Peeps at People

I was silent. I knew precisely what he had suffered, and could not blame him.

"I suppose," I said, sympathetically, "that this means that you will never return."

"Oh no," said he. "I expect to go back some day, but not until public interest in my personal appearance has died out. Some time somebody will discover some new kind of a freak to interest you people, and when that happens I will venture back for a day or two, but until then I think I will stay over here, where an illustrious personage can have a fit in the street, if he wants to, without attracting any notice whatsoever. There are so many great people over here, like myself and Lord Salisbury and Emperor William, that fame doesn't distinguish a man at all, and it is possible to be happy though illustrious, and to enjoy a certain degree of privacy."

Just then the English coast hove in sight, and Mr. Kipling went below to pack up his mullagatawny, while I drew close to the rail and reflected upon certain peculiarities of my own people.

They certainly do love a circus!

THE DE RESZKES

On my return to London I received a message from my principals at home suggesting that, in view of the possibilities of opera next winter, an interview with the famous brothers De Reszke would be interesting to the readers of the United States. I immediately started for Warsaw, where, I was given to understand, these wonderful operatic stars were spending the summer on their justly famous stock-farm.

I arrived late at night, and put up comfortably at a small and inexpensive inn on the outskirts of the city. Mine host was a jolly old Polander, who, having emigrated to and then returned from America, spoke English almost as well as a citizen of the United States. He was very cordial, and assigned me the best room in his house without a murmur or a tip. Anxious to learn how genius is respected in its own country, I inquired of him if he knew where the De Reszkes lived, and what kind of people they were.

"Oh, yais," he said, "I know dem De Reszkes ferry vell already. Dey haf one big farm back on dher hills. I gets my butter undt eggs from dhose De Reszkes."

"Indeed!" said I, somewhat amused. "They are fine fellows, both of them."

"Yais," he said. "I like dem vell enough. Deir butter is goot, undt deir eggs is goot, but deir milk is alvays skimmed. I do not understandt it vy dey shouldt skim deir milk."

"I presume," said I, "that their voices are in good condition?"

"Vell," he replied, "I dondt know much apout deir foices. I dondt effer speak to dem much. Ven I saw dem lost dey could make demselves heardt. But, you know, dey dondt needt deir foices much already. Dey keep a man to sell deir butter undt eggs."

"But of course you know that they are renowned for their vocal powers," I suggested.

"I dondt know much apout 'em," he said, simply. "Dey go avay for a year or two every six months, undt dey come back mit plenty ohf money ohf one kind undt anodder, but I subbosed dey made it all oudt ohf butter undt eggs. Vot is dose focal bowers you iss dalking apout? Iss dot some new kindt ohf chiggens?"

I gave the landlord up as a difficult case; but the next day, when I called at the castle of the two famous singers, I perceived why it was that in their own land they were known chiefly as farmers.

"The De Reszkes?" said I, as I entered their castle, some ten miles out of Warsaw, and held out my hands for the brothers to clasp.

It was a superb building, with a façade of imposing quality, and not, as I had supposed, built of painted canvas, but of granite. To be sure, there were romantic little balconies distributed about it for Jean to practise on, with here and there a dark, forbidding casement which suggested the most base of Édouard's bass notes; but generally the castle suggested anything but the flimsy structure of a grand-opera scene.

Their reply was instant, and I shall never forget the magnificent harmony of their tones as they sang in unison:

"Miss Witherup – Miss Wi-hith-hith-erup?" they inquired.

"The sa-ha-ha-hay-hame!" I sang, and I haven't a bad voice at all.

"We are glad," sang Jean, in tenor tones.

"We are glad," echoed Édouard, only in bass notes, and then they joined together in, "We are glad, we are glad, to see-hee-hee-hee you."

I wish I could write music, so that I could convey the delightful harmonies of the moment to the reader's ear, particularly the last phrase. If a typographical subterfuge may be employed, it went like this:

"To see —hee —hee —hee you!"

Start on C, and go a note lower on each line, and you will get some idea of the exquisite musical phrasing of my greeting.

"Excuse me, Jean," said Édouard, "but we are forgetting ourselves. It is only abroad that we are singers. Here we are farmers, and not even yodellists."

