Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
I FLY FROM PARIS TO LONDON
The first night in Paris after our return from Germany we dined at Pioccardi’s, then walked up to the arches of the old gates of Paris. Our intention was to visit the Louvre and see the statue of Venus de Milo, but it only got as far as intention.
We drifted into the Montmartre district and stopped in Le Rat Mort, one of its most famous restaurants. As it is very early in the evening, there are very few people about—one reason why I picked out this place, which later in the night becomes the centre of hectic revelry.
Passing our table is a striking-looking girl with bobbed blond hair, shadowing beautiful, delicate features of pale coloring and soft, strange eyes of a violet blue. Her passing is momentary, but she is the most striking-looking girl I have seen in Europe.
Although there are but few people here, I am soon recognised. The French are so demonstrative. They wave, “Hello, Charlot!”
I am indifferent. I smile mechanically. I am tired. I shall go to bed early. I order champagne.
The bobbed-hair one is sitting at a table near us. She interests me. But she doesn’t turn so that I can see her face. She is sitting facing her friend, a dark, Spanish-looking girl.
I wish she’d turn. She has a beautiful profile, but I would like to see her full face again. She looked so lovely when she passed me before. I recall that ghost of a smile that hovered near her mouth, showing just a bit of beautiful, even, white teeth.
The orchestra is starting and dancers are swinging on to the floor. The two girls rise and join the dance. I will watch closely now and perhaps get another flash at her when she whirls by.
There is something refined and distinguished about the little girl. She is different. Doesn’t belong here. I am watching her very closely, though she has never once looked my way. I like this touch of the unusual in Montmartre. Still she may be just clever.
She is passing me in the dance and I get a full view of her face. One of real beauty, with a sensitive mouth, smiling at her friend and giving a complete view of the beautiful teeth. Her face is most expressive. The music stops and they sit at their table.
I notice that there is nothing on their table. They are not drinking. This is strange, here. Nor are there sandwiches or coffee. I wonder who they are. That girl is somebody. I know it.
She gets up as the orchestra plays a few strains of a plaintive Russian thing. She is singing the song. Fascinating! An artist! Why is she here? I must know her.
The song itself is plaintive, elemental, with the insinuating nuances that are vital to Russian music. The orchestra, with the violins and ‘cellos predominant, is playing hauntingly, weaving a foreign exotic spell.
She has poise, grace, and is compelling attention even in this place. There comes a bit of melancholy in the song and she sings it as one possessed, giving it drama, pathos. Suddenly there is a change. The music leaps to wild abandon. She is with it. She tosses her head like a wild Hungarian gipsy and gives fire to every note. But almost as it began, the abandon is over. With wistful sweetness, she is singing plaintively again.
She is touching every human emotion in her song. At times she is tossing away care, then gently wooing, an elusive strain that is almost fairylike, that crescendos into tragedy, going into a crashing climax that diminishes into an ending, searching yearning, and wistfully sad.
Her personality is written into every mood of the song. She is at once fine, courageous, pathetic, and wild. She finished to an applause that reflected the indifference of the place. In spots it was spontaneous and insistent. In others little attention was paid to her. She is wasted here.
But she cares not. In her face you can see that she gets her applause in the song itself. It was glorious, just to be singing with heart, soul and voice. She smiles faintly, then sits down modestly.
I knew it. She is Russian. She has everything to suggest it. Full of temperament, talent and real emotional ability, hidden away here in Le Rat Mort. What a sensation she would be in America with a little advertising! This is just a thought, but all sorts of schemes present themselves to me.
I can see her in “The Follies” with superb dressing and doing just the song she had done then. I did not understand a word of it, but I felt every syllable. Art is universal and needs no language. She has everything from gentleness to passion and a startling beauty. I am applauding too much, but she looks and smiles, so I am repaid.
They dance again, and while they are gone I call the waiter and have him explain to the manager that I would like to be presented to her. The manager introduces her and I invite her to my table. She sits there with us, while her companion, the dark girl, does a solo dance.
She talks charmingly and without restraint. She speaks three languages—Russian, French, and English. Her father was a Russian general during the Tsar’s reign. I can see now where she gets her imperious carriage.
“Are you a Bolshevik?”
She flushes as I ask it, and her lips pout prettily as she struggles with English. She seems all afire.
“No, they are wicked. Bolshevik man, he’s very bad.” Her eyes flash as she speaks.
“Then you are bourgeoisie?”
“No, but not a Bolshevik.” Her voice suggests a tremendous vitality, though her vocabulary is limited. “Bolshevik good idea for the mind, but not for practice.”
“Has it had a fair opportunity?” I ask her.
“Plenty. My father, my mother, my brother all in Russia and very poor. Mother is Bolshevik, father bourgeoisie. Bolshevik man very impudent to me. I want to kill him. He insult me. What can I do? I escape. Bolshevik good idea, but no good for life.”
“What of Lenin?”
