Part 8
"'And then, _entre nous_, could you not bring with you a Lais, a Phryne or two, in their original costumes as they allured all you naughty Greeks in times bygone? It would be charmingly revolting. When I dimly represent to myself how the young eagles of society will tremble with pleasure at the thought of adding to their lists of conquests, in pink and white, a Corinthian or Athenian _demi-mondaine_ of two thousand years ago, I feel that I am a Personality.
"'If I could offer such an unheard-of opportunity I should get first leaders in the _Manchester Guardian_ and mild rebukes, full of secret zest, in the godly _Guardian_; let alone other noble papers read by the goody-goody ones. The _Record_ would send me a testimonial signed by the leading higher critics. I should be the heroine of the day and of the night.'"
The gods and heroes encouraged Alcibiades by their gay laughter to tell them all that happened at the "At Home" of his American lady friend, and he continued as follows:
"When the evening of the Greek _soirée_ came, I went to the drawing-room in company with Phryne and Lais, who were most charmingly dressed as flute-girls. When we entered the large room we saw a vast assembly of women and men, mostly dressed in the preposterous fashion of the little ones. The women looked like zoological specimens, some resembling Brazilian butterflies, others reptiles, others again snakes or birds of prey. The upper part of their bodies was uncovered, no matter whether the rest of the body had gone through countless campaigns enlivened by numerous capitulations, or whether it had just expanded into the buds of rosy spring. The men looked like the clowns in our farces. They wore a costume that no Greek slave would have donned. It was all black and all of the same cut. Instead of looking enterprising, they all looked like undertakers. Each of them made a nervous attempt to appear as inoffensive, and as self-effacing as possible; just like undertakers entering the house where a person had died.
"When we entered the room the whole assembly rose and cried: 'Cairo--Cairo!' (they were told to cry _Chaire_--but in vain). I could distinctly hear remarks such as these: 'How weird!'--'Is it not uncanny?'--'It makes me feel creepy!' After a few minutes there was a deep silence, and an elderly gentleman came up through the middle of the room and, bowing first to us and then to the people assembled, stepped up to the platform and began a speech in a strange language, which I vaguely remembered having heard before.
"Phryne suddenly began to giggle, and so irresistible was her laughter that both Lais and I could not but join her, especially when in words broken by continuous laughter she told us:
"'The old gent pretends to speak Athenian Greek!'
"It was indeed too absurd for words. There was especially that vulgar sound _i_ constantly recurring where we never dreamt of using such a sound; and our beautiful _ypsilon_ (γ) he pronounced like the English _u_, which is like serving champagne in soup-plates. When he stumbled over an _ou_, he pronounced it with a sound to which dentists are better accustomed than any Athenian ever was, and our deep and manly _ch_ (χ) he castrated down to a lisping _k_. I remember Carians in Asia Minor who talked like that. Our noble and incomparable language, orchestral, picturesque, sculptural, became like the Palace of Minos which they are excavating at present: in its magnificent halls, eaten by weather and worm, one sees only poor labourers and here and there a directing mind.
"I imagined that the good man meant by his speech to welcome me back into the world, and so when my turn to answer him came, I got up and, leaning partly on Phryne and partly on Lais, who stood near me, I replied as follows, after speaking for a little while in Attic, in the language of the country:
"'It is indeed with no ordinary satisfaction that I beg to thank you, O Sophist, and you here present for the pleasant reception that you have given us. My lot has on the whole not been altogether bad. Your studious men, it is true, affect to condemn me, my policy, and my private life. Perhaps they will allow me to remark that the irregularity of my past morals is a matter of temptations. Diogenes used to tell us that one of my sternest historian-critics in Syracuse left his wife, children and house on being for once tempted by the chamber-maid of one of my passing caprices; and the historians of your race who so gravely decry a Madame de Montespan would, did Madame only smile at them, incontinently fall into a fit of hopeless moral collapse.
