himself, as black as the two preceding, for all the attendants are
negroes in American hotels. This fellow was willing to remove his
boots. Some minutes passed. Mortier was almost apoplectic with anger.
The boy reappeared. He explained to his client that he gave the boots
back only in return for a dollar. Mortier was still in bed. To make
him understand, the negro lifted his clothes, which were folded on a
chair, and, whistling, all the while, rifled the pockets. He picked out
a dollar, and put it carelessly into his own pocket. Then he left the
boots on the floor and disappeared.
In a paroxysm of rage our friend dressed himself in a great hurry and
went to the hotel desk, where he made the place resound with curses
that no one paid any attention to since no one understood them.
On the evening of the same day Mortier put his boots outside his door
in order that they might be cleaned before next morning, as is done
everywhere in England and France.
In America when something is left in front of the door it is only as a
sign that the object can be thrown away. Mortier never saw his shoes
again.
He rang, a negro presented himself. Mortier demanded his shoes. He
cried, stormed, threatened. The negro backed up against the wall and
unconcernedly whistled a cakewalk.
Speechless with rage, Mortier hurled himself upon the black. The hotel
negroes, especially when they are not armed, are ordinarily lacking
in courage. Besides, this one had good reasons for believing that his
client had gone mad. So he hastily decamped.
After that nothing could induce any one of the negroes of the
establishment to enter Mortier’s room as long as he remained at this
hotel.
We did our best to explain to M. Mortier that the domestics were nowise
in the wrong. He would not listen to a word, but kept exclaiming, with
his eyes sticking further out of his head than usual (his eyes were
naturally prominent):
“No, no! In America you are savages, all savages. Yes, savages and
thieves. It is much worse here than I had supposed.”
One morning he went down alone into the restaurant for breakfast. Some
minutes after we saw him bounding up the stairs. He was livid and
trembling with rage. On reaching the door of our apartment, he burst
out:
“This time it is too much. What is the matter with these brutes here?
Has some change come over me? Tell me. Am I an object of ridicule?
What is the matter with me? When I entered the restaurant a great
fool looked me over from top to bottom, and said something, thereupon
everybody began to stare at me. What is the trouble with me? Tell me
what is the matter?”
What was the matter? He wore a straw hat with very narrow brim, one
of those hats called “American” in Paris and of a kind that is never
worn in America. He also had “New Yorkey” trousers such as were never
cut in New York. That was enough to let loose the risibilities of this
Yankee public, a public that is far from being indulgent of little
eccentricities in other people.
Instead of calming him our explanations exasperated him, and it was
only after he had spent his violence that we succeeded in getting him
down to breakfast again.
The breakfast was not extraordinarily expensive. But when he looked
over his account Mortier went into a rage. He had ordered the same
things that we did, and his bill was two dollars and a half, that is
about twelve and a half francs, higher than ours. These twelve and a
half francs represented the price of a bottle of very ordinary red
wine, which he had ordered.
“Do you want me to tell you what your Americans are,” he shouted.
“Well, they are, and don’t you forget it either, they are every one
thieves, savages, hogs. They are hogs, hogs! That one word expresses
it.”
One morning at eight o’clock, after we had had coffee together, he left
us.
“I am going to take a little walk,” he said. “I shall be back in half
an hour.”
The half hour lasted until seven o’clock in the evening. You can
imagine how anxious we became.
This is what happened.
Seeing that everybody, almost without exception, was headed in the
same direction, he followed the crowd along the side walk. Presently
he found himself on Brooklyn Bridge, black with people and burdened
with cars, those bound to New York filled to overflowing, the others
returning to Brooklyn completely empty.
Mortier did not know that all Brooklyn goes to work on the New York
side, where the business district is situated, and that everybody goes
to work at the same hour in this peculiar country. Astonished, curious,
a little bewildered, he followed the crowd. Once across the bridge he
found himself in one of the innumerable streets of New York.
