AT ONE OF THE TOLSTOY RECEPTIONS
AT ONE OF THE TOLSTOY RECEPTIONS
When we arrived the next evening, it was to find a curious situation. The Countess Tolstoy and her daughter and young son, in European costume,—the countess in velvet and lace, and the little countess in a pretty taffeta silk,—were receiving their guests in the main salon, and later served them to a magnificent supper with champagne. The count, we were told, was elsewhere receiving his guests, who would not join us. Later he came in, still in his peasant's costume, and refused all refreshment. He was exceedingly civil to all his guests, but signalled out the Americans in a manner truly flattering.
It was a charming evening, and we met agreeable people, but, although they stayed late, we remained, at Tolstoy's request, still later, and when the last guest had departed, we sat down, drawing our chairs quite close together after the manner of a cheerful family party.
After inquiring how we had spent our day, and giving us some valuable hints about different points of interest for the morrow, Tolstoy plunged at once into the conversation which had been broken off the day before. It was evident that he had been thinking about our country, and was eager for more information.
"I became very well acquainted with your ambassador, Mr. White, while he was in this country," he began. "I found him a man of wide experience, of great culture, and of much originality in thought. I learned a great deal about America from him. It must be wonderful to live in a country where there is no Orthodox Church, where one can worship as one pleases, and where every one's vote is counted."
Jimmie coughed politely, and looked at me.
"It encourages individuality," he added. "Do you not find your own countrymen more individual than those of any other nation?" he added, addressing Jimmie directly for the first time.
"I think I do," said Jimmie, carefully weighing out his words as if on invisible scales. Jimmie is largely imbued with that absurd fear of a man who has written books, which is to me so inexplicable.
"Your country appeals to Russians, strongly," pursued the count, evidently bent upon drawing Jimmie out.
"I have often wondered why," said Jimmie. "It couldn't have been the wheat?"
"No, not entirely the wheat, although the news of your generosity spread like wildfire through all classes of society, and served to open the hearts of the peasants toward America as they are opened toward no other country in the world. The word 'Amerikanski' is anopen sesameall through Russia. Have you noticed it?"
"Often," said Jimmie. "And often wondered at it. But that wheat was a small enterprise to gain a nation's gratitude. It is the more surprising to us because it was not a national gift, but the result of the generosity and large-mindedness of a handful of men, who pushed it through so quietly and unostentatiously that millions of people in America to this day do not know that it was ever done, but over here we have not met a single Russian who has not spoken of it immediately."
"The Russians are a grateful people," observed Mrs. Jimmie, "but it seems a little strange to me to discover such ardent gratitude among the nobility for assistance which reached people hundreds of miles away from them, and in whose welfare they could have only a general interest, prompted by humanity."
"Ah! but madame, Russians are more keenly alive to the problem of our serfs than any other. Many of our wealthy people are doing all that they can to assist them, and, when a crisis like the famine comes, it is heart-breaking not to be able to relieve their suffering. Consequently, the sending of that wheat touched every heart."
"Then, too, we are not divided,—the North against the South, as you were on your negro question," said the little countess. "The peasant problem stretches from one end of Russia to the other."
"We are a diffuse people," I said. "Perhaps that is the result of our mixed blood and the individuality that you spoke of, but your books are so widely read in America that I believe people in the North are quite as well informed and quite as much interested in the problem of the Russian serf as in our own negro problem."
Bee gave me a look which in sign language meant, "And that isn't saying half as much as it sounds."
"Undoubtedly there is a strong point of sympathy between our two countries. Like you, we have many mixed strains of blood, and, though we are so much older, we have civilised more slowly, so that we are both in youthful stages of progress. Your great prairies correspond in a large measure to our steppes. America and Russia are the greatest wheat-growing countries in the world. Our internal resources are the only ones vast enough to support us without assistance from other countries."
"Is that true of Russia?" Jimmie cut in, his commercial instinct getting the better of his awe of Tolstoy. "Where would you get your coal?"
"True," said Tolstoy, "we could not do it as completely as you, and your very resources are one reason for our admiration of America."
"In case of war, now,—" went on Jimmie. He stopped speaking, and looked down in deep embarrassment, remembering Tolstoy's hatred of war.
"Yes," said Tolstoy, kindly. "In case the whole civilised world waged war on the United States, I dare say you could still remain a tolerably prosperous people."
"At any rate," said Jimmie, recovering himself, "it would be a good many years before we would be a hungry nation, and, in the meantime, we could practically starve out the enemy by cutting off their food supply, and disable their fleets and commerce for want of coal, so there is hardly any danger, from the prudent point of view, of the world combining against us."
"If the diplomacy at Washington continues in its present trend, under your great President McKinley, your country will not allow herself to be dragged into the quarrels of Europe. We older nations might well learn a lesson from your present government."
"Oh!" I cried, "how good of you to say that. It is the first time in all Europe that I have heard our government praised for its diplomacy, and coming from you, I am so grateful."
Jimmie and the consul also beamed at Tolstoy's complimentary comment.
"Now, about your men of letters?" said Tolstoy. "It is some time since I have had such direct news from America. What are the great names among you now?"
At this juncture Countess Tolstoy drew nearer to Bee and Mrs. Jimmie, and our groups somewhat separated.
"Our great names?" I repeated. "Either we have no great names now, or we are too close to them to realise how great they are. We seem to be between generations. We have lost our Lowell, and Longfellow, and Poe, and Hawthorne, and Emerson, and we have no others to take their places."
"But a young school will spring up, some of whom may take their places," said Tolstoy.
