There is something refined and distinguished about the little girl. She is different. Doesn't belong here. I am watching her very closely, though she has never once looked my way. I like this touch of the unusual in Montmartre. Still she may be just clever.
She is passing me in the dance and I get a full view of her face. One of real beauty, with a sensitive mouth, smiling at her friend and giving a complete view of the beautiful teeth. Her face is most expressive. The music stops and they sit at their table.
I notice that there is nothing on their table. They are not drinking. This is strange, here. Nor are there sandwiches or coffee. I wonder who they are. That girl is somebody. I know it.
She gets up as the orchestra plays a few strains of a plaintive Russian thing. She is singing the song. Fascinating! An artist! Why is she here? I must know her.
The song itself is plaintive, elemental, with the insinuating nuances that are vital to Russian music. The orchestra, with the violins and 'cellos predominant, is playing hauntingly, weaving a foreign exotic spell.
She has poise, grace, and is compelling attention even in this place. There comes a bit of melancholy in the song and she sings it as one possessed, giving it drama, pathos. Suddenly there is a change. The music leaps to wild abandon. She is with it. She tosses her head like a wild Hungarian gipsy and gives fire to every note. But almost as it began, the abandon is over. With wistful sweetness, she is singing plaintively again.
She is touching every human emotion in her song. At times she is tossing away care, then gently wooing, an elusive strain that is almost fairylike, that crescendos into tragedy, going into a crashing climax that diminishes into an ending, searching yearning, and wistfully sad.
Her personality is written into every mood of the song. She is at once fine, courageous, pathetic, and wild. She finished to an applause that reflected the indifference of the place. In spots it was spontaneous and insistent. In others little attention was paid to her. She is wasted here.
But she cares not. In her face you can see that she gets her applause in the song itself. It was glorious, just to be singing with heart, soul and voice. She smiles faintly, then sits down modestly.
I knew it. She is Russian. She has everything to suggest it. Full of temperament, talent and real emotional ability, hidden away here in Le Rat Mort. What a sensation she would be in America with a little advertising! This is just a thought, but all sorts of schemes present themselves to me.