In this volume, which contains my memories of De Maupassant, I wish to tell another experience of French life. I was going once from London to Paris: in the train at Calais there was a young German who asked a French fellow traveler something or other and was snubbed for his pains; the Frenchman evidently guessed his nationality from his bad accent and faulty French.
Resenting the rudeness, I answered the question, and soon the German and myself became almost friends. When we reached Paris, I told him I was going to the Hotel Meurice, and next day he called on me, lunched with me, and afterwards we drove together to the Bois.
Something ingenuous-youthful in the man interested me: we had hardly got into the Avenue des Acacias when he told me he thought French girls wonderfully attractive. Five minutes afterwards we crossed a victoria in which there was one very pretty girl and an older woman; my German exclaimed that the girl was a beauty and wanted to know if it would be possible to get acquainted with such a star. I told him that nothing was easier: they were a pair of cocottes, and if he had a couple of hundred francs to spare he would be well received. I advised him the next time our carriages met to jump into the one with the pretty girl and make hay while the sun shone. He thought this a quite impossible feat, and so the next time we passed, I told him to follow us, and jumped into the carriage myself.
At once the coachman turned down a side road and drove rapidly citywards.
I put an arm round each of the women and assured them of our company at dinner at the Cafe Anglais. After a few moments' talk the pretty one whispered to me pertly, 'You must make your choice,' and as I turned to the older woman, she responded, 'You won't regret it if you choose me!' I don't know why, but I immediately withdrew my arm from the waist of the pretty one, saying, 'I must be loyal to my friend, who selected you.' Five minutes afterwards we drew up at a cafe in the Champs-Elysees and were joined by my German, who could hardly believe his ears when I told him that I was leaving him the pretty and vivacious girl. To cut a long story short, we all dined together in a private room and afterwards conducted the women to their home. My German went upstairs with his inamorata and I went into a large apartment on the first floor. Here, to my astonishment, was a young girl of perhaps twelve who had evidently fallen asleep. As soon as the light was turned on, she sprang to her feet, evidently confused, and hurried to the door.
'Don't go,' I said, for she was very pretty, but smiling she hurried out. 'Your child?' I turned to my companion, who nodded, it seemed to me. This occurrence helped to conform my resolution. 'I'm going to sleep on the sofa,' I said, 'or if you wish it, I'll go to my hotel and you can have the girl with you.'
'No, no,' replied my companion, whose name was Jeanne d'Alberi. 'She never sleeps here, she has her own room, and I am interested in your talk and not a bit sleepy. The theatre is my passion; you've not given me a single kiss,' she added, coming over to me and holding up her face.
'I'm not much in the humor for kissing,' I said. 'I'm sleepy. I think I've drunk too much: that Musigny was potent.'
'As you please,' she said, and in two minutes had made up a bed for me on the sofa. I pulled off my outer garments, and whilst listening to her splashing in her cabinet de toilette, fell fast asleep.
I was awakened suddenly by the acutest pang of pleasure I had ever felt, and found Jeanne on top of me. How she had managed it, I don't know, but the evil was done, if evil there was, and my sensations were too intense to be abandoned. In a moment I had reversed our positions, and was seeking a renewal of the delight, and not in vain: her sex gripped and milked me, with an extraordinary strength and cleverness, such as I had never before imagined possible. Not even with Topsy had I experienced such intensity of pleasure. Taking her in my arms, I kissed her again and again in passionate surprise. 'You can kiss me now,' she said pouting, 'but you didn't believe me when I told you in the victoria to choose me and you would profit by the exchange. My friend has only her pretty face,' she added contemptuously.
'You're a wonder!' I exclaimed, and lifting her up I carried her over to the bed. As I laid her down, I lifted her nightie: she was well made from the waist down, but her breasts were flaccid and hung low. Still, one thing was sure.
'That wasn't your daughter,' I said; 'you've never had a child.'
She nodded, smiling. 'I was lonely,' she said simply, 'and Lisette was so pretty and so merry that I adopted her years ago, when she was only a year old. I'm old at the game, you see,' she added quietly.
