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ТАНЦОВЩИЦА ДУНКАН, как Автобиография ИРМЫ ДУНКАН
(Duncan Dancer an Autobiography by IRMA DUNCAN)

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[01], DUNCAN DANCER

Wesleyan University
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Titles – open access Ebooks

Wesleyan University Press

1966

Duncan Dancer, an Autobiography
Irma Duncan

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[02], Cover

DUNCAN DANCER

ALSO BY IRMA DUNCAN
The Technique of Isadora Duncan
Isadora Duncan's Russian Days
(with Allan Ross Macdougall)

[05], Cover

DUNCAN DANCER
An Autobiography by
IRMA DUNCAN

Wesleyan University Pre.rs
MIDDLETOWN, CONNECTICUT
36834000067439

[06]

Copyright© 1965, 1966 by Irma Duncan Rogers

This work appeared in condensed form in Dance Perspectives, numbers 21 and 22, 1965. The courtesy of the publisher in assigning the copyright is gratefully acknowledged.
Grateful acknowledgment is also made to the proprietors of the rights for their gracious permission to reprint the following !Daterials under their control:
"The Child-Dancers," by Percy MacKaye, copyright © 1914, 194~ Arvia MacKaye Ege and Christy MacKaye Barnes; reprinted by their permission.
"Delight," by John Galsworthy, reprinted by permission of the author, of Charles Scribner's Sons, and of William Heinemann Ltd. United States copyright © 1910 Charles Scribner's Sons, renewal copyright © 1938
Ada Galsworthy; British copyright © 1910 John Galsworthy.
Excerpt from Isadora, by Allan Ross Macdougall, copyright © 1960 Thomas Nelson & Sons; reprinted by their permission.
Excerpts from My Life, by Isadora Duncan, copyright © 1928, 1955 Live-right Publishing Corporation (Black and Gold Library); reprinted by their permission.
Excerpts from The Art of the Dance, by Isadora Duncan, are published by the courtesy of Theatre Arts Books, New York, as successors to the book publishing department of Theatre Arts, .Inc. Copyright © 1928 Helen Hackett, Inc.; renewal copyright © 1956 Helen Hackett.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-14664

First edition

Duncan Dancer, by Irma Duncan, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial4.0 International License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/legalcode

Publication of this title is funded by the Humanities Open Book program, a joint initiative of The National Endowment for the Humanities and The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

[07]

FOR
Sherman, my husband.
"and a book of remembrance was written."
Malachi 3,3.

[09], p. vii-viii * DUNCAN DANCER *

Contents

Foreword xi
Note on Sources xiii

PART I. 1905-1913

Prelude 3
1. Follow Me 10
2. Dancer of the Future 20
3· The Greatest Thing in Life 37
4· European Tour 62
5· Sojourn at Chateau Villegenis 86
6. Elizabeth Takes Over 101
7· Lesson in the Temple 113
8. You Must Be My Children 124

PART II. 1913-1921

9· Dionysion 137
10. Growing Up 148
11. Isadora Duncan Dancers 163
12. Demeter and Persephone 187
13· The School Is Dead, Long Live the School 198

PART III. 1921-1933

14. Exile 217
I5. Little Dividend 232
16. A Last Visit 240
17· Plough the Ground, Sow the Seed 249
18. If You Will Be Faithful 259
19. To China and Back 273
20. Return to Moscow 300
21. Finale 309
22. Curtain 315
23. The End and a New Beginning 326

Index of Names 343

[11], p. ix-x * DUNCAN DANCER *

Illustrations
facing page

Isadora Duncan at the Theatre of Dionysus, Athens, 1904. 18
(upper) Isadora in her own equipage, Berlin, 1905.
(lower) Marta, Lisa, and Gerda before a statuette of Isadora, Grunewald, 1905. 19

Isadora with Grunewald students, 1905 ; Irma at right, fifth couple from top. 50

Pupils of the Isadora Duncan School, 1906-1908.

(upper I.) Erica. (upper r.) Irma.
(lower I.) Theresa. (lower r.) Anna. 51

(upper) Irma and Isadora, N euilly, 1908.
(lower) Gordon Craig and Isadora, Berlin, I904. 82

Pillbox hats and Polish coats, Chateau Villegenis, October I908. Irma on running board, center; Preston Sturges behind shoulder of girl at wheel. 83

(upper) Elizabeth Duncan's school, Darmstadt. Irma at left among her little pupils; Elizabeth and Max Merz at right.
(lower) Deirdre and Irma aboard ship to Egypt, 1912: snapshot by Isadora Duncan. 114

Isadora with Deirdre and Patrick. 115

(upper) Dionysian, 1914·
(lower) Dionysian: the six Duncan girls with statue of dancing
maenad. 146

(upper) Walter Rummel and Isadora, 1919.
(lower) Duncan Dancers, 1920: Lisa, Irma, Margot. 147

Irma Duncan: dance photo by Arnold Genthe, 1917. 178

Irma Duncan dancing outdoors, Greece, 1920. 179

Isadora to Irma, October I, 1920: "Your letter has made me Happy-" 210
Irma Duncan: portrait photo by Edward Steichen; Versailles, 1920. Inscribed: "Gay dancing eyes of the eager dancing faun girl. With a vivat-Edward Steichen." 211
(upper) Irma Duncan in Moscow, ca. 1925.
(lower) The Isadora Duncan School, Moscow. 306

"The young woman I never knew." Irma's mother, photographed years before her marriage. 307

[13], p. xi-xiii

Foreword

My life with Isadora Duncan dates from 1905, until her untimely end in 1927. This period covers most of my own career as a dancer. During all these vital, creative years of working together, neither of us was able to leave some tangible result of our transient art. This book must therefore remain the sole, abiding record of my work in the world of the dance.
I.D. [Irma Duncan]
Longway, 1966.
..
Моя жизнь с Айседорой Дункан датируется 1905 годом, до ее несвоевременного завершения в 1927 году. Этот период охватывает большую часть моей собственной карьеры как танцовщицы. В течение всех этих жизненно важных творческих лет совместной работы ни один из нас не смог оставить ощутимый результат нашего преходящего искусства. Поэтому эта книга должна оставаться единственным, постоянным свидетельством моей работы в мире танца.

[15]

Note on Sources: Many of the quotations in this book come from papers in the personal collection of Irma Duncan. These materials have been given by Miss Duncan to the Dance Division of the New York Public Library. In some cases, similar statements may be found in published works, but Miss Duncan has used the original sources whenever possible. All translations have been made by the author. References to works frequently cited have been abbreviated: Life-Isadora Duncan, My Life (New York, 1928); Art-Isadora Duncan, The Art of the Dance (New York, 1928). Other works cited are acknowledged elsewhere in this volume.
..
Примечание по источникам. Многие цитаты из этой книги взяты из документов в личной коллекции Ирмы Дункан. Эти материалы были предоставлены мисс Дункан танцевальному отделу Нью-йоркской публичной библиотеки. В некоторых случаях подобные заявления можно найти в опубликованных работах, но мисс Дункан использовала исходные источники, когда это было возможно. Все переводы сделаны автором. Ссылки на часто цитируемые работы были сокращены: Life-Isadora Duncan, «Моя жизнь» (Нью-Йорк, 1928); Art-Isadora Duncan, «Искусство танца» (Нью-Йорк, 1928). Другие упомянутые работы признаны в другом месте этого тома.

** PART I. 1905-1913 **

[17], p. 3-9 * DUNCAN DANCER * Prelude

Prelude

THE most fateful day of my life, the one destined to make the greatest changes in it, occurred at the end of January, 1905. The sky was dark, for a heavy fog had rolled in from the North Sea during the night, obscuring the streets of Hamburg. I had been born near there in a small town in Schleswig-Holstein, but my mother now lived on the outskirts of this city.
..
Самый судьбоносный день в моей жизни тот, который был предназначен для внесения в него больших изменений, произошел в конце января 1905 года. Небо было темным, потому что ночью из Северного моря катился тяжелый туман, затеняя улицы Гамбурга. Я родилась там, в маленьком городке Шлезвиг-Гольштейн, но моя мать теперь жила на окраине этого города.

I can see the child I was then, bundled up warm against the damp weather, wearing a velvet bonnet and wool mittens, sitting beside my mother in the electric tramcar that carried me, not only from the quiet suburbs to the busy center of town, but also out of one kind of world into an entirely different one.
..
Я могу видеть ребенка, которым я тогда была, упакованного тепло из-за влажной погоды, в бархатной шляпе и ватных варежках, сидящей рядом с моей матерью в электрическом трамвае, который нес меня не только из тихих пригородов в оживленный центр города, но и из одного мира, в совершенно другой.

As we clanged along the Steindam leading to the more elegant section of Hamburg, I felt a mounting excitement. I was also somewhat frightened at what was about to happen, for I was to audition for a famous dancer to see if I could become a pupil in her school. This had come about because mother had seen an announcement in the newspaper saying that Isadora Duncan, the young American dancer who was then creating a furor in Germany, wanted pupils for her newly founded school in Berlin.
..
Когда мы стучали по улице Стейндам, ведущей к более изящной части Гамбурга, я почувствовала сильное волнение. Также я несколько испугалась того, что должно было произойти, потому что я должна была прослушиваться у знаменитой танцовщицы, чтобы посмотреть, смогу ли я стать учеником в ее школе. Это произошло потому, что мама увидела объявление в газете, в котором говорилось, что молодая американская танцовщица Айседора Дункан, которая тогда создавала фурор в Германии, хотела учеников для своей недавно основанной школы в Берлине.

Mother had been dreaming of a stage career for me ever since a neighbor of ours, a music teacher, discovered that I had a good singing voice. This immediately reminded her of Ernestine Schumann-Heink, prima donna of the Hamburg Opera, for mother had come in contact with the glamorous world of the theatre when she acted as governess for the singer's little boy.
..
Мать мечтала о сценической карьере для меня с тех пор, как мой сосед, учитель музыки, обнаружил, что у меня хороший голос. Это сразу напомнило ей Эрнестину Шуманн-Хейнк, примадонну Гамбургской оперы, потому что мать вступила в контакт с гламурным миром театра, когда она выступала в роли гувернантки для маленького мальчика певицы.

The curtain actually rose on my dance career the day before, when mother tried unsuccessfully to enroll me at the Municipal Theatre School. The directress, a dour-looking woman in a tight black dress, poked her head out of the door. When she saw me, she immediately pronounced me too young. "Bring your daughter back when she is twelve years old," she said.
..
Занавес на самом деле поднялся на мою танцевальную карьеру накануне, когда мать безуспешно пыталась зачислить меня в Муниципальную театральную школу. Директриса, суровая женщина в узком черном платье, высунула голову из двери. Когда она увидела меня, то сразу же объявила меня слишком молодой. «Приведи свою дочь, когда ей исполнилнится двенадцать лет», - сказала она.

Mother tried hopefully to describe my acting and singing talents, but she cut her short with, "Those are the rules, Madam, goodbye," and shut the door on us.
..
Мать с надеждой пыталась описать мои актерские и певческие таланты, но та коротко отрезала ей: «Это правила, мадам, до свидания», и закрыл нам дверь.

It was just as well she did, as otherwise I might never have met Isadora Duncan. However, the fates were even then busy weaving the threads that would bring us together.
..
Это было тоже хорошо, поскольку иначе я, возможно, тогда никогда бы не встретил Айседору Дункан. Тем не менее, наши судьбы были даже тогда заняты плетением нитей, которые сведут нас вместе.

That same evening mother put me to bed earlier than usual, perhaps to sleep off my supposed disappointment, although the rejection at the Theatre School had actually left no impression on me. She then cleared away the supper dishes from the kitchen table and retired to the front parlour, or gute Stube, as they say in Hamburg. She sat down on the mahogany sofa covered with black damask above which hung a picture of my late father with his curly red hair and bristling mustache. On the round mahog - any table in front of her, covered with a fringed cloth, she spread the evening newspaper. An old-fashioned oil lamp provided the only illumination. Electricity was a fairly recent convenience that had not as yet penetrated the outskirts of our city to light up the uniformly gloomy row of houses where we lived.
..
В тот же вечер мать уложила меня спать раньше обычного, возможно, чтобы заснуть от моего предполагаемого разочарования, хотя отказ в Театральной школе на самом деле не произвел на меня никакого впечатления. Затем она очистила блюда после ужина с кухонного стола и ушла в гостиную перед домом или погладила Комнату, как говорят в Гамбурге. Она села на диван из красного дерева, покрытый черным дамастом, над которым висела фотография моего покойного отца с кудрявыми рыжими волосами и ощетинившимися усами. На круглом махохе - любой стол перед ней, покрытый бахромой тряпкой, она расправила вечернюю газету. Единственная подсветка - старомодная масляная лампа. Электричество было довольно недавним удобством, которое еще не проникло в окраину нашего города, чтобы осветить равномерно мрачный ряд домов, в которых мы жили.

My mother looked old and careworn. Her smooth dark hair was streaked with gray, for she was past fifty. She had worked hard most of her life and didn't really know what leisure meant. My father's death had left us in somewhat straitened circum-stances. A Hanoverian by birth, at a time when the elector of that province was also a British royal duke, he owned a small foodstore in Wandsbeck. When mother met him he was a widower with five children, the youngest being a mere infant. Mother took on the job of caring for them all. I was born when my parents were in their late forties. Thus I have no remembrance of mother as a young woman. Of my father I have practically no recollection at all, since I was only four years old when he died. His image is therefore just faintly imprinted in my memory.
..
Моя мать выглядела старой и озабоченной. Ее гладкие темные волосы были седыми, потому что ей было лет пятьдесят. Она много работала большую часть своей жизни и не знала, что такое досуг. Смерть моего отца оставила нас в несколько стесненных обстоятельствах. Ганновер по рождению, в то время, когда избирателем этой провинции также был британский королевский герцог, он владел небольшим продовольственным магазином в Вандсбеке. Когда мать встретила его, он был вдовцом с пятью детьми, а младший был просто младенцем. Мать взяла на себя заботу о них. Я родилась, когда моим родителям было лет сорок. Таким образом, я не вспоминаю о матери как о молодой женщине. От моего отца у меня практически нет воспоминаний, так как мне было всего четыре года, когда он умер. Поэтому его образ только слегка запечатлен в моей памяти.

Instead of sending her stepchildren to an orphanage as she was advised to do, mother preferred to struggle along as best she could in order to provide a decent home for them, seeing to it that they obtained work when they finished school. By the time I too had reached school age they had all left; only I, mother's one child of her own, remained at home.
..
Вместо того, чтобы отправить своих пасынкв в детский дом, как ей советовали сделать, мать предпочла бороться, как могла, чтобы обеспечить им достойный дом, убедившись, что они получили работу, когда закончили школу. К тому времени, когда я тоже достигла школьного возраста, они все ушли; только я, единственный её ребенок, осталась дома.

Though small of stature and frail in appearance, mother possessed enormous energy and a vast fund of human kindness; always cheerful, she managed to eke out a living.
..
Несмотря на небольшой рост и хрупкость, мать обладала огромной энергией и огромным запасом человеческой доброты; всегда веселая, - так ей и удалось выжить.

Perusing the paper now, she came across a startling announcement. It seemed almost miraculous that such a wonderful chance for the advancement of my stage career should present itself so opportunely. The more she read, the more excited she became. A nervous woman and highly emotional, she suddenly jumped up and rushed into the bedroom where I lay fast asleep.
..
Перечитывая газету, она натолкнулась на поразительное объявление. Казалось почти чудесным, что такой замечательный шанс для продвижения моей сценической карьеры должен проявиться так кстати. Чем больше она читала, тем больше она возбуждалась. Нервная женщина и очень эмоциональная, она внезапно вскочила и ворвалась в спальню, где я крепко спала.

"Irma! Irma dear!" she called. "Wake up, wake up, my child!" I could not immediately figure out what had happened; her voice sounded so urgent. Impatiently she lifted me out of bed. "Come along, I want to read you something wonderful," she said, and carried me into the next room.
..
«Ирма! Ирма, дорогая!» позвала она. «Проснись, проснись, дитя мое!» Я не могла сразу понять, что случилось; её голос звучал так пронзительно. Она нетерпеливо подняла меня с кровати. «Пойдем, я хочу прочитать тебе что-то замечательное», - сказала она и отвела меня в соседнюю комнату.

Holding me on her lap, mother sat down again. She moved the lamp a little closer, smoothed out the rumpled pages of the newspaper, adjusted the gold-rimmed pince-nez hanging from a black ribbon around her neck, and jerked me into an upright position, all apparently at one and the same time.
..
Подняв меня на колени, мать снова села. Она приблизила лампу ближе, сгладила смятые страницы газеты, поправила пенсне с золотой окантовкой, свисающей с черной ленты на шее, и вытолкнула меня в вертикальное положение, все это, видимо, в одно и то же время.

"Sit up and listen," she said briskly. Pointing a forefinger at some inky black print, totally indecipherable to me, she began to read aloud.
..
«Садись и слушай, - сказала она бойко. Направив указательный палец на чернильный отпечаток, совершенно неразборчивый для меня, она начала читать вслух.

I sat up and forced myself to listen to the article about a famous "barefoot dancer named Isadora Duncan," of whom I had never heard. It appeared she was then performing with considerable eclat at the Thalia Theatre in Hamburg. She was described as "a slender creature like a Greek goddess come to life."
..
Я села и заставила себя послушать статью о знаменитой «босоногой танцовщице по имени Айседора Дункан», о которой я никогда не слышала. Оказалось, что она выступала со значительным великолепием в театре Талия в Гамбурге. Она была описана как «стройное существо, как греческая богиня, которая ожила».

Pronouncing each word slowly so I could understand, mother read that Isadora Duncan had, only two weeks before, opened a dance school for little girls in Grunewald, near Berlin. And stressing the next words, she said, "Only children aged six to ten are acceptable."
..
Произнося каждое слово медленно, чтобы я поняла, мать читала, что Айседора Дункан, всего за две недели до этого, открыла школу танцев для девочек в Грюневальде, недалеко от Берлина. Подчеркивая следующие слова, она сказала: «Только дети в возрасте от шести до десяти приемлемы».

Mother looked at me over her pince-nez. "Did you understand, dear? That means you won't have to wait till you are twelve! Now listen to the description of the school."
..
Мать посмотрела на меня через пенсне. «Ты поняла, дорогая? Это значит, что тебе не придется ждать, пока тебе не исполнится двенадцать! Теперь послушай описание школы».

The building is a three-story structure with a large basement and top floor. All the rooms are spacious and airy and the many windows allow free access of sunlight and fresh air. On the walls in every room are representations of antique art, and in the dormitories hang Donatello's terra cottas depecting children at play as well as Della Robbia's colorful Madonnas. There are large copies of dancing figures on friezes in the schoolroom, and on a long shelf in the music room is a lovely collection of Tanagra figurines. All these works of art are supposed to give the children a sense and appreciation of beauty, which in turn will influence their dancing, according to Miss Duncan.
..
Здание представляет собой трехэтажное здание с большим подвалом и верхним этажем. Все номера просторны и полны воздуха, а многие окна обеспечивают свободный доступ к солнечному свету и свежему воздуху. На стенах в каждой комнате представлены изображения античного искусства, а в общежитиях висят терракоты Донателло, которые изображают детей в игре, а также красочных Мадонн от Деллы Роббиа. В школьной комнате есть большие экземпляры танцующих фигур, а на длинной полке в музыкальной комнате - прекрасная коллекция фигурок Танагры. По словам мисс Дункан, все эти произведения искусства должны дать детям чувство и признательность за красоту, которая, в свою очередь, повлияет на их танцы.

The children are boarded and educated free of charge; this includes clothes and other necessities. Besides their dance training personally conducted by Isadora Duncan, the pupils will also receive academic instruction from a competent public school teacher and in addition, in order to stimulate their artistic sensibilities, there will be regular visits to museums with lectures on art. Two governesses are in charge, and the management of the school is in the hands of Miss Isadora's sister, Elizabeth Duncan.
..
Дети расселяются и получают образование бесплатно; это включает одежду и другие предметы первой необходимости. Помимо обучения танцам, лично проводимого Айседорой Дункан, ученики также получат академическое обучение от компетентного преподавателя общеобразовательной школы и, кроме того, в целях стимулирования их художественной чувствительности будут регулярно посещать музеи с лекциями по искусству. Заведуют две гувернантки, а руководство школы находится в руках сестры мисс Айседоры, Элизабет Дункан.

This free, non-profit dance school, founded by Isadora Duncan and entirely supported by her financially, is not a philanthropic institution in the ordinary sense but an enterprise dedicated to the promotion of health and beauty in mankind. Both physically and spiritually the children will here receive an education providing them with the highest intelligence in the healthiest body.
..
Эта бесплатная некоммерческая школа танцев, основанная Айседорой Дункан и полностью поддерживаемая ею в финансовом отношении, не является филантропическим учреждением в обычном смысле, а предприятием, занимающимся поощрением здоровья и красоты в человечестве. И физически, и духовно дети получат здесь образование, обеспечивающее им высший интеллект в здоровом теле.

"How wonderful!" mother exclaimed. "Irma, how would you like to be a dancer?"
..
«Как замечательно!» воскликнула мать. «Ирма, как ты хочешь быть танцовщицей?»

I did not know what to say. The only dancing I had done was at Hallowe'en. After dark, with the other children in our block, I would skip joyfully along the street with a colored paper lantern on a stick. Holding it high up in the air I would sing a little German rhyme:
Lanterne! Lanterne!
Sonne, Mond und Sterne
Macht aus euer Licht,
Macht aus euer Licht,
Aber loescht mir meine Lanterne nicht!
..
Я не знала, что сказать. Единственный танец, который я сделала, был на Хэллоуин. После наступления темноты, с другими детьми в нашем квартале, я с радостью проскакала улицу с цветным бумажным фонарем на палочке. Держа его высоко в воздухе, я спела небольшую немецкую рифму:
Лэнтерн! Лэнтерн!
Солнце, Луна и звезды
Выключите свет,
Выключите свет,
Но не забывай мой Лэнтерн!

Little did I then realize how extraordinarily symbolic that simple gesture of holding high the torch while dancing would be for me in the future.
..
Мало ли я тогда понимал, как необычайно символично, что простой жест держал факел во время танца для меня в будущем.

When mother asked if I wanted to be a dancer, my answer could not have been too enthusiastic. She tried to arouse my interest by sounding very enthusiastic herself.
..
Когда мать спросила, хочу ли я быть танцовщицей, мой ответ не мог быть слишком восторженным. Она попыталась возбудить мой интерес, проявив больший энтузиазм.

"Here, Irma, listen to this! 'In the summertime the pupils will take their lessons out of doors. Clad only in a light, short tunic and with bare feet, they will be taught to move freely in harmony with nature. They will learn to express their own childlike feelings in the dance....'"
..
«Здесь, Ирма, послушай это!» "В летнее время ученики будут брать уроки на открытом воздухе. Одетые только в легкую короткую тунику и босыми ногами, их научат свободно перемещаться в гармонии с природой. Их научат выражать свои собственные детские чувства в танце...»"

"Just think how wonderful that must be!" mother said, thinking no doubt of all the summer days I was forced to spend playing on the dusty street or in our cheerless back yard. "If I send you to that school, who knows ... perhaps some day ... you too will be a famous dancer!" She laughed and hugged me tight. "Tell me, darling, would you like to try this school?"
..
«Подумай, как это прекрасно!» сказала мать, не сомневаясь во все летние дни, которые я вынуждена была проводить на пыльной улице или в нашем безрадостном заднем дворе. «Если я отправлю тебя в эту школу, кто знает ... может быть, когда-нибудь ... ты тоже станешь знаменитой танцовщицей!» Она засмеялась и крепко обняла меня. «Скажи мне, дорогая, ты бы хотела попробовать эту школу?»

"I don't know," I said hesitatingly, for the thought of leaving home for a distant city frightened me. "Why do I have to decide tonight?" I felt very sleepy. "Can't we wait till tomorrow?"
..
«Не знаю», нерешительно сказала я, потому что мысль о том, чтобы уехать из дома в отдаленный город, напугала меня. «Зачем мне сегодня решать?» Я чувствовала себя очень сонной. «Мы не можем подождать до завтра?»

"No!" Mother explained we had to decide tonight because the dancer was giving only one more tryout early tomorrow morning. After further persuasion I agreed to go. Mother at once carried me back to bed. In the dark bedroom, while tucking me in, she said in a strangely serious voice:
..
«Нет!» Мать объяснила, что нам нужно было решить сегодня вечером, потому что танцовщица назначила еще одно испытание рано утром. После дальнейших убеждений я согласилась пойти. Мать сразу вернула меня в постель. В темной спальне, заправляя меня, она сказала странным серьезным голосом:

"Just one more thing, darling, before you go to sleep. I must tell you that the pupils are required to remain at the school till they have reached their eighteenth year. That means we shall be separated for a long, long time."
..
«Еще одна вещь, дорогая, перед сном. Я должна сказать тебе, что ученики должны оставаться в школе, пока они не достигнут восемнадцати лет. Это означает, что мы будем разделены надолго».

I sat bolt upright and blurted out, "No, I don't want to go!" and straightway felt much relieved. Mother pushed me back onto the pillows. Calmly she reminded me of the wonderful things I would receive at that school-things she could not provide. And she promised to visit me often, which reassured me somewhat. And so, tired of this long discussion in what seemed to me the middle of the night, I once more agreed to attend the tryout.
..
Я сидела в вертикальном положении и выпалила: «Нет, я не хочу туда!» и сразу почувствовала облегчение. Мать оттолкнула меня обратно на подушки. Спокойно она напомнила мне о чудесных вещах, которые я получила бы в этой школе, - вещах, которые она не могла предоставить. И она пообещала часто навещать меня, что несколько успокоило меня. И поэтому, устав от этой продолжительной дискуссии в том, что мне показалось посреди ночи, я еще раз согласился присутствовать на мероприятии.

I had no sooner closed my eyes when I heard mother murmur as if to herself, "What a dreadfully long time to be separated. Oh, how I shall miss you. Darling, will you miss me?"
..
Я едва закрыла глаза, когда услышала, как мать пробормотала, как бы про себя: «Как ужасно долгое время нужно быть в разлуке. О, как я буду скучать по тебе. Милая, ты будешь скучать по мне?»

Alarmed at her emotional outburst, I started to cry. I threw my arms about her and sobbed, "0 Mama, I shall miss you too!"
..
Встревоженная её эмоциональным взрывом, я начала плакать. Я обняла её и всхлипнула: «Мама, я тоже буду скучать!»

Mother stroked my head. "Go to sleep now, for we shall have to get up very early to be there on time ...."
..
Мать погладила мою голову. «Иди спать, потому что нам нужно рано вставать, чтобы быть там вовремя...»

And here we were, on our way to meet the "barefoot dancer," who they said looked like a Greek goddess come to life. The tramcar stopped in front of the Hamburger Hof, our destination. By the big clock over the front desk, mother noticed with a start that we were late for the audition. She asked hastily for Miss Duncan's suite and on being informed clutched my hand, racing me quickly up the carpeted stairs. The sound of music on the third floor led us directly to the right door. Mother knocked repeatedly, but there was no answer. When the music stopped, she knocked again. A maid in black uniform with crisp white cap and apron opened the door. She said curtly, "Sorry, the tryout is over." She was about to close the door again when mother intervened.
..
И вот мы, на нашем пути, чтобы встретить «босоногую танцовщицу», которая, по их словам, выглядела как греческая богиня, ожившая. Трамвай остановился перед Гамбургским двором, нашим пунктом назначения. По большим часам на стойке регистрации мать с самого начала заметила, что мы опоздали на прослушивание. Она поспешно спросила о номере мисс Дункан и, узнав, схватила меня за руку, быстро пробежала по ковровой лестнице. Звук музыки на третьем этаже привел нас прямо к правой двери. Мать постучала много раз, но ответа не было. Когда музыка остановилась, она снова постучала. В дверь открылась горничная в черной форме с белой шапкой и фартуком. Она коротко сказала: «Прости, тест закончился». Она снова собиралась закрыть дверь, когда вмешалась мать.

"Won't you announce us anyway?" she inquired.
"I have orders not to admit any more applicants," the maid said primly.
"Oh please," mother pleaded, "we have come a long way. Our connections were bad, and my little girl will be so disappointed. Please explain this to Miss Duncan."
..
«Разве вы не объявите нас в любом случае?» - спросила она.
«У меня есть приказ не допускать больше претендентов», - сказала горничнаясказал грубо.«О, пожалуйста, - умоляла мать, - мы прошли долгий путь. Наши связи были плохими, и моя маленькая девочка будет так разочарована. Пожалуйста, объясните это мисс Дункан».

The maid looked down at me for a minute. She must have seen a small pale face with two big blue-green eyes staring back at her. Perhaps she was touched by my solemn expression as I clung tightly to mother's hand, for she said in a friendlier tone, "Wait here while I go and inquire."
..
Горничная посмотрела на меня минутку. Должно быть, она видела маленькое бледное лицо с двумя большими сине-зелеными глазами, которые смотрели на нее. Возможно, её тронуло мое торжественное выражение, когда я крепко прижался к руке матери, потому что она сказала более дружелюбным тоном: «Подождите, пока я пойду и спрошу».

Mother immediately bent down to straighten my bonnet and retie the satin bow under my chin. With nervous gestures she straightened her own hat and veil, reminding me for the tenth time to be sure to make a nice knicks for the lady when we shook hands.
..
Мать тут же наклонилась, чтобы выпрямить мой капор, и поправила атласный бант под моим подбородком. С нервными жестами она выпрямила свою шляпу и вуаль, напоминая мне в десятый раз, чтобы убедиться, чтобы мы сделали приятные ножки для дамы, когда мы пожмем друг другу руки.

How often since have I recalled that moment! And I always remember with a feeling of profound gratitude that the door did open to me, for through it I passed into a world of wider horizons. But most of all I offer thanks to a kind Providence that made it possible for me to meet the remarkable woman who was to mean so much to me. And I still hear those words that opened the fateful door:
"Enter, please. Madame will receive you!"
..
Как часто я вспоминала этот момент! И я всегда помню с глубокой благодарностью, что дверь открылась мне, потому что через неё я перешла в мир более широких горизонтов. Но больше всего я предлагаю благодарить доброе Провидение, которые позволило мне встретить замечательную женщину, которая должна была так много значить для меня. И я до сих пор слышу те слова, которые открыли эту важную дверь:
«Войдите, пожалуйста, мадам примет вас!»

