Chapter M: Groult’s Collection (1)

One beautiful summer afternoon I was driven to a house in the Boulevard Inkermann at Neuilly. From afar off I heard the sound of hunting-horns, and I wondered in what part of Neuilly it was possible to follow the hounds. That was certainly a novelty.

The carriage stopped.

We were at the house of the charming Rachel Boyer, of the Comédie-Française, who had invited me to a matinee. Before reaching the house I crossed a great garden, still pursued by the sound of hunting-horns that were clearly coming nearer. While I was wondering again where the huntsmen could be riding I reached the house.

The mistress of the establishment received me with the greatest cordiality. Rachel Boyer is a charming soul. She beams like a ray of sunlight.

She saw me pricking up my ears with curiosity, for I continued to wonder where the huntsmen were hidden.

She smiled over and over again and with an air of mystery.

I could not restrain myself from asking her where the sounds I had heard came from, and whether a hunting party was in progress in her garden.

She began to laugh openly, and said:

“There isn’t any hunting. These buglers I engage to bid my guests a harmonious and cordial welcome.”

“But I don’t see them anywhere. It is really very pretty.”

“From the moment that I have given you pleasure I have succeeded.”

On that day I made the acquaintance of two persons who were then prominent in the first rank of Parisian notabilities. One was a man of the world, refined, delicate, spiritual, gallant, and possessed of the rare and subtle talent of talking on any subject without in any way involving himself in difficulties. This was M. Cheramy. The other was an older person, with expressive features under thick grey hair. His manner was crabbed and gruff. He expressed himself in phrases that were jerky and brief, but full of natural wit. It was evident that he took a real pleasure in talking to us.

We three, M. Cheramy, he and I, were discussing artistic questions when, in a pause of our conversation, we perceived that we were surrounded by a considerable audience. The effect was magical. Two of us became silent, but M. Cheramy was equal to the situation and, with perfect calmness, put everyone at ease.

We were then in the salon. The grey-haired gentleman caught my attention as well as that of Rachel Boyer, who was talking in the midst of a group some distance away. He made us understand with signs that he wished to speak with us, apart from the others. We slipped away to find out what he wanted.

I expected--it goes without saying, considering his mysterious manner--something extraordinary, and, from the point of view of our companion, I was not far wrong.

“Perhaps!” he said abruptly, “you would like to look at my collection.”

While he pronounced these two words, “my collection,” an air of self-respect shone on his face. Since then I have recalled this experience and have understood it. But I was not at all affected by it then, and I kept wondering what kind of queer character this was. He seemed to me a little out of his mind. I answered him, therefore, without disturbing myself:

“Thank you, sir. I have just seen the Louvre; and I think that is a very pretty col--”

Rachel Boyer broke into my sentence smiling, but with a look as if she were somewhat scandalised. Then she assured the old man that we both were appreciative in the highest degree of the marked favour that he had shown us.

Thereupon we made an appointment, and the little old man left us.

“Why does he want me to see his collection,” I asked Rachel Boyer.

“Why?” she replied. “For no other reason undoubtedly than that he particularly admires you. For, you see, his collection is the most complete of its kind, and in his eyes sacred. I cannot tell you how surprised I was to hear him invite you. Only very rarely, as a matter of fact, does he permit anyone to look at his masterpieces.”

“Really! But who is this gentleman? What does he do?”

“What! You don’t know him! Yet I introduced him to you.”

“You did. But I failed to catch his name.”

Rachel Boyer’s voice bore a tone of deep respect as she said:

“Why, that is M. Groult!”

For my part I was conscious of no new respect, for to tell the truth, I was no further along than before. I did not remember ever having heard his name, and I said so, in all honesty, to Rachel Boyer, who was greatly astonished.

It looked as if I had committed a sacrilege.

She then informed me, that M. Groult was a man who had made an immense fortune in business, a fact that did not leave me gasping with admiration. She added that he was spending a great part of his fortune upon pictures.

“M. Groult,” said Rachel Boyer ecstatically, “has brought together the most beautiful treasures of art that a man has ever possessed.”

That was very interesting, unquestionably, but I kept thinking, quietly, that such a hobby could hardly leave leisure to a man, however rich, to do the good he might do with his money. I believe I should have been much more impressed if I had heard her speak of some of his philanthropies.

I finally concluded, however, that out of regard to my hostess, I should have to believe the collection to be so colossal that everything else was insignificant in comparison with it.

Some days later Rachel Boyer took me, with another of her friends, to see M. Groult’s famous collection. The collection was far from being as interesting to me as the collector, who, by reason of his personality, appeared to me to be much more curious than his works of art.

He led us at first in front of a great show case and, with refined and reverential gestures, disclosed to us the most marvellous imaginable collection of butterflies. There were 18,000 of them. He pointed out four in particular, and told us that he had bought the whole lot for the sake of those, and he added, to my great confusion, that that was because they looked like me.

