r and I talked and talked and talked ... of
Poe ... of Baudelaire, of Balzac....

Then Nichi launched forth on a long disquisition on Japanese and Chinese
art, and Mrs. Meunier and I gladly remained silent during the whole
morning, enchanted by the vistas of beauty which Swartzman's words
opened for us.

"Why," I thought, "must such a man lack audiences? If civilisation were
in its right mind, he would hold a chair in some great university, and
lecture daily to hundreds ... this man is _alive_. His fire wakes
kindred fire ... why must we leave the business of teaching to the
corpse-minded, the dead-hearted? like so many of our professors and
teachers!"

I found out afterward that Nichi Swartzman was utterly irresponsible as
he was brilliant.

* * * * *

Laston Meunier dug up poor old Fritz Von Hammer, the former Eos
pianist--whose breath was still as fetid as ever ... who still insisted
on seizing you by the coat lapel and talking right into your nose--dug
him up from the moving picture house, where he played.

Von Hammer wept over the piano, as he found himself free again to play
as he wished....

The party was in my honour. There were present about a dozen guests,
picked from Buffalo's bohemia. They sat about on the floor on cushions.

Swartzman recited Poe's Black Cat, with gestures and facial contortions
that were terrifying. His huge, yellow, angular Japanese face grimacing
near the ceiling ... he was six foot six, if anything....

His recitation was done so well that, when he had finished, we sat, for
a moment, in frightened silence, like children. Then we stormed him with
applause.

"Now play the Danse Macabre," cried Nichi, to Von Hammer....

"I can't do it without a violin accompaniment."

"Try it for me ... and I shall dance the Dance of Death for you."

Von Hammer said he would do his best ... after much persuasion and a few
more drinks....

And Nichi Swartzman danced....

We saw, though we did not know it, the origin of modern futurist dancing
there. Nichi danced with his street clothes on ... wearing his hat, in
ghoulish rakishness, tipped down over his eyes ... inter-wreathing his
cane with his long, skeletal, twisting legs and arms ... his eyes
gleaming cat-like through merest slits....

At three o'clock in the morning we were all drunk. Before we parted we
joined in singing shakily but enthusiastically _Down in Bohemia Land_.

* * *