"'But if your men write against me, irrespective of what they really feel about me, I am sure your women take a much more lenient view of the case.'
"(Discreet applause.)
"'They feel that ambition did not eat up all the forces of my soul, and that in worshipping Ares (Mars), I never forgot the cult of Aphrodite (Venus) either. We Hellenes ventured to be humans, and that is why now we have become demi-gods. You, my friends, do not even venture to be humans, and that is why you remain the little ones.
"'I notice in the northern countries of Europe men do not, or to a very small degree care for women. Perhaps that is the reason why the Roman Catholic idea of the Holy Virgin has had no lasting hold on these nations.
"'I have seen,' continued Alcibiades, 'too many faces, masks, and pretences to be much impressed by the apparent indifference of the northerner to the charms of women. It never meant more than either an unavowed inclination towards his own sex, or sheer boorishness. Even we Hellenes had very much to suffer from our political and social neglect of women outside emancipated ones. The Romans acted much more wisely in that respect; while the nation of our hostess has practically become what we called a _gynæcocracy_ or women's rule, where man is socially what our Greek women used to be: relegated to the background. I hear, this is the privilege of Englishmen. I understand. When I was young I learnt but too much about that privilege.
"'But if I should be asked for advice I would tell your men to take your women much more seriously. I know that Englishmen are much more grave than serious; yet with regard to women they ought to be much more intent on considering them in everything their mates, and in several things their superiors. Of course, this is an unmilitary nation; and such nations will always remain boors in Sunday dress.
"'One of your great writers who, being outside the academic clique, has always been maligned by the officials, has written a beautiful essay on the influence of women. Poor Buckle--he treated the problem as a schoolroom paper. He came to the result that women encourage the deductive mode of thinking. However, women are more seductive than deductive, and their real influence is to charm the young, to warm the mature, and not to alarm the old.
"'I, being now above the changes of time, I only, contemplate their charm. And what greater potentialities of charm could one wish for than those that your women possess? If those magnificently cut and superbly coloured eyes learned to be expressive; if the muscles of those fine cheeks knew how to move with speedier grace; if that purely outlined mouth were more animated--what possibilities of fascination, like so many fairies, might rise over the dispassionate surface of those silent lakes! As they are, their several organs are positively hostile, or coldly indifferent to one another. The forehead, instead of being the ever-changing capital of the human column, setting off their beautiful hair, as ivory sets off gold; the shoulders, the seat of human grace, instead of giving to the head the pedestal of the Charites; and the arms and hands, instead of giving by their movements the proper lilt and cadence to everything said or done;--all these hate one another respectively. The arms do not converse with the face; theirs is like other conversations: after a few remarks on the weather all communication stops. So sullen is the antipathy of the arms, that as a rule they hide on the back, as if begrudging the face or the bust their company. It is in that way that English women who might be as beautiful and charming as the maidens of Thebes or of Tanagra, have made themselves into walking Caryatides, whom we invariably represented as doing a slavish labour, with their arms on their backs, and with a heavy load on their heads.
"'Remove the arms, O women of England, from your badly swung back and bring them into play in front of your well-shaped bust and your beautiful faces! Let the consciousness of your power electrify your looks, your dimples, and your gait; and when from musing Graces you will have changed into graceful Muses, your men too will be much superior to what they used to be.
"'See how little your influence is, as your language clearly indicates. Is not your language the only idiom in Europe that has completely dropped that fine shade of sweet intimacy which the use of _thou_ and _thy_ is giving to the other languages? Is not a new world of tenderest internal joy permeating the French, German or Italian woman who for the first time dares to _tutoyer_ her lover? You women of England, the natural priestesses of all warmth and intimacy, you have suffered all that to decay.
"'To your men we Hellenes say: "Imitate us!" To you women, we do not say so. We ask you to exceed us, to go beyond us, and then alone when women will be what we Hellenic men were, that is, specimens of all-round humanity, then indeed you too will rise to the higher status, and the golden age will again fill the world with light and happiness!'
