Lothario in Livorno
George Ardrath had the misfortune to enter his adolescent stage at the same time that he became initiated into the sacred mysteries of poetry-love. As a matter of fact, George was far ahead of most eighteen-year-old prep-school youths in regard to mental development—that is, he had passed the period during which most boys of his age delight in telling of minor moral peccadilloes. He no longer thought that thesummum bonumwas to be seen in a rather doubtful Manhattan cabaret, or to be able to talk intelligently about the exorbitant price of gin.
George’s appreciation of the finer arts, in its early period of incubation, was limited by the extent of his readings. There were certain intellectual hazards such as Keats’sOde to a Grecian Urnwhich George read to find out why they were considered so exquisite; and without being convinced in his own mind as to the merits of thosesine qua nonshe accepted the judgment of his superiors, and injected an attraction into them by main force. When he was swamped by their intricacies, he memorized them, so as not to be caught napping on any popular masterpiece. George was the kind of fellow who you could be morally certain would remark: “Ah! ‘Rosemary—that’s for remembrance’,” when brought face to face with that poetic flower in the garden in back of Shakespeare’s birthplace. Behind all this aesthetic posing, however, there was a real seeking after beautiful things in George’s heart, trite as that statement may seem, and if the path to a subtle poetic appreciation led through a rather plebeian state of mind, there was no help for it, and in this case the end certainly justified the means.
There was one typically adolescent trait discernible in the adolescent Ardrath, and that was his ambition to be a heart-breaker—a youthful Don Juan, or Romeo, or even perhaps a more mature Paolo. George could be classified in the number of those who smugly exhibit the farewell salutation of a girl’s letter, discreetly shading the immediately preceding part—the whole process beingattended by a certain atmosphere of delightful mystification. So George could hardly be called abnormal—his Relations With Women (awe-full term!) redeemed him to the ranks of gum-chewing, suppressed-book-reading Much Younger Generation.
It so happened that George went abroad with his family, the summer before he planned to enter college. Being a creative as well as appreciative dilettante, he felt it his duty to be inspired by the Atlantic, and composed some rather frightful sea-poems. In this respect George was somewhat of an opportunist; there were certain great occasions, tremendous poetical crises, at which George intended to produce intellectual gems—“Upon Seeing Stratford-on-Avon”, “Lines Written at Montmartre”, “At Westminster Abbey”, and so on. Thus it is evident at once that young Ardrath was destined to experience a profound literary Renaissance in Italy. That, however, comes a little later in the story.
George had the further misfortune (in our own critical judgment, though certainly not in his) of meeting on the eight-day boat a girl who really took him seriously—almost as seriously as he took himself. She was older than he, but not much more sophisticated. Irma had studied in a small seminary in California, and had consequently escaped the superworldliness of students in the large Eastern colleges. She saw that George was not an ordinary type of boy, and in his individualistic traits she made out the factors which distinguished him as a future virtuoso, perhaps even a coming genius. Youth often stumbles, through infatuation, upon real truths of significance, and the glamor of a romantic attachment may indeed be but a superficial coating above a genuine appreciation of latent talent. However that may be, Irma liked George immensely, and George imagined that the feeling was mutual.
The enamored pair pursued their literary and amatory inclinations to the full on board ship. They would slip off between dances on the deck by moonlight, and read Swinburne or Dowson to each other, really enjoying themselves. There was a certain zest in believing themselves superior to the common run of couples who merely embraced each other amorously in covert nooks; it seems elevated to kiss to the music of Swinburne’s Atalanta—to shut the book with a half-gasp of utter emotional exhaustion,and seek each other’s lips. Romeo and Juliet could not have acted out the passion more realistically, with all the stage-craft available.
When George and Irma parted at Cherbourg, bound for different destinations, it was with almost genuine affection, though much of it had been puffed up artificially to merit the setting. They promised to write each other faithfully—George had a visual image of himself sitting down at a desk in the Hotel Palermo in Florence and penning something akin to this:
“Dearest Irma:“As I sit here, with the Arno flowing mellifluently far below my lattice window, I cannot help thinking of you in Versailles, that beauty-spot of this prosaic world, walking lightly through the magnificent gardens and estates of the great Louis Quatorze....”
“Dearest Irma:
“As I sit here, with the Arno flowing mellifluently far below my lattice window, I cannot help thinking of you in Versailles, that beauty-spot of this prosaic world, walking lightly through the magnificent gardens and estates of the great Louis Quatorze....”
The effects of a catholic taste in literature, and four years of French, are only too evident in this prospective outburst.
It was with intense surprise that George, one bright morning, bumped literally into Irma and her mother on one of the principal streets of Leghorn, on the west coast of Italy. (George preferred the more “mellifluent” name Livorno—Leghorn always reminded him in his subconscious mind of a kind of chicken, and he had an irresistible impulse to laugh, which would have been fatal to all true sentiment). After the conventional references to the small size of the world, after all, George inquired:
“What are you doing here, of all places? You never told me you expected to take in Italy.”
“We really didn’t think at first we would, George, but I wanted to see it so badly that mother finally gave in, and here we are! You don’t look overjoyed to see me, George, or are you overcome by the shock?”