"True," said Jean. "Miss Witherup, we must apologize. We recognized in you a matinée girl from New York, and succumbed to the temptation to try to impress you; but here we are not operatic people. We run a farm. Do you come to interview us as singers or farmers?"

"I've come to interview you in any old way you please," said I. "I want to see you at home."

"Well, here we are," said Édouard, with one of his most fascinating smiles. "Look at us."

"Tell me," said I, "how did you know I was a matinée girl? You just said you recognized me as one."

"Easy!" laughed Jean, with a wink at his brother. "By the size of your hat."

"Ah, but you said from the United States," I urged. "How did you know that? Don't English matinée girls wear large hats?"

"Yes," returned Édouard, with a courteous bow, "but yours is in exquisite taste."

Just then the telephone-bell rang, and Jean ran to the receiver. Édouard looked a trifle uneasy, and I kept silent.

"What is it, Jean?" Édouard asked in a moment.

"It's a message from the Countess Poniatowska. She says the milk this morning was sour. Those cows must have been at the green apples again," replied the tenor, moodily.

"It's very annoying," put in Édouard, impatiently. "That stage-carpenter we brought over from the Metropolitan isn't worth a cent. I told him to build a coop large enough for those cows to run around in, and strong enough to keep them from breaking out and eating the apples, and this is the third time they've done this. I really think we ought to send him back to New York. He'd make a good target for the gunners to shoot at over at the Navy Yard."

"What are the prospects for grand opera next year, Mr. De Reszke?" I asked, after a slight pause.

"Pretty good," replied Jean, absently. "Of course, if the milk was sour, we'll have to send another can over to the Countess."

"I suppose so," said Édouard; "but the thing's got to stop. I don't mind losing a little money on this farm at the outset, but when it costs us $1500 a quart to raise milk, I don't much like having to provide substitute quarts, when it sours, at sixteen cents a gallon, just because a fool of a carpenter can't build a cow-coop strong enough to keep the beasts away from green apples."

I had to laugh quietly; for, as the daughter of a farmer, I could see that these spoiled children of fortune knew as much about farming as I knew about building light-houses.

"Perhaps," I suggested, "it wasn't the green apples that soured the milk. It may have been the thunder-storm last night that did it."

"That can't be," said Jean, positively. "We have provided against that. All our cows have lightning-rods on them; we bought them from a Connecticut man, who was in here the other day, for $500 apiece, so you see no electrical disturbance could possibly affect them. It must have been the apples."

"I suppose I had better tell Plançon to take the extra quart over himself at once and explain to the Countess," said Édouard.

"Plançon here too?" I cried, in sheer delight.

"Yes; but it's a secret," said Jean. "The whole troupe is here. Plançon has charge of the cows, but nobody knows it. I wouldn't send Plançon," he added, reverting to Édouard's suggestion. "He'll stay over there all day singing duets with the ladies. Why not ask Scalchi to attend to it? She's going to town after the turnip seed this morning, and she can stop on her way."

"All right," said Édouard; "I imagine that will be better. Plançon's got all he can do to get the hay in, anyhow."

Édouard looked at me and laughed.

"We are hard workers here, Miss Witherup," he cried. "And I can tell you what it is, there is no business on earth so exacting and yet so delightful as farming."

"And you are all in it together?" I said.

"Yes. You see, last time we were all in New York we were the most harmonious opera troupe there ever was," Édouard explained, "and it was such a novel situation that Jean and I invited them all here for the farming season, and have put the various branches of the work into the hands of our guests, we two retaining executive control."

"Delightful!" I cried.

"Melba has charge of the dairy, and does a great deal of satisfactory rehearsing while churning the butter. You should hear the Spinning Song from 'Faust' as she does it to the accompaniment of a churn. Magnificent!"

"And you ought to see little Russitano and Cremonini rounding up the chickens every night, while Bauermeister collects the eggs," put in Jean; "and Plançon milking the cows after Maurel has called them home; and that huge old chap Tamagno pushing the lawn-mower up and down the hay-fields through the summer sun – those are sights that even the gods rarely witness."

"It must be a picture!" I ejaculated, with enthusiasm. "And Ancona? Is he with you?"

