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PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT 
 
( i I mm 
 
 U i'! , - ' t' cy,- 
 
 > r 
 v 
 
 ARTISTIC EVENING (Pase /) 
 
PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 AND OTHER IMPRESSIONS 
 OF PLACES AND PEOPLE 
 
 BY 
 
 ARNOLD BENNETT 
 
 AUTHOR OF THE OLD WIVES' TALE, CLAYHANGER 
 YOUR UNITED STATES, ETC., ETC. 
 
 With Illustrations by 
 E. A. RICKARDS, F. R. I. B. A. 
 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 NEW YORK : : : : MCMXIII 
 
-^^ 
 
 s* 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1913 
 BT GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
 <*, 
 
 
 ©CLA354926 
 
 ?< /- 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PARIS NIGHTS (1910) PAQE 
 
 I. ARTISTIC EVENING 1 
 
 II. THE VARIETES 13 
 
 III. EVENING WITH EXILES .... 21 
 
 IV. BOURGEOIS 38 
 
 V. CAUSE CELEBRE 55 
 
 VI. RUSSIAN IMPERIAL BALLET AT THE 
 
 OPERA 65 
 
 LIFE IN LONDON (1911) 
 
 I. THE RESTAURANT ..... 83 
 
 II. BY THE RIVER 90 
 
 III. THE CLUB 97 
 
 IV. THE CIRCUS 103 
 
 V. THE BANQUET 109 
 
 VI. ONE OF THE CROWD 116 
 
 ITALY (1910) 
 
 I. NIGHT AND MORNING IN FLORENCE 127 
 
 II. THE SEVENTH OF MAY, 1910 ... 148 
 
 III. MORE ITALIAN OPERA .... 154 
 
 v 
 
CONTENTS— (Continued) 
 
 THE RIVIERA {1907) 
 
 I. THE HOTEL TRISTE 163 
 
 II. WAR! 168 
 
 III. "MONTE" 174 
 
 IV. A DIVERSION AT SAN REMO . . 184 
 
 FONTAINEBLEAU (1904-1909) 
 
 I. FIRST JOURNEY INTO THE FOREST 193 
 
 II. SECOND JOURNEY INTO THE FOREST 199 
 
 III. THE CASTLE GARDENS 203 
 
 IV. AN ITINERARY 206 
 
 SWITZERLAND (1909-1911) 
 
 I. THE HOTEL ON THE LANDSCAPE . . 215 
 
 II. HOTEL PROFILES 228 
 
 III. ON A MOUNTAIN 234 
 
 ENGLAND AGAIN (1907) 
 
 I. THE GATE OF THE EMPIRE 
 
 II. AN ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 III. AMUSEMENTS . . 
 
 IV. MANCHESTER . . 
 V. LONDON . . . 
 
 VI. INDUSTRY . . 
 
 243 
 249 
 254 
 259 
 264 
 269 
 
 VJ 
 
CONTENTS— (Continued) 
 
 THE MIDLANDS (1910-1911) 
 
 I. THE HANBRIDGE EMPIRE . . .277 
 
 II. THE MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE . . .284 
 
 III. FIRST VOYAGE TO THE ISLE OF MAN .290 
 
 IV. THE ISLAND BOARDING-HOUSE . . 298 
 V. TEN HOURS AT BLACKPOOL ... 305 
 
 THE BRITISH HOME (1908) 
 
 I. AN EVENING AT THE SMITHS' . . 317 
 
 II. THE GREAT MANNERS QUESTION . 322 
 
 III. SPENDING— AND GETTING VALUE . 327 
 
 IV. THE PARENTS 332 
 
 V. HARRY'S POINT OF VIEW ... 337 
 
 VI. THE FUTURE 342 
 
 STREETS ROADS AND TRAINS (1907-1909) 
 
 I. IN WATLING STREET .... 349 
 
 II. STREET TALKING 361 
 
 III. ON THE ROAD 367 
 
 IV. A TRAIN 374 
 
 V. ANOTHER TRAIN 379 
 
 vn 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ARTISTIC EVENING Frontispiece ^ 
 
 SOME JAPANESE MUSIC ON THE PLEYEL . 6 "" 
 
 A NEW GUEST ARRIVED 10 ^ 
 
 OPPOSITE THE "MOULIN ROUGE" . . . 18 • 
 
 MONTMARTRE 22 " 
 
 LA DAME DU COMPTOIR 30 ^ 
 
 A BY-PRODUCT OF RUSSIAN POLITICS . . 40 ^ 
 
 CAUSE CELEBRE 56 ^ 
 
 THEY INSPIRE RESPECT 62 ^ 
 
 LES SYLPHIDES 68 ^ 
 
 FRAGILE AND BEAUTIFUL ODALISQUES . 70 ^ 
 
 THE UNFORGETTABLE SEASON .... 72 ^ 
 
 AN HONEST MISS 74 ^ 
 
 SCHEHERAZADE 76 " 
 
 CHIEF EUNUCH .... 78 ^ 
 
 HE IS VERY DEFERENTIAL 84 v 
 
 THE RESTAURANT 86^ 
 
 THE BAND 88 v 
 
 ix 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS— (Continued) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 IN THE EMBANKMENT GARDENS ... 92 
 
 HE SLUMBERS ALONE 98 
 
 THE CLUB OF THE FUTURE 
 
 FLOWER WOMEN 
 
 PICCADILLY CIRCUS 
 
 FROM BAYSWATER TO THE CIRCUS . . . 
 
 FROM SOUTH LONDON TO THE CIRCUS 
 
 FROM WEST KENSINGTON TO THE CIRCUS 
 
 WAITING FOR THE 'BUS AT THE CIRCUS . 
 
 THE ORCHESTRA PROVES THAT ITS IN- 
 STRUMENTS ARE REAL 
 
 WHY DO THEY COME ? 
 
 LESS UNHAPPY HERE THAN AT HOME . . 
 
 A HUMAN BEING TALKING TO ANOTHER 
 HUMAN BEING 
 
 GAMBLING AT MONTE CARLO .... 
 
 HOW BALZACIAN ! 
 
 ON THE TERRACE OF THE CASTLE . . . 
 
 GUARDS OF THE CASTLE 200 
 
 THE CASTLE GARDENS 204 
 
 ARBONNE 210: 
 
 THE CATHEDRAL OF LARCHANT . . . . 212 v 
 
 x 
 
 102 
 
 yy 
 
 106 
 
 y 
 
 108 
 
 s 
 
 110 
 
 s 
 
 112 
 
 s 
 
 116 
 
 v/ 
 
 118 
 
 • 
 
 126 
 
 \S 
 
 146 
 
 \S 
 
 150 
 
 S 
 
 166 
 
 \S 
 
 174 
 
 S 
 
 196 
 
 \S 
 
 198 
 
 \S 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS— {Continued) 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE LADY CLOG-DANCER 282 ^ 
 
 THE VOYAGE 292 ^ 
 
 THE ISLAND BOARDING HOUSE . . . . 298 •" 
 
 YOU MEET SOME ONE ON THE STAIRS . . 300 ^ 
 
 FONTAINEBLEAU 366 ^ 
 
 THE LITTLE RIVER FUSAIN 370 ^ 
 
 ASILE DE ST. SEVERIN 372 \s 
 
 CHATEAU LANDON 374 ^ 
 
 XI 
 
PARIS NIGHTS— 1910 
 
ARTISTIC EVENING 
 
 The first invitation I ever received into a purely 
 Parisian interior might have been copied out of a 
 novel by Paul Bourget. Its lure was thus phrased : 
 "Un peu de musique et d* agreables femmes" It 
 answered to my inward vision of Paris. My expe- 
 riences in London, which fifteen years earlier I had 
 entered with my mouth open as I might have en- 
 tered some city of Oriental romance, had, of course, 
 done little to destroy my illusions about Paris, for 
 the ingenuousness of the artist is happily inde- 
 structible. Hence, my inward vision of Paris was 
 romantic, based on the belief that Paris was es- 
 sentially "different." Nothing more banal in Lon- 
 don than a "little music," or even "some agreeable 
 women"! But what a difference between a little 
 music and un peu de musique! What an exciting 
 difference between agreeable women and agreables 
 femmes! After all, this difference remains nearly 
 intact to this day. Nobody who has not lived in- 
 timately in and with Paris can appreciate the unique 
 savour of that word femmes. "Women" is a fine 
 word, a word which, breathed in a certain tone, 
 will make all men — even bishops, misogynists, and 
 political propagandists — fall to dreaming! But 
 femmes is yet more potent. There cling to it the 
 associations of a thousand years of dalliance in 
 a land where dalliance is passionately understood. 
 
2 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 The usual Paris flat, high up, like the top drawer 
 of a chest of drawers ! No passages, but multitudi- 
 nous doors. In order to arrive at any given room it 
 is necessary to pass through all the others. I 
 passed through the dining-room, where a servant 
 with a marked geometrical gift had arranged a 
 number of very small plates round the rim of a vast 
 circular table. In the drawing-room my host was 
 seated at a grand piano with a couple of candles in 
 front of him and a couple of women behind him. 
 See the light glinting on bits of the ebon piano, and 
 on his face, and on their chins and jewels, and on the 
 corner of a distant picture frame; and all the rest 
 of the room obscure! He wore a jacket, negli- 
 gently; the interest of his attire was dramatically 
 centred in his large, limp necktie; necktie such as 
 none but a hero could unfurl in London. A man 
 with a very intelligent face, eager, melancholy (with 
 a sadness acquired in the Divorce Court), wistful, 
 appealing. An idealist ! He called himself a pub- 
 licist. One of the women, a musical composer, had 
 a black skirt and a white blouse; she was ugly but 
 provocative. The other, all in white, was pretty 
 and sprightly, but her charm lacked the perverse- 
 ness which is expected and usually found in Paris; 
 she painted, she versified, she recited. With the eye 
 of a man who had sat for years in the editorial chair 
 of a ladies' paper, I looked instinctively at the hang 
 of the skirts. It was not good. Those vague 
 frocks were such as had previously been something 
 else, and would soon be transformed by discreet 
 modifications into something still else. Candle- 
 
ARTISTIC EVENING 3 
 
 light was best for them. But what grace of de- 
 meanour, what naturalness, what candid ease and 
 appositeness of greeting, what absence of self -con- 
 sciousness! Paris is the self -unconscious. 
 
 I was presented as le romancier anglais. It 
 sounded romantic. I thought: "What a false im- 
 pression they are getting, as of some vocation ex- 
 otic and delightful ! If only they knew the prose of 
 it!" I thought of their conception of England, a 
 mysterious isle. When Balzac desired to make a 
 woman exquisitely strange, he caused her to be born 
 in Lancashire. 
 
 My host begged permission to go on playing. In 
 the intervals of being a publicist, he composed 
 music, and he was now deciphering a manuscript 
 freshly written. I bent over between the two 
 women, and read the title : 
 
 "Ygdrasil: reverie" 
 
 *5* «•* *5* i5* 
 
 When there were a dozen or fifteen people in the 
 room, and as many candles irregularly disposed like 
 lighthouses over a complex archipelago, I formed 
 one of a group consisting of those two women and 
 another, a young dramatist who concealed his ex- 
 pressive hands in a pair of bright yellow gloves, 
 and a middle-aged man whose constitution was ob- 
 viously ruined. This last was librarian of some 
 public library — I forget which — and was stated to 
 be monstrously erudite in all literatures. I asked 
 him whether he had of late encountered anything 
 new and good in English. 
 
4 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 "I have read nothing later than Swinburne," he 
 replied in a thin, pinched voice — like his features, 
 like his wary and suffering eyes. Speaking with 
 an icy, glittering pessimism, he quoted Stendhal to 
 the effect that a man does not change after twenty- 
 five. He supported the theory bitterly and joy- 
 ously, and seemed to taste the notion of his own in- 
 tellectual rigidity, of his perfect inability to receive 
 new ideas and sensations, as one tastes an olive. 
 The young dramatist, in a beautifully curved 
 phrase, began to argue that certain emotional and 
 purely intellectual experiences did not come under 
 the axiom, but the librarian would have none of such 
 a reservation. Then the women joined in, and it 
 was just as if they had all five learnt off by heart 
 one of Landor's lighter imaginary conversations, 
 and were performing it. Well convinced that they 
 were all five absurdly wrong, fanciful, and senti- 
 mental either in optimism or pessimism, I neverthe- 
 less stood silent and barbaric. Could I cut across 
 that lacework of shapely elegant sentences and ap- 
 posite gestures with the jagged edge of what in 
 England passes for a remark? The librarian was 
 serious in his eternal frost. The dramatist had the 
 air of being genuinely concerned about the matter; 
 he spoke with deference to the librarian, with chival- 
 rous respect to the women, and to me with glances 
 of appeal for help ; possibly the reason was that he 
 was himself approaching the dreadful limit of 
 twenty-five. But the women's eyes were always 
 contradicting the polite seriousness of their tones. 
 Their eyes seemed to be always mysteriously talk- 
 
ARTISTIC EVENING 5 
 
 ing about something else; to be always saying: "All 
 this that you are discussing is trivial, but I am brood- 
 ing for ever on what alone is important." This, 
 while true of nearly all women, is disturbingly true 
 of Parisians. The ageing librarian, by dint of 
 freezing harder, won the altercation: it was as 
 though he stabbed them one by one with a dagger of 
 ice. And presently he was lecturing them. The 
 women were now admiring him. There was some- 
 thing in his face worn by maladies, in his frail phys- 
 ical unpleasantness, and in his frigid and total 
 disgust with life, that responded to their secret 
 dream. Their gaze caressed him, and he felt it 
 falling on him like snow. That he intensely en- 
 joyed his existence was certain. 
 
 They began talking low among themselves, the 
 women, and there was an outburst of laughter; 
 pretty giggling laughter. The two who had been 
 at the piano stood aside and whispered and laughed 
 with a more intimate intimacy, struggling to sup- 
 press the laughter, and yet every now and then 
 letting it escape from sheer naughtiness. They 
 cried. It was the fou rire. Impossible to believe 
 that a moment before they had been performing in 
 one of Landor's imaginaiy conversations, and that 
 they were passionately serious about art and life 
 and so on. They might have been schoolgirls. 
 
 "Farceuses, toutes les deux!" said the host, com- 
 ing up, delightfully indulgent, but shocked that 
 women to whom he had just played Ygdrasil, 
 should be able so soon to throw off the spell of it. 
 
 The pretty and sprightly woman, all in white, 
 
6 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 despairing, whisked impulsively out of the room, in 
 order to recall to herself amid darkness and cloaks 
 and hats that she was not a giddy child, but an ex- 
 perienced creature of thirty if she was a day. She 
 came back demure, her eyes liquid, brooding. 
 
 «5* «5* «?* «5* 
 
 "By the way," said the young dramatist to the 
 host, "Your People's Concert scheme — doesn't it 
 move?" 
 
 "By the way," said the host, suddenly excited, 
 "Shall we hold a meeting of the committee now?" 
 
 He had a project for giving performances of the 
 finest music to the populace at a charge of five sous 
 per head. It was the latest activity of the publicist 
 in him. The committee appeared to consist of 
 everybody who was standing near. He drew me 
 into it, because, coming from London, I was of 
 course assumed to be a complete encyclopaedia of 
 London and to be capable of furnishing detailed 
 statistics about all twopence-halfpenny enterprises 
 in London for placing the finest music before the 
 people. The women, especially the late laughers, 
 were touched by the beauty of the idea underlying 
 the enterprise, and their eyes showed that at instants 
 they were thinking sympathetically of the far-off 
 "people." The librarian remained somewhat apart, 
 as it were with a rifle, and maintained a desolating 
 fire of questions: "Was the scheme meant to improve 
 the people or to divert them? Would they come? 
 Would they like the finest music? Why five sous? 
 Why not seven, or three? Was the enterprise to be 
 self-supporting?" The host, with his glance fixed in 
 
SOME JAPANESE MUSIC ON THE l'LEYEL (Page 8) 
 
ARTISTIC EVENING 7 
 
 appeal on me (it seemed to me that he was entreating 
 me to accept him as a serious publicist, warning me 
 not to be misled by appearances) — the host replied 
 to all these questions with the sweetest, politest, 
 wistful patience, as well as he could. Certainly the 
 people would like the finest music ! The people had 
 a taste naturally distinguished and correct. It was 
 we who were the degenerates. The enterprise must 
 be and would be self-supporting. No charity! No, 
 he had learnt the folly of charity! But naturally 
 the artists would give their services. They would 
 be paid in terms of pleasure. The financial diffi- 
 culty was that, whereas he would not charge more 
 than five sous a head for admission, he could not 
 hire a hall at a rent which worked out to less than a 
 franc a head. Such was the problem before the 
 committee meeting! Dufayel, the great shop- 
 keeper, had offered to assist him. . . . The li- 
 brarian frigidly exposed the anti-social nature of 
 Dufayel's business methods, and the host hurriedly 
 made him a present of Dufayel. Dufayel's help 
 could not be conscientiously accepted. The prob- 
 lem then remained! . . . London? London, 
 so practical? As an encyclopaedia of London I was 
 not a success. Politeness hid a general astonishment 
 that, freshly arrived from London, I could not sug- 
 gest a solution, could not say what London would 
 do in a like quandary, nor even what London had 
 done! 
 
 "We will adjourn it to our next meeting," said 
 the host, and named day, hour, and place. And the 
 committee smoothed business out of its brow and 
 
8 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 dissolved itself, while at the host's request a girl 
 performed some Japanese music on the Pleyel. 
 When it was finished, the librarian, who had 
 listened to Japanese music at an embassy, said that 
 this was not Japanese music. "And thou knowest 
 it well," he added. The host admitted that it was 
 not really Japanese music, but he insisted with his 
 plaintive smile that the whole subject of Japanese 
 music was very interesting and enigmatic. 
 
 Then the pretty sprightly woman, all in white, 
 went and stood behind an arm-chair and recited a 
 poem, admirably, and with every sign of emotion. 
 Difficult to believe that she had ever laughed, that 
 she did not exist continually at these heights! She 
 bowed modestly, a priestess of the poet, and came 
 out from behind the chair. 
 
 "By whom?" demanded the librarian. 
 
 And a voice answered, throbbing: "Henri de 
 Regnier." 
 
 "Indeed," said the librarian with cold, careless 
 approval, "it is pretty enough." 
 
 But I knew, from the tone alone of the answering 
 voice, that the name of Henri de Regnier was a 
 sacred name, and that when it had been uttered the 
 proper thing was to bow the head mutely, as before 
 a Botticelli. 
 
 "I have something here," said the host, producing 
 one of these portfolios which hurried men of affairs 
 carry under their arms in the streets of Paris, and 
 which are called serviettes; this one, however, was of 
 red morocco. The pretty, sprightly woman sprang 
 forward blushing to obstruct his purpose, but other 
 
ARTISTIC EVENING 9 
 
 hands led her gently away. The host, using the 
 back of the arm-chair for a lectern, read alternately 
 poems of hers and poems of his own. And he, too, 
 spoke with every sign of emotion. I had to con- 
 quer my instinctive British scorn for these people 
 because they would not at any rate pretend that 
 they were ashamed of the emotion of poetry. Their 
 candour appeared to me, then, weak, if not actually 
 indecent. The librarian admitted occasionally that 
 something was pretty enough. The rest of the 
 company maintained a steady fervency of enthusi- 
 asm. The reader himself forgot all else in his in- 
 creasing ardour, and thus we heard about a score 
 of poems — all, as we were told, unpublished — to- 
 gether with the discussion of a score of poems. 
 
 t5* «?* *?* <?• 
 
 We all sat around the rim of an immense circle 
 of white tablecloth. Each on a little plate had a 
 portion of pineapple ice and in a little glass a 
 draught of Asti. Far away, in the centre of the 
 diaper desert, withdrawn and beyond reach, lay a 
 dish containing the remains of the ice. Except 
 fans and cigarette-cases, there was nothing else on 
 the table whatever. Some one across the table 
 asked me what I had recently finished, and I said a 
 play. Everybody agreed that it must be translated 
 into French. The Paris theatres simply could not 
 get good plays. In a few moments it was as if the 
 entire company was beseeching me to allow my 
 comedy to be translated and produced with dazzling 
 success at one of the principal theatres on the boule- 
 
10 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 vard. But I would not. I said my play was un- 
 suitable for the French stage. 
 "Because?" 
 
 "Because it is too pure." 
 
 I had meant to be mildly jocular. But this joke 
 excited mirth that surpassed mildness. "Thou 
 hearest that? He says his play is too pure for us!" 
 My belief is that they had never heard one of these 
 strange, nai've, puzzling barbarians make a joke be- 
 fore, and that they regarded the thing in its novelty 
 as really too immensely and exotically funny, in 
 some manner which they could not explain to them- 
 selves. Beneath their politeness I could detect 
 them watching me, after that, in expectation of an- 
 other outbreak of insular humour. I might have 
 been tempted to commit follies, had not a new guest 
 arrived. This was a tall, large-boned, ugly, coquet- 
 tish woman, with a strong physical attractiveness 
 and a voice that caused vibrations in your soul. She 
 was in white, with a powerful leather waistband 
 which suited her. She was intimate with everybody 
 except me, and by a natural gift and force she held 
 the attention of everybody from the moment of her 
 entrance. You could see she was used to that. 
 The time was a quarter to midnight, and she ex- 
 plained that she had been trying to arrive for hours, 
 but could not have succeeded a second sooner. She 
 said she must recount her journee, and she re- 
 counted her journee, which, after being a vague pre- 
 historic nebulosity up to midday seemed to begin to 
 take a definite shape about that hour. It was the 
 journee of a Parisienne who is also an amateur 
 

 
 W MWP 
 
 A NKW GUEST ARRIVED (Page 10) 
 
ARTISTIC EVENING ll 
 
 actress and a dog-fancier. And undoubtedly all 
 her days were the same: battles waged against 
 clocks and destiny. She had no sense of order or of 
 time. She had no exact knowledge of anything; 
 she had no purpose in life; she was perfectly futile 
 and useless. But she was acquainted with the secret 
 nature of men and women; she could judge them 
 shrewdly; she was the very opposite of the ingenue; 
 and by her physical attractiveness, and that deep, 
 thrilling voice, and her distinction of gesture and 
 tone, she created in you the illusion that she was a 
 capable and efficient woman, absorbed in the most 
 important ends. She sat down negligently behind 
 the host, waving away all ice and Asti, and busily 
 fanning both him and herself. She flattered him 
 by laying her ringed and fluffy arm along the back 
 of his chair. 
 
 "Do you know," she said, smiling at him myste- 
 riously. "I have made a strange discovery to-day. 
 Paris gives more towards the saving of lost dogs 
 than towards the saving of lost women. Very curi- 
 ous, is it not?" 
 
 The host seemed to be thunderstruck by this 
 piece of information. The whole table was agitated 
 by it, and a tremendous discussion was set on foot. 
 I then witnessed for the first time the spectacle of 
 a fairly large mixed company talking freely about 
 scabrous facts. Then for the first time was I 
 eased from the strain of pretending in a mixed com- 
 pany that things are not what they in fact are. To 
 listen to those women, and to watch them listening, 
 was as staggering as it would have been to see them 
 
12 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 pick up red-hot irons in their feverish, delicate 
 hands. Their admission that they knew every- 
 thing, that no corner of existence was dark enough 
 to frighten them into speechlessness, was the chief 
 of their charms, then. It intensified their acute 
 femininity. And while they were thus gravely 
 talking, ironical, sympathetic, amused, or indig- 
 nant, they even yet had the air of secretly thinking 
 about something else. 
 
 Discussions of such subjects never formally end, 
 for the talkers never tire of them. This subject was 
 discussed in knots all the way down six nights of 
 stairs by the light of tapers and matches. I left the 
 last, because I wanted to get some general informa- 
 tion from my host about one of his guests. 
 
 " She is divorcing her husband," he said, with the 
 simple sad pride of a man who had been a petitioner 
 in the matrimonial courts. "For the rest, you 
 never meet any but divorced women at my place. 
 It saves complications. So have no fear." 
 
 We shook hands warmly. 
 
 "Au revoir, mon ami" 
 
 "Au revoir, mon cher" 
 
II 
 
 THE VARIETIES 
 
 The filth and the paltry shabbiness of the en- 
 trance to the theatre amounted to cynicism. In- 
 stead of uplifting by a foretaste of light and mag- 
 nificence, as the entrance to a theatre should, it de- 
 pressed by its neglected squalour. Twenty years 
 earlier it might have cried urgently for cleansing 
 and redecoration, but now it was long past crying. 
 It had become vile. In the centre at the back sat 
 a row of three or four officials in evening dress, 
 prosperous clubmen with glittering rakish hats, at 
 a distance of twenty feet, but changing as we ap- 
 proached them to indigent, fustian-clad ticket- 
 clerks penned in a rickety rostrum and condemned 
 like sandwich-men to be ridiculous in order to live. 
 (Their appearance recalled to my mind the fact 
 that a "front-of-the-house" inspector at the prin- 
 cipal music-hall in France and in Europe is paid 
 thirty sous a night.) They regarded our tickets 
 with gestures of scorn, weariness, and cupidity. 
 None knew better than they that these coloured 
 scraps represented a large lovely gold coin, rare and 
 yet plentiful, reassuring and yet transient, the price 
 of coals, boots, nectar, and love. 
 
 We came to a very narrow, low, foul, semi-circu- 
 lar tunnel which was occupied by hags and harpies 
 
 13 
 
14 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 with pink bows in their hair, and by marauding men, 
 and by hats and cloaks and overcoats, and by a 
 double odour of dirt and disinfectants. Along the 
 convex side of the tunnel were a number of little 
 doors like the doors of cells. We bought a pro- 
 gramme from a man, yielded our wraps to two har- 
 pies, and were led away by another man. All these 
 beings looked hungrily apprehensive, like dogs 
 nosing along a gutter. The auditorium which was 
 nearly full, had the same characteristics as the 
 porch and the couloir. It was filthy, fetid, uncom- 
 fortable, and dangerous. It had the carpets of a 
 lodging-house of the 'seventies, the seats of an old 
 omnibus, the gilt and the decorated sculpture of a 
 circus at a fair. And it was dingy! It was en- 
 crusted with dinginess ! 
 
 Something seemed to be afoot on the stage : from 
 the embittered resignation of the audience and the 
 perfunctory nonchalance of the players, we knew 
 that this could only be the curtain-raiser. The hour 
 was ten minutes past nine. The principal piece was 
 advertised to commence at nine o'clock. But the 
 curtain-raiser was not yet finished, and after it was 
 finished there would be the entr'acte — one of the re- 
 nowned, interminable entr'actes of the Theatre 
 des Varietes. 
 
 <5* <•* «?* £* 
 
 The Varietes is still one of the most "truly Paris- 
 ian" of theatres, and has been so since long before 
 Zola described it fully in Nana. The young bloods 
 of Buenos Ayres and St. Petersburg still have vis- 
 ions of an evening at the Varietes as the superlative 
 
THE VARIETES 15 
 
 of intense living. Every theatre with a reputation 
 has its "note," and the note of the Varietes is to 
 make a fool of its public. Its attitude to the public 
 is that of an English provincial hotel or an English 
 bank: "Come, and be d — d to you! Above all, do 
 not imagine that I exist for your convenience. You 
 exist for mine." At the Varietes bad management 
 is good management; slackness is a virtuous coquet- 
 terie. It would never do, there, to be prompt, clean, 
 or honest. To make the theatre passably habitable 
 would be ruin. Its chic would be lost if it ceased to 
 be a Hades of discomfort and a menace to health. 
 There is a small troupe of notorious artistes, some 
 of whom show great talent when it occurs to them 
 to show it; the vogue of the rest is one of the innu- 
 merable mysteries which abound in theatrical life. 
 It is axiomatic that they are all witty, and that what- 
 ever lines they enunciate thereby become witty. 
 They are simply side-splitting as Sydney Smith was 
 simply side-splitting when he asked for the potatoes 
 to be passed. Also the manager of the theatre al- 
 ways wears an old straw hat, summer and winter. 
 He is the wearer of an eternal battered straw hat, 
 who incidentally manages a theatre. You go along 
 the boulevard, and you happen to see that 
 straw hat emerging from the theatre. And by 
 the strange potency of the hat you will be 
 obliged to say to the next acquaintance you 
 meet: "I've just seen Samuel in his straw 
 hat." And the thought in your mind and in the 
 mind of your acquaintance will be that you are 
 getting very near the heart of Paris. 
 
16 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Beyond question the troupe of favourites consid- 
 ers itself to be the real centre of Paris, and, there- 
 fore, of civilisation. Practically the entire Press, 
 either by good nature, stupidity, snobbishness, or 
 simple cash transactions, takes part in the vast make- 
 believe that the troupe is conferring a favour on 
 civilisation by consenting to be alive. And the 
 troupe of course behaves accordingly. It puts its 
 back into the evening when it thinks it will, and 
 when it thinks it won't, it doesn't. "Aux Varietes 
 on travaille quand on ale temps/' The rise of the 
 curtain awaits the caprice of a convivial green-room. 
 "Don't hurry — the public is getting impatient." 
 Naturally, the underlings are not included in the 
 benefits of the make-believe. "At rehearsals we 
 may wait two hours for the principals," a chorus- 
 girl said to me. "But if we are five minutes late, 
 one flings us a fine. A hundred francs a month I 
 touch, and it has happened to me to pay thirty in 
 fines. Some one gets all that, you know!" She 
 went off into an impassioned description of scenes 
 at rehearsals of a ballet, how the ballet-master, after 
 epical outbursts, would always throw up his arms in 
 inexpressible disgust and retire to his room, and how 
 the women would follow him and kiss and cajole 
 and hug him, and how then, after a majestic pause, 
 his step could be heard slowly descending the stairs, 
 and at last the rehearsal would resume. . . . 
 The human interest, no doubt! 
 
 The Varietes has another role and justification. 
 It is what the French call a women's theatre. 
 When I asked a well-known actress why the entr'- 
 
THE VARIETES 17 
 
 actes at the Varietes were so long, she replied with 
 her air of finding even the most bizarre phenomena 
 quite natural: "There are several reasons. One is, 
 so that the gentlemen may have time to write notes 
 and to receive answers." I did not conceal my 
 sense of the oddness of this method of conducting 
 a theatre, whereupon she reminded me that it was 
 the Varietes we were talking about. She said that 
 little by little I should understand all sorts of 
 things. 
 
 (?• *• *3* c3* 
 
 As the principal piece progressed — it was an 
 operette — the apathy of the public grew more and 
 more noticeable. They seemed to have forgotten 
 that they were in one of the most truly Parisian of 
 theatres, watching players whose names were house- 
 hold words and synonyms of wit and allurement. 
 There was no applause, save from a claque which 
 had carried discipline to the extreme. The favour- 
 ites were evidently in one of their moods of casual- 
 ness. Either the piece had run too long or it was 
 not going to run long enough. It was a piece 
 brightly and jinglingly vulgar, ministering, of 
 course, in the main, to the secret concupiscence which 
 drives humanity forward; titillating, like most 
 stage-spectacles, all that is base, inept, and gross in 
 a crowd whose units are perhaps, not quite odious. 
 A few of the performers had moments of real bril- 
 liance. But even these flashes did not stir the pub- 
 lic, whose characteristic was stolidity. A public 
 which, having regard to the conditions of the par- 
 ticular theatre, necessarily consisted of simple snob- 
 
18 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 bish gulls whose creed is whatever they read or hear, 
 with an admixture of foreigners, provincials, ad- 
 venturers, and persons who, having no illusions, 
 go to the Varietes because they have been to every- 
 thing else and must go somewhere ! The first half- 
 dozen rows of the stalls were reserved for males: a 
 custom which at the Varietes has survived from a 
 more barbaric age, as the custom of the finger-bowl 
 has survived in the repasts of the polite. The self- 
 satisfied and self-conscious occupants of these rows 
 seemed to summarise and illustrate all the various 
 masculine stupidity of a great and proud city. To 
 counterbalance this preponderance of the male, I 
 could glimpse, behind the lath grilles of the cages 
 called baignoires, the forms of women (each 
 guarded) who I hope were incomparable. The 
 sight of these grilles at once sent the mind to the 
 seraglio, and the House of Commons, and other 
 fastnesses of Orientalism. 
 
 The evening was interminable, not for me alone, 
 but obviously for the majority of the audience. 
 Impossible to describe the dull fortitude of the au- 
 dience without being accused of wilful exaggera- 
 tion! Only in the entr'actes, in the amplitude and 
 dubious mystery of the entr'actes, did the audience 
 arouse itself into the semblance of vivacity. There 
 was but little complaining. Were we not at the 
 Varietes? At the Varietes, to suffer was part of 
 the entertainment. The French public is a public 
 which accepts all in Christian meekness — all! It 
 knows that it exists for the convenience of the 
 bureaucracy and the theatres. It covers its coward- 
 
OPPOSITE THE MOULIN ROUGE" (Page 21) 
 
THE VARI^T^S 19 
 
 ice under a mantle of philosophy and politeness. 
 Its fierce protest is a shrug. "Que voulez-vous? 
 C'est comme ca." 
 
 <?* t5* «?* <?• 
 
 At last, at nearly half after midnight, we came 
 forth, bitterly depressed, as usual, by the deep con- 
 sciousness of futile waste. I could see, in my pre- 
 occupation, the whole organism of the Varietes, 
 which is only the essence of the French theatre. A 
 few artistes and a financier or so at the core, wilful, 
 corrupt, self-indulgent, spoiled, venal, enormously 
 unbusinesslike, incredibly cynical, luxurious in the 
 midst of a crowd of miserable parasites and menials ; 
 creating for themselves, out of electric globes, and 
 newspapers, and posters, and photographs, and the 
 inexhaustible simplicity and sexuality of the public, 
 a legend of artistic greatness. They make a frame, 
 and hang a curtain in front of it, and put footlights 
 beneath ; and lo ! the capricious manoeuvres of these 
 mortals become the sacred, authoritative function- 
 ing of an institution! 
 
 It was raining. The boulevard was a mirror. 
 And along the reflecting surface of this mirror cab 
 after cab, hundreds of cabs, rolled swiftly. Dozens 
 and dozens were empty, and had no goal ; but none 
 would stop. They all went ruthlessly by with of- 
 fensive gestures of disdain. Strangers cannot be- 
 lieve that when a Paris cabman without a fare re- 
 fuses to stop on a wet night, it is not because he is 
 hoping for a client in richer furs, or because he is 
 going to the stables, or because he has earned enough 
 that night, or because he has an urgent appointment 
 
20 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 with his enchantress — but simply from malice. 
 Nevertheless this is a psychological fact which any 
 experienced Parisian will confirm. On a wet night 
 the cabman revenges himself upon the bourgeoisie, 
 though the base satisfaction may cost him money. 
 As we waited, with many other princes of the eartn 
 who could afford to throw away a whole louis for a 
 few hours' relaxation, as we waited vainly in the 
 wet for a cabman who would condescend, I could 
 savour only one sensation — that of exasperating 
 tedium completely achieved. 
 
Ill 
 
 EVENING WITH EXILES 
 
 I lived up at the top of the house, absolutely 
 alone. After eleven o'clock in the morning, when 
 my servant left, I was my own doorkeeper. Like 
 most solitaries in strange places, whenever I heard 
 a ring I had a feeling that perhaps after all it might 
 be the ring of romance. This time it was the tele- 
 graph-boy. I gave him a penny, because in 
 France, much more than in England, every one 
 must live, and the notion still survives that a tele- 
 gram has sufficient unusualness to demand a tip; 
 the same with a registered letter. I read the tele- 
 gram, and my evening lay suddenly in fragments 
 at my feet. The customary accident, the accident 
 dreaded by every solitary, had happened. "Sorry, 
 prevented from coming to-night," etc. It was not 
 yet six o'clock. I had in front of me a wilderness 
 of six hours to traverse. In my warm disgust I 
 went at once out in the streets. My flat had be- 
 come mysteriously uninhabitable, and my work re- 
 pugnant. The streets of Paris, by reason of their 
 hospitality, are a refuge. 
 
 The last sun of September was setting across the 
 circular Place Blanche. I sat down at the terrace 
 of the smallest cafe and drank tea. Exactly oppo- 
 site were the crimson wings of the Moulin Rouge, 
 
 and to the right was the establishment which then 
 
 21 
 
22 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 held first place among nocturnal restaurants in 
 Montmartre. It had the strange charm of a resort 
 which is never closed, night or day, and where money 
 and time are squandered with infantile fatuity. 
 Somehow it inspired respect, if not awe. Its ter- 
 race was seldom empty, and at that hour it was al- 
 ways full. Under the striped and valanced awn- 
 ing sat perhaps a hundred people, all slowly and de- 
 liberately administering to themselves poisons of 
 various beautiful colours. A crowd to give pause 
 to the divination of even the most conceited student 
 of human nature, a crowd in which the simplest 
 bourgeois or artist or thief sat next to men and 
 women exercising the oldest and most disreputable 
 professions — and it was impossible surely to dis- 
 tinguish which from which! 
 
 Out of the medley of trams, omnibuses, carts, au- 
 tomobiles, and cabs that continually rattled over the 
 cobbles, an open fiacre would detach itself every 
 minute or so, and set down or take up in front of 
 the terrace. Among these was one carrying two 
 young dandies, an elegantly dressed girl, and an- 
 other young girl in a servant's cap and apron. 
 They were all laughing and talking together. The 
 dandies and the elegancy got out and took a vacant 
 table amid the welcoming eager bows of a maitre 
 d? hotel, a chasseur ', and a waiter. She was freshly 
 and meticulously and triumphantly got up, like an 
 elaborate confection of starched linen fresh from 
 the laundress. Her lips were impeccably rouged. 
 She delighted the eye by her health and her youth 
 and her pretty insolence. A single touch 
 
v.5 r 
 
 ■ ■■}.. 
 
 x* 
 
 ?* 
 
 
 - ; / w * j —■■ ■ 
 
 ' 7 ■ 
 
 
 /?i 
 
 MONTMARTRE (Page 22) 
 

EVENING WITH EXILES 23 
 
 would have soiled her, but she had not yet been 
 touched. Her day had just begun. Probably, her 
 bed was not yet made. The black-robed, scissored 
 girls of the drapery store at the next angle of the 
 place were finishing their tenth hour of vigil over 
 goods displayed on the footpath. And next to that 
 was a creamery where black-robed girls could obtain 
 a whole day's sustenance for the price of one glass 
 of poison. Evidently the young creature had only 
 just arrived at the dignity of a fashionable dress- 
 maker, and a servant of her own. Her ingenuous 
 vanity obliged her to show her servant to the place, 
 and the ingenuous vanity of the servant was con- 
 tent to be shown off; for the servant might have a 
 servant to-morrow — who could tell? The cabman 
 and the servant *began to converse, and presently 
 the cabman in his long fawn coat and white hat de- 
 scended and entered the vehicle and sat down by 
 the servant, and pulled out an illustrated comic 
 paper, and they bent their heads over it and giggled 
 enormously in unison; he was piling up money at 
 the rate of at least a sou a minute. Occasionally 
 the young mistress threw a loud sisterly remark to 
 the servant, who replied gaily. And the two young 
 dandies bore nobly the difficult role of world-worn 
 men who still count not the cost of smiles. Say 
 what you like, it was charming. It was one of the 
 reasons why Paris is the city which is always for- 
 given. Could one reasonably expect that the bright 
 face of the vapid little siren should be solemnised 
 by the thought: "To-day I am a day nearer forty 
 than I was yesterday"? 
 
24 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 The wings of the Moulin Rouge, jewelled now 
 with crimson lamps, began to revolve slowly. The 
 upper chambers of the restaurant showed lights be- 
 hind their mysteriously-curtained windows. The 
 terrace was suddenly bathed in the calm blue of elec- 
 tricity. No austere realism of the philosopher could 
 argue away the romance of the scene. 
 
 t5* <5* t?* £• 
 
 I turned down the steep Rue Blanche, and at the 
 foot of it passed by the shadow of the Trinite, the 
 great church of illicit assignations, at whose clock 
 scores of frightened and expectant hearts gaze anx- 
 iously every afternoon; and through the Rue de la 
 Chaussee d'Antin, where corsets are masterpieces 
 beyond price and flowers may be sold for a sover- 
 eign apiece, and then into the full fever of the grand 
 boulevard with its maddening restlessness of il- 
 luminated signs. The shops and cafes were all on 
 fire, making two embankments of fire, above which 
 rose high and mysterious facades masked by trees 
 that looked like the impossible verdure of an opera. 
 And between the summits of the trees a ribbon of 
 rich, dark, soothing purple — the sky ! This was the 
 city. This was what the race had accomplished, 
 after eighteen Louises and nearly as many revolu- 
 tions, and when all was said that could be said it re- 
 mained a prodigious and a comforting spectacle. 
 Every doorway shone with invitation; every satis- 
 faction and delight was offered, on terms ridicu- 
 lously reasonable. And binding everything to- 
 gether were the refined, neighbourly, and graceful 
 cynical gestures of the race: so different from the 
 
EVENING WITH EXILES 25 
 
 harsh and awkward timidity, the self-centred ego- 
 tism and artistocratic hypocrisy of Piccadilly. It 
 seemed difficult to be lonely amid multitudes that so 
 candidly accepted human nature as human nature 
 is. It seemed a splendid and an uplifting thing to 
 be there. I continued southwards, down the nar- 
 row, swarming Rue Richelieu, past the immeasur- 
 able National Library on the left and Jean Goujon's 
 sculptures of the rivers of France on the right, and 
 past the Theatre Francais, where nice plain people 
 were waiting to see L'Aventuriere, and across the 
 arcaded Rue de Rivoli. And then I was in the dark 
 desert of the Place du Carrousel, where the omni- 
 buses are diminished to toy-omnibuses. The town 
 was shut off by the vast arms of the Louvre. The 
 purple had faded out the sky. The wind, heralding 
 October, blew coldly across the spaces. The art- 
 fully arranged vista of the Champs Elysees, rising 
 in flame against the silhouette of Cleopatra's needle, 
 struck me as a meretricious device, designed to im- 
 press tourists and monarchs. Everything was 
 meretricious. I could not even strike a match with- 
 out being reminded that a contented and corrupt in- 
 efficiency was corroding this race like a disease. I 
 could not light my cigarette because somebody, 
 somewhere, had not done his job like an honest 
 man. And thus it was throughout. 
 
 I wanted to dine, and there were a thousand 
 restaurants within a mile; but they had all ceased 
 to invite me. I was beaten down by the over- 
 whelming sadness of one who for the time being 
 has no definite arranged claim to any friendly at- 
 
26 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 tention in a huge city — crowded with pre-occu- 
 pied human beings. I might have been George 
 Gissing. I re-wrote all his novels for him in an 
 instant. I persisted southwards. The tiny walled 
 river, reflecting with industrious precision all its 
 lights, had no attraction. The quays, where all 
 the book shops were closed and all the bookstalls 
 locked down, and where there was never a cafe, 
 were as inhospitable and chill as Riga. Mist 
 seemed to heave over the river, and the pavements 
 were oozing damp. 
 
 I went up an entiy and rang a bell, thinking to 
 myself: "If he isn't in, I am done for!" But at the 
 same moment I caught the sound of a violoncello, 
 and I knew I was saved, and by a miracle Paris was 
 herself again. 
 
 c5* t5* (?• <5* 
 
 "Not engaged for dinner, are you?" I asked, as 
 soon as I was in the studio. 
 
 "No. I was just thinking of going out." 
 
 "Well, let's go, then." 
 
 "I was scraping some bits of Gluck." 
 
 The studio was fairly large, but it was bare, un- 
 kempt, dirty, and comfortless. Except an old sofa, 
 two hard imperfect chairs, and an untrustworthy 
 table, it had no furniture. Of course, it was lit- 
 tered with the apparatus of painting. Its sole or- 
 namentation was pictures, and the pictures were 
 very fine, for they were the painter's own. He and 
 his pictures are well known among the painters of 
 Europe and America. Successful artistically, and 
 with an adequate private income, he was a full mem- 
 
EVENING WITH EXILES 27 
 
 ber of the Champ de Mars Salon, and he sold his 
 pictures upon occasion to Governments. Although 
 a British subject, he had spent nearly all his life in 
 Paris ; he knew the streets and resorts of Paris like 
 a Frenchman; he spoke French like a Frenchman. 
 I never heard of him going to England. I never 
 heard him express a desire to go to England. His 
 age was perhaps fifty, and I dare say that he had 
 lived in that studio for a quarter of a century, with 
 his violoncello. It was plain, as he stood there, well 
 dressed, and with a vivacious and yet dreamy eye, 
 that the zest of life had not waned in him. He was 
 a man who, now as much as ever, took his pleasure 
 in seeing and painting beautiful, suave, harmonious 
 things. And yet he stood there unapologetic amid 
 that ugly and narrow discomfort, with the sheet of 
 music pinned carelessly to an easel, and lighted by 
 a small ill-regulated lamp with a truncated, dirty 
 chimney — sole illumination of the chamber! His 
 vivacious and dreamy eye simply did not see all that, 
 never had seen it, never saw anything that it did not 
 care to see. Nobody ever heard him multiply words 
 about a bad picture, for example, — he would ignore 
 it. 
 
 With a gesture of habit that must have taken 
 years to acquire he took a common rose-coloured 
 packet of caporal cigarettes from the table by the 
 lamp and offered it to me, pushing one of the cig- 
 arettes out beyond its fellows from behind; you 
 knew that he was always handling cigarettes. 
 
 "It's not really arranged for 'cello," he mur- 
 mured, gazing at the music, which was an air from 
 
28 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Alceste, arranged for violin. "You see it's in the 
 treble clef." 
 
 "I wish you'd play it," I said. 
 
 He sat down and played it, because he was inter- 
 ested in it. With his greying hair and his fashion- 
 able grey suit, and his oldest friend, the brown 'cello, 
 gleaming between his knees, he was the centre of a 
 small region of light in the gloomy studio, and the 
 sound of the 'cello filled the studio. He had no 
 home; but if he had had a home this would have 
 been his home, and this his home-life. As a private 
 individual, as distinguished from a public artist, 
 this was what he had arrived at. He had secured 
 this refuge, and invented this relaxation, in the mid- 
 dle of Paris. By their aid he could defy Paris. 
 There was something wistful about the scene, but it 
 was also impressive, at any rate to me, who am 
 otherwise constituted. He was an exile in the city 
 of exiles ; a characteristic item in it, though of a va- 
 riety exceedingly rare. But he would have been 
 equally an exile in any other city. He had no con- 
 sciousness of being an exile, of being homeless. He 
 was above patriotisms and homes. Why, when he 
 wanted even a book he only borrowed it! 
 
 "Well, shall we go out and eat?" I suggested, af- 
 ter listening to several lovely airs. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "I was just going. I don't think 
 you've seen my last etching. Care to?" 
 
 I did care to see it, but I also desired my dinner. 
 
 "This is a pretty good print, but I shall get bet- 
 ter," he said, holding the sheet of paper under the 
 lamp. 
 
EVENING WITH EXILES 29 
 
 "How many shall you print?" I asked. 
 
 "Thirty." 
 
 "You might put me down for one." 
 
 "All right. I think it will give you pleasure," he 
 said with impartial and dignified conviction. 
 
 After another ten minutes, we were out on the 
 quay. 
 
 "Grand autumn night?" he said appreciatively. 
 "Where shall we have the aperitif?' 3 
 
 "Aperitif! It's after eight o'clock, man!" 
 
 "I think we shall have time for an aperitif" he in- 
 sisted, mildly shocked. 
 
 Drawing-rooms have their ritual. His life, too, 
 had its ritual. 
 
 «5* «•* *?* c5* 
 
 At nearly midnight we were sitting, three of us, 
 in a cafe of the Montparnasse quarter, possibly the 
 principal cafe of the Montparnasse quarter. 
 Neither notorious nor secretly eccentric ; but an hon- 
 est cafe, in the sense of "honest" applied to certain 
 women. Being situated close to a large railway 
 terminus, it had a broad and an indulgent attitude 
 towards life. It would have received a frivolous 
 habitue of the Place Blanche, or a nun, or a clergy- 
 man, with the same placidity. And although the 
 district was modified, and whole streets, indeed, de- 
 Parisianised by wandering cohorts of American 
 and English art-amateurs of both sexes, this cafe 
 remained, while accepting them, characteristically 
 French. The cohorts thought they were seeing 
 French life when they entered it; and they in fact 
 were. 
 
30 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 This cafe was the chief club of the dis- 
 trict, with a multitudinous and regular clientele 
 of billiard-players, card-players, draught-players, 
 newspapers readers, chatterers, and simple 
 imbibers of bock. Its doors were continually 
 a-swing, and one or the other of the two 
 high-enthroned caissieres was continually lifting her 
 watchful head from the desk to observe who entered. 
 Its interior seemed to penetrate indefinitely into the 
 hinterland of the street, and the effect of unending- 
 ness was intensified by means of mirrors, which re- 
 flected the shirt-sleeved arms and the cues of a 
 score of billiard-players. Everywhere the same 
 lively and expressive and never ungraceful gestures, 
 between the marble table-tops below and the light- 
 studded ceiling above ! Everywhere the same mur- 
 mur of confusing rjleasant voices broken by the loud 
 chant of waiters intoning orders at the service-bar, 
 and by the setting down of heavy glass mugs and 
 saucers upon marble! Over the cafe, unperceived, 
 unthought of, were the six storeys of a large house 
 comprising perhaps twenty-five separate and com- 
 plete homes. 
 
 The third man at our table was another exile, also 
 a painter, but a Scotchman. He had lived in Paris 
 since everlasting, but before that rumour said that 
 he had lived for several years immovable at the little 
 inn of a Norman village. Now, he never left Paris, 
 even in summer. He exhibited, with marked dis- 
 cretion, only at the Independants. Beyond these 
 facts, and the obvious fact that he enjoyed inde- 
 pendent means, nobody knew anything about him 
 
/ I 
 
 LA DAME DL' COMPTOIR {Page 
 
EVENING WITH EXILES 31 
 
 save his opinions. Even his age was exceedingly- 
 uncertain. He looked forty, but there were ac- 
 quaintances who said that he had looked forty for 
 twenty years. He was one of those extremely re- 
 served men who talk freely. Of his hopes, ambi- 
 tions, ideals, disappointments, connections, he never 
 said a word, but he did not refuse his opinion upon 
 any subject, and on every subject he had a definite 
 opinion which he would express very clearly, with a 
 sort of polite curtness. His tendency was to cyni- 
 cism — too cynical to be bitter. He did not com- 
 plain of human nature, but he thoroughly believed 
 the worst of it. These two men, the 'cellist and the 
 Scotchman, were fast friends; or rather — as it might 
 be argued in the strict sense neither of them had 
 a friend — they were very familiar acquaintances, 
 each with a profound respect for the other's judg- 
 ment and artistic probity. Further, the Scotch- 
 man admired his companion for a genius, as 
 everybody did. 
 
 They talked together for ever and ever, but not 
 about politics. They were impatient on politics. 
 Both were apparently convinced that politics are an 
 artificiality imposed upon society by adventurers 
 and interferers, and that if such people could be 
 exterminated politics would disappear. Certainly 
 neither had any interest in the organic aspect of so- 
 ciety. Their political desire was to be let alone. 
 Nor did they often or for long "talk bawdy"; after 
 opinions had been given which no sensible man ever 
 confides to more than two reliable others at a time, 
 the Scotchman would sweep all that away as sec- 
 
32 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 ondary. Nor did they talk of the events of the day, 
 unless it might be some titillating crime or mystery 
 such as will fill whole pages of the newspaper for a 
 week together. They talked of the arts, all the 
 arts. And although they seemed to be always either 
 in that cafe, or in their studios, or in bed, they had 
 the air of being mysteriously but genuinely abreast 
 of every manifestation of art. And since all the 
 arts are one, and in respect to art they had a real at- 
 titude and real views, all that they said was valuable 
 suggestively, and their ideas could not by any prodi- 
 gality be exhausted. As a patron of the arts even 
 the State interested them, and herein they showed 
 glimmerings of a social sense. In the intervals of 
 this eternal and absorbing "art," they would discuss 
 with admirable restrained gusto the exacerbating 
 ridiculousness of the cohorts of American and Eng- 
 lish art-amateurs who infested and infected the 
 quarter. 
 
 <5* «£• t^* £* 
 
 Little bands of these came into the cafe from 
 time to time, and drifting along the aisles of chairs 
 would sit down where they could see as much as pos- 
 sible with their candid eyes. The girls, inelegant 
 and blousy ; the men, inept in their narrow shrewd- 
 ness: both equally naive, conceited, uncorrupted, 
 and incorruptible, they were absolutely incapable of 
 appreciating the refined and corrupt decadence, the 
 stylistic charm, the exquisite tradition of the civili- 
 sation at which they foolishly stared, as at a peep- 
 show. Not a thousand years would teach them the 
 human hourly art of life as it was subtly practised 
 
EVENING WITH EXILES 33 
 
 by the people whose very language they disdained 
 to learn. When loud fragments of French phrases, 
 massacred by Americans who had floated on but not 
 mingled with Paris for years, reached us from an 
 Anglo-Saxon table, my friends would seem to shud- 
 der secretly, ashamed of being Anglo-Saxon. And 
 if they were obliged to salute some uncouth Anglo- 
 Saxon acquaintance, and thus admit their own un- 
 Latin origin, their eyes would say: "Why cannot 
 these people be imprisoned at home? Why are not 
 we alone of Anglo-Saxons permitted to inhabit 
 Paris ?" 
 
 Occasionally a bore would complacently present 
 himself for sufferance. Among these the chief was 
 certainly the man whose existence was an endless 
 shuttle-work between the various cities where art is 
 or has been practised, from Munich to Naples. He 
 knew everything about painting, but he ought to 
 have been a bookmaker. He was notorious every- 
 where as the friend of Strutt, Strutt being the very 
 famous and wealthy English portrait-painter of 
 girls. All his remarks were apropos of Tommy 
 Strutt, Tommy Strutt — Tommy. He was invari- 
 ably full of Tommy. And this evening he was full 
 of Tommy's new German model, whose portrait 
 had been in that year's Salon. . . . How 
 Tommy had picked her up in the streets of Berlin ; 
 how she was nineteen, and the rage of Berlin, and 
 was asked to lunch at the embassies, and had re- 
 ceived five proposals in three months: how she re- 
 fused to sit for any one but Tommy, and even for 
 him would only sit two hours a day: how Tommy 
 
34 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 looked after her, and sent her to bed at nine-thirty 
 of a night, and hired a woman to play with her; and 
 how Tommy had once telegraphed to her that he 
 was coming to Berlin, and how she had hired a stu- 
 dio and got it painted and furnished exactly to his 
 fastidious taste all on her own, and met him at the 
 station and driven him to the studio, and tea was all 
 ready, etc.; and how pretty she was. . . . 
 
 "What's her figure like?" the Scotchman in- 
 quired gruffly. 
 
 "The fact is," said Tommy's friend, dashed, "I 
 haven't seen her posing for the nude. I've seen her 
 posing to Tommy in a bathing-costume on the sea- 
 shore, but I haven't yet seen her posing for the 
 nude. . . ." He became reflective. "My boy, 
 do you know what my old uncle used to say to me 
 down at the old place in Kildare, when I was a 
 youngster? My old uncle used to say to me — and 
 he was dying — 'My boy, I've always made a rule of 
 making love to every pretty woman I met. It's a 
 sound rule. But let me warn you — you mustn't ex- 
 pect to get more than five per cent, on your out- 
 lay!'" 
 
 "'The old place in Kildare!'" murmured the 
 Scotchman, in a peculiarly significant tone, after 
 Tommy Strutt's friend had gone; and this was the 
 only comment on Tommy Strutt's friend. 
 
 j7» l?» t7* t5* 
 
 The talk on art was resumed, the renowned 
 Tommy Strutt being reduced to his proper level of 
 the third-rate and abruptly dismissed. One o'clock ! 
 A quarter past one! The cafe was now nearly 
 
EVENING WITH EXILES 35 
 
 empty. But these men had no regard for time. 
 Time did not exist for them, any more than the 
 structure of society. They were not bored, nor 
 tired. They conversed with ease, and with mild 
 pleasure in their own irony and in the disillusioned 
 surety of their judgments. Then I noticed that 
 the waiters had dwindled to two, and that only one 
 cashier was left enthroned behind the bar; somewhat 
 later, she too had actually gone! Both had at 
 length rejoined their families, if any. The idea was 
 startling that these prim and neat and mechanically 
 smiling women were human, had private relations, a 
 private life, a bed, a wardrobe. All over Paris, all 
 day, every day, they sit and estimate the contents of 
 trays, which waiters present to their practised gaze 
 for an instant only, and receive the value of the 
 drinks in bone discs, and write down columns of 
 figures in long ledgers. They never take exercise, 
 nor see the sun; they even eat in the cafe. Mystic 
 careers! ... A quarter to two. Now the 
 chairs had been brought in from the terrace, and 
 there was only one waiter, and no other customer 
 that I could see. The waiter, his face nearly as pale 
 as his apron, eyed us with patient and bland resig- 
 nation, sure from his deep knowledge of human 
 habits that sooner or later we should in fact depart, 
 and well inured to the great Parisian principle that 
 a cafe exists for the convenience of its habitues. I 
 was uneasy: I was even aware of guiltiness; but not 
 my friends. 
 
 Then a face looked in at the doorway, as if re- 
 connoitring, and hesitated. 
 
36 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 "By Jove!" said the violoncellist. "There's the 
 Mahatma back again! Oh! He's seen us!" 
 
 The peering face preceded a sloping body into 
 the cafe, and I was introduced to a man whose ex- 
 cellent poems I had read in a limited edition. He 
 was wearing a heavily jewelled red waistcoat, and 
 the largest ring I ever saw on a human hand. He 
 sat down. The waiter took his order and intoned 
 it in front of the service-bar, proving that another 
 fellow-creature was hidden there awaiting our pleas- 
 ure. When the Mahatma's glass was brought, the 
 Scotchman suddenly demanded from the waiter the 
 total of our modest consumption, and paid it. The 
 Mahatma said that he had arrived that evening di- 
 rect from the Himalayas, and that he had been 
 made or ordained a "khan" in the East. Without 
 any preface he began to talk supernaturally. As 
 he had known Aubrey Beardsley, I referred to the 
 rumour that Beardsley had several times been seen 
 abroad in London after his alleged death. 
 
 "That's nothing," he said quickly. "I know a 
 man who saw and spoke to Oscar Wilde in the 
 Pyrenees at the very time when Oscar was in prison 
 in England." 
 
 "Who was the man?" I inquired. 
 
 He paused. "Myself," he said, in a low tone. 
 
 "Shall we go?" The Scotchman, faintly smiling, 
 embraced his friend and me in the question. 
 
 We went, leaving the Mahatma bent in solitude 
 over his glass. The waiter was obviously saying 
 to himself: "It was inevitable that they should ulti- 
 
EVENING WITH EXILES 37 
 
 mately go, and they have gone." We had sat for 
 four hours. 
 
 Outside, cabs were still rolling to and fro. After 
 cheerful casual good-nights, we got indolently into 
 three separate cabs, and went our easy ways. I 
 saw in my imagination the vista of the thousands of 
 similar nights which my friends had spent, and the 
 vista of the thousands of similar nights which they 
 would yet spend. And the sight was majestic, tre- 
 mendous. 
 
IV 
 
 BOURGEOIS 
 
 You could smell money long before you arrived 
 at the double portals of the flat on the second floor. 
 The public staircase was heated ; it mounted broadly 
 upwards and upwards in a very easy slope, and at 
 each spacious landing was the statue of some 
 draped woman holding aloft a lamp which threw 
 light on an endless carpet, and on marble mosaics. 
 There was, indeed, a lift; but who could refuse the 
 majestic invitation of the staircase, deserted, silent, 
 and mysterious ? The bell would give but one ting, 
 and always the same ting; it was not an electric de- 
 vice by which the temperament and mood of the in- 
 truder on the mat are accurately and instantly sig- 
 nalled to the interior. 
 
 The door was opened by the Tante herself — per- 
 haps she had been crossing from one room to an- 
 other — and I came into the large entrance-hall, 
 which even on the brightest summer day was as ob- 
 scure as a crypt, and which the architect had ap- 
 parently meant to be appreciated only after night- 
 fall. A vast armoire and a vast hat-and-coat stand 
 were features of it. 
 
 "My niece occupies herself with the children," 
 the Tante half-whispered, as she took me into the 
 drawing-room. And in her voice were mingled 
 
 38 
 
BOURGEOIS 39 
 
 pride, affection, and also a certain conspiratorial 
 quality, as though the mysteries of putting a little 
 boy and a little girl to bed were at once religious 
 and delicious, and must not be disturbed by loud 
 tones even afar off. 
 
 She was a stout woman of seventy, dressed in 
 black with a ruching of white at the neck and the 
 wrists; very erect and active; her hair not yet en- 
 tirely grey ; an aquiline eye. The soft, fresh white 
 frill at the wrist made a charming contrast with the 
 experienced and aged hand. She had been a widow 
 for very many years, and during all those years she 
 had matched herself against the world, her weapons 
 being a considerable and secure income, and a quite 
 exceptional natural shrewdness. The result had 
 left her handsomely the victor. She had an im- 
 mense but justifiable confidence in her own judg- 
 ment and sagacity; her interest in the spectacle of 
 existence was unabated, and a long and passionate 
 study of human nature had not embittered her. 
 She was a realist, and a caustic realist, but she could 
 excuse ; she could accept man as she knew him in his 
 turpitude. Her chief joys were to arrange and re- 
 arrange her "reserves" of domestic goods, to dis- 
 cuss character, and to indicate to a later generation, 
 out of her terrific experience of Parisian life, the 
 best methods of defence against the average trades- 
 man and the average menial. So seldom did any- 
 body get the better of her that, when the unusual 
 did occur, she could afford to admit the fact with a 
 liberal laugh: "II m'a roulee, celui-la! II a roule la 
 vieille!" 
 
40 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 In a corner of the drawing-room she resumed the 
 topic, always interesting to her, of my adventures 
 among charwomen, generously instructing me the 
 whole time in a hundred ways. And when the con- 
 versation dropped she would sigh and go back to 
 something previously said, and repeat it. "So she 
 polishes the door-knobs every day! Well, that is a 
 quality, at least." Then my hostess (her niece-in- 
 law) came blandly in: a woman of thirty-five, also 
 in mourning, with a pale, powdered face and golden 
 hair; benevolent and calm, elegant, but with the 
 elegance of a confessed mother. 
 
