1876 by Gore Vidal Read Free Book Online

journalism ?In a moment I shall be explaining and explaining all sorts of things to you, dear reader, when none of this is meant for any eyes but mine. These notes are to be the quarry from which I hope to hack out a monument or two to decorate the republic’s centennial, as well as to mark my own American year—a year that is beginning in a most helter-skelter, breathless way: literally breathless, for I am still breathing with some difficulty despite the rum and tea.
    Anyway, there in the midst of the cold windy park was mad wealthy Train with his red sash and green umbrella and all-consuming passion to be the president! Yes, after the slaughter of the Paris Communards, Train came back to the United States and ran for president in ’72 as an independent—that is to say, a communist. His campaign was unusually eccentric and gave much pleasure to almost everyone. The workies were particularly amused at the spectacle of a millionaire communist whilst the press will always write at length of anyone so entirely mad as to want the vote for women, the right for labouring men to strike, and the price for a postage stamp never to exceed a penny.
    “Dear Mr. Train,” Bryant was uncharacteristically nervous as he backed away from that menacing green umbrella.
    Train suddenly turned to me, and with an unexpected smile, said, “Forgive me, citizen, for not offering you my hand but I make it a general rule never to shake hands with anyone over the age of twelve. Intimate physical contact of that sort causes one to lose psychic energy. And vital energy, citizen, must be hoarded in these terrible times. Now, Mr. Bryant, explain yourself.”
    The Moses-like Bryant suddenly resembled that patriarch confronted by a bush more than usually ablaze and angry. “Explain myself?” There was a trace of stammer in his usually deliberate voice. “In what way, sir?”
    “Tweed!” Train was becoming agitated. Nurses pushing perambulators fled our corner of the park. “I said he should be hanged! I wrote you that at the Post .But was my letter ever published, was it?”
    “So many letters, sir ... I mean, Citizen Train.” Bryant regained a degree of composure as with a swift sidestep that would have done credit to a youthful gallant of the ballroom, he got himself round the wealthy communist, who stared at him fiercely from beneath the green umbrella (to protect him, I have been told, from malignant star rays).
    “Now you can see what happens when my letters are not printed, and sensible advice is not followed ...”
    But by then Bryant had pranced—no other word—to the edge of the park with me in tow, and soon we were safely in Broadway, now filled with morning traffic.
    “That man ...!” Bryant was, comparatively, speechless. “A perfect nuisance. Normally, he sits in the park at Madison Square, and I can avoid him. Fate obviously instructed him to come and wait for me here at, ah, Trivium.” The classical reference did Bryant good, and gave me the occasion to congratulate him with some insincerity on his recent translations from Homer. Actually I could not get through them, but they are much admired by those who have no Greek and the wrong English.
    Note: Must do something with George Francis Train. The French papers would certainly be interested. But they pay too little. The English press? Possibly. Must inquire.
    Two large new hotels dominate Broadway just below City Hall, the St. Nicolas and the Metropolitan. Then, at Barclay Street, I insisted that we pause a moment to look at the façade of the Astor House. “I left when it was half-built.”
    “Most showy.” Like me, Bryant disdains New York’s attempts at grandeur: he under the impression that they succeed and I because they fail—at least what I have seen so far. But I do rather like Mr. Tweed’s Court House, which would not be out of place in Paris.
    Then I looked for the Park Theatre; could not find it. “What happened?”
    “Dear Schuyler, it burned to the