by Pat Shipman
The next day he returned for an additional interview. He asked about the failure of her marriage to Rudolf. Again, Priem recorded their dialogue.
“Look,” she began, “I shouldn’t have married. I was not the kind of girl to marry.”
“Many say that. Regret comes after sin.”
“Exactly! From the time that I was a child I loved men: a strongly built male brought me to a state of ecstasy. I say this sans gêne [without pretense], because a journalist appears to me as a kind of doctor, to whom I could say calmly: so many centimeters above my knee I feel this or that…” We both smiled. [Priem thought]: What an everlasting lovely type! “Thus, I loved, as I said before, robust men….” She smiled again when she looked at me. [Priem wondered:] Why am I such a small poor creature?
She spoke to him frankly of her early marriage, their money problems, the conflicts with Tante Frida—and took a large part of the blame upon herself, a trait Priem found endearing. She admitted to her infidelities and Rudolf’s jealousy as well. “Now I understand fully, that I was in the past not the person that I should have been; a man who marries a woman has the right to expect from that woman what has already been dictated by the law, in the first place: faithfulness. And in every respect I have not been faithful; this knowledge made him—yet naturally quick-tempered—a furious bull. Blame him, if you can!”
For Zelle’s book she had little enthusiasm. She suggested her father and stepmother wrote it together, and complained,
This beautiful “novel” is no compliment. With all their good intentions—I am even willing to overlook the financial motive for a moment—they didn’t do me a service. They spoilt my whole image; the artistic side [of me] is completely absent. They made a tearful wifey out of me, one that gnashes her teeth, that scolds, that scratches, like a woman from a back street who works with her pins. I am not like that, truly not, I am not like that. I have a tally [of lovers] and there is almost no room for [another] notch, but I am not ashamed of that, I confess this frankly. A woman like me, as I am, is quite unmanageable within a marriage; it may work for a moment, in the long run this calm life of little household duties, kitchen-glittering and living-room-glory is boring.
Priem also quizzed her about her career and her current life, and she replied candidly: “Certainly, this life suits me. I can satisfy all my caprices; to-night I dine with Count A and tomorrow with Duke B. If I don’t have to dance, I make a trip with Marquis C. I avoid serious liaisons.”
Priem’s final conclusion about the guilt and responsibility for the breakdown of the MacLeod marriage is surprisingly favorable to Mata Hari, considering that his initial motivation was to counter Zelle’s book.
I will absolutely not claim, that Mr. M[ac] L[eod] is a little saint, where two quarrel both are guilty, but I am convinced that the guilt of Mr. M——L——is out of all proportion [in Zelle’s book] compared with that of his ex-wife and therefore I consider it very low to try to…portray him as a monster, when really he did nothing else than that what thousands of men would have done in such circumstances….
I asked Mr. ML if he wanted to [respond to Zelle’s charges] himself, his answer to me was: “No! I consider the whole caboodle that agitates against me not worth an answer!”
I grant that he is completely right.
Priem closes with these majesterial words: “My only intention is: to stigmatize the novel of Mata Hari as a dirty, dissolute disgraceful lampoon.”
He damned the novel, not the woman.
10
Living Like a Butterfly in the Sun
MATA HARI WAS DECLARED “a Star of Dance” in 1908. Such recognition was pleasing, but it was another thing altogether to sustain her success and keep drawing the audiences, especially since “Oriental dancers” in flimsy costumes were suddenly all too common on the music-hall stages of Europe. Mata Hari was over thirty, and everyone who was anyone had already seen her dance at least once.
She needed to offer something new. In 1907 she had taken a break from performing to travel to Egypt after her lover Alfred Kiepert returned to his wife. According to journalist René Puaux, he discovered her among the passengers on the S.S. Schleswig sailing to Khartoum, to his surprise. It is almost beyond belief that his meeting the famous dancer on the ship was an accident; the encounter was far more likely to have been stage-managed by Mata Hari, who knew full well that she needed to stay in the public eye especially if she was not performing. Besides, she needed to promote her career; she had lost her lover and a major part of her income, despite his generous settlement. Puaux’s article read in part:
Saturday—Just today, on leaving Naples, did we get a chance to see the full list of passengers. But at Marseille certain Parisians on board had recognized a celebrity: Mata Hari, the famous Hindu dancer, the exponent of the sacred dances of the East. She is going to Egypt for the purpose of discovering new [dances]…. She has renounced Siva and her cult. She has become Berlinoise and speaks German with an accent that is as un-Oriental as possible.
