1876

by Gore Vidal

  “February fifteenth.”

  “Well, you’ll be there in time. Fireworks, I should say. How do you put up with all those Apgars?”

  “The same way I endured my wife’s family.” But this was an exaggeration, since the Traxlers are noted for their charm as well as for their Swiss rectitude.

  Approaching the spireless, raw-looking St. Patrick’s Cathedral, our carriage slowed down. “Are we to go to mass, Jamie? I know that your father died in the arms of mother church but…”

  “We go to other arms, Charlie. The most amusing in New York.”

  Somewhat to my horror, as well as secret delight, the carriage stopped in front of the brownstone and pink Parian marble mansion of Madame Restell, the wickedest woman in New York.

  I knew the house of course. Not a single hackdriver has neglected to point out to me the mansion where for twenty years has lived in splendour the city’s most celebrated abortionist. It is said that some of the very grandest ladies have visited the mansion, entering through a side door in Fifty-second Street. Most of Madame’s clients, however, are catered for in her Chambers Street clinic. For thirty years the pulpits and the newspaper press have denounced this fiend, but so far she has managed, luxuriously, to survive everything and everyone by the usual expedient of buying the police and the politicians. Those she cannot buy she is usually able to intimidate, since, sooner or later, most families in New York have at least one member who requires Madame’s services as “midwife,” which is how she describes herself in the advertisements she places in the Herald, and, technically speaking, she is a midwife: much of her work is discreetly delivering unwanted babies and then selling them to childless families.

  “I cannot imagine you ever setting foot in this house, Jamie.”

  “Father always said, ‘Keep in good with your advertisers.’ Anyway she’s a rare sort.”

  Madame Restell indeed proved to be a rare sort. She is about my age, very richly got up in diamonds and black lace. La Restell’s drawing room is as pretentious as that of Mrs. Astor except that her pictures are better and the furniture not as good. The guests are almost interchangeable. By that I mean the twenty or thirty gentlemen I met are no different in kind from Ward McAllister’s chosen few; the same mixture of railroad tycoons, rich lawyers, idle clubmen. The ladies, on the other hand, are bolder and far more glittering than the ones to be seen acting as ferns and thorns to the Mystic Rose.

  Madame greeted me warmly. “So good of Jamie to bring you. I’ve known him since he was a young lad.”

  “She was married to one of our compositors at the Herald.” Jamie meant to put her in her place, but she is very much in place at all times, and that is on high.

  “My husband thought the world of your dear father. In fact, when Mr. Bennett was horsewhipped in the street by that politician, what’s his name?” She turned to me. “This was years ago, Mr. Schuyler. My Charlie was the first to come to old Mr. Bennett’s aid.”

  Brava, Madame Restell, I thought to myself. Jamie glowered; then wandered off to a small parlour where a number of gentlemen were at cards. The effect of Madame Restell’s rooms is not unlike that of an excellent men’s club.

  I spoke to her in French. She laughed. “I’m no more French than you, Mr. Schuyler. My mother was called Restell, and when I set myself up in business I took her name, not wanting to embarrass others. Actually, I’m born and bred a Gloucestershire woman.” And she does still retain the accent of her country as well as of her class, which was, I should think, quite as low as now it is elevated. But she is not one for pretenses.

  “Let’s sit down. I’ve been on my feet since noon.”

  I sat beside her on a sofa; and took a whisky punch from a waiter in black, with a white tie like an usher at a wedding. I seem full of Hymenal images this evening, not to mention Venereal.

  “Are you pleased, Mr. Schuyler, that your daughter is marrying John Apgar?” Madame Restell looked at me sharply from beneath dark-dyed gleaming curls.

  “They were only engaged an hour ago. You must have been sent a telegram.”

  Madame was amused. “I don’t need telegrams to know what’s happening in New York. People tell me everything.”

  “Your—clients?”

