Читать книгу Harper of Heaven - Robert William Service - Страница 13

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When I returned to Paris it was evident that the Rabbit Hutch was no longer big enough for me. Living largely by the sea had given me spacious ideas that needed fuller expression. From an apartment where we were jammed like sardines I took one in which I felt lost. I had a hard job getting it, too. So many refugees had crowded to the city that, where formerly TO LET signs could be seen a dozen to a block, now you could search the whole Quarter and not find one. I wanted to be near the Luxembourg Gardens, and that vicinity was the most coveted of all. There was a little house I fell in love with but it was occupied by Gertrude Stein. I did not know her in those days, though I often wondered who was the mannish woman who defied feminine conventions in dress.

The only way to get an apartment was to make love to a concierge. This I did successfully, with a billet doux of a thousand franc bill, and soon found myself installed in a magnificent residence on the Place du Pantheon. It had at least ten times the space of the Rabbit Hutch, with five bedrooms instead of one. There were two floors, the upper one a huge studio giving on a terrace that overlooked the roof of the Pantheon. Such a superb place made me swell with importance, and I felt I had to live up to it. I did—for ten years. I made the studio into a library, lined it with a thousand books and indulged in an orgy of furnishing that only the bourgeois discretion of my Missus restrained. “Spend, spend!” I said. “I’m rolling in money.” But even with this incitement she bought with judgment. Nevertheless it was a grand time we had, going from one big store to another, picking out the best. To furnish a palatial apartment in the Paris of those days was a housewife’s dream, and I shared it; putting my veto on this, okaying that, till at last the place assumed the look of a setting for a plutocratic poet.

Yet apart from my studio it was bourgeois in its gaudy splendour, and I thought of how Peter would have sneered at it. For this was the Paris of the Boul’ Miche’ and the Sorbonne. The painters were now students and the models grisettes. From an atmosphere of Art I shuttled to one of Culture. As I stood on my terrace I could look over the pigeon-mottled roof of the Pantheon to the dark grey tiles of the University. How I loved my view! Notre Dame, the Sainte Chapelle, Sacré Coeur. There in my spacious solitude I realised how dear Paris was to me. Youth and a City—I wondered how Peter was getting along.

I had not heard from him, for in those days I refused to write to anyone; but I missed him from his corner in the Dôme. It seemed haunted by his shabby grey figure, with his cloth cap pulled down to his bushy eyebrows, his old grey flannel suit, his cigarettes and his Picon citron. Poor Peter! One of the characters of the Quarter—what had become of him? Then one day in the Place de l’Opera I was hailed by a well-known voice. It was my old pal; but I’ll swear I did not know him, he was so spruce, so dapper, so prosperous looking.

Sitting on the terrace of the Café de Paris he told me about it. A friend of his who was manager of a Paris News Agency had enlisted and recommended Peter to fill his place. Reluctantly he had taken the job, for he hated servitude, but at that moment he hadn’t a sou. Then suddenly he found himself. A sense of responsibility gave him self-respect and with it authority. It was the school-master coming out in him. He not only entered into his new duties with enthusiasm but fulfilled them with such ability that soon the Agency began to take an importance it had never known before. His superiors in London complimented him, raised his salary, gave him two assistants. No doubt it was because of the War that his agency flourished; anyway Peter happened to be at the helm and got the credit. The lad whose job he took was perhaps killed but Peter rose to heights of prosperity.

He seemed to appreciate his change of fortune. I looked at him with wonder, even admiration, for he was better dressed than I. His blue serge suit was well pressed, his trousers creased; he wore a neat bow tie and an impeccable fedora. Only the chain of caporal and the Picon citron reminded me of the old Peter.

“I’m going to get spliced,” he told me, trying to make it casual. “A Scotch lassie, a girl sweetheart.” Then he added dreamily: “Her mother’s a widow with scads of money. She’s a mean old bitch but one of these days it will come to us.” I congratulated him heartily. I was glad to see him fall in with the conventions, for I myself was inclining that way. But I saw little of him from then. He got married, took a rich apartment in Neuilly, bought a car. The Peace Conference was on, and he became more and more important. He talked of his pal Lloyd George and his ami Clemenceau. In short he grew so pompous I let myself lose him for a while.

