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Raven’s Run 72

Chapter Twenty

Susyn and I waited in Salzburg for a week. There had been no hope of finding them in any of the lesser towns they might have gone through; there were dozens of routes from Montreaux to Salzburg. We divided duties as before; Susyn went to the authorities and I went to the youth hostel, the campground, and the street.

You don’t find many street musicians in Salzburg. Whatever their musical tastes might normally be, when tourists visit Salzburg, they have only Mozart on their minds. Salzburg lives on Mozart, from the museum they have made of his birthplace, to the the unending cascade of Mozart memorabilia, to the silly Mozart chocolates, the entire city is a shrine to the commercialization of his name. Every summer, productions of his operas are staged, bringing in the finest talents in the world and drawing on a worldwide clientele. The book and record stores in the old city are a classical music aficionado’s heaven. There is even a puppet opera – not a watered down children’s version of the operas, but a staged in the ancient European tradition of fine art marionettes, set to the music recorded during the previous year’s live productions.

After the first day, our routine became established. We stayed in adjoining rooms in a small hotel across from the old town. Once a day, Susyn would stop in at the police headquarters to ask if anything had been found, and to remind them that we were still there. I called Will every evening, and made the rounds of the hostel, campground, and cheap hotels. During the day, Susyn and I played tourist, wandering about Salzburg on the off chance of seeing them on the street.

Salzburg is a lovely small city, and the first two days were enjoyable. Susyn was a lively companion. The tourist’s were a cut above the ordinary. Beyond their obvious snobbery, there was a sense of intellectual curiosity about them that made them interesting even in casual encounters. But after two days we had seen what was there to be seen, and I was going crazy. Somewhere out there, Raven and Eric were in danger and did not know it. And somewhere out there, Raven was with Eric, instead of with me.

We walked the city, sat for hours in street cafes watching people go by, attended the puppet opera and a real one, and went to the park where the Sound of Music was filmed. And all day, every day, I played the game of “what went wrong?” No matter how many times I replayed my time with Raven, the crux of our relationship always came down to that day on the beach outside Marseille. A game of one-upmanship that revealed a depth of striving against each other. I had won that day; and in winning, I had lost Raven.

To Eric. That was a big piece of the puzzle. Why Eric? Beneath that friendly-dog expression there had been an essential uncertainty; a lack of intensity. It had put me off. Within five minutes I had known that we might be friendly, but we could never become friends. Had Raven been drawn to the same thing that repulsed me? Had she gone with him precisely because he was my opposite? more tomorrow

Raven’s Run 71

They could not help me. There was no regular route to be followed. What Davy called the circuit was more a web than a path. From Montreaux, there were certain cities which were logical destinations and others which were not, but I could figure that out for myself with a map. Eventually they should reach Oslo. Oslo was a good gig for street musicians and Eric was Norwegian. But by the same reasoning, that should be one of his last stops for the summer, and I needed to find them now.

“Look, Ian,” Colin said, “I really would like to help, but this isn’t the way to do it. What you need to do is go back to Montreaux, find a xerox machine and make up a hundred copies of those pictures. Dave and Kristin and I will take them with us and pass them around. You put that phone number you gave me right on the copy. Eventually, someone we know, or someone who knows someone we know, will see Eric or Raven. They can pass on a message or call your friend in Marseille.”

I was moved by his simple acceptance and willingness to help.  He waved my thanks aside, and we moved on to other subjects.

The next morning I caught the first westbound steamer for Montreaux. I walked the early morning streets for two hours before I found a place to make copies. On the master copy I wrote Will’s phone number at the consulate, along with the message, “Raven, I need to talk to you about the men who came on board the Wahini in Marseille. Call Will for details.” Then I called Will. He was out, so I left a message and caught a steamer back to the campground. Colin was gone already, and Dave and Kristin were breaking camp. They said they would see Colin again in Locarno and would pass his half of the copies on at that time.

I broke camp myself, took a steamer back to Montreaux once again, and called Susyn. She was out, but she had left a message for me saying that she had had no luck.

I went to the youth hostel and hit paydirt. Sort of. Eric and Raven had been there while I was camping at Villeneuve, but they had checked out. They hadn’t said where they were going. It took all morning to find someone who had talked to them, and she didn’t know where they were going to go next. Then came the midday lockout. I walked the streets of Montreaux, frustrated, looking for street musicians, but none of them knew anything. Most of them were suspicious. It takes time to gain rapport as I had with Colin, Dave, and Kristin. Time and patience, and I was in a mood to pound walls. I called Susyn. She was still out. 

