Part 14

Go a little further up in the social scale and you will find the same "detached" feeling. In a household I know of only one horse and a coupe can be afforded. Do you suppose it is for the use of the weary breadwinner? Not at all. He walks from his home to the "elevated." The carriage is to take his wife to teas or the park. In a year or two she will go abroad, leaving him alone to turn the crank that produces the income. As it is, she always leaves him for six months each year in a half-closed house, to the tender mercies of a caretaker. Two additional words could be advantageously added to the wedding service. After "for richer for poorer," I should like to hear a bride promise to cling to her husband "for winter for summer!"

Make another step up and stand in the entrance of a house at two A.M., just as the cotillion is commencing, and watch the couples leaving. The husband, who has been in Wall Street all day, knows that he must be there again at nine next morning. He is furious at the lateness of the hour, and dropping with fatigue. His wife, who has done nothing to weary her, is equally enraged to be taken away just as the ball was becoming amusing. What a happy, united pair they are as the footman closes the door and the carriage rolls off home! Who is to blame? The husband is vainly trying to lead the most exacting of double lives, that of a business man all day and a society man all night. You can pick him out at a glance in a ballroom. His eye shows you that there is no rest for him, for he has placed his wife at the head of an establishment whose working crushes him into the mud of care and anxiety. Has he any one to blame but himself?

In England, I am told, the man of a family goes up to London in the spring and gets his complete outfit, down to the smallest details of hat- box and umbrella. If there happens to be money left, the wife gets a new gown or two: if not, she "turns" the old ones and rejoices vicariously in the splendor of her "lord." I know one charming little home over there, where the ladies cannot afford a pony-carriage, because the three indispensable hunters eat up the where-withal.

Thackeray was delighted to find one household (Major Ponto's) where the governess ruled supreme, and I feel a fiendish pleasure in these accounts of a country where men have been able to maintain some rights, and am moved to preach a crusade for the liberation of the American husband, that the poor, down-trodden creature may revolt from the slavery where he is held and once more claim his birthright. If he be prompt to act (and is successful) he may work such a reform that our girls, on marrying, may feel that some duties and responsibilities go with their new positions; and a state of things be changed, where it is possible for a woman to be pitied by her friends as a model of abnegation, because she has decided to remain in town during the summer to keep her husband company and make his weary home-coming brighter. Or where (as in a story recently heard) a foreigner on being presented to an American bride abroad and asking for her husband, could hear in answer: "Oh, he could not come; he was too busy. I am making my wedding-trip without him."

No. 19--The Grand Prix

In most cities, it is impossible to say when the "season" ends. In London and with us in New York it dwindles off without any special finish, but in Paris it closes like a trap-door, or the curtain on the last scene of a pantomime, while the lights are blazing and the orchestra is banging its loudest. The Grand Prix, which takes place on the second Sunday in June, is the climax of the spring gayeties. Up to that date, the social pace has been getting faster and faster, like the finish of the big race itself, and fortunately for the lives of the women as well as the horses, ends as suddenly.

In 1897, the last steeple chase at Auteuil, which precedes the Grand Prix by one week, was won by a horse belonging to an actress of the Theatre Francais, a lady who has been a great deal before the public already in connection with the life and death of young Lebaudy. This youth having had the misfortune to inherit an enormous fortune, while still a mere boy, plunged into the wildest dissipation, and became the prey of a band of sharpers and blacklegs. Mlle. Marie Louise Marsy appears to have been the one person who had a sincere affection for the unfortunate youth. When his health gave way during his military service, she threw over her engagement with the Francais, and nursed her lover until his death--a devotion rewarded by the gift of a million.

At the present moment, four or five of the band of self-styled noblemen who traded on the boy's inexperience and generosity, are serving out terms in the state prisons for blackmailing, and the Theatre Francais possesses the anomaly of a young and beautiful actress, who runs a racing stable in her own name.

The Grand Prix dates from the reign of Napoleon III., who, at the suggestion of the great railway companies, inaugurated this race in 1862, in imitation of the English Derby, as a means of attracting people to Paris. The city and the railways each give half of the forty-thousand- dollar prize. It is the great official race of the year. The President occupies the central pavilion, surrounded by the members of the cabinet and the diplomatic corps. On the tribunes and lawn can be seen the Tout Paris--all the celebrities of the great and half-world who play such an important part in the life of France's capital. The whole colony of the Rastaquoueres, is sure to be there, "Rastas," as they are familiarly called by the Parisians, who make little if any distinction in their minds between a South American (blazing in diamonds and vulgar clothes) and our own select (?) colony. Apropos of this inability of the Europeans to appreciate our fine social distinctions, I have been told of a well-born New Yorker who took a French noblewoman rather to task for receiving an American she thought unworthy of notice, and said:

"How can you receive her? Her husband keeps a hotel!"

