Sorrow in Sunlight

by Ronald Firbank

“I had hoped,” she said, “dat Nini would hab bin ob use to de girls, but dat seem now impossible!” For Mrs. Snagg had been traced to a house of ill-fame, where, it appeared, she was an exponent of the Hodeidah—a lascive Cunan dance.

  “Understand dat any sort ob intimacy ’tween de Vila an’ de Closerie des Lilas Ah must flatly forbid.”

  “Prancing Nigger, as ef I should take your innocent chillen to call on po’ Nini; not dat eberyt’ing about her at de Closerie is not elegant an’ nice. Sh’o, some ob de inmate ob dat establishment possess mo’ diamonds dan dair betters do outside! You’d be surprised ef you could see what two ob de girls dair, Dinah an’ Lew…”

  “Enuf!”

  “It isn’t always Virtue, Prancing Nigger, dat come off best!” And Mrs. Mouth might have offered further observations on the matter of ethic had not her husband left her.

  X

  Past the Presidency and the public park, the Theatres Maxine Bush, Eden-Garden and Apollo, along the Avenida and the Jazz Halls by the wharf, past little suburban hops, and old, deserted churchyards where bloom geraniums, through streets of squalid houses, and onward skirting pleasure lawns and orchards, bibbitty-bobbitty, beneath the sovereign brightness of the sky, crawled the Farananka tram.

  Surveying the landscape listlessly through the sticks of her fan, Miss Edna Mouth grew slightly bored—alas, poor child; couldst thou have guessed the blazing brightness of they Star, thou wouldst doubtless have been more alert!

  “Sh’o, it dat far an’ tejus,” she observed to the conductor, lifting upon him the sharp-soft eye of a paroquet.

  She was looking bewitching in a frock of silverish mousseline and a violet tallyho cap, and dangled upon her knees an intoxicating sheaf of the blossoms known as Marvel of Peru.

  “Hab patience, lil Missey, an’ we soon be dah.”

  “He tells me, dear child, he tells me,” Madame Ruiz was rounding a garden path, upon the arm of her son, “he tells me, Vitti, that the systol and diastole of my heart’s muscles are slightly inflamed; and that I ought, darling, to be very careful…”

  Followed by a handsome borzoi and the pomeranian “Snob,” the pair were taking their usual post-prandial exercise beneath the trees.

  “Let me come, Mother, dear,” he murmured without interrupting, “over the other side of you; I always like to be on the right side of my profile!”

  “And, really, since the affair of Madame de Bazvalon, my health has hardly been what it was.”

  “That foolish little woman,” he uncomfortably laughed.

  “He tells me my nerves need rest,” she declared, looking pathetically up at him.

  He had the nose of an actress, and ink-black hair streaked with gold, his eyes seemed to be covered with the freshest of fresh dark pollen, while nothing could exceed the vivid pallor of his cheeks or the bright sanguine of his mouth.

  “You go out so much, Mother.”

  “Not so much!”

  “So very much.”

  “And he forbids me my opera-box for the rest of the week! So last night I sat at home, dear child, reading the Life of Lazarillo de Tormes.”

  “I don’t give a damn,” he said, “for any of your doctors.”

  “So vexing, though; and apparently Lady Bird has been at death’s door, and poor Peggy Povey too. It seems she got wet on the way to the Races; and really I was sorry for her when I saw her in the paddock; for the oats and the corn, and the wheat and the tares, and the barley and the rye, and all the rest of the reeds and grasses in her pretty Lancret hat, looked like nothing so much as manure.”

  “I adore to folly her schoolboy’s moustache!”

  “My dear, Age is the one disaster,” Madame Ruiz remarked, raising the rosy dome of her sunshade a degree higher above her head.

  They were pacing a walk radiant with trees and flowers as some magician’s garden, that commanded a sweeping prospect of long, livid sands, against a white-green sea.

  “There would seem to be several new yachts, darling,” Madame Ruiz observed.

  “The Duke of Wellclose with his duchess (on their wedding-tour) arrived with the tide.”

  “Poor man; I’m told that he only drove to the church after thirty brandies!”

  “And the Sea-Thistle, with Lady Violet Valesbridge, and, oh, such a crowd.”

  “She used to be known as ‘The Cat of Curzon Street,’ but I hear she is still quite incredibly pretty,” Madame Ruiz murmured, turning to admire a somnolent peacock, with moping fan, poised upon the curved still arm of a marble maenad.

