We left for Leavenworth, Quincy, Springfield, but 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 translucid. 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 these 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 metals. 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 sufficient boiling water to melt the top coating of snow on the side where I wanted to alight. Having done this, Claude and our coloured servants got down and cleared away a small portion as well as they could.
I was at last able to descend myself, and I tried to remove the snow to one side. My sister and I finished by throwing snowballs at each other, and the melée became general. Abbey, Jarrett, the secretary, and several of the artistes joined in, and we were warmed by 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 realise 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 within one kilometre of where we were, and the men began 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 we could not reach Milwaukee before half-past one. There we were to give a matinée at two o’clock—La Dame aux Camélias. I therefore had the best lunch I could get prepared, and my servants carried it to my company, the members of which showed themselves very grateful.
The performance only began at three, and finished at half-past six o’clock; we started again at eight with Froufrou.
Immediately after the play 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 realise one of my dreams—at least, I fancied so. In partnership with his brother, my friend was the owner of 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 he could initiate me into 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.
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, 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, which is a pity.