Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
A MEMORABLE NIGHT IN LONDON
So we wandered along through South London by Kennington Cross and Kennington Gate, Newington Butts, Lambeth Walk, and the Clapham Road, and all through the neighbourhood. Almost every step brought back memories, most of them of a tender sort. I was right here in the midst of my youth, but somehow I seemed apart from it. I felt as though I was viewing it under a glass. It could be seen all too plainly, but when I reached to touch it it was not there—only the glass could be felt, this glass that had been glazed by the years since I left.
If I could only get through the glass and touch the real live thing that had called me back to London. But I couldn’t.
A man cannot go back. He thinks he can, but other things have happened to his life. He has new ideas, new friends, new attachments. He doesn’t belong to his past, except that the past has, perhaps, made marks on him.
My friends and I continue our stroll—a stroll so pregnant with interest to me at times that I forget that I have company and wander along alone.
Who is that old derelict there against the cart? Another landmark. I look at him closely. He is the same—only more so. Well do I remember him, the old tomato man. I was about twelve when I first saw him, and he is still here in the same old spot, plying the same old trade, while I—
I can picture him as he first appeared to me standing beside his round cart heaped with tomatoes, his greasy clothes shiny in their unkemptness, the rather glassy single eye that had looked from one side of his face staring at nothing in particular, but giving you the feeling that it was seeing all, the bottled nose with the network of veins spelling dissipation.
I remember how I used to stand around and wait for him to shout his wares. His method never varied. There was a sudden twitching convulsion, and he leaned to one side, trying to straighten out the other as he did so, and then, taking into his one good lung all the air it would stand, he would let forth a clattering, gargling, asthmatic, high-pitched wheeze, a series of sounds which defied interpretation.
Somewhere in the explosion there could be detected “ripe tomatoes.” Any other part of his message was lost.
And he was still here. Through summer suns and winter snows he had stood and was standing. Only a bit more decrepit, a bit older, more dyspeptic, his clothes greasier, his shoulder rounder, his one eye rather filmy and not so all-seeing as it once was. And I waited. But he did not shout his wares any more. Even the good lung was failing. He just stood there inert in his ageing. And somehow the tomatoes did not look so good as they once were.
We get into a cab and drive back towards Brixton to the Elephant and Castle, where we pull up at a coffee store. The same old London coffee store, with its bad coffee and tea.
There are a few pink-cheeked roués around and a couple of old derelicts. Then there are a lot of painted ladies, many of them with young men and the rest of them looking for young men. Some of the young fellows are minus arms and many of them carry various ribbons of military honour. They are living and eloquent evidence of the War and its effects. There are a number of stragglers. The whole scene to me is depressing. What a sad London this is! People with tired, worn faces after four years of War!
Someone suggests that we go up and see George Fitzmaurice, who lives in Park Lane. There we can get a drink and then go to bed. We jump in a cab and are soon there. What a difference! Park Lane is another world after the Elephant and Castle. Here are the homes of the millionaires and the prosperous.
Fitzmaurice is quite a successful moving-picture director. We find a lot of friends at his house, and over whiskies-and-sodas we discuss our trip. Our trip through Kennington suggests Limehouse, and conversation turns toward that district and Thomas Burke.
I get their impressions of Limehouse. It is not as tough as it has been pictured. I rather lost my temper through the discussion.
One of those in the party, an actor, spoke very sneeringly of that romantic district and its people.
“Talk about Limehouse nights. I thought they were tough down there. Why, they are like a lot of larks!” said this big-muscled leading man.
And then he tells of a visit to the Limehouse district—a visit made solely for the purpose of finding trouble. How he had read of the tough characters there and how he had decided to go down to find out how tough they were.
“I went right down there into their joints,” he said, “and told them that I was looking for somebody that was tough, the tougher the better, and I went up to a big mandarin wearing a feather and said: ‘Give me the toughest you’ve got. You fellows are supposed to be tough down here, so let’s see how tough you are.’ And I couldn’t get a rise out of any of them,” he concluded.
This was enough for me. It annoyed.
I told him that it was very fine for well-fed, over-paid actors flaunting toughness at these deprived people, who are gentle and nice and, if ever tough, only so because of environment. I asked him just how tough he would be if he were living the life that some of these unfortunate families must live. How easy for him, with five meals a day beneath that thrust-out chest with his muscles trained and perfect, trying to start something with these people. Of course they were not tough, but when it comes to four years of War, when it comes to losing an arm or a leg, then they are tough. But they are not going around looking for fights unless there is a reason.
It rather broke up the party, but I was feeling so disgusted that I did not care.
We meander along, walking from Park Lane to the Ritz.
On our way we are stopped by two or three young girls. They are stamped plainly and there is no subtlety about their “Hello boys! You are not going home so early?” They salute us. We wait a moment. They pause and then wave their hands to us and we beckon them.
