A GLIMPSE OF THE SEINEPARISBY THEODORE DREISERAuthor of “Sister Carrie,” “Jennie Gerhardt,” etc.WITH PICTURES BY W. J. GLACKENS
A GLIMPSE OF THE SEINE
A GLIMPSE OF THE SEINE
BY THEODORE DREISER
Author of “Sister Carrie,” “Jennie Gerhardt,” etc.
WITH PICTURES BY W. J. GLACKENS
WHEN the train rolled into the Gare du Nord, it must have been about eight o’clock in the evening. X. had explained to me that, in order to make my entrance into Paris properly gay and interesting, we were to dine at the Café de Paris, then visit the Folies-Bergère, and afterward have supper at the Abbaye Thélème. Now, as usual, X. was alert and prepared. He had industriously piled all the bags close to the door, and was hanging out of a window, doing his best to signal afacteur. I was to stay in the car and hand all the packages down rapidly while he ran to secure a taxi and an inspector, and in other ways to clear away the impediments to our progress. With great executive enthusiasm he told me that we must be at the Hôtel Normandy by eight-fifteen or twenty, and that by nine o’clock we must be ready to sit down in the Café de Paris to an excellent dinner, which he had ordered by telegraph.
I recall my wonder in entering Paris—the lack of any extended suburbs, the sudden flash of electric lights and electric cars. Mostly we seemed to be entering through a tunnel or gully, and then we were there. The noisy facteurs in their caps and blue aprons were all about the cars. They ran and chattered and gesticulated, wholly unlike the porters at Paddington and Waterloo, Victoria and Euston. The one we finally secured, a husky little enthusiast, did his best to gather all our packages in one grand massand shoulder them, stringing them on a single strap. The result of it was that the strap broke right over a small pool of water, and among other things the canvas bag containing my blanket and magnificent shoes fell into the water.
The excited facteur was fairly dancing in anguish, doing his best to get the packages strung together. Between us we relieved him of about half of them, and from about his waist he unwrapped another large strap and strung the remainder on that. Then we hurried on, for nothing would do but that we must hurry. A taxi was secured, and all our luggage piled on it. It looked half suffocated under bundles as it swung away, and we were off at a mad clip through crowded, electric-lighted streets. I pressed my nose to the window and took in as much as I could, while X., between calculations as to how much time this would take and that would take and whether my trunk had arrived safely, expatiated laconically on French characteristics.
“You smell this air? It is characteristic of Paris.”
“The taxis always go like this.” We were racing like mad.
“There is an excellent type; look at her.”
“Now you see the chairs out in front. They are this way all over Paris.”
I was looking at the interesting restaurant life, which never really seems to be interrupted anywhere in Paris. One can always find a dozen chairs, if not fifty or a hundred, somewhere out on the sidewalk, under the open sky or a glass roof, with little stone-topped tables beside them, the crowd surging to and fro in front. Here one can sit and have one’s coffee, liqueur, sandwich. Everybody seems to do it; it is as common as walking in the streets.
We whirled through street after street, partaking of this atmosphere, and finally swung up in front of a rather plain hotel, which was close to the Avenue de l’Opéra, on the corner of the Rue St. Honoré and the Rue de l’Echelle. Our luggage was quickly distributed, and I was shown into my room by a maid who could not speak English. I unlocked my belongings and rapidly changed my clothes, while X., breathing mightily, fully arrayed, soon appeared, saying that I should await him at the door below, where he would arrive with our guests. I did so, and in fifteen minutes he returned, the taxi spinning up out of a steady stream that was flowing by. I think my head was dizzy with the whirl of impressions which I was garnering, but I did my best to keep a sane view of things, and to get my impressions as sharp and clear as I could.
I am satisfied of one thing in this world, and that is that the commonest intelligence is very frequently confused or hypnotized or overpersuaded by certain situations, and that the weaker ones are ever full of the wildest forms of illusion. We talk about the sanity of life. I question whether it exists. Mostly it is a succession of confusing, disturbing impressions which are only rarely valid. This night I know I was moving in a sort of maze, and when I stepped into the taxi and was introduced to two ladies, I easily succumbed to what was obviously their great beauty.
