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She lives in the arabesque musings of GNOSSIENE #4 and other Satie eccentricities, reverberating and unfolding as the The Princess. She was the pride and joy of Soho, and proudly and joyfully would walk its streets. The Princess was the desire of all the guys, and the envy of all the gals, as her countenance would pass their attentive eyes. She was dressed not for the present but rather for both the past and the future; the "secret" in Victoria was a secret revealed in the Princess and she carelessly and seductively revealed it to all. Her high heels would pierce the cobblestone streets as her stockinged legs would glimmer in the sunlight and glisten in the moonlight, her raven hair caressing the upper-curves of her swaying torso. The Princess may have been 25 going on 16 in her child-like exuberance or 16 going on 50 in her child-like wisdom. She could have out-breakfasted Holly Golightly at Tiffany's, lunched with professors at N.Y.U., dined with the Broadway elite at Sardi's, and been home by 8 to reconfigure her circle of acquaintances.

No one seemed to have names but rather quaint pseudonyms in those fanciful bohemian days. Along with the Princess, there was the "The Duke" and "Plato" and "Salome" and "Calphurnia"...and so on, and these served as clever appellations in our artistic anonymity residing in grotesque lofts and garret abodes. Hidden away in their busy playrooms and plying at creative playthings, everyone was playfully working on their own individual masterpiece. But the Princess made a particular display of the masterpiece that was herself and would boldly display it to her select group of connoisseurs...I being an awkward one of them.

The Princess' loft was a dazzling swirl of multi-colors and patterns, resonating off richly-woven tapestries and deeply-piled rugs. In the sky-lighted atmosphere were revealed sculptures and curios sitting beside books, impulsively arranged on numerous shelves, which hovered next to paintings and photographs that lined the walls and converged on the Princess' piano and diverged on all as she played. We would be captivated by the lustre and swept off to her magical kingdom and baste in the sounds as of a Siren. If she knew two or three chords it was giving her too much credit, but those two or three chords went far and the Princess seemed to master the etudes of the Masters and suddenly add them to her accomplished repertoire. Her paintings which might have been the mischievous idleness of a little girl, seemed like a cross between Pollock and Monet with a dash of Renoir thrown in for good measure. She would read some of her poetry, which might have been the doggerel of a drunk, but from her lips they echoed the music of T.S. Eliot to Keats in the glow of her enchantment.

Among the the Princess' many talents, and by far her most unforgettable, was her unparalleled "art of dying." Never since Shakespeare's Cleopatra was anyone so skilled at the art of either on-the-verge, attempted or even accomplished suicide (her most stunning achievement) as was the Princess. In what would have made Lazarus' rising from the dead look like a second-rate sideshow attraction, many were the times the Princess would die and resurrect herself as if in one graceful motion. Many were the times we had learned that the Princess had once again died and was then miraculously seen in vigorous circulation on Bleecker Street in less than an hour. Once she had died at 6 but was still able to promptly make an an 8 o'clock curtain at the Metropolitan Opera. Many of the Princess' suitors would arrive bearing gifts of flowers, candies or teddy bears, when some time later to the accompaniment of hysterical weeping and screaming, shattered glasses and dishes, said suitor would fly into the night with his respective flowers, candies or teddy bear briskly following behind him. Then all would await the inevitable arrival of the police followed by the inevitable ambulance because yet once again the Princess had died.

Time, however, has no patience with royalty nor with spectacles of death-defying suicide. The Princess soon fell on hard times and her daily appearances were becoming less joyful and less proud...in fact, they were becoming less looked forward to by our self-consumed community. Having just married, I had other diversions to occupy me: for instance, facing the horrifying reality of finding a profitable job. The Princess' final moments on the stage of my recollections are scant and few (unfinished, along with a now lost feeble piano etude I had feebly composed for her) and I could only remember saying Goodbye (I, the most untalented of the Princess' suitors, joining the rest of my departing neighbors going out with the tide). She looked older (more like 30 than 25 and maybe much older) and called me by my real name in defiance of anonymity. I think she asked me about a certain piece of music or some other thing in a hoarse, unintelligible voice...but because I couldn't help nor understand her I told myself I didn't care, because I would never forget her.