Finally, the youth hostel opened and I checked in. I doubted that I would be staying the night, but checking in gave me a right to be there. By five that evening I had as close to a lead as I was going to get. Eric had mentioned going to Salzburg, and Raven had wanted to go to Venice. more tomorrow

Raven’s Run 70

”I saw your Eric several times last year when I was making the circuit alone.”

”Circuit?”

“What I call it. It works this way: in winter, when you are going crazy studying for exams and wondering if the sun will ever shine again, you plan your summer holiday. You know you can go on the cheap, but even if you hitchhike and sleep out, it still takes a bit of money. Not much, but a bit. So you see who you can put the bite on, or what you can do to earn your way. If you play and sing, all’s well. You take your guitar, or bagpipes, or whatever, and set out to earn your way through your holiday. But its not an easy life. Half the holiday makers you see won’t give you the time of day; even if they sit for an hour listening, they only drop shillings. Cheap bastards, most of them.

“This year, its different. Kris and I are in love, and that helps; but what we really found was that if we let it show, people pay better. It’s like they’re buying a part of our happiness. We are living well this year, where last year I nearly starved, and my guitar playing hasn’t improved that much.”

“Image,” I said.

“Exactly. Image. Like Colin and his bagpipes. He doesn’t rake it in like we do, but he does all right. But if he didn’t wear the kilt and all that other shit, and march around like he was going off to fight the Boers, he wouldn’t make a penny.”

“I saw a girl playing flute in Lausanne,” I said. “She was good, but she wasn’t making any money.”

“I saw her. Pretty girl; pretty sound; no gimmick. She doesn’t stand a chance. In two or three weeks, she’ll go home beaten. Or some guy on the circuit will pick her up and teach her the ropes. The latter, I’d say, considering how good she looked.”

Kristin clouted him in the head, knocking him off balance. He said, “Hey!” and she said, “Don’t you go noticing so many good lookers, Davy, or you’ll lose your gimmick.” He grinned back at her, unperturbed.

Colin said, “Eric’s gimmick is his fiddle. It catches the tourists’ attention because it is exotic, and then he has the skill to hold them. I saw him once at L’orient, playing on the fringes of the international Celtic festival. I didn’t remember him before, because you asked about this year. I saw him two, maybe three years ago.”

“Can your Raven sing?” David wanted to know. I said I had no idea. “If she can, it would be a great draw. She looks great, and she is exotic.”

“Exotic?” Raven’s beauty was like a thousand other Hispanic girls I had seen. It was not unique, except in its perfection. Then I shifted mental gears. Hispanic features – that particular blend of Spanish caballero and Indio – were not to be found in Europe. To these people, Raven would be as exotic as a devadasi in Cleveland. more tomorrow

Raven’s Run 69

I ran into Colin. He had traded his kilt for jeans and a tee shirt, and had a bottle of wine in his hand. He was visiting friends across the campground. We spoke briefly, as strangers probing for the possibility of friendship, then he invited me to join them.

It was the guitarist and singer I had talked to in Lausanne, David Jordan and Kristin Hansen.

David and Kristin had brought the ensolite pads out of their tent to lie on and she had her head in his lap. Colin dropped into lotus, slipping his feet up on top of his knees. I have never been able to do that. The best I can manage is a Cherokee squat. Colin handed out plastic cups and passed the wine around.  I poured an inch into mine and moistened my lips at the salude. Kristin slipped into the tent and came back with a candle in a fruit jar.

When I had met these three as strangers on the street, I had not told them why I was looking for Raven. Now I did. I had no reason for secrecy, and the time was right.

“So you have no idea where she has gone,” Kristin said.

“No, not really. In Paris, someone said Lausanne. In Lausanne, you said Montreaux.”

“Europe is a big place to search, with no better clues than that.”

“Tell me about it!”

“She might have come in after you checked the hostel in Montreaux.”

“I’ll call the woman I’m working with in the morning, and then make the rounds again.”