Greuze has painted over and over the type that I saw before me—soft, buxom, ruddy womanhood. I think the two may have been respectively twenty-four and twenty-six. The elder was smaller than the younger, although both were of good size, and not so ruddy; but both were plump, round-faced, dimpled, and with a wealth of brownish-black hair, white teeth, smooth, plump arms, necks, and shoulders. Their chins were adorably rounded, their lips red, and their eyes laughing and gay. They began laughing and chattering the moment I entered, extending their soft, white hands, and saying things in French which I could not understand. X. was smiling, beaming through his monocle in an amused, superior way. The older girl was arrayed in pearl-colored silk, with a black mantilla spangled with silver, and the younger had a dress of peachblow hue, with a white lace mantilla, that was also spangled, and they breathed a faint perfume.
I shall never forget the grand air with which this noble band went into the Café de Paris. We were in fine feather, and the ladies radiated a charm and a flavor which immediately attracted attention. This brilliant café was aglow with lights and alive with people. It is not large in size, and is triangular in shape. The charm of it comes not so much from the luxury of the fittings, which are luxurious enough, but from their exceedingly good taste and the fame of the cuisine. One does not see a bill of fare here that indicates prices. You order what you like, and are charged what is suitable. Champagne is not an essential wine, as it is in some restaurants; you may drink what you please. There is a delicious sparkle and spirit to the place which can spring only from a high sense of individuality. Paris is supposed to provide nothing better than the Café de Paris in so far as food is concerned.
I turned my attention to the elder of the two ladies, who was quite as vivacious, if not quite so forceful, as her younger sister. I never before knew what it meant to sit in a company of this kind, welcomed as a friend, looked to for gaiety as a companion and admirer, and yet not able to say a word in the language of the occasion. There were certain words which could be quickly acquired, such as “beautiful,” “charming,” “very delightful,” and so on, for which X. gave me the French equivalent, and then I could make complimentary remarks, which he would translate for all, and the ladies would say things in reply which would come to me by the same medium. It went gaily enough, for the conversation would not have been of a high order if I had been able to speak French. X. objected to being used constantly as an interpreter, and when he became stubborn and chatted gaily without stopping to explain, I was compelled to fall back on the resources of looks, smiles, and gestures. It interested me to see how quick these women were to adapt themselves to the difficulties of the situation. They were constantly laughing and chaffing between themselves, looking at me and saying obviously flattering things, and then laughing at my discomfiture in not being able to understand. The elder explained what certain objects were by lifting them up and insisting on the French name. X. was constantly telling me of the remarks they made at my expense, and how sad they thought it was that I could not speak French.
We departed finally for the Folies-Bergère, where the newest sensation of Paris, Mistinguett, was playing. She proved to be a brilliant hoyden to look upon; a gay, slim, yellow-haired tomboy who seemed to fascinate the large audience by her boyish manners and her wayward air. There was a brilliant chorus in spangled silks and satins. The vaudeville acts were about as good as they are anywhere. I did not think that the performance was any better than one might see in one or two places in New York, though of course the humor was much broader. Now and then one of their remarkablebons motswas translated for me by X. just to give me an inkling of the character of the place. Back of the seats was a great lobby, or promenade, where some of the demi-monde of Paris were congregated—beautiful creatures, in many instances, and as unconventional as you please. I was particularly struck with the smartness of their costumes and the cheerfulness of their faces. The companion type in London and New York is somewhat colder-looking. Their eyes snapped with Gallic intelligence, and they walked as though the whole world held their point of view and no other.
From here at midnight we left for the Abbaye Thélème, and there I encountered the best that Paris has to show in the way of that gaiety and color and beauty and smartness for which it is famous. One really ought to say a great deal about the Abbaye Thélème, because it is the last word, the quintessence, of midnight excitement and international savoir-faire. The Russian and the Brazilian, the Frenchman, the American, the Englishman, the German, and the Italian—all these meet here on common ground. I saw much of restaurant life in Paris while I was there, but nothing better than this. Like the Café de Paris, it was very small when compared with restaurants of similar repute in New York and London. I fancy it was not more than sixty feet square; only it was not square, but pentagonal, almost circular. To begin with, the tables were around the walls, with seats which had the wall for the back; and then, as the guests poured in, the interior space was filled with tables brought in for the purpose. Later in the morning, when the guests began to leave, these tables were taken out again, and the space was devoted to dancing and entertainers.
