Peter Whiffle

“ Peter, I wish you wouldn't jest about death and holy things, interjected Mrs. Whiffle, on whose literal mind the tale had evidently clawed as an eagle claws the brain of a cat.
But, mother, Peter tried to mollify her, I am not jesting. I am telling you something that happened.
Something that you thought had happened, Mrs. Whiffle corrected, but we should only think good thoughts. We should keep the dark ones out of our minds, especially when they interfere and conflict with the powerful words of Almighty God, our Creator. ”

“ Never did I feel less sure of the meaning of art than I do here, surrounded by it, began Peter, although I have never been more conscious of it, more susceptible to real beauty, more lulled by its magic. Yet I do not understand its meaning. It does not help me to work out my own problems. The trails cross. For instance, here is Edith leading her own life; here are we all leading our own lives, as remote as possible from Donatello and Gozzoli. ”

“ He could have perfectly donned the costume of the cinquecento, for the revolutionary Peter of New York, the gay, faun-like Peter of Paris, had disappeared, and a Peter of reveries and dreams had usurped their place.
Never have I been so happy, he said to me on one of these days, as I am now. This is true beauty, the beauty of spirit, art which has nothing to do with life, which, indeed, makes you forget the existence of life. Of course, however, this is of no help to the contemporary artist. Confronted, on every hand, with perfection, he must lay down his chisel or his brush or his pen. ”

“ You know how the men of one union cannot do the work for the men of another union. What is this restriction but the taboo?
What, indeed? I echoed pleasantly, unable to think of anything more apposite to say. Besides, my attention was wandering. I had discovered Peter, who appeared to be engrossed in the charms of a pretty girl of whom I knew little except that her name was Mahalah Wiggins.
Now the round-faced, cherubic Max Weber rose to speak.
The art consciousness is the great life consciousness, he began in his somewhat high-pitched voice. ”

“ Peter, however, quickly showed that he was restless and presently he rose, eager to seek new diversions. We hailed a passing fiacre and jumped in, while the lady waved us pathetic adieux. Her companion seemed distinctly relieved by our departure. Peter was now in the highest animal spirits. All traces of fatigue had fled from his face. The horse which drew our fiacre was a poor, worn-out brute, like so many others in Paris, and the cocher, unlike so many others in Paris, was kind-hearted and made no effort to hasten his pace. We were crawling down the hill.
I will race you! ”

“ Nobody reads his books; nobody has read them . . . except the few who see and feel, and John Masefield is one of these. This master of English prose, this hierophant, who knows all the secrets and keeps them, this delver in forgotten lore, this wise poet who uplifts and in spires us, is an humble journalist and he drinks beer!
Peter paused and looked at me, possibly for corroboration, but what could I say? I had never, until then, touched upon Machen, although I remembered that Mina Loy had included him in her catalogue of protestants in the symposium at the Villa Allegra. ”

“ The serpents' heads still waved in rhythm and their bodies, yellow and turquoise blue, were elongated in the air until they appeared to be balancing on the tips of their tails. The eyes of Lou Matagot glared maliciously through the thick vapours and the cat howled with rage or terror.
Now! cried Peter, for the first time in English. Now!
My nails dug holes in the palms of my perspiring hands. Peter renewed his nocuous muttering and casting the wafer, transfixed by the dagger, into the porcelain bowl containing the violet fluid, he poured the whole mixture into the copper chafing-dish. ”

“ Peter, I noted, was wearing his amethyst intaglio of Leda and the Swan on the little finger of his left hand. After a time, during which, for a brief few moments, the conversation drifted towards Toledo and the small affairs of Mrs. Whiffle, he told me his story.
I came near dying in Africa, Carl, surrounded by niggers and fleas! It was horrible. Hot as a New York roof-garden and nearly as uncomfortable. ”

“ George Sand now left, Peter's shoulder to fill the vacant place on his knee. As I told you, I'm going to wear a red handkerchief round my brow and my face will be bloody. Then, all I have to do is to transfer the whole experience, everything I have done and felt, the thrill, the BOOM, to Rosie. ”

