boy, and which his mother, Mme. Roger Marx, turned over to me:
Pale vision
A l’horizon
En ce lieu sombre
Fugitive ombre ...
Devant mes yeux vague
Une forme vague,
Suis-je fascine?
Une blanche vague.
En volutes d’argent
Sur l’océan immense,
Elle court follement,
Elle s’enfuit et danse
Protée reste! Ne fuis pas!
Sur la fleur qu’on ne voit pas
Palpite, hésite, et se pose
Un papillon vert et rose:
Il voltige sans aucun bruit
Étend ses ailes polychromes
Et maintenant c’est un arum
Au lieu d’un papillon de nuit....
The little fellow ended by making wax figurines, representing “Loie
Fuller,” works of art that I treasure with great care.
Another curious incident is that of the daughter of Madame Nevada,
the great American singer. The child always called me “ma Loie” and,
after her first visit to the theatre to which she had gone to see
me dance, she tried to imitate me. She was so remarkable that I had
a little robe made for her. Her father, Dr. Palmer, arranged at his
house a magic lantern with variable lights. The little girl danced
and invented strange and remarkable forms, which she called “the birth
of spring,” “summer,” “autumn,” and “winter.” She was able to make use
of various expressions and to combine motions of the arms and the body
harmoniously.
The little dear was so successful among the few intimate friends who
saw her, that Mme. Nevada was obliged to give some recitals in her
luxurious _appartement_ in the Avenue Wagram, so that her friends might
applaud the delightful child. At one of these recitals some Catholic
priests were present, and when they expressed themselves as delighted
by the child’s charm of manner, she said to them quickly:
“Do you like these dances? Then you ought to go and see ‘My Loie.’ She
dances at the Folies-Bergère!”
Here is quite a different impression I once made.
Long before my debut as a dancer, I was a little _ingenue_, and was
playing the burlesque role of Jack Sheppard in the play of that name,
supporting the distinguished comedian Nat Goodwin. The Editor of one
of the principal papers in New York one evening brought his wife and
daughter to the theatre to see me in my popular part.
The Editor’s daughter became very anxious to make my acquaintance.
Her father looked me up and wrote to ask me if he might bring his
daughter, a young person six years old, to call upon me.
I had succeeded so perfectly in taking a boy’s part that the little
girl could not believe but that I really was one, and when she had been
presented to me, she asked:
“Well, why does Jack wear girl’s clothes?”
That was another time when I did not undeceive a little admirer. To-day
she is a fine young woman who has always been a faithful friend of mine.
When I was sixteen years old I made the acquaintance of a young widow
who had two sons, seven and nine years old respectively. The elder fell
in love with me. In spite of everything they could do to take his mind
off it he became worse and worse. He fell behind in his studies and he
broke away completely from his mother’s control. Things came to such a
point that it was necessary to give the child a change of scene. The
widow accordingly left for England with her boy. After a little time
she supposed that he had ceased to think of me.
Nine years passed. In the meantime I had become a dancer and in London
I happened upon the widow and her sons. Forgetting all about my little
admirer’s former passion--he was now a big boy of eighteen--I engaged
him as my secretary.
Some days after he said to me quietly:
“Do you remember, Miss Fuller, that when I was nine years old I told
you that at eighteen I should ask you to be my wife?”
“Yes, I remember it.”
“Well, I am eighteen years old now and I have not changed my mind. Will
you marry me?”
Very lately my admirer has repeated his declaration that he will never
marry. He is thirty years old to-day, and who knows, perhaps the man’s
heart has remained the same as the heart of the boy of nine.
XIV
PRINCESS MARIE
It was the evening of my first appearance at Bucharest.
Some one came to tell me that the Prince and Princess Royal were in the
royal box.
After the performance they sent an officer to tell me how greatly my
dances had interested them. They promised to come again and, as they
wanted their children to see me, they asked if I would not give a
matinee.
I was in the act of putting on my clothes.
It was impossible for me to receive the officer, who accordingly gave
the message from their Royal Highnesses to my maid.
Next day I wrote to Princess Marie to thank her, and proposed to give a
performance at the palace, if that seemed to her desirable.