As in the Café de Paris, I noticed that it was not so much the quality of the furnishings as the spirit of the place which was important. This latter was compoundedof various elements, success being the first one, perfection of service another, absolute individuality of cooking another, and lastly the subtlety and magnetism of sex, which is capitalized and used in Paris as it is nowhere else in the world. Until I stepped into this restaurant I never actually realized what it is that draws a certain moneyed element to Paris. The tomb of Napoleon, the Panthéon, and the Louvre are not the significant attractions of that important city. Those things have their value and constitute an historical and artistic element that is imposing, romantic, and forceful; but over and above that there is something else, and that is sex. I did not learn until later what I am going to say now, but it might as well be said here, for it illustrates the point exactly. A little experience and inquiry in Paris quickly taught me that the owners and managers of the more successful restaurants encourage and help to sustain a certain type of woman whose presence is desirable. She must be young, beautiful, or attractive, and, above all things, possessed of temperament. A woman can rise in the café and restaurant world of Paris quite as she can on the stage, and she can easily be graduated from the Abbaye Thélème and Maxim’s to the stage; and, on the other hand, the stage contributes freely to the atmosphere of Maxim’s, the Abbaye Thélème, and other similar resorts. A large number of the figures seen here and at the Folies-Bergère and at other places of the same type are interchangeable. They are in the restaurants when they are not on the stage, and they are on the stage when they are not in the restaurants. They rise or fall by a world of strange devices, and you can hear brilliant or ghastly stories illustrating either conclusion. Paris—this aspect of it—is a perfect maelstrom of sex, and it is sustained by the wealth and the curiosity of the stranger, as well as of the Frenchman.
The Abbaye Thélème on this occasion presented a brilliant scene. Outside a small railing near the door several negro singers, a mandolin-and a guitar-player, and several stage dancers were congregated. A throng of people was pouring through the doors, all with their tables previously arranged for. Outside, where a January wind was blowing, you could hear a perfect uproar of slamming taxi doors, and the calls of doormen and chauffeurs getting their vehicles in and out of the way. The company generally, as on all such occasions, was alert to see who was present and what the general spirit of the occasion was to be. Instantly I detected a number of Americans; three amazingly beautiful Englishwomen, such as I had not seen in England, and their escorts; a few Spaniards or South Americans; and, after that, a variety of persons whom I took to be largely French, although it was impossible to tell. The Englishwomen interested me because in all my stay in Europe I never saw three other women quite so beautiful, and because in all my stay in England I scarcely saw a good-looking Englishwoman. X. suggested that they were of that high realm of fashion which rarely remains in London during the winter, when I was there; that if I came again in May or June, and went to the races, I would see plenty of them. Their lovely hair was straw-colored, and their cheeks and foreheads were a faint pink and cream. Their arms and shoulders were delightfully bare, and they carried themselves with amazing hauteur. By one o’clock, when the majority of the guests had arrived, this room fairly shimmered with white silks and satins, white arms and shoulders, roses in black hair, and blue and lavender ribbons fastened about hair of a lighter color. There were jewels in plenty,—opals and amethysts, turquoises and rubies,—and there was a perfect artillery of champagne corks. Every table was attended by its silver bucket of ice, and the mandolins and guitars in their crowded angle were strumming mightily.
As we seated ourselves, I speculated interestedly as to what drew all these people from all parts of the world to see this, to be here together. I do not know where you could go and for a hundred francs see more of really amazing feminine beauty. I do not know where for the same money you could buy the same atmosphere of lightness and gaiety and enthusiasm. This place was fairly vibrating with a wild desire to live. I fancy the majority of those who were here for the first time, and particularly of the young, would tell you that they would rather be here than in any other spot you could name. The place had a peculiar glitter of beauty which was compoundedby the managers with great skill. The waiters were all deft, swift, suave, good-looking; the dancers who stepped out on the floor after a few moments were of an orchid-like Spanish type—ruddy, brown, full-bodied, black-haired, black-eyed. They had on dresses that were as close-fitting as the scales of a fish, and that glittered with the same radiance. They waved and rattled and clashed castanets and tambourines and danced wildly and sinuously to and fro among the tables. Some of them sang, or voices accompanied them from the raised platform devoted to music.
