Читать книгу The Reign of Gilt - David Graham Phillips - Страница 5

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Let us glance at our typical Mr. Multi-Millionaire’s town house. It is a palace of white marble, in Fifth avenue, near Fifty-ninth street—the view across the Park from the upper windows is superb. This palace was the inaugural of the family’s recent fashionable career. It is the struggle to live up to it that is making them famous in New York.

The palace was to have cost our family a million, including the site. Up to the present time it has cost them two and a half millions, and that does not include the one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollar set of tapestries for the dining-room which is on its way from Europe. The site cost half a million; the house three-quarters of a million; the rest went for furniture, and the house still looks bare to the family. “A wretched barn,” madame calls it. There are one hundred and fifty thousand dollars in paintings and statuary in the entrance-hall, fifty thousand dollars in paintings, statuary, and such matters in the rest of the house. Two hundred thousand dollars could easily be spent without overcrowding. The furniture, thinly scattered in the long and lofty salon, cost two hundred and fifty thousand dollars—it is amazing how fast the money disappears once one goes in for old furniture.

As you look round these show rooms—the vast entrance-hall, the enormous dining-room, the great library, the salon which is used as ballroom, the comparatively small and exquisitely furnished reception-rooms—you are struck by the absence of individual taste. You are in a true palace—the dwelling-place, but in no sense the home, of people of great wealth, but of no marked æsthetic development. They have the money, and to a certain extent the faculty of appreciation. But others have supplied the active, the creative brains.

You go up the grand stairway, and at the turn pause to look down at the magnificent rug which almost covers the floor of the entrance-hall, up at the splendid painting which adorns the ceiling. The owner—you know him well—tells you that each cost twenty-five thousand dollars.

And then he takes you into the wife’s living-rooms. She is out of town.

Madame lives in five great rooms—a sitting-room, a dressing-room, a bedroom, a room where her clothes in use—quantities of dresses, hats, wraps, boots, shoes, slippers, drawers full of the finest underclothing—are kept, and a bathroom. She is very crowded, she will tell you. For instance, where is her secretary to sit and work when she wishes to use her sitting-room for a private talk with her son or daughter, or some intimate friend?

You look round these rooms and again you note the absence of individual taste. Madame is always on the wing; she has no time to impress herself on her immediate surroundings. But a very capable artist has been at work and has not neglected the opportunities which his freedom in the matter of money opened to him. He has created several marvelous color schemes through harmonious shadings in rugs, upholstery, the brocade coverings of the walls, the curtains, the woodwork and the ceilings. You are not surprised that a hundred thousand dollars went in making suitable surroundings for a lady of fashion and fortune. You know that there are several dozen suites more expensive than this within gun-shot, and scores almost as expensive within a radius of half a mile.

If she were at home there would be on that dressing-table five or six thousand dollars in gold articles: brushes, combs, hand-mirrors—each gold and rock-crystal hand-mirror cost seven hundred and fifty dollars—bottles, button-hooks, and so forth, and so forth. If she were here, there would be in that safe at least fifty thousand dollars in jewelry—a small part of what she has, the rest being in the safe-deposit vaults.

The two marvels of this suite of hers are the bed and bath-tub. The bed is on a raised platform in a sort of alcove. The canopy and curtains are of a wonderful shade of violet silk. The counter-pane and roll-cover are of costly lace. The head-board and foot-board are two splendid paintings—one of sleep, the other of awakening. You think nine thousand dollars was cheap for this bed, even without canopy, lace and other fineries.

The bath-tub is cut from a solid block of white marble and is sunk in the marble floor of her huge bathroom. It is a small swimming-pool, and its plumbing is silver, plated with gold. On the floor of this room at the step down into the tub there is a great white bear-skin, and there is another in front of the beautiful little dressing-table. Three palms rise from the floor and tower—real trees—toward the lofty ceiling.

Going on through the palace you discover that it is arranged in suites—somewhat like a very handsome and exclusive private hotel. And then you learn that here is not one establishment, but seven, each separate and distinct. Our multi-millionaire’s family have outgrown family life and are living upon the most aristocratic European plan.

