Pictor's Metamorphoses Part 5

When he returned to the company of men, everyone knew he was painting again. People thought him to be slightly deranged, but they were curious to see his pictures. He did not want to show them to anyone, but people would not leave him in peace. They tormented him and cajoled him. Finally he gave an acquaintance the key to his room, while he himself went on a trip, not wanting to be present when other people looked at his pictures.

The people came, and a great cry went up. A fabulous new painter had been discovered, an eccentric to be sure, but one whom G.o.d had favored-or those were the terms used by the critics and connoisseurs.

In the meantime, the painter Albert had ended up in a village and had rented a room at a farm and unpacked his paints and brushes. Again he walked happily through valleys and over mountains, and all he felt and experienced was later mirrored in his paintings.

One day, while sitting over a gla.s.s of wine in a tavern, Albert read in the newspaper of the capital how all the world had gone to his home to see his paintings. It was a long, lovely article. Its headline was his name, printed in thick boldface type, and everywhere inflated words of praise oozed from the columns. But the longer he read, the stranger it all seemed to him.

"How marvelously the yellow of the background glows in the picture of the 'Blue Woman'-a new, unprecedentedly bold, bewitching harmony!"

"Wondrous, too, is the plasticity of expression in the 'Still Life with Roses.' -And the series of self-portraits! They may be compared with the finest masterpieces of the art of psychological portraiture!"

Curious, curious, indeed! He could not remember ever having painted a still life with roses, or a blue woman, and never to his knowledge had he painted a self-portrait. And yet he could find no mention of the clay bank or the angel, of the rainy sky, or any of the other paintings which were so dear to him.

Albert returned to the city. Still in traveling clothes, he went to his apartment and found people coming and going. A man sat in the doorway and Albert had to buy a ticket to gain admission.

There were his celebrated paintings. Someone had put labels on them, labels which said all sorts of things Albert knew nothing about at all. For a while he stood contemplating the pictures with their unfamiliar names. He saw that people could give them entirely different names from those he had chosen. He saw that what he had portrayed in "The Garden Wall" appeared to others to be a cloud, and the chasms of his "Stone Landscape" could just as well represent a human face.

In the end, it made little difference. But Albert preferred to go away again, to travel, and never again return to this city. He went on to paint many more pictures and gave them as many names, and he was happy doing so; but he showed his pictures to no one.

Tale of the Wicker Chair.

A YOUNG MAN sat in his lonely garret. He wanted to become a painter, but there were many serious obstacles to be overcome. At first he lived quietly in his garret, growing somewhat older. He had acquired the habit of sitting in front of a small mirror for hours and tentatively sketching his own likeness. He had already filled a whole notebook with these sketches, and with a few of them he was quite content.

"Considering that I have had no formal training," he said to himself, "this sketch has actually come off quite well. And what an interesting crease that is over there by the nose. One can see there's something of the intellectual in me, or at least something like that. All I need to do is extend the corners of the mouth a tiny bit farther down, then it will have such an individual expression-downright melancholy."

But later, after some time had pa.s.sed, when he looked at the sketches again, he discovered that most of them no longer pleased him at all. This was disagreeable, but he came to the conclusion that he was making progress and that he should make even greater demands on himself.

The young man did not live in the most desirable and intimate relations.h.i.+p with his garret and the things that stood and lay about it; nevertheless, this relations.h.i.+p was not a bad one. He did his things no greater and no lesser injustice than most people do; he scarcely saw them and knew them but poorly.

When a self-portrait again would fall short of the mark, from time to time he would read books, from which he learned how others had fared, other young unknowns who like him had started off from modest beginnings, only later to achieve wide renown. He delighted in reading such books, and in them he read his own future.

And so one day, when again he was somewhat sullen and depressed, he sat at home reading about an extremely famous Dutch painter. This painter had been in the throes of a genuine pa.s.sion, one might even call it a frenzy, quite completely governed by the impulse to become a good painter. In reading further, he discovered various other things which were not quite applicable to his own case. He read how, during stormy weather, when he could not paint out of doors, the Dutchman steadfastly and pa.s.sionately had copied every thing, even the lowliest, that came within his field of vision. Just so had he come to paint an old pair of wooden shoes. On another occasion he painted an old crooked chair, a coa.r.s.e, crude kitchen or peasant chair made of ordinary wood, with a seat of woven straw that was pretty nearly worn to shreds. And he painted this chair-which otherwise would certainly never have been vouchsafed a single human glance-with so much love and fidelity, so much pa.s.sion and devotion, that the painting had become one of his finest works. The book's author had many candid and moving words to say about the painting of the straw chair.

