we Chaplins have populated the earth.
When I came I told Aubrey that I could stay only two hours, but it is
4 a.m. and we are still talking. As we leave Aubrey walks with me
toward the Ritz.
We hail a Ford truck on the way and a rather dandified young Johnny, a
former officer, gives us a lift.
"Right you are. Jump on."
A new element, these dandies driving trucks, some of them graduates of
Cambridge and Oxford, of good families, most of them, impecunious
aristocrats. Perhaps it is the best thing that could happen to such
families.
This chap is very quiet and gentle. He talks mostly of his truck and
his marketing, which he thinks is quite a game. He has been in the
grocery business since the war and has never made so much money. We
get a good bit of his story as we jolt along in the truck.
He is providing vegetables and fruit for all his friends in Bayswater,
and every morning at four o'clock he is on his way to the market. He
loves the truck. It is so simple to drive.
"Half a mo." He stops talking and pulls up for petrol at a pretty
little white-tiled petrol station. The station is all lit up, though
it is but 5 a.m.
"Good morning. Give me about five gal."
"Right-o!"
The cheery greeting means more than the simple words that are said.
The lad recognises me and greets me frankly, though formally. It seems
so strange to me to hear this truck driver go along conversing in the
easiest possible manner. A truck driver who enjoyed truck driving.
He spoke of films for just a bit and then discreetly stopped,
thinking, perhaps, that I might not like to talk about them. And,
besides, he liked to talk about his truck.
He told us how wonderful it was to drive along in the early morning
with only the company of dawn and the stars. He loved the silent
streets, sleeping London. He was enterprising, full of hopes and
ambitions. Told how he bartered. He knew how. His was a lovely
business.
He was smoking a pipe and wore a trilby hat, with a sort of frock
coat, and his neck was wrapped in a scarf. I figured him to be about
thirty years of age.
I nudged my cousin. Would he accept anything? We hardly know whether
or not to offer it, though he is going out of his way to drive me to
the Ritz.
He has insisted that it is no trouble, that he can cut through to
Covent Garden. No trouble. I tell the petrol man to fill it up and I
insist on paying for the petrol.
The lad protests, but I insist.
"That's very nice of you, really. But it was a pleasure to have you,"
he says, as he gets back in his seat.
We cut through to Piccadilly and pull up at the Ritz in a Ford truck.
Quite an arrival.
The lad bids us good-bye. "Delighted to have met you. Hope you have a
bully time. Too bad you are leaving. Bon voyage. Come back in the
spring. London is charming then. Well, I must be off. I'm late. Good
morning."
We talk him over on the steps as he drives away. He is the type of an
aristocrat that must live. He is made of the stuff that marks the true
aristocrat. He is an inspiration. He talked just enough, never too
much. The intonation of his voice and his sense of beauty as he
appreciated the dawn stamped him as of the élite--the real élite, not
the Blue Book variety.
Loving adventure, virtuous, doing something all the time, and loving
the doing. What an example he is! He has two stores. This is his first
truck. He loves it. He is the first of his kind that I have met. This
is my last night in England. I am glad that it brought me this contact
with real nobility.
XV.
BON VOYAGE
I am off in the morning for Southampton, miserable and depressed.
Crowds--the same crowds that saw me come--are there. But they seem a
bit more desirable. I am leaving them. There are so many things I wish
I had done. It is pleasant to be getting this applause on my exit.
I do not doubt its sincerity now. It is just as fine and as boisterous
as it was when I arrived. They were glad to see me come and are sorry
I am going.
I feel despondent and sad. I want to hug all of them to me. There is
something so wistful about London, about their kind, gentle
appreciation. They smile tenderly as I look this way, that way, over
there--on every side it is the same. They are all my friends and I am
leaving them.
Will I sign this? A few excited ones are shoving autograph books at
me, but most of them are under restraint, almost in repose. They feel
the parting. They sense it, but are sending me away with a smile.
My car is full of friends going with me to Southampton. They mean
little at the moment. The crowd has me. Old, old friends turn up,
friends that I have been too busy to see. Faithful old friends who are
content just to get a glimpse before I leave.
There's Freddy Whittaker, an old music-hall artist with whom I once
played. Just acquaintances, most of them, but they all knew me, and
had all shared, in spirit, my success. All of them are at the station
and all of them understand. They know that my life has been full every
minute I have been here. There had been so much to do.
