Chapter M: Groult’s Collection (2)

He replied in the affirmative. He had four wives. As I appeared to be surprised to note that he travelled without them, especially in a country where there are so many pretty women, he, in his turn, looked at me for some time, and replied:

“From the point of view of my wives a white woman has neither charm nor beauty.”

This surprised me greatly, and I asked him whether that was because they had never seen any white women.

“Oh,” he replied, “in any case they would not be jealous of a white woman. It seems to them absolutely impossible that a pale-faced woman can play any part in my life.”

“And you? Are you so sure of that? If a white woman with long blonde hair should suddenly appear in your country, among your black women, would she not be taken for an angel?”

“Oh, no. She would be taken for a devil. Angels are black in our Paradise.”

This, I must confess, opened new vistas in the domain of religion. It had never before appeared so clear to me that men make their gods in their own image, rather than that the gods make men after theirs.

_How the Empress of China Degraded a Mandarin on my Account._

I was dancing in New York when several of Li Hung Chang’s followers came to the theatre. Some friends presented me to the American military attaché, Mr. Church, who accompanied the Viceroy.

Thanks to Mr. Church I was able to satisfy my curiosity and become acquainted with these high Chinese dignitaries. When they left for their own country my manager went with them, in the hope that, through their good offices, I might dance at the Chinese court in the presence of the dowager Empress and her son.

As soon as my representative was in China, he cabled me that everything had been arranged and that I was to take the first steamer leaving Vancouver.

* * * * *

After crossing the continent I was on the point of embarking with my mother, when the state of her health caused me the keenest anxiety. Her prostration was so complete that I was obliged to send a message to China, indicating the impossibility of keeping my engagement.

My manager rejoined us utterly dejected.

At Pekin a magnificent reception had been prepared for me. I was to dance before the Emperor and Empress and then in Japan I was to appear before the Mikado. The theatre of the best Japanese actor, Danjero, was to be put at my disposal. And all that to no purpose whatever. My manager brought back from this oriental country the most marvellous of embroideries, which Li Hung Chang had sent over for me.

I experienced genuine regret at the failure of this trip, then I forgot all about it.

One evening in London one of my friends at dinner found herself seated next to a very high Chinese official. Apropos of the rich colouring of the mandarin’s garments, they came to speak about me and my coloured dances, and my friend said to her companion:

“You are acquainted with Loie Fuller, I presume.”

“Well, yes, madam,” he replied. “I am only too well acquainted with her, if I may say so.”

“How is that?”

“I went to the United States with Li Hung Chang. Loie Fuller’s manager accompanied us on our return to China, and, through the influence of the Viceroy, we gained permission for Loie Fuller to appear before the Empress. Just as she was about to leave for Pekin she broke her agreement. It fell upon me to inform her Majesty that Loie Fuller was unable to obey the Imperial mandate. The Empress had me degraded! That was eight years ago. I lost my yellow jacket, which has only recently been restored to me.”

My friend pleaded my case, alleging the condition of my mother’s health, and the seriousness of her malady at the time of my failure to report in the celestial empire.

I suppose that it would be too much to expect of His Excellency to ask him to forgive my mistake. If I had known that my failure to appear would be attended with such consequences, I should, instead of cabling to my manager, have forwarded a long dispatch to the Empress herself, telling her the reasons for my failure to keep an engagement. A woman with a heart, even if she be an Empress, could not blame a daughter for doing her duty towards her mother.

_How Queen Alexandra did not fail to see me._

One morning the papers said that the King and Queen of England were going to spend several days in Paris.

I was then dancing at the Hippodrome and, remembering what Princess Marie of Roumania had told me, I decided not to let this occasion slip, and I wrote to the Queen herself, asking if she would be kind enough to set aside an hour in which I might give a performance, at her own convenience and whenever she chose.

I should never, indeed, have supposed it possible to ask her to come to the Hippodrome. One of her maids of honour answered the note, saying that Her Majesty’s stay was of limited duration, and that she had already accepted too many invitations to undertake any new engagements.

After that I thought no more of the Queen.

Arriving at a matinee one Thursday, I noticed in front of the Hippodrome quite an impressive line of carriages, all displaying the royal insignia.

“The Queen has sent some one to my matinee,” I thought. “She wants to know whether my dances are really worth seeing. If I make a pleasant impression the Queen will perhaps some day ask me to dance before her.”

I went into my dressing-room. I had nearly finished my preparations when the manager rushed in post haste calling out:

“It’s four o’clock and the Queen has been waiting since half-past two.”

“What! The Queen is here! Why didn’t you inform me sooner?”

He was too unnerved to make a lengthy explanation. I hurried down and two minutes later I was on the stage.

In the middle of my dance the Queen arose and left the theatre with all her attendants. I saw her rise and go!

I thought the floor would open and engulf me. What had I done to offend her? Was she indignant that I had made her wait? Was this her way of punishing me for my discourtesy, or did my dances displease her? What was I to think?