Here the reader paused for reflection. This was something new for him to attempt. He immediately decided-for he was a young man given to extremely rash decisions-to emulate the example of the great master and try to set his own foot on the path to greatness.

He looked around his attic room and noticed that he had never really taken a good look at the things among which he lived. Nowhere could he find a bandy-legged chair whose seat was of woven straw, nor were there any wooden shoes lying around, and thus for a moment he became dejected and despondent. He felt discouraged again, as he so often did when he read about the lives of great men. All the little signs and hints and marvelous coincidences which had played such a wonderful role in their lives were lacking in his own, and it was useless to expect them. And yet he quickly pulled himself together, realizing that the time was ripe for him to face up to his task and stubbornly pursue this difficult path to fame. He inspected all the objects in his little room and discovered a wicker chair that would serve him well as a model.

With his foot, he pulled the chair a bit closer to him; he sharpened his pencil, put his sketchbook on his knee, and began to sketch. The first few gingerly strokes seemed satisfactorily to indicate the form, and now he began rashly and energetically to ink in the sketch, and with a few more strokes he hastily got down the bold contours. In one corner a deep, triangular shadow enticed him, he accentuated it, and so he went on, until one thing or another would disturb him.

He went on like this for a while, then held the sketchbook at a distance and probingly examined his sketch. He saw that the wicker chair was very badly drawn.

Angrily he sketched in a new line, and then he glared furiously at the chair. Something was wrong. This made him very angry.

"You Devil of a chair!" he cried out vehemently. "Never in all my days have I seen such an ill-tempered beast!"

The chair creaked a little and said in an even-tempered voice: "Yes, just look at me! I am as I am, and no more will I change."

The painter kicked the chair with the tips of his toes, and the chair retreated. Now it looked entirely different.

"You stupid idiot of a chair," the young man cried. "Now you look all crooked and lopsided!"

The wicker chair smiled a little and said softly: "That, young man, is what is known as perspective."

At this, the youth sprang to his feet. "Perspective!" he screamed in rage. "Now this rascal of a chair wants to play schoolmaster! Perspective is my concern, not yours, mind you!"

The chair said nothing more. The painter furiously paced up and down, until the angry knocking of a cane from the apartment below sounded against the floorboards. Below him lived an older man, a scholar, who tolerated no noise.

He sat down and again studied his most recent self-portrait. But he did not like it. He saw that in reality he himself was more handsome and more interesting than it was, and this was the simple truth.

Now he wanted to go on reading his book. But there was still more to read about the Dutch straw chair, and this irritated him. The author was making such a lot of fuss about that chair, and after all ...

The young man looked for his beret and decided to go out for a while. He recalled that for quite some time now painting had struck him as unsatisfactory. It offered nothing but torment and disappointment, and finally, even the best painters in the world could portray only the plain surface of things. This was no calling for a man in love with the depths. And, as he had done on more than one occasion, he gave serious thought to following another inclination, one he had had longer still: to become a writer.

The wicker chair was left alone in the garret. It was sorry that its young master had gone. It had hoped that now, once and for all, a proper relations.h.i.+p would develop between them. It certainly would have liked, now and then, to have said a few words, and it knew that, doubtless, it could pa.s.s on quite a lot of valuable information to a young man. But now, unfortunately, nothing would come of it.

Conversation with the Stove.

HE INTRODUCED HIMSELF to me, stout, squat, his huge mouth full of fire. His name was Franklin.

"Are you Benjamin Franklin?" I asked.

"No, just Franklin. Francolino. I am an Italian stove, a first-rate invention. Admittedly, I don't heat particularly well, but as an invention, as a product of a highly developed industry-"

"Yes, I'm aware of that. All stoves with fine names heat only reasonably well, and yet they are excellent inventions; many of them are even marvelous feats of industry, as I know from reading their prospectuses. I am exceedingly fond of them, they merit our admiration. But tell me, Franklin, how is it that an Italian stove has an American name? Isn't this a bit odd?"

