Looking Back

439 Pages·1933·25.201 MB·English

by  Norman Douglas

Norman Douglas's
Autobiography
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THE AUTHOR, 193 I
(after a coloured dra-wi11g by 0. Solm-Retliel)
·LOOKING BACK
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL EXCURSION
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
1933,
COPYRIGHT, BY NORMAN DOUGLAS
All rights reserved, including
the right to reproduce this book
.
or portions thereof in any form •
Second printing, May, 1933
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DY QUINN & BODEN COMPANY, INC,, RAHWAY, N. J,
Typography by Robert S. Josephy
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My Dear Eric -
I wonder whether you realize-I don't suppose you do-that
it was you who put the idea of this book into my head. Yes! Do
you recollect that antiquated gramophone, and how I used to
ask you for one particular piece over and over again, Men
delssohn's "Auf Flilgeln des Gesanges," saying that the melody
took my thoughts back, back into the past, much further back
than that evening visit of ours to the Crystal Palace?
You begin to remember? It was queer, you said, and you said
it more than once, that you still knew so little about my life,
about where and how I had spent all those years before the eve
ning of the 5 November 1910; very queer; only a glimpse here
and ther.e. . . . "I'll write it down for you one of these days," I
said, "when I'm as decrepit as the old gramophone over there."
... I kept the idea in my head, and here you are. Now, if you
like, you can read about the kind of thing one used to do and
the kind of people one used to meet. Ghosts, nearly all of them;
undistinguished ghosts gliding along. . . .
I skim through what I have written and note just one thing:
taking us all round, we of those days must have had a fairly
concrete and positive view of life. We lived with greater zest
than the present generation seems able to do. We had more
fun-of that I am convinced. I often look around me and won
der what has come over the youngsters of-today. Are they losing
the sense of reality? Why are 'they listless, as if their blood
temperature were two or three degrees below ·the normal? Can
you explain itr
Yours ever,
Uncle Norman
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ILLUSTRATIONS
THE AUTHOR, I 93 I frontispiece
(after a coloured drmving by 0. Solm--Rethcl)
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TILQUHILLIE CASTLE
882 54
THE AUTHOR, UPPINGHAM PERIOD, I
(photo E'i.1.1ing, Aberdeen)
892 68
THE AUTHOR, I I
(photo Byrne f:j Co., Richmond)
GREETINGS FROM OLAF
FISCHERLIED
VILLA MAYA
885 334
THE AUTHOR, MIDDLE KARLSRUHE PERIOD, I
(photo Ewing, Aberdeen)
T
sultry eyes, that heightened complexion, betrayed
HOSE
the Cuban blood in her veins. She was married at the
charming age of sixteen to a rich English General, ex
actly four times as old, who expired not long afterwards in
the arms of a Parisian cocotte. Before that, however, the old
rake had found time to furnish according to his own caprice a
house which lies not far from Westminster Cathedral. It con
tained sundry luxuries, such as a Turkish bath; also a notable
cellar of wine. Here, after the husband's death, and in the early
'nineties, I was an occasional visitor.
Later on, at Christmas I 896, we two were together in Paris,
and it was arranged that we should meet again next year, in
May, at Meran or some such place. So punctual were we that
she, coming from London, and I, working my way up from
Naples, contrived to join forces within two hours of each other
at Meran, in the Villa Frederica. I remember little about this
house; a greyish sort of place, unattractive, and built on a slight
emmence.
It was during our first walk through the town-then already
quite familiar to me-that we saw a bronze vessel of Japanese
workmanship in the window of some antiquity shop; we passed
it often on later strolls. The patina was chocolate-brown, the
shape a flattened sphere; there was a long-legged water-bird
flying in relief over its curved belly, and the lid, formed of a
'grotesque dog-like creature biting a snake, was perforated in
artful fashion to allow the escape of incense lighted within. A
decorative piece of work; some lover of things Oriental, we
thought, might like to have it on his hall-table as a receptacle
for calling-cards.
To Paris she had brought her maid and about four hundred
weight of luggage. To Meran she brought, in addition to these,
a live pet: a pedigreed dachshund. This animal and myself never
became great friends. He lost no opportunity of giving me to
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understand that I was an interloper, while I had frequent cau~e
to complain of his disobedient and ungrateful nature. Never was
kindness lavished upon any dog more vainly; it was painful to
watch his unconcern for anything save his own comfort. He
cared not a farthing for his mistress-you could see it in his
face. That face! Even a commonplace dachshund wears a
baroque expression; this was yet more florid. I recall it to this
day. He looked at you, ·and laughed. It was an insolent, mock