 "Ca y est?" asked the Tante, meaning — were the 
 infants at last couched? 
 
 "Ca y est," said the mother, with triumph, with 
 relief, and yet also with a little regret. 
 
 There was a nurse, but in practice she was only 
 an under- nurse; the head-nurse was the mother. 
 
 "Eh bien, mon petit Bennett" the mother began, 
 in a new tone, as if to indicate that she was no longer 
 a mother, but a Parisienne, frivolous and challeng- 
 ing, "what there that is new?" 
 
 "He is there," said the Tante, interrupting. 
 
 We heard the noise of the front-door, and by a 
 common instinct we all rose and went into the hall. 
 
 t5* «?• <5* <?• 
 
 The master of the home arrived. He entered like 
 a gust of wind, and Marthe, the thin old parlour- 
 maid, who had evidently been lying in wait for him, 
 started back in alarm, but alarm half-simulated. 
 My host, about the same age as his wife, was a doc- 
 tor, specialising in the diseases of women and chil- 
 
A BY-PRODUCT OF RUSSIAN POLITICS {Page 77) 
 
BOURGEOIS 41 
 
 dren, and he had his cabinet on the ground-floor of 
 the same house. He was late, he was impatient to 
 regain his hearth, he was proud of his industry ; and 
 the simple, instinctive joy of life sparkled in his eye. 
 
 "Marie," he cried to his wife. "I love thee!" 
 And kissed her furiously on both cheeks. 
 
 "It is well," she responded, calmly smiling, with a 
 sort of flirtatious condescension. 
 
 "I tell thee I love thee!" he insisted, with his 
 hands on her shoulders. "Tell me that thou lovest 
 me!" 
 
 "I love thee," she said calmly. 
 
 "It is very well!" he said, and swinging round to 
 Marthe, giving her his hat. "Marthe, I love you." 
 And he caught her a smack on the shoulder. 
 
 "Monsieur hurts me," the spinster protested. 
 
 "Go then! Go then!" said the Tante, as the be- 
 loved nephew directed his assault upon her in turn. 
 She was grimly proud of him. He flattered her 
 eye, for, even at his loosest, he had a professional 
 distinction of deportment which her long-deceased 
 husband, a wholesale tradesman, had probably 
 lacked. 
 
 "Well, my old one," the host grasped my hand 
 once more, "you cannot figure to yourself how it 
 gives me pleasure to have you here!" His voice 
 was rich with emotion. 
 
 This man had the genius of friendship in a very 
 high degree. His delight in the society of his 
 friends was so intense and so candid that only the 
 most inordinately conceited among them could have 
 failed to be aware of an uncomfortable grave sense 
 
42 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 of unworthiness, could have failed to say to them- 
 selves fearfully: "He will find me out one day!" 
 
 t3* «5* I?* <?• 
 
 The dining-room was large, and massively fur- 
 nished, and lighted by one immense shaded lamp 
 that hung low over the table. Among the heavily 
 framed pictures was a magnificent Jules Dupre, 
 belonging to the Tante. She had picked it up long 
 ago at a sale for something like ten thousand francs, 
 apparently while the dealers were looking the other 
 way. It was a known picture, and one of the 
 Tante's satisfactions was that some dealer or other 
 was always trying to relieve her of it, without the 
 slightest success. She had a story, too, that on the 
 day after the sale a Duchesse who affected Dupres 
 had sent her footman offering to take the picture 
 off her at a ten per cent, increase because it would 
 make a pair with another magnificent Dupre al- 
 ready owned by the Duchesse. "Eh, well," the 
 widow of the tradesman had said to the footman, 
 "you will tell Madame la Duchesse that if she wants 
 my picture she had better come herself and inquire 
 about it." In the flat, the Dupre was one of the 
 great pictures of the world. Safer to sneeze at the 
 Venus de Milo than at that picture! Another fa- 
 vourite picture, also the property of Tante, was one 
 by a living and super-modern painter, an acquaint- 
 ance of another nephew of hers. I do not think she 
 much cared for it, or that she cared much for any 
 pictures. She had bought it by a benevolent ca- 
 price. "What would you? He had not the sou. 
 Cest un trfo gentil garfon, of a great talent, but he 
 
BOURGEOIS 43 
 
 was eating all his money with women — with those 
 birds that you know. And one day it may be worth 
 its price." 
 
 What always interested me most in the furniture 
 of that dining-room was not the pictures, nor the 
 ample plate, nor the edifices called sideboards, etc., 
 but the apron of Marthe, who served. A plain, un- 
 starched, white apron, without a bib — an apron that 
 no English parlourmaid would have deigned to 
 wear; but of such fine linen, and all the exactly geo- 
 metric creases of its folding visible to the eye as 
 Marthe passed round and round our four chairs! 
 Whenever I saw that apron I could see linen-chests, 
 and endless supplies of linen, and Tante and Marthe 
 fussing over them on quiet afternoons. And it 
 went so well with her dark-blue shiny frock! 
 When Tante had joined her nephew's household she 
 had brought with her Marthe, already old in her 
 service. These two women were devoted to each 
 other, each in her own way. "Arrive then, with 
 that sauce, vieille folle!" Tante would command; 
 and Marthe, pursing her lips, would defend herself 
 with a "Mais madame — l" There was no high in- 
 visible wall between Marthe and her employers. 
 One was not worried, as one would have been in 
 England, by the operation of the detestable and 
 barbaric theory that Marthe was an automaton, in- 
 accessible to human emotions. I remember seeing 
 in the work-basket of the wife of a wealthy English 
 socialist a little manual of advice to domestic serv- 
 ants upon their deportment, and I remember this: 
 "Learn to control your voice, and always speak in 
 
44 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 a low voice. Never show by your demeanour that 
 you have heard any remark which is not addressed 
 to you." I wonder what Marthe, who had never 
 worn a cap, nor perhaps seen one, would have 
 thought of the manual, which possibly was written 
 by a distressed gentlewoman in order to earn a few 
 shillings. Martha could smile. She could even 
 laugh and answer back — but within limits. We 
 had not to pretend that Marthe consisted merely 
 of two ministering hands animated by a brain, but 
 without a soul. In France a servant works longer 
 and harder than in England, but she is permitted 
 the constant use of a soul. 
 
 A simple but an expensive dinner, for these peo- 
 ple were the kind of people that, desiring only the 
 best, were in a position to see that they had it, and 
 accepted the cost as a matter of course. Moreover, 
 they knew what the best was, especially the Tante. 
 They knew how to buy. The chief dish was just 
 steak. But what steak! What a thickness of steak 
 and what tenderness! A whole cow had lived un- 
 der the most approved conditions, and died a vio- 
 lent death, and the very essence of the excuse for it 
 all lay on a blue and white dish in front of the host- 
 ess. Cost according! Steak; but better steak could 
 not be had in the world ! And the consciousness of 
 this fact was on the calm benignant face of the host- 
 ess and on the vivacious ironic face of the Tante. 
 So with the fruits of the earth, so with the wine. 
 And the simple, straightforward distribution of the 
 viands seemed to suit well their character. Into 
 that flat there had not yet penetrated the grand 
 
BOURGEOIS 45 
 
 modern principle that the act of carving is an ob- 
 scene act, an act to be done shamefully in secret, be- 
 hind the backs of the delicate impressionable. No ! 
 The dish of steak was planted directly in front of 
 the hostess, under her very nose, and beyond the 
 dish a pile of four plates ; and, brazenly brandishing 
 her implements, the Parisienne herself cut the tit- 
 bits out of the tit-bit, and deposited them on plate 
 after plate, which either Marthe took or we took 
 ourselves, at hazard. Further, there was no embar- 
 rassment of multitudinous assorted knives and forks 
 and spoons. With each course the diner received 
 the tools necessary for that course. Between 
 courses, if he wanted a toy for his fingers, he had 
 to be content with a crust. 
 
 During the meal the conversation constantly re- 
 verted with pleasure to the question of food ; it was 
 diversified by expressions of the host's joy in his 
 home, and the beings therein ; and for the rest it did 
 not ascend higher than heterogeneous personal gos- 
 sip, — "unstitched," as the French say. 
 
 v* «?* c5* t5* 
 
 Instead of going into the drawing-room, we went 
 through a bed-chamber, into a small room at the 
 back. By taking a circuitous service-passage, and 
 infringing on the kitchen, we might ultimately have 
 arrived at that room without passing through the 
 bedchamber; but the proper, the ceremonious way 
 to it was through the bedchamber. This trifling de- 
 tail illuminates the methods of the French architect 
 even when he is building expensively — methods 
 which persist to the present hour. Admirable at 
 
46 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 facades, he is an execrable planner, wasteful and 
 maladroit, as may be seen even in the most impor- 
 tant public buildings in Paris — such as the Town 
 Hall. In arranging the "disposition" of flats, he 
 exhausts himself on the principal apartments, and 
 then, fatigued, lets the others struggle as best they 
 may for light and air and access in the odd corners 
 of space which remain. Of course, he is strong in 
 the sympathy of his clients. It is a wide question 
 of manners, stretching from the finest palaces of 
 France down to the labyrinthine coverts of indus- 
 trialism. Up to twenty-five years ago, architects 
 simply did not consider the factors of either light 
 or ventilation. I have myself lived in a flat, in one 
 of the best streets of central Paris, of which none of 
 the eight windows could possibly at any period of 
 the year receive a single direct gleam of sunlight. 
 Up to twenty-five years ago, nobody had discovered 
 a reason why, in a domestic interior, a bedroom 
 should not be a highroad. . . . 
 
 Visualise the magnificent straight boulevard, full 
 of the beautiful horizontal glidings of trams and au- 
 tomobiles; the lofty and stylistic frontages; the 
 great carved doors of the house ; the quasi-Oriental 
 entrance and courtyard, shut in from the fracas of 
 the street; the monumental staircase; the spacious 
 and even splendid dining-room; and then the bed- 
 room opening directly off it; and then the still 
 smaller sitting-room opening directly off that ; and 
 us there — the ebullient doctor, his elegant and calm 
 wife, the Tante (on a small chair), and myself — 
 sitting round a lamp amid a miscellany of book- 
 
BOURGEOIS 47 
 
 cases and oddments. This was the room that the 
 doctor preferred of an evening. He would say, 
 joyously: "C'est le decor homer 
 
 «?» t5* t5» i5* 
 
 A cousin of the host was announced ; and his rela- 
 tives and I smiled archly, with affectionate malice, 
 before he came in; for it was notorious that this 
 cousin, an architect by profession, and a bachelor of 
 forty years standing, had a few days earlier sol- 
 emnly and definitely "broken" with his petite amie. 
 I knew it. Everybody knew it within the wide fam- 
 ily-radius. It was one of those things that "knew 
 themselves." This call was itself a proof that the 
 cousin had dragged his anchor. Moreover, he em- 
 braced his aunt with a certain self-consciousness. 
 He was a tall, dark-bearded man, well dressed 
 in a dark-grey suit — a good specimen of French tail- 
 oring, but a French tailor cannot use an iron and he 
 cannot "roll" a collar. A rather melancholy and 
 secretive and flaccid man, but somewhat hardened 
 and strengthened by the lifelong use of a private 
 fortune. They all had money — money of their 
 own, independently of earned money; the wife had 
 money — and I do not think that it occurred to any 
 of them to live up to his or her income; their re- 
 sources were always increasing, and the reserves that 
 the united family could have brought up to face a 
 calamity must have been formidable. None of 
 them had ever been worried about money, and by 
 reason of their financial ideals they were far more 
 solid than a London family receiving, but spending, 
 thrice their income. 
 
48 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Marthe came with another coffee cup, and the 
 cousin, when the hostess had filled it, set it down 
 to go cold, after the French manner. 
 
 "Well, my boy," said Tante, whose ancient eyes 
 were sparkling with eagerness. "By what appears, 
 thou art a widower since several days." 
 
 "How a widower?" 
 
 "Yes," said the host, "it appears that thou art 
 a widower." And added enthusiastically: "I am 
 pretty content to see thee, my old one." 
 
 The hostess smiled at the widower with sympa- 
 thetic indulgence. 
 
 "Who has told you?" 
 
 "What ! Who has told us ? All Paris knows it !" 
 
 "Well," said the cousin, looking at the carpet and 
 apparently communing with himself — he always had 
 an air of self-communing, "I suppose it's true!" 
 He drank the tenth of a teaspoonf ul of coffee. 
 
 "Eh, well, my friend," the Tante commented. 
 "I do not know if thou hast done well. That did 
 not cost thee too dear, and she had a good-hearted 
 face." Tante spoke with an air of special in- 
 timacy, because she and the cousin had kept house 
 together for some years at one period. 
 
 "Thou hast seen her, Tante?" the hostess asked, 
 surprised a little out of the calm in which she was 
 crocheting. 
 
 "Have I seen her? I believe it well! I caught 
 them together once when I was driving in the 
 Bois." 
 
 "That was Antoinette," said the cousin. 
 
 "It was not Antoinette," said the Tante. "And 
 
BOURGEOIS 49 
 
 thou hast no need to say it. Thou quittedst An- 
 toinette in '96, before I had begun to hire that car- 
 riage. I recall it to myself perfectly." 
 
 "I suppose now it will be the grand spree," said 
 the hostess, "during several months." 
 
 "The grand spree!" Tante broke in caustically. 
 "Have no fear. The grand spree — that is not his 
 kind. It is not he who will scatter his money with 
 those birds. He is not so stupid as that," She 
 laughed drily. 
 
 "Is she rosse, the Tante, all the same!" the host, 
 flowing over with good nature, comforted his 
 cousin. 
 
 Then Marthe entered again: 
 
 "The children demand monsieur." 
 
 The host bounded up from his chair. 
 
 "What ! The children demand monsieur !" he ex- 
 ploded. "At nine o'clock! It is not possible that 
 they are not asleep !" 
 
 "They say that monsieur promised to return to 
 them after dinner." 
 
 "It is true!" he admitted, with a gesture of dis- 
 covery. "It is true!" 
 
 "I pray thee," said the mother. "Go at once. 
 And do not excite them." 
 
 "I think I'll go with you," I said. 
 
 "My little Bennett," the mother leaned towards 
 me, "I supplicate you — at this hour — " 
 
 "But naturally he will come with me!" the host 
 cried obstreperously. 
 
 We went, down a long narrow passage. There 
 they were in their beds, the children, in a small bed- 
 
50 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 room divided into two by a low screen of ribbed 
 glass, the boy on one side and the girl on the other. 
 The window gave on to a small subsidiary court- 
 yard. Through the half-drawn curtains the lighted 
 windows of rooms opposite could be discerned, ris- 
 ing, storey after storey, up out of sight. A night- 
 light burned on a table. The nurse stood apart, at 
 the door. The children were lively, but pale. 
 They had begun to go to school, and, except the 
 journey to and from school, they seemed to have al- 
 most no outdoor exercise. No garden was theirs. 
 The hall and the passages were their sole play- 
 ground. And all the best part of their lives was 
 passed between walls in a habitation twenty-five or 
 thirty feet above ground, in the middle of Paris. 
 Yet they were very well. The doctor did not romp 
 with them. No ! He simply and candidly caressed 
 them, girl and boy, in turn, calling them passion- 
 ately by the most beautiful names, burying Ms head 
 in the bedclothes, and fondling their wild hair. He 
 then entreated them, with genuine humility, to com- 
 pose themselves for sleep, and parted last from the 
 girl. 
 
 "She is exquisite — exquisite!" he murmured to me 
 ecstatically, as we returned up the passage from 
 this excursion. 
 
 She was. 
 
 «?• <?* i5* i?* 
 
 In the small sitting-room the cousin was offering 
 to the Tante some information of a political nature. 
 The Tante kept a judicious eye on everything in 
 Paris. 
 
BOURGEOIS 51 
 
 "What!" The host protested vociferously. "He 
 is again in his politics! Cousin, I supplicate 
 thee—" 
 
 A good deal of supplication went on there. The 
 host did succeed in stopping politics. With all the 
 weight of his vivacious good-nature he bore poli- 
 tics down. The fact was, he had a real objection to 
 politics, having convinced himself that they were 
 permanently unclean in France. It was not the 
 measures that he objected to, but the men — all of 
 them with scarcely an exception — as cynical adven- 
 turers. On this point he was passionate. Politics 
 were incurably futile, horribly assommant. He 
 would not willingly allow them to soil his hearth. 
 
 "What hast thou done lately?" he asked of the 
 cousin, changing the subject. 
 
 And the talk veered to public amusements. The 
 cousin had been "distracting himself" amid his sen- 
 timental misadventures, by much theatre-going. 
 They all, except the Tante, went very regularly to 
 the theatres and to the operas. And not only that, 
 but to concerts, exhibitions, picture-shows, services 
 in the big churches, and every kind of diversion fre- 
 quented by people in easy circumstances and by art- 
 ists. There was little that they missed. They ex- 
 hibited no special taste or knowledge in any art, but 
 leaned generally to the best among that which was 
 merely fashionable. They took seriously nearly 
 every craftsman who, while succeeding, kept his 
 dignity and refrained from being a mountebank. 
 Thus, they were convinced that dramatists like Ed- 
 mond Rostand and Henri Lavedan, actors and 
 
52 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 actresses like Le Bargy and Cecile Sorel, painters 
 like Edouard Detaille and La Gandara, composers 
 like Massenet and Charpentier, critics like Adolphe 
 Brisson and Francis Chevassu, novelists like Rene 
 Bazin and Daniel Lesueur, poets like Jean Riche- 
 pin and Abel Bonnard, were original and first- 
 class, and genuinely important in the history of 
 their respective arts. On the other hand their 
 attitude towards the real innovators and shapers of 
 the future was timidly, but honestly, antipathetic. 
 And they could not, despite any theorising to the 
 contrary, bring themselves to take quite seriously 
 any artist who had not been consecrated by public 
 approval. With the most charming grace they 
 would submit to be teased about this, but it would 
 have been impossible to tease them out of it. And 
 there was always a slight uneasiness in the air when 
 they and I came to grips in the discussion of art. 
 I could almost hear the shrewd Tante saying to 
 herself: "What a pity this otherwise sane and 
 safe young man is an artist!" 
 
 "Figure to yourself," the host would answer me 
 with an adorable, affectionate mien of apology, 
 when I asked his opinion of a new work by Mau- 
 rice Ravel, heard on a Sunday afternoon, "Figure 
 to yourself that we scarcely liked it." 
 
 And with the same mien, of a very fashionable 
 comedy in which Lavedan, Le Bargy, and Julia 
 Bartet had combined to create a terrific success at 
 the Theatre Francais: 
 
 "Figure to yourself, it was truly very nice, after 
 all! Of course one might say. . . ." 
 
BOURGEOIS 53 
 
 The truth was, it had carried them off their feet. 
 
 Upon my soul I think I liked them the better 
 for it all. And, in talking to them, I understood 
 a little better the real and solid basis upon which 
 rests all that overwhelming, complex, expensive ap- 
 paratus of artistic diversions laid out for the public 
 within a mile radius of the Place de l'Opera. There 
 is a public, a genuine public, which desires ardently 
 to be amused and which will handsomely put down 
 the money for its amusement. And it is never 
 tired, never satiated. The artist, who seldom pays, 
 is apt to wonder if any considerable body of per- 
 sons pay, is apt to regard the commercial continu- 
 ance of art as a sort of inexplicable miracle. But 
 these people paid. They always paid, and richly. 
 And there were whole streets of large houses full of 
 other people who shared their tastes and their habits, 
 if not their extreme attractiveness. 
 
 £ £ £ £ 
 
 I wondered where we should be without them, we 
 artists, as I took leave of them at something after 
 midnight. My good friend, the melancholy cousin, 
 had departed. Tante had gone to bed, though she 
 protested she never slept. We had been drinking 
 weak tea as we wandered about the dining-room. 
 And now I, obdurate against the host's supplica- 
 tions not to desert them so early, was departing 
 too. At the door the hostess lighted a little taper, 
 and gave it to me. And when the door was opened 
 they moderated their caressing voices; for a dozen 
 other domestic interiors, each intricate and com- 
 plete, gave on the resounding staircase. And with 
 
54 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 my little taper I descended through the silence and 
 the darkness of the staircase. And at the bottom I 
 halted in the black entrance way, and summoned 
 the concierge out of his sleep to release the catch 
 of the small door within the great portals. There 
 was a responsive click immediately, and in the black- 
 ness a sudden gleam from the boulevard. The con- 
 cierge and his wife, living for ever sunless in a room 
 and a half beneath all those other interiors, were 
 throughout the night at the mercy of a call, mine 
 or another's. "Curious existence!" I thought, as 
 my shutting of the door echoed about the building, 
 and I stepped into the illumination of the boule- 
 vard. "The concierge is necessary to them. And 
 without the equivalent of such as they, such as I 
 could not possess even a decent overcoat !" On the 
 fapade of the house every outer casement was shut. 
 Not a sign of life in it. 
 
V 
 
 CAUSE CELEBRE 
 
 Quite early in the winter evening, before the light 
 had died out of the sky, central Paris was beginning 
 to be pleasurably excited. The aspect of the 
 streets and of the cafes showed that. One saw it 
 and heard it in the gestures and tones of the people ; 
 one had a proof of it in oneself. The whole city 
 was in a state of delightful anxiety; and it was 
 happy because the result of the night, whatever fate 
 chose to decide, could not fail to be amusing and 
 even thrilling. All the thoroughfares converging 
 upon the small and crowded island which is the his- 
 torical kernel of Paris, were busier and livelier than 
 usual. In particular, automobiles thronged — 
 the largest, glossiest, and most silent automo- 
 biles, whose horns were orchestras — automo- 
 biles which vied with motor-omnibuses for im- 
 posingness and moved forward with the smooth 
 majesty of trains. There came a point, near 
 the twinkling bridges, where progress was im- 
 possible, where an impalpable obstacle inter- 
 vened, and vehicles stood arrested in long treble 
 files, and mysterious words were passed backwards 
 from driver to driver. But nobody seemed to mind; 
 nobody seemed impatient; for it was something to 
 be thus definitely and materially a part of the organ- 
 
 55 
 
56 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 ised excitement. Hundreds of clever resourceful 
 persons had had the idea of avoiding the main ave- 
 nues, and creeping up unobserved to the centre of 
 attraction by the little streets. So that all these 
 ancient, narrow, dark lanes that thread between high 
 and picturesque architectures were busy with auto- 
 mobiles and carriages. And in the gloom one 
 might see shooting round a corner the brilliant in- 
 terior of an automobile, with electric light and 
 flowers and a pet dog, and a couple of extremely 
 fashionable young women in it, their eyes sparkling 
 with present joy and the confident expectation of 
 joy to come. And such young women, utterly cor- 
 rect, were doing the utterly correct thing. But all 
 these little streets led at last to the same impalpable 
 obstacle. So that from a high tower, for instance, 
 the Tour St. Jacques close by, one might have be- 
 held the black masonry of the centre of attraction 
 as it were beleaguered on every side by the attack- 
 ing converging files that were held back by some 
 powerful word; while the minutes elapsed, and the 
 incandescent signs of shops and theatres increased 
 in the sky, and the Seine, dividing to clasp the 
 island, darkened into a lamp-reflecting mirror along 
 which tiny half-discerned steamers restlessly plied. 
 
 (?• <?• «5* «?• 
 
 Despite the powerful word, the Palace of Justice, 
 the centre of attraction, was tremendously alive and 
 gay with humanity. Traffic could not be stopped, 
 and was not stopped, and those who had sufficient 
 energy and perseverance could insinuate themselves 
 into its precincts. The great gold lamps that flank 
 
CAUSE CELEBRE (Page 55) 
 
CAUSE CELEBRE 57 
 
 the staircase of honour gleamed upon a crowd con- 
 tinually ascending and descending. The outer hall 
 was full of laughing chatter and of smoke. And 
 barristers, both old and young, walked to and fro 
 in hieratic converse, waving their cigarettes in sober 
 curves, and on every one of their faces as they gazed 
 negligently at the public was the announcement 
 that they could tell "an they would." All the in- 
 terminable intersecting corridors were equally viva- 
 cious, with their diminishing perspectives of stoves 
 against which groups warmed themselves. Groups 
 of talkers made the circuit of the corridors as it 
 might have been the circuit of a town, passing a 
 given spot regularly, and repeating and repeating 
 the same arguments. And the solemn arched im- 
 mensity of the Hall of Lost Footsteps was like a 
 Bourse. Here, more than anywhere else, one had 
 the sense of audience-chambers concealed behind 
 doors, where fatal doings were afoot; one had the 
 sense of the terrific vastness and complexity of the 
 Palace wherein scores of separate ceremon- 
 ious activities simultaneously proceeded in scores 
 of different halls. The general public knew only 
 that somewhere within the Palace, somewhere 
 close at hand, at the end of some particular 
 passage, guarded doors hid the spectacle whose 
 slightest episode was being telegraphed to all 
 the cities of the entire civilised world, and the gen- 
 eral public was content, even very content, to be 
 near by. 
 
 The affair was in essence a trifle ; merely the trial 
 of a woman for the murder of her husband. But 
 
58 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 this woman was a heroic woman; this woman be- 
 longed by right of brain and individual force to the 
 great race of Therese Humbert. Years before, she 
 had moved safely in the background of a sensational 
 tragedy involving the highest personages of the Re- 
 public. And now in the background of her own 
 tragedy there moved somebody so high and so po- 
 tent that no newspaper dared or cared to name his 
 name. All that was known was that this enigmatic 
 and awful individual existed, that he was in- 
 volved, that had he been less sublime he would have 
 had to appear before the court, that he would not 
 appear, and that justice would suffer accordingly. 
 In the ordeal of extremest publicity, the woman had 
 emerged a Titaness. Throughout all her alterca- 
 tions with judge, advocates, witnesses, and journal- 
 ists, she had held her own grandly, displaying not 
 only an astounding force of character, but a superb 
 appreciation of the theatrical quality of her role. 
 She was of a piece with yellow journalism, and the 
 multitude that gapes for yellow journalism. She 
 was shameless. She was caught again and again in 
 a net of lies, and she always escaped. She admitted 
 nearly everything: lyings, adulteries, and manifold 
 deceits ; but she would not admit that she knew any- 
 thing about the murder of her husband. And even 
 though it was obvious that the knots by which she 
 was bound when the murder was discovered were 
 not serious knots, even though she left a hundred in- 
 criminating details unexplained, a doubt concern- 
 ing her guilt would persist in the minds of the 
 impartial. She was indubitably a terrible creature, 
 
CAUSE CELEBRE 59 
 
 but she was an enchantress, and she was also beyond 
 question an exceedingly able housekeeper and 
 hostess. She might be terrible without being a 
 murderess. 
 
 And now the trial was closing. The verdict, it 
 was stated, would be rendered that night even if the 
 court sat till midnight. It would be a pity to keep 
 an amiable public, already on the rack of impatience 
 for many days, waiting longer. The time was ripe. 
 Further, the woman had had enough. Her re- 
 sources were exhausted, and to continue the fight 
 would mean an anti-climax. The woman had com- 
 pletely lost the respect of the public — that was in- 
 evitable — but she had not lost its admiration. The 
 attitude of the public was cruel, with the ignoble 
 cruelty which is practised towards women in Latin 
 countries alone; she had even been sarcastically 
 sketched in the most respectable illustrated paper in 
 the attitude of a famous madonna ; but beneath the 
 inconceivably base jeers, there remained admiration; 
 and there remained, too, gratitude — the gratitude 
 offered to a gladiator who has fought well and pro- 
 vided a really first-class diversion. 
 
 £& t5* «5* t?* 
 
 The supper-restaurants were visited earlier and 
 were much more crowded than usual on that night. 
 It was as though the influence of the trial had been 
 aphrodisiacal. Or it may have been that the men 
 and women of pleasure wished to receive the verdict 
 in circumstances worthy of its importance in the an- 
 nals of pleasure. Or it may have been that dinner 
 had been deranged by the excitations connected with 
 
60 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 the trial and that people felt honestly hungry. I 
 went into one of these restaurants, in a square whose 
 buildings are embroidered with inviting letters of 
 fire until dawn every morning throughout the year. 
 A stern attendant took me up in a lift, and instantly 
 I had quitted the sternness of the lift I was in an- 
 other atmosphere. There was the bar, and there 
 the illustrious English barman, drunk. For in 
 these regions the barman must always be English 
 and a little drunk. The barman knows everybody, 
 and not to know his Christian name and the feel of 
 his hand is to be nobody. This barman is a Paris- 
 ian celebrity. But let an accident or a misadven- 
 ture disqualify him from his work, and he will be 
 forgotten utterly in less than a week. And in his 
 martyred old age he will certainly recount to chari- 
 table acquaintances, who find him ineffably tedious, 
 how he was barman at the unique Restaurant Lepic 
 in the old days when fun was really fun, and the 
 most appalling iniquity was openly tolerated by 
 the police. 
 
 The bar and the barman and the cloak-room at- 
 tendant (another man of genius) are only the pre- 
 lude to the great supper-hall, which is simply and 
 completely dazzling, with its profuse festoons of 
 electric bulbs, its innumerable naked shoulders, 
 arms, and bosoms, its fancy costumes, its bald heads, 
 its music, clatter, and tinkle, and its desperate 
 gaiety. To go into it is like going into a furnace 
 of sensuality. It can be likened to nothing but 
 an orange-lit scene of Roman debauch in a play 
 written and staged by Mr. Hall Caine. One feels 
 
CAUSE CELEBRE 61 
 
 that one has been unjust in one's attitude to Mr. 
 Hall Caine's claims as a realist. 
 
 Although the restaurant will positively not hold 
 any more revellers, more revellers insist on coming 
 in, and fresh tables are produced by conjuring and 
 placed for them between other tables, until the whole 
 mass of wood and flesh is wedged tight together 
 and waiters have to perform prodigies of insinua- 
 tion. The effect of these multitudinous wasters is 
 desolating, and even pathetic. It is the enormous 
 stupidity of the mass that is pathetic, and its secret 
 tedium that is desolating. At their wits' end how 
 to divert themselves, these bald heads pass the time 
 in capers more antique and fatuous than were ever 
 employed at a village wedding. Some of them find 
 distraction in monstrous gorging — and beefsteaks 
 and fried potatoes and spicy sauces go down their 
 throats in a way to terrorise the arthritic beholder. 
 Others merely drink. Some quarrel, with the bone- 
 less persistency of intoxication. One falls humor- 
 ously under a table, and is humorously fished up by 
 the red-coated leader of the orchestra: it is a 
 marked success of esteem. Many are content to 
 caress the bright odalisques with fond, monotonous 
 vacuity. A few of these odalisques, and the wait- 
 ers, alone save the spectacle from utter humiliation. 
 The waiters are experts engaged in doing their job. 
 The industry of each night leaves them no energy 
 for dissoluteness. They are alert and determined. 
 Their business is to make stupidity as lavish as pos- 
 sible, and they succeed. To see them surveying 
 with cold statistical glances the field of their opera- 
 
62 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 tions, to listen to their indestructible politeness, to 
 divine the depth of their concealed scorn — this is a 
 pleasure. And some of the odalisques are beauti- 
 ful. Fine women in the sight of heaven ! They too 
 are experts, with the hard preoccupation of experts. 
 They are at work; and this is the battle of life. 
 They inspire respect. It is — it is the dignity of 
 labour. 
 
 Suddenly it is announced that the jury at the 
 Palace are about to deliver their verdict. Nobody 
 knows how the news has come, nor even who first 
 spoke it in the restaurant. But there it is. Hu- 
 morous guffaws of relief are vented. The fever 
 of the place becomes acute, with a decided influence 
 on the consumption of champagne. The accused 
 lady is toasted again and again. Of course, she had 
 been, throughout, the solid backbone of the chatter ; 
 but now she was all the chatter. And everybody 
 recounted again to everybody else every suggestive 
 rumour of her iniquity that had appeared in any 
 newspaper for months past. She was tried over 
 again in a moment, and condemned and insulted and 
 defended, and consistently honoured with libations. 
 She had never been more truly heroic, more legend- 
 ary, than she was then. 
 
 The childlike company loudly demanded the ver- 
 dict, with their tongues and with their feet. 
 
 A beautiful young girl of about eighteen, the 
 significant features of whose attire were long black 
 stockings and a necklace, said to a gentleman who 
 was helping her to eat a vast entrecote and to drink 
 champagne : 
 
THEY INSPIRE RESPECT {Page 62) 
 
CAUSE CfiL^BRE 
 
 63 
 
 "If it comes not soon, it will be too late." 
 
 "The verdict?" said the fatuous swain. "How? 
 —too late?" 
 
 "I shall be too drunk," said the girl, apparently 
 meaning that she would be too drunk to savour the 
 verdict and to get joy from it. She spoke with 
 mournful and slightly disgusted certainty, as 
 though anticipating a phenomenon which was abso- 
 lutely regular and absolutely inevitable. 
 
 And then, on a table near the centre of the room, 
 instead of plates and glasses appeared a child- 
 dancer who might have been Spanish or Creole, but 
 who probably had never been out of Montmartre. 
 This child seemed to be surrounded by her family 
 seated at the table — by her mother and her aunts 
 and a cousin or so, all with simple and respectable 
 faces, naively proud of and pleased with the child. 
 From their expressions, the child might have been 
 cutting bread and butter on the table instead of 
 dancing. The child danced exquisitely, but her per- 
 formance could not moderate the din. It was a 
 lovely thing gloriously wasted. The one feature 
 of it that was not wasted on the intelligence of the 
 company was the titillating contrast between the 
 little girl's fresh infancy and the advanced decom- 
 position of her environment. 
 
 She ceased, and disappeared into her family. 
 The applause began, but it was mysteriously and 
 swiftly cut short. Why did every one by a simultane- 
 ous impulse glance eagerly in the direction of the 
 door? Why was the hush so dramatic? A voice — 
 whose? — cried near the doorway: 
 
64 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 "Acquittier 
 
 And all cried triumphantly: "Acquitted 
 Acquittee! Acquittee! Acquitted" Happy, bois- 
 terous Bedlam was created and let loose. Even the 
 waiters forgot themselves. The whole world stood 
 up, stood on chairs, or stood on tables ; and shouted, 
 shrieked, and whistled. But the boneless drunkards 
 were still quarrelling, and one bald head had re- 
 tained sufficient presence of mind to wear a large 
 oyster-shell facetiously for a hat. And then the or- 
 chestra, inspired, struck into a popular refrain of the 
 moment, perfectly apposite. And all sang with 
 right good- will : 
 
 "Le lendemain elle etait souriante." 
 
VI 
 
 RUSSIAN IMPERIAL BALLET AT THE OPERA 
 
 Sylvain's is the only good restaurant in the centre 
 of Paris where you can dine in the open air, that is 
 to say, in the street. Close by, the dark, still mass 
 of the Opera rises hugely out of the dusk and out 
 of the flitting traffic at its base. Sylvain's is full of 
 diners who have no eyes to see beyond the surfaces 
 of things. 
 
 By virtue of a contract made between Sylvain's 
 and the city, the diners are screened off from the 
 street and from the twentieth century by a row of 
 high potted evergreens. Pass within the screen, 
 and you leave behind you the modern epoch. The 
 Third Republic recedes; the Second Empire re- 
 cedes ; Louis-Philippe has never been, nor even Na- 
 poleon; the Revolution has not begun to announce 
 itself. You are become suddenly a grand seigneur. 
 Every gesture and tone of every member of the 
 personnel of Sylvain's implores your excellency 
 witTi one word: 
 
 "Deign!" 
 
 It is curious that while a modern shopkeeper who 
 sells you a cigar or an automobile or a quarter of 
 lamb does not think it necessary to make you a noble 
 of the ancien regime before commencing business, a 
 shopkeeper who sells you cooked food could not omit 
 
 65 
 
66 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 this preliminary without losing his self-respect. 
 And it is the more curious since all pre-democratic 
 books of travel are full of the cheek of these par- 
 ticular shopkeepers. Such tales of old travellers 
 could scarcely be credited, in spite of their unison, 
 were it not that the ancient tradition of rapacious 
 insolence still survives in wild and barbaric spots 
 like the cathedral cities of England. 
 
 Your excellency, attended by his gentlemen-in- 
 waiting (who apparently never eat, never want to 
 eat), in the intervals of the ceremonious collation 
 will gaze with interest at the Opera, final legacy of 
 the Empire to the Republic. A great nation owes 
 it to itself to possess a splendid opera-palace. Art 
 must be fostered. The gracious amenities of life 
 must be maintained. And this is the State's affair. 
 The State has seen to it. The most gorgeous build- 
 ing in Paris is not the legislative chamber, nor the 
 hall of the University, nor the clearing-house of 
 charity. It is the Opera. The State has paid for 
 it, and the State pays every year for its maintenance. 
 That is, the peasant chiefly pays. There is not a 
 peasant in the farthest corner of France who may 
 not go to bed at dark comforted by the thought that 
 the Opera in Paris is just opening its cavalry-sen- 
 tinelled doors, and lighting its fifteen thousand 
 electric candles, and that he is helping to support all 
 that. Paris does not pay ; the habitues of the Opera 
 do not pay; the yawning tourists do not pay, the 
 grandiose classes do not pay. It is the nation, as a 
 nation, that accepts the burden, because the encour- 
 agement of art is a national duty. (Moreover, 
 
RUSSIAN IMPERIAL BALLET 67 
 
 visiting monarchs have to be diverted. ) Of one sort 
 or another, from the tenor to the vendor of pro- 
 grammes, there are twelve hundred priests and 
 priestesses of art in the superb building. A few 
 may be artists. But it is absolutely certain that all 
 are bureaucrats. 
 
 The Opera is the Circumlocution Office. The | 
 Opera is a State department. More, it is probably 
 the most characteristic of all the State departments, 
 and the most stubbornly reactionary. The nominal 
 director, instead of being omnipotent and godlike, 
 is only a poor human being whose actions are the re- 
 sultant of ten thousand forces that do not fear him. 
 The Opera is above all the theatre of secret influ- 
 ences. Every mystery of its enormous and waste- 
 ful inefficiency can be explained either by the opera- 
 tion of the secret influence or by the operation of 
 the bureaucratic mind. If the most tedious operas 
 are played the most often, if the stage is held by 
 singers who cannot sing, if original artists have no 
 chance there, if the blight of a flaccid perf unctoriness 
 is upon nearly all the performances, if astute moth- 
 ers can sell the virginity of their dancing daughters 
 to powerful purchasers in the wings, the reason is a 
 reason of State. The Opera is the splendid prey 
 of the high officers of State. If such a one wants an 
 evening's entertainment, or a mistress, or to get rid 
 of a mistress, the Opera is there, at his disposition. 
 The foyer de la danse is the most wonderful seraglio 
 in the western world, and it is reserved to the Gov- 
 ernment and to subscribers. Thus is art fostered, 
 and for this does the peasant pay. 
 
 n^r p. 
 
r 
 
 68 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Nevertheless the Opera is a beautiful and impres- 
 sive sight in the late, warm dusk of June. Against 
 the deep purple sky the monument stands up like a 
 mountain; and through its innumerable windows — 
 holes in the floor of heaven — can be glimpsed yel- 
 low clusters of candelabra and perspectives of mar- 
 ble pillars and frescoed walls. And at the foot of 
 the gigantic fapade little brightly coloured figures 
 are running up the steps and disappearing eagerly 
 within: they are the world of fashion, and they 
 know that they are correct and that the Opera is the 
 Opera. 
 
 e7* «?* t?* t5* 
 
 I looked over the crimson plush edge of the box 
 down into Egypt, where Cleopatra was indulging 
 her desires ; into a civilisation so gorgeous, primitive, 
 and far-off that when compared to it the eighteenth 
 and the twentieth centuries seemed as like as two peas 
 in their sophistication and sobriety. Cleopatra had 
 set eyes on a youth, and a whim for him had taken 
 her. By no matter what atrocious exercise of power 
 and infliction of suffering, that whim had to be 
 satisfied on the instant. It was satisfied. And a 
 swift homicide left the Queen untrammelled by any 
 sentimental consequences. The whole affair was 
 finished in a moment, and the curtain falling on all 
 that violent and gorgeous scene. In a moment this 
 Oriental episode, interpreted by semi-Oriental art- 
 ists, had made all the daring prurient suggestiveness 
 of French comedy seem timid and foolish. It was a 
 revelation. A new standard was set, and there was 
 not a vaudevillist in the auditorium but knew that 
 

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 ! W 
 
 
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 r-^ 
 
 
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 LES SVLPHIDES (Page 69) 
 

RUSSIAN IMPERIAL BALLET 69 
 
 neither he nor his interpreters could ever reach that 
 standard. The simple and childlike gestures of the 
 slave-girls as with their bodies and their veils they 
 formed a circular tent to hide Cleopatra and her 
 lover — these gestures took away the breath of pro- 
 test. 
 
 The St. Petersburg and the Moscow troupes, 
 united, of the Russian Imperial Ballet, had been 
 brought to Paris, at vast expense and considerable 
 loss, to present this astounding spectacle of mere 
 magnificent sanguinary lubricity to the cosmopoli- 
 tan fashion of Paris. There the audience actually 
 was, rank after rank of crowded toilettes rising to the 
 dim ceiling, young women from the Avenue du Bois 
 and young women from Arizona, and their protec- 
 tive and possessive men. And nobody blenched, no- 
 body swooned. The audience was taken by assault. 
 The West End of Europe was just staggered into 
 acceptance. As yet London has seen only frag- 
 ments of Russian ballet. But London may and 
 probably will see the whole. Let there be no 
 qualms. London will accept also. London might 
 be horribly scared by one-quarter of the audacity 
 shown in Cleopatra, but it will not be scared by the 
 whole of that audacity. An overdose of a fatal 
 drug is itself an antidote. The fact is, that the 
 spectacle was saved by a sort of moral nudity, and 
 by a naive assurance of its own beauty. Oh! It 
 was extremely beautiful. It was ineffably more 
 beautiful than any other ballet I had ever seen. An 
 artist could feel at once that an intelligence of really 
 remarkable genius had presided over its invention 
 
70 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 and execution. It was masterfully original from 
 the beginning. It continually furnished new ideals 
 of beauty. It had drawn its inspiration from some 
 rich fountain unknown to us occidentals. Neither 
 in its scenery, nor in its grouping, nor in its panto- 
 mime was there any clear trace of that Italian influ- 
 ence which still dominates the European ballet. 
 With a vengeance it was a return to nature and a 
 recommencement. It was brutally direct. It was 
 beastlike; but the incomparable tig?r is a beast. It 
 was not perverse. It was too fresh, zealous, and 
 alive to be perverse. Personally I was conscious of 
 the most intense pleasure that I had experienced in 
 a theatre for years. And this was Russia! This 
 was the country that had made such a deadly and 
 disgusting mess of the Russo-Japanese War. 
 
 t5* «•• e?* <?• 
 
 The box was a stage-box. It consisted of a suite 
 of two drawing-rooms, softly upholstered, lit with 
 electric light, and furnished with easy-chairs and 
 mirrors. A hostess might well have offered tea to 
 a score of guests therein. And as a fact there were 
 a dozen people in it. Its size indicated the dimen- 
 sions of the auditorium, in which it was a mere cell. 
 The curious thing about it was the purely incidental 
 character of its relation to the stage. The front of 
 it was a narrow terrace, like the mouth of a bottle, 
 which offered a magnificent panorama of the audi- 
 torium, with a longitudinal slice of the stage at one 
 extremity. From the terrace one glanced vertically 
 down at the stage, as at a street-pavement from a 
 first-storey window. Three persons could be com- 
 
FRAGILE AND B2ALTIFLL ODALISQUES (Page 77) 
 
RUSSIAN IMPERIAL BALLET 71 
 
 fortable, and four could be uncomfortable, on the 
 terrace. One or two more, by leaning against chair- 
 backs and coiffures, could see half of the longitud- 
 inal slice of the stage. The remaining half-dozen 
 were at liberty to meditate in the luxurious twilight 
 of the drawing-room. The Republic, as operatic 
 manager, sells every night some scores, and on its 
 brilliant nights some hundreds, of expensive seats 
 which it is perfectly well aware give no view what- 
 ever of the stage: another illustration of the truth 
 that the sensibility of the conscience of corporations 
 varies inversely with the size of the corporation. 
 
 But this is nothing. The wonderful aspect of 
 the transaction is that purchasers never lack. They 
 buy and suffer; they buy again and suffer yet 
 again; they live on and reproduce their kind. 
 There was in the hinterland of the box a dapper, viva- 
 cious man who might (if he had wasted no time) 
 have been grandfather to a man as old as I. He 
 was eighty-five years old, and he had sat in boxes 
 of an evening for over sixty years. He talked eas- 
 ily of the heroic age before the Revolution of '48, 
 when, of course, every woman was an enchantress, 
 and the farces at the Palais Royal were really amus- 
 ing. He could pipe out whole pages of farce. 
 Except during the entr'actes this man's curiosity 
 did not extend beyond the shoulders of the young 
 women on the terrace. For him the spectacle might 
 have been something going on round the corner of 
 the next street. He was in a spacious and discreet 
 drawing-room; he had the habit of talking; talking 
 was an essential part of his nightly hygiene; and he 
 
72 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 talked. Continually impinging, in a manner 
 fourth-dimensional, on my vision of Cleopatra's 
 violent afternoon, came the "Je me rappelle" of this 
 ancient. Now he was in Rome, now he was in Lon- 
 don, and now he was in Florence. He went nightly 
 to the Pergola Theatre when Florence was the capi- 
 tal of Italy. He had tales of kings. He had one 
 tale of a king which, as I could judge from the 
 hard perfection of its phraseology, he had been re- 
 peating on every night-out for fifty years. Accord- 
 ing to this narration he was promenading the inevit- 
 able pretty woman in the Cascine at Florence, when 
 a heavily moustached person en civil flashed by, 
 driving a pair of superb bays, and he explained not 
 without pride to the pretty woman that she looked 
 on a king. 
 
 "It is that, the king?" exclaimed the pretty in- 
 genue too loudly. 
 
 And with a grand bow ( of which the present gen- 
 eration has lost the secret) the moustaches, all flash- 
 ing and driving, leaned from the equipage and an- 
 swered : "Yes, madame, it is that, the king." 
 
 <c Et si vous aviez vu la tete de la dame . . . f 
 
 In those days society existed. 
 
 I should have heard many more such tales during 
 the entr'acte, but I had to visit the stage. Strictly, 
 I did not desire to visit the stage, but as I possessed 
 the privilege of doing so, I felt bound in pride to go. 
 I saw myself at the great age of eighty-five re- 
 counting to somebody else's grandchildren the mar- 
 vels that I had witnessed in the coulisses of the 
 Paris Opera during the unforgettable season of the 
 
J 
 
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 ; 
 
 
 
 c 
 
 fc^N 
 
 
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 i 
 
 ft 
 
 tH ' 
 
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 THE UNFORGETTABLE SEASON (Page 72) 
 
RUSSIAN IMPERIAL BALLET 73 
 
 Russian Imperial Ballet in the early years of the 
 century, when society existed. 
 
 At an angle of a passage which connects the audi- 
 torium with the tray (the stage is called the tray, 
 and those who call the stage the stage at the Opera 
 are simpletons and lack guile) were a table and a 
 chair, and, partly on the chair and partly on the 
 table, a stout respectable man: one of the twelve 
 hundred. He looked like a town-councillor, and 
 his life-work on this planet was to distinguish be- 
 tween persons who had the entry and persons who 
 had not the entry. He doubted my genuineness at 
 once, and all the bureaucrat in him glowered from 
 his eyes. Yes ! My card was all right, but it made 
 no mention of madame. Therefore, I might pass, 
 but madame might not. Moreover, save in cases 
 very exceptional, ladies were not admitted to the 
 tray. So it appeared ! I was up against an entire 
 department of the State. Human nature is such 
 that at that moment, had some power offered me the 
 choice between the ability to write a novel as fine 
 as Crime and Punishment and the ability to tri- 
 umph instantly over the pestilent town-councillor, 
 I would have chosen the latter. I retired in good 
 order. ''You little suspect, town-councillor," I said 
 to him within myself, "that I am the guest of the 
 management, that I am extremely intimate with the 
 management, and that, indeed, the management is 
 my washpot!" At the next entr'acte I returned 
 again with an omnipotent document which in- 
 structed the whole twelve hundred to let both mon- 
 sieur and madame pass anywhere, everywhere. The 
 
74 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 town-councillor admitted that it was perfect, so far 
 as it went. But there was the question of my hat 
 to be considered. I was not wearing the right kind 
 of hat! The town councillor planted both his feet 
 firmly on tradition, and defied imperial passports. 
 "Can you have any conception," I cried to him within 
 myself, "how much this hat cost me at Henry 
 Heath's?" Useless! Nobody ever had passed, and 
 nobody ever would pass, from the auditorium to the 
 tray in a hat like mine. It was unthinkable. It 
 would be an outrage on the Code Napoleon. . . . 
 After all, the man had his life-work to perform. At 
 length he offered to keep my hat for me till I came 
 back. I yielded. I was beaten. I was put to 
 shame. But he had earned a night's repose. 
 
 J* (5* t5* t5* 
 
 The famous, the notorious foyer de la danse was 
 empty. Here was an evening given exclusively to 
 the ballet, and not one member of the corps had had 
 the idea of exhibiting herself in the showroom spe- 
 cially provided by the State as a place or rendez- 
 vous for ladies and gentlemen. The most precious 
 quality of an annual subscription for a seat at the 
 Opera is that it carries with it the entry to the 
 foyer de la danse (provided one's hat is right) ; if it 
 did not, the subscriptions to the Opera would as- 
 suredly diminish. And lo ! the gigantic but tawdry 
 mirror which gives a factitious amplitude to a room 
 that is really small, did not reflect the limbs of a 
 single dancer! The place had a mournful, shabby- 
 genteel look, as of a resort gradually losing fashion. 
 It was tarnished. It did not in the least correspond 
 
r 
 
 Sk 
 
 -vi 
 
 ' >£& 
 
 AN HONEST MISS (Pa?e 75) 
 
RUSSIAN IMPERIAL BALLET 75 
 
 with a young man's dreams of it. Yawning tedium 
 hung in it like a vapour, that tedium which is the 
 implacable secret enemy of dissoluteness. This, the 
 foyer de la danse, where the insipidly vicious hero- 
 ines of Halevy's ironic masterpiece achieved, with 
 a mother's aid, their ducal conquests! It was as 
 cruel a disillusion as the first sight of Rome or Jeru- 
 salem. Its meretriciousness would not have de- 
 ceived even a visionary parlour-maid. Neverthe- 
 less, the world of the Opera was astounded at the 
 neglect of its hallowed foyer by these young women 
 from St. Petersburg and Moscow. I was told, with 
 emotion, that on only two occasions in the whole 
 season had a Russian girl wandered therein. The 
 legend of the sobriety and the chastity of these 
 strange Russians was abroad in the Opera like a 
 strange, uncanny tale. Frankly, Paris could not 
 understand it. Because all these creatures were 
 young, and all of them conformed to some standard 
 or other of positive physical beauty! They could 
 not be old, for the reason that a ukase obliged them 
 to retire after twenty years' service at latest ; that is, 
 at about the age of thirty-six, a time of woman's life 
 which on the Paris stage is regarded as infancy. 
 Such a ukase must surely have been promulgated 
 by Ivan the Terrible or Catherine! . . . No! 
 Paris never recovered from the wonder of the fact 
 that when they were not dancing these lovely girls 
 were just honest misses, with apparently no taste 
 for bank-notes and spiced meats, even in the fever 
 of an unexampled artistic and fashionable success. 
 Amid the turmoil of the stage, where the prodi- 
 
76 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 giously original peacock-green scenery of Schehera- 
 zade was being set, a dancer could be seen here and 
 there in a corner, waiting, preoccupied, worried, 
 practising a step or a gesture. I was clumsy 
 enough to encounter one of the principals who did 
 not want to be encountered; we could not escape 
 from each other. There was nothing for it but to 
 shake hands. His face assumed the weary, unwill- 
 ing smile of conventional politeness. His fingers 
 were limp. 
 
 "It pleases you?" 
 
 "Enormously." 
 
 I turned resolutely away at once, and with relief 
 he lapsed back into his preoccupation concerning 
 the half-hour's intense emotional and physical la- 
 bour that lay immediately in front of him. In a 
 few moments the curtain went up, and the terrific 
 creative energy of the troupe began to vent itself. 
 And I began to understand a part of the secret of 
 the extreme brilliance of the Russian ballet. 
 
 <?• «•• t?* «•• 
 
 The brutality of Scheherazade was shocking. It 
 was the Arabian Nights treated with imaginative 
 realism. In perusing the Arabian Nights we never 
 try to picture to ourselves the manners of a real 
 Bagdad; or we never dare. We lean on the pictur- 
 esque splendour and romantic poetry of certain 
 aspects of the existence portrayed, and we shirk the 
 basic facts : the crudity of the passions, and the su- 
 perlative cruelty informing the whole social system. 
 For example, we should not dream of dwelling on 
 the more serious functions of the caliphian eunuchs. 
 
rar 
 
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 rW^ ; j7t/17i 
 
 rvi\\ 
 
 Hum 
 lytli { 
 
 ivfr 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 SCHEHKKA/ADK iPaffe ?6t 
 
RUSSIAN IMPERIAL BALLET 77 
 
 In the surpassing fury and magnificence of the Rus- 
 sian ballet one saw eunuchs actually at work, scimi- 
 tar in hand. There was the frantic orgy, and then 
 there was the barbarous punishment, terrible and re- 
 volting ; certainly one of the most sanguinary sights 
 ever seen on an occidental stage. The eunuchs pur- 
 sued the fragile and beautiful odalisques with 
 frenzy; in an instant the seraglio was strewn with 
 murdered girls in all the abandoned postures of 
 death. And then silence, save for the hard breath- 
 ing of the executioners! ... A thrill! It 
 would seem incredible that such a spectacle should 
 give pleasure. Yet it unquestionably did, and very 
 exquisite pleasure. The artists, both the creative 
 and the interpretative, had discovered an artistie 
 convention which was at once grandiose and truth- 
 ful. The passions displayed were primitive, but 
 they were ennobled in their illustration. The per- 
 formance was regulated to the least gesture ; no de- 
 tail was unstudied; and every moment was beauti- 
 ful ; not a few were sublime. 
 
 And all this a by-product of Russian politics! 
 If the politics of France are subtly corrupt ; if any- 
 thing can be done in France by nepotism and influ- 
 ence, and nothing without; if the governing ma- 
 chine of France is fatally vitiated by an excessive 
 and unimaginative centralisation — the same is far 
 more shamefully true of Russia. The fantastic in- 
 efficiency of all the great departments of State in 
 Russia is notorious and scandalous. But the Im- 
 perial ballet, where one might surely have presumed 
 an intensification of every defect (as in Paris), 
 
78 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 happens to be far nearer perfection than any other 
 enterprise of its kind, public or private. It is genu- 
 inely dominated by artists of the first rank; it is in- 
 vigorated by a real discipline; and the results 
 achieved approach the miraculous. The pity is that 
 the moujik can never learn that one, at any rate, of 
 the mysterious transactions which pass high up over 
 his head, and for which he is robbed, is in itself hon- 
 est and excellent. An alleviating thought for the 
 moujik, if only it could be knocked into his great 
 thick head! For during the performance of the 
 Russian Imperial Ballet at the Paris Opera, amid 
 all the roods of toilettes and expensive correctness, 
 one thinks of the moujik; or one ought to think of 
 him. He is at the bottom of it. See him in Tche- 
 koff's masterly tale, The Moujiks, in his dirt, 
 squalor, drunkenness, lust, servitude, and despair! 
 Realise him well at the back of your mind as you 
 watch the ballet! Your delightful sensations be- 
 fore an unrivalled work of art are among the things 
 he has paid for. 
 
 (5# (5* «?• €?• 
 
 Walking home, I was attracted, within a few hun- 
 dred yards of the Opera, by the new building of the 
 Magasins du Printemps. Instead of being lighted 
 up and all its galleries busy with thousands of 
 women in search of adornment, it stood dark and 
 deserted. But at one of the entrances was a feeble 
 ray. I could not forbear going into the porch and 
 putting my nose against the glass. The head- 
 watchman was seated in the centre of the ground- 
 floor chatting with a colleague. With a lamp and 
 
■CHIEF EL'NL'CH (Page 77) 
 
RUSSIAN IMPERIAL BALLET 79 
 
 chairs they had constructed a little domesticity for 
 themselves in the middle of that acreage of silks and 
 ribbons and feathers all covered now with pale dust- 
 sheets. They were the centre of a small sphere of 
 illumination, and in the surrounding gloom could be 
 dimly discerned gallery after gallery rising in a 
 slender lacework of iron. The vision of Bagdad 
 had been inexpressibly romantic ; but this vision also 
 was inexpressibly romantic. There was something 
 touching in the humanity of those simple men amid 
 the vast nocturnal stillness of that organism — the 
 most spectacular, the most characteristic, the most 
 spontaneous, and perhaps the most beautiful sym- 
 bol of an age which is just as full of romance as any 
 other age. The human machine and the scenic pan- 
 orama of the big shop have always attracted me, 
 as in Paris so in London. And looking at this par- 
 ticular, wonderful shop in its repose I could con- 
 template better the significance of its activity. 
 What singular ideals have the women who passion- 
 ately throng it in the eternal quest ! I say "passion- 
 ately," because I have seen eyes glitter with fierce 
 hope in front of a skunk boa or the tints of a new 
 stuff, translating instantly these material things 
 into terms of love and adoration. What cruelty is 
 hourly practised upon the other women who must 
 serve and smile and stand on their feet in the stuffi- 
 ness of the heaped and turbulent galleries eleven 
 hours a day six full days a week ; and upon the still 
 other women, unpresentable, who in their high gar- 
 rets stitch together these confections! And how 
 fine and how inspiriting it all is, this fever, and these 
 
80 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 delusive hopes, and this cruelty! The other women 
 are asleep now, repairing damage; but in a very 
 few hours they will be converging here in long hur- 
 ried files from the four quarters of Paris, in their 
 enforced black, and tying their black aprons, and 
 pinning on their breasts the numbered discs which 
 distinguish them from one another in the judgment- 
 books of the shop. They will be beginning again. 
 The fact is that Bagdad is nothing to this. Only 
 people are so blind. 
 
LIFE IN LONDON— 1911 
 
THE RESTAURANT 
 
 You have a certain complacency in entering it, 
 because it is one of the twenty monster restaurants 
 of London. The name glitters in the public mind. 
 "Where shall we dine?" The name suggests it- 
 self; by the immense force of its notoriety it comes 
 unsought into the conversation like a thing alive. 
 "All right ! Meet you in the Lounge at 7.45." You 
 feel— whatever your superficial airs— that you are 
 in the whirl of correctness as you hurry (of course 
 late) out of a taxi into the Lounge. There is some- 
 thing about the word "Lounge" . . .! Space 
 and freedom in the Lounge, and a foretaste of lux- 
 ury ; and it is inhabited by the haughty of the earth! 
 You are not yet a prisoner, in the Lounge. Then 
 an official, with the metallic insignia of authority, 
 takes you apart. He is very deferential— but with 
 the intimidating deference of a limited company that 
 pays forty per cent. You can go upstairs— though 
 he doubts if there is immediately a table — or you 
 can go downstairs. (Strange, how in the West- 
 End, when once you quit the street, you must al- 
 ways go up or down; the planet's surface is forbid- 
 den to you; you lose touch with it; the ground-land- 
 lord has taken it and hidden it.) You go down- 
 stairs; you are hypnotised into going downstairs; 
 
84 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 and you go down, and down, one of a procession, 
 until a man, entrenched in a recess furnished to 
 look like a ready-made tailor's, accepts half your 
 clothing and adds it to his stock. He does not ask 
 for it ; he need not ; you are hypnotised. Stripped, 
 you go further down and down. You are now 
 part of the tremendous organism; you have left 
 behind not merely your clothing, but your volition; 
 your number is in your hand. 
 
 Suddenly, as you pass through a doorway, great 
 irregular vistas of a subterranean chamber discover 
 themselves to you, limitless. You perceive that 
 this wondrous restaurant ramifies under all Lon- 
 don, and that a table on one verge is beneath St. 
 Paul's Cathedral, and a table on the other verge 
 beneath the Albert Memorial. All the tables — all 
 the thousands of tables — are occupied. An official 
 comes to you, and, putting his mouth to your ear 
 (for the din is terrific) , tells you that he will have a 
 table for you in three minutes. You wait, forlorn. 
 It reminds you of waiting at the barber's for a 
 shave, except that the barber gives you an easy-chair 
 and a newspaper. Here you must stand ; and you 
 must gather your skirts about you and stand firm to 
 resist the shock of blind waiters. Others are in 
 your case; others have been waiting longer than 
 you, and at every moment more arrive. You wait. 
 The diners see you waiting, and you wonder whether 
 they are eating slowly on purpose. . . . At 
 length you are led away — far, far from the pit's 
 mouth into a remote working of the mine. You 
 watch a man whisk away foul plates and glasses, 
 

 
 r -s ~y 
 
 ? «;,ft^MW" 
 
 HE IS VERY DEFERENTIAL (Page S3) 
 
THE RESTAURANT 85 
 
 and cover off ence with a pure white cloth. You sit. 
 You are saved ! And human nature is such that you 
 feel positively grateful to the limited com- 
 pany. . . . 
 
 t5* (5* t5* «5* 
 
 You begin to wait again, having been deserted 
 by your saviours. And then your wandering at- 
 tention notices behind you, under all the other 
 sounds, a steady sound of sizzling. And there fat, 
 greasy men, clothed and capped in white, are throw- 
 ing small fragments of animal carcases on to a 
 huge, red fire, and pulling them off in the nick of 
 time, and flinging them on to plates which are con- 
 tinually being snatched away by flying hands. 
 The grill, as advertised! And you wait, helpless, 
 through a period so long that if a live cow and a 
 live sheep had been led into the restaurant to sat- 
 isfy the British passion for realism in eating, there 
 would have been time for both animals to be mur- 
 dered, dismembered, and fried before the gaze of 
 a delighted audience. But fear not. The deity 
 of the organism, though unseen, is watching over 
 you. You have not been omitted from the divine 
 plan. Presently a man approaches with a gigan- 
 tic menu, upon which are printed the names of 
 hundreds of marvellous dishes, and you can have 
 any of them — and at most reasonable prices. 
 Only, you must choose at once. You must say in- 
 stantly to the respectful but inexorable official ex- 
 actly what you will have. You are lost in the menu 
 as in a labyrinth, as in a jungle at nightfall. . . . 
 Quick! For, as you have waited, so are others 
 
86 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 waiting! Out with it! You drop the menu. 
 ''Roast beef and Yorkshire pudding — Guinness." 
 The magic phrase releases you. In the tenth of a 
 second the official has vanished. A railway truck 
 laden with the gifts of Cuba and Sumatra and the 
 monks of the Chartreuse, sweeps majestically by, 
 blotting out the horizon; and lo! no sooner has it 
 glided past than you see men hastening towards 
 you with plates and bottles. With an astounding 
 celerity the beef and the stout have arrived — out of 
 the unknown and the unknowable, out of some se- 
 cret place in the centre of the earth, where rows 
 and rows of slices of beef and bottles of stout wait 
 enchanted for your word. 
 