"No, not really. It is one of the hidden laws, mind you. Cowardly peoples have folk songs glorifying courage. Loveless peoples have plays extolling love. It's the same with us stoves. An Italian stove usually gets an American name, just as a German stove usually gets a Greek name. They are German and in no way do they heat better than I, but they are called Eureka or Phoenix or Hector's Farewell. The name stirs up powerful a.s.sociations. So, too, have I been named Franklin. I am a stove, but I could just as well be a statesman. I have a big mouth, give off but little heat, spew smoke through a pipe, bear a good name, and stir up powerful a.s.sociations. That is how I am."

"Certainly," said I, "I hold you in the highest esteem. Since you're an Italian stove, surely one can also roast chestnuts in you?"

"Certainly one can, everyone is free to try. It is a pastime that many people enjoy. Many people also write poems or play chess. Certainly, one can roast chestnuts in me. They will surely burn and no longer be edible, but still it's a way to pa.s.s the time. People love nothing quite so much as a pastime, and since I am a work of man, it is my duty to serve him. We do our simple duty, we monuments, we do exactly what is required of us, no more and no less."

"Did you say monuments? Do you think of yourself as a monument?"

"We are all monuments. We products of industry are all monuments to a human faculty or virtue, a faculty which seldom exists in the lower forms of life, and, among its more highly developed forms, is to be found only in human beings."

"Which faculty is that, Mr. Franklin?"

"The sense for the inappropriate. I am, like many of my peers, a monument to this sense. My name is Franklin, I am a stove, I have a big mouth that eats wood, and a big pipe through which warmth finds the quickest means of escape. What's more, and just as important, I have ornaments-lions and other things-and I have a few valves, the opening and closing of which gives a great deal of pleasure. This, too, serves the pastime, just like the valves on a horn, which the hornplayer can open and close as he pleases. It gives him the illusion of doing something significant; and, in the end, he does do something significant."

"Franklin, you are utterly delightful. You're the cleverest stove I've ever seen. But tell me now, are you a stove or are you a monument?"

"You ask so many questions! Surely you know that man is the only living thing that confers meaning on inanimate objects. That's human nature; I serve man, I am one of his works, I'm content to confirm the facts. Man is an idealist, a thinker. For the beast, the oak is an oak, the mountain a mountain, the wind a wind and no heavenly child. For man, however, everything is divine, rife with meaning, everything's a symbol. Everything signifies something else, something entirely different from what it is. Being and appearance remain at odds. It's an old notion, it goes back, I believe, to Plato. A homicide is an act of heroism, a plague is the finger of G.o.d, a war is the glorification of G.o.d, a cancer of the stomach is evolution. How then could a stove simply be a stove? On the contrary, it is a symbol, it is a monument, it is a harbinger. No doubt it appears to be a stove, and in a certain sense, so it is; but from its simple face the ancient sphinx mysteriously smiles at you. Even the stove is the carrier of an idea, even it is a mouthpiece for the divine essence. That is why people love it, that is why people pay it the respect that is its due. That is why it heats poorly and only in its immediate vicinity. That is why it is called Franklin."

Pictor's Metamorphoses.

PICTOR HAD SCARCELY set foot in Paradise when he found himself standing before a tree that had two crowns. In the leaves of one was the face of a man; in the leaves of the other, the face of a woman. Pictor stood in awe of the tree and timidly asked, "Are you the Tree of Life?"

The tree kept silence. Suddenly, coiling itself around the single trunk that joined the tree's two boughs, there appeared a Serpent. And because the Serpent, and not the tree, was about to reply, Pictor turned around and continued on his way. His eyes widened in wonder and delight at all he beheld. Somehow he knew the Source of Life was near.

Soon enough, he came upon another tree, whose two crowns held the sun and the moon. And once again Pictor asked, "Are you the Tree of Life?"