“These colours are you,” he said almost crudely. “Just see what richness. That rose, that blue, that’s you. It is really you.”

While he was saying that, he kept looking at me just as if he were afraid I might suspect his sincerity and that I should mistake his statements of fact for compliments.

In simple language he expressed the most intense artistic convictions. One felt them to be innate; they came from the depths of his being, and they transformed him to such a degree that I saw him at the moment a transfigured soul.

He took us to another part of the hall, and showed us several panels of something that looked to me like coloured marble, highly polished.

“Look,” he said softly. “There you are again. I bought these panels, for they again are you.”

And turning them toward the light, he caused all the colours of the rainbow to radiate from their surfaces.

“Is it marble?” I asked, in order to have something to say. I felt worried by all this admiration.

He looked at me almost scornfully, and replied:

“Marble, marble, no indeed. These are slabs of petrified wood.”

I supposed that we had seen M. Groult’s collection, for there were enough rooms in it to fit out a little museum. I discovered, however, that we had seen nothing at all. M. Groult opened a door and bade us enter a large gallery where sixty-two Turners awaited our attention.

He raised his forefinger to impose upon us a silence that no one had any intention of breaking. Then he took us from one picture to another, indicating what in his view constituted the charms of each canvas. Finally he came near to me and then, embracing the hall with one big sweep of the hand, said:

“These are your colours. Turner certainly foresaw you when he created them.”

Next he showed his collection of engravings, etchings, and prints, representing the most glorious dancers. All these, he said, were to reveal to me what I based my art upon when I danced. He pointed to a celebrated frieze from Pompeii and then, looking at me fixedly, said:

“Look at that. Those are your motions.”

He drew back to present the pose, and he reproduced one of the motions very seriously in spite of his rheumatism, which hardly allowed him to stand on his legs.

“Now,” said he, “I am going to show you the work of art I am most attached to.”

And, in a large glass-covered recess, he showed me the thing which gave him special pleasure. It was a basin in which a fountain was playing, while around it numerous turtle doves were fluttering.

“It is these cooing birds that make you happy,” I cried. “It is too bad that everybody cannot observe this beautiful and natural picture, side by side with your wonderful collections.”

“Allow my collections to be seen?” he cried. “Never. No one would understand them.”

I realised then to what an extent he cherished each one of these objects, which ought, according to his view, to be regarded only with devotion. In each visitor he saw only an inquisitive person and nothing more. From his standpoint the creators of these masterpieces had entrusted them to him in order that he might care for them and protect them from profane inspection.

“I should like,” he said in his mystic way, “to burn them every one the night before my death if I could do it. It is discouraging, is it not, to abandon them to idle curiosity and indifference?”

M. Groult gave me a new perception of the nature of art and its value. He was acquainted with all the circumstances that had attended the birth of his masterpieces. He spoke of them both as a man of sensibility and as an art critic.

As he bade us adieu he asked me to come again.

One day the curator of the museum at Bucharest came to Paris, and a common friend brought him to my house. Among other things he spoke to me of M. Groult’s famous collection, which no one was permitted to see. I promised him to do my best to secure an invitation for him and I accordingly wrote to M. Groult.

He replied at once, asking me to bring the museum curator to see him.

When the curator expressed his gratitude to M. Groult, he replied:

“It is she whom you ought to thank. I do not care to have strangers here, but she is part of my collection. You will find her here everywhere. Just look.”

He then told the story of the butterflies, adding:

“This is nature as no one can paint it exactly. She has succeeded in it. She is a painter of nature.”

Then he showed the petrified wood and spoke of it, with some difference of expression, much as he had spoken the first time in my presence. Finally he begged his visitor to call upon him every time he came to Paris. As we went away I was obliged to promise to visit him again soon. But, when I had leisure to do so, M. Groult was already too ill to receive me and I never saw him again.

I am glad to have known him, for he was an extraordinary man.

XIII

MY DANCES AND THE CHILDREN

Children brought up on fairy tales and stories of adventure, have an imagination that is easily kindled by suggestions of the supernatural. From the unearthly appearance of my dances, caused by the light and the mingling of colours, they ought particularly to appeal to the young, making them believe that the being flitting about there before them among the shadows and flashes of light belongs to the unreal world which holds sway in their lives.

You can hardly conceive of the genuine enthusiasm I have aroused, or, to express it more exactly, since my personality counts for nothing, of the enthusiasm my dancing has aroused amongst children. I have only to go back in memory to see enraptured groups of children, caught under the spell of my art. I even have literary testimony to this effect, since I find among my papers this note, signed by one of my friends, M. Auguste Masure:

“Dear Miss Loie: We have formed a plan of taking the children to see you at a matinee next week. Our third, the youngest, is a little boy whom you have never seen. He looks at all your lithographs and always asks to have them explained. He is only three and a half, but his brother and sister have so filled his head with Loie Fuller that when he sees you it will be worth while observing what he has to say.”

