D.V. (19 page)

Those Hungarian men are my heroes. And Elisabeth, Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary, is one of my heroines. She was born a Wittelsbach, and I can show you a picture of her and a picture of Ludwig when he was young that are
identical—
although they were only first cousins. You couldn't tell the boy from the girl except for the length of the hair. Elisabeth adored her hair, took great care of her hair…perhaps you remember the great Winterhalter portrait. She was one of the first modern women. She was one of the first women who did exercises, one of the first who did gymnastics, and one night a week she'd go to bed in special sheets of bath toweling packed in beefsteaks—for her skin. Apparently, she never looked older than thirty—ever.

Now during my search for costumes in Budapest I was shown…at first, I didn't understand what I was being shown. My little interpreter and the costume curator were speaking Hungarian
and German when a box was brought out. In it was a beautiful little black taffeta blouse with a high neck and a
tiny
waist. It had belonged to Elisabeth. She had very long legs—she wasn't short—and was lithe and slender.

“And this,” the curator said, “is the blouse in which the Empress was murdered.”

“Oh…” I said.

It was as immaculate as my shirt. There was a
tiny
slit where the stiletto had gone in—but other than that there wasn't a mark. It was all corseting, you see. She was so tightly laced that there was no external bleeding of any kind, and that's why neither she nor anyone else knew what had happened. She just kept walking. “Please give me your hand,” she said. “I'd like to go back to the boat….”

She kept going while the hemorrhage was taking place—tightly laced within this black taffeta blouse. But she kept walking, kept walking, kept
walking…
she got back to the boat and was taken back to Geneva, where she died. You must imagine this. Of course, nowadays you wouldn't have to imagine it. There'd be paparazzi standing around taking pictures of the whole thing.

In Russia they told me: “We're not a royal country.”

I thought of this just the other day. A day doesn't go by when I don't think about Russia. One day I was asked to do an advertisement on the radio for Hide-A-Beds. Rather a commercial job, you might say, but I happen to think that beds are marvelous. At home I have a huge sofa and,
en plus
, a long bed that comes out to here. So I said, “This is what I would like to say for the advertisement: When I was in Pavlovsk, outside of Leningrad—the palace that Catherine the Great built for Paul, her son—I saw Catherine's bed, and it was L-shaped. Now that's rather fascinating—an L-shaped bed. Here's the bed and here's the leg of the L—another very wide bed sticking out of it at right angles. Don't ask me why—I have no
idea
. It was never explained to me. Whether she threw the army in there, took the navy in here…but that's the sort of thing that I would like to suggest in the radio advertisement.”

They didn't think that would be quite suitable.

“But,” I said, “wouldn't people like to have a bed like Catherine the Great of Russia's? She
was
great, as Mae West said…in fact that was the name of one of Mae's plays,
Catherine Was Great
. I always believe in giving 'em something!”

The first day I arrived in Russia to collect the clothes for the exhibition at the Metropolitan, I had nothing to do. No one was going to see me until the next day, so I went to Tolstoy's house. It was once well out in the country on the outskirts of Moscow; now it's just a little outside. There was no one else there, and I thought it was the most divine thing in the world. And when I saw these
lilacs—
like great big bunches of grapes—falling over the walls like
bombs…
I died.

A child who was obviously the daughter of the caretaker was following me around. Of course, I was
raving—
I was so
excited
by my first day in Russia. I think she understood me. But then she ran away, like all children do, like dogs do—you know, they're terribly fascinated with you for a while, then they lose interest. Then she came back…with one rose! From Tolstoy's garden! I took it home, put it in a little cream pitcher, and had it the whole ten days I stayed in Moscow.

We're all exiles from something, but
never
to be able to go back to our country is something we don't know. When I'd been in Russia for only forty-eight hours, I thought to myself: Of all the countries I've known, if it were my country not to be able to come back to
this
one would be the most terrible.

When I found myself walking through Red Square in the middle of the night…I felt like a child. It was light right up until about eleven-thirty, but it wasn't sun, it was light, the light behind the sky. I don't think I'd like the midnight sun, actually. What I love is darkness—changing. I loved the golden onion domes and the beautiful skies. I love medieval Russia. Moscow is really my town.