"It has already sprung up," I said, "and is well on the way to manhood. One great drawback, however, I find in mentioning the names of all of them to a European, or even to an Englishman, is the fact that so many of our characteristic American authors write in a dialect which is all that we Americans can do to understand. For instance, take the negro stories, which to me are like my mother tongue, brought up as I was in the South. Thousands of Northern people who have never been South are unable to read it, and to them it holds no humour and no pathos. To the ordinary Englishman, it is like so much Greek, and to the continental English-speaking person it is like Sanskrit. In the same way the New England stories, which are written in Yankee dialect, cannot be understood by people in the South who have never been North. How then can we expect Europeans to manage them?"
"How extraordinary," said Tolstoy. "And both are equally typical, I suppose?"
"Equally so," I replied.
"The reason she understands them both," broke in Jimmie, "is because her mother comes from the northernmost part of the northernmost State in the Union, and her father from a point almost equally in the South. There is but one State between his birthplace and the Gulf of Mexico."
"About the same distance," said Tolstoy, "as if your mother came from Petersburg and your father from Odessa."
"But there are others who write English which is not distorted in its spelling. James Lane Alien and Henry B. Fuller are particularly noted for their lucid English and literary style; Cable writes Creole stories of Louisiana; Mary Hartwell Catherwood, stories of French Canadians and the early French settlers in America; Bret Harte, stories of California mining camps; Mary Hallock Foote, civil engineering stories around the Rocky Mountains; Weir Mitchell, Quaker stories of Pennsylvania; and Charles Egbert Craddock lays her plots in the Tennessee mountains. Of all these authors, each has written at least two books along the lines I have indicated, and I mention them, thinking they would be particularly interesting to you as descriptive of portions of the United States."
"All these," said Tolstoy, meditatively, "in one country."
"Not only that," I said, "but no two alike, and most of them as widely different as if one wrote in French and the other in German."
"A wonderful country," murmured Tolstoy again. "I have often thought of going there, but now I am too old."
"There is no one in the world," I answered him, "in the realm of letters or social economics, whom the people of America would rather see than you."
He bowed gracefully, and only answered again:
"No, I am too old now. I wish I had gone there when I could. But tell me," he added, "have you no authors who write universally?"
"Universally," I repeated. "That is a large word. Yes, we have Mark Twain. He is our most eminent literary figure at present."
"Ah! Mark Twain," repeated Tolstoy. "I have heard of him."
"Have you indeed? I thought no one was known in Europe, except Fenimore Cooper. He is supposed to have written universally of America, because he never wrote anything but Indian stories! In France, they know of Poe, and like him because they tell me that he was like themselves."
"He was insane, was he not?" said Tolstoy, innocently.
I bit my lip to keep from laughing, for Tolstoy had not perpetrated that as a jest.
"But many of our most whimsical and most delicious authors could not be appreciated by Europe in general, because Europeans are all so ignorant of us. There is Frank Stockton, whose humour continentals would be sure to take seriously, and then Thomas Nelson Page writes most effectively when he uses negro dialect. His story 'Marse Chan,' which made him famous, I consider the best short story ever written in America. Hopkinson Smith, too, has written a book which deserves to live for ever, depicting as it does a phase of the reconstruction period, when Southern gentlemen of the old school came into contact with the Northern business methods. Books like these would seem trivial to a European, because they represent but a single step in our curious history."
"I understand," said Tolstoy, sympathetically. "Of course it is difficult for us to realise that America is not one nation, but an amalgamation of all nations. To the casual thinker, America is an off-shoot of England."
"Perfectly true," said Jimmie, "and that barring the fact that we speak a language which is, in some respects, similar to the English, no nations are more foreign to each other than the United States and England. It would be better for the English if they had a few more Bryces among them."
"If it weren't for the dialects," said Tolstoy, "I think more Europeans would be interested in American literature."
"That is true," I said, "and yet, without dialects, you wouldn't get the United States as it really is. There are heaps and heaps of Americans who won't read dialect themselves, but they miss a great deal. Take, for instance, James Whitcomb Riley, a poet who, to my mind, possesses absolute genius,—the genius of the commonplace. His best things are all in dialect, which a great many find difficult, and yet, when he gives public readings from his own poems, he draws audiences which test the capacity of the largest halls. I myself have seen him recalled nineteen times."
"America and Russia are growing closer together every day," said Tolstoy. "Every year we use more of your American machinery; your plows, and threshers, and mowing-machines, and all agricultural implements are coming into use here. Every year some Americans settle in Russia from business interests, and we are rapidly becoming dependent on you for our coal. If you had a larger merchant marine, it would benefit our mutual interests wonderfully. Is your country as much interested in Russia as we are in you?"
"Equally so," I said. "Russian literature is very well understood in America. We read all your books. We know Pushkin and Tourguenieff. Your Russian music is played by our orchestras, and your Russian painter, Verestchagin, exhibited his paintings in all the large cities, and made us familiar with his genius."
"All art, all music has a moral effect upon the soul. Verestchagin paints war—hideous war! Moral questions should be talked about and discussed, and a remedy found for them. In America you will not discuss many questions. Even in the translations of my books, parts which seem important to me are left out. Why is that? It limits you, does it not?"
"I suppose the demand creates the supply," I ventured. "We may be prudish, but as yet the moral questions you speak of have not such a hold on our young republic that they need drastic measures. When we become more civilised, and society more cancerous, doubtless the public mind will permit these questions to be discussed."
"The time for repentance is in advance of the crime," said Tolstoy.
"American prudery is narrowing in its effect on our art," I ventured, timidly.
"Is that the reason for many of your artists and authors living abroad?"
"It may be. We certainly are not encouraged in America to depict life as it is. That is one reason I think why foreign authors sell their books by the thousands in America, and by the hundreds in their own country."
"Then the taste is there, is it?" asked Tolstoy.
"The common sense is there," I said, bluntly,—"the common sense to know that our authors are limited to depicting a phase instead of the whole life, and then, if you are going to get the whole life, you must read foreign authors. It's just as if a sculptor should confine himself to shaping fingers, and toes, and noses, and ears because the public refuses to take a finished study."
