Time and Again

Often we walked along, or crossed, silent residential streets precisely like those still existing in great areas of twentieth-century San Francisco. In San Francisco not just isolated relics but entire whole blocks of nineteenth-century houses stand untouched, looking in every way, except for parked cars, like still-existing old photographs of themselves. And now, here in lower Manhattan of the nineteenth century — we often think of it wrongly as having been nothing but block after block of brownstones — were whole blocks and streets of tall, wooden, wonderfully ornate houses exactly like their counterpart streets in modern San Francisco. Occasionally there was a light far back in a house behind a curtained window; someone sick, we supposed. And once in a while, far ahead or down a side street, we saw a moving figure. Occasionally, no wagon tracks visible, there were stretches of knee-deep drifts, and taking her hand, I helped Julia through them; until presently, after one such stretch, we didn't let go. Holding each other's hand, we walked through that silent bright night, and, as I'm certain Julia did, too, I could feel the horror of the fire begin to recede into the past and let go of us. At a long, shiny stretch of hard-packed snow surface, icy at this time of night, we ran on impulse, still hand in hand, then slid along that stretch, balancing in a way I'd done last in grade school. It was late and we didn't laugh or call out, but we gri

We reached Fourteenth Street and turned east to walk a short block to the foot of Irving Place, which led, then as now, straight up to Gramercy Park. Just ahead, the building on the southeast corner of Fourteenth and Irving Place was brilliantly lighted, and we heard music: a waltz. "The Academy of Music," Julia said, and when we reached it the side entrances were open, and we stopped at one of them to look inside.

What we saw was stu

The ball was an island of light, music, and excitement in a white and silent winter night; it seemed magical to have come onto it like this. Every man there wore white tie and tails, yet the variety of hair length and style and the even greater variety in beard, mustache, and sideburns kept them individuals, recognizable and interesting to the eye. And the women in their long but off-shoulder and often surprisingly low-cut gowns — well, if the daytime dress of the eighties tended to be drab, these women made up for it tonight. I don't know the terminology of women's clothes or the materials they're made of; I'll quote again directly from next morning's account of the ball in the Times:

Mrs. Grace wore cream colored brocaded satin with pearl front. Mrs. R.H.L. Townsend wore blue satin brocaded with leaves and flowers of gold; Mrs. Lloyd S. Bryce wore white brocaded satin flounced with lace; Mrs. Stephen H. Olin wore white watered silk, with pearl and diamond ornaments. Mrs. Woolsey wore black tulle with black satin waist and diamond ornaments. Mrs. C.G. Francklyn wore white silk and diamonds. Mrs. Commodore Vanderbilt wore white silk and diamonds. Mrs. Crawford wore blue silk. Mrs. J.C. Barron wore white satin and lace with diamonds.

My reason for quoting this is that these women, a hall filled with them, absolutely glittered.

Standing a few feet from us, a man in white tie and tails but with the look of a cop had been watching us; tolerantly enough, the time for ticket collecting long past. I looked over at him now, and he sauntered over. "I know someone here," I said to him. "Is there any way to locate her?" I narrowed my eyes and pantomimed looking out over the hall; for some reason we treat cops as though they were all dumb. He turned to a little gilt chair, picked up a handwritten list of several pages, and handed it to me. "Proscenium Boxes," it was headed, and under this it listed boxes and then-occupants by letters begi

The guard, or cop, pointed out the Piccolomini box, and it was nearly full; four women and three men sat watching the dancers below. The guard walked off, and I murmured to Julia, "There they are: four women. One of them almost certainly knows that today her husband killed half a dozen people. And nearly burned to death himself. So tell me: Which of those four women is she?"

"There is no question of that, is there?" Julia said. "The woman in the yellow gown.''

I nodded; there was no question at all. There she sat, her spine straight, her back not touching the little gilt chair, a strikingly handsome woman in her mid-thirties; and her face was absolutely composed. She'd have been good-looking, very nearly beautiful, except that looking at her face you hardly thought of that; I've seldom seen a face, and never before or since a woman's, of such utter composure, extreme capability, and absolute determination. "Do you see what she's looking at?" Julia said, and I realized that the woman in yellow wasn't watching the dancers.

In the very front of her box, one of the largest and most prominent in the hall, Mrs. Andrew W. Carmody was staring ahead at the great flaming gas letters — CHARITY — 1882 — that said this was the greatest social event of the year. And I understood why Andrew Carmody had acted, had had to act, as he did. "What are you thinking?" Julia said; I couldn't take my eyes off that fiercely beautiful face.

"She scares me. I feel chilled, looking at her. But I'm fascinated, too — sort of illicitly thrilled."

"Oh? And why?"

"Because the time will come when that kind of face and person and the kind of high drama she's involved in won't exist anymore; they'll be out of style. Evildoers will be tawdry, committing crimes of violence or bookkeeping in which any sense of drama will be nonexistent. And of the two kinds of people and evil, I'll take those with a sense of style."

Julia was looking at me, her brows raised quizzically. I took a last look at Mrs. Carmody and that wonderful ball; then we turned and walked away, moving past a long line of carriages waiting at the curb, their sidelights flickering, their horses motionless under blankets, the liveried men waiting, and then up the silent street to home, the sound of the waltz dying behind us.