I went home in utter despair.

I had just realised one of my dearest wishes, that of dancing before the Queen. Never had I experienced such dejection. I should have preferred a thousand times that she had not come.

I learned afterward at the theatre that a telephone message had come shortly after noon to the effect that the Queen wished to see Loie Fuller, but that she would have to leave at four o’clock.

The manager, who had supposed that the Queen was coming to see the Hippodrome, had not attached any importance to the intimation regarding me, and did not even take the trouble to find out whether I was there or not.

Next morning all the papers recorded that the Queen of England had come to the Hippodrome, despite her many appointments and engagements made some time earlier, and so forth and so forth.

There was not a word about me.

However, as I had written to the Queen to ask her to come it seemed to me that I ought to excuse myself for my apparent discourtesy. I wrote to her accordingly, telling her how distressed I was at my failure to appear earlier--a failure that would not have occurred if some one had come to apprise me. I regretted that the message had not been forwarded to me instead of to the manager.

That same evening one of my friends came to tell me that she had written the day before to one of the Queen’s maids of honour, whom she knew personally, asking her to come and see me dance at the Hippodrome.

_Photo_ _Lafitte_]

“That will make your new dances celebrated all over the world,” said my friend. “The Queen will come, I am certain of it, if it is at all possible.”

Overcome with surprise, I looked at my friend, and exclaimed:

“Well, then, that is why she came this afternoon!”

“Has she already come to see you? I should not have expected such promptness.”

“She came to the matinee.”

And I told my friend the whole story in detail.

She still could not understand why the Queen had left so hastily, and enquired into the reason.

Presently everything was explained.

The Queen had agreed to visit a painter’s studio at half-past three and then, at four o’clock, to call upon M. and Mme. Loubet. Nevertheless she remained at the Hippodrome until ten minutes past four. The King went alone to the studio and the Queen arrived late at the President’s house.

After that I fully appreciated her kindness, her patience. I still feel endless gratitude to her for having waited so long, for not having left the theatre without seeing, if it was only for a moment, Loie Fuller and her dances.

As for the manager, he is still convinced that the Queen did not come to see Loie Fuller, but the Hippodrome, and only the Hippodrome.

XVI

OTHER MONARCHS

I shall always remember with great pleasure my six hundredth appearance in Paris.

I was then dancing at the Athénée. The whole house had been bought up by students. When I came on the stage each spectator threw a bunch of violets at me. It took five minutes to gather up the flowers.

When I had finished dancing, a fresh avalanche of flowers poured upon the stage. During the performance I received from my admirers, along with an album of sketches signed with names, several of which are now famous, an exquisite statuette representing me in a characteristic attitude.

When I was ready to leave the theatre, the students took my horses out of the shafts and drew my carriage themselves. At the Madeleine the crowd was so dense that the police warned us to stop. But as soon as they had learned that it was “La Loie” in whose honour the triumphal procession was decreed, we had permission to go our way without interruption. The young men drew my carriage all the way to Passy, where I lived. They conscientiously awakened all the inhabitants with their outcries.

Finally we reached the house. I did not know what I was going to do with these boys, but they themselves solved the problem without delay.

After they had rung the bell and as soon as my gate had swung on its hinges they emitted a shout all together, and started to run away as if possessed. I could hear them for a long time afterwards, shouting: “Vive l’art! Vive La Loie!”

I have often wondered whether the police were as lenient on their return.

In Marseilles, at the time of the Colonial Exposition, one of the commissioners of fine arts asked me if I would not like to perform out-of-doors.

That was one of my dearest wishes, and I consented readily.

Preparations were made at once for my performance, which was to be given in the same place where we had admired the King of Cambodia’s dancers. The stage was built opposite to the Grand Palais.

The director of the Exposition had placed behind the platform some great plants, in order that I might be relieved against a background of green foliage, which would be particularly favourable to the brilliancy of the figures in the foreground. Below the stage were two little ponds, with sparkling fountains.

The evening of my first appearance arrived. I was feverishly impatient.

Nothing had been done to advertise it to the public of Marseilles, for we regarded this first evening as a kind of rehearsal, which we should repeat a week later, if it met with success. It was only this next performance that we expected to announce formally.

It was a starlight night. There were at least thirty thousand visitors at the Exposition.

The lights were put out and the crowd rushed towards the platform. In spite of its impromptu character the performance was a remarkable success, and the committee decided from this time on to continue to give outdoor performances.

During the second evening, just as the lights were about to be extinguished, a man came and said to me as I was on my way to the stage:

“Just look, before they put the lights out, at the human wave curling at your feet.”

I had never seen anything like it.

After the electric lights had been shut off I began to dance. The rays of light enveloped me. There was a movement in the crowd, which reverberated in echoes like the mutterings of a storm.

Exclamations followed, “Ohs” and “Ahs,” which fused into a sort of roar, comparable to the wailing of some giant animal.

