She must, indeed, have had an
extraordinary
power even at the age
of fourteen, since not merely her voice but her whole appearance was
against her.
of fourteen, since not merely her voice but her whole appearance was
against her.
Orr - Famous Affinities of History, Romacen of Devotion
With the most thorough erudition, with
the widest learning, with the greatest penetration that I have ever
known, and with the richest gift of exposition, he combines an energy of
will and a capacity for action which astonish me. In no one have I found
united so much enthusiasm and practical intelligence.
No better proof of Lassalle's enthusiasm can be found than a few lines
from his own writings:
I love Heine. He is my second self. What audacity! What overpowering
eloquence! He knows how to whisper like a zephyr when it kisses
rose-blooms, how to breathe like fire when it rages and destroys; he
calls forth all that is tenderest and softest, and then all that is
fiercest and most daring. He has the sweep of the whole lyre!
Lassalle's sympathy with Heine was like his sympathy with every one
whom he knew. This was often misunderstood. It was misunderstood in his
relations with women, and especially in the celebrated affair of the
Countess von Hatzfeldt, which began in the year 1846--that is to say, in
the twenty-first year of Lassalle's age.
In truth, there was no real scandal in the matter, for the countess was
twice the age of Lassalle. It was precisely because he was so young that
he let his eagerness to defend a woman in distress make him forget
the ordinary usage of society, and expose himself to mean and unworthy
criticism which lasted all his life. It began by his introduction to
the Countess von Hatzfeldt, a lady who was grossly ill-treated by her
husband. She had suffered insult and imprisonment in the family castles;
the count had deprived her of medicine when she was ill, and had
forcibly taken away her children. Besides this, he was infatuated
with another woman, a baroness, and wasted his substance upon her even
contrary to the law which protected his children's rights.
The countess had a son named Paul, of whom Lassalle was extremely fond.
There came to the boy a letter from the Count von Hatzfeldt ordering him
to leave his mother. The countess at once sent for Lassalle, who brought
with him two wealthy and influential friends--one of them a judge of a
high Prussian court--and together they read the letter which Paul had
just received. They were deeply moved by the despair of the countess,
and by the cruelty of her dissolute husband in seeking to separate the
mother from her son.
In his chivalrous ardor Lassalle swore to help the countess, and
promised that he would carry on the struggle with her husband to the
bitter end. He took his two friends with him to Berlin, and then to
Dusseldorf, for they discovered that the Count von Hatzfeldt was not far
away. He was, in fact, at Aix-la-Chapelle with the baroness.
Lassalle, who had the scent of a greyhound, pried about until he
discovered that the count had given his mistress a legal document,
assigning to her a valuable piece of property which, in the ordinary
course of law, should be entailed on the boy, Paul. The countess at
once hastened to the place, broke into her husband's room, and secured a
promise that the deed would be destroyed.
No sooner, however, had she left him than he returned to the baroness,
and presently it was learned that the woman had set out for Cologne.
Lassalle and his two friends followed, to ascertain whether the document
had really been destroyed. The three reached a hotel at Cologne, where
the baroness had just arrived. Her luggage, in fact, was being carried
upstairs. One of Lassalle's friends opened a trunk, and, finding a
casket there, slipped it out to his companion, the judge.
Unfortunately, the latter had no means of hiding it, and when the
baroness's servant shouted for help, the casket was found in the
possession of the judge, who could give no plausible account of it. He
was, therefore, arrested, as were the other two. There was no evidence
against Lassalle; but his friends fared badly at the trial, one of them
being imprisoned for a year and the other for five years.
From this time Lassalle, with an almost quixotic devotion, gave himself
up to fighting the Countess von Hatzfeldt's battle against her husband
in the law-courts. The ablest advocates were pitted against him. The
most eloquent legal orators thundered at him and at his client, but he
met them all with a skill, an audacity, and a brilliant wit that won for
him verdict after verdict. The case went from the lower to the higher
tribunals, until, after nine years, it reached the last court of appeal,
where Lassalle wrested from his opponents a magnificently conclusive
victory--one that made the children of the countess absolutely safe.
It was a battle fought with the determination of a soldier, with the
gallantry of a knight errant, and the intellectual acumen of a learned
lawyer.
It is not surprising that many refuse to believe that Lassalle's feeling
toward the Countess von Hatzfeldt was a disinterested one. A scandalous
pamphlet, which was published in French, German, and Russian, and
written by one who styled herself "Sophie Solutzeff," did much to spread
the evil report concerning Lassalle. But the very openness and frankness
of the service which he did for the countess ought to make it clear that
his was the devotion of a youth drawn by an impulse into a strife where
there was nothing for him to gain, but everything to lose. He denounced
the brutality of her husband, but her letters to him always addressed
him as "my dear child. " In writing to her he confides small love-secrets
and ephemeral flirtations--which he would scarcely have done, had the
countess viewed him with the eye of passion.
Lassalle was undoubtedly a man of impressionable heart, and had many
affairs such as Heine had; but they were not deep or lasting. That he
should have made a favorable impression on the women whom he met is
not surprising, because of his social standing, his chivalry, his
fine manners, and his handsome face. Mr. Clement Shorter has quoted an
official document which describes him as he was in his earlier years:
Ferdinand Lassalle, aged twenty-three, a civilian born at Breslau and
dwelling recently at Berlin. He stands five feet six inches in height,
has brown, curly hair, open forehead, brown eyebrows, dark blue eyes,
well proportioned nose and mouth, and rounded chin.
We ought not to be surprised, then, if he was a favorite in
drawing-rooms; if both men and women admired him; if Alexander von
Humboldt cried out with enthusiasm that he was a wunderkind, and if
there were more than Sophie Solutzeff to be jealous. But the rather
ungrateful remark of the Countess von Hatzfeldt certainly does not
represent him as he really was.
"You are without reason and judgment where women are concerned," she
snarled at him; but the sneer only shows that the woman who uttered it
was neither in love with him nor grateful to him.
In this paper we are not discussing Lassalle as a public agitator or
as a Socialist, but simply in his relations with the two women who most
seriously affected his life. The first was the Countess von Hatzfeldt,
who, as we have seen, occupied--or rather wasted--nine of the best years
of his life. Then came that profound and thrilling passion which ended
the career of a man who at thirty-nine had only just begun to be famous.
Lassalle had joined his intellectual forces with those of Heine and
Marx. He had obtained so great an influence over the masses of the
people as to alarm many a monarch, and at the same time to attract many
a statesman. Prince Bismarck, for example, cared nothing for Lassalle's
championship of popular rights, but sought his aid on finding that he
was an earnest advocate of German unity.
Furthermore, he was very far from resembling what in those early days
was regarded as the typical picture of a Socialist. There was nothing
frowzy about him; in his appearance he was elegance itself; his manners
were those of a prince, and his clothing was of the best. Seeing him in
a drawing-room, no one would mistake him for anything but a gentleman
and a man of parts. Hence it is not surprising that his second love was
one of the nobility, although her own people hated Lassalle as a bearer
of the red flag.
This girl was Helene von Donniges, the daughter of a Bavarian
diplomat. As a child she had traveled much, especially in Italy and in
Switzerland. She was very precocious, and lived her own life without
asking the direction of any one. At twelve years of age she had been
betrothed to an Italian of forty; but this dark and pedantic person
always displeased her, and soon afterward, when she met a young
Wallachian nobleman, one Yanko Racowitza, she was ready at once to
dismiss her Italian lover. Racowitza--young, a student, far from home,
and lacking friends--appealed at once to the girl's sympathy.
At that very time, in Berlin, where Helene was visiting her grandmother,
she was asked by a Prussian baron:
"Do you know Ferdinand Lassalle? "
The question came to her with a peculiar shock. She had never heard the
name, and yet the sound of it gave her a strange emotion. Baron Korff,
who perhaps took liberties because she was so young, went on to say:
"My dear lady, have you really never seen Lassalle? Why, you and he were
meant for each other! "
She felt ashamed to ask about him, but shortly after a gentleman who
knew her said:
"It is evident that you have a surprising degree of intellectual kinship
with Ferdinand Lassalle. "
This so excited her curiosity that she asked her grandmother:
"Who is this person of whom they talk so much--this Ferdinand Lassalle? "
"Do not speak of him," replied her grandmother. "He is a shameless
demagogue! "
A little questioning brought to Helene all sorts of stories about
Lassalle--the Countess von Hatzfeldt, the stolen casket, the mysterious
pamphlet, the long battle in the courts--all of which excited her still
more. A friend offered to introduce her to the "shameless demagogue. "
This introduction happened at a party, and it must have been an
extraordinary meeting. Seldom, it seemed, was there a better instance
of love at first sight, or of the true affinity of which Baron Korff
had spoken. In the midst of the public gathering they almost rushed into
each other's arms; they talked the free talk of acknowledged lovers; and
when she left, he called her love-names as he offered her his arm.
"Somehow it did not appear at all remarkable," she afterward declared.