In a smaller, more plainly furnished suite of rooms than those occupied by his wife, lives the husband. In a third suite lives the grown son; in a fourth the grown daughter; in a fifth and sixth, these the smallest, live the young son and the young daughter. The seventh establishment consists of forty-two personal assistants and servants.

Each member of the family has his or her own sitting-room and there receives callers from within or without the family—except that the daughter receives men callers in the smallest of the three reception-rooms on the ground floor. Each has his or her own personal attendants; each lives his or her separate social life. They rarely meet at breakfast—it is more comfortable to breakfast in one’s sitting-room; they rarely meet at luncheon—luncheon is the favorite time for going to one’s intimates; they rarely meet at dinner—one or more are sure to be dining out or the mother is giving a dinner for married people.

It is with eyes on this lofty height that the New York family, just emerging from obscure poverty, with five or six thousand a year, anxiously ask themselves: “Now, can we at last afford a man to go to the door and wait on the table?”

For the man-servant is the beginning of fashion, and its height can be measured—as certainly as in any other way—by the number of men-servants and the splendor of their liveries.

Of course, our family of pacemakers have an “adequate” supply of secretaries, tutors, governesses, valets, maids; and the housekeeper has her staff, the chef his, the butler his, the head coachman his, the captain of the yacht his. Then there are caretakers, gardeners and farmers, the racing-stable staff, various and numerous occasional employees. At the request of Mr. Multi-Millionaire, his private secretary recently drew up a list of all persons in the family’s service. It contained—with the yacht out of commission and the Newport place not yet opened—seventy-nine names.

Mr. Multi-Millionaire, becoming interested in statistics, went on to have his secretary take a census of the horses and carriages owned by the family. Of horses there were sixty-four, excluding the seventeen thoroughbreds in the racing stable at Saratoga, but including the hunters and the polo ponies. The little girl had the fewest. Poor child! She had only a pair of ponies and a saddle horse, and she complained that her sister was always loaning the hack to some friend whom she wished to have riding with her. The grown son had the most—thirteen; he must hunt and he must coach and he must play polo, or try to. The father himself was almost as badly off as his little daughter—he had only four.

Of vehicles there were at the town stables a landau, two large victorias and a small one, two broughams, a hansom; an omnibus, seating six; four automobiles, a tandem cart, a pony cart. At the several country places—a coach, a drag, a surrey, a victoria phaeton, two dos-à-dos, two T-carts, four runabouts, three buggies, two breaking carts, making a total of thirty-one.

The secretary remarked that these vehicles, assembled and properly distanced, would, with their animals, form a procession about three-quarters of a mile long. He then tried to read Mr. Multi-Millionaire some statistics of harness, saddles, and so forth, but was forbidden.

In further pursuit of this statistical mania, Mr. Multi-Millionaire discovered that his family and their friends—and the servants—had drunk under his various roofs during the past year nearly two thousand quarts of red wine, about one thousand quarts of champagne, one hundred and fifty quarts of white wine, one hundred and fifty quarts of whiskey, one thousand eight hundred quarts of mineral water, and an amazing amount of brandy, chartreuse, and so forth. The family’s total bills for drink, food, cigars, and cigarettes had been of such a size that they represented an expenditure of about three hundred and seventy dollars a day—about one hundred and thirty-five thousand dollars a year. His wife became very angry when he showed her these last figures. She told him that he was meddling in her business and that she didn’t purpose to spend her whole life in watching servants.

Our multi-millionaire did not make his fortune; he inherited it. But he has been very shrewd in managing it, for all his extravagance. Though he is cautious about expenses in one way, he shows by the allowances he makes to the various members of his family that he believes in carrying out to the uttermost the idea that his family must live in state. His wife has a million in her own name, but he makes her an allowance of three hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year to maintain herself and their households. The grown son has had an allowance of twenty-five thousand dollars a year, and when he marries it will be trebled—perhaps quadrupled. This is large for persons of their modest fortune, but many fathers of smaller means are doing as much for their children, and our multi-millionaire will not see his children suffer. His grown daughter has an allowance of fifteen thousand dollars—more than she needs, as she has only to buy her clothes and pay her small expenses out of it. The boy in college has five thousand dollars a year; he is always in debt, but his mother helps him. The youngest child has ten dollars a week—her clothes are bought for her, and she can always get money from her father or mother when she wishes to make handsome presents.

