embankment, where self-important little tugs were raking the water with
the beams of their headlights. Thence we made many turnings, and
stopped at a house near the Models' Club. At this club, which was formed
only in 1913, the artists may go at any time to secure a model--which is
a distinct boon. The old way was for the model to call on the artist,
the result being that the unfortunate man was pestered with dozens of
girls for whom he had no use, while the one model he really wanted never
appeared. The club combines the advantages of club, employment bureau,
and hotel. There is no smoking-room; every room is a smoking-room, for
there are two things which are essential to the comfort of the
girl-model, and they are cigarettes and sweets. These are their only
indulgences, for, obviously, if you are depending for your livelihood on
your personal figure, self-denial and an abstemious life are compulsory.
If you want to know what is doing in the art world, who is painting
what, and why, then get yourself invited to tea--China tea only. The
gathering is picturesque, for the model has, of course, the knack of the
effective pose, not only professionally but socially. It is a beautiful
club, and it is one more answer to the eternal question Why Girls Don't
Marry. With a Models' Club, the Four Arts Club, the Mary Curzon Hotel,
and the Lyceum Club, why on earth should they?
The R.B.A. pulled up short and said there we were, and what about it? We
knocked at the door, and were admitted by an anarchist. At least, I
think he was an anarchist, because he was just like the pictures. I have
met only eighteen real anarchists, two of whom had thrown a bomb; but I
could never really believe in them; they wore morning coats and bowler
hats and were clean-shaven.
"Where are they?" asked the R.B.A.
"They're awa' oopstairs, laddie," said the anarchist. "Taak heed ye
dinna stoomble; the carrrpet's a wee bit loose."
We crossed the tiny hall and ascended the shabby stairs. From an open
door trickled the tones of a cheap piano and the mellow, philosophic
chant of the 'cello. They were playing Elgar's "Salut d'Amour." The room
was dark save for one candle at the piano and the dancing firelight. In
the dusk it looked like Balestieri's picture of "Beethoven" which adorns
every suburban drawing-room with a leaning towards the Artistic. People
were sprawled here and there, but to distinguish them was impossible. I
fell over some one's foot, and a light treble gurgled at me, "Sorry, old
boy!" I caught a whisk of curls as the thin gleam of the candle fell
that way. The R.B.A. crossed the room as one who was familiar with its
topography, and settled himself in a far chair. The anarchist took my
arm, and said:--
"Do ye sit down whurr ye can, laddie. And ye'll ha' a drink?"
I fell over some more feet and collapsed on a low settee. I found myself
by the side of a lady in solemn crimson. Her raven hair was hanging down
her back. Her arms were bare. She smoked a Virginia cigarette
vindictively. Sometimes she leaned forward, addressed the piano, and
said: "Shut that row, Mollie, can't you. We want to talk."
The anarchist brought me a Scotch-and-soda, and then she became aware of
my presence. She looked at me; she looked at the drink. She said to the
anarchist: "Where's mine?" He said: "What is it?" "Crem-dermont!" she
snapped.
Out of the smoky glooms of the room came light laughter and merry
voices. One saw dimly, as in a dream, graceful forms reclining
gracefully, attended by carelessly dressed but distinguished young men.
Some of these raised their voices, and one heard the self-proud accent
of Oxford. The music stopped, and the girls sprawled themselves more and
more negligently, nestling to the rough coats of the boys. The haze of
smoke thickened. I prepared for a boring evening.
One of the Oxford boys said he knew an awfully good story, but it was
rather risky, you know. I pricked up my ears. Did we know the
story--story about a fellah--fellah who had an aunt, you know? And
fellah's aunt was most frightfully keen on dogs and all that, you
know.... After three minutes of it I lost interest in the story. It
concerned Old George and Herbert and young Helen, and various other
people who seemed familiar to everybody but myself.
I never heard the finish of it. I became rather interested in a scene
near the window, where a boy of about my own age was furiously kissing a
girl somewhat younger. Then the lady at my side stretched a long arm
towards me, and languished, and making the best of a bad job, I
languished, too. When the funny story and the fellah's aunt had been
disposed of, some one else went to the piano and played Debussy, and the
anarchist brought me another drink; and the whole thing was such
painfully manufactured Bohemianism that it made me a little tired. The
room, the appointments, the absence of light, Debussy, the drinks, and
the girls' costumes were so obviously part of an elaborate make-up, an
arrangement of life. The only spontaneous note was that which was being
struck near the window. I decided to slip away, and fell down the ragged
stairs into Chelsea, and looked upon the shadow-fretted streets, where
the arc-lamps, falling through the trees, dappled the pavements with
light.