The reply came without delay. The princess sent for me.
That is called a “court order,” but it came in the guise of a charming
letter, which said that the princess would be very glad to see me if I
was not incommoded by the hour which she set.
When I arrived at the palace I was taken up a great staircase and then
introduced to a little salon, which was like every other little salon
in every other palace. I thought how disagreeable it must be to live in
an atmosphere that has been created by a hundred other people before
your time, and in which nothing really belongs to you. I was engaged in
thinking this when an official opened the door and asked me to follow
him.
What a change!
In a most delightfully arranged room I saw a young woman, tall,
slender, and extremely pretty. The surroundings, the furniture, the
style, all were so personal to the young woman that the palace dropped
out.
I actually forgot where I was, and I fancied myself in the presence of
a legendary princess in a fairy-tale-chamber.
Accordingly the first words I uttered, as I took the hand which the
pretty princess extended toward me, were:
“Oh, how exquisite this is! It is not at all like a royal palace--any
more than you seem like a princess receiving a stranger!”
She began to smile and after we were seated she said:
“Do you think that a princess should always be cold and ceremonious
when she receives a stranger? Well, so far as I am concerned, you are
not a stranger at all. After having seen you in your beautiful dances
it seems to me that I am well acquainted, and I am very glad indeed
that you have come to see me.”
Then she asked if I could secure all my effects in an ordinary hall.
She was thinking of the performance which I was to give at the palace.
I told her that this would be quite possible. Then, and almost without
knowing what I was saying, I murmured: “Heavens, how pretty it is! What
a wonderful view you get from these windows!”
“Yes. It is chiefly on account of this view that I wanted to live here.
The landscape which we overlook reminds me of England; for, as you see,
standing by these windows when I look out I can fancy myself once again
in the dear country in which I was born.”
“Then you still love England?”
“Have you ever met an Englishman yet who loved another country better
than his own?”
“Don’t you love Roumania?”
“It is impossible to live here without loving both the people and the
country.”
She then showed me a big picture. It was her own portrait in the
national Roumanian costume. But on account of her blonde hair and her
fair complexion the contrast with the other Roumanians whom I had seen
was very striking. It seemed that the picture was tinged with sadness,
and I wondered whether the princess would not some day regret her
enforced exile. To me she gave the impression of a lily, planted in a
field of wild poppies.
When we returned to our seats I looked at the princess. I admired her
excellent carriage, her friendly smile.
She showed me a large portfolio in which she had painted some flowers.
One of these pictures represented some Chinese plants drooping in a
melancholy fashion. I could not help looking at the princess as she
turned the page.
“I painted them one day when I was feeling very blue,” she said. “We
all have such days, do we not?”
“Yes, your Highness, but you ought not to have them.”
“Well, let me tell you, there is no one alive who has no cause for
sadness. I am certainly not exempt.”
Then, changing the topic of conversation, she said:
“See these chairs. Do you like them?”
The chairs were exquisite. The princess had painted them. The
upholstery and the woodwork were both adorned with flowers she had
painted. By the fireplace the princess had arranged a little corner
with divans and low seats covered with Liberty silk. The room was huge,
with windows along one side. This row of windows was parallel to a sort
of colonnade, which had been there before the room was transformed by
the princess, and made a kind of corridor. One might have wished it
removed to enlarge the room, but the princess had it now, and, from a
decorative standpoint, she had made the best of it. The ceiling was
inlaid with golden panels. I am not sufficiently versed in architecture
to state to what style this room would be said to belong; but nothing
that I had ever seen before was just like it. It seemed to me to have
originated in the brain of some one who had quite new ideas, for the
arrangement was absolutely original. The room was panelled in blue
faiënce and heavy oriental tapestries.
I write this from memory, five years after my visit, but I am certain
that I have not forgotten a single detail.
Then we spoke of dancing.
“Have you ever danced before my grandmother?” asked the princess.
“No, never. At Nice once I was to have the honour of appearing before
Her Majesty Queen Victoria, when my manager suddenly obliged me to
leave for America. I have always regretted it, for a second opportunity
never offered itself.”
The princess then asked me if the King and Queen of England had seen me
dance.