  “Friends, too. I see everyone, you know. Not your friend Mrs. Astor, of course, but I’m well acquainted with certain members of her family.” Bold as a Tartar, it is quite plain why she prospers: she is in a position to blackmail half the great families of the town. “I see just about everyone. I’m most democratic. Except for clergymen.” She suddenly lost her good humour. “They have hounded me all my life. As if their morals were not the worst. Hypocritical old goats!” She launched a brief tirade against one Henry Ward Beecher, a Brooklyn divine who stood trial last summer for the seduction of an associate’s wife. Since the jury could not or would not make up its mind, the Reverend Beecher still continues, according to Madame Restell, “to give his Sunday sermon in the presence of twenty former mistresses.”

  “Such vigour!” I recently saw an illustration of the Reverend Beecher in a newspaper advertisement; he was endorsing whole-heartedly a new kind of truss. Perhaps I should buy one.

  “But you must admit my house is well situated.” Madame grinned more like a schoolboy than a woman dedicated to Sin and Death. “I can look right in the cathedral’s windows. And they can look in mine.” With relish she told me how her relentless enemy the archbishop had tried and failed to buy the land that she had built her mansion on, “simply to spite those blasted Irish good-for-nothing priests and bishops. So here we are, side by side, St. Patrick’s Cathedral and me!”

  All in all, I found Madame Restell beguiling. She is like a very knowing Paris concierge—a joy to talk to as long as no one ever tells you what she has said of you behind your back.

  Other guests distracted her. I wandered into the parlour, where Jamie was playing at cards. He was losing money, drinking hard, and in a bad temper.

  I passed on into the next room, which was a small study. A man and a woman were talking intently before the fire. Recognizing the man, I started to retreat.

  But I was too late. William Sanford had seen me. If he was embarrassed—if! he was very much embarrassed—he quickly decided to play the part of debonair rake based, God knows, on what ill-observed performance in the theatre.

  “Mr. Schuyler! What a surprise. I didn’t know you were a friend of our hostess.”

  “We’ve only just met. If you’ll excuse me…”

  “No. No. This is Mrs. Gilray. You’ve seen her on the stage, I’m sure. She’s appearing at Wallack’s now. In that new comedy…”

  But Mrs. Gilray (a well-known actress in these parts) was too much the dedicated professional to allow herself to be further involved in Sanford’s amateur theatricals. “I must see how my friends fare with their cards. Mr. Schuyler.” A regal nod; and she swept from the room, mistress of the grand exit as well as of Sanford.

  “I reckon this is a relief, after all them Astors and Belmonts.” Sanford was plebeian man-to-man. He offered me a cigar. Primly, I refused.

  “One doesn’t expect to see the same people of course.” I was startled at the Apgar-ish tone of my voice. Obviously that family’s dread niceness is a contagious as well as a wasting disease.

  “You’d be surprised at how often the same people come here. She’s a great sport, Madame Restell. And most discreet, as a lot of our lady friends could tell us but obviously won’t.”

  “So we really have no way of knowing, do we?”

  But this small play was lost on him. “My wife and I intended to come down to the engagement party. But she’s been unwell since Christmas, and spending the day in bed. So I’m a bachelor.”

  “There’s nothing seriously wrong, is there?”

  “No. She’s strong as an ox. Just too much going out. We’re all of us pretty low between now and Easter.
Will you be going South?”

  “If you mean to Washington City, yes. Next month.”

  “I meant further down. We go to Savannah. My wife’s family has a plantation just outside the town, with good shooting. It’s almost like before the war. Why don’t you and the Princess join us?”

  “I shall be too busy. And my daughter, as you know, is engaged.” I said this last very slowly, like a cue laid out carefully for a bad actor.

  “I congratulate you.” This was swift. Sanford tried out new approaches. “But then I suppose Apgar is really the one who should be congratulated.”

  “You could still send a telegram.” I started to the door. I mean to make my dislike as plain as possible; to warn him off.

  “I already have. And flowers to the Princess. You’ll find them at the hotel.”

  I stopped at the door; for the first time, a flash of true anger. “Again, flowers?”