The skies were dashed with stars and a sick moon. It was trying to snow.
I tripped down the steps from the door, and ran lightly into a girl who
stood at the gate, looking up at the room I had just left. The cheek
that was turned toward me was clumsily daubed with carmine and rouge.
Snowflakes fell dejectedly about her narrow shoulders. She just glanced
at me, and then back at the window. I looked up, too. The piano was at
it again, and some one was singing. The thread of light just showed you
the crimson curtains and the heavy oak beams. The pianist broke into
Delilah's song, and the voice swam after it. It was a clear, warm
voice, typical of the fifth-rate concert platform. But the girl, her
face uplifted, dropped her lips in a half-whispered exclamation of
wonder, "Cuh!" I should have said that she was, for the first time,
touching finger-tips with beauty. It moved her as something comic should
have done. Her face lit to a smile, and then a chuckle of delight ran
from her.
The voice was doing its best. It sank to despair, it leaped to lyric
passion, it caressed a low note of ecstatic pain, and then, like a
dew-delighted bird, it fled up and hovered on a timid note of appeal.
The girl giggled. As the voice died on a long, soft note, she laughed
aloud, and swallowed. She looked around and caught my eye. It seemed
that she had something about which she must talk.
... "Not bad, eh?" she said.
"No," I answered. "Not so dusty."
"Makes you feel ... kind of rummy, you know, don't it? Wonder what it
feels like to sing like that, eh? Makes me ... sort of ... 'fyou
understand ... funny like. Makes me want to...."
From the window came one of the Oxford voices. "_No_ EARTHLY, dear old
girl. You'll _never_ sing. Your _values_, you know, and _all_ that
are...."
A RUSSIAN NIGHT
SPITALFIELDS AND STEPNEY
_STEPNEY CAUSEWAY_
_Beyond the pleading lip, the reaching hand,
Laughter and tear;
Beyond the grief that none would understand;
Beyond all fear.
Dreams ended, beauty broken,
Deeds done, and last words spoken,
Quiet she lies._
_Far, far from our delirious dark and light,
She finds her sleep.
No more the noisy silences of night
Shall hear her weep.
The blossomed boughs break over
Her holy breast to cover
From any eyes.
Till the stark dawn shall drink the latest star,
So let her be.
O Love and Beauty! She has wandered far
And now comes home to thee._
A RUSSIAN NIGHT
SPITALFIELDS AND STEPNEY
The Russian quarter always saddens me. For one thing, it has
associations which scratch my heart regularly every month when my
affairs take me into those parts. Forgetting is the most wearisome of
all pains to which we humans are subject; and for some of us there is so
much to forget. For some of us there is Beatrice to forget, and Dora,
and Christina, and the devastating loveliness of Isabel. For another
thing, its atmosphere is so depressingly Slavonic. It is as dismal and
as overdone as Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C sharp minor. How shall I give
you the sharp flavour of it, or catch the temper of its streets?
It seems impossible that one should ensnare its elusive spirit. Words
may come, but they are words, hard and stiff-necked and pedestrian. One
needs symbols and butterflies.
* * * * *
Beauty is a strange bird. Hither and thither she flies, and settles
where she will; and men will say that she is found here and
there--sometimes in Perugia, sometimes in Mayfair, sometimes in the
Himalaya. I have known men who found her in the dark melancholy of
Little Russia, and I can understand them. For beauty appears, too, in
various guise; and some men adore her in silks and some in rags. There
are girls in this quarter who will smite the heart out of you, whose
beauty will cry itself into your very blood. White's Row and the
fastnesses of Stepney do not produce many choice blooms; there are no
lilies in these gardens of weeds. The girls are not romantic to regard
or to talk with. They are not even clean. The secrets of their toilet
are not known to me, but I doubt if soap and water ever appear in large
quantities. And yet.... They walk or lounge, languorous and
heavy-lidded, yet with a curious suggestion of smouldering fire in their
drowsy gaze. Rich, olive-skinned faces they have, and hair either gloomy
or brassy, and caressing voices with the lisp of Bethnal Green. You may
see them about the streets which they have made their own, carrying
loads of as enchanting curls as Murger's Mimi.