“How is it you are up so late?” They are plainly embarrassed at this question. Perhaps it has been a long time since they were given the benefit of the doubt. They are not sure just what to say. We are different. Their usual method of attack or caress does not seem in order, so they just giggle.
Here is life in its elemental rawness. I feel very kindly disposed toward them, particularly after my bout with the well-fed actor who got his entertainment from the frailties of others. But it is rather hard for us to mix. There is a rather awkward silence.
Then one of the girls asks if we have a cigarette. Robinson gives them a package, which they share between the three of them. This breaks the ice. They feel easier. The meeting is beginning to run along the parliamentary rules that they know.
Do we know where they can get a drink?
“No.” This is a temporary setback, but they ask if we mind their walking along a bit with us. We don’t, and we walk along towards the Ritz. They are giggling, and before long I am recognised. They are embarrassed.
They look down at their shabby little feet where ill-fitting shoes run over at the heels. Their cheap little cotton suits class them even low in their profession, though their youth is a big factor toward their potential rise when they have become hardened and their mental faculties have become sharpened in their eternal battles with men. Then men will come to them.
Knowing my identity, they are on their good behaviour. No longer are we prospects. We are true adventure for them this night. Their intimacy has left them and in its place there appears a reserve which is attractive even in its awkwardness.
The conversation becomes somewhat formal. And we are nearing the hotel, where we must leave them. They are very nice and charming now, and are as timid and reserved as though they had just left a convent.
They talk haltingly of the pictures they have seen, shyly telling how they loved me in “Shoulder Arms,” while one of them told how she wept when she saw “The Kid” and how she had that night sent some money home to a little kid brother who was in school and staying there through her efforts in London.
The difference in them seems so marked when they call me Mr. Chaplin and I recall how they had hailed us as “Hello, boys.” Somehow I rather resent the change. I wish they would be more intimate in their conversation. I would like to get their viewpoint. I want to talk to them freely. They are so much more interesting than most of the people I meet.
But there is a barrier. Their reserve stays. I told them that I was sure they were tired and gave them cab fare.
One of their number speaks for the trio.
“Thanks, Mr. Chaplin, very much. I could do with this, really. I was broke, honest. Really, this comes in very handy.”
They could not quite understand our being nice and sympathetic.
They were used to being treated in the jocular way of street comradery. Finer qualities came forward under the respectful attention we gave them, something rather nice that had been buried beneath the veneer of their trade.
Their thanks are profuse, yet awkward. They are not used to giving thanks. They usually pay, and pay dearly, for anything handed them. We bid them “good night.” They smile and walk away.
We watch them for a bit as they go on their way. At first they are strolling along, chattering about their adventure. Then, as if on a signal, they straighten up as though bracing themselves, and with quickened steps they move toward Piccadilly, where a haze of light is reflected against the murky sky.
It is the beacon light from their battleground, and as we follow them with our eyes these butterflies of the night make for the lights where there is laughter and gaiety.
As we go along to the Ritz we are all sobered by the encounter with the three little girls. I think blessed is the ignorance that enables them to go on without the mental torture that would come from knowing the inevitable that awaits them.
As we go up the steps of the hotel we see a number of derelicts huddled asleep against the outside of the building, sitting under the arches and doors, men and women, old and young, underfed, deprived, helpless, so much so that the imprint of helplessness is woven into their brain and brings on an unconsciousness that is a blessing.
We wake them up and hand them each money. “Here, get yourself a bed.”
They are too numbed. They thank us mechanically, accepting what we give them, but their reaction and thanks are more physical than mental.
There was one old woman about seventy. I gave her something. She woke up, or stirred in her sleep, took the money without a word of thanks—took it as though it was her ration from the bread line and no thanks were expected, huddled herself up in a tighter knot than before, and continued her slumber. The inertia of poverty had long since claimed her.
We rang the night bell at the Ritz, for they are not like our American hotels, where guests are in the habit of coming in at all hours of the night. The Ritz closes its doors at midnight, and after that hour you must ring them.
But the night was not quite over. As we were ringing the bell we noticed a waggon a little way off in the street, with the horse slipping and the driver out behind the waggon with his shoulder to the wheel and urging the horse along with cheery words.
We walked to the waggon and found it was loaded with apples and on its way to the market. The streets were so slippery that the horse could not negotiate the hill. I could not help but think how different from the usual driver this man was.
He did not belay the tired animal with a whip and curse and swear at him in his helplessness. He saw that the animal was up against it, and instead of beating him he got out and put his shoulder to the wheel, never for the moment doubting that the horse was doing his best.
We all went out into the street and put our shoulders against the waggon along with the driver. He thanked us, and as we finally got the momentum necessary to carry it over the hill he said:
“These darn roads are so slippery that the darned horse even can’t pull it.”