"But why, why is it?" said Tolstoy, with a touch of impatience. "If you will read the whole thing when written by foreign authors, why do you not encourage your own?"
"I am sure I don't know," I said, "unless it is on the simple principle that many men enjoy the ballet scene in opera, while they would not permit their wives and daughters to take part in it."
"America is the protector of the family," said Jimmie, regarding me with a hostile eye.
Tolstoy tactfully changed the subject out of deference to Jimmie's displeasure.
"Do many Russians visit America?" asked Tolstoy.
"Oh, yes, quite a number, and they are among our most agreeable visitors. Prince Serge Wolkonsky travelled so much and made so many addresses that he made Russia more popular than ever."
"Do you know how popular you are in America?" said Jimmie, blushing at his own temerity.
"I know how many of my books are sold there, and I get many kind letters from Americans."
"Isn't he considered the greatest living man of letters in America?" said Jimmie, appealingly to me boyishly.
"Undoubtedly," I replied, smiling, because Tolstoy smiled.
"Whom do you consider the greatest living author?" asked Jimmie.
"Mrs. Humphrey Ward," said Tolstoy, decisively.
This was a thunderbolt which stopped the conversation of the other members of the party.
"And one of your greatest Americans," went on Tolstoy, "was Henry George."
"From a literary point of view, or—"
"From the point of view of humanity and of the Christian."
Jimmie and I leaned back involuntarily. Judged by these standards, we were none of us either Christians or human, in our party at least.
The Countess Tolstoy, who seemed to be in not the slightest awe of her illustrious husband, having become somewhat impatient during this conversation, now turned to me and said:
"It has been so interesting to talk with your sister and Mrs. Jimmie about Paris fashions. We see so little here that is not second hand, and your journey is so fascinating. It seems incredible that you can be travelling simply for pleasure and over such a number of countries! Where do you go next?"
"We have come from everywhere," I said, laughing, "and we are going anywhere."
The countess clasped her hands and said:
"How I envy you, but doesn't it cost you a great deal of money?"
"I suppose it does," I said, regretfully. "I am going to travel as long as my money holds out, but the rest are not so hampered."
"Alas, if I could only go with you," said the countess, "but we are under such heavy expense now. It used to be easier when we had three or four children nearer of an age who could be educated together. Then it cost less. But now this boy, my youngest, necessitates different tutors for everything, and it costs as much to educate this last one of thirteen as it did any four of the others."
"But then you educate so thoroughly," I said. "Russians always speak five or six, sometimes ten languages, including dialects. With us our wealthy people generally send their children to a good private school and afterward prepare them by tutor for college. Then the richest send them for a trip around the world, or perhaps a year abroad, and that ends it. But the ordinary American has only a public school education. Americans are not linguists naturally."
"Ah! but here we are obliged to be linguists, because, if we travel at all, we must speak other languages, and, if we entertain at all, we meet people who cannot speak ours, which is very difficult to learn. But languages are easy."
"Oh!arethey?" said Jimmie, involuntarily, and everybody laughed.
"Jimmie's languages are unique," said Bee.
"Are you going to Italy?" said the countess.
"Yes, we hope to spend next spring in Italy, beginning with Sicily and working slowly northward."
"How delightful! How charming!" cried the countess. "How I wish, how IwishI could go with you."
"Go with us?" I cried in delight. "Could you manage it? We should be so flattered to have your company."
"Oh, if I could! I shall ask. It will do no harm to ask."
We had all stood up to go and had begun to shake hands when she cried across to her husband:
"Leo, Leo, may I go—"
Then seeing she had not engaged her husband's attention, who was talking to Jimmie about single tax, she went over and pulled his sleeve.
"Leo, may I go with them to Italy in the spring? Please, dear Leo, say yes."
He shook his head gravely, and the little countess smiled at her mother's enthusiasm.
"It would cost too much," said Tolstoy, "besides, I cannot spare you. I need you."
"You need me!" cried the countess in gay derision. Then pleadingly, "Do let me go."
"I cannot," said Tolstoy, turning to Jimmie again.
The countess came back to us with a face full of disappointment.
"He doesn't need me at all," she whispered. "I'd go anyway if I had the money."
As I said before, Russia and America are very much alike.
As we left the house my mind recurred to Max Nordau, whose personality and methods I have so imperfectly presented. The contrast to Tolstoy would intrude itself. In all the conversations I ever had with Max Nordau, he spent most of the time in trying to be a help and a benefit to me. The physician in him was always at the front. His aim was healing, and I only regret that their intimate personality prevents me from relating them word for word, as they would interest and benefit others quite as much as they did me.
The difference between these two great leaders of thought—these two great reformers, Nordau and Tolstoy—is the theme of many learned discussions, and admits many different points of view.
To me they present this aspect: Tolstoy, like Goethe, is an interesting combination of genius and hypocrisy. He preaches unselfishness, while himself the embodiment of self. Max Nordau is his antithesis. Nordau gives with generous enthusiasm—of his time, his learning, his genius, most of all, of himself. Tolstoy fastens himself upon each newcomer politely, like a courteous leech, sucks him dry, and then writes.
Max Nordau, like Shakespeare, absorbs humanity as a whole. Tolstoy considers the Bible the most dramatic work ever written, and turns this knowledge of the world's demand for religion to theatrical account. Tolstoy is outwardly a Christian, Nordau outwardly a pagan. Tolstoy openly acknowledges God, but exemplifies the ideas of man, while Max Nordau's private life embodies the noble teachings of the Christ whom he denies.