And
then…
Leningrad! I arrived there late in March and it was still winter. Everything was black—except for the buildings, of course. The farther north you get, the more love of color you find, and no one has ever loved color more than the Russians. When I got back, a friend of mine said, “So you fell for all that third-rate Italian stuff—Leningrad, that ice-cream town?” Really!

When I arrived in Leningrad, every tree was a thick black line. Then, in
one week…
it was spring! It was the most beautiful big city I've ever seen in my life. It was bigger than life. I mean, it only has forty square miles of pink, mauve, lavender,
pistache
green,
and pale blue palaces, all of such a nobility, such a
scale…
wide, wide avenues and squares…nothing but rivers and bridges and sunsets and clean, clear northern air.

I adore
les russes
. I call them that out of habit, because of the Ballets Russes, because of Fokine, because of all the
émigrés
I used to see in London, Paris, Lausanne, and New York. As you know, all
émigrés
speak French.

I saw my friend Iya Abdy not long ago. Her father was a great dramatic actor who was known from one end of Russia to another. One night he was Boris Godunov, the next night he was Ivan the Terrible, and he traveled in caravans with parrots and leopards and cheetahs and tigers. That's how Iya was brought up.

She came to see the Russian show at the Museum. She came alone. She gives the impression of traveling all over the world alone. “Oh, Diana,” she said, “did you
hate
Rrrussia?”

She's never lost her Russian accent, which is rather curious considering the number of years she's been out of Russia—well over fifty. But then she doesn't look that different from when I first saw her, which, curiously enough, was in New York. She was exercising five Pekinese outside the Waldorf Towers. She had these huge macaroons of thick blond hair, an enormous black hat, and a big mouth. She was six feet tall. New York, you know, was a small city then—you could see people. And I said to myself, “That must be Lady Abdy.”

She's one of my old friends. We never miss each other if we're in the same city. Big cities are all the same—it seems difficult to get in contact with people—but we always find each other. She's still six feet. She hasn't shrunk at all. She still has the presence. She's always made me think of a great golden baroque archangel.

Once she said to me, “Why do you stay so well?” She really wanted me to say in answer, “Oh, but I'm not so well.” Then we both could complain. That's very Russian.

So I said, “What do you want me to do—wither away and die?”

She said, “Is hard, no? Is hard to stay alive, don't you think?”

“No,” I said, “not really—not if you stay busy, not if you stay interested, not if you keep the discipline, not if you keep the rhythm….”

It was rather touching being with
les russes
.

But I do think any form of rhythm is absolutely essential. I mean, we
are
a physical people, we
do
count on action, mood, and the wit of the body and so on to survive, don't we? Do you know what I think a lot about? Surfing! I do think that surfing would be the most beautiful thing in the world to do. I do really believe that. Oh, I've seen surfers by the hour! In California I used to go down to Malibu Beach; I'd stay until midnight, wrapped up in shawls and helmets and things around my face. Out there, they were all in rubber suits, and I could just catch sight of them on the top of the waves in the light of the moon. I could watch forever! Forever!! And envy them. You know I'm not an envier. I envy no man…usually. But I
do
envy their surfing. I think it's because I had such a passion for dancing and had those years in the Russian ballet school. Of course, the surfing didn't hit me till I was what you might call a little older.

Surfing's a bit of all right!

But then, of course, I've got such a thing about water. Have I told you that I think water is God's tranquilizer? Being part Scottish, I think to walk in the rain is just divine. I don't mean to walk around in a heavy downpour—to enjoy a fire doesn't mean the whole
room
has to be in flames—but to be
in
water, to feel it
around
you, to wake up in the morning to know that the skies and the whole world are in this lovely fresh clean condition…always was a mania with me. One thing I hold against Americans is that they have no flair for the rain. They seem unsettled by it; it's against them: they take it as an assault, an inconvenience! But rain is so wonderfully cleansing, so refreshing, so calming….

