Part 17

Our Mexican “Apache” went across to fetch them. Suddenly I heard screams and shouts, “They’re in--they’re in!” I leaped out of my sick bed, flung on a dressing gown and went outside the tent and saw two men in the water making for the bank. It was the Irishman saving the terrified Swede.

The current had been too strong and the Texas boy was frantically trying to hold the swamping boat to the wire hawser that spanned the river, to save it from being lost. But he could not hold, and in another moment he and it were floating rapidly amid-stream, heading for the rapids.

It was not until afterwards that I learned he could not swim. No one has yet understood why he was not drowned. He went over the falls and was engulfed underneath the capsized boat. The river divides here into two currents. By mercy of Providence the boat was swept along by the current that runs into shore instead of by the other, which would have carried him straight on down.

He came ashore having displayed great calm and courage. When his safety was realized the next problem was how to get the other two across the river, the terrified Swede could not swim, the Irishman had gone back to the mainland for him. They could come across without much difficulty and risk, half in, half out of the water hand over hand on the wire hawser. The Swede stood shivering on the bank, he would not contemplate it. The Irishman accomplished it, went back and forth three times to fetch him--two men from our side went across with ropes to help him. He was immovable. Rather would he return all the long hard weary way to Micos in the dark and take his chance of village hospitality, and catch a train for Tampico in the morning.

I think if I were a man I would rather drown, than admit before so many people that I was afraid to attempt what the others proved could be done with safety. After such a journey, to be so near home, to see the goal just across the way--to be so tired--so hungry and so wet, and not to make the final effort to get there. Well--he went back.

The evening seemed to me a strange corroboration of my last night’s musings. The river rises, and it rises--and in four days time, I have to cross it by the ferry.

SEPTEMBER 12. _Mexico._

My fears were unwarranted: In the end, the river was kind and calm and let me pass--I said goodbye regretfully, lingeringly, even I have to admit tearfully.

I am quite sure I shall never return to the island that has been my world for a month.

It is a closed chapter, but a very definite chapter, and I have learnt many things. I have learnt that nature, with her camouflage garb of beauty, is merciless, cruel, pitiless and hostile. The unpolluted virgin forest contains poison and disease. Civilization which I have always scorned is fighting Nature all the time. The wonder is that anyone survives Nature. Cruelty is primitive, not decadent, as I used to believe.

Nevertheless, long after I have forgotten the hurt of Nature, I will remember a thousand beautiful things that are indelible.

I have been happy--on the whole tremendously happy. A happiness that is pure and abstract and did not depend on a human being.

But if I lived in this country I should weary of the seasonless sameness. There are things that the blood of my race would cry aloud for.

I should miss:--

--The turn of the leaf in Autumn. The frosty crispness of an early dawn. Twilight. My footprints in the dew. Pheasants fluttering to roost. Green beechbuds in the Spring. Mist of bluebells in a leafless wood. The robin’s song. A wood fire crackling.

And the pleasant sight of children in clean white pinafores on their way to school.

SEPTEMBER 15, 1921. _Nuevo Laredo, Mexico._

Such an anti-climax--the Immigration people have refused us entrance to the U. S., because Dick had fever and sore eyes, which they say is “trachoma” described officially as “a dangerous, contagious disease.”

It nearly broke my heart to see my San Antonio train steam away, and us left in Mexico. We so counted on getting to a good hotel and a good doctor at San Antonio. Goodness knows when we will get out of this country. The Doctor says it will take time.

The Mexican Laredo Hotels are indescribable: no water, no food, no drains, floor covered with ants. We leave tonight for Monterey to await Dick’s recuperation.

We are so dirty, so worn out, so poisoned, so sore and wretched, such a Job’s company. That is what camping in Mexico means.

From this window, I see across the river the U. S. flag floating from dignified buildings. So near, so longed for. Heaven’s door closed.

It is a blow.

I feel lost, very homeless, very unloved, very unwanted.