You can hardly imagine anything like it. It seemed to me that on my account alone this spectacle was presented by all this moving crowd before me.

A calm ensued. The orchestra, not a very large one, seemed to me utterly ineffective in such a space. The audience, which was seated on the other side of the fountains, certainly could not hear it.

The first dance came to its close. The extinguishing of my lighting apparatus left us, the public and me, in utter darkness. The uproar of the applause became something fantastic in the dead of night. It was like the beating of a single pair of hands, but so powerful that no noise in the world could be compared with it.

I danced four times, and the different sensations expressed by the audience were most remarkable. They gave me the most vivid impression I have ever experienced. It was something immense, gigantic, prodigious.

That day I had a feeling that the crowd was really the most powerful of monarchs.

There are other monarchs as well as kings and crowds. Certain emotions are kings, too.

At Nice, at the Riviera Palace Hotel, I noticed one day at a table near mine a young man of distinguished appearance whose glance met my own several times successively, almost, one would fancy, in spite of himself. During the following days we surveyed each other again and again at meal times, but without progressing further towards acquaintance.

I had a number of friends with me. He was alone. Gradually my heart went out to him, although we had never exchanged a word. I did not know who he was, and I had no notion of seeking his acquaintance. Yet his brown eyes and his type of personality, calm and simple, exerted a sort of fascination over me. A week later I discovered, to my great confusion, that I was perpetually haunted by his eyes and that I could not forget his smile.

One evening there was a ball at the hotel. I was invited, of course.

As I have already said, I had a great many friends there. All at once, in a corner, I noticed my neighbour of the dining-hall. He spoke to no one. He was not dancing. I began to feel sorry to see him so entirely alone. My sympathy went out more than ever towards him.

Some days later I was engaged for a performance that was to take place at the hotel in honour of a Russian grand duke, two kings and an empress.

I remember that Patti was in the front row. When I appeared before this choice assembly, a single figure persisted in detaching itself from the rest of the crowd. It was the figure of my unknown young man. Who could he be to be noted thus, in the role of an invited guest, among these princes and princesses? He rested his elbow on the back of his chair. His hand was under his chin. His legs were crossed with easy negligence. He looked at me continuously. Everybody applauded over and over again. He alone did not lift a finger.

Who was this man? Why did his countenance haunt me? Why did he watch me so insistently? Why did he not join in the applause?

The next day, on the verandah, I was comfortably seated in a rocking-chair, all the while wondering who my handsome dark man could be. Coming back to earth I saw him there by my side, ensconced in one of those odd willow seats that enclose you as in a sentry box.

His eyes again met mine. We did not speak, but both of us experienced a deep desire to exchange greetings. Just at that moment the hotel manager came up and began to talk to us. Then, observing that we were not acquainted, he introduced us. I learned then that he was son of an industrial leader of international standing--one of the best known in Paris as well as St. Petersburg and Vienna. Immediately I wanted to know everything about him. He on his side wished me to tell him all sorts of things of which I had never even dreamed. We were at once on terms of delightful intimacy.

A short time after I was obliged to leave Nice. Just as my train was about to go, my good friend jumped into my carriage and accompanied me as far as Marseilles. There he bade me adieu and returned to Nice.

Letter writing followed, in the course of which he told me how highly he regarded my friendship--more highly in fact than anything else in the world. For my part I thought of him more often than I should care to confess, but I had my wits about me sufficiently to announce to him, at the cost of a great effort of will, that he was too young for our feelings of regard for each other to continue without danger to both, and that he ought to forget me.

Just at this time there was presented to me a viscount, who laid claim to my heart and hand. Need I confess that, with my eyes still filled with pictures of the other man, I could not endure his assiduous importunity. No one is deafer, says a French proverb, than who he is unwilling to hear. And the viscount would not listen to my discouraging remarks.

He seemed to have imposed upon himself, in spite of my rebuffs, which were often severe and always discourteous, the task of bringing me to terms. Undoubtedly, in spite of my reserve and coldness, he might eventually have succeeded if one fine evening he had not dropped out altogether under threat of legal proceedings. He had a well-established reputation as a swindler.

During the time when the viscount was playing his game to win my affections, my good friend’s communications stopped coming. I wrote him several letters. They were never answered.

Some years later, in 1900, I had installed my theatre, as is perhaps still remembered, at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

One day as I was on my way to the theatre I saw at a distance my lover of the days at Nice. My heart began to beat violently.

My friend approached. We were going to pass each other. He had not yet seen me; for he was walking with his eyes on the ground. Standing still, with my left hand restraining the beating of my heart, I waited, feasting my eyes upon him. He turned his head and passed me.

I was destined not to see him again for a long time.

Meantime, indeed, I learned through a third person that he had told his father of his desire to marry me. A violent scene took place between the two men. The father threatened to disinherit him. The poor boy was sent away, almost by main force, on a voyage round the world.

I have frequently reflected since then on the part the “viscount” played in all this affair, and I should not be astonished to learn that he led some artful embassy against His Majesty King Love.