After a while red, blue, pink, and green balloons were introduced, anchored to the champagne bottles, and allowed to float gaily in the air. Paper parcels of small paste balls of all colors, and as light as feathers, were distributed for the guests to throw at one another. In ten minutes a wild artillery battle was raging. Young girls were up on their feet, their hands full of these colored weapons, pelting the male strangers of their selection. You would see tall Englishmen and Americans exchanging a perfect volley of colored spheres with girls of various nationalities—laughing, chattering, calling, screaming. Thecocottein all her dazzling radiance was here, exquisitely dressed, her white arms shimmering.
After a time, when the audience had worn itself through excitement to satisfaction or weariness, or both, a few of the tables were cleared away and the dancing began, occasional guests joining. There were charming dances in costume from Russia, from Scotland, from Hungary, and from Spain. I myself waltzed with a Spanish dancer, and had the wonder of seeing an American girl rise from her table and dance with more skill and grace than the employed talent. A wine-enthused Englishman, a handsome youth of twenty-six or more, took the floor and remained there gaily prancing about from table to table, dancing alone or with whomsoever would welcome him. What looked like a dangerous argument started at one time because a high-mettled Brazilian considered that he had been insulted. A cordon of waiters and the managers soon adjusted that. It was between three and four in the morning when we finally left, and I was very tired. It was decided that we should meet for dinner; and since it was almost daylight, I was glad when we had seen our ladies to their apartment and returned to our hotel.
I shall never forget my first morning in Paris—the morning that I woke up after about two hours’ sleep or less, prepared to put in a hard day at sight-seeing, because X. had a program which must be adhered to. He could be with me only until Monday, when he had to return. It was fortunately a bright day, a little hazy and chill, but agreeable. I looked out of the window of my very comfortable room on the fifth floor, which gave out on a balcony overhanging the Rue St. Honoré, and watched the crowd of French people below coming to work. It would be hard to say what makes the difference between a crowd of Englishmen and a crowd of Frenchmen, but there is a difference. It struck me that these men and women walked faster, and that their movements were more spirited than those of the English or Americans. They looked more like Americans, though, than like the English, and they were much more cheerful than either, chatting and talking as they came. I was interested to see whether I could make the maid understand that I wanted coffee and rolls without talking French, but the wants of American travelers are an old story to French maids; and no sooner did I say “Café” and make the sign of drinking from a cup than she said, “Oh, oui, oui, oui; oh, oui, oui, oui,” and disappeared. Presently the coffee was brought me, with rolls and butter and hot milk; and I ate my breakfast as I dressed.
About nine o’clock X. arrived with his program. I was to walk in the garden of the Tuileries which was close at hand, where he would join me later. We were to go for a walk in the Rue de Rivoli as far as a certain bootmaker’s, who was to make me a pair of shoes for the Riviera. Then we were to visit a haberdasher’s or two, and after that go straight about the work of sight-seeing, visiting the old book-stalls on the Seine, the churches of St.-Etienne-du-Mont, Notre-Dame, Ste.-Chapelle, thereafter regulating our conduct by the wishes of several guests who were to appear.
We started off briskly, and my first adventure in Paris led me straight to the gardens of the Tuileries, lying west of theLouvre. If any one wanted a proper introduction to Paris, I should recommend this above all others. Such a noble piece of gardening as this is the best testimony France has to offer as to its taste, discrimination, and sense of the magnificent. I should say, on mature thought, that we shall never have anything like it in America. We have not the same lightness of fancy.
I recall walking in here and being struck at once with the magnificent proportions of it all,—the breadth and stately lengths of its walks, the utter wonder and charm of its statuary,—snow-white marble nudes standing out on the green grass and marking the circles, squares, and paths of its entire length. No such charm and beauty could be attained in America because we would not permit the public use of the nude in this fashion.
Everywhere I went in Paris I was struck by the charming unity in the conduct of business between husband and wife and son and daughter. We talk much about the economic independence of women in America. It seems to me that the French have solved it in the only way that it can be solved. Madame helps her husband in his business and they make a success of it together. Monsieur Galoyer took the measurements for my shoes, but madame entered them in a book, and to me the shop was fifty times as charming for her presence. She was pleasingly dressed, and the shop looked as though it had experienced the tasteful touches of a woman’s hand. It was clean and bright and smart, and smacked of good housekeeping; and this was equally true of book-stalls, haberdashers’ shops, art-stores, coffee-rooms, and places of public sale generally. Wherever madame was, and she looked nice, there was a nice store; and monsieur looked as fat and contented as could reasonably be expected in the circumstances.