SEPTEMBER 17, 1921. _Monterey, Mexico._

Of course Dick has not got trachoma--the doctor who has lived in Mexico 20 years recognized it at once as the most ordinary Mexican eye disease prevalent among children. I shall probably get it too. Meanwhile here we are, recuperating. The Hotel has at least got baths and hot and cold water. One is so reduced in spirits, so humbled, so unspoiled, one hardly dreams of higher bliss than this!

I had not even the energy to get into the Plaza and see the Centenary procession. Dick and I got up on to the deserted and neglected roof garden.

There one views the jagged mountain ranges by which the town is surrounded. It is really rather beautiful, but my spirit is across the border, I am existing here under protest; sullen, bored, inactive. I have an affection for the United States. I want to get back there.

Though they treat me like a steerage emigrant it makes no difference, and after all, what am I but an emigrant? A first class, specially reserved saloon, emigrant--but none the less a simple homeless emigrant, asking humbly for admittance.

The American industrial magnates here have been ever so kind and helpful. The American Smelting and Refining Works especially have done more for me than I can ever repay. Their practical and volunteered help and great thoughtfulness cannot be described nor appreciated in mere words. I rather suspect the channel through which this help was contrived, although his name has not been mentioned to me.

To while away our waiting moments, Dick and I, in company with a representative of the Baldwin Locomotive works, went to an amateur bull-fight in celebration of the Centenario. A feeble amateur affair it was. Nothing illustrative of Mexico bull-fighting. A bedraggled show, neither decorative, spectacular nor well fought. Mercifully the bull’s horns were sawn off at the tips so we were spared the sight of horses ripped up and trailing entrails. But I saw enough of blood and brutality. The audience cheered, laughed, sang, shouted. Almost it sounded like a baseball game. The more blood flowed, the more they shouted with joy. The bulls were young ones, too young to be very fierce. They would not face the horses at all, and to enliven them, the bandolaria were charged with a time fuse and exploded like a firework with loud detonations, and burnt interiorly. For some time after the explosion, smoke emanated from the burnt, black, bleeding wound in the bull’s back. One animal in terror jumped the paling. The killing with the sword at the end was bungled every time. The sword missed the vital spot and was plunged up to the hilt in the brute’s shoulder, to be withdrawn, on the first opportunity, dripping with blood, and restruck again, and again. The mob cheering the while. When the last bull was killed the crowd flooded the ring, and the dead bull was mutilated by people who carried away bits of it as souvenirs. When the carcass had been finally dragged away on a rope by two mules and a pool of blood marked the spot, boys besieged it, dipped naked feet in it, seemed hypnotized and enthralled by the sight and touch of blood.

The horrible thing is that after the sixth bull had been tormented to death, one’s own feelings as regards the sight of blood were almost blunted. Frankly I longed to see a man killed for a change, instead of the bull. There was something ridiculous about these swaggering men with their long lances, astride horses that could hardly stand up, and that had to be urged towards the bull by men who lashed them from behind. Chiefly the bull seemed to be pursued more than pursuing.

SEPTEMBER 27, 1921. _San Antonio, Texas._

My appeal to Washington met with a response that has been a revelation to me of American chivalry. We passed the border yesterday at dawn. I faced it with some trepidation, but we received the greatest courtesy and consideration. After reexamination of Dick (who is much better) they retracted the verdict of trachoma.

Six weeks accumulation of mail has met me here. My head is buzzing with taking it all in. The reading did not cheer me. From England, on all sides gloomy accounts politically and privately. They ask me to return to their gloom. Of course one has occasional moments of homesickness when the desire to see one’s own world is overwhelming. But one is happier away here. There is daylight instead of darkness. There is air to breath. There’s life. Everything and everyone is young, vital, active, hopeful.

We are resting for three or four days. The town has been badly dilapidated by the recent floods. One goes in to a shop to ask for something--and ever the same reply: “Our stock was washed away by the flood--we cannot supply you.” We drove out to the Breckenridge Park and beheld with amazement the impudent little stream that caused the havoc.

