CHAPTER XV
MY FIRST HOLIDAY ON THE CONTINENT
IT seemed very odd to be really idle. From the time I was thirteen I had been working and studying so systematically that to get the habit of leisure was like learning a new and a difficult lesson. It took time, for one thing, to find out how to relax; nervous persons never acquire this art naturally nor possess it instinctively. It is with them the artificial product of painful experience. All my life I had been expending energy at top pressure and building it up again as fast as I could instead of sometimes letting it lie fallow for a bit. When I became exhausted my mother would speedily make strong broths with rice and meat and vegetables and anything else that she considered nourishing to stimulate my jaded vitality; then I would go at my work again harder than ever. When I had finished one thing I plunged, nerves, body, and brain, into another. To be an artist is bad enough; but to be an American artist—! To the temperamental excitability and intensity is added the racial nervousness; and lucky are such if they do not go up in a final smoke of over-energised effort. When I was singing I was always in a fever before the curtain rose. All the day before I was restless to the point of desperation. Instead of letting myself go and becoming comfortably limp so that I might conserve my strength for the performance itself, I would cast about for a hundred secondary ways in which to waste my nervous force. I was nearly as bad as the Viennese prima donna, Marie Willt. The story is told of her that a reporter from a Vienna newspaper went to interview her the afternoon before she was to sing in Il Trovatore at the Royal Opera and enquired of the scrubwoman in the hall where he could find Frau Willt.
"Here," responded the scrubwoman, sitting up to eye him calmly.
When the young man expressed surprise and incredulity she explained, as she continued to mop the soapy water, that she invariably scrubbed the floor the day she was going to sing. "It keeps me busy," she concluded sententiously.
Think of the force that went into that scrubbing-brush which might have gone into the part of Leonora! But it is not for me to find fault with such a course of action because I followed a very similar one. If I did not exactly scrub floors, I did, somehow, contrive to find other equally adequate ways of dissipating my strength before I sang. Yet here I was, actually taking a holiday, with no chance at all to work even if I wanted to!
When we arrived in Nice the lemons and oranges on the trees and a sky as blue as painted china made the place seem to me somewhat unnatural, like a stage setting. Not yet having learned my lesson of relaxation, I soon became restless and wanted to be again on the move. Nevertheless we stayed there for nearly a month. My mother seemed to like it. She made many friends and spent hours every day painting little pictures—quite dear little pictures they were—of the bright coloured wild flowers that grew roundabout. But possibly a few extracts from the diary kept by my mother of this visit will not be out of place here. The capital letters and italics are hers.
Dec. 25—Christmas morning. Sun shone for two hours. Left for Nice. Arrived at 5 P.M. A very cold night. Cars warmed by zink hollow planks [boxes] filled with Boiling water which are replaced every three hours at the different stations. Notwithstanding shawls and wraps suffered with the cold. Nothing to eat until we arrived at twelve at Marseilles, where [we] got a poor, cold soup and miserable cup of tea. Arrived at the Hotel Luxembourg in Nice at 6.30 P.M. The city and hotels crowded with people from all parts of the world. Rheumatic people rush here to get into the sunshine—a thing seldom seen in Paris or London in winter. Nice is simply a watering-place without the water, unless one means the Sea Mediterranean which almost rushes into the Halls of the Hotels. All languages are here spoken; therefore no trouble for any nation to obtain what it desires. The streets are pulverised magnesia. Everybody looks after walking as though they had been to mill "turning hopper."
In our promenade [to-day, Dec. 27] we meet in less than twenty minutes as many different nationalities, or representatives of each. Poor in soil, poor in colour, poor in taste is Nice. The Hotels compose the City. Roses bloom by the roadsides in abundance. The gardens of the Hotels are yellow with Oranges. Palm trees line the streets, none of which have shade trees that ever grow enough to shade but one person at a time—no soil—no vigour—sun does all the maturing. Things ripen from necessity, not from the soil.
Saturday 28—Clear beautiful morning. Beach covered with promenaders. At twelve Louise and I took a long walk towards Villa Franca—sun very hot—met Richard Palmer who had just arrived. Enjoyed the morning; were refreshed by our walk. Mr. Stebbins and Charlie called. Drive at 5. Evening had a light wood fire upon the hearth, making rooms and hearts cheerful in direct opposition to the roaring of the wild sea at our very feet. Proprietor of Hotel sent up his Piano for Louise. Basket Phaetons—2 ponies—are hired here for one franc an hour—fine woods but dusty.
29th.—Sunday—Magnificent morning. The sea smooth as glass. Women line the beach spreading clothes to bleach. There is a short diluted Season of Italian Opera here. Ernani was announced for last evening. There is no odor from the Mediterranean, no sea weeds, no shells, a perfectly clean barren beach. I don't believe it is even salt. Shall go and sip to satisfy Yankee curiosity. There are two Irish heiresses here whose combined weight in gold is 9000 lbs., and the way the nobs and snobs tiptoe, bow, and scrape is something to behold. They are always dressed alike. We are cold enough to have a small wood fire morning and evening in a very primitive style fireplace 18 inches square. Handirons made of 2 cast iron virgins' heads and busts. Bellows thrown in.