My life and loves Vol. 2

by Frank Harris

  Years later, after he had returned to London and died there, I happened to be at dinner once, and beside Mrs. Jack Leslie, his wife's sister. I told her of my experience at Sir Henry Thompson's "octave."

  "Randolph was quite mad," she said, "when my sister took him on that last trip round the world. We all knew it. No one but Jenny would have trusted herself to go with him, but she's afraid of nothing and very strong. Yet from things she has" let drop, she must have had a trying time with him. Why once, she told me, he drew out a loaded revolver in the cabin and threatened her, but she snatched it from him at once, pushed him back in his berth, and left the cabin, locking the door behind her. Jenny is the bravest woman I ever knew."

  No wonder Winston has proved his courage time and again.

  One day, some years later, I was at dinner with Lady Randolph, as I always called her, at Lady Cunard's. I told her something of what Mrs. Jack Leslie had told me and expressed my admiration of her courage in taking Randolph round the world. "At first," she said, "when he was practically a maniac and very strong it was bad enough, but as soon as he became weak and idiotic, I didn't mind."

  What an epitaph!

  CHAPTER XXIII

  A passionate experience in Paris: a french mistress

  In this volume, which contains my memories of De Maupassant, I wish to tell another experience of French life. I was going once from London to Paris: in the train at Calais there was a young German who asked a French fellow traveler something or other and was snubbed for his pains; the Frenchman evidently guessed his nationality from his bad accent and faulty French.

  Resenting the rudeness, I answered the question, and soon the German and myself became almost friends. When we reached Paris, I told him I was going to the Hotel Meurice, and next day he called on me, lunched with me, and afterwards we drove together to the Bois.

  Something ingenuous-youthful in the man interested me: we had hardly got into the Avenue des Acacias when he told me he thought French girls wonderfully attractive. Five minutes afterwards we crossed a victoria in which there was one very pretty girl and an older woman; my German exclaimed that the girl was a beauty and wanted to know if it would be possible to get acquainted with such a star. I told him that nothing was easier: they were a pair of cocottes, and if he had a couple of hundred francs to spare he would be well received. I advised him the next time our carriages met to jump into the one with the pretty girl and make hay while the sun shone. He thought this a quite impossible feat, and so the next time we passed, I told him to follow us, and jumped into the carriage myself.

  At once the coachman turned down a side road and drove rapidly citywards.

  I put an arm round each of the women and assured them of our company at dinner at the Cafe Anglais. After a few moments' talk the pretty one whispered to me pertly, "You must make your choice," and as I turned to the older woman, she responded, "You won't regret it if you choose me!" I don't know why, but I immediately withdrew my arm from the waist of the pretty one, saying, "I must be loyal to my friend, who selected you." Five minutes afterwards we drew up at a cafe in the Champs-Elysees and were joined by my German, who could hardly believe his ears when I told him that I was leaving him the pretty and vivacious girl. To cut a long story short, we all dined together in a private room and afterwards conducted the women to their home. My German went upstairs with his inamorata and I went into a large apartment on the first floor. Here, to my astonishment, was a young girl of perhaps twelve who had evidently fallen asleep. As soon as the light was turned on, she sprang to her feet, evidently confused, and hurried to the door.

  "Don't go," I said, for she was very pretty, but smiling she hurried out. "Your child?" I turned to my companion, who nodded, it seemed to me. This occurrence helped to conform my resolution. "I'm going to sleep on the sofa," I said, "or if you wish it, I'll go to my hotel and you can have the girl with you."

  "No, no," replied my companion, whose name was Jeanne d'Alberi. "She never sleeps here, she has her own room, and I am interested in your talk and not a bit sleepy. The theatre is my passion; you've not given me a single kiss," she added, coming over to me and holding up her face.

  "I'm not much in the humor for kissing," I said. "I'm sleepy. I think I've drunk too much: that Musigny was potent."

  "As you please," she said, and in two minutes had made up a bed for me on the sofa. I pulled off my outer garments, and whilst listening to her splashing in her cabinet de toilette, fell fast asleep.