I don't know why, but everything Jeanne said increased my interest in her.
There was personality and brains in her, though she certainly was anything but pretty, and she not only talked most excellent French, but knew all social customs and observances. When I wished to pay her, she would not accept any money, told me she had no need of anything, and was glad to know me, wanted me as 'a friend-and lover,' she added, smiling. A day or two later, I gave a lunch at my hotel and had Jules Claretie of the Francais, and a famous comic actor from the Palais Royal, and Jeanne, who made a most surprising hostess. Everyone was charmed with her. She found the right word to say to everyone and had more than tact. She told me afterwards she would never forget my kindness in treating her as an equal. Later I found out that she was the daughter of a French general, but had lost father and mother in the same year. A younger sister whom she loved had been disappointed in love and taken to dope and after her death Jeanne had resolved to make money.
She made no secret of the fact that she had two admirers, one a deputy who visited her every fortnight or so and gave her twenty thousand francs a year, the other an old senator who came from time to time, expecting always to find her ready, for he allowed her fifty thousand a year and had given her more than that in one sum. 'He's a dear, and I owe him infinite kindness,' she said, 'and I assure you that when I drove with Adele in the Bois, it was for her sake, not mine, but I liked your jumping into the carriage and your selection of me.'
It was at that lunch, I think, that Claretie told the story of Aimee Desclee which I may reproduce here, as Aimee Desclee was in many ways the most seductive actress I've ever seen on any stage.
'I knew her,' Claretie began, 'when I was very young in Paris and had just got a place as dramatic critic on the Figaro. I fell in love with her and made up to her, as young men do. One day she told me she wanted to be an actress, to play Phedre, if you please. When I told her she'd have to begin by walking on and could not hope for even a small part for months, she laughed at me and said, that as some men were born generals and not subalterns, so she had no need to serve any apprenticeship. As dramatic critic I knew most of the leaders of the profession, and, strange to say, a few days afterwards I met a man who had taken a theatre and whose leading lady had broken down with bronchitis, if I remember rightly. I told him that I had the very person to take her place and make a great sensation, and I introduced him to Aimee. She made a good impression on him and finally he agreed to produce Phedre and give her her chance.
'The night came, the theatre was filled, and Aimee appeared with worse than stage fright. I never saw such a fiasco. One could hardly hear a word she said and in five minutes, amid the jeers of the audience, she fled from the stage and the curtain came down on an audience half-laughing, half-angry, only to be appeased by getting back their entrance money. It took all my savings!
'Naturally my colleagues on the press made fun of what they called my infatuation. Some assured me that a pretty face did not make a great actress; others hinted that the girl must have hidden charms: in fine, I was ridiculed on all sides.
'I saw nothing more of Aimee, but a year or so later I heard that she had run away to Italy with a comic actor with whom she was madly in love; then we heard that he had left her in Venice without a sou; and some months afterwards I got a short note from her, asking me to come to see her. There was a curious fascination about her, so I went. When she came into the room I was struck dumb! She had lost all her beauty and grown ten years older. 'What has happened?' I could not but ask.
''Like Dante,' she replied, 'I have been in Hell.' ''You had a bad time?' I went on stupidly.
'She nodded, and then, 'Do you guess why I've sent for you?' I shook my head.
'I want you to give me another such chance as you gave me before.'
''Impossible,' I replied. 'Everyone laughed at me, and now they all know you. I could not if I would.' ''Now they won't laugh,' she replied. 'I know the kindness in you for me, know that you will help me, and I assure you of my eternal gratitude. You and I must always be friends,' and she held out both hands to me. Her voice had extraordinary quality and her personality charmed me as ever. I found myself saying, 'I will do my best,' and when she thanked me, smiling with her eyes full of unshed tears, I knew I'd do all I could, and more.
'Strange to say, about a month later a theatrical agent came to me, just as the first had come a couple of years earlier: he had a theatre and a company but the star actress he wanted to boom had gone off to America and
