The Most Absurd City in the World

An Account of Only a Few of Its Characteristic Charms

GEORGE JEAN NATHAN

I

I MAGINE a city whose chief sight for visitors is announced on the small information cards on the backs of the doors in the hotel rooms to be the insane asylum. Imagine a city with an opera house built at a cost of five million dollars whose stage has only one motheaten set of scenery, a pink, yellow and purple interior used to represent alike the forest in Act I of Pelleas and Mélisande, the square near the gate of a city in Act II of Königskinder, the chapel of the Abbey in Act III of The Juggler of Notre Dame, and the fashionable gambling house in Act IV of Manon, to say nothing of the settlement of the hermit Cenobites on the Nile in Thaïs, the terrace of Herod's palace in Salome, the magic castle of Klingsor in Parsifal, the saloon and dance hall in The Girl of the Golden West and, on special occasions, the business office of an American captain of industry in a revival of The Dollar Princess. Imagine a city where every one goes to bed at nine o'clock sharp, where Bronx cocktails are made of one-fifth gin and four-fifths lemon juice, where a herd of three hundred and twenty cows appears to have been placed in permanent pasture on the golf links of the country club, where the girls of fifteen and sixteen seldom weigh less than two hundred pounds, where hundreds of small boys with the mumps play hop-scotch in the narrow streets, where the only books on sale in the shops are those of Blasco Ibanez, where, in the single restaurant, a quartette composed of piano, violin, oboe and mouth-organ plays but two selections, the William Tell overture and the intermezzo from Cavalleria liusticana, and repeats them alternately every day from four p. m. to closing time at 8:50 p. m., where there is not a policeman who weighs over 115 pounds, and is not suffering from diabetes, where every one gets up at half-past five in the morning and eats a whole pineapple smeared with strawberry jam for breakfast, where there is only one bathtub for every 4,726 inhabitants, where the men shave without lather, where a smokable cigar costs forty-five cents, where the cab horses all wear curl papers on their tails, and where the prisoners sentenced to hard labour in the penitentiary are set to work brewing beer!

I give you San Jose, the capital of the Republic of Costa Rica.

For years, superb liars of one sort or another had warmed my ears with the "unique charm", the "rare tranquillity", the "tropic loveliness" and the "austere beauty" of this San Jose. It had been described to me as a miniature Paris with overtones of Monte Carlo, Munich, Barbizon, and Buda-Pest nestled, six hours up from Port Limon, in the green, cloud-capped mountains. I had long been apprised of its lawns strewn with violets, of its great symphony orchestras, of its devastatingly gorgeous women, of its amazingly fine wines at two colonas, or forty cents, the bottle, of its cosmopolitanism blended with hauteur, its joie de vivre, its Vienna-like waltz soul. I had looked it up in the South American steamship and railroad folders and had laid enchanted eye to such a wealth of lithographic magnificence— cerise bands playing in orange parks, green four-in-hands tooling down Alice blue mountain roads, maroon sweet ones flirting boldly in dazzling magenta cafes—that I could hold back no longer. And, laying in a new toothbrush, three new dinner jackets and ten dozen new evening shirts, I set forth to glimpse the irresistible wonders at first hand.

II

THERE are two hotels in San Jose, at least that is what the cab-drivers call them. I went to the one described to me as the better, registered my name, age, address, business, length of stay and favourite musical comedy, and was placed in charge of a bell-boy of fifty, who promptly escorted me out of the door and led me four blocks down the street to a banana and peanut stand. "But", I protested in what Spanish is mine, "I registered for a room, not a bag of peanuts!" "This", replied my friend, indicating an overhead enclosed portico, "is where your room is. This is The Annex". I bade my friend tell me if there were no rooms in the hotel, or the edifice so christened. "Yes, senor", he informed me; "there are several rooms, but they are always occupied by the proprietor and his family". I asked my friend now where the bath was. In reply, he handed me a printed card, in appearance much like the two weeks' guest cards used in New York clubs. I read the card. I translate it for you: "This card entitles this bearer, in his two weeks' stop at this hotel, to once use of a bath at No. 182 Sol y San Domini".

"Where is this No. 182 Sol y San Domini?" I inquired of my young friend.

"Well", he confided, "I will describe the way to you. You take a street-car at the next corner, ride five blocks to the small plaza near the railroad station, get out and take—

III

At about five-thirty the next morning (Sunday) I was awakened by a great commotion in the street. I looked out of the window and beheld an enormous military band of fully one hundred and fifty pieces, marching with muffled drums and silent instruments toward the cathedral in the centre of the city. Behind the band marched the army of Costa Rica—or at least that portion of the army that was not playing lawn tennis at the country club— exactly twelve strong. I asked what the excitement was about and was told that a magnifico of the Republic had, alas, but the day before suffered a demise. This was to be a tearful tribute to his memory. I jumped into my clothes, hurried downstairs and followed the parade to the cathedral where the services were to be held. Together with a thousand or so Costa Ricans, I stood on the sidewalk while the solemn procession filed reverently in. The huge doors closed finally as the last of the line entered, and there followed an impressive momentary hush. Then, suddenly, a great outburst of melody. The band of one hundred and fifty pieces inside the cathedral was paying homage to the august late lamented by playing—Ach, Du Lieber Augustin.