The sun seemed to nod its a.s.sent; the moon smiled down at him. All around grew cl.u.s.ters of flowers, strange and wonderful, unlike any Pictor had ever seen. From within the circles of their many-hued petals, bright faces and eyes peered out at him. Some of the flowers nodded on their stems, smiling and laughing like the sun and the moon. Others were silent, drunken, sunken within themselves, as if drowned in their own perfumes.

And their colors sang to him: this one a deep mauve lilac song, that one a dark blue lullaby. Oh, what huge blue eyes this one had, and how much that one resembled his first love. The scent of another sang in his mother's voice, made him recall how they'd walked in the gardens when Pictor was still a little boy. Yet another flower teased him, stuck out its tongue, long, arched, and red. He bent down, put his own tongue to it. The taste was wild and strong, like honey mixed with rosin, and yes, like a woman's kiss.

Pictor stood alone amid the flowers. Filled with longing and timid joy, he could feel his heart beating in his chest, now fast-in antic.i.p.ation of something he could only surmise; now slow-in time with the rolling waves of the ocean of desire.

Just then, he saw a bird alight in the gra.s.s. The bird's feathers were ablaze with color, each plume a different color of the rainbow. And he drew nearer to the bird and asked, "Most lovely Bird, tell me, where can one find happiness?"

"Happiness," the bird replied, its golden beak br.i.m.m.i.n.g with laughter, "Happiness, Friend, is in each thing, valley and mountain, flower and gem."

Even as it spoke these words, the bird began to dance, ruffling its feathers, flapping its wings, turning its head, beating its tail on the ground, winking, laughing, spinning around in a whirl of color. When it came to a standstill, what had been a bird was now a many-colored flower: feathers to petals, claws to roots. The transformation was marvelous. But even as Pictor stood there blinking, it went on changing. Weary of being a flower, it pulled up its roots, set its anthers and filaments in motion. On petal-thin wings it slowly rose aloft and floated in mid-air, a weightless, s.h.i.+mmering b.u.t.terfly. Pictor could scarcely believe his eyes.

And the new b.u.t.terfly, the radiant bird-flower-b.u.t.terfly, flew in circles around and around Pictor. More and more amazed, Pictor watched the sunlight glint off its wings. Soon it let itself glide down to the earth gently as a snow-flake. There it rested on the ground, close by Pictor's feet. The luminous wings trembled as it changed once again. It became a gemstone, out of whose facets a red light streamed.

But even as it lay there, radiant red in the dark green gra.s.s, the precious stone shrank smaller and smaller. As if its homeland, the center of the earth, called to it, the gem threatened to be swallowed up. Just as it was about to vanish, scarcely aware of what he was doing, Pictor reached for the stone, picked it up, and clasped it firmly in his hands. Gazing into it, transfixed by its magical light, Pictor could feel its red rays penetrate his heart, warming it with a radiance that promised eternal bliss.

Just then, slithering down from the bough of a withered tree, the Serpent hissed into Pictor's ear, "This crystal can change you into anything you want to be. Quickly tell it your wish, before it is too late. Swiftly, speak your command, before the stone vanishes."

Without stopping to think, afraid of losing this one chance for happiness, Pictor rashly uttered his secret word to the stone, and was as soon transformed into a tree. Pictor had always wished to become a tree, because trees seemed so serene, so strong and dignified.

He felt himself strike root in the earth, felt his arms branch up into the sky, felt new limbs growing from his trunk, and from the limbs he felt new leaves sprout. Pictor was content. His thirsty roots drank deep in the earth. His leafy crown, so near to the clouds, rustled in the breeze. Birds nested in his branches, insects lived in his bark, hedgehogs and hares took shelter at his feet. For many years, he was happy. A long time pa.s.sed before he felt something amiss; his happiness was incomplete. Slowly he learned to see with the eyes of a tree. Finally he could see, and grew sad.

Rooted to the spot, Pictor saw the other creatures in Paradise continually transform themselves. Flowers would turn into precious stones or fly away as dazzling hummingbirds. Trees that had stood beside him suddenly were gone: one turned into a running brook, another became a crocodile; still a third turned into a fish-full of life, it swam away joyfully. Elephants became ma.s.sive rocks; giraffes became long-stemmed flowers. While all creation flowed into one magical stream of endless metamorphosis, Pictor could only look on.

