at Monte Carlo made a very important offer for my Japanese, for three
performances. I accepted. The troupe left for Monaco, where they gave
twelve performances instead of three. In the meantime a small theatre,
that of the Musée Grevin, proposed to engage my Nipponese for a month
in a new play which was to be a comedy. To suit the purposes of this
theatre we wrote “The Japanese Doll.” Next the Little Palace offered
a month’s engagement for a play that was to be a tragi-comedy. There
my Japanese played the “Little Japanese Girl.” Finally they went to
the Treteau Royal, where Mr. Daly engaged them for their six plays,
a circumstance that compelled me to increase their _repertoire_ by
three new pieces, “The Political Spy,” “The Japanese Ophelia,” and “A
Japanese Tea House.”
Hanako finally began a tour of Switzerland with the company. Mr. Daly
suddenly wanted Hanako to appear in New York, and to break off this
trip I needed more imagination and took more trouble than in writing a
dozen plays. Then I was obliged, still on Mr. Daly’s account, to break
an agreement for a tour in France.
Such is the history of my relations with Hanako, the great little
actress from Japan. As it is always fitting that a story of this kind
shall end with a wedding, I may say that, conforming to the tradition,
the actor Sato, whom I sent to release Hanako at Antwerp, is now the
husband of the little Japanese doll.
XIX
SARDOU AND KAWAKAMI
“Who is author of the play that Sada Yacco is playing?” a writer friend
asked me one day.
“Kawakami, her husband.”
“Really. Well, then he ought to belong to the Society of Authors.”
And we proposed his name.
On the appointed day I took him to the Society of Authors. I was quite
surprised to note that the gentlemen of the committee had turned out to
a man to receive him.
We were ushered into the committee room, where these gentlemen awaited
us, seated round a large table.
Sardou, who presided, received us with a very appropriate address. He
greeted Kawakami as the man who first forged a literary bond between
France and Japan. He warmly congratulated Kawakami on having been the
first manager who had the courage to bring a company from his distant
native land to a city where no one understood a word of Japanese. He
complimented Kawakami and complimented him again, and ended by calling
him his “dear comrade.”
After which he sat down.
There was silence, and I knew that they were expecting some response
from Kawakami. But he seemed in no wise to suspect that he had
furnished the theme for the discourse just ended. He remained calmly in
his seat and surveyed the gentlemen one by one.
I realised the necessity for immediate action. Some one must sacrifice
himself. In the present crisis, cost what it may, it devolved on me
to intervene. Turning toward Kawakami, I asked, in pantomime: “Do you
understand?”
He shook his head to say no.
Thereupon M. Sardou added:
“Speak to him, Miss Fuller. Translate to him what has just been said.”
Finally, since there was nothing else for it, I summoned all my
strength, and at some length I explained in good English to Kawakami,
who did not understand a syllable of it, that this speech Sardou
had prepared expressly for him because he was a Japanese author,
and because the French were greatly pleased that he had brought his
Japanese company to Paris, and that the Society of Authors received him
with pleasure. I then explained to Kawakami, with the indispensable
assistance of appropriate gestures, that the time had arrived for him
to get up and say something in Japanese.
Was it not the essential fact that these gentlemen believed that M.
Sardou’s words had been translated?
Kawakami immediately arose and delivered an address which must have
been most carefully thought out. To judge from the seriousness of
the orator’s aspect, and from the length of his harangue Kawakami is
a great political orator. When he had finished he sat down, while
everybody looked at him admiringly, with beaming faces.
No one, however, had understood a single word of what he said. I,
naturally, was in the same plight as the others. There ensued a second
somewhat painful silence, broken by Sardou asking:
“What did he say, Miss Loie?”
That was a poser. For there was no reason why I should understand
Japanese any better than these gentlemen of the Society of Authors.
As, however, I had a feeling that I was a little responsible for what
took place, in order not to cause them any disappointment I screwed
my courage up again, rose and began to make a speech. Those who know
me can fancy what this speech was like. It was in French, but I
would take my oath that it was as hard to understand as Kawakami’s
Japanese. However, I managed to ring the changes on the words “Japanese
gratitude, Japanese pride,” and I did my best to paint in glowing
colours Kawakami’s joy at having established a bond between the
theatrical worlds of the two countries.