"We seemed to be perfectly fitted to each other. "
Nevertheless, nine months passed before they met again at a soiree. At
this time Lassaller gazing upon her, said:
"What would you do if I were sentenced to death? "
"I should wait until your head was severed," was her answer, "in order
that you might look upon your beloved to the last, and then--I should
take poison! "
Her answer delighted him, but he said that there was no danger. He
was greeted on every hand with great consideration; and it seemed not
unlikely that, in recognition of his influence with the people, he might
rise to some high position. The King of Prussia sympathized with him.
Heine called him the Messiah of the nineteenth century. When he passed
from city to city, the whole population turned out to do him honor.
Houses were wreathed; flowers were thrown in masses upon him, while the
streets were spanned with triumphal arches.
Worn out with the work and excitement attending the birth of the
Deutscher Arbeiterverein, or workmen's union, which he founded in 1863,
Lassalle fled for a time to Switzerland for rest. Helene heard of his
whereabouts, and hurried to him, with several friends. They met again
on July 25,1864, and discussed long and intensely the possibilities of
their marriage and the opposition of her parents, who would never permit
her to marry a man who was at once a Socialist and a Jew.
Then comes a pitiful story of the strife between Lassalle and the
Donniges family. Helene's father and mother indulged in vulgar words;
they spoke of Lassalle with contempt; they recalled all the scandals
that had been current ten years before, and forbade Helene ever to
mention the man's name again.
The next scene in the drama took place in Geneva, where the family
of Herr von Donniges had arrived, and where Helene's sister had been
betrothed to Count von Keyserling--a match which filled her mother with
intense joy. Her momentary friendliness tempted Helene to speak of her
unalterable love for Lassalle. Scarcely had the words been spoken when
her father and mother burst into abuse and denounced Lassalle as well as
herself.
She sent word of this to Lassalle, who was in a hotel near by. Scarcely
had he received her letter, when Helene herself appeared upon the scene,
and with all the intensity of which she was possessed, she begged him
to take her wherever he chose. She would go with him to France, to
Italy--to the ends of the earth!
What a situation, and yet how simple a one for a man of spirit! It is
strange to have to record that to Lassalle it seemed most difficult. He
felt that he or she, or both of them, had been compromised. Had she a
lady with her? Did she know any one in the neighborhood?
What an extraordinary answer! If she were compromised, all the more
ought he to have taken her in his arms and married her at once, instead
of quibbling and showing himself a prig.
Presently, her maid came in to tell them that a carriage was ready to
take them to the station, whence a train would start for Paris in a
quarter of an hour. Helene begged him with a feeling that was beginning
to be one of shame. Lassalle repelled her in words that were to stamp
him with a peculiar kind of cowardice.
Why should he have stopped to think of anything except the beautiful
woman who was at his feet, and to whom he had pledged his love? What did
he care for the petty diplomat who was her father, or the vulgar-tongued
woman who was her mother? He should have hurried her and the maid into
the train for Paris, and have forgotten everything in the world but his
Helene, glorious among women, who had left everything for him.
What was the sudden failure, the curious weakness, the paltriness of
spirit that came at the supreme moment into the heart of this hitherto
strong man? Here was the girl whom he loved, driven from her parents,
putting aside all question of appearances, and clinging to him with a
wild and glorious desire to give herself to him and to be all his own!
That was a thing worthy of a true woman. And he? He shrinks from her
and cowers and acts like a simpleton. His courage seems to have dribbled
through his finger-tips; he is no longer a man--he is a thing.
Out of all the multitude of Lassalle's former admirers, there is
scarcely one who has ventured to defend him, much less to laud him; and
when they have done so, their voices have had a sound of mockery that
dies away in their own throats.
Helene, on her side, had compromised herself, and even from the
view-point of her parents it was obvious that she ought to be married
immediately. Her father, however, confined her to her room until it
was understood that Lassalle had left Geneva. Then her family's
supplications, the statement that her sister's marriage and even her
father's position were in danger, led her to say that she would give up
Lassalle.
It mattered very little, in one way, for whatever he might have done,
Lassalle had killed, or at least had chilled, her love. His failure at
the moment of her great self-sacrifice had shown him to her as he really
was--no bold and gallant spirit, but a cringing, spiritless self-seeker.
She wrote him a formal letter to the effect that she had become
reconciled to her "betrothed bridegroom"; and they never met again.
Too late, Lassalle gave himself up to a great regret. He went about
trying to explain his action to his friends, but he could say nothing
that would ease his feeling and reinstate him in the eyes of the
romantic girl. In a frenzy, he sought out the Wallachian student, Yanko
von Racowitza, and challenged him to a mortal duel. He also challenged
Helene's father. Years before, he had on principle declined to fight a
duel; but now he went raving about as if he sought the death of every
one who knew him.
The duel was fought on August 28, 1864. There was some trouble about
pistols, and also about seconds; but finally the combatants left a
small hotel in a village near Geneva, and reached the dueling-grounds.
Lassalle was almost joyous in his manner. His old confidence had come
back to him; he meant to kill his man.
They took their stations high up among the hills. A few spectators saw
their figures outlined against the sky. The command to fire rang out,
and from both pistols gushed the flame and smoke.
A moment later, Lassalle was seen to sway and fall. A chance shot,
glancing from a wall, had struck him to the ground. He suffered
terribly, and nothing but opium in great doses could relieve his pain.
His wound was mortal, and three days later he died.
Long after, Helene admitted that she still loved Lassalle, and believed
that he would win the duel; but after the tragedy, the tenderness and
patience of Racowitza won her heart. She married him, but within a
year he died of consumption. Helene, being disowned by her relations,
prepared herself for the stage. She married a third husband named
Shevitch, who was then living in the United States, but who has since
made his home in Russia.
Let us say nothing of Lassalle's political career. Except for his work
as one of the early leaders of the liberal movement in Germany, it has
perished, and his name has been almost forgotten. As a lover, his story
stands out forever as a warning to the timid and the recreant. Let men
do what they will; but there is just one thing which no man is permitted
to do with safety in the sight of woman--and that is to play the craven.
THE STORY OF RACHEL
Outside of the English-speaking peoples the nineteenth century witnessed
the rise and triumphant progress of three great tragic actresses. The
first two of these--Rachel Felix and Sarah Bernhardt--were of Jewish
extraction; the third, Eleanor Duse, is Italian. All of them made their
way from pauperism to fame; but perhaps the rise of Rachel was the most
striking.
In the winter of 1821 a wretched peddler named Abraham--or Jacob--Felix
sought shelter at a dilapidated inn at Mumpf, a village in Switzerland,
not far from Basel. It was at the close of a stormy day, and his small
family had been toiling through the snow and sleet. The inn was the
lowest sort of hovel, and yet its proprietor felt that it was too good
for these vagabonds. He consented to receive them only when he learned
that the peddler's wife was to be delivered of a child. That very night
she became the mother of a girl, who was at first called Elise. So
unimportant was the advent of this little waif into the world that the
burgomaster of Mumpf thought it necessary to make an entry only of the
fact that a peddler's wife had given birth to a female child. There was
no mention of family or religion, nor was the record anything more than
a memorandum.
Under such circumstances was born a child who was destined to excite the
wonder of European courts--to startle and thrill and utterly amaze great
audiences by her dramatic genius. But for ten years the family--which
grew until it consisted of one son and five daughters--kept on its
wanderings through Switzerland and Germany. Finally, they settled
down in Lyons, where the mother opened a little shop for the sale of
second-hand clothing. The husband gave lessons in German whenever he
could find a pupil. The eldest daughter went about the cafes in the
evening, singing the songs that were then popular, while her small
sister, Rachel, collected coppers from those who had coppers to spare.
Although the family was barely able to sustain existence, the father and
mother were by no means as ignorant as their squalor would imply. The
peddler Felix had studied Hebrew theology in the hope of becoming a
rabbi. Failing this, he was always much interested in declamation,
public reading, and the recitation of poetry. He was, in his way, no
mean critic of actors and actresses. Long before she was ten years of
age little Rachel--who had changed her name from Elise--could render
with much feeling and neatness of eloquence bits from the best-known
French plays of the classic stage.
The children's mother, on her side, was sharp and practical to a high
degree. She saved and scrimped all through her period of adversity.
Later she was the banker of her family, and would never lend any of her
children a sou except on excellent security. However, this was all to
happen in after years.
When the child who was destined to be famous had reached her tenth
year she and her sisters made their way to Paris. For four years the
second-hand clothing-shop was continued; the father still taught German;
and the elder sister, Sarah, who had a golden voice, made the rounds of
the cafes in the lowest quarters of the capital, while Rachel passed the
wooden plate for coppers.
One evening in the year 1834 a gentleman named Morin, having been taken
out of his usual course by a matter of business, entered a BRASSERIE
for a cup of coffee. There he noted two girls, one of them singing with
remarkable sweetness, and the other silently following with the wooden
plate. M. Morin called to him the girl who sang and asked her why she
did not make her voice more profitable than by haunting the cafes at
night, where she was sure to meet with insults of the grossest kind.