If I cite this circumstance it is, let me repeat, because written testimony is involved--testimony that proves clearly the profound impression my dances make on children. Here was a little one, three and a half years old, who was possessed of a desire to see me simply through having heard my praises sung--in what language one may conjecture--by two other children.

Here is a story that if not more convincing is more characteristic.

One afternoon the daughter of an architect, very well known in Paris, had brought her little girl to a matinee in the course of which I came on. The child, I was told, seemed fascinated and dazed. She did not say a word, did not make the slightest noise, hardly dared to stir. I seemed to have hypnotised her.

At the end of the performance the young mother, whom I knew very well, said to the little girl:

“We are going to see Loie Fuller in her dressing-room.”

_Photo_ _Müller_]

A light was kindled in the child’s eyes, and she followed her mother, clutching at her hand nervously. If the little girl was so visibly affected it was not at the idea of seeing me, but of being in the presence of an extraordinary creature, a kind of fairy. The conclusion of this incident proves that.

The mother and the child found their way to my dressing-room.

An attendant opened the door. She asked them to be seated until I should be able to receive them. The keenest emotion was still imprinted on the child’s little features. She must have supposed that she was going to be taken into some celestial place. She looked round with restless eyes, surveying the bare walls, the uncarpeted floor, and seemed to be waiting to see the ceiling or the flooring open suddenly and permit an entrance into Loie Fuller’s kingdom.

Suddenly a folding screen was drawn and a young woman came forward, who looked tired and in whose appearance there was nothing supernatural. With arms outstretched she advanced smiling.

The child’s eyes opened wider and wider. The nearer I came the further she shrank away.

Quite astonished her mother said:

“What is the matter, dear? This is Miss Fuller, who danced for you so prettily a few minutes ago. You know you begged me so hard to bring you to see her.”

As if touched by a magic wand the child’s expression changed.

“No, no. That isn’t her. I don’t want to see her. This one here is a fat lady, and it was a fairy I saw dancing.”

If there is one thing in the world of which I am incapable, it is consciously to cause anyone pain, and, with my love of children, I should never have been happy again if I had caused my little visitor to be disillusioned. I endeavoured therefore to be equal to the situation, and I said to the child:

“Yes, my dear, you are right. I am not Loie Fuller. The fairy has sent me to tell you how much she loves you and how sorry she is not to be able to take you to her kingdom. She cannot come. She really cannot. She told me just to take you in my arms and give you a kiss, a good kiss for her.”

At these words the little one threw herself into my arms.

“Oh,” she said, “kiss the pretty fairy for me and ask her if I can come again to see her dance.”

There were tears in my eyes as I replied:

“Come as often as you like, my dear little girl. I hear the fairy whispering in my ear that she would like to dance for you all the time, all the time.”

_Photo_ _Langfier_]

At Bucharest Princess Marie of Roumania had sent all her children to see me at a matinee. The royal box was occupied by a chattering and noisy little regiment of princes, princesses and their friends. When my turn came to go on the lights were turned down and, in the silence that ensued, one could hear distinctly, coming from the royal box, the words:

“Hush. Keep quiet.”

Then, when I appeared:

“Oh, it is a butterfly!”

All this was said in a very high voice. Then I recognised the voice of the oldest of the princesses, the one who is so remarkably like her grandmother, the late Queen Victoria. In a tone of the utmost contempt she declared: “You don’t know what you are talking about. It’s an angel.”

At each change in the dance the oldest of the little princesses made some further remark, explaining everything from her point of view, as if her utterances were authoritative.

Some days later I went to the palace. Princess Marie sent some one to look up the children. They came in one after the other, as timidly as so many middle-class children might in the presence of a stranger.

When the princess explained to them that I was the lady whom they had seen dance at the theatre, the oldest of them did not say a word, but, despite her careful training, her face said plainly enough:

“You don’t fool me. This woman is telling fibs.”

I should have had to dance for them at the palace to convince them that it was really I whom they had taken for an angel. This part of the affair, though already arranged for, was given up at my request. I wanted to avoid disillusioning these children.

Accordingly, when I danced at the palace the little princes and princesses were not present at the performance. They came back, on the other hand, to the theatre, where they were confirmed in their conviction that the lady whom they had seen with their mother and who tried to pass herself off as Loie Fuller was an impostor. The eldest of the little princesses called out so loudly as to be heard all over the house:

“This time it is really Loie Fuller.”

She pronounced her words with a distinctness that proved clearly that the subject had been discussed at length among the children, and that this affirmation was the result of mature deliberation.

M. Roger Marx has two sons, who, when they saw me for the first time, were respectively four and six years old. The elder took a notion to dance “like Loie Fuller,” using a table cloth for drapery. I gave him a robe modelled after one of mine and, before we knew it, the child was evolving new dances.

The way he expressed joy, grief, ecstasy and despair was admirable. His memory of me, or rather his memory of my dances, remained so vivid and epitomised so precisely the conception he had of beauty and of art that he became a “poet.”