"After that speech of mine," continued Alcibiades, "there was much applause. I mingled with the public, and was at once interpellated by one of the American ladies present:
"'Most interesting speech,' she said. 'What I especially liked were your remarks about thou-ing. And what I want to know most is whether Caryatides were thou-ing one another?'
"I was a little perplexed, and all that I could answer was: 'Their dimples did,' and this seemed to satisfy my American lady marvellously well.
"Another lady asked me how many Muses we had, and on hearing that their number was nine, she was highly astonished. 'Only nine? Why in London there are mews in every second street. How strange!'
"A third lady asked me what I meant by shoulders being a pedestal. Her shoulders, she was sure, were no pedestals, and she would not allow anyone to stand on them. She added, that she was aware of my having said that the shoulders were the pedestal of the Charites, but with her best intention she could not allow even charity to be extended to her shoulders. I smiled consent.
"A fourth lady, whose name was Valley, but who was a mountain of otherwise rosy flesh, asked me what I had meant by maidens of Podagra? She was sure that young maids never suffered from that ugly disease. I told her that I really meant Chiragra. This satisfied her marvellously well.
"During that time Phryne and Lais were the heroines of the evening, lionised by women, and courted by men. The women asked them all sorts of questions and seemed extraordinarily eager to be instructed. One of them, a brilliant duchess--(who had three secretaries providing her with the latest information about everything, the first preparing all the catch-words from A to G, the second from H to N, and the third from O to Z)--asked Phryne whether she would not permit her to convince herself of the accuracy of the estimate in which Hyperides held the exquisite form of Phryne's bosom. (A middle-class woman thereupon asked Mr Gox, M.P., what Hyperides meant. Mr Gox told her it was the Greek for Rufus, son of Abraham.) Phryne volunteered to do so at once, and the women disappeared in a special room, from where very soon cries of amazement could be heard. The pure beauty of Phryne enchanted the women. The sensation was immense, ay immensest.
"The representative of the _Daily Nail_ offered first £2000, then £3000, finally £5000 for permission to kodak Phryne.
"The _Bad Times_ at once prepared a folio edition of _The Engravers' Engravings_, payable in 263 instalments, or preferably at once.
"The _Daily Marconigraph_ started a public discussion in its columns: 'Shall the lower part of the upper anatomy of the female trunk be unveiled?'
"The excitement became so universal that Mr Gigerl See at once convened a national meeting for the erection of ten new statues to Shakespeare; and General Booth ordered an absolute fast of 105 hours' duration.
"All the directors of music halls, the next day, stormed Hotel Ritz where Phryne had a suite of six lovely rooms, and offered impossible prices for a performance of five minutes. Phryne, after consulting me, consented to appear at the Palace Theatre, in the immortal scene when, in presence of the entire population of Athens, she descended into the sea. Half of the proceeds were to be given to a fund for poor women in childbed. Endless advertisements soon filled every available space on London's walls, parks, newspapers, 'buses, railways, and shops. Tickets sold at tenfold their original prices.
"At last the evening came. In the first two rows there were practically nothing but clergymen. The following rows were filled with lawyers, M.P.'s and University professors. In the boxes one could see all the aristocracy of the country. When Phryne's turn came, the orchestra played Wagner's 'Pilgrim's Chorus,' toward the end of which the curtain rolled up, and the scene represented the Piræus with apparently countless people, all in Greek dress. When the expectation was at its height, Phryne appeared clad only with the veil of her perfect beauty, and descended into the sea. Before she entered the water she said her prayers to Aphrodite, and then slowly went into the waves.
"Everyone in the audience had come to the theatre expecting to be badly shocked. To their utmost astonishment they found that there was not only nothing shocking in the scene, but even much to fill the people with awe. Like all the barbarians, the little ones deem nudity a shocking sight. What shocked them that night was the fact that they were not shocked. They felt for a moment that many of their notions and views must be radically wrong, and that was the only shock they received. Phryne triumphed over Londoners, as she did over the Athenians.