  “From my wife and me. Yes.”

  “Not like the first time?”

  “I was tactless, wasn’t I?” Sanford’s movements before the fire were boyish: he kicked at a log, then swept a hand across his small mouth as if to wipe away tell-tale stolen jam.

  “My daughter is an engaged woman. And that is that, Mr. Sanford.”

  “That is certainly something, Mr. Schuyler.” He played off me; weakly, I thought.

  Now I sit in the parlour of our suite, nearly suffocated by all the flowers we have this day accumulated.

  Emma came home early, and went straight to bed. When I asked her about the evening, she merely sighed. “It was like always, Papa, only a little bit more so. But I do like poor John, and with encouragement we can—maybe—get him across the Atlantic.”

  “Let us pray that I become American minister. Then I can give him back his old job.”

  “Wouldn’t that be marvellous?” But the tired face did not match the enthusiastic words.

  I am in a quandary. Have I done the right thing, encouraging her to marry? Obviously she must marry, and if she marries an American it must be someone like John. We could certainly have done very much worse. But what about better? That is the problem. Given time, I think we could find her someone splendid, a young Vanderbilt perhaps. Although the Vanderbilts lack “tong,” the present generation is supposed to be as handsome as it is rich. But the tragedy is that we have not got the time, and so the Apgar in hand is everything for us; what may be lurking in the bush we dare not wait upon.

  If I had the courage, I would persuade Emma to call off the engagement and then take our chances at Washington City, or at Newport. But I simply cannot assume that responsibility. Tilden could be defeated and Emma might find no other husband. Two lives would be ruined. There is no alternative to John but Sanford, who is married and out of the question. In any case, he makes Emma nearly as nervous as he makes me.

  I have run out of laudanum. A sleepless night ahead. Not the most auspicious beginning for the new year.

  2

  I CANNOT BELIEVE that it has been nearly six weeks since I have written in this book.

  One by one, in stately succession, the Apgar brothers have given us dinner parties. Considering their number, we shall not have completed the rounds of that family until the time of the second centennial. At present we are doing a brother a week. Last night was number five: four to go.

  Emma bears up well. She makes no complaints to me or to anyone. Outside Apgar-land, she has made only one friend, and that is Mrs. Sanford. Ordinarily, I would be alarmed at such a connection, knowing Sanford as I do or think I do. But Emma’s dislike of him is now as great as mine, particularly as her friendship with Denise, as she calls her, grows more intense.

  “Mr. Sanford demands a good deal of attention. So Denise and I are forced to meet like guilty lovers for lunch or tea. Once we even met at the diorama and saw the entire burning of Moscow for ten cents.”

  “That must have been like old times.” Thanks to the rambling commentaries of Emma’s late father-in-law, we both feel that we were present at that celebrated bonfire.

  “She’s not well.” Emma frowned. “I don’t know what’s wrong, except that she has miscarriages and very much wants a child.”

  “If I were she—”

  “Neither would I. Not by that man.” Emma and I seldom need to finish sentences with each other—certainly not on the subject of Sanford. Fortunately, he has gone South, as promised. We saw him for the last time at Mrs. Astor’s New Year’s Ball, which is always held on the third Monday in January, rather like a constitutionally designated election.

  For all of the Apgars’ disdain of Astorocracy, the family seemed pleased enough that John Day Apgar, as Emma’s fiancé, should be invited to the ball, becoming the first holder of that worthy name ever to be on the list, although, as usual, Apgar connections were everywhere, proudly bearing the great names of the city despite the fact that their right to those names is more often than not based upon some fragile cadet branch or unexpected new shoot from a famous family’s old gnarled tree.

  McAllister was kind to John. There is, surprisingly, a Mrs. McAllister and one or two Misses McAllister. As a mark of very special favour, John was allowed to take Mrs. McAllister in to supper.

