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POLLY’S JOURNAL[1]

Steamship Cleopatra,

January.

I don’t know where we are, somewhere on the Mediterranean on our way back from Egypt. It is the middle of the night, but I must write down what has happened, for it’s too exciting! Well! There’s a Russian aboard, and he is a Prince—Aunt discovered that, trust her, she’s absolutely set on my marrying a title. Anyhow we are all at the same table and last night he and I walked on deck together. There was a full moon, by the way, and really there aren’t any other nice young men on board, except Checkers, and brothers don’t count, so of course the Prince and I started a little flirtation. He’s as clever as he can be—very cosmopolitan, rather a mysterious person, and big, with a blonde moustache.

[1] Written at the age of twenty. I. A.

But when I went back to my cabin and put on my rainbow negligée, the one with the wing

sleeves, and started over to Aunt’s cabin to bid her goodnight,—why, what do you suppose? I went into the wrong stateroom! Honestly, I was sure hers was 26, but it wasn’t, and the minute I entered I saw I had made a mistake, for there stood the Russian, still dressed and staring out of the porthole. Of course he turned and looked at me; I tried to explain but stuttered in my excitement. He proved to be nice about it, but rather silly, I thought.

The worst of it was, though, that the boat lurched and swung the door shut, and then, of all things, the knob fell off! Really, I was so embarrassed and so furious with myself for being embarrassed, when it was such a chance to show what a woman of the world I was, that my hand shook and I could hardly get the knob into place again. But I did, with the Prince’s help—only I must admit his help didn’t amount to much—however he opened the door and bowed me out as if I were a great lady.

On the whole he really behaved very well, but foreigners are so different from Americans. I’m rather ashamed, so I’m going to dodge him after this if I can.

PRINCE BORIS TO POLLY

Steamship Cleopatra,

The next morning.

My dear Mademoiselle Hummingbird,

In your negligée you looked like a humming bird and I do not know your real name, so may I call you this? Here I am writing to you, weak, weak man that I am. I have no other helper than my dictionary, and it takes me a long time for the writing in English, but I feel you will like it better.

Did I fish[2] much for you last evening? Fishing is not good for going in the Heaven, they say, but I did one good action. The devil pushed me very strongly to kiss you when you came into my cabin, but I bowed you out. That was meritorious. (You can say, “Beautiful, indeed!” as said Wellington, seeing the charge of the French Imperial Guards at the battle of Waterloo.) I hope how God will give me good mark for that in his golden book.

[2] Intended for flirt.

I am reading much today, trying to forget you. The language in the French books is very instructive to the mind but destructive to the moral. The vice of the French or the bragging virtue of the English—which is better? I finish this letter by begging you to walk with me again in the moonlight. Send me a line if you will. I say goodbye till tonight.

Boris.

P.S. You have given me very much pleasure. It is sufficient for me to see and hear you. It make me pairfectly happy just so. I find you very charming.

How shall I say it—like or love you? In French they have only the one word, and the womans understand what they want. How you think? I like lively American girl, not afraid of anything, not even of wicked man.

PRINCE BORIS TO POLLY

Steamship Cleopatra,

The following day.

Dear Mademoiselle Avis,

Did you leave me last night when I try to join you on deck because you not like my letter or was it my foreign gesticulations which frightened you or you find my funs stupid? You angry when I kiss your hands in the moonlight perhaps? But why you not tell me your name and where you live when home?

You said me you just American girl called Polly the Pagan, and you would not interest me,—but you do interest me. Please do not be so jingoist. Is not this word one of your Franklin’s?

Ah! I believe you disappear because it is that we sail in a magic boat among the islands of the gods over water that is—what you call him—fairy water which is bewitched, and at sunset reflect the brilliant plumage of the phoenix and at night the silver of the lady moon.

Maybe men are stupid and women wicked? Was it possible to be more bad as Eve and more dull as Adam?

I say you goodbye, naughty girl.

Boris.

POLLY’S JOURNAL CONTINUED

Rome,

A week later.

I’m so glad we’re going to stay here in Rome for a while! Aunt has taken the upper floor of an old palace, and we’re all nicely settled for the spring. Up on the roof is our little terrace garden, so tiny but so perfect, with its stone paths and its borders of pussy-faced pansies and violets. In the corners are huge earthen jars bubbling over with pink roses, and the trellis to one side is covered with big-leaved vines where Cæsar, the mockingbird, hangs in his yellow wicker cage in the shade and makes joyful noises.

The sky is always so blue and the sun so warm and golden up there, and yet, it makes you cool just to let your eyes wander off to the snow-capped mountains in the distance. The dome of St. Peter’s is not far off, and the Vatican—I wonder what plans the clever old Pope is devising over there.