"Is that any reason?" asked the French-woman; "I thought all Americans kept hotels."

For the Grand Prix, every woman not absolutely bankrupt has a new costume, her one idea being a creation that will attract attention and eclipse her rivals. The dressmakers have had a busy time of it for weeks before.

Every horse that can stand up is pressed into service for the day. For twenty-four hours before, the whole city is en fete, and Paris en fete is always a sight worth seeing. The natural gayety of the Parisians, a characteristic noticed (if we are to believe the historians) as far back as the conquest of Gaul by Julius Caesar, breaks out in all its amusing spontaneity. If the day is fine, the entire population gives itself up to amusement. From early morning the current sets towards the charming corner of the Bois where the Longchamps race-course lies, picturesquely encircled by the Seine (alive with a thousand boats), and backed by the woody slopes of Suresnes and St. Cloud. By noon every corner and vantage point of the landscape is seized upon, when, with a blare of trumpets and the rattle of cavalry, the President arrives in his turnout a la Daumont, two postilions in blue and gold, and a piqueur, preceded by a detachment of the showy Gardes Republicains on horseback, and takes his place in the little pavilion where for so many years Eugenie used to sit in state, and which has sheltered so many crowned heads under its simple roof. Faure's arrival is the signal for the racing to begin, from that moment the interest goes on increasing until the great "event." Then in an instant the vast throng of human beings breaks up and flows homeward across the Bois, filling the big Place around the Arc de Triomphe, rolling down the Champs Elysees, in twenty parallel lines of carriages. The sidewalks are filled with a laughing, singing, uproarious crowd that quickly invades every restaurant, cafe, or chop-house until their little tables overflow on to the grass and side- walks, and even into the middle of the streets. Later in the evening the open-air concerts and theatres are packed, and every little square organizes its impromptu ball, the musicians mounted on tables, and the crowd dancing gayly on the wooden pavement until daybreak.

The next day, Paris becomes from a fashionable point of view, "impossible." If you walk through the richer quarters, you will see only long lines of closed windows. The approaches to the railway stations are blocked with cabs piled with trunks and bicycles. The "great world" is fleeing to the seashore or its chateaux, and Paris will know it no more until January, for the French are a country-loving race, and since there has been no court, the aristocracy pass longer and longer periods on their own estates each year, partly from choice and largely to show their disdain for the republic and its entertainments.

The shady drives in the park, which only a day or two ago were so brilliant with smart traps and spring toilets, are become a cool wilderness, where will meet, perhaps, a few maiden ladies exercising fat dogs, uninterrupted except by the watering-cart or by a few stray tourists in cabs. Now comes a delightful time for the real amateur of Paris and the country around, which is full of charming corners where one can dine at quiet little restaurants, overhanging the water or buried among trees. You are sure of getting the best of attention from the waiters, and the dishes you order receive all the cook's attention. Of an evening the Bois is alive with a myriad of bicycles, their lights twinkling among the trees like many-colored fire-flies. To any one who knows how to live there, Paris is at its best in the last half of June and July. Nevertheless, in a couple of days there will not be an American in Paris, London being the objective point; for we love to be "in at the death," and a coronation, a musical festival, or a big race is sure to attract all our floating population.

The Americans who have the hardest time in Paris are those who try to "run with the deer and hunt with the hounds," as the French proverb has it, who would fain serve God and Mammon. As anything especially amusing is sure to take place on Sunday in this wicked capital, our friends go through agonies of indecision, their consciences pulling one way, their desire to amuse themselves the other. Some find a middle course, it seems, for yesterday this conversation was overheard on the steps of the American Church:

First American Lady: "Are you going to stop for the sermon?"

Second American Lady: "I am so sorry I can't, but the races begin at one!"

No. 20--"The Treadmill."

A half-humorous, half-pathetic epistle has been sent to me by a woman, who explains in it her particular perplexity. Such letters are the windfalls of our profession! For what is more attractive than to have a woman take you for her lay confessor, to whom she comes for advice in trouble? opening her innocent heart for your inspection!

My correspondent complains that her days are not sufficiently long, nor is her strength great enough, for the thousand and one duties and obligations imposed upon her. "If," she says, "a woman has friends and a small place in the world--and who has not in these days?--she must golf or 'bike' or skate a bit, of a morning; then she is apt to lunch out, or have a friend or two in, to that meal. After luncheon there is sure to be a 'class' of some kind that she has foolishly joined, or a charity meeting, matinee, or reception; but above all, there are her 'duty' calls. She must be home at five to make tea, that she has promised her men friends, and they will not leave until it is time for her to dress for dinner, 'out' or at home, with often the opera, a supper, or a ball to follow. It is quite impossible," she adds, "under these circumstances to apply one's self to anything serious, to read a book or even open a periodical. The most one can accomplish is a glance at a paper."