"Why," said Sarah, "I haven't anybody to advise me what to do. "
M. Morin gave her his address and said that he would arrange to have her
meet a friend who would be of great service to her. On the following
day he sent the two girls to a M. Choron, who was the head of the
Conservatory of Sacred Music. Choron had Sarah sing, and instantly
admitted her as a pupil, which meant that she would soon be enrolled
among the regular choristers. The beauty of her voice made a deep
impression on him.
Then he happened to notice the puny, meager child who was standing near
her sister. Turning to her, he said:
"And what can you do, little one? "
"I can recite poetry," was the reply.
"Oh, can you? " said he. "Please let me hear you. "
Rachel readily consented. She had a peculiarly harsh, grating voice, so
that any but a very competent judge would have turned her away. But M.
Choron, whose experience was great, noted the correctness of her accent
and the feeling which made itself felt in every line. He accepted her as
well as her sister, but urged her to study elocution rather than music.
She must, indeed, have had an extraordinary power even at the age
of fourteen, since not merely her voice but her whole appearance was
against her. She was dressed in a short calico frock of a pattern
in which red was spotted with white. Her shoes were of coarse black
leather. Her hair was parted at the back of her head and hung down her
shoulders in two braids, framing the long, childish, and yet gnome-like
face, which was unusual in its gravity.
At first she was little thought of; but there came a time when she
astonished both her teachers and her companions by a recital which she
gave in public. The part was the narrative of Salema in the "Abufar"
of Ducis. It describes the agony of a mother who gives birth to a child
while dying of thirst amid the desert sands. Mme. de Barviera has left a
description of this recital, which it is worth while to quote:
While uttering the thrilling tale the thin face seemed to lengthen with
horror, the small, deep-set black eyes dilated with a fixed stare as
though she witnessed the harrowing scene; and the deep, guttural tones,
despite a slight Jewish accent, awoke a nameless terror in every one who
listened, carrying him through the imaginary woe with a strange feeling
of reality, not to be shaken, off as long as the sounds lasted.
Even yet, however, the time had not come for any conspicuous success.
The girl was still so puny in form, so monkey-like in face, and so
gratingly unpleasant in her tones that it needed time for her to attain
her full growth and to smooth away some of the discords in her peculiar
voice.
Three years later she appeared at the Gymnase in a regular debut; yet
even then only the experienced few appreciated her greatness. Among
these, however, were the well-known critic Jules Janin, the poet and
novelist Gauthier, and the actress Mlle. Mars. They saw that this lean,
raucous gutter-girl had within her gifts which would increase until she
would be first of all actresses on the French stage. Janin wrote some
lines which explain the secret of her greatness:
All the talent in the world, especially when continually applied to
the same dramatic works, will not satisfy continually the hearer. What
pleases in a great actor, as in all arts that appeal to the imagination,
is the unforeseen. When I am utterly ignorant of what is to happen,
when I do not know, when you yourself do not know what will be your
next gesture, your next look, what passion will possess your heart, what
outcry will burst from your terror-stricken soul, then, indeed, I am
willing to see you daily, for each day you will be new to me. To-day I
may blame, to-morrow praise. Yesterday you were all-powerful; to-morrow,
perhaps, you may hardly win from me a word of admiration. So much the
better, then, if you draw from me unexpected tears, if in my heart you
strike an unknown fiber; but tell me not of hearing night after night
great artists who every time present the exact counterpart of what they
were on the preceding one.
It was at the Theatre Francais that she won her final acceptance as the
greatest of all tragedians of her time. This was in her appearance in
Corneille's famous play of "Horace. " She had now, in 1838, blazed forth
with a power that shook her no, less than it stirred the emotions and
the passions of her hearers. The princes of the royal blood came in
succession to see her. King Louis Philippe himself was at last tempted
by curiosity to be present. Gifts of money and jewels were showered on
her, and through sheer natural genius rather than through artifice she
was able to master a great audience and bend it to her will.
She had no easy life, this girl of eighteen years, for other actresses
carped at her, and she had had but little training. The sordid ways of
her old father excited a bitterness which was vented on the daughter.
She was still under age, and therefore was treated as a gold-mine by her
exacting parents. At the most she could play but twice a week. Her form
was frail and reed-like. She was threatened with a complaint of the
lungs; yet all this served to excite rather than to diminish public
interest in her. The newspapers published daily bulletins of her health,
and her door was besieged by anxious callers who wished to know her
condition. As for the greed of her parents, every one said she was
not to blame for that. And so she passed from poverty to riches, from
squalor to something like splendor, and from obscurity to fame.
Much has been written about her that is quite incorrect. She has been
credited with virtues which she never possessed; and, indeed, it may be
said with only too much truth that she possessed no virtues whatsoever.
On the stage while the inspiration lasted she was magnificent. Off
the stage she was sly, treacherous, capricious, greedy, ungrateful,
ignorant, and unchaste. With such an ancestry as she had, with such an
early childhood as had been hers, what else could one expect from her?
She and her old mother wrangled over money like two pickpockets. Some of
her best friends she treated shamefully. Her avarice was without bounds.
Some one said that it was not really avarice, but only a reaction from
generosity; but this seems an exceedingly subtle theory. It is possible
to give illustrations of it, however. She did, indeed, make many
presents with a lavish hand; yet, having made a present, she could
not rest until she got it back. The fact was so well known that her
associates took it for granted. The younger Dumas once received a
ring from her. Immediately he bowed low and returned it to her finger,
saying:
"Permit me, mademoiselle, to present it to you in my turn so as to save
you the embarrassment of asking for it. "
Mr. Vandam relates among other anecdotes about her that one evening she
dined at the house of Comte Duchatel. The table was loaded with the
most magnificent flowers; but Rachel's keen eyes presently spied out the
great silver centerpiece. Immediately she began to admire the latter;
and the count, fascinated by her manners, said that he would be glad to
present it to her. She accepted it at once, but was rather fearful
lest he should change his mind. She had come to dinner in a cab, and
mentioned the fact. The count offered to send her home in his carriage.
"Yes, that will do admirably," said she. "There will be no danger of my
being robbed of your present, which I had better take with me. "
"With pleasure, mademoiselle," replied the count. "But you will send me
back my carriage, won't you? "
Rachel had a curious way of asking every one she met for presents and
knickknacks, whether they were valuable or not. She knew how to make
them valuable.
Once in a studio she noticed a guitar hanging on the wall. She begged
for it very earnestly. As it was an old and almost worthless instrument,
it was given her. A little later it was reported that the dilapidated
guitar had been purchased by a well-known gentleman for a thousand
francs. The explanation soon followed. Rachel had declared that it was
the very guitar with which she used to earn her living as a child in the
streets of Paris. As a memento its value sprang from twenty francs to a
thousand.
It has always been a mystery what Rachel did with the great sums of
money which she made in various ways. She never was well dressed; and as
for her costumes on the stage, they were furnished by the theater. When
her effects were sold at public auction after her death her furniture
was worse than commonplace, and her pictures and ornaments were
worthless, except such as had been given her. She must have made
millions of francs, and yet she had very little to leave behind her.
Some say that her brother Raphael, who acted as her personal manager,
was a spendthrift; but if so, there are many reasons for thinking that
it was not his sister's money that he spent. Others say that Rachel
gambled in stocks, but there is no evidence of it. The only thing that
is certain is the fact that she was almost always in want of money. Her
mother, in all probability, managed to get hold of most of her earnings.
Much may have been lost through her caprices. One instance may be cited.
She had received an offer of three hundred thousand francs to act at St.
Petersburg, and was on her way there when she passed through Potsdam,
near Berlin. The King of Prussia was entertaining the Russian Czar. An
invitation was sent to her in the shape of a royal command to appear
before these monarchs and their guests. For some reason or other Rachel
absolutely refused. She would listen to no arguments. She would go on to
St. Petersburg without delay.
"But," it was said to her, "if you refuse to appear before the Czar at
Potsdam all the theaters in St. Petersburg will be closed against you,
because you will have insulted the emperor. In this way you will be
out the expenses of your journey and also the three hundred thousand
francs. "
Rachel remained stubborn as before; but in about half an hour she
suddenly declared that she would recite before the two monarchs, which
she subsequently did, to the satisfaction of everybody. Some one said to
her not long after:
"I knew that you would do it. You weren't going to give up the three
hundred thousand francs and all your travelling expenses. "
"You are quite wrong," returned Rachel, "though of course you will not
believe me. I did not care at all about the money and was going back to
France. It was something that I heard which made me change my mind. Do
you want to know what it was? Well, after all the arguments were over
some one informed me that the Czar Nicholas was the handsomest man
in Europe; and so I made up my mind that I would stay in Potsdam long
enough to see him. "
This brings us to one phase of Rachel's nature which is rather sinister.
She was absolutely hard. She seemed to have no emotions except those
which she exhibited on the stage or the impish perversity which
irritated so many of those about her. She was in reality a product of
the gutter, able to assume a demure and modest air, but within coarse,
vulgar, and careless of decency. Yet the words of Jules Janin, which
have been quoted above, explain how she could be personally very
fascinating.