 All the thousands of tables scintillate with linen 
 and glass and silver, and steel and ivory, and are 
 bright with flowers; ten thousand blossoms have 
 been wrenched from their beds and marshalled here 
 in captive regiments to brighten the beef and stout 
 on which your existence depends. The carpet is a 
 hot crimson bed of flowers. The whole of the ceil- 
 ing is carved and painted and gilded; not a square 
 inch of repose in the entire busy expanse of it ; and 
 from it thousands of blinding electric bulbs hang 
 down like stalactites. The walls are covered with 
 enormous mirrors, perversely studded with gold 
 nails, and framed in gold sculpture. And these 
 mirrors fling everything remorselessly back at you. 
 So that the immensity and glow of the restau- 
 rant are multiplied to infinity. The band is fight- 
 ing for its life. An agonised violinist, swaying 
 and contorting in front of the band, squeezes the 
 
iU 
 
 -v'V 't, - f * 
 
 v>; K? ^ 
 
 
 THE RESTAURANT (Page St) 
 
THE RESTAURANT 87 
 
 last drop of juice out of his fiddle. The "selec- 
 tion" is "Carmen." But "Carmen" raised to the 
 second power, with every piano, forte, allegro, and 
 adagio exaggerated to the last limit; "Carmen" 
 composed by Souza and executed by super-Sicil- 
 ians; a "Carmen" deafening and excruciating! 
 And amid all this light and sound, amid the music 
 and the sizzling, and the clatter of plates and glass, 
 and the reverberation of the mirrors, and the whir- 
 ring of the ventilators, and the sheen of gold, and 
 the harsh glitter of white, and the dull hum of 
 hundreds of strenuous conversations, and the hoarse 
 cries of the pale demons at the fire, and the haste, 
 and the crowdedness, and the people waiting for 
 your table— you eat. You practise the fine art of 
 
 dining. 
 
 In a paroxysm the music expires. The effect 
 is as disconcerting as though the mills of God had 
 stopped. Applause, hearty and prolonged, re- 
 sounds in the bowels of the earth. . . . You 
 learn that the organism exists because people really 
 like it. 
 
 ^ «* * <* 
 
 This is a fearful and a romantic place. Those 
 artists who do not tingle to the romance of it are 
 dead and have forgotten to be buried. The ro- 
 mance of it rises grandiosely storey beyond storey. 
 For you must know that while you are dining in the 
 depths, the courtesans and their possessors are din- 
 ing in the skies. And the most romantic and im- 
 pressive thing about it all is the invisible secret 
 thoughts, beneath the specious bravery, of the un- 
 
88 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 countable multitude gathered together under the 
 spell of the brains that invented the organism. 
 Can you not look through the transparent faces of 
 the young men with fine waistcoats and neglected 
 boots, and of the young women with concocted hats 
 and insecure gay blouses, and of the waiters whose 
 memories are full of Swiss mountains and Italian 
 lakes and German beer gardens, and of the violinist 
 who was proclaimed a Kubelik at the Conservatoire 
 and who now is carelessly pronounced "jolly good" 
 by eaters of beefsteaks ? Can you not look through 
 and see the wonderful secret pre-occupations? If 
 so, you can also pierce walls and floors, and see 
 clearly into the souls of the cooks and the sub-cooks, 
 and the cellar-men, and the commissionaires in the 
 rain, and the washers-up. They are all there, in- 
 cluding the human beings with loves and ambitions 
 who never do anything for ever and ever but wash 
 up. These are wistful, but they are not more wist- 
 ful than the seraphim and cherubim of the upper 
 floors. The place is grandiose and imposing; it 
 has the dazzle of extreme success; but when you 
 have stared it down it is wistful enough to make 
 you cry. 
 
 Accidentally your eye rests on the gorgeous frieze 
 in front of you, and after a few moments, among 
 the complex scrollwork and interlaced Cupids, you 
 discern a monogram, not large, not glaring, not 
 leaping out at you, but concealed in fact rather 
 modestly! You decipher the monogram. It con- 
 tains the initials of the limited company paying 
 
THK BAND (Page 86) 
 
THE RESTAURANT 89 
 
 forty per cent, and also of the very men whose 
 brains invented the organism. They are men. 
 They may be great men: they probably are; but 
 they are men. 
 
II 
 
 BY THE RIVER 
 
 Every morning I get up early, and, going 
 straight to the window, I see half London from an 
 eighth-storey. I see factory chimneys poetised, 
 and the sign of a great lion against the sky, and the 
 dome of St. Paul's rising magically out of the mist, 
 and pearl-coloured minarets round about the hori- 
 zon, and Waterloo Bridge suspended like a dream 
 over the majestic river; and all that sort of thing. 
 I am obliged, in spite of myself, to see London 
 through the medium of the artistic sentimentalism 
 of ages. I am obliged even to see it through the 
 individual eyes of Claude Monet, whose visions of 
 it I nevertheless resent. I do not want to see, for 
 example, Waterloo Bridge suspended like a dream 
 over the majestic river. I much prefer to see it 
 firmly planted in the plain water. And I ulti- 
 mately insist on so seeing it. The Victoria Em- 
 bankment has been, and still is, full of pitfalls for 
 the sentimentalist in art as in sociology; I would 
 walk warily to avoid them. The river at dawn, the 
 river at sunset, the river at midnight (with its 
 myriad lamps, of course) ! . . . Let me have 
 the river at eleven a. m. for a change, or at tea-time. 
 And let me patrol its banks without indulging in 
 an orgy of melodramatic contrasts. 
 
 90 
 
BY THE RIVER 91 
 
 I will not be carried away by the fact that the 
 grand hotels, with their rosy saloons and fair 
 women (not invariably or even generally fair!), 
 look directly down upon the homeless wretches hud- 
 dled on the Embankment benches. Such a juxta- 
 position is accidental and falsifying. Nor will I 
 be imposed upon by the light burning high in the 
 tower of St. Stephen's to indicate that the legisla- 
 tors are watching over Israel. I think of the House 
 of Commons at question-time, and I hear the rus- 
 tling as two hundred schoolboyish human beings 
 (not legislators nor fathers of their country) si- 
 multaneously turn over a leaf of two hundred ques- 
 tion-papers, and I observe the self-consciousness of 
 honourable members as they walk in and out, and 
 the naive pleasure of the Labour member in his enor- 
 mous grey wideawake, and the flower in the but- 
 tonhole of the white-haired and simple ferocious 
 veteran of democracy, and the hobnobbing over 
 stewed tea and sultana on the draughty terrace. 
 
 Nor, when I look at the finely symbolic architec- 
 ture of New Scotland Yard, will I be obsessed by 
 the horrors of the police system and of the prison 
 system and by the wrongness of the world. I re- 
 gard with fraternal interest the policeman in his 
 shirt-sleeves lolling at a fourth-floor window. 
 Thirty, twenty, years ago people used to be stag- 
 gered by the sudden discovery that, in the old He- 
 braic sense of the word, there was no God. It 
 winded them, and some of them have never got 
 over it. Nowadays people are being staggered by 
 the sudden discovery that there is something funda- 
 
92 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 mentally wrong with the structure of society. 
 This discovery induces a nervous disease which runs 
 through whole thoughtful multitudes. I suffer 
 from it myself. Nevertheless, just as it is certain 
 that there is a God, of some kind, so it is certain 
 that there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the 
 structure of society. There is something wrong — 
 but it is not fundamental. There always has been 
 and always will be something wrong. Do you sup- 
 pose, O reformer, that when land-values are taxed, 
 and war and poverty and slavery and overwork 
 and underfeeding and disease and cruelty have dis- 
 appeared, that the structure of society will seem a 
 whit the less wrong? Never! A moderate sense 
 of its wrongness is precisely what most makes life 
 worth living. 
 
 <5* t?* t?w t5» 
 
 Between my lofty dwelling and the river is a 
 large and beautiful garden, ornamented with stat- 
 ues of heroes. It occupies ground whose annual 
 value is probably quite ten thousand pounds — that 
 is to say, the interest on a quarter of a million. It 
 is tended by several County Council gardeners, who 
 spend comfortable lives in it, and doubtless thereby 
 support their families in dignity. Its lawns are 
 wondrous; its parterres are full of flowers, and its 
 statues are cleansed perhaps more thoroughly than 
 the children of the poor. This garden is, as a rule, 
 almost empty. I use it a great deal, and sometimes 
 I am the only person in it. Its principal occupants 
 are well-dressed men of affairs, who apparently 
 
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 tr §sTff 
 
 C- 'J 
 
 
 
 
 IN THE EMBANKMENT GARDENS (Page 92) 
 
BY THE RIVER 93 
 
 employ it, as I do, as a ground for reflection. 
 Nursemaids bring into it the children of the rich. 
 The children of the poor are not to be seen in it — ■ 
 they might impair the lawns, or even commit the 
 horrible sin of picking the blossoms. During the 
 only hours when the poor could frequent it, it is 
 thoughtfully closed. The poor pay, and the rich 
 enjoy. If I paid my proper share of the cost of 
 that garden, each of my visits would run me into 
 something like half-a-sovereign. My pleasure is 
 being paid for up all manner of side-streets. This 
 is wrong; it is scandalous. I would, and I will, 
 support any measure that promises to rectify the 
 wrongness. But in the meantime I intend to have 
 my fill of that garden, and to savour the great sen- 
 sations thereof. I will not be obsessed by one as- 
 pect of it. 
 
 The great sensations are not perhaps what one 
 would have expected to be the great sensations. 
 Neither domes, nor towers, nor pinnacles, nor spec- 
 tacular contrasts, nor atmospheric effects, nor the 
 Wordsworthian "mighty heart"! It is the County 
 Council tram, as copied from Glasgow and Man- 
 chester, that appeals more constantly and more 
 profoundly than anything else of human creation 
 to my romantic sensibility "Yes," I am told, "the 
 tram-cars look splendid at night!" I do not mean 
 specially at night. I mean in the day. And fur- 
 ther, I have no desire to call them ships, or to call 
 them aught but tram-cars. For me they resemble 
 just tram-cars, though I admit that when forty or 
 
94 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 fifty of them are crowded together, they remind me 
 somewhat of a herd of elephants. They are enor- 
 mous and beautiful; they are admirably designed, 
 and they function perfectly; they are picturesque, 
 inexplicable, and uncanny. They come to rest with 
 the gentleness of doves, and they hurtle through 
 the air like shells. Their motion — smooth, delicate 
 and horizontal — is always delightful. They are 
 absolutely modern, new, and original. There was 
 never anything like them before, and only when 
 something different and better supersedes them will 
 their extraordinary gliding picturesqueness be ap- 
 preciated. They never cease. They roll along 
 day and night without a pause ; in the middle of the 
 night you can see them glittering away to the ends 
 of the county. At six o'clock in the morning 
 they roll up over the horizon of Westminster 
 Bridge in hundreds incessantly, and swing down- 
 wards and round sharply away from the Parlia- 
 ment which for decades refused them access to their 
 natural gathering-place. They are a thrilling 
 sight. And see the pigmy in the forefront of each 
 one, rather like a mahout on the neck of an ele- 
 phant, doing as he likes with the obedient mon- 
 ster! And see the scores of pigmies inside each of 
 them, black dots that jump out like fleas and dis- 
 appear like fleas! The loaded tram stops, and in 
 a moment it is empty, and of the contents there is 
 no trace. The contents are dissolved in London. 
 . . . And then see London precipitate the con- 
 tents again; and watch the leviathans, gorged, 
 
BY THE RIVER 95 
 
 glide off in endless procession to spill immortal souls 
 in the evening suburbs ! 
 
 <?• «?* e5* (5* 
 
 But the greatest sensation offered by the garden, 
 though it happens to be a mechanical contrivance, 
 is entirely independent of the County Council. It 
 is — not the river — but the movement of the tide. 
 Imagination is required in order to conceive the 
 magnitude, the irresistibility, and the consequences 
 of this tremendous shuttle-work, which is regulated 
 from the skies, rules the existence of tens of thou- 
 sands of people, and casually displaces incalculable 
 masses of physical matter. And the curious human 
 thing is that it fails to rouse the imagination of the 
 town. It cleaves through the town, and yet is ut- 
 terly foreign to it, having been estranged from it 
 by the slow evolutionary process. All those tram- 
 cars roll up over the horizon of Westminster 
 Bridge, and cross the flood and run for a mile on 
 its bank, and not one man in every tenth tram-car 
 gives the faintest attention to the state of the river. 
 A few may carelessly notice that the tide is "in" 
 or "out," but how many realise the implications? 
 For all they feel, the river might be a painted 
 stream! No wonder that the touts crying "Steam- 
 boat! Steamboat!" have a mournful gesture, and 
 the "music on board" sounds thin, like a hallucina- 
 tion, as the shabby paddle-wheels pound the water ! 
 The cause of the failure of municipal steamers is 
 more recondite than the yellow motor-cars of the 
 journals which took pride in having ruined them. 
 
96 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 And the one satisfactory inference from the failure 
 is that human nature is far less dependent on non- 
 human nature than vague detractors of the former 
 and devotees of the latter would admit. It is, after 
 all, rather fine to have succeeded in ignoring the 
 Thames ! 
 
Ill 
 
 THE CLUB 
 
 It was founded for an ideal. Its scope is na- 
 tional, and its object to regenerate the race, to 
 remedy injustice, and to proclaim the brotherhood 
 of mankind. It is for the poor against the pluto- 
 crat, and for the slave against the tyrant, and for 
 democracy against feudalism. It is, in a word, of 
 the kingdom of heaven. It was born amid im- 
 mense collisions, and in the holy war it is the of- 
 ficial headquarters of those who are on the side of 
 the angels. In its gigantic shadow the weak and 
 the oppressed sell newspapers and touch their hats 
 to the warriors as they pass in and pass out. 
 
 The place is as superb as its ideal. No half 
 measures were taken when it was conceived and 
 constructed. Its situation is among the most ex- 
 pensive and beautiful in the world of cities. Its 
 architecture is grandiose, its square columned hall 
 and its vast staircase (hewn from Carrara) are two 
 of the sights of London. It is like a town, but a 
 town of Paradise. When the warrior enters its 
 portals he is confronted by instruments and docu- 
 ments which inform him with silent precision of 
 the time, the temperature, the barometric pressure, 
 the catalogue of nocturnal amusements, and the 
 colour of the government that happens to be in 
 
 9T 
 
98 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 power. The last word spoken in Parliament, the 
 last quotation on the Stock Exchange, the last 
 wager at Newmarket, the last run scored at cricket, 
 the result of the last race, the last scandal, the last 
 disaster — all these things are specially printed for 
 him hour by hour, and pinned up unavoidably be- 
 fore his eyes. If he wants to bet, he has only to put 
 his name on a card entitled "Derby Sweepstake." 
 Valets take his hat and stick; others (working sev- 
 enty hours a week) shave him; others polish his 
 boots. 
 
 (?• *?• *?• t?* 
 
 The staircase being not for use, but merely to 
 immortalise the memory of the architect, he is 
 wafted upwards by a lift into a Titanic apartment 
 studded with a thousand easy-chairs, and furnished 
 with newspapers, cigars, cigarettes, implements of 
 play, and all the possibilities of light refection. He 
 lapses into a chair, and lo! a bell is under his hand. 
 Ting! And a uniformed and initialled being 
 stands at attention in front of him, not speaking 
 till he speaks, and receiving his command with the 
 formalities of deference. He wishes to write a let- 
 ter — a table is at his side, with all imaginable sta- 
 tionery; a machine offers him a stamp, another licks 
 the stamp, and an Imperial letter-box is within 
 reach of his arm, — it is not considered sufficient 
 that there should be a post-office, with young 
 girls who have passed examinations, in the build- 
 ing itself. He then chats, while sipping and smok- 
 ing, or nibbling a cake, with other reclining war- 
 riors; and the hum of their clatter rises steadily 
 
HE SLUMBERS ALONE (Page 99) 
 
THE CLUB 
 
 99 
 
 uni- 
 
 from the groups of chairs, inspiring the 
 formed and initialled beings who must not speak 
 till spoken to with hopes of triumphant democracy 
 and the millennium. For when they are not discuss- 
 ing more pacific and less heavenly matters, the 
 warriors really do discuss the war, and how they 
 fought yesterday, and how they will fight to-mor- 
 row. If at one moment the warrior is talking 
 about "a perfectly pure Chianti that I have brought 
 from Italy in a cask," at the next he is planning to 
 close public-houses on election days. 
 
 When he has had enough of such amiable gossip 
 he quits the easy chair, in order to occupy another 
 one in another room where he is surrounded by all 
 the periodical literature of the entire world, and 
 by the hushed murmur of intellectual conversation 
 and the discreet stirring of spoons in tea-cups. 
 Here he acquaints himself with the progress of the 
 war and the fluctuations of his investments and the 
 price of slaves. And when even the solemnity of 
 this chamber begins to offend his earnestness, he 
 glides into the speechless glamour of an enormous 
 library, where the tidings of the day are repeated 
 a third time, and, amid the companionship of a 
 hundred thousand volumes and all the complex ap- 
 paratus of research, he slumbers, utterly alone. 
 
 Late at night, when he has eaten and drunk, and 
 played cards and billiards and dominoes and 
 draughts and chess, he finds himself once more in 
 the smoking-room— somehow more intimate now— 
 with a few cronies, including one or two who out in 
 the world are disguised as the enemy. The atmos- 
 
100 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 phere of the place has put him and them into a sort 
 of exquisite coma. Their physical desires are as- 
 suaged, and they know by proof that they are in 
 control of the most perfectly organised mechanism 
 of comfort that was ever devised. Naught is for- 
 gotten, from the famous wines cooling a long age 
 in the sub-basement, to the inanimate chauffeur in 
 the dark, windy street, waiting and waiting till a 
 curt whistle shall start him into assiduous life. 
 They know that never an Oriental despot was bet- 
 ter served than they. Here alone, and in the man- 
 sions of the enemy, has the true tradition of service 
 been conserved. In comparison, the most select 
 hotels and restaurants are a hurly-burly of crude 
 socialism. The bell is under the hand, and the la- 
 belled menial stands with everlasting patience near ; 
 and home and women are far away. And the 
 world is not. 
 
 Forgetting the platitudes of the war, they talk 
 of things as they are. All the goodness of them 
 comes to the surface, and all the weakness. They 
 state their real ambitions and their real prefer- 
 ences. They narrate without reserve their secret 
 grievances and disappointments. They are naked 
 and unashamed. They demand sympathy, and 
 they render it, in generous quantities. And while 
 thus dissipating their energy, they honestly imagine 
 that they are renewing it. The sense of reality 
 gradually goes, and illusion reigns — the illusion 
 that, after all, God is geometrically just, and that 
 strength will be vouchsafed to them according to 
 
THE CLUB 101 
 
 their need, and that they will receive the reward of 
 perfect virtue. 
 
 And their illusive satisfaction is chastened and 
 beautified by the consciousness that the sublime in- 
 stitution of the club is scarcely what it was, — is in 
 fact decadent; and that if it were not vitalised by 
 a splendid ideal, even their club might wilt under 
 the sirocco of modernity. And then the echoing 
 voice of an attendant warns them, with deep re- 
 spect, that the clock moves. But they will not 
 listen, cannot listen. And the voice of the attend- 
 ant echoes again, and half the lights shockingly ex- 
 pire. But still they do not listen; they cannot 
 credit. And then, suddenly, they are in utter dark- 
 ness, and by the glimmer of a match are stumbling 
 against easy-chairs and tables, real easy-chairs and 
 real tables. The spell of illusion is broken. And 
 in a moment they are thrust out, by the wisdom of 
 their own orders, into Pall Mall, into actuality, into 
 the world of two sexes once more. 
 
 e5* <5* t5* t5* 
 
 And yet the sublime institution of the club is 
 not a bit anaemic. Within a quarter of a mile is the 
 monumental proof that the institution has been re- 
 juvenated and ensanguined and empowered. Co- 
 lossal, victorious, expensive, counting its adherents 
 in thousands upon thousands, this monument scorns 
 even the pretence of any ancient ideal, and adopts 
 no new one. The aim of the club used ostensibly 
 to be peace, idealism, a retreat, a refuge. The new 
 aim is pandemonium, and it is achieved. The new 
 
102 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 aim is to let in the world, and it is achieved. The 
 new aim is muscular, and it is achieved. Arms, 
 natation, racquets — anything to subdue the soul 
 and stifle thought! And in the reading-room, 
 dummy books and dummy book-cases ! And a din- 
 ing-room full of bright women; and such a mad 
 competition for meals that glasses and carafes will 
 scarce go round, and strangers must sit together at 
 the same small table without protest! And, to 
 crown the hullaballoo, an orchestra of red-coated 
 Tziganes swaying and yearning and ogling in or- 
 der to soothe your digestion and to prevent you 
 from meditating. 
 
 This club marks the point to which the evolution 
 of the sublime institution has attained. It has 
 come from the shore of Lake Michigan; it is the 
 club of the future, and the forerunner of its kind. 
 Stand on its pavement, and watch its entering 
 heterogeneous crowds, and then throw the glance no 
 more than the length of a cricket-pitch, and watch 
 the brilliantly surviving representatives of feudal- 
 ism itself ascending and descending the steps of 
 the most exclusive club in England; and you will 
 comprehend that even when the House of Lords 
 goes, something will go — something unconsciously 
 cocksure, and perfectly creased, and urbane, and 
 dazzlingly stupid — that was valuable and beauti- 
 ful. And you will comprehend politics better, and 
 the profound truth that it takes all sorts to make a 
 world. 
 

 ■Vv^ 
 
 mn mm ; 
 
 ,U "1 7.-:--» - - " .. *M 
 
 >-r 
 
 THE CLU15 OF THE FUTURE (Page 102) 
 
IV 
 
 THE CIRCUS 
 
 The flowers heaped about the bronze fountain 
 are for them. And so that they may have flowers 
 all day long, older and fatter and shabbier women 
 make their home round the fountain (modelled by 
 a genius to the memory of one whose dream was to 
 abolish the hardships of poverty), with a sugar- 
 box for a drawing-room suite and a sack for a cur- 
 tain; these needy ones live there, to the noise of 
 water, with a secret society of newspaper-sellers, 
 knowing intimately all the capacities of the sugar- 
 box and sack; and on hot days they revolve round 
 the fountain with the sun, for their only sunshade is 
 the shadow of the dolphins. On every side of their 
 habituated tranquillity the odours of petrol swirl. 
 The great gaudy-coloured autobuses, brilliant as 
 the flowers, swing and swerve and grind and sink 
 and recover, and in the forehead of each is a black- 
 ened demon, tremendously preoccupied, and so 
 small and withdrawn as to be often unnoticed; and 
 this demon rushes forward all day with his life in 
 his hand and scores of other lives in his hand, for 
 two pounds a week. When he stops by the foun- 
 tain, he glances at the flowers unseeing, out of the 
 depths of his absorption. He is piloting cargoes 
 of the bright beings for whom the flowers are 
 heaped. 
 
 103 
 
104 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Stand on the steps of the fountain, and look be- 
 tween the autobuses and over the roofs of taxis and 
 the shoulders of policemen, and you will see at 
 eveiy hand a proof that the whole glowing place, 
 with its flags gaily waving and its hubbub of rich 
 hues, exists first and last for those same bright be- 
 ings. If there is a cigar shop, if there is a necktie 
 shop like Joseph's coat, it is to enable the male to cut 
 a dash with those beings. And the life insurance 
 office — would it continue if there were no bright 
 beings to be provided for? And the restaurants! 
 And the I chemists! And the music-hall! The 
 sandwich-men are walking round and round with 
 the names of the most beauteous lifted high on their 
 shoulders. The leather shop is crammed with 
 dressing-cases and hat-boxes for them. The jewel- 
 ler is offering solid gold slave-bangles (because 
 they like the feel of the shackle) at six pound ten. 
 
 And above all there is the great establishment on 
 the corner! An establishment raised by tradition 
 and advertisement and sheer skill to the rank of a 
 national institution, famous from Calgary to the 
 Himalayas, far more famous and beloved than even 
 the greatest poets and philanthropists. An insti- 
 tution established on one of the seven supreme sites 
 of the world! And it is all theirs, all for them! 
 Coloured shoes, coloured frocks, coloured neck- 
 laces, coloured parasols, coloured stockings, jabots, 
 scents, hats, and all manner of flimsy stuffs whose 
 names — such as Shantung — summon up in an in- 
 stant the deep orientalism of the Occident: the in- 
 numerable windows are a perfect riot of these de- 
 
THE CIRCUS 105 
 
 licious affairs! Who could pass them by? This 
 is a wondrous institution. Of a morning, before 
 the heat of the day, you can see coming out of its 
 private half -hidden portals (not the ceremonious 
 glazed doors) black-robed young girls, with their 
 hair down their backs, and the free gestures learnt 
 at school and not yet forgotten, skipping off on I 
 know not what important errands, earning part of 
 a livelihood already in the service of those others. 
 And at its upper windows appear at times more 
 black-robed girls, and disappear, like charming 
 prisoners in a castle. 
 
 J* t5* «?* e5* 
 
 The beings for whom the place exists come down 
 all the curved vistas towards it, on foot or on wheel, 
 all day in radiant droves. They are obliged at any 
 rate to pass through it, for the Circus is their Clap- 
 ham Junction, and the very gate of finery. Im- 
 possible to miss it ! It leads to all coquetry, and all 
 delights and dangers. And not only down the vis- 
 tas are they coming, but they are shot along 
 subterranean tubes, and hurried through endless 
 passages, and flung up at last by lifts from the 
 depths into the open air. And when you look at 
 them you are completely baffled. Because they 
 are English, and the most mysterious women on 
 earth, save the Scandinavians. You cannot get at 
 their secret; it consists in an impenetrable ideal. 
 With the Latin you do come in the end to the solid 
 marble of Latin practicalness; the Latin is per- 
 fectly unromantic. But the romanticism of these 
 English is something so recondite that no research 
 
106 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 and no analysis can approach it. Ibsen could 
 never have made a play out of a Latin woman; 
 but I tell you that, for me, every woman stepping 
 off an autobus and exposing her ankles and her 
 character as she dodges across the Circus, has the 
 look in her face of an Ibsen heroine; she emanates 
 romance and enigma; she is the potential main- 
 spring of a late-Ibsen drama, the kind whose import 
 no critic is ever quite sure of. This it is to be 
 Anglo-Saxon, and herein is one of the grand major 
 qualities of the streets of London. 
 
 They are in this matter, I do believe, all alike, 
 these creatures. You may encounter one so ugly 
 and mannish 1 and grotesque that none but an Eng- 
 lishman could take her to his arms, and even she 
 has the ineffable romantic gaze. All the countless 
 middle-aged women who support circulating li- 
 braries have it ; the hair of a woman of fifty blows 
 about her face romantically. All the nice, young- 
 ish married women have it, those who think they 
 know a thing or two. And as for the girls, the 
 young girls, they show a romantic naivete which 
 transcends belief; they are so fresh and so virginal 
 and so loose-limbed and so obsessed by a mysterious 
 ideal, that really (you think) the street is too peril- 
 ous a place for them. And yet they go confidently 
 about, either alone or in couples, or with young 
 men at bottom as simple as themselves, and naught 
 happens to them; they must be protected by their 
 idealism. And now and then you will see a woman 
 who is strictly and truly chic, in the extreme French 
 sense — an amazing spectacle in our city of sloppy 
 
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 FLOWER WOMEN (.Page 103) 
 
THE CIRCUS 107 
 
 women who, while dreaming of dress for ten hours 
 a day, cannot even make their blouses fasten de- 
 cently — and this chic Parisianised creature herself 
 will have kept her idealistic gaze! They all keep 
 it. They die with it at seventy-five. Whatever 
 adventure occurs to an Englishwoman, she remains 
 spiritually innocent and naive. The Circus is 
 bathed in the mood of these qualities. 
 
 *?• *?■ i?* (?■ 
 
 Towards dark it alters and is still the same. See 
 it after the performances on a matinee day, surg- 
 ing with heroines. See it at eight o'clock at night, 
 a packed mass of taxis and automobiles, each the 
 casket of a romantic creature, hurrying in pursuit 
 of that ideal without a name. Later, the place is 
 becalmed, and scarcely an Englishwoman is to be 
 seen in it until after the theatres, when once again 
 it is nationalised and feminised to an intense degree. 
 The shops are black, and the flower-sellers are 
 gone; but the electric skysigns are in violent activ- 
 ity, and there is light enough to see those baffling 
 faces as they flash or wander by. And the trains 
 are now bearing the creatures away in the deep-laid 
 tubes. 
 
 And then there comes an hour when the hidden 
 trains have ceased, and the autobuses have nearly 
 ceased, and the bright beings have withdrawn them- 
 selves until the morrow; and now, on all the foot- 
 paths of the Circus, move crowded processions of 
 men young and old, slowly, as though in the per- 
 formance of a rite. It leads to nothing, this tramp- 
 ing ; it serves no end ; it is merely idiotic, in a pecul- 
 
108 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 iarly Anglo-Saxon way. But only heavy rain can 
 interfere with it. It persists obstinately. And 
 the reason of it is that the Circus is the Circus. 
 And after all, though idiotic, it has the merit and 
 significance of being instinctive. The Circus sym- 
 bolises the secret force which drives forward the 
 social organism through succeeding stages of evo- 
 lution. The origin of every effort can be seen at 
 some time of day emerging from a crimson autobus 
 in the Circus, or speeding across the Circus in a 
 green taxi. The answer to the singular conundrum 
 of the City is to be found early or late in the Circus. 
 The imponderable spirit of the basic fact of society 
 broods in the Circus forever. Despite all changes, 
 there is no change. I say no change. You may 
 gaze into the jeweller's shop at the gold slave-ban- 
 gles, which cannot be dear at six pound ten, since 
 they express the secret attitude of an entire sex. 
 And then you may turn and gaze at the face of a 
 Suffragette, with her poster and her armful of pa- 
 pers, and her quiet voice and her mien of pride. 
 And you may think you see a change fundamental 
 and terrific. Look again. 
 
■km K& t^ . 
 
 
 
 
 mi 
 
 u2 
 
 
 IMCCADII.LV CIRCUS (Paffe 70S) 
 

 
THE BANQUET 
 
 In every large London restaurant, and in many 
 small ones, there is a spacious hall (or several) cur- 
 tained away from the public, in which every night 
 strange secret things go on. Few suspect, and 
 still fewer realise, the strangeness of these secret 
 things. In the richly decorated interior (some- 
 times marked with mystic signs), at a table which 
 in space reaches from everlasting to everlasting, and 
 has the form of a grill or a currycomb or the end 
 of a rake — at such a table sit fifty or five hundred 
 males. They are all dressed exactly alike, in black 
 and white ; but occasionally they display a coloured 
 flower, and each man bears exactly the same spe- 
 cies and tint and size of flower, so that you think 
 of regiments of flowers trained throughout their 
 lives in barracks to the end of shining for a night 
 in unison on the black and white bosoms of these 
 males. Although there is not even a buffet in the 
 great room, and no sign of the apparatus of a res- 
 taurant, all these males are eating a dinner, and 
 it is the same dinner. They do not wish to choose ; 
 they accept, reading the menu like a decree of fate. 
 They do not inquire upon the machinery; a slave, 
 unglanced at, places a certain quantity of a dish in 
 front of them — and lo! the same quantity of the 
 
 109 
 
110 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 same dish is in front of all of them; they do not 
 ask whence nor how it came; they eat, with indus- 
 try, knowing that at a given moment, whether they 
 have finished or not, a hand will steal round from 
 behind them, and the plate will vanish into limbo. 
 Thus the repast continues, ruthlessly, under the 
 aquiline gaze of a slave who is also a commander- 
 in-chief, manoeuvring his men silently, manoeuvr- 
 ing them with naught but a glance. With one 
 glance he causes to disappear five hundred salad- 
 plates, and with another he conjures from behind 
 a screen five hundred ices, each duly below zero, 
 and each calculated to impede the digesting of a 
 salad. The service of the dinner is a miracle, but 
 the diners, absorbed in the expectancy of rites to 
 come, reck not ; they assume the service as they as- 
 sume the rising of the sun. Only a few remember 
 the old, old days, in the 'eighties (before a cabal of 
 international Jews had put their heads together 
 and inaugurated a new age of miracles), when 
 these solemn repasts were a scramble and a guerilla, 
 after which one half of the combatants went home 
 starving, and the other half went home glutted and 
 drenched. Nowadays these repasts are the most 
 perfectly democratic in England; and anybody 
 who has ever assisted at one knows by a morsel of 
 experience what life would be if the imaginative 
 Tory's nightmare of Socialism were to become a 
 reality. But each person has enough, and has it 
 promptly. 
 
 i5* c?* «5* (?• 
 
 The ceremonial begins with a meal, because it 
 

 2^" 
 
 FROM BAYS WATER TO THE CIRCUS (Page 105 
 

THE BANQUET 111 
 
 would be impossible on an empty stomach. Its 
 object is ostensibly either to celebrate the memory 
 of some deed or some dead man, or to signalise the 
 triumph of some living contemporary. Clubs and 
 societies exist throughout London in hundreds ex- 
 pressly for the execution of these purposes, and 
 each 1 of them is a remunerative client of a large res- 
 taurant. Societies even exist solely in order to 
 watch for the triumphs of contemporaries, and to 
 gather in the triumphant to a repast and inform 
 them positively that they are great. So much so 
 that it is difficult to accomplish anything unusual, 
 such as the discovery of one pole or another, or the 
 successful defence of a libel action, without sub- 
 mitting to the ordeal of these societies one after the 
 other in a chain, and emerging therefrom with mod- 
 esty ruined and the brazen conceit of a star actor. 
 But the ostensible object is merely a cover for the 
 real object, the unadmitted and often unsuspected 
 object: which is, to indulge in a debauch of 
 universal mutual admiration. When the physical 
 appetite is assuaged, then the appetite for praise 
 and sentimentality is whetted, and the design of the 
 mighty institution of the banquet is to minister, in 
 a manner majestic and unexceptionable, to this base 
 appetite, whose one excuse is its naivete. 
 
 A pleasurable and even voluptuous thrill of an- 
 ticipation runs through the assemblage when the 
 chairman rises to open the orgy. Everybody 
 screws himself up, as a fiddler screwing the pegs of 
 a fiddle, to what he deems the correct pitch of ap- 
 preciativeness ; and almost the breath is held. And 
 
112 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 the chairman says: "Whatever differences may di- 
 vide us upon other subjects, I am absolutely con- 
 vinced, and I do not hesitate to state my convic- 
 tion in the clearest possible way, that we are enthusi- 
 astically and completely agreed upon one point," 
 the point being that such and such a person or such 
 and such a work is the greatest person or the great- 
 est work of the kind in the whole history of the hu- 
 man race. And although the point is one utterly 
 inadmissible upon an empty stomach, although it 
 is indeed a glaring falsity, everybody at once fever- 
 ishly endorses it, either with shrill articulate cries, 
 or with deep inarticulate booming, or with noises 
 produced by the shock of flesh on flesh, or ivory on 
 wood, or steel on crystal. The uproar is enor- 
 mous. The chairman grows into a sacramental 
 priest, or a philosopher of amazing insight and 
 courage. And everybody says to himself: "I had 
 not screwed myself up quite high enough," and 
 proceeds to a further screwing. And in every 
 heart is the thought: "This is grand! This is 
 worth living for ! This alone is the true reward of 
 endeavour!" And the corporate soul muses ecstat- 
 ically: "This work, or this man, is ours, by reason 
 of our appreciation and our enthusiasm. And he, 
 or it, is ours exclusively." And, since the soul and 
 the body are locked together in the closest sympa- 
 thetic intimacy, all those cautious dyspeptic ones 
 who have hitherto shirked danger, immediately put 
 on courage like a splendid garment, and order the 
 strongest drinks and the longest cigars that the es- 
 tablishment can offer. The real world fades into 
 
FROM SOUTH LONDON TO THE CIRCUS {Page 105) 
 
THE BANQUET 113 
 
 unreality; the morrow is lost in eternity; the mo- 
 ment and the illusion alone are real. 
 
 <?• *?• t?* c?* 
 
 The key of the mood is to be sought less in the 
 speeches as they succeed each other than in the ap- 
 plause. For the applauders are not influenced by 
 a sense of responsibility, or made self-conscious by 
 publicity. They can be natural, and they are. 
 What fear can prevent them from translating in- 
 stantly their emotions into sound? By the ap- 
 plause, if you are a slave and non-participator, you 
 may correct your too kindly estimate of men in the 
 mass. Note how the most outrageous exaggera- 
 tion, the grossest flattery, the most banal platitude, 
 the most fatuous optimism, gain the loudest ap- 
 proval. Note how any reservation produces a fall 
 of temperature. Note how the smallest jokes are 
 seized on ravenously, as a worm by a young bird. 
 And note always the girlish sentimentality, ever 
 gushing forth, of these strong, hard-headed males 
 whose habit is to proverbialise the sentimentality 
 of women. 
 
 The emotional crisis arrives. Feeling transcends 
 the vehicle of speech, and escapes in song. And 
 one guest, honoured either for some special deed of 
 his own or because his name has been "coupled" 
 with some historic deed or movement, remains sit- 
 ting, in the most exquisite self-consciousness that 
 human ingenuity ever brought about, while all the 
 rest fling hoarsely at him the fifteen sacred words 
 of a refrain which in its incredible vulgarity sur- 
 passes even the National Anthem. 
 
114 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 The reaction is now not far off. But owing to 
 several reasons it is postponed yet awhile. The 
 honoured guest's response is one of the chief attrac- 
 tions of the night. Very many diners have been 
 drawn to the banquet by the desire to inspect the 
 honoured guest at their leisure, to see his antics, to 
 divine his human weaknesses and his ridiculous side. 
 And, moreover, the honoured guest must give praise 
 for praise, and lie for lie. He is bound by the 
 strictest conventions of social intercourse to say in 
 so many words: "Gentlemen, you are the most en- 
 lightened body of men that I ever had the good 
 fortune to meet; and your hospitality is the great- 
 est compliment that I have ever had, or ever shall 
 have, or could conceive. Each of you is a prince 
 of the earth. And I am a worm . . ." And 
 then there are the minor speeches, finishing off in 
 detail the vast embroidery of laudation which was 
 begun by the Chairman. Everybody is more or 
 less enfolded in that immense mantle. And every- 
 body is satisfied and sated, save those who have sat 
 through the night awaiting the sweet mention of 
 their own names, and who have been disappointed. 
 At every banquet there are such. And it is they 
 who, by their impatience, definitely cause the re- 
 action at last. The speakers who terminate the af- 
 fair fight against the reaction in vain. The ap- 
 plause at the close is perfunctory — how different 
 from the fever of the commencement and the hys- 
 teria of the middle! The illusion is over. The 
 emotional debauch is finished. The adult and 
 bearded boys have played the delicious make-believe 
 
THE BANQUET 115 
 
 of being truly great, and the game is at an end; 
 and each boy, looking within, perceives without too 
 much surprise that he is after all only himself. A 
 cohort "of the best," foregathered in the cloak- 
 room, say to each other, "Delightful evening! 
 Splendid! Ripping!" And then one says, iron- 
 ically leering, in a low voice, and a tone heavy with 
 realistic disesteem: "Well, what do you think 
 of — ?" Naming the lion of the night. 
 
VI 
 
 ONE OF THE CROWD 
 
 He comes 1 out of the office, which is a pretty large 
 one, with a series of nods — condescending, curt, in- 
 different, friendly, and deferential. He has de- 
 testations and preferences, even cronies; and if he 
 has superiors, he has also inferiors. But whereas 
 his fate depends on the esteem of a superior, the 
 fate of no inferior depends on his esteem. When 
 he nods deferentially he is bowing to an august 
 power before which all others are in essence equal ; 
 the least of his inferiors knows that. And the least 
 of his inferiors will light, on the stairs, a cigarette 
 with the same gesture, and of perhaps the same 
 brand, as his own — to signalise the moment of free- 
 dom, of emergence from the machine into human 
 citizenship. Presently he is walking down the 
 crammed street with one or two preferences or in- 
 differences, and they are communicating with each 
 other in slang, across the shoulders of jostling in- 
 terrupters, and amid the shouts of newsboys and 
 the immense roaring of the roadway. And at the 
 back of his mind, while he talks and smiles, or 
 frowns, is a clear vision of a terminus and a clock 
 and a train. Just as the water-side man, wher- 
 ever he may be, is aware, night and day, of the 
 exact state of the tide, so this man carries in his 
 
 116 
 
FROM WEST KENSINGTON TO THE CIRCUS (Page 105) 
 
ONE OF THE CROWD 117 
 
 brain a time-table of a particular series of trains, 
 and subconsciously he is always aware whether he 
 can catch a particular train, and if so, whether he 
 must hurry or may loiter. His case is not peculiar. 
 He is just an indistinguishable man on the crowded 
 footpaths, and all the men on the footpaths, like 
 him, are secretly obsessed by the vision of a train 
 just moving out of a station. 
 
 He arrives at the terminus with only one com- 
 panion; the rest, with nods, have vanished away 
 at one street corner or another. Gradually he is 
 sorting himself out. Both he and his companion 
 know that there are a hundred and twenty seconds 
 to spare. The companion relates a new humorous 
 story of something unprintable, alleged to have 
 happened between a man and a woman. The re- 
 ceiver of the story laughs with honest glee, and is 
 grateful, and the companion has the air of a bene- 
 factor; which indeed he is, for these stories are 
 the ready-money of social intercourse. The com- 
 panion strides off, with a nod. The other remains 
 solitary. He has sorted himself out, but only for 
 a minute. In a minute he is an indistinguishable 
 unit again, with nine others, in the compartment 
 of a moving train. He reads an evening news- 
 paper, which seems to have come into his hand of 
 its own agency, for he catches it every night with 
 a purely mechanical grasp as it flies in the street. 
 He reads of deeds and misdeeds, and glances aside 
 uneasily from the disturbing tides of restless men 
 who will not let the social order alone. Suddenly, 
 after the train has stopped several times, he folds 
 
118 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 up the newspaper as it is stopping again, and gets 
 blindly out. As he surges up into the street on a 
 torrent of his brothers, he seems less sorted than 
 ever. The street into which he comes is broad and 
 busy, and the same newspapers are flying in it. 
 Nevertheless, the street is different from the streets 
 of the centre. It has a reddish or a yellowish qual- 
 ity of colour, and there is not the same haste in 
 it. He walks more quickly now. He walks a long 
 way up another broad street, in which rare auto- 
 buses and tradesmen's carts rattle and thunder. 
 The street gets imperceptibly quieter, and more 
 verdurous. He passes a dozen side-streets, and at 
 last he turns into a side-street. And this side- 
 street is full of trees and tranquillity. It is so si- 
 lent that to reach it he might have travelled seventy 
 miles instead of seven. There are glimpses of yel- 
 low and red houses behind thick summer verdure. 
 His pace still quickens. He smiles to himself at 
 the story, and wonders to whom he can present it 
 on the morrow. And then he halts and pushes 
 open a gate upon which is painted a name. And 
 he is in a small garden, with a vista of a larger 
 garden behind. And down the vista is a young- 
 girl, with the innocence and grace and awkward- 
 ness and knowingness of her years — sixteen; a lit- 
 tle shabby, or perhaps careless, in her attire, but 
 enchanting. She starts forward, smiling, and ex- 
 claims : 
 
 "Father!" 
 
 Now he is definitely sorted out. 
 
 «5* c5* «•* e5* 
 

 
ONE OF THE CROWD 119 
 
 Though this man is one of the crowd, though 
 nobody would look twice at him in Cannon Street, 
 yet it is to the successful and felicitous crowd that 
 he belongs. There are tens of thousands of his 
 grade; but he has the right to fancy himself a bit. 
 He can do certain difficult things very well — else 
 how, in the fierce and gigantic struggle for money, 
 should he contrive to get hold of five hundred 
 pounds a year ? 
 
 He is a lord in his demesne; nay, even a sort of 
 eternal father. Two servants go in fear of him, 
 because his wife uses him as a bogey to intimidate 
 them. His son, the schoolboy, a mighty one at 
 school, knows there is no appeal from him, and quite 
 sincerely has an idea that his pockets are inexhaust- 
 ible. Whenever his son has seen him called upon 
 to pay he has always paid, and money has always 
 been left in his pocket. His daughter adores and 
 exasperates him. His wife, with her private sys- 
 tem of visits, and her sufFragetting, and her inde- 
 pendences, recognises ultimately in every conflict 
 that the resultant of forces is against her and for 
 him. When he is very benevolent he joins her in 
 the game of pretending that they are equals. He 
 is the distributor of joy. When he laughs, all 
 laugh, and word shoots through the demesne that 
 father is in a good humour. 
 
 He laughs to-night. The weather is superb; it 
 is the best time of the year in the suburbs. Twi- 
 light is endless; the silver will not die out of the 
 sky. He wanders in the garden, the others with 
 him. He works potteringly. He shows himself 
 
120 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 more powerful than his son, both physically and 
 mentally. He spoils his daughter, who is daily 
 growing more mysterious. He administers flat- 
 tery to his wife. He throws scraps of kindness to 
 the servants. It is his wife who at last insists on 
 the children going to bed. Lights show at the up- 
 per windows. The kitchen is dark and silent. His 
 wife calls to him from upstairs. He strolls round 
 to the front patch of garden, stares down the side- 
 road, sees an autobus slide past the end of it, shuts 
 and secures the gate, comes into the house, bolts 
 the front door, bolts the back door, inspects the 
 windows, glances at the kitchen; finally, he extin- 
 guishes the gas in the hall. Then he leaves the 
 ground floor to its solitude, and on the first-floor 
 peeps in at his snoring son, and admonishes his 
 daughter through a door ajar not to read in bed. 
 He goes to the chief bedroom, and locks himself 
 therein with his wife; and yawns. The night has 
 come. He has made his dispositions for the night. 
 And now he must trust himself, and all that is his, 
 to the night. A vague, faint anxiety penetrates 
 him. He can feel the weight of five human beings 
 depending on him; their faith in him lies heavy. 
 
 In the middle of the night he wakes up, and is 
 reminded of such-and-such a dish of which he par- 
 took. He remembers what his wife said: "There's 
 no doing anything with that girl" — the daughter 
 — "I don't know what's come over her." And he 
 thinks of all his son's faults and stupidities, and 
 of what it will be to have two children adult. It 
 
ONE OF THE CROWD 121 
 
 is true — there is no doing anything with either one 
 or the other. Their characters are unchangeable 
 — to be taken or left. This is one lesson he 
 has learnt in the last ten years. And his wife 
 . . . ! The whole organism of the demesne 
 presents itself to him, lying awake, as most extra- 
 ordinarily complicated. The garden alone, the 
 rose-trees alone, — what a constant cause of solici- 
 tude! The friction of the servants, — was one of 
 them a thief or was she not? The landlord must 
 be bullied about the roof. Then, new wall-papers ! 
 A hinge! His clothes! His boots! His wife's 
 clothes, and her occasional strange disconcerting 
 apathy! The children's clothes! Rent! Taxes! 
 Rates! Season-ticket! Subscriptions! Negligence 
 of the newsvendor ! Bills ! Seaside holiday ! Er- 
 ratic striking of the drawing-room clock ! The pain 
 in his daughter's back! The singular pain in his 
 own groin — nothing, and yet . . . ! Insur- 
 ance premium! And above all, the office! Who 
 knew, who could tell, what might happen? There 
 was no margin of safety, not fifty pounds margin 
 of safety. He walked in success and happiness on 
 a thin brittle crust! Crack! And where would 
 they all be? Where would be the illusion of his 
 son and daughter that he was an impregnable and 
 unshakable rock? What would his son think if 
 he knew that his father often calculated to half-a- 
 crown, and economised in cigarettes and a great 
 deal in lunches? . . . 
 
 He asks, "Why did I bring all this on myself? 
 
122 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Where do I come in, after all?" . . . The 
 dawn, very early; and he goes to sleep once more! 
 
 e?* e?* «5* t?* 
 
 The next morning, factitiously bright after his 
 bath, he is eating his breakfast, reading his news- 
 paper, and looking at his watch. The night is 
 over; the complicated organism is in full work 
 again, with its air of absolute security. His news- 
 paper, inspired by a millionaire to gain a million- 
 aire's ends by appealing to the ingenuousness of 
 this clever struggler, is uneasy with accounts of 
 attacks meditated on the established order. His 
 mind is made up. The established order may not 
 be perfect, but he is in favour of it. He has ar- 
 rived at an equilibrium, unstable possibly, but an 
 equilibrium. One push, and he would be over! 
 Therefore, no push ! He hardens his heart against 
 the complaint of the unjustly treated. He has his 
 own folk to think about. 
 
 The station is now drawing him like a magnet. 
 He sees in his mind's eye every yard of the way 
 between the side-street and the office, and in imag- 
 ination he can hear the clock striking at the other 
 end. He must go; he must go! Several persons 
 help him to go, and at the garden-gate he stoops 
 and kisses that mysterious daughter. He strides 
 down the side-street. Only a moment ago, it seems, 
 he was striding up it! He turns into the long road. 
 It is a grinding walk in the already hot sun. He 
 reaches the station and descends into it, and is di- 
 minished from an eternal father to a mere unit of 
 
ONE OF THE CROWD 123 
 
 a throng. But on the platform he meets a jolly 
 acquaintance. His face relaxes as they salute. "I 
 say," he says after an instant, bursting with a good 
 thing, "Have you heard the tale about the — ?" 
 
ITALY— 1910 
 
NIGHT AND MORNING IN FLORENCE 
 
 Amid the infantile fluttering confusion caused bj T 
 the arrival of the Milan express at Florence rail- 
 way station, the thoughts of the artist as he falls 
 sheer out of the compartment upon the soft bodies 
 of hold-alls and struggling women, are not solely 
 on the platform. This moment has grandeur. 
 This city was the home of the supreme ones — 
 Dante, Leonardo, Michael Angelo, and Brunel- 
 leschi. You have entered it. . . . Awe? I 
 have never been aware of sentiments of awe towards 
 any artists, save Charles Baudelaire. My secret 
 attitude to them has always been that I would like 
 to shake their hands and tell them briefly in their 
 private slang, whatever their private slang was, 
 that they had given immense pleasure to another 
 artist. I have excepted Charles Baudelaire ever 
 since I read his correspondence, in which he is eter- 
 nally trying to borrow ten francs from some one, 
 and if they cannot make it ten — then five. There 
 is something so excessively poignant, and to me so 
 humiliating, in the spectacle of the grand author 
 of La Charogne going about among his acquaint- 
 ance in search of a dollar, that I would only think 
 about it when I wished to inflict on myself a pen- 
 ance. It is a spectacle unique. Like the King 
 
 127 
 
128 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 of Thule song in Berlioz's Damnation of Faust, it 
 resembles nothing else of its kind. If the artist 
 does not stand in awe before that monumental en- 
 igma of human pride which called itself Charles 
 Baudelaire, how shall the artist's posture be de- 
 scribed? 
 
 No, I will tell you what occupied the withdrawn 
 and undefiled spaces of my mind as I entered Flor- 
 ence, drifting on the stream of labelled menials and 
 determined ladies with their teeth hard-set: Was 
 it more interesting for an artist to be born into a 
 great age of art, where he was beloved and appre- 
 ciated, if not wholly comprehended, by relatively 
 large masses of people; where his senses were on 
 every hand indulged and pampered by the caress 
 of the obviously beautiful; where he lived among 
 equals, and saw himself continually surrounded by 
 innumerable acts creative of beauty; and where he 
 could feel in the very air a divine palpitation — or, 
 on the other hand, was it more spiritually voluptu- 
 ous for the artist to be born into a stone age, an age 
 deaf and dumb, an age insensible to the sublime, 
 ignorantly rejecting beauty, and occupying itself 
 with the most damnable and offensive futilities that 
 the soul of an artist can conceive? For I was go- 
 ing, in my fancy, out of the one age into the other. 
 And I decided, upon reflection, that I would just 
 as soon be in the age in which I in fact was ; I said 
 that I would not change places even with the most 
 fortunate and miraculous of men — Leonardo da 
 Vinci. There is an agreeable bitterness, an ex- 
 quisite tang, in the thought of the loneliness of ar- 
 
FLORENCE 129 
 
 tists in an age whose greatness and whose epic 
 quality are quite divorced from art. And when I 
 think of the artist in this age, I think of the Invisi- 
 ble Man of H. G. Wells, in the first pride of his in- 
 visibility (when he was not yet hunted), walking 
 unseen and unseeing amid multitudes, and it is 
 long before 1 anybody in the multitudes even notices 
 the phenomenon of mysterious footmarks that can- 
 not be accounted for! I like to be that man. I 
 like to think that my fellows are few, and that even 
 I, not having eyes to see most of them, must now 
 and then be disconcerted by the appearance of un- 
 accountable footmarks. There is something be- 
 yond happiness, and that is, to know intensely and 
 painfully that you are what you are. The great 
 Florentines of course had that knowledge, but their 
 circumstances were not so favourable as mine to its 
 cultivation in an artist. Therein lay their disad- 
 vantage and lies my advantage. 
 
 Besides, you do not suppose that I would wish to 
 alter this age by a single iota of its ugliness and its 
 preposterousness ! You do not suppose I do not 
 love it! You do not suppose I do not wallow in 
 the trough of it with delight! There is not one 
 stockbroker, not one musical comedy star, not one 
 philanthropic giver of free libraries, not one noble 
 brewer, not one pander, not one titled musician, 
 not one fashionable bishop, not one pro-consul, that 
 I would wish away. Where should my pride bit- 
 terly exercise itself if not in proving that my age, 
 exactly as it exists now, contains nothing that is 
 not the raw material of beauty? If I wished to do 
 
130 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 so, I would force some among you to see that even 
 the hotel-tout within the portals of the city of 
 Giotto is beautiful. 
 
 «?• t5* »?• !?• 
 
 At dinner I am waited upon by a young and 
 beautiful girl who, having almost certainly never 
 heard of Gabriele d'Annunzio, yet speaks his lan- 
 guage and none other. But she wears the apron 
 and the cap of the English parlour-maid, in plen- 
 ary correctness, and, knowing exactly how I should 
 be served in England, she humours me; and above 
 us is a vaulted ceiling. Such is the terrible might 
 of England. I am surrounded by ladies ; the room 
 is crammed with ladies. By the perfection of 
 their virtuosity in the nice conduct of forks alone 
 is demonstrated their ladyship. (And I who, 
 like a savage, cannot eat pudding without a spoon!) 
 There is a middle-aged gentleman, whose eye- 
 glasses are wandering down his fine nose, lost in a 
 bosky dell of women at the other end of the room; 
 and there is myself; and there is a boy, obviously in 
 Hades. And there are some fifty dames. Their 
 voices, high, and with the sublime unconscious ar- 
 rogance of the English, fight quietly and steadily 
 among each other up in the vaulting. "Of course, 
 I used to play cricket with my brothers. But, 
 will you believe me, I've never seen a football match 
 in my life!" "No, we haven't seen the new rector 
 yet, but they say he's frightfully nice." "Benozzo 
 Gozzoli — ye-es." It is impossible not to believe, 
 listening to these astounding conversations, that 
 nature, tired of imitating Balzac any longer, has 
 
FLORENCE 131 
 
 now taken to imitating the novels of Mrs. Hum- 
 phry Ward. 
 
 The drawing-room is an English drawing-room 
 — yes, with the Queen and "the authoress of Eliza- 
 beth and her German Garden 3 * and a Bechstein 
 grand. There are forty-five chairs and easy chairs 
 in it, and fifty ladies; the odd five ladies sit low 
 upon hassocks or recline on each other in attitudes 
 of intense affection. And at the other end is a 
 male, neither the man with the pincenez nor the boy 
 in Hades, but a third who has mysterious^ come 
 out of nothing into existence. I have entered, and 
 I am held, as by a spell, in the doorway, the electric 
 light raining upon me, a San Sebastian for the fatal 
 arrows of the fifty, who fix on me their ingenuous 
 eyes — 
 
 And dart delicious danger thence 
 
 (to cull an incomparable phrase from one of the 
 secular poems of Dr. Isaac Watts) . And now 
 there are more ladies behind me, filling the doorway 
 with hushed expectation. For in the appalling 
 silence, a young sad-orbed creature is lifting a vio- 
 lin delicately from its case on the Bechstein, at 
 which waits a sister-spirit. "Do tell me," says an 
 American voice, intrepidly breasting the silence, 
 "what was that perfectly heavenly thing you 
 played last night — was it Debussy? We thought 
 it must be Debussy." And the violinist answers: 
 "No; I expect you mean the Goltermann. It is 
 pretty, isn't it?" And as she holds up the violin, 
 interrogating its strings with an anxious and a 
 
132 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 critical ear, I observe that beneath the strings lies 
 a layer of rosin-dust. Thirty years ago, in the 
 fastnesses of the Five Towns, amateurs used to 
 deem it necessary to keep their violins dirty in or- 
 der to play with the soulfulness of a Norman Ne- 
 ruda. I would have been ready to affirm that ob- 
 servation of the cleanliness of the instruments of 
 professionals had killed the superstition long since; 
 but lo, I have tunnelled the Simplon to meet it 
 
 again I 
 
 I go. Somehow, I depart, beaten off as it were 
 with great loss. I plunge out into dark Florence, 
 walking under the wide projecting eaves of Flor- 
 ence to avoid the rain. And in my mind I can still 
 see the drawing-room, a great cube of light, with 
 its crowded frocks whose folds merge one into the 
 next, and the Bechstein, and the strains of Golter- 
 mann, and the attentive polite faces, and that sole 
 man in the corner like a fly on a pin. I have run 
 away from it. But I know that I shall go back to 
 it, and that my curiosity will drink it to the dregs. 
 For that drawing-room is to the working artist in 
 me the most impressive and the most interesting 
 thing in Florence. And when I reflect that there 
 are dozens and dozens of it in Florence, I say that 
 this age is the most romantic age that ever was. 
 
 £ «* <* ^ 
 
 I know where I am going, for my first business 
 in entering a town, whether Florence, Hull, or 
 Constantine, is always to examine the communica- 
 tive posters on its walls and to glance through its 
 newspapers. There is a performance of Spon- 
 
FLORENCE 133 
 
 tini's La Vestale at the Teatro Verdi. Nothing, 
 hardly, could have kept me away from that per- 
 formance, which in every word of its announce- 
 ment seems to me overpoweringly romantic. The 
 name of Verdi alone. ... I heard Verdi late 
 in my life, and in Italy, long after I knew by rote 
 all the themes in Tristan and Die Meister singer, 
 after Pelleas et Melisande had ceased to be a nov- 
 elty at the Paris Opera Comique, after even the 
 British discovery of Richard Strauss, and I shall 
 never forget the ravishing effect on me of the first 
 act of La Traviata; no, nor the tedium of the other 
 acts. I would go to any theatre named Verdi. 
 Then Spontini! What is Spontini but a name? 
 Was it possible that I was about to hear an actual 
 opera by this antique mediocrity whose music Ber- 
 lioz loved beyond its deserts? Had anybody ever 
 
 heard an opera by Spontini? ., I'^^-jJ* 
 
 The shabbiness of the facade and of the box- \ 
 office, and of the suits of the disillusioned but genial • 
 men within the box-office — men who knew the full 
 meaning of existence' A seat in the parterre for 
 two lire — say one and sevenpence halfpenny — it is 
 making a gift of the spectacle! The men take 
 my two lire with an indulgent gesture, exclaiming 
 softly with their eyes and hands: "What are two 
 lire more or less in the vast abyss of our deficit? 
 Throw them down!" Then I observe that my 
 ticket is marked posto distinto — prominent seat, 
 distinguished seat. Useless to tell me that it means 
 nothing! It means much to me: another example 
 of Italian politeness, at once exquisite and futile. 
 
134 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Would the earl in the gate at Covent Garden, even 
 for thirty-two lire on a Melba night, offer me a dis- 
 tinguished seat? . . . Long stone corridors, 
 steps up, steps down, turnings, directive cries echo- 
 ing amid arches; and then I am in the auditorium, 
 vast. 
 
 It is as big as Covent Garden, and nearly as big 
 as La Scala. It has six galleries, about a hundred 
 boxes, and four varieties of seats on the ground 
 floor. My distinguished seat is without the first 
 quality of a seat — yieldingness. It does not ac- 
 quiesce. It is as hard as seasoned wood can be, 
 though roomy and well situated. And in a corner, 
 lying against the high rampart of a box for ten 
 people, I see negligently piled a great pyramid of 
 ancient red cushions, scores and scores of them. 
 And a little old ragged attendant comes and whis- 
 pers alluringly, delicately in my ear: "Cuscina." 
 Two sous would hire it and a smile thrown in. But 
 no, I won't have it. I am too English to have that 
 cushion. . . . The immense theatre, faced all 
 in white marble, with traces here and there in a 
 box of crimson upholstery, is as dim as a church. 
 There are hundreds of electric bulbs, but unlighted : 
 the sole illumination comes from a row of perfectly 
 mediaeval gas-burners along the first gallery. 
 After all, economy must obtain somewhere. I 
 count an orchestra of over seventy living players; 
 the most numerous body in the place : somehow they 
 must support life. Over the acreage of the par- 
 terre are sprinkled a few dozens of audience. 
 There is a serried ring of faces lining the fifth gal- 
 
FLORENCE 135 
 
 lery, to which admittance is tenpence, and another 
 lining the sixth gallery, to which admittance is six- 
 pence. The rest is not even paper. 
 