But don't run away with the idea that they are wistful, or luscious, or
romantic; they are not. Go and mix with them if you nurse that illusion.
Wistfulness and romance are in the atmosphere, but the people are
practical ... more practical and much less romantic than Mr. John
Jenkinson of Golder's Green.
You may meet them in the restaurants of Little Montagu Street, Osborn
Street, and the byways off Brick Lane. The girls are mostly
cigarette-makers, employed at one of the innumerable tobacco factories
in the district. Cigarette-maker recalls "Carmen" and Marion Crawford's
story; but here are only the squalid and the beastly. Brick Lane and the
immediate neighbourhood hold many factories, each with a fine
odour--bed-flock, fur, human hair, and the slaughter-house. Mingle these
with sheep-skins warm from the carcass, and the decaying refuse in every
gutter, and you will understand why I always smoke cigars in
Spitalfields. In these cafes I have met on occasion those seriocomics,
Louise Michel, Emma Goldmann, and Chicago May. Beilis, the hero of the
blood-ritual trial, was here some months ago; and Enrico Malatesta has
visited, too. Among the men--fuzzy-bearded, shifty-eyed fellows--there
are those who have been to Siberia and back. But do not ask them about
Siberia, nor question how they got back. There are some things too
disgusting even to talk about. Siberia is not exciting; it is filthy.
But you may sit among them, the men and the dark, gazelle-eyed girls;
and you may take caviare, tea-and-lemon, and black bread; and
conversation will bring you a proffered cigarette.
It was in these streets that I first met that giant of letters, Mr. W.
G. Waters, better known to the newspaper public as "Spring Onions," but
unfortunately I did not meet him in his gay days, but in his second
period, his regeneracy. He was introduced to me as a fearsome rival in
the subtle art of Poesy. I stood him a cup of cocoa--for you know, if
you read your newspaper, that Spring was a teetotaller. He signed the
pledge, at the request of Sir John Dickinson, then magistrate at Thames
Police Court, in 1898, and it was his proud boast that he had kept it
ever since. He was then seventy-nine. His father died of drink at
thirty-seven, and Dean Farrar once told Spring that his case was
excusable, since it was hereditary. But, although Spring went to prison
at the age of thirteen for drunkenness, and has "been in" thirty-nine
times, he didn't die at thirty-seven. I wonder what the moral is? His
happiest days, he assured me, were spent in old Clerkenwell Prison, now
Clerkenwell Post Office, and on one occasion, as he was the only
prisoner who could read, he was permitted to entertain his companions by
extracts from _Good Words_, without much effect, he added, as most of
them are in and out even now. One important factor in the making of his
grand resolution was that a girl he knew in Stepney, who was so far gone
that even the Court missionary had given her up, came to him one
Christmastime. She was in the depths of misery and hunger.
"Spring," she said, "give me a job!"
So Spring gave her the job of cleaning out his one room, for which she
was to receive half a crown. She obeyed him; and when he returned, and
looked under the floor where he stored his savings from the sale of his
poems (nearly seven pounds) they also had been cleaned.
That settled it. Spring decided to cut all his acquaintances, but he
could only do that successfully by some very public step. So he went to
Sir John Dickinson and signed the pledge in his presence. Said he--
"And now, I find that after fifteen years of teetotalism, I write better
poetry. Every time I feel I want a drink, I say to myself: 'Spring--sit
down and write a poem!'"
He was then messenger at Thames Police Court, enjoying the friendship
and interest of all. He read me about a dozen of his lighter lyrics.
Here is one of the finer gems:--
How many a poet would like to have
Letters from royalty--prince, king, and queen;
But, like some insignificant ocean wave,
They are passed over, mayhap never seen.
But when I myself address good Royals,
And send them verses from my fertile brain,
See how they thank me very much for my flowing strain!
In proof of which he would dig out letters from King Edward, Queen
Alexandra, and Queen Mary.
One of these days I am going to do a book about those London characters
without reference to whom our daily newspapers are incomplete. I mean
people like the late lamented Craig, the poet of the Oval Cricket
Ground, Captain Hunnable, of Ilford, Mr. Algernon Ashton, Spiv. Bagster,
of Westminster, that gay farceur, "D. S. Windell," Stewart Gray, the
Nature enthusiast. But first and foremost must come--Spring Onions.
