It is sad but it is true that the eminence of our Eminent Authors had never been detected by M. Maeterlinck. He had not heard of a single name on our list.
“Very well, then,” I surrendered at last: “I mean I’ll give you —— thousand dollars.”
And then at last M. Maeterlinck’s face beamed with intelligence. The dollar was one contemporary American author with the works of which he seemed thoroughly familiar. Indeed, I am compelled to record that invariably in all our subsequent intercourse the utterance of this word dollar acted very much as a pebble thrown upon that lake-like expanse of countenance. It created widening circles of comprehension and cheer.
Apart from the work which we hoped M. Maeterlinck might do for us, we featured him in a brilliant publicity scheme. We procured a special car for him and on this we sent him and his pretty little wife speeding to California. The verb used here is rather misleading. As a matter of fact, the lingering element in his journey was the essence of our calculation. For at every city and important town the special train stopped and the populace was afforded a glimpse of the celebrated author. Needless to say, the advertising which we obtained through the news columns of papers in visited localities was quite overwhelming.
When M. Maeterlinck finally arrived at his destination his train of thought proved even more halting than the one which had brought him. From this latter, indeed, he never landed at all—not on the screen. His first attempt at camera material revolved about a small boy with blue feathers and, as I remember, a feather bed. While admitting the importance of “trifles light as air,” the scenario department rejected this absolutely.
“Write us a love-story, Monsieur,” suggested my associate, Mr. Lehr, “You see for some reason or other the fairy-story has never been popular on the screen.”
Mr. Lehr’s information, I may interpolate, is rooted in professional fact. The screen adaptation of M. Maeterlinck’s most popular fairy-tale was, for example, not a success. As for financial returns it was certainly not the “blue bird for happiness.”
The foreign author thereupon set himself to a less fanciful theme. This time he submitted a love-story, but alas! the type was anything but censor-proof. When we called his attention to this flaw he looked at us with a pained, bewildered, almost shocked expression.
“You ask me to write a love-story,” he remonstrated, “and then you object because my hero or my heroine is married. Yet how can you write about love when you have no triangle?”
And I don’t think we were ever quite successful in shaking him from this Continental orthodoxy. I dare say he will always think of two parallel lines as exceedingly provincial.