James Stephens I saw often, a brave wee man stepping stoutly with the valour of a big fellow. But as he stalked the Boul’ Miche’ I did not butt in on him, for I feared he might be in the throes of poetic parturition—as indeed I was myself. So we pounded along, parallel to each other, a poet and a rhymster, each in his fashion lambasting his soul for the glory of his Maker. If he were French, I thought, he probably would crash the Pantheon, carried in under a panoply of wreaths. For myself, I did not even walk in, though I saw thousands of tourists storm its portals. It was too available to be visited. If it had been at the other end of Paris no doubt I would have paid homage at the shrine of its Great. But here across the street—well, I could drop in any old time. ... And I never did. To the devil with that gloomy pile. Give me the enskied cemetery above Mentone and a flat tombstone beside that of Aubrey Beardsley, with engraved on it: Shadows we are and shadows we pursue. But no hurry even for that. Better a live louse than a dead lion.

It was Peter who first incited me to wear a monocle. I emulated him by getting my suits at Poole’s, but that was not enough. The monocle might give me an edge on him. So I bought one in a pawnbroker’s. It was not gold rimmed but might pass for that when the brass was burnished. It cost me ten francs and with that cheap eye-glass I bluffed my way for ten years. People in Paris accepted it without derision and I made an effort to live up to it. Behind it I concealed my inferiority complex. Screwing it in my eye I looked superciliously at the world. The first time I jammed it in place and stared at Peter I could see he was impressed, for he immediately got one, though his black ribband was broader than mine. So I persisted in monocled arrogance. After all, did not Stephens and Conrad wear them, though I’ll be darned if I know why.

So with my eye-glass adding to my sartorial splendour I rejoiced in my princely apartment, and my arrogance grew and grew. One reason for this was my increasing affluence. For years I had ceased to be currency conscious. The money motif had never entered into my work. As long as I had enough to live lavishly and knew there was more where it was coming from, I never worried about my financial standing. Still, it was nice to know I had fifty thousand or so to squander if I chose to be so foolish. It was not the money that gave me pleasure; it was the knowledge I had it to spend if ever I wanted it.

For some time I had been vaguely conscious that some sort of financial boom was going on, but I had not paid much attention. Then one day as I stood on my terrace watching the pigeons on the roof of the Pantheon I happened to glance at the financial page of The Times. It was mostly Greek to me, till my eyes lighted on the section devoted to bank stock and I thought of the thousand or so shares I possessed. How were they standing? What was this? Bank of Montreal quoted over a hundred dollars higher than the price at which I had bought it. There must be some mistake.... No, I looked at another bank—a hundred dollar raise. And the remaining two banks in which I held stock told the same story.

I made a rapid calculation. Here was I a hundred thousand dollars richer than I had thought myself to be a moment before, and I had done nothing to deserve it. What was the use of working if one could get wealth like that? I had always conceived a vague idea that interest was theft, and felt a little ashamed that I profited by it; yet here was a vast loot pitched into my lap. It was fantastic. I could turn it into gold, houses, gardens, gems and silken pyjamas—any of the reckless ways one gets rid of wealth or makes it a material possession. I flirted with the idea of buying a beautiful estate below Grasse. A signature on a cheque and all that exquisite loveliness would be mine forever....

Then I thought it was rather a bore. Property was a bit of a burden. It would worry me, weigh on me. Better cash in the bank. Perhaps I could sell my stock.... Well, there was no hurry. No doubt it would continue to rise. Anyway, it would never fall. That was unthinkable. Let me put off taking any action, for procrastination often pays. So I did nothing and the stock continued to rise and I watched it with a sort of fascination.

But one day I realised I was in danger of becoming a millionaire, a fate I would not have wished on my worst enemy. By a liberal calculation I found I was already two-thirds of the way. It was very distressing. No doubt if I had been a business man I would have grabbed off that million, but I loathed business. I should have realised the profits on my stock but it seemed such a complicated affair, with brokers and transfers and all that. I went down to the Bourse, gazed at the excited mob that surged around it and that crazy money market nauseated me. I went back to my terrace across from the Pantheon and to my dreaming. It didn’t seem fair to take all that money I had done nothing to earn. It wasn’t playing the game. I wouldn’t do a damn thing about it. So I did not ... and my stock went up and up.

But another reason I did not care to bother with money matters was that I had begun to write another book of verse. I had long been conceiving it, and now I went full steam ahead. It dealt with the Latin Quarter, the War, Brittany, and because it was the most autobiographical, of all my verse books I dislike it least. In it I tried the device of linking up the poems with patches of prose, making a connected story of the whole. I liked the prose better than the verse and still think a few words of commentary on a poem enhances its interest. But most people don’t feel that way, and when I came to publish this volume it was the least successful of all my work.