[26], p.10-19 * DUNCAN DANCER * Follow Me *

*1*

Follow Me

Our momentous meeting took place in a room full of people-parents and their children-who had come for the tryout. But because I arrived too late, I received special attention.
..
Наша знаменательная встреча состоялась в комнате, полной людей, родителей и их детей, которые пришли на свидание. Но поскольку я приехал слишком поздно, я получил особое внимание.

On entering the famous dancer's room, I felt a pleasant sensation of warmth and the fragrance of numerous vases and baskets of fresh flowers. The instant she stepped forward to greet me, in bare feet and ankle-length white tunic, looking indeed like a Greek goddess come to life, I had eyes only for her. With childish pleasure I noticed the white ribbon she wore in her light brown hair. I had never seen anyone so lovely and angelic-looking or anyone dressed in that way. Beside mother's long black dress made in the Victorian fashion, Isadora's simple attire gave her the appearance of a creature from another planet. I fell completely under the charm of her sweet smile when she bent down to take my hand while I curtsied.
..
Войдя в комнату знаменитой танцовщицы, я почувствовала приятное ощущение тепла и аромата многочисленных ваз и корзин из свежих цветов. В тот миг, когда она шагнула вперед, чтобы встретить меня, в босых ногах и белой тунике на лодыжке, выглядящяя действительно как греческая богиня, она ожила, я направила глаза только неё. С детским удовольствием я заметил белую ленту, которую она носила в светло-коричневых волосах. Я никогда не видела никого такого прекрасного, ангельского или любого, одетого таким образом. Наряду с длинным черным платьем матери, выполненным в викторианском стиле, простая одежда Айседоры дала ей вид существа с другой планеты. Я полностью попала под очарование её сладкой улыбки, когда она наклонилась, чтобы взять меня за руку, пока я присела в реверансе.

In a soft voice, speaking in halting German, she told mother that the tryout was over. Mother once again made her excuses, and Isadora must have relented, for she told her to remove my clothes quickly so she could have a look at me. Mother knelt down and promptly started to undress me, right there in front of all those people. It happened so quickly I didn't have time to be scared. In her haste to comply with Isadora's request, mother had difficulty with the many hooks and buttons that encumbered even children's clothing in those days.
..
Мягким голосом, говоря о том, чтобы подавить немецкий, она сказала матери, что тест закончился. Мать снова сделала извинения, и Айседора, должно быть, смягчилась, потому что она велела ей быстро снять одежду, чтобы она могла взглянуть на меня. Мать опустилась на колени и сразу начала раздевать меня, прямо перед всеми этими людьми. Это случилось так быстро, что я не успел испугаться. В спешке, чтобы выполнить просьбу Айседоры, мать испытывала трудности с множеством крючков и пуговиц, которые в то время обременяли даже детскую одежду.

After she had removed the black stockings, the high-buttoned shoes, and the last petticoat, I stood exposed in a cotton camisole and a pair of lace-edged underpants, from which dangled long black garters. I felt terribly ashamed when, thus accoutred, I was made to stand alone in the center of the room. But not for long. The lovely vision in the Greek tunic returned and asked my name.
"Come and stand here in front of me, Irma, and do exactly as I do."
..
После того, как она сняла черные чулки, туфли с высокой степенью застежки и последнюю нижнюю юбку, я стояла, выставленная в хлопчатобумажном лифчике, и паре трусов с кружевным краем, из которых свисали длинные черные подвязки. Мне было ужасно стыдно, когда, таким образом, я была в одиночестве в центре комнаты. Только не долго. Прекрасное видение в греческой тунике вернулось и спросило мое имя.
«Иди и остановись передо мной, Ирма, и поступай так же, как и я».

The soft strains of Schumann's Traumerei came floating to my ears as Isadora Duncan slowly began to raise her bare arms to the music. She watched me closely as I imitated her gesture and then, after a while, she seemed no longer to pay attention to me. A faraway look had come into her eyes as, lost in the music, she raised her beautiful arms and with a swaying motion of her body moved them gently from side to side like the branches of a tree put in motion by the wind. How well I was going to know that expression 1 She once said, «Like swelling sails in the wind, the movements of my dance carry me onward and upward and I feel the presence of a mighty power within me.»
..
Мягкие напряжения Трамурея Шумана приплыли к моим ушам, когда Айседора Дункан медленно начала поднимать свои обнаженные руки в музыке. Она внимательно наблюдала за мной, когда я подражала её жестам, а потом через некоторое время она больше не обращала на меня внимания. В её глазах появился далекий взгляд, который, потерявшись в музыке, поднял красивые руки и, покачиваясь, двигал её мягким движением из стороны в сторону, как ветви дерева, приводимые в движение ветром. Насколько хорошо я узнала это выражение. Однажды она сказала: «Как припухлые паруса на ветру, движения моего танца ведут меня вперед и вверх, и я чувствую присутствие могущественной силы во мне».

And how much would I learn to feel that power growing steadily in all the years we worked together. This is how we first came in contact with each other-the great teacher and her small pupil-standing face to face, oblivious of the other people present, moving in unison to the music in our first dance to-gether. With what poignancy I would recall this scene toward the end.
..
И сколько я буду учиться чувствовать, так что сила неуклонно растет за все годы совместной работы. Так мы впервые вступили в контакт друг с другом - великий учитель и её маленький ученик, стоящий лицом к лицу, не обращая внимания на других присутствующих людей, двигаясь в унисон к музыке в нашем первом танце. С какой остротой я бы вспомнил эту сцену ближе к концу.

A nod to the musician at the upright piano, and the tempo changed to a lighter rhythm, an allegretto. She swiftly changed the mood and darted away, skipping gracefully around the room. All eyes, I was fascinated watching her circle about me like a bird. She reminded me of the sea gulls I had often observed skimming across the big lake directly in front of the hotel. Uncertain what to do next, I remained where I was. Still dancing, she beckoned to me and called out gaily, «Follow me! Follow me!»
..
Кивнув музыканту на вертикальном пианино, и темп изменился на более легкий ритм, аллеретто. Она быстро изменила настроение и отскочила, изящно проскользнув по комнате. Все глаза, я была очарована, наблюдая за её кругом вокруг меня, подобно птице. Она напомнила мне о чайках, которых я часто наблюдала, прогуливаясь по большому озеру прямо перед отелем. Не зная, что делать дальше, я осталась там, где была. Все ещё танцуя, она поманила меня и весело позвала: «Следуй за мной! Следуй за мной!»

Her radiant personality was contagious. I lost my selfconsciousness and bravely skipped after her, trying my best to do exactly as she did. I undulated my little arms in emulation of her for all I was worth. But, in that absurd deshabille with the long black garters flapping against my legs at every step, I must have looked comical. I heard her laugh when she stopped abruptly and said, «That is enough, my dear. Go and put on your things.»
..
Её сияющая личность была заразительной. Я потерял самообладание и смело пропустила её, пытаясь изо всех сил сделать то, что делала она. Я собрала свои маленькие руки в подражании ей во всем, что мне удавалось. Но в этом абсурдном неглиже с длинными черными подвязками, хлопающими по моим ногам на каждом шагу, я, должно быть, выглядела смешно. Я услышала её смех, когда она резко остановилась и сказала: «Этого достаточно, моя дорогая. Иди и надень свои вещи».

While mother dressed me, I kept looking back over my shoulder at the lovely vision in white who had cast such a spell over me. She slowly went from one child to another of the many assembled there and deliberately made her choice as if picking flowers. «I shall take you and you,» I heard her chant, «and you and you ....»
..
Пока мама одевала меня, я все время оглядывалась через плечо на прекрасное видение в белом, которое на меня накладывало такое заклинание. Она медленно переходила от одного ребенка к другому из многих собравшихся там и намеренно делала свой выбор, как будто собирала цветы. «Я возьму тебя и тебя», я услышал ее пение: «И ты, и ты...»

I glanced with envy at the girls she had chosen. Would she want me too? I wondered, secretly yearning to go with her wherever she went, for this was something I now wanted to do more than anything else. However, she passed me by. She turned instead with sudden animation and interest toward a young man, sketchbook and pencil in hand, who had been quietly sitting in the background observing. He whispered a few words, which caused Isadora to turn around and look at me. She came over to where I stood beside mother, anxiously waiting for her to notice me. She smiled, took my hand in hers and, leading me to the group of girls she had selected, gently said, «And Irma, I will take you, too.»
..
Я с завистью посмотрела на девочек, которых она выбрала. Она захочет выбрать меня тоже? Я задавалась вопросом, тайно желая пойти с ней, куда бы она ни отправилась, потому что это было то, что я теперь хотела сделать больше всего на свете. Однако она прошла мимо меня. Вместо этого она обернулась с неожиданной живостью и интересом к молодому человеку, с книжкой и карандашом в руке, который спокойно сидел и наблюдал на заднем плане. Он прошептал несколько слов, которые заставили Айседору развернуться и посмотреть на меня. Она подошла к тому месту, где я стояла рядом с матерью, с тревогой ожидая, когда она заметит меня. Она улыбнулась, взяла меня за руку и привела меня к группе девушек, которых она выбрала, мягко сказала: «И Ирма, я тоже тебя возьму».

I had no idea then of the role the young artist had played for me. When years later I once asked Isadora what exactly had prompted her to choose me for her pupil, she appeared surprised at my question.
«Why, don't you know? It was Gordon Craig. He said to me, 'Take her, she has the eyes!'»
«Of course I said that about you to Isadora,» Gordon Craig told me recently when I inquired. In answer to my letter, he wrote from Vence in the south of France where he now resides:
..
Тогда я понятия не имела о той роли, которую сыграл для меня тот молодой художник. Когда несколько лет спустя я однажды спросила Айседору, что именно побудило её выбрать меня как её ученика, она показалась удивленной моим вопросом.
«Почему, разве ты не знаешь? Это был Гордон Крейг. Он сказал мне: «Возьми её, у нее глаза!»
«Конечно, я говорил об этом с Айседорой, - сказал мне недавно Гордон Крейг, когда я спросила. В ответ на моё письмо он написал из Венса на юге Франции, где он сейчас проживает:

Dear Irma:
So once again I find you, don’t doubt if I remember you. But to get your letter is perhaps the best thing which has happened to me for many years - and no ‘perhaps’ at all. . . . I look on you as you were, small and holding up your hands as in the picture and your blessed heart is just the same as it was when a child, I feel this.
The Hamburger Hof, do I remember that! Yes, and it was a foggy week - dark by day. I drew a poor sketch of the side of the hotel from my window and some lights. . . . The date I was in Hamburg with her was January 24th to Jist, 1905.
..
Дорогая Ирма:
Так снова я нашел вас, и не сомневайтесь, помню ли я вас. Но получить ваше письмо - это, пожалуй, лучшая вещь, которая произошла со мной за много лет - это вообще «невероятно»... Я смотрю на вас так, как вы когда-то были маленькой и поднимали руки, как на картинке, и ваше благословенное сердце - оно то же самое, каким было, когда вы были ребенком, я это чувствую.
Гамбургский двор [отель], я помню это! Да, и это была туманная неделя - темная днем. Я нарисовал бледный эскиз стороны отеля из окна и некоторых огней.... Дата, когда я был в Гамбурге с ней, была без сомнения 24 января, 1905 год.

And that is how I became Isadora Duncan's pupil. The chances of our ever meeting had been very slim. Was it hazard or destiny-who can tell?
«Follow me, follow me!» she had said when first we met. And follow her I did, from then on to the end.
..
Именно так я стала учеником Айседоры Дункан. Шансы нашей встречи были очень незначительными. Было ли это опасностью или судьбой - кто может сказать?
«Следуй за мной, следуй за мной!» - сказала она, когда мы встретились. И следую за ней с тех пор и до конца.

There were five of us when we children gathered the next morning at her hotel to be attired in our new school uniform consisting of tunic and sandals and a little hooded woolen cape.
..
Нас было пятеро из нас, когда мы, дети, собрались на следующее утро в её отеле, чтобы одеться в нашу новую школьную форму, состоящую из туники и сандалий, и маленького шерстяного плаща с капюшоном.

Dressed alike, we looked like sisters. I distinctly recall the sense of freedom I experienced in those light and simple clothes, which were the distinctive Duncan uniform and which would henceforth set us apart from other people. Goodbye petticoats and cumbersome dresses with bothersome hooks and high-buttoned shoes. We children, strangers only a moment ago, now timidly smiled at each other in a new-found comradeship.
..
Одетые одинаково, мы были похожи на сестер. Я отчетливо помню чувство свободы, которое я испытала в этой легкой и простой одежде, которая была отличительной формой Дункан и которая отныне отделяла нас от других людей. До свидания юбки и громоздкие платья с назойливыми крючками и туфлями. Мы, дети, незнакомые только минуту назад, теперь робко улыбались друг другу в новом товариществе.

We were soon on our way to the station. I had never traveled in a train before. In all the excitement I completely lost track of mother. Accompanied by Isadora's maid, we settled ourselves in a second-class compartment in the train for Berlin when, amidst all the confusion, I heard someone tap on the window. It was mother. She tried bravely to smile, but her eyes were red from weeping. I did not immediately understand why she should be crying, since I was on my way to that marvelous school she had told me about, where I would soon be happily playing and dancing with my schoolmates. Why wasn't she happy too? Poor mother! She still had her stepchildren, but I was the only child of her own. Did she have a premonition? Though I would see her again, the bond would never be• the same. How could she possibly imagine that her daughter was leaving her, not for a few years as she believed, but that an inscrutable destiny was taking her away practically forever. I leaned out the open window and kissed mother goodbye. She clung to my hand. A sudden shrill blast of the train whistle and we slowly moved out of the station. Mother kept pace with the moving train to the end of the platform. My last glimpse of her showed a weeping black-robed figure with a small bundle, my discarded clothes, pressed tightly to her breast.
..
Мы скоро отправились на станцию. Раньше я никогда не ездила в поезде. Во всем волнении я полностью потеряла следы матери. В сопровождении служанки Айседоры мы обосновались в отсеке второго класса в поезде в Берлин, когда, среди всего замешательства, я услышала, как кто-то нажал на окно. Это была мать. Она смело пыталась улыбнуться, но её глаза были крпсными от плача. Я не сразу поняла, почему она должна плакать, так как я была на пути к той чудесной школе, о которой она мне рассказывала, где я скоро буду счастливо играть и танцевать со своими одноклассниками. Почему она тоже не была счастлива? Бедная мать! У неё всё ещё были ее пасынки, но я была единственным её ребенком. У нее было предчувствие? Хотя я увижу её снова, связь никогда не будет такой. Как она могла себе представить, что её дочь покидает её, а не на несколько лет, как она верила, но эта непостижимая судьба уводила её практически навсегда. Я высунулась из открытого окна и поцеловал мать на прощание. Она прижалась к моей руке. Внезапный пронзительный взрыв свистка, и мы медленно вышли из станции. Мать двигалась с движущимся поездом до конца платформы. Мой последний взгляд на неё показал плачущую черную фигуру с маленьким пучком, и мою брошенную одежду, плотно прижатую к груди.

A few hours later we arrived in Berlin. A pale winter sun brightened the city. The maid shepherded her small flock to the exit where our new guardian awaited us. She sat in a closed carriage, looking very beautiful. To my childish imagination she represented the legendary Fairy Queen in her coach, carrying me and my companions off to her enchanted castle in the forest.
«Come and sit here beside me,» she said sweetly as I climbed in. I was thrilled!
..
Через несколько часов мы прибыли в Берлин. Светлое зимнее солнце оживило город. Горничная провела свое маленькое стадо к выходу, где нас ожидал наш новый опекун. Она сидела в закрытой карете, выглядя очень красивой. В моём детском воображении она представляла легендарную Королеву Фей в её карете, уносящую меня и моих спутников в её заколдованный замок в лесу.
«Иди и сядь рядом со мной», сказала она сладко, когда я забралась. Я была в восторге!

The horses rapidly traversed the long chaussee leading to the Grunewald. Filled with expectation, we all sat quiet as mice. When the carriage at last stopped in front of a yellow stucco villa with a tall picket fence, she said, «Here is the school!» We all got out. Wide-eyed with curiosity about what awaited us within, I climbed the many stairs to the entrance. Never was I so surprised as when the door opened and there right in front of me stood the seminude statue of a Greek Amazon on a pedestal, her head nearly touching the ceiling! We all gaped with astonishment. When I recovered from my initial shock, I turned to look for an explanation from the beautiful lady who had brought us here. But the Fairy Queen had vanished-coach and all.
..
Лошади быстро пересекли длинный путь, ведущий к Грюневальду. Наполненные ожиданиями, мы все сидели тихо, как мыши. Когда карета наконец остановилась перед желтой лепной виллой с высоким заборным ограждением, она сказала: «Вот школа!» Мы все вышли. Широко глядя с любопытством насчет того, что нас ждало, я поднялась по многочисленным лестницам ко входу. Никогда я не была так удивлена, как когда дверь открылась, и прямо передо мной стояла статуя полуобнаженной греческой Амазонки на пьедестале, её голова почти касалась потолка! Мы все изумились. Когда я оправилась от своего первоначального шока, я обернулась, чтобы найти объяснение у прекрасной леди, которая привела нас сюда. Но Королева Фей исчезла - карета и всё.

Left alone in these strange surroundings and frightened, we children instinctively drew closer together. A curious odor of bay leaves pervaded the hall, emanating from the dried laurel wreaths that decorated the walls. I had the sensation of having entered a chapel. We remained there waiting for what seemed an unconscionable time.
..
Оставшись в одиночестве в этих странных местах и испугавшись, мы, дети, инстинктивно сблизились. Любопытный запах лаврового листа пронизывал зал, исходящий от высушенных лавровых венков, украшавших стены. У меня было ощущение, что я вошла в часовню. Мы остались там, ожидая чего-то, что как казалось длилось чрезмерно долго.

Then something happened. Over to one side some sliding doors opened a crack, and out peered a small monkeylike face, brown and wrinkled. This face stared at us for a minute; then the doors opened wider, and a small woman stepped out. Out-landishly attired in a long red Chinese coat embroidered all over with flowers and parrots, this strange apparition mysteriously approached, limping slightly. She slowly circled around the little group, huddled close together for protection. She kept her hands hidden Chinese-fashion in her voluminous sleeves.
We did not know what to make of it. Who was this?
..
Потом что-то случилось. С одной стороны, какие-то раздвижные двери открыли проем, и оттуда выглянуло маленькое обезьяноподобное лицо, коричневое и морщинистое. Это лицо смотрело на нас с минуту; затем двери стали шире, и маленькая женщина вышла наружу. Внезапно одетая в длинное красное китайское пальто, вышитое со всех сторон цветами и попугаями, это странное явление таинственно приблизилось, слегка прихрамывая. Она медленно кружала вокруг маленькой группы, прижавшись вплотную друг к другу для защиты. Она держала руки скрытыми в объемных рукавах китайского платья.
Мы не знали, что с этим делать. Кто это был?

Without a kind word of greeting to the pathetic little group in her house, this odd creature poked her funny face into each one of our faces for a silent scrutiny and then disappeared as mysteriously as she had come, closing the sliding doors behind her.
..
Без каких-либо приветствий к жалкой маленькой группе, появившейся в её доме, это странное существо направляло своё странное лицо на каждое из наших лиц для молчаливого контроля, а затем исчезло так же загадочно, как она и появилась, закрыв раздвижные двери позади себя.

I suddenly longed for the comforting arms of my mother. The others must have had similar reactions, for Erica-the youngest, a mere tyke of four-suddenly burst into loud, heart-rending wails. We all were about to join her when, luckily, two nursemaids appeared.
..
Мне вдруг захотелось утешительных рук моей матери. У других, должно быть, были подобные реакции, потому что Эрика - самая младшая, всего лишь четырех лет - внезапно взорвалась в громкие, раскалывающиеся вопли. Мы все собирались присоединиться к ней, когда, к счастью, появились две няньки.

«Ah! here they are, our little Hamburgers!» they exclaimed. With •pleasant grins lighting up their young faces, they said, «Welcome to the Duncan School!» and in a cheerful, lively manner hustled us off.
..
«Ах! вот они, наши маленькие Гамбургеры!» - воскликнули они. С приятной улыбкой, освещенной их молодыми лицами, они сказали: «Добро пожаловать в школу Дункан!» И в веселой, живой манере вытолкнули нас наружу.

Chatting all the way downstairs, they hurried us to the large, airy basement, where they helped us remove our newly acquired white woolen coats with pink-lined hoods and our winter over-shoes. «What you children need is some nice hot tea and bread and butter,» one of them said. «That will cheer you up.»
..
Беседуя всю дорогу вниз, они поспешили к большому воздушному подвалу, где они помогли нам снять наши недавно приобретенные белые шерстяные пальто с розовыми вышивками и снять наши зимние ботинки. «Всё что вам нужно, дети - это хороший горячий чай, хлеб и масло», - сказала одна из них. «Это поддержит вас».

«And then you are going to meet all your new playmates,» the other one grinned and jerked her thumb in the direction of the nearby dining hall. «Listen to them! They have just come back from their daily outing.»
..
«И тогда вы встретите всех своих новых товарищей по игре», - улыбнулась другая, и указала большим пальцем в сторону соседней столовой. «Слушайте их! Они только что вернулись со своей ежедневной прогулки».

The loud hubbub of children's voices resounded in the basement. It stopped suddenly, the moment we newcomers entered the room.
«Meet our little Hamburgers!» one of the nurses called out.
«You all have time to get acquainted before tea.»
..
В подвале раздался громкий шум детских голосов. Это прекратилось внезапно, как только мы, новички, вошли в комнату.
«Познакомьтесь с нашими маленькими Гамбургерами!» - произнесла одна из нянь.
«У вас всех есть время познакомиться перед чаем».

Being an only child and having played mostly solitary games at home, I always felt shy when confronted with a mass on-slaught of other children. But this group looked like a cheerful, friendly lot, with their cheeks red from the wintry air and out-of-doors activities, and their eyes shining. They pushed forward for a closer view of us. A pretty, dark-haired girl with round rosy cheeks and small chocolate-brown eyes, older and taller than myself, made her way through the crowd and grasped my hand. «My name is Anna,» she said sweetly. «What is yours?»
..
Будучи единственным ребенком и играя в основном в одиночные игры в домашних условиях, я всегда чувствовала себя застенчивой, когда сталкивалась с массой из других людей. Но эта группа была похожа на веселую, дружелюбную массу, с красными щеками от зимнего воздуха на открытом воздухе, и с их сияющему глазами. Они подошли к нам ближе. Красивая, темноволосая девушка с круглыми розовыми щеками и маленькими шоколадно-карими глазами, старше и выше меня, пробралась сквозь толпу и схватила мою руку. «Меня зовут Анна, - сказала она сладко. "А как тебя?"

I introduced myself and she immediately made me feel at home by saying, «I want you to meet my friend Theresa,» and she put her arm around the waist of a girl who was her opposite in coloring, with blue eyes, blonde hair, and a lot of freckles on her tiny nose. They made a charming pair. Anna, who ap-parently loved to get things organized, then drew out a darling little girl nearer my own age and size. She had a dainty heart-shaped face with hazel eyes and dark lashes. I especially admired her dark, naturally wavy hair. Anna introduced us, stating im-portantly, «This is Temple. She is Miss Isadora's niece!» (the daughter of her brother Augustin, as I later learned).
..
Я представила себя, и она сразу заставила меня почувствовать себя как дома, сказав: «Я хочу, чтобы вы познакомились с моей подругой Терезой», и она обняла талию девушки, которая была её противоположностью во внешнем виде, с голубыми глазами, светлыми волосами, и множеством веснушек на её крошечном носу. Они сделали очаровательную пару. Анна, которая, по-видимому, любила организовывать происходящее, затем вытащила из толпы милую девочку ближе к моему собственному возрасту и размеру. У неё было изящное сердцевидное лицо с карими глазами и темными ресницами. Я особенно восхищалась её темными, естественно волнистыми волосами. Анна познакомила нас с важными словами: «Это Храм. Она - племянница мисс Айседоры!» (Дочь её брата Августина, как я узнала позже).

Temple said, «Hello!» and stared at me with lips half-open in an expectant sort of way, which I soon found out was a little habit she had. I didn't say anything but thought, What luck! to be the niece of a Fairy Queen! I could not get further acquainted with her, for Anna, who had taken me in tow, had more girls to introduce, mainly the younger ones. There was Lise! with the pretty golden curls and the large brown eyes of a startled deer. And beside her, little Gretel with violet eyes, ash-blonde hair, and the delicate look of a Dresden china doll. There were many more-Isabelle, Gerda, Marta, Stephanie-too many names to remember all at once. When we sat at the long refectory table, I counted twenty girls. I discovered later they came from every part of Germany, some from Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, and Poland; Temple was the only American.
..
Храм сказала: «Привет!» И уставилась на меня с полуоткрытыми губами, что, как я вскоре узнала, была её маленькая привычка. Я ничего не сказала, но подумала: «Какая удача! быть племянницей Волшебной королевы! Я не могла больше познакомиться с ней, потому что Анна, которая взяла меня на буксир, предложила больше девочек, в основном младших. Это Лиза! с довольно золотыми кудрями и большими карими глазами испуганного оленя. И рядом с ней, маленькая Гретель с фиолетовыми глазами, пепельно-светлыми волосами и тонким видом куклы из Дрездена. Было еще много - Изабель, Герда, Марта, Стефани - слишком много имен, чтобы запомнить все сразу. Когда мы сели за длинный столик, я насчитала двадцать девочек. Я позже обнаружила, что они приехали из разых частей Германии, некоторые из Бельгии, Голландии, Швейцарии и Польши; Храм был единственной американкой.

«I do not know exactly how we chose those children,» Isadora once said. «I was so anxious to fill the Grunewald and the forty little beds, that I took the children without discrimination, or merely on account of a sweet smile or pretty eyes; and I did not ask myself whether or not they were capable of becoming future dancers.»*
*Life, p. 177.
..
«Я точно не знаю, как мы выбрали этих детей», - однажды сказала Айседора. «Я очень хотела заполнить Груневальд и сорок маленьких кроватей, так что я брала детей без дискриминации или просто из-за сладкой улыбки или хорошеньких глаз; и я не спрашивала себя, способны ли они стать в будущем танцорами».*
*Моя жизнь, с. 177.

I asked Anna, who took her seat beside me at tea, how she liked it here. She didn't answer directly but inquired, «Have you met Tante Miss?»
«Tante who?» I was puzzled. «Who is that?»
«Didn't you see her upstairs?»
«Oh, you mean the one in the funny red coat with the parrots on it?»
Anna nodded eagerly, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes.
«What do you think of her?»
«I was so scared.»
..
Я спросила Анну, которая села рядом со мной за чаем, как ей понравилось здесь. Она не ответила прямо, но спросила: «Вы встречались с мисс Танте?»
«Танте, кто?» Я был озадачена. «Это кто?»
«Разве ты не видела её наверху?»
«О, ты имеешь в виду ту, кто в забавном красном пальто с попугаями?»
Анна нетерпеливо кивнула, озорная улыбка была в её глазах.
«Что ты о ней думаешь?»
«Я был так напугана.»

Anna whispered, «We are all a bit frightened of her. She is Miss Duncan, Miss Isadora's older sister. We call her Tante Miss.» And with the superior air of one who had been enrolled at the school for the space of a whole week before I arrived, she added, «But everybody else is very nice here, you'll see!» «Attention everyone!» One of the nursemaids at the end of the table clapped her hands for silence. «I am going to take the new ones upstairs to bed. The rest of you stay down here and don't make too much noise. Is that understood?»
..
Анна прошептала: «Мы все немного испугались. Она мисс Дункан, старшая сестра мисс Айседоры. Мы называем ее «мисс Танте». И с превосходным видом того, кто был зачислен в школу на протяжении целой недели до моего приезда, она добавила: «Но все остальные здесь очень хороши, вы увидите!» «Внимание всем!» Одна из нянь в конце стола хлопнула в ладоши для тишины. «Я собираюсь взять новых наверх в постель. Остальные вы остаетесь здесь и не делаете слишком много шума. Это понятно?»

A shout by many throats in the affirmative answered her. «Well then, come with me, all you little Hamburgers. You must be tired from the trip and the excitement. Early to bed and early to rise for you five, and tomorrow you'll be fresh and rested and can have a good time with the other children.»
..
Ей ответил утвердительный крик из многих голосов. «Ну, пойдемте со мной, все наши маленькие Гамбургеры. Вы должно быть устали от поездки и волнения. По-раньше ляжете спать, и вам рано вставать, для вас в пять, а уже завтра вы будете свежими и отдохнувшими, и сможете хорошо провести время с другими детьми».

With these words she marched us upstairs to the dormitory, where five white beds, with blue satin coverlets and muslin canopies tied with blue ribbon at the top, awaited us. The winter's pale setting sun cast a pink glow over the pretty white and blue room. It struck me as peculiar having to go to bed in daylight, but I didn't mind in the least as soon as I saw the canopied bed that was to be mine. In Germany we call this a Himmelbett, or «heavenbed,» associated always with children of the rich. The average child merely dreamed of such a heavenly bed, curtained in flowing white muslin and covered in satin, fit for a princess. I could hardly wait, after I had folded my Duncan uniform on the white chair at the foot and placed my sandals neatly underneath, as I had been shown, to climb into my Himmelbett and pull the silk coverlet up to my chin, finding that my dream had come true.
..
С этими словами она направила нас наверх в общежитие, где нас ожидали пять белых кроватей с голубыми атласными покрывалами и муслиновыми навесами с голубой лентой наверху. Затянувшееся зимой солнце заливало розовое сияние над красивой бело-голубой комнатой. Мне показалось странным ложиться спать при дневном свете, но я ничуть не возражал, как только увидел навесную кровать, которая должна была быть моей. В Германии мы называем это Химмельбеттом, или «небесами», которые всегда ассоциируются с детьми богатых. Средний ребенок просто мечтал о такой небесной постели, занавешенной в белой муслине и покрытой сатином, подходящей для принцессы. Я едва мог дождаться, после того как я сложила форму Дункан на белом стуле у подножия и аккуратно поставила свои сандалии под ним, как мне показалось, чтобы забраться в мой Химмельбетт и натянуть шелковое одеяло до моего подбородка, обнаружив, что моя мечта сбылась.

