Frank Harris in France
Late in the autumn I went south again to Nice. I needed a job and found one as valet to an American.
Paul Robeson and I met on the Promenade des Anglais. He read one of my stories and said he liked it. I said I would like to do a play for him to act in. Paul asked me if I knew Gertrude Stein. I said I didn't, that I hadn't gone to her place. Paul said he had visited Gertrude Stein and that she was all right. I shouldn't neglect such an opportunity, as she knew all the literary people who counted, he told me. I told Paul that although I couldn't abide cliques, I wasn't averse to contact, but from my estimation of Gertrude Stein I felt that she had nothing to offer.
I lived in a spacious room with a French-Italian family. It gave on the old port of Nice, and was cheap. Paul Robeson was staying in Villefranche in the same hotel in which Glenway Westcott lived. I wrote to Paul asking if he could come to Nice on a certain evening, when Max Eastman and his wife would be visiting me. The reply came from Mrs. Robeson. She wrote that she and Paul were coming together, because they just couldn't breathe without each other. Paul Robeson came late with his formidable wife and the more formidable Frank Harris. Robeson and his wife had had either lunch or dinner with Frank Harris at Cimiez and had mentioned that they were coming to see me afterward. Frank Harris hadn't seen me in years, didn't know I was in Nice, and insisted on coming along with the Robesons.
Max Eastman and his wife were already there when the Robesons and Frank Harris arrived. It was a most piquant scene, for I had never seen Max Eastman and Frank Harris together, and I knew how they detested each other. If Frank Harris's dislike was boisterously aggressive, Max Eastman's dislike of him was none the less real because it was veiled and soft.
Frank Harris greeted me with a loud: "You rascal, catting your way through Europe and not letting me know you were in Nice! I knew you would come back to Europe after that first trip. Now give an account of yourself." But before I could get in a word of any account about myself Frank Harris was teasing Max Eastman about his book, Since Lenin Died. He said he hoped that Eastman would realize now that politicians are politicians whether they are red or white, that there were certain types of men who were successful politicians and always would be forever and forever. He, Frank Harris, was one of the first to hail the Russian Revolution and he still believed in it. But he had never regarded Lenin and Trotsky or any Bolshevik as a god, but as men with the faults of men. Max Eastman could not reply because Frank Harris did not give him a chance.
I had a case of dry Graves under my bed. (I had accompanied a casual acquaintance one day to a big shop in Nice, and in an excess of feeling for my poetry or personality he offered me the case of Graves and I accepted it right away before his sentiment had time to change.) So I brought out two bottles. Frank Harris said he was not drinking. But when he saw the Graves he examined the bottle and exclaimed: "Oh, it's an excellent brand. I cannot resist trying it." And he grabbed the bottle from me and opened it himself. I got the glasses ready and Frank Harris poured the wine. Soon he became mellow, and started to tell stories of life and himself. He told us a story of his traveling from London to Rome by the Paris-Rome express train. There was an Italian couple sitting beside him, he said, and the man knew English and started a conversation. The passenger was cultivated, and they passed the time discussing politics and headline news. But the woman got bored. She could not talk English. And suddenly, tigerishly, she turned on Frank Harris, accusing him of monopolizing her husband's interest. Harris was sitting next to Paul Robeson and he gave a dramatic interpretation of the incident, now imitating the man, now the woman, beside portraying his own rôle. And while he was interpreting the woman's part he acted the thing out on Paul Robeson, making him the man. It was all very interesting, but when he had finished, Mrs. Robeson said aside to me: "He was so realistic that I felt afraid for my husband." Frank Harris was also such a great actor that in his talk he actually became the character he was portraying. And that is why some of the readers of his marvelous biography of Oscar Wilde imagine that there was something more than a platonic friendship between the two men.
The Robesons invited the Eastmans and myself to dinner in Villefranche. Glenway Westcott also was their dinner guest. Mrs. Robeson wore a pretty red frock and Paul sang a couple of spirituals. Now that Frank Harris wasn't there, the women had their chance to luxuriate in talking. It was the first time Mrs. Eastman had heard the American Negro voice. Mrs. Eastman (nee Eliena Krylenko) was like a reincarnation of Chekhov's, The Darling. She whispered to me that she was fascinated, and like a happy, eager child she engaged Mrs. Robeson in conversation. Presently Mrs. Robeson exclaimed to Mrs. Eastman, "But Darling, where did you get that accent? Oh, I do adore your way of using our English language. It is just lovely!"