“No, but I suppose they think they have seen me, for in my little
theatre at the Exposition of 1900, on the days when I was engaged
elsewhere, I was sometimes obliged to be represented by an understudy.
During one of my absences the King and Queen of England, who were then
the Prince and Princess of Wales, took a box to see the little Japanese
tragedienne who was playing at my theatre. That day an understudy was
dancing for me, but the King and Queen probably supposed it was I whom
they had seen.”
“Oh, well, you will have to dance for them some day.”
Then she asked me if I had danced before her cousin, the Emperor of
Germany.
“No,” I answered regretfully.
“Very well, let me know when you will be in Berlin and I will try
to have him go and see you. He loves artistic things, and he is an
accomplished artist himself.”
Later I did dance before the Queen of England, but I was far from
suspecting under what circumstances it would come to pass.
I asked Princess Marie if she had ever been interested in the dances
of the Hindus and the Egyptians, their funeral dances, sacred dances,
dances of death and the rest. She, in her turn, questioned me as to the
methods by which I thought it would be possible to reconstruct these
dances.
“There are very few documents treating of the subject, but it seems to
me that it should be easy, if one put oneself into the state of mind
that prompted the dances in times past, to reproduce them to-day with
similar action and movement. If the custom still existed of dancing at
funerals, a little reflection will show that the dances would have to
suggest and express sadness, despair, grief, agony, resignation and
hope. All this can be expressed by motions and hence by the dance. The
only question is whether the dancer should express the grief she feels
at the loss of a loved one, or if she should reveal to the people who
are in mourning resignation and the hope of a future life. In other
words, pantomime should be a sort of silent music, a harmony of motions
adapted to the situation, for there is harmony in everything--harmony
of sounds (which is music), harmony of colours, harmony of ideas,
harmony of motions.”
We talked for a long time about these dances, and the princess asked me:
“Shall we be able to appreciate pictures of this kind when you come to
dance at the palace?”
I replied that I was thinking of dances of this sort when I wrote to
her, for these reconstructions would naturally interest her beyond what
she had seen at the theatre.
Then the princess asked me a thousand other questions and we were so
absorbed in our conversation that her luncheon waited more than an hour
for her.
The evening when I danced at the palace I supposed that the princess
would be alone, for we had agreed, as I have already explained, that
the children were not to be present at my performance. They were not
present, as a matter of fact, but the princess had invited the King and
the Queen and all their retinue, limiting the invitations strictly to
habitués of the court.
When I saw the crowd of guests, I could not help wondering how they
were going to seat everybody.
We had chosen the dining-hall in which to place an improvised stage,
and I had brought two electricians in order to be prepared, if the
princess wished me to do so, to present one or two of my radiant dances.
The court pianist, in the meantime, had instructed me in some of Carmen
Sylva’s songs. The evening entertainment began with expressions in
pantomime and dance of several of those songs.
It was nine o’clock. At one o’clock in the morning I was still dancing;
but I felt myself so utterly exhausted that I had to stop. The princess
observed my fatigue and came to me.
“What selfishness on our part not to have thought earlier of how tired
you must be!”
“Oh, I am so pleased that it seems to me I could go on for ever, if I
could only get a minute’s rest. You are the one who must be tired.”
Supper had been waiting for a long time, and the performance ended then
and there.
The King asked, I remember, if I could dance “Home, Sweet Home.” I
had never tried it, but it did not seem to me difficult--with the
accompaniment of the exquisite melody--to express the words,
“There’s no place like home.”
[Illustration: DANCE TO GOUNOD’S “AVE MARIA”]
I had danced that evening Gounod’s _Ave Maria_ some bacchanal dances,
some other dances, based upon slow movements of Mendelssohn’s concertos
for the dances of death, and on Chopin’s _Marche, Funèbre_ for the
funeral dances. My excellent orchestra leader, Edmond Bosanquet, had,
furthermore, composed some perfect music for dances of joy and of
grief. In brief, I must have danced at least twenty times, and we had
ended with the radiant dances, which the King had never seen. Everyone,
it is needless to say, congratulated me in a most charming way, but the
loveliest of all was Princess Marie, who brought me a large photograph
of herself, on which she had written: “In memory of an evening during
which you filled my heart with joy.”