While some of the other children dawdled and little Erica, the baby of the school, had to be undressed and put to bed by «Fraulein» (as we were told to call her), I glanced about the room. On the wall directly opposite hung the most appealing picture: a large Madonna and Child in ceramic on an azure background, framed in a garland of fruit and flowers in glazed colors, so natural they looked real. At home in our dark, damp bedroom I had only a dull framed proverb. Here, in the Duncan School, everything was different!
..
В то время как некоторые из других детей улеглись, и маленькую Эрику, ребенка школы, пришлось раздеть и положить в постель «Фрейлейн» (как нам сказали звать её), я взглянула на комнату. На стене прямо напротив висела самая привлекательная картина: большая Мадонна с младенцем в керамике на лазурном фоне, обрамленная гирляндой из фруктов и цветов в глазированных красках, настолько естественная, что они выглядели реальными. Дома в нашей темной, влажной спальне у меня была только унылая обрамленная пословица. Здесь, в Школе Дункан, всё было по другому!

But the picture that pleased me most was the small reproduction of an angel playing the viol that was attached to the bedstead above my head. The other beds had similar Renaissance pictures, each one representing an angel playing a different instrument. But I liked mine the best; the face of my guardian angel, framed in dark curls and inclined over the instrument, had so divine an expression that one could almost hear the melody. When Fraulein closed the Venetian blinds, curtailing my observation, I stretched out with contentment and tried to go to sleep.
..
Но картина, которая мне больше всего нравилась, - это маленькое воспроизведение ангела, играющего на скрипке, который был прикреплен к кровати над моей головой. На других кроватях были похожие картины эпохи Возрождения, каждая из которых представляла ангела, играющего на другом инструменте. Но мне понравилось моя, она была лучшей; лицо моего ангела-хранителя, обрамленное темными кудрями и наклоненное к инструменту, обладало таким божественным выражением, что почти можно было услышать мелодию. Когда фраулейн закрыла венецианские жалюзи, свернув мое наблюдение, я растянулась с удовлетворением и попыталась заснуть.

[35], p. 18-19.
Isadora Duncan at the Theatre of Dionysus, Athens, 1904.
[36], p. 18-19.
Isadora in her own equipage, Berlin, 1905.
Marta, Lisa, and Gerda before a statuette of Isadora, Grunewald, 1905.
..

It was not easy. All the fresh impressions and strange sights that had crowded these last three days tumbled through my mind. The pine-scented air of the nearby forest filled the room with fragrance. Through the open window I could hear the dis-tant rumble of the Rundbahn passing by. The melancholy hoot of the locomotive, a sound forever afterward evoking memories of my childhood, made me feel drowsy. Still I could not relax into sleep. Something was missing. What I longed for was not the comforting arms of my own mother giving me a goodnight kiss. It was just one more sight, before I dozed off, of the beauti-ful Fairy Queen, who had brought us here to her enchanted castle in the woods. She and her coach seemed to have disappeared completely.
..
Это было непросто. Все свежие впечатления и странные достопримечательности, которые переполняли эти последние три дня, провалились у меня в голове. Сосновый воздух из соседнего леса заполнил комнату ароматом. Через открытое окно я услышала пронзительный гул прохода Рундбана. Меланхолический гудок локомотива, звук, навеки напоминающий мое детство, заставил меня почувствовать сонливость. Тем не менее я не могла уснуть. Что-то не так. То, чего я жаждала, не было утешительным оружием моей матери, дающей мне спокойный поцелуй. Это было ещё одно зрелище, прежде чем я задремала, о прекрасной Королеве Фей, которая привела нас сюда в её заколдованный замок в лесу. Она и её экипаж, казалось, полностью исчезли.

I began to fear I would never see her again when I noticed a shadowy vision tiptoeing silently from bed to bed, bending over each child. At last she reached me. It was the Fairy Queen! She placed a cookie between my lips and kissed me. «Good night, darling, sleep well,» she murmured, and was gone. I sighed happily and fell into a peaceful slumber on the threshold of a bright new world.
..
Я начала бояться, что больше никогда не увижу её, когда увидела, как тихое видение, тихо пробиралось на цыпочках, от постели к постели, наклоняясь над каждым ребенком. Наконец она добралась до меня. Это была Королева Фей! Она положила печенье между моих губ и поцеловала меня. «Спокойной ночи, дорогая, хорошего сна», - пробормотала она и ушла. Я счастливо вздохнула и погрузилась в мирный сон на пороге яркого нового мира.

[38], p.20--- * DUNCAN DANCER * Dancer of the Future *

*2*

Dancer of the Future

THE year she established her first school, Isadora was basking in newfound fame and popularity. It was Germany’s privilege in the opening years of the twentieth century to offer the comparatively unknown American dancer both serious recognition and lucrative success. She chose Germany, she once remarked, “as the centre of philosophy and culture which I then believed it to be, for the founding of my school.” *
*Life, p. 177.
..
В год, когда она основала свою первую школу, Айседора купалась в новообретенной славе и популярности. Это была привилегия Германии в первые годы двадцатого века, чтобы предложить сравнительно незнакомой американской танцовщице как серьезное признание, так и прибыльный успех. Она выбрала Германию, как она однажды заметила, «как центр философии и культуры, который, как я тогда считала, необходимо для основания моей школы».*
*Жизнь, с. 177.

Germany, at that period still an empire, had for the last three decades enjoyed a state of uninterrupted peace. The liberal arts and sciences flourished. It was no wonder, then, that when Isadora arrived with her dances inspired by Hellenic ideals, the artists and intelligentsia of Germany saw in her some divine manifestation. She in turn-her imagination kindled by the great masters of German music-started a bold new venture in dance history when she created her own choreography to Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony, the one that Wagner had labeled “the Apotheosis of Dance.” It was animated by her desire to weld the two sister arts, music and dance, closer together. Such a venture created a sensation among music lovers, who tangled in hot debates as to whether or not the music of Beethoven needed this visualization. But she had no choice, for only in great music did she find the source of inspiration that harmo-nized with her lofty ideals.
..
Германия, в тот период еще империя, в течение последних трех десятилетий наслаждалась состоянием непрерывного мира. Либеральные искусства и науки процветали. Поэтому неудивительно, что когда Айседора прибыла со своими танцами, вдохновленными идеалами эллинов, художники и интеллигенция Германии увидели в ней какое-то божественное проявление. Она в свою очередь - её воображение, зажженное великими мастерами немецкой музыки, - начала новое смелое начинание в истории танцев, когда она создала свою собственную хореографию в Седьмой симфонии Бетховена, которую Вагнер назвал «Апофеозом танца». Он был воодушевлен по ее желанию сблизить две сестры искусства, музыки и танца, ближе друг к другу. Такое предприятие создало ощущение среди любителей музыки, которые запутались в горячих дискуссиях о том, нужна ли музыке Бетховена эта визуализация. Но у неё не было выбора, потому что только в великой музыке она находила источник вдохновения, гармонирующий с ее высокими идеалами.

To fully comprehend and appreciate her epoch-making contribution to the history of the dance, it is imperative to recall the primitive, stagnant state in which that art was then floundering. The so-called “classical” ballet was an uninspiring and uninteresting acrobatic exercise which, as one contemporary critic observed, “had no validity other than a mere diversion. No one who considered himself an intellectual gave the dance as it was then serious consideration.” Not until Isadora Duncan arrived on the scene and gave the dance new form and life did she, according to the same source, “help us to realize that the dance can be an art.”
..
Чтобы полностью понять и оценить её эпохальный вклад в историю танца, необходимо вспомнить примитивное, застойное состояние, в котором это искусство тогда барахталось. Так называемый «классический» балет был скучным и неинтересным акробатическим упражнением, которое, как заметил один современный критик, «не имело никакой действительности, кроме простого развлечения. Никто из тех, кто считал себя интеллектуалом, не ставил танец, как это было тогда, на серьезное рассмотрение». Только после того, как Айседора Дункан пришла на сцену и дала новую форму танца и жизни, она, согласно тому же источнику, «помогла нам понять, что танец может быть искусством».

Another spectator, who described her as being “tall, graceful and slender with a small oval face, good features and a mass of dark hair; who is beautiful on the stage and has particularly graceful arms and hands,” saw in the California girl “a dancer of remarkable skill, whose art . . . has a wonderful eloquence of its own. It is as far from the acrobatics of the opera dancer as from the conventional tricks by which the pantomimists are wont to express the more elementary human emotions.” To the above quoted reviews of a German and an English writer should be added the impression of a contemporary French journalist, who describes a rehearsal he once attended in a theatre in France. On a bare stage a troupe of girls in pink tights, tutus and ballet slippers, with woolen shawls across their shoulders to keep them warm on that drafty stage, evolve slowly under the direction of a ballet master.
..
Другой зритель, который назвал её «высокой, изящной и стройной с маленьким овальным лицом, хорошими чертами и массами темных волос; которая красива на сцене и имеет особенно изящные кисти и руки», видел в калифорнийской девушке «танцовщицу замечательного мастерства, чье искусство ... имеет замечательное красноречие. Это далеко от акробатики оперного танца, как от обычных трюков, благодаря которым пантомимисты привыкли выражать более элементарные человеческие эмоции». К приведенным выше обзорам немецкого и английского писателей следует добавить впечатление современного французского журналиста, который описывает репетицию, которую он когда-то посещал в театре во Франции. На голой сцене труппа девушек в розовых колготках, пачках и балетных тапочках с шерстяными шалями на плечах, чтобы держать их в тепле на этой сквозной сцене, медленно развивается под руководством балетмейстера.

The ballet master, bustling about, made the troupe repeat the same movement a dozen times. But it never seemed quite right. He got very angry and stormed at them. The stick with which he beat time, tapping it against the floor, frequently struck the legs in pink tights. This whole set-up had something infinitely sinister about it, something very sad. All this inanimate gymnastic had only a very faint resemblance to what one imagines the dance to be. The dance must after all express something. It is not enough to execute movements with the legs alone, the whole body must participiate. The entire being must express some feeling. Our ballerinas are for the most part marvelously articulated dolls whose grace we can admire but whose pointes and jetes battues cannot be considered anything more than choreographical exercises. It will be the glory of Isadora Duncan, that wanting to renew the art of the dance, she drew her inspiration from ancient Greece and revived for us again that epoch of beauty.
..
Балетмейстер, суетящийся вокруг, заставил труппу повторить одно и то же движение дюжину раз. Но это никак не казалось ему правильным. Он очень рассердился и бушевал на них. Палка, которой он отбивал время, постукивая по полу, часто ударяла по ногам в розовых колготках. Вся эта настройка имела что-то бесконечно зловещее, что-то очень грустное. Вся эта неодушевленная гимнастка имела только очень слабое сходство с тем, что воображает танец. Танец должен все что-то выразить. Недостаточно совершать движения только с ногами, все тело должно участвовать. Все существо должно выразить какое-то чувство. Наши балерины - это по большей части удивительно артикулированные куклы, чью грацию мы можем восхищать, но чьи бонусы и струны не могут считаться чем-то большим, чем хореографические упражнения. Это будет слава Айседоры Дункан, которая хочет обновить искусство танца, она черпала вдохновение из Древней Греции и снова возродила для нас эту эпоху красоты.

Isadora’s appearance on the stage in a simple chiton “a la greque” and sans pink tights (a shocking sight to the prudish element in society) led people to believe that she wanted to revive the Greek dance. Yet she herself categorically stated, “My dance is not Greek. I am not a Greek. I am American.” She felt her dance had sprung from the roots of life as her Irish pioneer ancestors lived it in a covered wagon traversing the wide spaces of the West on their way to California in ‘49. “All this my grandmother danced in the Irish jig,” she told her pupils, “and I learned it from her and put into it my own aspiration of young America.»*
* Cf. Life, p. 340.
..
Выступление Айседоры на сцене в простом хитоне «а ля греческий» и мужских розовых колготках (шокирующее зрелище для ханжеской части общества), что заставило людей поверить, будто она хотела возродить греческий танец. Но она сама категорически заявляла: «Мой танец не греческий. Я не гречанка. Я американка». Она чувствовала, что её танец возник из корней жизни, поскольку её ирландские предки-первопроходцы жили в крытом вагоне, пересекающем широкие пространства Запада на пути в Калифорнию в '49 году. «Всё это танцевала моя бабушка в ирландской джиге, - говорила она своим ученикам, - и я узнала об этом от неё, и вложила в это своё собственное стремление молодой Америки».*
*См. Жизнь, с. 340.

With the same enterprising spirit that had animated her pioneer ancestors, she undertook the formidable task of establishing her long-dreamed of school. I know of no other precedent in modern times where a young artist, at the start of a promising career, is moved to invest hard-won earnings in a philanthropical enterprise simply to gratify some lofty ideal. But Isadora Duncan did just that. Rather than invest her money in diamonds and costly furs and expensive mansions and other luxuries so many women crave, she spent every penny she earned on the upkeep of her school. “I had no wish for the triumphal world tours” (which her manager urged on her), Isadora, the idealist, explained. “I wanted to study, continue my researches, create a dance and movements which then did not exist, and the dream of my school which had haunted all my childhood, became stronger and stronger.”+
+ Life, p. 141.
..
С таким же предприимчивым духом, который оживил своих предков-первооткрывателей, она взяла на себя огромную задачу по созданию своей мечты о школе. Я не знаю другого прецедента в наше время, когда молодой артист, в начале многообещающей карьеры, перемещается, чтобы вкладывать трудно завоеванные прибыли в филантропическое предприятие просто для удовлетворения некоторых высоких идеалов. Но Айседора Дункан сделала именно это. Вместо того, чтобы вкладывать деньги в бриллианты и дорогостоящие меха, дорогие особняки и другие предметы роскоши, которых так жаждут женщины, она потратила каждую пенни, которую она заработала на содержании её школы. «Я не желаю триумфальных мировых туров» (к чему её призвал её менеджер), как идеалист, объясняла Исадора. «Я хотела учиться, продолжать свои исследования, создавать танцы и движения, которых тогда не было, и мечта о моей школе, которая преследовала иеня всё моё детство, стала сильнее и сильнее».+
+ Жизнь, с. 141.

Months before she founded her school late in December 1904, Isadora was walking with a friend when they happened upon a group of girls doing calisthenics with dumbbells in an open courtyard. The girls, dressed in black woolen bloomers, long-sleeved middy blouses, black stockings and shoes, went through their exercises in a lifeless manner. Isadora, bent on reform, not only in the art of dance but also in dress, said to her companion, “Consider these poor girls trying to exercise with all those horrible clothes on l One of these days I am going to change all that.”
..
За несколько месяцев до того, как она основала школу в конце декабря 1904 года, Айседора ходила с другом, когда они встречались с группой девушек, делающих гимнастику с гантелями в открытом дворе. Девушки, одетые в черные шерстяные блузки, с длинными рукавами, миди-блузками, черными чулками и туфлями, безжизненно прошли свои упражнения. Айседора, склонившись к реформе, не только в искусстве танца, но и в одежде, сказала своему собеседнику: «Подумайте об этих бедных девушках, пытающихся упражняться со всей этой ужасной одеждой. На днях я собираюсь изменить все это.»

“How are you going to bring that about?” Her friend reminded her of the age they lived in and the ingrained prudishness of centuries. “It would be a miracle.” Isadora answered with conviction,
“I am determined to found a school, where children will walk barefoot in sandals the same as I do and wear short, sleeveless tunics so they can move in utter freedom and be a fine example to all the other children in the world. They shall learn not to be ashamed to expose their limbs to the rays of the health giving sun. And I shall teach them to dance; not in the stilted, outworn tradition of either a fairy, a nymph, or a coquette, as I found when I was a child and took dancing lessons, but in harmony with everything that is beautiful in nature.”
..
«Как ты собираешься это рассказать?» Ее друг напомнил ей о эпохе, в которой они жили, и об укоренившемся ханжестве веков. «Это было бы чудом», - с уверенностью ответила Айседора,
«Я полна решимости основать школу, где дети будут ходить босиком в сандалиях так же, как и я, и носить короткие, без рукавов туники, чтобы они могли двигаться в полной свободе и быть прекрасным примером для всех других детей в мире. Они научатся не стыдиться выставлять свои конечности лучам здоровья, дающим солнце. И я научу их танцевать; не в изворотливой, изможденной традиции ни феи, нифмы, ни кокетки, как я обнаружила, когда была ребенком, и брала уроки танцев, но в гармонии со всем, что красиво в природе».

Ardently wishing to share her revelation of truth and beauty with others, she spared no time or expense. Engaged in this laudable endeavor for the benefit of children in general and the good of her future little charges in particular, she had to overcome much antagonistic opposition from all those who live like ants in an anthill, greeting every advanced idea with ridicule.
..
Пытаясь поделиться с другими откровением об истине и красоте, она не жалела времени и денег. Занимаясь этой похвальной попыткой в интересах детей в целом, и для пользы от её будущих небольших сборов в частности, ей пришлось преодолеть много антагонистической оппозиции со стороны всех тех, кто живет муравьями в муравейнике, приветствуя каждую продвинутую идею с насмешками.
---41
Many critics were then barking at her heels, trying to disparage her efforts and ridicule her art. One deluded member of that confraternity went so far as to question whether she could dance at all! Comparing her technique unfavorably with that of the contemporary ballet, he declared her lacking in both the correct physical requirements for a dancer and the required technique to establish a new art form. He proposed that the question of her qualifications be placed before the ballet masters of the world. “Let them be the judge!” he sneered, little realizing that he hurled this jeer at the woman destined to raise the dance to a level equal with all the other arts.

Isadora, who had concentrated on proving the obsolescence of the ballet, declaring that “the principles of the ballet school are in direct opposition to what I am aiming at,” did not let the insult go unchallenged. In January or February 1903, she sent a typical reply to the offending newspaper, the Morgen Post:

I was very much embarrassed on reading your esteemed paper to find that you had asked of so many admirable masters of the dance to expend such deep thought and consideration on so insignificant a subject as my humble self. I feel that much literature was somewhat wasted on so unworthy a subject. And I suggest that instead of asking them “Can Miss Duncan Dance?” you should have called their attention to a far more celebrated dancer

• one who has been dancing in Berlin for some years before Miss Duncan appeared. A natural dancer who also in her style (which Miss Duncan tries to follow) is in direct opposition to the school of the ballet of today.

The dancer I allude to is the statue of the dancing Maenad in the Berlin Museum. Now will you kindly write again to the admirable masters and mistresses of the ballet and ask them-“Can the dancing Maenad dance?”

For the dancer of whom I speak has never tried to walk on the end of her toes. Neither has she spent time in the practice of leaping in the air in order to find out how many times she could clap her heels together before she came down again. She wears neither corset or tights and her bare feet rest freely in her sandals.

I believe a prize has been offered for the sculptor who could replace the broken arms in their original position. I suggest it might be even more useful for art of today to offer a prize for whoever could reproduce in life the heavenly pose of her body and the secret beauty of her movement. I suggest that your excellent paper might offer such a prize, and the excellent masters and mistresses of the ballet compete for it.

Perhaps after a trial of some years they will have learned something about human anatomy, something about the beauty, the purity, the intelligence of the movements of the human
body. Breathlessly awaiting their learned reply, I remain, sincerely yours,
Isadora Duncan

In her concentrated studies of the origin of movement (which the ballet claims starts at the hips) the truth was inevitably revealed to her. When she declared, “Every movement starts from within, from here,” placing both hands on her chest to illustrate to her pupils, she had the centrality of the solor plexus in mind. From there the nerve signals of the brain generate the impetus that must precede every movement. She soon discovered that there exists a Science of Movement-something that no one had discovered before. When medical scientists of today tell us that there is a right and a wrong to every movement we make, it is a fact that Isadora discovered over a half-century ago.

And she proceeded to teach and demonstrate this truth through her dancing. Her entire technique was based on this idea. Endowed with nature’s rarest gift-genius-she possessed a strong, prophetic vision of her own important mission in life. In a lecture delivered before the Press Association in Berlin at the outset of her career she stated it eloquently:

The dancer of the future will be one whose body and soul have grown so harmoniously together that the natural language of that soul will have become the movement of the body. The dancer will not belong to a nation but to all humanity.

Oh, what a field is here awaiting her! Do you not feel that she is near, that she is coming, this dancer of the future? She • will help womankind to a new knowledge of the possible strength and beauty of their bodies, and the relation of their bodies to the earth nature and to the children of the future. She will dance, the body emerging again from centuries of civilized forgetfulness, emerging not in the nudity of primitive man, but in a new nakedness, no longer at war with spirituality and intelligence, but joining with them in a glorious harmony.

This is the mission of the dancer of the future. . . • Let us prepare the place for her. I would build for her a temple to await her. Perhaps she is yet unborn, perhaps she is now a little child. Perhaps, oh blissful! it may be my holy mission to guide her first steps, to watch the progress of her movements day by day until, far outgrowing my poor teaching, her movements will become godlike, mirroring in themselves the waves, the winds, the movements of growing things, the flight of birds, the passing of clouds, and finally the thought of man in relation to the umverse.

Oh, she is coming, the dancer of the future! The free spirit
who will yet inhabit the body of new woman; more glorious
than any woman that has yet been; more beautiful than the
Egyptian, than the Greek, the early Italian, than all women of
past centuries-the highest intelligence in the freest body!*
• Reconstructed from notes in 1903 copybook.

Inscrutable fate propelled me, wrapped in childish insouciance, to become the unwitting pawn for an idealistic experiment. I was chosen to play my part in two pioneering projects that resulted in considerable benefit to mankind.

First: I was to be initiated into a completely novel mode of dance expression, based on an entirely novel technique; the foundation of a newly created dance form composed of movements and gestures never employed before by any dancer, anywhere, that did not come to life until my great teacher, Isadora Duncan, invented them.

Second: my schoolmates and I would henceforth be compelled, nolens volens, to take an active part in the promotion of the dress reform that was innovated and designed by Isadora. By dint of our courageous example, a general adoption (with minor modifications) of this sane, simple, and beautiful fashion came about.

It was an ambitious program and one we undertook wholeheartedly in the first instance, but with certain reservations and many misgivings in the second. I can still see the shocked expressions among the local population, especially women, when we Duncan pupils first appeared in broad daylight with the coming of spring, appareled in tunics and with our bare feet in sandals, on the open streets of Berlin. Pitying exclamations like, “Oh, you poor, poor, little children! Why, you must be freezing to death with so little on!” engulfed us. Approaching our innocent governess with threatening gestures and looks, they shouted after her, “It’s cruelty, that’s what it is! We ought to get the police after you. Cruel! Cruel! Cruel! «Unfortunately, that wasn’t by any means the end of it. No one had reckoned with the other children of the neighborhood, mostly boys, who subjected us poor victims to what amounted to a minor persecution. Like the Christian martyrs of old, we were actually stoned. Frequently (and this was most humiliating) the children pelted us-in this era of horse-drawn carriages-with something else entirely! In this way we were continually forced to dodge either stones that hurt or filth that besmirched. We often panicked, despite heroic efforts on the part of our chaperone to fend off these wild hordes of insultscreaming juveniles.

How I dreaded those daily outings! They made me feel ashamed to be exposing my bare limbs in public, and they instilled in me an unreasonable complex, which I later had great difficulty in overcoming, about not dressing like other human beings. New ideas always frighten people. But it hardly seems credible that, in the first decade of this atomic century, the pupils of Isadora Duncan should have been stoned because of their unconventional dress. But a novel idea was on the march and nothing could stop its progress.

My education as a dancer of the future was purposely delayed until I had mastered the minutiae of daily school routine.

My first lesson, for instance, had nothing to do with dancing. For identification's sake, we had each been provided with anumber. Mine was 16. The day after my arrival I was handed a length of white tape with red numbers, which I was taught to sew neatly into every piece of clothing. There happened to be something symbolic about mine. The street number of the Duncan School was also I 6. In my childish fashion I took great pride in that fact, together with a sort of proprietary interest.

It was not easy to ad just to a school discipline that demanded lining up in pairs every time we walked up and down the stairs to go from one classroom to another and even on our daily promenade. There were long periods every day when we were not allowed to speak, and infraction of that strict rule meant punishment. Then I was forced to eat food I didn't like. But hardest of all was getting up at 6:30 every morning to go through an hour's exercise before breakfast. Clad only in blue one-piece bathing suits (years before Annette Kellerman made her sensational appearance in one! ) , we held onto rails along the wall and went through a series of limbering-up exercises we children used to call Beinschwingen and Kniebeugen. When Isadora said, «Gymnastics must come before dancing,» she never meant before breakfast. That was strictly the Spartan idea of Elizabeth Duncan, not the Athenian ideal of her sister.

The rest of the morning was taken up by schoolwork presided over by a regular public school teacher supplied by the German government. Dancing and music or singing lessons occupied the afternoon hours. Fresh in my memory is the unforgettable occasion of my first lesson in our dance room, standing there in bare feet and wearing a short white tunic made of cheesecloth. The room seemed very large to me, although it could not have measured more than twenty-five by eighteen feet.

Empty except for a few benches ranged along a wall and a brown felt carpet tacked to the floor, it had many windows and a glass-enclosed porch off to one side, from which a door opened onto a flight of iron stairs leading down into the garden. Sliding doors on the opposite wall connected with the spacious music room, where a grand piano (an Ibach) occupied the semicircular space formed by a large bay window.

Here, as everywhere else in the house, antique bas-reliefs formed the decorative motif. I principally remember the large one of a Nike tying her sandals; she was minus a head but had beautifully flowing draperies. I was fortunate enough nearly two decades later to admire the original in Greece. However much I admired these works of art, none could compare to the small statuette of our own goddess of the dance gracefully poised on a tripod in one corner of the dance room. It inspired and helped me more to understand Isadora’s art than all the archaic Greek representations. Whenever the guiding spirit of our school was absent-and that occurred more frequently than we liked-her adoring youthful pupils would gather in front of it and offer a silent prayer, as to a votive statue, wishing for her speedy return. For it was in this room that she initiated us into the fundamental principles of her dance, teaching us to walk in harmony and beauty with arms raised to the light. With the intuition of a true artist, she knew how to impart an understanding of her aims to her young disciples-a feat that her older sister, who took over when Isadora left, was never able to accomplish.

It seems strange that a woman suffering from a defect, which made one leg slightly shorter than the other, should have been put in charge of our basic dance instruction. But such was the case. As we grew up, we learned to accept with equanimity Isadora's unpredictable nature. But for a long time I puzzled, trying to figure out how Isadora expected us to learn to dance from her lame sister, who not once appeared in a dance tunic or demonstrated a movement for the pupils. She always wore the voluminous Chinese coat, which helped to hide her defect and restricted her teaching to simple dance steps. She taught us the waltz, the polka, and the mazurka-all of them popular dances in her youth-for she had conducted social dancing classes in America. She would lift her skirt a few inches and demonstrate the step; that was all. Now and then she would roll up her long, loose-hanging sleeves and illustrate a series of arm movements devoid of any expression or meaning, merely to impart suppleness. Her method of teaching had nothing in common with Isadora's, which relied a great deal on inspirational technique. Thus, under Elizabeth's guidance, we at first learned to dance rather perfunctorily. Somehow, however, we acquired enough basic knowledge and made sufficient progress for Isadora to work with us. One lesson from her made up for all of Tante Miss's routine. According to her own precepts, Isadora taught us simple, rhythmic movements-walking, running, skipping~ movements that come naturally to children. European children have the quaint custom of calling grownups with whom they come in close contact by the courtesy title

of Aunt or Uncle. When we called her «Tante Isadora,» she acted horrified. She said, «Now that you are my pupils, you may call me Isadora, or darling Isadora, but never, never call me Auntie!» On the contrary, her sister, who was twelve years older than she, did not object to the somewhat incongruous appellation of Tante Miss, which was given her when the German pupils in the beginning thought the prefix «Miss» was her name. Somehow or other, it suited her perfectly. Tante Miss, who lived in the school, we saw every day. Isadora, who had an apartment on the Hardenbergstrasse in Charlottenburg, we saw seldom.

Of the three Americans who instructed us in the arts of dance and music, Professor Passmore, our singing teacher, impressed us most as an American. Mr. Passmore, who looked like a cartoon of Uncle Sam with his beard and side whiskers, had his own method of teaching singing. A cheerful gentleman who liked to laugh a lot, he placed us in a semicircle, with hands resting on top of our heads, and made us vocalize to the words «Santa Barbara a Santa Clara.» That this curious, outlandish incantation, repeated at every lesson, held an important message concerning my future could not of course be guessed. Santa Barbara, the first American city whose name I learned to pronounce and sing, would turn out to be the birthplace of the man I was to marry. Dear Professor Passmore-had he only known!

«The Jay is a jolly old bird, heigh-ho! «-that was the first song in American he taught us-a composition of his own-and that is how we children regarded him-as a «Jolly Old Bird.» After his Wednesday and Friday singing lessons he would drink a cup of tea with Tante Miss in the music room as he conversed animatedly with her and his long black beard had a funny way of moving up and down, much to our amusement. He was, in fact, a skillful vocal instructor, guiding our voices gently into their natural pitch and emphasizing breath control. This was a technique we were grateful for later, when we had to sing and dance at the same time.

Learning something new every day, the time passed swiftly and I had no chance to suffer from those attacks of H eimweh that were shortly to reduce the number of pupils in the Grunewald school to fifteen. Mother had decided that. I should try out the school thoroughly before making up my mind whether or not to stay. Just before Easter she wrote me to stay on if I wished. I still have the letter I wrote to her in reply. My first letter was dated April JO, I 90 5. I wrote with the steep, large lettering of an eight-year-old that I was glad she had decided to leave me at school.

To make absolutely sure that I was in good hands, mother had repeatedly tried to get permission to visit me. Her many requests were refused by Elizabeth under the pretext that in-sufficient time had elapsed for me to become acclimatized. These refusals, made without Isadora's knowledge, angered mother. As soon as Isadora appeared again in Hamburg, mother went to see her. Isadora received her very kindly, immediately assuring her that she could visit me whenever she wanted. Graciously, she invited mother to stay at the school during her visit.

I had no idea mother was coming. One morning, when we descended to the basement dining hall, lined up in pairs as usual and holding hands, not allowed to speak a single word, I suddenly saw mother. I was even more speechless than before.