Here are some verses which, two years later, I inspired in this little boy, and which his mother, Mme. Roger Marx, turned over to me:

Pale vision
A l’horizon
En ce lieu sombre
Fugitive ombre ...

Devant mes yeux vague
Une forme vague,
Suis-je fascine?
Une blanche vague.

En volutes d’argent
Sur l’océan immense,
Elle court follement,
Elle s’enfuit et danse

Protée reste! Ne fuis pas!
Sur la fleur qu’on ne voit pas
Palpite, hésite, et se pose
Un papillon vert et rose:

Il voltige sans aucun bruit
Étend ses ailes polychromes
Et maintenant c’est un arum
Au lieu d’un papillon de nuit....

The little fellow ended by making wax figurines, representing “Loie Fuller,” works of art that I treasure with great care.

Another curious incident is that of the daughter of Madame Nevada, the great American singer. The child always called me “ma Loie” and, after her first visit to the theatre to which she had gone to see me dance, she tried to imitate me. She was so remarkable that I had a little robe made for her. Her father, Dr. Palmer, arranged at his house a magic lantern with variable lights. The little girl danced and invented strange and remarkable forms, which she called “the birth of spring,” “summer,” “autumn,” and “winter.” She was able to make use of various expressions and to combine motions of the arms and the body harmoniously.

The little dear was so successful among the few intimate friends who saw her, that Mme. Nevada was obliged to give some recitals in her luxurious _appartement_ in the Avenue Wagram, so that her friends might applaud the delightful child. At one of these recitals some Catholic priests were present, and when they expressed themselves as delighted by the child’s charm of manner, she said to them quickly:

“Do you like these dances? Then you ought to go and see ‘My Loie.’ She dances at the Folies-Bergère!”

Here is quite a different impression I once made.

Long before my debut as a dancer, I was a little _ingenue_, and was playing the burlesque role of Jack Sheppard in the play of that name, supporting the distinguished comedian Nat Goodwin. The Editor of one of the principal papers in New York one evening brought his wife and daughter to the theatre to see me in my popular part.

The Editor’s daughter became very anxious to make my acquaintance. Her father looked me up and wrote to ask me if he might bring his daughter, a young person six years old, to call upon me.

I had succeeded so perfectly in taking a boy’s part that the little girl could not believe but that I really was one, and when she had been presented to me, she asked:

“Well, why does Jack wear girl’s clothes?”

That was another time when I did not undeceive a little admirer. To-day she is a fine young woman who has always been a faithful friend of mine.

When I was sixteen years old I made the acquaintance of a young widow who had two sons, seven and nine years old respectively. The elder fell in love with me. In spite of everything they could do to take his mind off it he became worse and worse. He fell behind in his studies and he broke away completely from his mother’s control. Things came to such a point that it was necessary to give the child a change of scene. The widow accordingly left for England with her boy. After a little time she supposed that he had ceased to think of me.

Nine years passed. In the meantime I had become a dancer and in London I happened upon the widow and her sons. Forgetting all about my little admirer’s former passion--he was now a big boy of eighteen--I engaged him as my secretary.

Some days after he said to me quietly:

“Do you remember, Miss Fuller, that when I was nine years old I told you that at eighteen I should ask you to be my wife?”

“Yes, I remember it.”

“Well, I am eighteen years old now and I have not changed my mind. Will you marry me?”

Very lately my admirer has repeated his declaration that he will never marry. He is thirty years old to-day, and who knows, perhaps the man’s heart has remained the same as the heart of the boy of nine.

XIV

PRINCESS MARIE

It was the evening of my first appearance at Bucharest.

Some one came to tell me that the Prince and Princess Royal were in the royal box.

After the performance they sent an officer to tell me how greatly my dances had interested them. They promised to come again and, as they wanted their children to see me, they asked if I would not give a matinee.

I was in the act of putting on my clothes.

It was impossible for me to receive the officer, who accordingly gave the message from their Royal Highnesses to my maid.

Next day I wrote to Princess Marie to thank her, and proposed to give a performance at the palace, if that seemed to her desirable.

The reply came without delay. The princess sent for me.

That is called a “court order,” but it came in the guise of a charming letter, which said that the princess would be very glad to see me if I was not incommoded by the hour which she set.

When I arrived at the palace I was taken up a great staircase and then introduced to a little salon, which was like every other little salon in every other palace. I thought how disagreeable it must be to live in an atmosphere that has been created by a hundred other people before your time, and in which nothing really belongs to you. I was engaged in thinking this when an official opened the door and asked me to follow him.

What a change!

In a most delightfully arranged room I saw a young woman, tall, slender, and extremely pretty. The surroundings, the furniture, the style, all were so personal to the young woman that the palace dropped out.

I actually forgot where I was, and I fancied myself in the presence of a legendary princess in a fairy-tale-chamber.

Accordingly the first words I uttered, as I took the hand which the pretty princess extended toward me, were:

“Oh, how exquisite this is! It is not at all like a royal palace--any more than you seem like a princess receiving a stranger!”

