Doctor Sax - Jack Kerouac [48]
Emilia St. Claire did not care for New England, not in any overbearing sense, but there lived in Boston (the Hub of Culture) a clique of her friends who were at all odds some of the most interesting people in the entire world. For this reason, when Emilia St. Claire returned from Athens one March in 1922, she went directly to her place in New England from Pier 42 in New York, driven by her chauffeur Dmitri (an Irishman from Chicago). The “place” was a turreted, all-stone mansion situated on a hill in the northern part of Massachusetts; on clear days, one could gaze from the northern wings and see the Merrimac River winding down from New Hampshire. Emilia St. Claire was not too fond of her newly-acquired New England haven, but she had grown a bit weary of the unusual and had decided to come there for a little of the healthy, robust New England weather that is famous the world over. March, in New England, is like a gust of something raw and moist and feverish; there is the heavy, pungent thaw of dark muds; above, pale clouds, dark clouds flee across the ghostly heavens in terror. March is terror!
Emilia St. Claire, seated in her morning room, drank the tea which had been fetched her by the tall young butler Boaz and smiled at the scene before her eyes, the torn, gaping skies, the steaming marshes, the birch, the bent spruces. She thought rather fondly of the name she had given to her New England retreat: ‘Transcendenta/’
“Transcendenta in the gray morning,” mused Emilia St. Claire to herself, sipping the tea.
Transcendental Transcendental
We shall dance a mad cadenzal
The unusuall Hal Doctor Sax would certainly provide her with that!
Doctor Sax lived in a wooden shack behind the hill upon which reposed the noble bulk of Trancendenta which was originally Reeves Castle. If one were to approach·the shack from the back, from the side, from the front–nothing would be revealed. The shack was as square as a perfect block; it suggested nothing. In the yard were rows of vegetables and strange herbs. A tall, tall pine stood in the front. There was no fence; weeds, millions of weeds stretched along the property of Doctor Sax. (Was it his? No one knows.) March nights, the mist would rise and completely obliterate the shack, leaving only the arched rib of the pine protruding above, nodding sadly in the unholy weather. If one were to approach the shack, Ahl there now a light glowing in one of the two windows, with reddish smoky look that lightl Should we approach and gaze within? What vials, what skull heads, what stacks of ancient paper, what red-eyed cats, what haze of what eerie smoke! Horrors, no, we shall leave the discovery to … Emilia St. Claire.
After a few days telephoning and writing, friends began to drift into Transcendenta to be hosted by the fabulous Miss St. Claire. Dark-eyed young dramatic students roved the rooms, garlanded amongst their wild black locks of hair with New England flowers. Strange young women in slacks lounged on the divans and indolently provided resumées of latest Art for Emilia St. Claire. One was a poet; the other a pianist. One was an artist; the other a sculptor. There, now, in the living room, an interpretative dancer! There now, in the pantry (devouring cold chicken) —a celebrated ballet impresario. Now, coming up the drive in a roadster, a drama critic, a composer, and their mistresses. Oh! there’s Polly Ryan! (Have you met Polly? She wears Bohemian dresses, her mascara is applied for deft mystery, she insults everyone, she is a dear.) Tall, swaying Paul (so tall he sways) with his long hands that speak of the stage (the hands! the hands transparent!); the torch singer from Paris with three of her men, one a naive pickpocket they say; the curious young student from Boston College who has been lured by the glitter of the weekend and perhaps leisure and good food and a bit of time for study (Roger