He alone could not change. Once he knew this, all his happiness vanished. He began to grow old, taking on that tired, haggard look one can observe in many old trees. Not only in trees, but in horses, in birds, in human beings, in all life forms that no longer possess the gift of transformation. As time pa.s.ses, they deteriorate and decline, their beauty is gone. To the end of their days, they know nothing but sorrow.

Time pa.s.sed as before, until one day a young girl lost her way in Paradise. She had blond hair; she wore a blue dress. She sang happy songs; dancing, she wended her way among the trees. Carefree, the girl had never thought of wis.h.i.+ng for the gift of transformation. Many of the creatures in Paradise took a keen interest in her. Animals smiled at her; bushes stretched their branches out to touch her; many of the trees tossed fruits, nuts, or flowers her way. But she paid them no mind.

The moment Pictor caught sight of her, he felt an intense longing, a firm resolve to recover his lost happiness. It was as if an inner voice, the voice of his own red blood commanded him to take hold of himself, to concentrate, to remember all the years of his life. And he obeyed the voice and became lost in thought, and his mind's eye summoned up images from his past, even from his distant past when he was a man on his way to Paradise. But most clearly he remembered the moment when he had held the magical stone in his hands, when every metamorphosis was open to him, when life had glowed in him more intensely than ever before. Then he remembered the laughing bird and the tree that was both the sun and the moon. And he began to understand all he had lost. The Serpent's advice had been treacherous.

Hearing a loud rustling in Pictor's leaves, the girl turned her gaze on the tree. She looked up at its crown, and felt strange new feelings, desires, and dreams welling up in her heart. What was this unknown force that made her sit down in the shade of the tree? To her, the tree seemed lonely and sad, and yet beautiful, touching, and n.o.ble in its mute sorrow. The song of its gently swaying crown held her captive. Leaning against its rough trunk, she could feel the tree shudder deep inside itself, and she felt the same pa.s.sionate tremor in her own heart. Clouds flew across the sky of her soul, heavy tears fell from her eyes. Her heart hurt her so, beat so hard, she felt it would burst out of her bosom. Why did it want to cleave to him, melt into him, the beautiful loner?

Pictor, too, longed to become one with the girl. And so he gathered in all his life forces, focused them, directed them toward her. Even his roots trembled with the effort. And now he realized how blind he had been, how foolish, how little he had understood life's secret. That deceitful, that treacherous Serpent had had but one wish: to lock Pictor up inside a tree forever. And it was in an entirely different light-albeit tinged with sorrow-that he now saw the image of the tree that was Man and Wife together.

Just then, in an arc, a bird came flying, a bird red and green; lovely, daring, nearer it came. The girl saw it fly, saw something fall from its beak, something that shone blood-red, red as embers; and it fell in the green green gra.s.s, so promising; its deep red radiance called to her, courted her, sang out loud. The girl stooped down, picked up the bright red stone. Ruby-garnet-crystal gem, wherever it is, no darkness can come.

The moment the girl held the magical stone in her white hands, the single wish that filled her heart was answered. In a moment of rapture she became one with the tree, transformed as a strong, new bough that grew out of its trunk, higher and higher into the heavens.

Now everything was splendid, the world was in order. In that single moment Paradise had been found. The tired old tree named Pictor was no more. Now he sang out his new name: Pictoria, he sang out loud and clear: Pictoria, Victoria.

Out of a half he had become a whole. Fulfilled, complete, he had attained the true, eternal transformation. The stream of continuing creation flowed through his blood, and he could go on changing forever and ever.

He became deer, he became fish, he became human and Serpent, cloud and bird. In each new shape he was whole, was a pair, held moon and sun, man and wife inside him. He flowed as a twin river through the lands, shone as a double star in the firmament.

The Tourist City in the South.