They were open and willing to help, but it was more from courtesy than any feeling for my problem. I was painfully aware of the difference in our ages. David and Kristin were barely twenty, off for the summer from some small college in England. Colin was little older. I was nearing thirty. It was a critical decade that stretched between them and me. I felt out of place and a little ridiculous sitting with them. Living close to the ground is something normally reserved for youth. A man my age should be in a suite, living off room service, and looking out at the lake over a manicured lawn, not squatting on his haunches in front of a tent with a fruit jar candle for ambiance. And not with the intention of crawling into a tiny nylon room to sleep in a bag of duck feathers. David and Kristin made me aware of the years between us. As I had felt out of place with Susyn last night, they made me feel out of place here.

I ignored the feeling. A man who lives by what others see in him, will have no freedom.

“Actually,” I said, “Eric is my only hope of finding her. If she were alone, she could go anywhere and do anything, but Eric will have to keep playing his fiddle for money, and that restricts their movements.”

David said, “Let me see his picture again.” I passed it over.  While David twisted it about in the candle’s faint light, I described his Hardanger fiddle. It was more distinctive than its player. David said, “The face looks familiar, and the fiddle clinches it. I saw your Eric several times last year when I was making the circuit alone, before I took up with Kristin.” more tomorrow

Raven’s Run 68

Chapter Nineteen

Raven wasn’t in Montreaux. I hit the cheap hotels, the youth hostel, and found out that the only campground was two stops east by steamer. I reasoned that Eric would have too much pride to let Raven pay his way, so I decided not to worry about the more expensive places. I had to set some limits on my search.

The steamer passed the Château de Chillon, a lovely pile built out in the waters of Lac Léman, then moved on down to Villeneuve. It was a short walk to the campground, where the operator did not recognize either picture. It was nearing evening, so I took a place and pitched my tent. I walked around the campground, through the nearby parks, down by the lake, out onto the docks, and back to the steamer pier without seeing a familiar face.

The campground at Villeneuve was as beautiful a place as I could remember. The whole length of Lac Léman stretched westward toward the setting sun. High cirrus clouds were taking fire in an impossibly blue sky, above an impossibly blue lake. On either side of the lake and surrounding Villeneuve itself were huge rounded hills cloaked with intense green, and southeastward, dominating everything, were the snowy peaks of the main Alps.

As I approached the steamer pier, I heard bagpipes. It was Colin MacAdam, a street musician I had met in Paris, striding up and down in full kilt. He had a swatch of tartan spread over a cardboard box to collect the tourists’ money. I tossed in a few francs as he passed. He nodded without breaking rhythm. When he finished the piece he was playing, Colin grinned at me and said, “I haven’t seen them yet, Ian. I’ll keep looking and asking if you want.” I thanked him, scribbled the number of the consulate at Marseille on a piece of paper, and told him to ask for Will Hayden if he got any news.

He went back to work and I stayed for the pleasure of the pipes. They are an acquired taste. I probably would not have given them the repeated hearing it takes to accustom American ears to the drone and the strange intonation of the notes if I had not been interested in my own Scottish ancestry.

After Colin had finished his set, I went down to the docks near the campground. The sun was just setting. The sky was maroon and gold. The lambent light reflected off the varnished sailboats and painted golden reflections in the still waters. A mother duck had made a temporary home on one of the finger piers, with her brood of half-fletched young piled up around her. I said hello, but she only hissed a warning. I skirted them carefully to avoid disturbing them. I unlaced my boots and sat on the end of the pier, dangling my feet in the cold waters of Lac Léman while I watched the sky turn Prussian blue.

I wanted to reach out and take Raven’s hand, and share this beauty with her. At the same time, I felt a kind of bitter freedom.

I walked back to the campground. The tents were crowded together on a lovely, treeless lawn. Even here, where the beauty of nature was as wild and moving as any American national park, there was no thought of giving each camper a space of his own, and there were no campfires. European campgrounds are a Sunday picnic, not the Frontiersman conquering the wilderness. more tomorrow

Raven’s Run 67

I remembered one more incident with Raven. It was the afternoon we had climbed to the Monmarte, a few hours before we met Eric. We had entered the cathedral of Sacre Couer, and were sitting side by side. The roof was lost in shadow and the stained glass windows were rich with the light of afternoon. There were only a few tourists; they seldom get past Notre Dame. Most of the people coming and going were genuine worshippers. I watched one old woman as she entered, genuflected, and made her slow and painful way to an alter in a side chapel. She lit a candle and remained there on her knees for a time, then with equal slowness, came back past us and went back out into the world. It was a simple thing, repeated a thousand times a day in every cathedral in Europe, but it touched me.

