Raintree County (118 page)

—Is that really in there? Phoebe said.

—My dear, the Perfessor said, gently touching her corncolored hair, you have beautiful corncolored hair.

Before an hour was up, Miss Golden had drunk three beers. She and Mr. Shawnessy briefly discussed Raintree County, and Miss Golden recorded her suspicion that it was a kind of recent clearing in the wilderness. Mr. Shawnessy defended his homeland tactfully but zealously. In response to some queries of Mr. Shawnessy's, Miss Golden discussed the New York stage, illustrating her dissertation with anecdotes drawn directly from her own experience. Both Miss
Golden and Mr. Shawnessy arranged themselves as it were into an admiring audience for a creature who walked with queenly stride up and down before the footlights. Mr. Shawnessy deftly introduced the name of
Mazeppa
into the discussion.

—I'm afraid I made quite an exhibit of myself in that play, Miss Golden said. A Centennial Exhibit!
You
will have to write me a play sometime, Mr. Shawnessy.

—What sort of play?

—Something with a great climactic scene of passion.

—You excel at passion, Miss Golden?

—Of course, she said. Haven't you heard about me? I'm supposed to be a very passionate actress,
dear.

She said the last word in a cutting voice, prolonging it mockingly with her truncated metropolitan ar sound.

—What passion do you prefer?

—Why, the passion of love, of course, she said. Love jealous, love tumultuous, love sensual and brooking no restraint. Now that all passion has departed from my life, I express it on the stage.

He gave her a quick glance to see if she was laughing at him, but he could see only the unchanged smile and the veiled green fire of her eyes.

—Yes, she said, the world contemplates me, Mr. Shawnessy, and I contemplate the world. I find it entirely possible to dispense with passion. Don't you?

—No.

She laughed.

—O, yes, I must say you gentlemen seem passionate enough for two. Really, gentlemen are so persistent. It's quite fatiguing.

He blushed with anger at this remark. This young woman, he found, was more claws than caresses.

At this point, Miss Golden said another disturbing thing.

—Your own love-life has been a singular one, Mr. Shawnessy, judging from what Mr. Stiles tells me.

Mr. Shawnessy averred that this was perhaps so. Miss Golden laughingly surmised the existence of a number of barefoot darlings back in Raintree County with long gold hair hanging down to their waists.

—Mr. Stiles has told me that it's quite pastoral there and that you in particular, Mr. Shawnessy, have a talent for swimming in country
waters
au naturel
with young ladies of the vicinity, and all quite innocent and charming.

Mr. Shawnessy was inwardly shocked at the Perfessor's betrayal of confidence. Outwardly he admitted that some such episodes might have occurred in his youth, but that to the best of his knowledge such a practice was an extremely uncommon one in Raintree County at the present time.

—About this marriage of yours, Miss Golden said, showing a remarkably extensive knowledge of Mr. Shawnessy's affairs, I think it's a shame. Can't you do anything to dissolve it?

He had diverted the conversation to other topics, and Miss Golden had then volunteered some information about her own marriage.

—I was married once. To a very rich old man. I'm afraid he died from it. It was, of course, merely a marriage of
convenance.
I didn't mean he should die, of course. But he did.

The consummate cruelty of this statement inwardly annoyed Mr. Shawnessy, but outwardly he joined Miss Golden in the musical laugh with which she dismissed the subject.

—I hope my candor doesn't shock you, Mr. Shawnessy. I'm afraid you find me a very unladylike person, she said, swaying her very ladylike face close to his own.

He said that he liked unladies. At this point the Perfessor was overheard singing:

—O, who would despond

With a beer and a blonde!

—I feel very Centennial, Miss Golden said.

He agreed that this was the only possible adjective to describe his own feelings.

—We'd best look at some buildings, hadn't we? she said. What's that big thing over there?

The Perfessor's vision was blocked by Phoebe. Opening the guidebook, he smoothed his eyebrows and recited:

—Centennial Exhibit No. 2

THE GREAT AMERICAN BLONDE

No matter how rushed for time the sightseeing tourist is, he must not miss one of the prize exhibits of the Fair. The Great American Blonde will be found almost anywhere between the East and West enclosures
of the Garden. This colossal piece of domestic architecture was pushed to completion just in time for the opening of the Exposition. The maker is to be especially commended for the effective mixture of Byzantine and Rococo motifs that have been blended into the ample curvatures and globed redundancies of the edifice. The exterior is impressive enough, but he who would . . .

