Part 10

There are thirteen great bridges between Fulham Palace and the Isle of Dogs, and I have been at pains to try every one of them; but the best of all, for such needs as overtake a well fed and ruminative man on a summer evening, is that of Waterloo. Look westward and the towers of St. Stephen's are floating in the haze, a greenish slate colour with edges of peroxide yellow and seashell pink. Look eastward and the fine old dome of St. Paul's is slipping softly into greasy shadows. Look downward and the river throws back its innumerable hues--all the coal tar dyes plus all the duns and drabs of Thames mud. The tide is out and along the south bank a score of squat barges are high and dry upon the flats. Opposite, on the embankment, the lights are beginning to blink, and from the little hollow behind Charing Cross comes the faint, far-away braying of a brass band.

All bands are in tune at four hundred yards, the reason whereof you must not ask me now. This one plays a melody I do not know, a melody plaintive and ingratiating, of clarinet arpeggios all compact. Some lay of amour, I venture, breathing the hot passion of the Viennese Jew who wrote it. But so heard, filtered through that golden haze, echoed back from that lovely panorama of stone and water, all flavour of human frailty has been taken out of it. There is, indeed, something wholly chastening and dephlogisticating in the scene, something which makes the joys and tumults of the flesh seem trivial and debasing. A man must be fed, of course, to yield himself to the suggestion, for hunger is frankly a brute; but once he has yielded he departs forthwith from his gorged carcass and flaps his transcendental wings.... Do honeymooners ever come to Waterloo Bridge? I doubt it. Imagine turning from that sublime sweep of greys and sombre gilts, that perfect arrangement of blank masses and sweeping lines, to the mottled pink of a cheek lately virgin, the puny curve of a modish eyebrow, the hideous madness of a trousseau hat!...

I am no stranger to these moods and whims. I am not merely a casual outsider who has looked about him, sniffed deprecatingly and taken the train for Dover--which leads to Calais--which leads to Paris--which leads to youthful romance. I have wallowed in London as the ascetic wallows in his punitive rites, with a strange, keen joy. I have been a voluntary St. Simeon on its cold grey street corners. I have eaten so often--and so much--at Simpson's that I know two of the waiters by their first names. And I could order correctly their famous cuts by looking at my watch, knowing at what hour the mutton was ready, at what hour the roast beef was rarest. So long have I worn English shirts that even now I find myself crawling into the American brand after the manner of the woodchuck burrowing into his hole. Frequently I find myself proffering dimes to the fair uniformed vestals of our theatres who present me with programmes. I have read each separate slab in Westminster Abbey. I have made suave and courtly love to a thousand nursemaids in Hyde Park. I have exuded great globules of perspiration rowing on the Thames, while the fair beneficiary of my labours lolled placidly in the boat's stern upon a hummock of Persian pillows. I know every overhanging lovers' tree from Richmond to Hampton Court. I have consumed hogsheads of ale at "The Sign of the Cock." I have followed the horses at Epsom and Newmarket, at Goodwood and Ascot. I have browsed for hours in French's book store. I have lounged in luxurious taxicabs upholstered in pale grey, and ridden interminably back and forth through the Mall, Constitution Hill and Piccadilly....

All of these things have I done. And more. In brief, I have lived the dashing and reckless life of a dozen Londoners. But--and here is the point!--I have lived it in the daytime. When the shadows began to drift into the fogs and the twilight settled over the grey masonry of the city, I would generally fly to the theatre and afterward to my garish rooms in Adams Street; or, as was often the case, I would merely fly to my flat, giving up my evenings to the low humour of Rabelais, or to deep, deep sleep.