XVII

SOME PHILOSOPHERS

I have frequently seen monarchs whose profession consisted in ruling the crowd. I have sometimes seen crowds that appeared to me mightier than the greatest of monarchs.

More rarely I have encountered philosophers, out of touch with everything, who yet were able to create kingdoms within themselves. These last have seemed to me more affecting than the proudest of monarchs or the most impressive of crowds. Characteristic traits of some of these are worthy of being described here. I should like to try to do so, because of the emotions they have aroused in me.

We were living at Passy, my mother and I, in a house situated in the centre of a garden. One day I heard some animated music coming from the street. I ran to the gate to look at the makers of this joyful harmony. A man and a woman were passing. The man played an accordion as he walked with short steps. He was blind, and his wife led him. The music was so sprightly, so different from the folk who were making it, that I hailed the pair. I wanted the man to play in the garden, behind the house, so that my mother, who was paralysed, might hear him. They consented very willingly. I made them sit down under a tree, near my mother’s chair, and the man played on the accordion until a servant came to say that lunch was served. I asked the man and his wife if they had eaten. When I discovered they had had nothing since the day before, I told the maid they were going to share our meal.

At table we had a long conversation. The man had always been blind. I asked him if he could perceive difference among colours. No. But he was able, at least, to tell without fear of making a mistake, whether the weather was clear or cloudy, dull or pleasant. He was extremely sensitive to differences of texture.

I placed a rose in his hand and asked him what it was. Without hesitation and without raising the flower to his nostrils he replied:

“It is a rose.”

Almost immediately, grasping it gently in his fingers, he added:

“It is a beautiful one, too, this rose, very beautiful.”

A little more and he would have told me whether it was a _La France_, a _Maréchal Niel_, or some other species of rose.

As he had used the word “beautiful” I asked him what seemed to him the most beautiful thing in the world.

“The most beautiful thing alive is woman.”

I then asked him who the person was in whose company I had found him. His voice took on a tender tone as he said:

“It is my wife, my dear wife.”

After that I looked with more attention at the self-effacing and almost dumb soul who accompanied the blind musician. Confused, embarrassed, she had lowered her eyes, which she kept obstinately fixed upon an apron, of a faded blue, on which the patches appeared to be more extensive than the original material.

She was unattractive, poor thing, and at least twenty years older than her companion.

Quietly, without concerning myself with the beseeching looks the poor woman cast at me from under wrinkled and reddened eyebrows, I asked the blind musician:

“She satisfies you, does she?”

“Certainly.”

“You find her beautiful?”

“Very beautiful.”

“More beautiful than other women?”

As he had peopled his darkness with beauty my optimist replied:

“I do not say that, for all women are beautiful. But she is better, yes, better than most of them, and it is that which, in my sight, constitutes the purest beauty.”

“What makes you think she is better than the others?”

“Oh, everything. Her whole life, her whole manner of existence as regards me.”

And in words so convincing that for a moment I felt that he could see, he added:

“Just look at her, my good lady. Isn’t it a fact that goodness is written on her face?”

The woman, with her eyes lowered, kept looking at her blue apron. I then asked the blind man how he had made his living up to this time, and how they had become acquainted, he and his companion.

“I used to be, owing to infirmity, a real burden upon my family. I did whatever I could but I could not do much. I washed the dishes, lighted the fire, picked the vegetables, swept the floor, washed the windows, made the beds--perhaps badly, but at any rate I did all that, and although we were very poor at home they kept me. The day came, however, when my mother died. Then it was my father’s turn. I had to leave the empty house. I went on the road armed with my accordion, asking for alms. My accordion became my best friend. But I blundered along the roads. Then I met my dear companion who is with me, and I married her.”

She was a cook, the woman told me this herself in an undertone, who had become too old to keep her place, and who consented to join her fate with that of the wandering blind man, serving as his guide along the roads. The blind man found this arrangement a blessing from Heaven, a kindness bestowed upon him by Providence. They were married without delay.

“But how do you manage to live?” I asked.

“Well, it is not always easy to make both ends meet, for alas! now and then, one of us falls ill. We are getting old, you understand. When it is not fatigue that gets the better of us, then there is always the cold. There are times when we cannot go out. Then it is necessary to take a notch in one’s girdle.”

Each day they visited one district of Paris. They had divided the city into blocks, and they sometimes walked miles before arriving at their destination, for they lived far from the centre, in one of the poorest suburbs.

“What day do you go by here?”

“Every Sunday, before mass. Many people of this quarter go to church, and we encounter them going and coming.”

“Do they give you something?”

“It is a rich neighbourhood. We have several very good clients.”

“Good what?” I asked. “Good clients?”

“Yes, good clients,” he repeated simply.

“And who are these clients?”

“They are servants of the rich.”

“Servants?”

“Yes, some of them are very good. They give us old clothes; food and money when they can.”

“And the rich people themselves?”