In all Rachel's career one can detect just a single strand of real
romance. It is one that makes us sorry for her, because it tells us that
her love was given where it never could be openly requited.
During the reign of Louis Philippe the Comte Alexandre Walewski held
many posts in the government. He was a son of the great Napoleon. His
mother was that Polish countess who had accepted Napoleon's love because
she hoped that he might set Poland free at her desire. But Napoleon was
never swerved from his well-calculated plans by the wish of any woman,
and after a time the Countess Walewska came to love him for himself. It
was she to whom he confided secrets which he would not reveal to his own
brothers. It was she who followed him to Elba in disguise. It was her
son who was Napoleon's son, and who afterward, under the Second Empire,
was made minister of fine arts, minister of foreign affairs, and,
finally, an imperial duke. Unlike the third Napoleon's natural
half-brother, the Duc de Moray, Walewski was a gentleman of honor and
fine feeling. He never used his relationship to secure advantages for
himself. He tried to live in a manner worthy of the great warrior who
was his father.
As minister of fine arts he had much to do with the subsidized theaters;
and in time he came to know Rachel. He was the son of one of the
greatest men who ever lived. She was the child of roving peddlers whose
early training had been in the slums of cities and amid the smoke of
bar-rooms and cafes. She was tainted in a thousand ways, while he was a
man of breeding and right principle. She was a wandering actress; he was
a great minister of state. What could there be between these two?
George Sand gave the explanation in an epigram which, like most
epigrams, is only partly true. She said:
"The count's company must prove very restful to Rachel. "
What she meant was, of course, that Walewski's breeding, his dignity
and uprightness, might be regarded only as a temporary repose for the
impish, harsh-voiced, infinitely clever actress. Of course, it was all
this, but we should not take it in a mocking sense. Rachel looked up out
of her depths and gave her heart to this high-minded nobleman. He looked
down and lifted her, as it were, so that she could forget for the time
all the baseness and the brutality that she had known, that she might
put aside her forced vivacity and the self that was not in reality her
own.
It is pitiful to think of these two, separated by a great abyss which
could not be passed except at times and hours when each was free. But
theirs was, none the less, a meeting of two souls, strangely different
in many ways, and yet appealing to each other with a sincerity and truth
which neither could show elsewhere.
The end of poor Rachel was one of disappointment. Tempted by the fact
that Jenny Lind had made nearly two million francs by her visit to the
United States, Rachel followed her, but with slight success, as was to
be expected. Music is enjoyed by human beings everywhere, while French
classical plays, even though acted by a genius like Rachel, could be
rightly understood only by a French-speaking people. Thus it came about
that her visit to America was only moderately successful.
She returned to France, where the rising fame of Adelaide Ristori was
very bitter to Rachel, who had passed the zenith of her power. She went
to Egypt, but received no benefit, and in 1858 she died near Cannes. The
man who loved her, and whom she had loved in turn, heard of her death
with great emotion. He himself lived ten years longer, and died a little
while before the fall of the Second Empire.
END OF VOLUME THREE
DEAN SWIFT AND THE TWO ESTHERS
The story of Jonathan Swift and of the two women who gave their lives
for love of him is familiar to every student of English literature.
Swift himself, both in letters and in politics, stands out a conspicuous
figure in the reigns of King William III and Queen Anne. By writing
Gulliver's Travels he made himself immortal. The external facts of his
singular relations with two charming women are sufficiently well known;
but a definite explanation of these facts has never yet been given.
Swift held his tongue with a repellent taciturnity. No one ever dared
to question him. Whether the true solution belongs to the sphere of
psychology or of physiology is a question that remains unanswered.
But, as the case is one of the most puzzling in the annals of love, it
may be well to set forth the circumstances very briefly, to weigh the
theories that have already been advanced, and to suggest another.
Jonathan Swift was of Yorkshire stock, though he happened to be born in
Dublin, and thus is often spoken of as "the great Irish satirist," or
"the Irish dean. " It was, in truth, his fate to spend much of his life
in Ireland, and to die there, near the cathedral where his remains now
rest; but in truth he hated Ireland and everything connected with it,
just as he hated Scotland and everything that was Scottish. He was an
Englishman to the core.
High-stomached, proud, obstinate, and over-mastering, independence was
the dream of his life. He would accept no favors, lest he should put
himself under obligation; and although he could give generously, and
even lavishly, he lived for the most part a miser's life, hoarding every
penny and halfpenny that he could. Whatever one may think of him, there
is no doubt that he was a very manly man. Too many of his portraits give
the impression of a sour, supercilious pedant; but the finest of them
all--that by Jervas--shows him as he must have been at his very prime,
with a face that was almost handsome, and a look of attractive humor
which strengthens rather than lessens the power of his brows and of the
large, lambent eyes beneath them.
At fifteen he entered Trinity College, in Dublin, where he read widely
but studied little, so that his degree was finally granted him only as
a special favor. At twenty-one he first visited England, and became
secretary to Sir William Temple, at Moor Park. Temple, after a
distinguished career in diplomacy, had retired to his fine country
estate in Surrey. He is remembered now for several things--for having
entertained Peter the Great of Russia; for having, while young, won
the affections of Dorothy Osborne, whose letters to him are charming in
their grace and archness; for having been the patron of Jonathan Swift;
and for fathering the young girl named Esther Johnson, a waif, born out
of wedlock, to whom Temple gave a place in his household.
When Swift first met her, Esther Johnson was only eight years old; and
part of his duties at Moor Park consisted in giving her what was then
an unusual education for a girl. She was, however, still a child, and
nothing serious could have passed between the raw youth and this little
girl who learned the lessons that he imposed upon her.
Such acquaintance as they had was rudely broken off. Temple, a man of
high position, treated Swift with an urbane condescension which drove
the young man's independent soul into a frenzy. He returned to Ireland,
where he was ordained a clergyman, and received a small parish at
Kilroot, near Belfast.
It was here that the love-note was first seriously heard in the
discordant music of Swift's career. A college friend of his named Waring
had a sister who was about the age of Swift, and whom he met quite
frequently at Kilroot. Not very much is known of this episode, but
there is evidence that Swift fell in love with the girl, whom he rather
romantically called "Varina. "
This cannot be called a serious love-affair. Swift was lonely, and Jane
Waring was probably the only girl of refinement who lived near Kilroot.
Furthermore, she had inherited a small fortune, while Swift was
miserably poor, and had nothing to offer except the shadowy prospect of
future advancement in England. He was definitely refused by her; and it
was this, perhaps, that led him to resolve on going back to England and
making his peace with Sir William Temple.
On leaving, Swift wrote a passionate letter to Miss Waring--the only
true love-letter that remains to us of their correspondence. He protests
that he does not want Varina's fortune, and that he will wait until
he is in a position to marry her on equal terms. There is a smoldering
flame of jealousy running through the letter. Swift charges her with
being cold, affected, and willing to flirt with persons who are quite
beneath her.
Varina played no important part in Swift's larger life thereafter; but
something must be said of this affair in order to show, first of all,
that Swift's love for her was due only to proximity, and that when he
ceased to feel it he could be not only hard, but harsh. His fiery spirit
must have made a deep impression on Miss Waring; for though she at the
time refused him, she afterward remembered him, and tried to renew their
old relations. Indeed, no sooner had Swift been made rector of a larger
parish, than Varina let him know that she had changed her mind, and was
ready to marry him; but by this time Swift had lost all interest in her.
He wrote an answer which even his truest admirers have called brutal.
"Yes," he said in substance, "I will marry you, though you have treated
me vilely, and though you are living in a sort of social sink. I am
still poor, though you probably think otherwise. However, I will marry
you on certain conditions. First, you must be educated, so that you
can entertain me. Next, you must put up with all my whims and likes and
dislikes. Then you must live wherever I please. On these terms I will
take you, without reference to your looks or to your income. As to the
first, cleanliness is all that I require; as to the second, I only ask
that it be enough. "
Such a letter as this was like a blow from a bludgeon. The insolence,
the contempt, and the hardness of it were such as no self-respecting
woman could endure. It put an end to their acquaintance, as Swift
undoubtedly intended it should do. He would have been less censurable
had he struck Varina with his fist or kicked her.
The true reason for Swift's utter change of heart is found, no doubt, in
the beginning of what was destined to be his long intimacy with Esther
Johnson. When Swift left Sir William Temple's in a huff, Esther had been
a mere schoolgirl. Now, on his return, she was fifteen years of age, and
seemed older. She had blossomed out into a very comely girl, vivacious,
clever, and physically well developed, with dark hair, sparkling eyes,
and features that were unusually regular and lovely.
For three years the two were close friends and intimate associates,
though it cannot be said that Swift ever made open love to her. To the
outward eye they were no more than fellow workers. Yet love does not
need the spoken word and the formal declaration to give it life and make
it deep and strong. Esther Johnson, to whom Swift gave the pet name of
"Stella," grew into the existence of this fiery, hold, and independent
genius. All that he did she knew. She was his confidante. As to his
writings, his hopes, and his enmities, she was the mistress of all his
secrets. For her, at last, no other man existed.
the widest learning, with the greatest penetration that I have ever
known, and with the richest gift of exposition, he combines an energy of
will and a capacity for action which astonish me. In no one have I found
united so much enthusiasm and practical intelligence.