My speech was only a bad imitation of what M. Sardou had said, and what
I had vaguely understood of Kawakami’s views. I tried, in fact, to say
what Kawakami would have said in my place and, with as much emphasis
and big sincere words, I came to a close. Then before sitting down I
asserted once more: “There, gentlemen, that is what he said.”
My role of being an interpreter without understanding the language was
finished. There was a storm of hurrahs and the ice was broken. The
conversation became general, and the meeting ended in being a great
success so far as Kawakami was concerned. It was Kawakami’s day. As for
me, I was not in it.
The result of this meeting was that Kawakami played Sardou’s _La
Patrie_ in Japan, obtaining for this work a success as great as for
the Shakespearean plays he likewise represents there, and whose parts
he plays with such truth that he is called at home, “the Japanese Mark
Antony.”
He brought to the theatres of his native land certain modifications,
which have radically changed their dramatic methods. It is customary in
Japan to begin a play at nine or ten o’clock in the morning and to make
it last at least until midnight. One lunches and dines at the theatre
during the intervals, which, it is needless to say, are interminable.
Kawakami changed that condition of things by beginning at half-past six
or at seven o’clock in the evening and ending before midnight. And how
do you suppose he managed to prevent people eating between the acts?
for that was the most difficult innovation. He made the intervals so
short that there was no time even to go to the refreshment-room. It was
really an easy thing to compel the public to alter its habits. Instead
of appealing to people’s reason, Kawakami simply made it impossible for
them to continue doing what they had previously done.
European theatres are now building in Japan, in order that actors from
Europe may go there and produce their plays. The Nipponese public is
learning to give them a more favourable reception.
All that is due to Kawakami and to his sympathetic reception at the
Society of Authors. I cannot refrain from congratulating myself on
this, for, after all, it was I who “translated” the addresses and thus
sealed in words this new _entente cordiale_.
That brings to mind a little story.
It happened at the Athénée in 1893. We were rehearsing the “Salome”
of Armand Silvestre and Gabriel Pierné. Behind the scenes one day I
encountered a man with an enormous muffler, which went several times
around his neck, and a tall hat of a style that came down over his
ears. I chatted with him in the indifferent French I had at command,
and this without knowing who he was. While talking to him I noticed a
hole in his shoe. He was aware of my discovery, I suppose, for he said
to me:
“I had that hole made expressly. I prefer a hole in my shoe to a pain
in my foot.”
This man was Victorien Sardou.
A word more about my Japanese friends.
Kawakami has a son who was five years old when I first saw him. He
passed his time drawing everything around him.
I observed in his simple childish drawings a very peculiar manner he
affected in representing people’s eyes. They were always drawn like
billiard balls emerging from the face. I asked Kawakami:
“Don’t you think that it is an odd way to draw eyes?”
“Yes, but it is because the European eye is quite like the eye of a
fish,” the father replied.
That aroused in me a desire to know more intimately his impressions of
our race, and I asked him what Europeans look like from the Japanese
point of view.
“All Europeans,” he said, “resemble pigs. Some of them look like dirty
pigs, some like clean pigs; but they all look like pigs.”
I never said anything about this to M. Sardou.
XX
AN EXPERIENCE
It happened in February, 1902. I arrived at Vienna with my Japanese
company, headed by Sada Yacco. We had with us an artist to whom I had
been delighted to be of service. In Paris my close friend, Madame
Nevada, the celebrated American singer, had presented her to me, and
the dancer had given me a performance as an example of her skill. She
danced with remarkable grace, her body barely covered by the flimsiest
of Greek costumes, and she bade fair to become somebody. Since then she
has arrived. In her I saw the ancient tragic dances revived. I saw the
Egyptian, Greek and Hindoo rhythms recalled.
I told the dancer to what height I believed that she could attain, with
study and persistent work. A short time after I left for Berlin, where
she rejoined me. During our stay there she was ill most of the time and
could do hardly any work.
