More and more perplexed I made my entrance for the last dance. I had the great flag in my arms. I tried to wave it gracefully, but I did not succeed. I tried to strike a noble attitude, still holding the flag. Again I failed. It was a woollen banner and would not float. Finally I stood stock still, holding the staff upright, in as imposing an attitude as possible. Then I bowed until the curtain fell.
My friends were surprised to observe that my last dance had displeased his Majesty. The Shah finally told them that he did not see why the Persian flag had been desecrated. No one dared to tell him that the idea had not come from me, but from persons of his retinue, or to inform him how I had received the flag.
My friends, the d’Oyleys, consoled me by saying that my pose had been very noble and that even the flag, falling around me in heavy folds, had produced a very striking effect.
The Shah decorates everybody who has attracted his attention; that is a habit he has acquired. For my part, thanks to the brilliant idea of the dignitaries from the court of Teheran, I have never seen either the tail of the Lion or a ray of the Sun peculiar to Persian decoration.
I have been told on other authority that on this evening the Shah’s first thought was of a bomb which, so it had been announced, was to be thrown at him in the hall. He was thinking of this rather than of my person, my dances or even of the Persian flag I “profaned.”
My Adventure with a Negro King.
At the Colonial exposition in Marseilles in 1907 I was with some friends in the pavilion of one of the exhibitors when a magnificent negro, six feet high, who looked like some prince from the Thousand and One Nights, came upon the terrace where we sat. He was accompanied by a large retinue. The other negroes were dressed the same as he, but none of them had his magnificent presence.
Some French officials accompanied the visitors, who, naturally, created a tremendous effect with their costumes, which were simple but exquisitely finished. When they came near I exclaimed:
“He might be called a king out of a fairy tale!”
They passed before us and took their places in the reception hall.