They knew and understood, yet they had come determined just to see me,
if only at the door of my carriage. I feel very sad about them.
The train is about to pull out and everything is excitement. Everyone
seems emotional and there is a tenseness in the very atmosphere.
"Love to Alf and Amy," many of them whisper, those who know my manager
and his wife. I tell them that I am coming back, perhaps next summer.
There is applause. "Don't forget," they shout. I don't think I could
forget.
The trip to Southampton is not enjoyable. There is a sadness on the
train. A sort of embarrassed sentimentality among my friends. Tom
Geraghty is along. Tom is an old American and he is all choked up at
the thought of my going back while he has to stay on in England. We
are going back to his land. We cannot talk much.
We go to the boat. Sonny is there to see me off. Sonny, Hetty's
brother.
There is luncheon with my friends and there are crowds of reporters. I
can't be annoyed. There is nothing for me to say. I can't even think.
We talk, small talk, joke talk.
Sonny is very matter-of-fact. I look at him and wonder if he has ever
known. He has always been so vague with me. Has always met me in a
joking way.
He leans over and whispers, "I thought you might like this." It is a
package. I almost know without asking that it is a picture of Hetty. I
am amazed. He understood all the time. Was always alive to the
situation. How England covers up her feelings!
Everybody is off the boat but the passengers. My friends stand on the
dock and wave to me. I see everything in their glowing faces--loyalty,
love, sadness, a few tears. There is a lump in my throat. I smile just
as hard as I can to keep them from seeing. I even smile at the
reporters. They're darn nice fellows. I wish I knew them better. After
all, it's their job to ask questions and they have been merely doing
their job with me. Just doing their jobs, as they see it. That spirit
would make the world if it were universal.
England never looked more lovely. Why didn't I go here? Why didn't I
do this and that? There is so much that I missed. I must come back
again. Will they be glad to see me? As glad as I am to see them? I
hope so. My cheek is damp. I turn away and blot out the sadness. I am
not going to look back again.
A sweet little girl about eight years of age, full of laughing
childhood, is coming toward me with a bubbling voice. Her very look
commands me not to try to escape. I don't think I want to escape from
her.
"Oh, Mr. Chaplin," gurgled the little girl, "I've been looking for you
all over the boat. Please adopt me like you did Jackie Coogan. We
could smash windows together and have lots of fun. I love your plays."
She takes my hand and looks up into my face. "They are so clever and
beautiful. Won't you teach me like you taught him? He's so much like
you. Oh, if I could only be like him."
And with a rapt look on her little face she prattles on, leaving me
very few opportunities to get in a word, though I prefer to listen to
her rather than talk.
I wave good-bye to my friends and then walk along with her, going up
and looking back at the crowd over the rail.
Reporters are here. They scent something interesting in my affair with
the little girl. I answer all questions. Then a photographer. We are
photographed together. And the movie men are getting action pictures.
We are looking back at my friends on shore.
The little girl asks: "Are they all actors and in the movies? Why are
you so sad? Don't you like leaving England? There will be so many
friends in America to meet you. Why, you should be so happy because
you have friends all over the world!"
I tell her that it is just the parting--that the thought of leaving is
always sad. Life is always "Good-bye." And here I feel it is good-bye
to new friends, that my old ones are in America.
We walk around the deck and she discusses the merits of my pictures.
"Do you like drama?" I ask.
"No. I like to laugh, but I love to make people cry myself. It must be
nice to act 'cryie' parts, but I don't like to watch them."
"And you want me to adopt you?"
"Only in the pictures, like Jackie. I would love to break windows."
She has dark hair and a beautiful profile of the Spanish type, with a
delicately formed nose and a Cupid's bow sort of mouth. Her eyes are
sensitive, dark and shining, dancing with life and laughter. As we
talk I notice as she gets serious she grows tender and full of
childish love.
"You like smashing windows! You must be Spanish," I tell her.
"Oh no, not Spanish; I'm Jewish," she answers.
"That accounts for your genius."
"Oh, do you think Jewish people are clever?" she asks, eagerly.
"Of course. All great geniuses had Jewish blood in them. No, I am not
Jewish," as she is about to put that question, "but I am sure there
must be some somewhere in me. I hope so."