“We do not see them often. This is the first time a client has ever invited us to lunch, and we have been going through this street for seven years. No one ever asked us to come in before.”

“What do you do when you are tired?”

“We sit down on a bench or on one of the steps, and we eat whatever we have in our pockets. Here we eat while they are at church.”

“Very well. You will have no need to bring anything to eat the day you come by here. I invite you for every Sunday.”

I expected impassioned thanks. The man said simply:

“We thank you very much, good lady.”

Shortly after, I left for a long tour in America, and during my absence my domestics received them every Sunday. From their point of view I was merely a sure client.

One day I gave them tickets for a great concert. I was in the hall and observed them.

The woman was overcome at seeing so many fashionable people. As for the man, his features aglow with an unearthly light, his head thrown a little back after the way of the blind, he was in ecstasy, intoxicated with the music.

After four years they disappeared. I never saw them again.

The man, whom I had seen to be failing, probably died, and the woman, the poor old thing, so unattractive in her blue apron, undoubtedly did not dare to return alone.

At Marseilles I saw another blind man, a very old man, seated on a folding stool against a wall.

Beside him stood a basket, guarded by a very young dog, who sniffed at all the passers-by and barked after each one. I stopped to talk to the old man.

“Do you live all alone?” I asked him.

“Oh, no,” he replied. “I have two dogs. But I cannot bring the other one with me. He makes a continual disturbance, leaps and fidgets so much that he never gets fat and any one would think to see him that I don’t give him anything to eat. As a matter of fact, you see, I cannot show him without being ashamed of him. People would suppose that I was allowing him to die of hunger. Anyway I need only one dog here. As for the other I leave him at the house, where he serves as watch dog.”

“Oh, you have a house,” I said.

“That is to say, I have a room, I call it my house.”

“Who does your cooking for you? Who makes the fire at your house?”

“I do,” he replied. “I light a match and then by the crackling of the wood I know whether it has caught.”

“How do you clean your vegetables?”

“Oh, that is easy. I can tell by the feeling when the potatoes are well peeled.”

“And the fruits and the salad?”

“Oh, that is something we do not have very often.”

“I suppose you eat meat.”

“Not very often, either. We have bread and vegetables, and when we are rich we buy some cheese.”

“Why does your dog sniff so at every one passing by? Why does he bark so spitefully?”

“Ah, madam, you see each time that any one hands me a sou, thanks to his grimaces, I give him a little piece of bread. There, look at him now.”

At this moment somebody had just thrown a coin into the blind man’s bowl. The old man drew from his pocket a little piece of dry bread.

The animal fell upon it with such a cry of joy that one might have supposed he had just received the daintiest titbit in the world. He nearly devoured his master with caresses.

“At what time do you eat? Do you go home to your lunch?”

“No. I carry my lunch in a basket.”

I looked. It contained some crusts of bread and nothing else.

“Is that all that you have to eat?”

“Why, yes. Like the dog, I don’t ruin my digestion.”

“Where do you drink when you are thirsty?”

He pointed to a corner of the alley, where there was a little fountain, alongside of which hung a goblet attached to a chain.

“And the dog?”

“He leads me to the fountain when he is thirsty and I give him his share.”

“Do you come here every day?”

“Yes. This is the entrance to the baths. We do a good business here.”

“How much do you make a day?”

“Twenty sous, sometimes thirty. That depends on the day. There have been times when we have made more than two francs. But that is rare. I have my rent to pay and three mouths to feed, my two dogs and myself.”

“Where do you get your clothes?”

“They are given me by one and another. The butcher, the grocer, the cabinetmaker, these are very kind to me.”

“Are you happy all alone so?”

“I am not all alone. I have my dogs. The only thing I lack is my eyesight. But I thank Providence every day for keeping me in good health.”

It was in consequence of a malignant fever that he had lost his eyesight, for unlike my blind man at Passy, this man was not born blind. Formerly he had been able to admire nature, to see pretty girls in a country flooded with sunlight, to enjoy with his own eyes the smile in other eyes, in eyes tender and well loved. In short he had seen. What sadness his must be, to be unable to see again!

With much diplomacy I asked him about this.

He had far less difficulty in answering me.

“I used to admire many pretty things,” he said. “I still have them carefully enclosed under my eyelids. I see them again whenever I wish, just as if they were there before me once again. And so, you see, as these are things of my youth it seems to me that, in spite of everything, in spite of being such an old hulk as I am, I have remained young. And I thank the dear Lord for having been kind enough not to have made me blind from birth.”

“And how old are you?”

“Eighty years, madam.”

This old man had a long walk before him to get back to his residence. As I commiserated him regarding this, he replied:

“There is no reason for complaining, madam, I have such a good guide, such a brave little comrade!”

He made an almost theatrical gesture, and said, in a voice filled with emotion:

“My dog!”

“Does he guide you through the streets of Marseilles?”

“He does!”

“And no accident happens to you?”