"My American lady friend was in raptures. The incredible sensation her Elki and his Athenian women had caused in _blasé_ London society made her the centre of all social centres for a fortnight. She received innumerable letters from innumerable people. The greatest writers that the world has ever seen, such as Miss Cora Morelli, wrote to her saying, that:
"'She had from her infancy onward taken a deep interest in Alcibiades and his time, and that now, having actually seen him, she would forthwith publish a novel under the attractive title of "The Mighty Elki," let alone another novel, full of the most delightful shivers, called "Phry, the Pagan."'
"Mr Hall Caine, in a thundering article, fulminated against the row made over Phryne, and solemnly declared that the charms of his Manxman were incomparably greater. One day Mr Caine called on me. He implored me to become a Christian, and assured me that the shortest way to that effect would be to attend a performance of his piece of that name. I thanked him for his kind offer, but politely declined it. Whereupon Mr Caine remained musing, until at last he surprised me with the question: 'Mr Alcib, you are the man to solve the problem of my life. Do you not think I bear a remarkable resemblance to Lord Bacon?'
"I answered that I could discern no resemblance between him and the witty Chancellor, but that I was bound to confess that there was a striking resemblance between him and Shakespeare.
"Mr Caine smiled a superior smile. 'I wonder,' he said, 'you are not aware of the fact that Shakespeare was written by Lord Bacon.'
"'Very strange--very strange,' I replied. 'We in Olympus think that Shakespeare was written by the victory over the Armada, and published by Elizabeth and Co.'
"'Do you really think such stuff in Olympus?' exclaimed Mr Caine; 'then I do not wonder that I have never been invited to that place. What has the Armada to do with _Hamlet_ or _King Lear_? You might just as well say that my novels were written by our victory at Colenso and Spion Kop. It is revoltingly absurd. A book is a book and not shrapnel or bombs. Sir, I am ashamed of you; the purple of red indignation rises swellingly into my distended physiognomy, and my thought-fraught forehead sinks under the ignominy of such life-bereft incoherences!'
"I advised Mr Caine to drink Perrier; he thanked me profusely, and assured me that he had always done so. He evidently mixed it up with the Pierian sources of literature which, I learn, provide the innumerable papers of the Associated Press with the necessary water under the name of Perrier.
* * * * *
"In my honour my American lady friend gave, a few days later, a concert. The little ones call a concert a series of instrumental and vocal pieces played for sheer amusement, and without any relation to poetry, dance, or religion. I have these three to four hundred years accustomed myself to their music, which is thoroughly different from ours, being polyphonous, whereas ours was never so. Dionysus, who presides at their music, has often told us that he introduced it into the modern world in order to show his exceeding power even in times when the men and women have lamentably fallen from the height of our Grecian culture. Our music was essentially Apollinic; that of the moderns is Dionysiac. You remember, O Zeus, that even Apollo was moved when three of the moderns had the honour to perform before him. Even he praised Mozart, Chopin, and some pieces of Weber. You need not blush, Frédéric, and you might help me to entertain and charm our holy circle by playing us one of your compositions in which beauty of form is married in tender love to truth of feeling."
Thereupon, at a sign of Zeus, Milo of Crotona, the Olympian victor of all victors, carried a piano on his mighty back, and put it down gently in one of the mystic barks. Chopin, bowing to the gods, and more particularly to Juno and Diana, sat down to the instrument and played the second and the third movement of his E minor _Concerto_. Round him waved the three Graces, while Dionysus laid an ivy wreath on his blessed head. Even the gods were moved, and when Frédéric had ended, they applauded him with passionate admiration.
"I wish, O Chopin," continued Alcibiades, "I had known you in my mortal time. What Terpander and Thaletas, the great musicians, did for Sparta, you might have helped me to do for Athens. It was not to be. The thought saddens me still. More than Sophocles and Aristophanes or Socrates, your incomparable music would have helped to keep the _Kosmos_ of Athens in due proportions."