Dressed in a mauve silk negligee, her hair still in braids and quickly pinned up, she stood beside a narrow iron cot in a corner. The moment she saw me, she held out her arms and came rushing to me for an emotional embrace. As she pressed me to her breast, she called out endearments in her native Schleswig-Holstein dialect. This embarrassed me in front of the others. Most of them had never seen mother, and I wanted terribly for her to make a good impression. She clung so long to me that Fraulein thought discipline was being impaired. She called out, «Now Irma, sit down and eat your breakfast first and visit with your mother afterward.»

The other children were already seated, a big steaming bowl of hot porridge in front of each of them. But no one ate. Fascinated, they just stared at my mother. Their eyes filled with longing as they thought of their own mothers, whom they had not seen for months. Mother spoke to them gently, giving each a smile, trying to make their acquaintance. By her mere presence she spread a sort of homey Gemutlichkeit, a tenderness only mothers know how to bestow. Hearing her speak in the familiar, clipped North German accent, the girls from Hamburg became so homesick they started to cry. Later, except for little Erica and myself, they all returned home.

I had permission to skip school and spend the entire day with mother. I remember sitting in a coffee shop where she let me stuff myself with pastry and hot chocolate, something I hadn't tasted since I entered the school. While I was eating, she pumped me further about the food I was getting there.
«Tell me frankly,» she said, «how you like it.»
«Oh, so so. Not the way you cook, Mama.»
«What do they give you? Tell me in detail.»
«Vegetables,» I said, making a wry face.
«What else? That can't be all?»
«Macaroni .
«No meat?»
«No meat.»
you know, that sort of stuff.»

Mother looked worried. At home I had eaten meat every day, and sometimes she would give me raw chopped meat with onions on black bread and plenty of salt and pepper, which I actually ate with relish. Naturally, after that kind of fare, our vegetarian diet was unappetizing and tasteless. There was no use complaining; the school physician, Dr. Hoffa, had ordered it.

I loathed it with all my heart and stomach, and never had enough to eat. But I did not say this to mother. I did not want to upset her.
«And for dessert-you do get dessert, don't you?» she asked hopefully.
«Yes, prunes.»
«Prunes every day?»
«No, sometimes we get sago pudding.»

When she learned that we had five meals a day-breakfast, second breakfast, luncheon, tea, and supper-she was satisfied that I wasn't starving. She promised to send me some homemade cake as soon as she got back. She still looked worried. «Are you sure they are treating you all right and that you really like it there?» she wanted to know.
«I like it fine, Mama,» I assured her. «The people are very nice . . . some nicer than others.»

I thought of Isadora. And suddenly, out of the blue, it struck me how much of a stranger mother had become. In the short span of three months, I had somehow grown away from her, as if I had entered another world. And of course I had. Being educated far in advance of ordinary children, dressing differently from them, we Duncan pupils had indeed been set apart.

Like members of a religious community, under the benediction of some holy influence, we became an ever more dedicated group as we were further initiated into the secrets of Isadora's art. This was a world that no outsider could enter, nor could he ever fathom the depths of understanding and spiritual communion that existed amongst us whenever we worked or danced together with Isadora. That was a secret known to ourselves alone.

I had known Isadora so far only as a teacher. That spring for the first time I had the joy of seeing her perform on the stage. Sitting in a box with her other pupils, I watched her give a program called Dance Idylls which she originally performed in 1900, at the New Gallery in London under the patronage of H.R.H. the Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. It contained a group of dances set to early Italian music, with costumes and dance motifs copied from Renaissance paintings. In those early days she made use of whatever stage decor was available, such as a sky-blue panorama in the background and tree groupings for the wings on either side. Later she adopted those tall, blue-gray curtains of her own design (though this was disputed by Gordon Craig), which she used henceforth exclusively. Those famous tall curtains subsequently became standard equipment, in one color or another, at every theatre, concert hall, school auditorium, or television set-wherever a neutral background was required.

On that memorable day when we first saw her perform, Isadora’s dancing, lively and beautiful with all her youthful charm, was a revelation to her pupils. One particular dance made the most indelible impression on my childish mind. It was called «Angel Playing the Viol,» to cello music by Peri. In this dance, in which she did not move her feet at all, I saw before my astonished eyes my guardian angel come to life. It was the one in the picture above my bed. Ever afterward, when I looked at this picture, it was Isadora’s face I saw. Of this performance Karl Federn, the German writer who instructed her in Nietzsche’s philosophy, wrote:

A simple scene • • . a green carpet and a spacious gray-blue backdrop . . • almost childish and laughable seems this stage decor until she appears, for then the scene changes with each of her dances and becomes real. So powerful is the mood she creates that we can see meadows and the flowers she gathers . . hear the waves break against the shore and surmise the approach in the distance of a fleet of ancient ships with billowing sails.

Her entrance, her walk, her simple gesture of greeting are movements of beauty. She wears no tights, no frilled ballet skirts, her slender limbs gleam through the veils and her dance is religion. . • . She appears as the Angel with Viol out of the painting by Ambrosio di Predis. A long violet garment worn over grayish veils floats down to her bare feet. In her hair, which hangs loosely to her shoulders, she wears a crown of white and red roses. And the Quattrocento comes alive again before us with all its innocence and deep religious feeling. Pan and Echo-a short Greek tunic, her hair tied into a knot.

We ask ourselves: Can this possibly be the same creature? With wonderful gestures expressive of the antique ideal, she resurrects the nostalgia of Hellas. How many statues have come to life in her! In a heavily draped Greek attire, she mourns to music of Gluck over the death of Eurydice, in rhythmic, measured, ceremonious grief that mounts and mounts until she sinks to the ground in despair. And then she appears again-this time the scene is darker, wrapped in sombre shadows, and her gown is colorless and floating like the shadows, and her movements are rapid and ghostlike: the shadows of the underworld listening to Orpheus. Suddenly the scene is bright again and everything is joy and contentment-Orpheus has found his Eurydice.

She has a dance without music, awesome and very gripping, called «Death and the Maiden» . . . as in Maeterlinck’s «Intruse,» death announces itself unseen but intensely apprehended. . . . The spectator feels a cold shiver run up and down his spine. Everyone has sensed the awesome presence of the destroyer.*
*From Nach Funfundzwansig lahren, dated 1928, in Isadora Duncan's
Der Tanz der Zukunft [The Dance of the Future] Eine Vorlesung [Jena,
1929] iii-iv.

(Isadora once remarked that she did not call this dance «Death and the Maiden» when she composed it, but that she had some vague idea of it as Maiden and brutal reality, and it was the audience who named it Death. If one recalls her own tragic end, the dance seems almost prophetic.)

The unusual gift of the great artist to make others see the things born of her imagination gave depth and significance to everything Isadora created. She knew how to dance with such commanding authority that those who saw her perform were impressed even when they did not comprehend the meaning of her art. Few dancers possess such insight into music that the dance seems to express exactly what the composer intended. Richard Wagner has said: «The most genuine of all art forms is the dance. Its artistic medium is the living human being, and not merely one part of it but the whole body from the soles of the feet to the top of the head. For anyone completely sensitive to art, music and poetry can only truly become comprehensible through the art of the dance-mime.» And with every gesture Isadora Duncan revealed herself as a supreme dance-mime. She was the prototype of her own inspired vision of the Dancer of the Future-whose dance belongs to no one nation but to all of humanity.

«WE must adopt more children and build an addition to the school!» Isadora exclaimed enthusiastically when she saw the progress we had made during her five months’ absence. Returning from one of her protracted tours in the latter part of June that same year, she was filled with plans for the future, not counting the expense. Her sister was more practical. «Where will the money come from? As it is, we are living way beyond our budget.»

«I have an idea!» Never at a loss to make life more exciting, Isadora said, «We'll give a benefit performance and show the children off to the public for the first time. That will surely arouse sufficient interest. We will ask everybody we know to subscribe.»
«That's an excellent idea,» Elizabeth agreed, since she had already enlisted the aid of several Berlin society ladies to act as patronesses of the school. She added, «Princess Henry of Reuss was here a few days ago and saw the pupils dance. She was enchanted.»
Princess Henry VII of Reuss, whose principality in Thuringia was a small one, possessed, nevertheless, enormous wealth. A woman close to the Imperial court, she could be useful in getting other influential ladies to join.

«I shall write to her immediately,» Isadora said, and she composed the following letter:
Dear Princess: For the last eight months twenty little girls have been living together in my school in Grunewald creating much joy to themselves, a delight to all who have seen them, and a radiant hope for the future of the Art of the Dance.

I wish to take twenty-five more next winter. This will necessitate a new building erected on the vacant plot next door. As you know, I have given my entire earnings to the maintenance of the school and am most pleased to do so in the future. But they are not enough for the new ground and erection of the second building to be connected by a passageway with the old one. So I am giving a benefit at Kroll’s Opera House on July 20th, as a means of raising money for it.
Of course we do not expect people who are out of town to be present but that they may subscribe and give their tickets to artists, etc. All the artists who have visited the school have been enthusiastic in their praises for the lovely dancing of the little girls and are unanimous in their belief in the value of the school to art and the state.

I myself am delighted with the progress of my pupils and am convinced that almost every child has more or less talent for the dance if directed along natural channels; and that the dancing of these little girls will be a source of much joy to the public in the years to come. For this reason I do not hesitate to ask for help in the advancing of my idea and feel sure my request will meet with your sympathy.
Isadora Duncan

Among the various artists she mentions as visiting the school was an unknown Swiss musician called Jaques-Dalcroze. He witnessed a lesson once, and I recall the occasion vividly because of his infectious enthusiasm and constant interruptions. What fascinated him most were the kinetics involved in what Isadora called the «scale of movements,» which started with a slow walk, gradually accelerating into a fast and faster pace till it evolved into a run, and from there by degrees reverted to a slow walk again.

The Greatest Thing in Life 39

"Ha! " he exclaimed, jumping up from his seat in great
agitation; and he inquired of Tante Miss, "May I have your permissiOn to improvise at the piano for a repetition of this
exercise?" Permission granted, he proceeded to improvise for us.
When he left, he signed the guest book, which was always on
top of the piano. A few years later, he founded his whole system
of Eurythmics on what he had seen that day at our school.
Such things occurred so frequently with people interested in
the new dance form Isadora had invented that it was no wonder
she should constantly voice the complaint, "Everybody is running off with my ideas!" Unfortunately, they could not be
patented. If they could have been, what royalties she might have
collected from her millions of imitators, including the Russian
ballet!

It so happened that the well-known German composer
Engelbert Humperdinck lived next door to us on Trabener-
strasse. Famous for his universally beloved children's opera
Hansel and Gretel, he headed the committee for the support of
our school. One afternoon we all went to have tea with him and
his family. A man of about fifty, he regaled us by playing music
from his opera such as the "Knusper-Waltzer" and the lively,
tuneful "Rosenringel" and "Tanzreigen." Appropriately enough
for our youthful years, Isadora taught us a dance to the last two
compositions. Humperdinck often played his tunes for us to get
the right tempo and feeling. He played them with such verve
that we children responded with natural spontaneity and put all
we had into the charming dance.

The subscription list mounted daily, with Princess Reuss
contributing a thousand goldmarks; Princess von Meiningen, a
hundred; Frau von Mendelsohn of the banking family, also a
thousand; Countess Harrach, a lady-in-waiting to the Kaiserin,
five hundred; Siegfried Wagner, son of Richard Wagner of
Bayreuth, a thousand; and so forth down the list to Frau Begas,
the wife of Reinhold Begas, the famous German sculptor, who
created the national monument to Emperor William I as well as
many of the principal statues of Berlin. Isadora gave us new silk tunics in pastel shades of blue, pink, and yellow to wear for
the occasion, making us discard the cheesecloth ones entirely.
Also we had small wreaths of rosebuds for our hair.

Then came the big day. The excitement of that moment can
never be repeated. Here I was, after only seven months of
apprenticeship, ready to make my stage debut. Such a thrill
comes to few children, and when it does they are never afterwards the same. A marvelous ingredient, a wonderful feeling of
accomplishment, is then added to the ordinary routine of daily
existence. This is something that the average child does not expenence.
We were to appear at the very end of Isadora's performance.
Quietly, we entered the stage door of the big Opera House late
at night. \Ve had slept all afternoon and early evening so as to
be fresh and bright. I had an awesome sensation as I mounted
the stairs to the dressing rooms while the performance was in
progress. The sound of the orchestra playing faintly reached my
ears. The curious, indefinable smell of backstage familiar to
every performer, mixed with the unseen but nevertheless acutely
sensed, electrifying presence of the hushed audience out in front,
gave me my first attack of stage fright. The stern voice of
Tante Miss saying, "Here, sit down in front of me so I can put
your make-up on," brought me out of it.

I did as I was told, holding my hair back so she could smear
cold cream over my face. When she finished and had applied
the lipstick, she said, "There you are! I made you a nice cupid's
bow." She surveyed me critically to judge the effect of her handi-
work. "Now don't touch your face," she warned. "Who's next?"
This strange, unfamiliar business of make-up completed, I
turned to the mirror. A rouged and powdered face stared back,
resembling a painted mask; a face that was and yet was not mine.
How familiar this pre-curtain ritual was to become in the course
of my long theatrical career!