Indeed, it would require an exceptional constitution to carry out the above programme, not to mention the attention that a woman must (however reluctantly) give to her house and her family. Where are the quiet hours to be found for self-culture, the perusal of a favorite author, or, perhaps, a little timid "writing" on her own account? Nor does this treadmill round fill a few months only of her life. With slight variations of scene and costume, it continues through the year.

A painter, I know, was fortunate enough to receive, a year or two ago, the commission to paint a well-known beauty. He was delighted with the idea and convinced that he could make her portrait the best work of his life, one that would be the stepping-stone to fame and fortune. This was in the spring. He was naturally burning to begin at once, but found to his dismay that the lady was just about starting for Europe. So he waited, and at her suggestion installed himself a couple of months later at the seaside city where she had a cottage. No one could be more charming than she was, inviting him to dine and drive daily, but when he broached the subject of "sitting," was "too busy just that day." Later in the autumn she would be quite at his disposal. In the autumn, however, she was visiting, never ten days in the same place. Early winter found her "getting her house in order," a mysterious rite apparently attended with vast worry and fatigue. With cooling enthusiasm, the painter called and coaxed and waited. November brought the opera and the full swing of a New York season. So far she has given him half a dozen sittings, squeezed in between a luncheon, which made her "unavoidably late," for which she is charmingly "sorry," and a reception that she was forced to attend, although "it breaks my heart to leave just as you are beginning to work so well, but I really must, or the tiresome old cat who is giving the tea will be saying all sorts of unpleasant things about me." So she flits off, leaving the poor, disillusioned painter before his canvas, knowing now that his dream is over, that in a month or two his pretty sitter will be off again to New Orleans for the carnival, or abroad, and that his weary round of waiting will recommence. He will be fortunate if some day it does not float back to him, in the mysterious way disagreeable things do come to one, that she has been heard to say, "I fear dear Mr. Palette is not very clever, for I have been sitting to him for over a year, and he has really done nothing yet."

He has been simply the victim of a state of affairs that neither of them were strong enough to break through. It never entered into Beauty's head that she could lead a life different from her friends. She was honestly anxious to have a successful portrait of herself, but the sacrifice of any of her habits was more than she could make.

Who among my readers (and I am tempted to believe they are all more sensible than the above young woman) has not, during a summer passed with agreeable friends, made a thousand pleasant little plans with them for the ensuing winter,--the books they were to read at the same time, the "exhibitions" they were to see, the visits to our wonderful collections in the Metropolitan Museum or private galleries, cosy little dinners, etc.? And who has not found, as the winter slips away, that few of these charming plans have been carried out? He and his friends have unconsciously fallen back into their ruts of former years, and the pleasant things projected have been brushed aside by that strongest of tyrants, habit.

I once asked a very great lady, whose gracious manner was never disturbed, who floated through the endless complications of her life with smiling serenity, how she achieved this Olympian calm. She was good enough to explain. "I make a list of what I want to do each day. Then, as I find my day passing, or I get behind, or tired, I throw over every other engagement. I could have done them all with hurry and fatigue. I prefer to do one-half and enjoy what I do. If I go to a house, it is to remain and appreciate whatever entertainment has been prepared for me. I never offer to any hostess the slight of a hurried, distrait 'call,' with glances at my watch, and an 'on-the-wing' manner. It is much easier not to go, or to send a card."

This brings me around to a subject which I believe is one of the causes of my correspondent's dilemma. I fear that she never can refuse anything. It is a peculiar trait of people who go about to amuse themselves, that they are always sure the particular entertainment they have been asked to last is going to "be amusing." It rarely is different from the others, but these people are convinced, that to stay away would be to miss something. A weary-looking girl about 1 A.M. (at a house-party) when asked why she did not go to bed if she was so tired, answered, "the nights I go to bed early, they always seem to do something jolly, and then I miss it."

There is no greater proof of how much this weary round wears on women than the acts of the few who feel themselves strong enough in their position to defy custom. They have thrown off the yoke (at least the younger ones have) doubtless backed up by their husbands, for men are much quicker to see the aimlessness of this stupid social routine. First they broke down the great New-Year-call "grind." Men over forty doubtless recall with a shudder, that awful custom which compelled a man to get into his dress clothes at ten A.M., and pass his day rushing about from house to house like a postman. Out-of-town clubs and sport helped to do away with that remnant of New Amsterdam. Next came the male revolt from the afternoon "tea" or "musical." A black coat is rare now at either of these functions, or if seen is pretty sure to be on a back over fifty. Next, we lords of creation refused to call at all, or leave our cards. A married woman now leaves her husband's card with her own, and sisters leave the "pasteboard" of their brothers and often those of their brothers' friends. Any combination is good enough to "shoot a card."