On the southern side of the quarter is Sidney Street, of sinister
memory. You remember the siege of Sidney Street? A great time for Little
Russia. You may remember how the police surrounded that little Fort
Chabrol. You may remember how the deadly aim of Peter the Painter and
his fellow-conspirators got home on the force again and again. You
remember how the police, in their helplessness against such fatalistic
defiance of their authority, appealed to Government, and how Government
sent down a detachment of the Irish Guards. There was a real Cabinet
Minister in it, too; he came down in his motor-car to superintend
manoeuvres and compliment gallant officers on their strategy. And yet,
in that great contest of four men versus the Rest of England, it was the
Rest of England that went down; for Fort Chabrol stood its ground and
quietly laughed. They were never beaten, they never surrendered. When
they had had enough, they just burnt the house over themselves, and ...
hara-kiri.... Of course, it was all very wicked; it is impossible to
justify them in any way. In Bayswater and all other haunts of unbridled
chastity they were tortured, burnt alive, stewed in oil, and submitted
to every conceivable penalty for their saucy effrontery. Yet, somehow,
there was a touch about it, this spectacle of four men defying the law
and order of the greatest country in the world, which thrilled every man
with any devil in him. Peter the Painter is a hero to this day.
* * * * *
I had known the quarter for many years before it interested me. It was
not until I was prowling around on a Fleet Street assignment that I
learnt to hate it. A murder had been committed over a cafe in Lupin
Street: a popular murder, fruity, cleverly done, and with a sex
interest. Of course every newspaper and agency developed a virtuous
anxiety to track the culprit, and all resources were directed to that
end. Journalism is perhaps the only profession in which so fine a public
spirit may be found. So it was that the North Country paper of which I
was a hanger-on flung every available man into the fighting line, and
the editor told me that I might, in place of the casual paragraphs for
the London Letter, do something good on the Vassiloff murder.
It was a night of cold rain, and the pavements were dashed with smears
of light from the shop windows. Through the streaming streets my hansom
leaped; and as I looked from the window, and noted the despondent
biliousness of Bethnal Green, I realized that the grass withereth, the
flower fadeth.
I dismissed the cab at Brick Lane, and, continuing the tradition which
had been instilled into me by my predecessor on the London Letter, I
turned into one of the hostelries and had a vodka to keep the cold out.
Little Russia was shutting up. The old shawled women, who sit at every
corner with huge baskets of black bread and sweet cakes, were departing
beneath umbrellas. The stalls of Osborn Street, usually dressed with
foreign-looking confectionery, were also retiring. Indeed, everybody
seemed to be slinking away, and as I sipped my vodka, and felt it burn
me with raw fire, I cursed news editors and all publics which desired to
read about murders. I was perfectly sure that I shouldn't do the least
good; so I had another, and gazed through the kaleidoscopic window,
rushing with rain, at the cheerful world that held me.
Oh, so sad it is, this quarter! By day the streets are a depression,
with their frowzy doss-houses and their vapour-baths. Grey and sickly is
the light. Grey and sickly, too, are the leering shops, and grey and
sickly are the people and the children. Everything has followed the
grass and the flower. Childhood has no place; for above the roofs you
may see the sharp points of a Council School. Such games as happen are
played but listlessly, and each little face is smirched. The gaunt
warehouses hardly support their lopping heads, and the low, beetling,
gabled houses of the alleys seem for ever to brood on nights of bitter
adventure. Fit objects for contempt by day they may be, but when night
creeps upon London, the hideous darkness that can almost be touched,
then their faces become very powers of terror, and the cautious soul,
wandered from the comfort of the main streets, walks and walks in a
frenzy, seeking outlet and finding none. Sometimes a hoarse laugh will
break sharp on his ear. Then he runs.
Well, I finished my second, and then sauntered out. As I was passing a
cruel-looking passage, a gang of lads and girls stepped forward. One of
the girls looked at me. Her face had the melancholy of Russia, but her
voice was as the voice of Cockaigne. For she spoke and said--
"Funny-looking little guy, ain't you?"
I suppose I was. So I smiled and said that we were as God made us.
She giggled....
I said I felt sure I should do no good on the Vassiloff murder. I
didn't. For just then the other four marched ahead, crying, "Come on!"
And, surprised, yet knowing of no good reason for being surprised, I
felt the girl's arm slip into mine, and we joined the main column.
That is one of London's greatest charms: it is always ready to toss you
little encounters of this sort, if you are out for them.
