That handsome city I do not care for. I received an enthusiastic welcome there, in spite of a change of programme the first evening. Two artistes having missed the train, we could not play Adrienne Lecouvreur, and I had to replace it by Phèdre, the only piece in which the absentees could be replaced. The receipts averaged twenty thousand francs for the seven performances given in six days. My sojourn was saddened by a letter announcing the death of my friend Gustave Flaubert, the writer who had the beauty of our language at heart.
From Philadelphia we proceeded to Chicago.
At the station I was received by a deputation of Chicago ladies, and a bouquet of rare flowers was handed to me by a delightful young lady, Madame Lily B.
Jarrett then led me into one of the rooms of the station, where the French delegates were waiting.
A very short but highly emotional speech from our Consul spread confidence and friendly feelings among every one, and after having returned heartfelt thanks, I was preparing to leave the station, when I stopped stupefied—and it seems that my features assumed such an intense expression of suffering that everybody ran towards me to offer assistance.
But a sudden anger electrified all my being, and I walked straight towards the horrible vision that had just appeared before me—the whale man! He was alive, that terrible Smith!—enveloped in furs, with diamonds on all of his fingers. He was there with a bouquet in his hand, the wretched brute! I refused the flowers and repulsed him with all my strength, increased tenfold by anger, and a flood of confused words escaped from my pallid lips. But this scene charmed him, for it was repeated and spread about, magnified, and the whale had more visitors than ever.
I went to the Palmer House, one of the most magnificent hotels of that day, whose proprietor, Mr. Potter-Palmer, was a perfect gentleman, courteous, kind, and generous, for he filled the immense apartment I occupied with the rarest flowers, and taxed his ingenuity in order to have my meals cooked and served in the French style, a difficult matter in those days.
We were to remain a fortnight in Chicago. Our success exceeded all expectations. These two weeks seemed to me the most agreeable days I had had since my arrival in America. First of all, there was the vitality of the city in which men pass each other without ever stopping, with knitted brows, with one thought in mind, “the end to attain.” They move on and on, never turning for a cry or prudent warning. What takes place behind them matters little. They do not wish to know why a cry is raised, and they have no time to be prudent: “the end to attain” awaits them.
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 day-time 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 pigs’ slaughter-house. Ah, what a dreadful and magnificent sight! There were three of us, my sister, myself, and an Englishman, a friend of mine.