She began to smile and after we were seated she said:

“Do you think that a princess should always be cold and ceremonious when she receives a stranger? Well, so far as I am concerned, you are not a stranger at all. After having seen you in your beautiful dances it seems to me that I am well acquainted, and I am very glad indeed that you have come to see me.”

Then she asked if I could secure all my effects in an ordinary hall. She was thinking of the performance which I was to give at the palace.

I told her that this would be quite possible. Then, and almost without knowing what I was saying, I murmured: “Heavens, how pretty it is! What a wonderful view you get from these windows!”

“Yes. It is chiefly on account of this view that I wanted to live here. The landscape which we overlook reminds me of England; for, as you see, standing by these windows when I look out I can fancy myself once again in the dear country in which I was born.”

“Then you still love England?”

“Have you ever met an Englishman yet who loved another country better than his own?”

“Don’t you love Roumania?”

“It is impossible to live here without loving both the people and the country.”

She then showed me a big picture. It was her own portrait in the national Roumanian costume. But on account of her blonde hair and her fair complexion the contrast with the other Roumanians whom I had seen was very striking. It seemed that the picture was tinged with sadness, and I wondered whether the princess would not some day regret her enforced exile. To me she gave the impression of a lily, planted in a field of wild poppies.

When we returned to our seats I looked at the princess. I admired her excellent carriage, her friendly smile.

She showed me a large portfolio in which she had painted some flowers. One of these pictures represented some Chinese plants drooping in a melancholy fashion. I could not help looking at the princess as she turned the page.

“I painted them one day when I was feeling very blue,” she said. “We all have such days, do we not?”

“Yes, your Highness, but you ought not to have them.”

“Well, let me tell you, there is no one alive who has no cause for sadness. I am certainly not exempt.”

Then, changing the topic of conversation, she said:

“See these chairs. Do you like them?”

The chairs were exquisite. The princess had painted them. The upholstery and the woodwork were both adorned with flowers she had painted. By the fireplace the princess had arranged a little corner with divans and low seats covered with Liberty silk. The room was huge, with windows along one side. This row of windows was parallel to a sort of colonnade, which had been there before the room was transformed by the princess, and made a kind of corridor. One might have wished it removed to enlarge the room, but the princess had it now, and, from a decorative standpoint, she had made the best of it. The ceiling was inlaid with golden panels. I am not sufficiently versed in architecture to state to what style this room would be said to belong; but nothing that I had ever seen before was just like it. It seemed to me to have originated in the brain of some one who had quite new ideas, for the arrangement was absolutely original. The room was panelled in blue faiënce and heavy oriental tapestries.

I write this from memory, five years after my visit, but I am certain that I have not forgotten a single detail.

Then we spoke of dancing.

“Have you ever danced before my grandmother?” asked the princess.

“No, never. At Nice once I was to have the honour of appearing before Her Majesty Queen Victoria, when my manager suddenly obliged me to leave for America. I have always regretted it, for a second opportunity never offered itself.”

The princess then asked me if the King and Queen of England had seen me dance.

“No, but I suppose they think they have seen me, for in my little theatre at the Exposition of 1900, on the days when I was engaged elsewhere, I was sometimes obliged to be represented by an understudy. During one of my absences the King and Queen of England, who were then the Prince and Princess of Wales, took a box to see the little Japanese tragedienne who was playing at my theatre. That day an understudy was dancing for me, but the King and Queen probably supposed it was I whom they had seen.”

“Oh, well, you will have to dance for them some day.”

Then she asked me if I had danced before her cousin, the Emperor of Germany.

“No,” I answered regretfully.

“Very well, let me know when you will be in Berlin and I will try to have him go and see you. He loves artistic things, and he is an accomplished artist himself.”

Later I did dance before the Queen of England, but I was far from suspecting under what circumstances it would come to pass.

I asked Princess Marie if she had ever been interested in the dances of the Hindus and the Egyptians, their funeral dances, sacred dances, dances of death and the rest. She, in her turn, questioned me as to the methods by which I thought it would be possible to reconstruct these dances.

“There are very few documents treating of the subject, but it seems to me that it should be easy, if one put oneself into the state of mind that prompted the dances in times past, to reproduce them to-day with similar action and movement. If the custom still existed of dancing at funerals, a little reflection will show that the dances would have to suggest and express sadness, despair, grief, agony, resignation and hope. All this can be expressed by motions and hence by the dance. The only question is whether the dancer should express the grief she feels at the loss of a loved one, or if she should reveal to the people who are in mourning resignation and the hope of a future life. In other words, pantomime should be a sort of silent music, a harmony of motions adapted to the situation, for there is harmony in everything--harmony of sounds (which is music), harmony of colours, harmony of ideas, harmony of motions.”

We talked for a long time about these dances, and the princess asked me:

“Shall we be able to appreciate pictures of this kind when you come to dance at the palace?”