 Yet a spruce and elegant conductor rises and the 
 overture begins, and the orchestra proves that its 
 instruments are real; and I hear Spontini, and for 
 a little while enjoy his faded embroideries. And 
 the curtain goes up on "a public place in Rome," 
 upon a scale as spacious as Rome itself. Every- 
 thing is genuine. There are two leading sopranos, 
 one of whom is young and attractive, and they both 
 have powerful and trained voices, and sing like the 
 very dickens. No amateurishness about them! 
 They know their business; they are accomplished 
 and experienced artists. No hesitations, no timid- 
 ities, no askings for indulgence because really I 
 have only paid two lire! Their fine voices fill the 
 theatre with ease, and would easily fill Covent Gar- 
 den to the back row of the half-crown gallery. The 
 same with the tenor, the same with the bass. Spon- 
 tini surges onward in an excellent concourse of 
 multitudinous sound, and I wonder what it is all 
 about. I have a book of the words, but owing to 
 the unfortunate absence of Welsbach mantles I 
 cannot read it. I know it must be all about a ves- 
 tal who objected to being a vestal, on account of a 
 military uniform, and I content myself with this 
 grand central fact. Then the stage brightens, and 
 choruses begin to march on; one after another; at 
 least a dozen: soldiers, wrestlers, populace, danc- 
 ers, children. Yes, the show is complete even to 
 ragamuffins larking about in the public place in 
 
136 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Rome. I count a hundred people on the stage. 
 And all the properties are complete. It is a com- 
 plete production and an expensive production — 
 except probably in the detail of wages. For in 
 Italy prime donne with a repertoire of a dozen or 
 fifteen first-class roles seem to go about the streets 
 dressed like shop-girls. I have seen it. All this 
 is just as exciting to me as the Church of S. Croce, 
 even as explained by John Ruskin with a school- 
 master's cane in his lily-hand. 
 
 Interval! I go to the refreshment foyer to see 
 life. And now I can perceive that quite a crowd 
 of people has been hidden somewhere in the nooks 
 of the tremendous theatre. The large caffe is 
 crammed. Of course, it is vaulted, like everything 
 in Florence. The furniture of the caffe is 
 strangely pathetic in its f orlornness : marble-topped 
 mahogany tables, and mahogany chairs in faded 
 and frayed crimson rep. Furniture that ought to 
 have been dead and buried long ago! The marble 
 is yellow with extreme age and use. These tables 
 and chairs are a most extraordinary survival; in a 
 kind of Italian Louis Philippe style, debased First 
 Empire ; or it might be likened to earliest Victorian. 
 Once they were new; once they were the latest 
 thing. For fifty years perhaps the management 
 has been meaning to refurnish the caffe as soon as 
 it could afford. The name of the theatre has been 
 changed, but not those chairs nor that marble. 
 And conceivably the sole waiter, gliding swiftly to 
 and fro with indestructible politeness, is their con- 
 temporary. The customers are the equivalent of a 
 

 ■ j kd 
 
 THE ORCHESTRA PROVES THAT ITS INSTRUMENTS ARE REAL (Page 135) 
 
FLORENCE 137 
 
 music-hall audience in these isles. They smoke, 
 drink, and expectorate with the casualness of men 
 who are taking a rest after Little Tich. They do 
 not go to the opera with prayer and fasting and the 
 score. They just stroll into the opera. Nor does 
 the conductor, nor do the players, have the air of 
 high priests of art who have brought miracles to 
 pass. And I know what those two sopranos are 
 talking about upstairs. Here opera is in the bones 
 of the rabble. It is a tradition: a tradition in a 
 very bad way of decayed splendour, but alive 
 yet. 
 
 For the second act the auditorium is brighter, 
 and fuller, though the total receipts would not pay 
 for five minutes of Caruso alone. The place looks 
 half full and is perhaps a third full. Behind me 
 a whole series of first-tier boxes are occupied by a 
 nice, cheerful, chattering shop-keeping class of per- 
 sons, simple folk that I like. A few soldiers are 
 near. Also there is a man next but one to me who 
 cannot any longer deprive himself of a cigarette. 
 He bows his head and furtively strikes a match, 
 right in the middle of the theatre, and for every 
 puff he bows his head, and then looks up with an 
 innocent air, as though repudiating any connection 
 with the wisp of smoke that is floating aloft. No- 
 body minds. The curtain rises on the interior of 
 the Temple, a beautiful and solid architectural 
 scene, much superior to anything in the first act, 
 whose effect was rich and complex without being 
 harmonious. The vestal is attending to the fire. 
 When the military uniform unostentatiously enters, 
 
138 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 I feel that during an impassioned dialogue she will 
 go and let that fire out. And she does. Such is 
 the second act. I did not see the third. I shall 
 never see it. I convinced myself that two acts of 
 Spontini were enough for me. It was astonishing 
 that even in Florence Spontini had not been in- 
 terred. But clearly, from the efficiency, assurance, 
 and completeness of its production, La Vestale 
 must have been in the Florentine repertoire per- 
 haps ever since its composition, and a management 
 selling seats at two lire finds it so much easier to 
 keep an old opera in the repertoire than to kick it 
 out and bring in a new one. I had savoured the 
 theatre, and I went, satisfied; also much preoccu- 
 pied with the financial enigma of the enterprise, 
 where indeed the real poetry of this age resides. 
 Whence came the money to pay the wages of at 
 least a couple of hundred skilled persons, and the 
 
 L lighting and the heating and the rent, and the ad- 
 vertisement, and the thousand minor expenses of 
 such an affair? 
 When I reached the abode of the ladies it was 
 all dark and silent. I rang, intimidated. And one 
 of those young and beautiful girls (no, not so 
 young and not so beautiful, but still — ) in her ex- 
 otic English attire opened the door. And with her 
 sleepy eyes she looked at me as if saying: "Once 
 in a way this sort of thing is all very well, but 
 please don't let it occur too often. I suffer." A 
 shame! And I crept contrite up the stairs, and 
 along passages between hidden rows of sleeping la- 
 
FLORENCE 139 
 
 dies. And there was my Baedeker lying on the 
 night-table, and not a word in it about Florentine 
 opera and the romance thereof. 
 
 i5% t5* (?• *?• 
 
 Rain still! Florentine rain, the next morning, 
 steady and implacable! They come down to 
 breakfast, those fifty ladies; not in a cohort, but in 
 ones and twos and threes, appearing and disappear- 
 ing, so that there are never more than half a dozen 
 hovering together over the white and almost naked 
 tables. They glance momentarily at the high win- 
 dows and glance away, crushing by a heroic effort 
 of self-control, impossible to any but women of the 
 north, the impulse to criticise the order of the uni- 
 verse. Calm, angular, ungainly, long-suffering, 
 and morose, Cimabue might have painted them; 
 not Giotto. Their garb is austere, flannel above 
 the zone and stuff below ; no ornament, no fluffiness, 
 no enticement; but passably neat, save for the un- 
 tidy, irregular buttoning of the bodice down the 
 spine. And note that they are fully and finally 
 dressed to be seen of men; all the chill rites have 
 been performed; they have not leapt straight from 
 the couch into a peignoir, after the manner of Latin 
 women — those odalisques at heart! They are as- 
 toundingly gentle with each other, cooing sympa- 
 thetic inquiries, emitting kind altruistic hopes, 
 leaning intimately towards each other, fondling 
 each other, and even sweetly kissing. They know 
 by experience that strict observance of a strict code 
 is the price of peace. In that voluntary mutual 
 
140 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 captivity, so full of enforced, familiar contacts, the 
 error of a moment might produce a thousand hours 
 of purgatory. ... A fresh young girl comes 
 swinging in, and with a gesture of which in a few 
 years she will be incapable, caresses the chin of her 
 desiccated mamma. And the contrast between the 
 two figures, the thought of what lies behind the one 
 and what lies before the other, inured so soon to 
 this existence — is poignant. The girl perceptibly 
 droops in that atmosphere ; flourish in it she cannot. 
 And the smiles and the sweetness continue in pro- 
 fusion. Nevertheless I feel that I am amid loose 
 nitro-glycerine : one jar, and the whole affair 
 might be blown to atoms, and the papers would 
 be full of "mysterious fatal explosion in a pension 
 at Florence." The danger-points are the jam- 
 pots and the honey-pots and the marmalade-pots, 
 of which each lady apparently has her own. And 
 when one of them says to the maid (all in white at 
 this hour, as is meet) : "This is not my jam — I had 
 more," I quake at the conception of the superhu- 
 man force which restrains the awful bitterness in 
 her voice. A matter of an instant ; but in that in- 
 stant, in that fraction of an instant, the tigress has 
 snarled at the bars of the cage and been dragged 
 back. It is marvellous. It is terrifying. 
 
 We talk. We talk to prove our virtuosity in 
 the nice conduct of the early meal. I learn that 
 they have been here for months, and that they will 
 be here for months. And that next year it may be 
 Rome, or more possibly Florence again. Florence 
 is inexhaustible, inexhaustible. 
 
FLORENCE 141 
 
 I mention the opera. I assert that there is such 
 a thing as an opera. 
 
 "Really!" Politeness masking indifference. 
 
 I say that I went to the opera last night. 
 
 "Really!" Politeness masking a puzzled, an 
 even slightly alarmed surprise. 
 
 I say that the opera was most diverting. 
 
 "Really!" Politeness masking boredom. 
 
 The opera is not appraised in the guide-books. 
 The opera is no part of the official museum. Flor- 
 ence is a museum, and nothing but a museum. 
 Beyond the museum they do not admit that any- 
 thing exists ; hence nothing exists beyond it. They 
 do not scorn the rest of Florence. The rest of 
 Florence simply has not occurred to them. Pride 
 of the Medicis, bow before this pride, sublime in its 
 absolute unconsciousness ! 
 
 <?* *?* *?» *5* 
 
 That morning I made my way in the rain to the 
 Strozzi Palace, which palace is for me the great 
 characteristic building of Florence. When I think 
 of Florence, I do not expire in ecstasy on the sylla- 
 bles of Duomo, Baptistery, or Palazzo Vecchio, 
 or even Bargello. The Strozzi Palace is in my 
 mind. Possibly I merely prefer it to the Riccardi 
 Palace because I cannot by paying fivepence in- 
 vade it and add it up. The Strozzi Palace still 
 holds out against the northern hordes. Filippo 
 Strozzi, as to whom my ignorance is immaculate, 
 must have united in a remarkable degree the qual- 
 ities of savagery, austere arrogance, and fine taste; 
 otherwise he would never have approved Maiano's 
 
142 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 plans for this residence and castle. The dimensions 
 of it remind you of the Comedie Humaine, and 
 it carries rectangularity and uncompromising 
 sharpness of corners to the last limit. In form it 
 is simply a colossal cube, of which you can only 
 appreciate the height by standing immediately be- 
 neath the unfinished roof-cornice, the latter so vast 
 in its beautiful enlargement of a Roman model that 
 nobody during five hundred years has had the 
 pluck to set about and finish it. Then you can 
 see that in size the Strozzi ranks with cathedrals, 
 and that the residential part of it, up in the air, 
 only begins where three-story houses end. 
 
 To appreciate its beauty and its moral you must 
 get away from it, opposite one of its corners, so as 
 to have two facades in perspective. The small 
 arched windows of the first and second storeys are 
 all that it shows of a curve. Rather finicking these 
 windows, the elegant trifling of a spirit essentially 
 grim; some are bricked up, some show a gleam of 
 white-painted interior woodwork, and others have 
 the old iron-studded shutters. The lower windows 
 are monstrously netted in iron to resist the human 
 storm. The upper windows may each be ten feet 
 high, but they are mere details of the fagades, and 
 the lower windows might be square port-holes. 
 See the two perspectives sloping away from you 
 under the tremendous eaves, a state-entrance in 
 the middle of each! See the three rows of torch 
 or banner holders and the marvellous iron lanterns 
 at the corners! Imagine the place lit up with 
 flame on some night of the early sixteenth cen- 
 
FLORENCE 143 
 
 tury, human beings swarming about its base as 
 at the foot of precipices. Imagine the lights out, 
 and the dawn, and the day-gloom of those ill- 
 lighted and splendid apartments. Imagine the 
 traditional enemies of the Medicis trying to keep 
 themselves warm therein during a windy Floren- 
 tine winter! Imagine, from the Strozzi Palace, 
 the ferocious altercations, and the artistic connois- 
 seurship, and the continuous ruthless sweating of 
 the common people, which made up the lives of 
 the masters of Florence — and you will formulate 
 a better idea of what life was than from any 
 church! This palace is a supreme monument of 
 grim force tempered by an exquisite sense of 
 beauty. With the exception of an intervening 
 cornice which has had a piece knocked out of it, 
 and the damaged plinth, it stands now as it did 
 at the commencement. Time has not accepted the 
 challenge of its sharp corners. It might have been 
 constructed ten years ago by Foster and Dicksee. 
 I go up to one of the state entrances and peep 
 in, shamefacedly. For it is a private house. At 
 the far end of the archway is a magnificent iron 
 grille, and I can see a delicately arched courtyard, 
 utterly different in style from the exterior, fruit 
 of another brain; and beyond the courtyard, a 
 glimpse of a fresco and the vista of the state en- 
 trance in the opposite fapade. At each corner of 
 the courtyard the rain is splashing down, evidently 
 from high open spouts, splashing with a loud, care- 
 less, insolent noise, and the middle of the courtyard 
 is a pool continuously pricked by thousands of rain- 
 
144 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 drops. The glass of the large lamp swinging in 
 the draught of the archway is broken. A huge 
 lackey in uniform strolls in front of the grille and 
 lolls there. I move instinctively away, for if any- 
 body recoils before a lackey it is your socialist. 
 
 Then I see a lady hurrying across the square en- 
 veloped in a great cloak and sheltered beneath an 
 umbrella. She makes straight for the state en- 
 trance, and passes me, dripping up the archway. I 
 say to myself: 
 
 "She belongs to the house. Now I am going to 
 see the gates yield. The lackey was expecting 
 her." And I had quite a thrill at sight of this liv- 
 ing inhabitant of the Strozzi Palace. 
 
 But no! She went right up to the grille, as 
 though the lackey was in prison and she visiting 
 him, and stopped there and stared silently into the 
 courtyard. The lackey, dumbfounded and craven, 
 moved off. She had only come to look. This was 
 her manner of coming to look. I ought to have 
 divined by the solidity of her heels that she was 
 one of ours; not one of my particular band at 
 breakfast, but in Florence there are dozens upon 
 dozens of such breakfasts every morning, and from 
 some Anglican breakfast she had risen. 
 
 i?w JS (5* t5* 
 
 Our breakfast took place in a palace. Not the 
 Strozzi, not nearly so large nor so fine as the 
 Strozzi, but a real Florentine palazzo. It has been 
 transformed within to suit the needs and the ca- 
 prices of those stern ladies. They have come, and 
 
FLORENCE 145 
 
 they have come again, and they have calmly in- 
 sisted, and they have had their will. Hygienic ap- 
 pliances authentically signed by the great English 
 artists in this genre! Radiators in each room! 
 Electric bulbs over the bed and in the ceiling! Iron 
 beds! The inconvenient height of the windows 
 from the floor lessened by a little wooden platform 
 on which are a little chair and a little table and a 
 little piece of needlework and a little vase of 
 flowers! . . . Steadily they are occupying the 
 palaces, each lady in her nook, and the slow force 
 of their will moulds even the granite to the de- 
 sired uses. 
 
 Why do they come? It cannot be out of pas- 
 sion for the great art of the world. Nobody who 
 had a glimmering of the real sense of beauty could 
 dress as they dress, move as they move, buy what 
 they buy, or talk as they talk. They mingle in 
 their heads Goltermann with Debussy, and Botti- 
 celli with Maude Goodman. Their drawing-room 
 is full of Maude Goodman in her rich first period. 
 . . . It cannot be out of a love of history, for 
 they never unseal their lips in a spot where history 
 has been made without demonstrating in the most 
 painful manner an entire lack of historical imag- 
 ination. They nibble daintily at crumbs of art 
 and of archaeology in special booklets which some 
 of themselves have written and others of them- 
 selves have illustrated, and which make the coarse 
 male turn with an almost animal satisfaction to 
 Carl Baedeker or even the Reverend Herbert H. 
 
146 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Jeaffreson, M. A. It is impossible that these ex- 
 cellent creatures, whose only real defect has to do 
 with the hooks and eyes down their spines, can ever 
 comprehend the beauty and the significance of 
 that by which they are surrounded. They have 
 not the temperament. Temperamentally, they 
 would be much more at home in Riga. Also it is 
 impossible to believe that they are happy in Flor- 
 ence. They do not wear the look of joy. Their 
 gestures are not those of happiness. Nevertheless 
 they can only be in Florence because they have 
 discovered that they are less unhappy here than 
 at home. What deep malady of society is it that 
 drives them out of their natural frame — the frame 
 in which they are comely and even delectable, the 
 frame which best sets off their finer qualities — into 
 unnatural exile and the poor despised companion- 
 ship of their own sex? 
 
 And what must be the force of that malady 
 which drives them! The long levers that ulti- 
 mately exert their power on the palaces of Flor- 
 ence are worked from England. Behind each of 
 these solitary ladies, in the English background, 
 there must be a mysterious male — relative, friend, 
 lawyer, stockbroker — advising, controlling, for- 
 warding cheques and cheques and cheques, always. 
 These ladies, economically, are dolls of a finan- 
 cial system. Or you may call them the waste 
 products of an arthritic civilisation. What a force 
 is behind them, that they should possess themselves 
 of another age and genius, and live in it as con- 
 querors, modifying manners, architecture, and even 
 
If 
 
 
 . \ ' 
 
 
 y - 
 
 ■ 
 
 A? 
 
 J. 
 
 __»S.^^»f 
 
 
 
 a ' / /«« U 
 
 i i 
 
 
 WHY DO THEY COME? (Pope //,5) 
 
FLORENCE 147 
 
 perhaps language! The cloaked lady in front of 
 the grille shall, if you choose, fairly be likened to 
 a barbarian on the threshold of a philosopher's dead 
 court ; but as regards mere force, one may say that 
 in her the Strozzis are up against an equal. 
 
II 
 
 THE SEVENTH OF MAY, 1910 
 
 It was an exquisitely beautiful Italian morning, 
 promising heat that a mild and constant breeze 
 would temper. The East was one glitter. Harm- 
 less clouds were loitering across the pale sky, and 
 across the Piazza children were taking the longest 
 way to early school, as I passed from the clear sun- 
 shine into the soft transparent gloom of one of the 
 great pantheons of Italy — a vast thirteenth-century 
 Franciscan church, the largest church ever built by 
 any mendicant Order — carved and decorated and 
 painted by Donatello, Giotto, Andrea della Robbia, 
 Rossellino, Maiano, Taddeo Gaddi, Verrocchio, the 
 incomparable Mino da Fiesole, Vasari, Canova. 
 
 Already the whole place had been cleansed and 
 swept, but at one of the remotest altars a char- 
 woman was dusting. Little by little I descried other 
 visitors in the distance, moving quietly under the in- 
 timidation of that calm, afraid to be the first to 
 break the morning stillness. There was the red 
 gleam of a Baedeker. At a nearer altar a widow 
 in black was kneeling in one of those attitudes of 
 impassioned surrender and appeal that strike you 
 so curiously, when for instance, you go out of Har- 
 rods' Stores suddenly into the Brompton Oratory. 
 From an unseen chapel came the sound of chanting, 
 
 148 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MAY, 1910 149 
 
 perfunctory, a part of the silence ; and last of all, at 
 still another altar, I made out a richly coloured 
 priest genuflecting, all alone, save for a black aco- 
 lyte. In a corner two guides were talking busi- 
 ness, and by the doors the beggars were talking 
 business in ordinary tones before the official whin- 
 ing of the day should commence. The immense in- 
 terior had spaciousness for innumerable separate 
 and diverse activities, each undisturbed by the 
 others. And all around me were the tombs and 
 cenotaphs of great or notorious men, who had made 
 the glory and the destiny of Italy; Dante, Galileo, 
 Michael Angelo, Donatello, Machiavelli; and 
 Alfieri, Rossini, Aretino, Cherubini, Alberti; and 
 even St. Louis, and a famous fourteenth century 
 English Bishop, and a couple of Bonapartes; many 
 ages, races, climes. 
 
 t?* «5» £• i?* 
 
 I sat down and opened the damp newspaper 
 which I had just bought outside at the foot of the 
 steps leading up to the dazzling marble facade. 
 And when I had been staring at the newspaper 
 some time I became aware that the widow at the al- 
 tar in the middle distance had risen and was leav- 
 ing the church, and then I saw to my surprise that 
 she was an Irish lady staying in my hotel. She 
 passed near me. Should I stop her, or should I 
 not? I wanted to stop her, from the naive pride 
 which one feels in being able to communicate a star- 
 tling piece of news of the first magnitude. But on 
 the other hand, I really was nervous about telling 
 her. To tell her seemed brutal, seemed like knock- 
 
150 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 ing her down. This was my feeling. She decided 
 the question for me by deviating from her path to 
 greet me. 
 
 "What a lovely morning!" she said. 
 
 "Have you heard about the King?" I asked her 
 gruffly, well knowing that she had not. 
 
 "No," she answered smiling. And then, as she 
 looked at me, her smile faded. 
 
 "Well," I said, "he's dead!" 
 
 "What! Our King?" 
 
 "Yes. He died at midnight. Here it is." And 
 I showed her the "Recentissime" or Latest News 
 page of the newspaper, two lines in leaded type: 
 "Londra, 7, ore 2:30 (Urgenza). Re Edoardo e 
 inorto a inezzanotte." She knew enough Italian to 
 comprehend that. 
 
 "This last midnight?" She was breathless. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "But — but — no one even knew anything about 
 him being ill?" she protested. 
 
 "Yesterday evening's Italian papers had columns 
 about the illness — it was bronchitis," I said grimly. 
 
 "Oh!" she said, "I never see the Italian papers." 
 
 Yet the name of Edward the Seventh had been on 
 every newspaper placard in the land on Friday 
 night. But in Italy these British have literally 
 no sight for anything later than the sixteenth cen- 
 tury. 
 
 Tears stood in her eyes. On my part it would 
 have been just as kindly to knock her down. 
 
 "Just think of that little fellow at Osborne — 
 he's got to be Prince of Wales now, and I suppose 
 

 ^aBSBg 1 v-, J i<' 4 . -^«~\' 
 
 
 {>> 
 
 ■ '- 
 
 LESS UNHAPPY HERE THAN AT HOME (Page 146) 
 

THE SEVENTH OF MAY, 1910 151 
 
 they'll take him away from there," she murmured 
 brokenly, as she went off, aghast. 
 
 «3* t>* ij* J* 
 
 I sat down again. It seemed to me, as I re- 
 flected among these tombs and cenotaphs, that a 
 woman's eyes, on such an occasion, were a good test 
 of the genuineness of popular affection. 
 
 I then noticed that, while the Irish lady and I had 
 been whispering, another acquaintance of mine had 
 mysteriously entered the church without my cog- 
 nizance and had set up his tent in the south tran- 
 sept. This was a young man who, having gained 
 a prominent place in a certain competition at the 
 Royal College of Art, had been sent off with money 
 in his pocket, at the expense of the British nation, 
 to study art and to paint in Italy. He possessed 
 what is called a travelling scholarship, and the treas- 
 ures of Italy were at his feet as at the feet of a 
 conqueror. Already he had visited me at my hotel, 
 and filled my room with the odour of his fresh oil- 
 sketches. There were only two things in his head 
 — the art of painting, and the prospect of an im- 
 mediate visit to Venice. He had lodged his easel 
 on a memorial-stone among the flags of the pave- 
 ment, and was painting a vista of tombs ending in 
 a bright light of stained glass. His habit was to 
 paint before the museums opened and after they 
 closed. I went and accosted him. Again I was 
 conscious of the naive pride of a bringer of tragic 
 tidings. He was young and strong, with fire in 
 his eye. I need not be afraid of knocking him 
 down, at anv rate. 
 
152 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 "The King's dead," I said. 
 
 He lifted his brush. 
 
 "Not—?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 He burst out with a tremendous, "By Jove!" 
 that broke that fresh morning stillness once 
 for all, and faintly echoed into silence among those 
 tombs. "By Jove!" 
 
 His imagination had at once risen to the solemn 
 grandeur of the event, as an event; but the sharp 
 significance of death did not penetrate the armour 
 of that enthusiastic youthfulness. "What a pity!" 
 he exclaimed nicely ; but he could not get the irides- 
 cent vision of Venice out of his head, nor the prob- 
 lems of his canvas. He continued painting — what 
 else could he do? — and then, after a few moments, 
 he said eagerly, "I wish I was in London!" 
 
 "Me too!" I said. 
 
 Probably most of the thousands of Englishmen 
 in Italy had the same wish. 
 
 s5* <5* «?* <?* 
 
 I departed from the church. The chanting had 
 ceased; the guides were still talking business, but 
 the beggars had begun to whine. 
 
 In the dining-room of the hotel there was abso- 
 lute silence. A lady near the door, with an Italian 
 newspaper over her coffee-cup, who had never 
 spoken to me before, and would probably never 
 speak to me again, said : 
 
 "I suppose you've heard about — " 
 
 "Yes," I said. 
 
 Everybody in the room knew. Everybody was 
 
THE SEVENTH OF MAY, 1910 153 
 
 English. And nobody spoke. As the guests came 
 down by ones and twos to breakfast, the lady near 
 the door stopped each of them: "I suppose you've 
 heard—" But none of them had. I was her sole 
 failure. At length a retired military officer came 
 down, already informed. "Where does this news 
 come from?" he demanded of the room, impatiently, 
 cautiously, half-incredulously, as one who would 
 hesitate to trust any information that he had not 
 seen in a London daily. With a single inflection of 
 his commanding voice he wiped out the whole Press 
 of Italy— that country of excellent newspapers. 
 He got little answer. We all sat silent. 
 
Ill 
 
 MORE ITALIAN OPERA 
 
 Geographical considerations made it impossible 
 for me to be present at the performance of La 
 Traviata, which opened the Covent Garden sea- 
 son. I solaced myself by going to hear, on that 
 very night, another and better opera of Verdi's, 
 Aida, in a theatre certainly more capacious than 
 Covent Garden, namely, the Politeamo Fiorentino, 
 at Florence. Florence is a city of huge theatres, 
 which seem to be generally empty, even during 
 performances, and often on sale. In the majority 
 of them the weather is little by little getting the bet- 
 ter of the ceiling; and the multifarious attendants, 
 young and old, go about their casual vague business 
 of letting cushions or selling cigars in raiment that 
 has the rich, storied interest of antiquity. But on 
 this particular occasion prosperity attended a Flor- 
 entine theatrical enterprise. I was one of three 
 thousand or so excited and crowded beings, most of 
 whom had paid a fair price for admission to hear the 
 brassiest opera ever composed. 
 
 Once I used to condescend to Verdi. That was 
 in the early nineties, when, at an impressionable 
 and violent age, I got caught in the first genuine 
 Wagner craze that attacked this country. We 
 used to go to the special German seasons at Drury 
 Lane, as it were to High Mass. And although 
 
 154 
 
MORE ITALIAN OPERA 155 
 
 Max Alvary and Frau Klafsky would be singing 
 in Tristan, you might comfortably have put all 
 the occupants of the upper circle into a Pullman 
 car. Once a cat walked across the stage during a 
 solemn moment in the career of Isolde, and nearly 
 everybody laughed ; a few tittered, which was even 
 more odious. Only a handful, of such as myself, 
 scowled angrily— not at the cat, which was really 
 rather fine in the garden, completing it— but at 
 the infantile unseriousness of these sniggering so- 
 called Wagnerians. I felt that laughter would 
 have been very well at a Verdi performance, might 
 even have enhanced it. Meanwhile, over the way 
 at Convent Garden, Verdi performances were being 
 given to the usual full houses. It never occurred 
 to me to attend them. Verdi was vulgar. I can- 
 not explain my conviction that Verdi was vulgar, 
 because I had not heard a single opera of Verdi's, 
 save his Wagnerian imitations. No doubt it arose 
 out of the deep human instinct to intensify the 
 pleasure of admiring one thing by simultaneously 
 disparaging another thing. 
 
 £ £ & £ 
 
 Then, a long time afterwards, in the compara- 
 tively calm interval between the first and the second 
 Wagner crazes, I heard the real Verdi. It was 
 La Traviata, in a little town in Italy, and it was 
 the first operatic performance I had attended in 
 Italy. I adored it, when I was not privately 
 laughing at it; and there are one or two airs in it, 
 which I would sit through the whole opera to hear, 
 if I could not hear them otherwise. (Happily 
 
156 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 they occur in the first act.) Yes, Verdi's name 
 does not begin with W; but it very nearly does. I 
 stuck him up at once a little lower than the angels, 
 and I have never pulled him down. It is certain, 
 however, that La Traviata at any rate cannot 
 live, unless as a comic opera. I personally did not 
 laugh aloud, because the English are seldom cruel in 
 a theatre; but the tragical parts are undoubtedly 
 very funny indeed, funnier even than the tragical 
 parts of the exquisitely absurd play, La Dame aux 
 Camelias, upon which the opera is founded. 
 When La Traviata was first produced, about 
 fifty-five years ago, in Venice, its unconscious hu- 
 mour brought about an absolute, a disastrous fail- 
 ure. The performance ended amid roars of laugh- 
 ter. Unhappily the enormous proportions of Sig- 
 nora Donatelli, who sang Violetta, aided the fiasco. 
 When the doctor announced that this lady was in 
 an advanced stage of consumption and had but a 
 few hours to live, Harry Lauder himself could not 
 have had a greater success of hilarity with the mob. 
 Italians are like that. They may be devoted to 
 music — though there are reasons for doubting it — 
 but as opera-goers and concert-goers they are a 
 godless crew. An Englishman would have laughed 
 at Violetta's unconsumptive waist, but he would 
 have laughed in the street, or the next morning. 
 The English have reverence, and when they go to 
 the opera, they go to hear the opera. 
 
 «?• €?■ «?* €?■ 
 
 When Italians go to the opera, they are appar- 
 ently out for a lark, and they have some of the 
 
MORE ITALIAN OPERA 157 
 
 qualities of the Roman multitude enjoying wild 
 beasts in the amphitheatre. I think I have never 
 been to an operatic performance in Italy without 
 acutely noticing this. When I went to hear 
 Aida, the colossal interior of the Politeamo 
 Fiorentino had the very look of an amphitheatre, 
 with its row of heads and hats stretching away 
 smaller and smaller into a haze. There were no- 
 tices about appealing to the gentleness of the 
 public not to smoke. But do you suppose the pub- 
 he did not smoke? Especially considering that the 
 management thoughtfully offered cigars, ciga- 
 rettes, and matches for sale ! In a very large assem- 
 blage of tightly-packed people, unauthorised 
 noises are bound to occur from time to time. Now, 
 an Italian audience will never leave an unauthor- 
 ised noise alone. If a chair creaks, or a glass on 
 the bar tinkles, an Italian audience will hiss sav- 
 agely and loudly for several seconds — which seem 
 like several minutes. Not in the hope of stopping 
 the noise, for the noise has stopped! Not because 
 it wishes not to miss a note of the music, for it 
 misses about twenty-five per cent, of the notes 
 through its own fugal hissing! But from simple, 
 truculent savagery! It cares naught for the sus- 
 ceptibilities of the artists. Whether a singer is in 
 the midst of a tender pianissimo, or the band is 
 blaring its best, if an Italian audience hears a noise, 
 however innocent, it will multiply that noise by a 
 hundred. Yet the individual politeness of the 
 Italian people is perfectly delightful. 
 
 Further: In the middle of the performance a 
 
158 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 shabby gentleman came on to the stage and begged 
 indulgence for an artist who was "gravely indis- 
 posed." The audience received him with cynical 
 laughter; he made a gesture of cynical resignation 
 and departed. The artist received no indulgence. 
 The artist was silly enough to hold on powerfully 
 to a high note at the end of a long solo; and that 
 solo had to be given again — and let there be no 
 mistake about it! — despite the protests of a minor- 
 ity against such insistence. The Latin tempera- 
 ment! If you sing in opera in Italy, your career 
 may be unremunerative, but it will be exciting. 
 You may be deified, or you may be half -killed. 
 But be assured that the audience is sincere, as sin- 
 cere as a tiger. 
 
 «5* t?* t?* *?* 
 
 Composers also must beware. When Pasini's 
 new opera, Don Quixote, was produced lately, it 
 had a glorious run of two performances. It was, 
 indeed, received with execration. After the second 
 night the leading newspaper appeared with a few 
 brief, barbed remarks: "The season of the Teatro 
 Verdi is ended. It would have been better if it had 
 never started. . . . The maestro Pasini has 
 written an opera which may be very pleasing — to 
 deaf mutes." Yet Don Quivote was not worse 
 than many other operas which people pay to see. 
 Imagine these manners in unmusical England. 
 
 France is less crude, but not always very much 
 less crude. The most musical city in France is 
 Toulouse. An extraordinary number of singers, 
 composers, and poets seem to be born in Toulouse. 
 
MORE ITALIAN OPERA 159 
 
 But the debuts of an operatic artist at the Toulouse 
 municipal opera are among the most dangerous and 
 terrible experiences that can fall to a singer. The 
 audience is merciless, and recks not of youth nor 
 sex. If it is not satisfied, it expresses its opinion 
 frankly, and for the more frank and effective ex- 
 pression of its opinion it goes to the performance 
 suitably provided with decayed vegetables. 
 And I am told that Marseilles candour is carried 
 even further. As for Naples — . 
 
 Perhaps, after all, our admirable politeness and 
 the solemnity of our attitude towards the whole 
 subject of opera merely prove that Continental na- 
 tions are right in regarding us as fundamentally 
 unmusical. With us opera is a cultivated exotic. 
 In Italy, what does it matter if you ruin a com- 
 poser's career, or even kill a young soprano who has 
 not reached your standard! There are quantities 
 of composers and sopranos all over Italy. You 
 can see them active in the very streets. You can't 
 
 keep them down. We say Miss , the English 
 
 soprano, in startled accents of pride. Italians don't 
 
 say Signorina -, the Italian soprano. In Italy 
 
 you get a new opera about once a month. The last 
 English grand opera that held the English stage 
 was Artaxerxes, and it is so long ago that not one 
 person in a hundred who reads these lines will be 
 able to give the name of the composer. Can any 
 nation be musical which does not listen chiefly to 
 its own music? 
 
THE RIVIERA— 1907 
 
THE HOTEL TRISTE 
 
 Because I am a light and uneasy sleeper I can 
 hear, at a quarter to six every morning, the distant 
 subterranean sound of a peculiarly energetic bell. 
 It rings for about one minute, and it is a signal at 
 which They quit their drowsy beds. And all along 
 the Riviera coast, from Toulon to San Remo, in 
 the misty and chill dawn, They are doing the same 
 thing, beginning the great daily conspiracy to per- 
 suade me, and those like me, that we are really the 
 Sultan, and that our previous life has been a dream. 
 I sink back into slumber and hear the monotonous 
 roar of the tideless Mediterranean in my sleep. 
 The Mediterranean, too, is in the conspiracy. It is 
 extremely inconvenient and annoying to have to go 
 running about after a sea which wanders across half 
 a mile of beach twice a day; appreciating this, and 
 knowing the violent objection of sultans to any sort 
 of trouble, the Mediterranean dispenses with a tide ; 
 at any hour it may be found tirelessly washing 
 the same stone. After an interval of time, during 
 which a quarter to six in the morning has receded 
 to the middle of the night, I wake up wide, and in- 
 stantly, in Whitman's phrase, 
 
 / know I am august. 
 
 I put my hand through the mosquito curtains and 
 touch an electrical contrivance placed there for my 
 
 163 
 
164 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 benefit, and immediately there appears before me a 
 woman neatly clothed to delight my eye, and I gaze 
 out at her through my mosquito curtains. She 
 wishes me "Good morning" in my own language, 
 in order to save the trouble of unnecessary compre- 
 hension, and if I had happened to be Italian, 
 French, or German she could still greet me in my 
 own language, because she has been taught to do 
 so in order to save me trouble. She takes my com- 
 mands for the morning, and then I notice that the 
 sun has thoughtfully got round to my window and 
 is casting a respectful beam or two on my hyacin- 
 thine locks. In the vast palace the sultans are aris- 
 ing, and I catch the rumour thereof. Presently, 
 with various and intricate aid, I have laved the im- 
 perial limbs and assumed the robes of state. The 
 window is opened for me, and I pass out on to the 
 balcony and languidly applaud the Mediterranean, 
 like a king diverting himself for half an hour at 
 the opera. It is a great sight, me applauding the 
 Mediterranean as I drink a cup of tea; stockbrok- 
 ers clapping the dinner-band at the Trocadero 
 would be nothing to it. After this I do an un- 
 monarchical act, an act of which I ought to be 
 ashamed, and which I keep a profound secret from 
 the other sultans in the vast palace — I earn my 
 living by sheer hard labour. 
 
 Then I descend to the banqueting-hall, and no 
 sooner do I appear than I am surrounded by min- 
 ions in black, an extraordinary race of persons. 
 At different hours I see these mysterious minions 
 in black, and sometimes I observe them surrepti- 
 
THE HOTEL TRISTE 165 
 
 tiously. They have no names. They never eat, 
 never drink, never smile, never love, never do any- 
 thing except offer me prepared meats with respect- 
 ful complacency. Their god is my stomach, and 
 they have made up their minds that it must be ap- 
 peased with frequent burnt sacrifices and libations. 
 They watch my glance as mariners the sky, and the 
 slightest hint sends them flying. At the conclu- 
 sion of the ceremony they usher me out of the hall 
 with obeisances into other halls and other deferen- 
 tial silences. 
 
 I?* «5* *•• J* 
 
 And when the entire rite has been repeated twice 
 we recline on sofas, I and the other sultans, and 
 spend the final hours of the imperial day in being 
 sad and silent together. We are sad because we 
 are sultans. It is in the nature of things that sul- 
 tans should be sad ; it is not the cares of state which 
 make us sad, but merely a high imperial instinct 
 for the correct. Silence is, of course, a necessity 
 to sultans, and for this reason the activity of the im- 
 mense palace is conducted solely in hushed tones. 
 The minions in black never raise their dulcet voices 
 more than half an inch or so. Late at night, as I 
 pass on my solitary, sad way to the chamber of 
 sleep, I see them, those mysterious minions with no 
 names and no passions and no heed for food, still 
 hovering expectant, still bowing, still silent. And 
 lastly I retire. I find my couch beautifully laid 
 out, I cautiously place myself upon it, I savour the 
 soundless calm of the palace, and I sleep again; 
 and my closing thought is the thought that I am 
 
166 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 august, and that all the other sultans, in this and all 
 the other palaces from Toulon to San Remo, are 
 august. 
 
 t5* e5* «?• t?* 
 
 Strange things happen. Once a week a very 
 strange thing happens. I find an envelope lying 
 about. It is never given to me openly. I may 
 discover it propped up against the teapot on my 
 tea-tray, or on my writing-desk, or sandwiched in 
 my "post," between a love-letter and a picture post 
 card. But I invariably do find it; measures are 
 taken that I shall succeed promptly in finding it. 
 All the minions pretend that this envelope is a 
 matter of no importance whatever; I also pretend 
 the same. Now, the fact is that I simply hate this 
 envelope; I hate the sight of it; I hate to open it; 
 I dread its contents. Every week it shocks me. I 
 carry it about with me in my imperial pocket for 
 several hours, fighting against the inevitable. 
 Then at length I dismally yield to a compulsion. 
 And I wander, by accident on purpose, in the direc- 
 tion of a little glass-partitioned room, where a ma- 
 levolent man sits like a spider sits in its web. We 
 both pretend I am there by chance, but since I am 
 'n fact there, I may as well — a pure formality! 
 And a keen listener might hear a golden chink or 
 the rustle of paper. And then I feel feeble but re- 
 lieved, as if I had come out of the dentist's. And 
 I am aware that I am not so excessively august 
 after all, and that I am in the middle of the Riviera 
 season, when one must expect, etc., etc., and that 
 even the scenery was scientifically reduced to fig- 
 
 \ 
 
A HUMAN BEING TALKING TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING (Page 167) 
 
THE HOTEL TRISTE 167 
 
 ures in that envelope, and that anyhow the Hotel 
 Triste is the Hotel Triste. (Triste is not its real 
 name; one of my fellow sultans, who also does the 
 shameful act in secret, so baptised it in a ribald mo- 
 ment.) 
 
 <5* t5* c?* (?■ 
 
 The strangest thing of all occurred one night. 
 I was walking moodily along the convenient marge 
 of the Mediterranean when I saw a man, a human 
 being, dressed in a check suit and a bowler hat, 
 talking to another human being dressed in a blouse 
 and a skirt. I passed them. The man was smil- 
 ing, and chattering loudly and rapidly and even 
 passionately to the soul within the blouse. Soon 
 they parted, with proofs of affection, and the man 
 strode away and overtook and left me behind. 
 You could have knocked me down with a feather 
 when I perceived he was one of the mysterious 
 nameless minions who I thought always wore 
 mourning and never ate, drank, smiled, or loved. 
 "Fellow wanderer in the Infinite," I addressed his 
 back as soon as I had recovered, "What are your 
 opinions upon life and death and love, and the ad- 
 visability of being august?" 
 
II 
 
 war! 
 
 We were in the billiard-room — English men and 
 women collected from various parts of the earth, 
 and enjoying that state of intimacy which is some- 
 how produced by the comfortable click of billiard 
 balls. It is extraordinary what pretty things the 
 balls say of a night in the billiard-room of a good 
 hotel. They say: "You are very good-natured and 
 jolly people. Click. Women spoil the play, but 
 it's nice to have them here. Click. And so well- 
 dressed and smiling and feminine! Click. Click. 
 Cigars are good and digestion is good. Click. 
 How correct and refined and broad-minded you all 
 are! All's right with the world. Click." A 
 stockbroker sat near me by the fire. My previous 
 experience of stockbrokers had led me to suppose 
 that all stockbrokers were pursy, middle-aged, hard- 
 breathers, thick-fingered, with a sure taste in wines, 
 steaks, and musical comedies. But this one was 
 very different — except perhaps on the point of 
 musical comedies. He was quite young, quite thin, 
 quite simple. In fact, he was what is known as an 
 English gentleman. He frankly enjoyed showing 
 young ladies aged twenty-three how to make a 
 loser off the red, and talking about waltzes, travel, 
 and sport. He never said anything original, and 
 
 168 
 
WAR! 169 
 
 so never surprised one nor made one feel uncom- 
 fortable. He was extremely amiable, and we all 
 liked him. The sole fact about the Stock Exchange 
 which I gleamed from him was that the Stock Ex- 
 change comprised many bounders, and "y° u had to 
 be civil to 'em, too." 
 
 *5* *?• i5* «5* 
 
 "You've heard the news?" I said to him. 
 "About Japan?" he asked. No, he had not heard. 
 It took the English papers two days to reach us, 
 and, of course, for the English there are no news- 
 papers but English newspapers. There was a first- 
 class local daily; with a complete service of foreign 
 news, and a hundred thousand readers ; but I do not 
 believe that one English person in ten even knew 
 of its existence. So I took the local daily out of 
 my pocket, and translated to him the Russian note 
 informing the Powers that ambassadors were pack- 
 ing up. "Looks rather bad!" he murmured. I 
 could have jumped up and slain him on the 
 spot with the jigger, for every English person in 
 that hotel every night for three weeks past had ex- 
 claimed on glancing at the "Times": "Looks bad!" 
 And here this amiable young stockbroker, with war 
 practically broken out, was saying it again! I am 
 perfectly convinced that everyone said this, and this 
 only, because no one had any ideas beyond it. 
 There had appeared some masterly articles in the 
 "Times" on the Manchurian question. But nobody 
 read them: I am sure of that. No one had even a 
 passable notion of Far Eastern geography, and no 
 one could have explained, lucidly or otherwise, the 
 
170 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 origin of the gigantic altercation. How strange it 
 is that the causes of war never excite interest! 
 (What was the cause of the Franco- German war, 
 you who are omniscient?) 
 
 In response to another question, the young 
 stockbroker said that his particular market would 
 be seriously affected. "I should like to be there," 
 [on the Exchange], he remarked, and added 
 dreamily: "It would be rather fun." Then we be- 
 gan a four-handed game, a game whose stupidities 
 were atoned for by the charming gestures of 
 women. And the stockbroker found himself in 
 enormous form. The stone of the Russian Note 
 had sunk into the placid lake and not a ripple was 
 left. Nothing but billiards had existed since the 
 beginning of the world, or ever would exist. Noth- 
 ing, I reflected, will rouse the average sensible man 
 to an imaginative conception of what a war is, not 
 even the descriptions of a Stephen Crane. Nay, 
 not even income tax at fifteen pence in the pound! 
 
 t5* «?■ t?* <?• 
 
 The next morning I went out for a solitary walk 
 by the coast road. And I had not gone a mile be- 
 fore I came to an unkempt building, with 
 a few officials lounging in front of it. "French 
 Custom House" was painted across its pale face. 
 Then the road began to climb up among the outly- 
 ing spurs of the Maritime Alps. It went higher 
 and higher till it was cut out of the solid rock. 
 Half a mile further, and there was another French 
 Custom House. Still further, where the rock be- 
 came crags, and the crags beetled above and beetled 
 
WAR! 171 
 
 below, there occurred a profound gorge, and from 
 the stone bridge which spanned it one could see, and 
 faintly hear, a thin torrent rushing to the sea per- 
 haps a couple of hundred feet below. Immediately 
 to the west of this bridge the surface of the crags 
 had been chiselled smooth, and on the expanse had 
 been pictured a large black triangle with a white 
 border — about twelve feet across. And under the 
 triangle was a common little milestone arrange- 
 ment, smaller than many English milestones, and 
 on one side of the milestone was painted "France" 
 and on the other "Italia." This was the division be- 
 tween the two greatest Latin countries; across this 
 imaginary line had been waged the bloodless but 
 disastrous tariff war of ten years ago. I was in 
 France; a step, and I was in Italy! And it is on 
 account of similar imaginary, artificial, and uncon- 
 vincing lines, one here, one there — they straggle 
 over the whole earth's crust — that most wars, mili- 
 tary, naval, and financial, take place. 
 
 e?* t5* t?* »5* 
 
 Across the gorge was a high, brown tenement, 
 and towards the tenement strutted an Italian sol- 
 dier in the full, impossible panoply of war. He 
 carried two rifles, a mile or so of braid, gilt enough 
 to gild the dome of St. Paul's and Heaven knows 
 what contrivances besides. And he was smoking 
 a cigarette out of a long holder. Two young girls, 
 aged perhaps six or eight, bounded out of the slat- 
 ternly tenement, and began to chatter to him in a 
 high infantile treble. The formidable warrior 
 smiled affectionately, and bending down, offered 
 
172 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 them a few paternal words; they were evidently 
 spoiled little things. Close by a vendor of picture 
 post cards had set up shop on a stone wall. Far be- 
 low, the Mediterranean was stretched out like a 
 blue cloth without a crease in it, and a brig in full 
 sail was crawling across the offing. The sun shone 
 brilliantly. Roses in perfect bloom had escaped 
 from gardens and hung free over hedges. Every- 
 thing was steeped in a tremendous and impressive 
 calm — a calm at once pastoral and marine, and the 
 calm of obdurate mountains that no plough would 
 ever conquer. And breaking against this mighty 
 calm was the high, thin chatter of the little girls, 
 with their quick and beautiful movements of child- 
 hood. 
 
 And as I watched the ragged little girls, and fol- 
 lowed the brig on the flat and peaceful sea, and 
 sniffed the wonderful air, and was impregnated by 
 the spirit of the incomparable coast and the morning 
 hour, something overcame me, some new perception 
 of the universality of humanity. ( It was the little 
 girls that did it.) And I thought intensely how 
 absurd, how artificial, how grotesque, how acci- 
 dental, how inessential, was all that rigmarole of 
 boundaries and limits and frontiers. It seemed to 
 me incredible, then, that people could go to war 
 about such matters. The peace, the natural univer- 
 sal peace, seemed so profound and so inherent in 
 the secret essence of things, that it could not be 
 broken. And at the very moment, though I knew 
 it not, while the brig was slipping by, and the little 
 
WAR! 173 
 
 girls were imposing upon the good-nature of their 
 terrible father, and the hawker was arranging his 
 trumpery, pathetic post cards, they were killing 
 each other — Russia and Japan were — in a row 
 about "spheres of influence." 
 
Ill 
 
 "monte' 
 
 Monte Carlo — the initiated call it merely 
 "Monte" — has often been described, in fiction and 
 out of it, but the frank confession of a ruined gam- 
 bler is a rare thing; partly because the ruined gam- 
 bler can't often write well enough to express himself 
 accurately, partly because he isn't in the mood for 
 literary composition, and partly because he is some- 
 times dead. So, since I am not dead, and since it 
 is only by means of literary composition that I can 
 hope to restore my shattered fortunes, I will give 
 you the frank confession of a ruined gambler. Be- 
 fore I went to Monte Carlo I had all the usual ideas 
 of the average sensible man about gambling in gen- 
 eral, and about Monte Carlo in particular. 
 "Where does all the exterior brilliance of Monte 
 Carlo come from?" I asked sagely. And I said 
 further: "The Casino administration does not dis- 
 guise the fact that it makes a profit of about 50,000 
 francs a day. Where does that profit come from?" 
 And I answered my own question with wonderful 
 wisdom: "Out of the pockets of the foolish gam- 
 blers." I specially despised the gambler who gam- 
 bles "on a system"; I despised him as a creature of 
 superstition. For the "system" gambler will argue 
 that if I toss a penny up six times and it falls 
 
 174 
 
GAMBLING AT MONTE CARLO (Page 174) 
 

"MONTE" 175 
 
 "tail" every time, there is a strong probability that 
 it will fall "head" the seventh time. "Now," I said, 
 "can any rational creature be so foolish as to sup- 
 pose that the six previous and done-with spins can 
 possibly affect the seventh spin? What connec- 
 tion is there between them?" And I replied: "No 
 rational creature can be so foolish. And there is 
 no connection." In this spirit, superior, omnis- 
 cient, I went to Monte Carlo. 
 
 Of course, I went to study human nature and find 
 material. The sole advantage of being a novelist 
 is that when you are discovered in a place where, as 
 a serious person, you would prefer not to be discov- 
 ered, you can always aver that you are studying 
 human nature and seeking material. I was much 
 impressed by the fact of my being in Monte Carlo. 
 I said to myself: "I am actually in Monte Carlo!" 
 I was proud. And when I got into the gorgeous 
 gaming saloons, amid that throng at once glitter- 
 ing and shabby, I said: "I am actually in the gam- 
 ing saloons !" And the thought at the back of my 
 mind was: "Henceforth I shall be able to say that 
 I have been in the gaming saloons at Monte Carlo." 
 After studying human nature at large, I began to 
 study it at a roulette table. I had gambled before 
 — notably with impassive Arab chiefs in that singu- 
 lar oasis of the Sahara desert, Biskra — but only a 
 little, and always at petits chevauoc. But I under- 
 stood roulette, and I knew several "systems." I 
 found the human nature very interesting; also the 
 roulette. The sight of real gold, silver, and notes 
 flung about in heaps warmed my imagination. At 
 
176 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 this point I felt a solitary five-franc piece in my 
 pocket. And then the red turned up three times 
 running, and I remembered a simple "system" that 
 began after a sequence of three. 
 
 «?• !?• *?* *5* 
 
 I don't know how it was, but long before I had 
 formally decided to gamble I knew by instinct that 
 I should stake that five-franc piece. I fought 
 against the idea, but I couldn't take my hand empty 
 out of my pocket. Then at last (the whole experi- 
 ence occupying perhaps ten seconds) I drew forth 
 the five-franc piece and bashfully put it on black. 
 I thought that all the fifty or sixty persons crowded 
 round the table were staring at me and thinking to 
 themselves: "There's a beginner!" However, 
 black won, and the croupier pushed another five- 
 franc piece alongside of mine, and I picked them 
 both up very smartly, remembering all the tales I 
 had ever heard of thieves leaning over you at Monte 
 Carlo and snatching your ill-gotten gains. I then 
 thought: "This is a bit of all right. Just for fun 
 I'll continue the system." I did so. In an hour I 
 had made fifty francs, without breaking into gold. 
 Once a croupier made a slip and was raking in red 
 stakes when red had won, and people hesitated (be- 
 cause croupiers never make mistakes, you know, 
 and you have to be careful how you quarrel with the 
 table at Monte Carlo), and I was the first to give 
 vent to a protest, and the croupier looked at me and 
 smiled and apologised, and the winners looked at 
 me gratefully, and I began to think myself the 
 deuce and all of a Monte Carlo habitue. 
 
"MONTE" 177 
 
 Having made fifty francs, I decided that I 
 would prove my self-control by ceasing to play. 
 So I did prove it, and went to have tea in the Ca- 
 sino cafe. In those moments fifty francs seemed to 
 me to be a really enormous sum. I was as happy as 
 though I had shot a reviewer without being found 
 out. I gradually began to perceive, too, that 
 though no rational creature could suppose that a 
 spin could be affected by previous spins, neverthe- 
 less, it undoubtedly was so affected. I began to 
 scorn a little the average sensible man who scorned 
 the gambler. "There is more in roulette than is 
 dreamt of in your philosophy, my conceited friend," 
 I murmured. I was like a woman — I couldn't 
 argue, but I knew infallibly. Then it suddenly 
 occurred to me that if I had gambled with louis in- 
 stead of five-franc pieces I should have made 200 
 francs — 200 francs in rather over an hour! Oh, 
 luxury! Oh, being-in-the-swim ! Oh, smartness! 
 Oh, gilded and delicious sin! 
 
 <Jf *•• *?• «3* 
 
 Five days afterwards I went to Monte Carlo 
 again, to lunch with some brother authors. In the 
 meantime, though I had been chained to my desk 
 by unalterable engagements, I had thought con- 
 stantly upon the art and craft of gambling. One 
 of these authors knew Monte Carlo, and all that 
 therein is, as I know Fleet Street. And to my 
 equal astonishment and pleasure he said, when I 
 explained my system to him: "Couldn't have a bet- 
 ter!" And he proceeded to remark positively that 
 the man who had a decent system and the nerve to 
 
178 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 stick to it through all crises, would infallibly win 
 from the tables — not a lot, but an average of sev- 
 eral louis per sitting of two hours. "Gambling," 
 he said, "is a matter of character. You have the 
 right character," he added. You may guess 
 whether I did not glow with joyous pride. "The 
 tables make their money from the plunging fools," 
 I said, privately, "and I am not a fool." A man 
 was pointed out to me who extracted a regular in- 
 come from the tables. "But why don't the author- 
 ities forbid him the rooms?" I demanded, "Be- 
 cause he's such a good advertisement. Can't you 
 see?" I saw. 
 
 We went to the Casino late after lunch. I cut 
 myself adrift from the rest of the party and began 
 instantly to play. In forty-five minutes, with my 
 "system," I had made forty-five francs. And then 
 the rest of the party reappeared and talked about 
 tea, and trains, and dinner. "Tea!" I murmured 
 disgusted (yet I have a profound passion for tea), 
 "when I am netting a franc a minute!" However, 
 I yielded, and we went and had tea at the Restau- 
 rant de Paris across the way. And over the white- 
 and-silver of the tea-table, in the falling twilight, 
 with the incomparable mountain landscape in front 
 of us, and the most chic and decadent Parisianism 
 around us, we talked roulette. Then the Russian 
 Grand Duke who had won several thousand 
 pounds in a few minutes a week or two before, came 
 veritably and ducally in, and sat at the next table. 
 There was no mistaking his likeness to the Tsar. 
 It is most extraordinary how the propinquity of a 
 
"MONTE" 179 
 
 Grand Duke, experienced for the first time, affects 
 even the proverbial phlegm of a British novelist. 
 I seemed to be moving in a perfect atmosphere of 
 Grand Dukes! And I, too, had won! The art of 
 literature seemed a very little thing. 
 
 (7» *?* t5» «5* 
 
 After I had made fifty and forty-five francs 
 at two sittings, I developed suddenly, without vis- 
 iting the tables again, into a complete and thorough 
 gambler. I picked up all the technical terms like 
 picking up marbles — the greater martingale, the 
 lesser martingale, "en plein," "a cheval," "the horses 
 of seventeen," "last square," and so on, and so on — 
 and I had my own original theories about the al- 
 leged superiority of red-or-black to odd-or-even in 
 betting on the even chances. In short, for many 
 hours I lived roulette. I ate roulette for dinner, 
 drank it in my Vichy, and smoked it in my cigar. 
 At first I pretended that I was only pretending to 
 be interested in gambling as a means of earning a 
 livelihood (call it honest or dishonest, as you 
 please) . Then the average sensible man in me be- 
 gan to have rather a bad time, really. I frankly 
 acknowledged to myself that I was veritably keen 
 on the thing. I said: "Of course, ordinary people 
 believe that the tables must win, but we who are 
 initiated know better. All you want in order to 
 win is a prudent system and great force of char- 
 acter." And I decided that it would be idle, that 
 it would be falsely modest, that it would be inane, 
 to deny that I had exceptional force of character. 
 And beautiful schemes formed themselves in my 
 
180 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 mind: how I would gain a certain sum, and then 
 increase my "units" from five-franc pieces to louis, 
 and so quadruple the winnings, and how I would 
 get a friend to practise the same system, and so 
 double them again, and how generally we would 
 have a quietly merry time at the expense of the 
 tables during the next month. 
 
 And I was so calm, cool, collected, impassive. 
 There was no hurry. I would not go to Monte 
 Carlo the next day, but perhaps the day after. 
 However, the next day proved to be very wet, and 
 I was alone and idle, my friends being otherwise 
 engaged, and hence I was simply obliged to go to 
 Monte Carlo. I didn't wish to go, but what could 
 one do? Before starting, I reflected: "Well, there's 
 just a chance — such things have been known," and 
 I took a substantial part of my financial resources 
 out of my pocket-book, and locked that reserve up 
 in a drawer. After this, who will dare to say that I 
 was not cool and sagacious? The journey to Monte 
 Carlo seemed very long. Just as I was entering 
 the ornate portals I met some friends who had seen 
 me there the previous day. The thought flashed 
 through my mind: "These people will think I have 
 got caught in the meshes of the vice just like ordi- 
 nary idiots, whereas, of course my case is not or- 
 dinary at all." So I quickly explained to them that 
 it was very wet (as if they couldn't see), and that 
 my other friends had left me, and that I had come 
 to Monte Carlo merely to kill time. They ap- 
 peared to regard this explanation as unnecessaiy. 
 
 »7* €?* (?• V* 
 
"MONTE" 181 
 
 I had a fancy for the table where I had previously 
 played and won. I went to it, and by extraordi- 
 nary good fortune secured a chair — a difficult thing 
 to get in the afternoons. Behold me seated next 
 door to a croupier, side by side with regular fre- 
 quenters, regular practisers of systems, and doubt- 
 less envied by the outer ring of players and specta- 
 tors ! I was annoyed to find that every other occu- 
 pant of a chair had a little printed card in black and 
 red on which he marked the winning numbers. I 
 had neglected to provide myself with this contriv- 
 ance, and I felt conspicuous; I felt that I was not 
 correct. However, I changed some gold for silver 
 with the croupier, and laid the noble pieces in little 
 piles in front of me, and looked as knowing and as 
 initiated as I could. And at the first opening of- 
 fered by the play I began the operation of my sys- 
 tem, backing red, after black had won three times. 
 Black won the fourth time, and I had lost five 
 francs. . . . Black won the sixth time and I had lost 
 thirty-five francs. Black won the seventh time, and 
 I had lost seventy-five francs. "Steady, cool cus- 
 tomer!" I addressed myself. I put down four louis 
 (and kindly remember that in these hard times 
 four louis is four louis — three English pounds and 
 four English shillings), and, incredible to relate, 
 black won the eighth time, and I had lost a hundred 
 and fifty-five francs. The time occupied was a 
 mere nine minutes. It was at this point that the 
 "nerve" and the "force of character" were required, 
 for it was an essential part of my system to "cut the 
 loss" at the eighth turn. I said: "Hadn't I better 
 
182 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 put down eight louis and win all back again, just 
 this once? Red's absolutely certain to win next 
 time." But my confounded force of character came 
 in, and forced me to cut the loss, and stick strictly 
 to the system. And at the ninth spin red did win. 
 If I had only put down that eight louis I should 
 have been all right. I was extremely annoyed, 
 especially when I realised that, even with decent 
 luck, it would take me the best part of three hours 
 to regain that hundred and fifty-five francs. 
 
 t?* <5* €?• <5* 
 
 I was shaken. I was like a pugilist who had 
 been knocked down in a prize fight, and hasn't quite 
 made up his mind whether, on the whole, he won't 
 be more comfortable, in the long run, where he is. 
 I was like a soldier under a heavy fire, arguing with 
 himself rapidly whether he prefers to be a Balaclava 
 hero with death or the workhouse, or just a plain, 
 ordinary, prudent Tommy. I was struck amid- 
 ships. Then an American person behind my chair, 
 just a casual foolish plunger, of the class out of 
 which the Casino makes its profits, put a thousand 
 franc note on the odd numbers, and thirty-three 
 turned up. "A thousand for a thousand," said the 
 croupier mechanically and nonchalantly, and handed 
 to the foolish plunger the equivalent of eighty 
 pounds sterling. And about two minutes after- 
 wards the same foolish plunger made a hundred and 
 sixty pounds at another single stroke. It was 
 odious; I tell you positively it was odious. I col- 
 lected the shattered bits of my character out of my 
 boots, and recommenced my system; made a bit; 
 
"MONTE" 183 
 
 felt better ; and then zero turned up twice — most un- 
 settling, even when zero means only that your stake 
 is "held over." Then two old and fussy ladies came 
 and gambled very seriously over my head, and de- 
 ranged my hair with the end of the rake in raking 
 up their miserable winnings. . . . At five o'clock 
 I had lost a hundred and ninety-five francs. I 
 don't mind working hard, at great nervous tension, 
 in a vitiated atmosphere, if I can reckon on netting 
 a franc a minute; but I have a sort of objection 
 to three laborious sittings such as I endured 
 that week when the grand result is a dead loss of 
 four pounds. I somehow failed to see the 
 point. I departed in disgust, and ordered tea at 
 the Cafe de Paris, not the Restaurant de Paris (I 
 was in no mood for Grand Dukes). And while I 
 imbibed the tea, a heated altercation went on inside 
 me between the average sensible man and the man 
 who knew that money could be made out of the 
 tables and that gambling was a question of nerves, 
 etc. It was a pretty show, that altercation. In 
 about ten rounds the average sensible man had 
 knocked his opponent right out of the ring. I 
 breathed a long breath, and seemed to wake up out 
 of a nightmare. Did I regret the episode? I re- 
 gretted the ruin, not the episode. For had I not all 
 the time been studying hmnan nature and getting 
 material? Besides that, as I grow older I grow 
 too wise. Says Montaigne: "Wisdome hath hir ex- 
 cesses, and no leise need of moderation, then follie." 
 (The italics are Montaigne's) . . . And there's 
 a good deal in my system after all. 
 