On the New York side he looked round him to establish a landmark by
which he could find his way back. He did not discover one, but it
seemed impossible to get lost, as he had only to return to the base
of this big bridge to retrace his steps to Brooklyn. He kept on,
therefore, until he had completely satisfied his curiosity. Then he
retraced his steps, or at least he thought he was doing so. He looked
for the bridge, but in vain. Everybody walked so quickly that his very
courteous “Pardon, Monsieur,” met with no response. Once or twice he
made a bad effort at asking for “Brooklyn Bridge.” This met with no
better success.
All the while he was unable to find a policeman.
The idea occurred to him, a magnificent idea, of going into a shop.
No one made the slightest effort to help him. The assistants were
interested only in trying to sell him everything which the house
contained. Finally he found himself in a street where there were only
clothing merchants. Hardly had he set foot there when he was seized and
dragged into a shop. An hour passed before Mortier could escape, more
dead than alive, from the merchant’s clutches. The information he gave
led us to suppose that this must have been the famous Baxter Street,
the quarter in which Jewish second-hand dealers ply their trade. It was
past five o’clock when he succeeded finally in regaining the bridge,
and then it was only with difficulty that he got across, for it was
already overcrowded with workers returning to their homes in Brooklyn.
Finally he found the hotel again, swearing that he was going to take
the first steamer for Europe.
“Anywhere,” he would groan; “I would rather be anywhere in the world
than here. I’m not going to stay another hour in such a country. A
rotten country! Rotten people!”
This time, in Pierre Mortier’s eyes, we were “rotten.” It would be hard
to estimate how many discourteous adjectives this young man applied to
our people in a short time. He must have made a record.
However, the Brooklyn hotel at which we were staying was equipped “on
the European plan” with carefully chosen menus _à la carte_.
In the city to which we went later there was a purely American hotel,
at which we put up. A central plate surrounded by a dozen little plates
stood in front of each guest. All these were filled simultaneously with
soup, entrees, fish, meat, vegetables and fruit. The guests with hasty
movements gobbled smoked salmon, roast beef, chicken, mashed potatoes,
badly cooked “pie,” salad, cheese, fruit, pudding, ice-cream, with
apparently no regard for the effect of the hazardous mixtures on their
digestive organs.
Mortier left the table completely disheartened by this spectacle.
“What are those savages made of,” he said. “Upon my word they make me
look back with regret to the thieves in New York. And when you consider
that to urge down their hideous mixtures they incessantly guzzle
ice water and keep chewing olives, just as civilised people eat bread!”
When we returned to New York Mortier went to the Holland House, a hotel
at which French was spoken, and where things were done in a manner
approximating nearer to what he was accustomed to.
America--this America which on the steamer he had assured himself would
be perfect--had come to interest him only in places where it had lost
its own character. He found it good only in the few spots where it
resembled Paris. In this was not this young journalist, after all, like
most of his compatriots when they undertake to travel even in other
countries than in America?
At the Holland House Pierre Mortier relaxed a little. He even became
more polite in his expressions regarding America and Americans. But an
incident occurred that brought the young reporter’s distaste for the
country to a head, and precipitated his departure.
One day on returning to the Holland House he forgot to pay his cabman
and found him ten hours later still standing in front of the hotel. His
charge was a dollar and a half an hour. That meant that Mortier had to
give up fifteen dollars.
Our friend thought at first the house porter should have paid for the
trip, and had the charge made on his bill. Accordingly he complained at
the hotel desk regarding what he called a piece of negligence.
Although the house was conducted on the French plan they gave him a
thoroughly American answer:
“Well, that has nothing to do with the porter. You ordered the
carriage, didn’t you? Yes. You had the use of it, didn’t you? Yes.
Well, then, what do you expect? If you don’t know what you want, it
isn’t up to the employees to run after you to find out. They’ve got
something else to do.”
By the next steamer Pierre Mortier left the United States for good and
all, swearing never again to set foot there.
Mr. W. Boosey, the English publisher, had some very different
experiences in the United States.
On board the steamer he had become acquainted with a very interesting
and companionable American, who invited him to lunch at Delmonico’s.
“Thanks awfully,” said the Englishman as he accepted. “On what day?”
“Any day you please.”
That was a little vague, but Mr. Boosey assured him that he should be
delighted, and would come as soon as he had a free day. He was afraid
of not having said the proper thing, from the American point of view.
This notion bothered him for several days.
