idea vanished. Their imaginative quality, +however, the drawing and color printing, were +excellent, far better than ours; in fact, we +owned nothing at all like them.</p> + +<p>They had a freedom of cruelty, a brutality +of statement, of truth, absent in American sentimentality: +where women were without clothes +they were naked, anatomically accounted +for, as were the men; and the symbolical +representations of labor and injustice were instinct +with blood and anguish. A surprising +number of stories by Blasco Ibáñez were evident; +and it struck me that if I had read him +in those casual bright copies, without the ponderous +weight of his American volumes and +uncritical reputation, I might have found a +degree of enjoyment. There were a great<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> +many magazines, mostly Spanish, gayly +covered but with the stupidest contents imaginable—the +bad reproductions of contemporary +photographs on vile grey paper; although +one, La Esefa, admirably reproduced, +in vivid color and titles, the Iberian spirit of +the lighter Goya.</p> + +<p>Though I had been on narrow streets before, +I had never seen one with the dramatic quality +of Obispo. Hands might almost have touched +across its paved way, and the sidewalks, no +more than amplified curbs, hardly allowed for +the width of a skirt. It was cooled by shadow, +except for a narrow brilliant strip, and the +open shops were like caverns. The windows +were particularly notable, for they held the +wealth, the choice, of what was offered within: +diamonds and Panama hats, tortoise shell, +Canary Island embroidery, and perfumery. +There were cafés that specialized in minute +cakes of chocolate and citron and almond paste +set out in rows of surprisingly delicate workmanship, +and shallow cafés whose shelves +were banked with cordials and rons, gin,<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> +whiskies, and wine. There were bottles of +eccentric shape holding divinely colored liqueurs, +squat bottles and pinched, files of amber +sauternes, miniature glass bears from Russia +filled with Kümmel, yellow and green +chartreuse, syrupy green and white menthes, +the Cinziano vermouth of Italy, Spanish cider, +and orderly companies of mineral waters.</p> + +<p>These stores had little zinc-topped bars, and +there were always groups of men sipping and +conversing in their rapid intent manner. The +street was crowded and, invariably allowing +the women the wall, it was necessary to step +again and again from the sidewalk. They +were mostly Americans: the Cuban women +abroad were in glittering automobiles, already +elaborate in lace and jewels and dipping +hats, and drenched in powder. They were, +occasionally, when young, extremely beautiful, +with a dark haughtiness that I had always +found irresistible.</p> + +<p>In my early impressionable years it had +continually been my fate to be entranced by +lovely disagreeable girls with cloudy black<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a> +hair and skin stained with brown rather than +pink. Imperious girls with elevated chins +and straight sensitive noses! They had never, +by any chance, paid the slightest attention to +me; and the Cubans passing by with an air of +supreme disdain called back my old interest +and my old desire. I felt, for the moment, +very young again and capable of romantic +folly, of following a particular beauty to +where her motor—a De Dion landaulet—disappeared +into a courtyard with the closing +of the great iron-bound doors.</p> + +<p>A marked, not to say sensational, transformation +of my own person had been a conspicuous +part of that young imaginary business; for, +though I was fat and clumsy, I managed to see +myself tall and engaging, and dark, too; or, +anyhow, a figure to beguile a charming girl. +Something of that hopeless process had taken +place in me once more, now the vainer for the +fact that even my youth had gone. The +quality which called back a past illusion was +very positive in Havana, and my feeling for +the city was greatly enriched, further defined.<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> +It was charged with hazard for what men like +me had dreamed, leaving the actuality for the +pretended; the pretended, that so easily became +the false, was, in Havana, real.</p> + +<p>The Obispo under its striped awnings, with +its merchandise of coral and high combs +and pineapple cloths; the women magnetic +with a Spain that had slept with the East, the +South; the bright blank walls, lemon yellow, +blue, rose; the palms borne against the sky on +trunks like dulled pewter; the palpable sense +of withdrawn dark mystery, all created an +atmosphere of a too potent seductiveness. +The street ended in the Plaza de Armas, with +the ultramarine sea beyond; and as I sat, facing +the arched low buff façade of the President's +Palace, my brain was filled with vivid +fragments of emotion.</p> + +<p>What suddenly I realized about Havana, +the particular triumph of its miraculous vitality, +was that it had never, like so much of +Italy, degenerated into a museum of the past, +it was not in any aspect mortuary. Its relics +of the conquistadores were swept over by the<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> +flood of to-day. Yet I began to be vaguely +conscious of the history of Cuba, of that Cuba +from which Cortez had set sail, in the winter +of fifteen hundred and nineteen, for Mexico. +Later this would, perhaps, become clearer to +me; not pedantically, but because the spirit +of that early time was still alive. I made no +effort to direct my mind into deep channels. +What must come must come; and if it were a +gin rickey rather than the slavery of the repartimento +system, I'd be little enough disturbed.</p> + +<p>The gin rickey proved to be an immediate +reality, in the patio of the Inglaterra—a +stream of silver bubbles shot into a glass where +an emerald lime floated vivaciously. I had +no intention of going out again until the +shadows of the late afternoon had lengthened +far toward the white front of the Gomez-Mena +building across the plaza; and after +lunch I went up to the quiet of my room. I +should, certainly, write no letters, read—idly—none +of the few books published about +Cuba, which were on my table; and I began<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> +the essays of James Huneker called Bedouins. +His rhapsodies over Mary Garden, +as colorful in style as the glass above the window, +I soon dropped and picked indifferently +among the novels that remained. A poor lot—the +thin current stream of American fiction, +doubly pale in Havana.</p> + +<p>The day wheeled from south to west. I was +perfectly contented to linger doing nothing, +scarcely thinking, in the subdued and darkened +heat. There was a heavy passage of +trunks through the echoing hall without, the +melancholy calling of the evening papers rose +on the air; I was enveloped in the isolation of +a strange tongue. To sit as still as possible, +as receptive as possible, to stroll aimlessly, +watch indiscriminately, was the secret of conduct +in my situation. Nothing could be +planned or provided for. The thing was to +get enjoyment from what I did and saw; what +benefit I should receive, I knew from long experience, +would be largely subconscious. I +had been in Havana scarcely more than a day, +and already I had collected a hundred impressions<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> +and measureless pleasure. How wise I +had been to come ... extravagantly, with—as +it were—a flower in my coat, a gesture of +protest, of indifference, to all that the world +now emphasized.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>However, the tranquillity of the afternoon +was sharply interrupted by my going, unexpectedly, +to the races at Oriental Park. I had +to dress with the utmost rapidity, leaving the +choice of a tie to chance, for the dun car of the +United States Military Attaché was waiting +for me. The Attaché, handsomely bearing +the brown seal of Philippine campaigns, abstracted +in manner, sat forward with an imperturbable +military chauffeur, while the back of +the car was flooded by the affable speech of a +Castilian marquis whose variety of experience +in the realms of expert and dangerous games +had been limited only by their known forms. +It was unquestionably the mixture of my commonplace +Presbyterian blood and incurable +habit of romance that gave me a distinct satisfaction +in my surroundings. I was glad that<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> +the Marquis was what he was and that he held +a trans-continental motor record; it pleased +my honest democratic instincts when other +cars were held back for our progress; and, +finally, the deep chairs on the veranda of the +Jockey Club were precisely right for a lounging +afternoon in an expensive sporting atmosphere.</p> + +<p>The race track seemed to me long—was it +a mile?—and, with the horses at a starting post +across from the grandstand, I couldn't tell +one from another. The grandstand was on +the right, and beyond the park were low monotonous +lines of stables. It had been raining, +the track was heavy, and the race that followed +the blowing of a bugle covered the silk +of the jockeys with mud. My pleasure, as +always, slowly subsided at the persistent intrusion +of an inner destructive questioning. Incontestably +the racing, the horses lining fretfully +and scrambling through the muddy +pools, left me cold. The sweep of the Jockey +Club, too, was comparatively empty of interest; +the spectators there, though they were<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a> +more or less intent upon the results posted on +the board opposite, were not the immemorial +onlookers at such affairs of sweepstakes, selling +plates and furloughs.</p> + +<p>The Cuban women present, elaborately +dressed for shaded lawns and salons de thé, +were largely foreign to the wide-spread open +spectacle. I remembered English races +where groups of dukes with ruddy features, in +rough tweeds, sat through drizzling afternoons +on their iron-shod seat ricks, and women +of title, in waterproofs and harsh brogues, +tramped through the sloshing turf ... an attitude +far removed from Havana. A group +of royal palms, lifted in the middle distance, +alone gave the races an exotic air; though +they were, of course, promoted and ridden by +Americans, and their mechanics were quite +those which operated in New Orleans and +Butte and Baltimore. Now I was annoyed +because I had, thoughtlessly, come; I might as +well have gone to the baseball game in what +had formerly been the bull ring.</p> + +<p>Yet I could retire to my speculations for<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> +escape, and I thought how peculiarly modern +outdoor games, sport, belong to the British—to +them and their relatives beyond the sea. I +remembered, in this connection, the story of +a French vicomte I knew, a man of imposing +build, who, in yellow gloves, shot field larks +attracted by the flashing of a mirror manipulated +by his valet. Le sport! But the Spaniards, +bred to the delicate agility of bull fighting, +trained in endurance on the inconceivably +fast pelota courts, were more athletic +than the French; though, as a race, they were +inclined to delegate their games to professionals. +The sporting amateur, in spite of +the Marquis, was a rarity; rather they chose +to be lookers-on at brilliant diversions which +retained an appreciable amount of a mediæval +cruelty diversified from our own brutal +strain.</p> + +<p>This, naturally, had been influenced, +strengthened, in Cuba by the climate, the +breath of the tropics; even the winters were +not conducive to violent exercise, aside from +the fact that that was the prerogative of stolid<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> +temperaments. It was the deliberate, the unexcitable, +who most excelled at trials of personal +muscular skill; and neither of them +were at home below certain latitudes. For +myself, I was grateful, for I hadn't much in +common with the exemplifications of field +skill I had met. They were very apt to pay +for their success by the absence of the attributes +I particularly admired; often they were +snobs of a very exasperating type—monuments +of college beef with irreproachable hair, sacrosanct +pins, and insensate conventional mentalities.</p> + +<p>A race at an end, the jockeys, carrying their +saddles, trooped to the judges' stand to be +weighed, and I was shocked by their wizened, +preternaturally cunning faces. They were +like pygmies of a strange breed in red and yellow +and blue satins; faultless for their purpose, +on the ground they were extraordinary, +leather-skinned, with puckering eyes, drawn +mouths, and distorted bodies. They wrangled +among themselves in shrill or foggy voices—a +very depressing specialization of humanity.<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> +But the horses were magnificent, slender and +shining. I admired them from a distance, +glad that it was no part of my responsibility +to ride. Long ago, under the pressure of an +untender emotion, I had learned to sit on a +horse through his reasonable moments; but I +had never become at ease, and I stopped riding +when, on the country road of a May Sunday +noon, a tall sorrel ran away with me so +fast and so far that we passed three churches +with their scattering congregations.</p> + +<p>There were, on the veranda, drinks, and +even they—the Scotch highballs—translated +into Spanish, had an unfamiliar and borrowed +sound. It was on my return, stopping at the +Telegrafo Café, that I learned the delightful +possibility of a Daiquiri cocktail. It was +twice as large as ordinary, what in the north +was called a double; but no Daiquiri out of +Cuba could be thought of in comparison. +Only one other drink might be considered—a +Ramos gin-fizz. My extreme allegiance had +been given to the latter. I was not willing, +even in the Telegrafo, to depose it from first<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> +place; but the Telegrafo was a pleasanter spot +than the New Orleans Stag bar. I could see +the beginning of the Prado, with the swirl +of cars on their afternoon round to the Malecón. +Some arc-lights, just turned on, were +sources of color, like great symmetrical +lemons, rather than of illumination. After +another rain the bare flambeau trees would +burst into fiery bloom.</p> + +<p>I was alone, and, sauntering back to the Inglaterra, +through the gallery that had once +been the Paseo Isabel, I came on my flower +man, who advanced with a smile and a close +nosegay of gardenias. A curious flower, I +thought, getting water for them in a glass. +They didn't wilt, as was usual, but turned +brown and faded in the manner of a lovely +pallid woman—a simile I had used in Linda +Condon. A flower that belonged less to nature +than to drawing-rooms, to rococo salons +and the opera loges of eighteen forty, and not +at all to the present in the United States. But +worn low on the neck, it was entirely appropriate +to the black hair of the Cuban woman.<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> +Gold hair, the fair temperament, had no business +with gardenias: bouquets of white sweet +peas looped with pale green and silver ribbon, +yes; and dark bunches of moss roses; the old +bouquets of concentric rings of buds in lace +paper! They were the property of the girls I +had known, the frank girls with clear grey +eyes and the appealing girls with eyes like +forget-me-nots. Something more poignant, a +heavier disturbing perfume, was necessary +against a figure seen only from a balcony or +with a vague fleetness behind a grille gracefully +wrought out of iron.</p> + +<p>My shutters now were opened, and I could +make out, against the dimming sky, the languid +folds of the Spanish flag above the entrance +of the Centro Gallego—the standard +that had conquered the western tropics, only, +in turn, to be subdued by a freedom of the +wind mightier than His Most Catholic Majesty.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>There was some question of where I'd go +for dinner, for in Havana there were many<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a> +cafés to explore—the Dos Hermanos, the +Paris, the Florida, the Hotel de Luz, the Miramar; +but, finally, I walked down to the +Prado, to the sea and the Miramar, a little because +of its situation, directly on the Malecón, +but principally for the reason that it had one +of the most beautiful names possible, a name +which called up the image of a level tide so +smooth that it held in shining replica the forts, +the ships, and the clouds. Tables were prepared +for dinner in the restaurant, while those +on the terrace were without cloths; but there +I determined to sit, and the waiter whose attention +I captured, after a long delay, agreed.</p> + +<p>A solitary couple had their heads together +by the window, and they, with myself, were +the only diners. It was, evidently, not now +the place to go to at this hour. Beyond the +dining-room, a patio, or rather an open court, +was set for dancing, melancholy as such spaces +can be, deserted and half-lighted; but I saw +that a considerable activity was expected much +later.</p> + +<p>I was glad that the terrace was empty, for,<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a> +with the light now faded from the sea and +its blueness merging into black, the remote +tranquillity of evening was happier without a +sharp chatter of voices. The Miramar, considering +its place—the most advantageous in +all Havana—and fame was surprisingly small: +scarcely more than two stories high, the sombre +maroon walls with their long windows hardly +filled an angle of the Malecón. The dinner +was slow in arriving, the silver made its appearance, +a goblet was brought separately, a +plate of French bread was later followed by +its butter. The minute native oysters were no +more than shreds adhering to their shells, but +they had a notable flavor; a crawfish was at its +brightest apogee; and an omelet browned in a +delicate perfection of powdered sugar.</p> + +<p>I deserted Spanish wine, the admirable +Riscal, for champagne; for there was about +an air of departed charm, the whisper of old +waltzes and tarleton, that demanded commemoration. +The Miramar had been the gay +center of that mid-century life which had +folded Havana in the lasting influence of its<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> +memories. A gaiety not even at a disadvantage +compared to the feverish society of to-day! +The bodices then had been no more +than scraps of chambery gauze and Chinese +ribbon below shoulders to the whiteness of +which the entire feminine age had been devoted. +The flounced bell skirts had swung +airily on gracious silk clappers.</p> + +<p>The automobiles on the Malecón multiplied, +for the night was hot; soon there was a +solid double opposed procession on the broad +sweeping drive. This was a triumph of +American engineering and, I had no doubt, +an improvement on the informality of rocks +and débris that had existed before. Yet I +should liked to have seen it when the promenade +had not yet been laid down with mechanical +precision, in, perhaps, the early seventies. +Then there were sea baths cut in the live rock +at the end of the Paseo Isabel, at the Campos +Eliseos, where the water was like a cooler +liquid green air, and where, after storms, a +foaming surf poured over the barriers. There +were no motors then, but volantes and the modern<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a> +quintrins, with two horses, one outside the +shafts, and a riding calesero in vermilion and +gold lace; and, latest of all, as new as possible, +the victorias.</p> + +<p>Neither, then, was the Prado paved, but +the trees were infinitely finer—five rows there +were in fifty-seven—when the clamor of the +city was, in great part, peals of bells. This +was a familiar process with me, to leave the +present for the past in a mood of irrational +regret. But never for the heroic, the real +past; the years I chose to imagine lay hardly +behind the horizon; in Italy it had been the +Risorgimento, at farthest the villeggiatura of +Antonio Longo or the viole d'amore of Cimarosa +in churches. And now, drinking my +champagne on the empty flagged terrace of +the Miramar, facing, across the parade of +automobiles, the blank curtain of the night, +starred on the right by the lights of castellated +forts, my mind vibrated with grace notes no +longer heard outside the faint distilled sweetness +of music boxes.</p> + +<p>As if in derision of this, a loud unexpected<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> +music rose from the bandstand in the Plaza, +and I saw that a flood of people, seated or +moving along the pavements and through the +lanes of chairs, had gathered. Nothing, I +thought, could have delighted me more; but +my anticipation was soon smothered by the +absurdity of the selections: they were not from +Balfé nor Rossini, neither military nor the +accented rhythm of Spain ... the opening +number was Parsifal, blown into the profound +night with a convention of brassy emphasis.</p> + +<p>At the total destruction of my pleasure I +cursed the pretentious stupidity of the band-master +and a great deal else of modern Cuba. +I remembered particularly some regrets, locally +expressed, that the Spanish domination +was no more. Things, it was said, were better +ordered then. But this was a position the +vainness of which I couldn't join: it was no +part of my disposition to combat, or even regret, +the inevitable. My course—quite other—was +to project myself into periods whose +very loss formed most of their charm. Gone, +they took on the tender memories of the dead,<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> +and were invested with the dignity, the beauty, +of a warm fragility.</p> + +<p>Two girls were now seated at a table by the +entrance, and, though they were alone for the +moment, it was evident that they had no intention +of remaining in that unprofitable state +longer than necessary. Their fleet appraising +glances rested on me and the silver bucket +by my chair, and one permitted the shadow +of a discreet smile to appear on her carmined +lips. She was pretty, lightly dressed in a +flowery summer stuff, but she was as gold in +coloring as corn silk; an intrusion in Havana +I seriously deplored. The other was dark, +but she was, at the same time, disagreeable; +something had annoyed her excessively, and I +made no move. Such company was occasionally +entertaining, in a superficial conversational +sense; but, I was obliged to add, not +often.</p> + +<p>I went over all the informal girls I could +recall who had been worth the effort to cultivate +them, either charming or wise or sensitive, +and my bag, unlike Chopin's or what George<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> +Moore reported his, was discouragingly slim. +They had been, but perhaps of necessity, materialists, +valuers only of the expensively concrete; +yes, the majority of such adventures had +been sordid. It was due, without question, +to certain deterrent qualities in my own personality; +but even more, I was convinced, to +the fact that, in America, girls, or at least +those of my youth, regarded emotion as portentously +synonymous with ruin. Emotion, +for nice girls, was deprecated; their sense of +modesty, of shame, was magnified at the expense +of everything else. This, together with +the tragic difference in the age of marriage +in nature and in society, had condemned the +United States to very low levels of feeling.</p> + +<p>Unfortunately I had been born into the most +rigid of all societies—a prosperous and Presbyterian +middle-class; an influence that succeeded +in making religion hideous before I +was fifteen, planting in me, too, the belief that +man was, in his instinctive life, filthy. I outgrew +the latter, but never the first; and now, +looking back, I could recognize how that<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a> +lauded creed had nearly damned me to a hell +far surpassing in dreadfulness anything of its +own bitter imagining. The cold metaphysical +fog had saturated us all alike.... How +dreary my early experience was ... what +detestable travesties of passion! A carful of +young men soon stopped at the curb of the +Miramar, and the two girls, dark and gold, +were immediately invested with the politest +attentions. There was a chorus of laughter +and protests and suggestions, in which a privileged +waiter joined; and afterwards they +vociferously left to dance at Carmelo.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>Walking generally in the direction of my +room, I left the Prado for an especially dramatic, +no, melodramatic, street, where the bare +walls and iron bolted doors were made startling +by the white glare of electric lights. +Fixed to the walls, infrequently, were the +wrought-iron brackets of the earlier lanterns, +converted, it might be, for the period before +the present, into gas jets. In that watery illumination<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a> +such streets must have seemed less +amazing than now, and entirely natural with +only the oil lanterns lifting a small surface of +masonry or an isolated angle out of the night. +Indeed, whole districts were dark, except for +a rare lamp privately maintained as an obligation +of grace. That darkness, like the +streets, was mediæval; they belonged one to +the other—ways through which it was congruous +to carry a flare and a sword, practical +measures both.</p> + +<p>These precautions had been long discarded, +but the passages themselves were unchanged, +not a stone had shifted; they were, particularly +at night, the Middle Ages. And it was as +though a sudden blaze had been created by +unholy magic; a sparkling and infernal radiance, +throwing into intolerable clearness the +decent reticence of the time. The arc lights +gave the streets an absolute air of unreality +and tragic strangeness. Moving in them, I +had the feeling of blundering awake into a +dream, of being irretrievably lost in an illusion +of potential horror. An open door with<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a> +its glimpse into an inner room only increased +the oppression: it, too, was brilliant with electricity, +a room of unrelieved icy pallor, except +for a warmer blur under an Agony on the +Cross, where a small company of men and +women sat in a rigid blanched formality that +might have been death.</p> + +<p>It was quite natural, a commonplace of +Havana; but rather than a picture of familiar +life, it resembled the memento mori of a +grotto. My thoughts turned to the symbols +and representations of the Catholic Church—a +business of blood and torment and flame, of +Sebastian torn with arrows and a canonized +girl, whose name I forgot, carrying her eyeballs +in a hand. Curiously enough, the spirit +which had given birth to this suffering had +been popularly lost, together with any conception +of the ages in which it occurred; and all +that remained was a pathological horror. +Italy and Spain were saturated by it—Italy +in the revolting wax spectacles of Easter, and +Spain with the veritable crucifixions of to-day.</p> + +<p>It was, I supposed, to a certain extent unavoidable<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a> +in an establishment whose hold on +the ponderable present depended on threats +and promises laid in the future. But it +seemed to me unfortunate, to say the least, that +a church whose business was life should be so +concerned with smoky death. Threats and +promises! The early history of Cuba, I remembered, +was inbound with the administrative +and protective powers of the Church: in +fifteen hundred and sixteen the native Cubeños +were put in the charge of the Order of Jeronimites, +localized in La Espanola—Santo +Domingo. The double motive of the Spanish +Christian kings in the western hemisphere had +been conversion and gold, but which of these +was uppermost it was impossible to determine. +However, when the gold, the temporal interest, +decreased in one locality, the spiritual +concern of Seville shifted to the more productive +regions.</p> + +<p>That was a period, a conquest, when a violent +death was a greater blessing than living +in a state of damnable heresy; and so, between +the saving of their souls and the loss of<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a> +their bodies in the king's mines, the natives +were thoroughly cared for. It must be said, +though, that de las Casas, a priest whose spirit +was above any intimidation or venality, denounced +the outrages against the Cuban Indians +to the shining heavens, the cerulean sea, +the Audencia, and the Throne. But his humanitarianism +was ineffectual against a system +founded on the belief that a god had given +the earth and its recalcitrant people for the +profit and glory, the servants, of a single religious +dogma.</p> + +<p>It was, possibly, a mental imperfection +which gave impressions, emotions, such a great +suggestibility. Returning toward the Inglaterra, +I had no intention of losing myself in +the mazes of applied theology; and I speedily +dropped such a sombre topic from my +thoughts. Turning back to the Prado, I found +the walks filled with men, progressing slowly +or seated on the flat marble benches along the +sides. Whenever a woman did pass on foot, +their interest and speculations were endless: +heads turned in rows, sage remarks were exchanged,<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> +and tentative simpaticas murmured. +Her mother—if she had the slightest pretensions +to youth or good looks—was fervently +blessed for so fetching a daughter. Here, of +course, was the defect of the local attitude toward +women—it put the emphasis perpetually +on a gallantry affecting the men more even +than the women. There was a constant danger +of becoming one-sided.</p> + +<p>The Telegrafo and the Louvre were +crowded, with more refrescos and ices on the +table than authoritative drinks; the cigarettes +of the discursive throngs in the Parque Central +were like a sheet of fire-flies, and the +Marti and Pairet theatres were spreading +abroad the audiences of their second evening +shows. The patio of the Inglaterra was well +filled, and I stopped there; not, however, for +a naranjada. Some late suppers were still +occupying the dining-room, and a drunken +American was gravely addressing a table and +meeting with a mechanical politeness that I +admired for its sustained patience. He left, +finally, and wandered unsteadily, a subject of<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a> +entertainment for his fellows and a mark of +contempt to the Cubans present. Beyond me +were some beautifully dressed English—two +men in the final perfection of easy masculine +garb and a girl, flushed with beauty, in pearls. +On the other hand a young Frenchman, decorated +with the most honorable of war ribbons, +and two women, all in mourning, were +conversing in the difficult Parisian idiom.</p> + +<p>I should have liked to be at either table—their +attractions were equal; but, forced to remain +alone, I thought of how rude the English +would have been had I moved over to them. +The English would have been boorish, and +the French would have met me with an impenetrable +polite reserve. Both would regard +me as an idiot or an agent; to have spoken +to them would have been an affront. And yet +I was confident that we should have got on +very well: I was not without a name in London, +and the French were delightfully sensitive +to any practising of the arts. The English, +I gathered from their unguarded talk, +were cruising on a yacht now lying in Havana<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> +harbor; and I saw myself, the following morning, +going off to them in a smart tender and +sitting under the white awning spread aft, +with a whisky and soda, talking or not, but +happily aware of the shining brass and mahogany +fittings, the immaculate paint and gay +pennants.</p> + +<p>I had always liked worldly pomp and settings, +marble Georgian houses with the long +windows open directly on closed greens and +statues of lead; and to linger, before going +down to dinner, on a minstrel's gallery above a +stone hall and gathered company. I'd rather +be on a yacht than on an excursion boat; yet I +infinitely preferred reading about the latter. +For some hidden or half perceived reason, +yachts were not impressive in creative prose; +there the concerns and pleasures of aristocracy +frequently appeared tawdry and unimportant. +Even its heroism, in the valor of battle and +imperturbable sacrifice, was less moving to +me than simpler affairs. Yet there was no +doubt but that I was personally inclined to the +extremes of luxury; and this apparent contradiction<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a> +brought to my life, my writing, the +problem of a devotion to words as disarmingly +simple as the leaves of spring—as simple and +as lovely in clear color—about the common experience +of life and death, together with an +absorbing attention for Manchu women and +exotic children and emeralds.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>The following day, hot and still, with the +exception of capricious movements of air in +paved shaded places, was overcast, the brilliancy +of Havana, of the white and green plazas, +subdued. And this softening of sharp +lines and blazing façades seemed to influence, +too, the noises, the calls, of the streets, so that +it was all apparently insubstantial, like the +ultimate romantic mirage of a city. I wandered +along Neptuno Street to Belascoin, and +then to the Parque Maceo, where I ignored the +massed bronze and granite of its statue for the +slightly undulating shimmering tide. In the +distance the sea was lost in the sky—a nebulous +gray expanse such as might have existed<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> +before the beginning of comparative solidity. +I lost all sense of time, the centuries +were jumbled together like mangos in a basket. +Yes, they were no greater, no more important +or stable, than tropical fruit.</p> + +<p>The vivid spectacle of Cuba, for example, +contracted to a palm's breadth, the island became +nothing more than the glimmer of a +torch in illimitable dusk. It had been discovered +by Columbus, a presumptuous term used +arrogantly in the sense of created; an Arcadian +shore where, because food grew without +cultivation, without effort, and the gold was +soft for beating into bracelets, the natives lived +easily and ornamentally and in peace. They +wore, rather than steel and the harsh shirts +of the Inquisition, the feathers of birds with +woven dyed quills and fragrant grasses. +They sang, they danced with a notable grace, +loved and died in the simplicity of bohios of +palm board and thatch under nine Caciques.</p> + +<p>Then, in the drawing of a breath, they were +all destroyed, gone, killed by slavery, in the +name of God on the points of swords, by the<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a> +rapacity, the corruption, the diseases, of civilization. +A Spanish Cuba rose—Iberian and +yet singularly different—a business of Captain-General +and Teniente Rey, of alcalde and +alcaide, of Santiago de Cuba and San Cristóbal +de la Habana. The French under Jacques +Sores, and the English under Drake, sailed +over the horizon. In less than a second, the +expiration of a sigh, Diego de Velasquez and +Narvaez, Isabel de Bobadilla, Rojas and Guzman, +the merchant Diego Perez in vain laying +the guns of the Magdalena in defense of +the past, had gone. The Cedula from Madrid, +in eighteen hundred and twenty-five, began +the conspiracies, Tacón came and went, +the fiscals beat free colored men to death and +entertained the negro women naked at balls. +The Lopez rebellion was followed by the ten +years' war of eighteen hundred and sixty-eight +and the peace of Zanjon, the great rebellion +and Weyler.</p> + +<p>There remained now the indefinite sea and +a city withdrawn, secretive, made vaguely +beautiful by intangible voices, all its voices<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> +that had laughed and shouted, whispered and +cried; and by the towers and walls merged in +a single pattern, the old and the new drawn +together by an aspect of impermanence, freed +from the deceptive appearance of solidity. +Suddenly its history had been shown to me in +a flash of emotion, a mood of feeling. I +hadn't come to Cuba ignorant of the land, but +I had determined to slight what was but written +inanimate fact. I had no disposition for +instruction: books were powerless to create La +Punta for me, it must bear its own credentials +... it might become, to my uncertain advantage, +as important as a Daiquiri cocktail, +as a Larrañaga cigar, but hardly more.</p> + +<p>In any other case I should have cheated myself, +not only of pleasure, the relaxation possible +to honesty of mind, but of any hope of future +material. The creative habit was the +most tireless and frugal in existence: there was +nothing—no experience, person, disillusionment, +or pain—not endlessly sounded for its +every note and meaning. No one could predict<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a> +what would be indispensable, just as it +was impossible to foresee, in the projection of +a novel, where its fine moments occurred. +And, returning to the descriptive and historical +books on Cuba, left so largely unread at +the Inglaterra, it was probable that they had +omitted, in their effort for literal and conventional +emphasis, what might in their subject be +vivifying to me.</p> + +<p>This, however, was beyond spoiling—a history +so picturesque, as I have intimated, that +its very vividness, its commonest phases, had +become the threadbare material of obvious +romance. But, outside of all that, the other +Havana, the mid-Victorian Pompeii, a city +that none could have predicted or told me of, +offered the incentive of its particular and rare +charm. In the Parque Maceo, on the sea +wall, my imagination stirred with the first +beginnings of a story: it would take place in +the period when the avaricious grip of Spain +was loosening, a story of secret patriotism and +the idealism of youth, set in marble salons, at<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a> +the opera and the cafés. It would not concern +itself with any love except the fidelity between +two men, a story of friendship.</p> + +<p>There it would be different from The Arrow +of Gold and Doña Rita; no peignoirs, +thank you, but a formality, a passionate propriety, +in keeping with the social gravity and +impersonal devotion of the very young. +There must be crinoline—would I never escape +from that!—and candelabra with glittering +prisms; Spanish soldiers in striped linen +and officials with green-tasselled canes. My +youth, he'd come from the United States, +would have his little dinners at the Restaurant +Française, in Cuba Street number seventy-two, +and his refrescos at the Café Dominica. In +the end he'd leave Havana, having accomplished +nothing but the loss of his illusions for +the gain of a memory like a dream, but his +friend, a Cuban—I had seen him that first +night at dinner in the Inglaterra—would be +killed. How....</p> + +<p>It was time to go back to the hotel, and the +<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a>story receded. I walked too far on Belascoin +Street, all the way to Salud; and, past the Tacón +Market, came out on the Parque de Colon, +where now there was a hot dusty wind, like a +localized sirocco, and I was glad to reach my +room. The reflection of the colored glass +above the window was hardly discernible on +the tiles; the interior was permeated by a +shadow which made the ceiling appear high +beyond computation; and my wardrobe trunk, +standing open, exhibited a rack of limp neckties. +I turned again to the novels on the table +and again let them drop, unattended, from a +listless hand. Tepid water! And I wondered—a +constant subject with me—when +we should have a new vigorous American literature, +a literature absolutely native, by men +who had not, like myself, been to school to +Turgenev and the English lyrical poetry. +Henry James had found the United States +lacking in background; the lack was evident, +but not in the country of his birth.</p> + +<p>This was not a complaint against The Velvet +Glove except as it equally applied to me; +but an intense desire for a fresh talent, an<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a> +ability to which we could, without reserve, +take off our hats. The fact hit me that I was +forty, although it was still the fashion among +reviewers to speak of me as a promising young +man, and that there were patches of grey hair +on my temples. Yet I had been, everything +considered, remarkably successful; there was +no need for sentimental regret, a trait of mental +feebleness.</p> + +<p>I decided to do something positive that +evening, to go to the theatre, or, if it were +playing, to see the Jai Alai. The latter was +possible, and, by way of the Telegrafo, I +reached the Hotel Florida for dinner; a restaurant +which, because of the windows looking +down on it, had the pleasant individual +air of a courtyard. The music played, diners +came and went, and I gazed up at the shallow +balconies in the hopefulness of an incorrigible +imagination. The Fronton Jai Alai—in Havana +the game, pelota, had taken the title of +its court—was a long way from Obispo Street, +but I knew when we had reached it by the +solid volume of shouting that escaped from<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a> +the high concrete building into the dim neighborhood.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>Inside, the court was an immense expanse +with granite-laid walls, a long rectangle, one +side of which was formed by the steeply +banked rows of spectators. Regular spaces +were marked by white lines on the playing +floor, and at one end the score was hung +against the names of the players, now two +teams—the Azules and the Blancos. The +boxes were above the cement ledges packed +with standing men, by a promenade, where the +betting was conducted, cigars sold, and a small +active bar maintained. It was the night of +a gala benefit, for the Damas de Caridad, and +I had been fortunate in getting a single box +seat. I was late, though, and the game progressing; +still, I was the first in our railed +space; but the others, who proved to be Americans, +soon followed—three prosperous men, +manufacturers I thought, with wives in whom +native good taste had been given the opportunities +of large resources.<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a></p> + +<p>One of the women—who, in the arrangement +of the box, sat beside me—smiled with a magnetism +that had easily survived the loss of her +youth; she was rather silent than not, but the +rest swept into a conversation in their best +public manner. A man accompanying them, +it developed, knew Cuba and Jai Alai, and he +secured for the amusement of the others a +cesta, the basket-like racquet worn strapped to +the arm. It was from him I discovered that +the court was two hundred and ten feet long +and thirty-six feet wide; while the service consisted +in dropping the ball and, on its rebound, +catching it in the cesta and throwing it against +the far end wall. From there, with a sharp +smack audible all over the Fronton, the ball +shot back, if not a fault, within a marked area, +and one of the opposing side caught it, in the +air or on the first bounce, and returned it +against the end wall. At first I could see +nothing but the violent activity of the players, +frozen into statuesque attitudes of throwing; +vigorous figures in, mostly, white, with soft +red silk sashes. I heard the ball hit, and saw<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a> +it rolling out of play; and then, with some +slight realization of the rapidity of its flight, +I was able to follow the course from cesta to +wall and floor.</p> + +<p>There had never been, I was certain, another +game in which instantaneous judgment, +skill, and endurance had been carried to such +a far point. There was seldom a fault or error; +the ball, flying like a bullet, was caught +and flung with a single gesture; again and +again it carried from one end wall to the +other, from which it was hurled on. Angles +of flight were calculated and controlled, the +long side wall was utilized.... Then a +player of the Azules was hit in the ankle, and +the abruptness with which he went down +showed me a possibility I had ignored.</p> + +<p>During this the clamor of the audience was +indescribable, made up, for the most part, of +the difficulties of constantly shifting odds and +betting. The odds changed practically with +every passage of the ball: opening at, say, +five to three against the favorites, as they drew +steadily ahead in a game of twenty-five points<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> +it jumped to eight to four, ten to three, anything +that could be placed. On the floor a +small company of bookmakers, distinguished +by their scarlet caps, shouted in every direction, +and betting paper was thrown adroitly +through the air in hollow rubber balls. Those +who had backed at favorable odds the team +now far ahead were yelling jubilantly, and +others were trying, at the expense of their +lungs, to cover by hedging their probable +losses.</p> + +<p>There was, however, toward what should +have been the end, an unlooked-for development—the +team apparently hopelessly behind +crept up. An astounded pause followed, and +then an uproar rose that cast the former sound +into insignificance. Soon the score was practically +tied: there were shrill entreaties, basso +curses, a storm of indiscriminate insults. +Now the backers of the lesser couple scrambled +vocally to take advantage of the betting +opportunities forever lost—the odds were +even, then depressed on the other side. When +the game was over the noise died instantly:<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> +men black with passion, shaking with rage, +crushing their hats or with lifted clenched +fists, at once conversed with smiling affability. +My eyes had been badly strained, and I was +glad to leave the box and stroll along the +promenade. The betting counters were +jammed by the owners of winning tickets, the +men behind the bar were, in their own way, +as active as the pelota players.</p> + +<p>The majority of the boxes were occupied +by Cuban families, but yet there was an appreciable +number of foreigners. A slender +girl, in a low dinner dress, was sitting on the +railing of her box, swinging a graceful slipper +and smoking a cigarette—New York was indelibly +stamped on her—and, among the masculine +world of Spanish antecedents, she created +a frank center of interest. For her part, +she studied the crowd quite blocking the way +below her with a cold indifference, the personification +of young assured arrogance.</p> + +<p>A quiniela followed, with six contestants, +one against the other in successive pairs; but +my eyes were now definitely exhausted by the<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a> +necessarily shifting gaze, and my interest fastened +on the woman beside me. She was at +once intimately attached to the people with her +and abstracted in bearing: a woman not far +from fifty, but graceful still and, in a flexible +black silk crêpe with a broad girdle of jet, still +desirable. It seemed to me that, in spite of an +admirable manner, she was a little impatient +at the volubility around her; or it might be, +in contradiction to this, she was exercising a +patience based on fortitude. It was clear that +she hadn't a great deal in common with the +man who had evidently been married to her +for a considerable length of years. They +spoke little—it was he who had fetched the +cesta—both immersed in individual thoughts. +A woman, I decided, finely sensitive, superior; +who, as she had grown older, had found no +demand for the qualities which she knew to +be her best.</p> + +<p>A painful situation, a shocking waste, +from which, for her, there was no escape, for +she had patently what was known as character. +She at once was conscious of the absolute need<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a> +for spiritual freedom and bound by commitments +paramount to her self-esteem. But +even if she had been more daring, less conscientious, +what could she have gained; what +was there for her in a society condemned to +express the spirit in the terms of flesh? She +had too much charm, too great a vitality, to be +absorbed in the superficial affairs of women, +the substitute life of charity. And once married, +probably to a man the model of kindly +faith, she was caught in a desert of sterile +monotony. Even children, I could see, if +they existed, had not slain her questioning attractive +personality.</p> + +<p>She smiled at me again, later, her narrow +slightly wasting hands clasped about a knee—a +smile of sympathetic comprehension and unquenchable +woman. She would have been +happier chattering in the obvious strain of +stupidity behind her: any special beauty was +always paid for in the imposed loneliness of a +spoken or unspoken surrounding resentment. +To be content with a facile compliment, the +majority of tricks at auction bridge, mechanical<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a> +pleasures, was the measure of wisdom for +women in her situation. The last quiniela +over, plainly weary she gathered a cloak about +her shoulders and left the box, without, as I +had hoped, some last gesture or even a word: +and I pictured her sitting listlessly, distraught, +in the café to which they were proceeding.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>The pelota immediately vanished from my +mind before the infinitely more fundamental +and interesting problem of marriage; and—remembering +the ominous sign of a woman's +club on the Malecón—I wondered if the Cuban +women were contented with the tradition +as it had been handed down to them. In the +life that I knew in the north, an infinitesimal +grain of sand irritating in the body of the +United States, the sacredness of matrimony +had waned very seriously; it would, of course, +go on, probably for ever, since no other arrangement +could be thought of conciliating +the necessities of both dreams and property; +but, subjected to the scrutiny of intelligence<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a> +rather than sentimentality, it seemed both impotent +and foolish. The impotence certainly, +for whereas my grandfather had thirteen children +and my mother four—or was it five?—I +had none. There had always been individuals +unrestrained by the complicated oaths of +the wedding service—a strictly legal proceeding +to which the church had been permitted to +add its furbelows—dissatisfied ladies, and gentlemen +of the commercial road. I wasn't referring +to them, but to the look, at once puzzled, +humorous, and impatient, that lately I +had seen wives of probity turn on their husbands.</p> + +<p>They expressed the conviction that the +purely masculine aphorism to the effect that +home was the place for women meant nothing +more than a clearing of the decks for unrestricted +action. This was beautifully displayed, +confirmed, in Havana, where decks +were without a single impediment; and I speculated +about the attitude of the Cuban women +in houses barred with both actual and metaphorical +iron. Tradition weighed heavily on<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a> +their outlook; but there was that club on the +Malecón. Tradition had bound the farm +wives of Pennsylvania, yet they were progressively +rebelling against the insanity of endless +labor and isolation. But, perversely, the married +groups I saw in Havana were remarkably +close, simple, and happy. They sat in rows +at the concerts on the plazas, went off on small +excursions, in entire harmony—a thing impossible +to the born American, with whom such +parties began in exasperation and ended in +nervous exhaustion. An American husband, +of the class largely evident in Havana, escorted +his family abroad with truculence and +an air of shame at being exposed in such a +ridiculous situation. If there was more than +one household implicated, the men invariably +drew away together: there was a predominance +of cursing and the wails of irritably +smacked children. The truth was that the citizens +of the United States, in their feverish +passage through life, had decidedly a poor +time—either restlessness or ambition or dissatisfaction +destroyed their peace of mind.<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> +Labor, more highly paid than at any other +place or time, got less satisfaction for its +money than a Cuban mestizo with a peseta.</p> + +<p>My thoughts returned abruptly to the point +where they had started, to marriage, and I +hoped that Cuba wouldn't be disorganized by +the present ferment; that the feminine element, +discovering their wrongs, wouldn't leave their +balconies and patios for the dusty publicity of +the street. Already a decline had been suffered, +first in the loss of mantillas and combs, +next in the passing of single-horse victorias for +unrestrained tin locomotives, and then in the +hideous flood of electric lighting. Still, a +great deal of the charm, the empire, of Havana +women remained; while nothing but utter +disaster approached them from the north.</p> + +<p>This was no new position for me, and it had +never failed to be attacked, usually with the +insinuation that, spiritually, I was part of +Turkey in Asia ... a place of gardens where +it was not inconceivable that I'd be happy: +certainly the politics there were no worse than +those to which I had been inured from birth,<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a> +with murder on the streets at noon distinguished +by a white ribbon in its buttonhole. +The Armenians were no more precariously situated +than the Albigenses under Innocent III. +I had heard, as well, that the governments of +Cuba had not been free from suspicion, but it +was hoped that elections supervised from the +United States would institute reform. Rare +irony! Elections, I should have said, going +back once more to the beginning, opening to +emancipated women.</p> + +<p>Gathering, in imagination, all the feminine +world of Havana into a fragrant assembly, I +begged them not to separate themselves from +their privileges; I implored them even—against +my personal inclination, for there, at +least, I was no Turk—not to grow slender, if +that meant agile excursions into loud spheres +of lesser influence. Those others, I proceeded, +would rapturously exchange a ballot +for a seductive ankle, a graceful breast, or a +flawless complexion. Complexion, or rather +its absence, brought immeasurably more supporting +votes to the women's party than convictions.<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a> +And I added, reprehensibly, some +of the things I had been privately told, as a +writer, by women newly in the professions: +I exposed the secret of a lecturer on civic improvement—or +it might have been better babies; +I couldn't recall which—who carried a +handbagful of apostrophies to Paolo and +Francesca, and that illogical lot, on her travels. +She permitted me to read them in a +sunny orchard where the apples were already, +more than ripe, on the ground; and her gaze +had persistently strayed to the wasting fruit.</p> + +<p>The audience melted away—I was unable to +discover if they were flattered or annoyed—and +I found myself actually seated at one of +the small tables on the fringe of the thé dansant +at the Sevilla. The Cascade Orchestra from +the Biltmore, their necks hung with the imitation +wreaths of Hawaii, were playing a musical +pastiche of many lands and a single purpose; +and there, foxtrotting intently among +girls from the New York Follies and girls on +follies of their own, colliding with race track +touts from Jefferson Park and suave predatory<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> +gentlemen of San Francisco, I found a whole +section of young Cuba.</p> + +<p>They returned, in the intermissions, to chaperons +complacent or secretly disturbed, where +they had, principally, refrescos; but their attitude +was one of progress and conscious, patronizing +superiority to old-fashioned customs. +The daughters of what, in many aspects, was +the Spanish-Cuban aristocracy of the island, +were dancing publicly in a hotel. Here, already, +was an example of emancipation. I +disliked it, naturally, not on moral grounds, +but because it foreshadowed the destruction +of individuality, the loss, eventually, of Havana, +of Cuba, of Spain ... of everything +distinguished that saved the world from monotony.</p> + +<p>They danced—the Cuban youth—with notable +facility, adding to the hesitation waltz +something specially their own, a more intense +rhythm, a greater potentiality; their bodies +were at once more fluid and positive; they +were swept up into a mood unknown to the +adamant ornaments of Country Club verandas<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> +in the north. A cosmopolitan waiter, +anxious to have me finish and move on, hovered +about the table, ignorant of a traditional +courtesy as well as of the requirements of the +climate. All the objectionable features of +Broadway cafés, of public ostentation, mingled +servility and insolence, dishonesty—my +piña colado was diluted beyond taste—were +being flung, with the air of a favor, into Havana. +Although, for the best, I was even then +a little late, I was glad that I had seen the city +when I did, just as I was glad to have known +Venice before the Campanile fell, and the +Virginia Highlands when they had not been +modernized. The change of Havana within +itself, from palm thatch to marble, was entrancing; +but the arbitrary imposition of stupid +habits, standards, conduct, from outside, +damnable.</p> + +<p>In the end the waiter was more forceful +than my determination to remain until my +drink and thoughts were at an end, and I rose +with them uncompleted, in a very ill temper. +If Cuba hadn't enough innate taste and nationality<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a> +to save herself, she must go the popular +way to obliteration. So much else had gone! +But later, at the Hotel de Luz, untouched yet +by the hand of imported cupidity, my happiness +in Havana returned.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>The Hotel de Luz, inimitably Cuban, with +the shipping lying vaguely behind an orderly +foliage at the Muelle outside, had a dining-room +partly divided by wooden screens that +merged informally into the surrounding halls +and spaces, and an air that was an accumulation +of tradition, like an invisible film lying +over everything. A multiplication of unexpected +adventitious detail accomplished, in its +entity, the strangeness, at once enticing and +a little sinister, characteristic of Havana. +There was, lurking about, in the darker corners +and passages, a feeling almost of dread, +uncomfortable to meet. And, exploring, I +passed a room without windows, largely the +color of dried blood, the quintessence of a +nightmare. The third floor, laid in a triangle<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a> +of, perhaps, ninety degrees, raised immense +corridors paved in black and white marble +blocks, down the long perspective of which +moving figures were reduced to furtive mannikins +and voices were lost in an upper murmur.</p> + +<p>I sat, for a while, in a walnut rocking chair +at an end of the sweep, which amazed me by +an architecture, the impressiveness of which +approached oppression. A wall was broken by +a file of slatted doors, and from one of these +came the minute irritable clatter of a typewriter; +the bell at the finish of a line sounded +like the shiver of a tapped glass, and a child +spoke. It was difficult to think of the Hotel +de Luz as a place of normal residence, as +existing at all except in the mental fantasias +of Piranesi—it resembled exactly one of his +sere vertiginous engravings. Yet it was, I +knew, the favorite hotel of travelers from the +Canary Islands.