“Never. One day I was crossing a street. My dog pulled at me so hard from behind that I fell backward. I was just in time. A step more and I should have been crushed by a tramcar, which grazed me. I am mighty lucky, come now, to have a dog like that.”

In all circumstances this old man was willing to see only the favourable side of things. That side, at least with the eyes of imagination, the blind man could see.

One day the charwoman who came to our house at Passy to help the servants arrived very late.

As she was ordinarily exceedingly punctual, I reproached her in a way I should not have done if she had been habitually unpunctual. Here is what I found out about this brave woman.

Three years before one of her neighbours, a working woman, had had an attack of paralysis. This neighbour was poor, old, without relatives and no one would bother with her. The poor little charwoman, encumbered with a drunken husband and six children, agreed to take care of the paralytic and her home if the other neighbours would be willing to provide the bare necessities of life. She succeeded in overcoming the selfishness of each and every one in the warmth of her kindness. From that time on she never ceased in the rare hours when she was free to look after the paralytic. She attended to the housework, the cooking, the washing. The neighbour’s condition grew worse. The case was one of complete paralysis. The assistance which she had to give to this half-dead woman was often of the most repulsive kind. Always smiling, always tidy, always cheerful, she gave to the human hulk she had taken under her protection the most thorough and intelligent care.

My little charwoman had always, at all times, been cheerful. I wondered what kind of gaiety she would exhibit when at last the paralytic’s death should free her from the load with which she had benevolently burdened her life. This morning, the morning on which she came late, she was crying. She wept warm tears.

I supposed that my reproach had caused this tearful outpouring. But not at all. She said to me between sobs:

“I am crying--crying--because--she’s dead--the poor woman.”

It was her neighbour the paralytic for whom she wept.

In the north of Ireland I once saw some children barefooted in the snow, during an intensely cold February. With some friends I visited the poor quarter of a provincial city, where, I was told, people working in the mills lived twelve or even more in cabins containing but two rooms.

We placed no especial credence in these stories and we decided to look into the matter for ourselves. It was all true, nevertheless. In some cases the conditions were even worse.

On reaching the district in question we noticed that a little boy had followed our carriage. At a trot sharp enough to run his little legs off he continued for about a mile and a half, all in the hope of getting twopence.

The small boy came forward to open the door of our carriage. The coachman rebuked him brutally. The child had so odd an expression that I began to talk to him. He had five brothers and sisters. He did the best he could to pick up something in the streets, and he made from sixpence to eightpence a day. Just at present he was trying to get a little money to buy some coal for his mother.

I, doubting the truth of these statements, made him take me to his hut, which he had pointed out to us.

“That is where I live, madam.”

Certainly there was no coal in the house, but there were three sick people. The father swept snow in the streets to make a few pennies, for in this cold weather the mill where he worked was not running.

There was complete wretchedness, frightful wretchedness, irreparable wretchedness. And yet our little lad sang while he trotted behind our carriage, just as his father whistled as he swept the snow.

Is not misery the school, the sadly sovereign school, of philosophy?

XVIII

HOW I DISCOVERED HANAKO

Everything that comes from Japan has always interested me intensely. Consequently it is easy to understand with what pleasure I came into relationship with Sada Yacco, and why I did not hesitate to assume financial responsibility for her performances when she decided to come to Europe with her whole company.

Sada Yacco had brought with her a troupe of thirty people. These thirty cost me more than ninety of another nationality would have done; for apart from everything that I was obliged to do to entertain them, I had constantly to go down on my knees to secure permission to attach to each train that carried them an enormous car laden with Japanese delicacies, rice, salted fish, mushrooms and preserved turnips--delicacies were necessary to support the existence of my thirty Japanese, including Sada Yacco herself. During one whole season I paid the railway companies 375,000 francs for transportation, but that cost me much less than to pay all the debts I should have been obliged to assume from Lisbon to St. Petersburg if I had decided to send my Japanese home.

I tried for a long time to get my money back by transporting my Nipponese and their viands up and down the earth, but, weary of the struggle, I finally assembled another troupe, which was as good as the first one and which was willing to travel without a cargo of rice and salted fish.

“Business is business” I am well aware. I decided, therefore, to endure bravely the losses I had incurred, and I was thinking of quite another subject when fortune appeared to smile on me again.

In London there was a Japanese troupe looking for an engagement. The actors came to see me. They made some ridiculous claims and I sent them away. But as they did not find an engagement, we came to an understanding, and I found an impresario for them, who took them to Copenhagen.

I went to Denmark, too, and I expected to look after the affairs of these Japanese and attend to my own business as well.

When they arrived at Copenhagen I saw the whole troupe for the first time. They all came to greet me at my hotel and played some piece or other of their own invention.

I noticed at that time, among the comedians, a charming little Japanese woman, whom I should have been glad to make the star of the company. Among these Japanese, however, women did not count for much, all the important roles being taken by men. She was, nevertheless, the only one who had attracted my attention. She played a minor part, it is true, but very intelligently, and with the oddest mimicry. She was pretty withal, refined, graceful, queer, and so individual as to stand out, even among those of her own race.

