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.
“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 hear even 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 discs 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 road through which small trains were running to and fro. Some of those trains were laden with incandescent metals which made the atmosphere iridescent 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 first one way then the other 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, &c. 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 tip-toe 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 we had to listen most attentively to catch his reply, and 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 just 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. My host 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 travelling through our empire at a quick trot, drawn by our winged horses. All round us we could see fire and flames. The blood-red sky was blurred with long black trails that looked like widows’ veils. The ground was covered with long arms of iron stretched heavenwards in a supreme imprecation. These arms threw forth smoke, flames, or sparks, which fell again in a shower of stars. The buggy carried us on up the hills, and the cold froze our limbs while the fires excited our brains. 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 verge of the precipice, jumping the stone heaps. I glanced at him sideways: his face was calm, but his under-lip twitched slightly; and I had noticed this particularly with his deaf brother, also.
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 towards the sky or beat down all at once on to us, all this wild dance of the natural and the human 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 navigate a 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 our company, and on making inquiries about this person found that he was an illustrator who had come with 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 theatre 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 touch 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. Madame 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.”