ONE OF THE CLEVEREST and most lucrative undertakings of the modern spirit, the founding and establishment of the Tourist City in the South, rests on an ingenious synthesis-a synthesis that could only have been conceived by the most penetrating psychologists of the mentality of city dwellers, if one does not want to see this as a direct emanation of the soul of the city itself, as its dream made real. For the city realizes, in ideal perfection, all the wishes and hopes the average city dweller could possibly hold out for his vacation and his enjoyment of the great outdoors. As we all know, the city dweller revels in nothing so much as nature, idyllic scenes, peace, and beauty. But, as we know only too well, all these lovely things his heart covets-and in which, until quite recently, the earth was still abundant-are indigestible and intolerable to him. Now that he's got the idea of nature in his head, there has been created for him-just like decaffeinated coffee and nicotine-free cigars-a nature-free, no-risk, hygienic, de-natured nature. Moreover, the supreme rule of the modern industry of applied arts has been strictly enforced: the requirement of absolute "authenticity." And the modern arts trade is right to stress this requirement, one unknown in earlier times, when indeed every sheep was genuine and gave genuine wool, every cow was genuine and gave genuine milk, back in the days before the invention of artificial sheep and cows. Shortly after they had been invented, and had virtually driven out the authentic ones, the ideal of authenticity was born. Gone are the days when nave princes built for their own enjoyment artificial ruins, a copy of the Hermitage, a small sham Switzerland, or an imitation Posilipo in this or that small German valley. The absurd thought of wanting to simulate for the urban connoisseur something like Italy in the vicinity of London, Switzerland near Chemnitz, or Sicily on Lake Constance lies far from the minds of today's entrepreneurs. The nature subst.i.tute that today's city dweller demands must be unconditionally genuine, genuine as the silver on his table, genuine as the pearls around his wife's neck, and genuine as the love for his countrymen and his republic which he cherishes in his bosom.

Making all this real was not easy. For spring and fall, the affluent city dweller demands a South that accords with his own preconceptions and needs, an authentic South replete with palm trees and lemons, blue lakes and picturesque villages; actually, all this was easy enough to achieve. However, that city dweller further demands society, he wants hygiene and cleanliness, a metropolitan atmosphere, music, technology, elegance; he expects his nature to be utterly subjugated and transformed by man, a nature that, to be sure, provides him with any number of alluring enticements, but one which is also tractable and demands nothing of him, one in which he can make himself comfortably at home with all his metropolitan habits and pretensions. Now, because Nature is the most implacable force we know, the fulfillment of such demands would seem virtually impossible; but, as we know, for human ingenuity, nothing is impossible. The dream has come true.

Of course, the Tourist City in the South could not be produced in only one unique specimen. Thirty or forty of these ideal cities were made; they have sprung up at each and every suitable site. And if I attempt to describe one of these cities, of course I won't have any one in particular in mind; it shall remain nameless-like a Ford, it is just one off the line, one of many.

Enclosed by a long, gently curved, reinforced embankment, lies a lake of blue water with quick little waves, at whose rim the enjoyment of nature takes place. Along the sh.o.r.e float numerous little rowboats with colorfully striped awnings and varicolored pennons, elegant, fine boats with neat little cus.h.i.+ons, spotless as operating tables. Their owners walk up and down the quay, incessantly offering to charter out their sailing vessels to all pa.s.sersby. These men are dressed like sailors, they go bare-chested and their bare arms are brown; they speak genuine Italian; nonetheless, they are capable of giving information in every other conceivable language; southern eyes aglow, they smoke long, thin cigars and look quite picturesque.

Along the sh.o.r.e the boats are docked; along the rim of the lake runs the esplanade, a two-lane road. The lake-ward lane, under neatly pruned trees, is reserved for pedestrians; the inland lane is a dazzling, hot thoroughfare, crowded with hotel buses, autos, tramways, and vehicles of every description. Fronting on this road is the Tourist City, which has one dimension fewer than other cities; it extends in height and width only, but not in depth. It consists of a thick, tight girdle of proud hotels. But behind this belt of hotels there's an attraction not to be missed: the genuine South. There, for all to see, stands an old Italian town, in whose narrow, strong-smelling marketplace vegetables, poultry, and fish are sold, where barefoot children play kickball with tin cans, and mothers-their hair flying-bellow out in powerful voices the euphonious cla.s.sical names of their children. Here it smells of salami, of wine, of the latrine, of tobacco, of manual toil; here jovial men in s.h.i.+rtsleeves stand in the open doorways of their shops; shoemakers sit in the street pounding leather, all very genuine and very gay and original-on this set the first act of an opera could begin at any time. Here one can watch the intensely curious tourists make discoveries, and frequently one can hear the knowing p.r.o.nouncements of the educated on the soul of the natives. Ice-cream venders convey small rattling carts through the narrow streets and bellow out the names of their sweets; here and there in a courtyard or a small square a hand organ begins to play. Each day the tourist spends an hour or two in this small, dirty, and interesting town, buying picture postcards and items of woven straw, trying to speak Italian, garnering his impressions of the South. Here, too, a lot of picture taking goes on.

