My friend’s buggy, drawn by two magnificent horses, took us along in a bewildering whirlwind of mud splashing over us and snow blinding us. It had been raining for a week and Pittsburg in 1881 was not what it is at present, although it was a city which impressed one on account of its commercial genius. The black mud ran along the streets and everywhere in the sky rose huge patches of thick, black, opaque smoke; but there was a certain grandeur about it all, for work was king there. Trains ran through the streets laden with barrels of petroleum or piled as high as possible with charcoal and coal. That fine river, the Ohio, carried along with it steamers, barges, and loads of timber fastened together and forming enormous rafts which floated down the river alone to be stopped on the way by the owner for whom they were destined. The timber is marked and no one else thinks of taking it. I am told that the wood is not conveyed in this way now and it is a pity.
The carriage took us along through streets and squares in the midst of railways, under the enervating vibration of the electric wires which ran like furrows across the sky. We crossed a bridge which shook under the light weight of the buggy. It was a suspension bridge. Finally, we drew up at my friend’s home. He introduced his brother to me, a charming man but very cold and correct, and so quiet that I was astonished.
THÉÂTRE SARAH BERNHARDT, PARIS.
“My poor brother is deaf,” said my companion, after I had been exerting myself for five minutes to talk to him in my gentlest voice. I looked at this poor millionaire who was living in the most extraordinary noise and who could not even hear the faintest echo of the outrageous uproar. He could not hear anything at all, and I wondered whether he was to be envied or pitied. I was then taken to visit his incandescent ovens and his vats in a state of ebullition. I went into a room where some steel disks were cooling, which looked like so many setting suns. The heat from them seemed to scorch my lungs, and I felt as though my hair would take fire. We then went down a long, narrow street through which small trains were running to and fro. Some of those trains were laden with incandescent metals which irised the air as they passed. We walked in single file along the narrow passage reserved for foot passengers between the rails. I did not feel at all safe and my heart began to beat fast. Blown each way by the wind from the two trains coming in opposite directions and passing each other, I drew my skirts closely round me so that they should not be caught. Perched on my high heels, at every step I took I was afraid of slipping on this narrow, greasy, coal-strewn pavement. To sum up briefly, it was a very unpleasant moment, and very delighted I was to come to the end of that interminable street which led to an enormous field stretching away as far as the eye could see. There were rails lying all about here which men were polishing and filing, etc. I had had quite enough, though, and I asked to be allowed to go back and rest. So we all three returned to the house.
On arriving there, valets arrayed in livery opened the doors, took our furs, walking on tiptoes as they moved about. There was silence everywhere and I wondered why, as it seemed to me incomprehensible. My friend’s brother scarcely spoke at all and when he did his voice was so low that I had great difficulty in understanding him. When we asked him any question by gesticulating, and we had to listen most attentively to catch his reply, I noticed that an almost imperceptible smile lighted up for an instant his stony face. I understood very soon that this man hated humanity and that he avenged himself in his own way for his infirmity.
Lunch had been prepared for us in the winter conservatory, a nook of magnificent verdure and flowers. We had not taken our seats at the table when the songs of a thousand birds burst forth like a veritable fanfare. Underneath some large leaves whole families of canaries were imprisoned by invisible nets. They were everywhere, up in the air, down below, under my chair, on the table behind me, all over the place. I tried to quiet this shrill uproar by shaking my napkin and speaking in a loud voice, but the little feathered tribe began to sing in a maddening way. The deaf man was leaning back in a rocking-chair and I noticed that his face had lighted up. He laughed aloud in an evil, spiteful manner. Just as my own temper was getting the better of me, a feeling of pity and indulgence came into my heart for this man whose vengeance seemed to me as pathetic as it was puerile. Promptly deciding to make the best of my host’s spitefulness, and assisted by his brother, I took my tea into the hall at the other end of the conservatory. I was nearly dead with fatigue and when my friend proposed that I should go with him to see his petroleum wells, a few miles out of the city, I gazed at him with such a scared, hopeless expression that he begged me in the most friendly and polite way to forgive him.