Raven gave me an odd look as I wiped my eyes and made a deprecating mouth. We had never talked about religion. I asked, “Are you Catholic?”

“Sort of. I go a few times a year, and I feel a little guilty that I don’t go more often. I don’t think about it much. You?”

I shook my head. “Protestant background. Fire and brimstone Baptist, to be exact. My folks would give me hell for even being in a Catholic cathedral. I stopped believing a long time ago, but I think about it a lot.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t have a superstructure of priests to do my thinking for me.”

She was silent for a while. I thought I had offended her. I could have added that Reverend Billy Thompson had been as willing to do the thinking for his Baptist congregation as any Catholic priest ever could be. But that wasn’t what was on her mind. She finally said, “Doesn’t it scare you?”

“Sure.”

“So why don’t you go back?”

“Faith isn’t something you can turn off and on. When it’s gone, it’s just gone.”

“Don’t you ever think maybe you’re wrong?”

I shook my head.

“Just like that?”

I shrugged.

“And when you die?”

“I just die.”

“I couldn’t live like that.”

“I wouldn’t want you to. I don’t try to talk people into thinking my way. It’s much more comfortable to believe in God.”

“Don’t you ever miss it – miss Him?”

I shuffled the words around in my mind to get them just right. It was something I didn’t want Raven to misunderstand.

“What I miss,” I said, “isn’t the assurance or the comfort. Not any more. That’s what a kid misses. What I miss is . . . like this: I go out in the evening and I’m alone and I see a beautiful sunset. The clouds are on fire and the sky is so blue it’s almost green. It is so beautiful it makes me hurt and I just want to look up and say, ‘Thank you.’ But there’s no one to say it to. That’s what I really miss. Having someone to say ‘thank you’ to.”

#          #          #

The steamer was pulling into Montreaux. The other passengers were gathering up their baggage. I dropped my feet from the rail and slipped my arms into the packs traps.

I could still see Raven’s face as it had looked there in Sacre Coeur. It was as if she had stepped back three paces while sitting still. Her body was still there, but in her mind, she had gone far away.

Just like she had gone away, completely away, two mornings later. There was a connection between the two events. I could feel the connection, but I could not define it. And unless I did, she was lost to me forever. I might find her, warn her, and save her from the assailants who had attacked her, but unless I unlocked the greater puzzle of Raven herself, I would never hold her in my arms again. more tomorrow

Raven’s Run 66

On April thirteenth I picked Raven up out of the sea. On June thirteenth, she left me. Two months to the day, and in all that time we were never separated more than the few hours. Such a strange beginning; such a swift, cruel end. So much to remember, yet so few really intimate conversations.

I remembered the day we finally entered the Mediterranean. The levante had brought warm, clear skies and more wind than the damaged sails could use. It was the kind of day that made me hunger to have the Wahini functioning properly again. We slipped smoothly through a rippled sea, making three knots under conditions that should have given us twice that speed.

Raven and I were nestled together, naked. We had found a favorite position. I sat with my back braced against the weather davit. Raven sat in front of me, leaning back against me, with her foot on the wheel lazily keeping Wahini on course. My hands were locked beneath her breasts, with fingers free to make occasional teasing excursions upward to her nipples. We could keep that position for hours if I was in post-coital lethargy, but no matter how worn out I was, the gentle swaying of the boat would eventually take my mind off seamanship and we would make love.

Today, we hadn’t reached that stage. We were simply talking. I had told Raven about my father and how he had abandoned my sister and me after my mother died. It is not something I talk about easily, and I had eventually grown tired of the bitterness in my own voice and had shut up. There followed a long silence, until Raven said, “You would like my father.”

“Oh?”

“You’re a lot like him. He is a powerful man. I don’t mean physically, and I don’t mean his political clout. He is a man who knows his mind and doesn’t swerve once he has decided on a course of action. He has enormous self-confidence. Like you.”

I didn’t know what to say. I do have a lot of self-confidence, but it isn’t polite to say so. I just said, “It must be nice to have a father like that.”

“It’s hell.”

“What?”

“Oh, it’s okay for my mother. She loves him, worships him, almost; and my sister gets along fine with him. They are both the shy, retiring types.”

“And you aren’t?”