“ Peter, at my instigation, read a novel or two of Joseph Hergesheimer's. Linda Condon, he reported, is as evanescent as the spirit of God. Only those who have encountered Lady Beauty among the juniper trees in the early dawn will feel this book, and only those who feel will understand. For Hergesheimer has worked a miracle; he has brought marble to life, created a vibrant chastity. He has described ice in words of flame!
One night, quite accidentally, we saw the name of Clara Barnes on a poster in front of the Metropolitan Opera House. ”

“ Before this last fluctuation, some time in April, I think it was, Peter's father really did die. Peter did not go to Toledo for the funeral but, after it was over, Mrs. Whiffle came to New York and I met her one day at tea. There was no change in Peter; certainly not a band of black on his arm.
He did seem to have one fixed idea that spring, an idea that centred on marriage.
I'm not particularly in love with any one, he admitted, and so it is rather difficult to choose, but I want children and my children must have a mother. There is Mahalah Wiggins ... and there is the Rajah's grand-daughter. ”

“ All the chairs were filled; many were sitting on the floor or standing against the wall or in the doorways; ladies in black velvet, wearing diamonds, ladies in batik and Greenwich village sacks, ladies with bobbed hair and mannish-cut garments, men in evening dress, men in workmen's clothes. No one present, I noted, looked quite so untidy as Peter. Yorska, her tragic face emerging from three yards of black tulle and satin, recited, in French, Baudelaire's Le Balcon, fingering a red rose at her waist. ”

“ Peter was flaming with enthusiasm again. It wasn't necessary for me to speak. He required an audience, not an interlocutor.
Why not now? he demanded suddenly. Why not now and here, with you?
What do you mean? I queried.
Why not make the great experiment now? I am prepared and the moon and the planets are favourable. Are you willing to go through with it? I must warn you that you will never be the same again. You may even lose your life.
What will happen? I asked.
The earth will rock. ”

“ Peter drew my attention, for instance, to the work of Cunninghame Graham, that strange Scotch mystic who turned his back on civilization to write of the pampas, the arid plains of Africa, India, and Spain, only to find irony everywhere in every work of man. But, observed Peter, he could not hate civilization so intensely had he not lived in it. It is all very well to kick over the ladder after you have climbed it and set foot on the balcony. Like all lovers of the simple life, he is very complex. And we discussed James Branch Cabell, who, Peter told me, was originally a "romantic." ”

“ There was another struggle over the eventual form, a question concerning which Peter had made no suggestions. It seemed to me, at first, that a sort of haphazard collection of his ideas and pronunciamentos, somewhat in the manner of Samuel Butler's Note-Books, would meet the case, but after a little reflection I rejected this idea. Light on the man was needed for a complete understanding of his ideas, or lack of them, for they shifted like the waves of the sea. ”

“ All these ideas, Peter repeated to me in a dreamy, veiled voice, noting at the same-time that one of Marinetti's arms was longer than the other. It did not seem quite the proper environment to carry on in this respect, but the words of the Italian futurist had indubitably made an impression. I could see that it was quite likely that Peter would become a Marinettist when he went back to New York.
At dinner, one night, it became apparent that Peter once more was considering his life work. One of the guests, a contessa with a florid face and an ample bosom, began to fulminate:
Art is magic. ”

“ I was choking with an emotion I usually reserve for old theatres, but Peter did not appear to be aware of it. He chattered on gaily.
Have you been to Paris recently? Where have you been? What have you been doing? Are you writing? Isn't New York lovely? Don't you think Chinese babies are the kind to have, if you are going to become a father at all? ”

“ The problem is always the same, that of facing the great God Pan and the danger that lurks for the man who dares the facing.
And one wonders, Peter continued, his eyes dilating with an expression which may have been either intense curiosity or horror, one wonders what price Machen himself has paid to learn his secret of how to keep the secrets! He must have encountered this horror himself and yet he lives to ask the riddle in flowing prose! What has it cost him to learn the answer? Popularity? Perhaps, for he is an obscure reporter on a London newspaper and he drinks beer! ”