The most interesting person in the family is the mother. She is its moving force, one of the moving forces in the extravagant life of New York City to-day. You see her name and her pictures in the newspapers very often, always in connection with the news that she is doing something. She was the first in New York to have huge flunkeys in gaudy knee-breeches and silk stockings in waiting at her front door. She was the first to have as an entertainment for a few people after dinner several of the grand opera stars and the finest orchestra in the country. She is a woman with ideas—ideas for new and not noisy or gaudy, but attractive ostentations of luxury. She spends money recklessly, but she gets what she wants.

She is one of the busiest women in town. And the main part of her business is one which engages New York women, and men, too, ever more and more—the fight for prolonging youth.

You would never suspect that she is the mother of a son twenty-five years old. Indeed, you would not suspect from her looks or her conversation that she is a mother. She is making her fight for youth most successfully. Of course, she uses no artifices—the New York women who care greatly about looks have long since abandoned artificiality, except as a fad. Her hair is thick and dark and fine. It is her own, kept vigorous by constant treatment. Her skin is clear and smooth and healthily pale—it costs her and her beauty assistants hours of labor to keep it thus. Her figure is tall and slender and girlish—her masseuse could tell you how that is done. She lives, eats, exercises, with the greatest regularity. And she eats little and drinks less.

On dress she spends about fifty-five thousand dollars a year. You will not see her many times in the same hat or dress; and she has a passion for real lace underclothing and for those stockings which seem to have been woven on fairy looms of some substance so unsubstantial that only fairies could handle it. She bought twelve thousand dollars’ worth of underclothing when she was in Paris last spring. Her bills at the dressmaker’s of the Rue de la Paix were twenty-seven thousand dollars, and at the milliner’s twenty-four hundred dollars. She has about five thousand dollars invested in parasols. She has sixty-seven thousand dollars’ worth of wraps—sables, chinchillas and ermine cannot be got for small sums. She has many evening dresses that cost from eight hundred dollars to twelve hundred dollars each. She has few dresses that cost as little as one hundred and twenty-five dollars. The average price for her hats would be, perhaps, fifty dollars. She had one with fur on it last winter that cost two hundred and seventy-five dollars.

The chief reason for her large expenditure for clothes is that now-a-days every detail of each costume must be in harmony. She must have slippers, stockings, skirt, dress, hat, parasol, all to match or in perfect harmony. For she is one of half a dozen New York women who are famous for style, and having established this reputation she must live up to it. When she ceases to fight for youth—which will be in about ten years—she will probably cut her expenditures for dress in half. By that time extravagance will have so far advanced that her successor will spend seventy-five thousand dollars or more on dress. The last season has seen a three-league advance. It is now the fashion to wear for a drive down the Avenue those delicate shades which are ruined so quickly. Next season the color scheme of the Avenue will be still more gorgeous and varied—and prodigiously more expensive.

But it is her mode of keeping house and entertaining that makes the thousands and tens of thousands fly. Her establishments are maintained like so many luxurious hotel restaurants. Though her housekeeper is a capable person and she herself studies her accounts closely, it is impossible to be ready at all times to house and feed an indefinite number of people of exacting taste without spending great sums of money. It costs to be able to say to the butler at the last moment: “There will be ten for luncheon, instead of six,” or “There will be twelve for dinner, instead of four,” or “There will be four for dinner, not eight.”

