And a man from Virginia
City, a descendant of the Comstock days, told me that in Nevada they
speak of "The Palace" as Russians speak of the Kremlin as a pivot of
destiny. What I am trying to say, of course, is that the Palace is a
tradition just as the Waldorf-Astoria is a tradition, only not at all in
the same way.
The Palace is a great place for women who are alone and a place where a
man may bring "the missus" with impunity. The Palace is stylish,
perhaps, but principally it is select. It suggests to me women who wear
suits of clothes, mostly dark gray, all wool and a yard wide, women who
wear two petticoats and Hanan shoes and Knox hats and who carry suit
cases covered with foreign express tags, and whom porters run to meet
because they know that these women may not be so stylish as they are
generous tippers. And the Palace suggests to me afternoon teas, and that
peculiar composite chatter of women's voices which is more like the
sound of birds in a flock, and which Powys speaks of as a strange
inarticulate chitter chatter which isn't really speech at all.
The other day a well groomed young official from the hotel took me out
to see the famous old Palace bar and the beautiful Maxfield Parrish
painting above it. They have taken the rail away, and around the edge of
the bar they have built a nicely finished woodwork wall which looks
exactly like a great coffin, the coffin of John Barleycorn.
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