They have declared running water and the bath-room as indispensable, things which were unknown to kings themselves half a century ago. They have invented the furnace and the water closet. Don't talk to me about the magnificent palaces of Versailles, where there was not a single toilet, and where every morning the lackeys were obliged to empty two hundred vessels for the king and his courtiers. Often to be through quicker, they threw their contents out of the majestic windows, and sometimes it would fall on the sedan chair and the retinue of a Dauphine or an ambassador."
Toledo applied himself to supervising the construction of Villa Sirena in accordance with the desires of the Prince, making it a plain white building, and without any definite style of architecture. Lubimoff himself, at the proper time, would take charge of the artistic touches, placing famous pictures, statues, tapestries, or rugs, just where they would be most pleasing to the eye. The house was to be a harmony of simple, pure lines. The walls were to have heating and cooling systems for the different seasons, and running water was to be available in abundance everywhere. Each room was to have its electric lights and its electric fan.
The Prince found it a much easier task to make over his wandering ocean residence. He simply sold the Gaviota, which reminded him of his youthful dependence on his family, and went to the United States to look into an advertisement. Three years before a certain multimillionaire had begun the construction of a yacht, designed to be more luxurious and of greater tonnage than that of any European sovereign. As the American was about to witness the consummation of this triumph of the democratic kings of industry over the historic kings of the Old World, he was killed in an automobile accident, and his heirs did not know what to do with the leviathan which would only be of use to an immensely rich, and, in their opinion, somewhat crazy traveler. They were thinking of selling it at a loss to the Kaiser, William II, having decided finally to endure his demands as a sharp business man, when Prince Lubimoff appeared. A week later on the white stern and bows of the yacht a new name in gold letters was displayed, a name that was repeated in addition on the life preservers and on the various tenders, the dingies, the steam launches, and the motor boats. The American yacht had become the Gaviota II.
It had the tonnage of a small trans-Atlantic liner and the speed of a torpedo boat. Each day the wealth of an ordinary man went up in smoke through the Gaviota II's double funnels. During a trip to some distant island, the supply of coal gave out. Immediately a collier chartered by the Prince, came to meet the Gaviota II in the farthest seas to fill the bunkers with fuel.
Quiet harbors came to be illuminated at night, as though the sun had risen. When the Prince gave a fête, the ship would be a blaze of glory from the water to the mastheads, its outline marked by electric bulbs of various colors, while powerful searchlights shot out movable streams of radiance and drew the waves, the shores, and rows of city houses from the depths of the darkness. At other times, the white fire of the Gaviota II's monstrous eyes would flash on walls of ice towering to the clouds, and seals, penguins, and polar bears would waken from sleep frightened by the strange luminous, puffing monster that darted off like lightning into the mystery of night.
To be the owner of a floating palace which, when anchoring off large cities, drew such crowds of sightseers as rare spectacles only attract, was not enough for Michael Fedor. So he created something more interesting even than the luxurious salons, and the refinements of comfort of the Gaviota II: he built up an orchestra.
Sensuous delight in music was for him the most exquisite of emotions. When his ears were satiated with the sweetness and melody of traditional music, he sought unknown and often bizarre composers, who aroused his curiosity; but he always came back to demanding as the pièces de résistance of his harmonic feasts, the masters who had been his first love, and above all, Beethoven.
Treated as though they were officers, paid to their liking, and with the added inducement of being able to see a great deal of the world, musicians from every country offered their services to the yacht's orchestra. Famous concert players and young composers came in as mere instrumentalists. Some were ill, and sought to regain their health in a voyage around the world in real luxury and without expense; others embarked through love of adventure, to see new lands in this floating castle, in which everything seemed organized for an eternal holiday. There were never less than fifty of them.
"My orchestra is the finest in the world," the Prince would proudly say when his guests complimented him after one of the concerts his musicians gave at rare intervals on land.
In tropical nights, beneath the enormous honey-colored moon changing the sea to a vast plain of quick-silver, the musicians, seated in evening clothes before the rows of music racks illuminated by tiny electric lights, would weave on the quiet air, which seemed to have retained the first faint cries of the planet at its birth, the most original melodies, the most subtle combination of sounds that the sublime rapture of artists in god-like inspiration ever created. The music floated out behind the boat in the mystery of the ocean, like a scarf unfolding, breaking and scattering in fragments, with the smoke of the funnels. When the orchestra paused one could hear the distant subdued beat of the propellers, churning the foam with a humming sound; and then from time to time the slow tolling of the bell calling the men on watch, or the cry of the lookout snuggled into the crow's nest on the mainmast, reporting his vigilance with the rhythmic intonation of a muezzin from a minaret. And the monotonous music of the sea gave an impression of night, and of immensity, to the music of man.
At the foot of the companionways, or on the outjutting parts of the lower decks, the various officers and officials of the Prince gathered to hear the concert in the night. On the prow the sailors squatted, listening to the music in religious silence, as is often the case with simple men when confronted with something they do not understand, but which inspires awe. Aft, the only listener would be Michael Fedor, standing at a distance from the music, and with his back toward the musicians, watching at his feet, the divided, foaming waters which rushed by like a double river far out and away from the boat. As occasionally he raised his cigar to his lips, his pensive features would appear for a moment in the darkness, lighted by the red glow.
The yacht held another more silent group. Those who succeeded in getting on board in the ports always obtained a distant glimpse of a woman or two with white shoes, blue skirts, jackets with rows of gold buttons, masculine collars and neckties, and officers' caps. No one knew for certain how many such women there may have been. The men of the crew were forbidden access to the central quarters of the boat, and to the upper deck. Some of them, chancing to break the rule through oversight, had met the Prince's companions attired in elegant naval uniforms, or more lightly clad, like dancers, in elaborate and exotic costumes. At the large ports, steam launches landed these mysterious and beautiful travelers for a few hours on shore. It was remarked that they dressed with modest elegance and that they would speak various languages.
When the Gaviota II returned and anchored in the same harbor she had visited the preceding year, those whose curiosity had been aroused found that the personnel of the wandering harem had been completely renewed. They might occasionally recognize one or two of the former ladies, but now their faces wore the placid expression of the odalisque who has been supplanted, but is nevertheless contented with luxury and oblivion.
Some years Michael Fedor suspended his travels, during the summer, to take up his abode at fashionable beaches. The women who accompanied him on his long voyages remained on board, with all the lavish comforts to which they were accustomed. At other times he parted with them, as one dismisses a crew when a ship goes out of commission, at the end of a trip.
Immediately he became interested in women living stay-at-home lives, in shore society, and in summer flirtations at famous watering places. He would take up his abode in a hotel on the coast, while his yacht was to be seen rising from the azure waters, motionless, like a palace of mystery and magnificence, the center of all feminine imaginings.
Living in Biarritz he came to know Atilio Castro intimately through learning that they were related on his father's side. The Spaniard admired the fascination exercised
