I had left my dear friend Ruth
behind in Paris a couple of days before.
We had reached an impasse in our ongoing friendship that seemed beyond
transcending. We had been hitchhiking in
Normandy shortly before, traveling to Haugate from which William the Conqueror
had left for Britain in 1066. We
survived with strangers on her weak French, but stronger than my own. We had visited Versailles; and then, on the
fourteenth of July, la Quatorze Julliet, said goodbye in a railway station near
a carnival where there were bumper cars.
Ruth had wanted to come with me.
I had not wanted to be encumbered.
I had only a few weeks left in Europe and not much funds. I wanted to cover as much territory as
possible. What extra funds I had had
been supplied by an established lady novelist whom I had met through the widow
of a very prominent English author,
strictly by way of encouragement. I had
been told to do something educational. I
decided to go to Morocco.
The train ride to Madrid was mostly
during the night. I missed most of the
south of France as a fellow passenger
played Tom Jones singing “Delila” essentially all night long. There was a brief stop in the morning at a
large Spanish city where I breakfasted, and then by noon we were in a large
station in Madrid. A young man approached
me with an offer to show me to a youth hostel, and I was taken to a large
apartment where rooms were lined with cots, fairly comfortable ones.
I wandered around Madrid in the evening, and the next morning
visited the Prado Museum. I was
especially impressed with the Dutch and Belgian paintings, Heironymous Bosch in
particular. I remember seeing a bull
fight arena and eating a meal in a small café.
At some point I took a train and visited Escurial.
Then I proceeded by train to
Algecieras or Alicante, I confuse the two now so many years later, and boarded
a ship for Tangier. The trip across the
Straits of Gibraltar was bracing. In the
port at Tangier another young man approached me, trying out several languages
before he lighted on English. He also
offered to help me find a hostel; but by this time I was somewhat soiled and
disheveled and was denied entrance to the established hostel. We found a place where I could clean up. Then we went to a small hotel in the casbah,
and I rented an inexpensive room. After
that we went to a rooftop coffee bar where people were drinking coffee and smoking
kief, a low grade of marijuana or hashish.
I was a novice at the time with little experience with drugs, having
been duped in London into buying a small sack of what turned out to have been
perhaps Bull Durham from a man in the
American Express. My young friend and I
smoked some of the Moroccan substance.
It was pleasant but somewhat disorienting. We sat near the edge of a railing, and he
kept motioning towards a building below and exclaiming, “bar berra hatton” with
a long o. I could not at first make out
what he was saying. His English was
somewhat deficient, and we tried using a little French. It turned out that that building was the home
of the American Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton, whose son Lance Revitlow? was
a famous playboy recently featured in Look magazine or in Life. Bar bare a hat on, I dizzily mused; and that
was my introduction to Morocco.
After reading Lord Byron’s “She
Walks in Beauty”
Gerald A. George
I don’t know how I knew of such a
thing…
As makes my heart to break but
lets it sing.
You were the very vision of desire
Portrayed in solemn beauty and
composed
Of skin light brown, with eyes
perhaps grey-green,
In satin shaded rose with taffeta,
appointed by
A pink camellia corsage which I
had brought you,
When I picked you up in my
father’s car…
My little Fiat was far too small
for this scene.
Your hair was soft and subtle as
if a shuttle
Had woven back and forth, both
woof and warp,
Concealing and revealing with no
more trouble
Than a summer cloud that pauses in
the sky
And half conceals itself in its
own disguise.
So was it on that night so long
ago
When I took you to the country
club for
My senior dinner dance and high
school prom.
We did not go to the same high
school.
Yours may have been more
sophisticated,
Though we would never have
admitted it
Not in a million, not for a moment. We
Had prevailed that year in at
least four sports.
You disappeared into the powder
room and
Mixed with girls whom I but not
you knew
Somehow the word came back to me
that
They were much impressed but we
weren’t
Meant to be. We went our separate ways,
Crossed paths of course from time
to time,
But you are happily married now
and
I am lagging far behind. We had
Been childhood friends; our
mothers were
And now we’re facebook friends so
what’s
The stir about to long for times
gone by.
I only hope someday to write it
down
Just as it was when almost moved
to tears
By your great beauty and fallen
from fears
Of future duties to live up to my
expectations
The loss was mine alone, but not
the nations.
As ugly as Count Ugolino
In Dante’s Inferno who
Eats his own sons
The sound of my walking cane
(I am now disabled.)
Tapping on the floor like
The passing of time
Until my dinner.
Just as Mother made the coffee for
The AA’s and the Al-Anons at
All Saints Episcopal Church
For years, so have I
Made the coffee for the
Grove Home Residents
Every morning for a
Number of years, but
Even so I am beginning to
Back down now and
Leave it for
Others to do.
I have just watched The Wings of
the Dove(1979), an earlier version of the 1997 production, free on youtube. It is a remarkable story and a good
movie. Based on a Henry James novel, one
of his three greatest achievements written towards the end of his life, this movie
is very engaging. Henry James was a
truly great American novelist who took for his subject the machinations of very
high New York or New England society, often juxtaposed with a European
environment. He is widely regarded as
one of the pinnacles of American literature.
His brother, Willliam James, was a Harvard professor of psychology and
the author of a landmark work, The Varieties of Religious Experience.
The Wings of the Dove is concerned with the fate of a young American woman of good fortune who comes
to London with her amiable companion, somewhat indisposed by an unrevealed illness,
to find happiness and adventure. They encounter
a powerful society headed by a controlling aunt, Maude Lowder, including a charming niece the aunt hopes to marry
into the aristocracy. The niece Kate Croix
is secretly aligned with a Mr. Denture who
has no financial future. Mrs. Lowder is promoting
the advances of Lord Mark, a questionable prize. Millie Thiel is the unfortunate heiress, also courted
by Lord Mark but attracted to Mr. Denture. The scene shifts to Venice where the situation
continues.
Kate would have Mr. Denture marry Miss
Thiel for her money before she dies. He declines,
but after Miss Thiel dies and leaves her fortune to him, he throws it away only
to be rejected by Miss Croix who was complicit in the act of renunciation. It is an excruciating story, beautifully told and
dramatically rendered. I give it my highest
recommendation. Mother would have loved it.
I am sure of that.
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