When the other children had been similarly transformed
with the aid of poudre de riz and Dorin's rouge, and we stood
The Greatest Thing in Life 41
ready in silk tunics and circlets of rosebuds for a final inspection,
we all jumped and looked startled when a shrill bell suddenly
rang in our dressing room.
"This is it!" Tante Miss said. "Get ready to go downstairs,
and don't forget to put on your slippers and woolen shawls."
Then, lined up two by two, we were hustled downstairs. With
finger on her lips, Tante Miss signaled us to keep quiet and
take our places backstage. Excitement took hold of me again,
for I was about to experience something completely unknown,
like diving into deep water. The orchestra struck up the by-now-
familiar melody and, waiting in the wings poised to take off
on cue, I summoned up my courage and dashed out onto the
vast, empty stage of the Royal Opera House.
Dancing from the encircling shadows into the glaring light,
I instantly forgot my previous nervousness, as I lost myself in
the music and the dance. What joy, to dance in natural abandon
carried along by the beautiful sounds of a symphony orchestra!
This utterly entrancing sensation made all of us dance with such
spontaneous enjoyment that we must have projected our own
happiness across the footlights, for when we finished the audi-
ence responded with deafening applause.
The shock of this unexpected noise descended upon us with
the suddenness of a thunderclap. We turned for reassurance to-
ward the wings, where, near the proscenium arch, we had espied
the lithe figure of our idol, who had been watching our dancing
and for whom alone we had danced. Sensing our childish alarm,
she quickly advanced toward us smiling, her light draperies
floating behind her. Arms filled with long-stemmed roses, she
stopped in our midst and took a bow while the gaze of her little
pupils turned toward her as flowers toward the sun.
The audience clamored for encores. When the music began
again, Isadora quickly whispered to us to dance toward her,
one by one, from the opposite corner of the stage. We did so,
and as each child skipped up she handed her a pink rose. With
the flowers in our hands, we then circled about her as she posed
DUNCAN DANCER
in the center of the stage, arms outstretched as if to embrace us
all in a loving, maternal gesture. Happy, laughing children
danced a rondo about her, a real "Rosenringel Reigen," and in
that ecstatic group was one who wished this happy dance would
never, never stop.
In the audience that night in July 1905 was Gordon Craig.
He gave his impression later:
She called her little pupils to come to her and please the public
with their little leapings and runnings! as they did, and with her
leading them the whole troupe became irresistibly lovely. I sup-
pose some people even then and there began reasoning about it
all, trying to pluck out the heart of the mystery. But I and hun-
dreds of others who saw this first revelation did not stop to
reason, for we too had all read what the poets had written of
life and love and nature, and we did not reason then; we read,
we wept and laughed for joy. And to see her shepherding her
little flock, keeping them together and especially looking after
one very small one of four years old, was a sight no one there
had ever seen before and, I suppose, will never see again.*
Whoever would have believed it possible that our innocent
dance debut should bring forth wrath from on high? No one less
than the German Kaiserin, Auguste Victoria, a pious woman
(who inspired her husband's famous remark about its being
woman's duty to occupy herself solely with Kinder, Kirche,
Kueche), pronounced herself outrageously shocked at children
performing in bare limbs. Brought up in the Victorian era, when
the sight of a woman's ankle was considered daring, she could
not look upon children's bare legs without feeling that it was
immoral. If the poor Kaiserin could only see her royal descend-
ants today going bare-legged in the summertime, she surely
would realize what enormous progress has been made against
prudishness through the good example set by that same group
of dancing children she once criticized.
Her official utterance condemning the display of bare limbs
occasioned wide publicity. It aroused further controversy and
* In a talk for BBC Radio.
The Greatest Thing in Life 43
also a livelier interest on the part of influential people in Isadora
Duncan's school for the education of children along modern
lines. It was then the only one of its kind in the world teaching
freedom of motion; a sane, healthy attitude toward the human
body; and, to complement these two important objectives, an
appropriate dress reform. Nothing comparable had been seen in
the Occidental world since the Hellenic and Roman civilizations.
It was no wonder that under these circumstances the question of
the propriety of exposing limbs to public view should be dis-
cussed seriously even by learned professors. How much the ques-
tion was a topic of the day is evident in an article written in 1906:
IN ISADORA DUNCAN'S HOUSE
Several ladies and gentlemen of society recently gathered to-
gether in Grunewald to have Isadora's sister Elizabeth Duncan
present to them the pupils of the Duncan School.
The inte1ior of Isadora's home breathes the severe style of
classical Greece softened by modern conveniences. Everywhere
subdued colors and geometric lines and, in all things, from the
reliefs of old Italian masters hanging on the walls, to the color-
ful flowers decorating the tables, a display of good taste. What
the visitor is immediately aware of and what helps to dispel any
lingering skepticism and calls forth respect is that here are people
who have more than a sure sense of good taste. What impresses
him is that there is indeed a great idea behind all this-perhaps
a way of life.
As we enter the festive hall we behold, in addition to the an-
cient Greek spirit, the most refreshing youth. We are confronted
with what at first impact confuses and leaves one dumbfounded;
namely, a group of seventeen little girls in tunics of transparent
silk and with hair unbound and carefully adorned with flowers
or a simple diadem!
Seventeen youthful dancers, that is a total of thirty-four little
dancing legs, bare as bare can be. And here is something curi-
ous! However greatly it may contradict one's conventional cus-
toms, the spectator is hardly conscious of this bareness of limbs
in these surroundings. He does not perceive it as something odd
44 DUNCAN DANCER
or even offensive but rather as an aesthetic necessity, and he
gains the impression that even the smallest sandal would spoil the
quiet flow of lines.
One of the little dancers takes a big ball and bounces it onto
the floor. She skips around it playfully and continues to bounce the
ball with dancing gestures. Never have I seen anything so grace-
full Never beheld so harmoniously rounded a dance image that
appeared so entirely natural. ...
How very difficult to achieve, and how very seldom em-
ployed in ordinary life, is the beauty of apparently the simplest
of human motions. The Duncan sisters are quite right when they
regard the walk, the rhythmic stride, as the basis for all dance
art. As the most important of the 95,140 combinations of move-
ments which, according to the opinion of the dance theoretician
Emanuel of Paris, are possible for the human body to achieve.
Whether the little Duncan girls stride ceremoniously in the man-
ner of antique choruses, whether they hop about cheerfully or
mime games, always, their every movement seems born out of
the spirit of the music •.•. What enjoyment does the sight of
a well-proportioned foot and the play of its muscles afford! This
wonderful adjunct to the human body has become estranged to
modern man. The compulsion of footwear has so pitiably crip-
pled it that it has become almost a shameful thing. These child-
dancers have completely normal feet. And since the whole foot
and not the toes alone have been designed by nature to support
the body's weight, their art does not deteriorate into the man-
nered offense which is the alpha and the omega of the old-style
ballet and which causes those who practice it so much effort and
pam ...•
Better-cared-for children cannot be imagined, and they are all
visibly and most lovingly devoted to the cause. Elizabeth Duncan
conducted us into the dormitories: a symphony in white and
blue bathed in light and fresh air, in an orderliness and cleanliness
that conveys an indescribable comfort. The girls are to remain
in this house till they are seventeen, thereafter they are going to
appear with Isadora Duncan on the stage. It is reassuring to
know that this gay but fundamentally serious art of the dance
has, in this conception, a future.
The Greatest Thing in Life 45
When, after two hours which passed like a dream, I stood
once more in the tumult of the streets in the midst of hurrying,
perspiring, and laborious people, the skeptic stirred again in me
and I asked myself: What is the purpose of all this? What
benefit is there in it for us modern-machine people living in this
era of shrillest disharmonies, in this piece of ancient Greece trans-
planted to a northern clime? ..• But then, above conflicting
sentiments the thought arose, that even if there seems to be no
practical use for it, one must admit it really is very nice when,
far removed from the monstrous, dusty highroad trodden by
millions, there exist a few gardens here and there secluded and
filled with "Wunderblumen."
This was not the first skeptic nor the last to ask himself: Of
what practical use is all this? He had part of the answer when
he surmised that it was "perhaps a way of life." New ideas are
seldom of immediate, general benefit to the contemporary gen-
eration. Sufficient time must elapse before the seeds start to
germinate and take root. Isadora's credo was: "To dance is to
live." She said that what she wanted was a school of life, for
man's greatest riches were in his soul, in his imagination. She
called the dance "not a diversion but a religion"; and she taught
that idea to the children in her school. "Life is the root and art
is the flower." Again and again she would reiterate that dance
was the most natural and most beautiful aid to the develop-
ment of the growing child in its constant movement, and only
that education was right which included the dance.*
It is not surprising that intelligent men were somewhat per-
plexed when they first came in personal contact with a living
demonstration of this credo. Isadora Duncan's idea was still
above their heads. Cultured Europeans were suddenly con-
fronted with the unusual phenomenon of seeing an American
(and a woman at that) bring culture from the New World to
the Old. It had always been the reverse. Her unique dance art
represented one of the very few genuine, original art forms the
* Cf. Art, pp. 88, 141-q.z.
DUNCAN DANCER
United States had produced in its less than two hundred years
of existence.
Frequent inquiries as to the exact purpose of her dance
school came from every direction. In a notebook of this period,
she set forth her views:
If the dance is not to come to life again as an art, then far better
that its name should rest in the dust of antiquity •••• I am
deeply interested in the question: Is the dance a sister art or not;
and if so, how shall it be brought to life as an art? And I put
this question quite apart from myself or my dance, which may
be nothing-or something-simply as a question which must be
of interest to most people.
My dancing is to me an instinctive thing born with me .•••
You call me a barefoot dancer. To me you might as well say
a bare-headed or bare-handed dancer. I took off my clothes to
dance because I felt the rhythm and freedom of my body better
that way. In all ages when the dance was an art, the feet were
lett free as well as the rest of the body; also, whenever the
dance has had an influence on the other arts-as in the beautiful
bas-reliefs of dancing figures of the Greeks. . • •
If you would think of this a bit you would see that the con-
ception of a dancing figure as being in light drapery and without
shoes is not mine especially, but simply the ideal dancing figure
as thought of by all artists of all times. Then you would cease to
use the title "barefoot dancer," which I confess I detest; and you
would see that in endeavoring to found a school for the renewing
of the dance as an art, it is quite natural that the pupils should
follow in their dress the hint given them by the Great Masters in
portraying the dancing figures. • . .
I have danced before the public continuously since I was a
little girl; in all these years, although certainly there has been
much blame and discussion, there has been on the whole a gen-
eral feeling of joyous acclaim and encouragement . . • that has
upborne me on my way, for I felt it was a sort of voice from the
people that such a dance was wanted, needed. . . .
Now I could not think that I could teach another what had
been a gradual evolution of my own being and a work of all
The Greatest Thing in Life 47
my life. But I felt I must give response to all these questionings.
And so the idea gradually came to me ... to endeavor to
found a school whose object would be the finding of the true
dancing. Not in any way a copy of my dance, but the study of
the dance as an Art.
And in the 1906 prospectus of the Grunewald school, she
stated its purposes clearly:
To rediscover the beautiful, rhythmical motions of the human
body, to call back to life again that ideal movement which should
be in harmony with the highest physical type, and to awaken once
more an art which has slept for two thousand years-these are the
serious aims of the school.
Isadora's initial effort to arouse sufficient interest for the fi-
nancial support of the Grunewald school had not been very
successful. She found herself forced to rely entirely on her own
resources for the ever increasing upkeep of her establishment.
Thereafter, she was kept constantly on the move despite her
wish not to go on triumphal world tours to earn enough money
to feed many little mouths five times a day. This made her
undertake tours lasting so long that her pupils didn't get even a
glimpse of her for months, sometimes an entire year-much to
the regret of her devoted charges, who missed her inspiring
presence and guidance. Tante Miss, who was now in complete
charge, could never fill that void. Neither physically nor in
character did she in the slightest degree resemble her younger,
more talented sister. Less idealistic and of a more pedantic tem-
perament, she proved in the end to be of an infinitely more
practical mind. The enthusiastic response of the public to our
initial performance suggested to her the idea that the school
might help to support itself.
In order to learn from nature, the great teacher, we were
often taken to the woods in summer to observe the waving of
trees, the flight of birds, or the movements of clouds. Learning
DUNCAN DANCER
to dance from these, we developed a sensitive understanding of
nature. Isadora once remarked on how often, returning from
these studies to the dance room, we pupils felt in our bodies an
irresistible impulse to dance out one or another movement which
we had just observed. And thus in time, she thought, some of us
would come to the composition of our own dances; but even
when we were dancing together, each one, while forming a part
of the whole under group inspiration, would preserve a creative
individuality.*
Not being a choreographer herself, Tante Miss now thought
of following Isadora's suggestion and encouraged us to com-
pose dances. The charming Kinderscenen by Schumann easily
inspired ideas for this. She employed the method of letting us
all improvise together and then, picking the one who had hit on
the best interpretation, singling her out to develop her idea. In
this ingenious way we composed a whole group of little poems,
danced either singly or in group formation. I contributed several
compositions. One of them I danced as a solo called "Poor Or-
phan Child." My dramatic instinct came to the fore as, with
hesitant steps, I went from side to side holding out my hand,
palm upturned, in a pitiable gesture of begging for alms. Isadora
liked it so much she always made me dance this when visitors
came to the school.
Tante Miss made all the costumes herself. She was very
adept at it. Here was something she apparently enjoyed doing.
I once saw her sitting on the floor contentedly pasting tiny
golden paillettes one by one onto white silk angel gowns-the
ones we wore for Schubert's "Sarabande."
She dearly loved to give us small objects to hold while we
danced, probably because we did not always know what to do
with our hands and she didn't either. We had a variety of bells,
cymbals, hoops, garlands, scarves and even, for the "Italian
Marinari" dance, short lengths of genuine seaman's rope, dec-
orated with the national colors of Italy! Isadora, the purist, who
* Cf. Art, p. Sz.
The Greatest Thing in Life 49
preferred the Doric to the Ionic style, did not, of course, en-
tirely approve of this. But we children thought most of these
gadgets were fun, except that I didn't care to dance with small
brass cymbals tied to my hands. Isadora herself had discarded
these adjuncts long ago, and we later learned from her how
expressive and varied the gestures of the hands can be when
executed with the artfulness of a master.
One day, at the end of our rehearsal of the program, Tante
Miss said that she had an important communication to make.
We immediately sat hushed and attentive. "We have," she an-
nounced, "the great honor of presenting this first program of
dances from our school for the second time in public at the
composer's anniversary." Very composer-conscious ever since we
had met Humperdinck, we wanted to know whether Robert
Schumann was still alive. Tante Miss shook her head. "No,"
she said, "he died half a century ago, and we have been asked to
help commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of his death. So you
must all dance especially well on that day."
We had given the program initially at a Sunday matinee at
the Theater Des Westens in Berlin three months after our debut
at the Opera House. This, our first independent appearance,
was reviewed in the National Zeitung dated October 31, 1905:
As the curtain rose a sweet little child skipped out onto the stage
to a melody by Schumann in a delicate chiffon tunic. With bare
feet she tripped lightly and daintily across the carpet . • . and
soon there came a second, and then a third elfin figure until the
stage was filled with about twenty similar shapes. The images
they evoked were of enchanting gracefulness. They floated across
and chased each other like irridescent butterflies with multicolored
wings, bending, swaying, springing, and dancing like spirits from
Oberon's court. . . . At times they resembled allegorical figures
representing Autumn and Winter, indicating with characteristic
but simple gestures the disparate moods of nature.
And again they appeared, this time as angels in long white
gowns and wreaths of flowers in the hair striding gravely about.
50 DUNCAN DANCER
Then followed a very frolicsome dance . • • an animated swarm
of colors and small shapes as if a storm wind had tossed the
flowers in a meadow together.* And then in the next dance the
girls would break up into orderly groups, those in the fore-
ground seeming to paraphrase the melody while the taller girls
in the background indicated the accompaniment. . • . Almost
everything went along with admirable precision, but every now
and then the set figures gave way and the little ones would skip
about spontaneously, and this especially was delightful and in-
teresting because it demonstrated conclusively how well they have
learned to coordinate their movements.
It is important to remark that every form of affectation was
avoided. The whole thing gave the impression of having been
worked out with the characteristic naturalness of expression pe-
culiar to children. This appears to me to be of primary impor-
tance in their work. The public applauded the youthful artists
enthusiastically and with great vigor.
Someone on the commemorative committee must have seen
this program and invited us to Zwickau, Schumann's birthplace,
for the anniversary performance. For our first voyage away from
school we had each been supplied with a small wicker suitcase
held together by two leather straps. It contained our dance cos-
tumes and accessories, including a pair of slippers and a woolen
shawl for backstage. I remember with what pride I carried mine,
which had the number 16 painted in black on the outside.
It was the middle of summer, and the village made a pic-
turesque sight nestling in a valley at the foot of the Erzgebirge
in Saxony. In the market place of this medieval town stood the
house where Schumann was born, and nearby was the Gothic
merchant's hall, turned into a theatre, where we would dance
to his music. Perhaps his spirit watched over us, for the towns-
people took us instantly to their hearts.
All sixteen of us had been billeted in the quaint old house
* "Courante" by Carelli; a "Blind-man's-buff," danced and choreo-
graphed by Irma.
Isadora with Grunewald students, 1905; Irma at right, fifth couple from
top.
Pupils of the Isadora Duncan School, 1906-1908.
(upper 1.) Erica. (upper r.) Irma.
(lower 1.) Theresa. (lower r.) Anna.
The Greatest Thing in Life 51
of the local gold-and-silver smith and his friendly young wife.
When we left, he presented each child with a small silver chain
with a silver pendant. "They were made in my workshop," he
said, "and my wife and I would like you to wear them as a
memento of Zwickau and Robert Schumann's commemoration
festivities." Alas, we wore them only once, for "jewelry" was
strictly forbidden. Tante Miss confiscated them and we never
saw the little silver chains again.
From Zwickau we proceeded to other cities in Saxony-
Dresden, Leipzig, etc.-making a small tour of Germany which
lasted till Christmas. Another Christmas away from home. • . .
In the library there was a large tree, festooned all over with
golden threads and tiny red apples. Small wax candles burned
in wire holders that made the golden threads glisten. There was
the joy of opening a package from home filled with goodies. U n-
der the tree were paper plates, one for each child, containing gin-
gerbread, assorted nuts, and-in the center-the yearly Christ-
mas symbol, a single orange.
By far the grandest present came from Isadora. Though
absent on a tour through Holland and Belgium, she had sent us
pretty new dresses and bonnets specially designed by her and
made in the Hague. Both the dresses and velvet bonnets were
blue and edged with swansdown. Mother had sent me a hand-
some doll with blond curls and a purple velvet dress. I had
loved playing with dolls at home, but now I discovered to my
surprise that I had no further interest in them.
To our delight, we received another present from our gold-
smith friend-a silver thimble-which we were allowed to keep.
For as long as we lived in Germany, each year under the Christ-
mas tree, we found a small silver trinket-a bangle for our hair
or a cup-most of which he never knew we were not permitted
to keep. Each year we would open his gift eagerly but with
sadness, knowing that if only Isadora were present she would
never have deprived us of these things.
That winter in Hamburg mother received a letter:
52 DUNCAN DANCER
The Isadora Duncan School will appear on Sunday at one o'clock
at the Thalia Theater in Hamburg. \V e have asked the manage-
ment to place two seats at your disposal. The school will arrive
late Saturday night and the directress of the school, Miss Eliza-
beth Duncan, begs you for the sake of the children's health and
peace not, under any circumstances, to visit them either upon
arrival or departure. You will have an opportunity to see your
little daughter Irma after the performance around three o'clock
in the dressing room backstage.
After the performance the children are invited to a tea party
given by the local committee for the support of the school. Since
the departure is set for six o'clock, it will be impossible for Miss
Duncan to permit you to take your little daughter home for the
afternoon. The shortness of time and other considerations will
make it otherwise difficult for Miss Duncan to keep the necessary
control over her charges for whom she is responsible.
As well can be imagined, mother felt like rejecting these
demands. The middle-aged spinster who caused them to be
written obviously did not understand or sympathize with a
mother's feelings. However, not wanting to cause any trouble
and familiar with Elizabeth's Spartan tactics, she decided to
abide by the rules. Mother came backstage after the matinee,
her arms laden with flowers. She handed several small bouquets
to her favorites and the biggest one to me. She hugged me and
said, "All of you danced so beautifully." Then she kissed me
and whispered, "But oh, Irma, you were simply wonderful!"
Mother had good reason to be proud of me, for only a year
ago I had lived at home inconspicuous as a blade of grass; then
events in my young life moved so fast that here I was returning
to my home town dancing at the same theatre Isadora Duncan
had appeared in that memorable week of our first encounter. In
the interim I had not only made my dance debut and gone on
tour, but I was already featured in two solo numbers of my own
choreography. Enough to encourage any talented youngster, no
matter what restrictions were necessary to achieve success.
The Greatest Thing in Life 53
Mother must have realized this when, after once more request-
ing permission to take me home and being refused by T ante
Miss, she did not insist on her inviolable parental rights. Since
I was a scholarship pupil, Tante Miss considered me school
property, and there was nothing mother could do but take me
away for good. Knowing how much I loved dancing and being
Isadora's pupil, she naturally did not wish to hurt my chances.
Actually, however, none of us really knew what our future
was to be at that extraordinary institution dedicated to an un-
tried, idealistic experiment. Doubts of any sort were hardly ever
raised by those who saw us dance, but there happened to be
someone among the spectators that day in Hamburg who did
voice them. His article was signed only with the initials V .M.:
The house was well attended, everyone was delighted and en-
thusiastic. The contrast was immense. In the middle of a snowy
winter's day this charming idyll of spring, these tender human
buds who devote themselves with such earnestness and under-
standing, and at the same time with all the grace and ease of
youth, to this art although they can't possibly know what it will
later offer them in return for all this devotion.
This thought must occur immediately to every philanthropist.
And it is reassuring to learn from the school prospectus that the
leaders of the Duncan Dance School have taken this point well
into consideration, that they are preparing their pupils adequately
for the struggle of existence.
There also arises another concern as one views this perform-
ance for the second time. 'V"ill this art be strong enough to con-
tinue to hold attention, or is it merely a beautiful dream, which
one may dream only once? . . . But it can't be denied that it
is a beautiful art, in its present form perhaps not yet an end in
itself, but surely a good seed to which one may wish a favorable
growth and fruitful ripening.
During the first year at school we developed a strong attach-
ment to our pretty young nursemaids, a brunette and a blonde,
Fraulein Lippach and Fraulein Konegen. The day they packed
54 DUNCAN DANCER
their things and departed, what a wailing went up among the
smaller children! Tante Miss, however, was deaf to our laments
and remained adamant in dismissing them. What we needed,
she explained, was an English governess, so we could learn to
speak English. I had learned my first English words at Isadora's
knee when she taught her pupils to recite Keats' immortal lines:
((Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty,-that is all/Ye know on earth,
and all ye need to know." ((That is the motto of our school,"
she said, ((and I want each and every one to learn these lines
by heart."
If she could only have remained with us, and continued to
instruct us in this way, what a difference it would have made in
our young lives! Instead of growing up directly under her be-
nign influence, we were subjected to all kinds of indignities and
abuses under the regime of our new English governess, a verita-
ble ogre if there ever was one. A woman of vague features,
completely colorless, with bad teeth and pale gums, she struck
terror in our hearts the moment we laid eyes on her. She had,
besides, the revolting habit of cracking her knuckles incessantly;
we were convinced she cracked them even in her sleep. And her
methods of teaching discipline were thoroughly antiquated. She
treated us as if we were hard metal and she a blacksmith ham-
mering us into shape.
I would not be living up to the maxim Isadora taught us if,
in this history of her school, I refrained from telling the whole
truth, the good and the bad. "The web of our life is of a mingled
yarn, good and ill together." In later years, when we were grown
up, we often would harp on this unhappy period in our child-
hood, much to Isadora's annoyance. Finally she was driven to
exclaim, ((Why do you girls always talk about the bad things?
Why don't you sometimes also remember the beautiful things
that happened to you at school? I am sure there was more of that
in the long run."
And so it undoubtedly was. However, it is a queer quirk of
the human mind to recall the unhappy things of childhood more
The Greatest Thing in Life 55
vividly than the beautiful. The good things are taken for
granted by children. Cruel treatment comes as a shock and is
resented and has psychologically a traumatic effect, sometimes
with bad results. I firmly believe that stupidity is the root of
all evil. There were unhappy things that can definitely be traced
to the stupidity of our English governess and the unenlightened
attitude of Tante Miss when it came to cruel treatment. Their
behavior was in direct contravention of the instructions of Isa-
dora, who did not believe in punishment and personally used
only logical reasoning to correct our misdeeds. Unfortunately,
her prolonged absences made her completely unaware of what
went on in the intimate lives of her charges. Insufficient control
and superintendence is the only blame attached to her, since she
sincerely believed that by placing us in the trusted care of her
sister, she had left us in the best of hands.
With the arrival of our hated governess I, for one, devel-
oped a real propensity for what she called "being naughty," and
the occasions when I was sent hungry to bed were innumerable.
Often, when I disobeyed, the governess tied me to the foot of
my bed, leaving me there for hours like a martyr at the stake.
Her sadistic corporal punishments belonged to the dark ages,
and after she had inflicted this hurt I would weep and look at
the picture of my guardian angel. Where was Isadora? I could
not understand why she was never there when we needed her
in this beautiful house in the pine forest, which she had wanted
to be a children's paradise. She herself found Grunewald to be
"very melancholy" when she did return. No wonder!
No use complaining to Tante Miss; she knew very well
what went on and punished us herself, only in subtler ways.
Writing to mother was of no avail; all our mail had to be cen-
sored. I felt trapped. Then I thought of our kindly old Nor-
wegian cook. Frequently, out of pity, she would surreptitiously
slip me a slice of dark, dry bread when I had been sent to bed
without my supper. With her help, I managed to smuggle a
letter out to mother.
DUNCAN DANCER
Within a few days mother's short telegram, saying "I am
coming to take Irma home," came as a great surprise to Tante
Miss. That was the last thing she wanted to happen. In a state
of considerable alarm for fear Isadora would hear of this, she
called me to her study for a private interview, something she
had never done before. By cajolery and flattery she finally per-
suaded me to change my mind, but not until she had promised
to stop the more cruel kinds of punishment. When mother came,
some blind, childish loyalty to my absent idol made me refrain
from telling her everything. Her protests to Tante Miss did
some good, for the harsher treatment ceased, but she could not
persuade me to go home. "Just for a little while," she urged,
"till Isadora returns and we can explain it all to her directly.
I know she will understand. She was very nice to me and said
such nice things about you the last time I saw her." But I heard
an inner voice prompting me: "Don't go. Stay here. This is where
you belong."
Usually, with the coming of spring, we could count on our
idol's return. And, as anticipated, one fine morning in early 1Y1ay
she breezed in, looking radiant in a brown and pink traveling
costume. Her small brown cap had a pink chiffon veil becom-
ingly draped around it. (She loved veils and wore them in
various attractive ways.) All unhappiness was instantly erased
from our minds; we gathered about her with happy smiles. Then
she asked us to dance. That was always the first thing she wanted
to see. Afterwards we were called into the library, the most
elegant room in the house, where the two sisters were seated
together on the couch below the big window. We knew some-
thing was in the wind or we would not have been asked to come
there. Isadora said:
"You have danced so well I would like to take all of you to
have tea at my apartment. But it is just a small place, so I can
ask only four or five." With her sister's permission she invited
three of the smaller ones and her niece. Then she said, "And
The Greatest Thing in Life 57
I would like Irma to come too." I glanced in agitation at Tante
Miss, who of late had substituted deprivation of privileges for
corporal punishment. She stared at me, wrinkled her brow,
smacked her tooth, and said flatly, "Irma cannot go; she has
been naughty."
I could not recall what sin I had committed; I never could.
My trespasses consisted entirely of talking back, for I never did
anything really bad. Nor, as far as I remember, did the other
children ever commit any really offensive acts. I was close to
tears and stood there shamefacedly with lowered eyelids, scrap-
ing my foot on the carpet. Isadora, who had just seen me dance
my "Poor Orphan Child" for the first time and liked it, said
placatingly to her sister, "Oh, Elizabeth, let's make an excep-
tion for once and let her go."
"No, that would be a bad example for the others. I am
sorry, but I can't allow it."
Isadora was not in the habit of being contradicted by anyone.
However, she did not say anything further, although she
seemed annoyed. While the other invited children rushed up-
stairs to don their party clothes (the new swansdown-trimmed
dresses Isadora had given us for Christmas), I lingered in the
hall trying to hide my tears. Suddenly I felt a light touch on
my shoulder. I turned around and there was Isadora whispering
quickly, "Shh, keep quiet, darling! Go and get dressed and then
wait in my carriage, but don't let anyone see you! Hurry!"
How we children giggled at the wonderful trick Isadora
had played on old Tante Miss! ·when we arrived at the apart-
ment in Hardenbergstrasse, we found Gordon Craig seated there
on the sofa smoking a pipe. I had not seen him since that day in
Hamburg over a year ago. After tea, Isadora took a stack of her
photographs out of a drawer and threw them on the floor
saying, "Here they are, children; pick any picture you like and
I will autograph it for you!"
While we carefully made our individual choices, she and
Craig sat together watching us with the affection of indulgent
58 DUNCAN DANCER
parents. It gave me such a comfortable, homey feeling. Children
always crave affection and loving kindness, and parents try to
give it to them. But children harbored in an institution, no
matter how humane the treatment, are starved for that loving
individual attention of caresses and endearments that a mother
usually bestows on them. Most regrettably, Elizabeth Duncan,
in whose charge we were left and to whom we instinctively
turned for those signs of comfort and affection, never-in all
the years we were in her care-offered an endearment or a
gentle pat on the cheek to any of her pupils. That is why most
of them did not feel any affection for her either.
With Isadora it was entirely different. Children know in-
stinctively when they are loved. That afternoon in her apart-
ment we were completely happy. She autographed all our
photographs, inscribing mine "With love and kisses." I hugged
the pretty picture to my breast and carried it back to school
like a trophy.
As if she had sensed what troubled her little pupils and had
seen into their hearts, she came next day to Grunewald to teach
us an unforgettable lesson. Early in the morning, while we sat
at our desks, she opened the door and entered the classroom.
Our teacher and the entire class rose to their feet.
"Good morning!" Isadora said cheerfully. "Please be seated
and don't let me interrupt." Turning to our schoolmarm, Frau
Zschetzsching, who sat at her desk on a raised dais looking very
prim in a white blouse with high boned collar and hair done up
in a pompadour, Isadora said, "Please continue with whatever
you were studying. I'll sit here quietly and listen."
Our schoolmarm was flustered in front of the famous per-
sonage whose acquaintance she had not made before, this being
Isadora's first visit to her classroom. "We were doing arithme-
tic," she answered, "but I don't think that will interest you,
Miss Duncan. Let us turn to another subject. Would you like
to hear the children recite poetry?"
The Greatest Thing in Life 59
"Yes, I love poetry, that would be very nice."
Although we had no inhibitions about dancing before a
public, we all were tongue-tied and embarrassed to stand up and
recite. The stuttering and loss of memory were pitiful to hear.
It was in turn painful for us to see our schoolmarm's angry dis-
comfiture mounting by the minute and Isadora's puzzled look
as she made a concentrated effort to understand our incoherent
German. With an embarrassed smile, Frau Zschetzsching finally
said, "Well, they don't seem to be in very good form today.
I think, perhaps, with the Gniidige Frau's permission ..."
"May I put a question to them?" Isadora interrupted her.
"Of course." Our schoolmarm looked relieved. Isadora stood
up, assumed her familiar stance with head slightly inclined to
one side and chin tilted upwards, while all eyes were riveted
on her.
"Tell me, children," she said earnestly, "what is the greatest
thing in life?"
A ray of intelligence flowed back into our dull minds. In-
stantly, a flurry of hands shot into the air, furiously wigwagging
for attention. The answer to that one was obvious. We all knew
it. So when she asked, we all shouted in unison, "To dance!"
and sat back with an expression of triumph on our shining faces.
But Isadora sadly shook her head. We could not believe our
ears when we heard her say, "No, dancing is not the greatest
thing in life."
That sounded like heresy, coming from her-of all people-
the greatest dal).cer in the world! What could it be? Music?
Painting? Singing? Our choices showed the influence of our
thorough artistic education. No, no, no, none of those, she told
us. We gave up. Lifting one forefinger for emphasis, she an-
nounced in a clear, vibrant voice:
"The greatest thing in life is-LOVE!"
We stared at her dumbfounded. She turned for corrobora-
tion to our schoolmarm and asked, "Is it not true?" To our
6o DUNCAN DANCER
astonishment, the prim schoolteacher had turned crimson with
confusion. Delighted with the dramatic effect she had created,
Isadora waved a graceful farewell, said "Adieu!" and dis-
appeared.
No sooner was the door closed than a chorus of eager voices
questioned our schoolmarm. "What did she mean, Frau Zschet-
zsching? Why is love the greatest thing? Why, why, why?"
She rapped her desk for order and said, "Be quiet! Sit down,
and I will explain."
Slowly she opened a drawer of the desk and drew forth a
black book. We recognized it as the New Testament, from
which she read us a lesson each day. With a solemn expression,
she announced, "Let me read you a verse from First Corin-
thians." While we sat with hands folded in prayer and assumed
the proper, pious mien expected of us, she intoned:
"Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels,
and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling
cymbal" and she continued through the whole thirteenth chap-
ter, which ends, "And now abideth faith, hope, love, these three;
but the greatest of these is love."
Our teacher fixed us with a stern look. "This, my dear chil-
dren, is what Miss Duncan meant when she said the greatest
thing in life is love." She closed the book with a loud thud and
said, "Class dismissed! "
It was entirely by chance (because printed material of that
sort was carefully kept away from our hands) that a few weeks
later we saw an item in an illustrated weekly telling of Isadora's
marriage to Gordon Craig. Naturally Isadora's personal life