No better proof of Lassalle's enthusiasm can be found than a few lines
from his own writings:
I love Heine. He is my second self. What audacity! What overpowering
eloquence! He knows how to whisper like a zephyr when it kisses
rose-blooms, how to breathe like fire when it rages and destroys; he
calls forth all that is tenderest and softest, and then all that is
fiercest and most daring. He has the sweep of the whole lyre!
Lassalle's sympathy with Heine was like his sympathy with every one
whom he knew. This was often misunderstood. It was misunderstood in his
relations with women, and especially in the celebrated affair of the
Countess von Hatzfeldt, which began in the year 1846--that is to say, in
the twenty-first year of Lassalle's age.
In truth, there was no real scandal in the matter, for the countess was
twice the age of Lassalle. It was precisely because he was so young that
he let his eagerness to defend a woman in distress make him forget
the ordinary usage of society, and expose himself to mean and unworthy
criticism which lasted all his life. It began by his introduction to
the Countess von Hatzfeldt, a lady who was grossly ill-treated by her
husband. She had suffered insult and imprisonment in the family castles;
the count had deprived her of medicine when she was ill, and had
forcibly taken away her children. Besides this, he was infatuated
with another woman, a baroness, and wasted his substance upon her even
contrary to the law which protected his children's rights.
The countess had a son named Paul, of whom Lassalle was extremely fond.
There came to the boy a letter from the Count von Hatzfeldt ordering him
to leave his mother. The countess at once sent for Lassalle, who brought
with him two wealthy and influential friends--one of them a judge of a
high Prussian court--and together they read the letter which Paul had
just received. They were deeply moved by the despair of the countess,
and by the cruelty of her dissolute husband in seeking to separate the
mother from her son.
In his chivalrous ardor Lassalle swore to help the countess, and
promised that he would carry on the struggle with her husband to the
bitter end. He took his two friends with him to Berlin, and then to
Dusseldorf, for they discovered that the Count von Hatzfeldt was not far
away. He was, in fact, at Aix-la-Chapelle with the baroness.
Lassalle, who had the scent of a greyhound, pried about until he
discovered that the count had given his mistress a legal document,
assigning to her a valuable piece of property which, in the ordinary
course of law, should be entailed on the boy, Paul. The countess at
once hastened to the place, broke into her husband's room, and secured a
promise that the deed would be destroyed.
No sooner, however, had she left him than he returned to the baroness,
and presently it was learned that the woman had set out for Cologne.
Lassalle and his two friends followed, to ascertain whether the document
had really been destroyed. The three reached a hotel at Cologne, where
the baroness had just arrived. Her luggage, in fact, was being carried
upstairs. One of Lassalle's friends opened a trunk, and, finding a
casket there, slipped it out to his companion, the judge.
Unfortunately, the latter had no means of hiding it, and when the
baroness's servant shouted for help, the casket was found in the
possession of the judge, who could give no plausible account of it. He
was, therefore, arrested, as were the other two. There was no evidence
against Lassalle; but his friends fared badly at the trial, one of them
being imprisoned for a year and the other for five years.
From this time Lassalle, with an almost quixotic devotion, gave himself
up to fighting the Countess von Hatzfeldt's battle against her husband
in the law-courts. The ablest advocates were pitted against him. The
most eloquent legal orators thundered at him and at his client, but he
met them all with a skill, an audacity, and a brilliant wit that won for
him verdict after verdict. The case went from the lower to the higher
tribunals, until, after nine years, it reached the last court of appeal,
where Lassalle wrested from his opponents a magnificently conclusive
victory--one that made the children of the countess absolutely safe.
It was a battle fought with the determination of a soldier, with the
gallantry of a knight errant, and the intellectual acumen of a learned
lawyer.
It is not surprising that many refuse to believe that Lassalle's feeling
toward the Countess von Hatzfeldt was a disinterested one. A scandalous
pamphlet, which was published in French, German, and Russian, and
written by one who styled herself "Sophie Solutzeff," did much to spread
the evil report concerning Lassalle. But the very openness and frankness
of the service which he did for the countess ought to make it clear that
his was the devotion of a youth drawn by an impulse into a strife where
there was nothing for him to gain, but everything to lose. He denounced
the brutality of her husband, but her letters to him always addressed
him as "my dear child. " In writing to her he confides small love-secrets
and ephemeral flirtations--which he would scarcely have done, had the
countess viewed him with the eye of passion.
Lassalle was undoubtedly a man of impressionable heart, and had many
affairs such as Heine had; but they were not deep or lasting. That he
should have made a favorable impression on the women whom he met is
not surprising, because of his social standing, his chivalry, his
fine manners, and his handsome face. Mr. Clement Shorter has quoted an
official document which describes him as he was in his earlier years:
Ferdinand Lassalle, aged twenty-three, a civilian born at Breslau and
dwelling recently at Berlin. He stands five feet six inches in height,
has brown, curly hair, open forehead, brown eyebrows, dark blue eyes,
well proportioned nose and mouth, and rounded chin.
We ought not to be surprised, then, if he was a favorite in
drawing-rooms; if both men and women admired him; if Alexander von
Humboldt cried out with enthusiasm that he was a wunderkind, and if
there were more than Sophie Solutzeff to be jealous. But the rather
ungrateful remark of the Countess von Hatzfeldt certainly does not
represent him as he really was.
"You are without reason and judgment where women are concerned," she
snarled at him; but the sneer only shows that the woman who uttered it
was neither in love with him nor grateful to him.
In this paper we are not discussing Lassalle as a public agitator or
as a Socialist, but simply in his relations with the two women who most
seriously affected his life. The first was the Countess von Hatzfeldt,
who, as we have seen, occupied--or rather wasted--nine of the best years
of his life. Then came that profound and thrilling passion which ended
the career of a man who at thirty-nine had only just begun to be famous.
Lassalle had joined his intellectual forces with those of Heine and
Marx. He had obtained so great an influence over the masses of the
people as to alarm many a monarch, and at the same time to attract many
a statesman. Prince Bismarck, for example, cared nothing for Lassalle's
championship of popular rights, but sought his aid on finding that he
was an earnest advocate of German unity.
Furthermore, he was very far from resembling what in those early days
was regarded as the typical picture of a Socialist. There was nothing
frowzy about him; in his appearance he was elegance itself; his manners
were those of a prince, and his clothing was of the best. Seeing him in
a drawing-room, no one would mistake him for anything but a gentleman
and a man of parts. Hence it is not surprising that his second love was
one of the nobility, although her own people hated Lassalle as a bearer
of the red flag.
This girl was Helene von Donniges, the daughter of a Bavarian
diplomat. As a child she had traveled much, especially in Italy and in
Switzerland. She was very precocious, and lived her own life without
asking the direction of any one. At twelve years of age she had been
betrothed to an Italian of forty; but this dark and pedantic person
always displeased her, and soon afterward, when she met a young
Wallachian nobleman, one Yanko Racowitza, she was ready at once to
dismiss her Italian lover. Racowitza--young, a student, far from home,
and lacking friends--appealed at once to the girl's sympathy.
At that very time, in Berlin, where Helene was visiting her grandmother,
she was asked by a Prussian baron:
"Do you know Ferdinand Lassalle? "
The question came to her with a peculiar shock. She had never heard the
name, and yet the sound of it gave her a strange emotion. Baron Korff,
who perhaps took liberties because she was so young, went on to say:
"My dear lady, have you really never seen Lassalle? Why, you and he were
meant for each other! "
She felt ashamed to ask about him, but shortly after a gentleman who
knew her said:
"It is evident that you have a surprising degree of intellectual kinship
with Ferdinand Lassalle. "
This so excited her curiosity that she asked her grandmother:
"Who is this person of whom they talk so much--this Ferdinand Lassalle? "
"Do not speak of him," replied her grandmother. "He is a shameless
demagogue! "
A little questioning brought to Helene all sorts of stories about
Lassalle--the Countess von Hatzfeldt, the stolen casket, the mysterious
pamphlet, the long battle in the courts--all of which excited her still
more. A friend offered to introduce her to the "shameless demagogue. "
This introduction happened at a party, and it must have been an
extraordinary meeting. Seldom, it seemed, was there a better instance
of love at first sight, or of the true affinity of which Baron Korff
had spoken. In the midst of the public gathering they almost rushed into
each other's arms; they talked the free talk of acknowledged lovers; and
when she left, he called her love-names as he offered her his arm.
"Somehow it did not appear at all remarkable," she afterward declared.