“ It was during this period that Peter nourished a desire to be tattooed and we sought out masters of the art on the Bowery and at Coney Island. For hours at a time he would examine the albums of designs or watch the artist at work decorating sailors and stevedores. One of these young men came nearly every day until his entire body, with the exception of his eye-balls, lips, and nails, had become a living Persian carpet, a subtle tracery of arabesques and fantastic beasts, birds and reptiles. ”

“ Whiffle, with a foresense of the decrees of the most modern motherhood, held no brief for suppressed desires. Baby Peter was always permitted to choose, at least nearly always, and so, as he grew older, his mania developed accordingly. A decision actually caused him physical pain, often made him definitely ill. He would pause interminably before two toys in a shop, or at any rate until his mother bought both of them for him. ”

“ Of late, however, continued Peter, he, too, seems to have turned over in bed. Romanticism still appears in his work but it is undermined by a biting and disturbing irony. He asks: Are any of the manifestations of modern civilization worthy of admiration? and like Graham, he seems to answer, No. It is possible that the public disregard for his earlier and simpler manner may have produced this metamorphosis. Many a man has become bitter with less reason. Then he spoke of the attributed influence of Maurice Hewlett and Anatole France on the work of Cabell. ”

“ Experience has taught me that people with principles are invariably unreasonable. Peter had no principles and therefore he was reasonable. So the next day, he really did drive back with us to Florence, through, the pleasant olive groves and vineyards. A jeroboam of chianti enlivened the journey, and Edith adored the story of Peter's encounter with Death, the Devil, and the Angel.
The Villa Allegra is set on the hills of Arcetri, high above the long cypress-bordered avenue called the Stradone del Poggio Imperiale. ”

“ He became a "professor" in a house of pretty ladies. His duty was to play the piano. Play us another tune, professor, the customers would say, as they ordered beer at a dollar a bottle, and Peter would play a tune. Occasionally one of the customers would ask him to take a drink and he would order a sloe gin fizz, which Alonzo, the sick-looking waiter, a consumptive with a wife and five children to support, would bring in a sticky glass, which he deposited with his long dirty fingers on the ledge of the piano. ”

“ Sustained by the beer, Peter reported to me that he rather enjoyed the tune. He said nothing. Dinner was eaten in complete silence and then the paternal parent went to bed, a discouraged and broken man. He seemed senescent, although he was not yet fifty. After dinner, Peter's mother spoke to him more gently but she also was full of warning and gloomy foreboding: What is it you want to do, my son?... I don't know. I'm not sure that I want to do anything.... But you must do something. You wouldn't be manly if you didn't do something. It is manly to work. ”

“ At the time, I was engaged in putting the finishing touches to The Tiger in the House and I postponed meditation on Peter's affair until that bulky volume could be dispatched to the printer. That happy event fell on March 15, 1920, but my anthology, Lords of The Housetops, next claimed my attention, and then the new edition of Interpreters, for which I had agreed to furnish a new paper, and the writing of this new paper amused me very much, carrying my mind not only far away from cats, which had been occupying it for a twelvemonth, but also away from Peter's request. ”

“ My book, replied Peter, is going to be very unpleasant. It is about life and because you and I enjoy life is little enough reason for us to consider it other than a dirty business. Life for the average person, for Rosie, for instance, simply will not do. ”

“ Some people resemble animals; some, perhaps, minerals; assuredly, some resemble flowers. Mahalah Wiggins was like a pansy. Her hair was black with purple lights; her eyes were a pale pansy blue; her face bore an ingenuous pansy expression that made one wonder why pansies were for thoughts. She wore a purple velvet dress with long tight sleeves ending in points which reached her knuckles, and, around her throat, a chain of crystal beads that hung almost to her waist. ”