ing face, symmetrically speckled, and flanked by pendulous ears;
a flamboyant face, more suitable for some Burme_se monster
than for a dog. And if his mistress spoke to him, he would pay
no attention whatever unless it was an invitation to eat some
thing. Selfishness personified! Yet she adored him so passion
ately that I- often said:
"Next time you must really let me buy you a better dog,
one that is just a little fond of you. You are wasting your affec
tion on that brute. Look at his face!"
"His face? His miracle of a face? Don't you wish you had
it!"
"A face like that is an insult to the Creator. Something will
happen to him one of these days. And his disobedience! You
.saw how nearly he was run over yesterday, because he would
not listen to your call? Have you never lost him?"
"Only two or three times,•and he always comes back again.
Don't you, darling? There, pet. Never mind what he says, the
nasty man. Don't listen to him. He doesn't know anything
about anything. Come and be kissed on the tip-top of its beau
tiful, beautiful ear. ••."
Now he was lost for good. He vanished from the villa-one
day-two days-he was gone. We made unbelievable efforts to
find him; advertisements in the papers offering rewards; police
enquiries-a perfect dossier; we even got people at Bozen and
Innsbruck to look out for him, and the authorities at Ala, on
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the Italian frontier, were supplied with a long description of
the beast ( a description of his face would have sufficed) lest he
should be smuggled out of the country by that route. All Meran
and half the Tirol must have been talking about that dog's dis
appearance, and more money was spent in trying to trace the
absurd animal than if it had been an absconding Ward in Chan
cery. Nothing came of it. A week or so went by.
"Let's try to forget about him," said I, jovially, one morn
ing. "D'you know what occurred to me while I was shaving?"
"What?"
pate
"Why, that he may have £gured in that lovely they
gave us at dinner last night"-an amusing and original remark
which, however, had not the desired consolatory effect. So cruel
a possibility had not dawned on his ,mistress. Her grief became
tragic, and Meran ceased to be the Meran it was. Slowly but
surely a theory was elaborated proving that the fault was mine;
that, but for something I had done or left undone, the dog
would still be at the Villa Frederica. What man has not gone
through the same experience? I should like to see that man. He
must look different from the rest of us.
It was then my custom to go for a ten minutes' solitary stroll
before breakfast, to straighten myself out; and I always took
the same path, across a plantation of young £rs not far from
the house, and back again. Passing through here one morning I
had an unexpected but not undeserved stroke of luck. This
wretched animal of ours was standing across the path in front of
me. He looked moth-eaten and otherwise the worse for wear,
but there was no mistaking the face.
We never discovered how he got there. Maybe the thieves,
owing to our activities, had found it too risky to dispose of him
or to keep him any longer; maybe they had studied my habits
and placed him there at the last moment for me to pick up;
maybe they were even then in hiding somewhere round the cor-
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ner. This was just a supposition, and probably the wrong one.
It did not occur to me to look for the thieves at that moment;
I judged it more expedient to capture the beast by one of those
precious ears-his collar was gone-and lead him home.
The Japanese brule-parfum was my reward for this meritori
ous act. I found it placed on my writing-table, filled up with
cigarettes. The queer bronze dog on its lid, she told me, was to
remind me of another dog, almost as queer. ·
And z:iow, in accordance with our old suggestion, it is filled
up with calling-cards dating from that May of 1897, and even
from much earlier periods. For it had a predecessor, a brass
bowl of Benares work, cheap and nasty, which was thereafter
given away. This thing had likewise been a receptacle for call
ing-cards from my school-days onwards; they were emptied
into the other, which generally stood on the hall-table and en
gulfed in its capacious paunch all the cards of friendly visitors
to the house, as well as those collected on journeys in obedience
to that obsolete, or at least obsolescent, custom of exchanging
cards with any chance acquaintance. In they went! Those of
really intimate friends will not often have found their way
there; contributions, moreover, must have diminished greatly
during the last fifteen years or so.
Had these cards been of value they would have shared the
fate of other valuables that were sold during one or the other
of the financial cataclysms which have enlivened my earthly so
journ; they would have been thrown away long ago, had they
been heavy. Their weight was nothing when compared to that
of the bronze receptacle which held them. They were portable,
and worthless. There they lay, slowly accumulating; a kind of
kitchen midden.
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