It was not until months afterward, we were back in London in fact, when Jimmie's opinion of Tolstoy seemed to have crystallised. He came to me one morning and said:
"I've read everything, since we left Moscow, that Tolstoy has written. Now you know I don't pretend to know anything about literary style and all that rot that you're so keen about, but I do know something about human nature, and I do know a grand-stand play when I see one. Now Tolstoy is a genius, there's no gainsaying that, but it's all covered up and smothered in that religious rubbish that he has caught the ear of the world with. If you want to be admired while you are alive, write a religious novel and let the hoi polloi snivel over you and give you gold dollars while you can enjoy 'em and spend 'em. That's where Tolstoy is a fox. So is Mrs. Humphrey Ward. She's a fox, too. They are getting all the funnow. But it's all gallery play with both of 'em."
I said nothing, and he smoked in silence for a moment. Then he added:
"But Isay, what a ripper Tolstoy could write if he'd just cut loose from religion for a minute and write a novel that didn't have any damnedpurposein it!"
Verily, Jimmie is no fool.
SHOPPING EXPERIENCES
SHOPPING EXPERIENCES
In going to Europe timid persons often cover their real design by claiming the intention of taking German baths, of "doing" Switzerland, or of learning languages. But everybody knows that the real reason why most women go abroad is to shop. What cathedral can bring such a look of rapture to a woman's face as New Bond Street or what scenery such ecstasy as the Rue de la Paix?
Therefore, as I believe my lot in shopping to be the common lot of all, let me tell my tale, so that to all who have suffered the same agonies and delights this may come as a personal reminiscence of their own, while to you who have Europe yet to view for that blissful first time, which is the best of all, this is what you will go through.
When I first went to Europe I had all of the average American woman's timidity about asserting herself in the face of a shopgirl or salesman. Many years of shopping in America had thoroughly broken a spirit which was once proud. I therefore suffered unnecessary annoyance during my first shopping in London, because I was overwhelmingly polite and affable to the man behind the counter. I said "please," and "If you don't mind," and "I would like to see," instead of using the martial command of the ordinary Englishwoman, who marches up to the show-case in flat-heeled boots and says in a tone of an officer ordering "Shoulder arms," "Show me your gauze fans!" I used to listen to them standing next me at a counter, momentarily expecting to see them knocked down by the indignant salesman and carried to a hospital in an ambulance.
My own tones were so conversational when I said, "Will you please show me your black satin ribbon?" that, while I did not say it, my voice implied such questions as "How are your father and mother?" and "I hope the baby is better?" and "Doesn't that draught there on your back annoy you?" and "Don't you get very tired standing up all day?"
It was Bee, as usual, who gave me my first lesson in the insolent bearing which alone obtains the best results from the average British shopman.
Still without having thoroughly asserted myself, not having been to that particular manner born, I went next to Paris, where my politeness met with the just reward which virtue is always supposed to get and seldom does.
I consider shopping in Paris one of the greatest pleasures to be found in this vale of tears. The shops, with the exception of the Louvre, the Bon Marché, and one or two of the large department stores of similar scope, are all small—tiny, in fact, and exploit but one or two things. A little shop for fans will be next to a milliner who makes a specialty of nothing but gauze theatre bonnets. Perhaps next will come a linen store, where the windows will have nothing but the most fascinating embroidery, handkerchiefs, and neckware. Then comes the man who sells belts of every description, and parasol handles. Perhaps your next window will have such a display of diamond necklaces as would justify you in supposing that his stock would make Tiffany choke with envy, but if you enter, you will find yourself in an aperture in the wall, holding an iron safe, a two-by-four show-case, and three chairs, and you will find that everything of value he has, except the clothes he wears, are all in his window.
As long as these shops are all crowded together and so small, to shop in Paris is really much more convenient than in one of our large department stores at home, with the additional delight of having smiling interested service. The proprietor himself enters into your wants, and uses all his quickness and intelligence to supply your demands. He may be, very likely he is, doubling the price on you, because you are an American, but, if your bruised spirit is like mine, you will be perfectly willing to pay a little extra for politeness.
It is a truth that I have brought home with me no article from Paris which does not carry with it pleasant recollections of the way I bought it. Can any woman who has shopped only in America bring forward a similar statement?
All this changes, however, when once you get into the clutches of the average French dressmaker. By his side, Barabbas would appear a gentleman of exceptional honesty. I have often, in idle moments, imagined myself a cannibal, and, in preparing my daily menu, my first dish would be a fricassee of French dressmakers. Perhaps in that I am unjust. In thinking it over, I will amend it by saying a fricassee ofalldressmakers. It would be unfair to limit it to the French.
There is one thing particularly noticeable about the charm which French shop-windows in one of the smart streets like the rue de la Paix exercises upon the American woman, and that is that it very soon wears off, and she sees that most of the things exploited are beyond her means, or are totally unsuited to her needs. I defy any woman to walk down one of these brilliant shop-lined streets of Paris for the first time, and not want to buy every individual thing she sees, and she will want to do it a second time and a third time, and, if she goes away from Paris and stays two months, the first time she sees these things on her return all the old fascination is there. To overcome it, to stamp it out of the system, she must stay long enough in Paris to live it down, for, if she buys rashly while under the influence of this first glamour, she is sure to regret it.
Dresden and Berlin differ materially from Paris in this respect. Their shop-windows exploit things less expensive, more suitable to your every-day needs, and equally unattainable at home. So that if you have gained some experience by your mistakes in Paris, your outlay in these German cities will be much more rational.
Leather goods in Germany are simply distracting. There are shops in Dresden where no woman who appreciates bags, satchels, card-cases, photograph-frames, book-covers, and purses could refrain from buying without disastrous results. I remember my first pilgrimage through the streets of Dresden. Between the porcelains and toilet sets, the Madonnas, the belts, and card-cases, I nearly lost my mind. The modest prices of the coveted articles were each time a separate shock of joy. If these sturdy Germans had wished to take advantage of my indiscreet expressions of surprise and delight, they might easily have raised their prices without our ever having discovered it. But day after day we returned, not only to find that the prices remained the same, but that, in many instances, if we bought several articles, they voluntarily took off a mark or two on account of the generosity of our purchases.