Across the road we went, through mire and puddle, and down a long,
winding court. At about midway our friends disappeared, and, suddenly
drawn to the right, I was pushed from behind up a steep, fusty stair.
Then I knew where we were going. We were going to the tenements where
most of the Russians meet of an evening. The atmosphere in these places
is a little more cheerful than that of the cafes--if you can imagine a
Russian ever rising to cheerfulness. Most of the girls lodge over the
milliners' shops, and thither their friends resort. Every establishment
here has a piano, for music, with them, is a sombre passion rather than
a diversion. You will not hear comic opera, but if you want to climb the
lost heights of melody, stand in Bell Yard, and listen to a piano, lost
in the high glooms, wailing the heart of Chopin or Rubinstein or
Glazounoff through the fingers of pale, moist girls, while the ghost of
Peter the Painter parades the naphthaed highways.
At the top of the stair I was pushed into a dark, fusty room, and guided
to a low, fusty sofa or bed. Then some one struck a match, and a lamp
was lit and set on the mantelshelf. It flung a soft, caressing radiance
on its shabby home, and on its mistress, and on the other girls and
boys. The boys were tough youngsters of the district, evidently very
much at home, smoking Russian cigarettes and settling themselves on the
bed in a manner that seemed curiously continental in Cockney toughs. I
doubt if you would have admired the girls at that moment.
The girl who had collared me disappeared for a moment, and then brought
a tray of Russian tea. "Help 'selves, boys!" We did so, and, watching
the others, I discovered that it was the correct thing to lemon the
ladies' tea for them and stir it well and light their cigarettes.
The room, on which the wallpaper hung in dank strips, contained a
full-sized bed and a chair bedstead, a washstand, a samovar, a
pot-pourri of a carpet, and certain mysteries of feminine toilet. A
rickety three-legged table stood by the window, and Katarina's robes
hung in a dainty riot of frill and colour behind the door, which only
shut when you thrust a peg of wood through a wired catch.
One of the girls went to the piano and began to play. You would not
understand, I suppose, the intellectual emotion of the situation. It is
more than curious to sit in these rooms, in the filthiest spot in
London, and listen to Mozskowsky, Tchaikowsky, and Sibelius, played by a
factory girl. It is ... something indefinable. I had visited similar
places in Stepney before, but then I had not had a couple of vodkas, and
I had not been taken in tow by an unknown gang. They play and play,
while tea and cigarettes, and sometimes vodka or whisky go round; and as
the room gets warmer, so does one's sense of smell get sharper; so do
the pale faces get moister; and so does one long more and more for a
breath of cold air from the Ural Mountains. The best you can do is to
ascend to the flat roof, and take a deep breath of Spitalfields ozone.
Then back to the room for more tea and more music.
Sanya played.... Despite the unventilated room, the greasy
appointments, and other details that would have turned the stomach of
Kensington, that girl at the piano, playing, as no one would have
dreamed she could play, the finer intensities of Wieniawski and
Moussorgsky, shook all sense of responsibility from me. The burdens of
life vanished. News editors and their assignments be damned. Enjoy
yourself, was what the cold, insidious music said.
Devilish little fingers they were, Sanya's. Her technique was not
perhaps all that it might have been; she might not have won the Gold
Medal of our white-shirted academies, but she had enough temperament to
make half a dozen Steinway Hall virtuosi. From valse to nocturne, from
sonata to prelude, her fancy ran. With crashing chords she dropped from
"L'Automne Bacchanale" to the Nocturne in E flat; scarcely murmured of
that, then tripped elvishly into Moszkowsky's Waltz, and from that she
dropped to a song of Tchaikowsky, almost heartbreaking in its childish
beauty, and then to the austere music of the second act of "Tristan."
Mazurka, polonaise, and nocturne wailed in the stuffy chamber; her
little hands lit up the enchanted gloom of the place with bright
thrills.
But suddenly there came a whisper of soft feet on the landing, and a
secret tap at the door. Some one opened it, and slipped out. One heard
the lazy hum of voices in busy conversation. Then silence; and some one
entered the room and shut the door. One of the boys asked casually,
"What's up?" His question was not answered, but the girl who had gone to
the door snapped something in a sharp tone which might have been either
Russian or Yiddish. The other girls sat up and spat angry phrases about.
I called to one of the boys--"What's the joke? Anything wrong?" and
received reply--
"Owshdiknow? Ain't a ruddy Russian, am I?"