At this point, the Perfessor began to shake so hard that he was unable to go on.

—You made that up, Phoebe said. Didn't you?

—My dear, the Perfessor said, looking at her bosom with gentle, unfocused eyes, you have the most beautiful eyes.

Later they left the Garden and wandered aimlessly.

—Where are we now? Miss Golden asked.

John Shawnessy opened the colored map, checked some numbers, and finally announced,

—That's the Main Building there. We are sauntering down the Avenue of the Republic.

In the Main Building of the Centennial Exposition, Mr. John Shawnessy and Miss Laura Golden walked on, looking at plumes shed from Time's condor wings.

The biggest crowds were pouring in and out of Machinery Hall, which everyone said was the real wonder of the Exhibition. The first thing they saw in the entrance was a big truculent cannon made by Krupp and sent over as Germany's prime contribution to the Exposition. A sign said:

THE BIGGEST GUN IN THE WORLD

—God help the Kaiser's enemies in the next war, the Perfessor said.

Machinery Hall was crammed with clanking, glittering, grinding, shrieking, whirring machines for doing and making things hitherto performed by hand. The four visitors wandered a little confusedly until they found themselves part of an awed crowd standing before the Corliss Steam Engine in the middle of Machinery Hall. Someone said that this engine was powering all the shafts that ran all the machines that filled up all of Machinery Hall.

A sign said:

THE BIGGEST STEAM ENGINE IN THE WORLD

The Perfessor removed his hat.

—Mr. Shawnessy, lead us in prayer.

After Machinery Hall, they visited Horticultural Hall, where they wandered around in what a sign said was

THE BIGGEST CONSERVATORY IN THE WORLD

—It smells like the funeral of God in here, the Perfessor said. Alas, what corpse are we burying under all these flowers?

John Shawnessy found himself standing somewhat away from the crowd in an alcove of shrubbery under an artificial palm tree. He suddenly realized that Miss Laura Golden was studying his face with an amused intentness, as if to break through some defense that he had.

—You may call me ‘Laura,' Mr. Shawnessy.

—Laura, he said. A stately name. Surely one of your best.

She kept her eyes unwaveringly upon him. It was cruel. He felt himself blushing.

—You may call me ‘John,' he said, or—if you prefer one of
my
discarded names—'Johnny.'

—Johnny. Yes I think I
will
call you ‘Johnny.'

She had said the talismanic name the first time like a caress in a low, thrilling voice, but the second time she had somehow managed to give it a tinge of mockery.

The Perfessor popped his head into the alcove.

—Touching little tableau, he said. The modern Adam and Eve. Under the Tree. Enter the Serpent.

They were beginning to feel a little bored with the whole thing by the time they went through the Art Gallery, to which Britain, France, Germany, and other nations had sent an impressive acreage of unimpressive canvas. The ladies excused themselves. John Shawnessy found the Perfessor gazing absorbedly at an oil painting richly colored and glisteningly precise in the style of the current romantic school of minor British painters.

It was the picture of a great stone cat with head of woman. It lay couched on sleekly powerful haunches. Its jadegreen eyes looked forth upon an Ozymandian desert backgrounded with vague temples and broken columns. The face, a little mutilated, wore an expression of imperial disdain, cruelty, self-indulgence, enigma. The picture bore the title SPHINX RECUMBENT.

—I wonder if that's for sale, the Perfessor said. I wouldn't mind adding it to my collection of sphinxes.

He shook soundlessly and shrugged his shoulders.

—Old men, John, all acquire revolting little hobbies. Everyone has to collect something to acquire a feeling of triumph over time. Some people collect coins. Some people collect operations. I knew a man once who collected petrified worm dung. For my part, I used to collect women. Now I collect the real thing—sphinxes. It's a passion with me. When you drop into my quarters in New York, you'll see a room there crawling with all sorts of hideous little statues and pictures of sphinxes—grinning, mutilated, multiform, winged, jeweled, headless, noseless, legless, some more woman than beast, some more beast than woman, Greek, Egyptian, American, masculine, feminine, and neuter.