"He is, and he's as useful a man as ever was," said Édouard. "He is our head ploughboy. And Calvé's vegetable garden – well, Jean and I do not wish to seem vain, Miss Witherup, but really if there is a vegetable garden in the world that produces cabbages that are cabbages, and artichokes that are artichokes, and Bermuda potatoes that are Bermuda potatoes, it is Calvé's garden right here."

"And what becomes of all the product of your farm?" I asked.

"We sell it all," said Jean. "We supply the Czar of Russia with green pease and radishes. The Emperor of Germany buys all his asparagus from us; and we have secured the broiled-chicken contract for the Austrian court for the next five years."

"And you don't feel, Mr. De Reszke," I asked, "that all this interferes with your work?"

"It is my work," replied the great tenor.

"Then why," I queried, "do you not take it up exclusively? Singing in grand opera must be very exhausting."

"It is," sighed Jean. "It is indeed. Siegfried is harder than haying, and I would rather shear six hundred sheep than sing Tristan; but, alas, Édouard and I cannot afford to give it up, for if we did, what would become of our farm? The estimated expense of producing one can of pease on this estate, Miss Witherup, is $300, but we have to let it go at 50 cents. Asparagus costs us $14.80 a spear. A lamb chop from the De Reszke Lambery sells for 60 cents in a Paris restaurant, but it costs us $97 a pound to raise them. So you see why it is that my brother and I still appear periodically in public, and also why it is that our services are very expensive. We didn't want to take the gross receipts of opera the last time we were in New York, and when the company went to the wall we'd have gladly compromised for 99 cents on the dollar, had we not at that very time received our semi-annual statement from the agent of our farm, showing an expenditure of $800,000, as against gross receipts of $1650."

"Sixteen hundred and thirty dollars," said Édouard, correcting his brother. "We had to deduct $20 from our bill against Queen Victoria for those pheasants' eggs we sent to Windsor. Three crates of them turned out to be Shanghai roosters."

"True," said Jean. "I had forgotten."

I rose, and after presenting the singers with the usual check and my cordial thanks for their hospitality, prepared to take my leave.

"You must have a souvenir of your visit, Miss Witherup," said Jean. "What shall it be – a radish or an Alderney cow? They both cost us about the same."

"Thank you," I said. "I do not eat radishes, and I have no place to keep a cow; but if you will sing the 'Lohengrin' farewell for me, it will rest with me forever."

The brothers laughed.

"You ask too much!" they cried. "That would be like giving you $10,000."

"Oh, very well," said I. "I'll take the will for the deed."

"We'll send you our pictures autographed," said Édouard. "How will that do?"

"I shall be delighted," I replied, as I bowed myself out.

"You can use 'em to illustrate the interview with," Jean called out after me.

And so I left them. I hope their anxiety over their crops will not damage their "focal bowers," as the landlord called them, for with their voices gone I believe their farm would prove a good deal of a burden.

HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ

On my way back from the Polish home of the De Reszkes it occurred to me that it would be worth while to stop over a day or so and interview Mr. Sienkiewicz. There were a great many things I desired to ask that gentleman, and he is so comparatively unknown a personality that I thought a word or two with him would be interesting.

I had great difficulty in finding him, for the very simple reason that, like most other people, I did not know how to ask for him. Ordinarily I can go into a shop and ask where the person I wish to see may chance to dwell. But when a man has a name like Sienkiewicz, the task is not an easy one. When it is remembered that poets in various parts of the United States have made the name rhyme to such words as sticks, fizz, and even vichy, it will be seen that it requires an unusually bold person to try to speak it in a country where words of that nature are considered as easy to pronounce as Jones or Smith would be in my own beloved land. However, I was not to be daunted, and set about my self-appointed task without hesitation. My first effort was to seek information from my friends the De Reszkes, and I telegraphed them: "Where can I find Sienkiewicz? Please answer." With their usual courtesy the brothers replied promptly: "We don't know what it is. If it is a patent-medicine, apply at any apothecary shop; if it is a vegetable, we do not raise it, but we have a fine line of parsley we can send you if there is any immediate hurry."

I suppose I ought not to give the brothers away by printing their message of reply, but it seems to me to be so interesting that I may hope to be forgiven if I have erred.

I next turned to the book-shops, but even there I was puzzled. Most of the booksellers spoke French; and while I am tolerably familiar with the idiom of the boulevards, I do not speak it fluently, and was utterly at a loss to know what Quo Vadis might be in that language. So I asked for a copy of With Fire and Sword.

