I can't, however, be
regarded as really doing business during the time that I spent in
the United States. I was just winding things up. If it hadn't been
for my idea of marrying the girl I might possibly hav looked for
something to do in my own country. For my experiences there
were vivid and amusing. It was exactly as if I had come out of a
museum into a riotous fancy-dress ball. During my life with
Florence I had almost come to forget that there were such things
as fashions or occupations or the greed of gain. I had, in fact,
forgotten that there was such a thing as a dollar and that a dollar
can be extremely desirable if you don't happen to possess one. And
I had forgotten, too, that there was such a thing as gossip that
mattered. In that particular, Philadelphia was the most amazing
place I have ever been in in my life. I was not in that city for more
than a week or ten days and I didn't there transact anything much
in the way of business; nevertheless, the number of times that I
was warned by everybody against everybody else was simply
amazing. A man I didn't know would come up behind my lounge
chair in the hotel, and, whispering cautiously beside my ear,
would warn me against some other man that I equally didn't know
but who would be standing by the bar.
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