</p> + +<p>Continuing to rock slightly and smoke, I +pursued the extremely recondite subject of +just such impressions as I had there received:<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a> +a very important inquiry, for it had to do with +the secret, the unintelligible heart, of my writing. +There was, obviously, in the Hotel de +Luz nothing intrinsically terrifying, strange. +My attitude toward it would be dismissed as +absurd by the Canary Islanders. But the effect +it produced on me was tangible, ponderable; +it tyrannized over my imagination and +drove it into corridors of thought as sombre as +that in reality before me. I had seen the Piranesi +engravings when I was very young and +painfully susceptible to mental darkness and +fears; and they had undoubtedly left their indelible +mark ... now brought out by the +black and white marble squares diminishing +with the walls in parallel lines.</p> + +<p>The reality of what I felt, then, lay in the +combining of the surroundings and my imagination—a +condition, a result, if not unique, at +least unlikely to be often repeated. The sum +of another emotional experience and the Hotel +de Luz would be totally different, but equally +true with my own; and from that confusion +misunderstanding arose. The actuality was<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a> +neither concrete nor subjective; yet, woven of +these double threads, it was absolute. The individuality +of places and hours absorbed me; +there was no word in English to express my +meaning—the perception of the inanimate +moods of place. It belonged, rather than to +the novel, to the painter, and possibly occupied +too great a space in my pages. Certainly +houses and night and hills were often more +vivid to me than the people in or out of them.</p> + +<p>But it was no longer possible, if it had ever +been, to disentangle one from the other, the +personal from what seemed the impersonal; +for, while nature was carelessly free from +beauty and sentiment and morals, it had been +invested with each of these qualities in turn by +a differently developing intelligence. The +elements of nature, partly in hand, were arbitrarily +and subconsciously projected in set +forms. I stopped to think how the mobility +of mind perpetually solidified, like cement, +about itself; how fluid ideas, aspirations, always +hardened into institutions, then prisons, +then mortuary vaults. Religion had done this<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> +signally, both profoundly and superficially—it +was impossible to picture the faith of John +Fox under the frescoes of La Merced Church, +a Methodist exuberance in St. Michael's at +Richmond; the Roman ritual was as much a +thing of its silver altars as the Episcopal +Church in Virginia depended on historic communion +services and austere box pews.</p> + +<p>Not only was I specially intent on these +values: my inability to see men as free from +them, as spiritual conquistadores, had been a +cause of difficulty in the popularity and sale +of my books. I lacked both the conceptions +of man as an Atlas, holding up the painted +globe, or an individual mounting securely into +perpetuity. If the latter were true, if there +were no death, the dignity of all the great +tragic moments of life and art, the splendor of +sacrifice, was cheapened to nothing. I would +have gladly surrendered these for the privilege +of continued existence—in a sphere not +dominated by hymnology—but, skeptical of +the future, all I possessed, my sole ideal, was a +passionate admiration for the courage of a humanity<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> +condemned to the loss of warm life.</p> + +<p>I had grown more serious than I intended, +than, in Havana, was necessary; what I had +set out to discover was simply the explanation +of my feeling about the Hotel de Luz; but +undoubtedly it was better for me to accept +emotions, merely to record them, than attempt +analysis.</p> + +<p>I had had very little schooling in processes +of exact thought, practically no mental +gymnastics. But this was not an imposed +hardship on which I looked back with regret—I +had been free to fill my life with scholastic +routine, but balked absolutely: in class +rooms a blankness like a fog had settled over +me, from which, after a short half-hearted +struggle, I emerged to follow what, namelessly, +interested me. That, for example, was +precisely the manner of my stay in Havana. +A course for which the worst was predicted, +specially since I persisted in writing. And I +could see how I'd be censured by the frugal-minded +for such a book as I was more than +likely to bring to San Cristóbal de la Habana.<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a></p> + +<p>There was, in reality, no practical reason +to write about it at all, since it had been admirably +and thoroughly described, the sights, +pleasures, and sounds, in reputable and laudatory +paragraphs, a source of pride to the natives. +Here no one could predict, in my +search, what would seem important, to be transcribed—the +colored glass above a window, +the sugar at the bottom of a cocktail—and my +moral sense, of course, would be as impotent +as my political position was negligible. Yet +the qualities ignored by a more solemn intelligence +than mine were precisely what formed +the spirit of Havana; their comprehension +was necessary to that perception of an inanimate +mood of place.</p> + +<p>I was constantly in a disagreement with the +accepted opinion of what were, at bottom, the +more serious facts, the determining pressures +of existence; and it had always been at the +back of my head to write a novel built from +just such trivialities as, it seemed to me, enormously +affected human fate. A very absorbing +idea that had gone as far as an introduction<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> +called A Preface of Imperishable Trifles; +but the realization that I had begun in that +manner—a suspicious circumstance in a novel,—where +no shadow of an explanation, a justification, +was permissible, led me to put it away. +It was the serious defect of the novel that it +commonly resembled the mechanism of an ingenious +lock in which the key turned smoothly +for the flinging open, at the appropriate moment, +of a door upon a tableau of justice. It +lacked almost entirely the fatalities of sheer +chance, of inconsiderable accidents, which +gave life its characteristic insecurity.</p> + +<p>I had left the Hotel de Luz for echoing +stone galleries and streets and empty paved +plazas when I told myself that mine would +have simply been a story of shifted emphasis, +for which I should have used my +own memories, since I recalled the wallpaper +of a music room after thirty years +more clearly than the details of my father's +death, happening when I was practically +mature. The unavoidable conclusion of this +was that the paper, in a way I made no pretence<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> +to explain, bore upon me more deeply +than my father; and, with that in view, it was +perhaps as well that the story had remained +unwritten.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>Some of these considerations returned to my +mind the following afternoon, when my fancy +had been captured by a woman on a balcony +of the Malecón. The house was small, +crushed between two imposing structures that +had been residences but were now apartments, +scarcely two stories and set back of the line, +with the balcony at a lower window. The +woman was neither young nor lovely, but, +folded in a shawl, it might have been one of +the lost mantillas, she was invested with a +melancholy dignity. It was possible, in the +briefest passage, to see not only her history +but the story of a decade, of a vanished greatness +lingering through a last afternoon before +extinction—a gesture of Spain finally submerged +in the western seas of skepticism.</p> + +<p>I was extraordinarily grateful to her for +standing wrapped with the shawl in immobile<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a> +sadness. That was all I wanted from her, the +most indeed, she could give: apart from the +balcony, hurrying along the street with the +black lace drawn closely about her head, she +would have been meaningless. The hour in +which I saw her, too, the swiftly fading radiance, +had its inevitable part in the effect she +produced. I had, I realized, no wish to restore +her to either youth or happiness, I didn't +want to improve her, or the case of Spain, in +any way; she was perfect for my purpose, so +eminently selfish, as she was. In begging, in +imagination, the women of Havana to remain +on their balconies, I hadn't given a thought to +their welfare or desires.</p> + +<p>The truth was that I regarded them as a +part of their iron grilling, figures on a canvas, +the balconies and women inseparable from +each other. It might well be that this was no +more than the intolerable oppression of the +past incongruously thrust upon the present, and +that at any minute the women, in righteous indignation +and revolt, would step down into +life. But if they were to do that, I hoped it<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> +would be put off until I had returned to the +land of the feminine free; I didn't want to be +present when the balconies were definitely deserted +for the publicity of the Sevilla. I +should regret their loss heavily, those points of +vantage gracefully ranged across the brilliant +façades of Havana. For there was no other +city where balconies were so universal, so +varied, and so seductive. I recalled a balcony +high over the Rond Point de Plain-palais, +in Geneva, where, on the left, could be +seen the blue line of the Jura and on the right, +through the mounting Rue de Carouge, the +abrupt green cliff of the Salve. Curiously, +there were a great many balconies in Geneva +giving on many beautiful prospects—the +Promenade des Bastions and La Treille, the +Cité and bridged water; but they were no +more than pleasant, they had no deep significance +whatever. The balconies of Charleston +were rather galleries turned privately on gardens +and not upon the streets; while those over +the banquettes of New Orleans, of the vieux<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a> +carré, had long ago been emptied of their +flowered muslins.</p> + +<p>The popularity of balconies, their purpose, +had remained, until now at least, largely unchanged +in Havana. On Sol Street, in the +neighborhood of Oficios and where it met the +harbor, they solidly terminated their tall windows, +reached the heights of discreet tradition. +There the way was so narrow that a head +above must be bent forward to see what was +passing, affording a clear view of high comb +and bright lips, provocative in the intimacy of +their suggestion. The balconies of the Malecón +looked out, conversely, across the unbroken +tide of the sea—in the afternoon, when +it was fair, a magical sweep of unutterable +blue. Yet they had suffered a decline—as +though the constant noise of automobiles had +rent an evanescent spirit.</p> + +<p>The women there might see, as they chose, +either the parade of fashion or the grey walls +and the far horizon; but from the balconies of +the Prado only the former was visible, the<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> +whirling motor cars and the pedestrians in the +rows of India laurels. Here the balconies +through the early and late evening were +crowded; the chatter, the gesticulations and +smiles, evident on the street. The clothes, +however, were no longer Spanish in characteristic +detail, but Parisian; while the essential +atmosphere, the color, of the balconies remained. +In carnival—I had just missed it—they +were hung with serpentine and exchanged +bombardments of roses and compliments +with the street; but now their fastness, +except to the flutter of a hand, was absolute.</p> + +<p>I saw a group of girls at an impressive window +of the Prado, on the corner of either +Trocadero or Colon Street, all in white except +for the clear scarlet of one, like a blazing +camellia among gardenias; and, for a day +after, their dark loveliness stayed in my mind. +They had had tea, probably, in the corner of +a high cool room with a marble floor, furnished +in pale gilt. I had no doubt that a +piano had been played for a brief explanatory +dancing, the trial of new steps neither<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> +French nor Spanish, but American. Some of +them, I knew, had been at school in New +York—probably Miss Spence's, where balconies +were not cultivated—and I wondered +what they thought about the Havana to which +they had returned. Well, if the Cuban men, +the fathers and suitors and husbands, preferred +to keep the historic architecture of their +society, of their climate, a convent of some +Sacred Heart would be wiser than a celebrated +American finishing school.</p> + +<p>The New York scene, however carefully +veiled and chaperoned, was a disquieting +preparation for the Prado, or even Vedado. +What the life on an estancia was, I couldn't +imagine; I had been told that, for a woman, +oftener than not, it was still a model of Castilian +rigidity. It had, in fact, been suggested +to me that I write the story of such a girl, shut +away from everything that she had been permitted +to see and desire. Unquestionably a +splendid subject, one of the vessels that would +hold everything an ability could pour into it. +I realized at once which, in that individual<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> +struggle, must conquer—the heredity of Cuba +would be more powerful than an isolated feminine +need. The other women, the elders, +who surrounded her, would be as relentless as +any husband, and in the end she'd become fat +and listless.</p> + +<p>Widely different balconies held my attention—on +one, flooded with the morning +sun, two women with carnation cheeks and +elaborately dressed hair, but for the rest strikingly +informal, laughed an invitation to me +that took no account of the hour. They were, +I suppose, tawdry, the cheap familiars of a +cheap street; but the gay orange wall where +they lounged like the painted actors of a zarzuela, +their yellow satin slippers and shoulders +impudently bare above chemises pink and +blue, all gave them a certain distinction. +Again, in the section of Jesus del Monte, there +were buildings brilliantly and impossibly +painted, usually with cafés on the ground, +whose balconies, exposed to an intolerable +heat, overlooked dingy sun-baked fields. +They were always empty.... I could never<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> +imagine their use—for there was not only +nothing to see, but no one to be seen by. The +houses of Havana, admirable in the closeness +of the city, possible in a bougainvillia-smothered +suburb, were depressingly inappropriate +to any contact with the country. They were +lost, detached or strayed away from their fellows; +for the happy plan of the country house +was that of exposure to all the favorable winds +that blew, to verandas and open halls rather +than balconies and patios: it was merged into +vistas and not relentlessly and jealously shut on +every face.</p> + +<p>A fact that had nothing to do with the tropics +or the outskirts of Havana, where wide +dusty stone avenues dropped abruptly in soft +roads, and the balconies were added purely +from habit. My own balcony, at the Hotel +Inglaterra, was ideally placed, with its command +of an angle of the Parque Central. I +often sat there before dinner, or past the middle +of night; there was always, then, a wind +stirring over San Rafael Street; but the balconies +on either side of me, above and below,<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> +were invariably empty, their purpose, it was +plain, mistrusted.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>The patios of Havana, turned so uncompromisingly +from the street, were, perhaps for +that reason, even more engaging than the balconies. +I saw them, except those of the government +buildings and others semi-public, +through opening or half open doors, or sometimes +I looked down into them from superior +heights. They, too, were countless in variety, +from the merest kitchen areas and places of +heaped refuse to lovely garden rooms of flowers +and glazed tiling and fountains. This +sense of privacy, of enclosure, in a garden was +their most charming feature; and the possibilities +and implications of a patio created a +whole social life with which I was necessarily +unfamiliar. They were, usually, in the hours +I knew them, empty but for passing servants +... obviously their time was late afternoon +or evening: fixed to the inner walls were the +iron brackets of lamps, and it was easy to<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> +imagine them dimly lighted and flooded +with perfume, with the scent of magnolias and +the whisper of the fountains.</p> + +<p>These details, separately, were not rare, but +shut into the masonry of Havana, their beauty +shown in momentary glimpses on streets of +blank walls, their fragrance drooping into unexpected +barren places, the patios stirred my +inherent desires. As usual, I didn't want to +be gazing at them from without, but to be a +part of their existence: I wanted to sleep on +one, in a room nothing but a stone gallery, or +watch the moonlight slip over the leaves of the +crape myrtles and the tiles and sink into the +water. But not to-day, for there were discordant +sounds through the arches with slender +twisted Moorish pillars—the subdued +harshness of mechanical music, the echoes of +that dissatisfaction which was everywhere now +recognized as improvement. I demanded +guitars.</p> + +<p>The masculine chords of the guitar, the least +sentimental of instruments, as the Spaniards +were the least sentimental of people, the deep<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> +vibration of resinous stopped strings, was the +perfect accompaniment to that color visible +and invisible. Invisible! Always that, first +and most potent. The perpetuity of atmosphere +through transmitted feeling was far +more absorbing than the other chimera, of incorruption. +It was tradition, more than +moonlight, that steeped the patios with +kindled obscure romantic longings. Within +their formal squares they held the spirit of a +great history and of two great races, two continents. +They, the patios, were the East in +the West, the Moroscos on the Peninsula.</p> + +<p>The dress of the present, even the floating +films of the women, was misplaced; these +were, in reality, the courtyards of the Orient, +and they needed the dignity of grave robes and +gestures, bearded serenity. In them, initially, +women had been flowers lightly clasped with +bands of rubies and dyed illusory veils; there +had been no guitars then, but silver flutes. +However, I had no desire to be a part of that +time; it was Spain that possessed me, and not +in Grenada but Cuba, during the Captain-generalship<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a> +of the Conde de Ricla, in the seventeen +sixties when the British conquests under +Albemarle were returned to the island. +That was a period of building and prosperity, +the fortifications of San Carlos and Atares were +established, Morro and the Cabañas refashioned, +and the streets and houses of Havana +named and numbered. The decline of Spain, +a long imperceptible crumbling, had already +begun, but its effect was not visible in Cuba; +there still was a Castilian arrogance burned +more brown, more vivid, by the Caribbean.</p> + +<p>A little late for the plate ships sailing in +cloudy companies and filling Havana with the +swords of Mexico and Peru; but my mind and +inclinations were not heroic; I could dispense +with Pizarro's soldiers, fanciful with the ornaments +of the Incas, for the quiet of walled +gardens, the hooped brocades of court dresses; +all the transplanted grace of the city and hour. +Climate was greater than man, and the first +Cubeños, dead in the mines of Cobre, were +being revenged for the usurpation of their +happiness and land; the negroes of the slave<a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a> +trade, too, were repaying their chains to the +last link of misery. But these counter influences +were not perceptible yet in the patios, +just as the French Revolution had still to scatter +the polite pastorals only to survive in the +canvases of Boucher and Watteau.</p> + +<p>It was, in Havana as well as Seville, the +farewell of true formality, for after that it +became only a form. No one, afterwards, +was to bow instinctively as he left a room or +dance to the measures of Beethoven and Mozart. +A useless plant cut down by a rusty +scythe! The elegance of Cuba, however, +changing into later Victorianism, was, in the +time of de Ricla, greatly enhanced by its surrounding, +by the day before yesterday when +there had been only thatched bohios where +now were patios of marble. Those quiet +spaces were sentient with all this, just as the +patios of the churches held the sibilant whisper +of the sandals of the Inquisition, an order +already malodorous and expelled from the island +by Antonio Maria Bucarely, the following +Captain-general.<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a></p> + +<p>But even yet it would be possible, with the +details carefully arranged, to find an emotional +situation in a patio undisturbed since +the middle eighteenth century; for the revenge +of the Cubeños and of Africa, of the red +and the black slaves, was that, with the faint +or full infusion of their bloods into their conquerors, +dwindled unintelligible desires and +dreamlike passions entered as well. A discoloration +of the mind as actual as the darkening +of the skin! And I pictured an obscure impulse +buried in the personality of a sensitive +and reserved man, such a trait as, at moments +of extreme pressure, would betray him into a +hateful savagery; or it might be better brought +out by a galling secret barbarity of taste. The +Spain of Philip, primitive Africa, and a virginal +island race constrained into one body +and spirit must be richly dramatic.</p> + +<p>It was imperative to regard the patios in +such a light, with a strong infusion of reality, +for, half apprehended, they produced that thin +tinkling note of sham romance; they evoked, +for a ready susceptibility, the impressions of<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> +opera bouffe ... a danger constantly present +in my thoughts. As it was, I should be accused +again of avoiding the actual and the difficult +for an easy unreality; but there was at +least this to be said for what I had, in writing, +laid back in point of time—no one had +charged me with an historical novel.</p> + +<p>There was another, perhaps safer, attitude +toward the balconies and patios of Havana: to +regard them in an unrelieved mood of realism, +to show them livid with blue paint and echoing +with shrill misery, typhoid fever, and poverty. +If I did that, automatically a number of +serious critical intellects would give me their +withheld support, they would no longer regard +me as a bright cork floating thoughtlessly +over the opaque depths of life. Well, they +could—they'd have to—go to the devil; for I +had my own honesty to serve, my own plot to +tend—a plot, as I have said, where, knowing +the effort hopeless, I tried only to grow a +flower spray. If I could put on paper an apple +tree rosy with blossom, someone else might +discuss the economy of the apples.<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a></p> + +<p>Or, in Havana, of the oranges. In the +meanwhile the patios gave me an inexhaustible +pleasure. Sometimes the walls were glazed +with tiles and the octagonal surface of the +fountain held the reflected tracery of bamboo, +while a royal palm towered over the balusters +of the roof and hanging lamps were crowned +with fretted metal. Another, with its flags +broken and the basin dry, was deserted except +for the soundless flame-like passage of chromatic +lizards; still another was bare, with +solid deep arcades and shadows on the ground +and a second gallery of gracefully light arches. +There was, in one, a lawn-parasol in candy-colored +stripes with low wicker chairs and gay +cushions; on a table some tall glasses elbowed +a syphon, English gin, and a silver dish of +limes, and a blue-and-yellow macaw was secured +to a black lacquer stand.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>That, evidently, was not characteristic of +Havana, and yet the city absorbed it, made it a +part of a complex richness, a complexity as<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> +brilliantly blended as a rainbow. At first I +had been entranced by the sudden colorful display, +it had seemed to be in one marvellously +high key; but now I recognized that it was +composed of the entire scale, and that there +were notes profoundly dark. I should have +known that, for I had been, when I was much +younger, a painter, and I had learned that +surfaces which seemed to be in one tone were +made up of a hundred. The city, of course, +was an accumulation of the men who had +made it, the women who had lived there; and +it was possible that Havana had as intense and +varied a foundation as any place that had existed.</p> + +<p>Not in the sense, the historical importance +of, for example, Athens; I had already said +that Havana was a city without history, which +was true in the cumulative, inter-human meaning +of that term. But it had, within its limits, +on its island like a flower in air, an amazing +and absorbing past. In the beginning, where +Spain was concerned, Cuba, a fabulous land, +had promised fabulous gold; but the empires<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> +of the Aztecs and Peru, incalculably richer, +and the fatal dream of eternal youth in Florida, +had robbed it of royal interest, of men, +food, and ships. It had settled back, lost to +most concern beyond a perfunctory colonial +administration, into a region of agriculture, +affected only indirectly by, and affecting not +at all, the universal upheaval elsewhere. +Within Havana itself, then, moulded by the +burning sun, the cooling night winds, and the +severing water, a peculiarly essential human +development had taken place. And its history +was, for this reason, elusive, most difficult +to grasp; hopelessly concealed from a mere +examination of bastions.</p> + +<p>One by one the colors of its fantastic design +grew clearer to me; period by period the +streets and people became intelligible, until +they reached the middle-century era to which +I was so susceptible. To arrive, with the ingredients +of a tropical Spain and the pirates +of the world, at an early Victorianism was a +mystery which demanded a close investigation. +That air enveloped all the center of the<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a> +city, its paseos and plazas and buildings, and +still influenced the social life. This, I finally +decided, came from the fact that the architectural +spirit which dominated Havana was of +the period before Eastlake; or at least I was +not familiar with any structures erected in +such a style, so lavishly marble, since then.</p> + +<p>There was no absence of modernity in the +wharfs and streets, but that loud impetuous +tide poured through the ways of a quieter water, +and in the side passages the sound diminished. +Havana was a great port, but the +steam shipping along its waterfront was incongruous +with the low tranquil whiteness, the +pseudo-classicism, of the buildings that held +along the bay. The latter particular, elaborated +from my first impression, carried the city +back to the end of the eighteenth century and +the beginning of the nineteenth. I had no intention +of examining the dates of numerous +structures, but the stamp of their time was on +the Ionic entablatures. Then women, as well, +had copied in their dress the symbol of the +Greek column, of sculpture instead of painting,<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> +except for the charming and illogical innovation +of turbans; and they went about in +sandals and gowns falling straight from their +looped breasts. Such a figure, with her head +bound in vermilion, must have been enticing +in the great shaded bare rooms. There must +have been, too, an extraordinary assemblage +of negro pages and majordomos in ruby silks +and canary and velvet.</p> + +<p>The feminine silhouette changed remarkably +in thirty years, from a column to a cone, +from the ultimate in flowing lines to a bouquet-like +rigidity; and the severity of furnishings, +of incidentals, expanded in queer elaborations. +It was, notably, a period of prudery, +of all which, objectively, I disliked; +while at the same time there had been the undercurrent +of license that always accompanied +an oppressive hypocrisy. This, I could see, +was true of its age in Havana: men—the real +prudes—had been heavily whiskered at home +with a repressed morality, and betrayed in +another quarter by heredity and the climate. +Two periods that, except for some beautiful<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> +books, had been steeped in an ugliness from +which the world had not recovered. Indeed, +while it was now fashionable to deride them, +the present was, in some ways, perceptibly +worse: Literature was, perhaps, bolder in +scope, but it showed hardly more than a surprise +at the sound of its comparative liberty +of speech. The art of painting had burst into +frantic fragments that might or might not +later be assembled into meaning; the architecture +had degenerated into nothing more than +skilful or stupid adaptation.</p> + +<p>In the large disasters that were sweeping +the world, the mad confusion of injustice and +revolt, of contending privilege, the serene +primness of Havana, its starched formality of +appearance, offered a priceless quietude. It +was, at once, static and mobile, a place of +countless moods that merged at the turning of +a corner, the shifting of a glance from La +Punta to the circular bandstand at the foot of +the Prado. Never pedantic, it was a city more +for the emotions than the intellect; intellect, +in its astigmatic conceit, had largely overlooked<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> +Havana; and Havana had missed little +enough. Its monuments and statues, where +they were complacently innocent of art, had +been brought into harmony of tone by the atmosphere +vivid like the flambeau trees, the +inconceivable blueness of its sea. The colors +of the houses, glaringly or palely inappropriate, +were melted and bound into inevitable +rightness. Even the cemetery, frosted with +tombs like a monstrous iced cake, its shafts +that might have been the crystallized stalagmites +of the caves of death, resembled nothing +more disturbing than the lacy pantalets +of the time it celebrated. It was the final accomplishment +of mid-Victorian horror, with +its pit of mouldering bones and solemn ritualistic +nonsense; yet the thought of the ponderous +gold and black catafalques rolling in procession +between the horizontal white slabs, of +the winking candles—all the ghastly appendages +of religious undertaking—and the +clergy in purple and fine cambric, with amethyst +rings on their fat or their thin fingers, +gave it the feeling of a remote mummery.<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a></p> + +<p>The cemetery from which I escaped with +relief and the café that I entered with pleasure—again +the Telegrafo—flowed together in +the city's general impression. I could see the +statue of Marti, and, as I looked, it changed +into the statue of Isabel; then that, too, vanished. +The broad paved avenue, the flagged +walks, became a gravelled plaza about which +the girls promenaded in one direction to pass +constantly the youths circling in the other. +The vision flickered and died, and I went on +to lunch through the Havana of so many days +smoothly packed into one.</p> + +<p>I felt that my first sense of instinctive familiarity +had been justified; yet, in the corridor +of the Inglaterra, asked by a traveler +how to get to a restaurant, the Dos Hermanos, +I was unable to reply; and a third American, +brushing me aside, gave him voluble instructions. +It ended by his being taken out and +seated in a hack, while the other, in angry +execrable and fluent Spanish, told the driver +where to proceed. Whatever I had learned, +it seemed, was of no practical value; my multiple<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> +sensations were not reducible to the simplest +demand. A woman passed with a copy +of an ultra popular novel, and this recalled the +long struggle of my early books for the smallest +recognition. If that dark frame of mind +had fastened on me in the north, it would have +burdened me for a day; but in Havana, with +the Marquis de Riscal and a Por Larrañaga, +I envied no mediocre novelist her stereotyped +laurels. It was impossible to get anywhere a +better wine or a cigar that changed more +soothingly from the brown of fact to blue +fancy.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>The Cuban cigarettes, however, were too +strong for pleasure; for, while the preference +for a strong cigar was admissible, cigarettes +should be mild. All those famous were. +Strangely enough, good cigarettes had never +been smoked in the United States, a land with +an overwhelming preference for the cheap +drugged tobacco called Virginia. No one +would pay for a pure Turkish leaf; with the<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> +exception of a few hotels and clubs it was not +procurable. There was a merchant on the +Zulueta with a large assortment of Cuban cigarettes, +made in every conceivable shape and +paper, hebra and arroz and pectoral. They +had tips of gilt or silver paper, cork, straw, and +colored silks, and were packed in enticing +ways and odd numbers. But, after trying +their apparent variety, they all seemed alike, +as coarse and black in flavor as their tobacco.</p> + +<p>There were, of course, men who disagreed +with me—though women never liked a Cabañas +or Henry Clay cigarette—and a connection +of mine, a judge, long imported from +Cuba, through Novotny of New York, the +Honoradez tobacco for his cigarettes. He +had been in Havana during the Spanish occupation, +and later; and, recalling him, I +could see that he, like myself, possessed an ineradicable +fondness for it. In his case, even, +his memories might have affected his exterior, +for he had a lean darkness more appropriate +to the Calzada del Cerro than to Chester +County. In summer particularly, with his immaculate<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a> +linens, and the brown cigarette casting +a pungent line of smoke from his long sensitive +fingers, he was the image of a Spanish +colonial gentleman.</p> + +<p>He had known Havana at a better time than +now, when it was more provincial, simpler; +the hotels then were uncompromisingly locked +at ten in the evening, and if he returned later +he was forced to call the negro sleeping in the +hall. I don't remember where he stayed—probably +at the Inglaterra. I was young and +ignorant of Cuba when I saw him, with a certain +frequency, before he died; and I heard his +talk about the Parque Central with no greater +interest than his discussions of salmon fishing, +of Sun and Planet reels and rods split and +glued. I realized sharply what I had missed, +both in the way of detail—the detail most important +to a mental picture and always missing—and +in intimate understanding of Cuban affairs. +For he had a tonic mind, rare in America, +unsentimental and courageous, and +touched with a satirical quality disastrous to +sham, social, religious, or political.<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a></p> + +<p>The cigarettes came to him in bright tin +boxes of a hundred; and, after his death, I +bought seven from Novotny and smoked the +contents almost by way of memorial; for he +was a personality of a type almost gone. +Judges of County Courts no longer wore immaculate +high hats to the Bench, with the +vivid corner of a bandanna handkerchief +visible in the formality of their coat tails.</p> + +<p>The silk-tipped cigarettes were for women, +but the silk was principally a villainous carmine, +a color fatal to the delicate charm of +lips, and I hoped that I should see none so +thoughtless as to smoke them; while the +cigarettes all of tobacco were, frankly, impossible. +Why, I couldn't say; they simply +wouldn't do. What women I saw smoking in +public, in the cafés and at the races, were not +Cubans. They, on view, neither smoked nor +drank anything but refrescos. But a different +feminine world, at their doors or over the +counters of bodegas, enjoyed long formidable +cigars.</p> + +<p>An amusing convention, a prejudice really;<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a> +an act, in women, condemned from the associations +in men's minds, synonymous with that +gaiety they so painstakingly kept out of their +homes. Yet, in spite of them, women smoking +had become a commonplace in the United +States. In Havana men were still paramount +... and Victorian. On the Obispo cigarette-cases +from Toledo, of steel inlaid with gold, +were for sale; but I'd had experience with +Toledo work—the steel rusted. For years I'd +bought cigarette cases and holders before I +finally learned that the former were a nuisance +and that the latter destroyed the flavor of +tobacco. I had owned cases in metal and +leather and silk, patented and plain, and one +by one they were mislaid and given away. I +had smoked with holders of ivory and jet and +tortoise shell, wood and amber and quills, and +they, too, had disappeared. All that could be +said for them was that they looked well and +saved the fingers from nicotine stains.</p> + +<p>The Turkish cigarettes in Havana were unremarkable, +yet, for the Cuban youth, the +sign of worldliness. They disdained the local<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> +brands, but even Cuba was powerless to depreciate +her cigars, the best of all countries and +all times. Here was an accomplishment, a +possession, of unique importance and excellence, +for tobacco belonged to the irreducible +number of necessities. I had survived prohibition, +with the assistance of a forethought +unhappily limited in execution; but if the +absurdity of my country abolished tobacco, I +should be forced to move to England; that +would be too much. I could imagine, in this +case, what comments would appear in the +press, reminding the virtuous and patriotic +that my books had always been chargeable +with immorality and a blindness to the splendor +of our national ideals.</p> + +<p>In the past I had suffered a particularly +wretched nervous breakdown—it hit me like +a bullet in the Piazza della Principe in Florence; +and when I had politely been sent to +Switzerland to die, an English doctor at +Geneva cured me, for most practical purposes, +by impatience, black coffee, and Shepherd's +Hotel cigarettes. I had no doubt that smoking<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a> +was, in many ways, a very deleterious +habit; but life itself was a bad habit condemned +to the worst of ends. I was, as well, +very apt to have little in common with men +who didn't smoke, or, I should say, with men +who had never smoked. They were, with +practically no exceptions, precisians, and ate, +lived, for their health rather than for the tang +of delicate sauces and sensations. And a +long while ago a wise and charming woman +had lamented to me the fact that all the generosity +and attractiveness she met in men belonged +to what were colloquially called +drunks.... Her feeling was the same as +mine.</p> + +<p>I wasn't defending drunkenness or attacking +the statistics against smokers; what I felt, +I think, in such men was the presence of a +fallibility to which, at awkward or tragic moments, +they yielded and so became companions +of sorrow and charity, the great temperers of +humanity. At any rate, I demanded enough +liberty, at least, to fill my system with smoke +if I willed. The possibility that my act might<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a> +hurt someone else failed to excite me—why +should I bother with him when I wasn't concerned +about myself! There was too much +officious paternalism in the air, too many admonitions +and not enough lightness of heart—of +tobacco heart if necessary.</p> + +<p>In addition, I wasn't sure that I wanted to +be perfectly sanitary in mind and body, any +more than I was certain of the complete desirability +of a perfected world, of heaven. +At once, there, my lifelong occupation would +be gone—novelists never stopped to think +what would happen to them if all the reforms +for which they shouted should go into effect; +and I had a disturbing idea that a great deal +of my pleasure in life came from feelings not +always admissible in, shall I say, magazines of +a general character. A clean mind and a +pure heart were not without chilling suggestions +of emotional sterility. Since men had +hopelessly and forever departed from the +decency of simple animals, I wanted to enjoy +the silken and tulle husks that remained. If +there was a sedative in cigars, an illusion in a<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> +Daiquiri cocktail, I proposed to enjoy it at the +expense of a problematic month or year more +of life always open to the little accidents of +pneumonia or spoiled milk or motors.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>What might be called the minor pleasures +of life, though in their bulk were vastly +more important than the great moments, Havana +had carried to a high state of perfection; +yet with, where I was concerned, an exception +not in favor of the theatre. I went, as I had +determined, to whatever offered, swept along +by the anticipation of Spanish dancing and +music: the first was immeasurably the best in +existence, and I liked the harsh measures of +Spanish melody, both the native songs of the +countryside and the sophisticated arrangements +by Valverde. A great many skilful +writers had described the dancing, and their +accounts were well enough, but, politely, they +all lacked the fundamental brutality of the +jota and malagueña, just as the foreign operatic +variations on Spanish themes were reminted<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> +in a smooth and debased universal +coin.</p> + +<p>I purchased a ridiculously flimsy scrap of +paper, which, I was assured, made me the possessor +of a grille principal at the Pairet +Theatre—a box, as huge as it was bare, within +the stage. I could see, under the hood, the +long dramatic hand of the prompter waving to +the droning monotony of his voice through the +stupidest performance I remembered. It was, +by turn, a comedy, a farce, a pantomime, and a +comic opera, and a complete illustration of the +evils of departing from national tradition and +genius—a dreary attempt at the fusion of +Vienna and New York, planned, obviously, +for a cosmopolitan public superior to the rude +familiar strains of gypsies.</p> + +<p>At intervals a chorus of young women, +whose shrill excitement belied their patent +solidity, made an incongruous appearance and +declamation; they grouped themselves in +feeble designs, held for a moment of scattered +applause, and went off with a labored lightness +that threatened even their ankles. This<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> +was bad, but a revista—I could think of nothing +else to call it—at the Marti was, because it +was so much better, worse. There I had an +ordinary palco, enclosed by a railing from the +promenade and elevated above the body of an +audience composed of every possible shade +from fairest noon to unrelieved midnight. +The evening was divided into two performances, +for the second of which, Arco-Iris, a +largely increased price was demanded. This +was, again, Vienna and Broadway, but with, +in addition, an elaboration of color and lighting +ultra-modern in intent.</p> + +<p>I had seen the same effort ten years before +in Paris, and the failure was as marked in +Spanish as in French. Mr. Ziegfield, assisted +by the glittering beauty of the girls he was +able to secure, had made such spectacles brilliantly +and inimitably his own. The Latins +knew nothing, really, about legs: they showed +them with what was no more than a perfunctory +bravado, while it was a peculiarity of +shoulders—the art of which they so daringly +comprehended—that their effect was lost in<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> +mass. The display, the extravagant settings +and costumes, of Arco-Iris, were, throughout, +mechanical; the coryphées were painfully +aware of their dazzlements; and an Andalusian +number, looked forward to with weary +eagerness, had been deprived of every rude +and vigorous suggestion of its origin.</p> + +<p>When I returned to the Inglaterra I demanded +of a clerk where I could find a +vulgar performance of, for instance, the habanera, +but he shook his head doubtfully. At +intervals, he admitted, Spanish dancers came +to the National Theatre; but—his manner +brightened—Caruso was expected in May. I +had no intention of staying in Havana through +May; and, had I been there, I'd have avoided +Caruso ... a singer murdered by the Victrola. +Already the seats for his concerts were +a subject for speculation, and it was clear that +they would reach a gigantic price, between +forty and sixty dollars for a single place in the +orchestra. In this depressing manner Havana +made it evident that it was a city both fashionable +and rich.<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a></p> + +<p>There had been a time, too, I was informed, +when all the uncensored moving pictures of +the world found a home in Cuba; pictures +where embraces were not limited to a meagre +number of feet, nor layettes, the entire ramifications +of procreation, prohibited. But these +were gone from the general view. The films, +though, had not been destroyed, and for some +hundreds of dollars a private performance +might be arranged. But this I declined. +The moving picture industry had been brought +entirely from America, the theatres plastered +with Douglas Fairbanks' set grin, William +Farnum's pasty heroics, and Mary Pickford's +invaluable aspect of innocence. Never, in the +time I was in Cuba, did I see a Spanish actor +or film announced; although a picture, appropriate +to Lent, of the Passion, hinted at a different +spirit.</p> + +<p>I became, then, discouraged by the formal +entertainments. As usual, I was too late; the +process of improvement had everywhere +marched slightly ahead of me, substituting for +the genuine note a borrowed false emphasis.<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a> +To-morrow I should hear the Salvation Army +bawling in Obispo Street. In a state of indifference +I went to Carmelo, a dancing pavilion +with an American cabaret, and drifted to the +table where the singing and dancing profession +were having their inevitable sandwiches +and beer. A metallic young person with +brass hair, a tin voice, and a leaden mind, conversed +with me in the special social accent of +her kind, ready in advance with a withering +retort for any licentious proposals. Beside +her sat a Mexican with an easy courtesy and +an enigmatic past. He was, I gathered, the +son of an official who, in one of the exterminating +changes of government, had escaped +over a wall in his pearl studs and dinner coat +but little else.</p> + +<p>I liked everything about him but his indulgence +for soda blondes; yet in the serious conversation +we at once opened—connected with +a projected trip of mine to the City of Mexico—we +forgot the girl until, exasperated by our +neglect, she lost some of her manner in an inane +exclamation made, she announced, for the<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> +sake of Christ. Her companion immediately +returned to his engagement, and I watched the +Americans more or less proficient in that dance +the name of which had been borrowed from a +woman's undergarment. It had begun as a +chemise, but what it would end in was problematic.</p> + +<p>Was it a healthy rebellion against the prudery +of repression or the adventitious excitation +of imminent impotence? Whatever had +brought it about, it was stupid, an insensate +jiggling of the body without frankness or +grace. I hadn't yet seen the Cuban rumba, +with its black grotesque negrito and sensual +mulata; but I was confident that if a rumba +were started at Carmelo, the shimmy would +resemble the spasmodic vibrations of a frigid +St. Vitus dance. The men and women doing +it, galvanized by drink and the distance from +their responsibilities, animated by the Cuban +air, were prodigiously abandoned. They +were, mostly, commercial gentlemen and stiff +brokers investigating sugar securities, or the +genial obese presidents and managers of steamship<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> +companies. The presidents, the managers +and brokers, were invariably accompanied +by their wives, who, for the most part, endeavored +to re-create the illusions and fervors +of earlier days; but heaven knew from where +came the women for whom the representatives +of Yankee merchandise were responsible.</p> + +<p>Their origins were as mysterious as their +age—strange feminine derelicts stranded by +temperament and mischance, caught in the +destructive web of the tropics. The dresses +they wore were either creations or makeshifts, +but their urbanity was as solidly enamelled as +their hair was waved or marcelled. There +was still another variety—I had seen them before +at expensive fishing camps—tightly +skirted, permanently yellow-haired, with +stony faces and superfine diamonds. Drunk +or sober, their calmness was never changed by +so much as a flicker; they caught sail fish in the +Gulf Stream, danced, ate, talked, and now, +certainly, were flying, with the same hard imperturbability +and display, in gold mesh bags, +of their unlimited crisp money in high denominations<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a>—the +granite women on the wall +of the Gallego Club.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>My interest, however, in the American in +Havana had vanished, my position in life, +avoidance rather than protest, and I surrendered +him to the hospitality of Cuba and the +gambling concessions. I wanted, from then +on, only the local scene: there were cities +where the foreigners, the travelers, made an +inseparable part of the whole, but this was not +true of Havana; it remained, in spite of the +alien clamor, singularly undisturbed, intact, in +essence. But a few streets, a plaza or two, +knew the sound of English, and beyond these +the voices, the stores, the preoccupations, were +without any recognition of other people or +needs. I began to wander farther from the +cafés of the Parque Central, the open familiarity +of the sea, and found myself in situations +where, in my lack of Spanish, I was limited +to the simplest, most plastic, desires.</p> + +<p>It was in this manner that I found ear-rings<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> +which I secured with a sense of treasure—they +were in the shop of a woman who sold embroidered +linen from Madeira and the Canary +Islands, lying haphazard in the lid of a paste-board +box. The patio opened directly from +the front room, the store, an informal assemblage +of dull white folded cloths and frothy +underclothes, and outside a very large family +indeed was eating the noon breakfast while a +pinkly naked pointer dog lay on the cool tiles +with his feet extended stiffly upward.</p> + +<p>I was paying for some towels, and regretting—in +a singular composite of inappropriate +words and banal smiles—the interruption of +the meal, when I saw the ear-rings; and immediately, +in the face of all the warning and +advice wasted on me, I exclaimed that I +wanted them. At this they were laid on the +counter, a reasonable price murmured, and +the transaction was over. I gathered that +they had been left for sale by some member +of an old Cuban house, perhaps by a Baeza y +Carvajal or Nuñez: they were of pale hand-carved +and drawn gold, aged gold as yellow<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a> +as a lemon—one pair of open circles an +inch in diameter, with seed pearls; the other +the shape of small delicate leaves, with pearls +and topazes.</p> + +<p>A store unmarked in exterior but surprising +within attracted me by some Chinese-Spanish +shawls, mantones, in a dusty show-case; +and I discovered a short, heavily-built +Spaniard stringing the hair of a wig against +a background of scintillating costumes for the +carnivals, balls, and masques. We were unable +to understand each other, his wife wrinkled +her forehead in desperation over my Spanish; +and then, gesticulating violently, she vanished +to reappear with a neighbor, a woman who +seemed to have suffered all the personal misfortunes +reserved for school teachers, who +made intelligible a small part of what we said.</p> + +<p>They had, it developed, other shawls, +shawls worth my attention; one, in particular, +finer even than any of Maria Marco's. This +engaged me at once, for Maria Marco was the +prima donna of a Madrid company which +had sung in the United States two years before,<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a> +and which had given me, perhaps, as great +pleasure as anything I had seen on the stage. +But not so much for the singing—it had been +the dancer, Doloretes, who captivated me, a +woman as brilliant as the orange-red shawl +draped before me over a chair, and suddenly, +tragically, dead in New York.</p> + +<p>The wig-maker had had charge of the wardrobe +of The Land of Joy, and he assured me +again that not Maria Marco.... Abruptly +there was spread the sinuous fringed expanse +of a blazing green shawl heavily embroidered +in white flowers. I had never encountered a +clearer, more intense green or a whiter white; +and, before I had recovered from the delightful +shock of that, a second shawl of zenith blue +was flung beside it. The body of the crêpe-de-chine, +the weight of its embroidery, the +beautiful knotting of the short fringe—long +fringe was an error—and their sheer loveliness, +made them more desirable than jewels; +and, prepared to buy them at once at the price +of whatever fiction anyone wanted me to write +and would pay absurdly for, I was lifting<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> +their heavy folds when a third mantone was +produced burning with all the gorgeous and +violent colors imaginable.</p> + +<p>It was, I suppose, magenta—a magenta of a +depth and wickedness impossible for any but +Eastern dye; the magenta of a great blossom +of hell—and it was embroidered with flowers +like peonies, four spans across, in a rose that +was vermilion, a vermilion that was scarlet; +and the calyxes were orange and gamboge, +emerald and peacock blue and yellow. There +were, too, golden roses, already heavy and +drooping with scent in the bud, small primitive +blossoms with red hearts, dark green +leaves, and dense maroon coronals starred in +white. The dripping fringe was tied in four +different designs....</p> + +<p>I asked its price at once, in order to dispose +of what couldn't help being painful in the extreme, +and he told me with an admirable appearance +of ease and inconsequence. The +shop, that had been only half lighted by the +door, was now tumultuous with color, with +China and Andalusia; the shawl was the<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> +Orient and Spain, brutal in its superbness and +as exasperating, as audible, as castanets. +However I might act, hesitate, visibly, I knew +that I'd buy it—in an instant it had become as +imperative to me as a consuming vice. It belonged, +rightfully, to the mistress of a Zuluoga +or of a Portuguese king, to someone for whom +money was not even an incident; I couldn't +afford it even if I wove it into a story with a +trace, a glimmer, of its splendor; but the next +day the shawl was in my room.</p> + +<p>Oppressed by a sense of monetary insanity +not unfamiliar to me—I was very apt to buy +an Airedale terrier or a consol table with the +sum carefully gathered for an absolute necessity—I +set about turning my new possession +into paragraphs and chapters; and it occurred +to me that it had a justified place in the Havana +story I had already, mentally, begun. +The polite young men of the time, the decorative +youth of all times, were apt to have collectively +a passion for a fascinating or celebrated +actress; and I saw that such a person—Doloretes—would +be important to my plan.<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> +Yes, my young figure and his fellows would +go nightly to see her dance.</p> + +<p>Afterward, crowded about a marble-topped +table and helados, they would discuss her +every point with fervent admiration. Yet she +would be too vivid, too special, to take the +foreground—I had wanted no paramount +women in the first place—and I decided ... +to kill her almost at once, to have her as a +memory. My boy, most certainly, would find +her shawl exactly as I had; and, bringing it +to his room, solemnly exhibit it to his circle. +More than that, I realized, it had given me a +title, The Bright Shawl. I instantly determined +to cast the story in the form of a memory +told me by an old man of his youth; and +that time, torn by unhappiness, indecision, and +hopeless aspirations, should be made, in remembrance, +brilliant and desirable, wrapped +in the bright shawl which transformed the +lost past.</p> + +<p>A remarkably good story, I thought enthusiastically; +and I fell to speculating if George +Lorimer would print it. He would give it, I<a name="page_156" id="page_156"></a> +told myself, a wide margin of chance; but, +in writing, uncomfortable necessities often +turned up in the course of narrative—I could +leave them out, and damn myself, or keep +them and, maybe, damn the story in the sense +of its making possible my writing at all. Not +that Mr. Lorimer personally had any regard +for emasculated chapters, but he was addressed +primarily to another integrity than +mine; our purposes were not invariably coincident. +A fact which he, with his energetic +candor scoring pretentiousness, had made clear +in his generous recognition of where our paths +met.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>What was noticeable in The Bright Shawl +was that I hadn't gone out for material, but it +had come to me, scene by scene, emotion by +emotion. I had never been able deliberately +to set about collecting the facts for a proposed +story; I could never tell what impulse, need, +would be strong enough to overcome the laborious +effort demanded for its realization in +words. For this reason I was free to see what<a name="page_157" id="page_157"></a> +I chose without reference to any ulterior purpose; +and when, on a Sunday morning with +the heat tempered by a breeze lingering from +the night, I started for the cock-fighting at +the suburb of Jesus del Monte, I was completely +at ease. I had decided in favor of the +cock-pit both because it was essentially Cuban +and because I had always detested chickens, +particularly roosters.</p> + +<p>It was a thing of total indifference to me +what—with steel spurs or without—roosters +did to each other. Alive, they were a constant +galling caricature, a crude illuminative +projection, of men at their ridiculous worst. +Their feathered tails, their crowing, their +propensity to search for bits in the dung, their +sheer roosterness, together with the sly hypocrisy +of hens, had always annoyed me individually. +And, rather than not, I looked forward +to seeing them victimized by their own belligerent +conceit.</p> + +<p>I had to leave my cab for an informal way +behind some buildings and across grass, and, +as I approached a false stucco façade, a determined<a name="page_158" id="page_158"></a> +ringing crowing filled the air. Beyond +the arched entrance there was an area +of pavement with tables and a limited café +service; and, seated near, was a grave individual +with a shovel beard and a thoroughly +irritated rooster upside down in his lap. He +was cementing a natural spur over one that +had been injured, and drinking, now and +again, from a cup of coffee at his hand. Beyond +was the pit, like, as much as anything, +a tall circular corn-crib, painted white, with +a cupola. There was place for about three +hundred, with box-like seats whose low hinged +doors opened directly on the sawdust of the +arena, more casual chairs, and—as at the pelota—space +for standing on the middle tiers. +There was a box above the entrance, and another +opposite, and this an enormous woman +in white embroidery and carpet slippers, and +I occupied.