I shall never forget this first morning’s impression of Paris, although all my impressions of it were delightful and inspiring, from the poorest quarter of the Charenton district to the perfections of the Bois and the region about the Arc de Triomphe. It chanced that this morning was bright, and I saw the Seine glimmering over the stones of its shallow banks and racing madly. How much the French have made of little in the way of a river! It is not very wide—about half as wide as the Thames at Blackfriars Bridge, and not so wide as the Harlem River. Here the Seine was as bright as a new button, its banks properly lined with gray, but not dull-looking, walls, the two streets which parallel it on each side alive with traffic; at every few blocks a handsome bridge; every block a row of very habitable, if not imposing, apartment-houses; at various points views of Notre-Dame, the Tuileries, the Cours-la-Reine, of the Trocadéro, and the Eiffel Tower. I followed the Seine from city wall to city wall one day, from Charenton to Issy, and found every inch of it delightful. I was never tired of looking at the wine-barges near Charenton; the little bathing-pavilions and passenger-boats in the vicinity of the Louvre; the brick-barges, hay-barges, coal-barges, and Heaven knows what else plying between the city’s heart and points down-stream past Issy. It gave me the impression of being one of the brightest, cleanest rivers in the world—a river on a holiday. I saw it once at Issy at what is known in Paris as the “green hour,” which is five o’clock, when the sun was going down, and a deep, palpable fragrance wafted from a vast manufactory of perfume filled the air. Men were poling boats of hay, and laborers in their great wide-bottomed corduroy trousers, blue shirts, and inimitable French caps, were trudging homeward, and I felt as though the world had nothing to offer Paris which it did not already have. I could have settled in a small house in Issy and worked as a laborer in a perfume factory, carrying my dinner-pail with me every morning, with a right good-will, or such was the mood of the moment. As I write this, the mood comes back.
This morning, on our way to St.-Etienne-du-Mont and the cathedral, we examined the book-stalls along the Seine. To enjoy them, one has to be in an idle mood and love out of doors; for they consist of a dusty row of four-legged boxes, with lids coming quite to your chest in height, and reminding one of those high-legged counting-tables at which clerks sit on tall stools making entries in their ledgers. These boxes are old and paintless and weather-beaten; and at night the very dusty-looking keepers, who from earlymorning until dark have had their shabby-backed wares spread out where dust and sunlight and wind and rain can attack them, pack them in the body of the box on which they are lying and close the lid. You can always see an idler or two here, perhaps many idlers, between the Quai d’Orsay and the Quai Voltaire.
Paris is as young in its mood as any city in the world. It is as wildly enthusiastic as a child. This morning I noticed here the strange occurrence of battered-looking old fellows singing to themselves, which I never noticed anywhere else in this world. Age sits lightly on the Parisian, I am sure, and youth is a wild fantasy, an exciting realm of romantic dreams. The Parisian, from the keeper of a market-stall to the prince of the money world or of art, wants to live gaily, briskly, laughingly, and he will not let the necessity of earning his living deny him. I felt it in the churches, the depots, the department stores, the theaters, the restaurants, the streets—a wild, keen desire for life, with the blood and the body to back it up. It must be in the soil and the air, for Paris sings. It is like poison in the veins, and I felt myself growing positively giddy with enthusiasm. I believe that for the first six months Paris would be a disease from which one would suffer greatly and recover slowly. After that you would settle down to live the life you found there in contentment and with delight, but you would not be in so much danger of wrecking your very mortal body and your uncertainly immortal soul.
Now there was luncheon at Foyot’s, a little restaurant near the Luxembourg and the Musée de Cluny, where the wise in the matter of food love to dine, and where, as usual, X. was at his best. Foyot’s, as the initiated will attest, is a delightful place to lunch or dine, for the cooking is perfection itself. The French, while entirely discarding show in many instances, and allowing their restaurants to look as though they had been put together with an effort, nevertheless attain an individuality of atmosphere which is delightful. For the life of me I could not tell why this little restaurant seemed so smart and bright, for there was nothing either smart or bright about it when I examined it in detail; and so I was compelled to attribute the impression to the all-pervading temperament of the owner. Always, in these cases, there is a man, or a woman, quite remarkable for his point of view; and although I did not see him, I fancied the owner, whatever his name, must be such a man. Otherwise you could not take such simple appointments and make them into anything so pleasing and so individual.