Although for years one could not lose me in London, or flabbergast me with those leaning-tower-of-Pisa addresses (the items piled one upon the other in innumerable strata), I knew nothing of the goings-on when the windows of London became patches of orange light. In fact, I assumed that when I slept London also snored. To think of London and of night romance was like conjuring up the wildest of anachronisms. Romance there was in London, but to me it had always been shot through with sunshine. It had been the hard commercial romance of the Stock Exchange. Or the courteous and impeccable romance of polished hats and social banalities. Or the gustatory romance of Cheddar cheese, musty ale, roast lamb and greens. Or it had been the romance of the Cook's tourist--the romance of cathedrals, towers, palaces, dungeons and parliamentary buildings. Or the romance of pomp, of horseguards and helmets and epaulettes and brass buttons and guns at "present arms." Or it had been the anaemic romance of Ceylon tea, toasted muffins and petits fours. As for amours and intrigues and subdued lights and dances and cabarets and sparkling demi-mondaines and all-night orchestras and liquid jousting bouts and perfume and champagne and rouge and kohl--who would have thought that London, the severe, the formal; London, the saintly, the high-collared, the stiff; London, the serious, the practical, the kid-gloved; London, the arctic, the methodical, the fixed, the ceremonious, the starched, the precise, the punctilious, the conservative, the static; London, the God-fearing, the episcopal, the nice, the careful, the scrupulous, the aloof, the decorous, the proper, the dignified--who would have thought that London would loosen up and relax and partake of the potions of Eros and Bacchus?

And yet--and yet--back of London's grim and formidable exterior there lurks a smile. Her stiff and proper legs know how to shake themselves. Her cold and sluggish blood grows warm to the strains of dance music. Her desensitized and asphalt palate thrills and throbs beneath the tricklings of Cordon Rouge. Her steel heart flutters at the touch of a wheedling phryne. She, too, can wear the strumpet garb of youth. She, too, in the vitals of her nature, longs for the gay romance of the Boulevard Montparnasse ere the American possessed it. She, too, admires the rhythmic parabolic curve of bare shoulders. Silken ankles and amorous whisperings stir her--if not to deeds of valour, then at least to deeds of indiscretion. London, it seems, cannot look upon the moon without suffering some of the love qualms of Endymion. In fine, London, the mentalized, is human.

It was only last year that the rumours of London's night life sank into the depths of my sensitive ears. At first I put such murmurings aside as psychiatric ravings of visionaries and yearners. Always at the first signs of neurosis--the inevitable result of the simple life--I dashed to Paris, to the golden-haired Reine at the Marigny; or else I cabled to Anna of the Admiral's Palast in Berlin; or, if time permitted, I sought the glittering presence of Bianca Weise at Vienna. (Ah, Bianca! Du suesser Engel!) Never once did it occur to me that youth stalked abroad in the London streets, that gaiety sang among the wine cups in London cafes, that romance went drunk amid the mazes of abandoned dancing. London had always seemed to me essentially senile--grey-haired and sedate. And so I devoted myself to the labours of youth, as did the youthful George Moore; and when the first crocuses of the spring appeared, and the lilacs came forth, and the April primroses got into my blood, and the hawthorn sent forth its pink and white shoots, I sought the Luxembourg or the Tiergarten or the Prater. Why, indeed, I thought, should spring come to London? Why should Henley, an Englishman, have called Spring "the wild, the sweet-blooded, wonderful harlot"? And why should the year's first crocus have brought him luck? Had he indeed lain mouth to mouth with spring in London? Perhaps. But I doubted him. Therefore, before the lavender appeared, I was beyond the channel.

But last spring I met the girl in the flat below me. Her name was Elsie--Winwood, I think. Of one thing, however, I am sure; she had cold grey eyes and auburn hair--an uncanny combination; but she was typical of the English girl, the girl who had been educated abroad. This girl and I came face to face on the stairs one day.

"Why do you always leave London at the best time of the year?" she asked me.

"I am young," I confessed. "In the spring I live by night, and one may only sleep in London at night."

"But you do not know London," she told me.

She smiled intimatingly and disappeared into the gloom of her studio.