  “How sweet something smells.”

  “It’s the China lilies.”

  “I believe it’s my handkerchief…” he said.

  “Vain wicked boy; ah, if you would but decide, and marry some nice, intelligent girl.”

  “I’m too young yet.”

  “You’re twenty-six!”

  “And past the age of folly-o,” he made airy answer, drawing from his breast-pocket a flat, jewel-encrusted case, and lighting a cigarette.

  “Think of the many men, darling, of twenty-six…” Madame Ruiz broke off, focusing the fruit-bearing summit of a slender areca palm.

  “Foll-foll-folly-o!” he laughed.

  “I think I’m going in.”

  “Oh, why?”

  “Because,” Madame Ruiz repressed a yawn, “because, my dear, I feel armchairish.”

  With a kiss of the finger-tips (decidedly distinguished hands had Vittorio Ruiz), he turned away.

  Joying frankly in excess, the fiery noontide hour had a special charm for him.

  It was the hour, to be sure, of “the Faun!”

  “Aho, Ahi, Aha!” he carolled, descending half trippingly a few white winding stairs that brought him upon a fountain. Palms, with their floating fronds radiating light, stood all around.

  It was here “the creative mood” would sometimes take him, for he possessed no small measure of talent of his own.

  His Three Hodeidahs, and Five Phallic Dances for Pianoforte and Orchestra, otherwise known as “Suite in Green,” had taken the whole concert world by storm, and, now, growing more audacious, he was engaged upon an opera to be known, by and by, as Sumaïa.

  “Ah Atthis, it was Sappho who told me—” tentatively he sought an air.

  A touch of banter there.

  “Ah Atthis—” One must make the girl feel that her little secret is out…; quiz her; but let her know, and pretty plainly, that the Poetess had been talking…

  “Ah Atthis—”

  But somehow or other the lyric mood to-day was obdurate and not to be persuaded.

  “I blame the oysters! After oysters—” he murmured, turning about to ascertain what was exciting the dogs.

  She was coming up the drive with her face to the sun, her body shielded behind a spreading bouquet of circumstance.

  “It’s all right; they’ll not hurt you.”

  “Sh’o, I not afraid!”

  “Tell me who it is you wish to see.”

  “Mammee send me wid dese flowehs…”

  “Oh! Buy how scrumptious.”

  “It strange how dey call de bees; honey-bees, sweat-bees, bumble-bees an’ all!” she murmured, shaking the blossoms into the air.

  “That’s only natural,” he returned, his hand falling lightly to her arm.

  “Madane Ruiz is in?”

  “She is: but she is resting; and something tells me,” he suavely added, indicating a grassy bank, “you might care to repose yourself too.”

  And indeed after such a long and rambling course she was glad to accept.

  “De groung’s as soft as a cushom,” she purred, sinking with nonchalance to the grass.

  “You’d find it,” he said, “even softer, if you’ll try it nearer me.”

  “Dis a mighty pretty place!”

  “And you—” but he checked his tongue.

  “Fo’ a villa so grand, dair must be mo’ dan one privy?”

  Some six or seven!”

  “Ours is brok
e.”

  “You should get it mended.”

  “De aggervatiness’!” she wriggled.

  “Tell me about them.”

  And so, not without digressions, she unfolded her life.

  “Then you, Charlie, and Mimi are here, dear, to study?”

  “As soon as de University is able to receibe us; but dair’s a waiting list already dat long.”

  “And what do you do with all your spare time?”

  “Goin’ round de shops takes up some ob it. An’ den, ob course, dair’s de Cinés. Oh, I love de Lara. We went last night to see Souls in Hell.

  “I’ve not been.”

  “Oh it was choice.”

  “Was it? Why?”

  “De scene ob dat story,” she told him, “happen foreign; ’way crost de big watteh, on de odder side ob de world… an’ de principal gal, she merried to a man who neglect her (ebery ebenin’ he go to pahtys an’ biars), while all de time his wife she sit at home wid her lil pickney at her breas’. But dair anodder gemplum (a friend ob de fambly) an’ he afiah to woe her; but she only shake de head, slowly, from side to side, an’ send dat man away. Den de hubsom lose his fortnue, an’, oh, she dat ’stracted, she dat crazed… at last she take to gamblin’, but dat only make t’ings worse. Den de friend ob de fambly come back, an’ offer to pay all de expenses ef only she unbend: so she cry, an’ she cry, ’cos it grieb her to leav her pickney to de neglect ob de serbants (dair was three ob dem, an old buckler, a boy, an’ a cook), but, in de end, she do, an’ frtt! away she go in de fambly carriage. An’ den, bimeby, you see dem in de bedroom doin’ a bit ob funning.”