When the rehearsal was over I gathered the actors together and said to them:

“If you are going to remain with me you will have to obey me. And if you do not take this little woman as your star you will have no success.”

And as she had a name that could not be translated, and which was longer than the moral law, I christened her on the spot Hanako.

To make a long story short they assented to my request, and lengthened out my protégée’s role. In reality the play had no climax. I therefore made one for it then and there. Hanako had to die on the stage. After everybody had laughed wildly at my notion, and Hanako more than all the others; she finally consented to die. With little movements like those of a frightened child, with sighs, with cries as of a wounded bird, she rolled herself into a ball, seeming to reduce her thin body to a mere nothing so that it was lost in the folds of her heavy embroidered Japanese robe. Her face became immovable, as if petrified, but her eyes continued to reveal intense animation. Then some little hiccoughs convulsed her, she made a little outcry and then another one, so faint that it was hardly more than a sigh. Finally with great wide-open eyes she surveyed death, which had just overtaken her.

It was thrilling.

The evening of the first appearance came. The first act was successful. The actors acquired confidence and entered into the spirit of their parts, a fact which caused them to play wonderfully well. I was obliged to leave after the first act, for I was dancing at another theatre, but some one came to tell me at the close of the performance that Hanako had scored more than a success; it was a veritable triumph. To her it came as a genuine surprise, but one that was not more extraordinary than the anger provoked by her success among the actors of the company. The box office receipts, however, somewhat assuaged their sensitiveness, and I was able to give to the feminine member of the troupe a longer part in the new play, rehearsals of which were just beginning.

From this time on Hanako was in high favour. Everywhere she was obliged to double the number of her performances. After Copenhagen she made a nine months’ tour of Europe. Her success in Finland bordered upon popular delirium. Finland, it is interesting to note, has always evinced the greatest sympathy for Japan. This was during the time of the Russian-Japanese War.

She played in all the royal theatres of Europe. Then after a tour in Holland she came finally to Paris.

The Japanese and Hanako stayed with me for nearly a year. At the close of their contract they gave some performances at Marseilles and then dispersed. Some of them went home, others proceeded to Paris or elsewhere. Time passed, and I heard nothing more about my Japanese, when one day I received a letter from Hanako, who told me that she was at a cheap concert hall at Antwerp, where she had to sing and dance for the amusement of sailors, patrons of the place. She was all alone among strangers, and the man who had brought her to this degrading pursuit inspired her with mortal terror. She wrote me that she wanted at all costs to be saved from her fate, but that, without assistance, the thing was utterly impossible. She had gone from Marseilles to Antwerp with other actors of the troupe to take a steamer for Japan. At Antwerp she and her travelling companion had fallen into the hands of a low-lived compatriot, and she called me to her rescue.

One of the actors of the company happened to be in Paris, and I sent him to Antwerp with two of my friends. After numerous difficulties and thanks to the police, they were able to enter into communication with Hanako and tell her that they had come to take her away.

One evening she succeeded in escaping with her companion, and, with no baggage except the little Japanese robes which they wore, they took the train for Paris.

Hanako had been obliged to leave behind her little pet Japanese dog, lest by taking it away from the house she should arouse the proprietor’s suspicion. They reached Paris shrouded in the European cloaks I had sent them, which were far too long, and hid them completely.

Presently I found myself in Paris, manager of one of the most gifted Japanese artists, but, alas! with no company to support her. I was puzzled to know what to do with and what to do for a kind, gentle, sweet little Japanese doll.

I first tried to find out if some one would not engage Hanako, then an entire stranger to Paris, and a small, a very small company for one of the minor theatres.

I received from one of the managers a remarkable answer. If I could guarantee that the play which Hanako would present was a good one he would engage her.

The play? Why there was no play. But I was not bothered by a little detail like that, and I explained that Hanako would offer a wonderful play, one that was easy to understand whether you knew Japanese or not.

Then I signed a contract for ten performances on trial. A contract? Yes, it was a contract. And I had not secured my actors yet. And I had no play yet. I had, altogether, Hanako, her maid and a young Japanese actor. I was not discouraged, however. I undertook to find another actor. I secured one in London, thanks to an agent. Then I went to work to construct a play for four characters. There were two major roles and two supernumeraries. The result of my efforts was “The Martyr.”

A great difficulty now arose. The question came up of procuring wigs, shoes, costumes and various accessories. But here again luck helped me out. They made a very successful first appearance at the Théâtre Moderne in the Boulevard des Italiens. The play was given thirty presentations instead of ten and twice a day, at a matinee and in the evening. Presently the manager said to me:

“If your actors have another play as good as that one I would keep them a month longer.”

Naturally I declared they had another play, a better one than the first, and I signed a new contract.

New stage settings, new costumes and new accessories were necessitated. The result was a new tragedy called “A Drama at Yoshiwara.”