  I was awakened suddenly by the acutest pang of pleasure I had ever felt, and found Jeanne on top of me. How she had managed it, I don't know, but the evil was done, if evil there was, and my sensations were too intense to be abandoned. In a moment I had reversed our positions, and was seeking a renewal of the delight, and not in vain: her sex gripped and milked me, with an extraordinary strength and cleverness, such as I had never before imagined possible. Not even with Topsy had I experienced such intensity of pleasure. Taking her in my arms, I kissed her again and again in passionate surprise. "You can kiss me now," she said pouting, "but you didn't believe me when I told you in the victoria to choose me and you would profit by the exchange. My friend has only her pretty face," she added contemptuously.

  "You're a wonder!" I exclaimed, and lifting her up I carried her over to the bed. As I laid her down, I lifted her nightie: she was well made from the waist down, but her breasts were flaccid and hung low. Still, one thing was sure.

  "That wasn't your daughter," I said; "you've never had a child."

  She nodded, smiling. "I was lonely," she said simply, "and Lisette was so pretty and so merry that I adopted her years ago, when she was only a year old. I'm old at the game, you see," she added quietly.

  I don't know why, but everything Jeanne said increased my interest in her.

  There was personality and brains in her, though she certainly was anything but pretty, and she not only talked most excellent French, but knew all social customs and observances. When I wished to pay her, she would not accept any money, told me she had no need of anything, and was glad to know me, wanted me as "a friend-and lover," she added, smiling. A day or two later, I gave a lunch at my hotel and had Jules Claretie of the Francais, and a famous comic actor from the Palais Royal, and Jeanne, who made a most surprising hostess. Everyone was charmed with her. She found the right word to say to everyone and had more than tact. She told me afterwards she would never forget my kindness in treating her as an equal. Later I found out that she was the daughter of a French general, but had lost father and mother in the same year. A younger sister whom she loved had been disappointed in love and taken to dope and after her death Jeanne had resolved to make money.

  She made no secret of the fact that she had two admirers, one a deputy who visited her every fortnight or so and gave her twenty thousand francs a year, the other an old senator who came from time to time, expecting always to find her ready, for he allowed her fifty thousand a year and had given her more than that in one sum. "He's a dear, and I owe him infinite kindness," she said, "and I assure you that when I drove with Adele in the Bois, it was for her sake, not mine, but I liked your jumping into the carriage and your selection of me."

  It was at that lunch, I think, that Claretie told the story of Aimee Desclee which I may reproduce here, as Aimee Desclee was in many ways the most seductive actress I've ever seen on any stage.

  "I knew her," Claretie began, "when I was very young in Paris and had just got a place as dramatic critic on the Figaro. I fell in love with her and made up to her, as young men do. One day she told me she wanted to be an actress, to play Phedre, if you please. When I told her she'd have to begin by walking on and could not hope for even a small part for months, she laughed at me and said, that as some men were born generals and not subalterns, so she had no need to serve any apprenticeship. As dramatic critic I knew most of the leaders of the profession, and, strange to say, a few days afterwards I met a man who had taken a theatre and whose leading lady had broken down with
bronchitis, if I remember rightly. I told him that I had the very person to take her place and make a great sensation, and I introduced him to Aimee. She made a good impression on him and finally he agreed to produce Phedre and give her her chance.

  "The night came, the theatre was filled, and Aimee appeared with worse than stage fright. I never saw such a fiasco. One could hardly hear a word she said and in five minutes, amid the jeers of the audience, she fled from the stage and the curtain came down on an audience half-laughing, half-angry, only to be appeased by getting back their entrance money. It took all my savings!

  "Naturally my colleagues on the press made fun of what they called my infatuation. Some assured me that a pretty face did not make a great actress; others hinted that the girl must have hidden charms: in fine, I was ridiculed on all sides.

  "I saw nothing more of Aimee, but a year or so later I heard that she had run away to Italy with a comic actor with whom she was madly in love; then we heard that he had left her in Venice without a sou; and some months afterwards I got a short note from her, asking me to come to see her. There was a curious fascination about her, so I went. When she came into the room I was struck dumb! She had lost all her beauty and grown ten years older. 'What has happened?' I could not but ask.