"Oh, I am so glad you think them clever. You must meet my mother.
She's brilliant and an elocutionist. She recites beautifully, and is
so clever at anything. And I am sure you would like my father. He
loves me so much and I think he admires me some, too."
She chatters on as we walk around. Then suddenly. "You look tired.
Please tell me and I will run away."
As the boat is pulling out her mother comes toward us and the child
introduces us with perfect formality and without any embarrassment.
She is a fine, cultured person.
"Come along, dear, we must go down to the second class. We cannot stay
here."
I make an appointment to lunch with the little girl on the day after
the morrow, and am already looking forward to it.
I spend the greater part of the second day in reading books by Frank
Harris, Waldo Frank, Claude McKay, and Major Douglas's "Economic
Democracy."
The next day I met Miss Taylor, a famous moving-picture actress of
England, and Mr. Hepworth, who is a director of prominence in Great
Britain. Miss Taylor, though sensitive, shy, and retiring, has a great
bit of charm.
They are making their first trip to America, and we soon become good
friends. We discuss the characteristics of the American people,
contrasting their youthful, frank abruptness with the quiet, shy, and
reserved Britisher.
I find myself running wild as I tell them of this land. I explain
train hold-ups, advertising signs, Broadway lights, blatant theatres,
ticket speculators, subways, the automat and its big sister, the
cafeteria. It has a great effect on my friends and at times I almost
detect unbelief. I find myself wanting to show the whole thing to them
and to watch their reactions.
At luncheon next day the little girl is the soul of the party. We
discuss everything from Art to ambitions. At one moment she is full of
musical laughter, and the next she is excitedly discussing some
happening aboard ship. Her stories are always interesting. How do
children see so much more than grown-ups?
She has a great time. I must visit her father, he is so much like me.
He has the same temperament, and is such a great daddy. He is so good
to her. And she rattles on without stopping.
Then again she thinks I may be tired. "Sit back now." And she puts a
pillow behind my head and bids me rest.
These moments with her make days aboard pass quickly and pleasantly.
Carl Robinson and I are strolling around the top deck the next day in
an effort to get away from everyone, and I notice someone looking up
at a wire running between the funnels of the ship. Perched on the wire
is a little bird, and I am wondering how it got there and if it had
been there since we left England.
The other watcher notices us. He turns and smiles. "The little bird
must think this is the promised land."
I knew at once that he was somebody. Those thoughts belong only to
poets. Later in the evening he joins us at my invitation and I learn
he is Easthope Martin, the composer and pianist. He had been through
the War and it had left its stamp on this fine, sensitive soul. He had
been gassed. I could not imagine such a man in the trenches.
He is very frail of body, and as he talks I always imagine his big
soul at the bursting point with a pent-up yearning.
There is the inevitable concert on the last night of the voyage. We
are off the banks of Newfoundland, and in the midst of a fog. Fog
horns must be kept blowing at intervals, hence the effect on the
concert, particularly the vocal part, is obvious.
We land at seven in the morning of a very windy day, and it is eleven
before we can get away. Reporters and camera men fill the air during
all that time, and I am rather glad, because it shows Miss Taylor and
Mr. Hepworth a glimpse of what America is like. We arrange to meet
that night at Sam Goldwyn's for dinner.
Good-byes here are rather joyous, because we are all getting off in
the same land and there will be an opportunity to see one another
again.
My little friend comes to me excitedly and gives me a present--a
silver stamp box. "I hope that when you write your first letter you
take a stamp from here and mail it to me. Good-bye."
She shakes hands. We are real lovers and must be careful. She tells me
not to overwork. "Don't forget to come and see us; you must meet
daddy. Good-bye, Charlie."
She curtsies and is gone. I go to my cabin to wait until we can land.
There is a tiny knock. She comes in.
"Charlie, I couldn't kiss you out there in front of all those people.
Good-bye, dear. Take care of yourself." This is real love. She kisses
my cheek and then runs out on deck.
Easthope Martin is with us that night at Goldwyn's party. He plays one
of his own compositions and holds us spellbound. He is very grateful
for our sincere applause and quite retiring and unassuming, though he
is the hit of the evening.