Sometimes I stand by the stone balustrade and gaze down into the narrow dark street far below, where there are small black creatures scurrying and hurrying about, and the bad odors of the city come up, and I hear faintly the shrill cries of the vendors. It is wonderful way up there, in the sunshine, and still lovelier at night when the great moon is sailing in the sky. I hope everybody down in the street has a terrace to go to and be happy on, sometime in their lives.

There’s a little room off the roof garden where we go when the chill of late afternoon creeps over Rome and drives us indoors. After the sun has set behind the clouds, we start an open fire and make tea by candle-light. It’s an artistic little nook, with old carved furniture and brocades and sketches by well-known painters. A wonderful place for beaux!

Just as I finished writing the last entry in my journal, Louisa, our pretty Italian maid, with a great air of secrecy, brought me a sealed letter that a foreign gentleman, so she said, gave her. My Roman adventures have begun!

PRINCE BORIS TO POLLY

My leetle Pagan,

May I come up? I see you on the terrace in the sunshine and in the moonlight with arms outstretched to the heavens, worshiping the elements. But you who worship nature, you give to the world yourself the perfume of the rose, the sunshine playing among the leaves, the song of the wild bird of the woods. I can imagine you dancing in the forest to the strange notes of Pan. Nature is just, but often ruthless. I pray civilization may not bring you ruin.

Boris.

JOURNAL CONTINUED

I haven’t told a soul about yesterday’s letter, nor have I yet put down my next thrilling adventure, but Aunt manages to keep a fairly watchful eye on Checkers and me. Being twins, we are much alike and always under suspicion of what Uncle John used to call “collusion.” So far we’ve behaved very well, but when we do anything we should not, she says, “There’s your uncle cropping out,” or “You’re as wild as hawks; where do you two get these ways?” and then I answer her with this song:

“I’m a little prairie flower

Growing wilder every hour;

I don’t care what you say to me,

For I’m as wild as I can be.”

Checkers has a little cart and horse such as the Roman swells drive; he hunts in the Campagna, and everybody simply loves his American slang. When people remark how much we are alike, he retorts, “Sure! We’re twins, and she’s as close to me as my glove.”

But my adventure—well!. Yesterday I was out shopping alone when I noticed a man was following me at a distance. I hurried home, not daring to turn around, but he followed me all the way, and then proceeded to walk up and down outside my window in Italian fashion. I could only see the top of his silk hat, but I thought just for fun I would throw him a rose. Aunt caught me at it and she certainly was scandalized; hereafter I am never to go out alone.

Louisa, looking rather demure, came in this afternoon and announced the American Secretary. And who do you think came with him? The Russian Prince of the steamer. And that isn’t all, for it was he who followed me home! Now that he has been properly introduced, Aunt has forgiven him everything, and is all smiles. He talked to her most of the time, not to me, and she says he is very agreeable. I adore his broken English, but how is he going to smuggle letters to me, unless maybe Louisa will continue to help?

Auntie is perking up and taking notice. She is certainly getting frisky. Our good old Cart Horse, as she calls herself because she thinks she does all the work, has come out of mourning and invested in a lot of new, artistic clothes,—lovely colors, but floppy—that go rather well with her reddish hair. She’s making a specialty of artists, and of one artist in particular, a temperamental soul, dark and handsome with wild hair called Don Peppi, who is painting her portrait.

In the midst of a party last evening I was introduced to Captain Carlo somebody—I’ve forgotten the rest of his name—who at once began a desperate flirtation with me. Desperate indeed, for he’s a dashing young Italian officer who wears his beautiful uniform most smartly, and speaks good English and dances simply divinely. Checkers says he hunts on the Campagna, and being a reckless rider, cuts quite a figure there. I think he may be a close second to the Prince. When we were leaving, he got our things for us, and he, and the American Secretary, the Turkish Ambassador, “Pan,” they call him, and a Spanish diplomat, Marquis Gonzaga, managed between them to put us properly in our carriage. This is LIFE!

PRINCE BORIS TO POLLY

Rome,

February.

Cherished little Hummingbird,

I wish to know you better—you who throw me the red rose the color of your lips when I so wickedly follow you home. Your skin it resemble the pure white snow upon the steppes of Siberia, your hair the golden doubloons found in the depth of the Spanish Main, and your blue eyes the fairy sea on which we met. But when I draw near to catch you on that boat Cleopatra (has her spirit entered your soul to haunt me?) I find you vanish through the fingers like a card in the hands of a magician.

I inquire of you in Rome—no one know about hummingbirds—I am in despair. Then the saints are kind. I see you on your terrace. I wait at your door. I send you a letter by your maid. You not reply and you not look at me when you pass by me in the street. I follow. But you vanish again into the door of that dark palazzo. I ask the concierge your name—he will not tell. Outside I wait, and the saints they are still kind. Down from Heaven falls the rose!

