American Eve

by Paula Uruburu

  Clearly, regardless of her own misgivings about her young subject’s vulnerability, in Portrait (Miss N.), Käsebier herself intuitively capitalized on the quality that was the essence of Evelyn’s appeal: a nascent sexuality inextricably tied to an image of classical and seemingly unspoiled purity. But in spite of the whiteness of the gown that exposes equally white, narrow adolescent shoulders and yet primly covers her small breasts, there can be no mistaking the message conveyed by the angle and placement of the heart-shaped, fragile-looking white pitcher that Evelyn holds suggestively near her lap. There is nothing else in the picture to distract one from the sultry gaze of the subject, save perhaps the dark curves of the sofa behind Evelyn, which draw our eyes back to the dark curls of her hair and thus her face. And there is another contradictory message embedded in the photograph. While at the time young girls wore their hair down in long curls, it was the fashion for adult women to wear it piled on their head. In this photo, Evelyn’s hair is done up like a woman’s while two long curls hang down over her shoulder like a child’s.

  Within a mere few months after she made it to Broadway, Evelyn’s star was indeed rising, if not on the stage, then behind the scenes. In early November 1901, Evelyn noticed that White had begun to take a greater interest in her mother’s movements. As she described it, “He displayed a Gertrude Käsebier’s Mucha-inspired photograph Miss N., 1902.

  solicitude that took a significant shape.” He knew the Nesbits had roots in Pittsburgh, and he knew that her mother often complained of being left alone during the long days and nights when Evelyn was modeling and performing. Mrs. Nesbit had, of course, abandoned any idea of acquiring work herself, now that White was always there to offer an additional twenty-five dollars a week to supplement Evelyn’s small income.

  The day finally came when White suggested to Mrs. Nesbit that she go back to Pittsburgh for a visit.

  “It is never advisable to drop people out of your life,” he told her solicitously. Mrs. Nesbit was at first reluctant to leave her adolescent daughter all alone in New York (even though she had left her in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with virtual strangers). Evelyn had always been a free-spirited girl with a strong will, but that alone might be cause to worry. White smiled.

  “I am here,” he said. “She can hardly be alone when I am around to look after her.”

  For weeks during his visits, White took every opportunity to turn the topic of conversation to Pittsburgh. Not surprisingly, Evelyn’s mother eventually agreed she would go, and leave Evelyn in Manhattan, while Howard would remain at the academy. With his customary generosity, White paid the entire fare and secured all the arrangements for Mrs. Nesbit. At his suggestion, before she left, Mrs. Nesbit insisted that Evelyn not go out with any person other than Mr. White while she was gone.

  “Promise me you will see no one else while I’m gone,” she said as she boarded the train, and “obey Mr. White.” It was a promise Evelyn kept, only going to her scheduled modeling appointments by day and performances at night.

  A few days after her mother left, Evelyn received a phone message from Stanny, asking her to come to a studio on Twenty-second Street. It was early in the morning, and by ten o’clock Evelyn was already on her way to the studio that belonged to Rudolf Eickemeyer Jr., the well-respected photographer Stanny had mentioned to Evelyn as having won a number of prestigious prizes for his work.

  Evelyn in The Theatre magazine, 1902.

  Beginning almost the minute she stepped through the door, Evelyn was coaxed into posing “for hours on end” by a doting Stanny. Presented with a dizzying variety of costumes, she was transformed into a rural, straw-hatted tomboy; a demure Quaker girl; a languid Turkish maiden. White orchestrated the event, confident that Eickemeyer’s incredible eye for beauty and composition would enhance the naturally dramatic effects of Evelyn’s beguiling looks and more studied theatrical poses aided by her costumes. As promised, Stanny posed her as Little Red Riding Hood, Pocahontas, and Little Bo Peep; he put a long blond wig on her so that Evelyn could imitate a Gainsborough girl. He personally put her hair up in a band of chrysanthemums, then arranged it so that it fell loosely about her soft shoulders. He draped furs around her and placed a strand of pearls in her hair. Like a magician, Stanny pulled costume after costume from a large trunk, which also provided an assortment of floral head-dresses and sheer-looking, flowing gowns. Several times when she went into the dressing room to change, White knocked on the door and asked if she needed any help. Each time she answered no.