Finally, just before sailing, he asked the American again when they
should lunch together at Delmonico’s.
His friend replied: “On Thursday or Saturday, whichever suits you best.”
The Englishman decided on Thursday.
The day set for the lunch arrived and Mr. Boosey was prompt to keep
the appointment. He asked for Mr. X., and they showed him to a table.
Half-past one, two, half-past two, three o’clock, and still no American.
The Englishman, patient though he was, began to find time hanging
heavily on his hands. He thought he must have made a mistake as to the
day, and at last he sent for the manager.
“What,” said the manager, “didn’t the waiter tell you that Mr. X. had
telephoned that he could not come, and that he begged you to order
whatever you liked? He will attend to the account.”
Imagine what the Englishman must have thought. He had come to lunch
with a gentleman, not to have his food paid for by some one. Just at
that moment the American rushed into the restaurant.
“I am awfully sorry, my dear fellow, but I am glad to find you still
here. I had quite forgotten about our lunch up to two o’clock, and then
I telephoned. I didn’t think I could get here at all. I had a deal on,
one involving a million dollars, and I simply couldn’t leave it. Have
you had your bite? No? Well, I haven’t either. Well, then, let us go
and sit down.”
And they sat down. Mr. Boosey will never forget his American
entertainer.
The American had, it must be confessed, treated his English guest
with a certain negligence. However little he may be inclined to
philosophical considerations, nothing is more instructive to a
thorough-going Englishman than to observe the manner in which a Yankee
ordinarily observes the civilised conventions and the lofty spirit in
which he also looks upon anyone who is not an American. Nothing gives
him a better notion of the high opinion Americans have of themselves
than to hear a Yankee say:
“Well, what are you anyway? English, I’ll bet.”
Then, after a profound sigh and with an indefinable sweep of the hand:
“As for me,” with emphasis on the “me,” “I am an American.”
He seems to experience genuine annoyance at having to face a man who
isn’t an American.
Every American thinks, without ever being guilty of profound reflection
on the subject, that everybody, whatever his nationality, would have
preferred first to see the light of day in the United States. For the
United States, if one were to accept the cheerful American belief, is a
free country whose parallel does not exist anywhere in the world.
The native American claims to have the advantage of being a citizen of
the world’s freest country. If you were to say to most Americans that
there is a great deal of liberty in England, they would think that you
were trying to make fun of them, and they would tell you that they
did not believe it. They admit, occasionally, that there is a little
freedom outside of the United States, but they will add:
“What a pity there isn’t more of it.”
The American believes himself completely emancipated, for freedom is
the passion of the whole people. He pays for this catchword, which
satisfies him, for having no basis of comparison he in reality does not
know what he possesses and what he lacks.
The Spanish American is not less picturesque than the Anglo-Saxon
American.
I had an engagement for a season at the city of Mexico. I made my first
appearance at the Grand Théâtre-National in presence of five thousand
spectators. On returning to the Hotel Sands, the most beautiful hotel
in the city, I found there the municipal orchestra come to serenade me.
At the end of my stay I was asked to take part in a charitable
performance. The house was packed, despite the high price of the seats.
After the performance a great banquet was given, under the auspices of
the festival committee.
At the table I was received with an enthusiasm which was quite Mexican,
and that means with an enthusiasm that could be hardly surpassed in any
country of the world. Throughout the repast I kept receiving presents.
Some of the women took off their bracelets, others their rings, others
their brooches, and, in spite of my protestations, insisted on giving
them to me.
“Absolutely at your service!”
They obliged me to take them all.
I was inexpressibly embarrassed by my booty. When I returned to the
hotel I asked the clerk to put all these jewels in a safe place.
He looked at the jewels and said:
“But you will have to send them back, madam.”
“Send them back? Why, they were given me.”
“It is the custom here, madam. Presents are always returned.”
“What am I going to do? I am leaving to-morrow morning at six o’clock,
and I don’t know the names of the people who have entrusted their
jewels to me.”
He shook his head.
“Well, then, I don’t know what to do. After all, keep them.”
Next day, accordingly, when I departed, I took the precious package,
thinking that we should return from Cuba, to which we were bound, by
way of Mexico, and that I should then look up the owners of “my” jewels.