IV 
 
 A DIVERSION AT SAN REMO 
 
 The Royal Hotel, San Remo, has the reputation 
 of being the best hotel, and the most expensive, on 
 the Italian Riviera. It is the abode of correctness 
 and wealth, and if a stray novelist or so is discov- 
 ered there, that is only an accident. It provides 
 distractions of all kinds for its guests: bands of 
 music, conjuring shows, dances; and that week it 
 provided quite a new thing in the way of distraction, 
 namely, an address from Prebendary Carlile, head 
 of the Church Army, which was quite truthfully 
 described as a "national antidote to indiscriminate 
 charity." We looked forward to that address; it 
 was a novelty. And if we of the Royal Hotel had 
 a fault, our fault was a tendency, after we had paid 
 our hotel bills, to indiscriminate charity. Indis- 
 criminate charity salves the conscience just 
 as well as the other kind, and though it 
 costs as much in money, it costs less in 
 trouble. However, we liked to be castigated for 
 our sins, and, in the absence of Father Vaughan, we 
 anticipated with pleasure Mr. Carlile. We did 
 not all go. None of the representatives of ten dif- 
 ferent Continental aristocracies and plutocracies 
 went. Nor did any young and beautiful persons of 
 any nation go. As a fact, it was a lovely afternoon. 
 
 184 
 
SAN REMO 185 
 
 To atone for these defections, the solid respectabil- 
 ity of all San Remo swarmed into the hotel. (A no- 
 tice had been posted that it might order its carriages 
 for 3.30.) We made an unprepossessing assem- 
 blage. I am far removed from the first blush of 
 youth ; but I believe I was almost the youngest per- 
 son present, save a boy who had been meanly 
 "pressed" by his white-haired father. We were 
 chiefly old, stout, plain, and of dissatisfied visage. 
 Many of us had never been married, and never 
 would be. We were prepared to be very grave. 
 But the mischief was that Mr. Carlile would not be 
 grave. 
 
 Mr. Carlile looked like a retired colonel who had 
 dressed by mistake in clerical raiment. His hue 
 was ruddy, his eye clear, and his moustache mar- 
 tial. He is of a naturally cheerful disposition. It 
 is impossible not to like him, not to admire him, not 
 to respect him. It really requires considerable self- 
 restraint, after he has been speaking for a few min- 
 utes, not to pelt him with sovereigns for the prose- 
 cution of his work. Still, appreciation of humour 
 was scarcely our strong point. We could not laugh 
 without severe effort. We were unaccustomed to 
 laugh. It is no use pretending that we were not a 
 serious conclave (we were not basking in the sun, 
 nor dashing across the country in our Fiat cars ; tve 
 had the interests of the Empire at heart). There- 
 fore, though we took the Prebendary's humorous de- 
 nunciation of our indiscriminate charity with fairly 
 good grace, we should have preferred it with a little 
 less facetiousness. People burdened as we were 
 
186 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 with the responsibilities of Empire ought not to be 
 expected to laugh. As protectionists, we were not, 
 if the truth is to be told, in a mood for gaiety. 
 Hence we did not laugh; we hardly smiled. We 
 just listened soberly to the Prebendary, who, after 
 he had told us what we ought not to do, told us 
 what we ought to do. 
 
 (5» (5* €?• «5* 
 
 "What we try to do," he said, "is to bridge the 
 gulf — to bridge the gulf between the East End 
 and the West End. We don't want your money, 
 we want your help, we want each of you to take up 
 one person and look after him. That is the only 
 way to bridge the gulf." He kept on emphasising 
 the phrase "bridge the gulf"; and to illustrate it, he 
 mentioned a Christmas pudding that was sent from 
 a Royal palace to his "Pudding Sunday" orgy la- 
 belled for "the poorest and loneliest widow." "We 
 soon found her," he said. "She worked from 8.30 
 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. and again two hours at night, 
 sewing buttons, and in a good week she earned six 
 shillings. Her right hand was all distorted by rheu- 
 matism, so that to sew gave her great pain. We 
 found her, and we pushed her upstairs, with great 
 difficulty — because she was so bad with bronchitis — 
 and she had her pudding. Someone insisted on giv- 
 ing her Is. a week for life, and someone else insisted 
 on giving her 2s. a week for life, so now she's a 
 blooming millionaire. Give us money, if you like, 
 but please don't give us any more money for 
 her. . . ." "There's another class of women," 
 continued the Prebendary, "the drunkards. 
 
SAN REMO 187 
 
 Drunkenness is growing among women owing to 
 the evil of grocers' licences. We should like some 
 of you to take up a drunken woman apiece and look 
 after her. We can easily find you a nice, gentle 
 creature, to whom getting drunk is no more than 
 getting cross is to us. Very nice women are drunk- 
 ards, and they can be reclaimed by bridging the 
 gulf. Then there's the hooligans — you have them 
 on the Riviera, too. I've had a good deal of expe- 
 rience of them myself. I was once picked up for 
 dead near the Army and Navy Stores after meeting 
 a hooligan. Only the other day a man put his fist 
 in my face and said: 'You've ruined our trade.' 
 'What trade? The begging trade V I said, 'I wish 
 I had.' And then the discharged prisoners. We 
 offer five months' work to any discharged prisoner 
 who cares to take it; there are 200,000 every year. 
 I was talking to a prison official the other day, who 
 told me that 90 per cent, of his 'cases' he sent to us. 
 We reclaim about half of these. The other half 
 break our hearts. One broke all our windows not 
 long since . . ." 
 
 And the Prebendary said also: "My greatest 
 pleasure is a day, a whole day, in a thoroughly bad 
 slum. I went down to Wigan for such a day, and 
 at a meeting, when I asked whether anyone would 
 come forward and speak up for beer, not for Christ, 
 a man came along and threw three pence at my feet 
 — remains of pawning his waistcoat — and then fell 
 down dead drunk. We picked him up, and I 
 charged a helper with 6d., so that he could be filled 
 up with tea or coffee beyond his capacity to drink 
 
188 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 any more beer at all. I don't know whether it was 
 the beer or the tea, but he joined us. All due to 
 emotion, or excitement, perhaps ! Yes, but the next 
 morning I was going out to the 7.30 prayer-meet- 
 ing and I came across a Wigan collier dead drunk 
 in the road. I tried to pick him up. I had my sur- 
 plice on: I always wear my surplice, for the adver- 
 tisement, and because people like to see it. And I 
 couldn't pick him up. I was carrying my trombone 
 in one hand. Then another man came along, and 
 we couldn't get that drunkard up between us. And 
 then who should come along but my reclaimed 
 drunkard of the night before! He managed it." 
 
 And the Prebendary further said: "Come some 
 day and have lunch with me. It will take you two 
 hours. You ought to chop ten bundles of fire- 
 wood, but I'll let you off that. Or come and have 
 tea. That will take four hours. There's a Starva- 
 tion Supper to end it at 8.30, and something going 
 on all the time. We have a brass band, thirty play- 
 ers, all very bad. I'm the worst, with my trom- 
 bone. We also have a women's concertina band. 
 It's terrible. But it goes down. As one man said, 
 'It mykes me 'ead ache, but it do do me 'eart good.' " 
 
 e5* (5* «?• «?• 
 
 Then Lord Dundonald proposed a vote of thanks 
 to everybody who deserved to be thanked. He in- 
 dicated that we ought to help Mr. Carlile, just to 
 show our repentance for having allowed the people 
 free access to public-houses for several centuries. 
 (Faint applause.) Unless we prevented the people 
 from getting at beer and unless we prevented aliens 
 
SAN REMO 189 
 
 from entering England — (Loud applause) — Mr. 
 Carlile's efforts would not succeed. If we stopped 
 the supply of beer and of aliens then the principal 
 steps [towards Utopia?] would have been accom- 
 plished. This simple and comprehensible method 
 of straightening out the social system appealed to 
 us very strongly. I think we preferred it to 
 "bridging the gulf." At the back of our minds was 
 the idea that if we lent our motor-cars or our hus- 
 bands' or brothers' motor-cars to the right candi- 
 dates at election time we should be doing all that 
 was necessary to ensure the millennium. Upon this 
 we departed. In the glow of the meeting the 
 scheme of attaching ourselves each to a nice, gentle 
 drunken woman seemed attractive; but really, on 
 reflection . . . ! There was a plate at the door. 
 However, Mr. Carlile had himself said, "I don't de- 
 pend much on the plate at the door." 
 
FONTAINEBLEAU— 1904-1909 
 
FIEST JOURNEY INTO THE FOREST 
 
 Just to show how strange, mysterious, and ro- 
 mantic life is, I will relate to you in a faithful nar- 
 rative a few of my experiences the other day — it was 
 a common Saturday. Some people may say that 
 my experiences were after all quite ordinary expe- 
 riences. After all, they were not. I was staying 
 in a little house, unfamiliar to me, and beyond a 
 radius of a few hundred yards I knew nothing of 
 my surroundings, for I had arrived by train, and 
 slept in the train. I felt that if I wandered far 
 from that little house I should step into the un- 
 known and the surprising. Even in the house I 
 had to speak a foreign tongue; the bells rang in 
 French. During the morning I walked about 
 alone, not daring to go beyond the influence of the 
 little house; I might have been a fly wandering 
 within the small circle of lamplight on a tablecloth ; 
 all about me lay vast undiscovered spaces. Then 
 after lunch a curious machine came by itself up to 
 the door of the little house. I daresay you have 
 seen these machines. You sit over something mys- 
 terious, with something still more mysterious in 
 front of you. A singular liquid is poured into a 
 tank; one drop explodes at a spark, and the explo- 
 sion pushes the machine infinitesimally forward, 
 
 193 
 
194 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 another drop explodes and pushes the machine in- 
 finitesimally forward, and so on, and so on, and 
 quicker and quicker, till you can outstrip 
 trains. Such is the explanation given to me. 
 I have a difficulty in believing it, but it seems to 
 find general acceptance. However, the machine 
 came up to the door of the little house, and took us 
 off, four of us, all by itself; and after twisting about 
 several lanes for a couple of minutes it ran us into 
 a forest. I had somehow known all the time that 
 that little house was on the edge of a great forest. 
 
 (?• €?• t?* <•* 
 
 Without being informed, I knew that it was a 
 great forest, because against the first trees there was 
 a large board which said "General Instructions for 
 reading the signposts in the forest," and then a lot 
 of details. No forest that was not a great forest, a 
 mazy forest, and a dangerous forest to get lost in, 
 would have had a notice board like that. As a 
 matter of fact the forest was fifty miles in circum- 
 ference. We plunged into it, further and further, 
 exploding our way at the rate of twenty or thirty 
 miles an hour, along a superb road which had a be- 
 ginning and no end. Sometimes we saw a solitary 
 horseman caracoling by the roadside ; sometimes we 
 passed a team of horses slowly dragging a dead 
 tree; sometimes we heard the sound of the wood- 
 man's saw in the distance. Once or twice we de- 
 tected a cloud of dust on the horizon of the road, and 
 it came nearer and nearer, and proved to be a ma- 
 chine like ours, speeding on some mysterious errand 
 in the forest. And as we progressed we looked at 
 
INTO THE FOREST 195 
 
 each other, and noticed that we were getting whiter 
 and whiter — not merely our faces, but even our 
 clothes. And for an extraordinary time we saw 
 nothing but the road running away from under 
 our wheels, and on either side trees, trees, trees — 
 the beech, the oak, the hornbeam, the birch, the pine 
 — interminable and impenetrable millions of them, 
 prodigious in size, and holding strange glooms in 
 the net of their leafless branches. And at inter- 
 vals we passed cross-roads, disclosing glimpses, come 
 and gone in a second, of other immense avenues of 
 the same trees. And then, quite startlingly, quite 
 without notice, we were out of the forest; it was 
 just as if we were in a train and had come out of a 
 tunnel. 
 
 And we had fallen into the midst of a very little 
 village, sleeping on the edge of the forest, and 
 watched over by a very large cathedral. Most of 
 the cathedral had ceased to exist, including one side 
 of the dizzy tower, but enough was left to instil awe. 
 A butcher came with great keys (why a butcher, if 
 the world is so commonplace as people make out?), 
 and we entered the cathedral; and though outside 
 the sun was hot, the interior of the vast fane was ice- 
 cold, chilling the bones. And the cathedral was 
 full of realistic statues of the Virgin, such as could 
 only have been allowed to survive in an ice-cold 
 cathedral on the edge of a magic forest. And then 
 we climbed a dark corkscrew staircase for about an 
 hour, and came out (as startlingly as we had come 
 out of the forest) on the brink of a precipice two 
 hundred feet deep. There was no rail. One little 
 
196 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 step, and that night our ghosts would have begun 
 to haunt the remoter glades of the forest. The 
 butcher laughed, and leaned over ; perhaps he could 
 do this with impunity because he was dressed in 
 blue; I don't know. 
 
 «?• «5* €?• t7* 
 
 Soon afterwards the curious untiring machine had 
 swept us into the forest again. And now the for- 
 est became more and more sinister, and beautiful 
 with a dreadful beauty. Great processions of 
 mighty and tremendous rocks straggled over hill- 
 ocks, and made chasms and promontories, and lairs 
 for tigers — tigers that burn bright in the night. 
 But the road was always smooth, and it seemed non- 
 chalant towards all these wonders. And presently 
 it took us safely out of the forest once again. And 
 this time we were in a town, a town that by some 
 mistake of chronology had got into the wrong cen- 
 tury ; the mistake was a very gross one indeed. For 
 this town had a fort with dungeons and things, and 
 a moat all round it, and the quaintest streets and 
 bridges and roofs and river and craft. And pro- 
 cessions in charge of nuns were walking to and fro 
 in the grass grown streets. And not only were the 
 houses and shops quaint in the highest degree, but 
 the shopkeepers also were all quaint. A grey- 
 headed tailor dressed in black stood at the door of 
 his shop, and his figure offered such a quaint spec- 
 tacle that one of my friends and myself exclaimed 
 at the same instant: "How Balzacian!" And we 
 began to talk about Balzac's great novel "Ursule 
 Mirouet." It was as if that novel had come into 
 
HOW BALZACIAN ! (Page 196) 
 
INTO THE FOREST 197 
 
 actuality, and we were in the middle of it. Every- 
 thing was Balzacian; those who have read Balzac's 
 provincial stories will realise what that means. 
 Yet we were able to buy modern cakes at a con- 
 fectioner's. And we ordered tea, and sat at a table 
 on the pavement in front of an antique inn. And 
 close by us the landlady sat on a chair, and sewed, 
 and watched us. I ventured into the great Bal- 
 zacian kitchen of the inn, all rafters and copper 
 pans, and found a pretty girl boiling water for our 
 tea in one pan and milk for our tea in another pan. 
 I told her it was wrong to boil the milk, but I could 
 see she did not believe me. We were on the edge 
 of the forest. 
 
 «?* «5* t5* t5* 
 
 And then the machine had carried us back into 
 the forest. And this time we could see that it 
 meant business. For it had chosen a road mightier 
 than the others, and a road more determined to pene- 
 trate the very heart of the forest. We travelled 
 many miles with scarcely a curve, until there were 
 more trees behind us than a thousand men could 
 count in a thousand years. And then — you know 
 what happened next. At least you ought to be able 
 to guess. We came to a castle. In the centre of 
 all forests there is an enchanted castle, and there 
 was an enchanted castle in the centre of this forest. 
 And as the forest was vast, so was the castle vast. 
 And as the forest was beautiful, so was the castle 
 beautiful. It was a sleeping castle; the night of 
 history had overtaken it. We entered its portals by 
 a magnificent double staircase, and there was one 
 
198 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 watchman there, like a lizard, under the great door- 
 way. He showed us the wonders of the castle, con- 
 ducting us through an endless series of noble and 
 splendid interiors, furnished to the last detail of 
 luxury, but silent, unpeopled, and forlorn. Only 
 the clocks were alive. "There are sixty-eight clocks 
 in the castle." (And ever since I have thought of 
 those sixty-eight clocks ticking away there, with 
 ten miles of trees on every side of them. ) And the 
 interiors grew still more imposing. And at length 
 we arrived at an immense apartment whose gor- 
 geous and yet restrained magnificence drew from us 
 audible murmurs of admiration. Prominent among 
 the furniture was a great bed, hung with green and 
 gold, and a glittering cradle; at the head of the 
 cradle was poised a gold angel bearing a crown. 
 Said the sleepy watchman: "Bed-chamber of Na- 
 poleon, with cradle of the King of Rome." This 
 was the secret of the forest. 
 
m 
 
 * 
 
 I* 
 
 SI 
 
 
 
 ON THE TERRACE OF THE CASTLE {Page 197) 
 
II 
 
 SECOND JOURNEY INTO THE FOREST 
 
 We glided swiftly into the forest as into a tun- 
 nel. But after a while could be seen a silvered lane 
 of stars overhead, a ceiling to the invisible double 
 wall of trees. There were these stars, the rush of 
 tonic wind in our faces, and the glare of the low- 
 hung lanterns on the road that raced to meet us. 
 The car swerved twice in its flight, the second time 
 violently. We understood that there had been dan- 
 ger. As the engine stopped, a great cross loomed 
 up above us, intercepting certain rays; it stood in 
 the middle of the road, which, dividing, enveloped 
 its base, as the current of a river strokes an island. 
 The doctor leaned over from the driving-seat and 
 peered behind. In avoiding the cross he had mis- 
 taken for part of the macadam an expanse of dust 
 which rain and wind had caked ; and on this treach- 
 ery the wheels had skidded. "Ca aurait pu etre 
 une sale histoire!" he said briefly and drily. In the 
 pause we pictured ourselves flung against the cross, 
 dead or dying. I noticed that other roads joined 
 ours at the cross, and that a large grassy space, cir- 
 cular, separated us from the trees. As soon as we 
 had recovered a little from the disconcerting glimpse 
 of the next world, the doctor got down and re- 
 started the engine, and our road began to race for- 
 
 199 
 
200 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 ward to us again, under the narrow ceiling of stars. 
 After monotonous miles, during which I pondered 
 upon eternity, nature, the meaning of life, the pre- 
 cariousness of my earthly situation, and the incipient 
 hole in my boot-sole — all the common night-thoughts 
 — we passed by a high obelisk (the primitive phal- 
 lic symbol succeeding to the other), and turning to 
 the right, followed an obscure gas-lit street of walls 
 relieved by sculptured porticoes. Then came the 
 vast and sombre courtyard of a vague palace, 
 screened from us by a grille; we overtook a tram- 
 car, a long, glazed box of electric light; and then 
 we were suddenly in a bright and living town. We 
 descended upon the terrace of a calm cafe, in front 
 of which were ranged twin red-blossomed trees in 
 green tubs, and a waiter in a large white apron and 
 a tiny black jacket. 
 
 «?* «5* t?* c5* 
 
 The lights of the town lit the earth to an eleva- 
 tion of about fifteen feet ; above that was the prim- 
 eval and mysterious darkness, hiding even the house- 
 tops. Within the planes of radiance people moved 
 to and fro, appearing and disappearing on their 
 secret errands; and glittering tramcars continually 
 threaded the Square, attended by blue sparks. A 
 monumental bull occupied a pedestal in the centre 
 of the Square; parts of its body were lustrous, others 
 intensely black, according to the incidence of the 
 lights. My friends said it was the bull of Rosa 
 Bonheur, the Amazon. Pointing to a dark void 
 beyond the flanks of the bull, they said, too, that 
 the palace was there, and spoke of the Council- 
 
GUARDS OK THE CASTLE (Page 19S) 
 
INTO THE FOREST 201 
 
 Chamber of Napoleon, the cradle of the King of 
 Rome, the boudoir of Marie Antoinette. I had to 
 summon my faith in order to realise that I was in 
 Fontainebleau, which hitherto had been to me chiefly 
 a romantic name. In the deep and half-fearful 
 pleasure of realisation — '"This also has happened to 
 me !" — I was aware of the thrill which has shaken me 
 on many similar occasions, each however unique : as 
 when I first stepped on a foreign shore ; when I first 
 saw the Alps, the Pyrenees ; when I first strolled on 
 the grand boulevards ; when I first staked a coin at 
 Monte Carlo; when I walked over the French fron- 
 tier and read on a thing like a mile-post the sacred 
 name "Italia"; and, most marvellous, when I stood 
 alone in the Sahara and saw the vermilions and 
 ochres of the Aures Mountains. This thrill, ever 
 returning, is the reward of a perfect ingenuousness. 
 
 <•* «•* i?* t?* 
 
 I was shown a map, and as I studied it, the 
 strangeness of the town's situation seduced me more 
 than the thought of its history. For the town, with 
 its lights, cars, cafes, shops, halls, palaces, theatres, 
 hotels, and sponging-houses, was lost in the midst of 
 the great forest. Impossible to enter it, or to leave 
 it, without winding through those dark woods ! On 
 the map I could trace all the roads, a dozen like 
 ours, converging on the town. I had a vision of 
 them, palely stretching through the interminable 
 and sinister labyrinth of unquiet trees, and gradu- 
 ally reaching the humanity of the town. And I had 
 a vision of the recesses of the forest, where the deer 
 wandered or couched. All around, on the rim of 
 
202 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 the forest, were significant names: the Moret and 
 the Grez and the Franchard of Stevenson; Bar- 
 bizon ; the Nemours of Balzac ; Larchant. Nor did 
 I forget the forest scene of George Moore's "Mil- 
 dred Lawson." 
 
 After we had sat half an hour in front of glasses, 
 we rushed back through the forest to the house on its 
 confines whence we had come. The fascination of 
 the town did not cease to draw me until, years later, 
 I yielded and went definitely to live in it. 
 
Ill 
 
 THE CASTLE GARDENS 
 
 On the night of the Feast of Saint Louis the 
 gardens of the palace are not locked as on other 
 nights. The gardens are within the park, and the 
 park is within the forest. I walked on that hot, clear 
 night amid the parterres of flowers; and across 
 shining water, over the regular tops of clipped trees, 
 I saw the long f acades and the courts of the palace : 
 pale walls of stone surmounted by steep slated roofs, 
 and high red chimneys cut out against the glittering 
 sky. An architecture whose character is set by the 
 exaggerated slope of its immense roofs, which dwarf 
 the walls they should only protect ! All the interest 
 of the style is in these eventful roofs, chequered 
 continually by the facings of upright dormers, 
 pierced by little ovals, and continually interrupted 
 by the perpendicularity of huge chimneys. The 
 palace seems to live chiefly in its roof, and to be top- 
 heavy. It is a forest of brick chimneys growing out 
 of stone. Millions upon millions of red bricks had 
 been raised and piled in elegant forms solely that 
 the smoke of fires below might escape above the roof 
 ridge : fires which in theory heated rooms, but which 
 had never heated aught but their own chimneys : in- 
 efficient and beautiful chimneys of picturesque, in- 
 effectual hearths! Tin pipes and cowls, such as 
 
 203 
 
204 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 sprout thickly on the roofs of Paris and London, 
 would have been cheaper and better. (It is al- 
 ways thus to practical matters that my mind runs.) 
 In these monstrous and innumerable chimneys one 
 saw eccentricity causing an absurd expense of 
 means for a trifling end: sure mask of a debased 
 style ! 
 
 i5* c5* e?* «3* 
 
 With malicious sadness I reflected that in most 
 of those chimneys smoke would never ascend again. 
 I thought of the hundreds of rooms, designed before 
 architects understood the art of planning, crowded 
 with gilt and mahogany furniture, smothered in 
 hangings, tapestries, and carpets, sparkling with 
 crystal whose cold gaiety is reflected in the polish of 
 oak floors! And not a room but conjures up the 
 splendour of the monarchs and the misery of the 
 people of France! Not an object that is associated 
 with the real welfare of the folk, the makers of the 
 country! A museum now — the palace, the gardens, 
 and the f ountained vistas of lake and canal — or shall 
 I not say a mausoleum ? — whose title to fame, in the 
 esteem of the open-mouthed, is that here Napoleon, 
 the supreme scourge of families and costly spreader 
 of ruin, wrote an illegible abdication. The docu- 
 ment of abdication, which is, after all, only a fac- 
 simile, and the greedy carp in the lake — these two 
 phenomena divide the eyes of the open-mouthed. 
 And not all the starers that come from the quarters 
 of the world are more than sufficient to dot very 
 sparsely the interminable polished floors and the 
 great spaces of the gardens. The fantastic monu- 
 

 
 
 
 
 W*V 
 
 ?■ — . — i — . 
 
 - 
 1111 
 
 ' 
 
 ^ 
 
 \ /ly 
 
 THE CASTLE GARDENS (Page SOS) 
 
THE CASTLE GARDENS 205 
 
 ment is preserved ostensibly as one of the glories of 
 France! (Gloire, thou art French! Fontaine- 
 bleau, Pasteur, the Eiffel Tower, Victor Hugo, the 
 Paris-Lyons-Mediterranean Railway — each has 
 been termed a gloire of France!) But the true 
 reason of the monument's preservation is that it is 
 too big to destroy. The later age has not the force 
 nor the courage to raze it and parcel it and sell it, 
 and give to the poor. It is a defiance to the later 
 age of the age departed. Like a gigantic idol, it 
 is kept gilded and tidy at terrific expense by a cult 
 which tempers fear with disdain. 
 
IV 
 
 AN ITINERARY 
 
 I have lived for years in the forest of Fontaine- 
 bleau, the largest forest in France, and one of the 
 classic forests — I suppose — of the world. Not in 
 a charcoal-burner's hut, nor in a cave, but in a town ; 
 for the united towns of Avon and Fontainebleau 
 happen to be in the forest itself, and you cannot 
 either enter or quit them without passing through 
 the forest ; thus it happens that, while inhabiting the 
 recesses of a forest you can enjoy all the graces and 
 conveniences of an imperial city (Fontainebleau is 
 nothing if not Napoleonic) , even to cafes chantants, 
 cinematograph theatres, and expensive fruiterers. 
 I tramp daily, and often twice daily, in this forest, 
 seldom reaching its edge, unless I do my tramping 
 on a bicycle, and it is probably this familiarity with 
 its fastnesses and this unfamiliarity with its periph- 
 ery as a continuous whole that has given me what I 
 believe to be a new idea for a tramping excursion: 
 namely, a circuit of the forest of Fontainebleau. It 
 is an enterprise which might take two days or two 
 months. I may never accomplish it myself, but it 
 ought to be accomplished by somebody, and I can 
 guarantee its exceeding diversity and interest. The 
 forest is surrounded by a ring of towns, townships, 
 and villages of the most varied character. I think I 
 
 206 
 
AN ITINERARY 207 
 
 know every one of them, having arrived somehow 
 at each of them by following radii from the centre. 
 I propose to put down some un-Baedekerish but 
 practical notes on each place, for the use and bene- 
 fit of the tramper who has the wisdom to pursue my 
 suggestion. 
 
 «5* «5* «?* <?• 
 
 One must begin with Moret. Moret is the show- 
 place on the edge of the forest, and perhaps the old- 
 est. I assisted some years ago at the celebration 
 of its thousandth anniversary. It is only forty- 
 three miles from Paris, on the main line of the Paris- 
 Lyons-Mediterranean railway, an important junc- 
 tion ; two hundred and fifty trains a day pass through 
 the station. And yet it is one of the deadest places 
 I ever had tea in. It lies low, on the banks of the 
 Loing, about a mile above the confluence of the 
 Seine and the Loing. It is dirty, not very healthy, 
 and exceedingly picturesque. Its bridge, church, 
 gates and donjon have been painted and sketched 
 by millions of artists, professional and amateur. It- 
 appears several times in each year's Salon. This 
 is its curse — the same curse as that of Bruges: it is 
 overrun by amateur artists. I am an amateur ar- 
 tist myself; in summer I am not to be seen abroad 
 without a sketching-stool, a portfolio, and a water- 
 bottle in my hip pocket. But I hate, loathe and de- 
 spise other amateur artists. Nothing would induce 
 me to make one of the group of earnest dabbers and 
 scratchers by the bridge at Moret. When I attack 
 Nature, I must be alone, or, if another artist is to 
 be there, he must be a certified professional. I 
 
208 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 have nothing else to say against Moret. There are 
 several hotels, all mediocre. 
 
 A more amusing and bracing place than Moret is 
 its suburb St. Mammes, the port at the afore-men- 
 tioned confluence, magnificently situated, and al- 
 ways brightened by the traffic of barges, tugs, and 
 other craft. There is an hotel and a pension. The 
 Seine is a great and noble stream here, and abso- 
 lutely unused by pleasure-craft. I do not know 
 why. I once made a canoe and navigated the Ama- 
 zonian flood, but the contrivance was too frail. 
 Tugs would come rushing down, causing waves 
 twelve inches high at least, and I was afraid, espe- 
 cially as I had had the temerity to put a sail to 
 the canoe. 
 
 «5* (?• «?• <?• 
 
 The tramper should cross the Seine here, and go 
 through Champagne, a horrible town erected by the 
 Creusot Steel Company — called, quite seriously, a 
 "garden city." He then crosses the river again to 
 Thomery — the grape town. The finest table 
 grapes in France are grown at Thomery. 
 Vines flourish in public on both sides of 
 most streets, and public opinion is so powerful 
 (on this one point) that the fruit is never stolen. 
 Thomery's lesser neighbour, By, is equally vinous. 
 These large villages offer very interesting studies in 
 the results of specialisation. Hotels and pensions 
 exist. 
 
 From Thomery, going in a general direction 
 north by west, it is necessary to penetrate a little 
 
AN ITINERARY 209 
 
 into the forest, as the Seine is its boundary here, 
 and there is no practical towing-path on the forest 
 side of the river. You come down to the river at 
 Valvins Bridge, and, following the left bank, you 
 arrive at the little village of Les Platreries, which 
 consists of about six houses and an hotel where the 
 food is excellent and whose garden rises steeply 
 straight into the forest. A mile farther on is the 
 large village of Samois, also on the Seine. Lower 
 Samois is too pretty — as pretty as a Christmas 
 card. It is much frequented in summer; its hotel 
 accommodation is inferior and expensive, and its 
 reputation for strictly conventional propriety is 
 scarcely excessive. However, a picturesque spot! 
 Climb the very abrupt stony high street, and you 
 come to Upper Samois, which is less sophisticated. 
 
 From Samois (unless you choose to ferry across 
 to Fericy and reach Melun by Fontaine-le-Port) 
 you must cut through an arm of the forest to Bois- 
 le-Roi. You are now getting toward the northern 
 and less interesting extremity of the forest. Bois- 
 le-Roi looks a perfect dream of a place from the 
 station. But it is no such thing. It is residential. 
 It is even respectably residential. All trains ex- 
 cept the big expresses stop at Bois-le-Roi, which 
 fact is a proof that the residents exert secret influ- 
 ences upon the railway directors, and that there- 
 fore they are the kind of resident whose notion of 
 architecture is merely distressing. You can stay 
 at Bois-le-Roi and live therein comfortably, but 
 there is no reason why you should. 
 
210 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 The next place is Melun, which lies just to the 
 north of the forest. It is the county town. It is 
 noted for its brewery. It is well situated on a curve 
 of the Seine, and it is more provincial (in the stodgy 
 sense) and more ineffably tedious even than Moret. 
 It possesses neither monuments nor charm. Yet 
 the distant view of it — say from the height above 
 Fontaine-le-Port, is ravishing at morn. 
 
 From Melun you face about and strike due south, 
 again cutting through a bit of the forest, to Chailly- 
 en-Biere. (All the villages about here are "en 
 biere") Chailly is just a nice plain average forest- 
 edge village, and that is why I like it. I doubt if 
 you could sleep there with advantage. But if you 
 travel with your own tea, you might have excellent 
 tea there. 
 
 The next village is Barbizon, the :^iost renowned 
 place in all the Fontainebleau region; a name full 
 of romantic associations. It is utterly vulgarised, 
 like Stratford-on-Avon. "Les Charmettes" has 
 become a fashionable hotel with a private theatre 
 and an orchestra during dinner. What would 
 Rousseau, Daubigny and Millet say if they could 
 see it now? Curiosity shops, art exhibitions, and a 
 very large cafe! An appalling light railway, and 
 all over everything the sticky slime of sophistication ! 
 Walking about the lanes you have glimpses of su- 
 perb studio interiors, furnished doubtless by War- 
 ing or Lazard. Indeed Barbizon has now become 
 naught but a target for the staring eyes of tourists 
 from Arizona, and a place of abode for persons 
 whose mentality leads them to believe that the at- 
 
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AN ITINERARY 211 
 
 mosphere of this village is favourable to high-class 
 painting. 
 
 All the country round about here is exquisite. I 
 have seen purple mornings in the fields nearly as 
 good as any that Millet ever painted. A lane west- 
 ward should be followed so that other nice average 
 villages, St. Martin-en-Biere and Fleury-en-Biere 
 can be seen. At Fleury there is a glorious castle, 
 partly falling to ruin, and partly in process of res- 
 toration. Thence, south-easterly, to Arbonne. 
 
 «?• (5* <?• «5* 
 
 Arbonne is only a few miles from Barbizon, and I 
 fancy that it resembles what Barbizon used to be be- 
 fore Barbizon was discovered by London and New 
 York. It is a long, straggling place, with one im- 
 possible and one quite possible hotel. As a field 
 of action for the tramping painter I should say 
 that it is unsurpassed in the department. From 
 Arbonne you must cross another arm of the 
 forest, and pass from the department of Seine-et- 
 Marne to that of Seine-et-Oise, to the market town 
 of Milly. From Milly onwards the human interest 
 is less than the landscape interest until you come to 
 Chapelle-la-Reine ; from there you are soon at 
 Larchant, whose ruined cathedral is one of the lead- 
 ing attractions of the forest edge. 
 
 You are now within the sphere of Nemours. 
 From Larchant to Nemours the only agreeable 
 method of locomotion is by aeroplane. The high 
 road is straight and level, and, owing to heavy traf- 
 fic caused by quarries, atrociously bad. It reaches 
 the acme of boredom. Its one merit is its brevity, 
 
212 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 about five miles. Nemours is a fine Balzacian 
 town, on the Loing, with a picturesque canal in the 
 heart of it, a frowning castle, a goodish church and 
 bridge, a good hotel and delightful suburbs. 
 
 (5* l5» !?• t5* 
 
 At Nemours, cross the river, and keep to the high 
 road which follows the Loing canal through Episy 
 back to Moret. Or, in the alternative, refrain from 
 crossing the river, and take the Paris high road, 
 leaving it to the left at Bourron, and so reach Moret 
 through Marlotte and Montigny. Marlotte and 
 Montigny are Parisian villages in July, August, 
 and September, new, artistic, snobbish; in winter 
 they are quite tolerable. Montigny is "pictur- 
 esquely situated" on the Loing, and Marlotte has a 
 huge hotel. The road thence on the rim of the for- 
 est back to Moret is delightful. 
 
 I do not know how many miles you will have done 
 — anything from sixty to a hundred and twenty 
 probably — when you arrive for the second time in 
 Moret. But you must find strength to struggle on- 
 wards from Moret to Fontainebleau itself, about 
 seven miles off in the forest. Fontainebleau con- 
 tains one of the dearest hotels in the world. Ask 
 for it, and go somewhere else. 
 
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 THE CATHEDRAL OF LARCHANT (Page 211) 
 
SWITZERLAND— 1 909- 1 91 1 
 
THE HOTEL ON THE LANDSCAPE 
 
 I do not mean the picturesque and gabled con- 
 struction which on our own country-side has been 
 restored to prosperity, though not to efficiency, by 
 Americans travelling with money and motor-cars. 
 I mean the uncompromising grand hotel — Majestic, 
 Palace, Metropole, Royal, Splendide, Victoria, 
 Belle Vue, Ritz, Savoy, Windsor, Continental, and 
 supereminently Grand — which was perhaps first in- 
 vented and compiled in Northumberland Avenue, 
 and has now spread with its thousand windows and 
 balconies over the entire world. I mean the hotel 
 which is invariably referred to in daily newspapers 
 as a "huge modern caravanserai." This hotel cannot 
 be judged in a town. In a town, unless it possesses 
 a river-front or a sea-esplanade, the eye never gets 
 higher than its second storey, and as a spectacle the 
 hotel resolves itself usually into a row of shops (for 
 the sale of uselessness), with a large square hole in 
 the middle manned by laced officials who die after a 
 career devoted exclusively to the opening and shut- 
 ting of glazed double-doors. 
 
 To be fairly judged, the grand hotel must be seen 
 alone on a landscape as vast as itself. The best 
 country in which to see it is therefore Switzerland. 
 True, the Riviera is regularly fringed with grand 
 
 215 
 
216 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 hotels from Toulon to the other side of San Remo; 
 but there they are so closely packed as to interfere 
 with each other's impressiveness, and as a rule they 
 are at too low an altitude. In Switzerland they 
 occur in all conceivable and inconceivable situations. 
 The official guide of the Swiss Society of Hotel 
 Keepers gives us photographs of over eight hundred 
 grand hotels, and it is by no means complete; in 
 fact, some of the grandest consider themselves 
 too grand to be in it, pictorially. Just as 
 Germany is the land of pundits and aniline dyes, 
 France of revolutions, England of beautiful women, 
 and Scotland of sixpences, so is Switzerland the 
 land of huge modern caravanserais. 
 
 You may put Snowdon on the top of Ben Nevis 
 and climb up the height of the total by the aid of 
 railways, funiculars, racks and pinions, diligences 
 and sledges; and when nothing but your own feet 
 will take you any farther, you will see, in Switzer- 
 land, a grand hotel, magically and incredibly raised 
 aloft in the mountains; solitary — no town, no 
 houses, nothing but this hotel hemmed in on all 
 sides by snowy crags, and made impregnable by 
 precipices and treacherous snow and ice. I always 
 imagine that at the next great re-drawing of the 
 map of Europe, when the lesser nationalities are 
 to disappear, the Switzers will take armed refuge in 
 their farthest grand hotels, and there defy the man- 
 dates of the Concert. For the hotel, no matter how 
 remote it be, lacks nothing that is mentioned in the 
 dictionary of comfort. Beyond its walls your life 
 is not worth twelve hours' purchase. You would 
 
THE HOTEL 217 
 
 not die of hunger, because you would perish of cold. 
 At best you might hit on some peasant's cottage in 
 which the standards of existence had not changed 
 for a century. But once pass within the portals of 
 the grand hotel, and you become the spoiled darling 
 of an intricate organisation that laughts at moun- 
 tains, avalanches, and frost. You are surrounded 
 by luxuries surpassing even the luxuries offered by 
 the huge modern caravanserais of London. (For 
 example, I believe that no London caravanserai 
 was, until quite lately, steam-heated throughout.) 
 You have the temperature of the- South, or of the 
 North, by turning a handle, and the light of suns 
 at midnight. You have the restaurants of Picca- 
 dilly and the tea-rooms of St. James's Street. You 
 eat to the music of wild artistes in red uniforms. 
 You are amused by conjurers, bridge-drives, and 
 cotillons. You can read the periodical literature 
 of the world while reclining on upholstery from the 
 most expensive houses in Tottenham Court Road 
 and Oxford Street. You have a post-office, a tele- 
 graph-office, and a telephone; pianos, pianolas, and 
 musical-boxes. You go up to bed in a lift, and 
 come down again to lunch in one. You need only 
 ring a bell, and a specially trained man in clothes 
 more glittering than yours will answer you softly 
 in any language you please, and do anything you 
 want except carry you bodily. . . . And on 
 the other side of a pane of glass is the white peak, 
 the virgin glacier, twenty degrees of frost, starva- 
 tion, death — and Nature as obdurate as she was ten 
 thousand years ago. Within the grand hotel civili- 
 
218 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 sation is so powerful that it governs the very colour 
 of your necktie of an evening. Without it, cut off 
 from it, in those mountains you would be fighting 
 your fellows for existence according to the codes of 
 primitive humanity. Put your nose against the 
 dark window, after dinner, while the band is sooth- 
 ing your digestion with a waltz, and in the distance 
 you may see a greenish light. It is a star. And a 
 little below it you may see a yellow light glimmer- 
 ing. It is another grand hotel, by day generally in- 
 visible, another eyrie de luxe. 
 
 You go home and calmly say that you have been 
 staying at the Grand Hotel Blank. But does it 
 ever occur to you to wonder how it was all done? 
 Does it ever occur to you that orchestras, lamp- 
 shades, fresh eggs, fresh fish, vanilla ices, cham- 
 pagne, and cut flowers do not grow on snow- 
 wreathed crags? You have not been staying in a 
 hotel, but in a miracle of seven storeys. In the 
 sub-basement lie the wines. In the basement 
 women are for ever washing linen and men for ever 
 cooking. On the ground-floor all is eating and 
 drinking and rhythm. Then come five storeys of 
 slumber; and above that the attics where the tips 
 are divided. 
 
 In judging the hotel on the landscape, you must 
 thus imaginatively realise what it is and what it 
 means. 
 
 «?* <?■ «?• t5* 
 
 The eye needs to be trained before it can look 
 seeingly at a grand hotel and disengage its beauty 
 from the mists and distortions which prejudice has 
 
THE HOTEL 219 
 
 created. This age (like any other age, for the mat- 
 ter of that) has so little confidence in itself that it 
 cannot believe that it has created anything beauti- 
 ful. It is incapable of conceiving that an insur- 
 ance office may be beautiful. It is convinced, with 
 the late Sir William Harcourt, that New Scotland 
 Yard is a monstrosity. It talks of the cost, not of 
 the beauty, of the Piccadilly Hotel. No doubt the 
 Romans, who were nevertheless a sound artistic race 
 of the second rank, talked of the cost (in slaves) of 
 their aqueducts, and would have been puzzled could 
 they have seen us staring at the imperfect remains 
 of the said aqueducts as interesting works of art. 
 The notion that a hotel, even the most comfortable, 
 is anything but a blot on the landscape, has prob- 
 ably never yet occurred to a single one of the thou- 
 sands of dilettanti who wander restlessly over the 
 face of Europe admiring architecture and scenery. 
 Hotels as visual objects are condemned offhand, 
 without leave to appeal, unheard, or rather unseen 
 — I mean really unseen. 
 
 For several weeks, once, I passed daily in the vi- 
 cinity of a huge modern caravanserai, which stood 
 by itself on a mountain side in Switzerland; and my 
 attitude towards that hotel was as abusive and vio- 
 lent as Ruskin's towards railways. And then one 
 evening, early, in the middle dusk, I came across it 
 unexpectedly, when I was not prepared for it: it 
 took me unawares and suddenly conquered me. I 
 saw it in the mass, rising in an immense, irregular 
 rectangle out of a floor of snow and a background 
 of pines and firs. Its details had vanished. What 
 
220 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 I saw was not a series of parts, but the whole hotel, 
 as one organism and entity. Only its eight floors 
 were indicated by illuminated windows, and behind 
 those windows I seemed to have a mysterious sense 
 of its lifts continually ascending and descending. 
 The apparition was impressive, poetic, almost over- 
 whelming. It was of a piece with the moun- 
 tains. It had simplicity, severity, grandeur. It 
 was indubitably and movingly beautiful. My eye 
 had been opened ; the training had been begun. 
 
 I expected, naturally, that the next morning I 
 should see the hotel again in its original ugliness. 
 But no ! My view of it had been permanently al- 
 tered. I had glimpsed the secret of the true man- 
 ner of seeing a grand hotel. A grand hotel must 
 be seen grandiosely — that is to say, it must be seen 
 with a large sweep of the eye, and from a distance, 
 and while the eye is upon its form the brain must 
 appreciate its moral significance; for the one ex- 
 plains the other. You do not examine Mont Blanc 
 or an oil painting by Turner with a microscope, and 
 you must not look at a grand hotel as you would 
 look at a marble fountain or a miniature. 
 
 Since the crepuscular hour above described, I 
 have learnt to observe sympathetically the physiog- 
 nomy of grand hotels, and I have discovered a new 
 source of aesthetic pleasure. I remember on a 
 morning in autumn, standing on a suspension 
 bridge over the Dordogne and gazing at a feudal 
 castle perched on a pre- feudal crag. I could not 
 decide whether the feudal castle or the suspension 
 bridge was the more romantic fact (for I am so con- 
 
THE HOTEL 221 
 
 stituted as to see the j)henomena of the nineteenth 
 century with the vision of the twenty- third), but 
 the feudal castle, silhouetted against the flank of a 
 great hill that shimmered in the sunshine, had an 
 extraordinary beauty — moral as well as physical, 
 possibly more moral than physical. As architec- 
 ture it could not compare with the Parthenon or 
 New Scotland Yard. But it was far from ugly, 
 and it had an exquisite Tightness in the landscape. 
 I understood that it had been put precisely there be- 
 cause that was the unique place for it. And I un- 
 derstood that its turrets and windows and roofs and 
 walls had been constructed precisely as they were 
 constructed because a whole series of complicated 
 ends had to be attained which could have been at- 
 tained in no other way. Here was a simple result 
 of an unaffected human activity which had endeav- 
 oured to achieve an honest utilitarian end, and, 
 while succeeding, had succeeded also in producing 
 a work of art that gave pleasure to a mind entirely 
 unfeudal. A feudal castle on a crag as impossible 
 to climb as to descend is, and always was, exotic, 
 artificial, and against nature — like every effort of 
 man ! — but it does, and always did, contribute to the 
 happiness of peoples. 
 
 Similarly I remember, on a morning in winter, 
 standing on a wild country road, gazing at another 
 castle perched on a pre-feudal crag. But this cas- 
 tle was about fifteen times as big as the former one, 
 and the crag had its earthy foot in a lake about a 
 mile below. The scale of everything was terrific- 
 ally larger. Still, the two castles, seen at propor- 
 
222 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 tionate distances, bore a strange, disconcerting, re- 
 semblance the one to the other. The architecture 
 of the second, as of the first, would not compare with 
 the Parthenon or New Scotland Yard. But it was 
 not ugly. And assuredly it had an exquisite Tight- 
 ness in the landscape. I understood, far better 
 than in the former instance, that it had been put 
 precisely where it was, because no other spot would 
 have been so suited to its purposes ; its geographical 
 relation to the sun and the lake and the mountains 
 had been perfectly adjusted. I understood pro- 
 foundly the meaning of all those rows of windows 
 and all those balconies facing the south and south- 
 east. I understood profoundly the intention of the 
 great glazed box at the base of the castle. I could 
 read the words that the wreath of smoke from be- 
 hind the turreted roof was writing on the slate of 
 the sky, and those words Were "Chauffage central." 
 From the fagades I could construct the plan and ar- 
 rangement of the interior of the castle. I could 
 instantly decide which of its two hundred chambers 
 were the costliest, and which would be the last to be 
 occupied and the first to be left. I could feel the 
 valves of its heart rising and falling. Here was 
 the simple result of an unaffected human activity, 
 which had endeavoured to achieve an honest utili- 
 tarian end, and, while succeeding, had succeeded 
 also in giving pleasure to a mind representative of 
 the twenty-third century. A grand hotel on a crag 
 as impossible to climb as to descend is, and always 
 will be, exotic, artificial, and against nature — like 
 every effort of man! Why should a man want to 
 
THE HOTEL 223 
 
 leave that pancake, England, and reside for weeks 
 at a time in dizzy altitudes in order to stare at moun- 
 tains and propel himself over snow and ice by means 
 of skis, skates, sledges, and other unnatural dodges ? 
 No one knows. But the ultimate sequel, gathered 
 up and symbolised in the grand hotel, contributes 
 to the happiness of peoples and gives joy to the eye 
 that is not afflicted with moral cataract. 
 
 And I am under no compulsion to confine my- 
 self to Switzerland. I do not object to go to the 
 other extreme and flit to the Sahara. Who that 
 from afar off in the Algerian desert has seen the 
 white tower of the Royal Hotel at Biskra, oasis of 
 a hundred thousand palm-trees and twenty grand 
 hotels, will deny either its moral or its physical 
 beauty in that tremendously beautiful landscape? 
 
 Conceivably, the judgment against hotel archi- 
 tecture was fatally biassed in its origin by the hor- 
 rible libels pictured on hotel notepapers. 
 
 < 5% €?• <?• «?* 
 
 In estimating the architecture of hotels, it must 
 be borne in mind that they constitute the sole genu- 
 ine contribution made by the modern epoch to the 
 real history of architecture. The last previous con- 
 tribution took the shape of railway stations, which, 
 until the erection of the Lyons and the Orleans sta- 
 tions in Paris — about seventy years after the birth 
 of stations — were almost without exception deso- 
 late failures. It will not be seriously argued, I 
 suppose, that the first twenty years of grand hotels 
 have added as much ugliness to the world's stock 
 of ugliness as the first twenty years of railway sta- 
 
224 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 tions. If there exists a grand hotel as direfully 
 squalid as King's Cross Station (palace of an un- 
 dertaking with a capital of over sixty millions ster- 
 ling) I should like to see it. Hotel architecture is 
 the outcome of a new feature in the activity of so- 
 ciety, and this fact must be taken into account. 
 When a new grand hotel takes a page of a daily 
 paper to announce itself as the "last word" of hotels 
 — what it means is, roughly, the "first word," as 
 distinguished from inarticulate babbling. 
 
 Of course it is based on strictly utilitarian prin- 
 ciples — and rightly. Even when the grand hotel 
 blossoms into rich ornamentation, the aim is not 
 beauty, but the attracting of clients. And the 
 practical conditions, the shackles of utility, in which 
 the architecture of hotels has to evolve, are ex- 
 tremely severe and galling. In the end this will 
 probably lead to a finer form of beauty 
 than would otherwise have been achieved. In 
 the first place a grand hotel, especially when 
 it is situated "on the landscape," can have only one 
 authentic face, and to this face the other three 
 must be sacrificed. Already many hotels ad- 
 vertise that every bedroom without exception 
 looks south, or at any rate looks direct at 
 whatever prospect the visitors have come to look at. 
 This means that the hotel must have length without 
 depth — that it must be a sort of vast wall pierced 
 with windows. Further, the democratic quality of 
 the social microcosm of a hotel necessitates an ex- 
 ternal monotony of detail. In general, all the 
 rooms on each floor must resemble each other, pos- 
 
 
THE HOTEL 225 
 
 sessing the same advantages. If one has a balcony, 
 all must have balconies. There must be no sacri- 
 ficing of the amenities of a room here and there to 
 demands of variety or balance in the elevation. 
 Again, the hotel must be relatively lofty — not be- 
 cause of lack of space, but to facilitate a complex 
 service. The kitchens of Buckingham Palace may 
 be a quarter of a mile from the dining-room, and 
 people will say, "How wonderful!" But if a pot 
 of tea had to be carried a quarter of a mile in a 
 grand hotel, from the kitchen to a bedroom, people 
 would say, "How absurd!" or, "How stewed!" 
 The "layer" system of architecture is from all 
 points of view indispensable to the grand hotel, and 
 its scenic disadvantages must be met by the exercise 
 of ingenuity. There are other problems confront- 
 ing the hotel architecture, such as the fitting to- 
 gether of very large public rooms with very small 
 private rooms, and the obligation to minimise ex- 
 ternally a whole vital department of the hotel (the 
 kitchens, etc.) ; and I conceive that these problems 
 are perhaps not the least exasperating. 
 
 From the utilitarian standpoint the architect of 
 hotels has unquestionably succeeded. The latest 
 hotels are admirably planned ; and a good plan can- 
 not result in an elevation entirely bad. One might 
 say, indeed, that a good plan implies an elevation 
 good in, at any rate, elementals. Save that bed- 
 rooms are seldom sound-proof, and that they are 
 nearly always too long for their breadth (the rea- 
 son is obvious), not much fault can be found with 
 the practical features of the newest hotel architec- 
 
226 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 ture. In essential matters hotel architecture is good. 
 You may dissolve in ecstasy before the facade 
 of the Chateau de Chambord ; but it is certainly the 
 whited sepulchre of sacrificed comfort, health, and 
 practicability. There also, but from a different 
 and a less defensible cause, and to a different and 
 not a better end, the importance of the main front 
 rides roughly over numerous other considerations. 
 In skilful planning no architecture of any period 
 equals ours; and ours is the architecture of grand 
 hotels. 
 
 The beholder, before abruptly condemning that 
 uniformity of feature which is the chief character- 
 istic of the hotel on the landscape, must reflect that 
 this is the natural outer expression of the spirit and 
 needs of the hotel, and that it neither can be nor 
 ought to be disguised. It is of the very essence of 
 the building. It may be very slightly relieved by 
 the employment of certain devices of grouping — 
 as some architects in the United States have shown 
 — but it must remain patent and paramount; and 
 the ultimate beauty of more advanced styles will un- 
 doubtedly spring from it and, in a minor degree, 
 from the other inner conditions to which I have re- 
 ferred. And even when the ultimate beauty has 
 been accomplished the same thing will come to pass 
 as has always come to pass in the gradual progress 
 of schools of architecture. The pendulum will 
 swing too far, and the best critics of those future 
 days will point to the primitive erections of the 
 early twentieth century and affirm that there has 
 been a decadence since then, and that if the virtue of 
 
THE HOTEL 227 
 
 architecture is to be maintained inspiration must be 
 sought by returning to the first models, when men 
 did not consciously think of beauty, but produced 
 beauty unawares ! 
 
 It was ever thus. 
 
 The salvation of hotel architecture, up to this 
 present, is that the grand hotel on the landscape, in 
 nineteen cases out of twenty, is remuneratively oc- 
 cupied only during some three or four months in the 
 year. Which means that the annual interest on 
 capital expenditure must be earned in that brief 
 period. Which in turn means that architects have 
 no money to squander on ornament in an age no- 
 torious for its bad ornament. If the architect of 
 the grand hotel were as little disturbed by the ques- 
 tion of dividends as Francis the First was in creat- 
 ing his Chambord and other marvels, the conse- 
 quences might have been offensive even to the sym- 
 pathetic eye. 
 
 Meanwhile, in Switzerland, the hotel architect 
 may flatter himself that he has suddenly given ar- 
 chitecture to a country which had none. This is a 
 highly curious phenomenon. "Next door" to the 
 grand hotel which so surprised me in the twilight is 
 another human habitation, fairly representative of 
 all the non-hotel architecture on the Swiss country- 
 side. It is quaint, and it would not hurt a fly. 
 But surely the grand hotel is man's more fitting an- 
 swer to the challenge of the mountains? 
 
II 
 
 HOTEL PROFILES 
 
 The Egoist 
 
 A little boy, aged about eight, with nearly all his 
 front teeth gone, came down early for breakfast 
 this morning while I was having mine. He asked 
 me where the waiters were, and rang. When one 
 arrived, the little boy discovered that he could speak 
 no French. However, the waiter said "Cafe?" and 
 he said "One"; but he told me that he also wanted 
 buns. While breakfasting, he said to me that he 
 had got up early because he was going down into 
 the town that morning by the Funicular, as his 
 mother was to buy him his Christmas present, a sil- 
 ver lever watch. He said : "I hate to be hurried for 
 anything. Now, at home, I have to go to school, and 
 I get up early so that I shan't be hurried, but my 
 breakfast is always late; so I have too much time 
 before breakfast, and nothing to do, and too little 
 time after breakfast when I've a lot to do." In an- 
 swer to my question, he said gravely that he was 
 going into the Navy. He knew the exam, was very 
 stiff, and that if you failed at a certain age you 
 were barred out altogether; and he asked me 
 whether I thought it was better to try the exam, 
 early with only a little preparation, or to leave it 
 late with a long preparation. He thought the first 
 
 228 
 
HOTEL PROFILES 229 
 
 course was the best, because you could go in again 
 if you failed. I asked him if he didn't want some 
 jam. He said no, because the butter was so good, 
 and if he had jam he wouldn't be able to taste the 
 butter. He then rang the bell for more milk, and 
 explained to me that he couldn't drink coffee 
 strong, and the consequence was that he had a whole 
 lot of coffee left and no milk to drink it with. 
 . . . He said he lived in London, and that some 
 shops down in the town were better than London 
 shops. By this time a German had descended. 
 He and I both laughed. But the child stuck to his 
 point. We asked him: "What shops?" He said 
 that jerseys and watches were nicer in the town 
 than in London. In this he was right, and we had 
 to admit it. As a complete resume, he said that 
 there were fewer things in the town than in London, 
 but some of the things were nicer. Then he ex- 
 plained to the German his early rising, and added 
 an alternative explanation, namely, that he had been 
 sent to bed at 6.45, whereas 7.15 was his legal time. 
 
 Later in the day I asked him if he would come 
 down early again to-morrow and have breakfast 
 with me. He said: "I don't know. I shall see." 
 There was no pose in this. Simply a perfect pre- 
 occupation with his own interests and welfare. I 
 should say he is absolutely egotistic. He always 
 employs natural, direct methods to get what he 
 wants and to avoid what he doesn't want. 
 
 I met him again a few afternoons later on the 
 luge-track. He was very solemn. He said he had 
 decided not to go in for the single-luge race, as it 
 
230 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 all depended on weight. I said: "Put stones in 
 your pocket. Eat stones for breakfast." 
 
 He laughed slightly and uncertainly. "You 
 can't eat stones for breakfast," he said. "I'm get- 
 ting on fine at skating. I can turn round on one 
 leg." 
 
 "Do you still fall?" (He was notorious for his 
 tumbles. ) 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "How often?" 
 
 He reflected. Then: "About twelve times an 
 hour. . . . If I skated all day and all night I 
 should fall twelve twelves — 144, isn't it?" 
 
 I said it would be twenty- four twelves. 
 
 "Oh! I see ■" 
 
 "Two hundred and " 
 
 "Eighty-eight," he overtook me quickly. "But 
 I didn't mean that. I meant all day and all night, 
 you know — evening. People don't generally skate 
 all through the night, do they?" Pause. "Six 
 from 144 — 138, isn't it? I'll say 138, because you'd 
 have to take half an hour off for dinner, wouldn't 
 you?" 
 
 He became silent, discussing seriously within 
 himself whether half an hour would suffice for din- 
 ner, without undue hurrying. 
 
 The Bland Wanderer 
 
 In the drawing-room to-night an old and soli- 
 tary, but blandly cheerful, female wanderer re- 
 counted numerous accidents at St. Moritz: legs 
 broken in two places, shoulders broken, spines in- 
 
HOTEL PROFILES 231 
 
 jured; also deaths. Further, the danger of catch- 
 ing infectious diseases at St. Moritz. "One very 
 large hotel, where everybody had influenza," etc. 
 These recitals seemed to give her calm and serious 
 pleasure. 
 
 "Do you think this place is good for nerves? she 
 broke out suddenly at me. I told her that in my 
 opinion a hot bath and a day in bed would make 
 any place good for nerves. "I mean the nerves of 
 the body/ 3 she said inscrutably. Then she deviated 
 into a long set description of the historic attack of 
 Russian influenza which she had had several years 
 ago, and which had kept her in bed for three months, 
 since when she had never been the same woman. 
 And she seemed to savour with placid joy the fact 
 that she had never since been the same woman. 
 
 Then she flew back to St. Moritz and the prices 
 thereof. She said you could get pretty reasonable 
 terms, even there, "provided you didn't mind going 
 high up." Upon my saying that I actually pre- 
 ferred being high up, she exclaimed: "I don't. 
 I'm so afraid of fire. I'm always afraid of fire." 
 She said that she had had two nephews at Cam- 
 bridge. The second one took rooms at the top of 
 the highest house in Cambridge, and the landlord 
 was a drunkard. "My sister didn't seem to care, 
 but I didn't know what to do! What could I do? 
 Well, I bought him a non-inflammable rope." She 
 smiled blandly. 
 
 This allusion to death and inebriety prompted a 
 sprightly young Yorkshirewoman, with the coun- 
 try gift for yarn-spinning, to tell a tale of some- 
 
232 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 thing that had happened to her cousin, who gave 
 lessons in domestic economy at a London Board 
 School. A little girl, absent for two days, was 
 questioned as to the reason. 
 
 "I couldn't come." 
 
 "But why not?" 
 
 "I was kept . . . Please 'm, my mother's 
 dead." 
 
 "Well, wouldn't you be better here at school? 
 When did she die?" 
 
 "Yesterday. I must go back, please. I only 
 came to tell you." 
 
 "But why?" 
 
 "Well, ma'am. She's lying on the table and I 
 have to watch her." 
 
 "Watch her?" 
 
 "Yes. Because when father comes home drunk, 
 he knocks her off, and I have to put her on again." 
 
 This narration startled even the bridge-players, 
 and there were protests of horror. But the philoso- 
 phic wanderer, who had never been the same woman 
 since Russian influenza, smiled placidly. 
 
 "I knew something really much more awful than 
 that," she said. "A young woman, well-known to 
 me, had charge of a creche of thirty infants, and one 
 day she took it into her head to amuse herself by 
 changing all their clothes, so that at night they 
 could not be identified; and many of them never 
 were identified! She was such a merry girl! I 
 knew all her brothers and sisters too! She wanted 
 to go into a sisterhood, and she did, for a month. 
 But the only thing she did there — well, one day she 
 
HOTEL PROFILES 233 
 
 went down into the laundry and taught all the laun- 
 dry-maids to polka. She was such a merry girl!" 
 
 She smiled with extraordinary simplicity. 
 