—What—another sphinx! Laura Golden said, coming back unexpectedly with Miss Phoebe Veach. For your collection, dear?

—If it's for sale, the Perfessor said.

He called an attendant, who took the number of the painting and went off to consult the Catalogue of Exhibition.

—By the way, this figure is grotesquely inaccurate, the Perfessor said, which adds to its value. The setting's Egyptian, but the head's a woman's. Now all the authentic Egyptian sphinxes were manheaded or something-else-headed, but never female. The Greek sphinx, on the other hand, was female. Of course the word ‘sphinx' itself is Greek from ‘strangle.' The Greeks applied the word to that mythical female monster who sat above the road to Thebes propounding her childish riddle and choking all who were unable to answer it.
What creature is it that in the morning walks on four, at noon on two, and at evening on three legs,
children? The local morons flunked this elementary examination and were slain in droves until the boy-prodigy Oedipus came along and gave the answer, hurling the lady down from her high couch.

—I've always thought it the profoundest myth in antiquity, John Shawnessy said. Veiled in this simple question is the hardest of all riddles—
What is man?
This riddle is propounded by that composite beast, the earth—feminine, secret, and recumbent.

—Isn't the title of the picture redundant? Laura Golden asked.

—Not wholly, the Perfessor said. Some sphinxes are standing, some sitting, some are naked, some are clothed. And some wear
bustles. What would it cost me to add
you
to my collection,
dear?

Laura Golden pointed a shoulder at the Perfessor and swung her parasol. Though a head shorter than he, she had the air of looking down at him from a high couch.

—You'll have to answer my riddle first,
dear.
And how will you have me—sitting, standing, or recumbent?

—Any way I can get you,
dear.
Seriously, though, Laura, when are you going to come up and pose for me? In the nude, of course. I'll do you in oils, and we'll call it ‘Laura Recumbent.' You used to pose, dear—you know you did.

—I still pose, dear, but I get well paid for it. Besides, I might catch cold in your apartment.

She laughed her musical laugh.

—I'm afraid we're shocking Mr. Shawnessy. He'll think we're very corrupt. We talk this way all the time, dear, she said.

The Perfessor seemed peculiarly insistent and excited.

—Seriously, dear, I'll pay your price. I paint rather well, you know. And I'll sell the picture to Mr. Cassius P. Carney for a hundred thousand dollars.

—I've been offered that much for the original,
dear,
she said.

—Here you are, the attendant said, pulling the Perfessor aside to confer in whispers.

—Outrageous! the Perfessor said. It's a horrible daub. But put my name down for it, and if no one else bites, I may take it in November, after the Exhibition closes.

The Perfessor folded his arm in Miss Veach's.

—And how is our little Phoebe Redundant? he said. Personally, darling, I like my women pliant and uncomplicated like you. Come up to my studio sometime, and I'll have you pose for a vast green landscape dotted with golden hemispheres of hay.

They had intended to see Agricultural Hall, but they got lost in the exhibits of the several states. John Shawnessy wanted to drop into the Indiana Building, but Laura told him all he would find in there would be the Biggest Ear of Corn in the World. They stopped again at the Beer Garden, gasping with heat, and drank a great deal more cold beer.

Somewhere on the grounds, it was their understanding that the Grand Ceremonies were going on.

—I have had enough Grand Ceremonies for one day, Laura said. Let us have some Little Ceremonies for a change.

John Shawnessy never saw the rest of the Exhibition. He managed to hire a carriage, and he and Laura set out in the early night through the streets of Philadelphia. They had lost the Perfessor and Phoebe.

—I promised to meet Mr. Carney for the ball at the hotel this evening, she said.

—It's past time now, he said.

—Let's go for a ride, dear. Mr. Carney bores me to extinction.

They had the driver take them out around the City. It was all a blur of crowds, vehicles, gaslamps, bonfires. Now and then a rocket streaked up the purple sky and described its great, gentle curve, falling and fading through the Centennial night.