was a closed book to her young disciples, so this piece of news
aroused the wildest interest. There was one thing we could not
comprehend-why had we not been told? Surely, if this story
were true (we had no way of knowing then that it was not), we
reasoned that we would have heard about it from T ante Miss.
This fascinating news item remained an unsolved riddle as far
as Isadora's pupils were concerned.
The Greatest Thing in Life
For a whole year thereafter we did not obtain as much as a
glimpse of her. She was at that time expecting the birth of her
first child at a secluded beach cottage in Nordwyck, Holland-
fact of which her pupils were kept in strict ignorance. She had
invited her niece to visit her and had included Erica and me
too, but Tante Miss as usual said No. So that we would not feel
too disappointed, Isadora in the kindness of her heart sent us
some toys. I remember the penciled note she included saying:
"Dear Irma, Here is a lamb for you and a pink kitten for little
Erica. Love, Isadora." I treasured the note more than the toy
lamb on wheels, for which I considered myself too old, as I
had reached the ripe age of ten.
Years later, I found a thought she wrote in her diary while
awaiting her first born. It said: "Yellow tulips, white hyacinths,
great window spaces of sky, black steps leading to a balcony-
four red pillars. Dearest Baby, if you can remember these things
and always love them."
When at last we saw her again in Grunewald the following
spring she appeared with a sweet blue-eyed baby in her arms.
Her own contribution to "the greatest thing in life." She held
the child up for all of us to see and admire and said, "Very
soon, she will be the youngest pupil in the school."
European Tour
IT was night and the train sped eastward. We always traveled
third class. At night the smaller children, leaving the hard
benches for the older girls to stretch out on, climbed up into the
Gepaecknetz, a luggage rack that was shaped like a tiny ham-
mock though it was not as comfortable. The iron braces hurt
my back even though I tried to pad them with my coat or woolen
shawl. However, it was better to lie down, no matter how un-
comfortably, than to sit up all night.
Contrary to the policy of the school (that we were not to
appear on the stage together with our famous teacher until we
reached the age of seventeen), Isadora had decided to take us on
tour with her. All agog over the big adventure, I could hardly
sleep, knowing that at this moment, in the middle of winter, we
were traveling at top speed to St. Petersburg in Russia. What
a fantastic place the name alone con jured up in my lively imag-
ination! I had read about that frozen land to the north where
fierce animals, such as wild bears and wolves, roamed through
the endless forests; and of the cities where men called tsars
lived in courts of Oriental splendor, speaking a barbaric tongue
no one could understand. Though I was not, as a rule, a very
good student-lapsing too often into daydreams during which
I listened to the long-drawn hoot of the suburban trains and
imagined I was on the way to some far-off place-! always
gave undivided attention to geography. It was my favorite
subject. I did not have a good memory for verses, but the jingles
Frau Zschetzsching taught us to remember geographical names,
62
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I seldom forgot. There was, for instance: "Ural Gebirge, Ural
Fluss, Caspisc!tes Meer und Caucasus." Was this an omen of the
future? How was I to know that a time would come when I
would traverse the Urals, the Caspian Sea, and all of the Cauca-
sus on many occasions with the pupils of my own school to dance
for the Russian people. Now as a child of ten, the largest part of
Europe had appeared merely as a colored blotch on my geo-
graphical map. It was most exciting to see it take on actual
dimension and reality.
This was vividly brought home to me the instant we changed
trains at the frontier to the wider-gauged Russian cars, with a
Russian conductor, big brass samovars of hot water for c!tai, and
candles that burned during the night instead of gaslight. I kept
my eyes glued to the window, as did all the other children, on
the lookout for wolves and wild bears when the gloomy woods,
deep in snow, stretched out on either side. But we saw nothing.
That did not prevent us from having goose pimples all over.
All would have been perfect but for one thing. Dining car
meals being far too expensive, Tante Miss provisioned us with
a hamper of the most outlandish food. A faddist by nature, she
was currently addicted to a health-food diet. Throughout the
three long days of our trip she fed us, three times a day, nothing
but dried figs, dried bananas, and nuts. "Don't make a fuss," she
admonished me when I refused to eat any more. I tried to ex-
plain that my stomach was upset. She wouldn't hear of it. "Non-
sense, this is good for you," she insisted. "Just think of some-
thing else while you eat. The other girls seem to like it, why
don't you?"
There was no use protesting. No one could be more tyran-
nical than Tante Miss, and it was health-food diet or go hungry.
I knew something awful would happen, and it did. As we
stood disheveled, unwashed, and travel-weary in the middle of
the elegant lobby of the best hotel in St. Petersburg, I experi-
enced an awful attack of biliousness. While waiting there for our
rooms to be assigned I saw, as through a green miasma, the
DUNCAN DANCER
golden open-caged elevator ride up and down discharging pas-
sengers, who leisurely wended their way toward the restaurant
hidden behind pots of tall palms. The odor of expensive food
wafted my way, together with the sounds of dinner music, the
usual selections from The Gypsy Baron. And then it happened 1
Like a contagious wave, my sickness started to spread among the
other girls. A group of green-looking children was led up-
stairs and put to bed. Tante Miss shook her head in dismay.
"Too much excitement, I'm afraid," she said. We knew better.
Too many dried bananas, figs, and nuts!
Feeling fine the next day, after a good night's rest in real
beds and some real food, we made the acquaintance of St.
Petersburg. In those forever vanished times the city was lively
and brilliant in its mantle of deep snow. The jolly sleighrides
from the hotel to the theatre and back every day were our
special delight. To children, there is nothing quite so much fun
as a ride in an open sleigh. There was always a long string of
them when we sallied forth, since each accommodated only two
passengers. The bulky clothes of the I svostchik, with his long
beard covered with frost, reminded us of Santa Claus. Off we
went at a fast clip, sliding down the broad Nevsky Prospect, a
bear rug across the knees and the merry tinkling of little bells
in our ears, sounding so festive and gay we could hardly refrain
from shouting for joy.
Our first performance, on February 9, 1908, proved a gala
event in the Russian capital. Presented as a benefit for a chari-
table organization under the august auspices of H.I.H. Grand
Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, sister of the Tsar, it drew the elite
and aristocracy of St. Petersburg society to the Maryinsky The-
atre. Isadora danced her "lphigenia" program, and we appeared
at the very end in a "Werber Waltz" by Lanner, which she had
choreographed and taught us in May of 1907, and which we had
first performed in Mannheim that summer for the city's three-
hundred-year jubilee. Isadora wrote of this dance:
European Tour
I taught them to weave and entwine, to part and unite, in end-
less rounds and successions. Now resembling the Loves of a
Pompeian frieze, now the youthful Graces of Donatello, or again
the airy flights of Titania's following, the light of inspiration and
divine music shone in their youthful forms and faces. The sight
of these dancing children was so beautiful it awakened the ad-
miration of all artists and poets.*
"How darling they are! Look at the one over there, isn't
she cute! My, what beautiful hair! You must simply love to
dance, you look so happy! " Such were the usual backstage
compliments we heard when people crowded into our dressing
room. But after that performance at the Maryinsky Theatre,
there was so much Russian spoken it made my head swim. We
all sighed with relief when the audience was gone.
Then there was a soft knock at the door, and a soft voice
said, "May I come in?" The moment she entered, we recognized
Anna Pavlova. We had seen her dance in an old-style ballet
the night before. She approached and kissed each one of us,
murmuring "Dooshinka, dooshinka." t Dressed in a white gown
with a long, glittering white shawl over her shoulders, she
looked as she had on the stage-tiny, dainty, and very pretty
with her dark hair tied back into a knot, ballerina-fashion. The
young man with her carried a large box of candy which she
offered us. Our hawk-eyed English governess stepped forward
and took it away saying, "Sorry, Madame, but the children are
not allowed to eat candy, except one a day." With these words
she disappeared, carrying the candy with her.
As soon as the door closed behind the ogress, Anna Pavlova
(who also had been brought up in an institution) whipped out
another box of candy from beneath her long shawl. With
gestures of her hands indicating for us to hide it quickly, quickly,
she helped us to stow it away in one of our wicker suitcases. We
*Life, p. 214.
t "Darling"
66 DUNCAN DANCER
simply loved her for that clever trick. Lying in bed that night,
under cover of darkness, we had a feast. Needless to say, we saw
no more of the other box of candy, except the telltale wrappings
scattered about our governess' room.
Summoned one morning to Isadora's suite, we found her
seated on a chaise-longue surrounded by shoe boxes. "There is
a pair of golden sandals for each of you," she said. "Try them
on and see if they fit."
From a bolt of pink silk two lengths of material were cut
and stitched up at the sides. With two small buttons, one for
each shoulder, the material was caught up and fastened to-
gether to form armholes and "voila, presto!" we soon each had
a new pink silk tunic. A Russian embroidered belt completed the
costume.
Our suspicion that this new getup signified that something
special was afoot was verified when Isadora announced, "This
afternoon we are going to have tea with a real grand duke. What
do you think of that! " She explained that his name was Andre
Vladimirovitch and he was a cousin of the Tsar. "He lives in
that big white house on the other side of the river; you must
have noticed it when you took a walk along the Neva. You must
be on your very best behavior," she admonished.
We found the idea of meeting a royal personage quite
overpowering, for in Germany everybody, from infancy on,
was taught to look upon royalty as some kind of demigod. We
did not look forward to the encounter with great pleasure.
When the time came, instead of going by the Troitsky
Bridge we crossed the frozen river in sleighs and got out directly
below the house. Andre Vladimirovitch, resplendent in uniform
and decorations, greeted us jovially. A young man of twenty-
seven, he was tall, blond, and good-looking, and he spoke to us
children in German. Without formality, he proceeded to show
Isadora and the rest of us his brand-new mansion, including the
bathrooms with sunken marble bathtubs, which he had built
for his mistress the prima ballerina Mathilde Kschessinska, who
European Tour
was seven years older than he. The latter, holding a little boy
by the hand, followed the Grand Duke silently wherever he
went. This tiny, mouselike woman dressed in black, with small
features and dark frizzy hair, I took at first to be the boy's gov-
erness, but the child was their son Vova. * Next to the brilliant
personality of the Grand Duke, she made no impression at
all.
Soon many other guests arrived and crowded into the dining
room, where we children were seated at a table laden with the
most mouth-watering assortment of French pastries, towering
layer cakes, fruit tarts, and candies-none of which we touched
despite the repeated urging of our friendly regal host. We hated
to be on display and reacted with chronic shyness. Finally the
Grand Duke took a plate filled with chocolate candies and per-
sonally passed them around.
"Notice how polite they are," he said. "Each takes only one
little piece. None of them would dare take two."
When he reached me with the silver platter, I took one like
the others, but-being a child of spirit-I stopped him when he
was about to withdraw and deliberately chose another.
"Ha, hal" he threw back his head and laughed. "Good for
you," he said, patting me on the head. That broke the ice, and
the adults retired to the salon for their own refreshments,
leaving us in peace to enjoy ours.
After tea, the Grand Duke wanted to know whether Isadora
would favor them with a little dance. But she refused. How
about the children? He and his guests would love to see them
dance. Our music director, a young Viennese by the name of
Max Merz, regretfully informed Isadora that he had not
brought any music with him. However, he liked to improvise,
and sitting down at the piano he started to play. Isadora con-
ferred with Elizabeth about what to do when the latter surprised
me by saying:
"Let Irma dance something, she knows how to improvise."
* Vova, short for Vladimir.
68 DUNCAN DANCER
Isadora looked undecided. "Well, if you say so, Elizabeth,"
and she told me to try.
I had never improvised before so large a company and felt
very timid. A command is a command, however. Trembling
with nervousness, I hid behind one of the tall columns in the
Greek-style hall to take off my pink socks and golden sandals.
Unfortunately the hall had a marble floor not at all pleasant to
dance on in winter. Concerned about this situation, Madame
Kschessinska suggested spreading sheets on the floor. But they
proved too great a hazard because they slipped. I much pre-
ferred the solid ground to dance on.
In her "Memoirs" Mathilde Kschessinska recalls this scene
when she tells of our visit to her new palace. An old woman in
her nineties, she now resides in France and still teaches ballet
in her school in Paris. When I wrote to her a few years ago she
very kindly responded, giving me news of herself and her work.
After the Russian revolution she became the morganatic wife
of the Grand Duke and goes now by the title of H.S.H. Prin-
cesse Mathilde Romanovsky-Krasinsky. Having always been a
friend and genuine admirer of Isadora, she assured me that she
had not forgotten her or her performances in St. Petersburg,
which she always remembered with great pleasure.
On that freezing day in February, 1908, when I put my
bare feet on that marble floor I felt as if standing on ice. So I
moved about quickly and danced with great verve to keep my
feet off the ground as much as possible. My spirited dance was
much applauded, though no one guessed the reason why. I must
have given a good account of myself, for Isadora hugged me
warmly-more for my sportsmanship, I imagine, than for any-
thing else. The Grand Duke shook my hand, saying, "That is
something our ballerinas can't do-improvise." I felt very proud
of myself and only wished mother could see me now ....
Having made the acquaintance of a Grand Duke, we now
wondered whether by good luck we might not obtain just a
glimpse of Tsar Nicholas II himself. Every time we passed the
European Tour
dark red fa~ade of the Winter Palace, my childish curiosity was
aroused. What did the ruler of this vast country look like? I
soon discovered. Once, coming back from a walk near the river,
we noticed a closed carriage accompanied by several outriders
in uniform. A pale-faced man with a small goatee, wearing a
peaked cap, glanced out the window. When he saw us, he smiled
and waved his hand in greeting. Somebody shouted, "The
Tsar! The Tsar!" We all stared after the retreating vehicle.
Could that really have been the Tsar? Where was his crown,
his ermine robe, his golden coach? Little did I suspect that the
time was soon at hand when the last of the Tsars would be
deprived forever of these imperial appurtenances, or that I
would one day stand in that tragic cellar in the Urals where he
and his family had been shot to death during the revolution
that would topple his throne and cause all this brilliant life to
collapse.
Our two weeks in St. Petersburg passed all too swiftly. Of
the many interesting sights we had seen there, one other experi-
ence remained outstanding-our visit to the Imperial Ballet
School. "I took my little pupils to witness the training of the
children of the ballet school," Isadora said, "and they observed
them with the view of swallows circling freely in the air looking
at caged canary birds." *
Under the direction of Marius Petipa, who obstinately
clung to the passe traditions, the ballet was not amenable to any
change whatsoever. Only with the coming of the young, for-
ward-looking ballet master Michael Fokine, who took over sev-
eral years later, did a radical change take place. He adopted
many of the new ideas Isadora Duncan had brought to the dance,
and thus the Russian ballet underwent the transformation for
which it is known today. These revolutionary ideas, which
marked a new epoch in the art of dance, Fokine saw demon-
strated for the first time in January 1905, when Isadora made.
her initial appearance in Russia.
*Life, p. 215.
DUNCAN DANCER
Mathilde Kschessinska saw Isadora Duncan dance for the
first time in Vienna in 1903. She frankly confesses to having been
completely conquered by her art. She was so carried away, she
says, by her "Blue Danube Waltz" that she climbed on her seat
and cheered as loud as she could with the rest of the audience.
As a professional dancer of the first order herself, she easily
recognized the hard work that had produced such beautiful
dancing and made Isadora the perfect mistress of her art.
I think that this above-mentioned earlier date is of special
interest. Because of her position as prima ballerina assoluta of
the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, possessing enormous
authority in that organization, she must surely have adopted
and made use of some of the new ideas Isadora Duncan origi-
nated. Thus Isadora's influence undoubtedly made itself felt on
a part of the Russian ballet as early as I 903, although she her-
self made her debut in that city only in January 1905.
Kschessinska, reminiscing about how the new changes came
about that transformed the old-style ballet, stresses in her
"Memoirs" the overwhelming impression the young American
dancer made on Fokine. With a wild enthusiasm he immediately
commenced to initiate the necessary reform. Hoping to obtain
the same inspiration from the same source as Isadora did, for
her new-found art, he went to the Hermitage Museum to study
the Greek vases for dance movements. His first Greek-inspired
production was a ballet called Eunice, in which Kschessinska
danced the principal part. On that opening night performance
the many old balletomanes criticized him severely for his obvious
copying of what they termed "Duncanism." But being a staunch
supporter of Fokine, M. Kschessinska always considered that
first performance on December IO, 1906, a date of importance
in the transformation of the old-style ballet to a freer expression.
She and Fokine worked closely together toward that goal. In
1907-o8, Kschessinska decided to take Vaslav Nijinsky, who
had graduated from the Ballet School only the year before, for
a new dancing partner, recognizing in him a great talent. After
European Tour
our performances in St. Petersburg in 1908, and having seen
Isadora's Chopin program, they initially danced together at the
Maryinsky Theatre to Chopin's "Nocturne," choreographed by
Fokine. At the time of our visit, none of the famous dancers
associated with the ballet school in St. Petersburg had yet been
completely emancipated artistically. Nor were their names (with
one or two exceptions) known outside of their own country. Not
until five years after their first contact with Isadora's ideas did
they form the great company known as the Diaghilev Ballets
Russes, which brought that roster of world-renowned names,
such as Nijinsky, Pavlova, Karsavina, Fokine, and others to
the attention of foreign countries for the first time. While most
of these ballet dancers freely admitted that Isadora Duncan's
ideas gave new life to their once moribund art and helped to
beautify it, they all maintained that neither Isadora herself nor
her pupils could execute ballet movements, whereas any well-
trained ballet dancer could easily assimilate and execute any
Duncan movements.
This assumption to my mind has always seemed both illogical
and absurd. They forget, or don't seem to comprehend, that
Isadora Duncan's theory of the dance precludes any assimilation
of movements based on ballet technique and therefore no ballet
technique can produce the proper Duncan movement and expres-
sion. Although Isadora's art has incontestably helped to beautify
the ballet and given it new life, the converse does not apply. The
art of Isadora Duncan has never been either beautified or re-
vitalized by the ballet.
That morning we watched for three hours while the ballet
girls of different age-groups stood in rows on the tips of their
toes going through torturing exercises in a bare room with a
large portrait of the Tsar hanging on the wall. We were familiar
with many of the exercises. We practiced barre work ourselves-
though of course in a much more relaxed style, without distor-
tions, and from natural positions of the feet.
What amazed us Duncan pupils was the way the ballet
72 DUNCAN DANCER
students danced continuously in front of a mirror, closely
watching every move they made. There were no wall mirrors
in our school. Our teacher's philosophy of the dance forbade any
such visual aids. Isadora taught us to close our eyes and listen to
the music with our souls. Then we were to dance in accordance
with this music heard inwardly and, while listening, feel an
inner self awakening deep within us. Its strength would ani-
mate our bodies.
"This is the first step in dancing as I understand it," she
used to say. "This is the truly creative dancer, natural but not
imitative, speaking in movement out of himself and out of
something greater than all selves. It is the mission of all art to
express the highest and most beautiful ideals of man. What
ideal does the ballet express? All ballet movements are sterile
because they are unnatural; their purpose is to create the delu-
sion that the law of gravitation does not exist for them." *
She pronounced an anathema on dancers who comprehended
only with the brain, who loaded down their dances with empty
gestures devoid of meaning, and on all those systems of dancing
that are merely arranged gymnastics, too logically understood.
In this connection, as far as physical education for children was
concerned, she once said, "It seems to me criminal to entrust
children, who cannot defend themselves, to this injurious train-
ing. In my opinion it is a crime to teach the child to guide his
growing body by the stern power of the brain, while deadening
impulse and inspiration."
To which I might add that ballet of the present period has
not fundamentally changed its principles. Despite some liber-
ation from old bonds, it still does not represent a true art of the
dance, but only highly accomplished acrobatics. The male
dancer, not going on toe, is not as hampered in the evolution of
kinetics as the ballerina. But so long as the latter cannot make
more than a few movements unaided, or is kept in a constant
* Cf. Art, pp. 52, 55-56.
European Tour 73
state of levitation by her partner if not tossed about like a set
of Indian clubs between several assistants, her physical activities
can hardly be dignified by the term dancing.
I recall almost nothing of Helsingfors, Finland, the next
stop on our itinerary, except the abnormal amount of butter we
were urged to eat in order to keep from freezing, for the temper-
ature was below zero. Then we gave performances in Warsaw
and Lodsz in Poland. Warsaw, where we stayed for a week at the
Hotel Bristol, stands out primarily because of the new coats
Isadora designed and had made to order for us. Of coarse gray
military material, they were edged off and embroidered each
with a different color-blue, green, brown, wine red-and we
also had those little pillbox caps that are now so much en vogue
to match. We referred to them as our Polish coats and, although
they scratched quite a bit, being unlined, we took inordinate
pride in them and even insisted on wearing them in the sum-
mertime.
The tour continued through Holland and Belgium and,
since each stop took up a week or more, it was spring by the
time we returned to Germany to dance at the various southern
watering places such as Wiesbaden. By this time the weather
was warm enough for us to perform out of doors, as we did on
the extensive lawn in front of the Kurhaus in Baden-Baden.
At the International Art and Landscaping Exhibition in
Mannheim in the previous year, we danced in the middle of a
rose garden, against the dramatic background of an illuminated
fountain and its reflecting pool. For this occasion the water was
turned off, and the fountain proper was boarded over to provide
a stage. To reach it, we were paddled across the pool in flower-
bedecked gondolas manned by costumed gondoliers. At night
the scene was lit by floodlights; and the performance, seen as
if suspended in mid-air, took on a most romantic aspect. A
select but enthusiastic audience attended. An article in a local
newspaper described the end of the performance:
74 DUNCAN DANCER
The crowd swiftly passed by the brightly illuminated water tower
and fountain so as not to dim the inner vision glowing with the
beauty and grace they had just witnessed. For they were all very
much moved by the wonder of the dances a small group of chil-
dren had presented there. Repeatedly one hears men both old
and young exclaim: "How delightful! That was really quite en-
chanting! "-not to mention the enthusiastic remarks of the
women! While Isadora danced alone, her reform movement in
the art of the dance did not carry quite the conviction it has when
she shows us her graceful dancing children. 'Vhat appears to our
present doubting generation only as a dream will become a
reality for the children of the next generation.
We children were apparently successfully putting our message
across to the people, as Isadora had hoped we would, proving
that her efforts had not been in vain. More and more people
began to understand what Isadora's art was all about now that
they saw it could be transmitted to others. She had wanted her
pupils to set a good example to all the other children in the
world. With what fine result we fulfilled this wish can be
gleaned from the following article, which appeared in a Swiss
paper after a performance we had given in Zurich:
To begin with: the appearance of the Duncan Dancers was a
complete victory! We noticed with the greatest pleasure the many
children present in the audience and hope there will be an even
greater number here tomorrow, because here they have an ex-
ample of what the true dance should be, so different from the
instruction they receive in their usual social or ballet dancing
classes. One must see with one's own eyes with what clarity of
expression these Duncan pupils perform in order truly to appre-
ciate their unique art. . . • The magnificent free strides of their
simple walk, which one has already much admired in Isadora
Duncan, has also become a salient characteristic of her young
pupils. The arms, the hands, the entire body is here awakened
into graceful motion and rhythmic life.
For instance, with what grace did a group of three slender
girls raise their arms and close into a small circle . . . or, as in
European Tour 75
the Lanner Waltz, when a fine silken fabric arched overhead
into a triumphal arch beneath which the dancing children passed
in pairs and then scattered to the four winds; or that supple back-
ward thrust of the body and head with raised arms indicating a
delightful Dionysiac joy .•..
To correctly evaluate what these children achieve with their
dancing one should immediately afterwards see some of the ster-
eotype movements of the ballet. Anyone endowed with a normal,
healthy perception would not be able to stand it by comparison;
for the latter is all artificiality while the former offers us, to-
gether with simplicity, a truly artistically styled naturalness.
Appearing on the same program with Isadora, as we were
now doing, did not imply that we actually danced with her; we
were still too young for that. The only exception to this rule
was the "Reigen" we did together at the very end of each per-
formance by way of an encore. It was always a wonderful event
for us. Then the act of dancing invariably took on a special
meaning for me. Just to hold hands with Isadora, as I often did
in the circle, and to watch the radiant expression on her face
when she danced, was so inspiring that I carry the memory of
it with me to this day. Isadora herself derived unique pleasure
from this, for she said:
Whenever I felt their willing hands in mine, felt the pull and
swing of their little bodies as we danced our fast-paced rondos,
I always envisioned that orchestra of dancers I would one day
bring to life. The sight of these dancing children was so beau-
tiful they strengthened my faith in the ultimate perfection of an
orchestra of dancers which would be to sight what the great
symphonies were to sound. A vast ensemble dancing the Ninth
Symphony of Beethoven.*
That artistic goal was still a long way off. In the meanwhile,
she presented her pupils to the European public, with the prom-
ise that in the future they would dance in a mighty array such as
the world had never seen.
* Life, p. q,o.
DUNCAN DANCER
So far, the tour had taken us in three months to six countries. At
the end of our engagements in the south of Germany, we con-
tinued on to France. How thrilled I was to be going to Paris!
At the Gare du Nord the porters dressed in blue smocks rushed
into our compartments shouting, ccPorteur! porteur!" and I had
a hard time holding onto my now well-traveled wicker suitcase.
Tante Miss, who had been reading a novel-Renard's Pail de
Garotte-to brush up on her French while sitting up all night
in the day coach, shushed the swarm of blue-smocked porters
away. "Allez-vous en, allez-vous en," she kept repeating until
they had gone.
We finally managed to evade their grasping hands and
reached the street safely through the noise and bustle of a busy
terminal. We found an old-fashioned horse-drawn omnibus
waiting for us. On the steps outside the French station I
breathed in the soft, caressing night air, eagerly observing the
sights and sounds of Paris. They immediately struck me as being,
in some indefinable way, unlike those of any other country I had
seen. No one who has been to Paris in the month of May will
ever forget it.
Sitting on two banquettes facing each other, and attired in
our Polish coats and pillbox caps, we were able to take in the
sights at leisure. The stodgy omnibus lumbered down the Rue
de la Fayette and then continued along the Boulevard Hauss-
mann while the horses' hoofs clumped hard on the uneven
pavement, making the windows rattle. Debouching onto the
Place de !'Etoile, straddled by the massive Arch of Triumph,
we saw the heart of the city suddenly open like a picture book
before our enchanted eyes. Illuminated by garlands of lights
strung along both sides of the magnificent Avenue des Champs-
Elysees and reaching toward the Place de la Concorde where
the fountains were playing, Paris was beautiful.
In the spring of 1908, the uncrowded traffic moved at a
much slower pace than it does today. It did not obliterate the
sense of calm spaciousness that was such a notable characteristic
European Tour 77
of the French capital, for vehicles then consisted mainly of ele-
gantly accoutered phaetons and equipages. Every now and then
a silent electric automobile, signaling its approach by delicately
ringing a bell, would overtake our steadily plodding omnibus.
Progressing at a slow pace, we finally entered the suburb of
Neuilly.
The long passage from east to west across Paris had occu-
pied the better part of an hour. During the last part of it we
began to feel drowsy. I glanced over at Tante Miss sitting in
one corner with her eyes closed; she seemed to be dozing. We
had been very quiet, since her presence was enough to curb our
speech. She frowned on any kind of chit-chat and always told
us to keep quiet. But as soon as we entered the wide A venue de
Neuilly, with its broad center strip of grass and trees, we saw
that a spring fair was in progress. Instantly we were wide awake.
"A carnival! A carnival!" we shouted in unison. In all the
years at school we had seen plenty of museums, but not one fair.
The sight of this one made us hop up and down on our seats
with glee. At home in Hamburg mother had taken me to the
Christmas fair. Everything was there just as I remembered it:
the milling crowds; the double row of lighted booths filled with
toys and gingerbread; the incessant shouts of the hawkers offer-
ing their wares; the spinning carrousels, each blaring forth
another brassy tune; the pungent smell of steaming sausages.
Above it all an acrid odor of magnesium flares floated like a
cloud of incense offered to the spirit of King Carnival. We
clapped our hands in childish rapture and laughed, wishing we
could jump out and join in the fun; but the stern voice of Tante
Miss spoiled our innocent enjoyment with, "Come down off
those benches immediately and keep quiet! "
We obeyed reluctantly. Her attitude toward us was one of
perpetual reproof. She never missed a chance of reminding us
to behave with more dignity because we were pupils of the
Isadora Duncan School-as if that should stop our normal urge
for fun and mischief. Disgruntled grumblings and little gri-
DUNCAN DANCER
maces behind her back were our ineffectual revenge. We were
craning our necks to get another good look at the gay fair despite
her reproof, when the lumbering omnibus suddenly veered
sharply to the right, jumbling us together.
We had turned into a quiet side street of the residential sec-
tion. By comparison with the broad and lively main thorough-
fare, it seemed as deserted as a cemetery. The strident music of
the calliopes and hurdy-gurdies grew fainter and fainter until
only the monotonous clop, clop of the horses remained. The
street was dark, with only a gaslight flickering here and there.
After a while the brakes screeched, and the omnibus came to
a sudden halt.
"This is where we get out," Tante Miss said wearily. The
omnibus did not deposit us in front of a hotel or pension as we
had expected, but had stopped in front of a church with a tall,
slender steeple. A churchyard on one side and a small house on
the other presented an eerie picture. All was silent and dark
except for a light burning in the window of the house. We did
not know what to make of this. My curiosity got the better of
me. I timidly asked Tante Miss where we were, not really ex-
pecting an answer because she never told us anything. She sur-
prised me by explaining wearily but patiently, "This is our new
home, we are going to remain here for as long as we stay in
Paris."
"In this church r"
"No, silly, of course not. In the little house beside it. Just
follow me." And she added, while we trouped up to the house
together, "This used to be the rectory of the American church,
but it isn't any longer. Now, no further questions. Take your
suitcases and go inside; supper is waiting."
There was something important that she did not explain.
None of us had any inkling when we went to bed that night
that we would never return to Grunewald. Isadora considered
Germany (mainly for personal reasons but also because of the
Kaiserin's puritanical views) no longer the proper place for her
European Tour 79
school. With the closing of the house in Grunewald, she now
had just twelve of her most talented pupils left.
We appeared with her for a month or more at the Theatre
de la Gaiete Lyrique in Paris that spring. Gordon Craig, who
was then living in Paris and came to our performances, wrote
in his notebook:
It was here that she first used the great blue curtains some
twenty or twenty-five feet high, which followed my designs as
may be seen in my The Arts of the Theatre, published in 1905
and which I had made in 1901-2-3. She pretends that she used
them in 1904 in Berlin where I saw her dance for the first time
in December. She did not use them then. She used a few curtains
six feet in height.
Performing every night, practicing, and rehearsing, we were
kept busy. During the day, out for a stroll and some fresh air-
always walking in orderly pairs-we often stopped in the Bois
where the acacia trees were in bloom to watch the Parisian chil-
dren at play. They rolled hoops or tossed diabolos into the air
or played cache-cache, hiding from their nurses behind the big
trees. We sometimes envied them, for our toys were left in
Grunewald and we had nothing to play with. But at night, when
the little Parisians slept, we envied them no longer. For then
came our turn to play. Dancing on the stage to our hearts' con-
tent in harmony with beautiful music played by a fine orchestra
under the baton of the great Colonne-what could be a more
stirring game! We never tired of it and eagerly looked forward
to our nightly gambols.
Not that our academic studies were neglected. Frau Zschet-
zsching came from Germany to resume them after a three-month
vacation. She also taught us French, a language she pronounced
with a strong Germanic accent, which bore no resemblance to
the way the natives spoke. We learned to pronounce it better
from singing the old folk songs "Sur le pont d' A vignon" and
"Le Chevalier de la Marjolaine."
So DUNCAN DANCER
Although we had contributed to our upkeep by giving paid
performances ever since our stage debut, the expenses of the
school mounted and became more and more difficult to meet.
Away on tour, Isadora would be constantly bombarded by tele-
grams from her sister or mother asking for funds-a thousand
marks here, two thousand marks there, until she felt like saying,
"To heck with it all!" She always remembered this effort of
sustaining the school's expenses as uphill work, like straining
forward against the rapids of a river. She had no sooner returned
from Russia at the end of June than Charles Frohman proposed
an extended engagement in London, together with her pupils.
This was all so quickly organized that she had no time to rest
from her strenuous tour. It seemed that the Duchess of Man-
chester, who was a dollar princess, was ready to sponsor the
Duncan School in England, and so we all went there to dance
at the Duke of York's Theatre, beginning July 6, 1908.
It rained almost the whole time, and we took melancholy
walks into Hyde Park from our nearby lodgings in Half Moon
Street, finding no gay children at play but only placid sheep
grazing on the common. Frohman had advertised us somewhat
sensationally as "Twenty Parisian Dancers." That this statement
was misleading and inaccurate on both counts did not bother this
seasoned showman one bit. However, he gave us the thrill of
our young lives when he presented each of us with a little gold
watch. We simply squealed with delight. To be in possession of
a real gold watch was the height of our ambition. We were
seldom given presents. No longer were our daily outings in
Hyde Park melancholy; we positively beamed with pride as we
walked about in the rain with our watches pinned to the outside
of our coats. After a week of this, alas, our golden watches
turned a nasty green.
Ellen Terry, the mother of Gordon Craig, tried to make up
for this disappointment by taking us to the zoo; then to see
Peter Pan and The Pirates of Penzance. She loved children and
we loved her. She was the second celebrated actress we had met.
European Tour 81
The first one had been Eleonora Duse, who did not take us to
a zoo. Instead, reclining on a couch a la Dame aux Camelias,
she had placed her long, slender hands on our heads in benedic-
tion and murmured, "Que dieu vous garde!"
The highlight of our month's stay in London turned out to
be a command performance for their majesties King Edward VII
and Queen Alexandra. The day before this important occasion
we lunched with the Duchess of Manchester at her lovely estate
on the Thames. For a change we enjoyed a spell of beautiful
weather, and the command performance was planned to be given
outdoors.
When we went in to luncheon, Isadora sat next to the Duch-
ess and then asked me to sit beside her. This honor, pleasant as
it was, made me nervous. Luncheon was served in grand style,
with a uniformed footman in the ducal colors standing behind
each chair. For a main course we had scrambled eggs and string
beans. The latter happened to be my great aversion. I didn't
think anyone would notice if I left them untouched, though I
had been taught that leaving food constituted a grave social
error. Just as the white-gloved footman was about to remove my
plate, Isadora-who had been engaged in conversation with the
Duchess-glanced my way and said, "Irma, eat your string
beans."
What to do? Both she and the Duchess were giving me their
