Oscar Hijuelos - Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

“And this lady you mentioned, Arnold, is she here yet?” he asked the poet in the hallway outside the main salon.

“Not quite yet, my dear Stanley,” Arnold told him. “But once you are inside, look for the most beautiful woman who comes into the room; I am certain it will be she.”

And so it was that Stanley entered the salon — its frieze, copied from the Parthenon, looming above him — and took a seat toward the front, among an audience of some forty other persons. A few people recognized him, and for a time he signed their programs; but then, as Arnold had assumed, just before the poet took to the podium, a majestic-seeming creature of the female sex came into the salon. Tall and buxom, and with a beaming smile and eyes that were droop-lidded but soulful, and with her auburn hair done up with stylishly frizzled bangs after the fashion of the empress Eugénie of France, she brought into Stanley’s mind a great excitement: This lady, who also took a seat near the front, was one Dorothy Tennant, Stanley would learn.

That afternoon, Arnold, with his pallid face and long white beard reaching below his collars, read from his most recent volume, The Light of Asia , which told the story of the great Buddha.

Once the recitation of those verses ended, with Buddha achieving serene self-knowledge, Miss Tennant had been among the first to approach Arnold at the rostrum. They knew each other well: In his capacity as an editor of the Daily Telegraph he had sometimes retained her services as an illustrator. Her drawings graced the pages of his newspaper, and he had been a frequent guest in her home, where he often recited portions of verses in progress before gatherings of her dinnertime guests. As Stanley saw her standing by Arnold’s side, it gave him pause — and he thought to wait until she had left, as they seemed to be engaged in a spirited conversation about reincarnation. But then Arnold himself, with his massive head and savant’s beard, called Stanley over, and it was then that he made the introduction.

“This enchantment, my dear friend,” he said to Stanley, “is one of the finest illustrators and greatest ladies in London, Miss Dorothy Tennant.” Then: “And this gentleman, Miss Tennant, is the one and only Henry Stanley.”

She wore a velvet French skirt, a floral blouse, a petticoat that seemed a size too small, and a pearl necklace that hung from her collar. About her wrists jangled several bracelets set with odd stones, in the Bohemian mode; on her long and delicate hands were a pair of white gloves. Some three inches taller than the explorer, in her boots of soft black leather, with their two-inch heels, she seemed to tower over him.

“So you are he!” she said. “I cannot begin to tell you the extent of my curiosity about you.” Then: “I should let you know that I have been your admirer for the longest time, since the days you found Livingstone. I have always believed your stories to be true. In fact, Mr. Stanley, your exoneration was of such interest to me that I was among the crowd attending that meeting of the British Association at Brighton in 1872, when the Royal Geographical Society recanted their criticisms and awarded you the medal you justly deserved.”

“Well, now,” he said, his face reddening. “I feel somewhat honored, but barely deserving to hear such words.”

And yes, years later, among the details she would remember about that event in Brighton — where Stanley, once criticized as a fraud and then honored by the Royal Geographical Society, took the stage to make, with much anger and vindictiveness, the speech she would describe as “noble and convincing”—was that in the audience that day was the American writer Samuel Clemens, whom she saw strolling down the aisle and who had traveled from London to see his friend.

AS ARNOLD HAD GONE OFF to meet with his admirers, and tea and crumpets were served for the attendees in one of the club rooms, Stanley, off in a corner with Dorothy Tennant, could only summon up some small talk about his recent visit with King Léopold at his palace at Ostend. But he could have spoken about his shoes, for everything he said seemed to fascinate her. She had read all his books, from his first accounts about finding Dr. Livingstone onward, and she told Stanley that she was looking forward to finishing his latest, the massive two-volume The Congo and the Founding of Its Free State , about his most recent expedition.

“Your books have been by my bedside each night,” she said. “The many hours I have already passed in your company have made me think that I already know you somewhat.”

Such flattery, however, he regarded with suspicion, having the notion that certain members of the aristocracy, when finished with their collecting of country estates, finery, jewelry, and paintings, tended to collect people: Why should this lady, attractive and sincere as she might seem, be any different?

Altogether, for Stanley, it had been a worthwhile encounter, but he made nothing more of it. In parting, they exchanged calling cards, Miss Tennant telling Stanley that they would surely see each other again, that shortly he would receive an invitation to dine at her home on Richmond Terrace.

THAT NIGHT, AS HE SAT UP in the bedroom of his New Bond Street flat, with a few of the Scotties he adopted from the Battersea Home for Animals dozing on one of the carpets by his bedside, his heart beat rapidly. He decided to write a note to his friend William Mackinnon to inquire if he had any insights about Dorothy Tennant—“Is she worth the trouble of knowing? Is she serious or really just another frivolous person?” he asked, but while jotting this missive down, by the light of a gas lamp, he decided that such a query was premature. What did he know of women, anyway? He recalled that the furthest he had advanced by way of expressions of affection was a few kisses in the garden behind Alice Pike’s Fifth Avenue mansion; well, truthfully, it was she who did the kissing, her soft and moist lips pressing against his neck, his cheek, his ears, and then with the warm bloom of her perfume and hair enveloping him, she had kissed his lips — her tongue, like some small creature, entering his mouth with force.

His thoughts drifted again, women and their physical natures confounding him: Why was it that he thought of himself sitting in his tent in the Congo one early evening during his last expedition? As he was writing in his journal, a young Negress, naked save for a loincloth, entered — the “gift” of the slave trader Tippu Tib, with whom Stanley had had dealings. Why was it that he hardly acknowledged her when she knelt down near him and, with a vacant but somewhat willing expression upon her face, lay back on a mat, lifted her loincloth, spread apart her legs, and awaited him? Why was it that he did not send her away but allowed her to lie there while he made some notes, quickly glancing at her and thinking, “But my God, what a comely and deliciously shaped woman”? Only for a moment did he get carried away and, unable to prevent himself, pass the palm of his hand all along her body. But even then when he was feeling a physical ardency, he refused to give in and finally sent her happily away. “Please tell your master that I am thankful.”

It was the kind of thing that happened to him from time to time: In those wilds, beautiful and nubile women passed from man to man in the way that one would give a book to a friend in England. Although he would always abstain, in such a setting it was not easy. Death traveled with his expeditions, and his native porters, having brought along their wives, would punctuate the loon-cry-filled night with the savage noises of fornications carried out as if there would be no tomorrow. In the end, knowing that with little effort he could have a most beautiful concubine to do with as he pleased, he considered his abstinence a matter of moral fortitude, reading the Bible whenever such temptations came to him.