I replied that I was thinking of dances of this sort when I wrote to her, for these reconstructions would naturally interest her beyond what she had seen at the theatre.

Then the princess asked me a thousand other questions and we were so absorbed in our conversation that her luncheon waited more than an hour for her.

The evening when I danced at the palace I supposed that the princess would be alone, for we had agreed, as I have already explained, that the children were not to be present at my performance. They were not present, as a matter of fact, but the princess had invited the King and the Queen and all their retinue, limiting the invitations strictly to habitués of the court.

When I saw the crowd of guests, I could not help wondering how they were going to seat everybody.

We had chosen the dining-hall in which to place an improvised stage, and I had brought two electricians in order to be prepared, if the princess wished me to do so, to present one or two of my radiant dances.

The court pianist, in the meantime, had instructed me in some of Carmen Sylva’s songs. The evening entertainment began with expressions in pantomime and dance of several of those songs.

It was nine o’clock. At one o’clock in the morning I was still dancing; but I felt myself so utterly exhausted that I had to stop. The princess observed my fatigue and came to me.

“What selfishness on our part not to have thought earlier of how tired you must be!”

“Oh, I am so pleased that it seems to me I could go on for ever, if I could only get a minute’s rest. You are the one who must be tired.”

Supper had been waiting for a long time, and the performance ended then and there.

The King asked, I remember, if I could dance “Home, Sweet Home.” I had never tried it, but it did not seem to me difficult--with the accompaniment of the exquisite melody--to express the words, “There’s no place like home.”

I had danced that evening Gounod’s _Ave Maria_ some bacchanal dances, some other dances, based upon slow movements of Mendelssohn’s concertos for the dances of death, and on Chopin’s _Marche, Funèbre_ for the funeral dances. My excellent orchestra leader, Edmond Bosanquet, had, furthermore, composed some perfect music for dances of joy and of grief. In brief, I must have danced at least twenty times, and we had ended with the radiant dances, which the King had never seen. Everyone, it is needless to say, congratulated me in a most charming way, but the loveliest of all was Princess Marie, who brought me a large photograph of herself, on which she had written: “In memory of an evening during which you filled my heart with joy.”

The day before our departure from Bucharest some money, which was to have been wired me, had not arrived, and I found myself in a genuine predicament. I had twelve people and several thousand pounds of baggage to get to Rome, where I was to make my first appearance on Easter Day.

To arrive there in time we should have to take the train next morning. I went accordingly to the princess, who was the only person whom I knew in Roumania, to ask her if she would come to my assistance.

I called on her at nine o’clock in the morning. I was taken to the second storey of the palace, to a room that was even prettier, if possible, than the one in which I had been received the first time.

The princess received me. She was in her night-robe, and had put on a dressing-gown of white silk over which her beautiful dishevelled hair hung. She was still engaged in her toilet when I arrived, but in order not to make me wait, she bade me come into her little boudoir, where no one would disturb us. The room, filled with well-chosen first editions, was in charming taste. Everywhere there were little draped statuettes on pedestals. Beside the fireplace was a very comfortable corner. In the midst of all these beautiful objects one might have thought oneself in a miniature museum.

I asked her what she liked best among all the things there and she replied, “the rosaries,” of which she had quite a collection. What an artist she must be to bring together all these beautiful things.

“This is my room,” she said, while we were talking, “in which whatever happens no one is permitted to bother me. I take refuge here from time to time, and remain until I feel myself ready to face the world once more.”

I then told her my troubles. She rang a bell, and gave an order to let M. X---- know immediately that Miss Fuller would come to see him with a card from her, and that M. X---- would kindly do everything in his power to assist Miss Fuller.

I looked at her for some time and then I said to her:

“I should have liked greatly to know you without being aware that you were a princess.”

“But,” she said, “it is the woman whom you now know and not the princess.”

And that was true. I felt that I was in the presence of some one who was really great, even if her birth had not made her so. I am certain that she would have accomplished great things if she had not found her career already mapped out for her from the day of her birth in her father’s palace.

Everyone knows that a princess’ life precludes liberty, and contains no possibility of breaking with the conventions for the sake of doing something extraordinary or notable. These chains are so strong that if one contrives to break them, it generally happens under the impulse of despair, as a result of irritation and not for the sake of a purely inspired work.

When I arose to take leave of the princess she kissed me and said:

“If ever I come to Paris I shall call on you at your studio.”

She caused an attendant to accompany me to the master of ceremonies, with whom I was to go to the bank. There the master of ceremonies communicated Princess Marie’s order to the effect that I was to be accommodated in any way I might desire.

The money I needed was advanced in return for a cheque, and I left Bucharest.

The journey was full of troubles. Vexatious delays occurred. Finally I arrived at Rome, where my appearance had to be postponed until my baggage, lost in transit, had been found. Three thousand people, who had come to my first performance, went away without seeing me. That certainly was very hard luck. If I had been able to foresee all that, I should never have ventured to intrude upon the Princess.