Finally, on our return to Vienna, we began our studies seriously, and
I decided to organise some evening affairs as a means of bringing her
before an audience of people capable of appreciating and understanding
her.
To this end I took her to every drawing-room that was open to me in
Vienna. Our first call was upon the wife of the English ambassador,
whom I had known at Brussels when her husband represented the United
Kingdom there. On this day I came near going in alone and leaving my
dancer in the carriage, because of her personal appearance. She wore an
Empire robe, grey, with a long train and a man’s hat, a soft felt hat,
with a flying veil. Thus gowned she appeared to so little advantage
that I rather expected a rebuff. However, I pleaded my dancer’s cause
so warmly, and I obtained a promise that both the ambassador and his
wife would be present on the first evening.
I went next to see the Princess of Metternich.
“My dear Princess,” I said to her, “I have a friend, a dancer, who has
not yet succeeded in coming to the front because she is poor and has no
one to launch her. She is very talented, and I am anxious that Viennese
drawing-rooms shall come to know her. Are you willing to help me?”
“With pleasure. What must I do?”
“To begin with, come to my hotel, and see her dance.”
“Why, certainly. You can count absolutely upon me.”
The princess is impressively simple. Where one expects to find a
_grande dame_ arrayed in finery and of lofty bearing, one discovers
a charming woman, receptive, simple, witty, and possessed of
extraordinary youthfulness of manner. When Prince Metternich was
ambassador at Paris she was given the nickname one applied to Adelaide
of Savoy; she was called “the pretty, homely one.” The princess went
one better by saying, “I am the best dressed ape in Paris.” I wonder if
she could ever have been plain. There is such intelligence implicit in
every feature of her face.
Under the light grey locks the black eyes have preserved the
sprightliness, the sweetness of youth. Her smile gave me confidence.
It was thus that I had always pictured the gentlewoman, revealed by
everything that she is herself and not solely by the things that
surround her or by the high rank she occupies in society.
I had heard it said that this woman had the greatest influence at the
Austrian court, and looking at her I understood it. Her carriage, her
countenance and everything else inspired respect and affection.
When I took leave her last words were:
“I shall be delighted to help your friend since I shall be thus able to
please you.”
I went away, gratified and thankful on my own account as well as on my
friend’s.
Then I went to the Embassy of the United States. I saw the ambassador
immediately, but I was obliged to wait to see his wife. She entered
breezily, bringing with her, as it were, a whiff of her own far west.
Kind, energetic, jolly, she was a free born woman, cordial and sincere,
and I felt at once that I could rely on her.
While I spoke of my protégée, the ambassador’s wife remembered having
seen her dance at her sister’s house in Chicago some years before. The
dancing, to tell the truth, had not particularly interested her, but
if it would be of any help to us she would be very glad to come to our
performance.
Sure of having a good audience I returned to the hotel and told my
friend that the occasion she had desired so long had at last arrived.
I decided to give an evening for the press on the same day on which my
friend would appear at a matinee before the Princess and members of the
diplomatic corps.
I then sent invitations to the Viennese artists and art critics. When
the day came everything was in readiness. I had engaged an orchestra;
the hall had floral decorations; the buffet was most appetising.
The English ambassador, his wife and daughter, were among the first
arrivals. There was a great gathering in front of the hotel to admire
their carriage with the magnificent liveries.
Then came the turn of the American ambassador and his wife, in a black
carriage, very simple, but very elegant. Finally all the others
arrived. Suddenly the princess’ turnout, so well known to all Vienna,
paused before the door.
After having welcomed my guests I begged them to excuse me for a minute
and I went in to see the débutante.
It was half-past four. In ten minutes she was due to begin. I found
her with her feet in warm water, in the act of dressing her hair, in a
very leisurely manner. Startled, I begged her to hurry, explaining that
she ran the risk through her negligence of offending an audience that
would definitely give her her start. My words were without effect. Very
slowly she continued her preparations. Feeling that I could do nothing
with her I returned to the drawing-room and made the greatest effort of
my life to get out of this delicate situation.