While the new play was running the manager of the Palais des Beaux-Arts at Monte Carlo made a very important offer for my Japanese, for three performances. I accepted. The troupe left for Monaco, where they gave twelve performances instead of three. In the meantime a small theatre, that of the Musée Grevin, proposed to engage my Nipponese for a month in a new play which was to be a comedy. To suit the purposes of this theatre we wrote “The Japanese Doll.” Next the Little Palace offered a month’s engagement for a play that was to be a tragi-comedy. There my Japanese played the “Little Japanese Girl.” Finally they went to the Treteau Royal, where Mr. Daly engaged them for their six plays, a circumstance that compelled me to increase their _repertoire_ by three new pieces, “The Political Spy,” “The Japanese Ophelia,” and “A Japanese Tea House.”

Hanako finally began a tour of Switzerland with the company. Mr. Daly suddenly wanted Hanako to appear in New York, and to break off this trip I needed more imagination and took more trouble than in writing a dozen plays. Then I was obliged, still on Mr. Daly’s account, to break an agreement for a tour in France.

Such is the history of my relations with Hanako, the great little actress from Japan. As it is always fitting that a story of this kind shall end with a wedding, I may say that, conforming to the tradition, the actor Sato, whom I sent to release Hanako at Antwerp, is now the husband of the little Japanese doll.

XIX

SARDOU AND KAWAKAMI

“Who is author of the play that Sada Yacco is playing?” a writer friend asked me one day.

“Kawakami, her husband.”

“Really. Well, then he ought to belong to the Society of Authors.”

And we proposed his name.

On the appointed day I took him to the Society of Authors. I was quite surprised to note that the gentlemen of the committee had turned out to a man to receive him.

We were ushered into the committee room, where these gentlemen awaited us, seated round a large table.

Sardou, who presided, received us with a very appropriate address. He greeted Kawakami as the man who first forged a literary bond between France and Japan. He warmly congratulated Kawakami on having been the first manager who had the courage to bring a company from his distant native land to a city where no one understood a word of Japanese. He complimented Kawakami and complimented him again, and ended by calling him his “dear comrade.”

After which he sat down.

There was silence, and I knew that they were expecting some response from Kawakami. But he seemed in no wise to suspect that he had furnished the theme for the discourse just ended. He remained calmly in his seat and surveyed the gentlemen one by one.

I realised the necessity for immediate action. Some one must sacrifice himself. In the present crisis, cost what it may, it devolved on me to intervene. Turning toward Kawakami, I asked, in pantomime: “Do you understand?”

He shook his head to say no.

Thereupon M. Sardou added:

“Speak to him, Miss Fuller. Translate to him what has just been said.”

Finally, since there was nothing else for it, I summoned all my strength, and at some length I explained in good English to Kawakami, who did not understand a syllable of it, that this speech Sardou had prepared expressly for him because he was a Japanese author, and because the French were greatly pleased that he had brought his Japanese company to Paris, and that the Society of Authors received him with pleasure. I then explained to Kawakami, with the indispensable assistance of appropriate gestures, that the time had arrived for him to get up and say something in Japanese.

Was it not the essential fact that these gentlemen believed that M. Sardou’s words had been translated?

Kawakami immediately arose and delivered an address which must have been most carefully thought out. To judge from the seriousness of the orator’s aspect, and from the length of his harangue Kawakami is a great political orator. When he had finished he sat down, while everybody looked at him admiringly, with beaming faces.

No one, however, had understood a single word of what he said. I, naturally, was in the same plight as the others. There ensued a second somewhat painful silence, broken by Sardou asking:

“What did he say, Miss Loie?”

That was a poser. For there was no reason why I should understand Japanese any better than these gentlemen of the Society of Authors.

As, however, I had a feeling that I was a little responsible for what took place, in order not to cause them any disappointment I screwed my courage up again, rose and began to make a speech. Those who know me can fancy what this speech was like. It was in French, but I would take my oath that it was as hard to understand as Kawakami’s Japanese. However, I managed to ring the changes on the words “Japanese gratitude, Japanese pride,” and I did my best to paint in glowing colours Kawakami’s joy at having established a bond between the theatrical worlds of the two countries.

My speech was only a bad imitation of what M. Sardou had said, and what I had vaguely understood of Kawakami’s views. I tried, in fact, to say what Kawakami would have said in my place and, with as much emphasis and big sincere words, I came to a close. Then before sitting down I asserted once more: “There, gentlemen, that is what he said.”

My role of being an interpreter without understanding the language was finished. There was a storm of hurrahs and the ice was broken. The conversation became general, and the meeting ended in being a great success so far as Kawakami was concerned. It was Kawakami’s day. As for me, I was not in it.

The result of this meeting was that Kawakami played Sardou’s _La Patrie_ in Japan, obtaining for this work a success as great as for the Shakespearean plays he likewise represents there, and whose parts he plays with such truth that he is called at home, “the Japanese Mark Antony.”