</p> + +<p>A main had just been finished, and there +was a temporary lull in the noise inseparable, +in Cuba, from sport. The sawdust was being +freshly sprinkled when a negro entered the<a name="page_159" id="page_159"></a> +ring with an animated bag; and, noting the +elaborate polished brass scales that hung from +the center of the roof, I gathered that the +birds were to be weighed. The second was +produced, tightly bagged, by a highly respectable-appearing +man of unimpeachable whiteness +and side whiskers, and the roosters were +left to dangle from the yard. It was to be a +battle al peso, by weight and equal spurs; the +first condition satisfied, the spurs were measured, +by a graduated set of pewter tallies; and +the uproar was released.</p> + +<p>It was deafening—a solid shouting of bets +offered in a voice of fury, together with acceptances, +repudiations, personalities, and the +frenzied waving in air of handfuls of money. +The two men with the roosters advanced toward +each other and wooden lines laid in the +pit, prodding and otherwise increasing the +natural ill humor of their birds, and held the +shorn heads close for a vicious preliminary +peck. The roosters' legs, shaved to an indecent +crimson, were bare of hold, every superficial +feather had been clipped; and when<a name="page_160" id="page_160"></a> +they hit the sawdust there was a clash as of +metal. The methods of their backers were +different—the negro, in one of the local coat-like +shirts with a multiplicity of useless pockets +and plaits, squatted on his heels, impassive, +fateful, and African; but the man with the +orthodox side-whiskers became at once the victim +of a hoarse whispering excitement. As +the other's bird reeled drunkenly about—they +were badly matched and the main no affair +at all—his pallid face flushed and he suggested +new atrocities to his champion.</p> + +<p>This, it seemed to me, was totally unnecessary, +for a wickeder rooster I was convinced +never lived. He was deliberate in his tactics, +unwilling to be robbed of his pleasure by a +chance coup de grace, and confined himself to +the beak. Soon his opponent leaned helplessly +against the wall of the pit, while the +victor methodically pecked him to death +in small bloody pieces. The negro's face, +couched on a charcoal-black palm, was as immobile +as green bronze; but the white was +positively epileptic with triumph. And,<a name="page_161" id="page_161"></a> +when the defeated bird sank in a spoiled dead +knot, he picked his up and, with expressions of +endearment, sucked clear its angry eyes. The +preliminaries were again gone through with, +and two large handsome roosters were confronted +by each other. As the surging clamor +beat about them I saw that one was undecided +in his opinion of what promised. He flapped +his wings doubtfully; and then, as the other +made a short rush forward, he turned and ran +as fast as his shorn legs could carry him. +This, considering the contracted round space +of his course, was very fast indeed; the second, +pursuing him with the utmost energy, was +unable to get closer than a fleet dab at the +stripped tail. It was a flight not without a +desperate humor; but this, it was clear, was +appreciated by no one besides me.</p> + +<p>The execrations, the screams, that followed +the retreating bird were beyond belief; the entire +banked audience was swept by a passion +that left some individuals speechlessly lifting +impotent fists. Unaffected by this, the rooster, +slightly leaned toward the center of gravity,<a name="page_162" id="page_162"></a> +went around and around the pit with an unflagging +speed that should have commanded +an independent admiration for itself. Occasionally +the pursuer, in a feat of intelligence, +cut directly across the sawdust, and a collision +threatened ... but it never quite arrived. I +lost interest in the hurled curses, the hats +twisted in excesses of rage, in everything but +the duration of the running rooster. It was remarkable; +he had settled down to putting all +he had of strength and reserve into his single +purpose.</p> + +<p>He had no will to fight, and, personally understanding +and sympathizing with him completely, +I hoped his wish would be respected: +while he had provided no main, he had faithfully +substituted a most unlooked-for and +thrilling race; making for all time and nations +and breeds of chickens a record for a thousand +times around a cock-pit. In some places he +would, perhaps, have been released, returned +to the eminence of a barn-yard; but not in +Cuba. When it had been thoroughly demonstrated +that he was uncatchable by his rival,<a name="page_163" id="page_163"></a> +he was incontinently seized and both roosters +were carried, panting and bald-eyed, to a subsidiary +ring beyond, not half the size of the +principal pit, where running, or any discretion, +was an impossibility.</p> + +<p>I saw him go with regret; he deserved a +greater consideration, and I hoped that, metaphorically +in a corner, he would turn and be +victorious. A new individual, a small brown +man in soiled linen, had entered the box, and +he at once, in a slow, painful, but intelligible +English, opened a conversation with me. He +had, he said, a consuming admiration for +Americans, and as an earnest of his good will +he proposed to let me in on what, in the +North, was called a good thing. It was +no less than the cautious information that +in the next fight a dark chicken, a chicken +carrying a betting end as long as the Prado, +had been entered by President Menocal's +brother. I could, with a wave of the hand, +make a small fortune: for himself, he was unfortunate—he +possessed but eleven dollars and +odd pesetas.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p><a name="page_164" id="page_164"></a></p> + +<p>I made some non-committal remark and +turned a shoulder on his friendliness for +Americans, conscious of a distinct annoyance +at having been mistaken for, well—a tourist. +There was no inherent inferiority in that +transient state of being; but it was a characteristic +of the settlers of any given place—settlers +of at least forty-eight hours—that they +should regard with tolerant amusement the +new and the uninformed. He did, I thought, +my clothes, my cigar, my whole air of sophisticated +comprehension, an injustice; he should +have recognized that I was not an individual +to accept readily public confidential information.</p> + +<p>The birds were brought in and weighed, and +the person in the box with me and the billowing +white embroidery and carpet slippers excitedly +indicated a lean cream-colored rooster +with brown points. I fancied the other more, +and thought something of betting on him when +the main began—the brown bird of the +brother of Menocal flashed forward, launched +himself into the air with a clash, and drove<a name="page_165" id="page_165"></a> +both spurs through the head before him. It +had occupied something more than five but +less than ten seconds. Too bad, a deferential +voice murmured in my ear, that I hadn't taken +advantage of such an excellent opportunity +to get the better of all the too-wise ones. +With but eleven dollars and some silver he +had been cramped.... My interest in cock-fighting +faded before an annoyance that drove +me away from the Puente de Agua Dulce, calculating +how much, at the odds I missed, I +should have gained.</p> + +<p>Money won at sheer gambling, at games of +chance which involved no personal skill or +effort, always seemed hardly short of miraculous +to me—magical sums produced at the +waving of a hand. Their possession gave me +a disproportionate pleasure and glow of well +being; they seemed to be the mark of a special +favor; the visible gesture, the approbation, of +fortune and chance. I had had a lucky night +at the Kursaal in Geneva, playing baccarat, +and the changier, a silver chain about his neck, +had reconverted my bowl of chips into heaped<a name="page_166" id="page_166"></a> +gold and treasury paper. But with that exception, +and for some small amounts, I was unlucky. +The occasion just past was an illustration—I +was never really disastrously overtaken, +but equally I never reached sensational +heights.</p> + +<p>There were, certainly, numerous places in +Havana for roulette, and always the American +Club for auction bridge and poker; but I +found my way to none of these: there were +men who could hear the soundless turn of a +wheel, soundless but for the fillip of the pith +ball on the wood and metal, through the streets +and walls of a city; and there were others who, +merely pausing in a hotel or club corridor, +would immediately form about them all the +adjuncts of poker—the cards, the blue and +yellow and white chips, the bank president, the +shifty polite individual with pink silk sleeves +and a rippling shuffle, the rich youth.... +But, indebted, I suppose, to my spectacled +benevolent appearance, such occasions let me +pass unnotified.</p> + +<p>I made, however, some effort to find a billiard<a name="page_167" id="page_167"></a> +academy, with the hope of seeing the professional +games and their audiences built up +on the four sides of the tables, common to the +Continent; but if there were any in Havana, +they, too, eluded me. I hoped to see bearded +champions embrace each other after chalking +their cues and then drive the ivory balls in red +and white angles across the deep green or +nurse them about the intersections of the balk +lines. It was very different in America, +where the billiard parlors were a part of hotel +life—great rooms with the level green of the +tables fogged in smoke through which the +lights resembled the diminished moons of Saturn; +the audience, entirely masculine, seated +on the high chairs about the walls.</p> + +<p>The types of women lingering outside, waiting +patiently on convenient benches, were far +different from the Latins. Occasionally a +youth would put up his cue, dust the chalk +from his fingers, assume his accurately fitted +coat, his soft brown hat, and go out to some +girl with whom he would plunge into a subdued +council marked by a note of expostulation.<a name="page_168" id="page_168"></a> +Strange youth and unpredictable girl! +A term of endearment would escape, there'd +be a quick clinging of hands; and, from an +imitation gold purse, some money would be +transferred to an engulfing pocket.</p> + +<p>But the men of Havana, it seemed, were +quite contented to talk, to sit in a café over +refrescos or in a parque with nothing at all +but cigars, and discuss eternally, with a passionate +interest, the details of their politics and +city. Their contact with life at every point +was vivid and, in expression anyhow, forceful; +they argued in a positive tone to which +compromise, agreement, appeared hopelessly +lost; and there was in the background the possibility +of death by quarreling. That, in itself, +gave their whole bearing a difference +from the conduct of a land where a drubbing +with fists was the worst evil to be ordinarily +expected. They looked with contempt on a +blow, the retaliation of stevedores, and we regarded +with disgust a concealed weapon. But +where we might still, in simpler places, defend +what was locally called purity with pistols,<a name="page_169" id="page_169"></a> +no one, to-day, took his politics seriously.</p> + +<p>Politics, in the United States, was looked on +with cynical indifference, where it was not a +profession, but in Cuba it was invariably the +cause of fiery oratory and high tempers. This +had been true of America; even in my own +memory, in the Virginia Highlands, shotguns +had been out for a difference of principals; +but patriotism of that stamp had fallen away +before civilization, as it was optimistically +termed—the end finally brought about by prohibition. +Discussion in general, that rose in +such volume on the Cuban night, had little +part farther north; my own friends, the men +specially, almost never said anything except +as a direct statement; we never met to talk.</p> + +<p>They had a particular, a concrete, interest in +living, but no general. Further than that, +there was almost no individuality of opinion; +the subjects which made good conversation +were definitely and arbitrarily settled, closed. +To open them, to challenge public opinion, +was not to invite argument, but to send men +away to the greater safety, the solidity, of the<a name="page_170" id="page_170"></a> +herd. A good story, the humor of the latrine, +was a better key to respectability than an honest +doubt. For those reasons I wanted to join +the arguments, the orations really, flooding the +circles of green-painted iron chairs on the Havana +plazas; and, solitary, I passed envying +the ingenuous welding dissent.</p> + +<p>I imagined myself suddenly and completely +changed into a Cuban, slight and dark, in +white linen, with my hat, a stiff English straw, +carefully laid beside me on a ledge of the paving, +smoking a cigar of rough shape but excellent +tobacco. Not rich, certainly, but securely +placed in life! I was, in fancy, the +proprietor of a small yet thoroughly responsible +oculist's establishment on Neptuno Street. +Since I was no longer young, and a member +of organized society, with a patron or two +from the Prado, I was conservative, but little +heated by patriotism; and in favor, rather than +not, of annexation to the United States. My +private view was that Cuba hadn't been conspicuously +worse off under Spain than liberated. +The politics of the present, when office-seekers<a name="page_171" id="page_171"></a> +descended to the ñañigos.... Here +was the substance of violent argument and recriminations; +the voices, the ideals, of young +men beat on me in a high indignant storm; the +names of Cuban patriots, martyred students, +and Spanish butchers were shouted in my +ears. Sacred blood flowed again in retrospect, +which should never be allowed to sink +infertile; but when the words Free Cuba were +pronounced I waved my cigar with hopeless +derision.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>How significant it was, I thought, that, in +imagination, I had pictured myself at fifty. +I saw the Havana oculist clearly; his name, +by all means, was Rogelio, Rogelio Mola, and +he had a heavy grey moustache across his lean +brown face which gave him an air of gravity +that largely masked the humor, the satire, in +his quick black eyes: Spanish eyes with no perceptible +trace of the soft iris of Africa. It +was past one o'clock when his tertulia scattered, +and I accompanied him toward his +home—walking to get rid of the stiffness of<a name="page_172" id="page_172"></a> +long sitting—over Dragones Street, in the direction +of Vedado. Not yet, never now, +would he have a house in Vedado itself; that +was reserved for the bankers, planters, and +Americans; but he was nicely situated in a +new white dwelling of the approved style, +overlooking a common that in turn commanded +the sea.</p> + +<p>The approved style was white plaster, a +story and a half high, with an impressive portico—a +portico, attached to a small private residence, +that would have done honor to a capitol +building. There was but little ground, principally +extended in a lawn across the front, +and banked, against the house, with the spotted +leaves of croton plants, purple climbing +Fausto, and Mar-Pacifico flowers deeply crimson. +He had, it was plain from his walk, a +touch of rheumatism, of sciatica really, and he +halted in the Plaza de Dragones to press his +thin hand to a leg and curse, by the Sacred +Lady of Caridad, the old age overtaking him.</p> + +<p>That, it seemed to me, would not carry his +mind toward his dwelling, his wife grown inordinately<a name="page_173" id="page_173"></a> +fat, and their three daughters, all +long ago asleep; no, it would send his thoughts +backward, over the way he had come—not +from the Parque Central, but from youth. +He would brush his moustache reminiscently, +I was confident, at a train of gallant memories, +chiefly of New York, where, on the pier of a +fruit importing house, he had spent some tremendous +months. That experience had given +him an advantage, an authority, in everything +that touched the great republic, and lent his +politics an additional sagacity, his cynicism an +edge difficult to turn. He had intended to +stay in America, a journey to Havana was to +have been but a temporary affair; but there he +had attached himself to a wife, the daughter +of a grinder of lenses.... And here he was +at fifty, going back, after listening to a lot of +nonsense in the Parque, to his family—in the +general direction, too, of the cemetery.</p> + +<p>It was sad, and, for a moment, there was a +debate, a conflict, in his mind: though his age +was beyond denial, and his hip troubled him—but +only after he spent an evening on the cold<a name="page_174" id="page_174"></a> +iron chair of a plaza—he showed no signs of +having passed the middle of his life. The +grey hair was distinguished; Madame Nazabal, +who was a Frenchwoman, had assured +him of that. The handsome girl in El Corazón +de Jesus, the Vedado bakery where English +was spoken, flushed when their hands +accidentally met over the counter. But this +mood, his courage, was fictitious; it sank and +left him limping palpably, with an oppressed +heart. He was, simply, an old fool, he told +himself, vindicating the humorous comprehension +of his gaze.</p> + +<p>If he wasn't careful, the young men of his +establishment, over whom he kept a strict parent-like +discipline, would laugh at him behind +his back. They were inclined to be wild as it +was, and he suspected them of going to the carnival +balls, the danzons, in the opera house. +God knew that he had seen them in the company +of no better than the girls from the cigar +factories. When he was younger—young—that +dangerous company had given a dance on +the last Thursday of every month, except when<a name="page_175" id="page_175"></a> +it fell in Lent, and he had held his place there +with the most agile among them, once even +pressing an argument with a man who was reputed +to have been an espada of Castile. A +knife had grazed his throat and slit the left +shoulder of his coat through to the skin; the +mark remained, a livid welt under his collar, +but the assailant had vanished before he could +kill him. All memory of the girl had gone; +but she was beautiful, he was certain of that, +or else why should he have noticed her?</p> + +<p>The girls of those days had a—a quality, a +manner, lacking in the present. Their hearts +had been warmer, they were less mercenary. +Rogelio Mola detested mercenary women. +Now, as far as he could make out, nothing was +possible but rounds of the expensive cafés: the +fact was, the girls only wanted to be taken to +the Dos Hermanos, or the Little Club, where +the Americans could see them, and, perhaps.... +Then, in about eighteen eighty, there was +some fidelity, some honor, some generosity. +There was romance—that had disappeared +more utterly than anything else: he was more<a name="page_176" id="page_176"></a> +than a little vague in meaning; his romance +was an indefinite state; the glow, in reality, of +his own youth.</p> + +<p>At that time, in such discussions as had +passed this evening, he had been on the side +of revolution, of expeditions to the Trocha, secret +associations; but simply because his blood +was hot, his age appropriate to revolt. He +had been, without doubt, difficult; his elders +had predicted a cell in Cabañas as an ante-room, +a sort of immediate purgatory, to hell. +He raised expressive shoulders slightly at the +thought of the holy legends: a business for +women and priests. The Church, temporarily, +had had some rare pasturage; but the +fathers were a shade too greedy; they had gobbled +up so much that it was necessary to drive +them out. Women and priests, priests and +women! The latter had suffered no diminution +of their privileges; they had too much for +which the young men, for all their self-opinion, +got nothing or next to nothing in return. +Rogelio Mola wondered if the old houses of +pleasure were unchanged.<a name="page_177" id="page_177"></a></p> + +<p>He had not thought of them for years, and +he was contemptuous of men of his age who +did, still, consider them. Not that he was +puritanical and condemned all such institutions, +though he had a strong suspicion that +they had deteriorated. For the youth of his +day they had been very largely places of meeting +and conspiracy, where traditionally the +sentiment supported attacks on authority. +Yet a girl from Lima had betrayed Marío +Turafa, his friend, in hiding, to the Spanish +Government. It was said that Marío had +been deported, perhaps to the very Peru +from which came his Delilah, but it was +more probable that he had been shot. +There had been one whom he, Rogelio, had +liked.... Her name came back to him, Ana, +and the fact that she sang quite beautifully +... nothing else. The words of a song +formed from the melody for a moment audible +among his memories:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">"Clavales, clavales</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> de mi Andalucía!</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Mujeres, mujeres—</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> de la Patria mia!"</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_178" id="page_178"></a></p> + +<p>It was evident from this that she had come +from Andalusia. Thirty years ago! He +wished her the best of luck. Hadn't they +been young together, with at least the innocence +of true affection? His thoughts turned +guiltily to his wife, to his daughters white like +flowers of the Copa de Nieva. The twinge in +his leg resembled a hot wire; and resolutely +he marshalled his attention forward. How +dark, how depressing, certain reaches of Havana +were, and he pictured the cemetery +ghostly, icy, in the night; women, with their +confessional, their faith in the forgiveness of +sins, were fortunate. Yet no one must say of +him that he was a coward, that, at the last, he +had been borne into oblivion on the oil of the +priests he had disregarded in life. Deep under +his skepticism, however, a low inextinguishable +hereditary flame of hope burned, +independent of his intelligence.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>My mind returned once more to Rogelio +Mola as I was standing outside an impassive<a name="page_179" id="page_179"></a> +door, waiting for admittance, not far from the +Arsenal. It was the entrance to what he had +called a house of pleasure, and, long established +in Havana, unknown to America, one +that he might easily have frequented in the +reprehensible period of youth. I had adequate +abstract reasons for my presence, but +Rogelio, correctly insistent on a saving generosity +of emotion, had needed no ponderous explanation. +Indeed, I was there in his interest, +since, after all, I had imagined him; I wanted +very much to have completely the material of +his setting, of the surrounding from which his +friend, betrayed by the Peru that had centuries +before despoiled Cuba, had been led out to +be, doubtless, shot. Not that, pressingly, I +felt the need for an excuse, or that I was essentially +making a descent. The very bitterness, +the revilement in solemn terms, of my +early instructions, had, reacting, defeated itself.</p> + +<p>What was before me, in a world where the +pure and the impure were inexplicably mixed +in one flesh, was inevitable; its ugliness lay<a name="page_180" id="page_180"></a> +not with it, but in a society which, constantly +tearing it down, as constantly projected again +the penalty, the shadow, of a perfunctory and +material estate. In addition, as long as the +age of marriage, of love, was so tragically different +in society and in nature, an informal interlude +was unavoidable. But I had no need +to apologize for anything. I had been spared +the dreary and impertinent duty of improving +the world; the whole discharge of my responsibility +was contained in the imperative obligation +to see with relative truth, to put down +the colors and scents and emotions of existence. +What, pretentiously, was called the moral +must shift for itself; that depended on what, +beneath consciousness, I was—the justice and +sympathy, the comprehension, of my being.</p> + +<p>A slide opened mysteriously on the blank +darkness before me, a bolt was drawn; and immediately +I had left the street for a little entresol +filled with lamplight, the breath of +scented powder, and the notes of a piano +played by a girl whose cigarette burned furiously +on the scarred ebonized top of the instrument.<a name="page_181" id="page_181"></a> +She half turned, scanning me indifferently, +and went on with her unelaborate +music. The woman who had admitted me, +a figure whose instant scrutiny resembled the +unsparing accuracy of a photograph by flashlight, +after a polite greeting, ignored me absolutely, +and I was left to follow my fancy.</p> + +<p>This led to the patio, larger and more entrancing +than any I had before seen; it was +paved in blocks of marble, and the white walls, +warmly and fully illuminated, made a sharp +contrast with the night, the sky and stars, +above. There was a tree growing at one side; +what it was I didn't know, but it hung large +intensely green leaves into the light before +climbing to obscurity. A great many people, +it seemed to me, were present; and, as I found +a seat on an ornamental iron bench, the formality +of a civil greeting was scrupulously observed. +The company was, to every outer regard, +decorous to the point of stiffness. Opposite, +two officers of the Spanish navy, in immaculate +white with gilt epaulettes, were +drinking naranjadas and conversing with two<a name="page_182" id="page_182"></a> +girls who nodded in appropriate sympathy. +Farther on, a Cuban exquisite, his hands, in +spite of the heat, cased in lavender grey gloves, +was staring fixedly at the shining toes of his +shoes. Others—yes, Rogelio in his youth—their +hair faultlessly glossy, were more animated; +their gestures and voices rose irrepressibly +and sank in confidences to ears close beside +them.</p> + +<p>A row of doors, I then saw, filled one side of +the patio, the interiors closed by swinging +slatted screens; the wall at my back was blank, +an exit at the rear, while on the right was the +entrance. Scattered about, with the benches +and chairs, small tables held a variety of +glasses and drinks ... the entire atmosphere +was pervaded, characterized, by utter ease. +That was, to me, the most notable of the effects +of that enclosure—an amazing freedom +from superficial obligations, from the burdensome +conventions which, so largely a part of +existence, had come to be accepted either subconsciously +or as a necessary evil. I realized +for the first time the inanity of imposed pretences,<a name="page_183" id="page_183"></a> +the thick, the suffocating armor of triviality +that criminally and ludicrously muffled +life.</p> + +<p>There were present, of course, all the poses +of humanity, and a great many of its conventions; +the girls were not hippogriffs, but girls—timid, +bold, religious, skeptical, feminine, +sentimental, happy and unhappy, hopeful and +hopeless. Yet, in contradiction to this, the air +offered a complete release from a thousand +small irritating pressures. It came, partly, +from the sense that here I was outside the order, +the legality, the explicit purpose, of the +forces organizing the world. I had stepped, +as it were, from time, immediacy, to timelessness. +The patio into which I was shut might +have been on that earth the ancients conceived +of as round and flat as a plate. No discovery, +no wisdom accumulated by centuries and +supreme sacrifices, had any bearing, any importance, +in my circumstances now. I was +contemporaneous with the lives precariously +spent between the ebb and flood of the ice +ages. The animals knew as much. But if I<a name="page_184" id="page_184"></a> +had nothing to gain from all that was successively +admirable, nothing was lost that had +been implicit in the beginning, nothing at the +last end would be changed.</p> + +<p>The conversation fluctuated about me, the +glasses were carried away and brought back +refilled; the smoke of cigars and cigarettes +floated tranquilly up and was lost above the +illumination, and I completely dropped the +embarrassment which came from an uncertainty +in such minor customs as existed. I +was, in fact, extremely comfortable when I understood +that I was left entirely to my own +desires. These included the offer, in clumsy +Spanish, of a general order of drinks; and +there was a revival of polite phrases. Not all, +by a half, accepted; the others bowed, gravely +or cheerfully; and I retired again to my speculations.</p> + +<p>These were mainly gathered about the regret +that the scene before me was practically +forbidden to American novels. It had, in reality, +no place in the United States, and, therefore, +could claim no legitimate page in American<a name="page_185" id="page_185"></a> +literature. There, anyhow, it could be +said for public morals, such things were nearly +all that the word vice implied. What, exactly, +I was lamenting, was the old fundamental +lack of candor in the American attitude. +This, beyond question, proceeded from the +people themselves, and not from commissions; +an enormous majority, except for that national +whispered currency of obscenity, was prudish +beyond reclamation. For them, it was probable, +the innocence of the body had been +branded eternally. And I was neither a +martyr nor a reformer. The loss to me was +considerable—as it was, dealing with only the +outer garments of fact, I had been accused of +lasciviousness or something of the kind—and I +envied the French the cool logic of their mentality, +the cultivation of the French audience.</p> + +<p>My mind reverted to Jurgen, the remarkable +narrative of James Cabell's, that had been +suppressed; a summary act of disturbing irony. +For Mr. Cabell had spent a life, practically, +reaching from the imagination of childhood to +the performance of maturity, in a mental preoccupation<a name="page_186" id="page_186"></a> +with disembodied purity. He had +set up, in his heart and in his books, the high +altar of mediæval Platonism—an image of desire +never to be clasped, reached, from earth; +a consolation, really, for the earth-bound. But +that, in the mind, the characteristic mind, of +America, had not had the weight, the value, of +a dandelion's gossamer seed. It was, definitely, +a land that cared nothing for literature, +the casting of transient life into the permanence +of beautiful form. As the world advanced +in years, the general importance of +literature, it seemed to me, diminished; the +truth was that people didn't care for it.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>The ladies of pleasure—the merest identifying +phrase, since, in the first place, they were +practically all at the age of immaturity—were +dressed in evening satins, cut generally with +an effective simplicity, or the lacy whiteness +still better adapted to the young person. In +the tropical patio with its canopy of broad +green leaves and night, the marble pavement<a name="page_187" id="page_187"></a> +and alabaster walls, they were brilliantly effective; +it was only after an extended regard, +carefully casual, that I appreciated the amazing +diversity of their individuality, the gamut +of bloods run. There were no Anglo-Saxons—they +were faithful to the traditions of their +latitude—and there was no positive Africa; +but there was Africa in faint dilutions, in attenuations +traced from lands remote as Tartary:</p> + +<p>There was, for example, a girl so blanched +that I saw she wasn't white at all; her face, +even without its drenching of powder, was the +color of the rice-paper cigarette she smoked, +walking indolently by; and her hair was a +blazing mass of undyed red. Her features, +her nose, and the pinched blue corners of her +eyes, the crinkling tendency of her piled hair—its +authenticity unmistakable in a strong +vivid sheen—showed the secret that lay back +of her exotic appalling splendor. Her progress +across the patio was a slender undulation, +and her gaze was fixed, her attention lost, in an +abstraction to which there was no key. No<a name="page_188" id="page_188"></a> +imagination could have pictured such a striking +figure nor placed her so exactly in the ultimate +setting:</p> + +<p>Here she was artificial—there were long jet +ear-rings against her neck—and savage. In +her silk stocking, I had every reason to suspect, +there was a knife's thin steel leaf; but +who could predict the emotions, no—instincts, +to which it was servant? Who, trivial with +the trivialities of to-day, could foretell, trifling +with her, what incentive might drive the steel +deep up under his arm? Hers would be a +dreadful face to see, in its flaming corona, in +the last agonizing wrench of consciousness.</p> + +<p>Seated, and talking earnestly to a Cuban with +worried eyes, was a small round brown girl in +candy green, whose feet in childish kid slippers +and soft hands bore an expression of flawless +innocence. Clasped above an elbow was +an enamelled gold band, such as youth no +longer wore, with a hinge and fine gold chain +securing the lock. She touched it once, +absent-mindedly, and I wondered what was its +potency of association; when, at a turn of her<a name="page_189" id="page_189"></a> +wrist, she drained a glass of brandy, an act +of revealing incongruity. She was, I recognized +from her speech, Spanish, from the +Peninsula; and another, who told me that her +city was Bilbao, dispassionately, for a little, +occupied my bench. Bilbao, she explained, +was not beautiful ... a place of industry and +money. Nor was she charming, she was too +harsh; but her personality had an unmistakable +national flavor, like that of Castell de +Remey wine. I was relieved when she rose +abruptly and disappeared into the entresol, +where the piano was still being intermittently +played.</p> + +<p>The screen door to a room swung open, and +a large rosy creature; negligent and sleepy, +appeared momentarily, gazing with a yawn, +a flash of faultless teeth, over the assemblage. +She was without a dress, but her hair was intricately +up, and a froth of underclothes with +knots of canary yellow ribbons and yellow +clocked stockings made a surprising foreground +for the painfully realistic Crucifixion +hanging on the wall within. The cross was<a name="page_190" id="page_190"></a> +ebony and the figure in a silver-like metal, the +Passion portrayed by a gaunt rigidity of suffering. +The screen closed on the tableau of +contrast, and the patio resumed its appearance +of a vaguely distorted formal occasion.</p> + +<p>Whatever my feelings should have been, +there was no doubt that—if for the extreme +pictorial quality alone—my interest was highly +engaged. My interest and not my indignations! +I was not, it must be admitted, commendably +outraged, or filled with the impulse +to rescue, to save, anyone, however young. +I seriously questioned my ability to offer salvation, +since I lacked the distinctly sustaining +conviction of superiority; I couldn't, offhand, +guarantee anything. Suppose, for argument, +I took one—the youngest—and haled her +away from her deplorable situation: what was +open to her, to us? Would she have preferred, +stayed for an hour in, any of the tepid +conventional Magdalen homes, if there were +such establishments in Havana?</p> + +<p>I had a vision of appearing with her +wrapped in a frivolous cloak, before the experienced<a name="page_191" id="page_191"></a> +wisdom of the Inglaterra manager, +in the corridor of American salesmen, among +the wives of the vice-presidents of steamship +companies, and explaining that I was delivering +my companion from the wage of death. I +should have been, and very properly, put +under restraint and Dr. Lainé hurriedly summoned. +In all probability, and with the utmost +discretion, they'd have sent Pilar, or +Manuelita, back to the patio with the doors, +explaining to her that I was demented.</p> + +<p>There were, undoubtedly, better places for +girls of fifteen, and they would have been the +first to choose them if a choice had been possible—some +would have been wives and some +opera singers and all, with wishing so free, +uncommonly beautiful. I had an idea that a +number of them would have gone no further +than the last, and, as well they might, left +the rest to chance. But their ideas of beauty +must have been stupid compared to what they +actually possessed.</p> + +<p>There was a girl with a trace of Chinese in +the flattened oval of her countenance, and<a name="page_192" id="page_192"></a> +heavy black hair, as severe as a metal casing, +redolent with fascination. She sat withdrawn +from the others with her hands clasped in the +lap of a fine white dress. She was delicate, +but not thin, though her neck was so slender +that the weight of her head seemed bent a +little forward. I had never before seen skin +so faintly and evenly golden; there wasn't a +flush, a differently shaded surface, anywhere +visible. A sultry air hung about her mouth, +the under lip brushed with carmine. Her +eyes, lowered and almost shut, were large, and +their lids were as smooth as ivory. But she +wasn't, otherwise, suggestive of that; she more +nearly resembled the magic glow of an apple +of Hesperides.</p> + +<p>If I had encountered her twenty years earlier, +my experience would have been richer by +a glimpse of her involved image-like charm. +She was, conceivably, to the superficial West, +dull: it was evident that she almost never +talked—the girls about were not her friends—but +she had qualities, aspects, infinitely preferable +to a flow of words. I should have<a name="page_193" id="page_193"></a> +asked of her hardly more than, at present, she +was, sitting quite a distance from me and fundamentally +unaware of my existence. I debated +whether she would be more attractive +in the sleeve coat and jade pins of China or in +her virginal white muslin.... That now was +the circumference of my duty toward her—to +put her in such colors, such surroundings, as +would infinitely multiply her mystery.</p> + +<p>It was, I realized, time for me to leave—I +wasn't Rogelio Mola in his youth—and I paid +the inconsequential price of the drinks I had +ordered. There were adieux, as civil and impersonal +as my welcome, and the door to the +street was opened to let me, together with a +breath of the scented powder, out. The +arcade before me sounded for a moment with +the smooth falling of a latch, and then all trace +of the near presence of so much lightness was +obliterated. In memory it seemed slightly +unreal, a dangerous fantasy of murmurs and +subdued, knife-like passions—the bleached +soul of Africa with massed red hair; a frivolity +of yellow ribbons against a silver tormented<a name="page_194" id="page_194"></a> +Christ; the inertia of the East in a +heavy-eyed child; but, to balance this, I remembered +the girl, like a harsh native wine, +from Bilbao, an industrial city and very rich: +she restored to the scene its ordinary normal +reality.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>The high empty austerity of my room enveloped +me in a happy tranquillity; its effect +was exactly that of increasing age, substituting +for the violent contrasts of life an impersonal +spacious whiteness. I very placidly prepared +for the cool fresh linen of my bed, my mind +filled with fresh cool thoughts. More definitely +than ever before I was accepting and +accommodating myself to the passage of time. +I was not only reconciled to having left forty +forever behind, but I welcomed a release from +the earlier struggles of resentment and desire. +The joys of youth, or anyhow in my case, had +been out of proportion to their penalties: I +had failed at school, at the academies of art, +and, more conspicuously still, as a citizen. I +was even incapable of supporting myself, a<a name="page_195" id="page_195"></a> +task so easy that it was successfully performed +by three quarters of the fools on earth.</p> + +<p>The failure as a painter was serious, but I +had never had the least interest in those qualities +included in the term a good citizen. I +knew nothing about the government of the +United States, and made no effort to find out; +as an abstraction it had reality for me, but as +a reality no substance. The priceless right of +vote I neglected for whoever it was in the +Republican machine that regularly discharged +that responsibility for me. All that interested +me, that I deeply cared for, was first the disposal +of paint on stretched canvas and then the +arrangement of words with a probable meaning +and possible beauty.</p> + +<p>An extremely bad period, that, when I tried +to write without knowledge or support, reaching +from twenty until well after thirty, when +I managed to sell a scrap of prose. From then +until forty the time had gone in a flash, a +scratching of the pen: it seemed incredible that +the seven books on a shelf bearing my name +had been the result of so brief, so immaterial,<a name="page_196" id="page_196"></a> +a time. Now, stranger still, I was in Cuba, +gazing peacefully into the dim expensive space +of a room in the Hotel Inglaterra, congratulating +myself on the loss, the positive lapse, +of what was called men's most valuable possession.</p> + +<p>No better place for the trying of my sincerity +than Havana existed; no other city in +the world could so perfectly create the illusion +of complete irresponsibility, of happiness +followed for its own sake, as an end, or as the +means of forgetfulness. Its gala walls and +plazas and promenades, its alternating sparkle +and languor, like flags whipping in the wind or +drooping about their staffs, always conveyed +a spirit of holiday and of a whole absence of +splenetic censure. At the bottom of this the +climate, eternally sunny, with close vivid days +and nights stirring with a breeze through the +galleries, concentrated the mind and body on +pleasure.</p> + +<p>Night had always been the time for gaiety, +when the practical was veiled in shade; and +Havana responded with an inimitable grace<a name="page_197" id="page_197"></a> +to the stars. It was constructed for night, like +a lunar park of marble and palms and open +flooding radiance; with, against that, streets +packed with darkness and doors of mystery to +which clung the faint breath of patchouli. +The air was instinct with seduction, faintly +touched by the pungency of Ron Bacardi and +limes, and bland with the vapors of delightful +cigars. The clothes, too—the white linens +and flannels and silks of the men; the ruffled +dresses on the balconies, the flowery laces, like +white carnations, in the automobiles; the wide +hats of Paris and the satin slippers tied about +the ankles, with preposterous heels; the fluttering +fans—all, all were in the key of light +sharp emotion, of challenge and invitation and +surrender.</p> + +<p>Yes, any strictness of conduct in Havana, +any philosophy in the face of that charm, was +unaffected beyond dispute. I had been, in a +farther development of this, tacitly left to my +own devices and thoughts, as if there were a +general perception of my remoteness from the +affair in hand. I was suffered to come and go<a name="page_198" id="page_198"></a> +without notice; no one, much, spoke to me; +even those not unaware of the possibility of a +book, of San Cristóbal de la Habana, in which +their city would find praise, were hardly +stirred to interest. The moment to go to Havana +was youth, the moment for masked balls +and infidelity and champagne: its potency for +me lay in its investment of memories; I regarded +it as a spectacle set in the tropics. I +was an onlooker and not a participant. But I +had, as I have shown, no regret; I had become +reconciled not only to the fleetness of time, but +equally to the fact that my rôle was necessarily +a spectator's. Hour after hour, year after +year, I sat writing at the low window which +looked out over my green terrace and clipped +hedge, to the road, to life, beyond.</p> + +<p>Above everything, then, I was satisfied with +the Havana I knew. From the standpoint of +actuality my comprehension was limited—I +was familiar with only a certain narrow part +of the city, for it was my habit to go back to +what I had found rather than discover the new—perhaps +ten streets and a handful of houses,<a name="page_199" id="page_199"></a> +parks, and cafés. Too much to get into a +score of books. What I had lost, I thought +further—if, indeed, I had ever possessed it—was +a warm personal contact such as I should +have had dancing with a lovely girl. I never +danced, but remained outside, philosophically, +gazing at the long bright whirling rectangles.</p> + +<p>At the Inglaterra there were many men +older than myself who danced persistently and +had the warmest sorts of contacts; they too, +wore flowers in their coats, but aggressive and +not reminiscent blooms. They formed most +of the element of foreign gaiety; there wasn't +much youth among them, but I didn't envy +them in the slightest. They were, if possible, +more absurd than the women unmindful of +thickening waists and dulled eyes. Their +ardor was febrile and their power money; and +every time they escorted with a quickened step +their charmers past young dark men, the +charmers glanced back appealingly. It was +different with the Cubans, who regarded such +things more naturally, and did not, practically, +in consequence, get drunk.<a name="page_200" id="page_200"></a></p> + +<p>The noise from San Rafael Street never +slackened, the clamor of the mule-drivers and +the emptying cans of refuse took the place of +the motor signals; the slats of my lowered shutters +showed streaks of dawn. I turned once, +it appeared, and the room was filled with indirect +sunlight, the hands of my watch were +at ten. It was eleven before I was dressed, +with the morning cup of black coffee empty +on a table; at twelve I had breakfast, and until +five I idly read. The evening as well was idle—a +thoroughly wasted day, judged by obvious +and active standards. I thought, with no +impulse to return, of the house near the +Arsenal, which had, in effect, been open for +centuries and which, unless life were purified, +would never close. The purity I meant was +not a limitation of passion, but its release from +obscene confines. It didn't matter what I +meant and, again, I was becoming too serious +... or not serious about the correct things. +There was perpetually the danger of being +overtaken, in spite of my impetuous early +flight, by the influences, the promptings, of<a name="page_201" id="page_201"></a> +my heredity and strong first associations. +What an amazing climax to my records of +chiffon textures and moods of chiffon that +would be: shouting the creed of a bitter Scots +induration from the informal pulpits of the +streets! Or I might publish, to the dismay of +every one intimately concerned, a denunciatory +sermonizing book. But what the subject +was wouldn't matter, as it had not mattered +with Jeremy Taylor, if it were written with +sufficient beauty. Disagreeable books, too, in +spite of the accepted contrary belief, were +always very highly esteemed.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>It was easy enough to account for Jeremy +Taylor by the vague generalization of beauty, +and I forced myself to a closer scrutiny of that +term and my meaning. The words beauty +and love, and a dozen others, like old shoes, +had grown so shapeless through long mis-wear +that they would stay on no foot. I tried +to isolate some quality indisputably recognizable +as beautiful and hit, to my surprise, on<a name="page_202" id="page_202"></a> +intellectual courage. The thought of an undeviating +mental integrity was as exhilarating +as the crash of massed marching bands. +Then, searching for another example, I recalled +August nights at Dower House, with the +moonlight lying like water between the black +shadows of the trees on the lawn. There was +a harsh interwoven shrilling of locusts and +the echo—almost the feel rather than the sound—of +thunder below the horizon. This, too, +stirred me profoundly, brought about the glow +transmutable into creative effort.</p> + +<p>Another excursion found nothing but a boy +and a girl, any boy and any girl, fired by shy +uncomplicated passion.... A mental, a +visual, and a natural incentive, each with the +same effect, the identical pinching of the heart +and thrust to a common hidden center. What +had they each alike? Perhaps it was this: +that they were the three great facts of existence, +the primary earth, the act of creation, +and the crowning dignity, the superiority of +men who, somehow, had transvalued the sum +of their awarded clay. Somehow! I had no<a name="page_203" id="page_203"></a> +intention of examining that. The fact was, +for me, enough.</p> + +<p>There was, however, another phase of +beauty still, one peculiarly the property of +novelists, which had to do not with life at +all, but with death, with vain longing and +memories and failure. All the novels which +seemed to me of the first rank were constructed +from these latter qualities; and while +painting and music and lyrical poetry were +affirmative, the novel was negative, built, +where it was great, from great indignations. +Yet, while this was obvious truth, it failed +to include or satisfy me; for there were +many passages not recognizable as great +in the broadest sense, both in literature +and life, that filled me with supreme +pleasure—there were pages of Turgenev spun +out of the fragile melancholy of a girl, a girl +with a soul in dusk, far more enthralling than, +for example, Thomas Hardy. It may have +been that there was the perception of a similitude +between Turgenev's figure and myself; +certainly I was closer to her mood, her disease<a name="page_204" id="page_204"></a> +of modernity, than to a sheep herder; and +there was a possibility, for my own support, +that the finest-drawn sensibilities, not regarded +as emotions in the grand key, would turn out +to be our most highly justified preoccupation.</p> + +<p>I was, at present, in Havana, submerged in +its fascination, and when I came to write about +it there would not be lacking those to say that +I had been better occupied with simpler +things. Hugh Walpole had warned me of +the danger, to me, of parquetry and vermilion +Chinese Chippendale; and I was certain that +he would speak to me again in the same tone +about idling in a mid-Victorian Pompeii, celebrating +drink and marble touched by the gilder's +brush of late afternoon. Perhaps Walpole—and +Henry Mencken's keen friendly +discernment—was right; but, damn it, my experience +was deficient in material essentials; I +was dangerously ignorant of current reality, +and I doubted if my style was a suitable instrument +for rugged facts.</p> + +<p>What remained for me, an accomplishment +spacious enough for anyone, was the effort to<a name="page_205" id="page_205"></a> +realize that sharp sense of beauty which came +from a firm delicate consciousness of certain +high pretensions, valors, maintained in the face +of imminent destruction. And in that category +none was sharper than the charm of a +woman, so soon to perish, in a vanity of array +as momentary and iridescent as a May-fly. +The thought of such a woman, the essence, the +distillation, of an art of life superimposed on +sheer economy, was more moving to me than +the most heroic maternity. I couldn't get it +into my head that loveliness, which had a trick +of staying in the mind at points of death when +all service was forgotten, was rightly considered +to be of less importance than the sweat +of some kitchen drudge.</p> + +<p>The setting of a woman in a dress by +Cheruit; a part of the bravery of fragile soft +paste Lowestoft china and square emeralds +that would feed a starving village, on fingers +that had done no more than wave a fan; the fan +itself, on gold and ivory with tasselled silk—the +things to which the longing of men, elevated +a degree above hard circumstances,<a name="page_206" id="page_206"></a> +turned—were of equal weight with the whole; +for it was not what the woman had in common +with a rabbit that was important, but her difference. +On one hand that difference was +moral, but on the other æsthetic; and I had +been absorbed by the latter.</p> + +<p>This, however wide apart it may seem, was +closely bound to my presence in Havana, to +my delight and purpose there. It was nothing +more than a statement, a development, if not +a final vindication, of my instant sense of +pleasure and familiarity—a place already +alive in my imagination. My special difficulty +was the casting of it into a recognizable, +adequate medium. There, in the plaiting +of cobwebs instead of hemp rope, I particularly +invited disaster. It wasn't necessary +that I should sustain anyone, but only that +I should spread the illusion of the buried associations +and image of a brain. That, if it +were true, I held, would be beauty.</p> + +<p>Here, at least, I was serious about the correct +things, direct rather than conventional; +all that mattered was the spreading of the illusion,<a name="page_207" id="page_207"></a> +the spectacle of what part of Havana I +did know interpreted, realized, not in the +spirit of an architectural plan, but as sentient +with reflected emotions. Otherwise the most +weighty charges against me were absolutely +justified. If I couldn't make Havana respond +in the key of my intrinsic feelings, if I had no +authentic feeling with which to invest it, my +book, almost all my books, were a weariness +and a mistake.</p> + +<p>Novels of indignation or of melancholy, +of a longing for the continuity of individual +passion confronted with the inevitable—it was +that, the perishability of all that was desirable, +which gave to small things, a flower in the +hair, their importance as symbols. The love +story, once the exclusive province of fiction, +had disappeared; it was now practically impossible +for the slightest talent to fill a book +in that manner. The romantic figment, like +a confection of spun sugar with a sprig of artificial +orange blossoms, had been discarded; the +beauty of love, it had been discovered, wasn't +the possession of a particular heart, but the<a name="page_208" id="page_208"></a> +tenderness, the pity, that came from the realization +of its inescapable loss. No man could +love a woman, no woman could love a man, +who was to live forever; a thousand years +would be an insuperable burden. The higher +a cultivation, a delight, reached, the more +tragic was its breaking by death; the greater +knowledge a mind held, the more humiliating +was the illimitable ignorance, the profound +night pressing in upon every feeble and temporary +human lamp.</p> + +<p>Yes, the novels, the books I wanted to write, +were composed, now, not so much from among +the brasses, the tympani, as from the violins. +The great majority, like the great books, were +dedicated to the primary chords; but my +reaching the former had been always hopeless. +I didn't mind this, for I told myself +that, while the structure of approbation I had +gathered was comparatively modest, its stones +and masonry were admirable; it was, if not a +mansion, a gratifying cottage firmly set on +earth—what was in England called, I believe, +a freehold. It was mine, and there was no<a name="page_209" id="page_209"></a> +lease dependent on the good will—or on my +subserviency—of any landlord.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>Most of this went through my mind as I sat +looking at my trunk, open on end in an alcove +near the door, for I was gathering my clothes +and thoughts in preparation for leaving Havana. +One thing only that I wished to see +now remained—the danzon at the National +Theatre. I kept out a dark suit, one that +would be inconspicuous in a lower spectator's +box; for I had been told that it was desirable +to avoid unnecessary attention. There was, +briefly, an element of danger. This I doubted—I +had heard the same thing so often before +without subsequent justification—but I could +believe it possible if there was any violent discharge +of primitive emotion. Here the spirit +of Africa burned remote and pale, but it was +still a tropical incomprehensible flame.</p> + +<p>A strip of red carpet led from the outer +steps, across a large promenade, to the circular +wall of the theatre; and though it was past<a name="page_210" id="page_210"></a> +eleven, the ball hadn't yet assumed an appearance +of life. But just within the entrance a +negro band began suddenly to play, and in the +music alone I immediately found the potent +actuality of danger. I was without the knowledge +necessary to the disentangling of its elements: +there were fiddles and horns and unnatural +kettle drums, and an instrument made +from a long gourd, with a parallel scoring for +the scrape of a stick. The music was first a +shock, then an exasperation hardly to be borne, +but finally it assumed a rhythm maddening +beyond measure.</p> + +<p>It was Africa and something else—notes +taken from the Moors, splitting quavers of +Iberian traditions, shakes and cadences that +might have been the agonized voice of the first +Cubeños; with an unspeakable distortion, a +crazy adaptation, of scraps of to-day. There +was no pause, no beginning or end, in its +form; it went on and on and on, rising and falling, +fluctuating, now in a harsh droning and +then a blasting discord—the savage naked utterance<a name="page_211" id="page_211"></a> +of a naked savage lust; it was a music +not of passion, but of the frenzy of rape. +Nothing like it would have been possible in +writing, allowed in painting; only music was +free to express, to sound, such depths. +Nothing but music could have conveyed the +inarticulate cries of the stirred mire that +flooded the marble space of the opera house. +It had lost the simplicity of its appropriate +years, the spring orgies in the clearings of +early forests; time had made it hideously +menacing, cynical, and corrupt.</p> + +<p>At an aisle to the boxes within, a negro +woman with a wheedling tainted manner tried +to sell me a nosegay; and two others, younger +and pale, their faces coated with rice powder, +went past in dragging satins. They were +chattering a rapid Spanish, and their whitened +cheeks and dead-looking mat-like hair, their +coffee-colored breasts and white kid gloves, +gave them an extraordinary incongruity; +and behind them, as sharp as the whisper of +their skirts, a stinging perfume lingered.<a name="page_212" id="page_212"></a> +Leaning forward on the rail of my enclosure, +I gazed down over the floored expanse of the +auditorium:</p> + +<p>The stage was set with the backdrop and +wings of a conventional operatic design—a +scene that would have served equally Aïda or +La Favorita: it towered, like a faded dream +of pseudo-classic Havana, into the theatrical +heavens, expanses of bistre and sepias and +charcoal grey, of loggias and peristyles and +fountains; while in close order about its three +sides were ranged stiff chairs in a vivid live +border of dancers. They were of every color +from absolute pallor, the opacity of plaster, +to utter blackness. The men, for the most +part, were light, some purely Spanish, the +negritos, at least to me, conspicuous; but I +could see no indisputably white women. +There was a girl in a mantone of bright contrasting +colors, a high comb and a rose in her +hair, about whom there was a question. However, +her partner was one of the few full negroes +there; and, as they revolved below my +box, it seemed that her skin had a leaden cast.<a name="page_213" id="page_213"></a></p> + +<p>The danzon itself had, at first, the appearance +of a sustained gravity: it was danced +slowly, in very small space, following the +music with arbitrary reverses, and pausing. +There might have been, to the superficial +view, a restraint almost approaching dignity +had the dancers been other. The men, without +exception, wore their stiff straw hats and +smoked cigars through every evolution; and +the dresses, the dressing, of the women were +fantastic: a small wasted girl, dryly black, had +copied the color and petals of a sunflower. As +she revolved, her skirt flared out from legs +like bent bones, and a hat of raw yellow +flapped across her grotesque ebony countenance.