 "In the end," the bland wanderer continued, af- 
 ter a little pause, "she went to America. America 
 is such an odd place ! Once I got into a car at Phil- 
 adelphia that had come from New York. The 
 conductor showed me my berth. The bed was 
 warm. I partly undressed and got into it, and 
 drew the curtain. I was half asleep, when I felt 
 a hand feeling me over through the curtain. I 
 called out, and a man's voice said: 'It's all right. 
 I'm only looking for my stick. I think I must have 
 left it in the berth' 1 Another time a lot of student 
 girls were in the same car with me. They all got 
 into their beds — or berths or whatever you call it — 
 about eight o'clock, wearing fancy jackets, and they 
 sat up and ate candy. I was walking up and down, 
 and every time I passed they implored me to have 
 candy, and then they implored each other to try to 
 persuade me. They were mostly named Sadie. 
 At one in the morning they ordered iced drinks 
 'round. I was obliged to drink with them. They 
 tired me out, and then made me drink. I don't 
 know what happened just after that, but I know 
 that, at five in the morning, they were all sitting up 
 and eating candy. I've travelled a good deal in 
 America and it's such an odd place! It was just 
 the place for that young woman to go to." 
 
Ill 
 
 ON A MOUNTAIN 
 
 Last week I did a thing which you may call hack- 
 neyed or unhackneyed, according to your way of 
 life. To some people an excursion to Hamp- 
 stead Heath is a unique adventure: to others, 
 a walk around the summit of Popocatapetl 
 is all in the year's work. I went to Switzer- 
 land and spent Easter on the top of a 
 mountain. At any rate, the mountain was less 
 hackneyed at that season than Rome or Seville, 
 where the price of beds rises in proportion as reli- 
 gious emotion falls. It was Marcus Aurelius An- 
 toninus who sent me to the mountain. To mention 
 Marcus Aurelius is almost as clear a sign of priggish 
 affectation and tenth-rate preciosity as to quote 
 Omar Khayyam; and I may interject defensively 
 that I prefer Epictetus, the slave, to Marcus Au- 
 relius, the neurotic emperor. Still, it was Marcus 
 Aurelius who sent me to the mountain. He advised 
 me, in certain circumstances, to climb high and then 
 look down at human nature. 
 
 I did so. My luggage alone cost me four francs 
 excess in the Funicular. 
 
 (?• (?• «?* €?• 
 
 I had before me what I have been told — by others 
 than the hotel proprietor — is one of the finest pano- 
 
 234. 
 
ON A MOUNTAIN 235 
 
 ramas in Europe. Across a Calvinistic lake, whose 
 renown is familiar to the profane chiefly because 
 Byron wrote a mediocre poem about a castle on its 
 shores, rose the five-fanged Dent du Midi, twenty- 
 five miles off, and ten thousand feet towards the 
 sky ; other mountains, worthy companions of the il- 
 lustrious Tooth, made a tremendous snowy semi- 
 circle right and left; and I on my mountain 
 fronted this semi-circle. The weather was perfect. 
 Down below me, on the edge of the lake, was a 
 continuous chain of towns, all full and crammed 
 with the final products of civilisation, miles of them. 
 There was everything in those towns that a nation 
 whose destiny it is to satisfy the caprices of the 
 English thought the English could possibly desire. 
 Such things as baths, lifts, fish-knives, two-steps 
 and rag-times, casinos, theatres, rackets, skates, hot- 
 water bottles, whisky, beef-steaks, churches, chap- 
 els, cameras, puttees, jig-saws, bridge-markers, 
 clubs, China tea, phonographs, concert-halls, chari- 
 table societies, money-changers, hygiene, picture 
 post cards, even books — just cheap ones! It was 
 dizzying to think of the refined complexity of ex- 
 istence down there. It was impressive to think of 
 the slow centuries of effort, struggle, discovery and 
 invention that had gone to the production of that 
 wondrous civilisation. It was perfectly distract- 
 ing to think of the innumerable activities that were 
 proceeding in all parts of the earth (for you could 
 have coral from India's coral strand in those towns, 
 and furs from Labrador, and skates from Birming- 
 ham) to keep the vast organism in working order. 
 
236 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 And behind the chain of towns ran the railway 
 line, along which flew the expresses with dining- 
 cars and fresh flowers on the tables of the dining- 
 cars, and living drivers on the footplates of the en- 
 gines, whirling the salt of the earth to and fro, 
 threading like torpedo-shuttles between far-distant 
 centres of refinement. And behind the railway line 
 spread the cultivated fields of these Swiss, who, af- 
 ter all, in the intervals of passing dishes to stately 
 guests in hotel-refectories, have a national life of 
 their own; who indeed have shown more skill and 
 commonsense in the organisation of posts, hotels, 
 and military conscription, than any other nation ; so 
 much so, that one gazes and wonders how on earth 
 a race so thick-headed and tedious could ever have 
 done it. 
 
 (5* t5* (5* «?• 
 
 I knew that I had all that before me, because I 
 had been among it all, and had ascended and de- 
 scended in the lifts, lolled in the casinos and the 
 trains, and drunk the China tea. But I could not 
 see it from the top of my mountain. All that I 
 could see from the top of my mountain was a scat- 
 tering of dolls' houses, and that scattering consti- 
 tuted three towns ; with here and there a white cube 
 overtopping the rest by half an inch, and that white 
 cube was a grand hotel; and out of the upper face 
 of the cube a wisp of vapour, and that wisp of va- 
 pour was the smoke of a furnace that sent hot- 
 water through miles of plumbing and heated 400 
 radiators in 400 elegant apartments; and little 
 stretches of ribbon, and these ribbons were boule- 
 
ON A MOUNTAIN 237 
 
 vards bordered with great trees; and a puff of 
 steam crawling along a fine wire, and that crawling 
 puff was an international express ; and rectangular 
 spaces like handkerchiefs fresh from a bad laundry, 
 and those handkerchiefs were immense fields of 
 vine; and a water-beetle on the still surface of the 
 lake, and that water-beetle was a steamer licensed 
 to carry 850 persons. And there was silence. 
 The towns were feverishly living in ten thousand 
 fashions, and made not a sound. Even the express 
 breathed softly, like a child in another room. 
 
 & t5* «5* c& 
 
 The mountains remained impassive; they were 
 too indifferent to be even contemptuous. Human- 
 ity had only soiled their ankles: I could see all 
 around that with all his jumping man had not 
 found a perch higher than their ankles. It seemed 
 to me painfully inept that humanity, having spent 
 seven years in worming a hole through one of those 
 mountains, should have filled the newspapers with 
 the marvels of its hole, and should have fallen into 
 the habit of calling its hole "the Simplon." The 
 Simplon — that hole! It seemed to me that the ex- 
 cellence of Swiss conscription was merely ridiculous 
 in its exquisite unimportance. It seemed to me 
 that I must have been absolutely mad to get myself 
 excited about the January elections in a trifling isle 
 called Britain, writing articles and pamphlets and 
 rude letters, and estranging friends and thinking 
 myself an earnest warrior in the van of progress. 
 Land taxes ! I could not look down, or up, and see 
 land taxes as aught but an infantile invention of 
 
238 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 comic opera. Two Chambers or one! Veto first 
 or Budget first! Mr. F. E. Smith or Mr. Steel- 
 Maitland! Ah! The tea-cup and the storm! 
 
 The prescription of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus 
 had "acted." 
 
 !?• €?* (5* t5* 
 
 It is an exceedingly harmful prescription if 
 employed long or often. Go to the top of a moun- 
 tain by all means, but hurry down again quickly. 
 The top of a mountain, instead of correcting your 
 perspective, as is generally supported by philoso- 
 phers for whom human existence is not good 
 enough, falsifies it. Because it induces self-ag- 
 grandisement. You draw illusive bigness from the 
 mountain. You imagine that you are august, but 
 you are not. If the man below was informed by 
 telephone that a being august was gazing on him 
 from above he would probably squint his eyes up- 
 wards in the sunshine and assert with calmness that 
 he couldn't even see a living speck on the mountain- 
 crest. You who have gone up had better come 
 down. You couldn't remain up twenty-four hours 
 without the aid of the ant-like evolutions below, 
 which you grandiosely despise. You couldn't have 
 got up at all if a procession of those miserable con- 
 ceited ants had not been up there before you. 
 
 The detached philosophic mountain view of the 
 littleness of things is a delightful and diverting 
 amusement, and there is perhaps no harm in it so 
 long as you don't really act on, it. If you begin 
 really to act on it you at once become ridiculous, 
 and especially ridiculous in the sight of mountains. 
 
ON A MOUNTAIN 239 
 
 You commit the fatuity of despising the corporate 
 toil which has made you what you are, and you 
 prove nothing except that you have found a rather 
 specious and glittering excuse for idleness, for cow- 
 ardice, and for having permitted the stuffing to be 
 knocked out of you. 
 
 When I hear a man say, when I hear myself say : 
 "I'm sick of politics," I always think: "What you 
 want is six months in prison, or in a slum, or in a 
 mine, or in a bakehouse, or in the skin of a woman. 
 After that, we should see if you were sick of poli- 
 tics." And when I hear a lot of people together 
 say that they are sick of politics, then I am quite 
 sure that politics are more than ever urgently in 
 need of attention. It is at such moments that a 
 man has an excellent opportunity of showing that 
 he is a man. 
 
ENGLAND AGAIN— 1907 
 
THE GATE OF THE EMPIRE 
 
 When one comes back to it, after long absence, 
 one sees exactly the same staring, cold white cliffs 
 under the same stars. Ministries may have fallen ; 
 the salaries of music-hall artistes may have risen; 
 Christmas boxes may have become a crime; war 
 balloons may be in the air ; the strange notion may 
 have sprouted that school children must be fed be- 
 fore they are taught: but all these things are as 
 nothing compared to the changeless fact of the 
 island itself. You in the island are apt to forget 
 that the sea is eternally beating round about all the 
 political fuss you make; you are apt to forget that 
 your 40-h.p. cars are rushing to and fro on a mere 
 whale's back insecurely anchored in the Atlantic. 
 You may call the Atlantic by soft, reassuring 
 names, such as Irish Sea, North Sea, and silver 
 streak; it remains the Atlantic, very careless of 
 social progress, very rude. 
 
 The ship under the stars swirls shaking over the 
 starlit waves, and then bumps up against granite 
 and wood, and amid cries ropes are thrown out, 
 and so one is lashed to the island. Scarcely any 
 reasonable harbours in this island! The inhabi- 
 tants are obliged to throw stones into the sea till 
 
 243 
 
244 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 they emerge like a geometrical reef, and vessels 
 cling hard to the reef. One climbs on to it from 
 the steamer; it is very long and thin, like a sword, 
 and between shouting wind and water one precari- 
 ously balances oneself on it. After some eighty 
 years of steam, nothing more comfortable than the 
 reef has yet been achieved. But far out on the 
 water a black line may be discerned, with the sil- 
 houettes of cranes and terrific engines. Denied a 
 natural harbour, the island has at length deter- 
 mined to have an unnatural harbour at this bleak 
 and perilous spot. In another ten years or so the 
 peaceful invader will no longer be compelled to 
 fight with a real train for standing room on a storm- 
 swept reef. 
 
 t5* J* e5* «5* 
 
 And that train! Electric light, corridors, lava- 
 tories, and general brilliance! Luxuries incon- 
 ceivable in the past! But, just to prove a robust 
 conservatism, hot-water bottles remain as the sole 
 protection against being frozen to death. 
 
 "Can I get you a seat, sir?" 
 
 It is the guard's tone that is the very essence of 
 England. You may say he descries a shilling on 
 the horizon. I don't care. That tone cannot be 
 heard outside England. It is an honest tone, 
 cheerful, kindly, the welling-up of a fundamental 
 good nature. It is a tone which says : "I am a de- 
 cent fellow, so are you; let us do the best for our- 
 selves under difficulties." It is far more English 
 than a beefsteak or a ground-landlord. It touches 
 the returned exile profoundly, especially at the 
 
GATE OF THE EMPIRE 245 
 
 dreadful hour of four a. m. And in replying, 
 "Yes, please. Second. Not a smoker," one is say- 
 ing, "Hail! Fellow-islander. You have appal- 
 ling faults, but for sheer straightness you cannot be 
 matched elsewhere." 
 
 One comes to an oblong aperture on the reef, 
 something resembling the aperture of a Punch and 
 Judy show, and not much larger. In this aperture 
 are a man, many thick cups, several urns, and some 
 chunks of bread. One struggles up to the man. 
 
 "Tea or coffee, sir?" 
 
 "Hot milk," one says. 
 
 "Hot milk!" he repeats. You have shocked his 
 Toryism. You have dragged him out of the rut 
 of tea and coffee, and he does not like it. How- 
 ever — brave, resourceful fellow! — he pulls himself 
 together for an immense effort, and gives you hot 
 milk, and you stand there, in front of the aperture, 
 under the stars and over the sea and in the blast, 
 trying to keep the cup upright in a melee of elbows. 
 
 This is the gate, and this the hospitality, of the 
 greatest empire that, etc. 
 
 "Can I take this cup to the train?" 
 
 "Certainly, sir!" says the Punch and Judy man 
 genially, as who should say: "God bless my soul! 
 Aren't you in the country where anyone can choose 
 the portmanteau that suits him out of a luggage 
 van?" 
 
 Now that is England! In France, Germany, 
 Italy, there would have been a spacious golden cafe 
 and all the drinks on earth, but one could never 
 have got that cup out of the cafe without at least a 
 
246 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 stamped declaration signed by two commissioners 
 of police and countersigned by a Consul. One 
 makes a line of milk along the reef, and sits blow- 
 ing and sipping what is left of the milk in the train. 
 And when the train is ready to depart one demands 
 of a porter: 
 
 "What am I to do with this cup?" 
 
 "Give it to me, sir." 
 
 And he planks it down on the platform next a 
 pillar, and leaves it. And off one goes. The ad- 
 ventures of that thick mug are a beautiful demon- 
 stration that the new England contains a lot of the 
 old. It will ultimately reach the Punch and Judy 
 show once more (not broken — perhaps cracked) ; 
 not, however, by rules and regulations; but hig- 
 gledy-piggledy, by mutual aid and good nature and 
 good will. Be tranquil ; it will regain its counter. 
 
 «?• t5* «?* c5* 
 
 The fringe of villas, each primly asleep in its 
 starlit garden, which borders the island and divides 
 the hopfields from the Atlantic, is much wider 
 than it used to be. But in the fields time has stood 
 still. . . . Now, one has left the sea and the 
 storm and the reef, and already one is forgetting 
 that the island is an island. . . . Warmth 
 gradually creeps up from the hot-water bottles to 
 one's heart and eyes, and sleep comes as the train 
 scurries into the empire. ... A loud reverber- 
 ation, and one wakes up in a vast cavern, dimly lit, 
 and sparsely peopled by a few brass-buttoned be- 
 ings that have the air of dwarfs under its high, in- 
 visible roof. They give it a name, and call it 
 
GATE OF THE EMPIRE 247 
 
 Charing Cross, and one remembers that, since one 
 last saw it, it fell down and demolished a theatre. 
 Everything is shuttered in the cavern. Nothing 
 to eat or to drink, or to read, but shutters. And 
 shutters are so cold, and caverns so draughty. 
 
 "Where can I get something to eat?" one de- 
 mands. 
 
 "Eat, sir?" A staggered pause, and the porter 
 looks at one as if one were Oliver Twist. "There's 
 the hotels, sir," he says, finally. 
 
 Yet one has not come by a special, unique train, 
 unexpected and startling. No ! That train knocks 
 at the inner door of the empire every morning in 
 every month in every year at the same hour, and 
 it is always met by shutters. And the empire, by 
 the fact of its accredited representatives in brass 
 buttons and socialistic ties, is always taken aback 
 by the desire of the peaceful invader to eat. 
 
 <5» tJfl <5* *5* 
 
 One wanders out into the frozen silence. Gas 
 lamps patiently burning over acres of beautiful 
 creosoted wood ! A dead cab or so ! A policeman ! 
 Shutters everywhere: Nothing else. No change 
 here. 
 
 This is the changeless, ineffable Strand at Char- 
 ing Cross, sacred as the Ganges. One cannot see 
 a single new building. Yet they say London has 
 been rebuilt. 
 
 The door of the hotel is locked. And the night 
 watchman opens with the same air of astonishment 
 as the Punch and Judy man when one asked for 
 
248 PARIS NIGHTS' 
 
 milk, and the railway porter when one asked for 
 food. Every morning at that hour the train stops 
 within fifty yards of the hotel door, and pitches out 
 into London persons who have been up all night; 
 and London blandly continues to be amazed at their 
 arrival. A good English fellow, the watchman — 
 almost certainly the elder brother of the train- 
 guard. 
 
 "I want a room and some breakfast." 
 
 He cautiously relocks the door. 
 
 "Yes, sir, as soon as the waiters are down. In 
 about an hour, sir. I can take you to the lavatory 
 now, sir, if that will do." 
 
 Who said there was a new England? 
 
 One sits overlooking the Strand, and tragically 
 waiting. And presently, in the beginnings of the 
 dawn, that pathetic, wistful ob j ect the first omnibus 
 of the day rolls along — all by itself — no horses in 
 front of it! And, after hours, a waiter descends 
 as bright as a pin from his attic, and asks with a 
 strong German accent whether one will have tea 
 or coffee. The empire is waking up, and one is in 
 the heart of it. 
 
II 
 
 AN ESTABLISHMENT 
 
 When I returned to England I came across a 
 terrific establishment. As it may be more or less 
 novel to you I will attempt to describe it, though 
 the really right words for describing it do not exist 
 in the English language. In the first place, it is 
 a restaurant, where meals are served at almost any 
 hour — and not meals such as you get in ordinary 
 restaurants, but sane meals, spread amid flowers 
 and diaper. Then it is also a creche, where babies 
 are tended upon scientific principles; nothing that 
 a baby needs is neglected. Older children are also 
 looked after, and the whole question of education 
 is deeply studied, and advice given. Also young 
 men and women of sixteen or so are started in the 
 world, and every information concerning careers 
 is collected and freely given out. 
 
 Another branch of the establishment is devoted 
 to inexpensive but effective dressmaking, and still 
 another to hats; here you will find the periodical 
 literature of fashion, and all hints as to shopping. 
 There is, further, a very efficient department of 
 mending, highly curious and ingenious, which em- 
 braces men's clothing. I discovered, too, a horti- 
 cultural department for the encouragement of flow- 
 ers, serving secondarily as a branch of the creche 
 
 249 
 
250 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 and nursery. There is a fine art department, where 
 reproductions of the great masters are to be seen 
 and meditated upon, and an applied art depart- 
 ment, full of antiques. Ii must mention the library, 
 where the latest and the most ancient literatures 
 fraternise on the same shelves; also the chamber- 
 music department. 
 
 Lastly, a portion of the establishment is simply 
 nothing but an uncommon lodging-house for trav- 
 ellers, where electric light, hot water bottles, and 
 hot baths are not extras. I scarcely expect you to 
 believe what I say ; nevertheless I have exaggerated 
 in nothing. You would never guess where I en- 
 countered this extraordinary, this incredible estab- 
 lishment. It was No. 137 (the final number) in 
 a perfectly ordinary long street in a residential 
 suburb of a large town. When I expressed my 
 surprise to the manager of the place, he looked at 
 me as if I had come from Timbuctoo. "Why!" he 
 exclaimed, "there are a hundred and thirty-six es- 
 tablishments much like mine in this very street!" 
 He was right; for what I had stumbled into was 
 just the average cultivated Englishman's home. 
 
 «?• t7* «5* «?• 
 
 You must look at it as I looked at it in or- 
 der to perceive what an organisation the thing is. 
 The Englishman may totter continually on the 
 edge of his income, but he does get value for his 
 money. I do not mean the poor man, for he is too 
 unskilled, and too hampered by lack of capital, to 
 get value even for what money he has. Nor do I 
 mean the wealthy man, who usually spends about 
 
AN ESTABLISHMENT 251 
 
 five-sixths of his income in acquiring worries and 
 nuisances. I mean the nice, usual professional or 
 business islander, who by means of a small oblong 
 piece of paper, marked £30 or so, once a month, 
 attempts and accomplishes more than a native of 
 the mainland would dream of on <£30 a week. The 
 immense pyramid which that man and his wife 
 build, wrong side up, on the blowsy head of one do- 
 mestic servant is a truly astonishing phenomenon, 
 and its frequency does not impair its extraordi- 
 nariness. 
 
 The mere machinery is tremendously complex. 
 You lie awake at 6-30 in the uncommon lodging- 
 house department, and you hear distant noises. It 
 is the inverted apex of the pyramid starting into 
 life. You might imagine that she would be in- 
 tensely preoccupied by the complexity of her du- 
 ties, and by her responsiblity. Not a bit. Open 
 her head, and you would find nothing in it but the 
 vision of a grocer's assistant and a new frock. You 
 then hear weird bumps and gurgling noises. It is 
 the hot water running up behind walls to meet you 
 half-way from the kitchen. You catch the early 
 vivacity of the creche. A row overhead means that 
 a young man who has already studied the compara- 
 tive anatomy of cigars is embarking on life. A 
 tinkling of cymbals below — it is a young woman 
 preparing to be attractive to some undiscovered 
 young man in another street. 
 
 *5* I?* «?• <?• 
 
 The Englishman's home is assuredly the most 
 elaborate organisation for sustaining and reproduc- 
 
252 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 ing life in the world — or at any rate, east of Sandy 
 Hook. It becomes more and more elaborate, lux- 
 urious, and efficient. For example, illumination 
 is not the most important of its activities. Yet, 
 you will generally find in it four different methods 
 of illumination — electricity, gas, a few oil lamps 
 in case of necessity, and candles stuck about. Only 
 yesterday, as it seems, human fancy had not got 
 beyond candles. Much the same with cookery. 
 Even at a simple refection like afternoon tea you 
 may well have jam boiled over gas, cake baked in 
 the range, and tea kept hot by alcohol or electricity. 
 I am not old, but I have known housewives who 
 would neither eat nor offer to a guest, bread which 
 they had not baked. They drew water from their 
 own wells. And the idea of a public laundry would 
 have horrified them. And before that generation 
 there existed a generation which spun and wove at 
 home. To-day the English household is dependent 
 on cooperative methods for light, heat, much food, 
 and several sorts of cleanliness. True (though it 
 has abandoned baking), the idea of cooperative 
 cookery horrifies it ! However, another generation 
 is coming! And that generation, while expending 
 no more energy than ourselves, will live in homes 
 more complicatedly luxurious than ours. When 
 it is house-hunting it will turn in scorn from an 
 abode which has not a service of hot and cold 
 water in every bedroom and a steam device for 
 "washing up" without human fingers. And it will 
 as soon think of keeping a private orchestra as of 
 
AN ESTABLISHMENT 253 
 
 keeping a private cook — with her loves and her 
 thirst. 
 
 «?* «?• J* i7* 
 
 Leave England and come back, and you cannot 
 fail to see that this generation is already knocking 
 at the door. When it once gets inside the door 
 it will probably be more "house-proud," more in- 
 clined to regard the dwelling as its toy, with which 
 it can never tire of playing, than even the present 
 generation. Such is a salient characteristic which 
 strikes the returned traveller, and which the for- 
 eigner goes back to his own country and talks about 
 — namely, the tremendous and intense pre-occupa- 
 tion of the English home with "comfort" — with 
 every branch and sub-branch of comfort. 
 
 (( Le confort anglais" is a phrase which has 
 passed into the French language. On spiritual and 
 intellectual matters the Englishman may be the 
 most sweetly reasonable of creatures — always ready 
 to compromise, and loathing discussion. But catch 
 him compromising about his hot-water apparatus, 
 the texture of a beefsteak, or the flushing of a 
 cistern ! 
 
Ill 
 
 AMUSEMENTS 
 
 It is when one comes to survey with a fresh eye 
 the amusements of the English race that one real- 
 ises the incomprehensibility of existence. Here 
 is the most serious people on earth — the only peo- 
 ple, assuredly, with a genuine grasp of the prin- 
 ciples of political wisdom — amusing itself untir- 
 ingly with a play-ball. The ball may be large and 
 soft, as in football, or small and hard, as in golf, or 
 small and very hard, as in billiards, or neither one 
 thing nor the other, as in cricket — it is always a 
 ball. Abolish the sphere, and the flower of Eng- 
 lish manhood would perish from ennui. 
 
 The fact is, speaking broadly, there is only one 
 amusement worth mentioning in England. Foot- 
 ball dwarfs all the others. It has outrun cricket. 
 This is a hard saying, but a true one. Football 
 arouses more interest, passion, heat; it attracts far 
 vaster crowds; it sheds more blood. Having be- 
 held England, after absence, in the North and in 
 the South, I seem to see my native country as an 
 immense football ground, with a net across the Isle 
 of Wight and another in the neighbourhood of 
 John o' Groat's, and the entire population stamp- 
 ing their feet on the cold, cold ground and hoarsely 
 roaring at the bounces of a gigantic football. It is 
 
 251 
 
AMUSEMENTS 255 
 
 a great game, but watching it is a mysterious and 
 peculiar amusement, full of contradictions. The 
 physical conditions of getting into a football 
 ground, of keeping life in one's veins while there, 
 and of getting away from it, appear at first sight 
 to preclude the possibility of amusement. They 
 remind one of the Crimean War or the passage of 
 the Beresina. A man will freeze to within half a 
 degree of death on a football ground, and the same 
 man will haughtily refuse to sit on anything less 
 soft than plush at a music-hall. Such is the inex- 
 plicable virtue of football. 
 
 t7* *5* «5* <?* 
 
 Further, a man will safely carry his sense of fair 
 play past the gate of a cricket field, but he will 
 leave it outside the turnstiles of a football ground. 
 I refer to the relentless refusal of the man amusing 
 himself at a football match to see any virtue in the 
 other side. I refer to the howl of execration which 
 can only be heard on a football ground. English 
 public life is a series of pretences. And the great- 
 est pretence of all is that football matches are eleven 
 a side. Football matches are usually a battle be- 
 tween eleven men and ten thousand and eleven; 
 that is why the home team so seldom loses. 
 
 The football crowd is religious, stern, grim, ter- 
 rible, magnificent. It is prepared to sacrifice 
 everything to an ideal. And even when its ideal 
 gets tumbled out of the First League into the Sec- 
 ond, it will not part with a single illusion. There 
 are greater things than justice (which, after all, is 
 a human invention, and unknown to nature), and 
 
256 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 this ferocious idealism is greater than justice. The 
 explanation is that football is the oldest English 
 game — far older than cricket, and it "throws back" 
 to the true, deep sources of the English character. 
 It is a weekly return to the beneficent and heroic 
 simplicity of nature's methods. 
 
 Another phenomenon of the chief English amuse- 
 ment goes to show the religious sentiment that un- 
 derlies it. A leading Spanish toreador will earn 
 twenty thousand pounds a year. A leading Eng- 
 lish jockey will make as much. A music-hall star 
 can lay hands on several hundreds a week. A good 
 tea-taster receives a thousand a year, and a cloak- 
 room attendant at a fashionable hotel can always 
 retire at the age of forty. Now, on the same scale, 
 a great half-back, or a miraculous goalkeeper with 
 the indispensable gift of being in two places at once, 
 ought to earn about half a million a year. He is 
 the idol of innumerable multitudes of enthusiasts; 
 he can rouse them into heavenly ecstasy, or render 
 them homicidal, with a turn of his foot. He is the 
 theme of hundreds of newspapers. One town will 
 cheerfully pay another a thousand pounds for the 
 mere privilege of his citizenship. But his total per- 
 sonal income would not keep a stockbroker's wife in 
 hats! His uniform is the shabbiest uniform ever 
 donned by a military genius, and he is taught to 
 look forward to the tenancy of a tied public-house 
 as an ultimate paradise! 
 
 To the unimpassioned observer, nothing in Eng- 
 lish national life seems more anomalous than this. 
 It can be explained solely by stern religious senti- 
 
AMUSEMENTS 257 
 
 merit. Call it pagan if you will, but even pagan 
 religions were religious. The truth is that so foul 
 a thing as money does not enter into the question. 
 A footballer is treated like a sort of priest. "You 
 have this rare and incommunicable gift," says the 
 public to him in effect. "You can, for instance, do 
 things with your head that the profane cannot do 
 with their hands. It is no credit to you. You were 
 born so. Yet a few years, and the gift will leave 
 you! Then we shall cast you aside and forget 
 you. But, in the meantime, you are like unto a 
 precious vase. Keep yourself, therefore, holy and 
 uncracked. There is no money in the career, no 
 luxury, no soft cushions, nothing but sprained 
 ankles, broken legs, abstinence, suspensions, and a 
 pittance, followed by ingratitude and neglect. But 
 you have the rare and incommunicable gift! And 
 that is your exceeding reward." 
 
 In view of such an attitude, to offer the salary 
 of a County Court judge to a footballer would be 
 an insult. 
 
 c5* (?■ t5* t5* 
 
 After indulging in the spectacle and the vocal 
 gymnastics of a football match, the British public 
 goes home to its wife, hurries her out, and they 
 stand in the open street at a closed door for an 
 hour, or it may be two hours, stolidly, grimly, 
 fiercely, with obstinate chins, on pleasure bent. 
 They are determined to see that door open, no mat- 
 ter what the weather. Let it rain, let it freeze, they 
 will stand there till the door opens. At last it does 
 open, and they are so superbly eager to see what 
 
258 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 they shall see that they tumble over each other in 
 order to arrive at the seats of delight. That which 
 they long to witness with such an ardent longing is 
 usually a scene of destruction. Let an artiste come 
 forward and simply guarantee to smash a thousand 
 plates in a quarter of an hour, and he will fill with 
 enraptured souls the largest music-hall in England. 
 Next to splendid destruction the British public is 
 most amused by knockabout comedians, so called 
 because they knock each other about in a manner 
 which would be fatally tragic to any ordinary per- 
 sons. 
 
 Though this freshly-obtained impression of the 
 amusements of the folk is perfectly sincere and fair, 
 it is fair also to assert that the folk shine far more 
 brightly at work and at propaganda than at play. 
 The island folk, being utterly serious, have not yet 
 given adequate attention to the amusement of the 
 better part of themselves. But far up in the em- 
 pyrean, where culture floats, the directors of the 
 Stage Society and Miss Horniman are devoting 
 their lives to the question. 
 
IV 
 
 MANCHESTER 
 
 Over thirty years ago I first used to go to 
 Manchester on Tuesdays, in charge of people who 
 could remember Waterloo, and I was taken into a 
 vast and intricate palace, where we bought quanti- 
 ties of things without paying for them — a method 
 of acquisition strictly forbidden in our shop. This 
 palace was called "Rylands." I knew not what 
 "Rylands" was, but from the accents of awe in 
 which the name was uttered I gathered that its im- 
 portance in the universe was supreme. My sole 
 impression of Manchester was an impression of ex- 
 treme noise. Without shouting you could not 
 make yourself heard in the streets. Ten years 
 later, London-road Station had somehow become 
 for me the gate of Paradise, and I was wont to es- 
 cape into Manchester as a prisoner escapes into the 
 open country. 
 
 After twenty years' absence in London and Paris 
 I began to revisit Manchester. My earliest im- 
 pression will be my last. Still the same prodigious 
 racket; the same gigantic altercation between irre- 
 sistible iron and immovable paving stones! With 
 the addition of the growling thunder of cars that 
 seem to be continually bumping each other as if 
 they were college eights! Lunch in a fashionable 
 grill-room at Manchester constitutes an auditory 
 
 259 
 
260 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 experience that could not be matched outside New 
 York. In the great saloon there is no carpet on 
 the polished planks of the floor, and the walls con- 
 sist of highly resonant tiles, for Manchester would 
 not willingly smother the slightest murmur of its 
 immense reverberations. The tables are set close 
 together, so that everybody can hear everybody; 
 the waiters (exactly the same waiters that one meets 
 at Monte Carlo or in the Champs Elysees) under- 
 stand all languages save English, so that the Brit- 
 isher must shout at them. Doors are for ever swing- 
 ing, and people rush to and fro without surcease. It 
 is Babel. In the background, a vague somewhere, 
 an orchestra is beating; one catches the bass notes 
 marking the measure, and occasionally a high 
 squeak in the upper register. And superimposed 
 on this, the lusty voice of a man of herculean phy- 
 sique passionately chanting that "a-hunting we 
 will go." 
 
 t5* t5* t?* <5* 
 
 One looks through the window and, astonished, 
 observes one of those electric cars flying hugely past 
 without a sound. The thunder within has chal- 
 lenged and annihilated the heaviest thunder with- 
 out. The experience is unique. One rushes forth 
 in search of silence. Where can silence dwell in 
 Manchester? The end of every street is a mystery 
 of white fog, a possible home of silence. But no! 
 Be sure that if one plucks out the heart of the mys- 
 tery one will find a lorry preceded by at least eight 
 iron hoofs. The Art Gallery! One passes in. 
 Clack! Clack! Clack! It is the turnstile. And all 
 
MANCHESTER 261 
 
 afternoon the advent of each student of the fine 
 arts, of each cultivated dilettante, is announced by 
 Clack! Clack! Clack! Two young men come in. 
 Clack! Clack! Clack! Turner's "Decline of Car- 
 thage" naturally arrests them. "By Jove!" says 
 one, "that was something to tackle!" Clack! 
 Clack! Clack! Out again, in search of silence. 
 But over nearly every portal curves the legend: 
 "Music all day." And outside the music-halls 
 hired bawlers are bawling to the people to come in. 
 At last, near the Infirmary, one sees a stationary 
 cab, and across the window of this cab is printed, 
 in letters of gold, the extraordinary, the magic, the 
 wonderful, the amazing word : 
 
 "Noiseless." 
 
 Ah! The traditional, sublime humour of cab- 
 men! 
 
 But if my impression has remained, and even 
 waxed, that Manchester would be an ideal metropo- 
 lis for a nation of deaf mutes, my other early im- 
 pression, of its artistic and intellectual primacy, is 
 sharply renewed and intensified. Of late, not only 
 by contact with Manchester men, but by the subtle 
 physiognomy of Manchester streets and the reveal- 
 ing gestures of the common intelligent person, I 
 have been more than ever convinced that there is no 
 place which can match its union of intellectual 
 vigour, artistic perceptiveness, and political sa- 
 gacity. 
 
 t?* €?• «?• l5* 
 
 Long and close intercourse with capitals has not 
 in the slightest degree modified my youthful con- 
 
262 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 ception of Manchester, my admiration for its insti- 
 tutions, and my deep respect for its opinion. Lon- 
 don may patronise Manchester as it chooses, but 
 you can catch in London's tone a secret awe, an 
 inward conviction of essential inferiority. I have 
 noticed this again and again. I know well that my 
 view is shared by the fine flower of Fleet-street, and 
 no dread of disagreeable insinuations or accusations 
 shall prevent me from expressing my sentiments 
 with my customary directness. There is no de- 
 partment of artistic, intellectual, social, or political 
 activity in which Manchester has not corporately 
 surpassed London. And there have been very few 
 occasions on which, when they have differed in 
 opinion, Manchester has been as wrong as London. 
 
 It is, of course, notorious that London is still agi- 
 tated by more than one controversy which was defi- 
 nitely settled by Manchester twenty years ago in 
 the way in which London will settle it twenty years 
 hence. Manchester is too proud to proclaim its 
 fundamental supremacy in the island (though unal- 
 terably convinced of it), and no other city would 
 be such a fool as to proclaim it ; hence it is not pro- 
 claimed. But it exists, and the general knowledge 
 of it exists. 
 
 The explanation of Manchester is twofold. 
 First, its geographical situation, midway between 
 the corrupting languor of the south and the too 
 bleak hardness of the north. And, second, that it 
 enjoys the advantages of a population as vast as 
 that of London, without the disadvantages of either 
 an exaggerated centralisation or of a capital. Lon- 
 
MANCHESTER 263 
 
 don suffers from elephantiasis, a rush of blue blood 
 to the head, vertigo, imperfect circulation, and other 
 maladies. Bureaucratic and caste influences must 
 always vitiate the existence of a capital, and I do 
 not suppose that any great capital in Europe is the 
 real source of its country's life and energy. Not 
 Rome, but Milan! Not Madrid, but Barcelona! 
 Not St. Petersburg, but Moscow! Not Berlin, 
 but Hamburg and Munich! Not Paris, but the 
 rest of France! Not London, but the Manchester 
 area! 
 
LONDON 
 
 There are probably other streets as ugly, as ut- 
 terly bereft of the romantic, as Lots-road, Chelsea, 
 but certainly nothing more desolating can exist in 
 London. It was ten years since I had seen it, and 
 now I saw it at its worst moment of the week, about 
 ten o'clock of a Sunday morning. Some time be- 
 fore I reached it I heard a humming vibration 
 which grew louder and more impressive as I ap- 
 proached. I passed (really) sixty-eight seagulls 
 sitting in two straight rows on the railings of a de- 
 serted County Council pier, and on a rusty lantern 
 at the head of the pier was a sixty-ninth seagull, no 
 doubt the secretary of their trade union. 
 
 A mist lay over the river and over a man reading 
 the "Referee" on an anchored barge, and nobody 
 at all seemed to be taking any notice of the growing 
 menace of this humming vibration. Then I came 
 to a gigantic building, quite new to me — I had not 
 suspected that such a thing was — a building which 
 must be among the largest in London, a red brick 
 building with a grandiose architectural effect, an 
 overpowering affair, one of those affairs that man 
 creates in order to show how small and puny he 
 himself is. You could pile all the houses of a dozen 
 neighbouring streets under the colossal roof of that 
 
 264 
 
LONDON 265 
 
 erection and leave room for a church or so. Ex- 
 traordinary that a returned exile, interested in Lon- 
 don, could have walked about London for days 
 without even getting a glimpse of such hugeness. 
 
 It was shut up, closed in, mysterious, inviolable. 
 The gates of its yards were bolted. It bore no 
 legend of its name and owner ; there was no sign of 
 human life in it. And the humming vibration 
 came out of it, and was visibly cracking walls and 
 windows in the doll's-houses of Lots-road that 
 shook at its feet. Lots-road got up to that thunder, 
 went to bed to that thunder, ate bacon to it, and 
 generally transacted its daily life. I gazed baffled 
 at the building. No clue anywhere to the mystery ! 
 Nothing but a proof of the determined tendency 
 on the part of civilisation to imitate the romances 
 of H. G. Wells! 
 
 A milkman in a striped apron was ringing and 
 ringing angrily at the grille of a locked public- 
 house. I hate to question people in the street, but 
 curiosity concerning a marvel is like love, stronger 
 than hate. 
 
 "That?" said the milkman peevishly. "That's 
 the generating stytion for the electric rilewys." 
 
 "Which railwaj^s?" I asked. 
 
 "All of 'em," said he. "There's bin above sixty 
 men killed there already." 
 
 €?• *?• (?• «?* 
 
 Who would have supposed, a few years ago, that 
 romance would visit unromantic Lots-road in this 
 strange and terrible manner, cracking it, smashing 
 it, deafening it, making the vases rattle on its man- 
 
266 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 telpieces, and robbing it of sleep? Lots-road is 
 now the true romantic centre of London. (It 
 would probably prefer to be something else, but it 
 is.) It holds the true symbol of the development 
 of London's corporate life. 
 
 You come to an unusual hole in the street, and 
 enter it, and find yourself on a large floor sur- 
 rounded by advertisements of whisky and art fur- 
 niture. The whole floor suddenly sinks with you 
 towards the centre of the earth, far below sewers. 
 You emerge into a system of tunnels, and, 
 guided by painted white hands, you traverse 
 these tunnels till you arrive at a precipice. Then 
 a suite of drawing-rooms, four or six, glides 
 along the front of the precipice. Each saloon 
 is lighted by scores of electric lamps, and the 
 steel doors of each are magically thrown wide 
 open. An attendant urges you to come in and 
 sit down. You do so, and instantly the suite 
 of rooms glides glittering away with you, curving 
 through an endless subterranean passage, and stop- 
 ping now and then for two seconds at a precipice. 
 At last you get out, and hurry through more tun- 
 nels, and another flying floor wafts you up out of 
 the earth again, and you stagger into daylight and 
 a strange street, and when your eyes have recovered 
 themselves you perceive that the strange street is 
 merely Holborn. . . . And all this because of 
 the roaring necromancers' castle in Lots-road! 
 All this impossible without the roaring necro- 
 mancers' castle! 
 
 People ejaculate, "The new Tubes!" and think 
 
LONDON 267 
 
 they have described these astounding phenomena. 
 
 But they have not. 
 
 £ Si # £ 
 
 The fact that strikes the traveller beyond all other 
 facts of the new London is the immensity of the 
 penalty which the Metropolis is now paying for its 
 size. Tubes, electrified "Districts," petrol omni- 
 buses, electric cars and cabs, and automobiles ; these 
 are only the more theatrical aspects of an activity 
 which permeates and exhausts the life of the com- 
 munity. Locomotion has become an obsession in 
 London; it has become a perfect nightmare. The 
 city gets larger and larger, but the centre remains 
 the centre and everybody must get to it. 
 
 See the motor cars speeding over Barnes Com- 
 mon to plunge into London. One after another, 
 treading on each other's heels, scurrying, preoccu- 
 pied, and malodorous, they fly past in an inter- 
 minable procession for hours, to give a melodra- 
 matic interest to the streets of London. See the 
 attack on the omnibuses by a coldly-determined 
 mob of workers outside Putney Station, and the 
 stream that ceaselessly descends into Putney Sta- 
 tion. Follow the omnibuses as they rush across 
 the bridge into Fulham-road. See the girls on the 
 top at 8 a. m. in the frosty fog. They are glad to 
 be anywhere, even on the top. 
 
 See the acrobatic young men who, all along the 
 route, jump on to the step and drop off disap- 
 pointed because there are already sixteen inside and 
 eighteen out. Notice the fight at every stopping- 
 place. Watch the gradual growth of the traffic, 
 
268 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 until the driver, from being a charioteer, is trans- 
 formed into a solver of Chinese puzzles. And re- 
 member that Fulham-road is one great highway out 
 of fifty. Bend your head, and gaze through Lon- 
 don clay into the tunnels full of gliding drawing- 
 rooms and the drawing-rooms jammed with people. 
 Think of the five hundred railway stations of all 
 sorts in London, all at the same business of trans- 
 porting people to the centre! Then put yourself 
 in front of one station, the type-terminus, Liver- 
 pool-street, and see the incredible thick, surging, 
 bursting torrent that it vomits (there is no other 
 word) from long before dawn till ten o'clock. 
 And, finally, see the silent, sanguinary battles on 
 bridges for common tram-cars and 'buses. 
 
 Not clubs, not hotels, not cathedrals, not halls 
 of song, not emporia, not mansions ; but this is Lon- 
 don, now; this necessary, passionate, complex loco- 
 motion ! All other phenomena are insignificant be- 
 side it. 
 
VI 
 
 INDUSTRY 
 
 My native heath, thanks to the enterprise of Lon- 
 don newspapers and the indestructibility of pictur- 
 esque lies, has the reputation 'of being quite unlike 
 the rest of England, but when I set foot in it after 
 absence, it seems to me the most English piece of 
 England that I ever came across. With extraor- 
 dinary clearness I see it as absurdly, ridiculously, 
 splendidly English. All the English characteris- 
 tics are, quite remarkably, exaggerated in the Pot- 
 teries. (That is perhaps why it is a butt for the 
 organs of London civilisation.) This intensifying 
 of a type is due no doubt to a certain isolation, 
 caused partly by geography and partly by the in- 
 spired genius of the gentleman who, in planning 
 what is now the London and North- Western Rail- 
 way, carefully diverted it from a populous district 
 and sent it through a hamlet six miles away. On 
 the 28 miles between Stafford and Crewe of the 
 four-track way of the greatest line in England, not 
 a town! And a solid population of a quarter of a 
 million within gunshot! English methods! That 
 is to say, the preposterous side of English methods. 
 
 We practise in the Potteries the fine old English 
 plan of not calling things by their names. We are 
 one town, one unseparated mass of streets. We 
 
 269 
 
270 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 are, in fact, the twelfth largest town in the United 
 Kingdom (though you would never guess it) i. 
 And the chief of our retail commerce and of our 
 amusements are congregated in the centre of our 
 town, as the custom is. But do not imagine that 
 we will consent to call ourselves one town.* No! 
 We pretend that we are six towns, and to carry 
 out the pretence we have six town halls, six Mayors 
 or chief bailiffs, six sanitary inspectors, six every- 
 thing, including six jealousies. We find it so much 
 more economical, convenient, and dignified, in deal- 
 ing with public health, education, and railway, 
 canal, and tramway companies to act by means of 
 six mutually jealous authorities. 
 
 *?• t?* *?• t5* 
 
 We make your cups and saucers — and other 
 earthen utensils. We have been making them for 
 over a thousand years. And, since we are Eng- 
 lish, we want to make them now as we made them 
 a thousand years ago. We flatter ourselves that 
 we; are a particularly hard-headed race, and we are. 
 Steel drills would not get a new idea into our hard 
 heads. We have a characteristic shrewd look, a 
 sort of looking askance and suspicious. We are 
 looking askance and suspicious at the insidious ap- 
 proaches of science and scientific organisation. At 
 the present moment the twelfth largest town is 
 proposing to find a sum of .£250 (less than it 
 spends on amusement in a single day) towards the 
 cost of a central school of pottery. Mind, only 
 
 * Since this was written a very modified form of federation 
 has been introduced into the Potteries. 
 
INDUSTRY 271 
 
 proposing! Up to three years ago (as has been 
 publicly stated by a master-potter) we carped at 
 scientific methods. "Carp" is an amiable word. We 
 hated and loathed innovation. We do still. Only 
 a scientific, adventurous, un-English manufacturer 
 who has dared to innovate knows the depth and 
 height, the terrific inertia, of that hate and that 
 loathing. 
 
 Oh, yes, we are fully aware of Germany! Yes- 
 terday a successful manufacturer said to me — and 
 these are his exact words, which I wrote down and 
 read over to him: "Owing to superior technical 
 knowledge, the general body of German manufac- 
 turers are able to produce certain effects in china 
 and in earthenware, which the general body of 
 English manufacturers are incapable of produc- 
 ing." However, we have already established two 
 outlying minor technical schools, and we are pro- 
 posing to find £250 privately towards a grand 
 and imposing central technical college. Do not 
 smile, you who read this. You are not arch- 
 angels, either. Besides, when we like, we can 
 produce the finest earthenware in the world. 
 We are only just a tiny bit more English than you 
 — that's all. And the Potteries is English indus- 
 try in little — a glass for English manufacture to 
 see itself in. 
 
 t5* «?» t5* t5* 
 
 For the rest, we are the typical industrial com- 
 munity, presenting the typical phenomena of new 
 England. We have made municipal parks out of 
 wildernesses, and hired brass bands of music to 
 
272 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 play in them. We have quite six parks in our 
 town. The character of our annual carnivals has 
 improved out of recognition within living memoiy. 
 Electricity no longer astounds us. We have pub- 
 lic baths everywhere (though I have never heard 
 that they rival our gasworks in contributing to the 
 rates). Our public libraries are better and more 
 numerous, though their chief function is still to 
 fleet the idle hours of our daughters. Our roads 
 are less awful. Our slums are decreasing. Our 
 building regulations are stricter. Our sanitation 
 is vastly improved; and in spite of asthma, lead- 
 poisoning, and infant mortality our death-rate is 
 midway between those of Manchester and Liver- 
 pool. 
 
 We grow steadily less drunken. Yet drunken- 
 ness remains our worst vice, and in the social hier- 
 archy none stands higher than the brewer, precisely 
 as in the rest of England. We grow steadily less 
 drunken, but even the intellectuals still think it 
 odd and cranky to meet without drinking fluids 
 admittedly harmful; and as for the workingman's 
 beer . . . Knock the glass out of his hand 
 and see! We grow steadily less drunken, but we 
 possess some 750 licensed houses and not a single 
 proper bookshop. No man could make a hundred 
 pounds a year by selling books in the Potteries. 
 We really do know a lot, and we have as many 
 bathrooms per thousand as any industrial hive in 
 this island, and as many advertisments of incom- 
 parable soaps. We are in the way of perfection, 
 and when we have conquered drunkenness, igno- 
 
INDUSTRY 273 
 
 ranee, and dirt we shall have arrived there, with 
 the rest of England. Dirt — a public slatternli- 
 ness, a public and shameless flouting of the virtues 
 of cleanliness and tidiness — is the most spectacular 
 of our sins. 
 
 We are the supreme land of picturesque con- 
 trasts. On one day last week I saw a Town Clerk 
 who had never heard of H. G. Wells; I walked 
 five hundred yards and assisted at a performance 
 of chamber-music by Bach and a discussion of the 
 French slang of Huysmans; walked only another 
 hundred yards and was, literally, stuck in an un- 
 protected bog and extricated therefrom by the 
 kindness of two girls who were rooting in a shawd- 
 ruck for bits of coal. 
 
 Lastly, with other industrial communities, we 
 share the finest of all qualities — the power and the 
 will to work. We do work. All of us work. We 
 have no use for idlers. Climb a hill and survey 
 our combined endeavour, and you will admit it to 
 be magnificent. 
 
THE MIDLANDS— 1910-1911 
 
THE HANBRIDGE EMPIRE 
 
 When I came into the palace, out of the streets 
 where black human silhouettes moved on seemingly 
 mysterious errands in the haze of high-hung elec- 
 tric globes, I was met at the inner portal by the 
 word "Welcome" in large gold letters. This 
 greeting, I saw, was part of the elaborate me- 
 chanics of the place. It reiterated its message mo- 
 notonously to perhaps fifteen thousand visitors a 
 week; nevertheless, it had a certain effectiveness, 
 since it showed that the Hanbridge Theatres Com- 
 pany Limited was striving after the right attitude 
 towards the weekly fifteen thousand. At some pit 
 doors the seekers after pleasure are received and 
 herded as if they were criminals, or beggars. I en- 
 tered with curiosity, for, though it is the business 
 of my life to keep an eye on the enthralling social 
 phenomena of Hanbridge, I had never been in its 
 Empire. When I formed part of Hanbridge there 
 was no Empire; nothing but sing-songs conducted 
 by convivial chairmen with rapping hammers in 
 public-houses whose blinds were drawn and whose 
 posters were in manuscript. Not that I have ever 
 assisted at one of those extinct sing-songs. They 
 were as forbidden to me as a High Church service. 
 The only convivial rapping chairman I ever beheld 
 
 277 
 
278 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 was at Gatti's, under Charing Cross Station, 
 twenty-two years ago. 
 
 Now I saw an immense carved and gilded inte- 
 rior, not as large as the Paris Opera, but assuredly 
 capable of seating as many persons. My first 
 thought was: "Why, it's just like a real music- 
 hall!" I was so accustomed to regard Hanbridge 
 as a place where the great visible people went in to 
 work at seven a.m. and emerged out of public- 
 houses at eleven P.M., or stood movelessly mournful 
 in packed tramcars, or bitterly partisan on chill 
 football grounds, that I could scarcely credit their 
 presence here, lolling on velvet amid gold Cupids 
 and Hercules, and smoking at ease, with plentiful 
 ash-trays to encourage them. I glanced round to 
 find acquaintances, and the first I saw was the hu- 
 man being who from nine to seven was my tailor's 
 assistant; not now an automaton wound up with 
 deferential replies to any conceivable question that 
 a dandy could put, but a living soul with a calabash 
 between his teeth, as fine as anybody. Indeed, 
 finer than most! He, like me, reclined aristocratic 
 in the grand circle (a bob). He, like me, was of- 
 fered chocolates and what not at reasonable prices 
 by a boy whose dress indicated that his education 
 was proceeding at Eton. I was glad to see him. 
 I should have gone and spoken to him, only I feared 
 that by so doing I might balefully kill a man and 
 create a deferential automaton. And I was glad 
 to see the vast gallery with human twopences. In 
 nearly all public places of pleasure, the pleasure is 
 poisoned for me by the obsession that I owe it, at 
 
THE HANBRIDGE EMPIRE 279 
 
 last, to the underpaid labour of people who aren't 
 there and can't be there; by the growing, deepen- 
 ing obsession that the whole structure of what a re- 
 spectable person means, when he says with patriotic 
 warmth "England," is reared on a stupendous and 
 shocking injustice. I did not feel this at the Han- 
 bridge Empire. Even the newspaper-lad and the 
 match-girl might go to the Hanbridge Empire and, 
 sitting together, drink the milk of paradise. Won- 
 derful discoverers, these new music-hall directors 
 all up and down the United Kingdom ! They have 
 discovered the folk. 
 
 <•* <5* (5* «5* 
 
 The performance was timed as carefully as a 
 prize-fight. Ting! and the curtain went unfail- 
 ingly up. Ting! and it came unfailingly down. 
 Ting! and something started. Ting! and it 
 stopped. Everybody concerned in the show knew 
 what he and everybody else had to do. The illu- 
 minated number-signs on either side of the prosce- 
 nium changed themselves with the implacable 
 accuracy of astronomical phenomena. It was as 
 though some deity of ten thousand syndicated halls 
 was controlling the show from some throne studded 
 with electric switches in Shaftesbury Avenue. 
 Only the uniformed shepherd of the twopences aloft 
 seemed free to use his own discretion. His "Now 
 then, order, please" a masterly union of entreaty 
 and intimidation, was the sole feature of the enter- 
 tainment not regulated to the fifth of a second by 
 that recurrent ting. 
 
 But what the entertainment gained in efficient 
 
280 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 exactitude by this ruthless ordering, it seemed to 
 lose in zest, in capriciousness, in rude joy. It was 
 watched almost dully, and certainly there was noth- 
 ing in it that could rouse the wayward animal that 
 is in all of us. It was marked by an impeccable 
 propriety. In the classic halls of London you can 
 still hear skittish grandmothers, stars of a past age 
 unre formed, prattling (with an amazing imitation 
 of youthfulness) of champagne suppers. But not 
 in the Hanbridge Empire. At the Hanbridge Em- 
 pire the curtain never rises on any disclosure of the 
 carnal core of things. Even when a young woman 
 in a short skirt chanted of being clasped in his arms 
 again, the tepid primness of her manner indicated 
 that the embrace would be that of a tailor's dummy 
 and a pretty head-and-shoulders in a hairdresser's 
 window. The pulse never asserted itself. Only in 
 the unconscious but overpowering temperament of 
 a couple of acrobatic mulatto women was there the 
 least trace of bodily fever. Male acrobats of the 
 highest class, whose feats were a continual creation 
 of sheer animal beauty, roused no adequate en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 "When do the Yorkshire Songsters come on?" I 
 asked an attendant at the interval. In the bar, a 
 handful of pleasure-seekers were dispassionately 
 drinking, without a rollicking word to mar the flow 
 of their secret reflections. 
 
 "Second item in the second part," said the at- 
 tendant, and added heartily: "And very good they 
 are, too, sir!" 
 
 He meant it. He would not have said as much 
 
THE HANBRIDGE EMPIRE 281 
 
 of a man whom in the lounge of a London hotel I 
 saw playing the fiddle and the piano simultane- 
 ously. He was an attendant of mature and diffi- 
 cult judgment, not to be carried away by clowning 
 or grotesquerie. With him good meant good. 
 And they were very good. And they were what 
 they pretended to be. There were about twenty of 
 them ; the women were dressed in white, and the men 
 wore scarlet hunting coats. The conductor, a little 
 shrewd man, was disguised in a sort of levee dress, 
 with knee-breeches and silk stockings. But he 
 could not disguise himself from me. I had seen 
 him, and hundreds of him, in the streets of Hali- 
 fax, Wakefield, and Batley. I had seen him all 
 over Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Staffordshire. 
 He was a Midland type: infernally well satisfied 
 with himself under a crust of quiet modesty; a nice 
 man to chat with on the way to Blackpool, a man 
 who could take a pot of beer respectably and then 
 stop, who could argue ingeniously without heat, 
 and who would stick a shaft into you as he left you, 
 just to let you know that he was not quite so ordi- 
 nary as he made out to be. They were all like that, 
 in a less degree; women too; those women could 
 cook a Welsh rarebit with any woman, and they 
 wouldn't say all they thought all at once, either. 
 
 And there they were ranged in a flattened semi- 
 circle on a music-hall stage. Perhaps they ap- 
 peared on forty music-hall stages in a year. It had 
 come to that: another case of specialisation. 
 Doubtless they had begun in small choirs, or in the 
 parlours of home, singing for the pleasure of sing- 
 
282 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 ing, and then acquiring some local renown; and 
 then the little shrewd conductor had had the grand 
 idea of organised professionalism. God bless my 
 soul! The thing was an epic, or ought to be! 
 They really could sing. They really had voices. 
 And they would not "demean" themselves to cheap- 
 ness. All their eyes said: "This is no music-hall 
 foolery. This is uncompromisingly high-class, and 
 if you don't like it you ought to be ashamed of 
 yourselves!" They sang part-song music, from 
 "Sweet and Low" to a "Lohengrin" chorus. And 
 with a will, with finesse, with a pianissimo over which 
 the endless drone of the electric fan could be clearly 
 distinguished, and a fine, free fortissimo that would 
 have enchanted Wagner! They brought the house 
 down every time. They might have rendered en- 
 cores till midnight, but for my deity in Shaftesbury 
 Avenue. It was the "folk" themselves giving back 
 to the folk in the form of art the very life of the 
 folk. 
 
 *5* t?» «?* (?• 
 
 But the most touching instances of this giving- 
 back was furnished by the lady clog-dancer. Han- 
 bridge used to be the centre of a land of clogs. 
 Hundreds of times I have wakened in winter dark- 
 ness to the sound of clogs on slushy pavements. 
 And when I think of clogs I think of the knocker- 
 up, and hurried fire-lighting, and tea and thick 
 bread, and the icy draught from the opened front- 
 door, and the factory gates, and the terrible time- 
 keeper therein, and his clock: all the military harsh- 
 ness of industrialism grimly accepted. Few are 
 
1 
 
 ■ / 
 
 5\ / 
 
 , 
 
 a<- 
 
 ¥ 
 
 THE LADY CLOG-DANCER (Paye 
 
THE HANBRIDGE EMPIRE 283 
 
 the clogs now in Hanbridge. The girls wear paper 
 boots, for their health's sake, and I don't know what 
 the men wear. Clogs have nearly gone out of life. 
 But at the Hanbridge Empire they had reappeared 
 in an art highly conventionalised. The old clog- 
 dancing, begun in public-houses, was realistic, and 
 was done by people who the next morning would 
 clatter to work in clogs. But this pretty, simpering 
 girl had never worn a clog seriously. She had 
 never regarded a clog as a cheap and lasting pro- 
 tection against wind and rain, but as a contrivance 
 that you had to dance in. I daresay she rose at 
 eleven a.m. She had a Cockney accent. She 
 would not let her clogs make a noise. She minced 
 in clogs. It was no part of her scheme to lose her 
 breath. And yet I doubt not that she constituted a 
 romantic ideal for the young male twopences, with 
 her clogs that had reached her natty feet from the 
 original back streets of, say, Stockport. As I lum- 
 bered home in the electric car, besieged by printed 
 requests from the tram company not on any ac- 
 count to spit, I could not help thinking and think- 
 ing, in a very trite way, that art is a wonderful 
 thing. 
 
II 
 
 THE MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE 
 
 According to Whitaker's Almanac, there are 
 something under a million of them actually at work, 
 which means probably that the whole race numbers 
 something over two millions. And, speaking 
 broadly, no one knows anything about them. The 
 most modern parents, anxious to be parental in a 
 scientific manner, will explain to their children on 
 the hearth the chemistry of the fire, showing how 
 the coal releases again the carbon which was ab- 
 sorbed by the plant in a past age, and so on, to the 
 end that the children may learn to understand the 
 order of the universe. 
 
 This I have seen. But I have never seen par- 
 ents explaining to their children on the hearth the 
 effect of coal-getting on the family life of the col- 
 lier, to the end that the children might learn to un- 
 derstand the price of coal in sweat, blood, and tears. 
 The householder is interested only in the other in- 
 significant part of the price of coal. And this is 
 odd, for the majority of householders are certainly 
 not monsters of selfish and miserly indifference to 
 the human factor in economics. Nor — I have con- 
 vinced myself, though with difficulty — are the mem- 
 bers of the House of Lords. Yet among all the 
 speeches against the Miners' Eight Hours Bill in 
 
 284 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE 285 
 
 this Chamber where beats the warm, generous heart 
 of Lord Halsbury, I do not remember one which 
 mentioned the real price of coal. Even the mem- 
 bers of the sublime Coal Consumers' League, 
 though phantoms, cannot be phantoms without 
 bowels. But has the League ever issued one leaflet 
 dealing with the psychology of the collier's wife as 
 affected by notions of fire-damp? I doubt it. 
 
 t7* «?• «5* (?• 
 
 Even artists have remained unstirred by the pro- 
 vocative mystery of this subterranean race, which 
 perspires with a pick, not only beneath our cellars, 
 but far beneath the caves of the sea itself. A work- 
 ing miner, Joseph Skipsey, had to write the one 
 verse about this race which has had vigour enough 
 to struggle into the anthologies. The only novel 
 handling in the grand manner this tremendous and 
 bizarre theme is Emile Zola's "Germinal." And, 
 though it is a fine novel, though it is honest and 
 really impressive, there are shallows in the mighty 
 stream of its narrative, and its climax is marred by 
 a false sentimentality, which is none the less senti- 
 mentality for being sensual. Not a great novel, 
 but nearly great; as the child's ring was "nearly 
 gold." And in English fiction what is there but 
 "Miss Grace of All Souls," a wistful and painstak- 
 ing book, with pages which extort respect, but which 
 no power can save from oblivion? And in the fine 
 arts, is there anything but pretty coloured sentimen- 
 talities of hopeless dawns at pit-heads? Well, 
 there is! Happily there are Constantin Meunier's 
 sculptures of miners at work — compositions over 
 
286 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 which oblivion will have no power. But I think 
 this is all. 
 