That night I thought of Arthur Symons's "London Nights." Nobody in any city in the world had more subtly caught the spirit of youthful buoyancy, the spirit of romantic evanescence, the spirit of midnight abandon. Could it be that he was but a "poseur," a dealer in false words, a concocter of the non-existent? Did the eyes of dancers never gleam in his? Did Renee never issue forth from that dim arch-way where he waited? Did Nora never dance upon the pavement? Was Violet but the figment of a poet's dreams? And was that painted angel, Peppina, a mere psychic snare? Could any man--even a poet--write as he did of Muriel at the Opera if there had been no Muriel? It seemed highly improbable. Finally I decided that, ere departing for Reine or Anna or Bianca, I would sally forth into the night of London and see if, after all, romance did not lurk in the darkened corners.

At first I started without a guide, trusting to my own knowledge of the city, intending to follow up vague rumours to which I had lent but half an ear. Later I equipped myself with a guide--not a professional guide, but a man of means and of easy morals, a young barrister in whose family were R. A.'s, M. P.'s and K. C.'s.

"Shall we see it all?" asked Leonard.

"All," I replied. "From the high to the low."

We set forth. It was eleven o'clock, and the theatregoers were swarming in the Strand. We were heading for a great arch of incandescent light.

I was beginning to be disappointed. Visions of the dark-eyed Reine, in veils of mauve and orange, silhouetted against the synchromatic scenery of the Marigny swam before my eyes. I gave vent to a cavernous yawn. I had often had supper at the Savoy. But such a performance was not my idea of romance. I had never considered that luxurious dining room in the light of adventure. But with Leonard's suggestion I entered and found that, when the mental lenses are focused correctly, it in truth possesses much of that same gorgeousness and lavish spirit which no doubt invested the banquets of Belshazzar.

Thus begins the night romance of London:

Souper. Oeufs de Pluvier Consomme Double en Tasse Fillet de Merlan a l'Anglaise Pommes Nature Caille Cocotte Armenienne Buffet Froid Salade Petit Glace Parisienne Friandises

This is arbitrary, however. On the crested bill of fare we learn that there are other things to be had, but that they must be ordered a la carte. Glancing down the mammoth card we begin reading such items: Saumon Fume, Pigeon Cocotte Bonne Femme, Rognons Sautes, Champignons, Caille Royal aux Raisins, Tournedos Saute Mascotte, Noisette d'Agneau Fines Herbes, Poussin de Hambourg Vapeur, Medaillon Ris de Veau Colbert, Terrine de Boeuf a la Mode Glacee, Supreme de Chapon Jeannette ... and so on, almost indefinitely. I saw nothing in the fact--nor had I seen anything in the fact--that the menu contained not one English word; but later in the week these affectations of French dishes became highly significant. They were really the symbol of London's night romance. They were the tuning fork which gave the pitch for London pleasures. For romance and gaiety in London are grafted to an otherwise unromantic and lugubrious hulk. All joys in that terrible city are lugged from overseas, and, in the process of suturing, the spontaneity has been lost, the buoyancy has disappeared, the honesty has vanished.

But no people can be without romance. No nation can withstand forever the engines of repression. Not all the moral lawmakers of England have succeeded in stamping out the natural impulses. Hypocrisy, that great mediator, sits into the game and stacks the cards. There is no more sensuous dining room in the world than the Savoy. There is no more impressive vision of human beings in the primitive act of eating than can be gained from the top of the stairway which leads into that great double room. And nowhere on earth is there a more cosmopolitan gathering than sits down to the Savoy supper when the theatres are over. Here at least is visual romance; and when we inspect the people at closer range we glimpse a more intimate romance. One catches snatches of conversation from a dozen languages within the radius of hearing. Here is modern civilisation at apogee--the final word in luxury--the denouement of spectacular life. Go to the Aquarium in St. Petersburg, to the Adlon in Berlin, to the Bristol in Vienna, to the Cafe de Paris; go wherever you will--to Cairo, to Buenos Aires, to Madrid--the Savoy at the supper hour surpasses them all. From the pantalooned giants who relieve you of your outer garments to the farthest table in the room where the great windows overlook the Embankment Gardens, there is not one note to mar the gorgeous ensemble.