  Late in the afternoon, an inexhaustible White brought out “the most gorgeous of Japanese kimonos,” which he had bought in Hong Kong especially for Evelyn (or so he told her) at a cost of several thousand dollars. When she put it on, the impression it made on White was obvious. He instructed her to sit on a huge, pristine polar bear pelt in a corner of the studio near some tapestries and the now-depleted large wooden trunk. Evelyn demonstrated her experience and natural versatility by assuming a number of poses in the kimono, her magnificent hair piled upon her head, with a few tawny wisps framing her delicate features. There was also a vivid contrast between her alabaster skin and the remarkable crimson-and-marigold shimmer of the kimono, further accentuated when set against the whiteness of the bearskin rug.

  A childlike weariness fell upon Evelyn after changing costumes and posing nonstop for hours on end (with no meals to speak of). As her posture became more and more prone and her lashes flickered, Evelyn was like a languid candle, softening, then melting as she sank into unconsciousness. White himself fairly glowed with delight at the effect the impromptu scene produced. Having exclaimed finally that she could work no more, Evelyn, enveloped in her silk kimono, drifted asleep on the huge polar bear rug. In one of those rare serendipitous moments, Eickemeyer saw the opportunity for a unique and bewitching picture. He photographed the sleeping girl, and captured an impression that would, like the red velvet swing, become an indelible image connected to Evelyn as the “little butterfly.”

  The next day or so, when White stopped by his offices with Evelyn tagging by his side, he mentioned to his partner Charles McKim that “this little girl’s mother has gone out of town and left her in my care.”

  “My God,” was McKim’s only comment.

  The following day, White dropped his mask of paternal benevolence.

  Infamous Eickemeyer photo of Evelyn as the "little butterfly,” 1901.

  Modeling pose, circa 1903.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Through the Looking Glass

  Not even for the purpose of pleasing those who demand, according to the rules of melodrama, a more bitter and more prejudiced view, can I represent him other than he was. His failing we know—it was his one failing.

  —Evelyn Nesbit, 1914

  If I write this . . . a little cold-bloodedly, I must do that or I should not write at all. I must tell all that is to be told, because around this night circled the tragedy which dragged me into the fierce light of publicity and of criticism. . . . It is more satisfactory for me to get outside myself and regard the big incident in my life from the outsider’s point of view without fear, favor, or prejudice.

  —Evelyn Nesbit, 1934

  A night (or two) after her marathon photo session, Evelyn received a note from Stanny inviting her to one of his by now familiar fêtes. During the murder trial, much would be made by the district attorney of Evelyn’s inability to remember exact dates or days for the events that transpired after her mother’s departure. As she would tell the court, aside from the fact that the events had happened five years earlier, until that unfortunate night, there was no reason for her to single out any particular day or evening as different from her regular routine. As she would testify, “No day or night from that period was particularly memorable in any significant way.” For nearly three years she had posed countless times before, just as she had been a guest at numerous parties that White had thrown.

  Around nine o’clock, Stanny’s “little bon-bon” found herself in
a cab sent for by him and directed to his apartment at Twenty-fourth Street. As she toyed with a pink silk bow on her sleeve, unconcerned about everything except what she would eat and who she might meet (since Caruso was in town), Evelyn wondered whom her mother might be socializing with back in Pittsburgh, and giggled, realizing that she was most likely already in bed.