  "'Like Dante,' she replied, 'I have been in Hell.' "'You had a bad time?' I went on stupidly.

  "She nodded, and then, 'Do you guess why I've sent for you?' I shook my head.

  'I want you to give me another such chance as you gave me before.'

  "'Impossible,' I replied. 'Everyone laughed at me, and now they all know you. I could not if I would.' "'Now they won't laugh,' she replied. 'I know the kindness in you for me, know that you will help me, and I assure you of my eternal gratitude. You and I must always be friends,' and she held out both hands to me. Her voice had extraordinary quality and her personality charmed me as ever. I found myself saying, 'I will do my best,' and when she thanked me, smiling with her eyes full of unshed tears, I knew I'd do all I could, and more.

  "Strange to say, about a month later a theatrical agent came to me, just as the first had come a couple of years earlier: he had a theatre and a company but the star actress he wanted to boom had gone off to America and left him in the lurch. Did I know of any actress who could play a great part? Without hesitation I took him to Aimee Desclee.

  "He knew the whole story of her previous fiasco, but on the way I assured him she had changed, begged him to trust his own judgment, and what I expected happened. He was swept off his balance by her personal magnetism and he staged Phedre for her, only stipulating that no one should know her real name until afterwards.

  "Well, we beat the big drum and did all we knew, but the house was almost empty. When Aimee Desclee came on the stage, before she opened her mouth, I thrilled with expectation, and her first words carried us all off our feet. At the end of the first act I went out and sent notes to half a dozen colleagues to come and hear her, but when I returned to the theatre it was full. Paris had already in some magical way got news of the event and in an hour everyone knew that a great actress had been discovered. 'I think,' added Claretie, 'that she was the greatest actress I have ever seen.' "

  Claretie told the little story superbly and with strange reticence; yet, to my astonishment, Jeanne heightened the effect. "I heard her a little later in Froufrou," she said, "and agree with you. Not only was she a great actress but a great woman. There were tones in her voice that wrung the heart. It was her own soul's suffering that gave her the power: Dumas fils was wise to choose her for his heroine."

  This lunch taught me that Jeanne in her way was a surprising woman: she was extremely well read, had all the lighter French literature at her fingers' ends, and could find new words to say of Flaubert, and Zola, Daudet and Maupassant even, words that were illuminating. She knew Paris, too, all its heights and depths, was a wonderful companion for a man of letters, and an incomparable mistress.

  After a day or two I began to doubt her magic. She never tried to excite me, but whenever I sought her I found the same diabolical power. The French have the word for her: "Casse Noisettes" they call it, or "nutcrackers," a woman's sex with the contractile strength of a hand, and Jeanne knew the exact moment to use it.

  I grew more and more infatuated and yet out of fear tried time and again to give her money and tear myself loose, but she would not accept money, though always eager to lunch or dine with me and meet actors, actresses, and men of letters.

  One day we had been for a long outing at Fontainebleau, had dined there, and returned. I wanted to kiss her but she turned away. At length I said in pure despite, "I'll have to be getting back to London to my work."

  Jeanne looked at me. "I was going to propose something else," she said. "I have a place near Algiers, sunbathed, between the mountains and the sea, wonderful. You could have ponies to ride and could give yourself to writing books and leave that silly journalism once for all."

  "I mightn't succeed," I said, "and I have too little money to make the trial."

  "I have more money than you think," she remarked quietly. "I have three hundred thousand francs saved and that house and farm and-"

  "I can't live on your money," I broke in rudely.

  "Why not?" she rejoined. "We could be married and have an almost perfect life."

  I started. What a prospect! The intercourse of the past month came back to me. Once I had caught Jeanne by chance when she had just washed her face: she had no eyebrows, she painted them in, and gave her light eyelashes, too, a dark tone with some pigment. Marry her? I laughed to myself and could not help shaking my head.

  "I am a fairly good mistress, am I not?" she asked.