In that case I should not have discovered what an admirable woman she is.

XV

SEVERAL SOVEREIGNS

In the course of my travels about the world, east, west, north and south, over oceans and across continents, I have had the experience of seeing or of encountering many persons of distinction, including not a few sovereigns and members of royal households.

It has seemed to me that it might be interesting to bring together at this point some of the most typical of the incidents that occur to me. Just as they come, drawn haphazard from memory, without order or sequence, and with no thought of literary composition, I am going to put them simply on paper, one by one.

_How I Failed to see Queen Victoria._

One day at Nice some one came and asked me to dance before Queen Victoria. She had just arrived on the Riviera to pass the winter months, as she was accustomed to do every year.

It may well be believed that I was flattered by such a request. I assented, naturally, and set myself to work making all my preparations for this important event.

There was a knock at the door. A maid brought a telegram. It was signed by my manager, and was couched in the following words: “Take train this evening, to sail day after to-morrow; destination, New York.”

I replied with a message pleading for a delay, for the purpose of dancing before Queen Victoria.

I received simply the following laconic telegram:

“Impossible. Leave at once. Time is money.”

That’s why I did not dance before Queen Victoria.

_I stop the Queen of the Belgians in the Street._

I was engaged for some performances at Spa. The evening of my first appearance the Queen and Princess Clementine were in the royal box. That was a gala evening, one on which the hall was resplendent with magnificent gowns and jewels.

Everything went off perfectly.

Next morning I went for a walk with my mother. We were crossing the causeway when a carriage, drawn by two spirited horses driven by a middle-aged woman, bore down upon us.

Frightened on account of my mother, I threw up my arms in front of the carriage, which stopped.

The lady allowed us to pass and, while thanking her, I remarked to myself that a woman ought not to drive such lively horses.

I had forgotten the incident when, shortly after my return to the hotel, I saw the same carriage go by.

Two gentlemen were talking on the landing near us.

“See. There is the Queen,” said one of them.

It was the Queen whom I had stopped!

_Princely Simplicity._

At the Hague I was asked to give a performance before the Grand Duke and Duchess of Mecklenburg, Princess Victoria of Schaumburg-Lippe and their retinue.

The hall was well filled. I had the Philharmonic Society’s orchestra.

This was a gala evening, and in every way a very successful one for me.

Next day on coming down from my room I encountered on the stairway of the hotel a lady with a very sweet expression, who asked me:

“You are Miss Loie Fuller? Your dances interest me greatly. My husband has gone out on the beach. Wouldn’t you like to come and talk to him about your lighting effects. I am sure that would prove very interesting to him.”

I gladly acquiesced and followed her.

I was delighted to talk to this woman and her husband, who proved to be a most delightful man. I explained to them all my schemes of lighting and my dances. I then took my leave and joined my mother, who was waiting for me.

When I returned to the hotel the proprietor came to me and said:

“You met with great success yesterday, Miss Fuller, and with even greater this morning.”

“This morning?”

“Yes. Do you know who the gentleman is with whom you have just been talking?”

“No. Who is he?”

“The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg.”

This same day I boarded a street car.

On the car several people appeared to know me. One lady came and sat beside me and began to talk.

When we arrived at our destination I asked her if she would not tell me her name.

“Victoria de Schaumburg-Lippe.”

One evening when I was dancing at the Hague the princess was in the hall with Major Winslow and others of her retinue. She sent for me, and asked me to show her one of my robes.

I brought her the robe which I put on for the butterfly dance.

She took the stuff in her hand and said:

“The robe is really wonderful, but it is after all only what you do that counts.”

I remember that she asked me to sign a photograph for her. And when I returned to the hotel the manager of the Kurhaus handed to me an exceedingly pretty watch, on the cover of which were engraved these words:

“In memory of the performance given for Princess Victoria.”

_The Curiosity of the Archduchesses of Austria._

I was once at the Swedish gymnasium at Carlsbad, where machines with electrical vibrations shock you from head to foot. I was just about to dress myself when one of the women of the place came to me, and said:

“Won’t you please return to the hall, and pretend to take the electric treatment again in order that the archduchesses, who are there, with a whole crowd of court ladies, may see you?”

I replied: “Tell the archduchesses that they can see me this evening at the theatre.”

The poor woman then declared to me that she had been forbidden to mention their Royal Highnesses, and that they had bidden her get me back into the hall on some pretext or other.

She was so grieved at not having succeeded that I returned to the machines, and had my back massaged, in order that the noble company might look at me at their ease, as they would survey an interesting animal.

They looked at me, all of them, smiling, and while they viewed me I never turned my eyes away from them.

The odd thing was that they did not know that I knew them. I was, therefore, as much amused by them, and without their perceiving it, as they were amused by me.

_How I was not decorated with the Order of the Lion and the Sun of Persia._

During one of the visits that the Shah of Persia pays to Paris, the Marquis and Marquise d’Oyley, who were great friends of the Sovereign and who were very fond of my dancing, brought the Shah to one of my performances at Marigny.