  The ball was sumptuous. I deal now only in redundancies. One formal occasion in New York is very like another. The same caterer Pinard provides the same rich complicated dishes whilst the same orchestra of Mr. Lander plays the same Offenbach and Strauss tunes for the same guests who say the same things over and over to one another as they eat and eat and drink and drink. We are not exactly slender at Paris, but few of us are as fat as these grand New Yorkers. It is especially pitiable to watch the eyes of the ladies grow round with greed as pheasants and lobsters, sorbets and desserts, are presented them. Even those who do not betray their appetite by staring, who continue to talk with animation of other subjects, give themselves away when, without warning, a polite and cultivated syllable will suddenly drown in an excess of saliva. Yet it is a reckless woman who dares take more than a small slice of some favourite dish, for should she eat as much as she likes, she will simply faint dead away, as the corsets they wear this season are of tightest whalebone.

  According to Emma, many of the ladies upon arrival show off their relatively tiny waists; then they go straight to the retiring room and with the help of overwrought maids divest themselves of their cruel corsets in a wild flurry of skirts and petticoats. These bold, sensible, full-waisted ladies are invariably the most amiable table companions.

  Emma and I caught a glimpse of the Sanfords in the so-called garnet drawing room, but when Mrs. Sanford saw us she turned away and Emma did the same, as if by some prearranged signal: and so that was the end of that.

  A few days later Mr. Sanford was on his way to Savannah, travelling with a few men friends in his own railway car. Incidentally, half the gentlemen one meets in New York invariably want to know, solicitously, if one would like to “use the car,” the way at Paris one might offer the family victoria for a day’s outing.

  It will be several weeks before Denise joins her husband. I hear the name Denise so much on Emma’s lips that I think of her as that, though we still address each other most formally.

  I ought to mention—that is to say, I certainly ought not to mention but cannot refrain from writing—that I saw or rather heard Sanford the day before he went South.

  One of the new, to me, attractions of this city is the cigar-shop brothel. From the outside they look perfectly ordinary: the wooden Indian is in his usual tutelary place beside the door and in the window cigar boxes are displayed.

  The front room also displays cigars but rather fewer than one finds in a bona-fide shop. The only false note is the much too charming saleswoman. If you are new to the establishment, she will delicately probe and should you be an actual innocent she will sell you a cigar and send you on your way. Otherwise, she will wan
t to get a sense of your tastes, your connections. Sometimes it helps to mention the name of a girl in the house or that of a client (invariably pseudonymous). Once the mistress of the cigarine revels is satisfied that you are both serious and respectable, she will usher you into a back room where a number of girls sit about in a parlour no different from a thousand other middle-class parlours in the city. Sotto voce, you tell the cigar-lady which girl you want; then you go to your room upstairs and a moment later there is a rap on the door, and joy!

  I have once or twice—well, three or four times—availed myself of this convenient and inexpensive service. Convenient because one can slip out of the hotel, cross Madison Square, and there in Twenty-fourth Street know rapture in the upper reaches of the Royal Havana Cigar Shop Co.

  Age and health preclude the sort of performance that the young Charlie Schuyler was capable of, but to each season its pleasures; and I do believe that I feel better for my current attempts than ever I did for my youthful accomplishments.

  I should say that half the respectable male population of New York use these cigar shops because of their ease, cheapness and convenience. The businessman can disport himself before lunch at his club, the family man can relieve himself before the evening meal with his loved ones whilst the lawyer en route to the Court House can reduce seminal pressures and still be present when the first session begins.

  In any case, as I was seated in the parlour, drinking tea with the proprietress behind a Chinese screen (the clients are tactfully hidden from one another), I heard Sanford’s voice say, “If Niobe’s on hand, then so am I.”

  A woman’s voice assured Sanford that Niobe would join him presently. I could hear his heavy tread on the carpeted stairs directly above us.

  “That is my friend Mr. Sanford,” I said, with absolute malice to the proprietress, a charming woman with a piquant face only slightly marred by a harelip.

  “I wouldn’t know his name.” She lied to impress me with her discretion more than to protect him.