Dresden is a city where works of art are most cunningly copied. You can order, if you like, copies of any but the most intricate of the treasures of the Green Vaults, and you will not be disappointed with the results. You can order copies of any of the most famous pictures in the Dresden galleries, and have them executed with like exquisite skill. Nor is there any city in all Europe where it is so satisfactory to buy a souvenir of a town, which you will not want to throw away when you get home and try to find a place for it. Because souvenirs of Dresden appeal to your love of art and the highest in your nature. Leather you will find elsewhere, but the Dresden works of art are peculiarly its own.
In Austria manners differ considerably both from those of Paris and upper Germany. I should say they were a cross between the two. We shopped in Ischl, which has shops quite out of proportion to its size on account of being the summer home of the Emperor, and there we met with a politeness which was delightful.
In Vienna we had occasion to accompany Jimmie and "Little Papa" on business expeditions which led him into the wholesale district. There it was universal for all the clerks to be seated at their work, particularly in the jeweller's shops. At our entrance, every man and woman there, from the proprietor to the errand boys, rose to their feet, bowed, and said "Good day."
When we finished our purchases, or even if we only looked and came away without buying, this was all repeated, which sometimes gave me the sensation of having been to a court function.
Vienna fashions are very elegant. Being the seat of the court, there is a great deal of dress. There is wealth, and the shops are magnificent. Personally, I much prefer the fashions of Vienna to those of Paris. Prices are perhaps a little more moderate, but the truly Paris creation generally has the effect of making one think it would be beautiful on somebody else. I can go to Worth, Felix, and Doucet, and half a dozen others equally as smart, and not see ten models that I would like to own. In Vienna there were Paris clothes, of course, but the Viennese have modified them, producing somewhat the same effect as American influence on Paris fashions. To my mind they are more elegant, having more of reserve and dignity in their style, and a distinct morality. Paris clothes generally look immoral when you buy them, and feel immoral when you get them on. There is a distinct spiritual atmosphere about clothes. In Vienna this was very noticeable. I speak more of clothes in Paris and Vienna, as there are only four cities in the world where one would naturally buy clothes,—Paris, Vienna, London, and New York. In other cities you buy other things, articles perhaps distinctive of the country.
When you get to St. Petersburg, in your shopping experiences, you will find a mixture of Teuton and Slav which is very perplexing. We were particularly anxious to get some good specimens of Russian enamel, which naturally one supposes to be more inexpensive in the country which creates them, but to our distress we discovered Avenue de l'Opera prices on everything we wished. Each time that we went back the price was different. The market seemed to fluctuate. One blue enamelled belt, upon which I had set my heart, varied in price from one to three dollars each time I looked at it. Finally, one day I hit upon a plan. I asked my friend, Mile, de Falk, to follow me into this shop and not speak to me, but to notice the particular belt I held in my hand. I then went out without purchasing, and the next day my friend sent her sister, who speaks nothing but Russian and French, to this shop. She purchased the belt for ten dollars less than it had been offered to me. She ordered a different lining made for it, and the shopkeeper said in guileless Russian, "How strange it is that ladies all over the world are alike. For a week two American young ladies have been in here looking at this belt, and by a strange coincidence they also wished this same lining."
For once I flatter myself that I "did" a Russian Jew, but his companions in crime have so thoroughly "done" me in other corners of the world that I need not plume myself unnecessarily. He is more than even with me.
All through Russia we contented ourselves with buying Russian engravings, which are among the finest in the world. Perhaps some of their charm is in the subject portrayed, which, being unfamiliar, arouses curiosity. Russian operas, paintings, theatricals, the national ballet, the interior of churches and mosques are different from those of every other country. There is in the churches such a strange admixture of the spiritual and the theatrical. So that the engravings of these things have for me at least more interest than anything else.
Occasionally we were betrayed into buying a peasant's costume, an ikon, or an enamel, but in Moscow and Kief, the only way that we could reproduce to our friends at home the glories and splendours of these two beautiful cities was by photographs, in which the brilliancy of their colours brings back the sensations of delight which we experienced.
Shopping in Constantinople is not shopping as we Americans understand it, unless you happen to be an Indian trader by profession. I am not. Therefore, the system of bargaining, of going away from a bazaar and pretending you never intended buying, never wanted it anyhow, of coming back to sit down and take a cup of coffee, was like acting in private theatricals. By nature I am not a diplomat, but if I had stayed longer in the Orient, I think I would have learned to be as tricky as Chinese diplomacy.
We were given, by several of our Turkish friends, two or three rules which should govern conduct when shopping in the Orient. One is to look bored; the second, never to show interest in what pleases you; the third, never to let your robber salesman have an idea of what you really intend to buy. This comes hard at first, but after you have once learned it, to go shopping is one of the most exciting experiences that I can remember. I have always thought that burglary must be an exhilarating profession, second only to that of the detective who traps him. In shopping in the Orient, the bazaars are dens of thieves, and you, the purchaser, are the detective. We found in Constantinople little opportunity to exercise our new-found knowledge, because we were accompanied by our Turkish friends, who saw to it that we made no indiscreet purchases. On several occasions they made us send things back because we had been overcharged, and they found us better articles at less price. Of course we bought a fez, embroidered capes, bolero jackets, embroidered curtains, and rugs, but we, ourselves, were waiting to get to Smyrna for the real purchase of rugs, and it was there that I personally first brought into play the guile that I had learned of the Turks.
I remember Smyrna with particular delight. The quay curves in like a giant horseshoe of white cement. The piers jut out into the sapphire blue of this artificial bay, and are surrounded by myriads of tiny rowing shells, in which you must trust yourself to get to land, as your big ship anchors a mile or more from shore.