Next day I see the Secretaire Americain, my old friend as I remember at once. We meet on the street outside the palazzo—he say he goes in there to make call on lovely American young lady. I take him by the arm, I beg, I implore him to introduce me,—ah, I am so desperate! Perhaps he have pity on one who suffer so much. He take me in and—I have to talk to your Aunt. He speak all the time to you, and I have to see you together and talk only to the Aunt. Are you willing I should come again, Cleopatra girl? Post Scriptum. I come again anyway!

JOURNAL CONTINUED

Rome,

February.

The dashing Italian officer, Captain Carlo, with the piercing eyes and the Roman nose, gave a dinner last night at the Grand Hotel. He’s not exactly goodlooking but very attractive—almost as fascinating as the Prince whose letters certainly do amuse me. Later the carriage was to come to take me to the Duchess Sermoneta’s dance. Well! I made my adieux and started to leave the hotel.

But alas, my carriage was not there, and I was quite disturbed when up came the American Secretary and offered to take me in his brougham. I was very glad to accept. Do you know I think I am going to like him! He is dark and slender, clean-shaven and romantic-looking, and has very distinguished manners.

We got to joking and he remarked he was love-proof. I wasn’t going to be behind in a matter like that, so I replied promptly that I was, too. “We can be awfully good friends, then, you and I,” he said; “it’s perfectly safe.” I decided then and there that I would just see how safe it was, for him, at least. I call him A. D. for American Diplomat, he’s so very promising a young secretary.

At the ball there were princesses, duchesses, and all that. I met a lot of them but saw more of Captain Carlo and A. D. than anyone else. I stayed until about two o’clock, and then came the question as to how I was to get home without any carriage, but my diplomat again came to the rescue. Prince Boris was not there. Aunt says hereafter I am to take Louisa with me.

Roman society is well worth seeing, but I like country life better with hunting and races and things like that. I concluded I wouldn’t go to the next party, and told the Prince so flatly when he asked me for the cotillion, but Aunt felt badly about it. I gave in and went. The favors were lovely—I got fifteen—and A. D. was there. He has invited us to dinner at his apartment. When he declared he was love-proof, I wonder if he meant he was engaged. He is devoted to a clever American divorcée, I hear. I will go for a walk with Sybil and talk him all over. She’s a dear and my best friend; it’s good to have her here in Rome this spring.

After a little drive on the Pincio, we dressed for A. D.’s party. He has the loveliest rooms. The Dutch Secretary, “Jonkheer Jan,” Lord Ronald Charlton, a British Secretary, very pale and thin, and the Turkish Ambassador, the latter with a red fez on his head, and his hands covered with jewelled rings, all were there. Afterwards we drove on to a ball. The Prince appeared but I didn’t want to talk to him, so when the gay little Spanish Marquis dashed up, I danced off and spent the rest of the evening in the conservatory. He’s a dear, with flashing black eyes, and curly hair, but a little too fat.

We stayed till dawn, and the long, long flights of stone steps at our Palazzo seemed longer than ever at that hour. A. D. is coming to see me tomorrow, and I don’t know why, but I don’t want to see him, either.

Aunt and I dined one night at the Grand with a big, wild-eyed American from Pittsburg. He is rather excitable and erratic, but he cuts quite a swath here. It was a magnificent dinner with all the Roman swells, and I sat between Marquis Gonzaga and Captain Carlo and oh! what a funny time I had! Each tried to go the other one better, and the Marquis went a little too far. His broken Spanish-English allows him to say almost anything. When I am angry he pretends he doesn’t understand, so I pricked him with a pin in punishment and then he kissed me right there at table. I was so ashamed. These foreigners do the naughtiest things.

Captain Carlo is poor and Gonzaga is rich. The latter is a diplomat, a gambler and very quick-tempered, but most Spaniards are that. Carlo is an officer and a sportsman; he has some British blood. They are both delightful gay young devils. The Prince was there, too, and it was lots of fun to see him glower at the other men. He was very cross with Gonzaga and went home early. A. D. I saw only for a few moments; I like him even if he is calm and reserved beside the others. But he’s an American!

The dinner went on and on in numberless courses with plenty of wine. There were quantities of flowers with electric lights under them and not only was all Rome present, but they say people were there who didn’t even know their host by sight! Pittsburgo, as everybody calls him, who certainly does love big and costly festivities, had hired an orchestra. Then two other dinner parties joined his and we had a dance, the liveliest I ever went to, though it made me think of some jolly ones at home. We ran races and jumped chairs—a wild affair! I haven’t had such a good time for ages, even though A. D. and the Prince didn’t stay.

PRINCE BORIS TO POLLY

Rome,

February.

Mon ange, je t’adore! Please not fish—no flirt, is it?—with others. You are the most extraordinary and nicest little flirt I never saw! Alas! but I suffer,—a sad inhabitant of this valley of tears, and because you fish not with me alone.