</p> + +<p>The danzon, for a moment, in spite of the +music played continuously and alternately by +two orchestras occupying a box on either side +of the stage, seemed formal. Then, abruptly, +a couple lost every restraint, and their maddened +spinning and furious hips tore the illusion +to shreds. And slowly I began to be conscious +of a poisonous air, a fetid air as palpable<a name="page_214" id="page_214"></a> +as the odors and scents—the breath, the premonition, +of the danger of which I had been +warned. It lay in an ugly hysteria of rasped +emotions that at any illogical accident might +burst into the shrillness of a knife. It wasn't +dangerous so much as it was abjectly wicked—the +deliberate calling up of sooty shapes that +had better be kept buried. It was unimportant +that the men below me were, in the daytime, +commonplace clerks; the women could +be anything chance had made them: here, to +the spoiled magic of Carabalíe nights, they +were evoking a ceremonial of horror.</p> + +<p>Personally, since I had no hopes to save or +plans to protect, I hadn't the desire, like Sampson, +to pull down the pillars of the roof on +their debased heads. I enjoyed it remarkably; +the more because I saw, scattered among the +crowd, figures of unreal and detrimental +beauty—a creamy magnificence in creamy +satin with a silver band on her forehead; a yellow +creature with oblique eyes in twenty white +flounces and a natural garland of purple +flowers; a thing of ink, of basalt carved by an<a name="page_215" id="page_215"></a> +opulent chisel, on whose body clothes were +incidental; and corrupt graces perfect in +youth and figure weaving the patterns, the wisdom, +of Sodom.</p> + +<p>One o'clock passed, then two and three, but +there was no abatement in the danzon. A +middle-aged man, with an abstracted air, +danced without stopping for an hour and fifty +minutes. His partner, flushing through her +dark skin, was expensively habited: her fingers +and throat glittered coldly with diamonds +and her hat was swept with long dipping +plumes. She had a malignant mouth and eyes +a thick muddy brown, and it was clear that she +hated the man in whose arms she was turning. +I wondered about her hatred and the patience, +the indifference, of the other: how revolting +she would be in a few hours, livid and ghastly +in the morning. He, probably, would then be +standing at a high desk, counting dollars with +integrity or adding columns of figures, precise +and respectable in an alpaca coat. An older +man still was dancing by himself, intent on the +intricate stepping of his own feet. His agility<a name="page_216" id="page_216"></a> +soon won an admiring circle, and his violence +increased with the applause: he jumped in the +air, clapping his heels together, and his arms +waved wildly—a marionette pulled convulsively +by wires in strange merciless hands.</p> + +<p>I imagined a fetish, a large god, on the +stage, drooping over his swollen belly, with a +hanging lip and hands set in his loins. His +legs were folded, lost in flesh ... a squatting +smeared trunk of hideous service. Around +him were the seated rows of worshippers, on +either hand was his jangling praise; and before +him revolved the dancers in his rite. The +music throbbed in my brain like a madness +that would have dragged me down to the floor. +I speculated fleetly over such a surrender, the +drop, through countless ages, of that possible +descent.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>It was, however, only just to add that the +idol of Guinea suffered unduly from his surroundings +and the age in which he was exposed; +in his place, his time, he had been +neither a monster nor unnatural, but nothing<a name="page_217" id="page_217"></a> +more than the current form of worship. He, +Bongó, had had the misfortune to be catapulted, +together with his congregation, +through twenty, forty, centuries, in a breath, +on the magic carpet of greed, and put down +in a day where he was not only obsolete, but +repudiated. Men saw him with the sense of +horror generated by a blasting view of their +own very much earlier selves. For the difference +between the negro, the Carabalíes, or +Macua, and the Spaniards of the sixteenth +century in Cuba was, at heart, historical in +time only. They were members—we were all +members—of one family. The innocence of +a bare black, torn like a creeper from the support +of his native tree, tatooed with necessary +charms, medicines, against jungle fears and +fevers, had more to dread from Amador de +Lares than any later Christians owed to an +arbitrarily imported savagery. What, in reality, +occurred, was implied on the wide floor +of the opera house, was that the negroes, unable +to change their simplicity as easily as +they superficially diluted their skins, kept their<a name="page_218" id="page_218"></a> +innocent habits, their tastes in noise and religion +and misconduct; but, in the dress of +civilization, these took on the aspect of a grotesque +defiled horror. With this, too, in an +earnest effort to assimilate as much as possible +of their enforced land, they caught such bright +fragments of life as struck them—the glass +beads and bits of gay cloth—and copied them +prodigiously. The confusion which followed +was a tragedy in the comic spirit—a discordant +mingling that provoked laughter, quickly +stopped by a deeper understanding and by +pity. The past vital still: with the entrance +of the African slave into the West, it was exactly +as though a figure in the paint and +feathers of voodoo had been thrust into a +polite salon.</p> + +<p>The spectacle had none of the comfortable +features of a mere exhibition; for the revulsion +came from a spiritual shudder in the beings +of the onlookers; while the other injured individuals +saw that, as clothes, the crude partial +imitation of a rooster was insufficient. They, +the latter, commendably hurried into trousers<a name="page_219" id="page_219"></a> +and pot hats, into satin trains and pink tulle +and white kid gloves; but the transition was +too hurried, too optimistic, and the resulting +incongruity ... I was not a student of ethnology, +I had no theory of races, but, gazing +down from my box, it seemed to me that yesterday +could not be instantly combined with to-day; +it was evident that there was no short way +by a long and painful business of evolution.</p> + +<p>Nothing more unfortunate could well be +imagined; for, in the retributive manner I had +already mentioned, the Africa buried in the +West, so long forgotten, took life again, and +the danger to everyone had been acute +through a long period of Havana's years. +We, in temperate zones, in weathers that had +no need of the protection of a special dark pigment, +had been lucky; but we were trying our +luck very severely by subjecting it to the old +potencies not yet entirely lost. The danzon +was, actually, in a way beyond legislation, a +masked ball in black and white, where the unmasking +was involuntary and fateful.</p> + +<p>One, I thought, spoiled the other, like an<a name="page_220" id="page_220"></a> +incomplete experiment in chemistry where +nothing but an opaque liquid and an intolerable +stench was evolved. Perhaps, with +acute necessity, a successful clear result would +reward the future with peace; but it wouldn't +happen in my knowledge; I hadn't a thing in +the world to do with it. What occurred to +me then was the useful fact that the present +scene afforded the right, the only, ending for +my story, The Bright Shawl. It would +have to be tragic, but only indirectly; nothing, +I had decided, should happen to my principal +character beyond a young moment of supreme +romance. No, the mishap, death, must envelop +his friend, the patriotic Cuban. He'd +be killed by a Spanish officer, through a +woman—a woman in the bright shawl of the +dancer that had been preserved as a memento +of tender regard.</p> + +<p>Some arrangement was necessary, perhaps a +prostitute. Well—I had seen her, in virginal +white muslin, with the weight of her head, its +oval flattened by the hand of China, her heavy +hair, inclined on its slender neck: a figure, in<a name="page_221" id="page_221"></a> +my pages, impassively fateful, remote as I had +seen her seated in a gay company. That +finished the story, for the youthful American, +after a vain public effort to secure for himself +the dignity of a heroic end, would be ignominiously +deported from Cuba. I had been often +asked how I arrived at my plots, but more +often accused of never reaching an intelligible +plan, and, until now, I'd been incapable of +giving an explanation satisfactory even to myself; +but here was one accounted for to a considerable +degree. It had begun by an instinctive +attachment to a city, to Havana; and the +emotions brought into being had crystallized +into a plan, for me, unusually concise.</p> + +<p>There was a temptation, to be avoided, to +tell it in the first person; a version that had +come to be disliked almost as universally as a +set of letters. Some celebrated stories had +been written that way—Youth—but I felt that +it was an unnecessary charge on sympathy. +While the creation of character was no longer +the tyrant it had been, a certain air of veracity +was most desirable, and the limited scope of a<a name="page_222" id="page_222"></a> +single intelligence discussing, explaining, himself +was too marked. The great trouble with +the romantic novels up to the very present had +been that there was never a doubt of the ultimate +happiness of all who should be happy +and the overwhelming misery of those who +should be miserable. No peril was the father +of a thrill, because from its inception it was +plainly impotent to harm the lovely and the +brave. The pleasure had from witnessing a +dexterous job was lost in an artifice that seldom +approached an art. But we'd improved that, +an improvement expressed in the utter loss of +the word hero; no man, or woman, was now +entirely safe in the hands of his romantic author; +the two manners had come creditably +together.</p> + +<p>I had become, subconsciously, interested in +a girl pausing on the floor, and, in response to +my scrutiny, she glanced up with a shadowy +smile. I gazed with instant celerity and fixedness +at the ceiling, then at the upper boxes +opposite, since below, indiscretion was laid like +a trail of powder, of explosive rice powder.<a name="page_223" id="page_223"></a> +There was no cutting in at that ball. She was +more than charming, too, with her mixed +blood evident in her carriage, her indolence, +rather than in feature. She wore blue, a +wisely simple dress that showed small feet, +like butterflies in their lightness, and the instinctive +note of a narrow black velvet band on +her throat.</p> + +<p>An air of sadness rested on her, on, principally, +a superiority anyone could see. Her +fan opened and shut in a thin pointed hand. +A maid, I told myself, reflecting the aristocracy +of the closets of delicate clothes in her +charge, scented from the gold-stoppered bottles +of her mistress. She was another phase +of what had been going on at such length +through my mind—a different catastrophe, +since she was denied the reward of the virtues +in either of the races that had made her. In +Boston she would have become a bluestocking, +a poet singing in minor cadence to traditional +abolitionists become dilettantes, but in +Cuba, tormented by the strains of the danzon:<a name="page_224" id="page_224"></a></p> + +<p>There, her flax burning in resentment and +despair, she might be extinguished in the tide +restlessly sweeping to the troubled coast of +Birrajos: or, at Havana, carried into the secrets +of the Ñañigos: in the black cabildo of +that society, provision was made for a woman.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>It was significant that the first organization +of ñañiguismo in Cuba was purely African, +for the hatred of its members, Carabalíes, for +the white race made the admission of even +mulattos impossible. This society—tierra or +juego—was formed during the administration +of General Tacón, in the village of Regla, and +called Apapá Efí. It was, against the protests +of its originators at sharing the secret +with too many, enlarged, and spread through +the outskirts of Havana. There the mulattos +greatly outnumbered the blacks, and they +formed a society of their own, its oath sworn +in Ancha del Norte Street, named Ecobio Efó +Macarará. They insisted on a common +brotherhood and their right of entering the<a name="page_225" id="page_225"></a> +fambás, the ceremonial rooms; but there was +a determined opposition, open battle and murder +in Perserverancia and Lagunas Streets. +After this there was a general meeting at Marianao, +the early bar to color, as distinguished +from black, removed, and the infusion of the +dark ritual of Efi into white blood began. +When, ten years after, an indiscriminate society, +the Ecobio Efó, was terminated by the +authorities, Spanish nobles and professional +men were assisting in the rites.</p> + +<p>What had started upon the African river +Oldan as a tribal religion took on, in Havana, +a debased version of Rome, and the veneration +of Santa Barbara was added to the supreme +worship of Ecue, a figure vaguely parallel to +the Holy Ghost, created in the sounding of a +sacred drum. And what, equally, in the Carabalíe +Bricamó was Dibó, God, became in +Cuba an organization of criminals and finally, +when its more obvious aspects were stamped +out, a corrupt political influence. There, in +the clearest possible manner, was traced the +eventual effect of so much heralded superiority,<a name="page_226" id="page_226"></a> +such enormous advantages, on native belief.</p> + +<p>There could be no doubt, though, of the +fact that, in any pretence of civilization, the +ñañigos were detrimental; it was unavoidable +that they should have degenerated into a savage +menace, not only in overt acts, which were +not lacking, but in practices of mental and +emotional horror. Their ceremony, with its +strange vocables and distortions of meaning; +the obscene words that were but symbols for +obscenities beyond imagination; the character +of their dance, which gave them the name arrastrados, +men who dragged themselves, reptilian, +on the ground—all combined in a poison +like a gas sweeping from the morass of the +past. It held, beneath its refuge and defiance +of society, the appeal of a portentous secret, +bound in blood, the fascination, the fetishism, +of orgiastic rituals, and, under that, stronger +still, delirious barbarity.</p> + +<p>Its legend was not different from the others +which formed the primitive bases of subsequent +elaborate beliefs: the miracle, with an<a name="page_227" id="page_227"></a> +attending baptism, was consummated by a +woman, Sicanecua, who found a crying fish—the +fish was a sacred Christian sign—in her +jar of water. In recognition of this she was +sacrificed and her blood put to a holy use, and +the fish skinned for the drum, sounded by the +fingers, used in his praise. Here Ecue, the divine, +was baptized by Efó in the Oldan, who +in turn signed his disciple. And about that +tradition, guarded—with its instrument—in +the altar, Ecue sese, the degenerate elements +and characters of modern ñañíguismo gathered. +There were, necessarily, changes in the +Cuban form of worship—the skin of a goat +was substituted for the unprocurable variety +of fish, and the timbre of the original drum +secured by an artifice. The need, as well, of +finding another anointment than human blood, +difficult to procure in Havana, led to the sacrifice +of the rooster or a goat. This, now, had +a crucifix, with the profession that God, Dibó, +must be over everything, and a sacramental +singing; but not the Te Deum or Laudes ... +Efore sisí llamba, and the reply Ho Isueribó<a name="page_228" id="page_228"></a> +éngomo ... Mocongo! while the Empegó, +the clerk of the service, shifted brightly colored +curtains and enveloping handkerchiefs +and marked with yellow chalk the head and +body and palms of the initiates.</p> + +<p>A diablito had in charge the offices of the +catechism—Come with me; where did you +leave your feet; where I left my head! Enter +where Bongó is and cry with your brother! +Look at your brother because they want to +choke him. He conducted the sacrifice of the +goat, which, in a memorial of Guinea, was +eaten with pointed sticks, with the drink Mucuba, +made from sugar-cane rum and bitter +broom. A strange procession followed, led +by the Insué, with a woman in a shift, Sicanecue, +and the diablito skipping backward. The +sese, a silver crucifix with four black feathers, +was carried, and later the remains of the feast +were thrown into a cemetery.</p> + +<p>The effort to end ñañiguismo in Havana began +in eighteen hundred and seventy-five, +when its gatherings were forbidden; but, +deeply traditional, it flourished in hidden<a name="page_229" id="page_229"></a> +places, in the jail where ñañigos were confined +and the cellars of Jesús María. Long +before that the poet Placido had been killed; +within a few years the Llamba named Hand +on the Ground was judicially executed; and +following the assassinations during the carnival +of eighteen hundred and sixty-five, sweeping +deportations were enforced. In Maloja +Street a juego, Acaniran Efó Primero, with +officers drawn from reputable quarters, was +surprised; the next year the Abacuá Efó was +exterminated; a public clash of diablitos resulted +in apprehensions; and twenty-five ñañigos +were taken on Vista Hermosa Street.</p> + +<p>It was, in reality, Africa in Havana, +brought against its wish and to its tragic misfortune; +and, planted in an alien soil, but +among a common genus, the mysteries of religion, +it grew into an aberration of all that +gave it birth. Aside from this, its significance, +for me, lay in its amazing language, an idiom, +specifically, composed of the Carabalíe Bricamó +and a Spanish without articles or conjunctions, +equally incapable of exact images<a name="page_230" id="page_230"></a> +and the expression of abstract thought. But +taking the place of its omissions, was a congealing +power of suggestion, of creating, +through, apparently, no more than the jumbling +of common terms and sounds, sensations +of abject dread. The four bishops of the ritual, +in their order, were Insué, Illamba, Mocongo, +Empegó. In ñañiguismo man was +momban, an idiot was sansgueré, a knife icuá +rebesine, a pistol etombre, immortality embigüí, +the night erufie, war ochangana, the +sun fansón, and worms cocorico. The language +took short rigid forms, phrases; it had +little if any plasticity: Amandido amanllurube, +The day goes and the night comes. Efiquefi +que buton efique Ename onton Ellego +Efimeremo Iboito, Eurico sangacurici eurico +sanga quimagua sanga ñampé, ñampé sanga +mariba, The owl drinks the blood of the dead +and flies to the sea.</p> + +<p>The terms of the acts of worship were particularly +heavy, sultry, and held in their +sound alone the oppressive significance of fetishes +as black as the night from which they<a name="page_231" id="page_231"></a> +were shaped. The minister of death to Sinanecua, +a ceremony which became traditional, +was named Cuañon-Araferrobré, and the act +of sacrifice the Acuá Meropó. The singers +before the altar, making visible the sacred +stick, Bastón Mocongo, intoned Mocongo Machevere, +Mosongo moto cumbaba eribo, and +Erendio basi Bome, I believe in God and God +is great; with, at the last, silencing the profession +of faith, the voice of the drum, tarinibongó.</p> + +<p>The ñañigos had been driven from the +streets through which, at first, on King's Day, +Dia Reyes, they were permitted, once a year, +to parade with native costumes and instruments—atables +and marugas and ecous, a flattened +bell struck by a thin stick. Their fambás +were destroyed and hysteria cooled; but I +wondered about both the secretiveness and +the persistence of the primitive spirit and the +delicate melancholy that veiled the girl so +faintly tinged with carabalíe, resting below +my box through the rasping strains of the danzon. +Had her gain been greater than the loss,<a name="page_232" id="page_232"></a> +the ruin, of her simplicity; had she, dragged +abruptly from saurian shadows, been made +white by an arbitrary papal sun?</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>A glimmering dawn, faintly salt with the +presence of the sea, was evident in the Parque +Central when I walked the short distance, not +more than a few steps, from the opera house +to the Inglaterra, my head filled with the resonant +bos and bongos of ñañiguismo. Havana, +for a moment, seemed like a cemetery—its +own marble cemetery of Colon—where a +black spirit, buried in a secret grave, walked +and would not be still. I speculated about +that same spirit in another connection—in its +influence on painting and music, on Western +literature. It had affected dancing profoundly, +making it, in the United States, almost +wholly its own; and the Spanish, with +whom, in the richness of a tradition and perfect +expression, no others could compete, +owed a great debt to Africa. Our music, too, +it had influenced to such a degree that it was<a name="page_233" id="page_233"></a> +doubtful if we had any outside the beat of +negro strains.</p> + +<p>Stephen Foster, a great composer in that he +had enclosed the whole sentiment of an age +within his medium, was often but a paraphrase +of a darker melody. Foster, like Havana, +was Victorian, a period that dreamed of marble +halls, set in a pitch impossible now, and +yet, curiously, charged for an unsympathetic +world with significant beauty. This negro +contribution was in a melancholy and minor +key, the invariable tone of all primitive song; +in poetry, as well, a lyrical poetry nearly approaching +music, there was an analogous coloring +between the race and its shadowed measures.</p> + +<p>The reminiscent emotions that, with us, +were mainly personal, in the negro were +tribal; he had not been individualized, +brought to a separate consciousness; and, in +consequence, his song, practically lacking in +intellect, dealt only with instinctive feelings. +Growing shrill with passion and sinking to +the monotonous laments of formless sorrow, it<a name="page_234" id="page_234"></a> +belonged equally to all the men, the women, +who heard it—it was their voice and comprehensible +triumph or pain; without artifice it +wasn't artificial nor ever insincere; and, as a +means of gold, a medium for lies, it had no +existence. The voice of all, an instrument of +natural beauty, shared by villages, its pure +quality, brought in slave ships that rotted with +their dead on the sea, gave the shallow and +vitiated West a fresh earthen tonic chord.</p> + +<p>The negro, naturally, hadn't grown more +cheerful in his new imposed setting; and it +was possible that his music had gained an +added depth, at any rate for our perception, +from the weight of banishment and shackles. +He had not turned with any success to creative +accomplishment that needed mental independence +and courage, or to forms, like the +novel, wholly modern. On the other side, the +novel, with all its trumpeted young freedom, +had never, with even relative truth, expressed +the negro in the Americas. This, a subject of +appalling splendor, had, in the United States, +been turned over to the comic spirit and short<a name="page_235" id="page_235"></a> +impressions—stories, superficially, falsely, pathetic. +The fact was that we had enormously +harmed the negro, and for that reason, in the +familiar process of human self-esteem, nationally +we were uneasy, resentful in his presence. +We saw him, when we escaped from +absolute hatred, as a figure, a subject, without +dignity: we lacked there the penetrative sympathy +which was the soul of imaginative fiction. +Such a novel, I thought, was perhaps +of everything that offered the best worth writing.</p> + +<p>Certainly nothing more difficult could be +well attempted; my knowledge, in Havana +and through the ñañigos, had been perceptibly +enlarged, and I was not unfamiliar with the +state in which, I decided, the story must be laid—not +in Virginia, but upon a level grey reach +of Louisiana, cut by tideless bayous and saturated +with the fever of cane and cypress +brakes. A bitter novel like the broom herb +put in the ceremonial drink Mucuba, pages +from which it would be hard to exclude a fury +of hopelessness! And what an angry disturbed<a name="page_236" id="page_236"></a> +wasplike hum it would provoke! No +magazine, of course, would touch it—it would +be sold, for a week or ten days, from under +counters, and then we, my novel and myself, +metaphorically burned. A magnificent project:</p> + +<p>A huddle of cabins at the edge of a wall of +black pines beyond a deep ruined field—but +perhaps this was South Carolina—infinitesimal +ragged patches of corn, a sandy trail lost +abruptly in the close forest, and half-naked +portentous shapes. There would be a town +back in the country with a desolate red square +of great sprawling water-oaks smothered in +hanging moss, a place at once old and raw, +and ugly with vindictive ignorance.... The +negroes were infinitely happier in Havana, +where the heat, the palms, were their own; and +I was surprised that they didn't desert the +United States in a body for a suaver spirit in +the air and man. Cuba, to a large measure, +with what final result I wasn't concerned, had +absorbed them in the manner that Spain had +absorbed the Moors. Havana made some denial<a name="page_237" id="page_237"></a> +of this, and prided itself, with entire justice +where it was true, on unmixed Castilian +blood; but the other was perceptible in the +gait, the very whiteness, of Cuba's principal +city—the whitest walls on earth. This didn't +bother me; I liked Havana from its farthest +view to its most intimate façade, and I was +grateful to whatever had made it.</p> + +<p>In my room the negro, with the danzon, +faded from my mind; and I only paused to +speculate dimly about his overwhelming preference, +where a choice existed, for the Protestant +religions instead of Roman Catholicism. +I should have thought that the color, the +imagery and incense, of the Catholic Church +would be irresistible. Yet there were, in the +United States, thousands of colored Methodists +and Baptists for one adherent of Rome. +It might be that the hymns of Methodism, sufficiently +melancholy and barbarous in figure, +God knew, were the reason—the character of +the hymns and congregational singing, the +loud pictorial shouts. The later religion of +the negroes, in addition to what I had already<a name="page_238" id="page_238"></a> +considered, was a subject to be avoided; but +running through my mind was the memory +that in Richmond, not long ago, it was common +in the evenings of spring for bands of +negroes to go through the streets singing spirituals +and constantly gathering others who +dropped their work, their responsibilities, to +join the passing chorus of hope.</p> + +<p>That was lost now, I understood, a vanished +custom, killed by self-consciousness; but it +would have been a fine thing to hear approaching +and receding through the dusk, a +stirring resinous volume or a mere vibrant +echo, a dying whisper. Perhaps that, a dying +whisper, would be the solving of the whole +tragic difficulty—disease and winter and relentless +natural laws. The latter moved with +great deliberation through unlimited centuries, +but the impatience of men demanded instant +release from trouble. They wanted +black black and white white, with no transition, +no blurring of the edges; this was their +dream, but they constantly defeated it, betrayed +their ideal. Yes, it might be that<a name="page_239" id="page_239"></a> +the humility of that defeat, in the far +future, would accomplish a universally +white city. Only one other way offered: +a different humanity from any which +had yet appeared outside rare individuals +... but that vision seemed, to me, as fantastic +as the sentence in Carabalíe Bricamó that +gave it expression, Eruco en llenison comunbairán +abasí otete alleri pongó—We of this +world are all together. The truth was, honestly +at heart, that I couldn't commit myself +to all, or even a quarter, of what this would +have demanded. Impersonally I was able to +see that, as an idea, it was superb, I realized +that something of it must inform my pages; +but it was useless to pretend that I could begin +to carry it out or that I was, in practice, +a Christian. I was tired, and my thoughts +grew confused, but dimly in my mind was +again the consciousness of the remote fate of +the creative writer, an individual without even +the desire to be a part of that for which he +cried.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p><a name="page_240" id="page_240"></a></p> + +<p>Certainly I had no marked love of humanity +the following morning, caught with a small +mob in a narrow passage of the wharf where +I was waiting to board the steamer for Key +West. I was between the water and a wooden +partition, the heat was savage, and a number +of youthful marines, returning home from +Camagüey, were indulging in a characteristic +humor—the dealing of unsuspected blows, +of jarring force, among themselves. They +shoved each other, in a crowd shoulder to +shoulder, disregarding entirely the indirect +results of their vigor, and exchanged threats +of fulminating violence. They were not more +annoying than the others, but only more evident; +and, as the advertised time of departure +was past by an hour, and then a second hour, +and the sun found its way into our walled +space, even the marines subsided. Every trace +of dignity, in that heat, ran away from the +people about me. While, on the whole, they +were uncomplaining, even relatively considerate +of others' discomforts, wondering, with +weary smiles, when the boat would be off, I<a name="page_241" id="page_241"></a> +had no such kindly promptings.... I hated +them all, the ugliness of the women and the +men's dull or merely sharp faces, with an intensity +that wasn't normal. When I was very +young indeed, scarcely past two, I had been +nearly crushed in a throng after the Sesquicentennial +parade in Philadelphia; long afterward +I had been, to all practical purposes, +asphyxiated in a train that broke down +in an Apennine tunnel; as a result, I had an +unreasoning fear of crowded bodies or limited +space; and this dread, before long, on the Havana +wharf, turned into an acute aversion for +every individual and thing about me.</p> + +<p>The surrounding insistent good nature developed +in flashes of exchanged homely wit, +varied by the attitudes of restraint, and, of +them both, I couldn't tell which I resented +more. The present position of the waiting +people, the long exposure to the intolerable +sun, was the result of their patience; of that +and their personal inefficiency reflected in +their official management. All the bad governments +in the world, the dishonesty and universal<a name="page_242" id="page_242"></a> +muddles, were nothing more than monuments +to the immeasurable stupidity and +greed of the people; they were betrayed politically +not by powerful and unscrupulous parties +and men, but by themselves; perpetually +and always by their own laziness and superstition +and jealousy.</p> + +<p>The Cubeños, the original inhabitants of +Cuba, were parcelled in the bondage of encomiendas, +exterminated by the passion of the +Spanish Crown for gold; when they had +been sacrificed, Africa was raked by slavers +for labor in the mines and planting; +beneath every movement, instigated by hope +or supported by returns, riches were the incentive +and power. Men had never, within history +and their secret hearts, cared for anything +else: an ineradicable desire. There was a +facile public gabble about the qualities of the +spirit, about soul; but the solid fact of +money, both as an abstraction and what conspicuously +it brought, was what the people +worshipped, wanted, what they schemed or<a name="page_243" id="page_243"></a> +stole for, or in the service of which they performed +the most heroic toil.</p> + +<p>This was not, necessarily, an ignoble or negligible +pursuit, but it was corrupted by an attending +hypocrisy which forced a fervent denial, +the pretense of an utterly different purpose, +to be worn like a cloak. It was possible +that, admitted, the sovereignty of gold would +be the most beneficial rule applicable to man. +It was preëminently the symbol, the signature, +of power; with the late sugar crops it had revolutionized +Cuba. Havana was for the moment, +in a very strong sense, the capital of the +world, and the visible mark of that was the +stream of automobiles on the Prado and Malecón; +individually, money was counted by the +million—the recognition, the desired reward, +of the fact that Cuba controlled a necessity of +life. The instinct to profit by such turns of +fortune was deeper than any charitable impulse; +there was a tendency to speculate in +wheat more general than the impulse to give +loaves to the starving.<a name="page_244" id="page_244"></a></p> + +<p>There was a sudden surge toward the gang +plank of the City of Miami, and I was borne +onto the steamer, away from Havana, in an +exasperated and bitter spirit. I had entered +the harbor happily, saturated by its beauty, +but I was leaving blind to the marble walls +on the blue water. However, it was cooler +on an upper deck; and with my back uncompromisingly +turned on humanity, on my fellow +passengers over a sea like a tranquil illusion +of respite between stubborn realities, I +picked out from the panorama of the city +across the harbor, diminishing in its narrow +entrance, familiar buildings and marks. Havana +vanished, I thought, far more rapidly +than it had come into view; soon nothing of +Cuba could be seen but the dark green hills +and thinly printed silhouettes of mountains. +I had it, though, in my memory; Havana was +now woven into the fibre of my being.</p> + +<p>The Inglaterra Hotel took its place with +all the remembered spots where I had lived: +the bare pine-sealed room in the Virginia +mountains, the tall narrow house in Geneva,<a name="page_245" id="page_245"></a> +the courtyard in the Via San Gallo, the brick +house in a suburb from which, in a rebellion +against every circumstance of my life, I had +escaped. I recalled days on end when I had +tried to write without the ability to form a +single acceptable sentence, when the floor was +heaped and littered with pages crushed and +flung away. Then, it had seemed, I should +get nowhere, and see, do, nothing.... Havana +was a singularly lovely city. A rush of +small mementos of its life flooded my mind—the +aroma of the cigars, the coolness of the +Telegrafo Café and the savor of its Daiquiri +cocktails, the burning strip of sunlight that, at +noon, found its way into Obispo Street. It +was still possible to get Ron Bacardi in the +United States. I was carrying back a large +provision of exceedingly fine cigars, not from +the Larrañaga factory, but a slender Corona, +a shape specially rolled for a discrimination as +delicate as any in Cuba. Yet, away from Havana, +they wouldn't taste the same; in the +United States they'd deteriorate; and, where I +lived, there were no fresh, no emerald-green<a name="page_246" id="page_246"></a> +limes, and without them a Daiquiri was +robbed of its inimitable flavor.</p> + +<p>But what, more than those, I should miss +was the atmosphere of Havana itself, the gay +urbanity and festive lightness of tone. It had +almost wholly escaped the modern passion +for reform changing America, pretty much +all the western world, into a desert of +precept and correction; in many senses +Havana was an oasis in an aridity spreading +day by day. Any improvement wouldn't occur +during my life—the habit of lies and self-delusion +had become a fundamental part of +society—and all I could hope for was the discovery +of rare individuals and cities in which +existence was more than a penalty for having +been born. I wanted them as a relaxation, as +short escapes from a tyranny from which, +really, I was powerless to turn:</p> + +<p>I didn't want to live in Havana, nor to be +surrounded by exceptional people; for they +were both enemies of what, above everything, +I wanted to do—to write into paper and ink +some permanence of beauty. For that, Chester<a name="page_247" id="page_247"></a> +County and the solid stone block of my +house were necessary, a temperate climate indispensable. +At heart, in spite of my constant +fault-finding, my threats of leaving, I +was bound by associations deeper than mere +intelligence. No, nothing so powerful as an +obsession had overtaken me approaching Havana; +I was not, in actuality, an adventurer, +but only a seeker for charm, for memories, to +carry back to the low window to which I had +already referred. The charm of Havana was +its strangeness, the vividness of its sudden impression +on me, the temporary freedom, grace, +it offered. It was characteristic of freedom, +too, that, in the end, it became slavery; while +slavery had, at times, extraordinarily the appearance +of freedom. Not a month ago I had +dropped, with a sigh, a gasp of relief, a pen +heavier than anything else on earth, and now +I could scarcely restrain the eagerness—the +confidence, at last, of success—with which I +wanted to take it up again.</p> + +<p class="ast">* * *</p> + +<p>When I turned, looking back, Cuba had<a name="page_248" id="page_248"></a> +vanished, sunk below the line of the sea. The +Gulf Stream was indigo; along the side of the +steamer, foam hissed with a sharp whiteness, +and at the bow miniature rainbows hung shimmering +in the spray. The perpetual soft +clouds of the Gulf Stream were very high and +faint. In my imagination Havana assumed a +magic, a mythical, state—a vision that, I was +certain, had no absolute ponderable existence. +It was a city created on a level bright tide, under +lustrous green hills, for the reward of +cherished and unworldly dreams. It was the +etherealized spectacle of the sanguine hopes of +all the conquistadores who had set sail for the +rubies of Cipango; they had had great desires +of white marble cities in which the women +were lovely and dark, and gold was worked +into the forms of every day.</p> + +<p>They, different from the frugal Dutch, +making, with no less daring, the Eastern Passage +in the interest of associated merchants +and of commonwealths, sailed, in a more picturesque +phrase, for their Catholic Majesties +and for Spain. The Dutch names, Bonteke<a name="page_249" id="page_249"></a> +and Schouten and Roggeveen, had a solid bartering +sound compared with Francesco de +Cordoba and Miruelo and Angel de Villafañe. +Holland had its deathless tradition of +the sea, sufficiently colored with extravagant +adventure; but its spirit was sober, the visions +of its navigators would never have lingered in +a marble city.</p> + +<p>Havana was, perhaps, a Saragossa of souls, +with the acts and thoughts of its early vivid +years, of Careñas, forever held in the atmosphere, +audible in the restless volume of sound +that was never still. Its history had flashed +through my mind with the turn of a wheel, its +duration seeming no more than the opening +and shutting of a hand; but now I had an impression +not of the transient, not of walls and +names and voices, but of qualities impersonal +and permanent, of something which, while individual +men died, resisted death. It had existence, +that was, as long as humanity drew +a continuous thread of memory through time. +Havana had, outwardly, changed from its first +huddle of bohios and fortified tower; but the<a name="page_250" id="page_250"></a> +form it had taken, so different from the discovered +reality, had beyond any question that +odd similitude to Marco Polo's reports of +the Grand Khanate. Its final architecture, +pseudo-classic, was more abstract than any +other imaginable order: all the dress that had +ever paraded through the successive stages of +the city—the Cacquies, girdled in feathers, the +brocades of Maria de Toledo and her lady-in-waiting, +Captain Godoy in steel and lace, the +floating crinoline of the Prince of Anglona's +year, painted black ñañigos—was equally possible +against a background at once fantastic +and restrained.</p> + +<p>There was never a more complex spirit than +Havana's, no stranger mingling of chance and +climate and race had ever occurred; but, remarkably, +a unity of effect had been the result, +such a singleness as that possessed by an opera, +in which, above the orchestra and the settings +and the voices, there was perceptible a transcending +emotion created from an artificial +and illogical means. For while Havana had +a record dignified in its sweep, it could never<a name="page_251" id="page_251"></a> +be long dominant either as a city or in its men; +it had ruled an island but not the world, it +had never been—in that latitude—a Captain-general +of a hemisphere. No, it wasn't symphonic, +but the lesser, more pictorial, performance; +it had, I thought, very much the +appearance of a stage.</p> + +<p>This, however was not a denial of the reality +of the blood it shed, nor of the sharpness +and danger of its emotions; it had been a profusely +bloody city with tropical passions often +reaching ideals of sacrifice. It had, too, suffered +the iron of oppression, spoken its word +for liberty, the state which, never to be realized, +by its bare conception elevated life. +Now, in addition, it was a great port ... +and yet, though it might have been the fault of +my limitations, I continued to see Havana as +more dramatic than essential; I heard persistently +the overture with the themes of Seville, +the crying native airs, the drums of Guinea +played with the fingers. The shining crooked +bay was filled by the plate ships of Mexico +and Peru, with their high-decked sterns and<a name="page_252" id="page_252"></a> +yellow cannon. The curtain fell to rise again +on Don Miguel Tacón!</p> + +<p>It was impossible to determine what I had +seen of Havana and what was merely my reflected +self; even hard to decide if I had seen +Havana objectively at all, since my attitude +toward it had been so purely personal. My +memory was composed of what I'd experienced +and the reflections, the thoughts, that +had given birth to; and, of them, the latter +were the more real, solider than the Prado, +more tangible than the dining-room of the +Inglaterra. Without them Havana would +have been meaningless, sterile, simply a museum +about which nothing could be written +but a catalogue. It was its special charm to +be charged with sensations rather than facts; +a place where facts—not, of a kind, absent—could +be safely ignored. Further than that, +ignoring them was, for any measure of pleasure, +absolutely needful: the pedantic spirit in +Havana was fatal.</p> + +<p>What, almost entirely, I had been told to +view, expected to enjoy, I had avoided; yet not<a name="page_253" id="page_253"></a> +that, for it implied a deliberate will, and such a +planning or triumph of character had been as +far as possible from my drifting: I had seen +what I preferred and done what I was; anyone, +following me in Havana, could have +judged me with exactitude. I had spent money +lavishly—as though I were rich instead of extravagant—for +visible returns that would have +only provoked the other passengers on the City +of Miami. They, where they were not driven +to staterooms by the dipping of the steamer, +were vociferous with knowledge about Cuba, +their bags were heavy with souvenirs—the +Coty perfumes from France and the table-linen +of the Canary Islands. The pervasive +salesmen, flushed with success and Scotch +whisky, smoking the cigars long familiar to +them in northern hotels, hinted together of the +Parisian girls and criollos, to whom they referred +as creoles in the meaning and vocabulary +of American burlesque. Some officials +of transportation and sugar manipulators sat +aside, with double Coronas, exchanging in +short sentences their hardness of knowledge,<a name="page_254" id="page_254"></a> +speaking of Cuba as an estancia of which they +were absentee owners. A flight of winged fish +skittered over the sea, and the clouds following +the Gulf Stream turned rose with the dropping +of the sun; the horizon bore a suggestion +of Florida. Once Cuba, regarded as the shore +of India, had been the center of the West, and +Florida no more than a chimera: how ironic +such errors and reversals were! Now it was +Juana that was legendary, and Florida resembled +the significant hooked finger of an +imponderable power. The day slid rapidly +into water that had lost its blueness for expanses +of chalky shallow green, and the flat +roofs of Key West and masoned arches became +slowly visible across the sea, and a stir of departure +filled the decks.</p> + +<p>I was, for a moment, depressed at the definite +leaving behind of Havana—for the tranquil +passage had seemed only an extension of +its spirit—and by the imminent reshouldering +of my burden of responsibility. I had never +wanted that, but, without choice, it had been +abruptly thrust on me—a responsibility, impossible<a name="page_255" id="page_255"></a> +of fulfilment, which I couldn't put +down. When I was young I had looked in +vain for a perpetual Havana, hoping for nothing +more; and now, when my youth was dead, +I had found the perfection of my desire. But, +as always, the discovery was too late; I +couldn't stay in the covered paseos, the plazas +with flambeau trees and royal palms or idle +in a room of Moorish tiles with a dripping +fountain, over a magic drink; my time for the +actualities of charming liberty, the possession +of uncounted days, was gone. But this mood +was nothing more than a gesture, a sentiment, +thrown back to romance.</p> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<img src="images/back.jpg" width="359" height="550" alt="image of the book's back cover" title="image of the book's back cover" /> +</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="transcriber note" +style="border:2px dotted gray;margin:5% auto 5% auto;padding:2%;"> +<tr><th align="center">No normalization or correction has been made in the spelling of Spanish contained in the book;<br /> +The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext transcriber:</th></tr> +<tr><td align="center">beginninng of the Prado=>beginning of the Prado</td></tr> +<tr><td align="center">like a harsh native wine, from Balbao=>like a harsh native wine, from Bilbao</td></tr> +</table> +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's San Cristóbal de la Habana, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAN CRISTÓBAL DE LA HABANA *** + +***** This file should be named 38445-h.htm or 38445-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/4/4/38445/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: San Cristobal de la Habana + +Author: Joseph Hergesheimer + +Release Date: December 30, 2011 [EBook #38445] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAN CRISTOBAL DE LA HABANA *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + + +[Illustration: image of the book's cover] + + + +SAN CRISTOBAL +DE LA HABANA + +_THE WORKS OF +JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER_ + +_NOVELS_ + +THE LAY ANTHONY [1914] +MOUNTAIN BLOOD [1915] +THE THREE BLACK PENNYS [1917] +JAVA HEAD [1918] +LINDA CONDON [1919] + +SHORTER STORIES + +GOLD AND IRON [1918] +THE HAPPY END [1919] + +TRAVEL + +SAN CRISTOBAL DE LA HABANA + +_Published in New York by +ALFRED A. KNOPF +and for sale at all bookshops_ + + + + +SAN CRISTOBAL DE LA HABANA + +BY + +JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER + + "_Many yeeres since I had knowledge by + relation of that great and golden Citie + which the Spaniards call El Dorado._" + + _Sir Walter Ralegh_ + +[Illustration: colophon] + +NEW YORK + +ALFRED A KNOPF + +1920 + +COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY +ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC. + +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA + + _To + + H. J. B. BAIRD + + An + Havana + which he is free +to decline in every particular + save the + dedication_ + + + + +SAN CRISTOBAL DE LA HABANA + + +There are certain cities, strange to the first view, nearer the heart +than home. But it might be better to acknowledge that, perhaps, the word +home has a wider and deeper significance than any mere geographical and +family setting. Many men are alien in houses built from the traditions +of their blood; the most inaccessible and obdurate parts of the earth +have always been restlessly sought by individuals driven not so much by +exterior pressure as by a strange necessity to inhabit a barren copper +mountain, a fever coast, or follow to the end of life a river lost in a +savage remoteness, hiding the secret of their unquenchable longing. + +Not this, precisely, happened to me, approaching Havana in the early +morning, nothing so tyrannical and absolute; yet, watching the silver +greenness of Cuba rising from the blue sea, I had a premonition that +what I saw was of peculiar importance to me. I grew at once impatient +and sharply intent on the resolving of a nebulous, and verdant mass into +the details of dense slopes, slopes that showed, from the sea to their +crowns, no break in a dark foliage. The sombreness of the leaves +immediately marked the land from an accustomed region of bright +maples--they were at once dark, glossy, and heavy, an effect I had often +tried to describe, and their presence in such utter expanses filled me +with pleasure. It was exactly as though the smooth lustrous hills before +me had been created out of an old mysterious desire to realize them in +words. + +Undoubtedly their effect belonged to the sea, the sky, and the hour in +which they were set. The plane of the sea, ruffled by a wind like a +willful and contrarily exerted force, was so blue that its color was +lost in the dark intensity of tone; while the veils of space were +dissolved in arcs of expanding light. The island seemed unusually solid +and isolated, as complete within itself as a flower in air, and +saturated with romance. That was my immediate feeling about Cuba, taking +on depth across water profounder than indigo ... it was latent with the +emotional distinction which so signally stirred me to write. + +At once, in imagination, I saw the ineffable bay of Guatanago, where +buccaneers careened their ships and, in a town of pink stucco and +windows with projecting wooden grilles, drank and took for figureheads +the sacred images of churches painted blue. On the shore, under a canopy +of silk, a woman, naked but for a twist of bishop's purple, bound her +hair in gold cloth. From where she stood, in dyed shadow, a figure only +less golden than the cloth, she heard the hollow ring of the caulking +malls and the harsh rustle of the palms. Drawing rapidly nearer to what +was evidently the entrance to the harbor of Havana I considered the +possibilities of such a story, such a character: + +She had her existence in the seventeenth century, when Morgan marched +inland to rape Camagueey--the daughter, without doubt, of a captain of +the Armada de Barlevento, the Windward Fleet, and a native woman taken +in violence; a shameless wench with primitive feelings enormously +complicated by the heritage of Spain's civilization, a murderous, +sullen, passionate jade, wholly treacherous and instinct with ferine +curiosity. The master for her, I decided, must come from the Court of +Charles, the London of the Cavalier Parliament, a gentleman in a gay +foppery masking a steel eaten by a cruelty like a secret poison. It +would be a story bright with the flames of hell and violent as a +hurricane; the pages would reflect the glare of the sand scrawled with +cocoanut palms, and banked with mangroves; and, at the end, the bishop's +purple would be a cerecloth and the gallows chains sound in Xaymaca. +But, above everything else, it would be modern in psychology and color +treatment, written with that realism for which the only excuse was to +provide a more exact verisimilitude for romance. + +The Cuban shore was now so close, Havana so imminent, that I lost my +story in a new interest. I could see low against the water a line of +white buildings, at that distance purely classic in implication. Then it +was that I had my first premonition about the city toward which I was +smoothly progressing--I was to find in it the classic spirit not of +Greece but of a late period; it was the replica of those imagined cities +painted and engraved in a wealth of marble cornices and set directly +against the tranquil sea. There was already perceptible about it the air +of unreality that marked the strand which saw the Embarkation for +Cytherea. + +Nothing could have made me happier than this realization; an extension +of the impression of a haunting dream turned into solid fact. The +buildings multiplied to the sight, bathed in a glamorous radiance; and, +suddenly, on the other hand, rose Morro Castle. That structure, small +and compact and remarkably like its numerous pictures, gave me a +distinct feeling of disappointment. Its importance was historic rather +than visible, and needed, for appreciation, a different mind from mine. +But the narrowness of the harbor entrance, a deep thrust of blue +extending crookedly into the land, the sense of crowded shipping and +massed city, the steamers of the world and broad shaded avenues at my +elbow, impressed me at once with Havana's unique personality. + +Nothing, however, was more ingratiating than the long coraline limestone +wall of the Cabanas on its sere abrupt hill at the left; ponderous and +stained brilliantly pink by time, it formed a miraculous complement to +the pseudo-classic whiteness below. A sea-wall built into a wide +promenade followed the shore, there was a circular pavilion on a flagged +plaza piled with iron chairs, the docks were interspersed with small +public gardens under royal palms, and everywhere the high windows had +ornamental balconies empty in the morning sun. I heard, then, the voice +of Havana, a remarkably active staccato voice, never, I was to learn, +sinking to quiet, but changing at night into a different yet no less +disturbing clamor. + +What I tried to discover, rushed through broad avenues and streets +hardly more than passageways, was the special characteristic of a city +which had already possessed me. And, ignorant of the instantaneous +process that formed the words, I told myself that it was a mid-Victorian +Pompeii. This was a modification of my first impression, a truer +approximation, for it expressed the totality of marble facades +inadmissible architecturally, yet together holding a surprising and +pleasant unity. No one, I thought excitedly, had ever rightly +appreciated Havana; it required a very involved understanding, a feeling +not entirely admirable. No, it wasn't Hellenic, not what might be called +in the first manner; it hadn't the simplicity of great spirit, a true +epoch; Havana was artificial, exotic: Spain touched everywhere by the +tropics, the tropics--without a tradition--built into a semblance of the +baroque. + +It was rococo, and I liked it; an admission, I believe, laying me open +to certain charges; for the rococo was universally damned; the Victorian +period had been equally condemned ... and I liked it. Why, God knew! +Ornament without use, without reference to its surface and purpose, +invited contempt. A woman in a hoop skirt was an absurdity; black walnut +furniture carved and gilded beyond recognition, nonsense. Yet they had +my warm attachment. Havana claimed me for its own--a city where I could +sit at tables in the open and gaze at parterres of flowers and palms and +statues and fountains, where, in the evening, a band played the light +arias of La Belle Helene. + + * * * * * + +To illustrate further the perversity of my impulses: I was so entirely +captivated by the Hotel Inglaterra that, for the rest of the day, I was +indifferent to whatever might be waiting outside. The deep entrance with +its reflected planes of subdued light and servants in cool linen; the +patio with water, its white arches on iridescent tiles; the dining-room +laid in marble, panelled with the arms of Pontius Pilate, the bronze +lustre of the tiling and the long windows on the Parque exactly as I had +anticipated, together created the happy effect of a bizarre domain. The +corridor on which my room opened was still more entrancing, its arches +filled with green latticework, and an octagonal space set with chairs +and long-bladed plants. + +Yet the room itself, perhaps one of the most remarkable rooms in the +world, easily surpassed what, until then, I had seen. There were slatted +door screens, cream-colored with a sapphire-blue glass knob, topped in +an elaborate Gothic scrolling; and the door beyond, inconceivably tall, +opened on an interior that seemed to reach upward without any limit. It +had, of course, a ceiling, heavily beamed in dark wood; and when, later, +I speculated carefully on its height, I reached the conclusion that it +was twenty-five feet above the grey-flowered tiling of the floor. The +walls were bare, white; about their base was laid a line of green glazed +tiles; and this, except for the glass above the French window, was the +only positive note. + +The window, too, towered with the dignity of an impressive entrance; +there were two sets of shutters, the inner elaborately slatted; and over +it was a semi-circular fanlight of intensely brilliant colors--carmine +and orange and plum-purple, cobalt and yellow. It was extraordinarily +vivid, like heaped gorgeous fruit: throughout the day it dominated the +closed elusive interior; and not only from its place on high, for the +sun, moving across that exposure, cast its exact replica on the floor, +over the frigidity of the austere iron bed, down one wall and up +another. + +It was fascinating merely to sit and watch that chromatic splash, the +violent color, shift with the afternoon, to surrender the mind to its +suggestions.... They, as well, were singularly bright and illogical. +Such glass, such colors, had been discarded from present decorative +schemes; but I recalled hints of them in the houses of eighteen seventy; +I seemed to remember them in pagoda-like conservatories, and at once a +memory of my childhood returned. Not that there were, actually, such +windows at Woodnest, sombre under the tulip-poplars; yet the impression +of one re-created the feeling of the other, it brought back disturbingly +a vanished time with its figures long dead. + +Havana was identified as an authentic part of my inheritance. I was--in +a purely inner manner--to understand it, to have for it the affectionate +recognition, the sense of familiarity, of which I have already spoken. +The city was wholly expressed by the fanlight sparkling with the +shifting radiance of the blazing day. It was possible, without leaving +the room, to grasp the essential spirit of a place so largely unseen. +Then it occurred to me that, indeed, I had seen Havana, and that the +wisest thing to do was to leave at once, to go back with my strong +feeling uncontaminated by trivial facts; but a more commonplace impulse, +a limiting materialism, pointed out that, since I had come away for a +change of scene, I had best realize a semblance of my intention. Still +those colors, like a bouquet of translucent tulips, easily outweighed in +importance all that I subsequently gained; they gave the emotional +pitch, the intellectual note, of whatever followed--a mood, an entire +existence, into which I walked with the turning of a sapphire-blue knob. + +For the rest the furniture was scant--a walnut bureau with a long +mirror, necessary chairs, and an adequate bathroom like a shaft with +shining silver faucets at its bottom. From outside, even through the +heat of noon, the sustained activity of sound floated up through the +shutters--the incomplete blending of harsh traffic alarms and blurred +cries announcing newspapers. + +It was later when I went out on my balcony: across the narrow depth of +San Rafael Street the ornamented bulk of the Gallego Club--the Club and +the opera house in one--opposed a corner against the sweep of the Parque +Central; and to the right, between the glitter of shop windows, poured +an unbroken procession of motors. A great pillar of the paseo below was +hung with gaily covered magazines; a bootblack, wrinkled and active, +with a single chair on a high stand, was cleaning a row of white shoes, +obviously from the hotel; and the newsboys were calling La Politica +Comica in a long-drawn minor inflection. + +The sun, that I had seen rising on the undiscovered hills of Cuba, was +sinking behind the apprehended city; it touched the caryatids of the +Gallego Club and enveloped, in a diminished gold like a fine suffusion +of precious dust, the circular avenue, the royal palms, the flambeau +trees and Indian laurels, of the plaza. The whiteness of the buildings, +practically unbroken, everywhere took on the tone of every moment: now +they were faintly aureate, as though they had been lightly touched by a +gilder's brush; the diffused shadows were