It was the brightest, most brilliant Mediterranean sunshine which irradiated the scene the morning on which we arrived at Smyrna. A score of gaily clad boatmen, whose very patches on their trousers were as picturesque as the patches on Italian sails, held out their hands to enable us to step from one cockle-shell to another, to reach the pier. In the way the boats touch each other in the harbour at Smyrna, I was reminded of the Thames in Henley week. We climbed through perhaps a dozen of these boats before we landed on the pier, and in three minutes' walk we were in the rug bazaars of Smyrna. Such treasures as we saw!
We were received by the smiling merchants as if we were long-lost daughters suddenly restored, but we practised our newly acquired diplomacy on them to such an extent that their faces soon began to betray the most comic astonishment. These people are like children, and exhibit their emotions in a manner which seems almost infantile to the Caucasian. Alas, we were not the prey they had hoped for. We sneered at their rugs; we laughed at their embroideries; we turned up our noses at their jewelled weapons; we drank their coffee, and walked out of their shops without buying. They followed us into the street, and there implored us to come back, but we pretended to be returning to our ship. On our way back through this same street, every proprietor was out in front of his shop, holding up some special rug or embroidery which he had hastily dug out of his secret treasures in the vain hope of compelling our respect. Some of these were Persian silk rugs worth from one to three thousand dollars each. Although we would have committed any crime in order to possess these treasures, having got thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, we turned these rugs on their backs and pretended to find flaws in them, jeered at their colouring, and went on our way, followed by a jabbering, excited, perplexed, and nettled horde, who recklessly slaughtered their prices and almost tore up their mud floors in their wild anxiety to prove that they had something—anything—which we would buy. They called upon Allah to witness that they never had been treated so in their lives, but would we not stop just once more again to cast our eyes on their unworthy stock?
Having had all the amusement we wanted, and it being nearly time for luncheon, we went in, and in half an hour we had bought all that we had intended to buy from the first moment our eyes were cast upon them, and at about one-half the price they were offered to us three hours before. Now, if that isn't what you call enjoying yourself, I should like to ask what you expect.
Ephesus, the graves of the Seven Sleepers, the tomb of St. Luke, the ruins of the Temple of Diana ("Great is Diana of the Ephesians"), the prison of St. Paul, are only a part of my vivid experiences in Smyrna.
In Athens we bought nothing modern, but found several antique shops with Byzantine treasures, also silver ornaments, ancient curios, more beautiful than anything we found in Italy, and ancient sacred brass candlesticks of the Greek Church, which bore the test of being transplanted to an American setting.
In truth, some of my richest experiences have been in exploring with Jimmie tiny second-hand shops, pawn-shops, and dark, almost squalid corners, where, amid piles of rubbish, we found some really exquisite treasures. Mrs. Jimmie and Bee would have been afraid they would catch leprosy if they had gone with us on some of our expeditions, but Jimmie and I trusted in that Providence which always watches over children and fools, and even in England we found bits of old silver, china, and porcelain which amply repaid us for all the risk we ran. We often encountered shopkeepers who spoke a language utterly unknown to us and who understood not one word of English, and with whom we communicated by writing down the figures on paper which we would pay, or showing them the money in our hands. Perhaps we were cheated now and then—in fact, in our secret hearts we are guiltily sure of it, but what difference does that make?
When you get to Cairo, it being the jumping-off place, you naturally expect the most curious admixture of stuffs for sale that your mind can imagine, but, after having passed through the first stages of bewilderment, you soon see that there are only a few things that you really care for. For instance, you can't resist the turquoises. If you go home from Egypt without buying any you will be sorry all the rest of your lives. Nor ought you to hold yourself back from your natural leaning toward crude ostrich feathers from the ostrich farms, and to bottle up your emotion at seeing uncut amber in pieces the size of a lump of chalk is to render yourself explosive and dangerous to your friends. Shirt studs, long chains for your vinaigrette or your fan, cuff buttons, antique belts of curious stones (generally clumsy and unbecoming to the waist, but not to be withstood), carved ostrich eggs, jewelled fly-brushes, carved brass coffee-pots and finger bowls, cigar sets of brilliant but rude enamel, to say nothing of the rugs and embroideries, are some of the things which I defy you to refrain from buying. To be sure, there are thousands of other attractions, which, if you are strong-minded, you can leave alone, but these things I have enumerated you will find that you cannot live without. Of course, I mean by this that these things are within reach of your purse, and cheaper than you can get them anywhere else, unless perhaps you go into the adjacent countries from which they come.
As you go up the Nile, your shopping becomes more primitive. On the mud banks, at the stations at which your boat stops, Arabians, Nubians, and Egyptians sit squatting on the caked mud with their gaudy clothes, brilliant embroideries, and rugs piled around them all within arm's reach. Here also you must bring the guile which I have described into play.
It may be that at Assuan, near the first cataract, I really got into some little danger. I never knew why, but in the bazaars there I developed an awful, insatiable desire to make a complete collection of Abyssinian weapons of warfare. For this purpose, one day, I got on my donkey and took with me only a little Scotchman, who had presented me with countless bead necklaces and so many baskets all the way up the Nile that at night I was obliged to put them overboard in order to get into my stateroom, and who wore, besides his goggles, a green veil over his face. We made our way across the sand, into which our donkeys' feet sank above their fetlocks, to the bazaars of Assuan.
These bazaars deserve more than a passing mention, as they are unlike any that I ever saw. They are all under one roof on both sides of tiny streets or broad aisles, just as you choose to call them, and through these aisles your donkey is privileged to go, while you sit calmly on his back, bargaining with the cross-legged merchants, who scream at you as you pass, thrusting their wares into your face, and, even if you attempt to pass on, they stop your donkey by pulling his tail. On this particular day I left my donkey at the door and made my way on foot, as I was eager to make my purchases.
