Paris was everything I expected. The drive from the Gare du Nord to the rue Geoffroy-Marie had me excited and impatient; I wanted to stop at every corner and walk. It was seven in the evening; the golden lights shone invitingly from the cafés and their outside tables spoke of an enjoyment of life. But for the innovation of a few motor-cars, it was still the Paris of Monet, Pissarro and Renoir. It was Sunday and everyone seemed pleasurebent. Gaiety and vitality were in the air. Even my room in the rue Geoffroy-Marie, with its stone floor, which I called my Bastille, could not dampen my ardour, for one lived sitting at tables outside bistros and cafés.
Sunday night was free, so we could see the show at the Folies Bergère, where we were to open the following Monday. No theatre, I thought, ever exuded such glamour, with its gilt and plush, its mirrors and large chandeliers. In the thick-carpeted foyers and dress circle the world promenaded. Bejewelled Indian princes with pink turbans and French and Turkish officers with plumed helmets sipped cognac at liqueur bars. In the large outer foyer music played as ladies checked their wraps and fur coats, baring their white shoulders. They were the habituées who discreetly solicited and promenaded the foyers and the dress circle. In those days they were beautiful and courtly.
The Folies Bergère also had professional linguists who strolled about the theatre with the word ‘Interpreter’ on their caps, and I made a friend of the head one, who could speak several languages fluently.
After our performance I would wear my stage evening-dress clothes and mingle with the promenaders. One gracile creature with a swan-like neck and white skin made my heart flutter. She was a tall Gibson Girl type, extremely beautiful, with retroussé nose and long dark eye-lashes, and wore a black velvet dress with long white gloves. As she went up the dress-circle stairs, she dropped a glove. Quickly I picked it up.
‘Merci,’ she said.
‘I wish you would drop it again,’ I said mischievously.
‘Pardon?’
Then I realized she did not understand English and I spoke no French. So I went to my friend the interpreter. ‘There’s a dame that arouses my concupiscence. But she looks very expensive.’
He shrugged. ‘Not more than a louis.’
‘Good,’ I said, although a louis in those days was a lot, I thought – and it was.
I had the interpreter put down a few French phrases d’amour on the back of a postcard: ‘Je vous adore’, ‘Je vous ai aimée la première fois que je vous ai vue’, etc., which I intended to use at the propitious moment. I asked him to make the preliminary arrangements and he acted as courier, going from one to the other. Eventually he came back and said: ‘It’s all settled, one louis, but you must pay her cab-fare to her apartment and back.’
I temporized a moment. ‘Where does she live?’ I asked.
‘It won’t cost more than ten fancs.’
Ten francs was disastrous, as I had not anticipated that extra charge. ‘Couldn’t she walk?’ I said, jokingly.
‘Listen, this girl is first-class, you must pay her fare,’ he said.
So I acquiesced.
After the arrangements had been settled, I passed her on the dress-circle stairs. She smiled and I glanced back at her. ‘Ce soir!’
‘Enchantée, monsieur!’
As we were on before the interval I promised to meet her after my performance. Said my friend: ‘You hail a cab while I get the girl, then you won’t waste time.’
‘Waste time?’
As we drove along the Boulevard des Italiens, the lights and shadows passing over her face and long white neck, she looked ravishing. I glanced surreptitiously at my French on the postcard. ‘Je vous adore,’ I began.
She laughed, showing her perfect white teeth. ‘You speak very well French.’
‘Je vous ai aimée la première fois que je vois ai vue,’ I continued emotionally.
She laughed again and corrected my French, explaining that I should use the familiar ‘tu’. She thought about it and laughed again. She looked at her watch, but it had stopped; she indicated she wanted to know the time, explaining that at twelve o’clock she had a very important appointment.
‘Not this evening.’ I said coyly.
‘Oui, ce soir.’
‘But you’re fully engaged this evening, toute la nuit’!
She suddenly looked startled. ‘Oh, non, non, non! Pas toute la nuit!’
Then it became sordid. ‘Vingt francs pour le moment?’
‘C’est ça!’ she replied emphatically.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I think I’d better stop the cab.’
And after paying the driver to take her back to the Folies Bergère, I got out, a very sad and disillusioned young man.
We could have stayed at the Folies Bergère ten weeks, as we were a great success, but Mr Karno had other bookings. My salary was six pounds a week, and I spent every penny of it. A cousin of my brother’s, related to Sydney’s father in some way, made himself known to me. He was rich and belonged to the so-called upper class, and during his stay in Paris he showed me a very good time. He was stage-struck and even went so far as having his moustache shaved off in order to pass as a member of our company, so that he could be allowed back stage. Unfortunately, he had to return to England, where I understand he was hauled over the coals by his august parents and sent to South America.
Before going to Paris, I had heard that Hetty’s troupe were playing at the Folies Bergère, so I was all set to meet her again. The night I arrived I went back stage and made inquiries, but I learnt from one of the ballet girls that the troupe had left a week previously for Moscow. While I was talking to the girl a harsh voice came over the stairs:
‘Come here at once! How dare you talk to strangers!’
It was the girl’s mother. I tried to explain that I merely wanted information about a friend of mine, but the mother ignored me. ‘Never mind talking to that man, come