Our Mrs. Multi-Millionaire lives no better in respect of her table than scores of people in her set and around it. She pays her chef one hundred dollars a month and her butler seventy-five dollars a month, and so do they. She has no better supplies on hand than have they. Her bills at the shops where they sell things out of season—peaches at four dollars apiece, strawberries at fifty cents apiece, and peas at a dollar a small measure—show no different kinds of items from theirs. They, too, have Sèvres plates at five hundred dollars the dozen. They, too, have fruit plates and finger-bowls of gold plated on silver that cost twelve hundred dollars the dozen. They, too, have solid-gold after-dinner coffee cups at two thousand dollars the dozen, and solid-gold spoons at four hundred dollars the dozen. The difference between the dinners of those of her fortune and the dinners of those of fewer millions lies in quantity, not quality. Where they would have to make an effort in arranging an unusual dinner and could not have more than a dozen at table, her establishment and many more establishments like hers would easily and without effort expand to entertain, in a fashion once called royal, two or three scores of guests.

The main and very conspicuous characteristic of this typical leader in New York’s extravagance is, naturally, restlessness. Like the other women of her set, like their imitators, down and down through the strata of New York’s wealth-scaled society, she wanders nervously about, spending money, inventing new ways of spending it, all because she is in search of something, she knows not what, that ever eludes her. And this restlessness, this nervousness, this hysteria, possesses the women and the men alike. Does it come uptown with the men from Wall street? Does it go downtown from the women and the fever of Fifth avenue? It is impossible to say. We only know that it possesses both and that it influences their every relation of life, public and private.

A fashionable woman sails for Europe—more than five thousand dollars’ worth of flowers, jewels, books, things to eat and drink, go to the steamer on sailing day from her friends. A young couple are married—their intimates and relatives give them three-quarters of a million in wedding gifts. A brother meets his sister on her way downstairs on the morning of her birthday—“Here is a little gift for you,” he says, pausing just long enough to hand her a paper. It makes her the owner of a million in gilt-edged securities. A husband comes home from the office—“I’ve put through my deal,” he says. “You can have your new house, but I won’t stand for more than a million and a half.” A father calls his son into his study and says, “You will be twenty-one to-morrow. I fix your allowance at seventy-five thousand dollars a year.” A doctor goes to a banker to get a small subscription for a new hospital—“Why not build a new hospital?” asks the banker. “I’ll give a million. If that’s not enough I’ll give two.”

It is amazing how many great and beautiful palaces of a kind such as is occupied by our multi-millionaire are being added yearly to New York’s fashionable quarter. And there is not a single palace in New York that is comfortable. No way has yet been devised for making them otherwise than chilly and draughty. The human animal is too small for such huge surroundings; and there are not enough competent servants or even competent available housekeepers to make the domestic machinery run smoothly.

The new millionaires slip into New York, into their new palaces, attracting little attention. Men with a scant million or two are coming all the time unobserved. If it were not necessity that drove them here, many of them would doubtless become angry at their insignificance and would go where less money gives distinction. But the rapid concentration of the directing forces of the business of the country in Manhattan Island compels them to yield to the entreaties of their wives and daughters and remain.

Scores of these palace owners have or seem to have no way of getting acquainted with anybody whatsoever. There are millionaires’ families that stare drearily out of the windows, bored to death in their isolation, and wishing they were back in the Western town where they used to have lots of fun. There are others who give entertainments in the vast rooms of their palaces at which you will find their clerks, a few nondescripts male and female, and no others—these standing or strolling awkwardly about, trying to forget that they are miserable in reflecting on the cost of the pictures and the decorations.

In the surroundings above outlined, how could anyone, whether newly rich or long rich, lead other than a sordid life? Money is there necessarily the basis of all action, the determiner of the complexion of every thought.

To the narrow vision of the palace dweller and of those who look only at palace dwellers, America seems like a greedy, ill-mannered child released upon a candy shop. In the wide, the true aspect it seems a man, intelligently developing himself, fevered by a sense of the shortness of life and the vastness of its opportunities.

In the one aspect it suggests an express rushing along, with the engineer mad and the passengers drunk. In the other aspect it suggests its own miraculous sky-scrapers, rising swift as an exhalation, high as the clouds, yet securely founded upon the rock.