“Very clever man. He tried hard for Bolshevik—but no good for everybody—just in the head.”
I learn that she was educated in a convent and that she had lost all trace of her people. She earns her living singing here. She has been to the movies, but has never seen me. She “is go first chance because I am nice man.”
I ask her if she would like to go into moving pictures. Her eyes light up.
“If I get opportunity I know I make success. But”—she curls her mouth prettily—”it’s difficult to get opportunity.”
She is just twenty years old and has been in the café for two weeks, coming there from Turkey, to which country she fled following her escape from Russia.
I explain that she must have photographic tests made and that I will try to get her a position in America. She puts everything into her eyes as she thanks me. She looks like a combination of Mary Pickford and Pola Negri plus her own distinctive beauty and personality. Her name is “Skaya.” I write her full name and address in my book and promise to do all I can for her. And I mean to. We say “Good Night,” and she says she feels that I will do what I say. How has she kept hidden?
Due at Sir Philip Sassoon’s for a garden party the next day, I decide to go there in an aeroplane and I leave the Le Bourget aerodrome in Paris in a plane of La Compagnie des Messageries Aériennes, and at special request the pilot landed me at Lympne in Kent and I thereby avoided the crowd that would have been on hand in London.
It was quite thrilling and I felt that I made a very effective entrance to the party.
And what a delightful retreat! All the charm of an English country home, and Sir Philip is a perfect host. I get English food and treatment. I have a perfect rest, with no duties, and entertainment as I desire it. A day and a half that are most pleasant!
Next day there is to be a ceremonial in the schoolhouse, when a memorial is to be unveiled. It is in honour of the boys of the town who had fallen. There are mothers, fathers, and many old people, some of them old in years, others aged by the trials of the war.
The simple affair is most impressive and the streets are crowded on our way. I was to blame for an unhappy contrast. Outside people were shouting, “Hooray for Charlie!” while inside souls were hushed in grief.
Such a discordant note. I wished I had not been so prominent. I wanted everyone to bow in respect to these dead. The crowds did not belong outside.
And inside, on the little children’s faces, I could see conflicting emotions. There is the reverence for the dead and yet there is eagerness as they steal glances at me. I wish I hadn’t come. I feel that I am the disturbing element.
From the school Sir Philip and I went to the Star and Garter Hospital for wounded soldiers. Sheer tragedy was here.
Young men suffering from spinal wounds, some of them with legs withered, some suffering from shell shock. No hope for them, yet they smiled.
There was one whose hands were all twisted and he was painting signs with a brush held between his teeth. I looked at the signs. They were mottoes: “Never Say Die,” “Are We Downhearted?” A superman.
Here is a lad who must take an anæsthetic whenever his nails are cut because of his twisted limbs. And he is smiling and to all appearances happy. The capacity that God gives for suffering is so tremendous, I marvel at their endurance.
I inquire about food and general conditions. They suggest that the food could be better. This is attended to.
We are received politely and with smiles from the crippled lads who are crippled in flesh only. Their spirit is boisterous. I feel a puny atom as they shout, “Good luck to you, Charlie.”
I can’t talk. There is nothing for me to say. I merely smile and nod and shake hands whenever this is possible. I sign autographs for as many as ask and I ask them to give me their autographs. I honestly want them.
One jovially says, “Sure, and Bill will give you one too.” There is an uproar of laughter and Bill laughs just as loud as the rest. Bill has no arms.
But he bests them. He will sign at that. And he does. With his teeth. Such is their spirit. What is to become of them? That is up to you and me.
Back to Sir Philip’s, very tired and depressed. We dine late and I go to my room and read Waldo Frank’s “Dark Mothers.” The next day there is tennis and music and in the evening I leave for London, where I am to meet H. G. Wells and go with him to his country home.
I am looking forward to this Saturday, Sunday, and Monday as an intellectual holiday. I meet H. G. at Whitehall and he is driving his own car. He is a very good chauffeur, too.
We talk politics and discuss the Irish settlement and I tell him of my trip to Germany. That leads to a discussion of the depreciation in the value of the mark. What will be the outcome? Wells thinks financial collapse. He thinks that marks issued as they are in Germany will be worthless.
I am feeling more intimate and closer to him. There is no strain in talking, though I am still a bit self-conscious and find myself watching myself closely.
We are out in the country, near Lady Warwick’s estate, and H. G. tells me how the beautiful place is going to seed; that parts of it are being divided into lots and sold.
The estate, with its live stock, is a show place. It is breeding time for the deer and from the road we can hear the stags bellowing. H. G. tells me they are dangerous at this time of the year.
At the gate of the Wells’ estate a young lad of ten greets us with a jovial twinkling of the eye and a brisk manner. There is no mistaking him. He is H. G.’s son. There is the same moulding of the structure and the same rounded face and eyes. H. G. must have looked that way at his age.
“Hello, dad,” as he jumps on the running board.