It was a joke, of course. I said it lightly, but she replied, “Damned straight!” Then she got up so fast that she almost tore herself out of my arms, and walked stiffly away, a firm, fine, living, cafe-au-lait statue of Venus. She disappeared below, and I didn’t see her again for two hours. When she came back up, she had dressed in Will’s jeans and shirt, and she didn’t mention her father again.

An omen perhaps. Certainly a warning, but it had not made sense to me at the time. It still didn’t, not where my thinking mind lives, but in the undermind where all is groping after glimpses of pattern against a background of chaos, it fit. It rang true. Her words on that fine Mediterranean day and her leaving me without warning or explanation were like two pieces of an enormous jigsaw puzzle. They fitted together, but while the rest of the puzzle lay scattered, they meant little. more tomorrow

Raven’s Run 65

At my elbow, a heavy American tourist with a Texas accent talked about triple compound expansion, and from the references he made it was clear that he owned a small steam engine of some kind. Whether it was the kind you put in a launch, or one of those silly live-steam trains that you see grown men riding around on top of, he didn’t say.

Technical conversations fascinate me, and dedicated enthusiasts fascinate me. Another time, I would have made an excuse to engage the man in conversation to learn more about these steamers I liked so well. But not today. Today was for solitude.

I went on to the upper deck. Since I was using the Senator’s money, I had bought a first class ticket. The view was the same as it had been from the second class section on the main deck. Gorgeous. Steep, grassy hillsides dotted with chalets, cattle grazing, and all reflected in the glassy perfection of the lake. In the distance off the bow, beyond Montreaux, the snow clad peaks of the true Alps were playing peek-a-boo among the clouds.

Eventually, I became aware that one of the other passengers was eyeing me. She was young and lovely, in a tight mini-dress and sandals. She had hair cut shorter than mine, very black and straight, and lashes too long to be real. Her companion was blonde and frilly with a habit of hiding her mouth when she talked. They were leaning against the rail, talking, and giving me covert looks.

I don’t know why girls do that. I would not call myself handsome. Not like Will is. I am just six feet, one ninety, broad where a man should be broad and narrow where a man should be narrow, but no one would ever put me on the cover of Gentlemen’s Quarterly. Field and Stream, maybe. Not that I mind the attention, but it confuses me. My first reaction is always to wonder if they are joking. Did I forget to zip something?

Normally, I like the attention, but today I had Raven on my mind. When the girl with the lashes finally sent me a smile that would have melted a statue, I shook my head and turned away. When I looked around later, she was gone.

So then, naturally, I found myself regretting the lost opportunity. Consistently inconsistent.

I wedged my pack against the seat, put my feet up on the rail, and made myself comfortable. Fifty-two hours. That was how long it had been since I woke up to find Raven gone. Fifty-two hours, and I was still in shock. I was walking through my life half awake. I was eating, sleeping, making conversation, making decisions, choosing logical courses of action, not falling overboard. But I was doing it all with my mind only half engaged.

I sighed. It was one of those sighs that starts in the back of your throat and shudders you all the way down to your feet. It was good that no one was sitting near; they would have called the paramedics. And then I chuckled. Pitiful. Pathetic. Too sad to live. You can only take yourself so seriously, and then all your actions turn into farce. more tomorrow

Raven’s Run 64

Chapter Eighteen

When I traveled in Europe after I got out of the Army, I was stretching out my money by camping and eating grocery store picnics. It was then that I discovered the oddly opposed set of feelings that establish the rhythm of living close to the ground. Whenever I set up camp, there was always a feeling of relief and belonging, like a little homecoming. Even if it was only for one night, the campsite became my home, my own personal piece of the Earth. For a person traveling far and fast, there was great comfort in falling asleep looking at the same walls every night, even if those walls were blue nylon.

But whenever I broke camp, there was an equally strong feeling of freedom. Once my tent and sleeping bag were stored in the pack, and everything I owned was on my back, there came a transcendent feeling that I was once again unfettered. I could go anywhere.

As I left the hotel the next morning, I had that feeling again. The comfort of well worn pack straps, the snug grip of well worn shoes, the solid weight of the pack, and the beckoning sun filled me with joy. Oddly, not a little of that joy came from leaving Susyn behind. She was delightful, but she was not Raven. And I needed time to be alone. Since Raven was thrown off the cruise ship, I had not had an hour of true solitude, and I was feeling the lack.