The day before our departure from Bucharest some money, which was to
have been wired me, had not arrived, and I found myself in a genuine
predicament. I had twelve people and several thousand pounds of baggage
to get to Rome, where I was to make my first appearance on Easter Day.
To arrive there in time we should have to take the train next morning.
I went accordingly to the princess, who was the only person whom I knew
in Roumania, to ask her if she would come to my assistance.
I called on her at nine o’clock in the morning. I was taken to the
second storey of the palace, to a room that was even prettier, if
possible, than the one in which I had been received the first time.
The princess received me. She was in her night-robe, and had put on a
dressing-gown of white silk over which her beautiful dishevelled hair
hung. She was still engaged in her toilet when I arrived, but in order
not to make me wait, she bade me come into her little boudoir, where no
one would disturb us. The room, filled with well-chosen first editions,
was in charming taste. Everywhere there were little draped statuettes
on pedestals. Beside the fireplace was a very comfortable corner. In
the midst of all these beautiful objects one might have thought oneself
in a miniature museum.
I asked her what she liked best among all the things there and she
replied, “the rosaries,” of which she had quite a collection. What an
artist she must be to bring together all these beautiful things.
“This is my room,” she said, while we were talking, “in which whatever
happens no one is permitted to bother me. I take refuge here from time
to time, and remain until I feel myself ready to face the world once
more.”
I then told her my troubles. She rang a bell, and gave an order to let
M. X---- know immediately that Miss Fuller would come to see him with
a card from her, and that M. X---- would kindly do everything in his
power to assist Miss Fuller.
I looked at her for some time and then I said to her:
“I should have liked greatly to know you without being aware that you
were a princess.”
“But,” she said, “it is the woman whom you now know and not the
princess.”
And that was true. I felt that I was in the presence of some one who
was really great, even if her birth had not made her so. I am certain
that she would have accomplished great things if she had not found her
career already mapped out for her from the day of her birth in her
father’s palace.
Everyone knows that a princess’ life precludes liberty, and contains
no possibility of breaking with the conventions for the sake of doing
something extraordinary or notable. These chains are so strong that if
one contrives to break them, it generally happens under the impulse of
despair, as a result of irritation and not for the sake of a purely
inspired work.
When I arose to take leave of the princess she kissed me and said:
“If ever I come to Paris I shall call on you at your studio.”
She caused an attendant to accompany me to the master of ceremonies,
with whom I was to go to the bank. There the master of ceremonies
communicated Princess Marie’s order to the effect that I was to be
accommodated in any way I might desire.
The money I needed was advanced in return for a cheque, and I left
Bucharest.
The journey was full of troubles. Vexatious delays occurred. Finally
I arrived at Rome, where my appearance had to be postponed until my
baggage, lost in transit, had been found. Three thousand people, who
had come to my first performance, went away without seeing me. That
certainly was very hard luck. If I had been able to foresee all that, I
should never have ventured to intrude upon the Princess.
In that case I should not have discovered what an admirable woman she
is.
XV
SEVERAL SOVEREIGNS
In the course of my travels about the world, east, west, north and
south, over oceans and across continents, I have had the experience of
seeing or of encountering many persons of distinction, including not a
few sovereigns and members of royal households.
It has seemed to me that it might be interesting to bring together at
this point some of the most typical of the incidents that occur to
me. Just as they come, drawn haphazard from memory, without order or
sequence, and with no thought of literary composition, I am going to
put them simply on paper, one by one.
_How I Failed to see Queen Victoria._
One day at Nice some one came and asked me to dance before Queen
Victoria. She had just arrived on the Riviera to pass the winter
months, as she was accustomed to do every year.
It may well be believed that I was flattered by such a request. I
assented, naturally, and set myself to work making all my preparations
for this important event.
There was a knock at the door. A maid brought a telegram. It was signed
by my manager, and was couched in the following words: “Take train this
evening, to sail day after to-morrow; destination, New York.”
I replied with a message pleading for a delay, for the purpose of
dancing before Queen Victoria.