After my appearance on the stage the Marquis and Marquise, accompanied by some dignitaries of the sovereign’s retinue, came to my dressing-room and brought me a Persian flag, which they begged me to use in one of my dances.

What could I do with that heavy flag? In vain I racked my brain. I could not discover any way. I could not refuse, and I was unable on the other hand to convince them that it was impossible to try anything so impromptu without running the risk of a failure.

More and more perplexed I made my entrance for the last dance. I had the great flag in my arms. I tried to wave it gracefully, but I did not succeed. I tried to strike a noble attitude, still holding the flag. Again I failed. It was a woollen banner and would not float. Finally I stood stock still, holding the staff upright, in as imposing an attitude as possible. Then I bowed until the curtain fell.

My friends were surprised to observe that my last dance had displeased his Majesty. The Shah finally told them that he did not see why the Persian flag had been desecrated. No one dared to tell him that the idea had not come from me, but from persons of his retinue, or to inform him how I had received the flag.

My friends, the d’Oyleys, consoled me by saying that my pose had been very noble and that even the flag, falling around me in heavy folds, had produced a very striking effect.

The Shah decorates everybody who has attracted his attention; that is a habit he has acquired. For my part, thanks to the brilliant idea of the dignitaries from the court of Teheran, I have never seen either the tail of the Lion or a ray of the Sun peculiar to Persian decoration.

I have been told on other authority that on this evening the Shah’s first thought was of a bomb which, so it had been announced, was to be thrown at him in the hall. He was thinking of this rather than of my person, my dances or even of the Persian flag I “profaned.”

_My Adventure with a Negro King._

At the Colonial exposition in Marseilles in 1907 I was with some friends in the pavilion of one of the exhibitors when a magnificent negro, six feet high, who looked like some prince from the Thousand and One Nights, came upon the terrace where we sat. He was accompanied by a large retinue. The other negroes were dressed the same as he, but none of them had his magnificent presence.

Some French officials accompanied the visitors, who, naturally, created a tremendous effect with their costumes, which were simple but exquisitely finished. When they came near I exclaimed:

“He might be called a king out of a fairy tale!”

They passed before us and took their places in the reception hall.

The proprietor presently came to our group, and asked us if we would not like to assist him in receiving the King of Djoloff in Senegal.

“He is visiting the Exposition as a private citizen,” he added. “If you would like to make his acquaintance come and I will present you.”

I was charmed.

When I was in the presence of the king, I said quietly to my friends, in a distinct voice and in French:

“What a handsome savage; I wonder if they are all built on this model in Africa.”

I was presented to the king. He extended his hand, and, to my consternation, I heard him say in very good French:

“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Fuller. I have applauded you frequently. My education was gained in Paris.”

I could not repress an exclamation.

“Good heavens! Then you heard what I said, and you never raised an eyelash!”

“No, since you did not suppose that I understood you.”

I looked at him for a minute or two to find out whether he had been irritated or not. He smiled diplomatically and I felt that we should be friends.

I was dancing at Marseilles at that time. He came to the theatre to see me after the performance.

“What can we do that will give you pleasure in exchange for the great satisfaction that your dances have just brought us?” he asked me.

I thought the matter over a minute.

“I should like it very much if I might be present at one of your religious ceremonies.”

The black chief promised to come to my hotel, and to give me an idea of the ritualistic practices of his country.

The next day, accordingly, I made preparations for a tea-party in the hotel garden. Rugs were spread on the grass and everything was in readiness to receive the monarch.

“When will the ceremony begin?” I asked the king as soon as he had arrived.

“We shall say our prayer at six o’clock, just at sunset.”

As night came on I observed that the king and his followers began to survey the sky in every direction, and I wondered why. Noting my wonderment, the king told me that they were endeavouring to get their bearings in order to be certain of the point toward which the sun was tending at the end of his journey.

“We are required,” he said, “always to pray with our faces toward the setting sun.”

He gave the order to begin the ceremony then and there. I wish I could describe it as perfectly as I saw it.

The unity of the motions of all these men was simply wonderful. All together they said the same brief prayer, and with mechanical precision made the same movement, which, from the point of view of devotion, seemed to have similar importance to the words of their ritual. The large white cloaks, spread over long blue blouses, waved round their bodies. The men prostrated themselves, touched the ground with their foreheads and then raised themselves together. The rhythm and precision were most impressive. It was really very, very beautiful.

After the prayers the king told me that his father had been dethroned and then exiled from Senegal by the French Government. As for himself, in his turn he had been nominated chief of his tribe, for in reality there was no longer a king. He was a French subject, and in his country, which was tributory to France, he was no more than chief of his clan.

But the majesty remained, nevertheless, magnificently expressed in his features.

While we were conversing I asked permission to put some indiscreet questions. After he had consented, all the while smiling his peculiarly winning smile, I asked him if he was married?