"Avez-vous Avec Feu et Sabre?" I asked of the courteous salesman.

It may have been my accent, or it may have been his stupidity. In any event, he did not seem to understand me, so I changed the book, and asked for The Children of the Soil.

"N'importe," said I. "Avez-vous Les Enfants de la Terre?"

"Excuse me, madame," he replied, in English, "but what do you want, anyhow?"

"I want to know where – er – where the author of Quo Vadis lives."

"Oh!" said he. "I did not quite understand you. It is so long since I was in Boston that my American French is a trifle weak. If you will take the blue trolley-car that goes up Ujazdowska Avenue, and ask the conductor to let you out at the junction of the Krakowskie Przedmiescie and the Nowy Swiat, the gendarme on the corner will be able to direct you thither."

"Great Heavens!" I cried. "Would you mind writing that down?"

He was a very agreeable young man, and consented. It is from his memorandum that I have copied the names he spoke with such ease, and if it so happens that I have got them wrong, it is his fault, and not mine.

"One more thing before I go," said I, folding up the memorandum and shoving it into the palm of my hand through the opening in my glove. "When I get to – er – the author of Quo Vadis's house, whom shall I ask for?"

I fear the young man thought I was mad. He eyed me suspiciously for a moment.

"That all depends upon whom you wish to see," he said.

"I want to see – er – him," said I.

"Then ask for him," he replied. "It is always well, when calling, to ask for the person one wishes to see. If you desired to call upon Mrs. Brown-Jones, for instance, it would be futile to go to her house and ask for Mrs. Pink-Smith, or Mrs. Greene-Robinson."

"I know that," said I. "But what's his name?"

The young man paled visibly. He now felt certain that I was an escaped lunatic.

"I mean, how do you pronounce it?" I hastened to add.

"Oh!" he replied, with a laugh, and visibly relieved. "Oh, that! Why, Sienkiewicz, of course! It is frequently troublesome to those who are not familiar with the Polish language. It is pronounced Sienkiewicz. S-i-e-n-k, Sienk, i-e, ie, w-i-c-z, wicz – Sienkiewicz."

And so I left him, no wiser than before. He did it so fluently and so rapidly that I failed to catch the orthoepic curves involved in this famous name.

Armed with the slip of paper he had so kindly handed me, I sought out and found the trolley-car; conveyed by signs rather than by word of mouth to the conductor where I wished to alight; discovered the gendarme, who turned out to be a born policeman, and was therefore an Irishman, who escorted me without more ado to the house in which dwelt the man for whom I was seeking.

"Is – er – the head of the house in?" I asked of the maid who answered my summons. I spoke in French, and this time met with no difficulty. The maid had served in America, and understood me at once.

"Yes, ma'm," she replied, and immediately ushered me into the author's den, where I discovered the great man himself scolding his secretary.

"I cannot understand why you are so careless," he was saying as I entered. "In spite of all my orders, repeatedly given, you will not dot your jays or cross your ells. If you do not take greater care I shall have to get some one else who will. Write this letter over again."

Then he looked up, and perceiving me, rose courteously, and, much to my surprise, observed in charming English:

"Miss Witherup, I presume?"

"Yes," said I, grasping his proffered hand. "How did you know?"

"I was at the De Reszkes' when your telegram reached there yesterday," he explained. "We thought you would be amused by the answer we sent you."

"Oh!" said I, seeing that I had been made the victim of a joke. "It wasn't polite, was it?"

"Oh, I don't know," he replied. "It was inspired by our confidence in your American alertness. We were sure you would be able to find me, anyhow, and we thought we'd indulge in a little humor, that was all."

"Ah!" I said, smiling, to show my forgiveness. "Well, you were right; and now that I have found you, tell me, do you write or dictate your stories?"

"I dictate them," he said.

"Wonderful!" said I. "Can you really speak all those dreadful Polish words? They are so long and so full of unexpected consonants in curious juxtaposition that they suggest barb-wire rather than literature to the average American mind."