She had told Puaux that she was also renouncing her stage career, but gave her reason for going on the trip as looking for new techniques or new dances. The contradiction did not bother Mata Hari, and in his thoroughly charmed state, Puaux was apparently not bothered by it either. The trip itself was extremely brief, much too short a time to see or learn Egyptian dances in any but the most cursory sense. Mata Hari was traveling because she liked it, because she wanted to, because she needed to figure out how to continue to live in the style to which she was by then thoroughly accustomed.
She had only two alternative means of supporting herself, and she preferred to use them simultaneously: men and dance. She also preferred that each pay handsomely.
By the end of March 1907 Mata Hari was back in Paris writing to her agent, Gabriel Astruc, that she wanted to dance the part of Salome in Richard Strauss’s soon-to-be-produced opera of the same name. She campaigned vigorously for the role, writing to Strauss as well and suggesting he contact her paramour Massenet who would vouch for her talents. Part of her longing for the role was undoubtedly its firm association with her rival Maud Allan, who had danced Salome in the scandalous production by Oscar Wilde; doubtless Mata Hari wished to prove she could dance a more emotionally compelling Salome than Maud Allan. She never succeeded in landing the role.
While she lived in a first-class hotel (this time the Hotel Meurice), Mata Hari was telling tales to the press about her “two years” spent traveling in India and Egypt, and promoting her upcoming performance with three new dances. She previewed the dances at some elite, private parties, including a benefit performance at the Trocadéro. She soon found another rich lover: well-to-do, handsome, and married stockbroker Xavier Rousseau. During most of 1908 and 1909 she appeared rarely, dancing several benefits, and attending horse races (and being eagerly photographed) at the track. Rousseau first installed her in a hotel and then rented a country château in Esvres, near Tours, where she lived until late 1911 as Madame Rousseau. He even told his business partners he had remarried, which must have infuriated his wife. Rousseau visited Mata Hari there on weekends and provided four fine horses for her to ride, a coach, luxurious furniture, and a staff, which, in addition to her faithful Dutch maid, Anna Lintjens, included another maid, Pauline Bessey, a groom, a coachman, a cook, and a gardener. Pauline found “Madame” to be “a beautiful woman” who was “very nice” and got along very well with Rousseau: “There was never any quarrel, and they used to go riding together a lot.”
Neither Rousseau’s wife nor his mother was able to persuade him to give Mata Hari up. His mother paid a lengthy visit to the château, but somehow Mata Hari managed to charm even this formidable lady. According to Pauline, “she did not have a chance [of convincing him to return to his wife]. The moment she saw Mata Hari she began to feel very friendly toward her, and remained with us for six months off and on. When she left, Mata Hari stayed on.”
In January 1910 Mata Hari danced the role of Cleopatra in Mont
e Carlo in the opera Antar. When the opera moved to the Odéon in Paris, she was again contracted to dance for the full fifteen performances at 200 francs a performance (for a total of about $115,000 in modern currency). But the director, André Antoine, found she was putting on weight and was difficult during rehearsals; among other problems, she refused to practice in front of the mistress of ballet at the Paris Comic Opera. Mata Hari claimed it was to protect herself from having her “interpretation” of the dance stolen; others suspected she might be afraid to have her dancing judged by such a professional. Antoine fired her and she sued for breach of contract, winning her case two years later.
In 1911, she and Rousseau moved to a charming Normandy-style mansion at 11 rue Windsor, Neuilly-sur-Seine, bringing the horses and carriages from Esvres. Mata Hari was sometimes seen riding in the Bois de Boulogne in the mornings, in a stylish riding habit. One magazine gushed, “Those who see her pass by daily on one of her magnificent horses, and who are impressed by the grace, nobleness and beauty of this aristocratic cavalière, would certainly not imagine that this admirable amazon is none but Mata Hari, the holy dancer!”