It was five o’clock and quite dusk, and I wanted to go back to my hotel. Mr. Th—— asked if I would allow him to take me back by the hills. The road was rather longer, but I should be able to have a bird’s-eye view of Pittsburg, and he assured me that it was quite worth while. We started off in the buggy with two fresh horses and a few minutes later I had the wildest dream. It seemed to me that he was Pluto, the god of the infernal regions, and I was Proserpine. We were traveling through our empire at a quick trot, drawn by our winged horses. All around us we could see fire and flames. The blood-red sky was burning with long, black trails that looked like widows’ veils. The ground was covered with long arms of iron stretched heavenward in a supreme imprecation. These arms threw forth smoke, flames, or sparks which fell again in a shower of stars. The carriage carried us on up the hills, and the cold froze our limbs, while the fires excited our brain. It was then that my friend told me of his love for the Niagara Falls. He spoke of them more like a lover than an admirer, and told me he liked to go to them alone. He said, though, that for me he would make an exception. He spoke of the rapids with such intense passion that I felt rather uneasy and began to wonder whether the man was not mad. I grew alarmed, for he was driving along over the very tops of the hills, jumping the stone heaps. I glanced at him sideways; his face was calm, but his underlip twitched slightly, and I had noticed this peculiarity with his deaf brother, too. By this time I was quite nervous. The cold and the fires, this demoniacal drive, the sound of the anvil ringing out mournful chimes which seemed to come from under the earth, and then the deep forge whistle sounding like a desperate cry rending the silence of the night; the chimney stacks, too, with their worn-out lungs spitting forth their smoke with a perpetual death rattle, and the wind which had just risen twisting the streaks of smoke into spirals which it sent up toward the sky or beat down all at once on to us—altogether this wild dance, of the natural and the combined elements, affected my whole nervous system so that it was quite time for me to get back to the hotel. I sprang out of the carriage quickly on arriving and arranged to see my friend at Buffalo, but, alas! I was never to see him again. He took cold that very day and could not meet me there, and the following year I heard that he had been dashed against the rocks when trying to boat in the rapids. He died of his passion, for his passion.
At the hotel all the artistes were awaiting me, as I had forgotten we were to have a rehearsal of “La Princesse Georges” at half past four. I noticed a face that was unknown to me among the members of the company, and on making inquiries about this person found that he was an illustrator who had brought an introduction from Jarrett. He asked to be allowed to make a few sketches of me, and after giving orders that he should be taken to a seat, I did not trouble any more about him. We had to hurry through the rehearsal in order to be at the theater in time for the performance of “Froufrou,” which we were giving that night. The rehearsal was accordingly rushed and gabbled through so that it was soon over, and the stranger took his departure, refusing to let me look at his sketches on the plea that he wanted to do them up before showing them. My joy was great the following day when Jarrett arrived at my hotel perfectly furious, holding in his hand the principal newspaper of Pittsburg in which our illustrator, who turned out to be a journalist, had written an article giving at full length an account of the dress rehearsal of “Froufrou.” “In the play of ‘Froufrou,’” wrote this delightful imbecile, “there is only one scene of any importance and that is the one between the two sisters. Mme. Sarah Bernhardt did not impress me greatly and, as to the artistes of the Comédie Française, I considered they were mediocre. The costumes were not very fine, and in the ball scene the men did not wear dress suits.”
Jarrett was wild with rage, and I was wild with joy. He knew my horror of reporters and he had introduced this one in an underhand way, hoping to get a good advertisement out of it. The journalist imagined that we were having a dress rehearsal of “Froufrou,” and we were merely rehearsing Alexandre Dumas’ “Princesse Georges” for the sake of refreshing our memories. He had mistaken the scene between the Princesse Georges and the Comtesse de Terremonde for the scene in the third act between the two sisters in “Froufrou.” We were all of us wearing our traveling costumes and he was surprised at not seeing the men in dress coats and the women in evening dress. What fun this was for our company, and for all the town, and I may add, what a subject it furnished for the jokes of all the rival newspapers!