Later in the day we took a taxi through singing streets, lighted by a springtime sun, and came finally to the Restaurant Prunier, where it was necessary to secure a table and order dinner in advance; and thence to the Théâtre des Capucines in the Rue des Capucines, where tickets for a farce had to be secured; and thence to a café near the Avenue de l’Opéra, where we were to meet Madame de J., who, out of the goodness of her heart, was to help entertain me while I was in the city.
We came to her out of the whirl of the “green hour,” when the Paris boulevards in this vicinity were fairly swarming with people—the gayest world I have ever seen. We have enormous crowds in New York, but they seem to be going somewhere very much more definitely than in Paris. With us there is an eager, strident, almost objectionable effort to get home or to the theater or to the restaurant which one can easily resent, it is so inconsiderate and indifferent. In London you do not feel that there are any crowds that are going to the theaters or the restaurants; and if they are, they are not very cheerful about it. They are enduring life; they have none of the lightness of the Parisian world. I think it is all explained by the fact that Parisians feel keenly that they are living now, and that they wish to enjoy themselves as they go. The American and the Englishman—the Englishman much more than the American—have decided that they are going to live in the future. Only the American is a little angry about his decision, and the Englishman a little meek or patient. Both feel that life is intensely grim. But the Parisian, while he may feel or believe it, decides wilfully to cast it off. He lives by the way, out of books, restaurants, theaters, boulevards, and the spectacle of life generally. The Parisians move briskly, and they come out where they can see one another—out into the great wide-sidewalked boulevards and the thousands upon thousands of cafés, and make themselves comfortable and talkative and gay. It is obvious that everybody is having a good time, not merely trying to have it; that they are enjoying the wine-like air, thebrasseries, the net-like movements of the cabs, the dancing lights of the roadways, and the flare of the shops. It may be chill or drizzling in Paris, but you scarcely feel it. Rain can scarcely drive the people off the streets; literally it does not, for there are crowds whether it rains or not, and they are not despondent. This particular hour that brought us to the bar was essentially thrilling, and I was interested to see what Madame de J. was like.
We were sitting at a table, sipping a brandy and soda, when she entered, a brisk, genial, sympathetic French person whose voice on the instant gave me a delightful impression of her. It was the loveliest voice I ever heard, soft and musical, a colorful voice touched with both gaiety and sadness. Her eyes were light blue, her hair was brown, and her manner sinuous and insinuating. She seemed to have the spirit of a delightfully friendly collie or a child, and all the vitality and alertness that go with either. I had a chance to observe her keenly. In a moment she turned to me and asked whether I knew either of two American authors whom she knew, men of considerable repute. Knowing them both very well, it surprised me to think that she knew them. From the way she spoke, she seemed to have been on the friendliest terms with both; and any one by looking at her could have understood why they should have taken an interest in her.
If she had been of a somewhat more calculating type, I fancy that, with her intense charm of face and manner and her intellect and voice, she would have been very successful. I gained the impression that she had been on the stage in some small capacity; but she had been too diffident, not really brazen enough for the grim world in which the French actress rises. I soon gained the impression that she was a charming blend of emotion, desire, and refinement which one sometimes meets with in the demi-monde. She would have done better in literature or music or art, and she seemed fitted by her moods and her understanding to be a light in any one of them or all.
I shall never forget how she looked at me, quite in the spirit of a gay uncertain child, and how quickly she made me feel that we should get along very well together. “Why, yes,” she said in her soft voice, “I will go about with you, although I should not know what is best to see. But I shall be here, and if you want to come for me, we can see things together.” Suddenly she reached over and took my hand and pressed it genially, as though to seal the bargain. Then Madame de J., promising to join us at the theater, went away.
I would not say more of this evening except that it gave me another glimpse of this unquestionably remarkable woman, who was especially charming in a pale bluish-gray dress and gray furs. She helped entertain us through what to me was a somewhat dull performance of a farce in a tongue I did not understand. I was entertained by the effective character work of the actors, but nothing compensates, as I found everywhere, for ignorance of French.
When we came out of this theater at half-past eleven, Madame de J. was anxious to return to her apartment, and X. said he’d give me an additional taste of the very vital café life of Paris.