But we must not tarry too long amid the jewelled women, the impeccable music and the subdued conversation of the Savoy. In fact, it is not possible to linger. No sooner have we hastened through the courses of our supper and started to sip a liqueur than we are suddenly plunged into darkness. A hint! A warning! A silent but eloquent reminder that the moral man must hasten to his bed, that midnight is upon us, that respectability demands immediate retirement. When the lights come on again there is a gentle fluttering of silken wraps, a shuffling of feet, a movement of chairs. The crowds, preparing to depart, are obeying that lofty English law which makes eating illegal after twelve-thirty. If you tarry after this signal for departure, a Parisian born waiter taps you gently on the shoulder and begs of you to respect the majesty of the law. Within ten minutes of the darkened warning the dining room is empty. Liqueurs are left undrunk. Ices are deserted. Half-consumed salads are abandoned. Out into the waiting taxis and limousines pours that vast assemblage. In fifteen minutes an atmosphere of desolation settles upon the streets. The day is ended--completely, finally, irrevocably. The moral subtleties of the fathers have been sensed and obeyed. Virtue snickers triumphantly.

"And now?" I demand of my companion.

"S-s-s-h!" he warns. And, leaning over me, he pours strange and lurid information into my gaping ear. "Now," he whispers, "to the Supper Clubs, the real night life of London--wine, women, song and dance."

There is a mystery in his mien. And, obeying the warning of an admonishing finger, I silently follow him into a taxicab. A low, guttural order is given to the driver, the import of which is shielded from the inquisitive world by my companion using his hands as a tube to connect his mouth with the ear of the chauffeur.

I had heard of these supper clubs, but they had meant nothing to me. I rarely ate supper and detested clubs. Their literature which frequently came to me, had left me cold. But, as I was carried in the taxicab through dark alleys and twisted streets, certain intimations in these printed invitations came back to me with a new meaning. Lest the iniquity of the London pleasure seeker be underestimated, let me supply you with the details of one of these supper club circulars. I will not tell you the name of the club: it has probably been changed by now. No sooner do the police put one club out of business (so far as I can see, merely to gratify the demand of the moralists that all sinners be flayed in public) than it changes its name and reopens to the old membership. Let it be noted here that in order to eat or drink in London after twelve-thirty at night you must be a member of something; and to become a member of a London supper club is not so easy a matter as one might imagine. Traitors are forever worming their way into such societies, and the management exercises typical British discretion in selecting the devotees for its illegal victualing organisation. The club of which I speak, and whose circular--a masterpiece of low cunning--lies before me, has its headquarters on a street so small that in giving the address to even the most erudite of London geographers it is necessary to mention two or three larger streets in the neighbourhood.

The object of this club, it seems, is "to cultivate a form of art previously unknown in England--the Cabaret." A noble and worthy desire! But in the next paragraph we learn that this aristocratic uplift does not begin until eleven-thirty P.M.; and by reading further we note the implication that it ceases at one-thirty A.M., at which hour the cultivation of this unknown art--the Cabaret--is supplanted by a Gipsy Orchestra, to say nothing of the International Minstrels. Farther on we learn that once a month the club gives a dinner to its members, and that this dinner is followed by a "Recital Evening" in honour of and "if possible" (Oh, subtlety!) under the direction of Lascelles Abercrombie, Frank Harris, Arthur Machen, T. Sturge Moore, Ezra Pound and W. B. Yeats. (Note: Although during the last year I have supper-clubbed incessantly whilst staying in London, I think, in all justice to the above-mentioned illustrious men, that it should be stated that not once have I had the pleasure of being personally directed by any one of them.)