 Journalistic reporting of great tragic events 
 is certainly much better than it used to be, 
 when the phraseology of the reporter was as 
 rigidly fixed by convention as poetic phrase- 
 ology in the eighteenth century. The spe- 
 cial correspondent is now much more of an artist, 
 because he is much more free. But he is handi- 
 capped by the fact that when he does his special 
 work really well, he is set to doing special work al- 
 ways, and lives largely among abnormal and af- 
 frighting phenomena, and so his sensibility is 
 dulled. Moreover, there are valuable effects and 
 impressions which the greatest genius on earth could 
 not accomplish in a telegraph office. But did you 
 ever see the lives or the swift deaths of the myste- 
 rious people treated, descriptively by an imaginative 
 writer in a monthly review? I noted recently with 
 pleasure that the American magazines, characteris- 
 tically alert, have awakened to the possibilities of 
 the mysterious people as material for serious work 
 in the more leisurely journalism. The last tre- 
 mendous accident in the United States produced 
 at any rate one careful and fairly adequate study 
 of the psychology of the principal figures in it, and 
 of the drama which a bundle of burning hay orig- 
 inated. 
 
 Even if I did not share the general incurious 
 apathy towards the mysterious people, I should not 
 blame that apathy, for it is so widespread that there 
 must be some human explanation of it; my object 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE 287 
 
 is merely to point it out. But I share it. I lived 
 half my life among coalpits. I never got up in the 
 morning without seeing the double wheels at a 
 neighbouring pit-head spin silently in opposite di- 
 rections for a time, and then stop, and then begin 
 again. I was accustomed to see coal and ironstone, 
 not in tons, but in thousands of tons. I have been 
 close to colliery disasters so enormous that the am- 
 bitious local paper would make special reporters of 
 the whole of its staff, and give up to the affair the 
 whole of its space, save a corner for the betting 
 news. My district lives half by earthenware and 
 half by mining. I have often philandered with pot- 
 workers, but I have never felt a genuine, active curi- 
 osity about the mysterious people. I have never 
 been down a coalpit, though the galleries are now 
 white-washed and lighted by electricity. It has 
 never occurred to me to try to write a novel about 
 the real price of coal. 
 
 «?* !?• €?* !?• 
 
 And yet how powerfully suggestive the glimpses 
 I have had! Down there, on my heath, covered 
 with a shuttle-work of trams, you may get on to a 
 car about four o'clock in the afternoon to pay a 
 visit, and you may observe a handful of silent, for- 
 midable men in the car, a greyish-yellowish-black 
 from head to foot. Like Eugene Stratton, they 
 are black everywhere, except the whites of their 
 eyes. You ask yourself what these begrimed 
 creatures that touch nothing without soiling 
 it are doing abroad at four o'clock in the afternoon, 
 seeing that men are not usually unyoked till six. 
 
288 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 They have an uncanny air, especially when you re- 
 flect that there is not one arm among them that 
 could not stretch you out with one blow. Then you 
 remember that they have been buried in geological 
 strata probably since five o'clock that morning, and 
 that the sky must look strange to them. 
 
 Or you may be walking in the appalling out- 
 skirts, miles from town halls and free libraries, but 
 miles also from flowers, and you may see a whole 
 procession of these silent men, encrusted with car- 
 bon and perspiration, a perfect pilgrimage of them, 
 winding its way over a down where the sparse grass 
 is sooty and the trees are withered. And then you 
 feel that you yourself are the exotic stranger in those 
 regions. But the procession absolutely ignores 
 you. You might not exist. It goes on, absorbed, 
 ruthless, and sinister. Your feeling is that if you 
 got in its path it would tramp right over you. And 
 it passes out of sight. 
 
 Around, dotting the moors, are the mining vil- 
 lages, withdrawn, self-centred, where the entire ex- 
 istence of the community is regulated by a single 
 steam-siren, where good fortune and ill-fortune are 
 common, and where the disaster of one is the disaster 
 of all. Little is known of the life of these villages 
 and townlets— known, that is, by people capable of 
 imaginative external sympathetic comprehension. 
 And herein is probably a reason why the myste- 
 rious people remain so mysterious. They live phys- 
 ically separated. A large proportion of them 
 never mingle with the general mass. They are not 
 sufficiently seen of surface-men to maintain curi- 
 
THE MYSTERIOUS PEOPLE 280 
 
 osity concerning them. They keep themselves to 
 themselves, and circumstances so keep them. Only 
 at elections do they seem to impinge in powerful si- 
 lence on the destinies of the nation. 
 
 I have visited some of these villages. I have 
 walked over the moors to them with local preach- 
 ers, and heard them challenge God. I have talked 
 to doctors and magistrates about them, and 
 acquired the certainty, vague and yet vivid, that in 
 religion, love, work, and debauch they are equally 
 violent and splendid. It needs no insight to per- 
 ceive that they live nearer even than sailors to that 
 central tract of emotion where life and death meet. 
 But I have never sympathetically got near them. 
 And I don't think I ever shall. 
 
 Once I was talking to a man whose father, not 
 himself a miner, had been the moral chieftain of one 
 of these large villages, the individuality to which 
 everyone turned in doubt or need. And I was 
 getting this man to untap the memories of his child- 
 hood. "Eh!" he said, "I remember how th' women 
 used to come to my mother sometimes of a night, 
 and beg, 'Mrs. B., an' ye got any old white shirts 
 to spare? They're bringing 'em up, and we mun 
 lay 'em out!' And I remember — " But just then 
 he had to leave me, and I obtained no more. But 
 what a glimpse ! 
 
Ill 
 
 FIRST VOYAGE TO THE ISLE OF MAN 
 
 It seemed solid enough. I leaned for an instant 
 over the rail on the quarter away from the landing- 
 stage, and there, at the foot of the high precipice 
 formed by the side of the vessel, was the wavy 
 water. A self-important, self-confident man 
 standing near me lighted a black cigar of unseemly 
 proportions, and threw the match into the water. 
 The match was lost at once in the waves, which far 
 below beat up futilely against the absolutely un- 
 moved precipice. I had never been on such a large 
 steamer before. I said to myself: "This is all 
 
 right." 
 
 However, that was not the moment to go into 
 ecstasies over the solidity of the steamer. I had to 
 secure a place for myself. Hundreds of people on 
 the illimitable deck were securing places for them- 
 selves. And many of them were being aided by 
 porters or mariners. The number of people seemed 
 to exceed the number of seats; it certainly exceeded 
 the number of nice sheltered corners. I picked up 
 my portmanteau with one hand and my bag 
 and my sticks and my rug with the other. Then I 
 dropped the portmanteau. A portmanteau has the 
 peculiar property of possessing different weights. 
 You pick it up in your bedroom, and it seems a 
 
 290 
 
THE ISLE OF MAN 291 
 
 feather. You say to yourself: "I can carry that 
 easily — save tips to porters." But in a public 
 place its weight changes for the worse with every 
 yard you walk. At twenty yards it weighs half a 
 ton. At forty yards no steam-crane could support 
 it. You drop it. Besides, the carrying of it robs 
 your movements of all grace and style. Well, I 
 had carried that bag myself from the cab to the 
 steamer, across the landing-stage, and up the gang- 
 way. Economy! I had spent a shilling on a use- 
 less magazine, and I grudged three pence to a por- 
 ter with a wife and family ! I was wearing a neck- 
 tie whose £>rice represented the upkeep of the porter 
 and his wife and family for a full twenty-four 
 hours, and yet I wouldn't employ the porter to the 
 tune of threepence. Economy! These thoughts 
 flashed through my head with the rapidity of light- 
 ning. 
 
 You see, I could not skip about for a deck-chair 
 with that portmanteau in my hand. But if I left 
 it lying on the deck, which was like a street . . . 
 well, thieves, professional thieves, thieves who 
 specialise in departing steamers! They nip off 
 with your things while you are looking for a chair ; 
 the steamer bell sounds; and there you are! 
 Nevertheless, I accepted the horrid risk and left 
 all my belongings in the middle of the street. 
 
 t5* (5* £* «7* 
 
 Not a free chair, not a red deck-chair, not a cor- 
 ner ! There were seats by the rail at one extremity 
 of the boat, and at the other extremity of the boat, 
 but no chair to be had. Thousands of persons re- 
 
292 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 dining in chairs, and thousands of others occupied 
 by bags, rugs, and bonnet-boxes, but no empty 
 chair. 
 
 "Want a deck-chair, governor?" a bearded mar- 
 iner accosted me. 
 
 Impossible to conceal from him that I did. But, 
 being perhaps the ship's carpenter, was he going to 
 manufacture a chair for me on the spot? I knew 
 not how he did it, but in about thirty seconds he pro- 
 duced a chair out of the entrails of the ship, and fixed 
 it for me in a beautiful situation, just forward of 
 the funnel, and close to a charming young woman, 
 and a little deck-house in front for protection! It 
 was exactly what I wanted ; the most stationary part 
 of the entire vessel. 
 
 Sixpence! Economy! Still, I couldn't give 
 him less. Moreover, I only had two pence in cop- 
 pers. 
 
 "What will the voyage be like?" I asked him with 
 false jollity, as he touched his cap. 
 
 "Grand, sir!" he replied enthusiastically. 
 
 Yes, and if I had given him a shilling the voyage 
 would have been the most magnificent and utterly 
 perfect voyage that ship ever made. 
 
 No sooner was I comfortably installed in that 
 almost horizontal deck-chair than I was aware of a 
 desire to roam about, watch the casting-off and the 
 behaviour of the poor stay-at-home crowd on the 
 landing-stage; a very keen desire. But I would 
 not risk the portmanteau again. Nothing should 
 part us till the gangways were withdrawn. Absurd, 
 of course! Human nature is absurd. ... I 
 

 \ ( J (■ 
 
 
 < 
 
 
 
 THE VOYAGE (Page 292) 
 
THE ISLE OF MAN 293 
 
 caught the charming young woman's eye about a 
 dozen times. The ship got fuller and fuller. With 
 mean and paltry joy I perceived other passengers 
 seeking for chairs and not finding them, and I 
 gazed at them with haughty superiority. Then a 
 fiendish, an incredible, an appalling screech over my 
 head made me jump in a silly way quite unworthy 
 of a man who is reclining next to a charming young 
 woman, and apt to prejudice him in her eyes. It 
 was merely the steamer announcing that we were 
 off. I sprang up, trying to make the spring seem 
 part of the original jump. I looked. And lo! The 
 whole landing-stage with all the people and horses 
 and cabs was moving backwards, floating clean 
 away ; while the enormous ship stood quite still ! A 
 most singular effect! 
 
 t5* <•* «5* J* 
 
 In a minute we were in the middle of the river, 
 and my portmanteau was safe. I left it in pos- 
 session of the chair. 
 
 The next strange phenomenon of my mental con- 
 dition was an extraordinary curiosity in regard to 
 the ship. I had to explore it. I had to learn all 
 about it. I began counting the people on the 
 deck, but soon after I had come to the man with the 
 unseemly black cigar I lost count. Then I went 
 downstairs. There seemed to be staircases all over 
 the place. You could scarcely move without falling 
 down a staircase. And I came to another deck also 
 full of people and bags, and fitted with other stair- 
 cases that led still lower. And on the sloping ceil- 
 ing of one of these lower staircases I saw the Board 
 
294 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 of Trade certificate of the ship. A most interesting 
 document. It gave the tonnage as 2,000, and the 
 legal number of passengers as about the same; and 
 it said there were over two thousand life-belts on 
 board, and room on the eight boats for I don't re- 
 member how many shipwrecked voyagers. It even 
 gave the captain's Christian name. You might 
 think that this would slake my curiosity. But, no! 
 It urged me on. Lower down — somewhere near 
 the caverns at the bottom of the sea, I came across 
 marble halls, upholstered in velvet, where at snowy 
 tables people were unconcernedly eating steaks and 
 drinking tea. I said to myself "At such and such 
 an hour I will come down here and have tea. It 
 will break the monotony of the voyage." Looking 
 through the little round windows of the restaurant 
 I saw strips of flying green. 
 
 Then I thought: "The engines!" And somehow 
 the word "reciprocating" came into my mind. I 
 really must go and see the engines reciprocate. I 
 had never seen anything reciprocate, except possibly 
 my Aunt Hilda at the New Year, when she an- 
 swered my letter of good wishes. I discovered that 
 many other persons had been drawn down towards 
 the engine-room by the attraction of the spectacle 
 of reciprocity. And as a spectacle it was assuredly 
 majestic, overwhelming, and odorous. I must 
 learn the exact number of times those engines recip- 
 rocated in a minute, and I took out my watch for 
 the purpose. Other gazers at once did the same. 
 It seemed to be a matter of the highest impor- 
 tance that we should know the precise speed of those 
 
THE ISLE OF MAN 295 
 
 engines. Then I espied a large brass plate which 
 appeared to have been affixed to the engine 
 room in order to inform the engineers that the ship 
 was built by Messrs. Macconochie and Sons, of 
 Dumbarton. Why Dumbarton? Why not 
 Halifax? And why must this precious in- 
 formation always be staring the engineers in 
 the face? I wondered whether "Sons" were 
 married, and, if so, what the relations were be- 
 tween Sons' wives and old Mrs. Macconochie. 
 Then, far down, impossibly far down, furlongs be- 
 neath those gesticulating steely arms, I saw a coal- 
 pit on fire and demons therein with shovels. And 
 all of a sudden it occurred to me that I might as 
 well climb up again to my own special deck. 
 
 t?* (?• *•* t?» 
 
 I did so. The wind blew my hat off, my hat ran 
 half-way up the street before I could catch it. I 
 caught it and clung to the rail. We were just pass- 
 ing a lightship ; the land was vague behind ; in front 
 there was nothing but wisps of smoke here and 
 there. Then I saw a fishing-smack, tossing like 
 anything ; its bows went down into the sea and then 
 jerked themselves fairly out of the sea, and this 
 process went on and on and on. And although I was 
 not aboard the smack, it disconcerted me. How- 
 ever, I said to myself, "How glad I am to be on a 
 nice firm steamer, instead of on that smack!" I 
 looked at my watch again. We seemed to have 
 been away from England about seven days, but it 
 was barely three-quarters of an hour. The offen- 
 sive man with the cigar went swaggering by. And 
 
296 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 then a steward came up out of the depths of the 
 sea with a tray full of glasses of beer, and a group 
 of men lolling in deck chairs started to drink this 
 beer. I cared not for the sight. I said to myself, 
 "I will go and sit down." And as I stepped for- 
 ward the deck seemed to sink away ever so slightly. 
 A trifle! Perhaps a delusion on my part! Surely 
 nothing so solid as that high road of a deck could 
 sink away! Having removed my portmanteau 
 from my chair, I sat down. The charming girl was 
 very pale, with eyes closed. Possibly asleep! 
 Many people had the air of being asleep. Every 
 chair was now occupied. Still, dozens of boastful 
 persons were walking to and fro, pretending to have 
 the easy sea-legs of Lord Charles Beresford. The 
 man with the atrocious cigar (that is, another atro- 
 cious cigar) swung by. Hateful individual ! "You 
 wait a bit!" I said to him (in my mind). "You'll 
 see!" 
 
 I, too, shut my eyes, keeping very still. A grand 
 voyage ! Certainly, a grand voyage ! Then I woke 
 up. I had been asleep. It was tea-time. But I 
 would not have descended to that marble restaurant 
 for ten thousand pounds. For the first time I was 
 indifferent to tea in the afternoon. However, af- 
 ter another quarter of an hour, I had an access of 
 courage. I rose. I walked to the rail. The hori- 
 zon was behaving improperly. I saw that I had 
 made a mistake. But I dared not move. To move 
 would have been death. I clung to the rail. There 
 was my chair five yards off, but as inaccessible as 
 if it had been five miles off. Years passed. Pale 
 
THE ISLE OF MAN 297 
 
 I must have been, but I retained my dignity. More 
 years rolled by. Then, by accident, I saw what re- 
 sembled a little cloud on the horizon. 
 
 It was the island! The mere sight of the island 
 gave me hope and strength, and cheek. 
 
 In half an hour — you will never guess it — I was 
 lighting a cigarette, partly for the benefit of the 
 charming young woman, and partly to show that 
 offensive man with the cigars that he was not the 
 Shah of Persia. He had not suffered. Confound 
 him! 
 
IV 
 
 THE ISLAND BOARDING-HOUSE 
 
 When you first take up your brief residence in 
 the private hotel, as they term it — though I believe 
 it is still called boarding-house in the plain-spoken 
 island — your attitude towards your fellow-guests 
 is perfectly clear; I mean your secret attitude, of 
 course. Your secret attitude is that you have got 
 among a queer and an unsympathetic set of people. 
 At the first meal — especially if it be breakfast — 
 you glance at them all one by one out of the cor- 
 ners of your eyes, and in that shrewd way of yours 
 you add them up (being a more than average ex- 
 perienced judge of human nature), and you come 
 to the conclusion that you have seldom, if ever, en- 
 countered such a series of stupid and harsh faces. 
 The men seem heavy, if not greedy, and sunk in 
 mental sloth. And, really, the women might have 
 striven a little harder to avoid resembling guys. 
 After all, it is the duty of educated people not to 
 offend the gaze of their fellow-creatures. And as 
 for eating, do these men, in fact, live for naught but 
 eating? Here are perhaps fifty or sixty immortal 
 souls, and their unique concern, their united con- 
 cern, seems to be the gross satisfaction of the body. 
 Perhaps they do not have enough to eat at home, 
 you reflect ironically. And you also reflect that 
 
 298 
 

 THE ISLAND BOARDING HOUSE (Paje 22S) 
 
THE BOARDING-HOUSE 299 
 
 some people, when they have contracted for bed and 
 full board at so much per day, become absolutely 
 lost to all sense of scruple, all sense of what is nice, 
 and would, if they could, eat the unfortunate land- 
 lord right into the bankruptcy court. Look at 
 that man there, near the window — doubtless, he ob- 
 tained his excellent place near the window by the 
 simple, colonizing method of grabbing it — well, he 
 has already apportioned to himself four Manx her- 
 rings, and now, with his mouth full, he is mumbling 
 about eggs and flesh meat. 
 
 And then their conversation! How dull! — how 
 lacking in point, in originality! These unhappy 
 people appear to have in their heads no ideas that 
 are not either trivial, tedious, or merely absurd. 
 They do not appear to be interested in any matters 
 that could interest a reasonable man. They babble, 
 saying over and over again the same things. Or if 
 they do not babble they giggle, or they may do 
 both, which is worse; and, indeed, the uproarious 
 way in which some of them laugh, upon no sufficient 
 provocation, is disagreeable, especially in a woman. 
 Or, if they neither babble, giggle, nor deafen the 
 room with their outrageous mirth, they sit glum, 
 speaking not a word, glowering upon humanity. 
 How English that is — and how rude! 
 
 Commonplace — that is what these people are! It 
 is not their fault, but it is nevertheless a pity; and 
 you resent it. Indubitably you are not in a sym- 
 pathetic environment; you are not among kindred 
 spirits. You grow haughty, within. When two 
 late comers enter breezily and take seats near to 
 
300 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 you, and one of them begins at once by remarking 
 that he is going to Port Erin for the day, and asks 
 you if you know Port Erin, you reply "No"; the 
 fact being that you have visited Port Erin, but the 
 fact also being that you shirk the prospect of a sus- 
 tained conversation with any of these too common- 
 place, uncomprehending strangers. 
 
 You rise and depart from the table, and you en- 
 deavour to make your exit as majestic as possible; 
 but there is a suspicion in your mind that your exit 
 is only sheepish. 
 
 You meet someone on the stairs, a woman less 
 like a guy than those you have seen, and still youth- 
 ful. As you are going upstairs and she is coming 
 down, and the two of you are staying in the same 
 house, you wonder whether it would not be well to 
 greet her. A simple "Good-morning." You 
 argue about this in your head for some ten years — 
 it is only in reality three seconds, but it seems eter- 
 nal. You feel it would be nice to say good-morn- 
 ing to her. But at the critical point, at the psycho- 
 logical moment, a hard feeling comes into your 
 heart, and a glazed blind look into your eyes, and 
 you glance away. You perceive that she is staring 
 straight in front of her; you perceive that she is 
 deliberately cutting you. And so the two of you 
 pass like ships in the night, and yet not quite like 
 ships in the night, because ships do not hate, de- 
 test, and despise. 
 
 You go out into the sunshine (if sunshine there 
 happens to be), between the plash of the waves 
 and the call of the boatman on the right hand, and 
 
T\ 7 
 
 YOU MEET SOME ONE ON THE STAIRS {Page 300] 
 
THE BOARDING-HOUSE 301 
 
 the front doors of all the other boarding-houses on 
 the left, and you see that the other boarding-houses 
 are frequented by a much superior, smarter, more 
 intelligent, better-mannered set of pleasure-seek- 
 ers than yours. You feel by a sure premonition that 
 you are in for a dull time. 
 
 iT* «5% J* t5» 
 
 Nothing occurs for about forty-eight terrible 
 hours, during which time, with the most strict pro- 
 priety, you behave as though the other people in the 
 boarding-house did not exist. On several occasions 
 you have meant to exchange a few words with this 
 individual or that, but this individual or that has not 
 been encouraging, has made no advance. And you 
 are the last person to risk a rebuff. You are sen- 
 sitive, like all fine minds, to a degree which this 
 coarse clay in the boarding-house cannot conceive. 
 
 Then one afternoon something occurs. It usu- 
 ally does occur in the afternoon. You are in the 
 tram-car. About ten others are in the tram-car. 
 And among them you notice the man who put a 
 pistol to your head at the first meal and asked you 
 if you knew Port Erin ; also the young woman who 
 so arrogantly pretended that she did not see you on 
 the stairs. They are together. You had an idea 
 they were together in the boarding-house; but you 
 were not sure, because they seldom arrived in the 
 dining-room together, or left it together, and both 
 of them did a great deal of talking to other people. 
 Of course, you might have asked, but the matter did 
 not interest you; besides, you hate to seem inquisi- 
 tive. He is considerably older than she is; a hale, 
 
302 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 jolly, red-faced, grey bearded man, who probably 
 finds it easier to catch sight of his watch-chain than 
 of his toes. She is slim, and a little arch. If she is 
 his wife the difference between their ages is really 
 excessive. 
 
 The car in its passage gradually empties until 
 there is nobody in it save you and the conductor on 
 the platform and these two inside. And a minute 
 before it reaches the end of its journey the man 
 opens his cigar-case, and preparing a cigar for the 
 sacrificial burning, strolls along the car to the plat- 
 form. 
 
 "We're the last on the car," he says, between two 
 puffs, and not very articulately. 
 
 "Yes," you say. It is indubitable that you are 
 the last on the car. You needed nobody to tell you 
 that. Still, the information gives you pleasure, 
 and the fellow is rather jolly. So you add, ami- 
 ably, "I suppose it's these electric motors that are 
 giving the tram-cars beans." 
 
 He laughs. He evidently thinks you have ex- 
 pressed yourself in an amusing manner. 
 
 And inspecting the scarlet end of his cigar, he 
 says in a low voice: "I hope you're right. I've just 
 bought a packet of shares in that motor com- 
 pany." 
 
 "Really!" you exclaim. So he is a shareholder, 
 a member of the investing public! You are im- 
 pressed. Instantly you imagine him as a very 
 wealthy man who knows how to look after his 
 money, and who has a hawk's eye for "a good 
 thing." You wish you had loose money that would 
 
THE BOARDING-HOUSE 303 
 
 enable you to pick up a casual "packet of shares" 
 here and there. 
 
 The car stops. The lady gets out. You raise 
 your hat; it is the least you can do. Instead of 
 pretending that you are empty air, she smiles on 
 you charmingly, almost anxiously polite (perhaps 
 she wants to make up for having cut you on the 
 stairs), and offers you some remark about the 
 weather, a banal remark, but so prettily enveloped 
 in tissue paper and tied with pink ribbon, that you 
 treasure it. 
 
 Your common home is only fifty yards off. Ob- 
 viously you must reach it in company. 
 
 "My daughter here — " the grey-bearded man be- 
 gins a remark. 
 
 So she is his daughter. Rather interesting. 
 You talk freely, exposing all the most agreeable 
 and polite side of your disposition. 
 
 «?• (5* (5* i3% 
 
 While preparing for dinner you reflect with sat- 
 isfaction and joy that at last you are on friendly 
 terms with somebody in the house. You anticipate 
 the dinner with eagerness. You regard the father 
 and daughter somewhat as palm trees in the desert. 
 During dinner you talk to them a great deal, and 
 insensibly you find yourself exchanging remarks 
 with other guests. 
 
 They are not so bad as they seemed, perhaps. 
 Anyhow, one ought to make the best of things. 
 
 «?■ t5* i?* t?* 
 
 A whisky that night with the father! In the 
 course of the whisky you contrive to let him gather 
 
304 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 that you, too, keep an eye on the share-market, and 
 that you have travelled a great deal. In another 
 twenty- four hours you are perfectly at home in the 
 boarding-house, greeting people all over the place, 
 and even stopping on the stairs to converse. 
 Rather a jolly house! Really, some very decent 
 people here, indeed! Of course there are also some 
 with whom the ice is never broken. To the end you 
 and they glaringly and fiercely pretend to be blind 
 when you meet. You reconcile yourself to this; 
 you harden yourself. As for new-comers, you wish 
 they would not be so stiff and so absurdly aristo- 
 cratic. You take pity on them, poor things ! 
 
 But father and daughter remain your chief 
 stand-by. They overstay you (certainly unlimited 
 wealth), and they actually have the delightful idea 
 of seeing you off at the station. You part on terms 
 that are effusive. You feel you have made friends 
 for life — and first-class friends. You are to meet 
 them again; you have sworn it. 
 
 By the time you get home you have forgotten 
 all about them. 
 
TEN HOURS AT BLACKPOOL 
 
 Manchester is a right place to start from. And 
 the vastness of Victoria Station— more like Lon- 
 don than any other phenomenon in Manchester — 
 with its score of platforms, and its subways ro- 
 mantically lighted by red lamps and beckoning pale 
 hands, and its crowds eternally surging up and 
 down granitic flights of stairs— the vastness of this 
 roaring spot prepares you better than anything else 
 could for the dimensions and the loudness of your 
 destination. The Blackpool excursionists fill the 
 twelfth platform from end to end, waiting with 
 bags and baskets: a multitude of well-marked types, 
 some of the men rather violently smart as to their 
 socks and neckties, but for the most part showing 
 that defiant disregard of appearances which is per- 
 haps the worst trait of the Midland character. The 
 women seem particularly unattractive in their mack- 
 intoshed blousiness— so much so that the mere con- 
 tinuance of the race is a proof that they must pos- 
 sess secret qualities which render them irresistible; 
 they evidently consult their oculists to the neglect of 
 their dentists: which is singular, and would be dan- 
 gerous to the social success of any other type of 
 woman. 
 
 "I never did see such a coal-cellar, not in all my 
 
 365 
 
306 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 days!" exclaims one lady, apparently outraged by 
 sights seen in house-hunting. 
 
 And a middle-aged tradesman (or possibly he 
 was an insurance agent) remarks: "What I say is 
 — the man who doesn't appreciate sterling generos- 
 ity — is no man !" 
 
 Such fragments of conversation illustrate the 
 fine out-and-out idiosyncrasy of the Midlands. 
 
 The train comes forward like a victim, and in an 
 instant is captured, and in another instant is gone, 
 leaving an empty platform. These people ruth- 
 lessly know what they want. And for miles and 
 many miles the train skims over canals, and tram- 
 cars, and yards, and back-streets, and at intervals 
 you glimpse a young woman with her hair in pins 
 kneeling in sack-cloth to wash a grimy doorstep. 
 And you feel convinced that in an hour or two, 
 when she has "done," that young woman, too, will 
 be in Blackpool ; or, if not she, at any rate her sister. 
 
 t5* (7» (5* t5* 
 
 The station of arrival is enormous; and it is as 
 though all the passenger rolling-stock of the entire 
 country had had an important rendezvous there. 
 And there are about three cabs. This is not the 
 town of cabs. On every horizon you see floating 
 terrific tramcars which seat ninety people and which 
 ought to be baptised Lusitania and Baltic. 
 You wander with your fellow men down a long 
 street of cookshops with calligraphic and unde- 
 cipherable menus, and at every shopdoor is a loud- 
 tongued man to persuade you that his is the gate 
 of paradise and the entrance to the finest shilling 
 
BLACKPOOL 307 
 
 dinner in Blackpool. But you have not the cour- 
 age of his convictions; though you would like to 
 partake of the finest shilling dinner, you dare not, 
 with your southern stomach in rebellion against you. 
 You slip miserably into the Hotel Majestic, and 
 glide through many Lincrusta- Walton passages to 
 an immense, empty smoking-room, where there is 
 one barmaid and one waiter. You dare not even 
 face the bar. ... In the end the waiter 
 chooses your aperitif for you, and you might be in 
 London. The waiter, agreeably embittered by ex- 
 istence, tells you all about everything. 
 
 "This hotel used to be smaller," he says. "A 
 hundred and twenty. A nice select party, you 
 know. Now it's all changed. Our better-class 
 clients have taken houses at St. Anne's. . . 
 Jews! I should say so! Two hundred and fifty 
 out of three hundred in August. Some of 'em all 
 right, of course, but they try to own the place. 
 They come in for tea, or it may be a small ginger 
 with plenty of lemon and ice, and when they've had 
 that they've had their principal drink for the day. 
 . . . The lift is altered from hydraulic to elec- 
 tricity . . . years ago . . ." 
 
 Meanwhile a client who obviously knows his way 
 about has taken possession of the bar and the bar- 
 maid. 
 
 "I've changed my frock, you see," says she. 
 "Changed it down here?" he demands. 
 "Yes. Well, I've been ironing . . . Oh! 
 You monkey!" 
 
 In a mirror you catch her delicately chucking 
 
308 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 him under the chin. And, feeling that this kind of 
 tiling is not special to Blackpool, that it in fact 
 might happen anywhere, you decide that it is time 
 to lunch and leave the oasis of the Majestic and con- 
 front Blackpool once more. 
 
 *?* (5* «5* (?• 
 
 The Fair Ground is several miles off, and on the 
 way are three piers, loaded with toothless young 
 women flirting, and with middle-aged women dili- 
 gently crocheting or knitting. Millions of stitches 
 must be accomplished to every waltz that the bands 
 play; and perhaps every second a sock is finished. 
 But you may not linger on any pier. There is the 
 longest sea-promenade in Europe to be stepped. 
 As you leave the shopping quarter and undertake 
 the vista of ten thousand boarding-house windows 
 (in each of which is a white table full of knives and 
 forks and sauce-bottles) you are enheartened by a 
 banneret curving in the breeze with these words: 
 "Flor de Higginbotham. The cigar that you come 
 back for. 2d." You know that you will, indeed, 
 come back for it. . . . At last, footsore, amid 
 a maze of gliding trams, your vision dizzy with the 
 passing and re-passing of trams, you arrive at the 
 Fair Ground. And the first thing you see is a 
 woman knitting on a campstool as she guards the 
 booth of a spiritualistic medium. The next is a 
 procession of people each carrying a doormat and 
 climbing up the central staircase of a huge light- 
 house, and another procession of people, each sit- 
 ting on a doormat and sliding down a corkscrew 
 shoot that encircles the lighthouse. Why a light- 
 
BLACKPOOL 309 
 
 House? A gigantic simulation of a bottle of Bass 
 would have been better. 
 
 The scenic railway and the switchback surpass all 
 previous dimensions in their kind. Some other 
 method of locomotion is described as "half a mile of 
 jolly fun." And the bowl-slide is "a riot of joy." 
 "Joy" is the key-word of the Fair Ground. You 
 travel on planks over loose, unkempt sand, and un- 
 der tethered circling Maxim aeroplanes, from one 
 joy to the next. In the House of Nonsense, "joy 
 reigns supreme." Giggling also reigns supreme. 
 The "human spider," with a young woman's face, 
 is a source of joy, and guaranteed by a stentorian 
 sailor to be alive. Another genuine source of joy 
 is " 'Dante's Inferno' up to date." Another enor- 
 mous booth, made mysterious, is announced as "the 
 home of superior enjoyments." Near by is the 
 abode of the two-headed giant, as to whom it is 
 shouted upon oath that "he had a brother which 
 lived to the height of twelve foot seven." Then 
 you come to the destructive section, offering joy 
 still more vivid. Here by kicking a football you 
 may destroy images of your fellow men. Or — ex- 
 quisitely democratic invention — you can throw 
 deadly missiles at life-sized dolls that fly round and 
 round in life-sized motor-cars: genius is, in fact, 
 abroad on the Fair Ground. 
 
 All this is nothing compared to the joy- wheel, 
 certainly the sublimest device for getting money 
 and giving value for it that a student of human na- 
 ture ever hit upon. You pay threepence for ad- 
 mittance into the booth of the joy- wheel, and upon 
 
310 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 entering you are specially informed that you need 
 not practise the joy- wheel unless you like; it is your 
 privilege to sit and watch. Having sat down, there 
 is no reason why you should ever get up again, so 
 diverting is the spectacle of a crowd of young men 
 and boys clinging to each other on a large revolving 
 floor and endeavouring to defjr the centrifugal 
 force. Every time a youth is flung against the 
 cushions at the side you grin, and if a thousand 
 youths were thrown off, your thousandth grin 
 would be as hearty as the first. The secret thought 
 of every spectator is that a mixture of men and 
 maidens would be even more amusing. A bell 
 rings, and the floor is cleared, and you anticipate 
 hopefully, but the word is for children only, and 
 you are somewhat dashed, though still inordinately 
 amused. Then another bell, and you hope again, 
 and the word is for ladies only. The ladies rush 
 on to the floor with a fearful alacrity, and are flung 
 rudely off it by an unrespecting centrifugal force 
 (which alone the attendant, acrobatic and stately, 
 can dominate) ; they slide away in all postures, head 
 over heels, shrieking, but the angel of decency seems 
 to watch over their skirts. . . . And at length 
 the word is for ladies and gentlemen together, and 
 the onslaught is frantic. The ladies and gentle- 
 men, to the number of a score or so, clutch at each 
 other, making a bouquet of trousers and petticoats 
 in the centre of the floor. The revolutions com- 
 mence, and gain in rapidity, and couple after cou- 
 ple is shot off, yelling, to the periphery. They en- 
 joy it. Oh! They enjoy it! The ladies, aban- 
 
BLACKPOOL 311 
 
 doning themselves to dynamic law, slither away 
 with closed eyes and muscles relaxed in a voluptu- 
 ous languor. And then the attendant, braving the 
 peril of the wheel, leaps to the middle, and taking 
 a lady in his arms, exhibits to the swains how it is 
 possible to keep oneself in the centre and keep one's 
 damsel there too. And then, with a bow, he hands 
 the lady back to her lawful possessor. Nothing 
 could be more English, or more agreeable, than the 
 curious contradiction of frank abandonment and 
 chaste simplicity which characterises this extraordi- 
 nary exhibition. It is a perfect revelation of the 
 Anglo-Saxon temperament, and would absolutely 
 baffle any one of Latin race. . . . You leave 
 here because you must ; you tear yourself away and 
 return to the limitless beach, where the sea is going 
 nonchalantly about its business just as if human 
 progress had not got as far as the joy- wheel. 
 
 (5* (?• c7* <5* 
 
 After you have gone back for the cigar, and 
 faced the question of the man on the kerb, "Who 
 says Blackpool rock?" and eaten high tea in a res- 
 taurant more gilded than the Trocadero, and vis- 
 ited the menagerie, and ascended to the top of the 
 Tower in order to be badgered by rather nice girl- 
 touts with a living to make and a powerful determi- 
 nation to make it, and seen the blue turn to deep 
 purple over the sea, you reach at length the danc- 
 ing-halls, which are the justification of Blackpool's 
 existence. Blackpool is an ugly town, mean in 
 its vastness, but its dancing-halls present a beautiful 
 spectacle. You push your way up crowded stairs 
 
312 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 into crowded galleries, where the attendants are 
 persuasive as with children — "Please don't smoke 
 here" — and you see the throng from Victoria Sta- 
 tion and a thousand other stations in its evening 
 glory of drooping millinery and fragile blouses, 
 though toothless as ever. You see it in a palatial 
 and enormous setting of crystal and gold under a 
 ceiling like the firmament. And you struggle to 
 the edge and look over, and see, beneath, the glit- 
 tering floor covered with couples in a strange array 
 of straw hats and caps, and knickers, and tennis 
 shoes, and scarcely a glove among the five hundred 
 of them. Only the serio-comic M.C., with a deli- 
 cately waved wand, conforms to the fashion of 
 London. He has his hands full, has that M.C., as 
 he trips to and fro, calling, with a curious stress 
 and pause: "One — more couple please! One — 
 more couple please I" And then the music pulsates 
 — does really pulsate — and releases the multitude. 
 . . . It is a sight to stir emotion. The waltz is 
 even better. And then beings perched in the lofti- 
 est corners of the roof shoot coloured rays upon the 
 floor, and paper snow begins to fall, and confetti to 
 fly about, and eyes to soften and allure. . . . 
 And all around are subsidiary halls, equally re- 
 splendent, where people are drinking, or lounging, 
 or flirting, or gloating over acrobats, monkeys and 
 ballerinas. The tiger roars, the fountain tin- 
 kles, the corks go pop, the air is alive with music 
 and giggling, the photographer cries his invitation, 
 and everywhere there is the patter of animated feet 
 and the contagion of a barbaric and honest gaiety. 
 
BLACKPOOL 313 
 
 Brains and imagination are behind this colossal phe- 
 nomenon. For sixpence you can form part of it; 
 for sixpence you can have delight, if you are young 
 and simple and lusty enough. This is the huge 
 flower that springs from the horrid bed of the factory 
 system. Human creatures are half-timers for this ; 
 they are knocked up at 5.30 a.m. in winter for this; 
 they go on strike for this; they endure for eleven 
 months and three weeks for this. They all earn 
 their living by hard and repulsive work, and here 
 they are in splendour! They will work hard at joy 
 till they drop from exhaustion. You can see men 
 and women fast asleep on the plush, supporting 
 each other's heads in the attitudes of affection. 
 The railway stations and the night-trains are wait- 
 ing for these. 
 
THE BRITISH HOME— 1908 
 
AN EVENING AT THE SMITHS 
 
 Mr. Smith returns to his home of an evening 
 at 6:30. Mr. Smith's home is in a fairly long 
 street, containing some dozens of homes exactly 
 like Mr. Smith's. It has a drawing-room and a 
 dining-room, two or three bedrooms, and one or 
 two attics, also a narrow hall (with stained glass 
 in the front door) , a kitchen, a bathroom, a front 
 garden, and a back garden. It has a service of 
 gas and of water, and excellent drains. The 
 kitchen range incidentally heats the water for the 
 bathroom, so that the bath water is hottest at about 
 noon on Sundays, when nobody wants it, and cold- 
 est first thing in the morning, and last thing at 
 night, when everybody wants it. (This is a de- 
 tail. The fact remains that when hot water is 
 really required it can always be had by cooking a 
 joint of beef.) 
 
 The house and its two gardens are absolutely 
 private. The front garden is made private by iron 
 rails; its sole purposes are to withdraw the house 
 a little from the road and to enable the servant 
 to fill up her spare time by washing tiles. The 
 back garden is made private by match-boarding. 
 The house itself is made private by a mysterious 
 substance unsurpassed as a conductor of sound. 
 
 S17 
 
318 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Mr. Smith's home is adequately furnished. 
 There may; be two beds in a room, but each person 
 has a bed. Carpets are everywhere; easy chairs 
 and a sofa do not lack; linen is sufficient; crockery 
 is plenteous. As for cutlery, Mr. Smith belongs 
 to the only race in the world which allows itself 
 a fresh knife and fork to each course of a meal. 
 The drawing-room is the best apartment and the 
 least used. It has a piano, but, as the drawing- 
 room fire is not a constant phenomenon, pianists 
 can only practise with regularity and comfort dur- 
 ing four months of the year — hence, perhaps, a 
 certain mediocrity of performance. 
 
 Mr. Smith sits down to tea in the dining-room. 
 According to fashionable newspapers, tea as a 
 square meal has quite expired in England. On 
 six days a week, however, tea still constitutes the 
 chief repast in about 99 per cent, of English 
 homes. At the table are Mrs. Smith and three 
 children — John, aged 25; Mary, aged 22; and 
 Harry, aged 15. For I must inform you that 
 Mr. Smith is 50, and his wife is very near 50. 
 Mr. Smith gazes round at his home, his wife, and 
 his children. He has been at work in the world 
 for 34 years, and this spectacle is what he has to 
 show for his labour. It is his reward. It is the 
 supreme result. He hurries through his breakfast, 
 and spends seven industrious hours at the works 
 in order that he may have tea nicely with his own 
 family in his own home of a night. 
 
 Well, the food is wholesome and sufficient, and 
 they are all neat and honest, and healthy — except 
 
AN EVENING AT SMITHS' 319 
 
 Mrs. Smith, whose health is not what it ought to 
 be. Mr. Smith conceals his pride in his children, 
 but the pride is there. Impossible that he should 
 not be proud! He has the right to be proud. 
 John is a personable young man, earning more 
 and more every year. Mary is charming in her 
 pleasant blouse, and Harry is getting enormous, 
 and will soon be leaving school. 
 
 £ Si £ g 
 
 This tea, which is the daily blossoming-time of 
 the home that Mr. Smith and his wife have con- 
 structed with 26 years' continual effort, ought to 
 be a very agreeable affair. Surely the materials 
 for pleasure are present! But it does not seem to 
 be a very agreeable meal. There is no regular 
 conversation. Everybody has the air of being pre- 
 occupied with his own affairs. A long stretch of 
 silence; then some chaffing or sardonic remark by 
 one child to another; then another silence; then 
 a monosyllable from Mr. Smith; then another 
 silence. 
 
 No subject of wide interest is ever seriously ar- 
 gued at that table. No discussion is ever under- 
 taken for the sake of discussion. It has never 
 occurred to anyone named Smith that conversa- 
 tion in general is an art and may be a diverting 
 pastime, and that conversation at table is a duty. 
 Besides, conversation is nourished on books, and 
 books are rarer than teaspoons in that home. Fur- 
 ther, at back of the excellent, honest, and clean 
 mind of every Smith is the notion that politeness 
 is something that one owes only to strangers. 
 
320 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 When tea is over — and it is soon over — young 
 John Smith silently departs to another home, very 
 like his own, in the next street but one. In that 
 other home is a girl whom John sincerely considers 
 to be the pearl of womanhood. In a few months 
 John, inspired and aided by this pearl, will em- 
 bark in business for himself as constructor of a 
 home. 
 
 Mary Smith wanders silently and inconspicu- 
 ously into the drawing-room (it being, as you 
 know summer) and caresses the piano in an ex- 
 pectant manner. John's views as to the identity 
 of the pearl of womanhood are not shared by an- 
 other young man who lives not very far off. This 
 other young man has no doubt whatever that the 
 pearl of womanhood is precisely Mary Smith (an 
 idea which had never entered John's head) ; and 
 he comes to see Mary every night, with the per- 
 mission of her parents. The pair are, in fact, 
 engaged. Probably Mary opens the door for him, 
 in which case they go straight to the drawing-room. 
 (One is glad to think that, after all, the drawing- 
 room is turning out useful.) Young Henry has 
 disappeared from human ken. 
 
 (5* «?* «?* €•* 
 
 Mr. Smith and wife remain in the dining-room, 
 separated from each other by a newspaper, which 
 Mr. Smith is ostensibly reading. I say "osten- 
 sibly," for what Mr. Smith is really reading on the 
 page of the newspaper is this: "I shall have to 
 give something to John, something pretty hand- 
 some. Of course, there's no question of a dowry 
 
AN EVENING AT SMITHS' 321 
 
 with Mary, but I shall have to give something hand- 
 some to her, too. And weddings cost money. 
 And I have no savings, except my insurance." He 
 keeps on reading this in every column. It is true. 
 He is still worried about money, as he was 26 years 
 ago. He has lived hard and honourably, ever at 
 strain, and never had a moment's true peace of 
 mind: once it was the fear of losing his situation; 
 now it is the fear of his business going wrong; 
 always it has been the tendency of expenditure to 
 increase. The fruit of his ancient immense desire 
 to have Mrs. Smith is now ripe for falling. The 
 home which he and she have built is finished now, 
 and is to be disintegrated. And John and Mary 
 are about to begin again what their parents once 
 began. I can almost hear Mr. Smith plaintively 
 asking the newspaper, as he thinks over the 
 achieved enterprise of his home: Has it been a suc- 
 cess? Is it a success? 
 
II 
 
 THE GREAT MANNERS QUESTION 
 
 Let us forget that it is a home. Let us con- 
 ceive it as a small collection of people living in 
 the same house. They are together by accident 
 rather than by design, and they remain together 
 rather by inertia than by the fitness of things. 
 Supposing that the adult occupants of the average 
 house had to begin domestic life again (I do not 
 speak of husbands and wives) , and were effectively 
 free to choose their companions, it is highlj r im- 
 probable that they would choose the particular 
 crew of which they form part ; it is practically cer- 
 tain that they would not choose it in its entirety. 
 However, there they are, together, every day, 
 every night, on a space of ground not perhaps more 
 than twenty feet by twenty feet — often less. To 
 find room to separate a little they live in layers, 
 and it is the servant who is nearest heaven. That 
 is how you must look at them. 
 
 Now it is, broadly speaking, a universal char- 
 acteristic of this strange community that the mem- 
 bers of it can depend upon each other in a crisis. 
 They are what is called ''loyal" to an extraordinary 
 degree. Let one of them fall ill, and he can ab- 
 solutely rely on tireless nursing. 
 
 Again, let one of them get into trouble, and his 
 
 322 
 
THE MANNERS QUESTION 323 
 
 companions will stand by him, and if they cannot, 
 or will not, help him materially, they will, at any 
 rate, make sympathetic excuses for not doing so. 
 Or let one of them suffer a loss, and he will in- 
 stantly be surrounded by all the consolations that 
 kindness can invent. Or let one of them be ill- 
 spoken of, and every individual of the community 
 will defend him, usually with heat, always with 
 conviction. 
 
 £ £ $ $ 
 
 But I have drawn only the foul-weather picture. 
 We come to the fine-weather picture. Imagine a 
 stranger from the moon, to whom I had quite truth- 
 fully described the great qualities of this strange 
 community presided over by Mr. Smith— imagine 
 him invisibly introduced into the said community! 
 
 You can fancy the lunatic's astonishment! In- 
 stead of heaven he would decidedly consider that 
 he had strayed into an armed camp, or into a cage 
 of porcupines. He would conclude, being a lun- 
 atic, that the members of the community either 
 hated each other, or at best suffered the sight of 
 each other only as a supreme act of toleration. 
 He would hear surly voices, curt demands, impo- 
 lite answers; and if he did not hear amazing silences 
 it would be because you cannot physically hear a 
 silence. 
 
 He would no doubt think that the truth was not 
 in me. He would remonstrate: "But you told 
 me—" 
 
 Then I should justify myself: " 'In a crisis,' I 
 said, my dear gentleman from the moon. I said 
 
324 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 nothing about ordinary daily life. Now you see 
 this well-favoured girl who has been nagging at 
 her brother all through tea because of some omis- 
 sion or commission — I can assure you that if, for 
 instance, her brother had typhoid fever that girl 
 would nurse him with the devotion of a saint. 
 Similarly, if she lost her sweetheart by death or 
 breach of promise, he would envelope her in 
 brotherly affection." 
 
 "How often does he have typhoid fever?" the 
 lunatic might ask. "Once a month?" 
 
 "Well," I should answer, "he hasn't had it yet. 
 But if he had it — you see!" 
 
 "And does she frequently get thrown over?" 
 
 "Oh, no! Her young man worships her. She 
 is to be married next spring. Btit if — " 
 
 "And so, while waiting for crises and disasters, 
 they go on — like this?" 
 
 "Yes," I should defend my fellow- terrestrials. 
 "But you must not jump to the conclusion that 
 they are always like this. They can be just as 
 nice as anybody. They are perfectly charming, 
 really." 
 
 "Well, then," he might inquire, "how do they 
 justify this behaviour to one another?" 
 
 "By the hazard of birth," I should reply, "or by 
 the equally great hazard of marriage. With us, 
 when you happen to have the same father and 
 mother, or even the same uncle, or when you hap- 
 pen to be married, it is generally considered that 
 you may abandon the forms of politeness and the 
 
THE MANNERS QUESTION 325 
 
 expressions of sympathy, and that you have an un- 
 limited right of criticism." 
 
 "I should have thought precisely the contrary," 
 he would probably say, being a lunatic. 
 
 The lunatic having been allowed to depart, I 
 should like to ask the Smiths — middle-aged Mr. 
 Smith and Mrs. Smith — a question somewhat in 
 these terms: "What is the uppermost, the most 
 frequent feeling in your minds about this com- 
 munity which 5 r ou call 'home'? You needn't tell 
 me that you love it, that it is the dearest place on 
 earth, that no other place could ever have quite 
 the same, etc., etc. I know all about that. I ad- 
 mit it. Is not your uppermost, commonest feel- 
 ing a feeling that it is rather a tedious, tiresome 
 place, and that the human components of it are 
 excellent persons, but . . . and that really 
 you have had a great deal to put up with?" 
 
 In reply, do not be sentimental, be hon- 
 est. . . . 
 
 Such being your impression of home (not your 
 deepest, but your most obvious impression), can 
 it fairly be stated that the home of the Smiths is 
 a success? 
 
 «5* e5* £* *3* 
 
 There are two traits which have prevented the 
 home of the Smiths from being a complete suc- 
 cess, from being that success which both Mr. and 
 Mrs. Smith fully intended to achieve when they 
 started, and which young John and young Mary 
 fully intend to achieve when they at length start 
 
326 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 without having decided precisely how they will do 
 better than their elders. The first is British inde- 
 pendence of action, which causes the owner of a 
 Britsh temperament to seek to combine the ad- 
 vantages of anarchical solitude with the advantages 
 of a community: impossible feat! In the home of 
 the Smiths each room is a separate Norman for- 
 tress, sheltering an individuality that will be un- 
 trammelled or perish. 
 
 And the second is the unchangeable conviction 
 at the bottom of every Briton's heart that formal 
 politeness in intimacy is insincere. This is espe- 
 cially true of the Midlands and the North. When 
 I left the Midlands and went South, I truly 
 thought, for several days, that Southerners were 
 a hypocritical lot, just because they said, "If you 
 wouldn't mind moving," instead of "Now, then, 
 out of it!" Gruffness and the malicious satisfac- 
 tion of candid gratuitous criticism are the root of 
 the evil in the home of the Smiths. And the con- 
 sequences of them are very much more serious 
 than the Smiths in their gruffness imagine. 
 
Ill 
 
 SPENDING AND GETTING VALUE 
 
 I now allude to those financial harassments 
 which have been a marked feature of the home 
 founded and managed by Mr. Smith, who has 
 been eternally worried about money. The children 
 have grown up in this atmosphere of fiscal anxiety, 
 accustomed to the everlasting question whether 
 ends will meet; accustomed to the everlasting de- 
 bate whether a certain thing can be afforded. And 
 nearly every house in the street where the Smiths 
 live is in the same case. 
 
 Why is this? Is it that incomes are lower and 
 commodities and taxes higher in England than in 
 other large European countries? No; the con- 
 trary is the fact. In no large European country 
 will money go so far as in England. Is it that 
 the English race is deficient in financial skill? 
 England is the only large European country which 
 genuinely balances its national budget every year 
 and regularly liquidates its debts. 
 
 I wish to hint to Mr. Smith that he differs in 
 one very important respect from the Mr. Smith 
 of France, and the Mr. Smith of Germany, his 
 only serious rivals. In the matter of money, he 
 always asks himself, not how little he can spend, 
 but how much he can spend. At the end of a life- 
 
 327 
 
328 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 time the result is apparent. Or when he has a 
 daughter to marry off, the result is apparent. In 
 England economy is a virtue. In France, for ex- 
 ample, it is merely a habit. 
 
 €?• J* «5* t?* 
 
 Mr. Smith is extravagant. He has an extrava- 
 gant way of looking at life. On his own plane 
 Mr. Smith is a haughty nobleman of old days; he 
 is royal; he is a born hangman of expense. 
 
 "What?" cries Mr. Smith, furiousi "Me ex- 
 travagant! Why, I have always been most care- 
 ful ! I have had to be, with my income !" 
 
 He may protest. But I am right. The very 
 tone with which he says: "With my income!" gives 
 Mr. Smith away. What is the matter with Mr. 
 Smith's income? Has it been less than the aver- 
 age? Not at all. The only thing that is the mat- 
 ter with Mr. Smith's income is that he has never 
 accepted it as a hard, prosaic fact. He has always 
 pretended that it was a magic income, with which 
 miracles could be performed. He has always been 
 trying to pour two pints and a gill out of a quart 
 pot. He has always hoped that luck would befall 
 him. On a hundred and fifty a year he ever en- 
 deavoured to live as though he had two hundred. 
 And so on, as his income increased. 
 
 When he married he began by taking the high- 
 est-rented house that he could possibly afford, in- 
 stead of the cheapest that he could possibly do with, 
 and he has been going on ever since in the same 
 style — creating an effect, cutting a figure. 
 
SPENDING 329 
 
 This system of living, the English system, has 
 indubitable advantages. It encourages enterprise 
 and prevents fossilisation. It gives dramatic in- 
 terest to existence. And, after all, though at the 
 age of 50 Mr. Smith possesses little beside a house- 
 ful of furniture and his insurance policy, he can 
 say that he has had something for his money every 
 year and every day of the year. He can truth- 
 fully say, when charged with having "eaten his 
 cake," that a cake is a futile thing till it is eaten. 
 
 The French system has disadvantages. The 
 French Mr. Smith does not try to make money, 
 he tries merely to save it. He shrinks from the 
 perils of enterprise. He does not want to create. 
 He frequently becomes parsimonious, and he may 
 postpone the attempt to get some fun out of life 
 until he is past the capacity for fun. 
 
 On the other hand, the financial independence 
 with which his habits endow him is a very precious 
 thing. One finds it everywhere in France; it is in- 
 stinctive in the attitude of the average man. That 
 chronic tightness has often led Mr. Smith to make 
 unpleasing compromises with his dignity; such 
 compromises are rarer in France. Take a person 
 into your employ in France, even the humblest, 
 and you will soon find out how the habit of a mar- 
 gin affects the demeanour of the employed. Per- 
 sonally, I have often been inconvenienced by this 
 in France. But I have liked it. After all, one 
 prefers to be dealing with people who can call their 
 souls their own. 
 
330 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Mr. Smith need not go to the extremes of the 
 extremists in France, but he might advantageously 
 go a long way towards them. He ought to recon- 
 cile himself definitely to his income. He ought to 
 cease his constant attempt to perform miracles with 
 his income. It is really not pleasant for him to 
 be fixed as he is at the age of fifty, worried be- 
 cause he has to provide wedding presents for his 
 son and his daughter. And how can he preach 
 thrift to his son John? John knows his father. 
 
 There is another, and an even more ticklish, 
 point. It being notorious that Mr. Smith spends 
 too much money, let us ask whether Mr. Smith gets 
 value for the money he spends. I must again com- 
 pare with France, whose homes I know. Now, 
 as regards solid, standing comfort, there is no com- 
 parison between Mr. Smith's home and the home 
 of the French Mr. Smith. Our Mr. Smith wins. 
 His standard is higher. He has more room, more 
 rooms, more hygiene, and more general facilities 
 for putting himself at his ease. 
 
 «5* €?• (?• «5* 
 
 But these contrivances, once acquired, do not 
 involve a regular outlay, except so far as they af- 
 fect rent. And in the household budget rent is a 
 less important item than food and cleansing. Now, 
 the raw materials of the stuff necessary to keep a 
 household healthily alive cost more in France than 
 in England. And the French Mr. Smith's income 
 is a little less than our Mr. Smith's. Yet the 
 French Mr. Smith, while sitting on a less comfort- 
 able chair in a smaller room, most decidedly con- 
 
SPENDING 331 
 
 sumes better meals than our Mr. Smith. In other 
 words, he lives better. 
 
 I have often asked myself, in observing the fam- 
 ily life of Monsieur and Madame Smith: "How on 
 earth do they do it?" Only one explanation is pos- 
 sible. They understand better how to run a house 
 economically in France than we do in England. 
 
 Now Mrs. Smith in her turn cries : "Me extrava- 
 gant?" 
 
 Yes, relatively, extravagant! It is a hard say- 
 ing, but, I believe, a true one. Extravagance is 
 in the air of England. A person always in a room 
 where there is a slight escape of gas does not smell 
 the gas — until he has been out for a walk and re- 
 turned. So it is with us. 
 
 As for you, Mrs. Smith, I would not presume to 
 say in what you are extravagant. But I guaran- 
 tee that Madame Smith would "do it on less." 
 
 The enormous periodical literature now devoted 
 largely to hints on household management shows 
 that we, perhaps unconsciously, realise a defect. 
 You don't find this literature in France. They 
 don't seem to need it. 
 
IV 
 
 THE PARENTS 
 
 Let us look at Mr. and Mrs. Smith one evening 
 when they are by themselves, leaving the children 
 entirely out of account. For in addition to being 
 father and mother, they are husband and wife. 
 Not that I wish to examine the whole institution 
 of marriage — people who dare to do so deserve 
 the Victoria Cross ! My concern is simply with the 
 effects of the organisation of the home — on mar- 
 riage and other things. 
 
 Well, you see them together. Mr. Smith has 
 done earning money for the day, and Mrs. Smith 
 has done spending it. They are at leisure to en- 
 joy this home of theirs. This is what Mr. Smith 
 passes seven hours a day at business for. This 
 is what he got married for. This is what he wanted 
 when he decided to take Mrs. Smith, if he could 
 get her. These hours ought to be the flower of 
 their joint life. How are these hours affected by 
 the organisation of the home? 
 
 I will tell you how Mrs. Smith is affected. Mrs. 
 Smith is worried by it. And in addition she is 
 conscious that her efforts are imperfectly appreci- 
 ated, and her difficulties unrealised. As regards 
 the directing and daily recreation of the home, Mr. 
 Smith's attitude on this evening by the domestic 
 
 339 
 
THE PARENTS 333 
 
 hearth is at best one of armed neutrality. His 
 criticism is seldom other than destructive. Mr. 
 Smith is a strange man. If he went to a lot of 
 trouble to get a small holding under the Small 
 Holdings Act, and then left the cultivation of the 
 ground to another person not scientifically trained 
 to agriculture he would be looked upon as a ninny. 
 When a man takes up a hobby, he ought surely 
 to be terrifically interested in it. What is Mr. 
 Smith's home but his hobby? 
 
 «?• *?* <?• O* 
 
 He has put Mrs. Smith in to manage it. He 
 himself, once a quarter, discharges the complicated 
 and delicate function of paying the rent. All the 
 rest, the little matters, such as victualling and 
 brightening — trifles, nothings! — he leaves to Mrs. 
 Smith. He is not satisfied with Mrs. Smith's ac- 
 tivities, and he does not disguise the fact. He is 
 convinced that Mrs. Smith spends too much, and 
 that she is not businesslike. He is convinced that 
 running a house is child's play compared to what 
 he has to do. Now, as to Mrs. Smith being un- 
 businesslike, is Mr. Smith himself businesslike? If 
 he is, he greatly differs from his companions in 
 the second-class smoker. The average office and 
 the average works are emphatically not run on 
 business lines, except in theory. Daily experi- 
 ence proves this. The businesslikeness of the aver- 
 age business man is a vast and hollow pretence. 
 
 Besides, who could expect Mrs. Smith to be 
 businesslike ? She was never taught to be business- 
 like. Mr, Smith was apprenticed, or indentured, 
 
334 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 to his vocation. But Mrs. Smith wasn't. Mrs. 
 Smith has to feed a family, and doesn't know the 
 principles of diet. She has to keep children in 
 health, and couldn't describe their organs to save 
 her life. She has to make herself and the home 
 agreeable to the eye, and knows nothing artistic 
 about colour or form. 
 
 I am an ardent advocate of Mrs. Smith. The 
 marvel is not that Mrs. Smith does so badly, but 
 that she does so well. If women were not more 
 conscientious than men in their duties Mr. Smith's 
 home would be more amateurish than it is, and Mr. 
 Smith's "moods" more frequent than they are. 
 For Mrs. Smith is amateurish. Example: Mrs. 
 Smith is bothered to death by the daily question, 
 What can we have for dinner? She splits her head 
 in two in order to avoid monotony. Mrs. Smith's 
 repertoire probably consists of about 50 dishes, 
 and if she could recall them all to her mind at once 
 her task would be much simplified. But she can't 
 think of them when she wants to think of them. 
 Supposing that in Mrs. Smith's kitchen hung a 
 card containing a list of all her dishes, she could 
 run her eyes over it and choose instantly what 
 dishes would suit that day's larder. Did you ever 
 see such a list in Mrs. Smith's kitchen? No. The 
 idea has not occurred to Mrs. Smith! 
 
 I say also that to spend money efficiently is quite 
 as difficult as to earn it efficiently. Any fool can, 
 somehow, earn a sovereign, but to get value for a 
 sovereign in small purchases means skill and im- 
 mense knowledge. Mr. Smith has never had ex- 
 
THE PARENTS 335 
 
 perience of the difficulty of spending money ef- 
 ficiently. Most of Mr. Smith's payments are fixed 
 and mechanical. Mrs. Smith is the spender. Mr. 
 Smith chiefly exercises his skill as a spender in his 
 clothes and in tobacco. Look at the result. Any 
 showy necktie shop and furiously-advertised to- 
 bacco is capable of hood-winking Mr. Smith. 
 
 <5* t?* t5* e5* 
 
 In further comparison of their respective "jobs" 
 it has to be noted that Mrs. Smith's is rendered 
 doubly difficult by the fact that she is always at 
 close quarters with the caprices of human nature. 
 Mrs. Smith is continually bumping up against hu- 
 man nature in various manifestations. The hu- 
 man butcher-boy may arrive late owing to marbles, 
 and so the dinner must either be late or the meat 
 undercooked; or Mr. Smith, through too much 
 smoking, may have lost his appetite, and veal out 
 of Paradise wouldn't please him! Mrs. Smith's 
 job is transcendently delicate. 
 