Following the dinner I carried the English movie folk on a
sight-seeing trip, enjoying their amazement at the wonders of a New
York night.
"What do you think of it?" I asked them.
"Thrilling," says Hepworth. "I like it. There is something electrical
in the air. It is a driving force. You must do things."
We go to a café, where the élite of New York are gathered, and dance
until midnight. I bid them good-bye, hoping to meet them later when
they come to Los Angeles.
I dine at Max Eastman's the next night and meet McKay, the negro poet.
He is quite handsome, a full-blooded Jamaican negro not more than
twenty-five years of age. I can readily see why he has been termed an
African prince. He has just that manner.
I have read a number of his poems. He is a true aristocrat with the
sensitiveness of a poet and the humour of a philosopher, and quite
shy. In fact, he is rather supersensitive, but with a dignity and
manner that seem to hold him aloof.
There are many other friends there, and we discuss Max's new book on
humour. There is a controversy whether to call it "Sense of Humour" or
"Psychology of Humour." We talk about my trip. Claude McKay asks if I
met Shaw. "Too bad," he says. "You would like him and he would have
enjoyed you."
I am interested in Claude. "How do you write your poetry? Can you make
yourself write? Do you prepare?" I try to discuss his race. "What is
their future? Do they----"
He shrugs his shoulders. I realise he is a poet, an aristocrat.
I dine the next evening with Waldo Frank and Marguerite Naumberg and
we discuss her new system. She has a school that develops children
along the lines of personality. It is a study in individuality. She
is struggling alone, but is getting wonderful results. We talk far
into the morning on everything, including the fourth dimension.
Next day Frank Harris calls and we decide to take a trip to Sing Sing
together. Frank is very sad and wistful. He is anxious to get away
from New York and devote time to his autobiography before it is too
late. He has so much to say that he wants to write it while it is
keen.
I try to tell him that consciousness of age is a sign of keenness.
That age doesn't bother the mind.
We discuss George Meredith and a wonderful book he had written. And
then in his age Meredith had rewritten it. He said it was so much
better rewritten, but he had taken from it all the red blood. It was
old, withered like himself. You can't see things as they were.
Meredith had become old. Harris says he doesn't want the same
experience.
All this on the way to Sing Sing. Frank is a wonderful
conversationalist. Like his friend Oscar Wilde. That same charm and
brilliancy of wit, ever ready for argument. What a fund of knowledge
he has. What a biography his should be. If it is just half as good as
Wilde's, it will be sufficient.
Sing Sing. The big, grey stone buildings seem to me like an outcry
against civilisation. This huge grey monster with its thousand staring
eyes. We are in the visiting room. Young men in grey shirts. Thank
God, the hideous stripes are gone. This is progress, humanity. It is
not so stark.
There is a mite of a baby holding her daddy's hand and playing with
his hair as he talks with her mamma, his wife. Another prisoner
holding two withered hands of an old lady. Mother was written all over
her, though neither said a word. I felt brutal at witnessing their
emotion.
All of them old. Children, widows, mothers--youth crossed out of faces
by lines of suffering and life's penalties. Tragedy and sadness, and
always it is in the faces of the women that the suffering is more
plainly written. The men suffer in body--the women in soul.
The men look resigned. Their spirit is gone. What is it that happens
behind these grey walls that kills so completely?
The devotion of the prisoners is almost childish in its eagerness as
they sit with their children, talking with their wives, here and there
a lover with his sweetheart--all of them have written a compelling
story in the book of life. But love is in this room, love unashamed.
Why are sinners always loved? Why do sinners make such wonderful
lovers? Perhaps it is compensation, as they call it. Love is paged by
every eye here.
Children are playing around the floor. Their laughter is like a
benediction. This is another improvement, this room. There are no
longer bars to separate loved ones. Human nature improves, but the
tragedy remains just as dramatic.
The cells where they sleep are old-fashioned, built by a monster or a
maniac. No architect could do such a thing for human beings. They are
built of hate, ignorance, and stupidity. I understand they are
building a new prison, more sane, with far more understanding of human
needs. Until then these poor wretches must endure these awful cells.
I'd go mad there.
I notice quite a bit of freedom. A number of prisoners are strolling
around the grounds while others are at work. The honour system is a
great thing, gives a man a chance to hold self-respect.
They have heard that I am coming, and most of them seem to know me. I
am embarrassed. What can I say? How can I approach them? I wave my
hand merely. "Hello, folks!"
I decide to discard conversation. Be myself. Be comic. Cut up. I twist
my cane and juggle my hat. I kick up my leg in back. I am on comic
ground. That's the thing.
No sentiment, no slopping over, no morals--they are fed up with that.
What is there in common between us? Our viewpoints are entirely
different. They're in--I'm out.
They show me a cup presented by Sir Thomas Lipton, inscribed, "We have
all made mistakes."
"How do we know but what some of you haven't?" I ask, humorously. It
makes a hit. They want me to talk.
"Brother criminals and fellow sinners: Christ said, 'Let him who is
without sin cast the first stone.' I cannot cast the stone, though I
have compromised and thrown many a pie. But I cannot cast the first
stone." Some got it. Others never will.
We must be sensible. I am not a hero worshipper of criminals and bad
men. Society must be protected. We are greater in number than the
criminals and have the upper hand. We must keep it; but we can at
least treat them intelligently, for, after all, crime is the outcome
of society.
The doctor tells me that but a few of them are criminals from
heredity, that the majority had been forced into crime by
circumstances or had committed it in passion. I notice a lot of
evil-looking men, but also some splendid ones. I earnestly believe
that society can protect itself intelligently, humanly. I would
abolish prisons. Call them hospitals and treat the prisoners as
patients.
It is a problem that I make no pretence of solving.
The death house. It is hideous. A plain, bare room, rather large and
with a white door, not green, as I have been told. The chair--a plain
wooden armchair and a single wire coming down over it. This is an
instrument to snuff out life. It is too simple. It is not even
dramatic. Just cold-blooded and matter of fact.
Some one is telling me how they watch the prisoner after he is
strapped in the chair. Good God! How can they calmly plan with such
exactness? And they have killed as many as seven in one day. I must
get out.
Two men were walking up and down in a bare yard, one a short man with
a pipe in his mouth, walking briskly, and at his side a warden. The
keeper announces, shortly, "The next for the chair."
How awful! Looking straight in front of him and coming toward us, I
saw his face. Tragic and appalling. I will see it for a long time.
We visit the industries. There is something ironical about their
location with the mountains for a background, but the effect is good,
they can get a sense of freedom. A good system here, with the wardens
tolerant. They seem to understand. I whisper to one.
"Is Jim Larkin here?" He is in the boot department, and we go to see
him for a moment. There is a rule against it, but on this occasion the
rule is waived.
Larkin struts up. Large, about six feet two inches, a fine, strapping
Irishman. Introduced, he talks timidly.
He can't stay, mustn't leave his work. Is happy. Only worried about
his wife and children in Ireland. Anxious about them, otherwise fit.
There are four more years for him. He seems deserted even by his
party, though there is an effort being made to have his sentence
repealed. After all, he is no ordinary criminal. Just a political one.
He asks about my reception in England. "Glad to meet you, but I must
get back."
Frank tells him he will help to get his release. He smiles, grips
Frank's hand hard. "Thanks." Harris tells me he is a cultured man and
a fine writer.
But the prison marked him. The buoyancy and spirit that must have gone
with those Irish eyes are no more. Those same eyes are now wistful,
where they once were gay. He hasn't been forgotten. Our visit has
helped. There may be a bit of hope left to him.
We go to the solitary-confinement cell, where trouble makers are kept.
"This young man tried to escape, got out on the roof. We went after
him," says the warden.
"Yes, it was quite a movie stunt," said the youngster. He is
embarrassed. We try to relieve it.
"Whatever he's done, he's darn handsome," I tell the warden. It helps.
"Better luck next time," I tell him. He laughs. "Thanks. Pleased to
meet you, Charlie."
He is just nineteen, handsome and healthy. What a pity! The greatest
tragedy of all. He is a forger, here with murderers.
We leave and I look back at the prison just once. Why are prisons and
graveyards built in such beautiful places?
Next day everything is bustling, getting ready for the trip back to
Los Angeles. I sneak out in the excitement and go to a matinée to see
Marie Doro in "Lilies of the Field," and that night to "The Hero," a
splendid play. A young actor, Robert Ames, I believe, gives the finest
performance I have ever seen in America.