hostess to say their farewells, and Emily sent her own carriage home without her.
The party in Chelsea was as different from the event they had left as it was possible to conceive. It was held in several rooms, all of them large, filled with books and comfortable chairs and chaise longues. The air was hazy with smoke, some of which had the peculiar sweetness of incense, quite unfamiliar to Emily. Everywhere people, a far greater preponderance of men than women, were engaged in intense conversation.
The first man Emily noticed individually had a dreaming face, large nose, humorous eyes and small, delicate mouth. His hair seemed fair in the gaslight, and he wore it long enough to touch the white, lace-edged collar of his velvet jacket.
“I think that’s Richard Le Gallienne,” Tallulah whispered. “The writer.” She looked ahead to where another earnest young man, wavy hair parted in the center, rich mustache decorating a full upper lip, was describing something to his audience to their entranced delight. “And that’s Arthur Symons,” she went on, her voice rising eagerly. “He must be telling them about Paris. I hear he met simply everyone there!”
They were welcomed very casually by a middle-aged woman with powerful features, dressed in garb which could have come straight from an artist’s impression of an Eastern traveler. It was flattering, but highly eccentric. She held a cigar in one long-fingered hand and seemed to know Tallulah, and therefore to be happy to accommodate anyone who accompanied her.
Emily thanked her, then gazed around with interest and a touch of apprehension. A large potted palm nearly obscured a corner of the room, where two young men sat so close to each other they were all but touching. One of them appeared to be reading to the other out of a very thin, leather-bound volume. They were oblivious of everyone else.
On a chaise longue near the farther wall a middle-aged man with a florid face was either asleep or insensible.
Arthur Symons was holding forth about his recent trip to Paris, where he had indeed visited Paul Verlaine.
“We went to his home,” he said excitedly, gazing at his audience, “where we were most cordially received … Havelock Ellis and myself. I wish I could describe to you the atmosphere, everything I saw and heard. He entertained us with the last wine, all the while he smoked like a bonfire. I swear I shall never smell smoke again without it bringing to my mind that evening. Imagine it!” He held up his hands as if grasping a whole world, precious and complete.
Everyone within earshot was staring at him. No one made the slightest move to leave.
His face glowed with the rapture of the moment, although Emily wondered whether it was memory which burned so hotly in him or delight at being so absolutely the center of interest and the envy of his peers.
“Havelock and I sitting in the home of Verlaine himself. How we talked! We spoke of all manner of things, of philosophy and arts and poetry and what it is to be alive. It was as if we had always known each other.”
There was a murmur around the small circle, a sigh of admiration, perhaps of longing. One young man seemed almost intoxicated by the very thought of such an experience. His fair face was brightly flushed and he leaned forward as if by being in such close proximity he could touch or feel it for himself.
“He invited us to return the following day,” Symons continued.
“And of course you did!” the young man said urgently.
“Of course,” Symons agreed. Then a curious expression crossed his features, anger, laughter, sorrow. “Unfortunately, he was not in.”
Beside Emily someone drew in her breath sharply.
“We left in the utmost dejection,” Symons went on, looking even now as if some tragedy had just struck him. “It was appalling! Our dreams crashed to the ground, the cup broken the very instant it was at our lips.” He hesitated dramatically. “Then at the very moment we were leaving … we encountered him returning with a friend.”
“And …?” someone prompted vaguely.
Again the mixture of emotions crossed Symons’s face. “He had not the faintest idea who we were,” he confessed. “He had forgotten us completely.”
This tale was greeted with a mixture of responses, including a gasp of amazement from Reggie Howard and an outburst of laughter from Tallulah.
But Symons had their attention, and that was all he required. He went on to describe in minute, witty and most colorful detail their earlier visits to cafes, theaters, concerts and various salons. They visited several artists and made a long trip out to the suburbs, where they went to the workshop of Auguste Rodin, who barely spoke to them-or to anyone else.
Utterly different, and holding his audience to even more rapt attention, was the tale of his visit to the Cafe Moulin Rouge, colorful, hectic and seedy, with its music and dancers, its mixture of high and low society. He told them of his encounter with the brilliant and perverse Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, who painted the cancan girls and the prostitutes.
Emily was fascinated. It was a world of which she had barely dreamed. Of course she knew the names- everyone did, even if some of them were spoken in a whisper. They were the poets and thinkers who defied convention, who set out to shock, and usually succeeded. They idolized decadence, and said so.
From listening to Arthur Symons, she moved into the next room and eavesdropped on a conversation between two young men who seemed oblivious of her-an experience she had not had before, at least not at a party in her circle where politeness was exercised, often in defense of very obvious truth, and compliments were the usual currency of exchange.
This was outside all she knew, and invigorating because of it. No one mentioned the weather or who was courting whom. Politics need not have existed, or bankers or royalty either. Here it was all art, words, sensations and ideas.
“But he wore green!” one young man said in horror, his face twisted as if he suffered physical pain. “The music was the most obviously purple I have ever heard. All shades of indigo and violet, melting into darkness. Green was absolutely so insensitive! So utterly devoid of understanding.”
“Did you say anything to him?” the other asked quickly.
“I tried,” was the reply. “I spent ages with him. I explained all about the interrelationship between the senses, how color and sound are part of each other, how taste and touch combine, but I really don’t think he understood a word.” He gestured intensely with his hands, fingers spaced and then clenched. “I wanted him to grasp a complete art! He is so one-dimensional. But what can one do?”
“Shock!” his companion said instantly. “With something so sublime he will be forced to reconsider everything he has ever believed.”
The first man dashed the heel of his hand against his brow.
“But of course! Why didn’t I think of that? That’s what dear Oscar says: the first duty of the artist is continually to astonish.”
His friend leaned forward.
“My dear! Did you read
Both of them were completely unaware of Emily, a bare six feet away.
The young man thought for a moment.
“No, I don’t think so. You mean July? Why? What was in it? Has Oscar said something outrageous?” He touched the other lightly on the arm. “Do tell me!”
“Absolutely! It’s almost too marvelous.” The reply was so eager the words almost fell upon each other. “A story of a young and beautiful man-guess who? Well anyway, he falls in with a depraved dandy, an older man with a wonderful wit, to whom he says one day that he wishes he could never grow old but would always have the looks and the youth that he has at that moment.” His eyebrows rose. “He is very lovely, you understand?”
“So you said. What of it?” The young man leaned back, precariously close to the potted palm behind him. “We would all be delighted to retain such beauty as we have. Such a thought is hardly worthy of Oscar’s invention, and certainly not shocking.”
“Oh, but this story is!” he was assured. “You see, another man, a largely honorable man, paints a portrait of him-and his wish is granted! His face is beautiful!” He held up one long-fingered, white hand. “But his soul grows steadily more and more harrowed as he indulges in a life of utter pleasure seeking, regardless of the cost to others, which is high, even to life at times.”