Perhaps I was careless and ought to have taken better care of my Scotchman, because he was so little and so far from home, but I regret to say that I lost him soon after I went into the bazaar, and I didn't see him again for three hours. Never shall I forget those three hours.
In Smyrna, Turkey, and Egypt the bargaining language is about the same.
"What you give, lady?"
"I won't give anything! I don't want it! What! Do you think I would carry that back home?"
"But you take hold of him; you feel him silk; I think you want to buy. Ver' cheap, only four pound!"
"Four pounds!" I say in French. "Oh, you don't want to sell. You want to keep it. And at such a price you will keep it."
"Keep it!" in a shrill scream. "Not want to sell? Me? Ihereto sell! I sell you everything you see! I sell you theshop!" and then more wheedlingly, "You give me forty francs?"
"No," in English again. "I'll give you two dollars."
"America! Liberty!" he cries, having cunningly established my nationality, and flattering my country with Oriental guile.
"Exactly," I say, "liberty for such as you if you go there. None for me. Liberty in America is only free to the lower classes. The others are obliged tobuytheirs."
He shakes his head uncomprehendingly. "How much you give for him? Last price now! Six dollars!"
We haggle over "last prices" for a quarter of an hour more, and after two cups of coffee, amiably taken together, and some general conversation, I buy the thing for three dollars.
Bee says my tastes are low, but at any rate I can truthfully say that I get on uncommonly well with the common herd. I got about thirty of these jargon-speaking merchants so excited with my spirited method of not buying what they wanted me to that a large Englishman and a tall, gaunt Australian, thinking there was a fight going on, came to where I sat drinking coffee, and found that the screams, gesticulations, appeals to Allah, smiting of foreheads, brandishing of fists, and the general uproar were all caused by a quiet and well-behaved American girl sitting in their midst, while no less than four of them held a fold of her skirt, twitching it now and then to call attention to their particular howl of resentment. They rescued me, loaded my purchases on my donkey boy, and found my donkey for me, beside which, sitting patiently on the ground and humbly waiting my return, I found my little Scotchman.
With all this cumulative experience, as Jimmie says, "of how to misbehave in shops," we got back to London, where I could bring it into play, and in a manner avenge myself for past slights.
I was so grateful to Jimmie for the King Arthur that he gave me at Innsbruck that I decided to surprise him by something really handsome on his birthday.
When we got to Paris, there seemed to be an epidemic of gun-metal ornaments set with tiny pearls, diamonds, or sapphires. Of these I noticed that Jimmie admired the pearl-studded cigar-cases and match-safes most, but for some reason I waited to make my purchase in London, which was one of the most foolish things I ever have done in all my foolish career, and right here let me say that there is nothing so unsatisfactory as to postpone a purchase, thinking either that you will come back to the same place or that you will see better further along, for in nine cases out of ten you never see it again.
When we got to London, Bee and I put on our best street clothes and started out to buy Jimmie his birthday present. We searched everywhere, but found that all gun-metal articles in London were either plain or studded with diamonds. We couldn't find a pearl. Finally in one shop I explained my search to a tall, heavy man, evidently the proprietor, who had small green eyes set quite closely together, a florid complexion, and hay-coloured side-whiskers. His whiskers irritated me quite as much as the fact that he hadn't what I wanted. Perhaps my hat vexed him, but at any rate he looked as though he were glad he didn't have the pearls, and he finally permitted his annoyance, or his general British rudeness, to voice itself in this way:
"Pardon me, madame," he said, "but you will never find cigar-cases of gun-metal studded with pearls, no matter how much you may desire it, for it is not good taste."
I was warm, irritated, and my dress was too tight in the belt, so I just leaned my two elbows on that show-case, and I said to him:
"Do you mean to have the impertinence, my good man, to tell two American ladies that what they are looking for is not in good taste, simply because you are so stupid and insular as not to keep it in stock? Do you presume to express your opinion on taste when you are wearing a green satin necktie with a pink shirt? If you had ever been off this little island, and had gone to a land where taste in dress, and particularly in jewels, is understood, you would realise the impertinence of criticising the taste of an American woman, who is trying to find something worth while buying in so hopelessly British a shop as this. Now, my good man," I added, taking up my parasol and purse, "I shall not report your rudeness to the proprietor, because doubtless you have a family to support, and I don't wish to make you lose your place, but let this be a warning to you never to be so insolent again," and with that, I simply swept out of his shop. I seldom sweep out. Bee says I generally crawl out, but this time I was so inflated with an unholy joy that I recklessly cabled to Paris for Jimmie's pearls, and to this day I rejoice at the way that man covered his green satin tie with his large hairy red hand, and at the ecstatic smiles on the faces of two clerks standing near, for Iknewhe was the proprietor when I called him "My good man."
If you want to open an account in London, you have to be vouched for by another commercial house. They won't take your personal friends, no matter how wealthy, no matter if they are titled. Your bank's opinion of you is no good. Neither does it avail you how well and favourably you are known at your hotel for paying your bill promptly. This, and the custom in several large department stores of never returning your money if you take back goods, but making you spend it, not in the store, but in the department in which you have bought, makes shopping for dry goods excessively annoying to Americans.
I took back two silk blouses out of five that I bought at a large shop in Regent Street much frequented by Americans, which carries on a store near by under the same name, exclusively for mourning goods. To my astonishment, I discovered that I must buy three more blouses, or else lose all the money I paid for them. In my thirst for information, I asked the reason for this. In America, a lady would consider the reason they gave an insult. The shopwoman told me that ladies' maids are so expert at copying that many ladies have six or eight garments sent home, kept a few days, copied by their maids and returned, and that this became so much the custom that they were finally forced to make that obnoxious rule.