  Hungry and happy to be out and about, Evelyn whetted her appetite by thinking of the treats Stanny would probably have especially for her— chocolate-covered cherry cordials and bonbons (which he said were “almost as sweet” as Evelyn), imported four-berry preserves, sharp cheeses, pickled onions, the ubiquitous oysters, and lemon custard “for afters.” She also looked forward to spending time in the sumptuous surroundings of the studio, with its hypnotic lights, thick Persian carpets, plush divans, and never-ending parade of diverting people who consistently expressed their own wonder at White’s effortless brilliance in adding matchless and unbelievably rare objects to his collection with such frequency.

  When asked to remember how she felt at the start of the evening (again more than five years later), Evelyn could only reply that she felt an overwhelming “sense of security and well-being,” even though her mother was out of town and she was alone in New York, “since she was under the guardianship of Mr. White . . . with her mother’s consent.” As she would eventually realize, she was “utterly and entirely at his mercy.” She described it in her memoir: “He dominated me by his kindness and by his authority. He abused the sacred trust which had been put into his hands. Nothing else matters.”

  Unlike her first entrance into the rooms at Twenty-fourth Street a little more than two months earlier, Evelyn entered without hesitation and with “something of a proprietary air,” since she had come to regard “her benefactor” as “bound to [her] by some vague relationship.” To her surprise and disappointment, however, even though the table was laid for a party, only White was there waiting. She looked around and asked where everybody was, thinking perhaps he had planned some sort of surprise. But a smiling Stanny was all apologies.

  “Isn’t it too bad,” he said, holding out his hands to her, “that all the others invited have turned us down?”

  A frowning Evelyn dropped into a large chenille chair, which was so big her feet didn’t touch the carpet. She picked at the arm of the chair, as if annoyed. White noticed her immediate mood shift and asked her what she was bothered about. Evelyn replied that she was upset, thinking there would be no party now. She squinted her eyes petulantly and peered distractedly around the empty room.

  “Nonsense,” White answered, “we will have our own party.” He pulled a chair next to his at the dining table, patted the seat, and said that they could have just as much fun without other guests—a tea party in the woods with only Alice and her Mad Hatter. And no tea. Evelyn flopped down, sitting with one leg beneath her in a way her mother would have frowned upon as being “unladylike,” and characteristically shrugged her approval. She then began to fill her plate.

  Throughout the meal the charismatic clubman did most of the talking, and since his brilliance always carried over into his conversations, she remembered, “I was not bored.” He talked of meeting Thomas Edison recently and said that he would arrange for another party and invite him so that Evelyn could meet a real wizard. He produced a brightly painted cast-iron mechanical bank purchased especially for her in London and placed it in front of her on the table. It was William Tell and his son. White put a penny in the father’s gun and told Evelyn to push a small lever. When she did, the penny shot into the apple on the son’s head. Evelyn clapped with glee and asked him for some more pennies. She also asked for a glass of champagne, which he poured into a crystal flute. When she tried to sneak another a short time later, to her added delight, Stanny didn’t seem to mind.

  The jovial host then left Evelyn alone briefly. (This was not so strange to anyone who knew the architect, since he was always darting in and out of rooms, taking and making phone calls, wheeling and dealing his way across different time zones and continents at once.) She walked over to the piano and struck the first few notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. When he came back, she began to get ready to go home, grabbing the sleek red moleskin cape that White had given her.

  “You’re not going?” he said as he took the cape from her shoulders.

  “Stay,” he pleaded, “there’s a lot in this house you have never seen and it will amuse you.”

  He gave her yet another flute of champagne and talked about artifacts he had bartered for or bought in order to furnish his and other homes of distinction. He described with glowing self-satisfaction particular items that he had purloined from China, Florence, Japan, and even more remote places around the globe.