A short pause ensued, and all looked with timidity on Zeus' immovable face.
"But let us drop these sorrowful reminiscences and return to the London concert given by my American hostess.
"She had engaged the best-known artists. For the solo songs she engaged a woman who had to be carried into the room in a motor chair, and was not allowed to stand up, before three architects had examined the solidity of the floor. Her range was from the deep _p_ to the high _l_. She sang baritone, and soprano at the same time, and what her tone wanted in width her _taille_ amply replaced. She sang nothing but Wagner, whose music, it would appear, is written for two-ton women only. No smaller tonnage need apply. While she sang, three dozen violins executed the tremolos of five hundred whimpering children, while forty counter-basses gave, every three minutes, a terrible grunt in _x_ minor. There were also fifteen fifes, and twenty-one different kinds of brass instruments, some of which had necks much longer than that of the oldest giraffe. The music was decidedly sensual and nerve-irritating. It was full of chords, both accords and discords, and what little melody there was in it was kneaded out into a tapeworm of prodigious length and such hydralike vitality, that no matter how frequently the strings throttled off its head, it yet constantly recurred bulging out a new head.
"The men present liked the singer; the women adored the music. It gave them all sorts of shivers, and although they did not understand it at all, they yet felt that here was a new shiver. Or as one of them, the bright Mrs Blazing, remarked: '_Quel artiste que ce M. Wagner!_ He has translated into music the grating noise of a comb on silk, the creaking of a rusty key in an old lock, and the strident rasp of a skidding sleigh or motor on hard-frozen snow.'
"The next artist was a Belgian violinist. For reasons that you alone, O Zeus, could tell us, the Belgians are credited with a special gift for pulling strings in general, and those of the violin in particular. Being a nation midway between the Germans and the French, they are believed to possess much of German musical talent and something of French elegance. This would easily make them good 'cello players. But not satisfied with the 'cello, in which they have excelled more than one nation, they must needs be great violinists too. However, the violin, while not at all the king of instruments, is yet the most vindictive and jealous amongst them. It is like the Lorelei: it allures hundreds, only to dash their bones against the rock of Failure. It wants the delicacy of a woman and the strength of a man. It requires the soul of spring and the heart of summer to play it well.
"A Belgian is _eo ipso_ debarred from reaching the height of violin-playing; just as a Chinaman, with his over-specialised mind, can never well play the orchestral piano. A Belgian heart is moving in a colourless and slouching _andante_; the violin moves in a profoundly agitated _adagio_ or _allegro_. The violin is the instrument of luckless nations, such as were formerly the Italians, the Poles, and the Hungarians who gave us Paganini, Wienavski and Joachim. The Belgians have nearly always enjoyed the _embonpoint_ of fat prosperity. '_Leur jeu bedonne_,' as Mrs Blazing would say.
"The Belgian played your _Chaconne_ in D minor, O Bach."
At these words of Alcibiades all the thinkers and poets present rose from their seats and bowed to John Sebastian, who stood near Strabo and Aristotle, being exceedingly fond of geographical lore. Even the gods applauded and Polyhymnia allowed him to kiss her hands.
"You remember, O John Sebastian, when I met you near Lützen at one of your solitary walks and you spoke to me of your _Chaconne_. I listened with rapt attention and told you that your composition, which you then played to me on a violin which the old inn-keeper lent you and which had just arrived from Steiner in Tyrol, rendered as perfectly as possible the sentiments I had felt when for the first time in my life I went to the Oracle at Dodona, where the winds rush through the high oak-trees with a fierce power such as can be heard in no other spot in Europe. I re-imagined my awe-struck meditations in the holy grove; I heard the stormy music of Zeus' winds in Zeus' trees; I again felt all through me the soul-moving chorus of the priests which ends in a jubilating mood, and finally I left with deep regret at having to re-enter my life of stress after having spent a day in sacred and mystic seclusion.