I've been with such wonderful young people always—whatever their age. Late in life, people seem to live their years as if it were sort of a timetable. But, you see, I've really been terribly busy. Of course, I don't say I work today like I used to—that's ridiculous to suggest. But I've never taken time off to anticipate, to add up the days, to ask the day of the month, or even my own age. I have wonderful friends of my generation, but I've never made a fetish of it.

I used to love to talk to Mr. Clarence Dillon, who got to be over one hundred. He never remembered me. I'd sit down and take hold of his hand and say, “You and I are best friends, and don't let's think of each other's names because we'll never remember them.”

I have a terrible time remembering exactly when my birthday is. Age is totally boring…and so many Americans can't get on with it. They're haunted by aging, by getting old. I think it's because of this terrible retirement thing. If you're through with work, what do you do with yourself?

There's an excellent profile in
Interview
in which Jeanne Moreau says: “I shall die very young.”

“How young?” they ask her.

“I don't know, maybe seventy, maybe eighty, maybe ninety. But I shall be very young.”

But let's suppose I was young and just starting out in New York today. I'd have to work, of course, because to be in New York today is to work. What would I be doing? I'm not at all certain that I wouldn't be in a laboratory somewhere studying medicine.

Modern medical science I find so
absorbing
. So many things have been brought to such a fine point. Penicillin, of course, is the greatest invention I've seen in my
lifetime
. And as for the
pill
, which in the sixties released the whole association between boys and girls…well, you've heard me go on about these marvels a thousand times.

My own notions about medicine are actually much more primitive: now, a good massage
—that's
what I believe in! It's all we need. We'd live forever! My dear, it's the ABCs.

I
believe
in backcracking! I'll crack your back—but you have to crack
mine
, too. This is a rather strict rule with me. I practice it with my grandsons all the time.

Stretching! I believe in that totally. I stretch in the tub, I stretch when I'm standing up, I stretch talking on the telephone…whenever you're doing anything, if you
can
do something else—stretch! In your spare moments, stand against a door, like your bathroom door, and
press
your spine against it. It pulls
everything
in your body into place. Everybody should do this.

I spend
hours
in my bathroom. All my life I've never gone out before lunch. Except to the dentist. It's important to go early because at that time they're at peace and not rattled and tired. Dealing with a tired dentist is really very tough on you. But usually I spend the morning in the bathroom and I get half my day's work done. This started out as a form of laziness, but now I believe totally in metabolism. Also
thyroids
are very important. At
Vogue
and
Harper's Bazaar
, when I was serious about secretaries, I didn't have one I didn't send to have a thyroid test. “You're a bit
slow
, my girl.”

The
liver
is vital—and don't forget the gallbladder! I remember seeing a marvelous friend at dinner here in New York when she'd just gotten off a flight from Japan—and she looked like a
rose
.

“How could anyone look as well as you after such a terrible trip?” I said.

“I'm never, never,
never
ill,” she said, “although I used to have these terrible migraines and other problems. One day I went to my village doctor in the country and I told him, ‘I have the most terrible job. Every night I have to take these American buyers out on the town, and they want six different kinds of wine, three kinds of brandy. But
I'm
the one who has to sit through this night after night, and my entire liver is being destroyed.'”

The country doctor felt her liver, and it was quite swollen. So he told her the story of a monk who lived near their village who every day washed his face in the cold water of the river that ran through the village. He'd always had these pains and
pains
. And one day, after washing his face, he placed his cold, wet hand
there
on his gallbladder—and the pain went away. So he took to going down to the stream after each meal, taking the cold water, and pressing it in the same place—and the pain and the swelling disappeared! “Take a little sponge,” the country doctor told my friend, “soak it in ice water, and
press
it against your gallbladder after every meal.”

And that's exactly what my friend always did. I've done it myself when I've had terrible, paralyzing migraines, and I can tell you it
works
. Never lose sight of your gallbladder!

My father, at the Hotel Ritz during the time of Proust—1909, 1910, 1911—was witness to a man who had had hiccups for three weeks. He couldn't eat, naturally, and his bones had started to go…he was convulsing himself to death. They didn't know what to do with him. And Olivier, a great gentleman, the very great maître d'hôtel of the Ritz who later became such a friend of mine—he committed suicide when the Germans entered Paris—approached the man with a big beautiful pepper pot and a large piece of very soft linen and said, “Monsieur, I wish to
reverse….
” And with that he
threw
the pepper all over the linen square, which he then placed to the man's nose—an exquisite handkerchief it was—and the man
sneezed
rather than hiccupped…reversed, you see, and it was
over
.