“Nonsense, Irma; you surprised me, that’s all. I was in the clouds just now, reciting Shelley’s ‘To a Skylark’ to myself, to the intense annoyances of all the Livornian traffic-policemen (I presume that’s what they call the creatures). Where are you staying, Mrs. Bench?”
“We’re at the Continental, George; do come up and see us some time. We don’t know a soul, and it’s terribly lonely.”
“Then I shall play the rôle of the Friend From Home to you and Irma, and show you with great and unabating gusto all my snapshots. How about that for a dull evening’s entertainment?”
“Splendid!” said Irma without much enthusiasm. George was always trying to be so infernally clever!
“I’ll come up to-night,” said George in a moment of inspiration, “with appropriate guide-books and illustrated slides.”
And he walked off down the street—but in the confusion he seemed to have forgotten the last few lines of Shelley’s lyric.
That evening, after Mrs. Bench had been tactfully dismissed for the night, the young blood Ardrath and his serious-minded companion took a long walk along the bay of Leghorn. “It was on this bay that Shelley lost his life while sailing,” recited George with the air of a very efficient but somehow uninspiring courier. “In his pocket was a book of his friend Keats’s poems, doubled back at the one called ‘St. Agnes’s Eve’. You know—‘St. Agnes’s Eve, ah, bitter chill it was!’”
“How romantic!” offered Irma. “I suppose you’d like to be drowned here too, and be cremated like Sam McGee (blasphemous thought!).”
They walked on in silence for a few minutes. George was trying to remember the next lines of “St. Agnes’s Eve”, as he termed it. Irma was trying to decide whether she really still liked George or not. Somehow the month’s separation which had just ended had cooled their ardor considerably—on her part, at least.
“Shelley, in a way, must have been rather wet,” said Ardrath after the pause. “He was unpopular at Oxford; they threw mud at him one night when he became particularly obnoxious to the conservative students, and insisted upon advocating atheism to his comrades.”
“Oh, but we’re all wet one way or the other, George, don’t you think? Shelley may not have been the man you are, but he wrote better poetry.” This last with a tinge of irony that did its work.
“You’re making fun of me, Irma. You don’t think I’m a bit sincere in anything I say.”
“Not at all. There were a lot of things you said to me on the boat which I believed were sincere.”
“Don’t you still think so?”
“Not entirely. I have an idea that you were more or less posing when you said them—that you let yourself think they were true, just for the sake of being romantically clever.”
George pondered. After all, there was a certain virtue in being frank.
“As a matter of fact, you’re right—”
“What!”
Evidently he had blundered. George tried another tack.
“I mean, perhaps I said some things that a sensible person wouldn’t have.”
“Then you can’t be called sensible?”
“No. Sometimes I act like a darn fool.”
“And I was a darn fool on the boat to think you meant anything you said. Well, it’s lucky I’ve gotten over it now.”
“Irma, what do you mean?”
“You know perfectly well what I mean. There’s no use of our pretending we care for each other any longer.”
George waved his hands in a great gesture.
“But you don’t understand, dear. I care for you in a different way now; I’ve gotten over all my sentimental romanticism.”
Somehow this did not sound sincere or convincing to either Irma or himself. The girl straightened.
“How do I know that this is true, if you were just fooling on the boat?”
They were walking on a ledge that overhung the bay now, and the blue water of the Mediterranean gleamed in the moonlight thirty feet below. Irma looked at it, and a devilish glint came into her eye.
“George, if I jump into the sea, will you come after me?”
Assuredly this was carrying things too far, thought Ardrath. Irma had again taken him too seriously. But he maintained his poise.
“Of course; but don’t be a fool.”
“I hate sensible people,” she replied. “They always do the obvious thing. For a long while I’ve wanted to do somethingunusual, something quite unorthodox. George, I am going to dive in.”
It was impossible to stop her. Bent like the curve of a bow, her slender body arched as it plunged into the water.
There was a big splash as another body hurtled down and struck the waves.
It was unfortunate that George had never learnt how to swim. After he had gurgled around for two breathless submersions, Irma took compassion on him and dragged him out. They have excellent aquatic sports in Pasadena.
“I’m sorry, George, really,” said Irma tenderly. “I never thought for a minute that you couldn’t swim. Will you forgive me?”
“No,” replied George. “Good-night.”
He walked off without further remark. His soggy clothes clung about him; his shoes squirted water from all openings; and he felt damp. Irma followed at a respectful distance. She felt strangely in the wrong.
It was about twelve o’clock when the dripping pair reached the Continental Hotel. To their intense relief there were few people on the streets to see them. In the lobby Irma forced George to take her hand and say good-night in a pleasant tone of voice.
“It was really splendid of you to jump in like that when you might have drowned. I don’t know how I can ever forgive myself, much less expect you to do it. But I hope you will. I was certainly an awful fool to-night.”
George made a fierce effort and regained his poise.
“‘There’s little comfort in the wise’,” he remarked. “Good-night, Irma.”
When Mrs. Bench caught sight of her bedraggled and rather miserable daughter sloshing into the room, she was naturally surprised and quite wrought up.
“What on earth happened to you?” she demanded.
“I fell off a ledge into the bay,” lied Irma glibly, “and George dove in and pulled me out.”
NORMAN R. JAFFRAY.