I received simply the following laconic telegram:
“Impossible. Leave at once. Time is money.”
That’s why I did not dance before Queen Victoria.
_I stop the Queen of the Belgians in the Street._
I was engaged for some performances at Spa. The evening of my first
appearance the Queen and Princess Clementine were in the royal box.
That was a gala evening, one on which the hall was resplendent with
magnificent gowns and jewels.
Everything went off perfectly.
Next morning I went for a walk with my mother. We were crossing the
causeway when a carriage, drawn by two spirited horses driven by a
middle-aged woman, bore down upon us.
Frightened on account of my mother, I threw up my arms in front of the
carriage, which stopped.
The lady allowed us to pass and, while thanking her, I remarked to
myself that a woman ought not to drive such lively horses.
I had forgotten the incident when, shortly after my return to the
hotel, I saw the same carriage go by.
Two gentlemen were talking on the landing near us.
“See. There is the Queen,” said one of them.
It was the Queen whom I had stopped!
_Princely Simplicity._
At the Hague I was asked to give a performance before the Grand Duke
and Duchess of Mecklenburg, Princess Victoria of Schaumburg-Lippe and
their retinue.
The hall was well filled. I had the Philharmonic Society’s orchestra.
This was a gala evening, and in every way a very successful one for me.
Next day on coming down from my room I encountered on the stairway of
the hotel a lady with a very sweet expression, who asked me:
“You are Miss Loie Fuller? Your dances interest me greatly. My husband
has gone out on the beach. Wouldn’t you like to come and talk to
him about your lighting effects. I am sure that would prove very
interesting to him.”
I gladly acquiesced and followed her.
I was delighted to talk to this woman and her husband, who proved to be
a most delightful man. I explained to them all my schemes of lighting
and my dances. I then took my leave and joined my mother, who was
waiting for me.
When I returned to the hotel the proprietor came to me and said:
“You met with great success yesterday, Miss Fuller, and with even
greater this morning.”
“This morning?”
“Yes. Do you know who the gentleman is with whom you have just been
talking?”
“No. Who is he?”
“The Grand Duke of Mecklenburg.”
This same day I boarded a street car.
On the car several people appeared to know me. One lady came and sat
beside me and began to talk.
When we arrived at our destination I asked her if she would not tell me
her name.
“Victoria de Schaumburg-Lippe.”
One evening when I was dancing at the Hague the princess was in the
hall with Major Winslow and others of her retinue. She sent for me, and
asked me to show her one of my robes.
I brought her the robe which I put on for the butterfly dance.
She took the stuff in her hand and said:
“The robe is really wonderful, but it is after all only what you do
that counts.”
I remember that she asked me to sign a photograph for her. And when
I returned to the hotel the manager of the Kurhaus handed to me an
exceedingly pretty watch, on the cover of which were engraved these
words:
“In memory of the performance given for Princess Victoria.”
_The Curiosity of the Archduchesses of Austria._
I was once at the Swedish gymnasium at Carlsbad, where machines with
electrical vibrations shock you from head to foot. I was just about to
dress myself when one of the women of the place came to me, and said:
“Won’t you please return to the hall, and pretend to take the electric
treatment again in order that the archduchesses, who are there, with a
whole crowd of court ladies, may see you?”
I replied: “Tell the archduchesses that they can see me this evening at
the theatre.”
The poor woman then declared to me that she had been forbidden to
mention their Royal Highnesses, and that they had bidden her get me
back into the hall on some pretext or other.
She was so grieved at not having succeeded that I returned to the
machines, and had my back massaged, in order that the noble company
might look at me at their ease, as they would survey an interesting
animal.
They looked at me, all of them, smiling, and while they viewed me I
never turned my eyes away from them.
The odd thing was that they did not know that I knew them. I was,
therefore, as much amused by them, and without their perceiving it, as
they were amused by me.
_How I was not decorated with the Order of the Lion and the Sun of
Persia._
During one of the visits that the Shah of Persia pays to Paris, the
Marquis and Marquise d’Oyley, who were great friends of the Sovereign
and who were very fond of my dancing, brought the Shah to one of my
performances at Marigny.