violet. The shadows slowly +thickened and merged; they seemed to swell upward from the streets, the +Parque; and the buildings, in turn, became lavender, and then, again, a +glimmering white. Only the lifted green of the palms was changeless, +positive, until it was lost in darkness. + +A great many people appeared below, moving with an air of determination +on definite ways. The faces of the men were darkened by the contrast of +their linen; I couldn't see their features; but what struck me at once +was the fact that there were, practically, no women along the streets. +It was a tide of men. This, at first, gave me an impression of monotony, +of stupidity--women were an absolute essential to the variety of any +spectacle; and here, except for an occasional family group hurrying to a +cafe, a rare stolid shape, they were utterly lacking. + +The reason, however, quickly followed the observed truth; this was, in +spirit, Spain, and Spain was saturated with Morocco, a land where women, +even the poorest, were never publicly exhibited. Havana was a city of +balconies, of barred windows, of houses impenetrable, blank, to the +streets, but open on the garden rooms of patios. And suddenly--while the +moment before I had been impatient at the bareness resulting from their +absence--I was overwhelmingly conscious of the pervading influence of +charming women. Here they were infinitely more appealing than in places +where they were set out in the rows of a market, sometimes like flowers, +but more often resembling turnips and squashes. Here, with extreme +flattery, women were regarded as dangerous, as always desirable, and +capable of folly. + +It was a society where a camellia caught in the hair, a brilliant glance +across a powdered cheek, lace drawn over a vivid mouth, were not for +nothing. In the world from which I had come these gestures, beauties, +existed; but they were general, and meaningless, rather than +special--the expression of a conventional vanity without warmth. There +was an agreement that any one might look, the intensest gaze was +invited, with the understanding that almost none should desire; and a +cloak of hypocrisy had been the result; either that or the beauty was +mechanical, the gesture furtive and hard. + +For Havana a woman was, in principle, a flower with delicate petals +easily scattered, a perfume not to be rudely, indiscriminately, spent; a +rose, it was the implication, had its moment, its perfection of eager +flushed loveliness, during which what man would not reach out his hand? +After that ... but the seed pods were carefully, jealously, tended. And +here, in addition to so much else, was another shared attitude drawing +me toward Havana--an enormous preference for women who had the courage +of their emotions over those completely circumspect except in situations +morally and financially solid. + + * * * * * + +My dressing for dinner I delayed luxuriously, smoking the last Dimitrino +cigarette found in a pocket, and leaving the wet prints of my feet on +the polished tiles of the floor. I was glad that I had brought a trunk, +variously filled, in place of merely a bag, as I might have done; for it +was evident that Havana required many changes of clothes. It was a city +which to enjoy demanded a meticulous attention to trifles. For one thing +it was going to be hot, April was well advanced; and the glorietas, the +brightly illuminated open cafes, the thronged Prado and operatic +Malecon, the general air of tropical expensiveness, insisted on the +ornamental fitness of its idlers. + +I debated comfortably the security of a dinner coat, slightly varied, +perhaps, by white flannels; but in the end decided in favor of a more +informal jacket of Chinese silk with the flannels. A shirt, the socks +and scarf, were objects of separate importance; but when they were +combined there was a prevailing shade of green.... I had no inclination +to apologize for lingering over these details, but it might be necessary +to warn the seekers after noble truisms that I had no part in their +righteous purpose. Even noble truths, in their popular definitions, had +never been a part of my concern: at the beginning I was hopelessly +removed from them, and what was an instinct had become, in an experience +of life not without supporting evidence, the firmest possible attitude. +A tone of candor, if my reflections were to have the slightest interest +or value, was my first necessity; and candor compelled me to admit that +I thought seriously about the jacket which finally slipped smoothly over +my shoulders. + +It was an undeniable fact that I was newly in a land of enormous +interest, which, just then, held the most significant and valuable crop +growing on earth. But that didn't detain my imagination for a moment. +The Havana that delighted me, into which I found myself so happily +projected, was a city of promenading and posted theatre programmes, of +dinners and drinks and fragrant cigars. I was aware that from such +things I might, in the end, profit; but I'd get nothing, nothing in the +world, from stereotyped sentiments and places and solemn gabbled +information. + +On top of this I had a fixed belief in the actual importance of, say, a +necktie--for myself of course; I was not referring to the neckties of +the novelists with a mission, lost in the dilemma of elevating mankind. +A black string, or none at all, served their superiority. But for the +light-minded the claim of a Bombay foulard against the solider shade of +an Irish poplin was a delicate question; for the light-minded the choice +of one word in preference to another--entirely beneath the plane of a +mission--was a business for blood, an overt act. And with me there was a +correspondence between the two, a personal exterior as nicely selected +as possible and the mental attitude capable of exquisite choice in +diction. But this was no more than a development of all that I first +admitted, a repetition of my pleasure at being in Havana, a place where +the election of a cocktail was invested with gravity. And, carefully +finished except for the flower I'd get below, I was entirely in harmony +with the envelopment, the adventure, to which my persistent good luck +had brought me. + +The elevator going down was burdened with expensive women, their bodies +delicately evident under clinging fragile materials, their powdered +throats hung with the clotted iridescence of pearls; the cage was filled +with soft breathing and faint provocative perfumes--the special lure of +flowers which nature had denied to them as women. It was, I told myself, +all very reprehensible and delightful: + +Here were creatures, anatomically planned for the sole end of maternity, +who had wilfully, wisely I felt, elevated the mere preliminary of their +purpose to the position of its whole consummation. More intoxicated by +sheer charm than by the bearing of children, resentful of the thickened +ankles of their immemorial duty, they proclaimed by every enhanced and +seductive curve that their intention was magnetic rather than economic. +They were, however, women of my own land, secure in that convention +which permitted them exposure with immunity, and here; in Havana, they +failed to interest me; their voices, too, were sharp, irritable; and +even in the contracted space of the elevator their elaborate backs were +so brutally turned on the men with them--men correct enough except for +their studs--the hard feminine tyranny of the chivalrous United States +was so starkly upheld, that I escaped with a sigh of relief into a +totally different atmosphere. + +The lower hall, the patio and dining-room on the left, were brilliant +with life, the wing-like flutter of fans; and it would be necessary, I +saw, to have my cocktail in the patio; but before that, following a +purely instinctive course, I walked out to the paseo in front of the +hotel. The white buildings beyond the dark foliage of the Parque were +coruscant with electric signs, and, their utilitarian purpose masked in +an unfamiliar language, they shared with the alabaster of the facades, +the high fronds of the royal palms and the monument to Marti, in the +tropical, the classic, romanticism. + +Hardly had I appeared, gazing down the illuminated arcade, when a man +approached me with a flat wide basket of flowers. There were, +inevitably, roses, tea roses as pale as the yellow of champagne, +gardenias, so smooth and white that they seemed unreal, heavy with +odor; those I had expected, but what surprised me were some sprigs of +orange blossom with an indefinite sweetness that was yet perceptible +above the thicker scents. I chose the latter immediately, and the flower +vendor, wholly comprehensive of my mood, placed the boutonniere in my +jacket. The moment, now, had arrived for a Daiquiri: seated near the +cool drip of the fountain, where a slight stir of air seemed to ruffle +the fringed mantone of a bronze dancing Andalusian girl, I lingered over +the frigid mixture of Ron Bacardi, sugar, and a fresh vivid green lime. + +It was a delicate compound, not so good as I was to discover later at +the Telegrafo, but still a revelation, and I was devoutly thankful to be +sitting, at that hour in the Inglaterra, with such a drink. It elevated +my contentment to an even higher pitch; and, with a detached amusement, +I recalled the fact that farther north prohibition was formally in +effect. Unquestionably the cocktail on my table was a dangerous agent, +for it held, in its shallow glass bowl slightly encrusted with +undissolved sugar, the power of a contemptuous indifference to fate; it +set the mind free of responsibility; obliterating both memory and +to-morrow, it gave the heart an adventitious feeling of superiority and +momentarily vanquished all the celebrated, the eternal, fears. + +Yes, that was the danger of skilfully prepared intoxicating drinks.... +The word intoxicating adequately expressed their power, their menace to +orderly monotonous resignation. A word, I thought further, debased by +moralists from its primary ecstatic content. Intoxication with Ron +Bacardi, with May, with passion, was a state threatening to privilege, +abhorrent to authority. And, since the dull were so fatally in the +majority, they had succeeded in attaching a heavy penalty to whatever +lay outside their lymphatic understanding. They had, as well, made the +term gay an accusation before their Lord, confounding it with loose, so +that now a gay girl--certainly the only girl worth a ribbon or the last +devotion--was one bearing upon her graceful figure, for she was apt to +be reprehensibly graceful, the censure of a society open to any charge +other than that of gaiety in either of its meanings. A ridiculous, a +tragic, conclusion, I told myself indifferently: but then, with a fresh +Daiquiri and a sprig of orange blossoms in my buttonhole, it meant less +than nothing. It grew cooler, and an augmented stir set in motion toward +the dining-room, where the files of damask-spread tables held polished +silver water-bottles and sugar in crystal jars with spouts. + + * * * * * + +The wisdom of the attention I had given to my appearance was at once +evident in the table to which the head waiter conducted me. Small and +reserved with a canted chair, it was directly at one of the long windows +on the Parque Central. This, at first sight, on the part of its arbiter, +would not have been merely an affair for money--he had his eye on the +effect of the dining-room as a whole, as an expanse of the utmost +decorative correctness, and there were a number of men with quite +pretty women, a great asset publicly, who had been given places in the +center of the room. Yes, where I was seated the ruffled curtains were +swayed by the night breeze almost against my chair, a brilliant section +of the plaza was directly at my shoulder, and I was pervaded by the +essential feeling of having the best possible situation. + +This was not, perhaps, true of characters more admirable than mine: but +if I had been seated behind one of the pillars, buried in an obscure +angle, my spirits would have suffered a sharp decline. I should have +thought, temporarily, less of Havana, of myself, and of the world. The +passionate interest in living, the sense of aesthetic security, that +resulted in my turning continually to the inconceivable slavery of +writing, would have been absent. But seated in one of the most desirable +spots in existence, a dining-room of copper glazed tiles open on the +tropics, about to begin a dinner with shrimps in the pink--the veritable +rose--of perfection, while a head waiter, a triumph of intelligent +sympathy, conferred with me on the delicate subject of wines, I felt +equal to prose of matchless loveliness. + +The dinner, finally, as good dinners were apt to be, was small, simple, +with--the result of a prolonged consideration--a bottle of Marquis de +Riscal. All the while the kaleidoscope of the Parque was revolving in +patterns of bright yellows, silver, and indigo. Passersby were +remarkably graphic and near: a short man with a severe expression and a +thick grey beard suddenly appeared in the open window and demanded that +I buy a whole lottery ticket; a sallow individual from without unfolded +a bright glazed sheaf of unspeakably stupid American magazines; farther +off, the crowd eddied through the lanes between the innumerable chairs +drawn up companionably on the plaza. At a table close by, a family of +Cubans were supplementing the courses of formal dining with an endless +vivacious chatter, a warmth of interest charming to follow. + +The father, stout, with an impressive moustache of which not one hair +seemed uncounted or mislaid, regarded his short fat wife, his tall slim +son, and his two entrancing daughters with an impartially active and +affectionate attention. The girls were young, one perhaps fifteen and +the other not more than a year or so older, though they both managed +lorgnons with an ease and impertinent frankness that an older woman +might well have envied, while they talked in rushes of vivid Spanish +with an emphases of delectable shrugged shoulders, and, recognizing an +acquaintance, exhibited smiles as dazzling as only youth knew. The boy, +however, engaged me more strongly; a tone darker than the others, in +repose his face, delicate in feature, was grave, reflective; his smooth +black hair grew into a peak on his brow, his gaze was considerate, +direct, and his mouth sensitive. Cuba, I thought, at its best; and here +that was very good indeed. Any such degree of mingled dignity and the +highly impressionable, of reserve and flexibility, was absent from the +cruder young of the north. + +He had, at the same time, an indefinable air of melancholy, a bearing +that, while not devoid of pride, belonged to a minor people, to an +island the ultimate fate of which--in a political word of singular +faithlessness--was hidden in shadow. An affair of mere simple courage, +of execution for an ideal by Spanish rifles in a Cabanas foss, he would +have borne with brilliant success; he'd have ornamented charmingly the +security of a great coffee estate in Pinar del Rio; it was possible that +he might be distinguished in finance; but there was not back of him the +sense of sheer weight, of ponderous land, that gave, for example, the +chance young Englishman his conscious security, the American his +slightly shrill material confidence. + +This Cuban's particular quality, it seemed to me, belonged to the past, +to an age when men wore jewelled buckles and aristocracy was an +advantage rather than a misfortune. He had about him the graceful +fatality now so bitterly attacked by the widening power of what was +heroically referred to as the people. He represented, from the crown of +his lustrous hair to his narrow correct dancing shoes, in his shapely +hands and dark fine skin, privilege and sequestered gold. Outrages, I +had heard, soon to be forever overthrown! It was possible that both the +charges and the threatened remedy were actualities, and that privilege +would disappear ... from one hand to another, and great lawns be cut up +into cabbage patches and Empire ball-rooms converted into communal halls +for village rancor. + +Not much, in the way of benefit, could follow that. And women in +starched linen collars, with starched theories of civic consciousness, +would hardly be an improvement on fragrant memories of satin, moments of +passion and frailty, and the beauty of tenderness. A maze of clipped +box, old emerald sod, represented a timeless striving for superiority, +for, at least, the illusion of triumph over the littorals of slime; and +their destruction in waves of hysteria, sentimentality, and envy was +immeasurably disastrous. All of this I saw reflected in the boy with +peaked hair at the next table. He took a cigarette from a black silk +case, and I was immediately reminded of my cigar. + +It had been chosen with immense care in the Inglaterra cafe for bonbons +and souvenirs, liqueurs and cigars. How remarkable it was, I had +thought, hovering above the case, which contained a bewildering choice +of shapes and colors, to be in a land where all the cigars were, in the +sense I knew, imported. I hesitated for a minute or more between a +Larranaga and a banquet Corona, and finally decided on the former. It +was as long as the cigar called Fancy Tales, but slightly thicker and +rolled to a point at either end; and the first breath of its smoke, +drifting in a blue cloud away from the window, told me that until then I +had known but little of tobacco. Coffee so black that it stained the +white shell of its cup; a diminutive glass of Grand Marnier, the +distilled last saturation of oranges and fin champagne; and the +Larranaga, the color of oak leaves freshly brown, combined in a +transcending magic of contentment. + +The point was--my special inhibition as a traveler--that I didn't want +to move; I had no wish to speak to anyone or see what, particularly, I +should have hurried away to view. That impatience I had served when I +was twenty-one, in Naples; a city uniquely planned for morbid and +natural curiosity. There the animated frescoes of Pompeii had been +posed, at two lire a figure, before my assumption of mature experience. +But now, past forty, I was without the ambition and desire to follow the +cabs of the American business men who, in the company of patient and +fatigued Cubans, were, in the interest of vague appointments, bidding +their families elaborate good evenings. + +Later it was inevitable that I should get to the theatres, hear whatever +music offered, and see all the dancing, Spanish and Cuban, in the city +of Havana, but not to-night. My present pleasure was not to be wasted in +the bother of movement and a probable mistake. The cigar continued to +veil me in its reflective smoke for another half hour, there was more +coffee in the pot. The tempered heat of the day lay over me like a +spell, like an armor against the chill, the gaunt winds and rain, of the +north. The scent of the sprig of orange blossoms was just perceptible, +at once faint and laden with the potency of a magical grove. + + * * * * * + +The weather, the temperature and special atmospheric envelopment of +Havana, was, I was certain, different from any other, its heat modified +by the winds that moved across the island at night, at least from this +shore, and the days flooded with an incandescent sunlight like burning +magnesium. Stirring slowly about my room before breakfast, the slatted +shutters bowed against the already blazing day, a thread of cigarette +smoke climbing hopelessly toward the far ceiling, I thought of the +idiotic popular conviction that the weather was a topic for stupid +minds. The reverse, certainly, was true, since, inbound with all the +settings of life, all nature, the weather offered an illimitable range +of suggestion. + +It had been the great discovery of imaginative prose--the novel for +which we care most had been largely the result of that gained +appreciation; and its absence in older books, placed in a vacuum, +entirely accounted for their dry unreality. What, for instance, were the +novels of Thomas Hardy but splendid records of the countryside weather, +for nature and weather were one. This, more than any other force, +conditioned men, stamping them out with an ice age, burning them black +in Africa ... setting royal palms by the doors of the Hotel Inglaterra +and willows along my lower lawn. + +The difference between Havana and West Chester was exactly that +difference in their foliage, in the low April green of one and the harsh +high fronds of the other. The quality, the weather, that made the trees +made equally the men, just as it dictated their lives, the houses they +lived in, their industries and planted grains. This was true not only +of the country but of the city, too, of George Moore as well as Hardy; +for though Moore belonged principally to salons and the discreet +interiors of broughams, a good half of the beauty of his pages was due +to his response to the quality of spring against a smoke-blackened +London wall, the laburnum blossoming in his Dublin garden. + +The slightest impression of Havana must be founded on a sensitive +recognition of the crystal light and printed shadows which, in addition +to its architecture of fact, brought another of sweeping illusion. In +the morning the plazas glittered in a complete revelation of every hard +carving and leaf and painted kiosk, but later the detail merged in airy +diagonal structures of shade. Modified, infrequently, by the gorgeous +cumulous clouds drifting from the upward thrust, the anchorage, of the +Andes, the entire process of the hours was upset. This was not simply a +variation of inanimate surface, it had an exact counterpart in the +emotions: bowed by an insuperable blaze or upright in the veiled sun, +the attitude of harmony was profoundly affected. The night was +altogether separate, a time, I gathered, when it seldom rained; and +there was never another city that took advantage of the night like +Havana. Released from the resplendent tyranny of the sun, everyone, it +appeared, disdaining sleep, lingered in the plazas, the cafes, and along +the sea-walls, until dawn threatened. Here the dark was not alone a +stage for nocturnal plans and figures: it was without strangeness or +fear for the Cubans thronging abroad, on foot and in motors, early and +late. The whiteness of the buildings, too, even where they were not +illuminated, defined spaces never obscure; the city was never wholly +lost, obliterated by the imponderable blackness of the north. All this, +every aspect of Havana's being, was the gift--the dangerous gift--of its +situation, its weather. The blinding day, the city folded in a sparkling +night, like a vision in blanched satin with fireflies in her hair, were +nothing more than meteorological. + +For myself, my entire attitude was different in the room I now inhabited +from the inherent feeling, in New York, of the Algonquin. I was, in +white flannels and brown Holland, with roses against the mirror of the +bureau, another man; not only my mentality but my physical bearing was +changed. Here I was an individual who, moving about for an hour or so in +the morning, spent the day until late afternoon in some quiet and cool +inner spaciousness. That, I appreciated at once, was one of the +comfortable peculiarities of Havana: it was always possible to be +cool--in a cafe with the marble floor sprinkled with water; at the +entrance of the Inglaterra, where, however, the chairs were the most +uncomfortable in the world; or, better yet, with a book, a naranjada, +and pajamas, transiently at home. + +For the iced refrescos of Cuba I had been prepared; and at breakfast, +though that, I found later, was not its hour, I chose, rather than a +naranjada, a pina colado--a glass, nearly as large and quite as thin as +possible, of the chilled essence of pineapple. A remarkable, a +delightful, concoction. Later I heard the refrescos referred to +contemptuously by Americans whose attitude toward the Cubans paralleled +their opinion of the local drinks. They elected whiskey, at times +condescending to gin, and the effect was portentous. Some sat near me +now, with breakfasts of bubbling ham and crisped eggs, lamenting the +coffee. + +It was doubtless part of the hypnotism of my liking for Havana that +reconciled me to the coffee, poured simultaneously with hot salted milk +into the cup. I accepted it at once, together with a cut French roll +ingeniously buttered. Other efforts were made, through a window, to sell +a wallpaper of lottery tickets; the vendor of magazines now put forward +the Havana Post, printed in English; the curtains hung motionless, a +transparent film on the bright space beyond. + +There was nothing I had to do, or see, no duty to myself to fulfill; +and, watching the stir of tourist departure, I was thankful for my +total lack of uncomfortable incentive. I had, for instance, no intention +of ascending the height of Morro Castle, which--I had hardly needed the +assurance--included a fatiguing number of stairs; nor of becoming +familiar with Cabanas fortress. It had been quite enough to see in +passing that long pink wall and know that there were old batteries of +cannon embossed with the sovereign names of Spain. There were no picture +galleries; and in Havana the churches were rich in neither tradition nor +beauty, and the convents of early days had been turned into warehouses. +It was, on the whole, a city without obtrusive history; even its first +site was on the other side of the island; the wall, except for a +fragment or two, had gone; its early aspects were practically absorbed +by the later spirit that had captivated me. Here, if ever, was a place +in which honesty of mood could be completely indulged. + +A state not innocent of danger to the Puritan tradition--lately +assaulted with useless vigor--of suppression; for to the Latin +acceptance of the whole of life had been added the passions of the +tropics. Cuba had cynically realized this, and multiplied a natural +frankness with a specialized attention to the northern masculinity I had +seen leaving the hotel at odd hours last night. I felt even so soon, +with prohibition a reality, that our national prudery was a very +unfortunate influence indeed in Havana. The season was at an end--only a +few days of the racing remained--so I had missed the obvious worst; but +traces of the corruption of the dull, the dull themselves in diminishing +numbers, lingered. + +Havana, in common with other foreign countries, and with so many golden +reasons to the contrary, had no general liking for Americans. The few +who had understood Cuba, either living there or journeying with +discretion, were most warmly appreciated; and, characteristically, it +was they more than the natives who were principally disconcerted by the +released waggishness of Maine and Ohio and Illinois. But the majority +were merely exploited. There was, certainly, something on the other side +of the fence, for the Cubans were morbidly sensitive about their land, +their monuments and martyrs, not necessarily impressive to the +Anglo-Saxon heritage and temperament. There were fundamental racial +differences, with a preponderant ultimate weight in favor of continents +as opposed to islands. The fascination Havana had for me wasn't +inevitable; I was only considering with regret, aesthetic rather than +moral, the effect on Cuba of any prostitution. + + * * * * * + +As, in a temporary stoppage of its circular traffic, I walked across the +Parque Central, its limits seemed to extend indefinitely, as if it had +become a Sahara of pavement exposed to the white core of the sun; and I +passed with a feeling of immense relief into the shade of a book-shop at +the head of Obispo Street, where the intolerable glare slowly faded from +my vision as I fingered the heaps of volumes paper-bound in a variegated +brightness of color and design. In any book-shop I was entirely at home, +contented; and here specially I was prepossessed with the idea of +buying a great number of the novels solely for their covers--in short, +making a collection of Spanish pictorial bindings. But the novels, I +discovered, were, even in paper, almost a peso each; and since I was +reluctant to invest two hundred or more dollars in a mere beginning, the +idea vanished. Their imaginative quality, however, the drawing and color +printing, were excellent, far better than ours; in fact, we owned +nothing at all like them. + +They had a freedom of cruelty, a brutality of statement, of truth, +absent in American sentimentality: where women were without clothes they +were naked, anatomically accounted for, as were the men; and the +symbolical representations of labor and injustice were instinct with +blood and anguish. A surprising number of stories by Blasco Ibanez were +evident; and it struck me that if I had read him in those casual bright +copies, without the ponderous weight of his American volumes and +uncritical reputation, I might have found a degree of enjoyment. There +were a great many magazines, mostly Spanish, gayly covered but with the +stupidest contents imaginable--the bad reproductions of contemporary +photographs on vile grey paper; although one, La Esefa, admirably +reproduced, in vivid color and titles, the Iberian spirit of the lighter +Goya. + +Though I had been on narrow streets before, I had never seen one with +the dramatic quality of Obispo. Hands might almost have touched across +its paved way, and the sidewalks, no more than amplified curbs, hardly +allowed for the width of a skirt. It was cooled by shadow, except for a +narrow brilliant strip, and the open shops were like caverns. The +windows were particularly notable, for they held the wealth, the choice, +of what was offered within: diamonds and Panama hats, tortoise shell, +Canary Island embroidery, and perfumery. There were cafes that +specialized in minute cakes of chocolate and citron and almond paste set +out in rows of surprisingly delicate workmanship, and shallow cafes +whose shelves were banked with cordials and rons, gin, whiskies, and +wine. There were bottles of eccentric shape holding divinely colored +liqueurs, squat bottles and pinched, files of amber sauternes, miniature +glass bears from Russia filled with Kuemmel, yellow and green chartreuse, +syrupy green and white menthes, the Cinziano vermouth of Italy, Spanish +cider, and orderly companies of mineral waters. + +These stores had little zinc-topped bars, and there were always groups +of men sipping and conversing in their rapid intent manner. The street +was crowded and, invariably allowing the women the wall, it was +necessary to step again and again from the sidewalk. They were mostly +Americans: the Cuban women abroad were in glittering automobiles, +already elaborate in lace and jewels and dipping hats, and drenched in +powder. They were, occasionally, when young, extremely beautiful, with a +dark haughtiness that I had always found irresistible. + +In my early impressionable years it had continually been my fate to be +entranced by lovely disagreeable girls with cloudy black hair and skin +stained with brown rather than pink. Imperious girls with elevated chins +and straight sensitive noses! They had never, by any chance, paid the +slightest attention to me; and the Cubans passing by with an air of +supreme disdain called back my old interest and my old desire. I felt, +for the moment, very young again and capable of romantic folly, of +following a particular beauty to where her motor--a De Dion +landaulet--disappeared into a courtyard with the closing of the great +iron-bound doors. + +A marked, not to say sensational, transformation of my own person had +been a conspicuous part of that young imaginary business; for, though I +was fat and clumsy, I managed to see myself tall and engaging, and dark, +too; or, anyhow, a figure to beguile a charming girl. Something of that +hopeless process had taken place in me once more, now the vainer for the +fact that even my youth had gone. The quality which called back a past +illusion was very positive in Havana, and my feeling for the city was +greatly enriched, further defined. It was charged with hazard for what +men like me had dreamed, leaving the actuality for the pretended; the +pretended, that so easily became the false, was, in Havana, real. + +The Obispo under its striped awnings, with its merchandise of coral and +high combs and pineapple cloths; the women magnetic with a Spain that +had slept with the East, the South; the bright blank walls, lemon +yellow, blue, rose; the palms borne against the sky on trunks like +dulled pewter; the palpable sense of withdrawn dark mystery, all created +an atmosphere of a too potent seductiveness. The street ended in the +Plaza de Armas, with the ultramarine sea beyond; and as I sat, facing +the arched low buff facade of the President's Palace, my brain was +filled with vivid fragments of emotion. + +What suddenly I realized about Havana, the particular triumph of its +miraculous vitality, was that it had never, like so much of Italy, +degenerated into a museum of the past, it was not in any aspect +mortuary. Its relics of the conquistadores were swept over by the flood +of to-day. Yet I began to be vaguely conscious of the history of Cuba, +of that Cuba from which Cortez had set sail, in the winter of fifteen +hundred and nineteen, for Mexico. Later this would, perhaps, become +clearer to me; not pedantically, but because the spirit of that early +time was still alive. I made no effort to direct my mind into deep +channels. What must come must come; and if it were a gin rickey rather +than the slavery of the repartimento system, I'd be little enough +disturbed. + +The gin rickey proved to be an immediate reality, in the patio of the +Inglaterra--a stream of silver bubbles shot into a glass where an +emerald lime floated vivaciously. I had no intention of going out again +until the shadows of the late afternoon had lengthened far toward the +white front of the Gomez-Mena building across the plaza; and after lunch +I went up to the quiet of my room. I should, certainly, write no +letters, read--idly--none of the few books published about Cuba, which +were on my table; and I began the essays of James Huneker called +Bedouins. His rhapsodies over Mary Garden, as colorful in style as the +glass above the window, I soon dropped and picked indifferently among +the novels that remained. A poor lot--the thin current stream of +American fiction, doubly pale in Havana. + +The day wheeled from south to west. I was perfectly contented to linger +doing nothing, scarcely thinking, in the subdued and darkened heat. +There was a heavy passage of trunks through the echoing hall without, +the melancholy calling of the evening papers rose on the air; I was +enveloped in the isolation of a strange tongue. To sit as still as +possible, as receptive as possible, to stroll aimlessly, watch +indiscriminately, was the secret of conduct in my situation. Nothing +could be planned or provided for. The thing was to get enjoyment from +what I did and saw; what benefit I should receive, I knew from long +experience, would be largely subconscious. I had been in Havana scarcely +more than a day, and already I had collected a hundred impressions and +measureless pleasure. How wise I had been to come ... extravagantly, +with--as it were--a flower in my coat, a gesture of protest, of +indifference, to all that the world now emphasized. + + * * * * * + +However, the tranquillity of the afternoon was sharply interrupted by my +going, unexpectedly, to the races at Oriental Park. I had to dress with +the utmost rapidity, leaving the choice of a tie to chance, for the dun +car of the United States Military Attache was waiting for me. The +Attache, handsomely bearing the brown seal of Philippine campaigns, +abstracted in manner, sat forward with an imperturbable military +chauffeur, while the back of the car was flooded by the affable speech +of a Castilian marquis whose variety of experience in the realms of +expert and dangerous games had been limited only by their known forms. +It was unquestionably the mixture of my commonplace Presbyterian blood +and incurable habit of romance that gave me a distinct satisfaction in +my surroundings. I was glad that the Marquis was what he was and that +he held a trans-continental motor record; it pleased my honest +democratic instincts when other cars were held back for our progress; +and, finally, the deep chairs on the veranda of the Jockey Club were +precisely right for a lounging afternoon in an expensive sporting +atmosphere. + +The race track seemed to me long--was it a mile?--and, with the horses +at a starting post across from the grandstand, I couldn't tell one from +another. The grandstand was on the right, and beyond the park were low +monotonous lines of stables. It had been raining, the track was heavy, +and the race that followed the blowing of a bugle covered the silk of +the jockeys with mud. My pleasure, as always, slowly subsided at the +persistent intrusion of an inner destructive questioning. Incontestably +the racing, the horses lining fretfully and scrambling through the muddy +pools, left me cold. The sweep of the Jockey Club, too, was +comparatively empty of interest; the spectators there, though they were +more or less intent upon the results posted on the board opposite, were +not the immemorial onlookers at such affairs of sweepstakes, selling +plates and furloughs. + +The Cuban women present, elaborately dressed for shaded lawns and salons +de the, were largely foreign to the wide-spread open spectacle. I +remembered English races where groups of dukes with ruddy features, in +rough tweeds, sat through drizzling afternoons on their iron-shod seat +ricks, and women of title, in waterproofs and harsh brogues, tramped +through the sloshing turf ... an attitude far removed from Havana. A +group of royal palms, lifted in the middle distance, alone gave the +races an exotic air; though they were, of course, promoted and ridden by +Americans, and their mechanics were quite those which operated in New +Orleans and Butte and Baltimore. Now I was annoyed because I had, +thoughtlessly, come; I might as well have gone to the baseball game in +what had formerly been the bull ring. + +Yet I could retire to my speculations for escape, and I thought how +peculiarly modern outdoor games, sport, belong to the British--to them +and their relatives beyond the sea. I remembered, in this connection, +the story of a French vicomte I knew, a man of imposing build, who, in +yellow gloves, shot field larks attracted by the flashing of a mirror +manipulated by his valet. Le sport! But the Spaniards, bred to the +delicate agility of bull fighting, trained in endurance on the +inconceivably fast pelota courts, were more athletic than the French; +though, as a race, they were inclined to delegate their games to +professionals. The sporting amateur, in spite of the Marquis, was a +rarity; rather they chose to be lookers-on at brilliant diversions which +retained an appreciable amount of a mediaeval cruelty diversified from +our own brutal strain. + +This, naturally, had been influenced, strengthened, in Cuba by the +climate, the breath of the tropics; even the winters were not conducive +to violent exercise, aside from the fact that that was the prerogative +of stolid temperaments. It was the deliberate, the unexcitable, who +most excelled at trials of personal muscular skill; and neither of them +were at home below certain latitudes. For myself, I was grateful, for I +hadn't much in common with the exemplifications of field skill I had +met. They were very apt to pay for their success by the absence of the +attributes I particularly admired; often they were snobs of a very +exasperating type--monuments of college beef with irreproachable hair, +sacrosanct pins, and insensate conventional mentalities. + +A race at an end, the jockeys, carrying their saddles, trooped to the +judges' stand to be weighed, and I was shocked by their wizened, +preternaturally cunning faces. They were like pygmies of a strange breed +in red and yellow and blue satins; faultless for their purpose, on the +ground they were extraordinary, leather-skinned, with puckering eyes, +drawn mouths, and distorted bodies. They wrangled among themselves in +shrill or foggy voices--a very depressing specialization of humanity. +But the horses were magnificent, slender and shining. I admired them +from a distance, glad that it was no part of my responsibility to ride. +Long ago, under the pressure of an untender emotion, I had learned to +sit on a horse through his reasonable moments; but I had never become at +ease, and I stopped riding when, on the country road of a May Sunday +noon, a tall sorrel ran away with me so fast and so far that we passed +three churches with their scattering congregations. + +There were, on the veranda, drinks, and even they--the Scotch +highballs--translated into Spanish, had an unfamiliar and borrowed +sound. It was on my return, stopping at the Telegrafo Cafe, that I +learned the delightful possibility of a Daiquiri cocktail. It was twice +as large as ordinary, what in the north was called a double; but no +Daiquiri out of Cuba could be thought of in comparison. Only one other +drink might be considered--a Ramos gin-fizz. My extreme allegiance had +been given to the latter. I was not willing, even in the Telegrafo, to +depose it from first place; but the Telegrafo was a pleasanter spot +than the New Orleans Stag bar. I could see the beginning of the Prado, +with the swirl of cars on their afternoon round to the Malecon. Some +arc-lights, just turned on, were sources of color, like great +symmetrical lemons, rather than of illumination. After another rain the +bare flambeau trees would burst into fiery bloom. + +I was alone, and, sauntering back to the Inglaterra, through the gallery +that had once been the Paseo Isabel, I came on my flower man, who +advanced with a smile and a close nosegay of gardenias. A curious +flower, I thought, getting water for them in a glass. They didn't wilt, +as was usual, but turned brown and faded in the manner of a lovely +pallid woman--a simile I had used in Linda Condon. A flower that +belonged less to nature than to drawing-rooms, to rococo salons and the +opera loges of eighteen forty, and not at all to the present in the +United States. But worn low on the neck, it was entirely appropriate to +the black hair of the Cuban woman. Gold hair, the fair temperament, had +no business with gardenias: bouquets of white sweet peas looped with +pale green and silver ribbon, yes; and dark bunches of moss roses; the +old bouquets of concentric rings of buds in lace paper! They were the +property of the girls I had known, the frank girls with clear grey eyes +and the appealing girls with eyes like forget-me-nots. Something more +poignant, a heavier disturbing perfume, was necessary against a figure +seen only from a balcony or with a vague fleetness behind a grille +gracefully wrought out of iron. + +My shutters now were opened, and I could make out, against the dimming +sky, the languid folds of the Spanish flag above the entrance of the +Centro Gallego--the standard that had conquered the western tropics, +only, in turn, to be subdued by a freedom of the wind mightier than His +Most Catholic Majesty. + + * * * * * + +There was some question of where I'd go for dinner, for in Havana there +were many cafes to explore--the Dos Hermanos, the Paris, the Florida, +the Hotel de Luz, the Miramar; but, finally, I walked down to the Prado, +to the sea and the Miramar, a little because of its situation, directly +on the Malecon, but principally for the reason that it had one of the +most beautiful names possible, a name which called up the image of a +level tide so smooth that it held in shining replica the forts, the +ships, and the clouds. Tables were prepared for dinner in the +restaurant, while those on the terrace were without cloths; but there I +determined to sit, and the waiter whose attention I captured, after a +long delay, agreed. + +A solitary couple had their heads together by the window, and they, with +myself, were the only diners. It was, evidently, not now the place to go +to at this hour. Beyond the dining-room, a patio, or rather an open +court, was set for dancing, melancholy as such spaces can be, deserted +and half-lighted; but I saw that a considerable activity was expected +much later. + +I was glad that the terrace was empty, for, with the light now faded +from the sea and its blueness merging into black, the remote +tranquillity of evening was happier without a sharp chatter of voices. +The Miramar, considering its place--the most advantageous in all +Havana--and fame was surprisingly small: scarcely more than two stories +high, the sombre maroon walls with their long windows hardly filled an +angle of the Malecon. The dinner was slow in arriving, the silver made +its appearance, a goblet was brought separately, a plate of French bread +was later followed by its butter. The minute native oysters were no more +than shreds adhering to their shells, but they had a notable flavor; a +crawfish was at its brightest apogee; and an omelet browned in a +delicate perfection of powdered sugar. + +I deserted Spanish wine, the admirable Riscal, for champagne; for there +was about an air of departed charm, the whisper of old waltzes and +tarleton, that demanded commemoration. The Miramar had been the gay +center of that mid-century life which had folded Havana in the lasting +influence of its memories. A gaiety not even at a disadvantage compared +to the feverish society of to-day! The bodices then had been no more +than scraps of chambery gauze and Chinese ribbon below shoulders to the +whiteness of which the entire feminine age had been devoted. The +flounced bell skirts had swung airily on gracious silk clappers. + +The automobiles on the Malecon multiplied, for the night was hot; soon +there was a solid double opposed procession on the broad sweeping drive. +This was a triumph of American engineering and, I had no doubt, an +improvement on the informality of rocks and debris that had existed +before. Yet I should liked to have seen it when the promenade had not +yet been laid down with mechanical precision, in, perhaps, the early +seventies. Then there were sea baths cut in the live rock at the end of +the Paseo Isabel, at the Campos Eliseos, where the water was like a +cooler liquid green air, and where, after storms, a foaming surf poured +over the barriers. There were no motors then, but volantes and the +modern quintrins, with two horses, one outside the shafts, and a riding +calesero in vermilion and gold lace; and, latest of all, as new as +possible, the victorias. + +Neither, then, was the Prado paved, but the trees were infinitely +finer--five rows there were in fifty-seven--when the clamor of the city +was, in great part, peals of bells. This was a familiar process with me, +to leave the present for the past in a mood of irrational regret. But +never for the heroic, the real past; the years I chose to imagine lay +hardly behind the horizon; in Italy it had been the Risorgimento, at +farthest the villeggiatura of Antonio Longo or the viole d'amore of +Cimarosa in churches. And now, drinking my champagne on the empty +flagged terrace of the Miramar, facing, across the parade of +automobiles, the blank curtain of the night, starred on the right by the +lights of castellated forts, my mind vibrated with grace notes no longer +heard outside the faint distilled sweetness of music boxes. + +As if in derision of this, a loud unexpected music rose from the +bandstand in the Plaza, and I saw that a flood of people, seated or +moving along the pavements and through the lanes of chairs, had +gathered. Nothing, I thought, could have delighted me more; but my +anticipation was soon smothered by the absurdity of the selections: they +were not from Balfe nor Rossini, neither military nor the accented +rhythm of Spain ... the opening number was Parsifal, blown into the +profound night with a convention of brassy emphasis. + +At the total destruction of my pleasure I cursed the pretentious +stupidity of the band-master and a great deal else of modern Cuba. I +remembered particularly some regrets, locally expressed, that the +Spanish domination was no more. Things, it was said, were better ordered +then. But this was a position the vainness of which I couldn't join: it +was no part of my disposition to combat, or even regret, the inevitable. +My course--quite other--was to project myself into periods whose very +loss formed most of their charm. Gone, they took on the tender memories +of the dead, and were invested with the dignity, the beauty, of a warm +fragility. + +Two girls were now seated at a table by the entrance, and, though they +were alone for the moment, it was evident that they had no intention of +remaining in that unprofitable state longer than necessary. Their fleet +appraising glances rested on me and the silver bucket by my chair, and +one permitted the shadow of a discreet smile to appear on her carmined +lips. She was pretty, lightly dressed in a flowery summer stuff, but she +was as gold in coloring as corn silk; an intrusion in Havana I seriously +deplored. The other was dark, but she was, at the same time, +disagreeable; something had annoyed her excessively, and I made no move. +Such company was occasionally entertaining, in a superficial +conversational sense; but, I was obliged to add, not often. + +I went over all the informal girls I could recall who had been worth the +effort to cultivate them, either charming or wise or sensitive, and my +bag, unlike Chopin's or what George Moore reported his, was +discouragingly slim. They had been, but perhaps of necessity, +materialists, valuers only of the expensively concrete; yes, the +majority of such adventures had been sordid. It was due, without +question, to certain deterrent qualities in my own personality; but even +more, I was convinced, to the fact that, in America, girls, or at least +those of my youth, regarded emotion as portentously synonymous with +ruin. Emotion, for nice girls, was deprecated; their sense of modesty, +of shame, was magnified at the expense of everything else. This, +together with the tragic difference in the age of marriage in nature and +in society, had condemned the United States to very low levels of +feeling. + +Unfortunately I had been born into the most rigid of all societies--a +prosperous and Presbyterian middle-class; an influence that succeeded in +making religion hideous before I was fifteen, planting in me, too, the +belief that man was, in his instinctive life, filthy. I outgrew the +latter, but never the first; and now, looking back, I could recognize +how that lauded creed had nearly damned me to a hell far surpassing in +dreadfulness anything of its own bitter imagining. The cold metaphysical +fog had saturated us all alike.... How dreary my early experience was +... what detestable travesties of passion! A carful of young men soon +stopped at the curb of the Miramar, and the two girls, dark and gold, +were immediately invested with the politest attentions. There was a +chorus of laughter and protests and suggestions, in which a privileged +waiter joined; and afterwards they vociferously left to dance at +Carmelo. + + * * * * * + +Walking generally in the direction of my room, I left the Prado for an +especially dramatic, no, melodramatic, street, where the bare walls and +iron bolted doors were made startling by the white glare of electric +lights. Fixed to the walls, infrequently, were the wrought-iron brackets +of the earlier lanterns, converted, it might be, for the period before +the present, into gas jets. In that watery illumination such streets +must have seemed less amazing than now, and entirely natural with only +the oil lanterns lifting a small surface of masonry or an isolated angle +out of the night. Indeed, whole districts were dark, except for a rare +lamp privately maintained as an obligation of grace. That darkness, like +the streets, was mediaeval; they belonged one to the other--ways through +which it was congruous to carry a flare and a sword, practical measures +both. + +These precautions had been long discarded, but the passages themselves +were unchanged, not a stone had shifted; they were, particularly at +night, the Middle Ages. And it was as though a sudden blaze had been +created by unholy magic; a sparkling and infernal radiance, throwing +into intolerable clearness the decent reticence of the time. The arc +lights gave the streets an absolute air of unreality and tragic +strangeness. Moving in them, I had the feeling of blundering awake into +a dream, of being irretrievably lost in an illusion of potential horror. +An open door with its glimpse into an inner room only increased the +oppression: it, too, was brilliant with electricity, a room of +unrelieved icy pallor, except for a warmer blur under an Agony on the +Cross, where a small company of men and women sat in a rigid blanched +formality that might have been death. + +It was quite natural, a commonplace of Havana; but rather than a picture +of familiar life, it resembled the memento mori of a grotto. My thoughts +turned to the symbols and representations of the Catholic Church--a +business of blood and torment and flame, of Sebastian torn with arrows +and a canonized girl, whose name I forgot, carrying her eyeballs in a +hand. Curiously enough, the spirit which had given birth to this +suffering had been popularly lost, together with any conception of the +ages in which it occurred; and all that remained was a pathological +horror. Italy and Spain were saturated by it--Italy in the revolting wax +spectacles of Easter, and Spain with the veritable crucifixions of +to-day. + +It was, I supposed, to a certain extent unavoidable in an establishment +whose hold on the ponderable present depended on threats and promises +laid in the future. But it seemed to me unfortunate, to say the least, +that a church whose business was life should be so concerned with smoky +death. Threats and promises! The early history of Cuba, I remembered, +was inbound with the administrative and protective powers of the Church: +in fifteen hundred and sixteen the native Cubenos were put in the charge +of the Order of Jeronimites, localized in La Espanola--Santo Domingo. +The double motive of the Spanish Christian kings in the western +hemisphere had been conversion and gold, but which of these was +uppermost it was impossible to determine. However, when the gold, the +temporal interest, decreased in one locality, the spiritual concern of +Seville shifted to the more productive regions. + +That was a period, a conquest, when a violent death was a greater +blessing than living in a state of damnable heresy; and so, between the +saving of their souls and the loss of their bodies in the king's mines, +the natives were thoroughly cared for. It must be said, though, that de +las Casas, a priest whose spirit was above any intimidation or venality, +denounced the outrages against the Cuban Indians to the shining heavens, +the cerulean sea, the Audencia, and the Throne. But his humanitarianism +was ineffectual against a system founded on the belief that a god had +given the earth and its recalcitrant people for the profit and glory, +the servants, of a single religious dogma. + +It was, possibly, a mental imperfection which gave impressions, +emotions, such a great suggestibility. Returning toward the Inglaterra, +I had no intention of losing myself in the mazes of applied theology; +and I speedily dropped such a sombre topic from my thoughts. Turning +back to the Prado, I found the walks filled with men, progressing slowly +or seated on the flat marble benches along the sides. Whenever a woman +did pass on foot, their interest and speculations were endless: heads +turned in rows, sage remarks were exchanged, and tentative simpaticas +murmured. Her mother--if she had the slightest pretensions to youth or +good looks--was fervently blessed for so fetching a daughter. Here, of +course, was the defect of the local attitude toward women--it put the +emphasis perpetually on a gallantry affecting the men more even than the +women. There was a constant danger of becoming one-sided. + +The Telegrafo and the Louvre were crowded, with more refrescos and ices +on the table than authoritative drinks; the cigarettes of the discursive +throngs in the Parque Central were like a sheet of fire-flies, and the +Marti and Pairet theatres were spreading abroad the audiences of their +second evening shows. The patio of the Inglaterra was well filled, and I +stopped there; not, however, for a naranjada. Some late suppers were +still occupying the dining-room, and a drunken American was gravely +addressing a table and meeting with a mechanical politeness that I +admired for its sustained patience. He left, finally, and wandered +unsteadily, a subject of entertainment for his fellows and a mark of +contempt to the Cubans present. Beyond me were some beautifully dressed +English--two men in the final perfection of easy masculine garb and a +girl, flushed with beauty, in pearls. On the other hand a young +Frenchman, decorated with the most honorable of war ribbons, and two +women, all in mourning, were conversing in the difficult Parisian idiom. + +I should have liked to be at either table--their attractions were equal; +but, forced to remain alone, I thought of how rude the English would +have been had I moved over to them. The English would have been boorish, +and the French would have met me with an impenetrable polite reserve. +Both would regard me as an idiot or an agent; to have spoken to them +would have been an affront. And yet I was confident that we should have +got on very well: I was not without a name in London, and the French +were delightfully sensitive to any practising of the arts. The English, +I gathered from their unguarded talk, were cruising on a yacht now lying +in Havana harbor; and I saw myself, the following morning, going off to +them in a smart tender and sitting under the white awning spread aft, +with a whisky and soda, talking or not, but happily aware of the shining +brass and mahogany fittings, the immaculate paint and gay pennants. + +I had always liked worldly pomp and settings, marble Georgian houses +with the long windows open directly on closed greens and statues of +lead; and to linger, before going down to dinner, on a minstrel's +gallery above a stone hall and gathered company. I'd rather be on a +yacht than on an excursion boat; yet I infinitely preferred reading +about the latter. For some hidden or half perceived reason, yachts were +not impressive in creative prose; there the concerns and pleasures of +aristocracy frequently appeared tawdry and unimportant. Even its +heroism, in the valor of battle and imperturbable sacrifice, was less +moving to me than simpler affairs. Yet there was no doubt but that I was +personally inclined to the extremes of luxury; and this apparent +contradiction brought to my life, my writing, the problem of a devotion +to words as disarmingly simple as the leaves of spring--as simple and as +lovely in clear color--about the common experience of life and death, +together with an absorbing attention for Manchu women and exotic +children and emeralds. + + * * * * * + +The following day, hot and still, with the exception of capricious +movements of air in paved shaded places, was overcast, the brilliancy of +Havana, of the white and green plazas, subdued. And this softening of +sharp lines and blazing facades seemed to influence, too, the noises, +the calls, of the streets, so that it was all apparently insubstantial, +like the ultimate romantic mirage of a city. I wandered along Neptuno +Street to Belascoin, and then to the Parque Maceo, where I ignored the +massed bronze and granite of its statue for the slightly undulating +shimmering tide. In the distance the sea was lost in the sky--a nebulous +gray expanse such as might have existed before the beginning of +comparative solidity. I lost all sense of time, the centuries were +jumbled together like mangos in a basket. Yes, they were no greater, no +more important or stable, than tropical fruit. + +The vivid spectacle of Cuba, for example, contracted to a palm's +breadth, the island became nothing more than the glimmer of a torch in +illimitable dusk. It had been discovered by Columbus, a presumptuous +term used arrogantly in the sense of created; an Arcadian shore where, +because food grew without cultivation, without effort, and the gold was +soft for beating into bracelets, the natives lived easily and +ornamentally and in peace. They wore, rather than steel and the harsh +shirts of the Inquisition, the feathers of birds with woven dyed quills +and fragrant grasses. They sang, they danced with a notable grace, loved +and died in the simplicity of bohios of palm board and thatch under nine +Caciques. + +Then, in the drawing of a breath, they were all destroyed, gone, killed +by slavery, in the name of God on the points of swords, by the +rapacity, the corruption, the diseases, of civilization. A Spanish Cuba +rose--Iberian and yet singularly different--a business of +Captain-General and Teniente Rey, of alcalde and alcaide, of Santiago de +Cuba and San Cristobal de la Habana. The French under Jacques Sores, and +the English under Drake, sailed over the horizon. In less than a second, +the expiration of a sigh, Diego de Velasquez and Narvaez, Isabel de +Bobadilla, Rojas and Guzman, the merchant Diego Perez in vain laying the +guns of the Magdalena in defense of the past, had gone. The Cedula from +Madrid, in eighteen hundred and twenty-five, began the conspiracies, +Tacon came and went, the fiscals beat free colored men to death and +entertained the negro women naked at balls. The Lopez rebellion was +followed by the ten years' war of eighteen hundred and sixty-eight and +the peace of Zanjon, the great rebellion and Weyler. + +There remained now the indefinite sea and a city withdrawn, secretive, +made vaguely beautiful by intangible voices, all its voices that had +laughed and shouted, whispered and cried; and by the towers and walls +merged in a single pattern, the old and the new drawn together by an +aspect of impermanence, freed from the deceptive appearance of solidity. +Suddenly its history had been shown to me in a flash of emotion, a mood +of feeling. I hadn't come to Cuba ignorant of the land, but I had +determined to slight what was but written inanimate fact. I had no +disposition for instruction: books were powerless to create La Punta for +me, it must bear its own credentials ... it might become, to my +uncertain advantage, as important as a Daiquiri cocktail, as a Larranaga +cigar, but hardly more. + +In any other case I should have cheated myself, not only of pleasure, +the relaxation possible to honesty of mind, but of any hope of future +material. The creative habit was the most tireless and frugal in +existence: there was nothing--no experience, person, disillusionment, or +pain--not endlessly sounded for its every note and meaning. No one could +predict what would be indispensable, just as it was impossible to +foresee, in the projection of a novel, where its fine moments occurred. +And, returning to the descriptive and historical books on Cuba, left so +largely unread at the Inglaterra, it was probable that they had omitted, +in their effort for literal and conventional emphasis, what might in +their subject be vivifying to me. + +This, however, was beyond spoiling--a history so picturesque, as I have +intimated, that its very vividness, its commonest phases, had become the +threadbare material of obvious romance. But, outside of all that, the +other Havana, the mid-Victorian Pompeii, a city that none could have +predicted or told me of, offered the incentive of its particular and +rare charm. In the Parque Maceo, on the sea wall, my imagination stirred +with the first beginnings of a story: it would take place in the period +when the avaricious grip of Spain was loosening, a story of secret +patriotism and the idealism of youth, set in marble salons, at the +opera and the cafes. It would not concern itself with any love except +the fidelity between two men, a story of friendship. + +There it would be different from The Arrow of Gold and Dona Rita; no +peignoirs, thank you, but a formality, a passionate propriety, in +keeping with the social gravity and impersonal devotion of the very +young. There must be crinoline--would I never escape from that!