I was obliged to make a little impromptu address. What I said I have
never known, but I remember having vaguely fashioned something like a
dissertation on dancing and its value in relation to the other arts
and to nature. I said that the young woman whom we were going to see
was not an imitator of the dancers depicted on the Etruscan vases and
the frescoes at Pompeii. She was the living reality of which these
paintings were only an imitation. She was inspired by the spirit which
had made dancers of them.
All at once she made her entrance, calm and indifferent, looking as if
she did not care in the least what our guests thought of her.
But it was not her air of indifference that surprised me most. I could
hardly refrain from rubbing my eyes. She appeared to me nude, or nearly
so, to so slight an extent did the gauze which she wore cover her form.
She came to the front, and, while the orchestra played a prelude from
Chopin she stood motionless, her eyes lowered, her arms hanging by her
side. Then she began to dance.
Oh, that dance, how I loved it! To me it was the most beautiful thing
in the world. I forgot the woman and all her faults, her absurd
affectations, her costume, and even her bare legs. I saw only the
dancer, and the artistic pleasure she was giving me. When she had
finished no one spoke.
I went up to the Princess. She said to me in a low voice:
“Why does she dance with so little clothing on?”
Then I suddenly realised the strange attitude of the public, and guided
by a sort of inspiration, I answered in tones loud enough so that
everybody should hear:
“I forgot to tell you how kind our artist is. Her trunks upon which she
relied absolutely for the day have not arrived. Accordingly, rather
than give you the disappointment of not seeing her dance, she appeared
before you in the gown in which she practises.”
At nine o’clock the press performance took place. Everybody was
enthusiastic, but none more so than I.
Next day I arranged a third performance for painters and sculptors, and
this affair was likewise a great success.
A lady finally asked my friend to dance at her house. The star demanded
a very high price. Persuaded by me the lady consented to pay the big
fee my dancer claimed to be worth. For several weeks her success
increased day by day.
Then, all at once, people seemed to have forgotten the dancer. She was
engaged only rarely, but I was not discouraged.
Meantime, I had forgotten to mention it, my friend’s mother had joined
us at Vienna, and in place of one guest I now had two.
A little while after these performances we went to Budapesth, where I
gave a new entertainment to launch my protégée. I invited all the best
people of the city to this.
The leading actress of the Théâtre National heard of the affair, and
was anxious to take part in it. I invited the theatrical managers as
I had done at Vienna. This time one of them was to make up his mind
regarding an engagement. The next day he came to see me, and proposed
twenty performances in one of the first theatres of Budapesth. My
friend was to rehearse, beginning the next day. On that same day I had
an interminable rehearsal with my Japanese actors, and I was detained
from home until late in the afternoon. On returning to the hotel I
learned that the dancer and her mother had gone to Vienna to give there
an evening performance I had arranged for her before our departure.
My orchestra leader accompanied them. I was, I must confess, a little
surprised at the abruptness with which they left, but I thought no more
about it until my orchestra leader returned.
He came back alone. At first he evaded questions. Then he confessed
that these ladies did not expect to rejoin me. I could not, and would
not, believe him.
“Very well,” he said. “These are the precise words which the mother
uttered while we were on the train. ‘Now that she has started you,’
she said, to her daughter, ‘you have no more use for her.’ To which
the daughter replied, ‘Well, I haven’t the least desire to go back to
Loie.’”
When these ladies were ready to return to Budapesth they allowed my
orchestra leader to go without sending any message to me. I telegraphed
to find out if I was not to see them again. My dancer replied with
a telegram so worded: “Only in case you will deposit to my credit
ten thousand francs in a Viennese bank before nine o’clock to-morrow
morning.”
This proceeding was all the more cruel as she knew that I had just lost
more than one hundred thousand francs through a Viennese manager who
had broken his contract with my Japanese company. Besides, my expenses
were very heavy and I was badly embarrassed. After I left Budapesth the
dancer came there to fill the engagement I had secured for her. Then
she went to Vienna and gave some performances there. I have been told
that she went to all the people to whom I had presented her and asked
them to take tickets. She thus disposed of seats amounting to some
thousands of florins. Everybody was ready to help her, including the
wife of the English ambassador and the Princess of Metternich. Above
all, I must have gained a reputation as an impostor, for my friend
continued to appear in public in what I had called her practising gown.