In Cuba all our plans were changed. We left directly for New York, with
the object of returning at once to Europe. Consequently I have never
given back the jewels.
I sometimes wonder what my friends of some hours must think of a woman
who dared to accept, under protest, the presents that were tendered her.
While we were in Mexico I had occasion to offer a cheque payable in New
York for some books I was buying.
No one, absolutely no one, wanted to accept it. Then I went to the
Chief of Police, General Carbadjadoes, whom I knew and he telegraphed
to a New York bank, from which the reply was received that, “Loie
Fuller’s cheques are perfectly good.”
That put an end to any reluctance among the merchants, who afterward,
on the contrary, overwhelmed me with all sorts of propositions.
My most vivid impressions of Mexico were of the abounding and
well-regulated enthusiasm of the upper classes and the extraordinary
insolence of the tradespeople. The whole character of the country is
expressed in these two traits.
On the liner that took us to the United States Pierre Mortier, for I
shall have to mention him once more, made the acquaintance of a young
Roumanian, who seemed to be a well-bred man, a very well-bred man.
In Mortier enthusiasm is as easily evoked as is condemnation, and he
presented this man to me in a most cordial manner.
Upon our arrival the young man said to me:
“I have so many little parcels that I don’t know where to put them.
Would you do me the great favour of taking care of this one?”
I gave the object to my maid, who put it in my travelling case, and it
passed the inspection of the customs-house officer.
That evening at the hotel the young man called on me with Mortier, and
I gave him back his package.
He opened it smiling, and showed me the contents.
I had fraudulently brought in a bag of uncut rubies.
I treated the Roumanian as a cheat and told him that if he did not
make the matter right with the customs I should hand him over to the
authorities. Smiling all the while he promised that, since I took the
affair to heart, he would go and make his peace, and he left.
I never saw him or his rubies again, it is needless to say.
I believe that from this time forward they have been seeking me in vain
to charge me with smuggling a package through the customs-house.
XXII
GAB
For eight years Gab and I have lived together on terms of the greatest
intimacy, like two sisters. Gab is much younger than I and regards me
with deep affection.
Often I look at her curiously. She seems to read what is in my face and
replies to my mute interrogation.
“You cannot understand me. You are Saxon and I am Latin.”
When I survey her I find myself thinking as she thinks, and I wonder
if there exists a way of comprehending that we Anglo-Saxons do not
possess. Gab is deeply serious. She has long, black eyes which seem to
slumber perpetually. When she walks, despite her youth, she proceeds
with slow and protracted steps, which give you an impression that she
must be of a serious and meditative nature.
When I became acquainted with her she was living in a dark little
apartment, furnished in Hindu style, where in her black velvet costume
she looked like some Byzantine princess. Jean Aicard, the poet, said
one day that her voice is of velvet, her skin and locks are of velvet,
her eyes are of velvet and her name ought to be _Velours_. If one
could compare her to a living creature a boa constrictor would be most
appropriate, for her movements are like those of a snake. There is
nothing sinuous, nothing rampant about them, but the _ensemble_ of her
motions suggests the suppleness of the young adder.
I knew Gab for at least two years before it entered into my head
that she was fond of me. She was always so calm, so silent, so
undemonstrative, so unlike any other human being that only a
supernatural personality, it seemed, would ever be able to understand
her.
Her eyes and her hair are just alike, deep black and very brilliant.
In her presence people never know for certain whether she is looking
at them or not. Yet nothing about them escapes her, and through her
half-closed eyes she penetrates to the very depths of their souls. She
is neither tall nor slight, neither plump nor thin. Her skin is like
alabaster, her abundant locks are parted in the middle and brought
together in a knot behind the head, just as our grandmothers did their
hair. Her teeth are small, regular and white as pearls. Her nose is
straight and graceful. Her face is full and her head is so large that
she never finds quite hair enough to dress it with.