IV

At luncheon that day I ordered a glass of beer. The waiter brought it to me, with two straws

V

NEXT day asked the manager of the hotel if there was nothing else to see but the insane asylum. He suggested that I might be greatly interested in the crutch factory at the other end of town. "A large industry", he apprised me. "The factory occupies two entire floors". A crutch fabrick was better than reading Blasco, so I signalled a cabriolet and bade the driver export me thither. We had gone about eleven or twelve blocks when the driver climbed off his seat, unfastened the mare and made her lie down by the roadside. "In the name of God, what now?" I ejaculated. The driver took off his hat and gravely informed me that the mare was enceinte and that it was a rule among San Jose cab drivers always to give a creature in that condition a good rest at the end of every dozen blocks.

VI

I have mentioned The Dollar Princess. For this same evening there was scheduled a gala performance of the musical piece at the five-million-dollar opera house in honour of the officers of the Italian battleship Libera, visiting Port Limon. I bought a ticket numbered M1, and was escorted by the usher to a seat in the very front row directly back of the bass drummer who, though the curtain had been up at least fifteen minutes when I arrived, was sound asleep and snoring loudly. I glanced around me and beheld the flower of Costa Rican society seated in the grand tier of boxes, eating pull taffy. Three seats to the left of me, a beau of the town, resplendent in swallowtail and Ascot tie, was covertly eating what I fear must vulgarly be described as a Schweitzer cheese sandwich.

I turned to the stage. A prompter's box about three feet in height and extending half way across the stage cut off from view the chief attractions of musical comedy. However, the chorus consisted of four elderly maidens, three of whom, I was told, were aunts of the manager of the opera house and the fourth of whom was his wife. The ingenue, a great popular favourite, was an ex-emotional actress whose greatest success had been scored, according to the play-bill, as the Countess Zicka in Diplomacy in 1892. In the midst of a sentimental song with the juvenile (the father-in-law of the manager of the opera house), an unmentionable article of her lingerie slipped its string and draped themselves gracefully around her ankles. To suggest the ringing of a telephone bell, the stage manager, seated prominently in the first entrance eating a large bun, shook a pair of sleigh-bells. When the curtain came down on the first act, it hit the ingenue on the head and sent her reeling into the lap of the solitary old gentleman seated in the right hand stage box. This woke up the bass drummer.

VII

I ASKED a policeman outside the opera house where one could get a drink at that time of the night. (It being a gala night, the play was not over until quarter of ten.) He hailed a cab, directed me to get into it, got in after me, and shouted an address to the driver.

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VIII

THE next morning I decided that I would take a horseback ride into the surrounding country. I was informed that the management of the hotel had a stable and was ready to supply me. I inquired the rates and was told that a saddle horse cost three dollars for two hours in the morning or two dollars for three hours. Somewhat puzzled over the peculiarity of the rates, I sought enlightenment. "Well, if you

IX

THERE are scores of little side-streets off the main business thoroughfares of the city. These side-streets are similarly devoted to trade. Most of the bakeries on them bear dressmakers' signs, half the grocery stores are announced as barber shops, a large percentage of the signs over the clothing stores read "Fruit and Candy", and three small jewelry stores are placarded with large signs divulging the informa-

only use the horse two hours", I was told, "you get back in time for lunch. lunch. Lunch costs us to-day about a American dollar and plan, a half and so to if serve you miss under it the we dollars make fifty for cents three more hours on than you at at three two dollars for two hours". tion that they are pharmacies. I noticed a - place that bore the sign "Obstetrica". I was curious, and went in to have a look. It was a hat store. X

I entered a motion picture theatre. The film was one of American manuture, the star E. K. Lincoln, or Elmo Lincoln, as they know him in South America. This Lincoln cabot is a great favourite in San Jose. The theatre was packed to the doors. Every time the audience applauded the star, the operator stopped the machine for a full minute so that the screen actor's admirers might feast their eyes on him in repose,

XI

I wished to have some linen laun dered and inquired at the desk of the hotel if this were possible.

"Certainly, señor. Immediately we will send up", I was told.

They sent up a wash-tub and a cake of soap.

XII

As the train began to move away from the San Jose station on the trip down the mountains to the sea-coast, I heard a wild yell and, sticking my head out of the window, saw a fat man waving his arms madly and running after the train as fast as his chubby legs would carry him. I asked the conductor who he was. "That", said the conductor, "is the engineer".