This city had a fatality for me and came very near proving so during the third visit I paid to it.
That very night we left Mobile for Atlanta, where, after playing “La Dame aux Camélias,” we left again the same evening for Nashville.
We stayed for an entire day at Memphis and gave two performances. At one in the morning we left for Louisville.
We were beginning the dizzy round of the smaller towns, arriving at three, four, and sometimes six o’clock in the evening, and leaving immediately after the play. I left my car only to go to the theater and returned as soon as the play was over to retire to my elegant but diminutive bedroom. I sleep well on the railway. I felt an immense pleasure in traveling that way at high speed, sitting outside on the small platform or rather reclining in a rocking-chair, gazing on the ever-changing spectacle, that passed before me, of American plains and forests. Without stopping, we went through Louisville, Cincinnati, for the second time, Columbus, Dayton, Indianapolis, St. Joseph that has the best beer in the world, and where, we were obliged to go to an hotel on account of repairs to one of the wheels of the car. Supper was served. What a supper! Fortunately, the beer was light in both color and consistency and enabled me to swallow the dreadful things that were served up.
We left for Leavenworth, Quincy, Springfield—not the Springfield in Massachusetts—the one in Illinois.
During the journey from Springfield to Chicago, we were stopped by the snow in the middle of the night. The sharp and deep groanings of the locomotive had already awakened me. I summoned my faithful Claude and learned that we were to stop and wait for help. Aided by my Félicie, I dressed in haste and tried to descend, but it was impossible. The snow was as high as the platform of the car. I remained wrapped up in furs, contemplating the magnificent night. The sky was hard, implacable, without a star, but all the same translucent. Lights extended as far as the eye could see along the rails before me, for I had taken refuge on the rear platform. These lights were to warn the trains that followed. Four of them came up and stopped when the first fog-signals went off beneath their wheels, then crept slowly forward to the first light where a man who was stationed there explained the incident. The same lights were lit immediately for the following train, as far off as possible, and a man proceeding beyond the lights placed detonators on the rails. Each train that arrived followed that course.
We were blocked by the snow. The idea came to me of lighting the kitchen fire and I thus got enough boiling water to melt the top coating of snow on the side where I wanted to get down. Having done this, Claude and the negroes got down and cleared away a small portion as well as they could. I was at last able to get down myself and tried to remove the snow to one side. My sister and I finished by throwing snowballs at each other and the mêlée became general. Abbey, Jarrett, the secretary, and several of the artistes joined in and we were warmed up through this small battle with white cannon balls.
When dawn appeared we were to be seen firing a revolver and Colt rifle at a target made from a champagne case. A distant sound, deadened by the cotton wool of the snow, at length made us realize that help was approaching. As a matter of fact, two engines with men who had shovels, hooks, and spades, were coming at full speed from the opposite direction. They were obliged to slow down on getting to one kilometer of where we were, and the men got down, clearing the way before them. They finally succeeded in reaching us, but we were obliged to go back and take the western route. The unfortunate artistes who had counted on getting breakfast in Chicago, which we ought to have reached at eleven o’clock, were lamenting, for with the new itinerary that we were forced to follow, it would be half past one before we could get to Milwaukee, where we were to give a matinée at two o’clock—“La Dame aux Camélias.” I therefore had the best lunch I could prepared and my negroes carried it to my company, the members of which showed themselves very grateful.
The performance did not begin till three and finished at half past six o’clock; we started again at eight with “Froufrou.”
Immediately after the play was over we left for Grand Rapids, Detroit, Cleveland, and Pittsburg, in which latter city I was to meet an American friend of mine who was to help me to realize one of my dreams—at least I fancied so. In partnership with his brother, my friend was the owner of a large steel works and several petroleum wells. I had known him in Paris, and had met him again at New York, where he offered to conduct me to Buffalo so that I could visit, or rather where he could show me, the Falls of Niagara, for which he entertained a lover’s passion. Frequently, he would start off quite unexpectedly, like a madman, and take a rest at a place just near the Niagara Falls. The deafening sound of the cataracts seemed like music after the hard, hammering, strident noise of the forges at work on the iron, and the limpidity of the silvery cascades rested his eyes and refreshed his lungs, saturated as they were with petroleum and smoke.