 In fine, though Mrs. Smith's job is perhaps not 
 quite so difficult as she fancies it to be, it is much 
 more difficult than Mr. Smith fancies it to be. 
 And if it is not as well done as she thinks, it is much 
 better done than Mr. Smith thinks. But she will 
 never persuade Mr. Smith that he is wrong until 
 Mr. Smith condescends to know what he is talking 
 about in the discussion of household matters. Mr. 
 Smith's opportunities of criticism are far too am- 
 ple ; or, at any rate, he makes use of them unfairly, 
 and not as a man of honour. Supposing that Mrs. 
 Smith finished all her work at four o'clock, and was 
 
336 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 free to stroll into Mr. Smith's place of business 
 and criticise there everything that did not please 
 her! (It is true that she wouldn't know what she 
 was talking about; but neither does Mr. Smith at 
 home ; at home Mr. Smith finds pride in not know- 
 ing what he is talking about.) Mr. Smith would 
 have a bit of a "time" between four and six. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Smith are united by a genuine af- 
 fection. But their secret attitudes on the subject 
 of home management cause that affection, by a 
 constant slight friction, to wear thin. It must be 
 so. And it will be so until (a) Mr. Smith deigns 
 to learn the business of his home; (b) Mr. Smith 
 ceases to expect Mrs. Smith to perform miracles; 
 (c) Mrs. Smith ceases to be an amateur in domes- 
 tic economy — i. e., until domestic economy becomes 
 the principal subject in the upper forms of the 
 average girls' school. 
 
 At present the organisation of the home is an 
 agency against the triumph of marriage as an in- 
 stitution. 
 
HARRY S POINT OF VIEW 
 
 You may have forgotten young Harry Smith, 
 whom I casually mentioned in my first section, the 
 schoolboy of fifteen. I should not be surprised to 
 hear that you had forgotten him. He is often for- 
 gotten in the home of the Smiths. Compared with 
 Mr. Smith, the creator of the home, or with the 
 lordly eldest son John, who earns his own living and 
 is nearly engaged, or with Mary, who actually is en- 
 gaged, young Harry is unimportant. Still, his 
 case is very interesting, and his own personal im- 
 pression of the home of the Smiths must be of 
 value. 
 
 Is Harry Smith happy in the home ? Of course, 
 one would not expect him to be perfectly happy. 
 But is he as happy as circumstances in themselves 
 allow? My firm answer is that he is not. I am 
 entirely certain that on the whole Harry Smith 
 regards home as a fag, a grind, and a bore. Mr. 
 Smith, on reading these lines, is furious, and Mrs. 
 Smith is hurt. What! Our dear Harry experi- 
 ences tedium and disappointment with his dear pa- 
 rents? Nonsense! 
 
 The fact is, no parents will believe that their 
 children are avoidably unhappy. It is universally 
 agreed nowadays, that children in the eighteenth 
 
 337 
 
338 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 century, and in the first half of the nineteenth, 
 had a pretty bad time under the sway of their el- 
 ders. But the parent of those epochs would have 
 been indignant at any accusation of ill-treatment. 
 He would have called his sway beneficent and his 
 affection doting. The same with Mr. and Mrs. 
 Smith ! Now, I do not mean, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, 
 that you crudely ill-treat your son, tying him to 
 posts, depriving him of sleep, or pulling chestnuts 
 out of the fire with his fingers. (See reports of 
 S.P.C.C.) A thousand times, no! You are soft- 
 hearted. Mrs. Smith is occasionally somewhat too 
 soft-hearted. Still, I maintain that you ill-treat 
 Harry in a very subtle, moral way, by being funda- 
 mentally unjust to him in your own minds. 
 
 €•* I?* «•* (•• 
 
 Just look at your Harry, my excellent and con- 
 scientious Mr. Smith. He is all alive there, a real 
 human being, not a mechanical doll ; he has feelings 
 just like yours, only, perhaps, more sensitive. He 
 finds himself in a world which — well, of which the 
 less said the better. You know what the world is, 
 Mr. Smith, and you have often said what you know. 
 He is in this world, and he can't get out of it. You 
 have started him on the dubious adventure, and he 
 has got to go through with it. And what is the 
 reason of his being here? Did you start him out of 
 a desire to raise citizens for the greatest of empires ? 
 Did you imagine he would enjoy it hugely? Did 
 you act from a sense of duty to the universe? 
 None of these tilings, Mr. Smith! Your Harry 
 
HARRY'S POINT OF VIEW 339 
 
 is merely here because you thought that Mrs. Smith 
 was somehow charmingly different from other girls. 
 He is a consequence of your egotistic desire to en- 
 large your borders, of your determination to have 
 what you wanted. Every time you cast eyes 
 on him he ought to remind you what a self-seeking 
 and consequence-scorning person you are, Mr. 
 Smith. And not only is he from no choice or wish 
 of his own in a world as to which the most power- 
 ful intellects are still arguing whether it is tragic 
 or ridiculous; but he is unarmed for the perils of 
 the business. He is very ignorant and very inex- 
 perienced, and he is continually passing through 
 disconcerting modifications. 
 
 These are the facts, my dear sir. You cannot 
 deny that you, for your own satisfaction, have got 
 Harry into a rather fearful mess. Do you con- 
 stantly make the effort to be sympathetic to this 
 helpless victim of your egotism? You do not. 
 And what is worse, to quiet your own consciences, 
 both you and Mrs. Smith are for ever pouring into 
 his ear a shocking — I won't call it "lie" — perver- 
 sion of the truth. You are always absurdly try- 
 ing to persuade him that the obligation is on his 
 side. Not a day wears to night but Mrs. Smith 
 expresses to Harry her conviction that by good be- 
 haviour he ought to prove his gratitude to you for 
 being such a kind father. 
 
 And you talk to him in the same strain of Mrs. 
 Smith. The sum of your teaching is an insinua- 
 tion — often more than an insinuation — that you 
 
340 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 have conferred a favour on Harry. Supposing 
 that some one pitched you into the Ship Canal — 
 one of the salubrious reaches near Warrington, Mr. 
 Smith — and then clumsily dragged you half-way 
 out, and punctured his efforts by a reiterated state- 
 ment that gratitude to him ought to fill your breast, 
 how would you feel? 
 
 «?• «?• «?• t?* 
 
 Things are better than they were, but the general 
 attitude of the parent to the child is still funda- 
 mentally insincere, and it mars the success of the 
 home, for it engenders in the child a sense of in- 
 justice. Do you fancy that Harry is for an in- 
 stant deceived by the rhetoric of his parents? Not 
 he ! Children are very difficult to deceive, and they 
 are horribly frank to themselves. It is quite bad 
 enough for Harry to be compelled to go to school. 
 Harry, however, has enough sense to perceive that 
 he must go to school. But when his parents be- 
 gin to yarn that he ought to be glad to go to school, 
 that he ought to enjoy the privilege of solving quad- 
 ratic equations and learning the specific gravities 
 of elements, he is quite naturally alienated. 
 
 He does not fail to observe that in a hundred 
 things the actions of his parents contradict their 
 precepts. When, being a boy, he behaves like a 
 boy, and his parents affect astonishment and dis- 
 gust, he knows it is an affectation. When his 
 father, irritated by a superabundance of noise, 
 frowns and instructs Harry to get away for he is 
 tired of the sight of him, Harry is excusably af- 
 fronted in his secret pride. 
 
HARRY'S POINT OF VIEW 341 
 
 These are illustrations of the imperfect success 
 of the Smiths' home as an organisation for making 
 Harry happy. Useless for Mr. Smith to argue 
 that it is "all for Harry's own good." He would 
 simply be aggravating his offence. Discipline, the 
 enforcement of regulations, is necessary for Harry. 
 I strongly favour discipline. But discipline can 
 be practised with sympathy or without sympathy; 
 with or without the accompaniment of hypocritical 
 remarks that deceive no one ; with or without odious 
 assumptions of superiority and philanthropy. 
 
 I trust that young John and } T oung Mary will 
 take note, and that their attitude to their Harrys 
 will be, not: "You ought to be glad you're alive," 
 but: "We thoroughly sympathise with your diffi- 
 culties. We quite agree that these rules and pro- 
 hibitions and injunctions are a nuisance for you, 
 but they will save you trouble later, and we will be 
 as un-cast-iron as we can." Honesty is the best 
 policy. 
 
VI 
 
 THE FUTURE 
 
 The cry is that the institution of the home is be- 
 ing undermined, and that, therefore, society is in 
 the way of perishing. It is stated that the home 
 is insidiously attacked, at one end of the scale, by 
 the hotel and restaurant habit, and, at the other, 
 by such innovations as the feeding-of-school-chil- 
 dren habit. We are asked to contemplate the 
 crowded and glittering dining-rooms of the Mid- 
 land, the Carlton, the Adelphi, on, for instance, 
 Christmas Night, when, of all nights, people ought 
 to be on their own hearths, and we are told: "It 
 has come to this. This 1 is the result of the craze for 
 pleasure! Where is the home now?" 
 
 To which my reply would be that the home re- 
 mains just about where it w T as. The spectacular 
 existence of a few great hotels has never mirrored 
 the national life. Is the home of the Smiths, for 
 example, being gradually overthrown by the res- 
 taurant habit? The restaurant habit will only 
 strengthen the institution of the home. The most 
 restaurant-loving people on the face of the earth 
 are the French, and the French home is a far more 
 powerful, more closely-knit organisation than our 
 own. Why! Up to last year a Frenchman of 
 sixty could not marry without the consent of his 
 
 343 
 
THE FUTURE 343 
 
 parents, if they happened to be alive. I wonder 
 what the Smiths would say to that as an example 
 of the disintegration of the home by the restaurant 
 habit! 
 
 Most assuredly the modest, medium, average 
 home founded by Mr. Smith has not been in the 
 slightest degree affected either by the increase of 
 luxury and leisure, or by any alleged meddlesome- 
 ness on the part of the State. The home founded 
 by Mr. Smith, with all its faults — and I have not 
 spared them — is too convenient, too economical, 
 too efficient, and, above all, too natural, to be over- 
 thrown, or even shaken, by either luxury or grand- 
 motherliness. To change the metaphor and call it 
 a ship, it remains absolutely right and tight. It is 
 true that Mr. and Mrs. Smith assert sadly that 
 young John and young Mary have much more lib- 
 erty than they ever had, but Mr. and Mrs. Smith's 
 parents asserted exactly the same thing of Mr. and 
 Mrs. Smith, and their grandparents of their par- 
 ents, and so on backwards doubtless up to Noah. 
 That is only part of a process, a beneficent pro- 
 cess. 
 
 (5* «?■ *?• »?• 
 
 Nevertheless, the home of the Smiths has a very 
 real enemy, and that enemy is not outside, but in- 
 side. That enemy is Matilda. I have not hitherto 
 discussed Matilda. She sleeps in the attic, and 
 earns £18 a year, rising to £20. She doesn't 
 count, and yet she is the factor which, more than 
 any other, will modify the home of the Smiths. 
 
 Let me say no word against Matilda. She is a 
 
3U PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 respectable and a passably industrious, and a pass- 
 ably obedient girl. I know her. She usually 
 opens the door for me, and we converse "like any- 
 thing"! "Good evening, Matilda," I say to her. 
 "Good evening, sir," says she. And in her tone 
 and mine is an implicit recognition of the fact that 
 I have been very good-natured and sjmipathetic in 
 greeting her as a human being. "Mr. Smith in?" 
 I ask, smiling. "Yes, sir. Will you come this 
 way?" says she. Then I forget her. A nice, 
 pleasant girl! And she has a good place, too. 
 The hygienic conditions are superior to those of a 
 mill, and the labour less fatiguing. And both Mrs. 
 Smith and Miss Mary help her enormously in "lit- 
 tle ways." She eats better food than she would 
 eat at home, and she has a bedroom all to herself. 
 You might say she was on velvet. 
 
 And yet, in the middle of one of those jolly, un- 
 affected evenings that I occasionally spend with 
 the Smiths, when the piano has been going, and I 
 have helped Mrs. Smith to cheat herself at pa- 
 tience, and given Mr. Smith the impression that 
 he can teach me a thing or two, and discussed cig- 
 arettes with John, and songs with Mary, and the 
 sense of intimate fellowship and mutual compre- 
 hension is in the air, in comes Matilda suddenly 
 with a tray of coffee — and makes me think furi- 
 ously ! She goes out as rapidly as she came in, for 
 she is bound by an iron law not to stop an instant, 
 and if she happened to remark in a friendly, human 
 way: "You seem to be having a good time here!" 
 
THE FUTURE 345 
 
 all the Smiths, and I too, would probably drop 
 down dead from pained shock. 
 
 But though she is gone I continue to think furi- 
 ously. Where had she been all the jolly evening? 
 Where has she returned to? Well, to her beauti- 
 ful hygienic kitchen, where she sits or works all b} r 
 herself, on velvet. My thoughts follow her ex- 
 istence through the day, and I remember that from 
 morn till odorous eve she must not, save on busi- 
 ness, sj)eak unless she is spoken to. Then I give 
 up thinking about Matilda's case, because it annoys 
 me. I recall a phrase of young John's ; he is youth- 
 fully interested in social problems, and he wants a 
 latch-key vote. Said John to me once, when an- 
 other Matilda had left: "Of course, if one thought 
 too much about Matilda's case, one wouldn't be 
 able to sleep at nights." 
 
 €?• «?• t5* <?• 
 
 When you visit the Smiths the home seems al- 
 ways to be in smooth working order. But ask Mrs. 
 Smith! Ask Mary! Get beneath the surface. 
 And you will glimpse the terrible trouble that lies 
 concealed. Mrs. Smith began with Matilda the 
 First. Are you aware that this is Matilda the 
 Fortieth, and that between Matilda the Fortieth 
 and Matilda the Forty-first there will probably be 
 an interregnum? Mrs. Smith simply cannot get 
 Matildas. And when by happy chance she does 
 get a Matilda, the misguided girl won't see the 
 velvet with which the kitchen and the attic are car- 
 peted. 
 
346 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Mrs. Smith says the time will come when the race 
 of Matildas will have disappeared. And Mrs. 
 Smith is right. The "general servant" is bound 
 to disappear utterly. In North America she has 
 already almost disappeared. Think of that! In- 
 stead of her, in many parts of the American con- 
 tinent, there is an independent stranger who, if she 
 came to the Smiths, would have the ineffable impu- 
 dence to eat at the same table as the Smiths, just as 
 though she was of the same clay, and who, when told 
 to do something, would be quite equal to snapping 
 out : "Do it yourself." 
 
 But you say that the inconvenience brought 
 about by the disappearance of Matilda would be 
 too awful to contemplate. I venture to predict 
 that the disappearance of Matilda will not ex- 
 haust the resources of civilisation. The home will 
 ciontinue. But mechanical invention will have to 
 be quickened in order to replace Matilda's red 
 hands. And there will be those suburban restau- 
 rants ! And I have a pleasing vision of young John, 
 in the home which he builds, cleaning his own boots. 
 Inconvenient, but it is coming I 
 
STREETS ROADS 
 AND TRAINS— 1907-1909 
 
IN WATLING STREET 
 
 Upon an evening in early autumn, I, who had 
 never owned an orchard before, stood in my or- 
 chard; behind me were a phalanx of some sixty 
 trees bearing (miraculously, to my simplicity) a 
 fine crop of apples and plums — my apples and 
 plums, and a mead of some two acres, my mead, 
 upon which I discerned possibilities of football and 
 cricket ; behind these was a double greenhouse con- 
 taining three hundred pendent bunches of grapes 
 of the dark and aristocratic variety which I thought 
 I had seen in Piccadilly ticketed at four shillings 
 a pound — my grapes; still further behind uprose 
 the chimneys of a country-house, uncompromis- 
 ingly plain and to some eyes perhaps ugly, but my 
 country-house, the lease of which, stamped, was in 
 my pocket. Immediately in front of me was a 
 luxuriant hedge which, long undipped, had at- 
 tained a height of at least fifteen feet. Beyond the 
 hedge the ground fell away sharply into a drain- 
 ing ditch, and on the other side of the ditch, 
 through the interstices of the hedge, I perceived 
 glimpses of a very straight and very white high- 
 way. 
 
 This highway was Watling Street, built of the 
 Romans, and even now surviving as the most fa- 
 
 319 
 
350 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 mous road in England. I had "learnt" it at school, 
 and knew that it once ran from Dover to London, 
 from London to Chester and from Chester to York. 
 Just recently I had tracked it diligently on a series 
 of county maps, and discovered that, though only 
 vague fragments of it remained in Kent, Surrey, 
 Shropshire, Cheshire, and Yorkshire, it still flour- 
 ished and abounded exceedingly in my particular 
 neighbourhood as a right line, austere, renowned, 
 indispensable, clothed in its own immortal dust. I 
 could see but patches of it in the twilight, but I 
 was aware that it stretched fifteen miles southeast 
 of me, and unnumbered miles northwest of me, with 
 scarcely a curve to break the splendid inexorable 
 monotony of its career. To me it was a wonderful 
 road — more wonderful than the Great North Road, 
 or the military road from Moscow to Vladivostock. 
 And the most wonderful thing about it was that 
 I lived on it. After all, few people can stamp 
 the top of their notepaper, "Watling Street, Eng- 
 land." It is not a residential thoroughfare. 
 
 Only persons of imagination can enter into my 
 feelings at that moment. I had spent two-thirds 
 of mjr life in a town (squalid, industrial) and the 
 remaining third in Town. I thought I knew every 
 creosoted block in Fleet Street, every bookstall in 
 Shoreditch, every hosier's in Piccadilly. I cer- 
 tainly did know the order of stations on the Inner 
 Circle, the various frowns of publishers, the strange 
 hysteric, silly atmosphere of theatrical first-nights, 
 and stars of the Empire and Alhambra (by sight), 
 and the vicious odours of a thousand and one res- 
 
IN WATLING STREET 351 
 
 taurants. And lo! burdened with all this accumu- 
 lated knowledge, shackled by all these habits, as- 
 sociations, entrancements, I was yet moved by 
 some mysterious and far-off atavism to pack up, 
 harness the oxen, "trek," and go and live in "the 
 country." 
 
 Of course I soon discovered that there is no 
 such thing as "the country," just as there is no 
 such thing as Herbert Spencer's "state." "The 
 country" is an entity which exists only in the brains 
 of an urban population, whose members ridicu- 
 lously regard the terrene surface as a concatenation 
 of towns surrounded by earthy space. There is 
 England, and there are spots on England called 
 towns: that is all. But at that time I too had 
 the illusion of "the country," a district where one 
 saw "trees," "flowers," and "birds." For me, a 
 tree was not an oak or an ash or an elm or a birch 
 or a chestnut; it was just a "tree." For me there 
 were robins, sparrows, and crows; the rest of the 
 winged fauna was merely "birds." I recognised 
 roses, daisies, dandelions, forget-me-nots, chrysan- 
 themums, and one or two more blossoms; all else 
 was "flowers." Remember that all this happened 
 before the advent of the nature-book and the sub- 
 lime invention of week-ending, and conceive me 
 plunging into this unknown, inscrutable, and rec- 
 ondite "country," as I might have plunged fully 
 clothed and unable to swim into the sea. It was 
 a prodigious adventure! When my friends asked 
 me, with furtive glances at each other as in the 
 presence of a lunatic, why I was going to live in 
 
352 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 the country, I could only reply: "Because I want 
 to. I want to see what it's like." I might have 
 attributed my action to the dearness of season- 
 tickets on the Underground, to the slowness of 
 omnibuses or the danger of cabs : my friends would 
 have been just as wise, and I just as foolish, in 
 their esteem. I admit that their attitude of be- 
 nevolent contempt, of far-seeing sagacity, gave me 
 to think. And although I was obstinate, it was 
 with a pang of misgiving that I posted the notice 
 of quitting my suburban residence; and the pang 
 was more acute when I signed the contract for the 
 removal of my furniture. I called on my friends 
 before the sinister day of exodus. 
 
 "Good-bye," I said. 
 
 "Au revoir," they replied, with calm vaticinatory 
 assurance, "we shall see you back again in a year." 
 
 t?* <?* (?• *?• 
 
 Thus, outwardly braggart, inwardly quaking, I 
 departed. The quaking had not ceased as I stood, 
 in the autumn twilight, in my beautiful orchard, 
 in front of my country-house. Toiling up the 
 slope from the southward, I saw an enormous van 
 with three horses: the last instalment of my chat- 
 tels. As it turned lumberingly at right angles into 
 my private road or boreen, I said aloud : 
 
 "I've done it." 
 
 I had. I felt like a statesman who has handed 
 an ultimatum to a king's messenger. No with- 
 drawal was now possible. From the reverie nat- 
 ural to this melancholy occasion I was aroused by 
 a disconcerting sound of collision, the rattle, of 
 
IN WATLING STREET 353 
 
 chains, and the oaths customary to drivers in a dif- 
 ficulty. I ran towards the house and down the 
 weedy drive bordered by trees which a learned gar- 
 dener had told me were of the variety, cupressus 
 lawsoniana. In essaying the perilous manoeuvre 
 of twisting round three horses and a long van on a 
 space about twenty feet square, the driver had 
 overset the brick pier upon which swung my gar- 
 den-gate. The unicorn horse of the team was 
 nosing at the cupressus lawsoniana and the van was 
 scotched in the gateway. I thought, "This is an 
 omen." I was, however, reassured by the sight of 
 two butchers and two bakers each asseverating that 
 nothing could afford him greater pleasure than to 
 call every day for orders. A minute later the post- 
 man, in his own lordly equipage, arrived with my 
 newspapers and his respects. I tore open a paper 
 and read news of London. I convinced myself 
 that London actually existed, though I were never 
 to see it again. The smashing of the pier dwindled 
 from a catastrophe to an episode. 
 
 «?• «7* «?* t?* 
 
 The next morning very early I was in Watling 
 Street. Since then 
 
 Full many a glorious morning have I seen 
 Flatter the mountain tops with sovereign eye, 
 
 but this was the first in the sequence of those 
 Shaksperean mornings, and it was also, subjec- 
 tively, the finest. I shall not describe it, since, ob- 
 jectively and in the quietude of hard fact, I now 
 perceive that it could not have been in the least 
 
354 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 remarkable. The sun rose over the southward 
 range which Bunyan took for the model of his De- 
 lectable Mountains, and forty or fifty square miles 
 of diversified land was spread out in front of me. 
 The road cut down for a couple of miles like a geo- 
 metrician's rule, and disappeared in a slight S 
 curve, the work of a modern generation afraid of 
 gradients, on to the other side of the Delectable 
 Mountains. I thought: "How magnificent were 
 those Romans in their disregard of everything ex- 
 cept direction!" And being a professional novel- 
 ist I naturally began at once to consider the possi- 
 bilities of exploiting Watling Street in fiction. 
 Then I climbed to the brow of my own hill, whence, 
 at the foot of the long northerly slope, I could 
 descry the outposts of my village, a mile away; 
 there was no habitation of mankind nearer to me 
 than this picturesque and venerable hamlet, which 
 seemed to lie inconsiderable on the great road like 
 a piece of paper. The seventy-four telegraph 
 wires which border the great road run above the 
 roofs of Winghurst as if they were unaware of its 
 existence. "And Winghurst," I reflected, "is 
 henceforth my metropolis." No office! No mem- 
 orising of time-tables! No daily struggle-for- 
 lunch! Winghurst, with three hundred inhabi- 
 tants, the centre of excitement, the fount of ex- 
 ternal life! 
 
 The course of these ordinary but inevitable 
 thoughts was interrupted by my consciousness of 
 a presence near me. A man coughed. He had 
 approached me, in almost soleless boots, on the 
 
IN WATLING STREET 355 
 
 grassy footpath. For a brief second I regarded 
 him with that peculiar fellow-feeling which a man 
 who has risen extremely early is wont to exhibit 
 towards another man who has risen extremely 
 early. But finding no answering vanity in his un- 
 distinguished features I quickly put on an appear- 
 ance of usualness, to indicate that I might be found 
 on that spot at that hour every morning. The 
 man looked shabby, and that Sherlock Holmes who 
 lies concealed in each one of us decided for me that 
 he must be a tailor out-of-work. 
 
 "Good morning, sir," he said. 
 
 "Good morning," I said. 
 
 "Do you want to buy a good recipe for a horse, 
 sir?" he asked. 
 
 "A horse?" I repeated, wondering whether he 
 was a lunatic, or a genius who had discovered a 
 way to manufacture horses. 
 
 "Yes, sir," he said, "They often fall sick, sir, 
 you know. The saying is, as I daresay you've 
 heard, 'Never trust a woman's word or a horse's 
 health.' " 
 
 I corrected his quotation. 
 
 "I've got one or two real good recipes," he re- 
 sumed. 
 
 "But I've got no horse," I replied, and that 
 seemed to finish the interview. 
 
 "No offence, I hope, sir," he said, and passed 
 on towards the Delectable Mountains. 
 
 He was a mystery; his speech disclosed no 
 marked local accent; he had certainly had some 
 education; and he was hawking horse-remedies in 
 
356 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 Watling Street at sunrise. Here was the germ 
 of my first lesson in rusticity. Except in towns, 
 the "horsey" man does not necessarily look horsey. 
 That particular man resembled a tailor, and by a 
 curious coincidence the man most fearfully and 
 wonderfuly learned in equine lore that I have yet 
 known is a tailor. 
 
 But horses ! Six miles away to the West I could 
 see the steam of expresses on the London and 
 North Western Main line; four miles to the East 
 I could see the steam of expresses on the Midland. 
 And here was an individual offering stable-recipes 
 as simply as though they had been muffins! I re- 
 flected on my empty stable, harness-room, coach- 
 house. I began to suspect that I was in a land 
 where horses entered in the daily and hourly exist- 
 ence of the people. I had known for weeks that 
 I must buy a horse ; the nearest town and the near- 
 est railway station were three miles off. But now, 
 with apprehension, I saw that mysterious and dan- 
 gerous mercantile operation to be dreadfully im- 
 minent : me, coram publico, buying a horse, me the 
 dupe of copers, me a butt for the covert sarcasm 
 of a village omniscient about horses and intolerant 
 of ignorance on such a subject! 
 «* & «* & 
 
 Down in the village, that early morning, I saw 
 a pony and an evidently precarious trap standing 
 in front of the principal shop. I had read about 
 the "village-shop" in novels; I had even ventured 
 to describe it in fiction of my own ; and I was equally 
 surprised and delighted to find that the village- 
 
IN WATLING STREET 357 
 
 shop of fiction was also the village-shop of fact. 
 It was the mere truth that one could buy every- 
 thing in this diminutive emporium, that the multi- 
 fariousness of its odours excelled that of the odours 
 of Cologne, and that the proprietor, who had never 
 seen me before, instantly knew me and all about 
 me. Soon I was in a fair way to know something 
 of the proprietor. He. was informing me that he 
 had five little children, when one of the five, snuf- 
 fling and in a critical mood, tumbled into the shop 
 out of an obscure Beyond. 
 
 "And what's your name?" I enquired of the girl, 
 with that fatuous, false blandness of tone which 
 the inexpert always adopt toward children. I 
 thought of the five maidens whose names were five 
 sweet symphonies, and moreover I deemed it politic 
 to establish friendly relations with my monop- 
 olist. 
 
 "She's a little shy," I remarked. 
 
 "It's a boy, sir," said the monopolist. 
 
 It occurred to me that Nature was singularly 
 uninventive in devising new quandaries for the 
 foolish. 
 
 "Tell the gentleman your name." 
 
 Thus admonished, the boy emitted one mono- 
 syllable: "Guy." 
 
 "We called him Guy because he was born on the 
 fifth of November," the monopolist was good 
 enough to explain. 
 
 As I left the shop a man driving a pony drew 
 up at the door with an immense and sudden flourish 
 calculated to impress the simple. I noticed that 
 
358 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 the pony was the same animal which I had previ- 
 ously seen standing there. 
 
 "Want to buy a pony, sir?" The question was 
 thrown at me like a missile that narrowly escaped 
 my head ; launched in a voice which must once have 
 been extremely powerful, but which now, whether 
 by abuse of shouting in the open air or by the de- 
 teriorating effect of gin on the vocal chords, was 
 only a loud, passionate whisper: so that, though 
 the man obviously bawled with all his might, the 
 drum of one's ear was not shattered. I judged, 
 partly from the cut of his coat and the size of the 
 buttons on it, and partly from the creaminess of 
 the shaggy, long-tailed pony, that my questioner 
 was or had been connected with circuses. His very 
 hand was against him; the turned-back podgy 
 thumb showed acquisitiveness, and the enormous 
 Gopliir diamonds in brass rings argued a certain 
 lack of really fine taste. His face had literally 
 the brazen look, and that absolutely hard, impudent, 
 glaring impassivity acquired only by those who 
 earn more than enough to drink by continually 
 bouncing the public. 
 
 "The finest pony in the county, sir." (It was 
 an animal organism gingerly supported on four 
 crooked legs; a quadruped and nothing more.) 
 "The finest pony in the county!" he screamed, 
 "Finest pony in England, sir! Not another like 
 him! I took him to the Rothschild horse-show, 
 but they wouldn't have him. Said I'd come too 
 late to enter him for the first-clawss. They were 
 afraid — afferaid! There was the water- jump. 
 
IN WATLING STREET 359 
 
 'Stand aside, you blighters,' I said, 'and he'll jump 
 that, the d — d gig and all.' But they were 
 afferaid!" 
 
 I asked if the animal was quiet to drive. 
 
 "Quiet to drive, sir, did you say? I should say 
 so. I says Away, and off he goes." Here the 
 thin scream became a screech. "Then I says Pull 
 up, you blighter, and he stops dead. A child could 
 drive him. He don't want no driving. You could 
 drive him with a silken thread." His voice melted, 
 and with an exquisite tender cadence he repeated: 
 "With a silk-en therredd!" 
 
 "Well," I said. "How much?" 
 
 "How much, did you say, sir? How much?" 
 He made it appear that this question came upon 
 him as an extraordinary surprise. I nodded. 
 
 He meditated on the startling problem, and then 
 yelled: "Thirty guineas. It's giving him away." 
 
 "Make it shillings," I said. I was ingenuously 
 satisfied with my retort, but the man somehow 
 failed to appreciate it. 
 
 "Come here," he said, in a tone of intimate con- 
 fidence. "Come here. Listen. I've had that 
 pony's picture painted. Finest artist in England, 
 sir. And frame! You never see such a frame! 
 At thirty guineas I'll throw the picture in. Look 
 ye! That picture cost me two quid, and here's the 
 receipt." He pulled forth a grimy paper, and I 
 accepted it from his villainous fingers. It proved, 
 however, to be a receipt for four pounds, and for 
 the portrait, not of a pony, but of a man. 
 
 "This is a receipt for your own portrait," I said. 
 
860 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 "Now wasn't that a coorious mistake for me to 
 make?" he asked, as if demanding information. 
 "Wasn't that a coorious mistake?" 
 
 I was obliged to give him the answer he desired, 
 and then he produced the correct receipt. 
 
 "Now," he said wooingly, "There! Is it a trade? 
 I'll bring you the picture to-night. Finest frame 
 you ever saw! What? No? Look here, buy him 
 at thirty guineas — say pounds — and I'll chuck you 
 both the blighted pictures in!" 
 
 "Away!" he screamed a minute later, and the 
 cream pony, galvanised into frantic activity by that 
 sound, and surely not controllable by a silken 
 thread, scurried off towards the Delectable Moun- 
 tains. 
 
 This was my first insight into horse dealing. 
 
II 
 
 STREET TALKING 
 
 Few forms of amusement are more amusing and 
 few forms of amusement cost less than to walk 
 slowly along the crowded central thoroughfares of 
 a great capital — London, Paris, or Timbuctoo — 
 with ears open to catch fragments of conversation 
 not specially intended for your personal consump- 
 tion. It, perhaps, resembles slightly the justly 
 blamed habit of listening at keyholes and the uni- 
 versally practised habit of reading other peo- 
 ple's postcards ; it is possibly not quite "nice." But, 
 like both these habits, it is within the law, and the 
 chances of it doing any one any harm are exceed- 
 ingly remote. Moreover, it has in an amazing 
 degree the excellent quality of taking you out of 
 yourself — and putting you into some one else. De- 
 tectives employ it, and if it were forbidden where 
 would novelists be? Where, for example, would 
 Mr. Pett Ridge be? Once yielded to, it grows on 
 you ; it takes hold of you in its fell, insidious clutch, 
 as does the habit of whisky, and becomes incur- 
 able. You then treat it seriously; you make of it 
 a passkey to the seventy and seven riddles of the 
 universe, with wards for each department of life. 
 You judge national characteristics by it; by it alone 
 you compare rival civilisations. And, incidentally, 
 
 361 
 
362 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 you somewhat increase your social value as a diner- 
 out. 
 
 $ £ £ <* 
 
 For a long time I practised it in the streets of 
 Paris, the city of efficient chatter, the city in which 
 wayfarers talk with more exuberance and more 
 grammar than anywhere else. Here are a few 
 phrases, fair samples from lists of hundreds, which 
 I have gathered and stored, on the boulevards and 
 in quieter streets, such as the Rue Blanche, where 
 conversation grows intimate on mild nights: — 
 
 She is mad. 
 
 She lived on the fourth floor last year. 
 
 Yes, she is not bad, after all. 
 
 Thou knowest, my old one, that my wife is a 
 little bizarre. 
 
 He has left her. 
 
 They say she is very jealous. 
 
 Anything except oysters. 
 
 Thou annoyest me terribly, my dear. 
 
 It is a question solely of the cache-corset. 
 
 With those feet! 
 
 He is a beau garcon, but — 
 
 He is the fourth in three years. 
 
 My big wolf! 
 
 Do not say that, my small rabbit. 
 
 She doesn't look it. 
 
 It is open to any one to assert that such phrases 
 have no significance, or that, if they have signifi- 
 cance, their significance must necessarily be hidden 
 from the casual observer. But to me they are like 
 the finest lines in the tragedies of John Ford. 
 
STREET TALKING 363 
 
 Marlow was at his best in the pentameter, but Ford 
 usually got his thrill in a chipped line of about 
 three words — three words which, while they mean 
 nothing, mean everything. All depends on what 
 you "read into" them. And the true impassioned 
 student of human nature will read into the over- 
 heard exclamations of the street a whole revealing 
 philosophy. What! Two temperaments are sep- 
 arately born, by the agency of chance or the equally 
 puzzling agency of design, they one day collide, 
 become intimate, and run parallel for a space. 
 You perceive them darkly afar off; they approach 
 you ; you are in utter ignorance of them ; and then 
 in the instant of passing you receive a blinding 
 flash of illumination, and the next instant they are 
 eternally hidden from you again. That blinding 
 flash of illumination may consist of "My big wolf I" 
 or it may consist of "It is solely a question of the 
 cache-corset." But in any case it is and must be 
 profoundly significant. In any case it is a gleam 
 of light on a mysterious place. Even the matter 
 of the height of the floor on which she lived is 
 charged with an overwhelming effect for one who 
 loves his fellow-man. And lives there the being 
 stupid or audacious enough to maintain that the 
 French national character does not emerge charm- 
 ingly and with a curious coherence from the frag- 
 ments of soul-communication which I have set 
 
 down? 
 
 £ * a £ 
 
 On New Year's Eve I was watching the phe- 
 nomena of the universal scheme of things in Put- 
 
364 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 ney High-street. A man and a girl came down 
 the footpath locked in the most intimate conversa- 
 tion. I could see that they were perfectly absorbed 
 in each other. And I heard the man say: — 
 
 "Yes, Charlie is a very good judge of beer — 
 Charlie is!" 
 
 And then they were out of hearing, vanished 
 from the realm of my senses for ever more. And 
 yet people complain that the suburbs are dull! As 
 for me, when I grasped the fact that Charlie was 
 a good judge of beer I knew for certain that I 
 was back in England, the foundation of whose 
 greatness we all know. I walked on a little far- 
 ther and overtook two men, silently smoking pipes. 
 The companionship seemed to be a taciturn com- 
 munion of spirits, such as Carlyle and Tennyson 
 are said to have enjoyed on a certain historic eve- 
 ning. But I was destined to hear strange mes- 
 sages that night. As I forged ahead of them, one 
 murmured : — 
 
 "I done him down a fair treat!" 
 
 No more! I loitered to steal the other's answer. 
 But there was no answer. Two intelligences that 
 exist from everlasting to everlasting had momen- 
 tarily joined the path of my intelligence, and the 
 unique message was that some one had been done 
 down a fair treat. They disappeared into the un- 
 known of Werter-road, and I was left meditating 
 upon the queer coincidence of the word "beer" pre- 
 ceding the word "treat." A disturbing coincidence, 
 a caprice of hazard! And my mind flew back to 
 a smoking-concert of my later youth, in which 
 
STREET TALKING 365 
 
 "Beer, beer, glorious beer" was followed, on the 
 programme, by Handel's Largo. 
 
 «•* <•* <•* (5* 
 
 In the early brightness of yesterday morning 
 fate led me to Downing-street, which is assuredly 
 the oddest street in the world (except Bow-street). 
 Everything in Downing-street is significant, save 
 the official residence of the Prime Minister, which, 
 with its three electric bells and its absurdly inade- 
 quate area steps, is merely comic. The way in 
 which the vast pile of the Home Office frowns down 
 upon that devoted comic house is symbolic of the 
 empire of the permanent official over the elected 
 of the people. It might be thought that from his 
 second-floor window the Prime Minister would 
 keep a stern eye on the trembling permanent of- 
 ficial. But experienced haunters of Downing- 
 street know that the Hessian boot is on the other 
 leg. Why does that dark and grim tunnel run 
 from the side of No. 10, Downing-street, into the 
 spacious trackless freedom of the Horse Guards 
 Parade, if it is not to facilitate the escape of Prime 
 Ministers fleeing from the chicane of conspiracies? 
 And how is it that if you slip out of No. 10 in 
 your slippers of a morning, and toddle across to 
 the foot of the steps leading to St. James's Park, 
 you have instantly a view (a) of Carlton House 
 Terrace and (b) of the sinister inviting water of 
 St. James's Park pond? I say that the mute sig- 
 nificance of things is unsettling in the highest de- 
 gree. That morning a motor-brougham was 
 seeking repose in Downing-street. By the motor- 
 
36f> PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 brougham stood a chauffeur, and by the chauffeur 
 stood a girl under a feathered hat. They were 
 exchanging confidences, these two. I strolled non- 
 chalantly past. The girl was saying: — 
 
 "Look at this skirt as I've got on now. Me 
 and her went 'alves in it. She was to have it one 
 Sunday, and me the other. But do you suppose 
 as I could get it when it come to my turn? Not 
 me! Whenever I called for it she was always — " 
 
 I heard no more. I could not decently wait. 
 But I was glad the wearer had ultimately got the 
 skirt. The fact was immensely significant. 
 
J i 
 
 
 m 
 
 ilfll i#i 
 
 r* 1 
 
 
 i 
 
 FONTAINEBLKAU (Page 367) 
 
Ill 
 
 ON THE ROAD 
 
 The reader may remember a contrivance called 
 a bicycle on which people used to move from one 
 place to another. The thing is still employed by 
 postmen in remote parts. We discovered a couple 
 in the stable, had them polished with the electro- 
 plate powder and went off on them. It seemed a 
 strange freak. Equally strange was the freak of 
 quitting Fontainebleau, even for three days. I 
 had thought that no one ever willingly left-Fon- 
 tainebleau. Everybody knows what the roads of 
 France are. Smooth and straight perfection, bor- 
 dered by double rows of trees. They were as- 
 suredly constructed with a prevision of automobiles. 
 They run in an absolutely straight line for about 
 five miles, then there is a slight bend and you are 
 faced with another straight line of five miles. It 
 is magnificent on a motor-car at a mile a minute. 
 On a bicycle it is tedious ; you never get anywhere, 
 and the one fact you learn is that France consists 
 of ten thousand million plane trees and a dust- 
 cloud. We left the main road at the very first 
 turn. As a rule, the bye-roads of France are as 
 well kept as the main roads, often better, and they 
 are far more amusing. But we soon got lost in a 
 labyrinth of bad roads. We went back to the 
 
 36T 
 
368 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 main roads, despite their lack of humour, and they 
 were just as bad. All thei roads of the department 
 which we had invaded were criminal — as criminal 
 as anything in industrial Yorkshire. A person 
 who had travelled only on the roads of the Loiret 
 would certainly say that French roads were the 
 worst in Europe. This shows the folly of general- 
 ising. We held an inquisition as to these roads 
 when we halted for lunch. 
 
 "What would you?" replied the landlady. "It 
 is like that!" She was a stoic philosopher. She 
 said the state of the roads was due to the heavy 
 loads of beetroot that pass over them, the beetroot 
 being used for sugar. This seemed to us a feeble 
 excuse. She also said we should find that the roads 
 got worse. She then proved that in addition to 
 being a great philosopher she was a great tactician. 
 We implored lunch, and it was only 11:15. She 
 said, with the most charming politeness, that her 
 regular clients — ces messieurs — arrived at twelve, 
 and not before, but that as we were "pressed" she 
 would prepare us a special lunch (founded on an 
 omelette) instantly. Meanwhile we could inspect 
 her fowls, rabbits and guinea-pigs. Well, we in- 
 spected her fowls, rabbits and guinea-pigs till 
 exactly five minutes past twelve, when ces mes- 
 sieurs began to arrive. The adorable creature had 
 never had the least intention of serving us with a 
 special lunch. Her one desire was not to hurt our 
 sensitive, high-strung natures. The lunch con- 
 sisted of mackerel, ham, cutlets, fromage a la 
 crime, fruits and wine. I have been eating at 
 
ON THE ROAD 369 
 
 French inns for years, and have not yet ceased to 
 be astonished at the refined excellence of the repast 
 which is offered in any little poky hole for a florin. 
 
 «9* *?* «•* <5* 
 
 She was right about the roads. Emphatically 
 they got worse. But we did not mind, for we had 
 a strong wind at our backs. The secret of happi- 
 ness in such an excursion as ours is in the wind 
 and in naught else. We bumped through some 
 dozen villages, all exactly alike — it was a rolling 
 pasture country — and then came to our first town, 
 Puiseaux,, whose church with its twisted spire must 
 have been destined from its beginning to go on to 
 a picture post card. And having taught the lead- 
 ing business house of Puiseaux how to brew tea, 
 we took to the wind again, and were soon in Eng- 
 land; that is to say, we might have been in England, 
 judging by the hedges and ditches and the capri- 
 ciousness of the road's direction, and the little oc- 
 casional orchards, bridges and streams. This was 
 not the hedgeless, severe landscape of Gaul — not 
 a bit! Only the ancient farmhouses and the cha- 
 teaux guarded by double pairs of round towers 
 reminded us that we were not in Shropshire. The 
 wind blew us in no time to within sight of the 
 distant lofty spire of the great church of Pithiviers, 
 and after staring at it during six kilometres, we 
 ran down into a green hollow and up into the 
 masonry of Pithiviers, where the first spectacle we 
 saw was a dog racing towards the church with a 
 huge rat in his mouth. Pithiviers is one of the 
 important towns of the department. It demands 
 
370 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 and receives respect. It has six cafes in its pic- 
 turesque market square, and it specialises in lark 
 patties. What on earth led Pithiviers to special- 
 ise in lark patties I cannot imagine. But it does. 
 It is revered for its lark patties, which are on view 
 everywhere. We are probably the only persons 
 who have spent a night in Pithiviers without par- 
 taking of lark patties. We went into the hotel 
 and at the end of the hall saw three maids sewing 
 in the linen-room — a pleasing French sight — and, 
 in a glass case, specimens of lark patties. We 
 steadily and consistently refused lark pat- 
 ties. Still we did not starve. Not to men- 
 tion lark patties, our two-and-tenpenny dinner 
 comprised soup, boiled beef, carrots, turnips, 
 gnocclii, fowl, beans, leg of mutton, cherries, straw- 
 berries and minor details. During this eternal 
 meal, a man with a bag came vociferously into the 
 salle a manger. He was selling the next day's 
 morning paper! Chicago could not surpass that! 
 Largely owing to the propinquity and obstinacy 
 of the striking clock of the great church I arose 
 at 6 a. m. The market was already in progress. 
 I spoke withj an official about the clock, but I could 
 not make him see that I had got up in the middle 
 of the night. In spite of my estimate of his clock, 
 he good-naturedly promised me much better roads. 
 And the promise was fulfilled. But we did not 
 mind. For now the strong wind was against us. 
 This altered all our relations with the universe, and 
 transformed us into impolite, nagging pessimists; 
 previously we had been truly delightful people. 
 
THE LITTLE RIVER FUSAIN {Page 371) 
 
ON THE ROAD 371 
 
 All that day till tea-time we grumbled over a good 
 road that wound its way through a gigantic wheat- 
 field. True that sometimes the wheat was oats, or 
 even a pine plantation; but, broadly speaking, the 
 wheat was all wheat, and the vast heaving sea of it 
 rolled up to the very sides of the road under our 
 laggard wheels. And it was all right, and it was all 
 being cut with two-horse McCormick reapers. We 
 actually saw hundreds of McCormick reapers. 
 Near and far, on all the horizons, we could detect 
 the slow-revolving paddle of the McCormick 
 reaper. And at least we reached Chateau Landon, 
 against the walls of which huge waves of wheat 
 were breaking. Chateau Landon was our destina- 
 tion. We meant to discover it and we did. 
 
 St jl £ <t 
 
 Chateau Landon is one of the most picturesque 
 towns in France; but, as the landlady of the Red 
 Hat said to us, "no one has yet known how to 
 make come messieurs, the tourists." I should 
 say that (except Carcassone, of course) Vezelay, 
 in the Avalonnais, is perhaps the most picturesque 
 town in all France. Chateau Landon comes near 
 it, and is much easier to get at. On one side it 
 rises straight up in a tremendous sheer escarpment 
 out of the little river Fusain, in which the entire 
 town washes its clothes. The view of the city 
 from the wooded and murmurous valley is genu- 
 inely remarkable, and the most striking feature of 
 the view is the feudal castle which soars with its 
 terrific buttresses out of a thick mass of trees. 
 Few more perfect relics of feudalism than this for- 
 
372 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 midable building can exist anywhere. It will soon 
 celebrate its thousandth birthday. In putting it to 
 the uses of a home for the poor (Asile de St. Sev- 
 erin) the townsmen cannot be said to have dishon- 
 oured its old age. You climb up out of the river 
 by granite steps cut into the escarpment and find 
 yourself all of a sudden in the market square, which 
 looks over a precipice. Everybody is waiting to 
 relate to you the annals of the town since the be- 
 ginning of history: how it had its own mint, and 
 how the palace of the Mint still stands ; how many 
 an early Louis lived in the town, making laws and 
 dispensing justice; how Louis le Gros put himself 
 to the trouble of being buried in the cathedral there ; 
 and how the middlemen come from Fontainebleau 
 to buy game at the market. We sought the tomb 
 in the cathedral, but found nothing of interest there 
 save a stout and merry priest instructing a class of 
 young girls in the aisle. However, we did buy a 
 pair of fowls in the market for 4s. and carried them 
 at our saddles, all the way back to Fontainebleau. 
 The landlady of the Red Hat asked us whether her 
 city was not wondrous? We said it was. She 
 asked us whether we should come again? We said 
 we should. She asked us whether we could do any- 
 thing to spread the fame of her wondrous town? 
 We said we would do what we could. 
 
 To reach Fontainebleau it was necessary to pass 
 through another ancient town which we have long 
 loved, largely on account of Balzac, to wit, Ne- 
 mours. After Chateau Landon, Nemours did 
 not seem to be quite the exquisite survival that we 
 
.< 
 
 '* 
 
 
 r^ f -\*«»i,V^\ 
 
 
 
 » ll! 
 
 
 
 
 ASILE DE ST. SEYERIN {Page 371) 
 
ON THE ROAD 373 
 
 had thought. It had almost a modern look. Thus 
 on the afternoon of the third day we came to Fon- 
 tainebleau again. And there was no wind at all. 
 We had covered a prodigious number of miles, 
 about as many as a fair automobile would swallow, 
 up in two hours ; in fact, eighty. 
 
IV 
 
 A TRAIN 
 
 At the present moment probably the dearest bed 
 of its size in the world is that to be obtained on the 
 Calais-Mediterranean express, which leaves Calais 
 at 1.05 every afternoon and gets to Monte Carlo at 
 9.39 the next morning. This bed costs you be- 
 tween £4s and £5 if you take it from Calais, and 
 between £3 and £4 if you take it from Paris [(as 
 I did), in addition to the first-class fare (no baga- 
 telle that, either!), and, of course, in addition to 
 your food. Why people should make such a ter- 
 rific fuss about this train I don't know. It isn't 
 the fastest train between Paris and Marseilles, be- 
 cause, though it beats almost every other train by 
 nearly an hour, there is, in February, just one train 
 that beats it — by one minute.* And after Mar- 
 seilles it is slow. And as for comfort, well, Ameri- 
 cans aver that it "don't cut much ice, anyway" 
 (this is the sort of elegant diction you hear on it), 
 seeing that it doesn't even comprise a drawing- 
 room car. Except when you are eating, you must 
 remain boxed up in a compartment decidedly not 
 as roomy as a plain, common, ordinary, decent 
 Anglo-Saxon first-class compartment between 
 Manchester and Liverpool. 
 
 *In 1904. 
 
 374 
 
 

 
 
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 fS^ * S j' x > |i 
 
 ««V? 
 
 n\m« 
 
 J' m 
 
 K"'^ 
 
 CHATEAU LANDON (Po(/e 37.2,1 
 
A TRAIN 375 
 
 However, it is the train of trains, outside the 
 Siberian express, and the Chicago and Empire 
 City Vestibule Flyer, Limited, and if decorations, 
 silver, rare woods, plush, silk, satin, springs, cut- 
 flowers, and white-gloved attendants will make a 
 crack train, the International Sleeping Car Com- 
 pany (that bumptious but still useful association 
 for the aggrandisement of railway directors) has 
 made one. You enter this train with awe, for 
 you know that in entering you enrol yourself once 
 and for ever among the elite. You know that no- 
 body in Europe can go one better. For just as the 
 whole of the Riviera coast has been finally special- 
 ised into a winter playground for the rich idlers, 
 dilettanti, hypochondriacs, and invalids of two or 
 three continents, and into a field of manoeuvres for 
 the always-accompanying gilded riff-raff and odal- 
 isques, so that train is a final instance of the spe- 
 cialisation of transit to suit the needs of the afore- 
 said plutocrats and adventurers. And whether 
 you count yourself a plutocrat or an adventurer, 
 you are correct, doing the correct thing, and prov- 
 ing every minute that money is no object, and thus 
 realising the ideal of the age. 
 
 £• t5* £* *7* 
 
 French railway platforms are so low that in the 
 vast and resounding Gare de Lyon when the ma- 
 chine rolled magnificently in I was obliged to look 
 up to it, whether I wanted to or not; and so I 
 looked up reverently. The first human being that 
 descended from it was an African ; not a negro, but 
 something nobler. He was a very big man, with a 
 
376 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 distinguished mien, and he wore the uniform, in- 
 cluding the white gloves, of the dining-car staff. 
 Now, I had learnt from previous excursions in this 
 gipsy-van of the elite that the proper thing to do 
 aboard it is to display a keen interest in your stom- 
 ach. So I approached the African and demanded 
 the hour of dinner. He enveloped me in a glance 
 of courteous but cold and distant disdain, and for 
 quite five seconds, as he gazed silently down at me 
 |(I am 5ft.-8f in.) , he must have been saying to him- 
 self: "Here's another of 'em." I felt inclined to 
 explain to him, as the reporter explained to the re- 
 vivalist who inquired about his soul, that I was on 
 the Press, and therefore not to be confused with the 
 general elite. But I said nothing. I decided that 
 if I told him that I worked as hard as he did he 
 would probably take me for a liar as well as a plu- 
 tocratic nincompoop. 
 
 Then the train went off, carrying its cargo of 
 human parcels all wrapped up in pretty cloths and 
 securely tied with tapes and things, and plunged 
 with its glitter and meretricious flash down through 
 the dark central quietudes of France. I must say 
 that as I wandered about its shaking corridors, 
 looking at faces and observing the deleterious ef- 
 fects of idleness, money, seasickness, lack of imag- 
 ination, and other influences, I was impressed, 
 nevertheless, by the bright gaudiness of the train's 
 whole entity. It isn't called a train de luxe; it is 
 called a train de grand luxe; and though the ar- 
 tistic taste displayed throughout is uniformly de- 
 plorable, still it deserves the full epithet. As an 
 
A TRAIN 377 
 
 example of ostentation, of an end aimed at and 
 achieved, it will pass muster. And, lost in one of 
 those profound meditations upon life and death 
 and luxury which even the worst novelists must 
 from time to time indulge in, I forgot everything 
 save the idea of the significance of the train rush- 
 ing, so complete and so self-contained, through un- 
 known and uncared-for darkness. For me the 
 train might have been whizzing at large through 
 the world as the earth whizzes at large through 
 space. Then that African came along and asserted 
 with frigid politeness that dinner was ready. 
 
 c5* (5* <?* e?* 
 
 And in the highly-decorated dining-car, where 
 vines grew all up the walls, and the table-lamps 
 were electric bulbs enshrined in the metallic curves 
 of the art nouveau, and the fine cut flowers had 
 probably been brought up from Grasse that morn- 
 ing, it happened that the African himself handed 
 me the menu and waited on me. And when he 
 arrived balancing the elaborate silver "contrap- 
 tion" containing ninety-nine varieties of hors- 
 d'oeuvres, but not the particular variety I wanted, 
 I determined that I would enter the lists with him. 
 And, catching his eye, I said with frigid politeness : 
 
 N'y a-t-il pas* de sardines?" 
 
 He restrained himself for his usual five seconds, 
 and then he replied, with a politeness compared to 
 which mine was sultry : 
 
 "Non, monsieur/' 
 
 And he went on to say (without speaking, but 
 with his eyes, arms, legs, forehead, and spinal col- 
 
378 PAKIS NIGHTS 
 
 iimn) : "Miserable European, parcel, poltroon, 
 idler, degenerate, here I offer you ninety-and-nine 
 hors d'ceuvres, and you want the hundredth! You, 
 living your unnatural and despicable existence! 
 If I cared sufficiently I could kill every man on 
 the train, but I don't care sufficiently! Have the 
 goodness not to misinterpret my politeness, and 
 take this Lyons sausage, and let me hear no more 
 about sardines." 
 
 Hence I took the sausage and obediently ate it. 
 I gave him best. Among the few men that I re- 
 spected on that train were the engine-driver, out 
 there in the nocturnal cold, with our lives in his 
 pocket, and that African. He really could have 
 killed any of us. I may never see him again. His 
 circle of eternal energy just touched mine at the 
 point where a tin of sardines ought to have been 
 but was not. He was emphatically a man. He 
 had the gestures and carriage of a monarch. Per- 
 haps he was one, de jure, somewhere in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Timbuctoo. For practical European, 
 Riviera, plutocratic purposes he was a coloured 
 waiter in the service of the International Sleeping 
 Car Company. 
 
V 
 
 ANOTHER TRAIN 
 
 After six hours' continuous sleep, I felt full of 
 energy and joy. There were no servants to sad- 
 den by their incompetence; so I got up and made 
 the tea and prepared the baths, and did many sim- 
 ple domestic things, the doing of which personally 
 is the beginning of "the solution of the servant 
 problem," so much talked about. Shall we catch 
 the 9.25 fast or the 9.50 slow? Only my watch was 
 going among all the clocks and watches in the flat. 
 I looked at it from time to time, fighting against 
 the instinct to hurry, the instinct to beat that one 
 tiny watch in its struggle against me. Just when 
 I was quite ready, I had to button a corsage with 
 ten thousand buttons — toy buttons like sago, that 
 must be persuaded into invisible nooses of thread. 
 I turned off the gas at the meter and the electricity 
 at the meter, and glanced 'round finally at the little 
 museum of furniture, pictures, and prints that was 
 nearly all I had to show in the way of spoils after 
 forty years of living and twenty-five years of sharp- 
 shooting. I picked up the valise, and we went out 
 on the staircase. I locked and double locked the 
 door. [(Instinct of property.) 1 At the concierge's 
 lodge a head stuck itself out and offered the "Mer- 
 cure de France," which had just come. Strange 
 
 379 
 
380 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 bow my pleasure in receiving new numbers never 
 wanes! I shoved it into my left-hand pocket; in 
 my right-band pocket a new book was already re- 
 posing. 
 
 «?• J* «?* <?* 
 
 Out into the street, and though we had been up 
 for an hour and a half, we were now for the first 
 time in the light of day! Mist! It would proba- 
 bly be called "pearly" by some novelists; but it was 
 like blue mousseline — diaphanous as a dancer's 
 skirt. The damp air had the astringent, nipping 
 quality that is so marked in November — like a 
 friendly dog pretending to bite you. Pavements 
 drying. The coal merchant's opposite was not yet 
 open. The sight of his closed' shutters pleased me ; 
 I owed him forty francs, and my pride might have 
 forced me to pay him on the spot had I caught his 
 eye. We met a cab instantly. The driver, a mid- 
 dle-aged parent, was in that state of waking up in 
 which ideas have to push themselves into the brain. 
 "Where?" he asked mechanically, after I had di- 
 rected him, but before I could repeat the direction 
 the idea had reached his brain, and he nodded. 
 This driver was no ordinary man, for instead of 
 taking the narrow, blocked streets, which form the 
 shortest route, like the absurd 99 per cent, of driv- 
 ers, he aimed straight for the grand boulevard, and 
 was not delayed once by traffic in the whole jour- 
 ney. More pleasure in driving through the city as 
 it woke ! It was ugly, dirty — look at the dirty shirt 
 of the waiter rubbing the door handles of the fash- 
 ionable restaurant! — but it was refreshed. And 
 
ANOTHER TRAIN 381 
 
 the friendly dog kept on biting. Scarcely any mo- 
 tor-cars — all the chauffeurs were yet asleep — but 
 the tram-cars were gliding in curves over the muddy 
 wood, and the three horses in each omnibus had 
 their early magnificent willingness of action, and 
 the vegetable hawkers, old men and women, were 
 earnestly pushing their barrows along in financial 
 anxiety; their heads, as they pushed, were always 
 much in advance of their feet. They moved for- 
 ward with heedless fatalism; if we collided with 
 them and spilled cauliflowers, so much the worse! 
 
 We reached the station, whose blue mousseline 
 had evaporated as we approached it, half an hour 
 too soon. A good horse, no stoppages, and the rec- 
 ord had been lowered, and the driver had earned 
 two francs in twenty-five minutes! Before the 
 Revolution he would have had to pay a franc and 
 a half of it in assorted taxes. Thirty minutes in a 
 vast station, and nothing to do. We examined the 
 platform signs. There was a train for Marseilles 
 and Monte Carlo at 9.00 and another train for Mar- 
 seilles at 9.15. Then ours at 9.25. Sometimes I 
 go south by the "Cote d'Azur," so this morning I 
 must inspect it, owning it. Very few people; a 
 short, trying-to-be-proud train. The cook was 
 busy in the kitchen of the restaurant-car — what 
 filth and smell! Separated from him only by a 
 partition were the flower-adorned white tables. 
 On the platform the officials of the train, some in 
 new uniforms, strolled and conversed. A young 
 Frenchman dressed in the height of English fash- 
 ion, with a fine-bred pink-under-white fox ter- 
 
382 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 rier, attracted my notice. He guessed it; became 
 self-conscious, bridled, and called sportsmannishly 
 to the dog. His recognition of his own vital 
 existence had forced him into some action. He 
 knew I was English, and that, therefore, I knew 
 all about dogs. He made the dog jump into the 
 car, but the animal hadn't enough sense to jump 
 in without impatient and violent help from behind. 
 I never cared to have my dogs too well-bred, lest 
 they should be as handsome and as silly as the 
 scions of ancient families. This dog's master was 
 really a beautiful example of perfect masculine 
 dressing. His cap, the length of his trousers, the 
 "roll" of the collar of his jacket — perfect! Yes, it 
 is agreeable to see a faultless achievement. Not a 
 woman on the train to compare to him! It is a 
 fact that men are always at their sartorial best 
 when travelling ; they then put on gay colours, and 
 give themselves a certain licence. . . . The 
 train seemed to go off while no one was looking ; no 
 whistle, no waving of flags. It crept out. But to 
 the minute. . . . 
 
 c5* e5* t?* i5* 
 
 It is astounding the lively joy I find in staring at 
 a railway bookstall. Men came up, threw down a 
 sou, snatched a paper, and departed; scores of 
 them; but I remained, staring, like a ploughman, 
 vaguely. . . . 
 
 I was a quarter of an hour in buying the "Fig- 
 aro." What decided me was the Saturday lit- 
 erary supplement. We mounted into our train 
 before its toilette was finished. It smelt nice and 
 
ANOTHER TRAIN 383 
 
 damp. We had a compartment to ourselves. X. 
 had one seat, I another, the "Mercure de France" 
 a third, the "Figaro" a fourth, and the valise a 
 fifth. Male travellers passed along the corridor 
 and examined us with secret interest, but exter- 
 nally ferocious and damnatory. Outside were two 
 little Frenchmen of employes, palefaces, with short, 
 straggly beards. One yawned suddenly, and 
 then said something that the other smiled at. 
 What diverts me is to detect the domestic man 
 everywhere beneath the official, beneath the mere 
 unit. I never see a porter without giving him a 
 hearth and home, and worries, and a hasty break- 
 fast. Then the train went, without warning, like 
 the other, silently. I did not pick up my newspa- 
 j)er nor my magazine at once, nor take the new 
 book out of my pocket. I felt so well, so full of 
 potential energy. . . . and the friendly dog 
 was still biting ... I wanted to bathe deep 
 in my consciousness of being alive . . . Then 
 I read unpublished letters of de Maupassant, and 
 a story by Matilde Serao and memoirs of Ernest 
 31um, and my new book. What pleasure ! After 
 all what joy I had in life! Is it not remarkable 
 that so simple a mechanism as print, for the trans- 
 mission of thought, can work so successfully! 
 
 At Melun there were teams of oxen, with the 
 yoke on their foreheads, in the shunting-yard. 
 Quaint, piquant, collusion of different centuries! 
 And Melun, what a charming provincial town — to 
 look at and pass on ! I would not think of its hard 
 narrowness, nor of its brewery. . . . 
 
384 PARIS NIGHTS 
 
 The landscape shed its mousseline, and day really 
 began. Brilliant sunshine. We arrived. Sud- 
 denly I felt tired. I wished to sleep. I no longer 
 tingled with the joy of life. I only remembered, 
 rather sadly, that half an hour ago I had been a 
 glorious and proud being. 
 
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