It was a source of wonder to him that he should come upon something too much for his horse. And the horse was so well fed and well kept. I could not help but notice how much better the animal looked than his master. The evening was over. I don’t know but that the incident of the apple waggon was a fitting finale.
The next morning for the first time I am made to give my attention to the mail that has been arriving. We have been obliged to have another room added to our suite in order to have some place in which to keep the numerous sacks that are being brought to us at all hours.
The pile is becoming so mountainous that we are compelled to engage half a dozen stenographers just for the purpose of reading and classifying them.
We found that there were 73,000 letters or cards addressed to me during the first three days in London, and of this number more than 28,000 were begging letters—letters begging anywhere from £1 to £100,000.
Countless and varied were the reasons set forth. Some were ridiculous. Some were amusing. Some were pathetic. Some were insulting. All of them in earnest.
I discovered from the mail that there are 671 relatives of mine in England that I knew nothing about.
The greater part of these were cousins, and they gave very detailed family-tree tracings in support of their claims. All of them wished to be set up in business or to get into the movies.
But the cousins did not have a monopoly on the relationships. There were brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles, and there were nine claiming to be my mother, telling wondrous adventure stories about my being stolen by gipsies when a baby or being left on doorsteps, until I began to think my youth had been a very hectic affair. But I did not worry much about these last, as I had left a perfectly good mother back in California, and so far I have been pretty much satisfied with her.
There were letters addressed just to Charles Chaplin, some to King Charles, some to the “King of Mirth”; on some there was drawn the picture of a battered derby; some carried a reproduction of my shoes and cane; and in some there was stuck a white feather with the question as to what I was doing during the war?
Would I visit such and such institutions? Would I appear for such and such charity? Would I kick off the football season or attend some particular Soccer game? Then there were letters of welcome and one enclosing an iron cross inscribed, “For your services in the Great War,” and “Where were you when England was fighting?”
Then there were others thanking me for happiness given the senders. These came by the thousand. One young soldier sent me four medals he had gotten during the big war. He said that he was sending them because I had never been properly recognised. His part was so small and mine so big, he said, that he wanted me to have his Croix de Guerre, his regimental and other medals.
Some of the letters were most interesting. Here are a few samples:
Dear Mr. Chaplin,—You are a leader in your line and I am a leader in mine. Your speciality is moving pictures and custard pies. My speciality is windmills.
I know more about windmills than any man in the world. I have studied the winds all over the world and am now in a position to invent a windmill that will be the standard mill of the world, and it will be made so it can be adapted to the winds of the tropics and the winds of the arctic regions.
I am going to let you in on this in an advantageous way. You have only to furnish the money. I have the brains, and in a few years I will make you rich and famous. You had better ‘phone me for quick action.
Dear Mr. Chaplin,—Won’t you please let me have enough money to send little Oscar to college? Little Oscar is twelve, and the neighbours all say that he is the brightest little boy they have ever seen. And he can imitate you so well that we don’t have to go to the movies any more. [This is dangerous. Oscar is a real competitor, ruining my business.] And so, if you can’t send the little fellow to college, won’t you take him in the movies with you like you did Jackie Coogan?
Dear Mr. Chaplin,—My brother is a sailor, and he is the only man in the world who knows where Capt. Kidd’s gold is buried. He has charts and maps and everything necessary, including a pick and shovel. But he cannot pay for the boat.
Will you pay for the boat, and half the gold is yours? All you need do is to say “yes” to me in a letter, and I will go out and look for John as he is off somewhere on a bust, being what you might call a drinking man when ashore. But I am sure that I can find him, as he and I drink in the same places. Your shipmate.
Dear Charlie,—Have you ever thought of the money to be made in peanuts? I know the peanut industry, but I am not telling any of my business in a letter. If you are interested in becoming a peanut king, then I’m your man. Just address me as Snapper Dodge, above address.
Dear Mr. Chaplin,—My daughter has been helping me about my boarding-house now for several years, and I may say that she understands the art of catering to the public as wishes to stay in quarters. But she has such high-toned ideas, like as putting up curtains in the bathroom and such that at times I think she is too good for the boarding-house business and should be having her own hotel to run.
If you could see your way to buy a hotel in London or New York for Drusilla, I am sure that before long your name and Drusilla’s would be linked together all over the world because of what Drusilla would do to the hotel business. And she would save money because she could make all the beds and cook herself, and at nights could invent the touches like what I have mentioned. Drusilla is waiting for you to call her.
Dear Mr. Chaplin,—I am enclosing pawn tickets for Grandma’s false teeth and our silver water pitcher, also a rent bill showing that our rent was due yesterday. Of course, we would rather have you pay our rent first, but if you could spare it, grandma’s teeth would be acceptable, and we can’t hold our heads up among the neighbours since father sneaked our silver pitcher to get some beer.