  “What?”

  “Oh ki; it put me in de gigglemints…”

  “Exquisite kid.”

  “Sh’o, de coffee-concerts an’ de pictchures, I don’t nebba tiah ob dem.”

  “Bad baby.”

  “I turned thirteen.”

  “You are?”

  “By de Law ob de Island, I a spinster ob age!”

  “I might have guessed it was the Bar! These Law-students,” he murmured, addressing the birds.

  “Sh’o, it’s de trute,” she pouted, with a languishing glance through the sticks of her fan.

  “I don’t doubt it,” he answered, taking lightly her hand.

  “Mercy,” she marvelled: “is dat a watch dah, on your arm?”

  “Dark, bright baby!”

  “Oh, an’ de lil ‘V.R.’ all in precious stones so blue.” Her frail fingers caressed his wrist.

  “Exquisite kid.” She was in his arms.

  “Vitti, Vitti!—” It was the voice of Eurydice Edwards. Her face was strained and quivering. She seemed about to faint.

  XI

  Ever so lovely are the young men of Cuna-Cuna—Juarez, Jotifa, Enid—(these, from many, to distinguish but a few)—but none so delicate, charming, and squeamish as Charlie Mouth.

  “Attractive little Rose…” “What a devil of a dream…” the avid belles would exclaim when he walked abroad, while impassioned widows would whisper “Peach!”

  One evening, towards sundown, just as the city lifts its awnings, ad the deserted streets start seething with delight, he left his home to enjoy the grateful air. It had been a day of singular oppressiveness, and, not expecting overmuch of the vesperal breezes, he had borrowed his mother’s small Pompadour fan.

  Ah, little did that nigger boy know as he strolled along what novel emotions that promenade held in store!

  Disrelishing the dust of the Avenida, he directed his steps towards the Park.

  He had formed already an acquaintanceship with several young men, members, it seemed, of the University, and these he would sometimes join, about this hour, beneath the Calabash-trees in the Marcella Gardens.

  There was Abe, a lad of fifteen, whose father ran a Jazz Hall on the harbour-beach, and Ramon, who was destined to enter the Church, and the intriguing Esmé, whose dream was the Stage, and who was supposed to be “in touch” with Miss Maxine Bush, and there was Pedro, Pedro ardent and obese, who seemed to imagine that to be a dress-designer to foreign Princesses would yield his several talents a thrice-blessed harvest.

  Brooding on these and other matters, Charlie found himself in Liberty Square.

  Here, the Cunan Poet, Samba Marcella’s effigy arose—that “sable singer of Revolt.”

  Aloft, on a pedestal, soared the Poet, laurel-crowned, thick-lipped, woolly, a large weeping Genius, with a bold taste for draperies, hovering just beneath; her one eye closed, the other open, giving her an air of winking confidentially at the passers-by.

  “‘Up, Cunans, up! To arms, to arms!’” he quoted, lingering to watch the playful swallows wheeling among the tubs of rose-oleanders that stood around.

  And a thirst, less for bloodshed than for a sherbet, seized him.

  It was a square noted for the frequency of its bars, and many of their names, in flickering lights, showed palely forth already.

  Cuna! City of Moonstones; how faerie art thou in the blue blur of dusk!

  Costa Rica. Chile Bar. To the Island of June…

  Red roses against tall mirrors, reflecting the falling night.

  Seated before a cloudy cocktail, a girl with gold cheeks like the flesh of peaches addressed him softly from behind: “Listen, lion!”

  But he merely smiled on himself in the polished mirrors, displaying moist-gleaming teeth and coral gums.

  A fragrance of aromatic cloves… a mystic murmur of ice…

  A little dazed after a Ron Bacardi, he moved away. “Shine, sah?” The inveigling squeak of a shoeblack followed him.

