The Vengeance of Rome

He escorted us through the conventional apartment then pulled back a curtain disguising a door into a small lobby. From this a staircase rose. He led us up to the top. Soundproofed double doors shut the staircase off from the landing and led into an entrance hall hung with astonishingly vivid futurist tapestries, more extreme than anything of Fiorello’s! From the ceiling hung octagonal glass spikes of irregular length, stained dazzling red, green, blue, orange, rose du Barry. Inside the glass glowed electric light bulbs. Beneath them in clashing contrast sat a life-sized bronze of the Naples Hercules, pensive, solid in its colossal power.

As the doors closed behind us dead silence fell. Every door and shutter in that strange flat must have been equally soundproofed. Heavy curtains divided the apartment, hiding doors, windows and walls. The rooms and alcoves were dimly lit with more coloured lamps. It was unsettling to find something so exotic in the middle of Bavaria! Even in Berlin this would have seemed more like a film set than an individual’s flat. I could hardly believe these were temporary quarters. The Prince’s house in Berlin, said Kitty, was similarly decorated but was much larger and with special rooms.

The apartment’s interior gave the appearance of tremendous space and loftiness. Each wall was panelled with floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Between them, a foot in breadth, were wooden columns on which vaguely obscene mural frescos were painted in vibrant reds and yellows and blues. The ceiling was mirror glass; mirrors lined the shutters; the glare was toned down by pastel-coloured curtains, divans, cushions and silk hangings. A great, wide, canopied divan occupied half one wall; a cabinet gramophone, with piles of records, stood beside it. In a corner, inexplicably tangled up with electric wires, cables and green baize shades, was an enormous arc light. The floor was thickly carpeted so our feet were also soundless.

Prince Freddy was self-deprecating. ‘I have a taste for the exotic and the modern,’ he admitted. ‘There is a little Eastern vulgarity in me, I fear. But without the vulgar, we die of good taste, do we not?’

Meanwhile, he made us welcome. He had a Japanese servant he called ‘Monsieur Frank’. If we required anything, Monsieur Frank was at our service. Kitty explained how she ‘owed’ me some coca from Nuremberg. ‘You must tell me all about Nuremberg.’ He crossed to a lacquered cabinet from which he produced a long yellow Venetian glass bottle. From the bottle he poured into a phial at least an ounce of the life-giving powder. ‘I hear it is a children’s paradise.’

Refusing money, he assured me that my films had already entertained him so thoroughly he owed me at least that. ‘Take it,’ he said. ‘There is more. There is always more.’

As Kitty and I were leaving, Prince Freddy recommended that we visit the Flashlite Klub, which had opened a few days earlier across the river near Zeppelinstrasse. He had a small investment in the place and could recommend the English girl there. She was unusually talented. He smiled and rested his hand on my arm. I was bound to know her.

For a terrible moment I thought he referred to Esmé, who had so badly let me down in Egypt. Then the Prince produced a handbill to show me who he meant. I was astonished. The star chanteuse at the Flashlite Klub was Gloria Cornish! My old friend Mrs Cornelius! I was amused and delighted by the irony. A few days earlier I had yearned for feminine company and worried where I would find my next supply of ‘snow’. Now, it seemed, I had an excess of both!