--and +candelabra with glittering prisms; Spanish soldiers in striped linen and +officials with green-tasselled canes. My youth, he'd come from the +United States, would have his little dinners at the Restaurant +Francaise, in Cuba Street number seventy-two, and his refrescos at the +Cafe Dominica. In the end he'd leave Havana, having accomplished nothing +but the loss of his illusions for the gain of a memory like a dream, but +his friend, a Cuban--I had seen him that first night at dinner in the +Inglaterra--would be killed. How.... + +It was time to go back to the hotel, and the story receded. I walked +too far on Belascoin Street, all the way to Salud; and, past the Tacon +Market, came out on the Parque de Colon, where now there was a hot dusty +wind, like a localized sirocco, and I was glad to reach my room. The +reflection of the colored glass above the window was hardly discernible +on the tiles; the interior was permeated by a shadow which made the +ceiling appear high beyond computation; and my wardrobe trunk, standing +open, exhibited a rack of limp neckties. I turned again to the novels on +the table and again let them drop, unattended, from a listless hand. +Tepid water! And I wondered--a constant subject with me--when we should +have a new vigorous American literature, a literature absolutely native, +by men who had not, like myself, been to school to Turgenev and the +English lyrical poetry. Henry James had found the United States lacking +in background; the lack was evident, but not in the country of his +birth. + +This was not a complaint against The Velvet Glove except as it equally +applied to me; but an intense desire for a fresh talent, an ability to +which we could, without reserve, take off our hats. The fact hit me that +I was forty, although it was still the fashion among reviewers to speak +of me as a promising young man, and that there were patches of grey hair +on my temples. Yet I had been, everything considered, remarkably +successful; there was no need for sentimental regret, a trait of mental +feebleness. + +I decided to do something positive that evening, to go to the theatre, +or, if it were playing, to see the Jai Alai. The latter was possible, +and, by way of the Telegrafo, I reached the Hotel Florida for dinner; a +restaurant which, because of the windows looking down on it, had the +pleasant individual air of a courtyard. The music played, diners came +and went, and I gazed up at the shallow balconies in the hopefulness of +an incorrigible imagination. The Fronton Jai Alai--in Havana the game, +pelota, had taken the title of its court--was a long way from Obispo +Street, but I knew when we had reached it by the solid volume of +shouting that escaped from the high concrete building into the dim +neighborhood. + + * * * * * + +Inside, the court was an immense expanse with granite-laid walls, a long +rectangle, one side of which was formed by the steeply banked rows of +spectators. Regular spaces were marked by white lines on the playing +floor, and at one end the score was hung against the names of the +players, now two teams--the Azules and the Blancos. The boxes were above +the cement ledges packed with standing men, by a promenade, where the +betting was conducted, cigars sold, and a small active bar maintained. +It was the night of a gala benefit, for the Damas de Caridad, and I had +been fortunate in getting a single box seat. I was late, though, and the +game progressing; still, I was the first in our railed space; but the +others, who proved to be Americans, soon followed--three prosperous men, +manufacturers I thought, with wives in whom native good taste had been +given the opportunities of large resources. + +One of the women--who, in the arrangement of the box, sat beside +me--smiled with a magnetism that had easily survived the loss of her +youth; she was rather silent than not, but the rest swept into a +conversation in their best public manner. A man accompanying them, it +developed, knew Cuba and Jai Alai, and he secured for the amusement of +the others a cesta, the basket-like racquet worn strapped to the arm. It +was from him I discovered that the court was two hundred and ten feet +long and thirty-six feet wide; while the service consisted in dropping +the ball and, on its rebound, catching it in the cesta and throwing it +against the far end wall. From there, with a sharp smack audible all +over the Fronton, the ball shot back, if not a fault, within a marked +area, and one of the opposing side caught it, in the air or on the first +bounce, and returned it against the end wall. At first I could see +nothing but the violent activity of the players, frozen into statuesque +attitudes of throwing; vigorous figures in, mostly, white, with soft red +silk sashes. I heard the ball hit, and saw it rolling out of play; and +then, with some slight realization of the rapidity of its flight, I was +able to follow the course from cesta to wall and floor. + +There had never been, I was certain, another game in which instantaneous +judgment, skill, and endurance had been carried to such a far point. +There was seldom a fault or error; the ball, flying like a bullet, was +caught and flung with a single gesture; again and again it carried from +one end wall to the other, from which it was hurled on. Angles of flight +were calculated and controlled, the long side wall was utilized.... Then +a player of the Azules was hit in the ankle, and the abruptness with +which he went down showed me a possibility I had ignored. + +During this the clamor of the audience was indescribable, made up, for +the most part, of the difficulties of constantly shifting odds and +betting. The odds changed practically with every passage of the ball: +opening at, say, five to three against the favorites, as they drew +steadily ahead in a game of twenty-five points it jumped to eight to +four, ten to three, anything that could be placed. On the floor a small +company of bookmakers, distinguished by their scarlet caps, shouted in +every direction, and betting paper was thrown adroitly through the air +in hollow rubber balls. Those who had backed at favorable odds the team +now far ahead were yelling jubilantly, and others were trying, at the +expense of their lungs, to cover by hedging their probable losses. + +There was, however, toward what should have been the end, an +unlooked-for development--the team apparently hopelessly behind crept +up. An astounded pause followed, and then an uproar rose that cast the +former sound into insignificance. Soon the score was practically tied: +there were shrill entreaties, basso curses, a storm of indiscriminate +insults. Now the backers of the lesser couple scrambled vocally to take +advantage of the betting opportunities forever lost--the odds were even, +then depressed on the other side. When the game was over the noise died +instantly: men black with passion, shaking with rage, crushing their +hats or with lifted clenched fists, at once conversed with smiling +affability. My eyes had been badly strained, and I was glad to leave the +box and stroll along the promenade. The betting counters were jammed by +the owners of winning tickets, the men behind the bar were, in their own +way, as active as the pelota players. + +The majority of the boxes were occupied by Cuban families, but yet there +was an appreciable number of foreigners. A slender girl, in a low dinner +dress, was sitting on the railing of her box, swinging a graceful +slipper and smoking a cigarette--New York was indelibly stamped on +her--and, among the masculine world of Spanish antecedents, she created +a frank center of interest. For her part, she studied the crowd quite +blocking the way below her with a cold indifference, the personification +of young assured arrogance. + +A quiniela followed, with six contestants, one against the other in +successive pairs; but my eyes were now definitely exhausted by the +necessarily shifting gaze, and my interest fastened on the woman beside +me. She was at once intimately attached to the people with her and +abstracted in bearing: a woman not far from fifty, but graceful still +and, in a flexible black silk crepe with a broad girdle of jet, still +desirable. It seemed to me that, in spite of an admirable manner, she +was a little impatient at the volubility around her; or it might be, in +contradiction to this, she was exercising a patience based on fortitude. +It was clear that she hadn't a great deal in common with the man who had +evidently been married to her for a considerable length of years. They +spoke little--it was he who had fetched the cesta--both immersed in +individual thoughts. A woman, I decided, finely sensitive, superior; +who, as she had grown older, had found no demand for the qualities which +she knew to be her best. + +A painful situation, a shocking waste, from which, for her, there was no +escape, for she had patently what was known as character. She at once +was conscious of the absolute need for spiritual freedom and bound by +commitments paramount to her self-esteem. But even if she had been more +daring, less conscientious, what could she have gained; what was there +for her in a society condemned to express the spirit in the terms of +flesh? She had too much charm, too great a vitality, to be absorbed in +the superficial affairs of women, the substitute life of charity. And +once married, probably to a man the model of kindly faith, she was +caught in a desert of sterile monotony. Even children, I could see, if +they existed, had not slain her questioning attractive personality. + +She smiled at me again, later, her narrow slightly wasting hands clasped +about a knee--a smile of sympathetic comprehension and unquenchable +woman. She would have been happier chattering in the obvious strain of +stupidity behind her: any special beauty was always paid for in the +imposed loneliness of a spoken or unspoken surrounding resentment. To be +content with a facile compliment, the majority of tricks at auction +bridge, mechanical pleasures, was the measure of wisdom for women in +her situation. The last quiniela over, plainly weary she gathered a +cloak about her shoulders and left the box, without, as I had hoped, +some last gesture or even a word: and I pictured her sitting listlessly, +distraught, in the cafe to which they were proceeding. + + * * * * * + +The pelota immediately vanished from my mind before the infinitely more +fundamental and interesting problem of marriage; and--remembering the +ominous sign of a woman's club on the Malecon--I wondered if the Cuban +women were contented with the tradition as it had been handed down to +them. In the life that I knew in the north, an infinitesimal grain of +sand irritating in the body of the United States, the sacredness of +matrimony had waned very seriously; it would, of course, go on, probably +for ever, since no other arrangement could be thought of conciliating +the necessities of both dreams and property; but, subjected to the +scrutiny of intelligence rather than sentimentality, it seemed both +impotent and foolish. The impotence certainly, for whereas my +grandfather had thirteen children and my mother four--or was it five?--I +had none. There had always been individuals unrestrained by the +complicated oaths of the wedding service--a strictly legal proceeding to +which the church had been permitted to add its furbelows--dissatisfied +ladies, and gentlemen of the commercial road. I wasn't referring to +them, but to the look, at once puzzled, humorous, and impatient, that +lately I had seen wives of probity turn on their husbands. + +They expressed the conviction that the purely masculine aphorism to the +effect that home was the place for women meant nothing more than a +clearing of the decks for unrestricted action. This was beautifully +displayed, confirmed, in Havana, where decks were without a single +impediment; and I speculated about the attitude of the Cuban women in +houses barred with both actual and metaphorical iron. Tradition weighed +heavily on their outlook; but there was that club on the Malecon. +Tradition had bound the farm wives of Pennsylvania, yet they were +progressively rebelling against the insanity of endless labor and +isolation. But, perversely, the married groups I saw in Havana were +remarkably close, simple, and happy. They sat in rows at the concerts on +the plazas, went off on small excursions, in entire harmony--a thing +impossible to the born American, with whom such parties began in +exasperation and ended in nervous exhaustion. An American husband, of +the class largely evident in Havana, escorted his family abroad with +truculence and an air of shame at being exposed in such a ridiculous +situation. If there was more than one household implicated, the men +invariably drew away together: there was a predominance of cursing and +the wails of irritably smacked children. The truth was that the citizens +of the United States, in their feverish passage through life, had +decidedly a poor time--either restlessness or ambition or +dissatisfaction destroyed their peace of mind. Labor, more highly paid +than at any other place or time, got less satisfaction for its money +than a Cuban mestizo with a peseta. + +My thoughts returned abruptly to the point where they had started, to +marriage, and I hoped that Cuba wouldn't be disorganized by the present +ferment; that the feminine element, discovering their wrongs, wouldn't +leave their balconies and patios for the dusty publicity of the street. +Already a decline had been suffered, first in the loss of mantillas and +combs, next in the passing of single-horse victorias for unrestrained +tin locomotives, and then in the hideous flood of electric lighting. +Still, a great deal of the charm, the empire, of Havana women remained; +while nothing but utter disaster approached them from the north. + +This was no new position for me, and it had never failed to be attacked, +usually with the insinuation that, spiritually, I was part of Turkey in +Asia ... a place of gardens where it was not inconceivable that I'd be +happy: certainly the politics there were no worse than those to which I +had been inured from birth, with murder on the streets at noon +distinguished by a white ribbon in its buttonhole. The Armenians were no +more precariously situated than the Albigenses under Innocent III. I had +heard, as well, that the governments of Cuba had not been free from +suspicion, but it was hoped that elections supervised from the United +States would institute reform. Rare irony! Elections, I should have +said, going back once more to the beginning, opening to emancipated +women. + +Gathering, in imagination, all the feminine world of Havana into a +fragrant assembly, I begged them not to separate themselves from their +privileges; I implored them even--against my personal inclination, for +there, at least, I was no Turk--not to grow slender, if that meant agile +excursions into loud spheres of lesser influence. Those others, I +proceeded, would rapturously exchange a ballot for a seductive ankle, a +graceful breast, or a flawless complexion. Complexion, or rather its +absence, brought immeasurably more supporting votes to the women's party +than convictions. And I added, reprehensibly, some of the things I had +been privately told, as a writer, by women newly in the professions: I +exposed the secret of a lecturer on civic improvement--or it might have +been better babies; I couldn't recall which--who carried a handbagful of +apostrophies to Paolo and Francesca, and that illogical lot, on her +travels. She permitted me to read them in a sunny orchard where the +apples were already, more than ripe, on the ground; and her gaze had +persistently strayed to the wasting fruit. + +The audience melted away--I was unable to discover if they were +flattered or annoyed--and I found myself actually seated at one of the +small tables on the fringe of the the dansant at the Sevilla. The +Cascade Orchestra from the Biltmore, their necks hung with the imitation +wreaths of Hawaii, were playing a musical pastiche of many lands and a +single purpose; and there, foxtrotting intently among girls from the New +York Follies and girls on follies of their own, colliding with race +track touts from Jefferson Park and suave predatory gentlemen of San +Francisco, I found a whole section of young Cuba. + +They returned, in the intermissions, to chaperons complacent or secretly +disturbed, where they had, principally, refrescos; but their attitude +was one of progress and conscious, patronizing superiority to +old-fashioned customs. The daughters of what, in many aspects, was the +Spanish-Cuban aristocracy of the island, were dancing publicly in a +hotel. Here, already, was an example of emancipation. I disliked it, +naturally, not on moral grounds, but because it foreshadowed the +destruction of individuality, the loss, eventually, of Havana, of Cuba, +of Spain ... of everything distinguished that saved the world from +monotony. + +They danced--the Cuban youth--with notable facility, adding to the +hesitation waltz something specially their own, a more intense rhythm, a +greater potentiality; their bodies were at once more fluid and positive; +they were swept up into a mood unknown to the adamant ornaments of +Country Club verandas in the north. A cosmopolitan waiter, anxious to +have me finish and move on, hovered about the table, ignorant of a +traditional courtesy as well as of the requirements of the climate. All +the objectionable features of Broadway cafes, of public ostentation, +mingled servility and insolence, dishonesty--my pina colado was diluted +beyond taste--were being flung, with the air of a favor, into Havana. +Although, for the best, I was even then a little late, I was glad that I +had seen the city when I did, just as I was glad to have known Venice +before the Campanile fell, and the Virginia Highlands when they had not +been modernized. The change of Havana within itself, from palm thatch to +marble, was entrancing; but the arbitrary imposition of stupid habits, +standards, conduct, from outside, damnable. + +In the end the waiter was more forceful than my determination to remain +until my drink and thoughts were at an end, and I rose with them +uncompleted, in a very ill temper. If Cuba hadn't enough innate taste +and nationality to save herself, she must go the popular way to +obliteration. So much else had gone! But later, at the Hotel de Luz, +untouched yet by the hand of imported cupidity, my happiness in Havana +returned. + + * * * * * + +The Hotel de Luz, inimitably Cuban, with the shipping lying vaguely +behind an orderly foliage at the Muelle outside, had a dining-room +partly divided by wooden screens that merged informally into the +surrounding halls and spaces, and an air that was an accumulation of +tradition, like an invisible film lying over everything. A +multiplication of unexpected adventitious detail accomplished, in its +entity, the strangeness, at once enticing and a little sinister, +characteristic of Havana. There was, lurking about, in the darker +corners and passages, a feeling almost of dread, uncomfortable to meet. +And, exploring, I passed a room without windows, largely the color of +dried blood, the quintessence of a nightmare. The third floor, laid in a +triangle of, perhaps, ninety degrees, raised immense corridors paved in +black and white marble blocks, down the long perspective of which moving +figures were reduced to furtive mannikins and voices were lost in an +upper murmur. + +I sat, for a while, in a walnut rocking chair at an end of the sweep, +which amazed me by an architecture, the impressiveness of which +approached oppression. A wall was broken by a file of slatted doors, and +from one of these came the minute irritable clatter of a typewriter; the +bell at the finish of a line sounded like the shiver of a tapped glass, +and a child spoke. It was difficult to think of the Hotel de Luz as a +place of normal residence, as existing at all except in the mental +fantasias of Piranesi--it resembled exactly one of his sere vertiginous +engravings. Yet it was, I knew, the favorite hotel of travelers from the +Canary Islands. + +Continuing to rock slightly and smoke, I pursued the extremely recondite +subject of just such impressions as I had there received: a very +important inquiry, for it had to do with the secret, the unintelligible +heart, of my writing. There was, obviously, in the Hotel de Luz nothing +intrinsically terrifying, strange. My attitude toward it would be +dismissed as absurd by the Canary Islanders. But the effect it produced +on me was tangible, ponderable; it tyrannized over my imagination and +drove it into corridors of thought as sombre as that in reality before +me. I had seen the Piranesi engravings when I was very young and +painfully susceptible to mental darkness and fears; and they had +undoubtedly left their indelible mark ... now brought out by the black +and white marble squares diminishing with the walls in parallel lines. + +The reality of what I felt, then, lay in the combining of the +surroundings and my imagination--a condition, a result, if not unique, +at least unlikely to be often repeated. The sum of another emotional +experience and the Hotel de Luz would be totally different, but equally +true with my own; and from that confusion misunderstanding arose. The +actuality was neither concrete nor subjective; yet, woven of these +double threads, it was absolute. The individuality of places and hours +absorbed me; there was no word in English to express my meaning--the +perception of the inanimate moods of place. It belonged, rather than to +the novel, to the painter, and possibly occupied too great a space in my +pages. Certainly houses and night and hills were often more vivid to me +than the people in or out of them. + +But it was no longer possible, if it had ever been, to disentangle one +from the other, the personal from what seemed the impersonal; for, while +nature was carelessly free from beauty and sentiment and morals, it had +been invested with each of these qualities in turn by a differently +developing intelligence. The elements of nature, partly in hand, were +arbitrarily and subconsciously projected in set forms. I stopped to +think how the mobility of mind perpetually solidified, like cement, +about itself; how fluid ideas, aspirations, always hardened into +institutions, then prisons, then mortuary vaults. Religion had done +this signally, both profoundly and superficially--it was impossible to +picture the faith of John Fox under the frescoes of La Merced Church, a +Methodist exuberance in St. Michael's at Richmond; the Roman ritual was +as much a thing of its silver altars as the Episcopal Church in Virginia +depended on historic communion services and austere box pews. + +Not only was I specially intent on these values: my inability to see men +as free from them, as spiritual conquistadores, had been a cause of +difficulty in the popularity and sale of my books. I lacked both the +conceptions of man as an Atlas, holding up the painted globe, or an +individual mounting securely into perpetuity. If the latter were true, +if there were no death, the dignity of all the great tragic moments of +life and art, the splendor of sacrifice, was cheapened to nothing. I +would have gladly surrendered these for the privilege of continued +existence--in a sphere not dominated by hymnology--but, skeptical of the +future, all I possessed, my sole ideal, was a passionate admiration for +the courage of a humanity condemned to the loss of warm life. + +I had grown more serious than I intended, than, in Havana, was +necessary; what I had set out to discover was simply the explanation of +my feeling about the Hotel de Luz; but undoubtedly it was better for me +to accept emotions, merely to record them, than attempt analysis. + +I had had very little schooling in processes of exact thought, +practically no mental gymnastics. But this was not an imposed hardship +on which I looked back with regret--I had been free to fill my life with +scholastic routine, but balked absolutely: in class rooms a blankness +like a fog had settled over me, from which, after a short half-hearted +struggle, I emerged to follow what, namelessly, interested me. That, for +example, was precisely the manner of my stay in Havana. A course for +which the worst was predicted, specially since I persisted in writing. +And I could see how I'd be censured by the frugal-minded for such a book +as I was more than likely to bring to San Cristobal de la Habana. + +There was, in reality, no practical reason to write about it at all, +since it had been admirably and thoroughly described, the sights, +pleasures, and sounds, in reputable and laudatory paragraphs, a source +of pride to the natives. Here no one could predict, in my search, what +would seem important, to be transcribed--the colored glass above a +window, the sugar at the bottom of a cocktail--and my moral sense, of +course, would be as impotent as my political position was negligible. +Yet the qualities ignored by a more solemn intelligence than mine were +precisely what formed the spirit of Havana; their comprehension was +necessary to that perception of an inanimate mood of place. + +I was constantly in a disagreement with the accepted opinion of what +were, at bottom, the more serious facts, the determining pressures of +existence; and it had always been at the back of my head to write a +novel built from just such trivialities as, it seemed to me, enormously +affected human fate. A very absorbing idea that had gone as far as an +introduction called A Preface of Imperishable Trifles; but the +realization that I had begun in that manner--a suspicious circumstance +in a novel,--where no shadow of an explanation, a justification, was +permissible, led me to put it away. It was the serious defect of the +novel that it commonly resembled the mechanism of an ingenious lock in +which the key turned smoothly for the flinging open, at the appropriate +moment, of a door upon a tableau of justice. It lacked almost entirely +the fatalities of sheer chance, of inconsiderable accidents, which gave +life its characteristic insecurity. + +I had left the Hotel de Luz for echoing stone galleries and streets and +empty paved plazas when I told myself that mine would have simply been a +story of shifted emphasis, for which I should have used my own memories, +since I recalled the wallpaper of a music room after thirty years more +clearly than the details of my father's death, happening when I was +practically mature. The unavoidable conclusion of this was that the +paper, in a way I made no pretence to explain, bore upon me more deeply +than my father; and, with that in view, it was perhaps as well that the +story had remained unwritten. + + * * * * * + +Some of these considerations returned to my mind the following +afternoon, when my fancy had been captured by a woman on a balcony of +the Malecon. The house was small, crushed between two imposing +structures that had been residences but were now apartments, scarcely +two stories and set back of the line, with the balcony at a lower +window. The woman was neither young nor lovely, but, folded in a shawl, +it might have been one of the lost mantillas, she was invested with a +melancholy dignity. It was possible, in the briefest passage, to see not +only her history but the story of a decade, of a vanished greatness +lingering through a last afternoon before extinction--a gesture of Spain +finally submerged in the western seas of skepticism. + +I was extraordinarily grateful to her for standing wrapped with the +shawl in immobile sadness. That was all I wanted from her, the most +indeed, she could give: apart from the balcony, hurrying along the +street with the black lace drawn closely about her head, she would have +been meaningless. The hour in which I saw her, too, the swiftly fading +radiance, had its inevitable part in the effect she produced. I had, I +realized, no wish to restore her to either youth or happiness, I didn't +want to improve her, or the case of Spain, in any way; she was perfect +for my purpose, so eminently selfish, as she was. In begging, in +imagination, the women of Havana to remain on their balconies, I hadn't +given a thought to their welfare or desires. + +The truth was that I regarded them as a part of their iron grilling, +figures on a canvas, the balconies and women inseparable from each +other. It might well be that this was no more than the intolerable +oppression of the past incongruously thrust upon the present, and that +at any minute the women, in righteous indignation and revolt, would step +down into life. But if they were to do that, I hoped it would be put +off until I had returned to the land of the feminine free; I didn't want +to be present when the balconies were definitely deserted for the +publicity of the Sevilla. I should regret their loss heavily, those +points of vantage gracefully ranged across the brilliant facades of +Havana. For there was no other city where balconies were so universal, +so varied, and so seductive. I recalled a balcony high over the Rond +Point de Plain-palais, in Geneva, where, on the left, could be seen the +blue line of the Jura and on the right, through the mounting Rue de +Carouge, the abrupt green cliff of the Salve. Curiously, there were a +great many balconies in Geneva giving on many beautiful prospects--the +Promenade des Bastions and La Treille, the Cite and bridged water; but +they were no more than pleasant, they had no deep significance whatever. +The balconies of Charleston were rather galleries turned privately on +gardens and not upon the streets; while those over the banquettes of New +Orleans, of the vieux carre, had long ago been emptied of their +flowered muslins. + +The popularity of balconies, their purpose, had remained, until now at +least, largely unchanged in Havana. On Sol Street, in the neighborhood +of Oficios and where it met the harbor, they solidly terminated their +tall windows, reached the heights of discreet tradition. There the way +was so narrow that a head above must be bent forward to see what was +passing, affording a clear view of high comb and bright lips, +provocative in the intimacy of their suggestion. The balconies of the +Malecon looked out, conversely, across the unbroken tide of the sea--in +the afternoon, when it was fair, a magical sweep of unutterable blue. +Yet they had suffered a decline--as though the constant noise of +automobiles had rent an evanescent spirit. + +The women there might see, as they chose, either the parade of fashion +or the grey walls and the far horizon; but from the balconies of the +Prado only the former was visible, the whirling motor cars and the +pedestrians in the rows of India laurels. Here the balconies through the +early and late evening were crowded; the chatter, the gesticulations and +smiles, evident on the street. The clothes, however, were no longer +Spanish in characteristic detail, but Parisian; while the essential +atmosphere, the color, of the balconies remained. In carnival--I had +just missed it--they were hung with serpentine and exchanged +bombardments of roses and compliments with the street; but now their +fastness, except to the flutter of a hand, was absolute. + +I saw a group of girls at an impressive window of the Prado, on the +corner of either Trocadero or Colon Street, all in white except for the +clear scarlet of one, like a blazing camellia among gardenias; and, for +a day after, their dark loveliness stayed in my mind. They had had tea, +probably, in the corner of a high cool room with a marble floor, +furnished in pale gilt. I had no doubt that a piano had been played for +a brief explanatory dancing, the trial of new steps neither French nor +Spanish, but American. Some of them, I knew, had been at school in New +York--probably Miss Spence's, where balconies were not cultivated--and I +wondered what they thought about the Havana to which they had returned. +Well, if the Cuban men, the fathers and suitors and husbands, preferred +to keep the historic architecture of their society, of their climate, a +convent of some Sacred Heart would be wiser than a celebrated American +finishing school. + +The New York scene, however carefully veiled and chaperoned, was a +disquieting preparation for the Prado, or even Vedado. What the life on +an estancia was, I couldn't imagine; I had been told that, for a woman, +oftener than not, it was still a model of Castilian rigidity. It had, in +fact, been suggested to me that I write the story of such a girl, shut +away from everything that she had been permitted to see and desire. +Unquestionably a splendid subject, one of the vessels that would hold +everything an ability could pour into it. I realized at once which, in +that individual struggle, must conquer--the heredity of Cuba would be +more powerful than an isolated feminine need. The other women, the +elders, who surrounded her, would be as relentless as any husband, and +in the end she'd become fat and listless. + +Widely different balconies held my attention--on one, flooded with the +morning sun, two women with carnation cheeks and elaborately dressed +hair, but for the rest strikingly informal, laughed an invitation to me +that took no account of the hour. They were, I suppose, tawdry, the +cheap familiars of a cheap street; but the gay orange wall where they +lounged like the painted actors of a zarzuela, their yellow satin +slippers and shoulders impudently bare above chemises pink and blue, all +gave them a certain distinction. Again, in the section of Jesus del +Monte, there were buildings brilliantly and impossibly painted, usually +with cafes on the ground, whose balconies, exposed to an intolerable +heat, overlooked dingy sun-baked fields. They were always empty.... I +could never imagine their use--for there was not only nothing to see, +but no one to be seen by. The houses of Havana, admirable in the +closeness of the city, possible in a bougainvillia-smothered suburb, +were depressingly inappropriate to any contact with the country. They +were lost, detached or strayed away from their fellows; for the happy +plan of the country house was that of exposure to all the favorable +winds that blew, to verandas and open halls rather than balconies and +patios: it was merged into vistas and not relentlessly and jealously +shut on every face. + +A fact that had nothing to do with the tropics or the outskirts of +Havana, where wide dusty stone avenues dropped abruptly in soft roads, +and the balconies were added purely from habit. My own balcony, at the +Hotel Inglaterra, was ideally placed, with its command of an angle of +the Parque Central. I often sat there before dinner, or past the middle +of night; there was always, then, a wind stirring over San Rafael +Street; but the balconies on either side of me, above and below, were +invariably empty, their purpose, it was plain, mistrusted. + + * * * * * + +The patios of Havana, turned so uncompromisingly from the street, were, +perhaps for that reason, even more engaging than the balconies. I saw +them, except those of the government buildings and others semi-public, +through opening or half open doors, or sometimes I looked down into them +from superior heights. They, too, were countless in variety, from the +merest kitchen areas and places of heaped refuse to lovely garden rooms +of flowers and glazed tiling and fountains. This sense of privacy, of +enclosure, in a garden was their most charming feature; and the +possibilities and implications of a patio created a whole social life +with which I was necessarily unfamiliar. They were, usually, in the +hours I knew them, empty but for passing servants ... obviously their +time was late afternoon or evening: fixed to the inner walls were the +iron brackets of lamps, and it was easy to imagine them dimly lighted +and flooded with perfume, with the scent of magnolias and the whisper of +the fountains. + +These details, separately, were not rare, but shut into the masonry of +Havana, their beauty shown in momentary glimpses on streets of blank +walls, their fragrance drooping into unexpected barren places, the +patios stirred my inherent desires. As usual, I didn't want to be gazing +at them from without, but to be a part of their existence: I wanted to +sleep on one, in a room nothing but a stone gallery, or watch the +moonlight slip over the leaves of the crape myrtles and the tiles and +sink into the water. But not to-day, for there were discordant sounds +through the arches with slender twisted Moorish pillars--the subdued +harshness of mechanical music, the echoes of that dissatisfaction which +was everywhere now recognized as improvement. I demanded guitars. + +The masculine chords of the guitar, the least sentimental of +instruments, as the Spaniards were the least sentimental of people, the +deep vibration of resinous stopped strings, was the perfect +accompaniment to that color visible and invisible. Invisible! Always +that, first and most potent. The perpetuity of atmosphere through +transmitted feeling was far more absorbing than the other chimera, of +incorruption. It was tradition, more than moonlight, that steeped the +patios with kindled obscure romantic longings. Within their formal +squares they held the spirit of a great history and of two great races, +two continents. They, the patios, were the East in the West, the +Moroscos on the Peninsula. + +The dress of the present, even the floating films of the women, was +misplaced; these were, in reality, the courtyards of the Orient, and +they needed the dignity of grave robes and gestures, bearded serenity. +In them, initially, women had been flowers lightly clasped with bands of +rubies and dyed illusory veils; there had been no guitars then, but +silver flutes. However, I had no desire to be a part of that time; it +was Spain that possessed me, and not in Grenada but Cuba, during the +Captain-generalship of the Conde de Ricla, in the seventeen sixties +when the British conquests under Albemarle were returned to the island. +That was a period of building and prosperity, the fortifications of San +Carlos and Atares were established, Morro and the Cabanas refashioned, +and the streets and houses of Havana named and numbered. The decline of +Spain, a long imperceptible crumbling, had already begun, but its effect +was not visible in Cuba; there still was a Castilian arrogance burned +more brown, more vivid, by the Caribbean. + +A little late for the plate ships sailing in cloudy companies and +filling Havana with the swords of Mexico and Peru; but my mind and +inclinations were not heroic; I could dispense with Pizarro's soldiers, +fanciful with the ornaments of the Incas, for the quiet of walled +gardens, the hooped brocades of court dresses; all the transplanted +grace of the city and hour. Climate was greater than man, and the first +Cubenos, dead in the mines of Cobre, were being revenged for the +usurpation of their happiness and land; the negroes of the slave trade, +too, were repaying their chains to the last link of misery. But these +counter influences were not perceptible yet in the patios, just as the +French Revolution had still to scatter the polite pastorals only to +survive in the canvases of Boucher and Watteau. + +It was, in Havana as well as Seville, the farewell of true formality, +for after that it became only a form. No one, afterwards, was to bow +instinctively as he left a room or dance to the measures of Beethoven +and Mozart. A useless plant cut down by a rusty scythe! The elegance of +Cuba, however, changing into later Victorianism, was, in the time of de +Ricla, greatly enhanced by its surrounding, by the day before yesterday +when there had been only thatched bohios where now were patios of +marble. Those quiet spaces were sentient with all this, just as the +patios of the churches held the sibilant whisper of the sandals of the +Inquisition, an order already malodorous and expelled from the island by +Antonio Maria Bucarely, the following Captain-general. + +But even yet it would be possible, with the details carefully arranged, +to find an emotional situation in a patio undisturbed since the middle +eighteenth century; for the revenge of the Cubenos and of Africa, of the +red and the black slaves, was that, with the faint or full infusion of +their bloods into their conquerors, dwindled unintelligible desires and +dreamlike passions entered as well. A discoloration of the mind as +actual as the darkening of the skin! And I pictured an obscure impulse +buried in the personality of a sensitive and reserved man, such a trait +as, at moments of extreme pressure, would betray him into a hateful +savagery; or it might be better brought out by a galling secret +barbarity of taste. The Spain of Philip, primitive Africa, and a +virginal island race constrained into one body and spirit must be richly +dramatic. + +It was imperative to regard the patios in such a light, with a strong +infusion of reality, for, half apprehended, they produced that thin +tinkling note of sham romance; they evoked, for a ready susceptibility, +the impressions of opera bouffe ... a danger constantly present in my +thoughts. As it was, I should be accused again of avoiding the actual +and the difficult for an easy unreality; but there was at least this to +be said for what I had, in writing, laid back in point of time--no one +had charged me with an historical novel. + +There was another, perhaps safer, attitude toward the balconies and +patios of Havana: to regard them in an unrelieved mood of realism, to +show them livid with blue paint and echoing with shrill misery, typhoid +fever, and poverty. If I did that, automatically a number of serious +critical intellects would give me their withheld support, they would no +longer regard me as a bright cork floating thoughtlessly over the opaque +depths of life. Well, they could--they'd have to--go to the devil; for I +had my own honesty to serve, my own plot to tend--a plot, as I have +said, where, knowing the effort hopeless, I tried only to grow a flower +spray. If I could put on paper an apple tree rosy with blossom, someone +else might discuss the economy of the apples. + +Or, in Havana, of the oranges. In the meanwhile the patios gave me an +inexhaustible pleasure. Sometimes the walls were glazed with tiles and +the octagonal surface of the fountain held the reflected tracery of +bamboo, while a royal palm towered over the balusters of the roof and +hanging lamps were crowned with fretted metal. Another, with its flags +broken and the basin dry, was deserted except for the soundless +flame-like passage of chromatic lizards; still another was bare, with +solid deep arcades and shadows on the ground and a second gallery of +gracefully light arches. There was, in one, a lawn-parasol in +candy-colored stripes with low wicker chairs and gay cushions; on a +table some tall glasses elbowed a syphon, English gin, and a silver dish +of limes, and a blue-and-yellow macaw was secured to a black lacquer +stand. + + * * * * * + +That, evidently, was not characteristic of Havana, and yet the city +absorbed it, made it a part of a complex richness, a complexity as +brilliantly blended as a rainbow. At first I had been entranced by the +sudden colorful display, it had seemed to be in one marvellously high +key; but now I recognized that it was composed of the entire scale, and +that there were notes profoundly dark. I should have known that, for I +had been, when I was much younger, a painter, and I had learned that +surfaces which seemed to be in one tone were made up of a hundred. The +city, of course, was an accumulation of the men who had made it, the +women who had lived there; and it was possible that Havana had as +intense and varied a foundation as any place that had existed. + +Not in the sense, the historical importance of, for example, Athens; I +had already said that Havana was a city without history, which was true +in the cumulative, inter-human meaning of that term. But it had, within +its limits, on its island like a flower in air, an amazing and absorbing +past. In the beginning, where Spain was concerned, Cuba, a fabulous +land, had promised fabulous gold; but the empires of the Aztecs and +Peru, incalculably richer, and the fatal dream of eternal youth in +Florida, had robbed it of royal interest, of men, food, and ships. It +had settled back, lost to most concern beyond a perfunctory colonial +administration, into a region of agriculture, affected only indirectly +by, and affecting not at all, the universal upheaval elsewhere. Within +Havana itself, then, moulded by the burning sun, the cooling night +winds, and the severing water, a peculiarly essential human development +had taken place. And its history was, for this reason, elusive, most +difficult to grasp; hopelessly concealed from a mere examination of +bastions. + +One by one the colors of its fantastic design grew clearer to me; period +by period the streets and people became intelligible, until they reached +the middle-century era to which I was so susceptible. To arrive, with +the ingredients of a tropical Spain and the pirates of the world, at an +early Victorianism was a mystery which demanded a close investigation. +That air enveloped all the center of the city, its paseos and plazas +and buildings, and still influenced the social life. This, I finally +decided, came from the fact that the architectural spirit which +dominated Havana was of the period before Eastlake; or at least I was +not familiar with any structures erected in such a style, so lavishly +marble, since then. + +There was no absence of modernity in the wharfs and streets, but that +loud impetuous tide poured through the ways of a quieter water, and in +the side passages the sound diminished. Havana was a great port, but the +steam shipping along its waterfront was incongruous with the low +tranquil whiteness, the pseudo-classicism, of the buildings that held +along the bay. The latter particular, elaborated from my first +impression, carried the city back to the end of the eighteenth century +and the beginning of the nineteenth. I had no intention of examining the +dates of numerous structures, but the stamp of their time was on the +Ionic entablatures. Then women, as well, had copied in their dress the +symbol of the Greek column, of sculpture instead of painting, except +for the charming and illogical innovation of turbans; and they went +about in sandals and gowns falling straight from their looped breasts. +Such a figure, with her head bound in vermilion, must have been enticing +in the great shaded bare rooms. There must have been, too, an +extraordinary assemblage of negro pages and majordomos in ruby silks and +canary and velvet. + +The feminine silhouette changed remarkably in thirty years, from a +column to a cone, from the ultimate in flowing lines to a bouquet-like +rigidity; and the severity of furnishings, of incidentals, expanded in +queer elaborations. It was, notably, a period of prudery, of all which, +objectively, I disliked; while at the same time there had been the +undercurrent of license that always accompanied an oppressive hypocrisy. +This, I could see, was true of its age in Havana: men--the real +prudes--had been heavily whiskered at home with a repressed morality, +and betrayed in another quarter by heredity and the climate. Two periods +that, except for some beautiful books, had been steeped in an ugliness +from which the world had not recovered. Indeed, while it was now +fashionable to deride them, the present was, in some ways, perceptibly +worse: Literature was, perhaps, bolder in scope, but it showed hardly +more than a surprise at the sound of its comparative liberty of speech. +The art of painting had burst into frantic fragments that might or might +not later be assembled into meaning; the architecture had degenerated +into nothing more than skilful or stupid adaptation. + +In the large disasters that were sweeping the world, the mad confusion +of injustice and revolt, of contending privilege, the serene primness of +Havana, its starched formality of appearance, offered a priceless +quietude. It was, at once, static and mobile, a place of countless moods +that merged at the turning of a corner, the shifting of a glance from La +Punta to the circular bandstand at the foot of the Prado. Never +pedantic, it was a city more for the emotions than the intellect; +intellect, in its astigmatic conceit, had largely overlooked Havana; +and Havana had missed little enough. Its monuments and statues, where +they were complacently innocent of art, had been brought into harmony of +tone by the atmosphere vivid like the flambeau trees, the inconceivable +blueness of its sea. The colors of the houses, glaringly or palely +inappropriate, were melted and bound into inevitable rightness. Even the +cemetery, frosted with tombs like a monstrous iced cake, its shafts that +might have been the crystallized stalagmites of the caves of death, +resembled nothing more disturbing than the lacy pantalets of the time it +celebrated. It was the final accomplishment of mid-Victorian horror, +with its pit of mouldering bones and solemn ritualistic nonsense; yet +the thought of the ponderous gold and black catafalques rolling in +procession between the horizontal white slabs, of the winking +candles--all the ghastly appendages of religious undertaking--and the +clergy in purple and fine cambric, with amethyst rings on their fat or +their thin fingers, gave it the feeling of a remote mummery. + +The cemetery from which I escaped with relief and the cafe that I +entered with pleasure--again the Telegrafo--flowed together in the +city's general impression. I could see the statue of Marti, and, as I +looked, it changed into the statue of Isabel; then that, too, vanished. +The broad paved avenue, the flagged walks, became a gravelled plaza +about which the girls promenaded in one direction to pass constantly the +youths circling in the other. The vision flickered and died, and I went +on to lunch through the Havana of so many days smoothly packed into one. + +I felt that my first sense of instinctive familiarity had been +justified; yet, in the corridor of the Inglaterra, asked by a traveler +how to get to a restaurant, the Dos Hermanos, I was unable to reply; and +a third American, brushing me aside, gave him voluble instructions. It +ended by his being taken out and seated in a hack, while the other, in +angry execrable and fluent Spanish, told the driver where to proceed. +Whatever I had learned, it seemed, was of no practical value; my +multiple sensations were not reducible to the simplest demand. A woman +passed with a copy of an ultra popular novel, and this recalled the long +struggle of my early books for the smallest recognition. If that dark +frame of mind had fastened on me in the north, it would have burdened me +for a day; but in Havana, with the Marquis de Riscal and a Por +Larranaga, I envied no mediocre novelist her stereotyped laurels. It was +impossible to get anywhere a better wine or a cigar that changed more +soothingly from the brown of fact to blue fancy. + + * * * * * + +The Cuban cigarettes, however, were too strong for pleasure; for, while +the preference for a strong cigar was admissible, cigarettes should be +mild. All those famous were. Strangely enough, good cigarettes had never +been smoked in the United States, a land with an overwhelming preference +for the cheap drugged tobacco called Virginia. No one would pay for a +pure Turkish leaf; with the exception of a few hotels and clubs it was +not procurable. There was a merchant on the Zulueta with a large +assortment of Cuban cigarettes, made in every conceivable shape and +paper, hebra and arroz and pectoral. They had tips of gilt or silver +paper, cork, straw, and colored silks, and were packed in enticing ways +and odd numbers. But, after trying their apparent variety, they all +seemed alike, as coarse and black in flavor as their tobacco. + +There were, of course, men who disagreed with me--though women never +liked a Cabanas or Henry Clay cigarette--and a connection of mine, a +judge, long imported from Cuba, through Novotny of New York, the +Honoradez tobacco for his cigarettes. He had been in Havana during the +Spanish occupation, and later; and, recalling him, I could see that he, +like myself, possessed an ineradicable fondness for it. In his case, +even, his memories might have affected his exterior, for he had a lean +darkness more appropriate to the Calzada del Cerro than to Chester +County. In summer particularly, with his immaculate linens, and the +brown cigarette casting a pungent line of smoke from his long sensitive +fingers, he was the image of a Spanish colonial gentleman. + +He had known Havana at a better time than now, when it was more +provincial, simpler; the hotels then were uncompromisingly locked at ten +in the evening, and if he returned later he was forced to call the negro +sleeping in the hall. I don't remember where he stayed--probably at the +Inglaterra. I was young and ignorant of Cuba when I saw him, with a +certain frequency, before he died; and I heard his talk about the Parque +Central with no greater interest than his discussions of salmon fishing, +of Sun and Planet reels and rods split and glued. I realized sharply +what I had missed, both in the way of detail--the detail most important +to a mental picture and always missing--and in intimate understanding of +Cuban affairs. For he had a tonic mind, rare in America, unsentimental +and courageous, and touched with a satirical quality disastrous to sham, +social, religious, or political. + +The cigarettes came to him in bright tin boxes of a hundred; and, after +his death, I bought seven from Novotny and smoked the contents almost by +way of memorial; for he was a personality of a type almost gone. Judges +of County Courts no longer wore immaculate high hats to the Bench, with +the vivid corner of a bandanna handkerchief visible in the formality of +their coat tails. + +The silk-tipped cigarettes were for women, but the silk was principally +a villainous carmine, a color fatal to the delicate charm of lips, and I +hoped that I should see none so thoughtless as to smoke them; while the +cigarettes all of tobacco were, frankly, impossible. Why, I couldn't +say; they simply wouldn't do. What women I saw smoking in public, in the +cafes and at the races, were not Cubans. They, on view, neither smoked +nor drank anything but refrescos. But a different feminine world, at +their doors or over the counters of bodegas, enjoyed long formidable +cigars. + +An amusing convention, a prejudice really; an act, in women, condemned +from the associations in men's minds, synonymous with that gaiety they +so painstakingly kept out of their homes. Yet, in spite of them, women +smoking had become a commonplace in the United States. In Havana men +were still paramount ... and Victorian. On the Obispo cigarette-cases +from Toledo, of steel inlaid with gold, were for sale; but I'd had +experience with Toledo work--the steel rusted. For years I'd bought +cigarette cases and holders before I finally learned that the former +were a nuisance and that the latter destroyed the flavor of tobacco. I +had owned cases in metal and leather and silk, patented and plain, and +one by one they were mislaid and given away. I had smoked with holders +of ivory and jet and tortoise shell, wood and amber and quills, and +they, too, had disappeared. All that could be said for them was that +they looked well and saved the fingers from nicotine stains. + +The Turkish cigarettes in Havana were unremarkable, yet, for the Cuban +youth, the sign of worldliness. They disdained the local brands, but +even Cuba was powerless to depreciate her cigars, the best of all +countries and all times. Here was an accomplishment, a possession, of +unique importance and excellence, for tobacco belonged to the +irreducible number of necessities. I had survived prohibition, with the +assistance of a forethought unhappily limited in execution; but if the +absurdity of my country abolished tobacco, I should be forced to move to +England; that would be too much. I could imagine, in this case, what +comments would appear in the press, reminding the virtuous and patriotic +that my books had always been chargeable with immorality and a blindness +to the splendor of our national ideals. + +In the past I had suffered a particularly wretched nervous breakdown--it +hit me like a bullet in the Piazza della Principe in Florence; and when +I had politely been sent to Switzerland to die, an English doctor at +Geneva cured me, for most practical purposes, by impatience, black +coffee, and Shepherd's Hotel cigarettes. I had no doubt that smoking +was, in many ways, a very deleterious habit; but life itself was a bad +habit condemned to the worst of ends. I was, as well, very apt to have +little in common with men who didn't smoke, or, I should say, with men +who had never smoked. They