Still farther in the distance, behind the Old Town, lies the countryside with its villages and meadows, its vineyards and forests. There Nature is just as she always was-crude and untamed; but the tourists take little interest in it, because when, from time to time, they drive their automobiles through this thing called Nature, the meadows and villages at the edge of the highway look precisely as dusty and hostile as those everywhere else.

Soon the tourist returns once again from his excursion to the Ideal City. Its big, many-storied hotels are under the management of astute directors with well-trained, courteous, and attentive staffs. Lovely steamers ply the waters of the lake, and elegant vehicles travel the highway. Every footstep alights on asphalt and cement, everywhere you turn it is freshly swept and sprayed, everywhere trinkets and refreshments are for sale. The former President of France is staying at the Hotel Bristol, and the German Chancellor is at the Park Hotel. In elegant cafes one meets one's friends from Berlin, Frankfurt, and Munich, reads the newspapers from one's hometown; coming in out of the old, operettalike Italian town, once again one breathes in the good, solid air of one's homeland, of the metropolis; one presses freshly washed hands, people invite one another to take refreshments, from time to time they make phone calls to their native places of business; trim and stimulated, they move among well-dressed, cheerful people. On the hotel balconies, behind the bal.u.s.trades and the oleander trees, famous poets sit and fix their pensive gazes on the mirror of the lake; from time to time they receive representatives of the press, and soon one learns about each master's work in progress. In a fine little restaurant one sees the most popular actress of one's native metropolis; she's wearing a gown that is like a dream and she's feeding dessert to her Pekinese. And in the evenings, when she opens her window-in Room 178 of the Palace Hotel-and sees the endless row of s.h.i.+mmering lights that range along the sh.o.r.e and dreamily disappear on the far side of the bay, even she is charmed by the natural scene and is often almost moved to say her prayers.

Mellow and contented, one walks along the esplanade; the Mllers from Darmstadt are there, too, and one hears that tomorrow an Italian tenor-the only one worth listening to since Caruso-will give a recital in the casino. Toward evening, one sees the little steamers returning, inspects those who disembark, again finds acquaintances, lingers awhile in front of a shop window full of old furniture and embroidery; then it gets chilly and it is now time to return to the hotel. Behind the walls of concrete and gla.s.s, the dining room sparkles with porcelain, gla.s.s, and silver; later in the evening, a little ball will be held here. But the music's already begun; scarcely has one finished making one's evening toilette when one is welcomed by sweet and lulling sounds.

Outside the hotel, planted between the concrete walls are thick, multicolored beds of constantly blossoming flowers: camelias and rhododendrons. Their splendor gradually fades away as evening arrives. Tall palm trees surround them. All this is genuine. And the cool blue globes of the plump hydrangeas are in full bloom. Tomorrow there will be a big tour group going to--aggio; everyone is looking forward to it. And if one has erred in choosing--aggio over--iggio or--ino perhaps, no matter; because at any of these places one will find the identical Ideal City, the selfsame lake, the quay, the same picturesque and droll Old Town, and the same fine hotels with their high gla.s.s walls, behind which the palm trees observe us while we dine, the same good soft music; in sum, all that suits the city dweller when he wants to live in style.

Among the Ma.s.sagetae.

HOWEVER MUCH my native land, supposing that I had one, might doubtless surpa.s.s every other country on this earth in its amenities and splendid appointments, not long ago I felt the urge to go traveling again, and I made a trip to the distant land of the Ma.s.sagetae, where I had not been since the invention of gunpowder. I had a hankering to learn how much these widely celebrated and brave people, whose warriors long ago had vanquished the great Cyrus, had changed since my last visit, and how much they might have adapted to the ways of present-day society.