undivided attention. Luckily the situation was saved when the
Duchess, taking pity, said, "I know how she feels. I have a little
niece who can't stand them either," and motioned to the footman
to remove my plate. Then I heard her say to Isadora, "Their
majesties are definitely coming tomorrow night, so why don't
we have our coffee in the drawing room and talk about the
arrangements, while the children go outside to play? It's such
a lovely day."
We breathed a sigh of relief. Amid heavy tapestries and em-
bossed silver, the ducal luncheon had been a bit too formal and
skimpy. Once out in the sunshine, the velvety lawns and the
82 DUNCAN DANCER
carefully tended flowerbeds restored our normal spmts. We
roamed unattended through the park. At one point we came
upon a charming sunken garden surrounded by a high wall,
which-we noticed with delight-was covered with luscious
peaches growing in espalier fashion. They hung there, well
spaced, in glowing colors, like nature's miniature masterpieces,
ripe for the picking. In the twinkling of an eye, two of the older
girls had jumped into the garden whence they threw the golden
fruit, flushed with pink, up to us. The first peaches we had ever
eaten (they are considered a great luxury in Europe and are
very scarce in the northern countries), they tasted as delicious
and sweet as stolen fruit is supposed to.
But suddenly we heard someone call from a distance, "Chil-
dren! Children! Where are you?"
Hastily we wiped the telltale juice from our hands and lips,
and walked sedately back, putting on an innocent air. We kept
our fingers crossed that Isadora would not discover our misdeed.
After the dance the next day, their majesties graciously shook
hands with us, and the King wanted to know what everybody
else in that overdressed era was always asking: "Are you not
cold with so little on?" Bored with the same old question, we
simply shook our heads and smiled. Queen Alexandra, elegantly
gowned in the Victorian style with trailing skirt, feathered hat,
and long feathered boa, enjoyed our dancing so much that she
attended several of our matinees when we children presented
our own program. She particularly liked the old German folk
songs we sang and danced, such as "Haenslein sass im Schorn-
stein und fiickte seine Schuh," in which I had the solo part, or
the one where little Isabelle with the bushy hair was so amusing,
which was called, "Hexlein, willst du tanzen." They probably
recalled to the Queen her own childhood in Denmark.
I must mention here that despite the frequent paid perform-
ances we children gave, none of us ever received any weekly
allowance or pocket money. We got not even a penny's worth
to buy an occasional lollipop or a ribbon for our hair. Naturally,
Irma and Isadora, Neuilly, 1908.
Gordon Craig and Isadora, Berlin, 1904.
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European Tour
with our strict upbringing, we dared not ask for any. Even small
sums sent from home by our parents were frowned upon.
Thoughts of filthy lucre had no place in our spiritual education
dedicated to the true dance. So one can imagine the thrill I
experienced when one day, in a restaurant in Piccadilly, I found
a golden sovereign lying on the stair carpet. My exclamations
of glee drew the governess' attention, and she grabbed it away
from me. Like all children I believed in the rule "finders,
keepers," but she said with a righteous air, "This must be re-
turned to the management, immediately." Then the old hypo-
crite put it in her black leather bag and kept it. She happened
to leave us that season for good. We children were so overjoyed
to be rid of our dragon that I did not begrudge her my lucky
find. To be rid of her was well worth the loss of a gold sovereign.
The noted English novelist John Galsworthy saw us that
June and wrote an article about the Duncan dancers:
DELIGHT
I was taken by a friend one afternoon to a theatre. When the
curtain was raised, the stage was perfectly empty save for tall
grey curtains which enclosed it on all sides, and presently through
the thick folds of those curtains children came dancing in, singly,
or in pairs, till a whole troop of ten or twelve were assembled.
They were all girls; none, I think, more than fourteen years
old, one or two certainly not more than eight. They wore but
little clothing, their legs, feet and arms being quite bare. Their
hair, too, was unbound; and their faces, grave and smiling, were
so utterly dear and joyful, that in looking on them one felt trans-
ported to some Garden of Hesperides, where self was not, and
the spirit floated in pure ether. Some of these children were fair
and rounded, others dark and elf-like; but one and all looked
entirely happy, and quite unself-conscious, giving no impression
of artifice, though they evidently had the highest and most care-
ful training. Each flight and whirling movement seemed con-
ceived there and then out of the joy of being-dancing had surely
never been a labour to them, either in rehearsal or performance.
DUNCAN DANCER
There was no tiptoeing and posturing, no hopeless muscular
achievement; all was rhythm, music, light, air, and above all
things, happiness. Smiles and love had gone to the fashioning of
their performance; and smiles and love shone from every one of
their faces and from the clever white turnings of their limbs.
Amongst them-though all were delightful-there were two
who especially riveted my attention. The first of these two was
the tallest of all the children, a dark thin girl, in whose every
expression and movement there was a kind of grave, fiery love.
During one of the many dances, it fell to her to be the pursuer
of a fair child, whose movements had a very strange soft charm;
and this chase, which was like the hovering of a dragon-fly round
some water-lily, or the wooing of a moonbeam by the June night,
had in it a most magical sweet passion. That dark, tender hun-
tress, so full of fire and yearning, had the queerest power of
symbolising all longing, and moving one's heart. In her, pursuing
her white love with such wistful fervour, and ever arrested at the
very moment of conquest, one seemed to see the great secret force
that hunts through the world, on and on, tragically unresting,
immortally sweet.
The other child who particularly enchanted me was the small-
est but one, a brown-haired fairy crowned with a half-moon of
white flowers, who wore a scanty little rose-petal-coloured shift
that floated about her in the most delightful fashion. She danced
as never child danced. Every inch of her small head and body
was full of the sacred fire of motion; and in her little pas seul
she seemed to be the very spirit of movement. One felt that Joy
had flown down, and was inhabiting there; one heard the rip-
pling of Joy's laughter. And, indeed, through all the theatre had
risen a rustling and whispering; and sudden bursts of laughing
rapture.
I looked at my friend; he was trying stealthily to remove
something from his eyes with a finger. And to myself the stage
seemed very misty, and all things in the world lovable; as though
that dancing fairy had touched them with tender fire, and made
them golden.
God knows where she got that power of bringing joy to our
dry hearts: God knows how long she will keep it! But that little
European Tour ss
flying Love had in her the quality that lies in deep colour, in
music, in the wind, and the sun, and in certain great works of
art-the power to set the heart free from every barrier, and flood
it with delight.
John Galsworthy remembered our dancing years later. Lec-
turing at Princeton University, he spoke of losing oneself in the
contemplation of beauty. He said, "How lost was I when I first
looked on the Grand Canyon of Arizona; when I first saw
Isadora Duncan's child dancers . . • or the Egyptian desert
under the moon."
This tribute by the English writer fittingly closes a chapter
in the lives of Isadora's little pupils from the Grunewald school.
The innocent years of childhood were rapidly drawing to an
end. This long voyage to foreign lands had broadened my out-
look and perceptions and had made me more aware of the out-
side world. With it, too, had vanished many of my childhood
illusions.
Sojourn at Chateau J7illegenis
EvERY life has its ups and its downs, its prosperous periods and
its meagre ones. The same was true of Isadora's school. Ever
since she founded her philanthropical institution, she had tried
to keep it going despite financial difficulties. This meant an
endless succession of dance tours with no time out to put down
roots for the establishment of her private life. Once more, no
sooner had the London season ended than she was off again.
This time her destination was America. And once more she en-
trusted the school to the management of Elizabeth. She had no
other alternative and no reason for not trusting her sister.
It had not been easy for Isadora to decide on this trip,
putting the whole expanse of an ocean between herself and her
loved ones for who knew how long. She said, "It cost me many
pangs to part from my little baby Deirdre, who was now almost
a year old, and from that other child-my School."
Although the number of her original pupils had dwindled
to a mere dozen, she continued to pretend they still numbered
twenty. Constantly on the lookout for people who might be
persuaded to become patrons of her school, she was delighted
upon her arrival in America when she met Mrs. W. E. Corey, a
wealthy American lady who took an interest in furthering the
arts. Before her marriage to a steel magnate, the former Mabel
Gilman had been on the stage in musical comedy. An article
appearing in a New York newspaper on September 20, 1908,
said in part:
It is owing to Mrs. W. E. Corey's desire to devote some of her
present fortune to encouraging artists who need it that the twenty
little members of Isadora Duncan's school for dancing are just
86
S'ojourn at Choteau Villegenis
now enjoying the delights of residence in a chateau, about forty
miles from Paris.
Mrs. Corey, who wants to help not only young dramatists but
artists of all kinds as well, heard from Miss Duncan of her plans
and the struggle that it was for her to maintain the school by
her dancing. Even in France to clothe, feed and educate twenty
children is not a slight financial undertaking, especially when
they are reared carefully ..•.
"To think that you should be paying to house your school in
Paris," said Mrs. Corey when she heard of the work that the
children are doing, "when I have a chateau standing empty which
they might as well occupy! There is a farm there, too, with all
that they could want to eat, and there are servants with nothing
to do but wait on them."
Unfortunately, our unknown but very generous American
hostess was not there to extend a welcome when we arrived
late in September at her beautiful chateau. Instead we were met
by her Irish mother, Mrs. Gilman, a short, square-shaped
woman in her fifties, who displayed none of her daughter's gen-
erous traits. With Tante Miss and our French governess we had
come on foot from the small station at Massy-Palaiseau two
miles away, when we saw her standing by the front door. Her
daughter's sudden affiuence through a rich alliance did not
change Mrs. Gilman's manner or outlook from the skimpy days
when Mabel had worked in the chorus line to earn a living.
Dressed in a gray suit and wearing shiny black low-heeled shoes,
she stood with feet apart and firmly planted in the graveled
driveway. Like a watchdog, she was grimly determined to bar
all comers from entering the house. Without offering a greeting
she exclaimed, "Well, bless my soul! If they aren't here, the
whole lot of them!" Pointing at some buildings across the drive-
way enclosing a large courtyard where the stables were, she said
to Elizabeth, "Their quarters are over there. I'm afraid your
kids will only scuff up the parquet floors and scratch our nice
furniture if I let them in here." She jerked a thumb behind her
88 DUNCAN DANCER
at the chateau. "Those rooms over there are plenty good enough
for them. Come on and let me show you."
\Vith that remark, not very flattering to our general up-
bringing (especially since the Grunewald school prided itself on
an immaculate cleanliness and neatness), she stepped out ener-
getically and conducted us to an apartment near the stables,
probably originally occupied by the grooms. To my amazement
I saw that, except for a large table and some chairs occupying
the entire space in the small dining room, the rest of the rooms
were completely devoid of furniture. There was not even a
single chair. Furthermore, we children were obliged to sleep-
not, as Isadora and her generous art patron in far-off America
imagined, in the comfortable beds of the chateau-but on simple
pallets spread on the hard floor. These primitive living quarters
provided neither electricity nor sanitary facilities of any sort.
Moreover, we later discovered, the whole place was infested
with mice. At night, after blowing out the solitary candle serving
as light, we could hear them hungrily gnawing at the woodwork.
Quite patently Mrs. Gilman had seen to it that her daughter
Mabel's little guests would not enjoy "the delights of residence
in a chateau." Nor, if she had any say about it, would they have
"servants with nothing to do but wait on them." Her daughter's
decision to place the chateau and everything in it at the disposal
of Isadora's dance school obviously met with her complete dis-
approval. It must have been a real disappointment to her when
Elizabeth left us there.
Tante Miss made no visible protest nor, for that matter, did
she inform Isadora of the true conditions concerning our recep-
tion and accommodation at Mrs. Corey's chateau. She told us,
"I am going to leave you here with Mademoiselle and a woman
to do the cooking. I want you to be good children and obey
Mademoiselle because I will be able to come out and see what
you are doing only once in a while. I am staying in Paris at
Isadora's apartment to take care of Deirdre."
Sojourn at Chateau Villegenis
Chateau Villegenis, where Elizabeth apparently was satisfied
to leave us, was situated in the lovely Bievre valley, a few kilo-
meters south of Paris and not far from Versailles to the west.
It had once belonged to Napoleon's brother Jerome Bonaparte,
the sometime King of Westphalia, who died there in 1 8 6o. To
the north it was dominated by the imposing mass of the wood
of Verrieres, a heavy stand of pine, oak, beech, and chestnut
trees; and a river ran through the extensive property.
The chateau itself stood in the center of a wooded park,
reached by a half-mile driveway from the main gate in the
surrounding wall. The white house, with two wings in typical
French style, mirrored its fa~ade in a small lake, with a parterre
of flowers extending to each side. The estate contained tennis
courts, orchards, hot houses, a little ivy-covered chapel, and even
a medieval donjon hidden deep in the woods. The house was
beautifully appointed, with all the conveniences and servants
galore; but Mrs. Gilman, together with a little girl called
Fran~oise (a distant relative by marriage), lived there in solitary
splendor. We were not invited to set foot in it, not even to take
an occasional hot bath. For our daily ablutions we used a large
tin pan and cold water drawn from the pump in the courtyard.
The French governess pleaded in our behalf for the use of a
bathroom, but to no effect. "I don't know why I should let you
kids run all over my house," was Mrs. Gilman's only answer.
And so, in the midst of these beautiful surroundings we
children were destined to live in squalor, which made our stay
at the chateau completely miserable. At first, in balmy October
when we could spend all our time outdoors, it wasn't so bad.
But we knew that October could not last forever.
At one point we even had hopes of leaving. Late one night
we were told to pack our things quickly, and we were whisked
off to Paris-only to be returned the next day. As usual, no one
told us where we were going. But when I peevishly remarked
at being kept in the dark that "we might be on our way to
DUNCAN DANCER
America; even then no one would tell us so," the response was
that I had guessed correctly.
It seemed that Isadora's American tour had had an inauspi-
cious beginning. To help drum up more interest, Mr. Frohman
-remembering how our dancing had captivated even the sophis-
ticated London audiences-may have had the idea of sending
for us, and Isadora may have countermanded it because of the
extra expense involved. In any case, we returned, greatly dis-
appointed, to the chateau.
That one night and day in Paris, we stayed at the tiny three-
room apartment of Mrs. Mary Sturges (later Mrs. Desti), at
10 Rue Octave Feullet. She was an old friend of Isadora, an
American divorcee and expatriate who made her home in France.
A few days later she motored out to see us, bringing her little
son Preston and a photographer. "I want to send Isadora a pic-
ture of you children," she said, "so that she can see how well
you look and how happy you are here."
A gay, rather frivolous woman, who liked to laugh at every-
thing and was constitutionally unable to take anything seriously,
she conceived the idea of posing us festooned all over her auto-
mobile. We put on our Polish coats and climbed aboard her
I 908 model limousine, which had more polished brass trim than
room to sit in. Preston (who later became the well-known play-
wright and movie director), climbed in too and had his picture
taken with us. It must have reassured our absent guardian that
all was indeed well with her pupils at Mrs. Corey's marvelous
French chateau, where we were enjoying a delightful residence
and being tended by the servants who had nothing to do but
wait on us.
Mrs. Sturges only made matters worse by telling us in her
gay, chatty manner, that she was taking Elizabeth and Mr.
Merz, our music director, on a motor trip. "We are making a
tour of the Rhineland," she informed us in her easygoing way.
When we pressed her for further details, she chatted on, "Well,
I'm not supposed to tell you, so don't tell anyone I told you,
Sojourn at Chateau Villegenis 91
but it seems that the Grand Duke of Hesse" -she stopped and
wagged a finger at us in mock-seriousness. "Remember now,
this is a secret! Well, the Grand Duke has offered Elizabeth a
piece of property near Darmstadt for the building of a school
of her own."
When she saw that this piece of news left us gaping with
utter astonishment, she hastily added, "Remember, not a word!"
She waved gaily and grinned one last big grin as she got into
her chauffeur-driven limousine, calling out, "Au revoir! See you
again when I return! " The chauffeur tooted his brass horn, and
we scattered like chickens. Then wheels crunched on the gravel
and she was gone, leaving us shaken children trying to grasp
fully this formidable piece of news.
Our first reaction was to wonder, "Does Isadora know of
this?" and, "What will happen to us?" As usual, there was no
one to enlighten us, and our future seemed as uncertain as our
present. Abandoned here in France by our second guardian, who
had been entrusted by Isadora to take good care of us, we
couldn't help feeling that we were a group of lost waifs.
To cap it all, Mademoiselle packed up her things one day
and left. Whether it was the bad food, or not getting paid, or
that we were too much to cope with, we never knew. From that
moment, left without any sort of supervision, we entered upon
a state of total neglect.
The winter that year in France proved to be exceptionally
severe. It was so cold that the pump froze and the older girls
needed to hack the ice away to get water for our cold baths. By
then our open sandals had worn thin and had such big holes in
them that we were practically walking barefoot in the snow. Our
clothing, too, was threadbare and provided little warmth. For-
tunately, some coal fires in an open grate provided a little heat
in the tiny rooms, otherwise we would surely have frozen to
death. During the bad weather, confined indoors, we sat on the
floor (there being no chairs) huddled close beside the hearth,
and whiled the day away till bedtime. Vle had no books or
92 DUNCAN DANCER
games to keep us occupied. Apparently no one cared what hap-
pened to us. The cuisiniere, a mute old peasant woman, con-
cerned herself exclusively with cooking what meagre food there
was. The provisions dwindled rapidly. Our daily fare during the
winter months consisted entirely of either pumpkin soup or a
dish of plain boiled potatoes. Forks not being available, even
though we were guests of a millionairess, we ate with spoons,
the only eating utensils provided by Mrs. Gilman.
Time seemed to stand still, with nothing to look forward to,
not even the approach of Christmas. The usual Christmas pack-
ages from home failed to arrive. Our parents had no idea of
our exact whereabouts in France, and mail from Grunewald
could not be forwarded. Not that we children were remiss in
wanting to correspond; we simply lacked the money to buy
stamps, and in our ignorance we had no inkling that letters
could be sent without them. The prospect of having to celebrate
our beloved W eihnachten alone in a strange land caused a great
deal of homesickness. Christmas Eve had dawned bleakly when
Mrs. Gilman surprised us by calling us over to the chateau.
We tidied ourselves as best we could and eagerly approached
our hostess, who stood waiting by a side door. With our bare
toes sticking out of our sandals in the snow, we curtsied politely
and said "Merry Christmas."
"Yes, that is what I want to see you about," she said, looking
us over carefully without as much as a smile. She asked us into
the glass-enclosed side entrance, but would not let us enter the
house as if our presence might contaminate it. She opened the
door and showed us the huge, decorated tree in the hall. With
spontaneous exclamations at the beautiful sight of the tree and
the many attractively wrapped presents beneath, we pressed
forward for a closer view. But she restrained us. "No, don't go
in," she said. "You will only scuff up the floors. I just thought
you kids might like to see the tree since you haven't got one."
She stepped inside for a moment, returning with an open
Sojourn at Chateau Villegenis 93
box of candies. "Here, take one," she said in a more friendly
tone, and offered each child a bonbon. Then she closed the box
and replaced it on the table in the hall. We stood crowded to-
gether in the small entrance watching her, not knowing what
to do or say, hoping for a little more friendly human contact.
"Well, run along now," she said, dismissing us. "I just
wanted to show you the tree. You understand, don't you?" We
nodded our heads and sadly trudged back to our bare rooms.
In Europe, the tree is lit and the presents are opened late on
Christmas Eve. Glumly we sat on the floor close by the fire
after our evening meal of pumpkin soup and waited for some-
thing to happen. But what? It was cold outside and snowing.
We could hear the wind in the chimney. We talked, remember-
ing other, happier Christmases. Presently, to get in the right
mood, I started softly to sing: "Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht; alles
schlaeft einsam wacht/' The others joined in, and we sang on
bravely till the end. With the last notes, our voices quavered
and then failed. We all burst into tears. Through our tears,
hungry as the mice in the wainscotting, we gnawed on raw
acorns and chestnuts that we had gathered in the woods for
Christmas presents-the only ones we had. We cried ourselves
to sleep, lying on the miserable pallets on the floor.
The following day, we looked through the frosty windows
and watched the fine little friends of Fran~oise arriving for a
party at the chateau. We were not invited, Mrs. Gilman's excuse
being that we did not speak French. But Christmas is a day for
children the world over and needs no special language for their
understanding.
It was a hopeless situation. With Isadora in America, Eliza-
beth in Germany-none of us knowing their exact whereabouts-
and Mrs. Gilman ignoring our existence, we found ourselves
helplessly trapped. In an effort to find a solution, I realized that
outside help in our predicament could be obtained only by noti-
fying mother. Not aware that an unfranked letter would actu-
94 DUNCAN DANCER
ally reach her, this escape seemed closed too. As a result, a
frightening sense of insecurity enveloped us all.
Because of the bad weather and for lack of proper clothing,
our outdoor exercises had to be curtailed. The cramped rooms
made indoor exercise equally impossible. We had no means of
letting off excess energy, and so it was not surprising-cooped
up as we were in four tiny rooms, like dumb animals in a cage-
that the older girls should gang up on us younger ones for
something amusing to do. The six older girls, all teen-agers,
tyrannized the younger to such an extent that we lived in con-
stant terror. Children can be very cruel. As the oldest of the
younger group, and possessed of a latent fiery temperament
that needed only strong fanning to erupt like a volcano, I did
not suffer from their machinations. They knew me and my tem-
per too well. But one day, after a fierce quarrel when I tried to
remonstrate with them and their unspeakable behavior, they
held a court and sentenced me to Coventry.
Now being sent to Coventry is not a pleasant experience, as
most children in boarding school well know. In my case, where
it lasted for weeks, it amounted to solitary confinement. If the
youngest girls with whom I roomed even so much as glanced
my way, they were severely punished. I became embittered, se-
cretly vowing some kind of vengeance on the three ringleaders.
At one point I became so morose I decided to run away. I had
no money, and it meant walking all the way home to Hamburg.
In desperation I packed my few belongings in a small satchel
and sneaked out of the house before dawn. I got past the main
gate without being seen by the gatekeeper and wandered deter-
minedly along the highway to Paris. But after a few miles of
walking in my torn sandals, I got footsore and so frightened at
the enormity of my rash undertaking that I succumbed to my
misgivings and returned to the chateau as the lesser of two evils.
I don't know how long this ostracism would have lasted
(since I was too proud to ask the girls to forgive me) if a fright-
ening incident had not occurred and changed their minds. As I
Sojourn at Chateau Villegenis 95
have mentioned, coal fires burned in open grates in our bed-
rooms. One day I happened to be sitting in the farthest corner
of the room while two little girls played close to the open fire.
I was supposed to be in solitary confinement, but I knew that
both Erica and Temple secretly sympathized with me, having
themselves been badly treated by the big ones. I sensed that
they played in this room on purpose, despite the risk they took,
to keep me company after my month-long loneliness.
I was drawing pictures and paying them no heed when sud-
denly I heard a terrified scream. Erica's dress had caught fire,
and the flames rapidly spread to her face. Temple stood petrified
beside her, screaming. I rushed over and was trying to extinguish
the flames with my bare hands when the older girls came run-
ning in. Seeing me struggle with Erica in an effort to subdue
the flames, they recoiled in panic, thinking I meant to throw her
in the fire. For the first time I saw fear written on their own
nasty faces-fear of what I might be capable of doing to them
in revenge. Their cowardly expressions gave me inner satisfac-
tion, for I realized I now had the upper hand.
"Don't stand there like idiots!" I shouted at them. "Go
fetch the water cans quickly!"
They obeyed my command with alacrity, relieved that I was
not going to destroy them after all. When they brought the
water, I poured it over Erica till the flames were extinguished.
"Poor little Erica," I consoled her, rubbing her dry with a
towel. "You'll be all right now."
She threw her arms about me, and we kissed. Temple came
up and whispered, "Irma, dear, none of us little ones are sore
at you. THEY forced us to ignore you. Both Erica and I are so
sorry for you."
"I know, don't worry. You'll see, I'll get even with them
yet."
That night, when I was about to drop off to sleep, one of
the ringleaders bent down low over my pallet. I sat bolt upright
in a combative mood.
DUNCAN DANCER
"What do you want?"
"Sh, sh, don't be alarmed;'' she whispered. "Susanna wants
to see you. She is ready to forgive you because of what you did
to save Erica."
Susanna, the eldest of our group, asked me to apologize.
"Never!" was my defiant retort. She came from the same city
I did and did not in the least impress me with her absurd airs.
The other girls looked on her as a queen, she had them so
hypnotized. To me she was just a stupid, stuck-up kid, and I
told her so. At this lese majeste, the others acted stunned. When
they had recovered sufficiently and saw that I was not going to
kowtow to their silly queen, two of them crept up behind me.
I stood there unaware in front of Susanna, who was propped up
on pillows as if on a make-believe throne, when they suddenly
doused me with a pitcher of ice-cold water. My fury aroused,
I threatened them with dire destruction and rushed out of the
room, bolting the connecting door. It was their only exit, and
now I had them under complete control. I intended to keep
them locked up in there for good. Now it was their turn to beg
me to unbolt the door, and when they promised to behave and
cause no more mischief, I set them free.
This life would have continued indefinitely but for the for-
tuitous arrival of a new governess. Fraulein Harting turned out
to be a young, sympathetic Alsatian woman, who spoke both
French and German. Overjoyed to have at long last someone
who spoke our own language, I told her all that weighed on my
mind and made me unhappy. When I confessed my big sin, my
attempt to run away, I was ready for her to scold me. Instead,
she asked earnestly, "Why didn't you? I would have done the
same thing." I told her that I had no money to buy a ticket.
"You need only go to the nearest station and ask for Travelers'
Aid," she explained-and she told me how that society would
always furnish a ticket home for anyone stranded in a foreign
land.
She told me also that it was possible to send a letter without
Sojourn at C hdteau Villegenis 97
stamps, postage due. I immediately decided to put her advice to
the test. Not having written home for four months, I tore a
page out of my copybook and poured out my heart to mother,
telling her that Elizabeth Duncan had a plan for establishing a
school in Germany, but that Isadora had decided to have hers in
France. And to make no mistake about my preference!
Fraulein Harting's advice had been correct. Mother received
the letter and instantly sent me money and a large package with
all the necessities I had had to do without for so long, such as
a brush and comb, soap, tooth powder, and writing paper. From
Tante Miss and Isadora, we had not a word; they seemed to
have forgotten us.
Life in the rooms near the stables at Chateau Villegenis
continued as before except that now we had a governess. We
complained bitterly. For days we were fed only pumpkin soup,
which I loathed. Once, rebelling, we refused to eat it. But our
governess said, "I'm sorry. Pumpkin soup is all there is to eat.
You will only have it again tomorrow for breakfast if you don't
eat it tonight."
"Oh, no I won't!" I suddenly shouted. Disgusted with the
whole business, not only the horrible food, I seized the bowl of
soup and flung it across the table at the wall. It landed directly
above a photograph of Mabel Gilman in musical comedy cos-
tume, dripping all over the picture. There was a shocked pause.
Everyone present stared at me while I stared defiantly at the
big stain on the wall. Then Fraulein Harting found her voice.
She pulled me by the ear, saying, "I'll teach you to throw food
around! Come with me! "
She dragged me to the upper floor, locking me into a dark,
unused room. "You can spend the night here and cool off!" she
shouted, and left. I threw myself against the door and rattled
the knob, screaming, "Let me out! Let me out! " Suffering a
fearful attack of claustrophobia, I was frantic. When my eyes
became accustomed to the dark, I saw that the room was crowded
with furniture-all the furniture Mrs. Gilman had begrudged
DUNCAN DANCER
our using. In an access of fury, I climbed over the stuff, opened
the window, and proceeded to throw out the furniture. Out it
went, piece by piece: chairs, tables, mirrors, everything I could
lift. The crashing on the hard ground outside made a big noise
in the still night.
It wasn't long before Fraulein Harting came rushing back.
She unlocked the door, screaming at me, "Are you crazy? Stop
that immediately!" But I paid no heed and kept flinging furni-
ture out the window with enormous gusto. It was a marvelous
relief for my long-pent-up resentment.
All this shouting and excitement brought old Mrs. Gilman
on the run. "What on earth is going on?" she wanted to know.
By this time the governess had gotten hold of me and dragged
me outside to the heap of broken furniture.
"Look what you have done!" Fraulein Harting pointed out
unnecessarily. I knew what I had done, and I was secretly glad
of it the moment I saw Mrs. Gilman. For a while, the latter
stood absolutely speechless. Finally she gave me a look of hate
and said, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?"
With my heart still pounding wildly from the exertion and
the fury and the fear, I looked her straight in the eye and said
nothing. On seeing this woman-who had shown so little com-
passion for the starving, freezing children who were guests un-
der her roof-now reproaching me, I felt only bitterness well up
in my heart. And although I cried hot tears of shame, I could
not bring myself to say to her, "I'm sorry."
She started to upbraid me in the angry tones of an outraged
woman, and I expected the worst in retaliation. But to my great
surprise and relief, Fraulein Harting simply took me by the
hand and led me straight to bed. She covered me up warmly
and brought me a bowl of hot milk with bread in it. "There,
calm yourself," she said. "Eat this and then go to sleep. We'll
talk tomorrow."
But we never did. I suppose she too had seen the mask fall
from Mrs. Gilman's face and suddenly realized where the guilt
Sojourn at Chateau Villegenis 99
of my rebellion really lay. Her sympathy was all for the neg-
lected motherless children in her care, with no further concern
about Mrs. Gilman's broken furniture. She told us she would
go to Paris and bring us help.
It was the end of Mar~h. Spring comes early in this part of
Fran<:e, and the flowers and trees were budding with fresh, new
life. Instead of our governess, Mrs. Sturges showed up again on
a Sunday. She carried a bolt of gray cloth under her arm and
brought scissors and sewing material. Greeting us with squeals
of laughter, she said pleasantly, "I brought you girls some ma-
terial to make new dresses. I wanted to buy a pretty blue, but
Elizabeth said gray was more practical. So here is some blue
embroidery yarn for decorating. I also brought you some new
sandals."
With several more delighted squeals, she told us the won-
derful news that Isadora was expected to return from America
any day. We happily set to work on making new dresses for her
arrival. And then, one marvelous sunny day in the first week
of April, there she was! She actually stood before us, our idol,
our goddess, our longed-for Isadora. The spell she cast with her
very presence made everything seem rosy, all cares forgotten.
She embraced us all tenderly and remarked how we had grown!
She herself looked pale and worried. "Poor children," she said
gently, hugging us, "poor children. Miss Harting told me every-
thing. You must pack your things and come with me at once."
But there was nothing to pack. Our old clothes were torn
to tatters. We had thrown them away for rags the day before
and left them in an empty storeroom beside the stables, where
we had discovered an abandoned marble tub that once belonged
to Jerome Bonaparte. With whoops of joy we had heated water
in the kitchen and had taken our first hot bath in six months in
the Napoleonic tub. No hot bath had ever felt so good!
Cleaned up now, our hair washed, wearing our new dresses
and sandals, we were ready and oh! how willing to go and leave
this place forever. At that moment Mrs. Gilman appeared to
100 DUNCAN DANCER
greet her distinguished visitor. When Isadora saw the squat
figure in a gray suit and black low-heeled shoes, she cut her dead
by turning her back and walking away without saying a word.
"Come on, children, get in the cars and let's go," Isadora
called out. She took my hand, saying, "You come and sit with
me in my car." I hopped in beside her, smiling happily. As we
passed through the gate in the great wall surrounding Chateau
Villegenis, I did not once look back at the place where I had
been so unhappy. "With my hand in Isadora's I felt safe once
more and happy. I leaned back blissfully against the soft cush-
ions of the limousine and sighed contentedly. Everything seemed
well again with me and my small world as we sped along the
sunny highway to Paris.
Elizabeth Takes Over
UPON Isadora's return from America, two events occurred that
had a decisive bearing on our future as well as hers. One was
the fateful meeting with the millionaire she had hoped would
help to establish her school on a solid financial basis. This was
Paris Singer. The other was her sister Elizabeth's quite un-
expected competition.
After a short engagement at the Gaiete-Lyrique Theatre in
Paris there followed a month's vacation on the Riviera, for
which Isadora provided us with a new, much more elaborate
wardrobe. Then she resettled her pupils at Neuilly in a com-
fortable pension not far from the house she had bought with
the dollars earned on her American tour. She once again devoted
herself to the reorganization of her school in France. Starting
with the nucleus from the Grunewald school, she found she had
first to obtain the consent of the parents for our permanent
residence in France. To this effect she sent them each a letter
dated June 7, 1909:
My dance school no longer exists in Germany because of insuffi-
cient support. My own resources are no longer adequate to enable
me to carry the expense alone. A group of influential friends,
here in France, is now engaged in organizing a dance school
under my sole direction, but supported by other funds.
In this new establishment the pupils will continue as hitherto,
to receive an academic, as well as an artistic education. The par-
ents are requested to agree by contract to leave the children at
the school till they have reached the age of eighteen. Having
finished their education, the graduated pupils will then be able
101
102 DUNCAN DANCER
to obtain dance engagements through the school organization.
Half of their fee will then be deducted for repayment of the ex-
penses incurred for their education.
If you should consider leaving your daughter with me under
the above stipulated conditions, I beg you to let me know imme-
diately. If otherwise, I shall find myself constrained to return
your daughter to you. My address is: 68 Rue Chauveau, Neuilly
pres Paris. Teleg. "Duncanides."
At the same time, unbeknownst to all of those most intimately
concerned with her project, Elizabeth Duncan had perfected and
put into operation her secretly hatched plan of establishing a
school under her own name in Germany. In order to start her
enterprise with a trained group of pupils acting as her assistants,
she caused a similar request to be sent to our parents. Hoping
she would surely come out the winner in this contest for the
possession of the original pupils, she placed enormous faith in
the fact that the German parents were bound to prefer keeping
their offspring in their homeland. She then made her intentions
public by placing the following notice in the German press:
With reference to the sojourn of my sister Isadora Duncan and
her school in Paris, I beg to state that I have been associated with
this school since its foundation in the capacity of both teacher and
director. My own activities have been widely recognized in Ger-
many. I therefore declare that I am not taking any part in the
re-establishing of a new school in Paris, France. As repeatedly
stated, I shall continue my activities in Germany, specifically in
Darmstadt, where my own school is now in the process of being
built. I beg you not to construe this as going against my sister. I
merely continue to pursue my long and successful-if at times
difficult-activities in Germany. I shall proceed on my chosen
path with the guarantee of the fine support I have received so
far for my undertaking.
In the meanwhile, fearing that most of the pupils would
prefer to remain with Isadora if given a choice, and egged on by
Elizabeth Takes Over 103
Max Merz, her friend and adviser who master-minded the
whole scheme, she resorted to some audacious tactics.
We had not seen her for ages when she appeared one after-
noon at our pension all smiles and innocence. Although most of
us instinctively scattered like birds, sauve qui peut, at her ap-
proach, she managed to catch a few of the more trusting ones