All seemed well, but trouble was brewing. Rousseau was nearly bankrupt. The annual rent on the house in Neuilly was a hefty sum, 5,500 francs (almost $22,000 today), and the lavish furniture was apparently never paid for. Eventually a bill for the furniture came to his wife, who had no intention whatsoever of paying for her husband’s mistress’s furniture. She characterized her husband as “a skirt-chaser and very good-looking.” Unfortunately, he had not such a good head for business and his bad investments swallowed up Mata Hari’s parting gift from Kiepert as well as the money of many of his clients. His business went bankrupt. “When at long last he came back to me,” his wife claimed bitterly, “he was ruined.” Of course, his wife blamed Mata Hari for his financial ruin, and when she later came under suspicion of espionage, the accusation that Rousseau had been Mata Hari’s “victim” resurfaced.
Mata Hari’s version of the affair was more pragmatic: “My lover squandered my private fortune losing up to 200,000 marks. I separated from him, sold everything, and resumed my life in the theater in 1912.”
Late in 1911, Mata Hari’s confidence was restored by a two-month engagement at La Scala in Milan, dancing “The Princess and the Magic Flower” in Gluck’s opera Armide. She danced again at La Scala, early in 1912, as Venus in Marenco’s ballet Bacco e Gambrinus. Reporters and critics were enthusiastic, one proclaiming, “The part of Venus will suit her magnificently.” And it did, though a few critics were taken aback by the difference between her style of dancing and traditional ballet. The conductor, Tullio Serafin, considered Mata Hari “an adorable creature,” who was “very cultured…with an innate artistic disposition, who gave the impression of being a simple member of the aristocracy.” She earned 3,000 francs (almost $12,000 in today’s dollars) monthly and restored her fame as a premier dancer, albeit, as ever, an original one.
Unable to win the role she longed for, Salome, Mata Hari undertook to dance Salome at a private performance for the Prince di San Faustino, using Strauss’s music and basing her role on Oscar Wilde’s Salomé. The prince was so moved by her performance—and probably by her person—that he had a portrait painted of her as Salome, nearly nude, gloating seductively over the head of John the Baptist. But when she returned to Paris in February, Rousseau was bankrupt and had left her, and she was again in need of money to refurbish her wardrobe and finance her luxurious lifestyle. She needed either bookings or a rich patron to keep her. She wrote an extraordinary letter to her agent, Astruc:
I wonder whether you know anyone who would be interested in the protection of artists, like a capitalist who would like to make an investment? I find myself in rather difficult circumstances and need immediately about 30,000 francs [about $116,000 today] to pull me out of this unpleasant situation, and to give me the tranquillity of mind which is so necessary to my art. It would really be a pity to cut such a future short. As a guarantee for this loan I offer everything I have in my home, including horses and carriages.
She promised that the money would be paid back out of her theatrical fees within a few years. It was a ridiculous scheme that came too close to asking Astruc to act as her pimp to be proper—but Mata Hari was never much concerned with other people’s ideas of morality. She was a woman who lived as she liked and took whatever lovers she liked. As she had said to Priem six years earlier, she wanted to live like a butterfly in the sun, and so she did.
Mata Hari pasted this photo of herself as Venus in the opera Baccho e Gambrinus in her scrapbook. Conductor Tullio Serafin pronounced her “una creatura adorabile”—an adorable creature. (The Mata Hari Foundation/Fries Museum)
There is no documentary evidence that Astruc found a benefactor for Mata Hari, but neither did she appear to be short of cash. She was still photographed, exquisitely and fashionably dressed, at the most important horse races in Paris or riding one of her horses in the Bois de Boulogne, which was also a way to meet wealthy men. She made a brief trip to Monte Carlo to meet with Diaghilev about possibly performing with his Ballets Russes; the trip was fruitless because Léon Bakst, the sensational costume designer for the troupe, found her figure a bit too matronly when he examined her nude.