When Gab was a baby she had as playmates a donkey, a pony and an army
of lead soldiers, including Napoleon in his various aspects, with
horses, rifles and wooden cannon. When I became acquainted with her she
still had with her the nurse who had taken her mother’s place. This
woman told me that Gab used to make her play horse while she took the
part of Napoleon, until the poor nurse staggered with fatigue. She told
me again that Gab was so shy that when her mother received a visitor,
if the child were in the drawing-room and there was no way of escape,
the little one would hide herself behind a curtain and would not budge
until the intruder went away. Her mother was so much concerned with
what she called the child’s timidity that she was unwilling to force
her in any way. Gab subsequently has explained to me that she was
not afraid and was not timid, but the truth was she could not endure
certain people and that she did not wish to be obliged to see those who
annoyed her.
She is just the same to-day. For years whenever a visitor came in by
one door she would go out by another, and it made no difference whether
the person came for a long call or for only a single word. At lunch or
at dinner nothing could, and nothing can, induce Gab to meet people.
[Illustration: GAB
_Photo_ _Tabler_]
Gab has an iron will. Her nurse told me that one day on a journey with
her parents Gab, who was then a very small girl, wanted to have a
donkey that was running along the railway track. She cried for the
donkey and did not cease until they had found the beast and bought it
for her.
Gab has rarely to be corrected. It seems as if some one had taught
her all the politeness in the world, and all the seriousness as well.
When nine years old she was reading Schopenhauer. At fourteen she was
carrying on special research among the archives of the State police. At
sixteen she was studying the literature of ancient India. At eighteen
she published a manuscript she had found after her mother’s death. She
spent her pocket money to have it published. The title of the book was
_Au Loin_, and Jean Lorrain declared that it was the most beautiful
book on India which he had ever read.
Gab’s mother must have written this book during her journey in India,
for a short time before her death she had visited this interesting
country, and had gained access to private houses and courts to which
Europeans are not ordinarily admitted. She was a marvellously beautiful
woman, and made a great sensation in a country in which beauty is held
in high regard.
The story goes that one evening at a ball in the viceroy’s palace, to
which she had been invited, her entrance made such a sensation that all
the couples, forgetting that they were there to dance, stopped and came
forward to admire her radiant beauty.
When she died those who attended her funeral wept like children, saying
that she was too beautiful to have been an ordinary mortal, and that
there was something supernatural in her countenance.
All her life she had been called the beautiful Mme. X.
At the time of my debut at the Folies-Bergère Gab was fourteen years
old. One day her mother said to her: “There is a new foreign dancer
whom everybody is going to see. We will see her at a matinee.”
On reaching the theatre to buy seats the day before the performance
they asked about me at the ticket office. Gab’s mother, whose beauty
captivated everybody, had no trouble in getting all the information she
wanted. The following dialogue ensued:
“Is she pretty?” asked Gab’s mother.
“No, she is not pretty,” was the reply.
“Is she common, ordinary?”
“No, she has an individuality of her own.”
“Tall?”
“Rather slight than tall.”
“Is she young?”
“Yes, I suppose so, but I could not swear to it.”
“Is she brunette or blonde?”
“She has brown hair and blue eyes, very blue.”
“Is she smart?”
“Oh, no. Not smart. She is anything but that. She is a queer sort of
girl who seems to think of nothing but her work.”
“Is she retiring?”
“Well, yes. She knows nobody and sees nobody. She has continued to be
quite unacquainted in Paris. She lives on the third storey at the end
of a court in a house to the rear of the Folies-Bergère, and she never
goes out unless with the manager of the theatre or his wife and with
her mother, who never leaves her.”
“Does her dancing weary her greatly?”
“After the dance she is so tired that they have to carry her home and
she goes to bed at once. The first time she came here she stayed at the
Grand Hotel, but the manager has given her the _appartement_ of which I
have been speaking. He has had a door let in at the rear of the stage,
so that she can return to her rooms without having to go upon the
street. She remains forty-five minutes on the stage. The white dance
alone lasts eleven minutes. That is very fatiguing for her; she sticks
at it too long, but the public is never willing to let her stop.”
“Is she amiable?”
“Well, she does not know a word of French, but she smiles all the time,
and says, ‘bong-jour’.”
At this moment the manager, M. Marchand, who had come near the ticket
office, and who fell victim to the irresistible charm of Gab’s mother,
joined in the conversation.