Life — December 3, 1914 — page 58: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

1026 form, how Southern were her feet! And her face! the bewildering beauty of her face that haunts me still!” I got up. “Sit down,” he said peremptorily ; “TI could not endure your looking at her without me! When her turn finished I had no thought but her; I was scarcely conscious of the monkeys that came next. In some fifteen minutes a girl had danced herself into my destiny—and I was swept to the stage-door, like a leaf on the gale of my emotions.” “T could see nobody inside to take a message. Ten minutes, a quarter of an hour passed, I waited in the gloomy little cul-de-sac, dreading, in every second, to hear the approaching footsteps of a rival with an appoint- ment. So tremendous was my agita- tion that Spanish tenses with which I was normally familiar evaded me, and my brain buzzed with the effort to compose a preliminary phrase. “The door opened. Before her features were visible*in the darkness, the majesty of her deportment pro- claimed that it was she. I advanced. I bowed with all my grace. Sefiorita,’ I said, ‘I am a poet, and I adore you. Will you honour me by supping with me?’ “It was not the volcanic eloquence into which I could have erupted in French. But I felt that the fervour of my voice should make amends; and I prayed that she would not be flippant in return. My sentiment de- manded sweet, grave, contralto tones; a giggle would have been torture to me. It was a spiritual crisis in which my heart ceased to beat—would she respond gravely, or would she giggle? “She did neither one nor the other. As if I had not spoken, she went by. “Comment donc? I had referred to supper; I was well dressed, young, almost embarrassingly handsome—and a dancer at a fifth-rate musique ‘all, which was not precisely a college for decorum, refused to dispense with the ceremony of an introduction! “Tt was prodigious—and by degrees my anger at the affront subsided. So far from dismissing her from my mind, I paid homage to her propriety. Yes, my bosom was thrilled by deep KA FELIPE ti esteem! On that sad walk home the romantic passion for a danseuse was transmuted into a devout reverence for a noble woman, I condemned myself for approaching her so in- formally. There is, in my complex nature, a vein of humility extremely winning—I resolved to write to her, confessing my fault, before I slept. “Tt was a long job, because I had to look up so many words in my dic- tionary, but I foresaw that she would be touched by the letter. In conclu- sion I said, ‘The impulse that you scorned was born, not of disrespect, but of an admiration that brooked no curb, If your vestal pride is not adamant to my remorse, grant me, I supplicate, an opportunity to express my penitence at the stage-door to- morrow (Wednesday).’ “Wednesday's sunshine already tinged the street when I dropped the missive in the boite-aux-lettres, but I was not conscious of fatigue. On the contrary, I regretted that I must kill eighteen hours in sleep, or some other banality, before the paradise of her presence was attained. How much had happened in a night! All that was frivolous in my disposition had passed away, and I realised that this girl had inspired in me a devo- tion profound, epoch-making, and supreme!” He paused. From the footlights, the Frenchman of the dirty shirt-front was to be heard in the capacity of interpreter. “Ladies and gentlemen, Sefiorita Caballero desires me to translate to you her heartfelt grati- tude for the enthusiasm of your ap- plause. If you will graciously allow her a few moments for a change of costume, Sefiorita Caballero will have the honour of presenting to you her sensational Toreador Dance." * The poet groaned. “When I woke I hoped to find that I had slept well into the afternoon. With impatience I saw that it was only midday! However, in dressing, I recognised that I might profitably employ some of the time with the dictionary; and I prepared a score of burning declara- tions for the interview. “The remaining hours were intoler- able. No sooner had the musique ‘all 7 Sen: JPA OAS opened than I took my seat, but the exasperating ‘entertainment appeared to me to endure for zons' before her turn; the torments inflicted on my suspense by a pair of cross-talk come- dians cannot be surpassed in hell. “At last I trembled in the cul-de- sac again! At last she camel! “With an obeisance that consigned my career to her feet, I murmured, ‘I am here to learn whether I am pardoned.’ “Not a syllable! passed me by. “Ah, mon Dieu! I cannot tell you how I reached my couch! “But my zeal survived even this. I was stricken, but indomitable. I said, ‘Behold a saint worth winning!’ I said, ‘Brace up, and demonstrate that you are worthy of her!’ “My friend, every day for a month I thumbed that exhausting dictionary and a Spanish grammar, that I might send to her a sonnet every night. For thirty days on end I wrestled with synonyms and inversions in a foreign tongue to create for her a nightly proof of my genius and my love! “And I waited for an answer vainly. “Long after despair had mastered me, I was with a good-for-nothing painter of my acquaintance. He said, ‘T have a new flame—delicious! Have you heard of the Spanish dancer up at the Little Casino?’ “By a superhuman effort I con- trolled myself, ‘Your suit prospers?’ “It is going strong. And only a week since I first dropped in and saw her!’ M4 “*Excellent! You are a man of action! But since when have you talked Spanish?’ “*Oh, that isn’t necessary,’ he laughed; ‘she is Spanish only on the stage. Between ourselves, her name is really “ Marie Durand”; she has never been outside of France in her life.’ “She had not understood a single word that I had said or written— and by the time I discovered it, she was another's! He holds her still; you hear him now!” The “interpreter” was speaking again: “Sefiorita Caballero desires me to translate—"” As before, she comicbooks.com