Hurt and in need of reassurance, Mata Hari decided to reclaim her daughter, Non. She tried in vain to see Non or to get the Dutch government to restore custody of the child to her. Her action may have been provoked by the fact that Rudolf had separated from his second wife, Elisabetha van der Mast, after five years of marriage, so Non had no mother substitute. Mata Hari even sent her maidservant Anna to try to kidnap Non as she left school one day, but Rudolf was there to meet his daughter and dismissed Anna with a curt word or two. After that, Mata Hari apparently gave up the idea of resuming her motherly role for a while. Her career resumed its importance in her life. She wrote to her former lover Jules Cambon, by then France’s ambassador in Berlin, to ask if he could help her obtain a booking to dance at the Berlin Opera; he promised to try but nothing resulted.
Determined to keep herself in the spotlight, Mata Hari gave garden parties for various influential friends, sometimes with press photographers in attendance. She was accompanied by Inayat Khan’s Indian orchestra, playing traditional instruments. Inayat Khan, a highly respected musician in the Indian tradition, was engaged in a tour to bring Indian music to the Western world, so the pairing with Mata Hari—self-proclaimed as the one who brought Oriental dance to the Western world—seemed natural. Photographs of one such event were published in a British society magazine in 1913. The title was “Lady MacLeod Dances in the Light of the Moon to Her Friends,” and it was an effective piece of advertising, reminding readers of her supposed aristocracy, her use of transparent veils and skimpy costumes, and her ability to adopt striking poses, fluidly shifting from one to another.
Mata Hari danced in the garden of her house at Neuilly-sur-Seine and at the Université des Annales in Paris, accompanied by an Indian orchestra led by Sufi holy man and master musician Inayat Khan. (The Mata Hari Museum/Fries Museum)
These parties, at which she acted as hostess and entertainment, were probably part of her many schemes to earn money. In May of 1917, when Mata Hari was under investigation for espionage, Henri Liévin, a stockbroker, testified about the garden parties at Neuilly:
At a time that I cannot pin down precisely, but before the war, I had some vague connections with Mata Hari and I saw her at the theater sometimes. She lived then in a small mansion at Neuilly, and when she found herself short of money, she rented it for soirées and dinners. When I say she rented it out, the expression is not quite right. In reality, she gave parties at which certain friends (of the Bank of Paris, notably) and I paid the expenses.
At one of these parties, Mata Hari danced with some Brahmin [musicians] with whom she made tours.
On December 14, Mata Hari and Inayat Khan performed before an audience at the Université des Annales in Paris, t
o illustrate a lecture by music critic Paul Olivier. Olivier referred to Mata Hari as a lady of noble birth born along the Ganges and as a bayadère—a female Javanese court dancer—thus implying his acceptance of the authenticity of her work and life story. Shortly before the performance was to begin, the director of the university, Madame Brisson-Sarcey, decided that Mata Hari’s costume might be altogether too revealing for the more staid members of the audience, especially if she dropped her veils as she usually did. She insisted on draping Mata Hari’s lower abdomen and genitals with the only thing on hand—a piece of red flannel—which must have given a bizarre touch to her costume. Olivier, like so many men, was completely captivated by Mata Hari, and wrote her afterward that she
was an unforgettably radiant and living centerpiece of this all too short festival, a festival of exquisite and unique art, which to all of us, and in particular to your lecturer, will remain a scintillating souvenir….
I put at your feet, Madam, my most fervent and grateful homage, and beg of you to consider me sufficiently worthy to accept the certitude of my profound and absolute devotion.
Whether Mata Hari and Olivier became lovers before or after the performance is not recorded, but the love-struck tone of his letter is unmistakable. Olivier was neither the first nor the last man to be enraptured after brief acquaintance with Mata Hari. She was very good at charming men.
The year 1913 saw Mata Hari desperate enough to dance for relatively low pay at private parties and in musical comedy in Paris. She also played to sold-out audiences at the Folies Bergère, where she performed a Spanish piece based on a Goya painting, and in a much lower-class theater in Palermo in Sicily, on a music-hall-type program that included a trained-dog act. She earned lavish praise for some performances and more criticisms and catty remarks for others. She must have been frantic for money. It was during this period that it was reported again that she sometimes went to maisons de rendez-vous—houses one step above brothels—with men. Curbing her expenditures or extravagant lifestyle was not, in her mind, a viable option. She returned to Paris and was interviewed and photographed for a highly flattering article in the acclaimed fashion magazine Vogue. The magazine printed additional photos of her dancing in her garden at Neuilly that must have been taken at one of her parties.