Some years later at Brussels I learned that my dancer said to somebody
who wanted to know whether she was acquainted with Loie Fuller that she
did not know me.
XXI
AMERICAN AFFAIRS
A stranger, and especially a Frenchman who has never travelled in
America simply cannot imagine what our country is like. A Frenchman may
get an idea of Germany without having seen it; of Italy, without having
been there; of India even, without having visited it. It is impossible
for him to understand America as it is.
I had proof of the truth of this observation in certain circumstances
that were altogether unexpected. This experience I recall frequently as
one that was peculiarly amusing, so amusing indeed that I regard the
incident as one of the most comic I have ever encountered.
The hero of the adventure was a young journalist and man about town
named Pierre Mortier. One might imagine that from the fact of his
profession, which usually gives those who follow it a reasonable
smattering of everything, that he would be less liable to surprise and
astonishment than some shop assistant or railway employee. The actual
occurrences proved the contrary.
But let us view this farce from the rising of the curtain.
I embarked on a steamer at Cherbourg, with my mother and some friends,
bound for New York. Pierre Mortier came on board to offer his best
wishes for a delightful voyage. We made him inspect our state-rooms,
my friends and I, and we shut him in one of them. In vain he battered
the wooden door with fist and foot. We were deaf to his appeals, for we
had decided to release him only when the boat was already out of the
roadstead and bound for the shores of the new world.
At first he protested, not without vehemence, for he was not at all
equipped as regards wardrobe for such a voyage, but he soon cooled off
and gaily assumed his part in the rather strenuous farce into which we
had precipitated him.
“Be quiet,” I said to him, “everything will come out all right.”
“But how? I haven’t even a spare collar with me.”
His appearance was so disconsolate that I began to laugh heartily.
Gaiety spreads from one person to another as easily as gloom. He began,
in his turn, to laugh.
Arrived in New York we went to the best hotel in Brooklyn. The first
thing that caught Pierre Mortier’s eye in the hotel lobby was the
unusual number of spittoons. They were everywhere, of all sizes and
shapes, for Americans do not hesitate, if they have no receptacle
within easy reach, to spit on the floor, and to throw the ends of their
cigars anywhere, without even taking the trouble to extinguish them.
We reached our rooms. There in an array along the wall some buckets,
filled with water, attracted his attention. “Some more spittoons!”
cried Mortier.
Everybody laughed, and he said in a somewhat peevish tone:
“Then what are those buckets for?”
“Why, in case of fire.”
“I thought,” said Mortier, “that all American buildings were
fire-proof.”
“That is what you hear in Paris, but houses of that sort are really
very rare.”
“Yet you pay enough in your country to have more comfort and security
than anywhere else. For instance, that carriage just now. It was
nothing short of robbery. Twenty-five francs to take us from the
station here. And such an old trap! I don’t understand why your laws
tolerate such things.”
Already he was beginning to protest. There was sure to be something
else the next day.
On awakening on the first morning he pressed once on the electric
button in his bedroom. A bell-boy appeared, bringing a pitcher of ice
water. Thinking this a form of cheap wit Mortier sputtered some of his
worst insults, happily couched in French. The bell-boy, a huge negro,
looked calmly down upon this excited little man with the fair hair and
skin, and then, without asking for his tip, quietly closed the door and
went away.
This attitude of unconcern was not calculated to assuage our friend’s
bellicose mood. He rang the bell again, and three times instead of
once. That was the summons to be made when a guest wanted a boot-black
sent to take his boots. Such a personage presented himself.
The personage explained to Mortier that if he touched the bell once
that brought ice water; three times a boot-black. But Mortier did not
understand a word of English. Accordingly the boot-black did what the
bearer of ice water had done before, quite unconcernedly he went away.