However, I now pressed forward to its production and as usual nothing else counted. Night and day I was engrossed in it. It was a labour of love that nothing must retard. So passed a year of happy concentration, first by the Pantheon, then in Dream Haven. It was there I finished my manuscript, working alone far into the winter and coupling up my final rhymes as I stalked the rain soaked fields. With a supreme effort I finished it for Christmas, getting home, weary but happy for the usual family reunion. How we made that house ring with cheer! We played hide-and-seek in its ten rooms and tears ran down the cheeks of my fat Mother-in-law, she laughed so much. These were the days of rich food and famous wine, and all so cheap. And in the midst of the gaiety I put away my precious manuscript in the bottom of a trunk.

And there it remained for over a year—neglected, forgotten. Yes, after all my enthusiasm, fever of inspiration, moody distraction and rowelling travail I felt I did not care for my work a tinker’s dam. It might be good or bad—it did not matter. The making of it had taken so much out of me I hated it. I could not bear to re-read the manuscript. I was sick of the literary game. Poetry was a disease. I had broken out into a rash of it and now all I asked was to be cured.

I chanced to find a grey goose quill;

I picked it up, I have it still,

And that is why this page I fill

With word on word.

While others dance and know delight

I scribble, scribble day and night,

A poor, perverse ink-slinging wight ...

Oh cursed bird!

So now I forgot I had ever clinked two rhymes together and plunged into the life of Paris. There was something very exhilarating in the atmosphere at that time. Literary movements were being born. In the Quarter small magazines were being produced, each with its mission of modernity. Blocking the doorway of Sylvia Beach’s Bookshop one could see the portly form of Ford Madox Ford, accompanied by the vivacious Violet Hunt. In the shop with its Shakespearean sign one would run into James Joyce peering short-sightedly at the shelves, or Antheil the composer, buzzing with enthusiasm. In the Quarter were many who afterwards became famous—Giants in Gestation.

One day I was walking down a leafy road when I met a youth with a maid. She was admiring the chestnut trees in bloom, so I handed the lad my cane and told him to reach down one of the flowers for her. Soon we got into conversation which turned to books. For a stripling he spoke with some authority, turning into ridicule the pretentious scribes of the Quarter and their freak magazines. “There’s only one of them,” he said, “that I can see getting anywhere, and he may go pretty far. Keep your eyes on a man called Hemingway.” He spoke of Joyce and made the following pronouncement: “I believe everything that can be thought can be said, and everything that can be said can be written.” Then he told me his name was Henry Miller.

He was a slim youth of medium height, and at that time I do not think he had published any of his notorious books. His name meant nothing to me and I did not see him again. But something of destiny seemed to brood in his eyes and I never forgot him. So when someone handed me a copy of Tropic of Capricorn the author’s name struck a chord of memory. Of course the book shocked me but I could not deny a strange flicker of genius in its wildest flights. Though I have read many pornographic books from Cleland to Frank Harris, Miller outvies them all. You can purge most authors but if you expurgated Tropic of Cancer there would be little left. His books are prohibited and probably you will never see a copy, but if you do you will realise that freedom of expression has its limits and even hatred of hypocrisy cannot condone the frankness of the tenderloin.

I lived lustily in my Pantheon days but one day I had a nasty jar. Somehow I had become vaguely aware of unusual doings in the financial field. In the shops people seemed to be buying feverishly, putting their money into material possessions. Prices were jumping. What was it all about I wondered? Then someone said: “Haven’t you heard? The boom’s burst. The market’s crashed. We’re in for a depression.” So with some anxiety I looked up the prices. Sure enough they had nose-dived. My brave bank stock had gone from three hundred and fifty dollars to two hundred and was still dropping. I was quite vexed. To win may be swell; to lose is hell.

I might have sold out when the going was good but now it was too late. Ruefully I saw my gains vanish to be replaced by losses. Well, I would make the best of it. If the worst came to the worst I would still have enough to live on. So I did one of the wisest things I have ever done—sold all my bank stock and bought Life Annuity. From four of the biggest insurance companies I took out enough to keep me in solid comfort to the end of my days. Now I could thumb my nose at misfortune. For all time I was free from financial worry. Best of all was the incentive to longevity. I must guard my health more jealously than ever. In short, I must live so long I could get ahead of the goddam Companies.

Then with this thought in mind I had a brain wave. I said to the family: “Buy a big steamer trunk and pack it. I’ve just been paid five thousand dollars for the picture rights of one of my books. Come on! We’ll blow in that dough. We’ll go to Hollywood.”