I am curious to know you better. You have not told me enough of your life. What you think is more interesting to me even than what you do, because the secret agitations of the heart are more revealing than the tumult of exterior life. I love to travel, but there is no strange country which I should so like to visit as this mysterious region which is your heart. I love novels, but there is no wonderful novel which I so much should like to read as the closed book which is your soul.

Do pity me who walk alone the desert of life. I want to take interest in every one of your thoughts and all of your sorrows. I should like to be Adam and give you all my ribs. I mind I have twenty-four, for making twenty-four girls, all just like you! And I would keep them all and not let them run in the world without me.

I had today one great excitement. The postman brought me a letter in a woman’s handwriting. It was blue, blue like the sky, and had the perfume of flowers. I felt at last had come the love letter from you I have been waiting for so long. My heart throbbed, my brain was on fire, but, alas! it was from another—not from a hummingbird, but a gray Miss Mouse.

I am very furious—my servants have never seen me so terrible.

JOURNAL CONTINUED

Rome,

February.

Pittsburgo came to call and stayed forever and ever AMEN. He talked most of the time about a beautiful Italian singer. Then A. D. and the Prince arrived and we had tea, and it made me feel like old times when I used to sit in the parlor at home and have beaux, knowing all the time that Auntie was behind the screen. Those were good old times, but they seem a long way off now. Finally Pittsburgo and A. D. went, and Aunt invited the Prince to stay to dinner. Afterwards Aunt was so tired she went off for a snooze. But if it had been the temperamental Peppi that stayed, I don’t think she would have been so sleepy; or maybe she wished to leave us alone.

Later we went to a charity bazaar at Baronessa Blanc’s, where there were flunkies in beautiful liveries at every landing, and flowers and tapestries. A. D. appeared upon the scene. He and I are getting to be quite good friends, though I know he is terribly devoted to the pretty divorcée with a Mona Lisa smile and a come-hither eye. Probably she is the person he is engaged to, if he really is engaged. He has me guessing.

The Prince is very cross with me. He makes me laugh, and tells me I would flirt even with a pair of tongs. The more I see him, the more mysterious he grows. He talks incessantly, and is as strange as the Oriental cane he carries. He is not officially attached to the Russian Embassy, at least, so A. D. says, and his best friends seem to be the Turks. When he is not speaking broken English he uses French, but that’s the diplomatic language everywhere.

The other night I started out with Louisa to a dinner at the French Embassy. She’s the prettiest, dark-eyed, olive-skinned contadina you ever saw, and while we were driving she chattered to me in the most knowing way about the King and Queen and court, of their family life, even telling me where the King has his washing done. She doesn’t know why, but—strange to say—it is all sent to Milan! It appears she knows intimately the Queen’s hairdresser. Louisa is trying to learn English and delights in showing off. Much to our amusement, she refers to Aunt as “he,” to Checkers as “she,” and to me as “it.”

Don Carlo, who has just recovered from the mumps, was at the affair. I danced afterwards with the extravagant Pittsburgo. A. D. was terribly devoted to Madame Mona Lisa, as we call her, and I don’t care if he was! I walked through the great bare galleries and tapestried rooms with the Princess Pallavicini and the Turkish Ambassador, who seemed to know about my flirtation with the Cossack Prince. Somehow I felt glad to escape and go on with Aunt to Mme. Leghait’s “impair” reception where the very gayest of Roman society gathers on evenings of odd dates.

February 14.

St. Valentine’s Day! Just as I waked up, Louisa brought into my room a large basket of the loveliest flowers. Never have I received such beautiful ones or so many. With them was a note, “From your Valentine,” but Louisa recognized A. D.’s man, whom he calls his faithful Gilet, bringing them. It was very kind of him, of course, but I wish he would let me alone, and send his old flowers to the grass widow.

This afternoon Aunt and I hunted all over town for philopena presents. I had lost one to A. D. and she to Peppi. When we got home, in came Captain Carlo with his mother, who was oh, so beautiful. She went soon, long before I had enough of gazing at her, but he stayed till A. D. dropped in to rescue us.

After dinner Aunt and I put on black dominoes and masks, Checkers, Peppi, and A. D. made themselves perfectly killing in Pierrot costumes of black and white with white caps and fat-cheeked masks, and off went the five of us to the Veglione. We had a box in the theatre, but it was much more fun to go on the floor and dance. Whom should we see but Pittsburgo and with him his Italian singer. He hadn’t the remotest idea who we were. So I said all kinds of things to him, and got him all mixed up and it was the best fun! How we did laugh when I pushed him just a little and he tripped and rolled head first into the fountain. I simply loved the whole affair.

Once in a while Checkers and I go for a drive in his little two-wheeled cart with the absurd pony that looks like a broncho who has missed his growth, and when we get way out on the Campagna we burst into song: