is perfectly true)--he drew from his pocket a revolver, and though not
exactly levelling it at me, put it quite as close as was agreeable, and
said:
‘This will tell you to speak of madness.’
Which was highly disturbing. The sudden cessation of the gabble of
chatter, the wild look on his face, the revolver. Something had to be
done. I did it. I smiled, drew in my breath, and executed a powerful
high kick. It hit him, by a miracle, on the wrist; the thing went off,
spluttering up the gravel; he dropped it with a howl; I kicked it again
on to the grass, and then I ran.
All very unheroic. But, on the whole, safe. I ran and I ran down that
lonely road, and by the time I had finished running the first streaks
of dawn were in the sky, and I was feeling acute pains in my side,
my legs, my knees, my brain, everywhere. But at least one had the
satisfaction of having outwitted (or outdistanced) a very nasty young
man.
Nothing like that ever happened again. I received anonymous letters,
all threatening things highly unpleasant. But whether they were
from the young man in question I never discovered. And they never
materialized.
* * * * *
My last night in Athens was spent at the Palace. The Queen had asked
me to stay on a little longer in order to trot round with her nephew,
Prince Philip of Hesse. I was very glad that I did so, for not only was
he a most agreeable young man but by staying those few extra days I
also met the Queen of Roumania, who had come hurriedly down to Athens
in order to be with her daughter (the Crown Princess of Greece) who was
seriously ill.
I shall never forget my first sight of the Queen of Roumania. We were
all sitting down in the main salon--Tino, Queen Sophie, Princess
Irene, the Crown Prince and Princess of Roumania, some other members of
the Court, and myself. The door was slightly open, and through it one
could see a long corridor, dimly lighted. I looked down the corridor
and I saw coming towards us a figure in trailing robes of white,
walking slowly, with head erect, like some divine Lady Macbeth. As
she approached, and paused in the doorway, I thought that I had never
seen a woman more lovely. The long white sleeves of silk, the girdle
of silver at her waist, the hint of diamonds in her hair, the ropes of
pearls round her neck. And the face--wide eyes, a forehead that was
one hundred per cent. intelligence, a beautiful drooping mouth ... it
is rather useless to attempt to describe her. A photograph will do her
less injustice than my pen.
Luckily, I was very soon able to have a long talk with her.
Here, clipped of its ‘ma’ams’ and ‘majesties’ is what we talked about:
MYSELF: Is it a fearful bore to be a Queen?
THE QUEEN: It depends what sort of a Queen you are.
MYSELF: But even a Queen like yourself? Don’t you long sometimes to be
able to get away from it all, to be terribly simple, to have all sorts
of adventures which you can’t have now?
THE QUEEN (nodding, a little sadly): There are moods, of course. But
I like being a Queen because I glory in the fact that perhaps I am of
some use.
Here she paused, and said, with a smile: ‘You know, I understand a
great deal more about life than you might believe. If I had been Marie
Antoinette, _I_ should never have asked why the people could not eat
cake. And you must not think that because I am a Queen, my knowledge of
life and “adventure,” as you call it, is only gained from novels. Do
you know one of my chief regrets? It is that I am not in a position to
publish a novel which would deal with life from every aspect.
‘I said “publish,” not write. I could begin to write it to-morrow, if
I wanted, but when it came out, everybody would say, “How can she know
about things like this? How can a woman who sits half her life in her
palace” (the last thing I ever do) “know about the ways, the intrigues,
the marriages, the love-affairs, the sordid squabbles for money, that
are part of our daily lives?” And saying that, they would reject my
book in advance. But I _do_ know,’ (thumping her hand on the table), ‘I
_do_ know....
‘Then,’ I asked her, ‘do you manage to write at all? I mean, do you
find any way of getting rid of what one might call creative emotion?’
‘Oh, yes. I write fairy stories. Nobody can accuse me, in those, of
knowing more than I ought to do.’ She laughed. ‘Perhaps that does not
quite express my meaning, but you understand, don’t you? Fairy love,
fairy honour, fairy intrigue, fairy magic--in those I express all the
emotions which otherwise I should be forced to keep to myself. And
Roumania is full of fairies! Really it is. Full to the brim. When I
first came out there, from England, I hardly understood how deeply my
people were versed in folk-lore, how passionately real the little elves
and spirits were to every peasant on the hills. But I understand now,
and I, too, have caught something of that spirit.
‘Do you know,’ she added suddenly, ‘that I have written a fairy film?
I wish you could see it. It’s rather fascinating. It has a method of
production which I think is rather new. Some parts of it have been
undeveloped, so that you get the impression of a moving _negative_.
That is to say, all the figures have white hair, white eyes, white
clothes, dark hands and faces, and all sorts of queer and very
attractive shadows. If you can imagine those figures made very small
(which is quite possible) and then imagine them dancing in a sort of
half-silhouette over the crest of a hill ... can you?’
She had spoken with such animation, such intense interest, that her
face was quite transfigured.
A very remarkable woman, I thought, as she drifted away to talk to
somebody else. And largely because, of all the Queens in Europe, she
is the only one who really dramatizes her position. She is, in the
best sense of the word, a _poseuse_, by which I mean that she knows
exactly how to present herself to the public imagination. Realizing,
as she does, that in these days the Throne has to borrow a great
deal of thunder of the stage if it is to keep its position, and that
showmanship is half the craft of sovereignty, she acts accordingly. All
her gestures are studied ... sometimes daring, sometimes startlingly
‘unconventional,’ as her recent journalistic confessions have amply
shown.
But they remain the gestures of a Queen.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
In which Sir William Orpen and Mrs. Elinor Glyn reveal their Souls
And now, on returning to London, I decided that it was time to
‘become a journalist.’ So many hundreds of otherwise sane young men
have made the same decision, without success, that it really might
be worth while to tell them just one thing about it. They have such
glorious dreams, at Oxford, over a cigarette and a whisky and soda, of
writing palpitating articles for vast prices, that it is only fair to
disillusion them.
The one thing which the embryo journalist must realize is that mere
writing is only one-quarter of his equipment. He may be able to produce
brilliant articles, to star every page with epigrams, to compose
perorations that wring the heart, to evolve leaders that would stir the
Empire, and still not be a successful journalist.
He must certainly begin at the beginning. And to do that he must have a
hide of brass. Brass, I said. No other substance is strong enough. He
_must_ ring up irate Duchesses at midnight and ask them what they think
of bobbed hair. He must do it, at any rate for a few months, for it is
only right for him to know how it feels. He _must_ go to successful
stockbrokers and ask them what they think of the financial situation.
He _must_ visit the Zoo and grovel about in dirty cages to see if the
latest lizard has laid an egg, or if the latest elephant has recovered
from its pain. He must do it, even though it makes him feel ill, even
though he blushes over the telephone, is terrified by elephants, and
feels like hitting the stockbroker fair and square on the chin. One
day he will be telling other people to do these things. He cannot tell
them unless he has done the things himself.
For--and this is the whole point of the matter--three-quarters of
modern journalism consists in making other people say things, not in
saying them yourself. Do not hope, my young friend, that anybody will
pay any attention to _your_ articles. You may get them accepted from
time to time, but unless you are an overpowering genius you will not
make much of a living out of it.
I could write a lot more on the subject but I won’t. Nobody ever wants
advice. It is enough to say that in the August of 1922 I ‘got on’ to a
paper.
The first man I ever ‘interviewed’ was Sir William Orpen. Really, one
could hardly call it an ‘interview,’ for it merely consisted in having
tea with him, eating quantities of very excellent cucumber sandwiches,
and smoking many cigarettes.
After about the tenth sandwich, I said, ‘I have to interview you, and I
haven’t the vaguest idea how to begin.’
‘Have another sandwich.’
‘I shall be sick.’
‘That’s what they’re for. I don’t want to be interviewed.’
‘But you said you would.’
‘Did I? Well, fire away.’ (Pause.) ‘You’re a dud sort of journalist,
aren’t you? Where’s your notebook? And your pencil that ought to leave
indelible ink stains all over your chin?’
All this, to be appreciated, would have to be written musically.
Orpen’s conversation, if one set it to music, would be pitched in the
alto clef, marked ‘prestissimo,’ and accompanied by a sort of Debussy
bass, intermittently striking weird gurgly sounds at the most effective
moment.
It would also have to be played with an Irish accent, if that were
possible. The whole result, at any rate, is very intriguing, especially
as Orpen is practically never serious, except when he is working. And
then he is a devil.
How we ever really got to business I don’t know. I thought ‘if all
interviewing is like this it will be very charming, and exceedingly
fattening, because it apparently necessitates the consumption, on the
part of the interviewer, of endless quantities of cucumber sandwiches.’
However, we did do it, and then he let me look at some of his work.
There was a picture of a woman (one of the most amusing women in
London) on the easel, in a delightful greeny dress.
‘How you must have loved painting that dress,’ I said.
‘Made her put it on.’
‘Can you?’ And then ... ‘What would you do if a woman with red hair
came and sat for you in a purple dress?’
‘Make her take it off.’
‘But supposing she wouldn’t?’
‘Take it off myself. Or else show her the door. Couldn’t paint that
sort of thing. Give me heart attack.’
‘What ought red-haired women to wear, then?’
‘Green, I should think. Depends on the hair. Fair-haired women look
fine in black. Dark women can wear orange. Anything bright. All this
is tripe anyway. Not a dress designer. Could do it, though. Might pay.
Bright idea. Have another sandwich?’
As a matter of fact, it would be rather a bright idea if a particularly
enterprising dress designer were to pay enormous fees to some artist
with a name to come for an hour a day, examine the faces and figures
of the clients, and say, ‘You ought to wear mauve georgette,’ or ‘You
would look wonderful in jade-green something or other.’ Can you imagine
John doing it? Or Orpen? The latter would probably say, ‘Wrap yourself
up in a rug and go home.’
‘Look at this,’ said Orpen. It was the picture of Lord Berkeley which
was hung in that year’s Academy, a brilliant, sparkling piece of work.
‘Nice splosh of colour. Yellow coat. Pink face. Bits of blue. Came off
pat. Not everything comes like that.’
It certainly didn’t. A friend of mine who has just had his picture done
by Orpen said that he painted out the face eleven times before he was
satisfied, and then scratched the whole thing because he didn’t like
the pose.
The next time I saw him--this time unofficially--was just after the
discovery of the tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen, when the first photographs of
the lovely things inside were beginning to be published in the English
papers.
He was standing underneath the great window in his studio, stroking his
chin and looking at a full page of illustrations.
‘My word,’ he said, when he saw me, ‘what an age to have lived in! Look
at that.’
He pointed to the photograph of a lotos vase in perfect condition. Even
the reproduction in flat grey colours gave one a thrill which one gets
rarely indeed to-day.
‘Would you rather have lived with Tut-ankh-Amen than now?’ I asked him.
‘What questions you ask. Getting better though. Didn’t do anything but
eat cucumber sandwiches when you first came. Never seen anybody eat so
many cucumber sandwiches. Disgusting. Would I what? Rather have lived
with Tut-ankh-Amen? Sounds improper. Yes, I should. No other age so
stimulating. Lovely lines. _Lovely_ lines. Just look at it. Put your
nose on it. Eat it.’
And he himself devoured the picture with his own eyes.
We talked a lot about ages we should have liked to live in. I stood
up for Venice in the eighteenth century, with Longy’s masks and his
shadowy ladies who eternally hold their fingers to their lips in dim
rooms overlooking some secret canal.
‘M’yes. Longy’s all right. Damn fine costume. Hides ugly legs. Can’t
always live at fancy-dress ball though. Jolly interesting to know if
an age _was_ like what the painters tell us. Middle Ages, now. Wish
Renaissance painters hadn’t chosen so many Church subjects. One Virgin
very like another. Beautiful, of course, but sick of ’em. Think if
they’d painted the life around them. Like Rembrandt.’
He got up and started pacing round the room, the alto clef of his voice
deepening a little....
‘Ever seen Rembrandt’s butcher’s shop? No? See it. Beauty, beauty,
beauty. All out of a lot of meat. No, not out of that. Out of
Rembrandt’s brain. Doesn’t really matter a damn what age you live in if
you’ve got the goods. _There._’ (Tapping his forehead.)
I should think whatever age Orpen had lived in he would have reflected
life pretty brilliantly.
‘Funny thing, you know,’ he added, taking up a tube of ultramarine and
sniffing it slightly, ‘how one’s got to get away from an age quite a
long way before you can judge it purely æsthetically. Look at Sargent’s
picture of that woman, Lady What’s-her name, with the big puffed-out
sleeves. Painted in the ‘nineties. Damned fine painting. Damned
ridiculous dress. You say to yourself, “Lord, what a frump!” In fifty
years you’d just look upon it as a design. Can’t do that yet. Funny.
Earth of the earth, earthy we are.’ (Pause.) ‘Got blue paint on nose.
Why the hell didn’t you tell me?’
I left him sitting down on the hearthrug, underneath a bright
light, gazing at the photograph of the vase which had once been
Tut-ankh-Amen’s. I felt quite romantic. ‘Perhaps,’ I said to myself,
‘one of his incarnations had made that vase, and he is seeing in it
some of the beauty which he had once realized, and forgotten, and lived
again.’ Then I remembered the paint on his nose, and laughed.
* * * * *
There is nothing like variety, and journalism certainly gives you that.
Soon after the Orpen episode I came in contact with Elinor Glyn, whom
one never seems to meet in England except on business.
This lady’s appearance is so exactly like that of her own heroines that
one can hardly believe she has not just stepped from between the covers
of _Three Weeks_. I really have no idea of how I ever was admitted
to the presence, for Elinor Glyn has a very good knowledge of the
commercial value of her utterances, and is usually so hedged round with
Press agents, publishers and literary agents, all waiting to see that
her emotions are duly registered, collected, and sold, that there is
little chance of gathering anything for nothing. I do not blame Elinor
for it. If I had her reputation, I would not express an opinion even on
the English climate without demanding a fee, payable in advance.
However, I found myself, one dreary afternoon, in her flat overlooking
the Chelsea Embankment. This flat, with two exceptions, contained
nothing of the atmosphere which she herself carries with her.
One felt quite sweet and simple in it. A few books, a few rather dull
pictures, and an exceedingly upright piano. The two exceptions were,
firstly a tiger skin, draped ‘negligently’ over the sofa, and secondly
a pile of cushions, purple and mauve and black. When I saw these, I
thrilled. I felt sure that when the authoress entered the room she
would leap on to the cushions and begin to talk about life in a hoarse,
strangled voice. She entered the room, but she made no sort of attempt
to lie on the cushions. On the contrary, she sat straight and still,
looked me full in the face, and said, ‘Who arranged this?’
I told her that I had not the faintest idea.
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I never give interviews. Still, I suppose
it’s all right.’
Silence. How deadly a silence can be. Then suddenly, with a charming
smile:
‘The most terrible people come to see me sometimes. People who ask
abominable questions, and look at me as though I were in a cage. You
don’t appear to do that.’
This interview was turning out to be completely different from
anything that I had anticipated. I had come prepared to listen to
views on the modern girl, and instead I was treated to a searching
cross-examination. Where was my father? Where did I live? I found
myself lured by the fascination of those green eyes and orange hair.
Suddenly she turned to me and said:
‘Do you believe in re-incarnation?’
I gave an evasive answer.
‘You should do. You, æons ago, were a horse.’
She may not have used these precise words, but she definitely stated
that if my family were traced back sufficiently far, it would
eventually prove to be equine in origin.
‘And I,’ she added, ‘come from some cat tribe. Don’t laugh.’
She smiled herself, but I think she was serious, for she added: ‘The
English people completely misunderstand me. They only know things like
_Three Weeks_ and _The Visits of Elizabeth_. They think of me only
as a foolish, sentimental, rather sensual woman. They’re blind to
the philosophy in me. However--who cares? And anyway, we must get to
business. Now what do you want to talk about?’
I gave her a cue--something on the lines of the eternal modern girl,
and as soon as she heard that phrase her nostrils quivered, her eyes
glared like lamps, her backbone seemed to stiffen like that of a cat on
the offensive. And she looked extraordinarily beautiful.
‘Women to-day,’ she said, ‘are revolting men’s senses. Look at me. Do
_I_ slouch into the room, with a guilty look, as though I had not been
to bed all night? Do _I_ take out a lip stick and slash it over my
mouth without caring where it goes? Do _I_ daub powder all over my nose
until it looks a totally different colour from the rest of my face?’
I answered her that, in our brief but entrancing acquaintance, she had
done none of these things.
‘Look at my hands.’ With a gesture of scorn she held out five very
white and exquisite fingers. ‘Are _my_ hands yellow and horrible
through incessantly smoking bad cigarettes?’ She leant forward and
showed her teeth, looking like some furious goddess. ‘Are _my_ teeth
stained, for the same reason? I ask you? No, they are not.’
She relaxed, but she still looked very grim. ‘I can’t bear it,’ she
said, ‘this abominable slackness. If I saw my daughters slouching
through life like that, I should shoot either myself or them. It is
worse in England than anywhere else.’
And then she began to talk about America. ‘Perfect dentistry, perfect
knowledge of hygiene, and a universal common sense had made the
American girl the most wonderful type in the world to-day.’ I could see
that she adored America....
She said dozens of other things, but I forget them. And one cannot
really write about Elinor Glyn, so that I shall stop here and now,
leaving this thumbnail sketch as it stands.
I liked her enormously. If there was ever any occasion on which I found
myself forced to use that nauseating word ‘queenly,’ it would be now.
She _is_ ‘queenly.’ She ought to have been born on some dark evening
when Balkan thrones were tottering like scenes on the back-cloths of
our less draughty London theatres. She ought to have been hustled over
the waters of the Ishky-Repoka by faithful nurses, while grizzled prime
ministers faced bloody men who demanded a new régime. She ought to
have grown up among surroundings of crêpe and asphodels. And then, one
day, she ought to have returned in a golden chariot, driven towards
a beflagged palace, walked slowly down immense corridors, stood on a
throne and started a world-war in a girlish caprice.
It seems a great pity that such a fiery personality should have caused
only ink, and not blood, to flow.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Concerning Two Artists in a Different Sphere
I have always been puzzled by the universal tendency of democratic
communities to attach the most revolting vices to those whom they
have chosen to govern them. It is considered a matter of course
that the King’s Speech should be composed by men in the last stages
of delirium tremens. And the majority of Cabinet Ministers are, of
course, devotees of such diversions as unnatural vice, unless their
fingers are perpetually itching to get at a hypodermic syringe. As an
entertainment, one can spend many elevating hours by fixing particular
vices to particular ministers, saying, for instance, that President
Wilson used to beat his wife, or that Clemenceau had a morning bath
of cocaine (which would still not account for his extraordinary
vitality). But when one remembers that these libels are uttered with
equal assurance by members of every party in the State, the consequent
reflection on representative government is not a pleasing one.
Artists are a little luckier than politicians. It is taken for granted,
by the great public, that they _must_ be immoral, being artists, and
their immoralities are not therefore discussed with the same relish.
Instead, it is merely asserted that they are mad, a statement which
does no harm to anybody.
I wish I could meet these mad artists. Time and again I have been
disappointed, and found, instead of straws in the hair, brilliantine,
and instead of a foaming mouth, lips pursed in eminently sane and
complacent judgment on mankind.
Even when there is some apparent foundation for the stories, they are
always grossly exaggerated. Pachmann, for example. The most astounding
tales are constantly narrated about this great little man, how he
crawls under the piano in a gibbering search for Chopin, how he is
taken from a padded cell and led to the piano by a keeper. Nonsense--or
so I judged when, not long before leaving London, I had the pleasure of
meeting him.
I had not seen Pachmann since, as a small and evil child, I had
once untied his bootlaces under my aunt’s piano, on which he used
often to perform. His behaviour on that occasion might possibly have
strengthened the mad legend, but on our second meeting, though one
realized his behaviour was a little odd, nobody but a fool would have
thought him mad. Nobody but a fool, indeed, would have failed to be
absolutely charmed by his dainty little mannerisms. He danced round the
room like some grey-haired Puck, waving his long white fingers on which
glittered two beautiful diamond rings. He was always talking nineteen
to the dozen, and never finished a sentence. Words seemed too clumsy
for him and he would flick his fingers to convey the sense he wanted.
How we laughed and talked! He turned everything to music, even his
wine. He held up a glass of champagne to the light, pointing at it and
saying--‘Bubbles! Golden, sparkling bubbles! I show you.’ And before
one could rise to stop him, he had rushed into the darkness of the next
room, seated himself at the piano, and played, with magical perfection,
a shimmering treble passage from Chopin’s Third Scherzo. After which
the champagne tasted quite flat.
He told me, after dinner, about one of his early love-affairs, in
Poland.