"We seemed to be perfectly fitted to each other. "
Nevertheless, nine months passed before they met again at a soiree. At
this time Lassaller gazing upon her, said:
"What would you do if I were sentenced to death? "
"I should wait until your head was severed," was her answer, "in order
that you might look upon your beloved to the last, and then--I should
take poison! "
Her answer delighted him, but he said that there was no danger. He
was greeted on every hand with great consideration; and it seemed not
unlikely that, in recognition of his influence with the people, he might
rise to some high position. The King of Prussia sympathized with him.
Heine called him the Messiah of the nineteenth century. When he passed
from city to city, the whole population turned out to do him honor.
Houses were wreathed; flowers were thrown in masses upon him, while the
streets were spanned with triumphal arches.
Worn out with the work and excitement attending the birth of the
Deutscher Arbeiterverein, or workmen's union, which he founded in 1863,
Lassalle fled for a time to Switzerland for rest. Helene heard of his
whereabouts, and hurried to him, with several friends. They met again
on July 25,1864, and discussed long and intensely the possibilities of
their marriage and the opposition of her parents, who would never permit
her to marry a man who was at once a Socialist and a Jew.
Then comes a pitiful story of the strife between Lassalle and the
Donniges family. Helene's father and mother indulged in vulgar words;
they spoke of Lassalle with contempt; they recalled all the scandals
that had been current ten years before, and forbade Helene ever to
mention the man's name again.
The next scene in the drama took place in Geneva, where the family
of Herr von Donniges had arrived, and where Helene's sister had been
betrothed to Count von Keyserling--a match which filled her mother with
intense joy. Her momentary friendliness tempted Helene to speak of her
unalterable love for Lassalle. Scarcely had the words been spoken when
her father and mother burst into abuse and denounced Lassalle as well as
herself.
She sent word of this to Lassalle, who was in a hotel near by. Scarcely
had he received her letter, when Helene herself appeared upon the scene,
and with all the intensity of which she was possessed, she begged him
to take her wherever he chose. She would go with him to France, to
Italy--to the ends of the earth!
What a situation, and yet how simple a one for a man of spirit! It is
strange to have to record that to Lassalle it seemed most difficult. He
felt that he or she, or both of them, had been compromised. Had she a
lady with her? Did she know any one in the neighborhood?
What an extraordinary answer! If she were compromised, all the more
ought he to have taken her in his arms and married her at once, instead
of quibbling and showing himself a prig.
Presently, her maid came in to tell them that a carriage was ready to
take them to the station, whence a train would start for Paris in a
quarter of an hour. Helene begged him with a feeling that was beginning
to be one of shame. Lassalle repelled her in words that were to stamp
him with a peculiar kind of cowardice.
Why should he have stopped to think of anything except the beautiful
woman who was at his feet, and to whom he had pledged his love? What did
he care for the petty diplomat who was her father, or the vulgar-tongued
woman who was her mother? He should have hurried her and the maid into
the train for Paris, and have forgotten everything in the world but his
Helene, glorious among women, who had left everything for him.
What was the sudden failure, the curious weakness, the paltriness of
spirit that came at the supreme moment into the heart of this hitherto
strong man? Here was the girl whom he loved, driven from her parents,
putting aside all question of appearances, and clinging to him with a
wild and glorious desire to give herself to him and to be all his own!
That was a thing worthy of a true woman. And he? He shrinks from her
and cowers and acts like a simpleton. His courage seems to have dribbled
through his finger-tips; he is no longer a man--he is a thing.
Out of all the multitude of Lassalle's former admirers, there is
scarcely one who has ventured to defend him, much less to laud him; and
when they have done so, their voices have had a sound of mockery that
dies away in their own throats.
Helene, on her side, had compromised herself, and even from the
view-point of her parents it was obvious that she ought to be married
immediately. Her father, however, confined her to her room until it
was understood that Lassalle had left Geneva. Then her family's
supplications, the statement that her sister's marriage and even her
father's position were in danger, led her to say that she would give up
Lassalle.
It mattered very little, in one way, for whatever he might have done,
Lassalle had killed, or at least had chilled, her love. His failure at
the moment of her great self-sacrifice had shown him to her as he really
was--no bold and gallant spirit, but a cringing, spiritless self-seeker.
She wrote him a formal letter to the effect that she had become
reconciled to her "betrothed bridegroom"; and they never met again.
Too late, Lassalle gave himself up to a great regret. He went about
trying to explain his action to his friends, but he could say nothing
that would ease his feeling and reinstate him in the eyes of the
romantic girl. In a frenzy, he sought out the Wallachian student, Yanko
von Racowitza, and challenged him to a mortal duel. He also challenged
Helene's father. Years before, he had on principle declined to fight a
duel; but now he went raving about as if he sought the death of every
one who knew him.
The duel was fought on August 28, 1864. There was some trouble about
pistols, and also about seconds; but finally the combatants left a
small hotel in a village near Geneva, and reached the dueling-grounds.
Lassalle was almost joyous in his manner. His old confidence had come
back to him; he meant to kill his man.
They took their stations high up among the hills. A few spectators saw
their figures outlined against the sky. The command to fire rang out,
and from both pistols gushed the flame and smoke.
A moment later, Lassalle was seen to sway and fall. A chance shot,
glancing from a wall, had struck him to the ground. He suffered
terribly, and nothing but opium in great doses could relieve his pain.
His wound was mortal, and three days later he died.
Long after, Helene admitted that she still loved Lassalle, and believed
that he would win the duel; but after the tragedy, the tenderness and
patience of Racowitza won her heart. She married him, but within a
year he died of consumption. Helene, being disowned by her relations,
prepared herself for the stage. She married a third husband named
Shevitch, who was then living in the United States, but who has since
made his home in Russia.
Let us say nothing of Lassalle's political career. Except for his work
as one of the early leaders of the liberal movement in Germany, it has
perished, and his name has been almost forgotten. As a lover, his story
stands out forever as a warning to the timid and the recreant. Let men
do what they will; but there is just one thing which no man is permitted
to do with safety in the sight of woman--and that is to play the craven.
THE STORY OF RACHEL
Outside of the English-speaking peoples the nineteenth century witnessed
the rise and triumphant progress of three great tragic actresses. The
first two of these--Rachel Felix and Sarah Bernhardt--were of Jewish
extraction; the third, Eleanor Duse, is Italian. All of them made their
way from pauperism to fame; but perhaps the rise of Rachel was the most
striking.
In the winter of 1821 a wretched peddler named Abraham--or Jacob--Felix
sought shelter at a dilapidated inn at Mumpf, a village in Switzerland,
not far from Basel. It was at the close of a stormy day, and his small
family had been toiling through the snow and sleet. The inn was the
lowest sort of hovel, and yet its proprietor felt that it was too good
for these vagabonds. He consented to receive them only when he learned
that the peddler's wife was to be delivered of a child. That very night
she became the mother of a girl, who was at first called Elise. So
unimportant was the advent of this little waif into the world that the
burgomaster of Mumpf thought it necessary to make an entry only of the
fact that a peddler's wife had given birth to a female child. There was
no mention of family or religion, nor was the record anything more than
a memorandum.
Under such circumstances was born a child who was destined to excite the
wonder of European courts--to startle and thrill and utterly amaze great
audiences by her dramatic genius. But for ten years the family--which
grew until it consisted of one son and five daughters--kept on its
wanderings through Switzerland and Germany. Finally, they settled
down in Lyons, where the mother opened a little shop for the sale of
second-hand clothing. The husband gave lessons in German whenever he
could find a pupil. The eldest daughter went about the cafes in the
evening, singing the songs that were then popular, while her small
sister, Rachel, collected coppers from those who had coppers to spare.
Although the family was barely able to sustain existence, the father and
mother were by no means as ignorant as their squalor would imply. The
peddler Felix had studied Hebrew theology in the hope of becoming a
rabbi. Failing this, he was always much interested in declamation,
public reading, and the recitation of poetry. He was, in his way, no
mean critic of actors and actresses. Long before she was ten years of
age little Rachel--who had changed her name from Elise--could render
with much feeling and neatness of eloquence bits from the best-known
French plays of the classic stage.
The children's mother, on her side, was sharp and practical to a high
degree. She saved and scrimped all through her period of adversity.
Later she was the banker of her family, and would never lend any of her
children a sou except on excellent security. However, this was all to
happen in after years.
When the child who was destined to be famous had reached her tenth
year she and her sisters made their way to Paris. For four years the
second-hand clothing-shop was continued; the father still taught German;
and the elder sister, Sarah, who had a golden voice, made the rounds of
the cafes in the lowest quarters of the capital, while Rachel passed the
wooden plate for coppers.
One evening in the year 1834 a gentleman named Morin, having been taken
out of his usual course by a matter of business, entered a BRASSERIE
for a cup of coffee. There he noted two girls, one of them singing with
remarkable sweetness, and the other silently following with the wooden
plate. M. Morin called to him the girl who sang and asked her why she
did not make her voice more profitable than by haunting the cafes at
night, where she was sure to meet with insults of the grossest kind.