The strange impression which all this world of restaurant life gave me, still endures. Obviously, when we arrived at twelve o’clock, the fun was just getting under way. Some of these places, like the first one we entered, were no larger than a fair-sized room in an apartment, but crowded with a gay and even giddy throng of Americans, South Americans, English, and others. One of the tricks in Paris to make a restaurant successful is to keep it small, so that it has an air of overflow and activity. Here, after allowing room for the red-jacketed orchestra, the piano, and the waiters, there was scarcely space for the forty or fifty guests who were present. Champagne was twenty francs the bottle, and champagne was all that was served. It was necessary here, as at all the restaurants, to contribute to the support of the musicians; and if a strange young woman should sit at your table for a moment and share either the wine or the fruit which would be quickly offered, you would have to pay for that. Peaches were three francs each, and grapes five francs the bunch. It was plain that all these things are offeredin order that the house might thrive and prosper. It was so at all of them.
The personality of X. supplied a homy quality of comfortable companionship. He was so full of a youthful zest to live, and so keen after the shows and customs of the world, that to be near him was to enjoy the privilege of great company. I never pondered why he was so popular with women, or why his friends in different walks of life constituted so great a company. He seemed to have known thousands of all sorts, and to be at home in all conditions. That persistent, unchanging atmosphere of “All is well with me,” to maintain which was as much a duty as a tradition with him, made for exceedingly pleasant companionship.
This very remarkable evening X. and I spent wandering from one restaurant to another in an effort to locate a certain Rillette, a girl of whom I had heard when we first came to Paris. She had been one of the most distinguished figures of the stage. Four or five years before she had held at the Folies-Bergère much the same position recently attained by Mistinguett, who was just then enthralling Paris; in other words, she was the sensation of that stormy world of art and romance of which these restaurants are a part. She was more than that. She had a wonderful mezzo-soprano voice of great color and richness and a spirit for dancing that was Greek in its quality. I was anxious to get at least a glimpse of this exceptional Parisian type, the real spirit of this fast world, the true artistic poison-flower, the lovely hooded cobra, before she should be too old or too wretched to be interesting.
At one café, quite by accident, we encountered Miss F., whom I had not seen since we left Fishguard, and who was here in Paris doing her best to outshine the women of the gay restaurants in the matter of dresses, hats, and beauty. I must say she presented a ravishing spectacle, quite as wonderful as any of the other women who were to be seen here; but she lacked, as I was to note, the natural vivacity of the French. We Americans, despite our high spirits and our healthy enthusiasm for life, are nevertheless a blend of the English, the German, and some of the sedate nations of the North, and we are inclined to a physical and mental passivity which is not common to the Latins. This girl, vivid creature that she was, did not have the spiritual vibration which accompanies the Frenchwomen. As far as spirit was concerned, she seemed superior to most of the foreign types present; but the Frenchwomen are naturally gayer, their eyes brighter, their motions lighter. She gave us at once an account of her adventures since I had seen her. I could not help marveling at the disposition which set above everything else in the world the privilege of moving in this peculiar realm, which fascinated her much. As she told me on theMauretania, all she hoped for was to become a woman of Machiavellian finesse, and to have some money. If she had money and attained to real social wisdom, conventional society could go to the devil; for the successful adventuress, according to her, was welcome anywhere—that is, everywhere she would care to go. She did not expect to retain her beauty entirely; but she did expect to have some money, and meanwhile to live brilliantly, as she deemed that she was now doing. Her comments on the various women of her class were as hard and accurate as they were brilliant. I remember her saying of one woman, with an easy sweep of her hand, “Like a willow, don’t you think?” Of another, “She glows like a ruby.” It was true; it was fine character delineation.
At Maxim’s, an hour later, she decided to go home, so we took her to her hotel, and then resumed our pursuit of Rillette. After much wandering, we finally came upon her, about four in the morning, in one of those showy pleasure-resorts that I have described.