  Sauntering by the dusty benches along the pavement-side, where white-robed negresses sat communing in twos and threes, he attained the Avenue Messalina with its spreading palms, whose frongs hung nerveless in the windless air.

  Tinkling mandolins from restaurant gardens, light laughter, and shifting lights.

  Passing before the Café de Cuna, and a people’s “Dancing,” he roamed leisurely along. Incipient Cyprians, led by vigilant, blanched-faced queens, youths of a certain life, known as bwam-wam bwam-wams, gaunt pariah dogs with questing eyes, all equally were on the prowl. Beneath the Pharaohic pilasters of the Theatre Maxine Bush a street crowd had formed before a notice described “Important,” which informed the Public that, owing to a “temporary hoarseness,” the rôle of Miss Maxine Bush would be taken, on that occasion, by Miss Pauline Collier.

  The Marcella Gardens lay towards the end of the Avenue, in the animated vicinity of the Opera. Pursuing the glittering thoroughfare, it was interesting to observe the pleasure announcements of the various theatres, picked out in signs of fire: Aïda: The Jewels of the Madonna: Clara Novotny and Lily Lima’s Season.

  Vending bags of roasted peanuts, or sapodillas and avocado pears, insistent small boys were importuning the throng.

  “Go away; I can’t be bodder,” Charlie was saying, when he seemed to slip; it was as though the pavement were a carpet snatched from under him, and, looking round, he was surprised to see, in a confectioner’s window, a couple of marble-topped tables start merrily waltzing together.

  Driven onward by those behind, he began stumblingly to run towards the Park. It was the general goal. Footing it a little ahead, two loose women and a gay young man (pursued by a waiter with a napkin and a bill), together with the horrified, half-crazed crowd; all, helter-skelter, were intent upon the Park.

  Above the Calabash-trees, bronze, demoniac, the moon gleamed sourly from a starless sky, and although not a breath of air was stirring, the crests of the loftiest palms were set arustling by the vibration at their roots.

  “Oh, will nobody stop it?” a terror-struck lady implored.

  Feeling quite white and clasping a fetish, Charlie sank all panting to the ground.

  Safe from falling chimney-pots and sign-boards (that for “Pure Vaseline,” for instance, had all but caught him), he had much to be thankful for.

  “Sh’o nuff, dat was a close shave,” he gasped, gazing
dazed about him.

  Clustered back to back near by upon the grass, three stolid matrons, matrons of hoary England, evidently not without previous earthquake experience, were ignoring resolutely the repeated shocks.

  “I always follow the Fashions, dear, at a distance!” one was saying: “this little gingham gown I’m wearing I had made for me after a design I found in a newspaper at my hotel.”

  “It must have been a pretty old one, dear—I mean the paper, of course.”

  “New things are only those you know that have been forgotten.”

  “Mary… there’s a sharp pin, sweet, at the back of your… Oh!”

  Venturing upon his legs, Charlie turned away.

  By the Park palings a few “Salvationists” were holding forth, while, in the sweep before the bandstand, the artists from the Opera, in their costumes of Aïda, were causing almost a greater panic among the ignorant rather than the earthquake itself. A crowd, promiscuous rather than representative, composed variously of chauffeurs (making a wretched pretence, poor chaps, of seeking out their masters), Cyprians, patricians (these in opera cloaks and sparkling diamonds), tourists, for whom the Hodeidah girls would not dance that night, and bwam-bwam bwam-bwams, whose equivocal behaviour, indeed, was perhaps more shocking even than the shocks, set the pent Park ahum. Yet, notwithstanding the upheavals of Nature, certain persons there were bravely making new plans.

  “How I wish I could, dear! But I shall be having a houseful of women over Sunday—that’s to say.”

  “Then come the week after.”

  “Thanks, then, I will.”

  Hoping to meet with Abe, Charlie took a pathway flanked with rows of tangled roses, whose leaves shook down at every step.

  And it occurred to him with alarming force that perhaps he was an orphan.

  Papee, Mammee, Mimi and lil Edna—the villa drawing-room on the floor…

  His heart stopped still.

  “An’ dey in de spirrit world—in heaven hereafter!” He glanced with awe at the moon’s dark disk.

  “All in dair cotton shrouds…”

  What if he should die and go to the Bad Place below?

  “I mizzable sinneh, Lord. You heah, Sah? You heah me say dat? Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” and weeping, he threw himself down among a bed of flowers.