were, with practically no exceptions, +precisians, and ate, lived, for their health rather than for the tang of +delicate sauces and sensations. And a long while ago a wise and charming +woman had lamented to me the fact that all the generosity and +attractiveness she met in men belonged to what were colloquially called +drunks.... Her feeling was the same as mine. + +I wasn't defending drunkenness or attacking the statistics against +smokers; what I felt, I think, in such men was the presence of a +fallibility to which, at awkward or tragic moments, they yielded and so +became companions of sorrow and charity, the great temperers of +humanity. At any rate, I demanded enough liberty, at least, to fill my +system with smoke if I willed. The possibility that my act might hurt +someone else failed to excite me--why should I bother with him when I +wasn't concerned about myself! There was too much officious paternalism +in the air, too many admonitions and not enough lightness of heart--of +tobacco heart if necessary. + +In addition, I wasn't sure that I wanted to be perfectly sanitary in +mind and body, any more than I was certain of the complete desirability +of a perfected world, of heaven. At once, there, my lifelong occupation +would be gone--novelists never stopped to think what would happen to +them if all the reforms for which they shouted should go into effect; +and I had a disturbing idea that a great deal of my pleasure in life +came from feelings not always admissible in, shall I say, magazines of a +general character. A clean mind and a pure heart were not without +chilling suggestions of emotional sterility. Since men had hopelessly +and forever departed from the decency of simple animals, I wanted to +enjoy the silken and tulle husks that remained. If there was a sedative +in cigars, an illusion in a Daiquiri cocktail, I proposed to enjoy it +at the expense of a problematic month or year more of life always open +to the little accidents of pneumonia or spoiled milk or motors. + + * * * * * + +What might be called the minor pleasures of life, though in their bulk +were vastly more important than the great moments, Havana had carried to +a high state of perfection; yet with, where I was concerned, an +exception not in favor of the theatre. I went, as I had determined, to +whatever offered, swept along by the anticipation of Spanish dancing and +music: the first was immeasurably the best in existence, and I liked the +harsh measures of Spanish melody, both the native songs of the +countryside and the sophisticated arrangements by Valverde. A great many +skilful writers had described the dancing, and their accounts were well +enough, but, politely, they all lacked the fundamental brutality of the +jota and malaguena, just as the foreign operatic variations on Spanish +themes were reminted in a smooth and debased universal coin. + +I purchased a ridiculously flimsy scrap of paper, which, I was assured, +made me the possessor of a grille principal at the Pairet Theatre--a +box, as huge as it was bare, within the stage. I could see, under the +hood, the long dramatic hand of the prompter waving to the droning +monotony of his voice through the stupidest performance I remembered. It +was, by turn, a comedy, a farce, a pantomime, and a comic opera, and a +complete illustration of the evils of departing from national tradition +and genius--a dreary attempt at the fusion of Vienna and New York, +planned, obviously, for a cosmopolitan public superior to the rude +familiar strains of gypsies. + +At intervals a chorus of young women, whose shrill excitement belied +their patent solidity, made an incongruous appearance and declamation; +they grouped themselves in feeble designs, held for a moment of +scattered applause, and went off with a labored lightness that +threatened even their ankles. This was bad, but a revista--I could +think of nothing else to call it--at the Marti was, because it was so +much better, worse. There I had an ordinary palco, enclosed by a railing +from the promenade and elevated above the body of an audience composed +of every possible shade from fairest noon to unrelieved midnight. The +evening was divided into two performances, for the second of which, +Arco-Iris, a largely increased price was demanded. This was, again, +Vienna and Broadway, but with, in addition, an elaboration of color and +lighting ultra-modern in intent. + +I had seen the same effort ten years before in Paris, and the failure +was as marked in Spanish as in French. Mr. Ziegfield, assisted by the +glittering beauty of the girls he was able to secure, had made such +spectacles brilliantly and inimitably his own. The Latins knew nothing, +really, about legs: they showed them with what was no more than a +perfunctory bravado, while it was a peculiarity of shoulders--the art of +which they so daringly comprehended--that their effect was lost in +mass. The display, the extravagant settings and costumes, of Arco-Iris, +were, throughout, mechanical; the coryphees were painfully aware of +their dazzlements; and an Andalusian number, looked forward to with +weary eagerness, had been deprived of every rude and vigorous suggestion +of its origin. + +When I returned to the Inglaterra I demanded of a clerk where I could +find a vulgar performance of, for instance, the habanera, but he shook +his head doubtfully. At intervals, he admitted, Spanish dancers came to +the National Theatre; but--his manner brightened--Caruso was expected in +May. I had no intention of staying in Havana through May; and, had I +been there, I'd have avoided Caruso ... a singer murdered by the +Victrola. Already the seats for his concerts were a subject for +speculation, and it was clear that they would reach a gigantic price, +between forty and sixty dollars for a single place in the orchestra. In +this depressing manner Havana made it evident that it was a city both +fashionable and rich. + +There had been a time, too, I was informed, when all the uncensored +moving pictures of the world found a home in Cuba; pictures where +embraces were not limited to a meagre number of feet, nor layettes, the +entire ramifications of procreation, prohibited. But these were gone +from the general view. The films, though, had not been destroyed, and +for some hundreds of dollars a private performance might be arranged. +But this I declined. The moving picture industry had been brought +entirely from America, the theatres plastered with Douglas Fairbanks' +set grin, William Farnum's pasty heroics, and Mary Pickford's invaluable +aspect of innocence. Never, in the time I was in Cuba, did I see a +Spanish actor or film announced; although a picture, appropriate to +Lent, of the Passion, hinted at a different spirit. + +I became, then, discouraged by the formal entertainments. As usual, I +was too late; the process of improvement had everywhere marched slightly +ahead of me, substituting for the genuine note a borrowed false +emphasis. To-morrow I should hear the Salvation Army bawling in Obispo +Street. In a state of indifference I went to Carmelo, a dancing pavilion +with an American cabaret, and drifted to the table where the singing and +dancing profession were having their inevitable sandwiches and beer. A +metallic young person with brass hair, a tin voice, and a leaden mind, +conversed with me in the special social accent of her kind, ready in +advance with a withering retort for any licentious proposals. Beside her +sat a Mexican with an easy courtesy and an enigmatic past. He was, I +gathered, the son of an official who, in one of the exterminating +changes of government, had escaped over a wall in his pearl studs and +dinner coat but little else. + +I liked everything about him but his indulgence for soda blondes; yet in +the serious conversation we at once opened--connected with a projected +trip of mine to the City of Mexico--we forgot the girl until, +exasperated by our neglect, she lost some of her manner in an inane +exclamation made, she announced, for the sake of Christ. Her companion +immediately returned to his engagement, and I watched the Americans more +or less proficient in that dance the name of which had been borrowed +from a woman's undergarment. It had begun as a chemise, but what it +would end in was problematic. + +Was it a healthy rebellion against the prudery of repression or the +adventitious excitation of imminent impotence? Whatever had brought it +about, it was stupid, an insensate jiggling of the body without +frankness or grace. I hadn't yet seen the Cuban rumba, with its black +grotesque negrito and sensual mulata; but I was confident that if a +rumba were started at Carmelo, the shimmy would resemble the spasmodic +vibrations of a frigid St. Vitus dance. The men and women doing it, +galvanized by drink and the distance from their responsibilities, +animated by the Cuban air, were prodigiously abandoned. They were, +mostly, commercial gentlemen and stiff brokers investigating sugar +securities, or the genial obese presidents and managers of steamship +companies. The presidents, the managers and brokers, were invariably +accompanied by their wives, who, for the most part, endeavored to +re-create the illusions and fervors of earlier days; but heaven knew +from where came the women for whom the representatives of Yankee +merchandise were responsible. + +Their origins were as mysterious as their age--strange feminine +derelicts stranded by temperament and mischance, caught in the +destructive web of the tropics. The dresses they wore were either +creations or makeshifts, but their urbanity was as solidly enamelled as +their hair was waved or marcelled. There was still another variety--I +had seen them before at expensive fishing camps--tightly skirted, +permanently yellow-haired, with stony faces and superfine diamonds. +Drunk or sober, their calmness was never changed by so much as a +flicker; they caught sail fish in the Gulf Stream, danced, ate, talked, +and now, certainly, were flying, with the same hard imperturbability and +display, in gold mesh bags, of their unlimited crisp money in high +denominations--the granite women on the wall of the Gallego Club. + + * * * * * + +My interest, however, in the American in Havana had vanished, my +position in life, avoidance rather than protest, and I surrendered him +to the hospitality of Cuba and the gambling concessions. I wanted, from +then on, only the local scene: there were cities where the foreigners, +the travelers, made an inseparable part of the whole, but this was not +true of Havana; it remained, in spite of the alien clamor, singularly +undisturbed, intact, in essence. But a few streets, a plaza or two, knew +the sound of English, and beyond these the voices, the stores, the +preoccupations, were without any recognition of other people or needs. I +began to wander farther from the cafes of the Parque Central, the open +familiarity of the sea, and found myself in situations where, in my lack +of Spanish, I was limited to the simplest, most plastic, desires. + +It was in this manner that I found ear-rings which I secured with a +sense of treasure--they were in the shop of a woman who sold embroidered +linen from Madeira and the Canary Islands, lying haphazard in the lid of +a paste-board box. The patio opened directly from the front room, the +store, an informal assemblage of dull white folded cloths and frothy +underclothes, and outside a very large family indeed was eating the noon +breakfast while a pinkly naked pointer dog lay on the cool tiles with +his feet extended stiffly upward. + +I was paying for some towels, and regretting--in a singular composite of +inappropriate words and banal smiles--the interruption of the meal, when +I saw the ear-rings; and immediately, in the face of all the warning and +advice wasted on me, I exclaimed that I wanted them. At this they were +laid on the counter, a reasonable price murmured, and the transaction +was over. I gathered that they had been left for sale by some member of +an old Cuban house, perhaps by a Baeza y Carvajal or Nunez: they were of +pale hand-carved and drawn gold, aged gold as yellow as a lemon--one +pair of open circles an inch in diameter, with seed pearls; the other +the shape of small delicate leaves, with pearls and topazes. + +A store unmarked in exterior but surprising within attracted me by some +Chinese-Spanish shawls, mantones, in a dusty show-case; and I discovered +a short, heavily-built Spaniard stringing the hair of a wig against a +background of scintillating costumes for the carnivals, balls, and +masques. We were unable to understand each other, his wife wrinkled her +forehead in desperation over my Spanish; and then, gesticulating +violently, she vanished to reappear with a neighbor, a woman who seemed +to have suffered all the personal misfortunes reserved for school +teachers, who made intelligible a small part of what we said. + +They had, it developed, other shawls, shawls worth my attention; one, in +particular, finer even than any of Maria Marco's. This engaged me at +once, for Maria Marco was the prima donna of a Madrid company which had +sung in the United States two years before, and which had given me, +perhaps, as great pleasure as anything I had seen on the stage. But not +so much for the singing--it had been the dancer, Doloretes, who +captivated me, a woman as brilliant as the orange-red shawl draped +before me over a chair, and suddenly, tragically, dead in New York. + +The wig-maker had had charge of the wardrobe of The Land of Joy, and he +assured me again that not Maria Marco.... Abruptly there was spread the +sinuous fringed expanse of a blazing green shawl heavily embroidered in +white flowers. I had never encountered a clearer, more intense green or +a whiter white; and, before I had recovered from the delightful shock of +that, a second shawl of zenith blue was flung beside it. The body of the +crepe-de-chine, the weight of its embroidery, the beautiful knotting of +the short fringe--long fringe was an error--and their sheer loveliness, +made them more desirable than jewels; and, prepared to buy them at once +at the price of whatever fiction anyone wanted me to write and would pay +absurdly for, I was lifting their heavy folds when a third mantone was +produced burning with all the gorgeous and violent colors imaginable. + +It was, I suppose, magenta--a magenta of a depth and wickedness +impossible for any but Eastern dye; the magenta of a great blossom of +hell--and it was embroidered with flowers like peonies, four spans +across, in a rose that was vermilion, a vermilion that was scarlet; and +the calyxes were orange and gamboge, emerald and peacock blue and +yellow. There were, too, golden roses, already heavy and drooping with +scent in the bud, small primitive blossoms with red hearts, dark green +leaves, and dense maroon coronals starred in white. The dripping fringe +was tied in four different designs.... + +I asked its price at once, in order to dispose of what couldn't help +being painful in the extreme, and he told me with an admirable +appearance of ease and inconsequence. The shop, that had been only half +lighted by the door, was now tumultuous with color, with China and +Andalusia; the shawl was the Orient and Spain, brutal in its superbness +and as exasperating, as audible, as castanets. However I might act, +hesitate, visibly, I knew that I'd buy it--in an instant it had become +as imperative to me as a consuming vice. It belonged, rightfully, to the +mistress of a Zuluoga or of a Portuguese king, to someone for whom money +was not even an incident; I couldn't afford it even if I wove it into a +story with a trace, a glimmer, of its splendor; but the next day the +shawl was in my room. + +Oppressed by a sense of monetary insanity not unfamiliar to me--I was +very apt to buy an Airedale terrier or a consol table with the sum +carefully gathered for an absolute necessity--I set about turning my new +possession into paragraphs and chapters; and it occurred to me that it +had a justified place in the Havana story I had already, mentally, +begun. The polite young men of the time, the decorative youth of all +times, were apt to have collectively a passion for a fascinating or +celebrated actress; and I saw that such a person--Doloretes--would be +important to my plan. Yes, my young figure and his fellows would go +nightly to see her dance. + +Afterward, crowded about a marble-topped table and helados, they would +discuss her every point with fervent admiration. Yet she would be too +vivid, too special, to take the foreground--I had wanted no paramount +women in the first place--and I decided ... to kill her almost at once, +to have her as a memory. My boy, most certainly, would find her shawl +exactly as I had; and, bringing it to his room, solemnly exhibit it to +his circle. More than that, I realized, it had given me a title, The +Bright Shawl. I instantly determined to cast the story in the form of a +memory told me by an old man of his youth; and that time, torn by +unhappiness, indecision, and hopeless aspirations, should be made, in +remembrance, brilliant and desirable, wrapped in the bright shawl which +transformed the lost past. + +A remarkably good story, I thought enthusiastically; and I fell to +speculating if George Lorimer would print it. He would give it, I told +myself, a wide margin of chance; but, in writing, uncomfortable +necessities often turned up in the course of narrative--I could leave +them out, and damn myself, or keep them and, maybe, damn the story in +the sense of its making possible my writing at all. Not that Mr. Lorimer +personally had any regard for emasculated chapters, but he was addressed +primarily to another integrity than mine; our purposes were not +invariably coincident. A fact which he, with his energetic candor +scoring pretentiousness, had made clear in his generous recognition of +where our paths met. + + * * * * * + +What was noticeable in The Bright Shawl was that I hadn't gone out for +material, but it had come to me, scene by scene, emotion by emotion. I +had never been able deliberately to set about collecting the facts for a +proposed story; I could never tell what impulse, need, would be strong +enough to overcome the laborious effort demanded for its realization in +words. For this reason I was free to see what I chose without reference +to any ulterior purpose; and when, on a Sunday morning with the heat +tempered by a breeze lingering from the night, I started for the +cock-fighting at the suburb of Jesus del Monte, I was completely at +ease. I had decided in favor of the cock-pit both because it was +essentially Cuban and because I had always detested chickens, +particularly roosters. + +It was a thing of total indifference to me what--with steel spurs or +without--roosters did to each other. Alive, they were a constant galling +caricature, a crude illuminative projection, of men at their ridiculous +worst. Their feathered tails, their crowing, their propensity to search +for bits in the dung, their sheer roosterness, together with the sly +hypocrisy of hens, had always annoyed me individually. And, rather than +not, I looked forward to seeing them victimized by their own belligerent +conceit. + +I had to leave my cab for an informal way behind some buildings and +across grass, and, as I approached a false stucco facade, a determined +ringing crowing filled the air. Beyond the arched entrance there was an +area of pavement with tables and a limited cafe service; and, seated +near, was a grave individual with a shovel beard and a thoroughly +irritated rooster upside down in his lap. He was cementing a natural +spur over one that had been injured, and drinking, now and again, from a +cup of coffee at his hand. Beyond was the pit, like, as much as +anything, a tall circular corn-crib, painted white, with a cupola. There +was place for about three hundred, with box-like seats whose low hinged +doors opened directly on the sawdust of the arena, more casual chairs, +and--as at the pelota--space for standing on the middle tiers. There was +a box above the entrance, and another opposite, and this an enormous +woman in white embroidery and carpet slippers, and I occupied. + +A main had just been finished, and there was a temporary lull in the +noise inseparable, in Cuba, from sport. The sawdust was being freshly +sprinkled when a negro entered the ring with an animated bag; and, +noting the elaborate polished brass scales that hung from the center of +the roof, I gathered that the birds were to be weighed. The second was +produced, tightly bagged, by a highly respectable-appearing man of +unimpeachable whiteness and side whiskers, and the roosters were left to +dangle from the yard. It was to be a battle al peso, by weight and equal +spurs; the first condition satisfied, the spurs were measured, by a +graduated set of pewter tallies; and the uproar was released. + +It was deafening--a solid shouting of bets offered in a voice of fury, +together with acceptances, repudiations, personalities, and the frenzied +waving in air of handfuls of money. The two men with the roosters +advanced toward each other and wooden lines laid in the pit, prodding +and otherwise increasing the natural ill humor of their birds, and held +the shorn heads close for a vicious preliminary peck. The roosters' +legs, shaved to an indecent crimson, were bare of hold, every +superficial feather had been clipped; and when they hit the sawdust +there was a clash as of metal. The methods of their backers were +different--the negro, in one of the local coat-like shirts with a +multiplicity of useless pockets and plaits, squatted on his heels, +impassive, fateful, and African; but the man with the orthodox +side-whiskers became at once the victim of a hoarse whispering +excitement. As the other's bird reeled drunkenly about--they were badly +matched and the main no affair at all--his pallid face flushed and he +suggested new atrocities to his champion. + +This, it seemed to me, was totally unnecessary, for a wickeder rooster I +was convinced never lived. He was deliberate in his tactics, unwilling +to be robbed of his pleasure by a chance coup de grace, and confined +himself to the beak. Soon his opponent leaned helplessly against the +wall of the pit, while the victor methodically pecked him to death in +small bloody pieces. The negro's face, couched on a charcoal-black palm, +was as immobile as green bronze; but the white was positively epileptic +with triumph. And, when the defeated bird sank in a spoiled dead knot, +he picked his up and, with expressions of endearment, sucked clear its +angry eyes. The preliminaries were again gone through with, and two +large handsome roosters were confronted by each other. As the surging +clamor beat about them I saw that one was undecided in his opinion of +what promised. He flapped his wings doubtfully; and then, as the other +made a short rush forward, he turned and ran as fast as his shorn legs +could carry him. This, considering the contracted round space of his +course, was very fast indeed; the second, pursuing him with the utmost +energy, was unable to get closer than a fleet dab at the stripped tail. +It was a flight not without a desperate humor; but this, it was clear, +was appreciated by no one besides me. + +The execrations, the screams, that followed the retreating bird were +beyond belief; the entire banked audience was swept by a passion that +left some individuals speechlessly lifting impotent fists. Unaffected by +this, the rooster, slightly leaned toward the center of gravity, went +around and around the pit with an unflagging speed that should have +commanded an independent admiration for itself. Occasionally the +pursuer, in a feat of intelligence, cut directly across the sawdust, and +a collision threatened ... but it never quite arrived. I lost interest +in the hurled curses, the hats twisted in excesses of rage, in +everything but the duration of the running rooster. It was remarkable; +he had settled down to putting all he had of strength and reserve into +his single purpose. + +He had no will to fight, and, personally understanding and sympathizing +with him completely, I hoped his wish would be respected: while he had +provided no main, he had faithfully substituted a most unlooked-for and +thrilling race; making for all time and nations and breeds of chickens a +record for a thousand times around a cock-pit. In some places he would, +perhaps, have been released, returned to the eminence of a barn-yard; +but not in Cuba. When it had been thoroughly demonstrated that he was +uncatchable by his rival, he was incontinently seized and both roosters +were carried, panting and bald-eyed, to a subsidiary ring beyond, not +half the size of the principal pit, where running, or any discretion, +was an impossibility. + +I saw him go with regret; he deserved a greater consideration, and I +hoped that, metaphorically in a corner, he would turn and be victorious. +A new individual, a small brown man in soiled linen, had entered the +box, and he at once, in a slow, painful, but intelligible English, +opened a conversation with me. He had, he said, a consuming admiration +for Americans, and as an earnest of his good will he proposed to let me +in on what, in the North, was called a good thing. It was no less than +the cautious information that in the next fight a dark chicken, a +chicken carrying a betting end as long as the Prado, had been entered by +President Menocal's brother. I could, with a wave of the hand, make a +small fortune: for himself, he was unfortunate--he possessed but eleven +dollars and odd pesetas. + + * * * * * + +I made some non-committal remark and turned a shoulder on his +friendliness for Americans, conscious of a distinct annoyance at having +been mistaken for, well--a tourist. There was no inherent inferiority in +that transient state of being; but it was a characteristic of the +settlers of any given place--settlers of at least forty-eight +hours--that they should regard with tolerant amusement the new and the +uninformed. He did, I thought, my clothes, my cigar, my whole air of +sophisticated comprehension, an injustice; he should have recognized +that I was not an individual to accept readily public confidential +information. + +The birds were brought in and weighed, and the person in the box with me +and the billowing white embroidery and carpet slippers excitedly +indicated a lean cream-colored rooster with brown points. I fancied the +other more, and thought something of betting on him when the main +began--the brown bird of the brother of Menocal flashed forward, +launched himself into the air with a clash, and drove both spurs +through the head before him. It had occupied something more than five +but less than ten seconds. Too bad, a deferential voice murmured in my +ear, that I hadn't taken advantage of such an excellent opportunity to +get the better of all the too-wise ones. With but eleven dollars and +some silver he had been cramped.... My interest in cock-fighting faded +before an annoyance that drove me away from the Puente de Agua Dulce, +calculating how much, at the odds I missed, I should have gained. + +Money won at sheer gambling, at games of chance which involved no +personal skill or effort, always seemed hardly short of miraculous to +me--magical sums produced at the waving of a hand. Their possession gave +me a disproportionate pleasure and glow of well being; they seemed to be +the mark of a special favor; the visible gesture, the approbation, of +fortune and chance. I had had a lucky night at the Kursaal in Geneva, +playing baccarat, and the changier, a silver chain about his neck, had +reconverted my bowl of chips into heaped gold and treasury paper. But +with that exception, and for some small amounts, I was unlucky. The +occasion just past was an illustration--I was never really disastrously +overtaken, but equally I never reached sensational heights. + +There were, certainly, numerous places in Havana for roulette, and +always the American Club for auction bridge and poker; but I found my +way to none of these: there were men who could hear the soundless turn +of a wheel, soundless but for the fillip of the pith ball on the wood +and metal, through the streets and walls of a city; and there were +others who, merely pausing in a hotel or club corridor, would +immediately form about them all the adjuncts of poker--the cards, the +blue and yellow and white chips, the bank president, the shifty polite +individual with pink silk sleeves and a rippling shuffle, the rich +youth.... But, indebted, I suppose, to my spectacled benevolent +appearance, such occasions let me pass unnotified. + +I made, however, some effort to find a billiard academy, with the hope +of seeing the professional games and their audiences built up on the +four sides of the tables, common to the Continent; but if there were any +in Havana, they, too, eluded me. I hoped to see bearded champions +embrace each other after chalking their cues and then drive the ivory +balls in red and white angles across the deep green or nurse them about +the intersections of the balk lines. It was very different in America, +where the billiard parlors were a part of hotel life--great rooms with +the level green of the tables fogged in smoke through which the lights +resembled the diminished moons of Saturn; the audience, entirely +masculine, seated on the high chairs about the walls. + +The types of women lingering outside, waiting patiently on convenient +benches, were far different from the Latins. Occasionally a youth would +put up his cue, dust the chalk from his fingers, assume his accurately +fitted coat, his soft brown hat, and go out to some girl with whom he +would plunge into a subdued council marked by a note of expostulation. +Strange youth and unpredictable girl! A term of endearment would escape, +there'd be a quick clinging of hands; and, from an imitation gold purse, +some money would be transferred to an engulfing pocket. + +But the men of Havana, it seemed, were quite contented to talk, to sit +in a cafe over refrescos or in a parque with nothing at all but cigars, +and discuss eternally, with a passionate interest, the details of their +politics and city. Their contact with life at every point was vivid and, +in expression anyhow, forceful; they argued in a positive tone to which +compromise, agreement, appeared hopelessly lost; and there was in the +background the possibility of death by quarreling. That, in itself, gave +their whole bearing a difference from the conduct of a land where a +drubbing with fists was the worst evil to be ordinarily expected. They +looked with contempt on a blow, the retaliation of stevedores, and we +regarded with disgust a concealed weapon. But where we might still, in +simpler places, defend what was locally called purity with pistols, no +one, to-day, took his politics seriously. + +Politics, in the United States, was looked on with cynical indifference, +where it was not a profession, but in Cuba it was invariably the cause +of fiery oratory and high tempers. This had been true of America; even +in my own memory, in the Virginia Highlands, shotguns had been out for a +difference of principals; but patriotism of that stamp had fallen away +before civilization, as it was optimistically termed--the end finally +brought about by prohibition. Discussion in general, that rose in such +volume on the Cuban night, had little part farther north; my own +friends, the men specially, almost never said anything except as a +direct statement; we never met to talk. + +They had a particular, a concrete, interest in living, but no general. +Further than that, there was almost no individuality of opinion; the +subjects which made good conversation were definitely and arbitrarily +settled, closed. To open them, to challenge public opinion, was not to +invite argument, but to send men away to the greater safety, the +solidity, of the herd. A good story, the humor of the latrine, was a +better key to respectability than an honest doubt. For those reasons I +wanted to join the arguments, the orations really, flooding the circles +of green-painted iron chairs on the Havana plazas; and, solitary, I +passed envying the ingenuous welding dissent. + +I imagined myself suddenly and completely changed into a Cuban, slight +and dark, in white linen, with my hat, a stiff English straw, carefully +laid beside me on a ledge of the paving, smoking a cigar of rough shape +but excellent tobacco. Not rich, certainly, but securely placed in life! +I was, in fancy, the proprietor of a small yet thoroughly responsible +oculist's establishment on Neptuno Street. Since I was no longer young, +and a member of organized society, with a patron or two from the Prado, +I was conservative, but little heated by patriotism; and in favor, +rather than not, of annexation to the United States. My private view was +that Cuba hadn't been conspicuously worse off under Spain than +liberated. The politics of the present, when office-seekers descended +to the nanigos.... Here was the substance of violent argument and +recriminations; the voices, the ideals, of young men beat on me in a +high indignant storm; the names of Cuban patriots, martyred students, +and Spanish butchers were shouted in my ears. Sacred blood flowed again +in retrospect, which should never be allowed to sink infertile; but when +the words Free Cuba were pronounced I waved my cigar with hopeless +derision. + + * * * * * + +How significant it was, I thought, that, in imagination, I had pictured +myself at fifty. I saw the Havana oculist clearly; his name, by all +means, was Rogelio, Rogelio Mola, and he had a heavy grey moustache +across his lean brown face which gave him an air of gravity that largely +masked the humor, the satire, in his quick black eyes: Spanish eyes with +no perceptible trace of the soft iris of Africa. It was past one o'clock +when his tertulia scattered, and I accompanied him toward his +home--walking to get rid of the stiffness of long sitting--over +Dragones Street, in the direction of Vedado. Not yet, never now, would +he have a house in Vedado itself; that was reserved for the bankers, +planters, and Americans; but he was nicely situated in a new white +dwelling of the approved style, overlooking a common that in turn +commanded the sea. + +The approved style was white plaster, a story and a half high, with an +impressive portico--a portico, attached to a small private residence, +that would have done honor to a capitol building. There was but little +ground, principally extended in a lawn across the front, and banked, +against the house, with the spotted leaves of croton plants, purple +climbing Fausto, and Mar-Pacifico flowers deeply crimson. He had, it was +plain from his walk, a touch of rheumatism, of sciatica really, and he +halted in the Plaza de Dragones to press his thin hand to a leg and +curse, by the Sacred Lady of Caridad, the old age overtaking him. + +That, it seemed to me, would not carry his mind toward his dwelling, his +wife grown inordinately fat, and their three daughters, all long ago +asleep; no, it would send his thoughts backward, over the way he had +come--not from the Parque Central, but from youth. He would brush his +moustache reminiscently, I was confident, at a train of gallant +memories, chiefly of New York, where, on the pier of a fruit importing +house, he had spent some tremendous months. That experience had given +him an advantage, an authority, in everything that touched the great +republic, and lent his politics an additional sagacity, his cynicism an +edge difficult to turn. He had intended to stay in America, a journey to +Havana was to have been but a temporary affair; but there he had +attached himself to a wife, the daughter of a grinder of lenses.... And +here he was at fifty, going back, after listening to a lot of nonsense +in the Parque, to his family--in the general direction, too, of the +cemetery. + +It was sad, and, for a moment, there was a debate, a conflict, in his +mind: though his age was beyond denial, and his hip troubled him--but +only after he spent an evening on the cold iron chair of a plaza--he +showed no signs of having passed the middle of his life. The grey hair +was distinguished; Madame Nazabal, who was a Frenchwoman, had assured +him of that. The handsome girl in El Corazon de Jesus, the Vedado bakery +where English was spoken, flushed when their hands accidentally met over +the counter. But this mood, his courage, was fictitious; it sank and +left him limping palpably, with an oppressed heart. He was, simply, an +old fool, he told himself, vindicating the humorous comprehension of his +gaze. + +If he wasn't careful, the young men of his establishment, over whom he +kept a strict parent-like discipline, would laugh at him behind his +back. They were inclined to be wild as it was, and he suspected them of +going to the carnival balls, the danzons, in the opera house. God knew +that he had seen them in the company of no better than the girls from +the cigar factories. When he was younger--young--that dangerous company +had given a dance on the last Thursday of every month, except when it +fell in Lent, and he had held his place there with the most agile among +them, once even pressing an argument with a man who was reputed to have +been an espada of Castile. A knife had grazed his throat and slit the +left shoulder of his coat through to the skin; the mark remained, a +livid welt under his collar, but the assailant had vanished before he +could kill him. All memory of the girl had gone; but she was beautiful, +he was certain of that, or else why should he have noticed her? + +The girls of those days had a--a quality, a manner, lacking in the +present. Their hearts had been warmer, they were less mercenary. Rogelio +Mola detested mercenary women. Now, as far as he could make out, nothing +was possible but rounds of the expensive cafes: the fact was, the girls +only wanted to be taken to the Dos Hermanos, or the Little Club, where +the Americans could see them, and, perhaps.... Then, in about eighteen +eighty, there was some fidelity, some honor, some generosity. There was +romance--that had disappeared more utterly than anything else: he was +more than a little vague in meaning; his romance was an indefinite +state; the glow, in reality, of his own youth. + +At that time, in such discussions as had passed this evening, he had +been on the side of revolution, of expeditions to the Trocha, secret +associations; but simply because his blood was hot, his age appropriate +to revolt. He had been, without doubt, difficult; his elders had +predicted a cell in Cabanas as an ante-room, a sort of immediate +purgatory, to hell. He raised expressive shoulders slightly at the +thought of the holy legends: a business for women and priests. The +Church, temporarily, had had some rare pasturage; but the fathers were a +shade too greedy; they had gobbled up so much that it was necessary to +drive them out. Women and priests, priests and women! The latter had +suffered no diminution of their privileges; they had too much for which +the young men, for all their self-opinion, got nothing or next to +nothing in return. Rogelio Mola wondered if the old houses of pleasure +were unchanged. + +He had not thought of them for years, and he was contemptuous of men of +his age who did, still, consider them. Not that he was puritanical and +condemned all such institutions, though he had a strong suspicion that +they had deteriorated. For the youth of his day they had been very +largely places of meeting and conspiracy, where traditionally the +sentiment supported attacks on authority. Yet a girl from Lima had +betrayed Mario Turafa, his friend, in hiding, to the Spanish Government. +It was said that Mario had been deported, perhaps to the very Peru from +which came his Delilah, but it was more probable that he had been shot. +There had been one whom he, Rogelio, had liked.... Her name came back to +him, Ana, and the fact that she sang quite beautifully ... nothing else. +The words of a song formed from the melody for a moment audible among +his memories: + + "Clavales, clavales + de mi Andalucia! + Mujeres, mujeres-- + de la Patria mia!" + +It was evident from this that she had come from Andalusia. Thirty years +ago! He wished her the best of luck. Hadn't they been young together, +with at least the innocence of true affection? His thoughts turned +guiltily to his wife, to his daughters white like flowers of the Copa de +Nieva. The twinge in his leg resembled a hot wire; and resolutely he +marshalled his attention forward. How dark, how depressing, certain +reaches of Havana were, and he pictured the cemetery ghostly, icy, in +the night; women, with their confessional, their faith in the +forgiveness of sins, were fortunate. Yet no one must say of him that he +was a coward, that, at the last, he had been borne into oblivion on the +oil of the priests he had disregarded in life. Deep under his +skepticism, however, a low inextinguishable hereditary flame of hope +burned, independent of his intelligence. + + * * * * * + +My mind returned once more to Rogelio Mola as I was standing outside an +impassive door, waiting for admittance, not far from the Arsenal. It +was the entrance to what he had called a house of pleasure, and, long +established in Havana, unknown to America, one that he might easily have +frequented in the reprehensible period of youth. I had adequate abstract +reasons for my presence, but Rogelio, correctly insistent on a saving +generosity of emotion, had needed no ponderous explanation. Indeed, I +was there in his interest, since, after all, I had imagined him; I +wanted very much to have completely the material of his setting, of the +surrounding from which his friend, betrayed by the Peru that had +centuries before despoiled Cuba, had been led out to be, doubtless, +shot. Not that, pressingly, I felt the need for an excuse, or that I was +essentially making a descent. The very bitterness, the revilement in +solemn terms, of my early instructions, had, reacting, defeated itself. + +What was before me, in a world where the pure and the impure were +inexplicably mixed in one flesh, was inevitable; its ugliness lay not +with it, but in a society which, constantly tearing it down, as +constantly projected again the penalty, the shadow, of a perfunctory and +material estate. In addition, as long as the age of marriage, of love, +was so tragically different in society and in nature, an informal +interlude was unavoidable. But I had no need to apologize for anything. +I had been spared the dreary and impertinent duty of improving the +world; the whole discharge of my responsibility was contained in the +imperative obligation to see with relative truth, to put down the colors +and scents and emotions of existence. What, pretentiously, was called +the moral must shift for itself; that depended on what, beneath +consciousness, I was--the justice and sympathy, the comprehension, of my +being. + +A slide opened mysteriously on the blank darkness before me, a bolt was +drawn; and immediately I had left the street for a little entresol +filled with lamplight, the breath of scented powder, and the notes of a +piano played by a girl whose cigarette burned furiously on the scarred +ebonized top of the instrument. She half turned, scanning me +indifferently, and went on with her unelaborate music. The woman who had +admitted me, a figure whose instant scrutiny resembled the unsparing +accuracy of a photograph by flashlight, after a polite greeting, ignored +me absolutely, and I was left to follow my fancy. + +This led to the patio, larger and more entrancing than any I had before +seen; it was paved in blocks of marble, and the white walls, warmly and +fully illuminated, made a sharp contrast with the night, the sky and +stars, above. There was a tree growing at one side; what it was I didn't +know, but it hung large intensely green leaves into the light before +climbing to obscurity. A great many people, it seemed to me, were +present; and, as I found a seat on an ornamental iron bench, the +formality of a civil greeting was scrupulously observed. The company +was, to every outer regard, decorous to the point of stiffness. +Opposite, two officers of the Spanish navy, in immaculate white with +gilt epaulettes, were drinking naranjadas and conversing with two girls +who nodded in appropriate sympathy. Farther on, a Cuban exquisite, his +hands, in spite of the heat, cased in lavender grey gloves, was staring +fixedly at the shining toes of his shoes. Others--yes, Rogelio in his +youth--their hair faultlessly glossy, were more animated; their gestures +and voices rose irrepressibly and sank in confidences to ears close +beside them. + +A row of doors, I then saw, filled one side of the patio, the interiors +closed by swinging slatted screens; the wall at my back was blank, an +exit at the rear, while on the right was the entrance. Scattered about, +with the benches and chairs, small tables held a variety of glasses and +drinks ... the entire atmosphere was pervaded, characterized, by utter +ease. That was, to me, the most notable of the effects of that +enclosure--an amazing freedom from superficial obligations, from the +burdensome conventions which, so largely a part of existence, had come +to be accepted either subconsciously or as a necessary evil. I realized +for the first time the inanity of imposed pretences, the thick, the +suffocating armor of triviality that criminally and ludicrously muffled +life. + +There were present, of course, all the poses of humanity, and a great +many of its conventions; the girls were not hippogriffs, but +girls--timid, bold, religious, skeptical, feminine, sentimental, happy +and unhappy, hopeful and hopeless. Yet, in contradiction to this, the +air offered a complete release from a thousand small irritating +pressures. It came, partly, from the sense that here I was outside the +order, the legality, the explicit purpose, of the forces organizing the +world. I had stepped, as it were, from time, immediacy, to timelessness. +The patio into which I was shut might have been on that earth the +ancients conceived of as round and flat as a plate. No discovery, no +wisdom accumulated by centuries and supreme sacrifices, had any bearing, +any importance, in my circumstances now. I was contemporaneous with the +lives precariously spent between the ebb and flood of the ice ages. The +animals knew as much. But if I had nothing to gain from all that was +successively admirable, nothing was lost that had been implicit in the +beginning, nothing at the last end would be changed. + +The conversation fluctuated about me, the glasses were carried away and +brought back refilled; the smoke of cigars and cigarettes floated +tranquilly up and was lost above the illumination, and I completely +dropped the embarrassment which came from an uncertainty in such minor +customs as existed. I was, in fact, extremely comfortable when I +understood that I was left entirely to my own desires. These included +the offer, in clumsy Spanish, of a general order of drinks; and there +was a revival of polite phrases. Not all, by a half, accepted; the +others bowed, gravely or cheerfully; and I retired again to my +speculations. + +These were mainly gathered about the regret that the scene before me was +practically forbidden to American novels. It had, in reality, no place +in the United States, and, therefore, could claim no legitimate page in +American literature. There, anyhow, it could be said for public morals, +such things were nearly all that the word vice implied. What, exactly, I +was lamenting, was the old fundamental lack of candor in the American +attitude. This, beyond question, proceeded from the people themselves, +and not from commissions; an enormous majority, except for that national +whispered currency of obscenity, was prudish beyond reclamation. For +them, it was probable, the innocence of the body had been branded +eternally. And I was neither a martyr nor a reformer. The loss to me was +considerable--as it was, dealing with only the outer garments of fact, I +had been accused of lasciviousness or something of the kind--and I +envied the French the cool logic of their mentality, the cultivation of +the French audience. + +My mind reverted to Jurgen, the remarkable narrative of James Cabell's, +that had been suppressed; a summary act of disturbing irony. For Mr. +Cabell had spent a life, practically, reaching from the imagination of +childhood to the performance of maturity, in a mental preoccupation +with disembodied purity. He had set up, in his heart and in his books, +the high altar of mediaeval Platonism--an image of desire never to be +clasped, reached, from earth; a consolation, really, for the +earth-bound. But that, in the mind, the characteristic mind, of America, +had not had the weight, the value, of a dandelion's gossamer seed. It +was, definitely, a land that cared nothing for literature, the casting +of transient life into the permanence of beautiful form. As the world +advanced in years, the general importance of literature, it seemed to +me, diminished; the truth was that people didn't care for it. + + * * * * * + +The ladies of pleasure--the merest identifying phrase, since, in the +first place, they were practically all at the age of immaturity--were +dressed in evening satins, cut generally with an effective simplicity, +or the lacy whiteness still better adapted to the young person. In the +tropical patio with its canopy of broad green leaves and night, the +marble pavement and alabaster walls, they were brilliantly effective; +it was only after an extended regard, carefully casual, that I +appreciated the amazing diversity of their individuality, the gamut of +bloods run. There were no Anglo-Saxons--they were faithful to the +traditions of their latitude--and there was no positive Africa; but +there was Africa in faint dilutions, in attenuations traced from lands +remote as Tartary: + +There was, for example, a girl so blanched that I saw she wasn't white +at all; her face, even without its drenching of powder, was the color of +the rice-paper cigarette she smoked, walking indolently by; and her hair +was a blazing mass of undyed red. Her features, her nose, and the +pinched blue corners of her eyes, the crinkling tendency of her piled +hair--its authenticity unmistakable in a strong vivid sheen--showed the +secret that lay back of her exotic appalling splendor. Her progress +across the patio was a slender undulation, and her gaze was fixed, her +attention lost, in an abstraction to which there was no key. No +imagination could have pictured such a striking figure nor placed her so +exactly in the ultimate setting: + +Here she was artificial--there were long jet ear-rings against her +neck--and savage. In her silk stocking, I had every reason to suspect, +there was a knife's thin steel leaf; but who could predict the emotions, +no--instincts, to which it was servant? Who, trivial with the +trivialities of to-day, could foretell, trifling with her, what +incentive might drive the steel deep up under his arm? Hers would be a +dreadful face to see, in its flaming corona, in the last agonizing +wrench of consciousness. + +Seated, and talking earnestly to a Cuban with worried eyes, was a small +round brown girl in candy green, whose feet in childish kid slippers and +soft hands bore an expression of flawless innocence. Clasped above an +elbow was an enamelled gold band, such as youth no longer wore, with a +hinge and fine gold chain securing the lock. She touched it once, +absent-mindedly, and I wondered what was its potency of association; +when, at a turn of her wrist, she drained a glass of brandy, an act of +revealing incongruity. She was, I recognized from her speech, Spanish, +from the Peninsula; and another, who told me that her city was Bilbao, +dispassionately, for a little, occupied my bench. Bilbao, she explained, +was not beautiful ... a place of industry and money. Nor was she +charming, she was too harsh; but her personality had an unmistakable +national flavor, like that of Castell de Remey wine. I was relieved when +she rose abruptly and disappeared into the entresol, where the piano was +still being intermittently played. + +The screen door to a room swung open, and a large rosy creature; +negligent and sleepy, appeared momentarily, gazing with a yawn, a flash +of faultless teeth, over the assemblage. She was without a dress, but +her hair was intricately up, and a froth of underclothes with knots of +canary yellow ribbons and yellow clocked stockings made a surprising +foreground for the painfully realistic Crucifixion hanging on the wall +within. The cross was ebony and the figure in a silver-like metal, the +Passion portrayed by a gaunt rigidity of suffering. The screen closed on +the tableau of contrast, and the patio resumed its appearance of a +vaguely distorted formal occasion. + +Whatever my feelings should have been, there was no doubt that--if for +the extreme pictorial quality alone--my interest was highly engaged. My +interest and not my indignations! I was not, it must be admitted, +commendably outraged, or filled with the impulse to rescue, to save, +anyone, however young. I seriously questioned my ability to offer +salvation, since I lacked the distinctly sustaining conviction of +superiority; I couldn't, offhand, guarantee anything. Suppose, for +argument, I took one--the youngest--and haled her away from her +deplorable situation: what was open to her, to us? Would she have +preferred, stayed for an hour in, any of the tepid conventional Magdalen +homes, if there were such establishments in Havana? + +I had a vision of appearing with her wrapped in a frivolous cloak, +before the experienced wisdom of the Inglaterra manager, in the +corridor of American salesmen, among the wives of the vice-presidents of +steamship companies, and explaining that I was delivering my companion +from the wage of death. I should have been, and very properly, put under +restraint and Dr. Laine hurriedly summoned. In all probability, and with +the utmost discretion, they'd have sent Pilar, or Manuelita, back to the +patio with the doors, explaining to her that I was demented. + +There were, undoubtedly, better places for girls of fifteen, and they +would have been the first to choose them if a choice had been +possible--some would have been wives and some opera singers and all, +with wishing so free, uncommonly beautiful. I had an idea that a number +of them would have gone no further than the last, and, as well they +might, left the rest to chance. But their ideas of beauty must have been +stupid compared to what they actually possessed. + +There was a girl with a trace of Chinese in the flattened oval of her +countenance, and heavy black hair, as severe as a metal casing, +redolent with fascination. She sat withdrawn from the others with her +hands clasped in the lap of a fine white dress. She was delicate, but +not thin, though her neck was so slender that the weight of her head +seemed bent a little forward. I had never before seen skin so faintly +and evenly golden; there wasn't a flush, a differently shaded surface, +anywhere visible. A sultry air hung about her mouth, the under lip +brushed with carmine. Her eyes, lowered and almost shut, were large, and +their lids were as smooth as ivory. But she wasn't, otherwise, +suggestive of that; she more nearly resembled the magic glow of an apple +of Hesperides. + +If I had encountered her twenty years earlier, my experience would have +been richer by a glimpse of her involved image-like charm. She was, +conceivably, to the superficial West, dull: it was evident that she +almost never talked--the girls about were not her friends--but she had +qualities, aspects, infinitely preferable to a flow of words. I should +have asked of her hardly more than, at present, she was, sitting quite +a distance from me and fundamentally unaware of my existence. I debated +whether she would be more attractive in the sleeve coat and jade pins of +China or in her virginal white muslin.... That now was the circumference +of my duty toward her--to put her in such colors, such surroundings, as +would infinitely multiply her mystery. + +It was, I realized, time for me to leave--I wasn't Rogelio Mola in his +youth--and I paid the inconsequential price of the drinks I had ordered. +There were adieux, as civil and impersonal as my welcome, and the door +to the street was opened to let me, together with a breath of the +scented powder, out. The arcade before me sounded for a moment with the +smooth falling of a latch, and then all trace of the near presence of so +much lightness was obliterated. In memory it seemed slightly unreal, a +dangerous fantasy of murmurs and subdued, knife-like passions--the +bleached soul of Africa with massed red hair; a frivolity of yellow +ribbons against a silver tormented Christ; the inertia of the East in a +heavy-eyed child; but, to balance this, I remembered the girl, like a +harsh native wine, from Bilbao, an industrial city and very rich: she +restored to the scene its ordinary normal reality. + + * * * * * + +The high empty austerity of my room enveloped me in a happy +tranquillity; its effect was exactly that of increasing age, +substituting for the violent contrasts of life an impersonal spacious +whiteness. I very placidly prepared for the cool fresh linen of my bed, +my mind filled with fresh cool thoughts. More definitely than ever +before I was accepting and accommodating myself to the passage of time. +I was not only reconciled to having left forty forever behind, but I +welcomed a release from the earlier struggles of resentment and desire. +The joys of youth, or anyhow in my case, had been out of proportion to +their penalties: I had failed at school, at the academies of art, and, +more conspicuously still, as a citizen. I was even incapable of +supporting myself, a task so easy that it was successfully performed by +three quarters of the fools on earth. + +The failure as a painter was serious, but I had never had the least +interest in those qualities included in the term a good citizen. I knew +nothing about the government of the United States, and made no effort to +find out; as an abstraction it had reality for me, but as a reality no +substance. The priceless right of vote I neglected for whoever it was in +the Republican machine that regularly discharged that responsibility for +me. All that interested me, that I deeply cared for, was first the +disposal of paint on stretched canvas and then the arrangement of words +with a probable meaning and possible beauty. + +An extremely bad period, that, when I tried to write without knowledge +or support, reaching from twenty until well after thirty, when I managed +to sell a scrap of prose. From then until forty the time had gone in a +flash, a scratching of the pen: it seemed incredible that the seven +books on a shelf bearing my name had been the result of so brief, so +immaterial, a time. Now, stranger still, I was in Cuba, gazing +peacefully into the dim expensive space of a room in the Hotel +Inglaterra, congratulating myself on the loss, the positive lapse, of +what was called men's most valuable possession. + +No better place for the trying of my sincerity than Havana existed; no +other city in the world could so perfectly create the illusion of +complete irresponsibility, of happiness followed for its own sake, as an +end, or as the means of forgetfulness. Its gala walls and plazas and +promenades, its alternating sparkle and languor, like flags whipping in +the wind or drooping about their staffs, always conveyed a spirit of +holiday and of a whole absence of splenetic censure. At the bottom of +this the climate, eternally sunny, with close vivid days and nights +stirring with a breeze through the galleries, concentrated the mind and +body on pleasure. + +Night had always been the time for gaiety, when the practical was veiled +in shade; and Havana responded with an inimitable grace to the stars. +It was constructed for night, like a lunar park of marble and palms and +open flooding radiance; with, against that, streets packed with darkness +and doors of mystery to which clung the faint breath of patchouli. The +air was instinct with seduction, faintly touched by the pungency of Ron +Bacardi and limes, and bland with the vapors of delightful cigars. The +clothes, too--the white linens and flannels and silks of the men; the +ruffled dresses on the balconies, the flowery laces, like white +carnations, in the automobiles; the wide hats of Paris and the satin +slippers tied about the ankles, with preposterous heels; the fluttering +fans--all, all were in the key of light sharp emotion, of challenge and +invitation and surrender. + +Yes, any strictness of conduct