I have heard complaints made in America by proprietors of large importing houses that women who keep accounts frequently order a handsome gown, wrap, or hat sent home on approval, wear it, and return it the next day. If this is the custom among decent self-respecting American women, who masquerade in society in the guise of women of refinement and culture, no wonder that shopkeepers are obliged to protect themselves. There is nowhere that the saying, "the innocent must suffer with the guilty," obtains with so much force as in shopping, particularly in London.
It is a characteristic difference between the clever American and the insular British shopkeeper that in America, when a thing such as I have mentioned is suspected, the saleswoman or a private detective is sent to shadow the suspect, and ascertain if she really wore the garment in question. In such cases, the garment is returned to her with a note, saying that she was seen wearing it, when it is generally paid for without a word. If not, the shop is in danger of losing one otherwise valuable customer, as she is placed on what is known as the "blacklist," which means that a double scrutiny is placed on all her purchases, as she is suspected of trickery.
In this same shop in Regent Street, of which I have been speaking, we submitted to several petty annoyances of this description without complaint, the last and pettiest of which was when Mrs. Jimmie, being captivated by an exquisite hundred-guinea gown of pale gray, embroidered in pink silk roses, and veiled with black Chantilly lace, bought it and ordered it altered to her figure. For this they charged her two pounds ten in addition to that frightful price for about an hour's work about the collar. Mrs. Jimmie seldom resents anything, and in her gentleness is easily governed, so this time I persuaded her to protest, and dictated a furious letter of remonstrance to the proprietor, citing only this one case of extortion. Jimmie sat by, smoking and encouraging me, as I paced up and down the room with my hands behind my back, giving vent to sentences which, when copied down in Mrs. Jimmie's ladylike handwriting, made Jimmie scream with joy. I think Mrs. Jimmie never had any intention of sending the letter, having written it down as a safety-valve for my rather explosive nature, but Jimmie was so carried away by the artistic incongruities of the situation that he whipped a stamp on it and mailed it before his wife could wink.
To his delight, Mrs. Jimmie received, three days later, a letter from the astonished proprietor, which showed in every line of it the jolt that my letter must have been to his stolid British nerveless system. He began by thanking her for having reported the matter to him, apologised humbly, as a British tradesman always does apologise to the bloated power of wealth, and said that her letter had been sent to all the various heads of departments for their perusal. He declared that for five years he had been endeavouring to bring the directors to see that, if they were to possess the coveted American patronage for which they always strove, they must accommodate themselves to certain American prejudices, one of which was the unalterable distaste Americans displayed in paying for refitting handsome gowns. He was delighted to say that her letter had been couched in such firm, decisive, and righteously indignant language, such as he himself never would have been capable of commanding, had carried such weight, and had been productive of such definite results with the directors that he was pleased to announce that henceforward a radical change would appear in the government of their house, and that never again would an extra charge be made for refitting any garment costing over ten pounds. He thanked her again for her letter, but could not resist saying at the close that it was the most astonishing letter he had ever received in his life, and he begged to enclose the two pounds ten overcharge.
Jimmie fairly howled for joy as he read this letter aloud; Bee looked very much mortified; Mrs. Jimmie exceedingly perplexed, as if uncertain what to think, but I confess that all my irritation against British shopkeepers fell away from me as a cast-off garment. I blush to say that I shared Jimmie's delight, and when he solemnly made me a present of the two pounds ten I had so heroically earned, I soothed my ladylike sister's refined resentment by inviting all three to have broiled lobster with me at Scott's.
I imagine, however, that one woman's experience with dressmakers is like all others. I have noticed that to introduce the subject of my personal woes in the matter is to make the conversation general, in fact I might say composite, no matter how formal the gathering of women. Like the subject of servants, it is as provocative of conversation as classical music.
Far be it from me, however, to class all shopping in London under the head of dry goods, or the rage one gets into with every dressmaker. In most of the shops, in fact, I may say, in all of them (for the one unfortunate experience I have related in the jeweller's shop was the only one of the kind I ever had in London), the clerks are universally polite, interested, and obliging, no matter how smart the shop may be. Take for instance, Jay's, or Lewis and Allenby's. The instant you stop before the smallest object a saleswoman approaches and says, "Good morning." You say, "What a very pretty parasol!" and she replies, "Itispretty, isn't it, modom?" She wears a skin-tight black cashmere gown with a little tail to it. Her beautiful broad shoulders, flat back, tiny waist, bun at the back of her head, and the invisible net over the fringe, all proclaim her to be an Englishwoman, but her pronunciation of the simplest words, and the way her voice goes up and down two or three times in a single sentence, sometimes twice in a single word, might sometimes lead you to think she spoke a foreign tongue.
The English call all our voices monotonous, but it was several weeks after I reached London for the first time before I could catch the significance of a sentence the first time it was pronounced. All over Europe our watchword with the Russians, Turks, Egyptians, Arabs, French, Germans, and Italians was always "Do you speak English?" and in London it is Jimmie's crowning act of revenge to ask the railway guards and cab-drivers the same insulting question. Imagine asking London cabbies the question, "Do you speak English?" It puts him in a purple rage directly.
But shopkeepers all over Europe are quick to anticipate all your wants, to suggest tempting things which have not occurred to you to buy, and to offer to have things made, if nothing in stock suits you. I suppose I am naturally slow and stupid. Bee says I am, but having been brought up in America, in the South, where nothing is ever made, and where we had to send to New York for everything, and where even New York has to depend on Europe for many of its staples, my surprise overpowered me so that it mortified Bee, when they offered to have silk stockings made for me in Paris.
Like most Americans, I am in the habit of turning away disappointed, and preparing to go without things if I cannot find what I want in the shops, but in London and Paris they will offer of their own accord to make for you anything you may describe to them, from a pair of gloves to a pattern of brocade. This is one and perhaps the only glory of being an American in Europe, for, as my friend in Naples, of the firm of Ananias, Barabbas, and Company, said to me:
"Behold! you are an American, and by Americans do we not live?"