“They are queer people, these Americans.”
Gab’s mother then asked about my studies and my ideas.
“She has just been interviewed on this subject, and the interview was published this morning. Among other things she said, in speaking of the effect that she obtains: ‘Everybody knows when it is successful, but no one realises how one has to keep at it to succeed. That is what I am after unceasingly.’ The interviewer asked her if there was no established system, no books that could help her in her work. She looked astonished and replied, ‘I do not see how any one could use words to indicate the rays of light in their imperceptible and unceasing interplay that is changing all the time.’”
My manager then drew the newspaper from his pocket and read this passage from my exposition:
“‘One needs to have order in one’s thinking to be able to write. One can feel rays of light, in disintegration or in transition only as one feels heat or cold. One cannot tell in words what one feels. Sensations are not thoughts.’”
“‘But music, for example, can be reduced to notation.’”
“This seemed to surprise her. She was silent, reflected a moment, and then said:
“‘I ought to think about that, but it seems to me that the vibration represented by sight is a finer sense, more indefinite, more fugitive, than that of sound. Sounds have a more fixed character and they are limited. As for sight it has no limit, or none at least that we recognise. In any case we are more ignorant of things that concern our eyes than those which address themselves to our ears. Perhaps this is because our eyes from infancy are better developed at an earlier stage, and because seeing is a faculty the young child exercises sooner than hearing. The field of visual harmony as compared with aural harmony is like sunshine in comparison with moonlight. That is why there took place in the human brain a great development of the sense of sight, long before we were able to direct it or even to understand the results or the uses of it.’”
“Those who watch Loie Fuller during her work,” continued M. Marchand, after he had put the paper back into his pocket, “are struck by the transformation that takes place in her as she speaks, or as she directs her men to try this experiment or that. In point of fact, Madame, she has transformed the Folies-Bergère. Every evening the usual audience is lost amid a crowd composed of scholars, painters, sculptors, writers and ambassadors, and at the matinees there is a crowd of women and children. All the chairs and tables of the galleries have been piled up behind the orchestra chairs and all the people, forgetful of their rank and dignity, climb over them like a crowd of urchins. All that for a young girl who does not seem to suspect that she has won success. Would you like an example? Lately my wife took her to a large store to buy some handkerchiefs. The first thing Miss Fuller saw was some handkerchiefs marked ‘Loie Fuller,’ and she was surprised to note that some one had the same name as hers. When they told her: ‘Why, not at all. It is your name that appears on these handkerchiefs,’ she replied:
“‘How can that be? These people don’t know me.’