"Why," said Sarah, "I haven't anybody to advise me what to do. "
M. Morin gave her his address and said that he would arrange to have her
meet a friend who would be of great service to her. On the following
day he sent the two girls to a M. Choron, who was the head of the
Conservatory of Sacred Music. Choron had Sarah sing, and instantly
admitted her as a pupil, which meant that she would soon be enrolled
among the regular choristers. The beauty of her voice made a deep
impression on him.
Then he happened to notice the puny, meager child who was standing near
her sister. Turning to her, he said:
"And what can you do, little one? "
"I can recite poetry," was the reply.
"Oh, can you? " said he. "Please let me hear you. "
Rachel readily consented. She had a peculiarly harsh, grating voice, so
that any but a very competent judge would have turned her away. But M.
Choron, whose experience was great, noted the correctness of her accent
and the feeling which made itself felt in every line. He accepted her as
well as her sister, but urged her to study elocution rather than music.
She must, indeed, have had an extraordinary power even at the age
of fourteen, since not merely her voice but her whole appearance was
against her. She was dressed in a short calico frock of a pattern
in which red was spotted with white. Her shoes were of coarse black
leather. Her hair was parted at the back of her head and hung down her
shoulders in two braids, framing the long, childish, and yet gnome-like
face, which was unusual in its gravity.
At first she was little thought of; but there came a time when she
astonished both her teachers and her companions by a recital which she
gave in public. The part was the narrative of Salema in the "Abufar"
of Ducis. It describes the agony of a mother who gives birth to a child
while dying of thirst amid the desert sands. Mme. de Barviera has left a
description of this recital, which it is worth while to quote:
While uttering the thrilling tale the thin face seemed to lengthen with
horror, the small, deep-set black eyes dilated with a fixed stare as
though she witnessed the harrowing scene; and the deep, guttural tones,
despite a slight Jewish accent, awoke a nameless terror in every one who
listened, carrying him through the imaginary woe with a strange feeling
of reality, not to be shaken, off as long as the sounds lasted.
Even yet, however, the time had not come for any conspicuous success.
The girl was still so puny in form, so monkey-like in face, and so
gratingly unpleasant in her tones that it needed time for her to attain
her full growth and to smooth away some of the discords in her peculiar
voice.
Three years later she appeared at the Gymnase in a regular debut; yet
even then only the experienced few appreciated her greatness. Among
these, however, were the well-known critic Jules Janin, the poet and
novelist Gauthier, and the actress Mlle. Mars. They saw that this lean,
raucous gutter-girl had within her gifts which would increase until she
would be first of all actresses on the French stage. Janin wrote some
lines which explain the secret of her greatness:
All the talent in the world, especially when continually applied to
the same dramatic works, will not satisfy continually the hearer. What
pleases in a great actor, as in all arts that appeal to the imagination,
is the unforeseen. When I am utterly ignorant of what is to happen,
when I do not know, when you yourself do not know what will be your
next gesture, your next look, what passion will possess your heart, what
outcry will burst from your terror-stricken soul, then, indeed, I am
willing to see you daily, for each day you will be new to me. To-day I
may blame, to-morrow praise. Yesterday you were all-powerful; to-morrow,
perhaps, you may hardly win from me a word of admiration. So much the
better, then, if you draw from me unexpected tears, if in my heart you
strike an unknown fiber; but tell me not of hearing night after night
great artists who every time present the exact counterpart of what they
were on the preceding one.
It was at the Theatre Francais that she won her final acceptance as the
greatest of all tragedians of her time. This was in her appearance in
Corneille's famous play of "Horace. " She had now, in 1838, blazed forth
with a power that shook her no, less than it stirred the emotions and
the passions of her hearers. The princes of the royal blood came in
succession to see her. King Louis Philippe himself was at last tempted
by curiosity to be present. Gifts of money and jewels were showered on
her, and through sheer natural genius rather than through artifice she
was able to master a great audience and bend it to her will.
She had no easy life, this girl of eighteen years, for other actresses
carped at her, and she had had but little training. The sordid ways of
her old father excited a bitterness which was vented on the daughter.
She was still under age, and therefore was treated as a gold-mine by her
exacting parents. At the most she could play but twice a week. Her form
was frail and reed-like. She was threatened with a complaint of the
lungs; yet all this served to excite rather than to diminish public
interest in her. The newspapers published daily bulletins of her health,
and her door was besieged by anxious callers who wished to know her
condition. As for the greed of her parents, every one said she was
not to blame for that. And so she passed from poverty to riches, from
squalor to something like splendor, and from obscurity to fame.
Much has been written about her that is quite incorrect. She has been
credited with virtues which she never possessed; and, indeed, it may be
said with only too much truth that she possessed no virtues whatsoever.
On the stage while the inspiration lasted she was magnificent. Off
the stage she was sly, treacherous, capricious, greedy, ungrateful,
ignorant, and unchaste. With such an ancestry as she had, with such an
early childhood as had been hers, what else could one expect from her?
She and her old mother wrangled over money like two pickpockets. Some of
her best friends she treated shamefully. Her avarice was without bounds.
Some one said that it was not really avarice, but only a reaction from
generosity; but this seems an exceedingly subtle theory. It is possible
to give illustrations of it, however. She did, indeed, make many
presents with a lavish hand; yet, having made a present, she could
not rest until she got it back. The fact was so well known that her
associates took it for granted. The younger Dumas once received a
ring from her. Immediately he bowed low and returned it to her finger,
saying:
"Permit me, mademoiselle, to present it to you in my turn so as to save
you the embarrassment of asking for it. "
Mr. Vandam relates among other anecdotes about her that one evening she
dined at the house of Comte Duchatel. The table was loaded with the
most magnificent flowers; but Rachel's keen eyes presently spied out the
great silver centerpiece. Immediately she began to admire the latter;
and the count, fascinated by her manners, said that he would be glad to
present it to her. She accepted it at once, but was rather fearful
lest he should change his mind. She had come to dinner in a cab, and
mentioned the fact. The count offered to send her home in his carriage.
"Yes, that will do admirably," said she. "There will be no danger of my
being robbed of your present, which I had better take with me. "
"With pleasure, mademoiselle," replied the count. "But you will send me
back my carriage, won't you? "
Rachel had a curious way of asking every one she met for presents and
knickknacks, whether they were valuable or not. She knew how to make
them valuable.
Once in a studio she noticed a guitar hanging on the wall. She begged
for it very earnestly. As it was an old and almost worthless instrument,
it was given her. A little later it was reported that the dilapidated
guitar had been purchased by a well-known gentleman for a thousand
francs. The explanation soon followed. Rachel had declared that it was
the very guitar with which she used to earn her living as a child in the
streets of Paris. As a memento its value sprang from twenty francs to a
thousand.
It has always been a mystery what Rachel did with the great sums of
money which she made in various ways. She never was well dressed; and as
for her costumes on the stage, they were furnished by the theater. When
her effects were sold at public auction after her death her furniture
was worse than commonplace, and her pictures and ornaments were
worthless, except such as had been given her. She must have made
millions of francs, and yet she had very little to leave behind her.
Some say that her brother Raphael, who acted as her personal manager,
was a spendthrift; but if so, there are many reasons for thinking that
it was not his sister's money that he spent. Others say that Rachel
gambled in stocks, but there is no evidence of it. The only thing that
is certain is the fact that she was almost always in want of money. Her
mother, in all probability, managed to get hold of most of her earnings.
Much may have been lost through her caprices. One instance may be cited.
She had received an offer of three hundred thousand francs to act at St.
Petersburg, and was on her way there when she passed through Potsdam,
near Berlin. The King of Prussia was entertaining the Russian Czar. An
invitation was sent to her in the shape of a royal command to appear
before these monarchs and their guests. For some reason or other Rachel
absolutely refused. She would listen to no arguments. She would go on to
St. Petersburg without delay.
"But," it was said to her, "if you refuse to appear before the Czar at
Potsdam all the theaters in St. Petersburg will be closed against you,
because you will have insulted the emperor. In this way you will be
out the expenses of your journey and also the three hundred thousand
francs. "
Rachel remained stubborn as before; but in about half an hour she
suddenly declared that she would recite before the two monarchs, which
she subsequently did, to the satisfaction of everybody. Some one said to
her not long after:
"I knew that you would do it. You weren't going to give up the three
hundred thousand francs and all your travelling expenses. "
"You are quite wrong," returned Rachel, "though of course you will not
believe me. I did not care at all about the money and was going back to
France. It was something that I heard which made me change my mind. Do
you want to know what it was? Well, after all the arguments were over
some one informed me that the Czar Nicholas was the handsomest man
in Europe; and so I made up my mind that I would stay in Potsdam long
enough to see him. "
This brings us to one phase of Rachel's nature which is rather sinister.
She was absolutely hard. She seemed to have no emotions except those
which she exhibited on the stage or the impish perversity which
irritated so many of those about her. She was in reality a product of
the gutter, able to assume a demure and modest air, but within coarse,
vulgar, and careless of decency. Yet the words of Jules Janin, which
have been quoted above, explain how she could be personally very
fascinating.
In all Rachel's career one can detect just a single strand of real
romance. It is one that makes us sorry for her, because it tells us that
her love was given where it never could be openly requited.