There is nothing to do in this semi-American, semi-Mexican town. But the hotel is pure American, full of standardized American luxury. It seems wonderful. I ring the bell of my bedroom and ask the room service to send me a jug--(no a pitcher I have to call it, else they don’t understand)--a pitcher of lemonade. I don’t always want the lemonade but I love to see it when it comes. The glass jug is a real object of beauty--a work of art. It is full of sliced oranges, carmine cherries, ice and green leaved herb. It is a riot of color, a delight to the eye. I might be drinking in a dream the sap of irridescent precious stones!

I am making use of those quiet days to try and tame Dick. At present he is a savage. He keeps on hitching his trousers up as one unaccustomed to wearing clothes. He exclaims: “Jesus!” when unduly stirred. He learnt it from the Texas boys in camp. He is not sure what he may or may not eat in his fingers and is very clumsy with his fork.

To counter-balance this he has acquired a useful knowledge of things. For instance one of his games it to lay pipe lines--oil of course. He knows something about locomotives, and what the very newest type is like inside as compared with the old (the Baldwin locomotive representative took a fancy to him). He has a smattering of knowledge about gods and things you find in the earth. But he isn’t (at present) fit to tea out at five o’clock in a drawing room with any of my friends’ children.

OCTOBER 3, 1921. _Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles_.

I asked how long it would take me to get to Los Angeles. They said three days. I had expected it to take ten hours. I cannot get used to distances in this country.

So this is Los Angeles!

For two months, at breakfast, lunch and dinner, Mr. Washington B. Vanderlip used to tell me, at Moscow, about Los Angeles. He would not listen to anything about Russia. The Russians would have been interested to hear about America, but he did not tell us about America, he always talked about Los Angeles. No matter how remotely conversation drifted onto other subjects, he always brought it back to Los Angeles. Finally, one day at breakfast, about the end of the 5th week, I suddenly realized I hated Los Angeles, and when he began again I put my hand on his: “stop--” I said, “and let me say something about London.” He could not bear it, and left the room. And now here I am, as I never expected to be, actually in Los Angeles.

Mr. Goldwyn, whom I met in New York, has telegraphed to his studio president, Mr. Lehr, and asked him to take care of me. Mr. Lehr has placed a car at my disposal all day and every day. He has introduced me to Gouverneur Morris and Rupert Hughes, but above all he has shown me a new world of which I was totally ignorant.

My initiation into the realm of film production has been a revelation to me. Possibly the great big world that pays its 25 cents to see a “movie” show, understands all about it, knows what it costs to produce, appreciates the toil and the thought and the plan involved. But I did not know. Truth to tell I have seen very few films besides “The Birth of a Nation” which taught me all I know of American History. I have seen bits of plays being photographed out in the open “on location” in film language, and I had gathered an idea that to be a film actress meant that one had rather a lovely time, doing spectacular things in beautiful and interesting surroundings. I saw their lovely photographs in magazines. I knew that some of them became millionaires, and that internationally known ones were mobbed through admiration if they walked abroad. An easy path to fame, I thought, if one had the right kind of face.

I really came to Los Angeles for no other reason than to have a glimpse of its amusing play-land, and it has been a revelation to me.

My surprise grew as I followed Mr. Lehr from building to building. There were departments of dress-making and store-rooms full of lovely frocks and materials, some of the finest cloth of gold and brocades of Italian weaving. There were cassones containing real sables and other furs, tailors, hair-dressers, manicurists, carpenters and barbers were all part of the organization, and a canteen that recalled to my mind the Communist restaurants of Moscow, but where, unlike Moscow, I was able to get an ice cream soda at almost any time of the day! There were a bewilderment of storehouses, a sort of dreamland full of everything and anything that anyone could want in a hurry. Tin tacks and paste, Florentine shrines and Henry II chairs (so efficiently home-made as to perplex an antiquary!), canary birds in cages, Buddhas, invalid crutches and Persian carpets. Stores and stores full of what they called “props” which I would gladly have looted. As for the “Studios” there were three or more and they looked like the familiar “orangerie” of some old country estate, amid trim lawns, such as I thought only England could boast.