in Havana, any philosophy in the face of +that charm, was unaffected beyond dispute. I had been, in a farther +development of this, tacitly left to my own devices and thoughts, as if +there were a general perception of my remoteness from the affair in +hand. I was suffered to come and go without notice; no one, much, spoke +to me; even those not unaware of the possibility of a book, of San +Cristobal de la Habana, in which their city would find praise, were +hardly stirred to interest. The moment to go to Havana was youth, the +moment for masked balls and infidelity and champagne: its potency for me +lay in its investment of memories; I regarded it as a spectacle set in +the tropics. I was an onlooker and not a participant. But I had, as I +have shown, no regret; I had become reconciled not only to the fleetness +of time, but equally to the fact that my role was necessarily a +spectator's. Hour after hour, year after year, I sat writing at the low +window which looked out over my green terrace and clipped hedge, to the +road, to life, beyond. + +Above everything, then, I was satisfied with the Havana I knew. From the +standpoint of actuality my comprehension was limited--I was familiar +with only a certain narrow part of the city, for it was my habit to go +back to what I had found rather than discover the new--perhaps ten +streets and a handful of houses, parks, and cafes. Too much to get into +a score of books. What I had lost, I thought further--if, indeed, I had +ever possessed it--was a warm personal contact such as I should have had +dancing with a lovely girl. I never danced, but remained outside, +philosophically, gazing at the long bright whirling rectangles. + +At the Inglaterra there were many men older than myself who danced +persistently and had the warmest sorts of contacts; they too, wore +flowers in their coats, but aggressive and not reminiscent blooms. They +formed most of the element of foreign gaiety; there wasn't much youth +among them, but I didn't envy them in the slightest. They were, if +possible, more absurd than the women unmindful of thickening waists and +dulled eyes. Their ardor was febrile and their power money; and every +time they escorted with a quickened step their charmers past young dark +men, the charmers glanced back appealingly. It was different with the +Cubans, who regarded such things more naturally, and did not, +practically, in consequence, get drunk. + +The noise from San Rafael Street never slackened, the clamor of the +mule-drivers and the emptying cans of refuse took the place of the motor +signals; the slats of my lowered shutters showed streaks of dawn. I +turned once, it appeared, and the room was filled with indirect +sunlight, the hands of my watch were at ten. It was eleven before I was +dressed, with the morning cup of black coffee empty on a table; at +twelve I had breakfast, and until five I idly read. The evening as well +was idle--a thoroughly wasted day, judged by obvious and active +standards. I thought, with no impulse to return, of the house near the +Arsenal, which had, in effect, been open for centuries and which, unless +life were purified, would never close. The purity I meant was not a +limitation of passion, but its release from obscene confines. It didn't +matter what I meant and, again, I was becoming too serious ... or not +serious about the correct things. There was perpetually the danger of +being overtaken, in spite of my impetuous early flight, by the +influences, the promptings, of my heredity and strong first +associations. What an amazing climax to my records of chiffon textures +and moods of chiffon that would be: shouting the creed of a bitter Scots +induration from the informal pulpits of the streets! Or I might publish, +to the dismay of every one intimately concerned, a denunciatory +sermonizing book. But what the subject was wouldn't matter, as it had +not mattered with Jeremy Taylor, if it were written with sufficient +beauty. Disagreeable books, too, in spite of the accepted contrary +belief, were always very highly esteemed. + + * * * * * + +It was easy enough to account for Jeremy Taylor by the vague +generalization of beauty, and I forced myself to a closer scrutiny of +that term and my meaning. The words beauty and love, and a dozen others, +like old shoes, had grown so shapeless through long mis-wear that they +would stay on no foot. I tried to isolate some quality indisputably +recognizable as beautiful and hit, to my surprise, on intellectual +courage. The thought of an undeviating mental integrity was as +exhilarating as the crash of massed marching bands. Then, searching for +another example, I recalled August nights at Dower House, with the +moonlight lying like water between the black shadows of the trees on the +lawn. There was a harsh interwoven shrilling of locusts and the +echo--almost the feel rather than the sound--of thunder below the +horizon. This, too, stirred me profoundly, brought about the glow +transmutable into creative effort. + +Another excursion found nothing but a boy and a girl, any boy and any +girl, fired by shy uncomplicated passion.... A mental, a visual, and a +natural incentive, each with the same effect, the identical pinching of +the heart and thrust to a common hidden center. What had they each +alike? Perhaps it was this: that they were the three great facts of +existence, the primary earth, the act of creation, and the crowning +dignity, the superiority of men who, somehow, had transvalued the sum of +their awarded clay. Somehow! I had no intention of examining that. The +fact was, for me, enough. + +There was, however, another phase of beauty still, one peculiarly the +property of novelists, which had to do not with life at all, but with +death, with vain longing and memories and failure. All the novels which +seemed to me of the first rank were constructed from these latter +qualities; and while painting and music and lyrical poetry were +affirmative, the novel was negative, built, where it was great, from +great indignations. Yet, while this was obvious truth, it failed to +include or satisfy me; for there were many passages not recognizable as +great in the broadest sense, both in literature and life, that filled me +with supreme pleasure--there were pages of Turgenev spun out of the +fragile melancholy of a girl, a girl with a soul in dusk, far more +enthralling than, for example, Thomas Hardy. It may have been that there +was the perception of a similitude between Turgenev's figure and myself; +certainly I was closer to her mood, her disease of modernity, than to a +sheep herder; and there was a possibility, for my own support, that the +finest-drawn sensibilities, not regarded as emotions in the grand key, +would turn out to be our most highly justified preoccupation. + +I was, at present, in Havana, submerged in its fascination, and when I +came to write about it there would not be lacking those to say that I +had been better occupied with simpler things. Hugh Walpole had warned me +of the danger, to me, of parquetry and vermilion Chinese Chippendale; +and I was certain that he would speak to me again in the same tone about +idling in a mid-Victorian Pompeii, celebrating drink and marble touched +by the gilder's brush of late afternoon. Perhaps Walpole--and Henry +Mencken's keen friendly discernment--was right; but, damn it, my +experience was deficient in material essentials; I was dangerously +ignorant of current reality, and I doubted if my style was a suitable +instrument for rugged facts. + +What remained for me, an accomplishment spacious enough for anyone, was +the effort to realize that sharp sense of beauty which came from a firm +delicate consciousness of certain high pretensions, valors, maintained +in the face of imminent destruction. And in that category none was +sharper than the charm of a woman, so soon to perish, in a vanity of +array as momentary and iridescent as a May-fly. The thought of such a +woman, the essence, the distillation, of an art of life superimposed on +sheer economy, was more moving to me than the most heroic maternity. I +couldn't get it into my head that loveliness, which had a trick of +staying in the mind at points of death when all service was forgotten, +was rightly considered to be of less importance than the sweat of some +kitchen drudge. + +The setting of a woman in a dress by Cheruit; a part of the bravery of +fragile soft paste Lowestoft china and square emeralds that would feed a +starving village, on fingers that had done no more than wave a fan; the +fan itself, on gold and ivory with tasselled silk--the things to which +the longing of men, elevated a degree above hard circumstances, +turned--were of equal weight with the whole; for it was not what the +woman had in common with a rabbit that was important, but her +difference. On one hand that difference was moral, but on the other +aesthetic; and I had been absorbed by the latter. + +This, however wide apart it may seem, was closely bound to my presence +in Havana, to my delight and purpose there. It was nothing more than a +statement, a development, if not a final vindication, of my instant +sense of pleasure and familiarity--a place already alive in my +imagination. My special difficulty was the casting of it into a +recognizable, adequate medium. There, in the plaiting of cobwebs instead +of hemp rope, I particularly invited disaster. It wasn't necessary that +I should sustain anyone, but only that I should spread the illusion of +the buried associations and image of a brain. That, if it were true, I +held, would be beauty. + +Here, at least, I was serious about the correct things, direct rather +than conventional; all that mattered was the spreading of the illusion, +the spectacle of what part of Havana I did know interpreted, realized, +not in the spirit of an architectural plan, but as sentient with +reflected emotions. Otherwise the most weighty charges against me were +absolutely justified. If I couldn't make Havana respond in the key of my +intrinsic feelings, if I had no authentic feeling with which to invest +it, my book, almost all my books, were a weariness and a mistake. + +Novels of indignation or of melancholy, of a longing for the continuity +of individual passion confronted with the inevitable--it was that, the +perishability of all that was desirable, which gave to small things, a +flower in the hair, their importance as symbols. The love story, once +the exclusive province of fiction, had disappeared; it was now +practically impossible for the slightest talent to fill a book in that +manner. The romantic figment, like a confection of spun sugar with a +sprig of artificial orange blossoms, had been discarded; the beauty of +love, it had been discovered, wasn't the possession of a particular +heart, but the tenderness, the pity, that came from the realization of +its inescapable loss. No man could love a woman, no woman could love a +man, who was to live forever; a thousand years would be an insuperable +burden. The higher a cultivation, a delight, reached, the more tragic +was its breaking by death; the greater knowledge a mind held, the more +humiliating was the illimitable ignorance, the profound night pressing +in upon every feeble and temporary human lamp. + +Yes, the novels, the books I wanted to write, were composed, now, not so +much from among the brasses, the tympani, as from the violins. The great +majority, like the great books, were dedicated to the primary chords; +but my reaching the former had been always hopeless. I didn't mind this, +for I told myself that, while the structure of approbation I had +gathered was comparatively modest, its stones and masonry were +admirable; it was, if not a mansion, a gratifying cottage firmly set on +earth--what was in England called, I believe, a freehold. It was mine, +and there was no lease dependent on the good will--or on my +subserviency--of any landlord. + + * * * * * + +Most of this went through my mind as I sat looking at my trunk, open on +end in an alcove near the door, for I was gathering my clothes and +thoughts in preparation for leaving Havana. One thing only that I wished +to see now remained--the danzon at the National Theatre. I kept out a +dark suit, one that would be inconspicuous in a lower spectator's box; +for I had been told that it was desirable to avoid unnecessary +attention. There was, briefly, an element of danger. This I doubted--I +had heard the same thing so often before without subsequent +justification--but I could believe it possible if there was any violent +discharge of primitive emotion. Here the spirit of Africa burned remote +and pale, but it was still a tropical incomprehensible flame. + +A strip of red carpet led from the outer steps, across a large +promenade, to the circular wall of the theatre; and though it was past +eleven, the ball hadn't yet assumed an appearance of life. But just +within the entrance a negro band began suddenly to play, and in the +music alone I immediately found the potent actuality of danger. I was +without the knowledge necessary to the disentangling of its elements: +there were fiddles and horns and unnatural kettle drums, and an +instrument made from a long gourd, with a parallel scoring for the +scrape of a stick. The music was first a shock, then an exasperation +hardly to be borne, but finally it assumed a rhythm maddening beyond +measure. + +It was Africa and something else--notes taken from the Moors, splitting +quavers of Iberian traditions, shakes and cadences that might have been +the agonized voice of the first Cubenos; with an unspeakable distortion, +a crazy adaptation, of scraps of to-day. There was no pause, no +beginning or end, in its form; it went on and on and on, rising and +falling, fluctuating, now in a harsh droning and then a blasting +discord--the savage naked utterance of a naked savage lust; it was a +music not of passion, but of the frenzy of rape. Nothing like it would +have been possible in writing, allowed in painting; only music was free +to express, to sound, such depths. Nothing but music could have conveyed +the inarticulate cries of the stirred mire that flooded the marble space +of the opera house. It had lost the simplicity of its appropriate years, +the spring orgies in the clearings of early forests; time had made it +hideously menacing, cynical, and corrupt. + +At an aisle to the boxes within, a negro woman with a wheedling tainted +manner tried to sell me a nosegay; and two others, younger and pale, +their faces coated with rice powder, went past in dragging satins. They +were chattering a rapid Spanish, and their whitened cheeks and +dead-looking mat-like hair, their coffee-colored breasts and white kid +gloves, gave them an extraordinary incongruity; and behind them, as +sharp as the whisper of their skirts, a stinging perfume lingered. +Leaning forward on the rail of my enclosure, I gazed down over the +floored expanse of the auditorium: + +The stage was set with the backdrop and wings of a conventional operatic +design--a scene that would have served equally Aida or La Favorita: it +towered, like a faded dream of pseudo-classic Havana, into the +theatrical heavens, expanses of bistre and sepias and charcoal grey, of +loggias and peristyles and fountains; while in close order about its +three sides were ranged stiff chairs in a vivid live border of dancers. +They were of every color from absolute pallor, the opacity of plaster, +to utter blackness. The men, for the most part, were light, some purely +Spanish, the negritos, at least to me, conspicuous; but I could see no +indisputably white women. There was a girl in a mantone of bright +contrasting colors, a high comb and a rose in her hair, about whom there +was a question. However, her partner was one of the few full negroes +there; and, as they revolved below my box, it seemed that her skin had a +leaden cast. + +The danzon itself had, at first, the appearance of a sustained gravity: +it was danced slowly, in very small space, following the music with +arbitrary reverses, and pausing. There might have been, to the +superficial view, a restraint almost approaching dignity had the dancers +been other. The men, without exception, wore their stiff straw hats and +smoked cigars through every evolution; and the dresses, the dressing, of +the women were fantastic: a small wasted girl, dryly black, had copied +the color and petals of a sunflower. As she revolved, her skirt flared +out from legs like bent bones, and a hat of raw yellow flapped across +her grotesque ebony countenance. + +The danzon, for a moment, in spite of the music played continuously and +alternately by two orchestras occupying a box on either side of the +stage, seemed formal. Then, abruptly, a couple lost every restraint, and +their maddened spinning and furious hips tore the illusion to shreds. +And slowly I began to be conscious of a poisonous air, a fetid air as +palpable as the odors and scents--the breath, the premonition, of the +danger of which I had been warned. It lay in an ugly hysteria of rasped +emotions that at any illogical accident might burst into the shrillness +of a knife. It wasn't dangerous so much as it was abjectly wicked--the +deliberate calling up of sooty shapes that had better be kept buried. It +was unimportant that the men below me were, in the daytime, commonplace +clerks; the women could be anything chance had made them: here, to the +spoiled magic of Carabalie nights, they were evoking a ceremonial of +horror. + +Personally, since I had no hopes to save or plans to protect, I hadn't +the desire, like Sampson, to pull down the pillars of the roof on their +debased heads. I enjoyed it remarkably; the more because I saw, +scattered among the crowd, figures of unreal and detrimental beauty--a +creamy magnificence in creamy satin with a silver band on her forehead; +a yellow creature with oblique eyes in twenty white flounces and a +natural garland of purple flowers; a thing of ink, of basalt carved by +an opulent chisel, on whose body clothes were incidental; and corrupt +graces perfect in youth and figure weaving the patterns, the wisdom, of +Sodom. + +One o'clock passed, then two and three, but there was no abatement in +the danzon. A middle-aged man, with an abstracted air, danced without +stopping for an hour and fifty minutes. His partner, flushing through +her dark skin, was expensively habited: her fingers and throat glittered +coldly with diamonds and her hat was swept with long dipping plumes. She +had a malignant mouth and eyes a thick muddy brown, and it was clear +that she hated the man in whose arms she was turning. I wondered about +her hatred and the patience, the indifference, of the other: how +revolting she would be in a few hours, livid and ghastly in the morning. +He, probably, would then be standing at a high desk, counting dollars +with integrity or adding columns of figures, precise and respectable in +an alpaca coat. An older man still was dancing by himself, intent on the +intricate stepping of his own feet. His agility soon won an admiring +circle, and his violence increased with the applause: he jumped in the +air, clapping his heels together, and his arms waved wildly--a +marionette pulled convulsively by wires in strange merciless hands. + +I imagined a fetish, a large god, on the stage, drooping over his +swollen belly, with a hanging lip and hands set in his loins. His legs +were folded, lost in flesh ... a squatting smeared trunk of hideous +service. Around him were the seated rows of worshippers, on either hand +was his jangling praise; and before him revolved the dancers in his +rite. The music throbbed in my brain like a madness that would have +dragged me down to the floor. I speculated fleetly over such a +surrender, the drop, through countless ages, of that possible descent. + + * * * * * + +It was, however, only just to add that the idol of Guinea suffered +unduly from his surroundings and the age in which he was exposed; in his +place, his time, he had been neither a monster nor unnatural, but +nothing more than the current form of worship. He, Bongo, had had the +misfortune to be catapulted, together with his congregation, through +twenty, forty, centuries, in a breath, on the magic carpet of greed, and +put down in a day where he was not only obsolete, but repudiated. Men +saw him with the sense of horror generated by a blasting view of their +own very much earlier selves. For the difference between the negro, the +Carabalies, or Macua, and the Spaniards of the sixteenth century in Cuba +was, at heart, historical in time only. They were members--we were all +members--of one family. The innocence of a bare black, torn like a +creeper from the support of his native tree, tatooed with necessary +charms, medicines, against jungle fears and fevers, had more to dread +from Amador de Lares than any later Christians owed to an arbitrarily +imported savagery. What, in reality, occurred, was implied on the wide +floor of the opera house, was that the negroes, unable to change their +simplicity as easily as they superficially diluted their skins, kept +their innocent habits, their tastes in noise and religion and +misconduct; but, in the dress of civilization, these took on the aspect +of a grotesque defiled horror. With this, too, in an earnest effort to +assimilate as much as possible of their enforced land, they caught such +bright fragments of life as struck them--the glass beads and bits of gay +cloth--and copied them prodigiously. The confusion which followed was a +tragedy in the comic spirit--a discordant mingling that provoked +laughter, quickly stopped by a deeper understanding and by pity. The +past vital still: with the entrance of the African slave into the West, +it was exactly as though a figure in the paint and feathers of voodoo +had been thrust into a polite salon. + +The spectacle had none of the comfortable features of a mere exhibition; +for the revulsion came from a spiritual shudder in the beings of the +onlookers; while the other injured individuals saw that, as clothes, the +crude partial imitation of a rooster was insufficient. They, the latter, +commendably hurried into trousers and pot hats, into satin trains and +pink tulle and white kid gloves; but the transition was too hurried, too +optimistic, and the resulting incongruity ... I was not a student of +ethnology, I had no theory of races, but, gazing down from my box, it +seemed to me that yesterday could not be instantly combined with to-day; +it was evident that there was no short way by a long and painful +business of evolution. + +Nothing more unfortunate could well be imagined; for, in the retributive +manner I had already mentioned, the Africa buried in the West, so long +forgotten, took life again, and the danger to everyone had been acute +through a long period of Havana's years. We, in temperate zones, in +weathers that had no need of the protection of a special dark pigment, +had been lucky; but we were trying our luck very severely by subjecting +it to the old potencies not yet entirely lost. The danzon was, actually, +in a way beyond legislation, a masked ball in black and white, where the +unmasking was involuntary and fateful. + +One, I thought, spoiled the other, like an incomplete experiment in +chemistry where nothing but an opaque liquid and an intolerable stench +was evolved. Perhaps, with acute necessity, a successful clear result +would reward the future with peace; but it wouldn't happen in my +knowledge; I hadn't a thing in the world to do with it. What occurred to +me then was the useful fact that the present scene afforded the right, +the only, ending for my story, The Bright Shawl. It would have to be +tragic, but only indirectly; nothing, I had decided, should happen to my +principal character beyond a young moment of supreme romance. No, the +mishap, death, must envelop his friend, the patriotic Cuban. He'd be +killed by a Spanish officer, through a woman--a woman in the bright +shawl of the dancer that had been preserved as a memento of tender +regard. + +Some arrangement was necessary, perhaps a prostitute. Well--I had seen +her, in virginal white muslin, with the weight of her head, its oval +flattened by the hand of China, her heavy hair, inclined on its slender +neck: a figure, in my pages, impassively fateful, remote as I had seen +her seated in a gay company. That finished the story, for the youthful +American, after a vain public effort to secure for himself the dignity +of a heroic end, would be ignominiously deported from Cuba. I had been +often asked how I arrived at my plots, but more often accused of never +reaching an intelligible plan, and, until now, I'd been incapable of +giving an explanation satisfactory even to myself; but here was one +accounted for to a considerable degree. It had begun by an instinctive +attachment to a city, to Havana; and the emotions brought into being had +crystallized into a plan, for me, unusually concise. + +There was a temptation, to be avoided, to tell it in the first person; a +version that had come to be disliked almost as universally as a set of +letters. Some celebrated stories had been written that way--Youth--but I +felt that it was an unnecessary charge on sympathy. While the creation +of character was no longer the tyrant it had been, a certain air of +veracity was most desirable, and the limited scope of a single +intelligence discussing, explaining, himself was too marked. The great +trouble with the romantic novels up to the very present had been that +there was never a doubt of the ultimate happiness of all who should be +happy and the overwhelming misery of those who should be miserable. No +peril was the father of a thrill, because from its inception it was +plainly impotent to harm the lovely and the brave. The pleasure had from +witnessing a dexterous job was lost in an artifice that seldom +approached an art. But we'd improved that, an improvement expressed in +the utter loss of the word hero; no man, or woman, was now entirely safe +in the hands of his romantic author; the two manners had come creditably +together. + +I had become, subconsciously, interested in a girl pausing on the floor, +and, in response to my scrutiny, she glanced up with a shadowy smile. I +gazed with instant celerity and fixedness at the ceiling, then at the +upper boxes opposite, since below, indiscretion was laid like a trail of +powder, of explosive rice powder. There was no cutting in at that ball. +She was more than charming, too, with her mixed blood evident in her +carriage, her indolence, rather than in feature. She wore blue, a wisely +simple dress that showed small feet, like butterflies in their +lightness, and the instinctive note of a narrow black velvet band on her +throat. + +An air of sadness rested on her, on, principally, a superiority anyone +could see. Her fan opened and shut in a thin pointed hand. A maid, I +told myself, reflecting the aristocracy of the closets of delicate +clothes in her charge, scented from the gold-stoppered bottles of her +mistress. She was another phase of what had been going on at such length +through my mind--a different catastrophe, since she was denied the +reward of the virtues in either of the races that had made her. In +Boston she would have become a bluestocking, a poet singing in minor +cadence to traditional abolitionists become dilettantes, but in Cuba, +tormented by the strains of the danzon: + +There, her flax burning in resentment and despair, she might be +extinguished in the tide restlessly sweeping to the troubled coast of +Birrajos: or, at Havana, carried into the secrets of the Nanigos: in the +black cabildo of that society, provision was made for a woman. + + * * * * * + +It was significant that the first organization of naniguismo in Cuba was +purely African, for the hatred of its members, Carabalies, for the white +race made the admission of even mulattos impossible. This +society--tierra or juego--was formed during the administration of +General Tacon, in the village of Regla, and called Apapa Efi. It was, +against the protests of its originators at sharing the secret with too +many, enlarged, and spread through the outskirts of Havana. There the +mulattos greatly outnumbered the blacks, and they formed a society of +their own, its oath sworn in Ancha del Norte Street, named Ecobio Efo +Macarara. They insisted on a common brotherhood and their right of +entering the fambas, the ceremonial rooms; but there was a determined +opposition, open battle and murder in Perserverancia and Lagunas +Streets. After this there was a general meeting at Marianao, the early +bar to color, as distinguished from black, removed, and the infusion of +the dark ritual of Efi into white blood began. When, ten years after, an +indiscriminate society, the Ecobio Efo, was terminated by the +authorities, Spanish nobles and professional men were assisting in the +rites. + +What had started upon the African river Oldan as a tribal religion took +on, in Havana, a debased version of Rome, and the veneration of Santa +Barbara was added to the supreme worship of Ecue, a figure vaguely +parallel to the Holy Ghost, created in the sounding of a sacred drum. +And what, equally, in the Carabalie Bricamo was Dibo, God, became in +Cuba an organization of criminals and finally, when its more obvious +aspects were stamped out, a corrupt political influence. There, in the +clearest possible manner, was traced the eventual effect of so much +heralded superiority, such enormous advantages, on native belief. + +There could be no doubt, though, of the fact that, in any pretence of +civilization, the nanigos were detrimental; it was unavoidable that they +should have degenerated into a savage menace, not only in overt acts, +which were not lacking, but in practices of mental and emotional horror. +Their ceremony, with its strange vocables and distortions of meaning; +the obscene words that were but symbols for obscenities beyond +imagination; the character of their dance, which gave them the name +arrastrados, men who dragged themselves, reptilian, on the ground--all +combined in a poison like a gas sweeping from the morass of the past. It +held, beneath its refuge and defiance of society, the appeal of a +portentous secret, bound in blood, the fascination, the fetishism, of +orgiastic rituals, and, under that, stronger still, delirious barbarity. + +Its legend was not different from the others which formed the primitive +bases of subsequent elaborate beliefs: the miracle, with an attending +baptism, was consummated by a woman, Sicanecua, who found a crying +fish--the fish was a sacred Christian sign--in her jar of water. In +recognition of this she was sacrificed and her blood put to a holy use, +and the fish skinned for the drum, sounded by the fingers, used in his +praise. Here Ecue, the divine, was baptized by Efo in the Oldan, who in +turn signed his disciple. And about that tradition, guarded--with its +instrument--in the altar, Ecue sese, the degenerate elements and +characters of modern naniguismo gathered. There were, necessarily, +changes in the Cuban form of worship--the skin of a goat was substituted +for the unprocurable variety of fish, and the timbre of the original +drum secured by an artifice. The need, as well, of finding another +anointment than human blood, difficult to procure in Havana, led to the +sacrifice of the rooster or a goat. This, now, had a crucifix, with the +profession that God, Dibo, must be over everything, and a sacramental +singing; but not the Te Deum or Laudes ... Efore sisi llamba, and the +reply Ho Isueribo engomo ... Mocongo! while the Empego, the clerk of +the service, shifted brightly colored curtains and enveloping +handkerchiefs and marked with yellow chalk the head and body and palms +of the initiates. + +A diablito had in charge the offices of the catechism--Come with me; +where did you leave your feet; where I left my head! Enter where Bongo +is and cry with your brother! Look at your brother because they want to +choke him. He conducted the sacrifice of the goat, which, in a memorial +of Guinea, was eaten with pointed sticks, with the drink Mucuba, made +from sugar-cane rum and bitter broom. A strange procession followed, led +by the Insue, with a woman in a shift, Sicanecue, and the diablito +skipping backward. The sese, a silver crucifix with four black feathers, +was carried, and later the remains of the feast were thrown into a +cemetery. + +The effort to end naniguismo in Havana began in eighteen hundred and +seventy-five, when its gatherings were forbidden; but, deeply +traditional, it flourished in hidden places, in the jail where nanigos +were confined and the cellars of Jesus Maria. Long before that the poet +Placido had been killed; within a few years the Llamba named Hand on the +Ground was judicially executed; and following the assassinations during +the carnival of eighteen hundred and sixty-five, sweeping deportations +were enforced. In Maloja Street a juego, Acaniran Efo Primero, with +officers drawn from reputable quarters, was surprised; the next year the +Abacua Efo was exterminated; a public clash of diablitos resulted in +apprehensions; and twenty-five nanigos were taken on Vista Hermosa +Street. + +It was, in reality, Africa in Havana, brought against its wish and to +its tragic misfortune; and, planted in an alien soil, but among a common +genus, the mysteries of religion, it grew into an aberration of all that +gave it birth. Aside from this, its significance, for me, lay in its +amazing language, an idiom, specifically, composed of the Carabalie +Bricamo and a Spanish without articles or conjunctions, equally +incapable of exact images and the expression of abstract thought. But +taking the place of its omissions, was a congealing power of suggestion, +of creating, through, apparently, no more than the jumbling of common +terms and sounds, sensations of abject dread. The four bishops of the +ritual, in their order, were Insue, Illamba, Mocongo, Empego. In +naniguismo man was momban, an idiot was sansguere, a knife icua +rebesine, a pistol etombre, immortality embiguei, the night erufie, war +ochangana, the sun fanson, and worms cocorico. The language took short +rigid forms, phrases; it had little if any plasticity: Amandido +amanllurube, The day goes and the night comes. Efiquefi que buton efique +Ename onton Ellego Efimeremo Iboito, Eurico sangacurici eurico sanga +quimagua sanga nampe, nampe sanga mariba, The owl drinks the blood of +the dead and flies to the sea. + +The terms of the acts of worship were particularly heavy, sultry, and +held in their sound alone the oppressive significance of fetishes as +black as the night from which they were shaped. The minister of death +to Sinanecua, a ceremony which became traditional, was named +Cuanon-Araferrobre, and the act of sacrifice the Acua Meropo. The +singers before the altar, making visible the sacred stick, Baston +Mocongo, intoned Mocongo Machevere, Mosongo moto cumbaba eribo, and +Erendio basi Bome, I believe in God and God is great; with, at the last, +silencing the profession of faith, the voice of the drum, tarinibongo. + +The nanigos had been driven from the streets through which, at first, on +King's Day, Dia Reyes, they were permitted, once a year, to parade with +native costumes and instruments--atables and marugas and ecous, a +flattened bell struck by a thin stick. Their fambas were destroyed and +hysteria cooled; but I wondered about both the secretiveness and the +persistence of the primitive spirit and the delicate melancholy that +veiled the girl so faintly tinged with carabalie, resting below my box +through the rasping strains of the danzon. Had her gain been greater +than the loss, the ruin, of her simplicity; had she, dragged abruptly +from saurian shadows, been made white by an arbitrary papal sun? + + * * * * * + +A glimmering dawn, faintly salt with the presence of the sea, was +evident in the Parque Central when I walked the short distance, not more +than a few steps, from the opera house to the Inglaterra, my head filled +with the resonant bos and bongos of naniguismo. Havana, for a moment, +seemed like a cemetery--its own marble cemetery of Colon--where a black +spirit, buried in a secret grave, walked and would not be still. I +speculated about that same spirit in another connection--in its +influence on painting and music, on Western literature. It had affected +dancing profoundly, making it, in the United States, almost wholly its +own; and the Spanish, with whom, in the richness of a tradition and +perfect expression, no others could compete, owed a great debt to +Africa. Our music, too, it had influenced to such a degree that it was +doubtful if we had any outside the beat of negro strains. + +Stephen Foster, a great composer in that he had enclosed the whole +sentiment of an age within his medium, was often but a paraphrase of a +darker melody. Foster, like Havana, was Victorian, a period that dreamed +of marble halls, set in a pitch impossible now, and yet, curiously, +charged for an unsympathetic world with significant beauty. This negro +contribution was in a melancholy and minor key, the invariable tone of +all primitive song; in poetry, as well, a lyrical poetry nearly +approaching music, there was an analogous coloring between the race and +its shadowed measures. + +The reminiscent emotions that, with us, were mainly personal, in the +negro were tribal; he had not been individualized, brought to a separate +consciousness; and, in consequence, his song, practically lacking in +intellect, dealt only with instinctive feelings. Growing shrill with +passion and sinking to the monotonous laments of formless sorrow, it +belonged equally to all the men, the women, who heard it--it was their +voice and comprehensible triumph or pain; without artifice it wasn't +artificial nor ever insincere; and, as a means of gold, a medium for +lies, it had no existence. The voice of all, an instrument of natural +beauty, shared by villages, its pure quality, brought in slave ships +that rotted with their dead on the sea, gave the shallow and vitiated +West a fresh earthen tonic chord. + +The negro, naturally, hadn't grown more cheerful in his new imposed +setting; and it was possible that his music had gained an added depth, +at any rate for our perception, from the weight of banishment and +shackles. He had not turned with any success to creative accomplishment +that needed mental independence and courage, or to forms, like the +novel, wholly modern. On the other side, the novel, with all its +trumpeted young freedom, had never, with even relative truth, expressed +the negro in the Americas. This, a subject of appalling splendor, had, +in the United States, been turned over to the comic spirit and short +impressions--stories, superficially, falsely, pathetic. The fact was +that we had enormously harmed the negro, and for that reason, in the +familiar process of human self-esteem, nationally we were uneasy, +resentful in his presence. We saw him, when we escaped from absolute +hatred, as a figure, a subject, without dignity: we lacked there the +penetrative sympathy which was the soul of imaginative fiction. Such a +novel, I thought, was perhaps of everything that offered the best worth +writing. + +Certainly nothing more difficult could be well attempted; my knowledge, +in Havana and through the nanigos, had been perceptibly enlarged, and I +was not unfamiliar with the state in which, I decided, the story must be +laid--not in Virginia, but upon a level grey reach of Louisiana, cut by +tideless bayous and saturated with the fever of cane and cypress brakes. +A bitter novel like the broom herb put in the ceremonial drink Mucuba, +pages from which it would be hard to exclude a fury of hopelessness! And +what an angry disturbed wasplike hum it would provoke! No magazine, of +course, would touch it--it would be sold, for a week or ten days, from +under counters, and then we, my novel and myself, metaphorically burned. +A magnificent project: + +A huddle of cabins at the edge of a wall of black pines beyond a deep +ruined field--but perhaps this was South Carolina--infinitesimal ragged +patches of corn, a sandy trail lost abruptly in the close forest, and +half-naked portentous shapes. There would be a town back in the country +with a desolate red square of great sprawling water-oaks smothered in +hanging moss, a place at once old and raw, and ugly with vindictive +ignorance.... The negroes were infinitely happier in Havana, where the +heat, the palms, were their own; and I was surprised that they didn't +desert the United States in a body for a suaver spirit in the air and +man. Cuba, to a large measure, with what final result I wasn't +concerned, had absorbed them in the manner that Spain had absorbed the +Moors. Havana made some denial of this, and prided itself, with entire +justice where it was true, on unmixed Castilian blood; but the other was +perceptible in the gait, the very whiteness, of Cuba's principal +city--the whitest walls on earth. This didn't bother me; I liked Havana +from its farthest view to its most intimate facade, and I was grateful +to whatever had made it. + +In my room the negro, with the danzon, faded from my mind; and I only +paused to speculate dimly about his overwhelming preference, where a +choice existed, for the Protestant religions instead of Roman +Catholicism. I should have thought that the color, the imagery and +incense, of the Catholic Church would be irresistible. Yet there were, +in the United States, thousands of colored Methodists and Baptists for +one adherent of Rome. It might be that the hymns of Methodism, +sufficiently melancholy and barbarous in figure, God knew, were the +reason--the character of the hymns and congregational singing, the loud +pictorial shouts. The later religion of the negroes, in addition to what +I had already considered, was a subject to be avoided; but running +through my mind was the memory that in Richmond, not long ago, it was +common in the evenings of spring for bands of negroes to go through the +streets singing spirituals and constantly gathering others who dropped +their work, their responsibilities, to join the passing chorus of hope. + +That was lost now, I understood, a vanished custom, killed by +self-consciousness; but it would have been a fine thing to hear +approaching and receding through the dusk, a stirring resinous volume or +a mere vibrant echo, a dying whisper. Perhaps that, a dying whisper, +would be the solving of the whole tragic difficulty--disease and winter +and relentless natural laws. The latter moved with great deliberation +through unlimited centuries, but the impatience of men demanded instant +release from trouble. They wanted black black and white white, with no +transition, no blurring of the edges; this was their dream, but they +constantly defeated it, betrayed their ideal. Yes, it might be that the +humility of that defeat, in the far future, would accomplish a +universally white city. Only one other way offered: a different humanity +from any which had yet appeared outside rare individuals ... but that +vision seemed, to me, as fantastic as the sentence in Carabalie Bricamo +that gave it expression, Eruco en llenison comunbairan abasi otete +alleri pongo--We of this world are all together. The truth was, honestly +at heart, that I couldn't commit myself to all, or even a quarter, of +what this would have demanded. Impersonally I was able to see that, as +an idea, it was superb, I realized that something of it must inform my +pages; but it was useless to pretend that I could begin to carry it out +or that I was, in practice, a Christian. I was tired, and my thoughts +grew confused, but dimly in my mind was again the consciousness of the +remote fate of the creative writer, an individual without even the +desire to be a part of that for which he cried. + + * * * * * + +Certainly I had no marked love of humanity the following morning, caught +with a small mob in a narrow passage of the wharf where I was waiting to +board the steamer for Key West. I was between the water and a wooden +partition, the heat was savage, and a number of youthful marines, +returning home from Camagueey, were indulging in a characteristic +humor--the dealing of unsuspected blows, of jarring force, among +themselves. They shoved each other, in a crowd shoulder to shoulder, +disregarding entirely the indirect results of their vigor, and exchanged +threats of fulminating violence. They were not more annoying than the +others, but only more evident; and, as the advertised time of departure +was past by an hour, and then a second hour, and the sun found its way +into our walled space, even the marines subsided. Every trace of +dignity, in that heat, ran away from the people about me. While, on the +whole, they were uncomplaining, even relatively considerate of others' +discomforts, wondering, with weary smiles, when the boat would be off, +I had no such kindly promptings.... I hated them all, the ugliness of +the women and the men's dull or merely sharp faces, with an intensity +that wasn't normal. When I was very young indeed, scarcely past two, I +had been nearly crushed in a throng after the Sesquicentennial parade in +Philadelphia; long afterward I had been, to all practical purposes, +asphyxiated in a train that broke down in an Apennine tunnel; as a +result, I had an unreasoning fear of crowded bodies or limited space; +and this dread, before long, on the Havana wharf, turned into an acute +aversion for every individual and thing about me. + +The surrounding insistent good nature developed in flashes of exchanged +homely wit, varied by the attitudes of restraint, and, of them both, I +couldn't tell which I resented more. The present position of the waiting +people, the long exposure to the intolerable sun, was the result of +their patience; of that and their personal inefficiency reflected in +their official management. All the bad governments in the world, the +dishonesty and universal muddles, were nothing more than monuments to +the immeasurable stupidity and greed of the people; they were betrayed +politically not by powerful and unscrupulous parties and men, but by +themselves; perpetually and always by their own laziness and +superstition and jealousy. + +The Cubenos, the original inhabitants of Cuba, were parcelled in the +bondage of encomiendas, exterminated by the passion of the Spanish Crown +for gold; when they had been sacrificed, Africa was raked by slavers for +labor in the mines and planting; beneath every movement, instigated by +hope or supported by returns, riches were the incentive and power. Men +had never, within history and their secret hearts, cared for anything +else: an ineradicable desire. There was a facile public gabble about the +qualities of the spirit, about soul; but the solid fact of money, both +as an abstraction and what conspicuously it brought, was what the people +worshipped, wanted, what they schemed or stole for, or in the service +of which they performed the most heroic toil. + +This was not, necessarily, an ignoble or negligible pursuit, but it was +corrupted by an attending hypocrisy which forced a fervent denial, the +pretense of an utterly different purpose, to be worn like a cloak. It +was possible that, admitted, the sovereignty of gold would be the most +beneficial rule applicable to man. It was preeminently the symbol, the +signature, of power; with the late sugar crops it had revolutionized +Cuba. Havana was for the moment, in a very strong sense, the capital of +the world, and the visible mark of that was the stream of automobiles on +the Prado and Malecon; individually, money was counted by the +million--the recognition, the desired reward, of the fact that Cuba +controlled a necessity of life. The instinct to profit by such turns of +fortune was deeper than any charitable impulse; there was a tendency to +speculate in wheat more general than the impulse to give loaves to the +starving. + +There was a sudden surge toward the gang plank of the City of Miami, and +I was borne onto the steamer, away from Havana, in an exasperated and +bitter spirit. I had entered the harbor happily, saturated by its +beauty, but I was leaving blind to the marble walls on the blue water. +However, it was cooler on an upper deck; and with my back +uncompromisingly turned on humanity, on my fellow passengers over a sea +like a tranquil illusion of respite between stubborn realities, I picked +out from the panorama of the city across the harbor, diminishing in its +narrow entrance, familiar buildings and marks. Havana vanished, I +thought, far more rapidly than it had come into view; soon nothing of +Cuba could be seen but the dark green hills and thinly printed +silhouettes of mountains. I had it, though, in my memory; Havana was now +woven into the fibre of my being. + +The Inglaterra Hotel took its place with all the remembered spots where +I had lived: the bare pine-sealed room in the Virginia mountains, the +tall narrow house in Geneva, the courtyard in the Via San Gallo, the +brick house in a suburb from which, in a rebellion against every +circumstance of my life, I had escaped. I recalled days on end when I +had tried to write without the ability to form a single acceptable +sentence, when the floor was heaped and littered with pages crushed and +flung away. Then, it had seemed, I should get nowhere, and see, do, +nothing.... Havana was a singularly lovely city. A rush of small +mementos of its life flooded my mind--the aroma of the cigars, the +coolness of the Telegrafo Cafe and the savor of its Daiquiri cocktails, +the burning strip of sunlight that, at noon, found its way into Obispo +Street. It was still possible to get Ron Bacardi in the United States. I +was carrying back a large provision of exceedingly fine cigars, not from +the Larranaga factory, but a slender Corona, a shape specially rolled +for a discrimination as delicate as any in Cuba. Yet, away from Havana, +they wouldn't taste the same; in the United States they'd deteriorate; +and, where I lived, there were no fresh, no emerald-green limes, and +without them a Daiquiri was robbed of its inimitable flavor. + +But what, more than those, I should miss was the atmosphere of Havana +itself, the gay urbanity and festive lightness of tone. It had almost +wholly escaped the modern passion for reform changing America, pretty +much all the western world, into a desert of precept and correction; in +many senses Havana was an oasis in an aridity spreading day by day. Any +improvement wouldn't occur during my life--the habit of lies and +self-delusion had become a fundamental part of society--and all I could +hope for was the discovery of rare individuals and cities in which +existence was more than a penalty for having been born. I wanted them as +a relaxation, as short escapes from a tyranny from which, really, I was +powerless to turn: + +I didn't want to live in Havana, nor to be surrounded by exceptional +people; for they were both enemies of what, above everything, I wanted +to do--to write into paper and ink some permanence of beauty. For that, +Chester County and the solid stone block of my house were necessary, a +temperate climate indispensable. At heart, in spite of my constant +fault-finding, my threats of leaving, I was bound by associations deeper +than mere intelligence. No, nothing so powerful as an obsession had +overtaken me approaching Havana; I was not, in actuality, an adventurer, +but only a seeker for charm, for memories, to carry back to the low +window to which I had already referred. The charm of Havana was its +strangeness, the vividness of its sudden impression on me, the temporary +freedom, grace, it offered. It was characteristic of freedom, too, that, +in the end, it became slavery; while slavery had, at times, +extraordinarily the appearance of freedom. Not a month ago I had +dropped, with a sigh, a gasp of relief, a pen heavier than anything else +on earth, and now I could scarcely restrain the eagerness--the +confidence, at last, of success--with which I wanted to take it up +again. + + * * * * * + +When I turned, looking back, Cuba had vanished, sunk below the line of +the sea. The Gulf Stream was indigo; along the side of the steamer, foam +hissed with a sharp whiteness, and at the bow miniature rainbows hung +shimmering in the spray. The perpetual soft clouds of the Gulf Stream +were very high and faint. In my imagination Havana assumed a magic, a +mythical, state--a vision that, I was certain, had no absolute +ponderable existence. It was a city created on a level bright tide, +under lustrous green hills, for the reward of cherished and unworldly +dreams. It was the etherealized spectacle of the sanguine hopes of all +the conquistadores who had set sail for the rubies of Cipango; they had +had great desires of white marble cities in which the women were lovely +and dark, and gold was worked into the forms of every day. + +They, different from the frugal Dutch, making, with no less daring, the +Eastern Passage in the interest of associated merchants and of +commonwealths, sailed, in a more picturesque phrase, for their Catholic +Majesties and for Spain. The Dutch names, Bonteke and Schouten and +Roggeveen, had a solid bartering sound compared with Francesco de +Cordoba and Miruelo and Angel de Villafane. Holland had its deathless +tradition of the sea, sufficiently colored with extravagant adventure; +but its spirit was sober, the visions of its navigators would never have +lingered in a marble city. + +Havana was, perhaps, a Saragossa of souls, with the acts and thoughts of +its early vivid years, of Carenas, forever held in the atmosphere, +audible in the restless volume of sound that was never still. Its +history had flashed through my mind with the turn of a wheel, its +duration seeming no more than the opening and shutting of a hand; but +now I had an impression not of the transient, not of walls and names and +voices, but of qualities impersonal and permanent, of something which, +while individual men died, resisted death. It had existence, that was, +as long as humanity drew a continuous thread of memory through time. +Havana had, outwardly, changed from its first huddle of bohios and +fortified tower; but the form it had taken, so different from the +discovered reality, had beyond any question that odd similitude to Marco +Polo's reports of the Grand Khanate. Its final architecture, +pseudo-classic, was more abstract than any other imaginable order: all +the dress that had ever paraded through the successive stages of the +city--the Cacquies, girdled in feathers, the brocades of Maria de Toledo +and her lady-in-waiting, Captain Godoy in steel and lace, the floating +crinoline of the Prince of Anglona's year, painted black nanigos--was +equally possible against a background at once fantastic and restrained. + +There was never a more complex spirit than Havana's, no stranger +mingling of chance and climate and race had ever occurred; but, +remarkably, a unity of effect had been the result, such a singleness as +that possessed by an opera, in which, above the orchestra and the +settings and the voices, there was perceptible a transcending emotion +created from an artificial and illogical means. For while Havana had a +record dignified in its sweep, it could never be long dominant either +as a city or in its men; it had ruled an island but not the world, it +had never been--in that latitude--a Captain-general of a hemisphere. No, +it wasn't symphonic, but the lesser, more pictorial, performance; it +had, I thought, very much the appearance of a stage. + +This, however was not a denial of the reality of the blood it shed, nor +of the sharpness and danger of its emotions; it had been a profusely +bloody city with tropical passions often reaching ideals of sacrifice. +It had, too, suffered the iron of oppression, spoken its word for +liberty, the state which, never to be realized, by its bare conception +elevated life. Now, in addition, it was a great port ... and yet, though +it might have been the fault of my limitations, I continued to see +Havana as more dramatic than essential; I heard persistently the +overture with the themes of Seville, the crying native airs, the drums +of Guinea played with the fingers. The shining crooked bay was filled by +the plate ships of Mexico and Peru, with their high-decked sterns and +yellow cannon. The curtain fell to rise again on Don Miguel Tacon! + +It was impossible to determine what I had seen of Havana and what was +merely my reflected self; even hard to decide if I had seen Havana +objectively at all, since my attitude toward it had been so purely +personal. My memory was composed of what I'd experienced and the +reflections, the thoughts, that had given birth to; and, of them, the +latter were the more real, solider than the Prado, more tangible than +the dining-room of the Inglaterra. Without them Havana would have been +meaningless, sterile, simply a museum about which nothing could be +written but a catalogue. It was its special charm to be charged with +sensations rather than facts; a place where facts--not, of a kind, +absent--could be safely ignored. Further than that, ignoring them was, +for any measure of pleasure, absolutely needful: the pedantic spirit in +Havana was fatal. + +What, almost entirely, I had been told to view, expected to enjoy, I had +avoided; yet not that, for it implied a deliberate will, and such a +planning or triumph of character had been as far as possible from my +drifting: I had seen what I preferred and done what I was; anyone, +following me in Havana, could have judged me with exactitude. I had +spent money lavishly--as though I were rich instead of extravagant--for +visible returns that would have only provoked the other passengers on +the City of Miami. They, where they were not driven to staterooms by the +dipping of the steamer, were vociferous with knowledge about Cuba, their +bags were heavy with souvenirs--the Coty perfumes from France and the +table-linen of the Canary Islands. The pervasive salesmen, flushed with +success and Scotch whisky, smoking the cigars long familiar to them in +northern hotels, hinted together of the Parisian girls and criollos, to +whom they referred as creoles in the meaning and vocabulary of American +burlesque. Some officials of transportation and sugar manipulators sat +aside, with double Coronas, exchanging in short sentences their hardness +of knowledge, speaking of Cuba as an estancia of which they were +absentee owners. A flight of winged fish skittered over the sea, and the +clouds following the Gulf Stream turned rose with the dropping of the +sun; the horizon bore a suggestion of Florida. Once Cuba, regarded as +the shore of India, had been the center of the West, and Florida no more +than a chimera: how ironic such errors and reversals were! Now it was +Juana that was legendary, and Florida resembled the significant hooked +finger of an imponderable power. The day slid rapidly into water that +had lost its blueness for expanses of chalky shallow green, and the flat +roofs of Key West and masoned arches became slowly visible across the +sea, and a stir of departure filled the decks. + +I was, for a moment, depressed at the definite leaving behind of +Havana--for the tranquil passage had seemed only an extension of its +spirit--and by the imminent reshouldering of my burden of +responsibility. I had never wanted that, but, without choice, it had +been abruptly thrust on me--a responsibility, impossible of fulfilment, +which I couldn't put down. When I was young I had looked in vain for a +perpetual Havana, hoping for nothing more; and now, when my youth was +dead, I had found the perfection of my desire. But, as always, the +discovery was too late; I couldn't stay in the covered paseos, the +plazas with flambeau trees and royal palms or idle in a room of Moorish +tiles with a dripping fountain, over a magic drink; my time for the +actualities of charming liberty, the possession of uncounted days, was +gone. But this mood was nothing more than a gesture, a sentiment, thrown +back to romance. + +[Illustration: image of the book's back cover] + + +The following typographical errors were corrected by the etext +transcriber: + +beginninng of the Prado=>beginning of the Prado + +like a harsh native wine, from Balbao=>like a harsh native wine, from +Bilbao + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's San Cristobal de la Habana, by Joseph Hergesheimer + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAN CRISTOBAL DE LA HABANA *** + +***** This file should be named 38445.txt or 38445.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/4/4/38445/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images available at The Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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