During the reign of Louis Philippe the Comte Alexandre Walewski held
many posts in the government. He was a son of the great Napoleon. His
mother was that Polish countess who had accepted Napoleon's love because
she hoped that he might set Poland free at her desire. But Napoleon was
never swerved from his well-calculated plans by the wish of any woman,
and after a time the Countess Walewska came to love him for himself. It
was she to whom he confided secrets which he would not reveal to his own
brothers. It was she who followed him to Elba in disguise. It was her
son who was Napoleon's son, and who afterward, under the Second Empire,
was made minister of fine arts, minister of foreign affairs, and,
finally, an imperial duke. Unlike the third Napoleon's natural
half-brother, the Duc de Moray, Walewski was a gentleman of honor and
fine feeling. He never used his relationship to secure advantages for
himself. He tried to live in a manner worthy of the great warrior who
was his father.
As minister of fine arts he had much to do with the subsidized theaters;
and in time he came to know Rachel. He was the son of one of the
greatest men who ever lived. She was the child of roving peddlers whose
early training had been in the slums of cities and amid the smoke of
bar-rooms and cafes. She was tainted in a thousand ways, while he was a
man of breeding and right principle. She was a wandering actress; he was
a great minister of state. What could there be between these two?
George Sand gave the explanation in an epigram which, like most
epigrams, is only partly true. She said:
"The count's company must prove very restful to Rachel. "
What she meant was, of course, that Walewski's breeding, his dignity
and uprightness, might be regarded only as a temporary repose for the
impish, harsh-voiced, infinitely clever actress. Of course, it was all
this, but we should not take it in a mocking sense. Rachel looked up out
of her depths and gave her heart to this high-minded nobleman. He looked
down and lifted her, as it were, so that she could forget for the time
all the baseness and the brutality that she had known, that she might
put aside her forced vivacity and the self that was not in reality her
own.
It is pitiful to think of these two, separated by a great abyss which
could not be passed except at times and hours when each was free. But
theirs was, none the less, a meeting of two souls, strangely different
in many ways, and yet appealing to each other with a sincerity and truth
which neither could show elsewhere.
The end of poor Rachel was one of disappointment. Tempted by the fact
that Jenny Lind had made nearly two million francs by her visit to the
United States, Rachel followed her, but with slight success, as was to
be expected. Music is enjoyed by human beings everywhere, while French
classical plays, even though acted by a genius like Rachel, could be
rightly understood only by a French-speaking people. Thus it came about
that her visit to America was only moderately successful.
She returned to France, where the rising fame of Adelaide Ristori was
very bitter to Rachel, who had passed the zenith of her power. She went
to Egypt, but received no benefit, and in 1858 she died near Cannes. The
man who loved her, and whom she had loved in turn, heard of her death
with great emotion. He himself lived ten years longer, and died a little
while before the fall of the Second Empire.
END OF VOLUME THREE
DEAN SWIFT AND THE TWO ESTHERS
The story of Jonathan Swift and of the two women who gave their lives
for love of him is familiar to every student of English literature.
Swift himself, both in letters and in politics, stands out a conspicuous
figure in the reigns of King William III and Queen Anne. By writing
Gulliver's Travels he made himself immortal. The external facts of his
singular relations with two charming women are sufficiently well known;
but a definite explanation of these facts has never yet been given.
Swift held his tongue with a repellent taciturnity. No one ever dared
to question him. Whether the true solution belongs to the sphere of
psychology or of physiology is a question that remains unanswered.
But, as the case is one of the most puzzling in the annals of love, it
may be well to set forth the circumstances very briefly, to weigh the
theories that have already been advanced, and to suggest another.
Jonathan Swift was of Yorkshire stock, though he happened to be born in
Dublin, and thus is often spoken of as "the great Irish satirist," or
"the Irish dean. " It was, in truth, his fate to spend much of his life
in Ireland, and to die there, near the cathedral where his remains now
rest; but in truth he hated Ireland and everything connected with it,
just as he hated Scotland and everything that was Scottish. He was an
Englishman to the core.
High-stomached, proud, obstinate, and over-mastering, independence was
the dream of his life. He would accept no favors, lest he should put
himself under obligation; and although he could give generously, and
even lavishly, he lived for the most part a miser's life, hoarding every
penny and halfpenny that he could. Whatever one may think of him, there
is no doubt that he was a very manly man. Too many of his portraits give
the impression of a sour, supercilious pedant; but the finest of them
all--that by Jervas--shows him as he must have been at his very prime,
with a face that was almost handsome, and a look of attractive humor
which strengthens rather than lessens the power of his brows and of the
large, lambent eyes beneath them.
At fifteen he entered Trinity College, in Dublin, where he read widely
but studied little, so that his degree was finally granted him only as
a special favor. At twenty-one he first visited England, and became
secretary to Sir William Temple, at Moor Park. Temple, after a
distinguished career in diplomacy, had retired to his fine country
estate in Surrey. He is remembered now for several things--for having
entertained Peter the Great of Russia; for having, while young, won
the affections of Dorothy Osborne, whose letters to him are charming in
their grace and archness; for having been the patron of Jonathan Swift;
and for fathering the young girl named Esther Johnson, a waif, born out
of wedlock, to whom Temple gave a place in his household.
When Swift first met her, Esther Johnson was only eight years old; and
part of his duties at Moor Park consisted in giving her what was then
an unusual education for a girl. She was, however, still a child, and
nothing serious could have passed between the raw youth and this little
girl who learned the lessons that he imposed upon her.
Such acquaintance as they had was rudely broken off. Temple, a man of
high position, treated Swift with an urbane condescension which drove
the young man's independent soul into a frenzy. He returned to Ireland,
where he was ordained a clergyman, and received a small parish at
Kilroot, near Belfast.
It was here that the love-note was first seriously heard in the
discordant music of Swift's career. A college friend of his named Waring
had a sister who was about the age of Swift, and whom he met quite
frequently at Kilroot. Not very much is known of this episode, but
there is evidence that Swift fell in love with the girl, whom he rather
romantically called "Varina. "
This cannot be called a serious love-affair. Swift was lonely, and Jane
Waring was probably the only girl of refinement who lived near Kilroot.
Furthermore, she had inherited a small fortune, while Swift was
miserably poor, and had nothing to offer except the shadowy prospect of
future advancement in England. He was definitely refused by her; and it
was this, perhaps, that led him to resolve on going back to England and
making his peace with Sir William Temple.
On leaving, Swift wrote a passionate letter to Miss Waring--the only
true love-letter that remains to us of their correspondence. He protests
that he does not want Varina's fortune, and that he will wait until
he is in a position to marry her on equal terms. There is a smoldering
flame of jealousy running through the letter. Swift charges her with
being cold, affected, and willing to flirt with persons who are quite
beneath her.
Varina played no important part in Swift's larger life thereafter; but
something must be said of this affair in order to show, first of all,
that Swift's love for her was due only to proximity, and that when he
ceased to feel it he could be not only hard, but harsh. His fiery spirit
must have made a deep impression on Miss Waring; for though she at the
time refused him, she afterward remembered him, and tried to renew their
old relations. Indeed, no sooner had Swift been made rector of a larger
parish, than Varina let him know that she had changed her mind, and was
ready to marry him; but by this time Swift had lost all interest in her.
He wrote an answer which even his truest admirers have called brutal.
"Yes," he said in substance, "I will marry you, though you have treated
me vilely, and though you are living in a sort of social sink. I am
still poor, though you probably think otherwise. However, I will marry
you on certain conditions. First, you must be educated, so that you
can entertain me. Next, you must put up with all my whims and likes and
dislikes. Then you must live wherever I please. On these terms I will
take you, without reference to your looks or to your income. As to the
first, cleanliness is all that I require; as to the second, I only ask
that it be enough. "
Such a letter as this was like a blow from a bludgeon. The insolence,
the contempt, and the hardness of it were such as no self-respecting
woman could endure. It put an end to their acquaintance, as Swift
undoubtedly intended it should do. He would have been less censurable
had he struck Varina with his fist or kicked her.
The true reason for Swift's utter change of heart is found, no doubt, in
the beginning of what was destined to be his long intimacy with Esther
Johnson. When Swift left Sir William Temple's in a huff, Esther had been
a mere schoolgirl. Now, on his return, she was fifteen years of age, and
seemed older. She had blossomed out into a very comely girl, vivacious,
clever, and physically well developed, with dark hair, sparkling eyes,
and features that were unusually regular and lovely.
For three years the two were close friends and intimate associates,
though it cannot be said that Swift ever made open love to her. To the
outward eye they were no more than fellow workers. Yet love does not
need the spoken word and the formal declaration to give it life and make
it deep and strong. Esther Johnson, to whom Swift gave the pet name of
"Stella," grew into the existence of this fiery, hold, and independent
genius. All that he did she knew. She was his confidante. As to his
writings, his hopes, and his enmities, she was the mistress of all his
secrets. For her, at last, no other man existed.