I was surprised that in the midst of this great industry there should have been found time and thought to spend on abstract decoration and beauty. The garden was full of flowers, and stone urns cast long shadows on the grass. Strange figures passed me by; a pirate, and then some Russian refugees and Russian children turned joyful somersaults upon the grass. And then--the village! So quaint and old world, so exactly like our village at home. It enchanted me, I thought it would be a lovely place to live. I asked questions and they told me it was a sham. I could not believe this until I had walked all round it. Such a splendid solid sham it was, with such an unflinching front.

Then I began to wonder what was real and what was mere illusion. I seemed to go to Russia and then to China. I looked for my Romeo in Venice, and then felt sadly transplanted to an East Side slum. I looked at the ground to be sure I was walking on real grass, and up at the sky to see if I was still in the world, and then I pinched myself and it was still me.

But in this bewildering land of make-believe I found realities. I lingered and looked at some plays being staged in opposite parts of the studios. I marvelled at the patience and the effort that each small scene demanded. Patience and good temper on the part of the director, the camera men, the electricians, the carpenters--endless, endless patience, amazing good humor. I watched one small and--as it seemed to me--insignificant scene being repeated three or four times, and each time seemed to me exactly like the last, and each time, when it was over, the director said to the actress: “That’s good, dear, that’s very good!” But he explained to me that whereas the first “shot” was 45 feet long, the last one was reduced to 25 feet and the important thing was condensation. I realized the necessity of co-operation between the workers, beginning with the author’s effort, and the “continuity writers,” right through the details to the end. What immense individual effort, and thought and work each film scene necessitates! Here too, as everywhere, are the heartbreaks, the dreams and ambitions, the triumphs, the disappointments, the never ending dramas and tragedies of human endeavor.

It is a new world to me, and I have to admit a great admiration and a great respect for it.

I dined, a small party, at the house of Gouverneur Morris. We had a Chinese dinner, especially prepared by his Chinese cook. All through dinner the conversation was of Charlie Chaplin, his looks, his individuality, incidents in their friendship, and what I had missed. Never a word of criticism did I hear, everyone talked of him with appreciation and affection, almost with pride. He had talked of me, they said. He had distributed “Mayfair to Moscow” among his friends, and most people thought we knew one another intimately. Finally I found myself too calling him “Charlie.” From all accounts he is cultured, thoughtful and attractive, and I wonder to myself whether I am never to know but the mirror’d reflection. I feel like one who does not personally know the great, but know someone who does and writes home about it! After dinner we left the men, and went on a voyage of exploration round the house, which is bungalow in type, and very attractive and then in the bathroom we paused to powder our noses. In the bathroom we remained, three of us, perched on the baths’ edge, forgot the men, and drifted into conversation which was all absorbing.

One girl was a film actress with bobbed straight glossy henna hair. Her face was much made up, her mouth might have been of any other design than the painted one. She was decorative and futuristic and I liked looking at her. She intrigued me. The other girl was a vivacious and restless continuity-writer. Both were very young. They talked unreservedly about their love affairs, and I listened enraptured, as to a story of de Maupassant. In the end we were agreed that marriage would spoil everything and then the men, impatient of our absence, came and banged upon the bathroom door.