One night, not that many years ago, I got a telephone call
from my great friend Walter Moreira-Salles, who was then the Brazilian ambassador to the United States. “Diana,” he said—he was to dine with us that night—“I know you always put me on your right, but tonight may it be across from you, as it is easier to leave the table? I feel I'm going to have the hiccups. You see,” he went on, “I am someone who has been told that he will
die
of the hiccups.”

That night Walter arrived. I placed him opposite me. And, sure enough, he started the hiccups. “Walter,” I said, “do as I tell you…worship the moon!” Then…I taught him
my
cure, which is not so dramatic as M. Olivier's. Whenever you see me doing it, don't think I've gone berserk; it's just that I'm at work curing the hiccups. I call the procedure “worshiping the moon” because that's what it looks like. It's rather an attractive gesture, but it's not at all conspicuous. Let me show it to you. Lift your arm straight up with the glass as if you were toasting the moon, lift your diaphragm…swallow, release your diaphragm. Then again, and keep swallowing. Then again. That's all there is to it—but the way it works! “Walter,” I said, whispering, “up! Open! Swallow! Up! Open!…Salute, salute!”

Walter's own hand:

“Dear Diana, You have saved my life. You have taught me the way. Now I will never have to live in fear again.”

I evolved that technique on my own. Worshiping the moon.

I also do a sort of unconscious yoga I made up myself, although I'm told it
is
yoga. Once, at the Golden Door in California, I said to the yoga instructor I'd been to every afternoon, “Now I'm going to show you what
I
do!”

After it was over, he said, “This is absolutely the greatest!” He was
riveted
.

Let me show it to you. Relax your arms and your legs. Close one nostril with your hand…and
breathe
in. Release it. Now close the
other
nostril and breathe in…are you feeling it in your eyes? What you're getting is circulation in your head. Now I've only done it two times, but I usually do it about twenty times. I often do it sitting in my tub. It makes me feel so relaxed, and it makes the backs of my
eyes
feel so great. I made it up. But one minute can change the
whole body
. It pumps the blood, you see. It's
marvelous
. Everyone should know about it.

I'd like to know why Tiger Balm isn't better known in this country. Tiger Balm isn't drugs—I mean, you're not going to get arrested for buying it. It smells rather like Vicks Vapo-Rub, and it has a similar effect—but it's so much more
effective
.

A few years ago I was awfully concerned about my voice. I thought I'd have forever this awful, false Tallulah Bankhead voice which I absolutely
loathe
. But Tiger Balm cured it! I'm dying to take a jar of it to my doctor. “Oh, my God!” he'll say. “What are we on to
now
?”

“But you've never helped me with my sinuses and my little congestions here and there,” I'll say. “Tiger Balm has!”

I've also fallen in love with ginseng tea. It's taken me several years to get on to it, but now I'm
hooked
. I take it every evening when I come home from work. It's so
strengthening
. I feel it in my limbs and in my
face
and in the backs of my
eyes…
a
little
stronger.

Tea is very,
very
important. The Orient discovered that thousands of years ago, and the English, having picked it up from the Orient centuries ago, perhaps overdo it a bit. But it's much too much
un
drunk in America. There's nothing healthier than tea!

And don't forget witch hazel! After work, before going out, I often take naps on my bathroom floor with witch hazel pads over my eyes. All I need to do is to pass out for fifteen minutes with my witch hazel pads…and I can get up and conquer the world.

And when I
do
go to bed at the end of the day, I never go to bed tired. This was something Reed taught me: you wake up as you go to sleep. Sleep, sleep, sleep…this, of course, is what's
most
important. This is why I always say that the best time to leave a party is when the party's just beginning. There's no drink that kills except the drink that you didn't want to take, as the saying goes, and there's no hour that kills except the hour you stayed after you wanted to go home.