“Ah, yes, there she is!” X. exclaimed, and I looked to a distant table to see the figure he indicated, that of a young girl seemingly not more than twenty-four or twenty-five, a white silk neckerchief tied about her brown hair, her body clothed in a rather nondescript costume for a world as showy as this. Most of the women wore evening clothes. She had on a skirt of light-brown wool, a white shirtwaist open in the front, with the collar turned down, showing her pretty neck. Her skirt was short, and her sleeves were short, showing a solid fore arm. Before she noticed X. we saw her take a slender girl in black for a partner and dance, with others, in the open space between the tables that circledthe walls. Her face did not suggest the depravity which her career would indicate, although it was by no means ruddy; but she seemed to scorn rouge. Her eyes—eyes are always revealing in a forceful personage—were large and vague and brown, set beneath a wide, full forehead—very wonderful eyes. In her idle security and profound nonchalance, she appeared like a figure out of the Revolution or the Commune. She would have been magnificent in a riot, marching up a Parisian street, her white band about her brown hair, carrying a knife, a gun, or a flag. She would have had the courage, too; for it was plain that life had lost much of its charm and she nearly all of her caring. When her dance was done, she came over to us, and extended an indifferent hand to X. He told me, after their light conversation in French, that he had chided her to the effect that her career was ruining her once lovely voice. “I shall find it again at the next corner,” she said, and walked smartly away.
ONE OF THE THOUSAND AND ONE CAFÉS ON THE BOULEVARDS OF PARIS
ONE OF THE THOUSAND AND ONE CAFÉS ON THE BOULEVARDS OF PARIS
“Some one should write a novel about a woman like that,” X. explained. “She ought to be painted. It is amazing the sufficiency of soul that goes with that type. There aren’t many like her. She could be the sensation of Paris again if she wanted to, would try. But she won’t. See what she said of her voice just now.” He shook his head. I smiled approvingly, for obviously the appearance of the woman, her full, compelling eyes, bore him out.
She was a figure of distinction in this restaurant world, for many knew her and kept track of her. I watched her from time to time talking with the guests of one table and another, and the chemical content which made her exceptional was as obvious as though she were a bottle and bore a label. To this day she stands out in my mind, in her simple dress and indifferent manner, as perhaps the one forceful, significant figure that I saw in all the cafés of Paris or elsewhere.
I should like to add here, before I part forever with this curious and feverishParisian restaurant world, that, after much and careful observation, my conclusion has been that it was too utterly feverish, artificial, and exotic not to be dangerous and grimly destructive, if not merely touched upon at long intervals.
A GLIMPSE OF PARISIAN CAFÉ LIFE
A GLIMPSE OF PARISIAN CAFÉ LIFE
This world of champagne-drinkers was apparently interested in only two things—the flare and glow of the restaurants, which were always brightly lighted and packed with people, and women. In the last analysis, women were the glittering attraction; and truly one might say they were glittering. Fine feathers make fine birds, and nowhere more so than in Paris. But there were many birds who would have been fine in much less showy feathers. In many instances they craved and secured a demure simplicity which was even more destructive than the flaring costumes of the demi-monde. It was strange to see American innocence, the products of Petosky, Michigan, and Hannibal, Missouri, cheek by jowl with the most daring and the most flagrant women that the great metropolis could produce. I did not know until later how hard some of these women were, how schooled in vice, how weary of everything save this atmosphere of festivity and the privilege of wearing beautiful clothes. It was a scorching lesson, and it displayed vice as an upper and a nether millstone between which youth and beauty are ground or pressed quickly to a worthless mass. I would defy anybody to live in this atmosphere as long as five years and not exhibit strongly the telltale marks of decay.
Most people come here for a night or two, or a month or two, or once in a year or so, and then return to the comparatively dull world from which they emanated, which is fortunate. If they were here a little while, this deceptive world of delight would lose all its glamour; for in a very few days you see through the dreary mechanism by which it is produced: the browbeating of shabby waiters by greedy managers, the extortionate charges and tricks by which money is lured from the pockets of the unwary, the wretched rooms and garrets from which some of these butterflies emanate, to wing here in seeming delight and then disappear. When the natural glow of youth has gone, then come powder and paint for the face,belladonna for the eyes, rouge for the lips, palms, and nails, and perfumes and ornament and the glitter of good clothing; but underneath it all one reads the weariness of the eye, the sickening distaste for bargaining hour by hour and day by day, the cold mechanism of what was once natural, instinctive coquetry.
“IN ONE OF THOSE SHOWY PLEASURE-RESORTS”
You feel constantly that many of these women would sell their souls for one last hour of delight, and that some of them would then gladly take poison, as many of them doubtless do, to end it all.
Consumption, cocaine, and opium maintain their persistent toll. This is a furnace of desire, this Montmartre district, and it burns furiously with a hard, white-hot flame until there is nothing left save black cinders and white ashes. Those who can endure its consuming heat are quite welcome to its wonders until emotion and feeling and beauty are no more.
Tailpiece, PARIS