OCTOBER, 1921. _Los Angeles._

Upton Sinclair fetched me for dinner. I was surprised when I saw the author of “The Jungle,” whom I expected to be aggressive and strong-faced. Instead I found a gentle creature, rather vague, and rather shy and with a rather weak chin. We decided that our sort of background was not the Ambassador Hotel, and I asked him to take me anywhere else. We motored into the heart of the town, and went to a cafeteria. This was new to me. Never before had I been to a cafeteria. I had never even heard what they were like. I followed him and did what he did, and tried to look as if I knew what to do; he first took a metal tray from a column of trays, and passed along a row or buffet of hot dishes, selecting what he liked, and the serving woman behind the buffet placed a ration of his selection on his tray. Carrying our own trayfuls we retired to a little table. We talked until everyone else had left, until men on step ladders re-arranged the flowers on their columns, until finally the cafeteria closed and we were expelled. Most of that time we talked about “The Jungle.” I asked him a hundred questions. How did he _know_ about the lives of the foreign immigrants? How did he get into their souls? Had he imagined it, or did he know it? How had he learnt so much about the details of work at the packing houses?

I learnt all I wanted to know. He had imagined nothing. The Russian family was a real family. The wedding feast was real--he was present. He had lived in Packingtown. Every story was a real story, a proven story. Everything was true ... and that was fifteen years ago, and conditions, he said, were much the same today. They had not much improved. He is a most sincere Socialist. Unrelenting, uncompromising, he is at war with all the powers that be. Don Quixote tilting at a windmill isn’t in it. Sinclair tilts at industrial kings in armor, at the octopus tendons of the newspaper kingdom--at all the mailed fists in the world in general and the United States in particular. He is in quest of truth and light. He wishes to undress the veiled spectres, and show us the naked truth beneath, the truth with all its maladies and sores, its hideousness, its terrible deformities, so ably hidden. This mild-faced man will stop at nothing. He has great courage and never fears destruction. He is unwavering in his determination. He goes crashing in where angels fear to tread.

Driven from the cafeteria into the night, we motored fast and aimless, talking as we drove, talking, never ceasing, until we could drive no more. Our road led down a hill, straight like the road of the Nazarene swine, into the sea, and so we stopped; a great long white line of breakers confronted us, we left the car, and stood for a moment undecidedly. Then a long seaside bench came crawling past me. I thought for a moment that I was in madland. I remembered in a flash the sham village, the illusions of filmland, still so near me. Really one should not be surprised by anything any more. In the dim light I again looked at the walking seat and yet again, and then I realized the man who was sitting on it was really driving it. The seat was a motor seat. We jumped upon it and were carried miles, as it seemed to me, along the sea walk. In the distance were bright lights, we stopped when we reached them, and this was “Venice.” I have always longed to go to Venice, but I never knew it looked like this. Over-head a network of colored lights, and from no visible location, the music of a gramaphone. Before us a square stone stately building, called a “Bath house” and in large letters over a door “check babies here.” “Check” (I have learnt) is an American word which described what people do with their hats and umbrellas when they go into a restaurant. Further on, dazzled by the lights and laughter of Venice, we stopped for an ice-cream soda, and then took shots at sham rabbits and moving ducks with a rifle. Here too I was introduced for the first time to chewing gum, pleasant to chew, but unfortunately unpleasant to taste.

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1921.

The Goldwyn Studio Co., having arranged my reservations for me, sent a car to take me to the 8 P.M. train for San Francisco.

When the hotel porter shouted down the line of parked cars: “Goldwyn Studio Car” the crowd of dinner arrivals simply stood still and stared. I had my parrot “General Baragan” on my shoulder and I stepped into the car with the self-consciousness of a recognized prominent film star!

On the train I did as directed by my hosts-to-be: I sought out the director of the train and told him “the Lark” would stop in the morning at Burlingame. I hadn’t a notion where or what Burlingame was, except that my friends lived there, and the train was to be stopped. The director looked at me, in a curious way, as though I were a poor lunatic suffering from hallucination. He had been, he said, on the train for 25 years and it never yet had stopped at Burlingame. However, the train did stop there in the morning and deposited me and Dick and Louise and the parrot with all our luggage in the middle of the track and hurriedly sped away. Then Constance Tobin, whom I had not seen for 15 years and who had been a school-mate of mine at the convent in Paris, appeared with her husband to greet me.

SIX DAYS LATER. _Burlingame._