I had a sort of sneaking idea that he would find in juxtaposition a word to match any of his own, and I spoke it with some pride. He did not seem to notice it, however, and calmly responded:

"One gets used to everything, Miss Witherup. I have known men who could speak Russian so sweetly that you'd never notice how full of jays the language is," said he. "And I have heard Englishmen say that after ten years' residence in the United States they got rather to like the dialect of you New-Yorkers, and in some cases to speak it with some degree of fluency themselves."

"What is your favorite novel, Mr. – er – "

"Sienkiewicz," he said, smiling over my hesitation.

"Thanks," said I, gratefully. "But never mind that. I have a toothache, anyhow, and if you don't mind I won't – "

"Don't mention it," he said.

"I won't," I answered. "What is your favorite novel?"

"Quo Vadis," he replied, promptly, and without any conceit whatever. He was merely candid.

"I don't mean of your own. I mean of other people's," said I.

"Oh!" said he. "I didn't understand; still, my answer must be the same. My favorite novel in Polish is, of course, my own; but of the novels that others have published, I think Quo Vadis, by Jeremiah Curtin, is my favorite. Of course it is only a translation, but it is good."

I did not intend to be baffled, however, so I persisted.

"Very well, Mr. – er – You," said I. "What is your favorite novel in Chinese?"

"My favorite novel has not yet been translated into Chinese," he replied, calmly, and I had to admit myself defeated.

"Do you like Vanity Fair?" I asked.

"I have never been there," said he, simply.

"What do you think of Pickwick?" I asked.

"That is a large question," he replied, with some uneasiness, I thought. "But as far as my impressions go, I think he was guilty."

I passed the matter over.

"Are you familiar with American literature?" I asked.

"Somewhat," said he. "I have watched the popular books in your country, and have read some of them."

"And what books are they?" I asked.

"Well, Quo Vadis and The Prisoner of Zenda," he replied. "They are both excellent."

"I suppose you never read Conan Doyle," I put in, with some sarcasm. A man who is familiar with what is popular in American literature ought to have read Conan Doyle.

"Yes," he replied, "I have read Conan Doyle. I've read it through three times, but I think Dr. Holmes did better work than that. His Autograph on the Breakfast Table was a much better novel than Conan Doyle, and his poem, 'The Charge of the Light Brigade,' is a thing to be remembered. Still, I liked Conan Doyle," he added.

"Everybody does," I said.

"Naturally. It is a novel that suggests life, blood, insight, and all that," said my host. "But of all the books you Americans have written the best is Mr. Thackeray's estimate of your American boulevardier. It was named, if I remember rightly, Tommie Fadden. I read that with much interest, and I do not think that Mr. Thackeray ever did anything better, although his story of Jane Eyre was very good indeed. Fadden was such a perfect representation of your successful American, and in reading it one can picture to one's self all the peculiar qualities of your best society. Really, I am grateful to Mr. Thackeray for his Tommie Fadden, and when you return to New York I hope you will tell him so, with my compliments."

I looked at my watch and observed that the hour was growing late.

"I am returning to Paris," said I, "so I have very little time left. Still, I wish to ask you two questions. First, did you find it hard to make a name for yourself?"

"Very," said he. "It has taken sixteen hours a day for twenty years."

"Then why didn't you choose an easier name, like Lang, or Johnson?" I asked.

"What is your other question?" he said, in response. "When I make a name, I make a name that will be remembered. Sienkiewicz will be remembered, whether it can be pronounced without rehearsal or not. What is your other question?"

"Are you going to read from your own works in America, or not? Dr. Doyle, Dr. Watson, Anthony Hope, Matthew Arnold, and Richard Le Gallienne have done it. How about yourself?" I said.

Mr. Sienkiewicz sighed.

"I wanted to, but I can't," said he. "Nobody will have me."

"Nonsense," said I. "Have you? They'll all have you."

"But," he added, "how can I? One must be introduced, and how can chairmen of the evening introduce me?"

"They have intelligence," said I. And some of them have, so I was quite right.

"Yes, but they have no enunciation or memory," said he. "I can explain forever the pronunciation of my name, but your American chairman can never remember how it is pronounced. I shall not go."

And so I departed from the house of Mr. Sienkiewicz.

I can't really see why, when he was making a name for himself, he did not choose one that people outside of his own country could speak occasionally without wrecking their vocal chords – one like Boggs, for instance.