  “I have another room upstairs you have not seen,” he said, piquing her natural curiosity. With that, he steered her up a tiny flight of stairs, which indeed she had never noticed before. Promising her “something special,” White ushered her into a small back studio. Around the room were costly medieval tapestries, expensive paintings in equally expensive frames (most of which he had designed), as well as a smaller collection of antiques displayed prominently and lit dramatically from beneath. But most amazing of all to Evelyn was that the walls and ceiling [were] covered with mirrors, the floor with imitation glass. The mirrors . . . were so cleverly set together that they gave the appearance of being a solid sheet of mirror-covering. Here again, indirect lighting cast a soft glow over everything. At one side stood a large, moss-green velvet-covered couch, immense in so small a room. The multiple mirrors created an extraordinary effect; you saw yourself repeated in endless vistas.

  It was a narcissist’s dream. The novelty and unreality of the sight held Evelyn spellbound. She sat on the couch and had another glass of champagne, which Stanny offered. She was thrilled by the sight of her reflection at every turn and laughing because the bubbles tickled her nose—and because her benefactor seemed to have thrown caution to the wind with regard to the usual single glass of anything alcoholic. White looked at her expression and “smiled, as one who is pleased at a compliment.” He reiterated the fact that he had ranged the world to furnish this sanctuary, as if trying to impress the little girl who had yet to graduate from the ninth grade.

  Like a conjurer building to his best trick, White then pushed open some tapestry hangings in a doorway and revealed with a flourish a still smaller apartment off the so-called studio. It was “a little bedroom, all hung in chintz” and dyed the darkest purple of midnight. A small solitary table stood next to a four-poster canopied bed, which overwhelmed the ten-foot-square room. The curtains around the bed drew apart or together with the pull of a golden silken cord. The headboard, as well as the dome of the canopy and the wall next to the bed, were three solid beveled mirrors. Hidden all around the top of the bed were tiny electric bulbs, “and within easy reach a series of buttons regulating the lighting effects. By pushing the button an amber glow was cast about the inverted mirror overhead. Another push produced a rose coloring, and yet another a soft blue.” She remembers that “with the room in darkness and only the bed lights working, the effect it produced was like the Fata Morgana. It also reminded her of “fairy-book descriptions of nymphs’ palaces under the sea.”

  On the table was another bottle of champagne and a single glass. Evelyn laughed to herself. The only thing missing, she thought, was the white rabbit and a sign that read “drink me.” Over the mantelpiece hung a provocative painting of a nude woman done by Robert Reid, a well-known muralist, and draperies the color of pinot noir hung from ceiling to floor in regal folds. Being less articulate than White perhaps would have liked, when he asked her what she thought, she simply commented how “pretty it all was” and then drifted back into the studio with the sensation she was floating. She played the piano for a little while, feeling slightly warm in the pit of her stomach, flushed in her cheeks, and somewhat “fraying around the edges.”

  Appealing to her love of “dressing up,” White the
n produced from behind his back a “ravishing yellow satin Japanese kimono embroidered in festoons of deep purple wisteria.” He drew her by the hand back into the bedroom, where a light-headed Evelyn stood again, as if mesmerized in front of the painting over the mantel. Her reverie was interrupted with the pop of the champagne cork, and she jumped at the noise. White laughed and took the only glass from the table, filled it, and offered it to her.

  “Drink this,” he said.

  She did, and as she would testify during one trial, it seemed that “the wine tasted unusually bitter.”

  “I don’t much care for this,” she said, screwing up her face. White, however, encouraged her in a playful way to “drink it up” and warned her teasingly that such a sour face might stay that way permanently. So, minding what her mother had told her before she left about obeying Mr. White, Evelyn did. By the third or fourth sip, although it still tasted bad, she was reminded of something Stanny had told her numerous times about developing an educated palate.

  Stanny began talking to his little bonbon “easily and naturally,” commenting again on the room, and “there was nothing in his voice or in what he said that might suggest anything out of the ordinary.”

  Then, as she described it in 1914, Evelyn suddenly experienced “a curious sensation”: There began a buzzing and a drumming, a persistent thump—thump— thumping in my ears. I felt dizzy and sick, and the objects in the room became blurred and indistinct. The sound of his voice came to me [as if he were] speaking from a great distance—then all went black.