I had absolutely no idea who the person could be and I was trying to find out when at the theatre some one brought me the card of a gentleman who wanted to see me.
His name was quite unfamiliar. This gentleman, however, might have been sent by a friend. Accordingly I received him. A tall gentleman entered, and, very much surprised, repeated the hotel man’s affirmation:
“But you are not Loie Fuller!”
I assured him that I was.
He had known the “Loie Fuller” who had been entertained in my stead at the hotel and who sang in the chorus of “Jack Sheppard,” the play of which I was playing the principal part. He wanted to see her in her new incarnation and renew his acquaintance with her. When I had at last shown him his mistake he allowed me to see the counterfeit Loie Fuller’s picture. And as a matter of fact when we were made up for the stage there was a little resemblance.
One day we were giving some performances at Lyons. On arriving at the theatre one of my electricians said to me:
“The proprietress of the hotel where I am staying with my comrades is greatly annoyed. She says that you lived with her at the time of your last trip to Lyons. You were very well satisfied and promised to come again, and yet you have not come. She declares that it isn’t nice of you to show yourself so haughty under the pretext that now you are successful.”
Everybody who is acquainted with me knows that such conduct is not at all characteristic of me. I was, therefore, very much surprised, I was unable to recall the name of the hotel the electrician mentioned. I asked him, therefore, to find out at what period I had put up at the hostelry of the good lady whose grievance he had just forwarded to me.
The next day he told me the date. Now at that period I was at Bucharest. I was, therefore, more perplexed than ever, and I asked the electrician to continue his inquiry and to do his best to straighten out the difficulty.
“My landlady,” he said, “is sure that it was you. She saw you at the theatre. It is the same dance and she bade me say again that she ‘is very much astonished at Miss Fuller’s conduct.’ You were so well satisfied with her house, both you and the gentleman with you.”