“This is Charlie,” H. G. introduces me.
He takes my grip. “How do?” and I notice what a fine boy he is.
Mrs. Wells is a charming little lady with keen, soft eyes that are always smiling and apparently searching and seeking something. A real gentlewoman, soft voiced, also with humorous lines playing around her mouth.
Everyone seems busy taking me into the house, and once there H. G. takes me all over it, to my room, the dining-room, the sitting-room and, an extra privilege, to his study. “My workshop,” he calls it.
“Here’s where the great events in the history of the world took place?”
He smiles and says “yes.” The “Outline of History” was born here.
The room is not yet finished, and it is being decorated around the fireplace by paintings made by himself and wife. “I paint a bit,” he explains. There is also some tapestry woven by his mother.
“Here is a place if you want to escape when the strain is too much for you. Come here and relax.”
I felt that this was his greatest hospitality. But I never used the room. I had a feeling about that, too.
The study is simple and very spare of furniture. There is an old-fashioned desk and I get the general impression of books, but I can remember but one, the dictionary. Rare observation on my part to notice nothing but a dictionary, and this was so huge as it stood on his desk that I couldn’t miss it.
There is a lovely view from the house of the countryside, with wide stretches of land and lovely trees, where deer are roaming around unafraid.
Mrs. Wells is getting lunch and we have it outdoors. Junior is there, the boy—I call him that already. Their conversation is rapid, flippant. Father and son have a profound analytical discussion about the sting of a wasp as one of the insects buzzed around the table.
It is a bit strange to me and I cannot get into the spirit of it, though it is very funny. I just watch and smile. Junior is very witty. He tops his father with jokes, but I sense the fact that H. G. is playing up to him. There is a twinkle in H. G.’s eye. He is proud of his boy. He should be.
After lunch we walk about the grounds and I doze most of the afternoon in the summer-house. They leave me alone and I have my nap out.
A number of friends arrive later in the evening and we are introduced all around. Most of these are literary, and the discussion is learned. St. John Ervine, the dramatist and author of “John Ferguson,” came in later in the evening.
Ervine discusses the possibility of synchronising the voice with motion pictures. He is very much interested. I explain that I don’t think the voice is necessary, that it spoils the art as much as painting statuary. I would as soon rouge marble cheeks. Pictures are pantomimic art. We might as well have the stage. There would be nothing left to the imagination.
Another son comes in. He is more like his mother. We all decide to play charades and I am selected as one of the actors. I play Orlando, the wrestler, getting a lot of fun through using a coal hod as a helmet. Then Noah’s Ark, with Junior imitating the different animals going into the ark, using walking sticks as horns for a stag, and putting a hat on the end of the stick for a camel, and making elephants and many other animals through adroit, quick changes. I played old Noah and opened an umbrella and looked at the sky. Then I went into the ark and they guessed.
Then H. G. Wells did a clog dance, and did it very well. We talked far into the night, and I marvelled at Wells’s vitality. We played many mental guessing games and Junior took all the honours.
I was awakened next morning by a chorus outside my door: “We want Charlie Chaplin.” This was repeated many times. They had been waiting breakfast half an hour for me.
After breakfast we played a new game of H. G.’s own invention. Everyone was in it and we played it in the barn. It was a combination of handball and tennis, with rules made by H. G. Very exciting and good fun.
Then a walk to Lady Warwick’s estate. As I walk I recall how dramatic it had sounded last night as I was in bed to hear the stags bellowing, evidently their cry of battle.
The castle, with beautiful gardens going to seed, seemed very sad, yet its ruins assumed a beauty for me. I liked it better that way. Ruins are majestic.
H. G. explains that everyone about is land poor. It takes on a fantastic beauty for me, this cultivation of centuries now going to seed, beautiful in its very tragedy.
Home for tea, and in the evening I teach them baseball. Here is my one chance to shine. It is funny to see H. G. try to throw a curve and being caught at first base after hitting a grounder to the pitcher. H. G. pitched, and his son caught. As a baseball player H. G. is a great writer. Dinner that night is perfect, made more enjoyable for our strenuous exercise. As I retire that night I think of what a wonderful holiday I am having.
Next day I must leave at 2.30 p.m., but in the morning H. G. and I take a walk and visit an old country church built in the eleventh century. A man is working on a tomb-stone in the churchyard, engraving an epitaph.
H. G. points out the influence of the different lords of the manor on the art changes of different periods. Here the families of Lady Warwick and other notable people are buried. The tombstones show the influence of the sculpture of all periods.
We go to the top of the church and view the surrounding country and then back home for lunch. My things are all packed and H. G. and his son see me off. H. G. reminds me not to forget another engagement to dine with him and Chaliapin, the famous Russian baritone.
As I speed into town I am wondering if Wells wants to know me or whether he wants me to know him. I am certain that now I have met Wells, really met him, more than I’ve met anyone in Europe. It’s so worth while.