Women here, as everywhere else in America, do not work, but they do not stroll about the streets as in other cities; they walk quickly; they also are in a hurry to seek amusement. During the daytime I went some distance into the surrounding country in order not to meet the sandwich men advertising the whale.
One day I went to the pig-slaughtering house. Ah, what a dreadful and magnificent sight! There were three of us—my sister, myself, and an Englishman, a friend of mine. On arrival, we saw hundreds of pigs hurrying, bunched together, grunting and snorting, file off along a small, narrow, raised bridge.
Our carriage passed under this bridge and stopped before a group of men who were waiting for us. The manager of the stockyards received us and led the way to the special slaughterhouses. On entering into the immense shed, which was dimly lighted by windows with greasy and ruddy panes, an abominable smell gets into one’s throat, a smell that only leaves one several days afterwards. A sanguinary mist rises everywhere like a light cloud floating on the side of a mountain and lit up by the setting sun. An infernal hubbub drums itself into one’s brain; the almost human cries of the pigs being slaughtered, the violent strokes of the hatchets, lopping off the limbs, the successive “Han!” of the “ripper” who, with a superbly sweeping gesture lifts the heavy hatchet, and with one stroke opens from top to bottom the unfortunate, quivering animal hung on a hook. During the terror of the moment, one hears the continuous grating of the revolving razor, which, in one second, removes the bristles from the trunk thrown to it by the machine that has cut off the four legs. The whistle by which escapes the steam from the hot water in which the head of the animal is scalded; the rippling of the water that is constantly renewed; the cascade of the waste water; the rumbling of the small trains carrying under wide arches trucks loaded with hams, sausages, etc. ... all that sustained by the sounds of the bells of the engines warning of the danger of their approach, and which in this spot of terrible massacre seem to be the perpetual knell of wretched agonies. Nothing was more Hoffmanesque than this slaughter of pigs at the period I am speaking about, for since then, a sentiment of humanity has crept, although still somewhat timidly, into this temple of porcine hecatombs.
I returned from this visit quite ill. That evening I played in “Phèdre.” I went on to the stage quite unnerved and trying to do everything to get rid of the horrible vision of a little while ago. I threw myself heart and brain into my rôle, so much so that at the end of the fourth act I absolutely fainted on the stage.
On the day of my last performance, a magnificent collar of camellias in diamonds was handed me on behalf of the ladies of Chicago. I left that city fond of everything in it—its people, its lake as big as a small inland sea, its audiences who were so enthusiastic, everything, everything, but its stockyards.
I did not even bear any ill-will toward the bishop who also, as had happened in other cities, had denounced my art and French literature. By the violence of his sermons he had as a matter of fact advertised us so well that Mr. Abbey, the manager, wrote the following letter to him:
His Grace: Whenever I visit your city I am accustomed to spend $400 in advertising. But as you have done the advertising for me, I send you $200 for your poor.
Henry Abbey.
We left Chicago to go to St. Louis, where we arrived after having covered two hundred and eighty-three miles in fourteen hours.
In the drawing-room of my car, Abbey and Jarrett showed me the statement of the sixty-two performances that had been given since our departure; the gross receipts were $227,459, that is to say 1,137,295 francs—an average of 18,343 francs per performance. This gave me great pleasure on Henry Abbey’s account, who had lost everything in his previous tour with an admirable troupe of Opera artistes, and greater pleasure still on my own account, for I was to receive a good share of the receipts.