  "The best possible," I replied. "No one could deny that, and an excellent companion to boot, but I want to see more of life and the world before settling down; and I've always resolved to go round the world every twenty years or so; and I want to learn a couple of new languages and-"

  "You could do all that," she insisted. "I should not hinder you. I want to make my house a house beautiful: I want you as husband and companion, but you could always take a whiter off or a summer and go round the world, so long as you came back to me; and you would come back, I know you. You want to make a great reputation as a writer and I'm sure you will, but that means years of hard work, carefree years. Think it over." I smiled, but shook my head.

  A day or two afterwards she said, "I shall have to send Lisette to school unless we go south together; she's getting to be a big girl and is exquisitely pretty.

  You should see her in her bath!"

  "I'd love to," I said without thinking. The next evening when we came in, Jeanne took me to the next floor and opened the door. There was Lisette in the bath, a model of girlish beauty, astonishingly lithe and lovely. She turned her back on us and snatched a towel hanging near, but Jeanne held it back saying, "Don't be silly, child. Frank won't eat you, and I've told him how pretty and well formed you are."

  At this the girl lifted big inscrutable eyes to her and stood at gaze, a most exquisite picture: the breasts just beginning to be marked, the hips a little fuller than a boy's, the feet and hands smaller-a perfect Tanagra statuette in whitest flesh with a roseate glow on the inside of arms and thighs, while the Mount of Venus was just shadowed with down. She stood there waiting, an entrancing maiden figure. I felt my mouth parching, the pulses in my temples beating. What did it mean? Did Jeanne intend-?

  The next moment Jeanne lifted the child out of the bath, and covering her with the towel said, "Dry yourself and come down, dear. We're all going to dine soon."

  When we were downstairs she asked, "Well, are you going with us to Algiers?"

  "Suppose I wanted Lisette?" I asked boldly.

  Jeanne shrugged her shoulders. "There are sure to be several Lisettes in your life," she said seriously, "but only one Jeanne, I hope," and she set her eyes on mine.

  "You are a wonder," I rejoined, "a marvel!"

  Nothing more was said then, but
when Lisette came down in her nightie and dressing-gown, Jeanne encouraged her to sit on my knees after dinner, and I seem still to feel the warm imprint of her lithe body on my legs.

  When I went back to the Meurice that night I knew I'd have to fight the greatest temptation of my life. Could I fight it?

  It was Shakespeare's word that saved me, I verily believe. I could not be "the bellows and the fan to cool a harlot's lust." Yet the temptation was tremendous, for really Jeanne was a most interesting companion and an adorable mistress. I wanted to know why she had selected me. "How does one know why this man pleases you intimately," she asked, "whereas another repels you? You please me physically, interest me mentally, and I know you're hardworking and kind. I think we could have an almost ideal existence, and I'm tired of Paris and lonely, without an object or purpose in life."

  "And Lisette?" I asked.

  "Oh! the Lisettes are for later," she smiled. "Before she's grown up you'll have found an Arab beauty with even lovelier limbs. It's the artist in you leads you to stray, the attraction of plastic beauty on you. I noticed that at the very beginning, but I can't make my breasts small and round. If I could I would, you may be sure, but I know I can give you more pleasure than any other woman, and so I feel sure you will always come back to me."

  It was true, but could I work with Jeanne: that was the doubt. Already I felt more tired than I had been for years. That night I studied my face in the glass and saw that my features had sharpened, and I had lost my healthy color. I was getting grey and worn, and if a month had this result, what would a year effect or ten years? I could not shut my eyes to the truth. I should be played out. I would have one more gaudy, great night; I'd kiss Lisette, too, and feel if she responded, and then for the train to Calais and my work again in London.

  And this I did. I gave a big lunch to people of importance in the theatre and in journalism and invited Jeanne and referred everything to her and drew her out, throning her, and afterwards returned to her house to dinner. While she was changing and titivating, I took Lisette in my arms and kissed her with hot lips again and again while feeling her budding breasts, till she put her arms round my neck and kissed me just as warmly; and then I ventured to touch her little half-fledged sex and caress it, till it opened and grew moist and she nestled up to me and whispered: "Oh! how you excite me!"