I took my time walking down to the steamer dock, enjoying the town. When I reached the lake, I still had an hour to wait. I walked around the marina, admiring the sailboats, then went down through the park to the water’s edge. It was too early for any of the street musicians to be out; Susyn would come by here in the afternoon asking her questions. Now there was only sunlight, deep blue water, green grass, and young lovers strolling about. And swans. Sometimes I think half of the charm of Europe is her swans. Now, in early summer, the cygnets were big and awkward, gray and ugly-cute, just like Hans Christian Andersen described them. I squatted at the edge of the lake, a hundred yards from the steamer pier, and held out my hand. A pair of waddling adolescents came up to beg, found me breadless, pecked at my boots, and wandered off looking for a better handout.

I watched the steamer come in, and went on board with the tourists. The rest of the tourists. When you live close to the ground there is a tendency to forget your real status and believe that you are more a part of the landscape than you actually are.

Most of these lake steamers were built around the turn of the century. Their lines speak of better days, or at least days with greater attention to style. They are long, lean side-wheelers, with massive steam engines on the main deck, huffing and wheezing in plain sight. I leaned on the brass rail to watch. Fine machinery is always fascinating, and this was kept polished and shining. At my elbow, a heavy American tourist with a Texas accent was explaining it all to his wife. She listened with polite disinterest, patting his arm from time to time. You could see that the words meant nothing to her, but she was happy to see him happy. more tomorrow

Raven’s Run 63

We need to move on, but we also need to stay here and look some more. It seems that we should split up.”

“I agree.”

“If I listed the places I to went yesterday, you could visit them again today. And tonight you could make the rounds where the street musicians congregate.”

“I could do that,” Susyn said, with merry mischief in her eyes. “Why are you being so reticent, General? Why no orders?”

“I’m trying to cut back.”

“Thank you, Ian.”

“If you stay here, I can go on to Montreaux and do the same thing there. If either of us finds anything significant, we can telephone. Montreaux is only about an hour away by train.”

“Sounds good to me.”

The waiter brought our food and moved away again. Susyn stretched mightily, and said, “I really needed that night’s sleep. I hardly slept at all on the train.”

“I did.”

“I know, I heard you!” She broke a piece of bread and buttered it. “This is all new to you isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Luxury. This hotel, breakfast on the terrace, that kind of thing. Not that this is really luxurious, but you seem to think it is.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Now don’t get embarrassed. You haven’t been tucking the tablecloth into your pants. You just don’t look comfortable.”

Life isn’t all one thing or another. My immediate attention had been spent on finding Raven, and thinking about what our time together had meant filled up the rest of my hours. But my other reactions were equally valid, however little I had been paying attention to them. I was uncomfortable, now that I thought about it.

Susyn was patient while I considered the matter. “I think,” I said, “that it is not so much a matter of discomfort as it is caution. I’m living well on Senator Cabral’s money, but if we find Raven tomorrow, I’ll be back on my own. This is the kind of life I would like to become accustomed to, but until I can pay my own way, I don’t want to get too used to it.”

“So if you don’t like being poor, why not get a job?”

“I am.” I explained that I was waiting to be posted to a consulate. Susyn was so easy to talk to and so comfortable to be with, that it was hard to remember that we knew nothing about each other. “But there is more to it than that. I like this, good food, good company, good scenery, but it’s froth, not beer. If we were walking along the quai de Belgique instead of sitting here, and eating a fresh loaf of bread instead of this meal, the sun would be as warm, the lake would be as blue, and you would be just as lovely.”

Susyn smiled like sunlight, squeezed my arm, and said, “You old charmer.”

*       *       *

In Paris, the Orsey museum is in a converted train station. There, in a room dedicated to the salon painters of the late nineteenth century, is a statue of a nude young girl or nymph. I don’t remember which, but it doesn’t matter; in sculpture, each is a metaphor for the other. She is slender, but fully formed; a girl just five minutes into womanhood. She is half kneeling, obviously just risen from her bath. She is holding her hair up with her hands. It falls through her fingers in strands so limp that even the stone looks wet. Her eyes look out at you from under a cascade of marble tresses with impish sensuality. The sculptor has caught the very essence of innocent awakening in her eyes and her grin. It’s the only statue I ever saw grin.

You could go to the Orsey forty times for the cost of last night’s suite. Money has little to do with living a rich life. more tomorrow