who had lingered behind. She made an unusually friendly ges-
ture without arousing any suspicion and invited them to have
tea in town. The girls accepted with pleasure. The next thing
they knew, instead of having tea and cakes at Rumpelmayer's,
they were on a train bound for Germany! But of course the
rest of us at the pension had no inkling of this forced abduction
till later.
"What do you mean by saying my sister has stolen five
girls?" Isadora seemed terribly shocked by this dreadful accu-
sation. Standing in the midst of a group of wildly excited chil-
dren, she listened with growing amazement as we told our tale
of how, through a ruse, the five girls had been kidnaped. We
explained how, when the girls failed to reappear and Tante
Miss returned without them on the following day at exactly the
same time to try this trick on the rest of us, we became sus-
picious; how, under the pretext of getting dressed for the bogus
party, we locked ourselves in and refused to come out of our
rooms. As soon as she was gone, we had sent for Isadora in a
hurry.
"This is an outrage!" she exclaimed angrily. "How is it
possible that my own sister should do a thing like that to me?
It is incredible!"
But it was only too true. I had never seen Isadora so angry.
Her sister's underhanded action had evidently come as a great
shock to her. She contemplated us for a while in silence. Then
she asked whether the rest of us wished to remain with her. We
assured her that we did. Visibly moved by our sincere attach-
ment, she said, "Very soon I'll have a beautiful new school
organized here. Just have a little patience."
104 DUNCAN DANCER
Then she turned to me. "Oh, by the way, Irma, I have a
nice letter here from your mother. I received it this morning."
And she showed me the letter in which mother asked her to
send me home for a long-overdue vacation and a consultation.
"I think your mother made a good suggestion," she said.
"None of you has been home for over four years, and it is time
you went back. You may visit your people for the summer
months and I shall send for you when the new school is ready."
And she added, "That is perhaps the best plan for the present,
as I shall myself be absent for a while." Neither she nor her
adoring pupils could possibly foresee that "absent for a while"
would encompass the space of not only several months, but years.
For my part, living at home with mot}'er was very agreeable
and a nice change from school routine. Only after two months
of this, I became restless and, as time went by, longed more and
more for a speedy return to Isadora and the company of my
schoolmates. Life at the Duncan School, for better or worse,
had become so much a part of me that I could not envision any
other existence. At home, delimited by my mother's narrow
horizon, I felt shut in. My initiation into the art of the dance
had given me a need for beauty and a sense of higher aspirations
that could no more be denied me than breathing. So when July,
August, September, and most of October passed and I still had
not heard from Isadora, I was seized with despair, believing I
would never hear from her again. On the other hand, we had
frequently received word from Mr. Merz, who in his capacity
as director of the newly established Elizabeth Duncan School
repeatedly begged me to join that organization. Loyal in my
devotion to Isadora, I steadfastly refused.
I had been in contact once with the eldest pupil, Susanna,
who also lived in Hamburg. She wanted to know if I had news
from Isadora, because she too wondered at her silence. We ex-
changed opinions, and that was all. But a couple of days later
I told mother for the first time about the feud I had had with
Elizabeth Takes Over 105
Susanna at the chateau when she and the other two older girls
had tormented the younger ones. Mother appeared shocked.
"To think that I received her here in my house and was nice to
her!" she said. "Why didn't you tell me before? I would have
refused to let you associate with such a nasty girl. She is a bad
influence, and I'm surprised that they kept her at the school."
Then early one morning, when I happened to be still in
bed, the doorbell rang. Mother went to answer. Who could it
be so early? I sat up in bed to listen. Never was I so surprised
as to hear the familiar Viennese accent of Max Merz inquiring
whether I was at home? Mother conducted him into the front
parlor.
During my stay with mother I had discarded my Duncan
uniform so as not to appear conspicuous, and had worn the type
of dresses and shoes used by other people. At the sound of
Mr. Merz's voice, I jumped out of bed and reached for the
suitcase that contained my school outfit. I put it on in a jiffy.
When mother came to my room and said, "Guess who is here?"
she was taken aback to see me standing there in sandals and
tunic. I answered, "Yes, I know, and I am ready to go with him."
Mr. Merz, a pleasant man in his middle thirties, greeted
me warmly. "I knew you would never make the trip alone," he
said, smiling. "That is why I came to fetch you."
My resistance to joining Elizabeth's school weakened the
moment I heard his voice. My deep yearning to be within my
accustomed milieu again, where music and dancing were of the
essence and nothing else really mattered, made me decide im-
pulsively to go with him. But when mother heard that he in-
tended to take Susanna back too, she strenuously objected to
my going. "You must make a choice between my daughter and
that other girl," she told him.
Before making a decision, Mr. Merz, who was pedantic and
given to lecturing on sundry topics, wanted to consult with Pro-
fessor Hohle, who was a member of the local committee for the
I06 DUNCAN DANCER
support of our school. He and his family lived near us and knew
me quite well. We went there, and Professor Hohle paid serious
attention to what Merz had to say, but seemed surprised that he
needed advice. He told him to take me.
So Mr. Merz and I on that same day took the train for
Frankfurt-am-Main, where Tante Miss and the other five girls
were temporarily located. They were living in the house of a
Dr. Kling, on the Bockenheimer Landstrasse. It turned out to
be a pleasant, old, musty-smelling house filled with books, for
Dr. Kling, a bachelor and a learned man, had been a founder
of the Germanic Museum in Nuremberg. His house, overgrown
with climbing roses and set in a wooded plot where he main-
tained a bird sanctuary, had a mysterious, enchanted air.
We arrived there late at night and I did not see the other
girls, who were already in bed. But when I awoke in the morn-
ing, with the sun pouring through a window framed in climbing
roses in which birds nested and kept up a constant twitter, I
thought I heard a different kind of twittering besides. Without
turning around, I became aware of the other girls clustered near
my bed. I heard them whisper excitedly:
"Oh, look! there is only one girl in here!"
"\Vhich one is it, do you think? Irma or Susanna?"
"I don't know. I can't see-she has her head hidden in the
pillow!"
"Gee, I hope it's Irma."
"Oh, so do !."
"Me too."
"Sh, sh. Suppose it is Susanna!"
"I don't care!"
That was all I needed to hear to get their honest reaction.
Joyfully I cast away the bedclothes and jumped out of bed. The
moment they recognized me, we had a gay reunion. Laughing
and chatting at the same time, they told me how glad they were
to see me instead of Susanna. "We all hate her so," Anna said,
and Theresa eagerly nodded assent. Both Lisel and Gretel
Elizabeth Takes Over 107
chimed in, one saying, "We were afraid of her"; the other
asking apprehensively, "Is she coming later?"
I delightedly assured them that neither of the two older
girls would ever be allowed to return. We had got even with
our former tormentors at last. With Erica and Temple sched-
uled to join us at a later date, we all rejoiced to be reunited
again. Pleased and happy to be forming a smaller but much
more congenial group, we hoped to remain together to the end.
Two years elapsed before the Darmstadt building could be
completed. In the interim, led by Tante Miss and Merz, we
girls gave combination lecture-dance recitals to support ourselves.
These also served to make propaganda and drum up trade in
the form of paying pupils for their newly founded institute for
Korperkultur. Here young German girls would receive an edu-
cation based mainly on physical culture and racial hygiene-a
chauvinistic ideology that had nothing in common with Isadora
Duncan's theory of physical education for children, which was
founded on her dance art.
The motivating force behind all this Rassenkultur business
was Max Merz. A fanatic on the subject, ambitious and an op-
portunist, he managed to exert a kind of Svengali influence over
Elizabeth. Born in Vienna of Czech parents, he had studied
composition and conducting at the Vienna Conservatory, finish-
ing at the Hochschule fiir Musik in Berlin. Seeing Isadora
Duncan dance one day, he became so fired with the idea of com-
posing music for her that he applied for a job at the Grunewald
school toward the end of I 906. There he met not Isadora but
her older sister, and from that moment on they became close
friends and allies. He acted as music director and conductor for
the school performances. When Isadora decided to transfer her
establishment to Paris, Merz prevailed upon Elizabeth to re-
main in Germany-the country he admired more than any
other-and to open her own school there. Being more than de-
voted to him, she agreed wholeheartedly.
108 DUNCAN DANCER
A clever man, obsessed with a theory to propound, he devel-
oped a natural bent for lecturing. He would get up and lecture
at the drop of a hat anywhere, any time. His ordinary conversa-
tions invariably turned into speeches and, once started, he would
harangue people for hours. In promoting the Elizabeth Duncan
School for Physical Culture, he had at last found his true metier.
Affable in manner and attractive to women-with the well-
known Viennese charm of K iiss-die-H and type of flattery-he
encountered little difficulty in getting people to part with their
money for his pet project. It was gradually taking form on a
hill near Darmstadt, Merz having first cajoled the ruling grand
duke to donate valuable property. As a doctrinaire preaching
physical culture and racial hygiene on the one hand, and provid-
ing the musical accompaniment for our dance recitals on the
other, he managed to confuse many of his listeners. As one alert
Hamburg critic observed:
The Elizabeth Duncan School for young girls of the privileged
class purports to be an institution devoted to physical culture-
and not the art of the dance. Then why, for heaven's sake, do
they distort the picture of their intentions by giving dance per-
formances?
I am convinced that the majority of the public, despite the ex-
planations of director Max Merz, left the theatre with the im-
pression that this physical culture institution really represents a
dance school.
This is probably due to the name of Isadora Duncan, whose
spirit presides over the whole show.
No matter how hard Elizabeth and Merz tried to wean us away
from Isadora's artistic influence, they did not succeed in obliter-
ating the spirit of the dance as instilled by Isadora in her former
pupils. To mold us into their concept of physical culture para-
gons, they even resorted to the desperate means of engaging an
officer of the Swedish army to drill us in gymnastics. Isadora
had expressly stated that "Swedish gymnastics is a false system
Elizabeth Takes Over 109
of body culture because it takes no account of the imagination
and regards the muscles as an end in themselves."*
When, after such rigorous physical training (resembling in
every respect the stiff drill of soldiers on parade), month after
month, year in and year out, we still kept the spark alive and
continued to dance the way Isadora taught us, they continued to
disparage our efforts. If people happened to praise our dancing,
Elizabeth would tell them that we only "imitated" her sister.
She was undoubtedly well aware of the fact that Isadora, as the
creator and unique exponent of her art, was also our sole exam-
ple, and that she, Elizabeth, had nothing whatsoever to con-
tribute in this particular field. Her own pupils had to look
elsewhere for inspiration and guidance if they wanted to qualify
as genuine exponents of the dance as Isadora envisioned it. She
knew that Isadora from the very beginning intended to train
specially chosen disciples to carry on her art.
Her dancer's body being the instrument, Isadora repre-
sented in her own person two not necessarily related principles:
both the creative and the interpretative. To interpret her chore-
ography correctly, from both the physical and the spiritual
points of view, we could not do otherwise than dance in her
image. For reasons of her own, this was something Elizabeth
wanted to prevent at all costs.
I for one, all the time I was a pupil of the Darmstadt school,
could not reconcile Isadora's spiritual teachings with the materi-
alistic ideologies expounded by Elizabeth or the racial theories
advocated by Max Merz. Nor did I willingly submit to wearing
their uncomfortable, unbecoming school uniform, consisting of
scratchy gray woolen underwear, ditto clothes, and gray woolen
stockings shaped like long opera gloves with a cot for each toe.
The latter were meant to fit specially designed orthopedic foot-
wear with a separate compartment accommodating the individual
toes. The excruciating torture I sustained walking around in
* Life, p. 189.
IIO DUNCAN DANCER
these modern instruments of the Inquisition cannot be easily
described. Tante Miss had a knack for making her pupils feel
miserable. Not that she set a fine example by using them herself.
Oh no, her implacable Spartan attitude excluded her own dis-
comforts.
Thus my education, which had started as a dancer and
follower of Isadora Duncan's lofty ideals, was persistently being
perverted. I was, against my will and natural inclination, ab-
ruptly directed into channels alien to my artistic instincts. It all
culminated at the Hygienic Exhibition in Dresden in I 9 I I. In
the great hall (where a giant replica of a transparent heart
pumping red blood greeted the visitor) we had an exhibit con-
sisting of white plaster casts of our torsos and limbs. My own
contribution was a life-size replica of my arm from shoulder to
fingertips. Models of our school uniform were also shown. Pre-
ceded by lectures from both Mr. Merz and Elizabeth, we
girls daily gave free demonstrations of our physical prowess
acquired under their guidance via Swedish gymnastics. They
reached the high point of their endeavors in the field of physical
culture in Germany with that exhibition. With the award of the
gold medal, their greatest ambition was achieved.
One would have thought that Elizabeth Duncan possessed
at least the intelligence, if not the generosity of heart, to ac-
knowledge that we pupils of the original school had contributed
largely to the success of hers; that as a group we represented a
distinct asset to her and her work. More important, as far as our
personal attitudes were concerned, she should have recognized
that we could no longer be treated as children in constant need
of correction and punishment. We were growing up (the eldest
being seventeen) and desired her to establish a more amiable
student-teacher relationship. But her unrealistic approach to her
growing pupils made the relationship even more strained than
before. And thus matters stood between us when, in the fall
of I 9 I 2, the Darmstadt school was ready for our occupancy.
Situated just outside the city on top of a hill, the new
Elizabeth Takes Over I II
building commanded a sweeping view of the valley below, with
the silver ribbon of the river Rhine winding away in the dis-
tance. Built along simple, functional, modern lines, the house
had large airy rooms filled with the Grunewald furniture, which
Elizabeth had appropriated. The large central hall was espe-
cially designed for such physical activities as the Elizabeth
Duncan School had to offer. The day of inauguration was
planned as a big event, with their highnesses the Duke and
Duchess of Hessen-Darmstadt participating.
Some of us had met this ruler a few years earlier, when we
had performed at the Hof Theatre. A grandson of Queen
Victoria and a brother of the Tsarina, he was in his early forties.
He was informal and democratic in manner, jovial of disposition,
and somewhat given to practical jokes. He was also an enthusi-
astic patron of the theatre and often took part in amateur the-
atricals. He and his wife organized a dancing class at the palace
so that their two little boys could learn to dance, and some of
the older girls went there once a week to assist Tante Miss
with the teaching. Under the benevolent patronage of the Duke
and Duchess, the Darmstadt school was off to a good start. On
the day of the inauguration they drove up in their horse-drawn
carriage in grand style and, seated in the front row of the great
crowd of spectators, graciously watched the ceremonies.
This was indeed the day of days for Max Merz. Triumphant,
with coattails flying, he supervised and conducted the whole
proceeding. He was reception committee, conductor of the choir
singers, and main speaker all rolled into one. He even com-
posed both the words and music for the pageant. It seemed to
be entirely his show. His frenzied activity aroused my risibility,
which gradually mounted to such a pitch that during the inaug-
ural address I was suddenly seized with a terrible fit of the
giggles. I stood directly behind him among all the other pupils,
who were dressed in purest white to form a striking background
for his slender figure attired in a dark frock coat.
When, inspired by the brilliant October sunshine and carried
112 DUNCAN DANCER
away by his own flamboyant oratory, he started to invoke his
Teutonic gods, I could no longer control myself. Neither ap-
parently could he, for without looking around he knew quite
well whence these hysterical giggles originated. And so in the
midst of his impassioned evocation of "Baldur! Oh, mighty sun
god! I implore thee cast thy golden rays upon our work!" he
suddenly stopped and startled not only me but the whole as-
sembly by shouting, "Oh, Irma, shut up l"
That effectively took care of me, but not the Grand Duke.
He pulled his silk handkerchief out of his pocket and blew
his nose vigorously while his shoulders shook with hidden
laughter .•.•
Following the official opening, the Elizabeth Duncan School
settled down to its regular daily routine of academic studies in
the morning and dance, music, or gymnastics in the afternoon.
Many new pupils were enrolled, on both a paying and a scholar-
ship basis.
In this school, once I had shown an aptitude for teaching, I
was formally entrusted with all the dance classes for children.
Thus, at the youthful age of fifteen, I became a full-fledged
teacher without pay. But what I gained was immense practical
experience (by developing my own method of teaching) in in-
structing others, not only in the fundamentals, but also in the
finer expressions of the true dance as taught to me by Isadora
Duncan. But I am getting ahead of my story.
Lesson in the Temple
I HAD not heard from Isadora for two years when, quite unex-
pectedly, she came to see us. This occurred in Dresden, where
we were attending a hygienic exhibition; and Isadora, on a
motor trip with Paris Singer, happened to be passing through.
When she arrived to have lunch with her sister, we hardly
recognized her. Her outward appearance had undergone a com-
plete transformation. Gone were the simple tunic and sandals
she always used to wear, as well as the flowing cape and skullcap
that were almost a trademark of hers. Instead, she appeared in
a very smart outfit that Paul Poiret, the famous French coutu-
rier, had designed especially for her in accordance with her
taste for simple lines. It was quite a departure for him, who had
just launched the eccentric fashion of the hobble skirt and cart-
wheel hat bedecked with ostrich plumes. And here we have
proof of how Isadora Duncan influenced modern dress reform,
for it was directly through Paul Poiret's designs copied from
her ideas that the simple line of today's clothes evolved.
"How the girls have grownl" she exclaimed when she saw
us. She held my hand in hers for a moment and regarded me
fondly and then said to her sister, "Be sure to bring this one
along when you visit me in July."
Back at school I lived as in a dream, counting the days from
then on till Tante Miss would get ready to leave. The middle
of July came and went, and still I had not received the impa-
tiently awaited sign from her. Had she forgotten? I was secretly
elated that Isadora had singled me out, and having missed her
for so long I was naturally eager to be with my idol again. But
113
114- DUNCAN DANCER
I also knew that Elizabeth suppressed favoritism, and judging
by her former actions I did not count much on my chances.
Then suddenly, late one afternoon, the governess came to
me, saying, "Can you get packed in five minutes? Miss Duncan
is going to take you along. But only if you hurry!"
I got downstairs with my hastily packed wicker suitcase just
as Tante Miss stepped into the waiting cab. I had no time to
say goodbye to the girls. My heart was beating fast with ex-
citement in my joy to be with Isadora again.
We arrived late at night in Ostend, and Isadora met us at
the station. At the hotel she softly opened the door to the room
where her two children were fast asleep with their English
nanny. "You go and sleep in that bed over there beside the
nurse, darling, and I'll see you in the morning. Goodnight!"
Getting into bed beside her sleeping children, I had the
sweet sensation of actually being one of her children too. With
this thought I went to sleep, feeling happier than I had for a
long time.
I awoke the next morning in a daze, not realizing immedi-
ately where I was. Bright sunlight filtered through the shutters,
and I could get a whiff of tangy salt air and hear the waves
thundering on the beach. Then I remembered we had come to
Ostend on the North Sea, and I jumped out of bed and stepped
onto the balcony to have a good look. My movements must have
awakened Deirdre, for when I returned she was sitting up in
bed. The last time I saw her she had been a mere infant. Now
five years old, she looked me over carefully before asking tim-
idly, "Who are you?"
"I am your new playmate," I said. "I hope we shall be
friends."
"Have you seen my little brother?" she asked and pulled
me over to his crib. "His name is Patrick and he is twelve
months old." The baby, who was the son of Paris Singer, had
blond curly hair. He looked very delicate and spent most of
the time sleeping.
Elizabeth Duncan's school, Darmstadt. Irma at left among her little
pupils; Elizabeth and Max Merz at right.
Deirdre and Irma aboard ship
to Egypt, 1912: snapshot by
Isadora Duncan.
Isadora with Deirdre and Patrick.
Lesson in the Temple 115
"It would be a good idea if you taught Deirdre a few exer-
cises," her mother told me one day. At that time I had never
taught anyone, and so Deirdre, Isadora's little daughter, be-
came my first pupil. She also suggested I teach her some simple
piece of poetry like William Blake's "Little Lamb, who made
thee? /Dost thou know who made thee,/Gave thee life, and
bade thee feed/By the stream and o'er the mead?" Whenever
her mother asked her to recite the poem, the poor child-
timid and confused-could remember only the first line. Her
mother would frown and scold, gently urging her to make
more of an effort. Being a sensitive child, Deirdre would blush,
hang her head, and start to cry.
To make her smile again, I dressed her in a pink candy-
striped dress with a red sash, gave her a red pail and shovel,
and took her down to the beach. There all the grownups sat in
tall wicker chairs, which sheltered them from the stiff breeze
that made the water too cold for bathing. The children, fully
dressed, built sand castles at their feet. The band played in the
pavilion on the boardwalk. And the fashionably dressed sum-
mer visitors-,-the women in hobble skirts with parasols, the men
in white flannel trousers and blue jackets-paraded up and
down. Few people ventured into the water. When they did, they
entered a bathhouse on wheels, where they donned bathing
suits that fully covered the body. Then a team of horses pulled
the bathhouse out to sea. I found it a frightening experience
and refused to do it more than once.
A most embarrassing thing happened to me at Ostend the
day we boarded Singer's yacht, the Lady Evelyn. We were
about to take a channel cruise. "If the weather is good," our
host had told us, "we'll sail tomorrow for the Isle of Wight
to see the regatta at Cowes."
There was a crew of fifty on the luxurious yacht, which had
a festive air with all its pennants whipping gaily in the wind.
She seemed to have more of them than any other boat lying
in the harbor, especially on the afterdeck.
116 DUNCAN DANCER
The instant I stepped aboard, Paris Singer came to me. "I
am so sorry this unfortunate thing has happened," he said.
"Please don't be too upset. It was an accident-it couldn't be
helped. You see, the handle of your suitcase broke when it was
carried across the gangplank, and it fell into the sea. The sailor
who was carrying the suitcase jumped in and fished it out. But
I'm afraid your clothes are ruined. I'm so sorry."
I gazed in horror at all my things hanging on a clothesline
on the afterdeck, whipping madly in the breeze. It wasn't so
much that they were wet as the dreadful fact that-since I had
packed my new red diary with them-they were all hopelessly
stained. Uncle Paris, as we children called him, gently placed
his arm about me when he saw my consternation. "I'm afraid
there isn't anything I can do," he said apologetically. "I wanted
to telegraph Liberty's in London to send down some new clothes
for you, but Elizabeth said not to do that. She said you could
make out all right with what you have."
That was typical of Tante Miss. I was not surprised. It did
not, however, increase my affection for her. On the entire cruise
I wore the same dress I had on when I came aboard, thanks to
her. Finally, when we reached Plymouth, Isadora took pity on
me. She bought me the few new things I desperately needed,
and everything took on a more cheerful aspect.
On that cruise we visited the Channel Islands and Mont-
Saint-Michel, then motored through a part of Devonshire where
Paris Singer had an estate near Paignton. All too soon the sum-
mer holiday was over. The trip had to be cut short because of
Patrick's illness. The baby contracted a fever, and his mother
was in a rush to get to her own doctor in Paris.
A week later I reluctantly had to say goodbye to Isadora.
She came to see us off at the Gare du Nord where we boarded
the train back to Germany. It was then she took me completely
by surprise by saying quite casually, "Goodbye, dear. I'll see
you next winter in Egypt."
EGYPT! I caught my breath. Had I heard correctly? I was
Lesson in the Temple 117
dying to ask Elizabeth a thousand questions but refrained out
of fear of how she might react. She was often so peculiar in my
regard that I thought it wiser to keep my fingers crossed just
in case and say nothing. From then on, the fall and winter
months seemed to drag along endlessly. Christmas came and
went without a word from Elizabeth about our coming trip.
And then one day right after the New Year, word got
around that she was getting ready to leave. I heard her hobble
down the stairs from her top-floor bedroom, and anxiously I
asked "Froecken," our Swedish governess, "Has Tante Miss
said anything about my going with her?"
"No, she hasn't. Are you ready to go?"
I assured her that this time I was fully prepared. My bag
was packed and all I needed was to hear my name called. At
that instant from down in the front hall I heard Elizabeth's
voice inquire impatiently, "Where is Irma? Why isn't she down
here? If she isn't ready I shall have to leave without her."
"I'm coming! I'm coming!" I shouted exuberantly and
flew downstairs.
"You lucky girl!" Theresa, my roommate, called after me.
"Give my love to Isadora, and don't forget to write!"
I had only time to wave to the other girls from the taxi that
waited at the side door. As usual, we were off in a rush. But I
thought of my schoolmates left behind in the winter snow when
the Simplon Express crossed the Alps into Italy, and how lucky
I was indeed. For at Trieste we were to meet our host, Paris
Singer, and the rest of the party that sailed with us to Alexandria
and the fabled land of the pharaohs.
Ancient Egypt has a fascination all its own. To a young girl
of my age, it was something straight out of the Arabian Nights.
As in the days of Cleopatra, we sailed leisurely up the legendary
river in comfortable houseboats. Arab servants in white caftan
and red fez waited on us, bowing down to the ground exclaiming,
"Allah be with you!"
During the day we watched mud huts and ruined temples
II8 DUNCAN DANCER
glide by. At night, when the stars shone so brightly they looked
like small moons, the air was filled with the curious native
chanting of the crew. Dark shadows danced to the rhythmic
beat of drums around a campfire. Most of our days under the
hot Egyptian sun were spent in sightseeing. On donkeys or
camels, our party often started out before sunrise to visit the
ancient temples buried in the desert; each one different, each
one remarkable.
In Egypt, everything I saw took on the aspect of a fata
morgana. Nothing seemed quite real. When, for example, after
hours of sightseeing, one is tired and longs for a cool drink and
a light collation-none of which can be obtained in the middle
of the Libyan desert-then, lo and behold, a camel caravan
appears like a mirage from out of nowhere. In a twinkling, like
rubbing Aladdin's lamp, the camel drivers unload chairs and
tables laden with sparkling cloths, and glass and silver are set up
in the shade of a colonnade. A succulent meal of cold chicken,
cold champagne, ripe dates, rae hat lukoum (a Turkish delight),
and Arabian coffee is served. After this repast fit for a pharaoh,
all is removed and the caravan, with the swinging gait peculiar
to camels, silently vanishes over the horizon.
One day, while visiting the Osiris temple near Abydos, I
had another eerie experience. The temple was then still half-
buried in sand, being explored by Professor Whittimore, the
famous archaeologist. I walked along a raised boulder to get a
better view of the desert and suddenly discovered that I was
walking along one of the stone beams that was part of the roof,
with a drop of fifty feet on either side. I cried out in alarm and
was about to turn around in a state of panic, when I heard a
quiet voice from way down below in the temple, saying, "Don't
turn! Keep steady; look straight ahead and walk to the end.
You can get off there."
It was Isadora's voice guiding me to safety as, dizzy from
the height, I tried to step forward as firmly as I could. I felt
like a tightrope walker in some kind of nightmare, scared to
Lesson in the Temple 119
death, never thinking I could make it. I did so, but only because
of Isadora.
The temple that was destined to have special significance for
me was called Kom Ombo. Between Luxor and Aswan, our most
southern stop before turning back, we passed through the
narrow gorge of Silsileh, reaching Kom Ombo after dark. A
full moon illuminated the temple, splendidly situated on a
bluff directly above the river. It stood so close to the river that
the propylaea had been washed away, but the building was pro-
tected by a high wall, and was the only ancient edifice erected
directly on the banks of the Nile. Its other peculiarity was that
it was dedicated to twin deities-Horus and Sobk-spirits of
good and evil.
After dinner that night, I leaned against the railing on deck
and gazed long and thoughtfully at the mysterious temple. All
life and purpose gone, for how long had it brooded there in
calm grandeur throughout the forgotten centuries? As I stood
gazing, the silence was suddenly broken by strains of soft music.
Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" came floating through the
warm air; perfect music for a perfect setting. As if the great
composer had written it especially for this scene, the beauty of
the music blended with the radiant night and the mysterious
temple bathed in white moonlight. Lost in my reverie, I was
startled when someone suddenly whispered in my ear, "Quickly,
come along with me."
I had not heard anyone approach. Elizabeth motioned me to
join her. She conducted me to her cabin while Hener Skene,
Isadora's pianist, continued to play on the grand piano that had
been especially installed on the open deck for this journey on
the Nile.
She asked if I had brought my dance tunic along. Then I
knew. The last thing I wanted to do was to dance for the com-
pany. As for dancing in front of Isadora, the very thought made
me tremble. She had not seen me dance for three years. In my
secret heart I did not wish to show her the result of three years
120 DUNCAN DANCER
of Body Culture a la Elizabeth Duncan. I dreaded the outcome;
and, hoping I would be let off, I said quite truthfully that I
had not brought my tunic.
"Well, that doesn't matter," Elizabeth said. She took her
silk nightgown off a hook. "Here, wear that," she said. When
she had arranged the gown to look like a short tunic, she said,
"There, that's not too bad. No one will notice. Isadora wants
you to dance."
Imagining that I would dance on the open deck, which was
luxuriously covered with deep-piled Oriental rugs, I asked,
"Is Mr. Skene going to play for me?"
Elizabeth shook her head. "No," she said, "Isadora wants
you to dance in the temple."
Quickly grasping at another excuse to get out of it, I asked,
"How can I dance barefoot in the temple when the floor is
covered with stone and rubble?"
"Wear your sandals. No, they make too much noise scraping
the stone floor; wear your sneakers."
Again I grasped at a straw and told her I hadn't a pair with
me, only to be disappointed when she said, "Here, take mine;
they'll do."
When she said, "All right, let's go," I cried in alarm,
holding back, "Oh, no! Tante Miss, I really cannot go!"
"Why not?" She gave me a sharp glance and clicked her
tongue, a trick that always irritated me.
"Because," I wailed unhappily, "I really don't know how
to dance any more-that's why!"
"Nonsense! Who ever heard of such a thing! Just do as I
tell you to and let's have no more fuss."
With these words she led me by the hand into the temple,
like a lamb to the sacrifice. The ancient shrine with its two altars
dedicated to the deities of good and evil, which only a moment
ago I had found so beautiful, now looked frightening. I was
forced to dance here against my will and better instinct by the
Lesson in the Temple 121
twin personalities who so far had shaped my life. What would
the outcome be?
"Ah, here she is," I heard Isadora say as I entered the
forecourt where the whole party sat on broken columns and
other bits of ruins strewn about. "Are you going to dance for
us, my dear?"
"I don't know what to dance," I murmured sullenly, "with-
out music and everything ...."
"On such a wonderful moonlight night," Isadora enthused,
"in this beautiful temple surely inspiration should not be lacking.
Dance anything you fancy, whatever comes to mind."
Only one thought came to my mind and that was to run
away as fast as I could. But my training as a Duncan pupil pre-
vailed, and I automatically reacted to the old belief that the
performance must go on. With a feeling of "Well, let's have
it over with as quickly as possible," I started to move as grace-
fully as I could without stumbling in my too large sneakers
over the broken masonry and rubble littering the floor. To
keep some kind of rhythm, I silently hummed a familiar waltz
melody to myself. To this unheard tune, I turned and swayed
and leaped around in front of my audience for a few seconds
in a perfunctory mood, simply to comply with Isadora's request
until my sense of the utter inadequacy of the whole performance
struck me dead in my tracks. That it must have seemed even
worse to Isadora I could guess without being told.
The instant I stopped, the immemorial silence my scraping
feet had disturbed settled once again over the ruined temple.
No one had moved or clapped their hands or made any com-
ment. Embarrassed, I sat there waiting for the verdict that
was inevitably to come from my idol.
Slowly rising from her seat, Isadora spoke in gentle tones,
but deliberately and distinctly:
"Have you noticed how entirely unrelated her dance move-
ments were to these extraordinary surroundings? She seemed
122 DUNCAN DANCER
to be completely unaware of them. What she just did consisted
of some pretty little dance gestures she has learned-very nice,
very light-hearted, but not in the slightest degree in harmony
with the almost awesome sense of mystery that pervades this
place and of which you are all, I am sure, deeply aware."
In the pause that followed I felt like sinking into the ground.
I realized how true her criticism was. But why did she have to
make it in front of all these people? My pride was hurt, and in
stupid, girlish fashion I resented this action, especially since I
had been made to dance against my better judgment. I was
about to get up and rush from the temple when Isadora re-
sumed her impromptu lecture.
"Any dance movement executed in a place like this"-and
she swept the vast enclosure with a majestic gesture of her right
arm-"must be in close rapport with the mystical vibrations
these temple ruins generate. Let me show you what I mean."
Adjusting her flowing white shawl, she strode across the
court and disappeared into the shadows in the background. The
members of our party regrouped themselves, seating them-
selves closer to watch what was going to happen. Among Isa-
dora's and Singer's guests were the French artist Grandjouan *
and the composer Dupin. There was also an elderly French
couple, the Count and Countess de Berault, whose given names
were Tristan and Isolde. All of them were great admirers of
Isadora's art.
Presently, as we peered into the background, we saw her
emerge from the deep shadows cast by a peristyle of such mas-
sive proportions that it dwarfed her white-clad figure. But as
soon as she started to move in and out of the tall lotus columns
she seemed to grow in stature. The long shadows cast by the
columns on the floor of the court formed a symmetrical pattern.
And each time she stepped in her state! y dance from the
* Grandjouan's sketches of Isadora were all made from life and give a
true impression of her movements-which is not the case with those artists
who depicted her from memory, in some instances even after her death.
Lesson in the Temple 123
shadows into the strip of bright moonlight in between, there
was a sudden flash created by her appearance. Alternating in
this manner the entire length of the colonnade, slowly in one
direction and faster coming back, she created a striking rhythm
of brilliant flashes, which in a strange way suggested the beat
of music. It was a piece of magic that held her onlookers
spellbound.
When Isadora returned to her friends, they voiced their
admiration. The French countess embraced her crying, "C'etait
magnifique, magnifique!"
Chatting animatedly about the phenomenon they had just
witnessed-one that only an artist of genius could produce-
the company slowly wended their way down the narrow path
to the houseboats below. I remained alone in the temple. I, her
pupil, had not seen Isadora dance for years. For me, this dem-
onstration of her great powers was like manna from heaven.
Once more I wished, as I did when I first saw her, that I could
dance like that. To my now more adult eyes, this was a revela-
tion of what the true art of the dance should be. I had been
taught a great lesson, one I would never forget, this moonlight
night in the temple of Kom Ombo.
You Must Be .My Children
MY holiday with Isadora in Egypt came to an end on my fif-
teenth birthday. The next day Elizabeth and I started on our
long trip back to Darmstadt. We would have continued on to
the Holy Land with the others had we not received an urgent
message from Max Merz to return immediately. He had ar-
ranged a command performance to be given for the Grand Duke
and Duchess of Weimar.
Coming from ancient Egypt, where I had danced like some
pagan priestess on the rough stones in a temple by the Nile, I
was now to dance on the polished parquet floor of an eighteenth-
century palace. We performed for the Duke and his court in a
lovely music room in the old Amalienpalast, illuminated by
hundreds of candles burning in golden chandeliers. Here we
went through the same dance exercises Elizabeth had taught us.
But the memory of Kom Ombo, still fresh in my mind, made
her unimaginative physical culture drill even harder to bear.
Oh, how I longed for just one more lesson from Isadora! Little
did I realize then how soon my ardent wish would be fulfilled.
Ever since her liaison with the man who could provide her
with luxury and every mundane distraction money could buy,
Isadora's career had been neglected. But suddenly, upon her
return from Egypt, she experienced an upsurge of her creative
impulse. She once said of her constant struggle between her
physical and her spiritual natures, "The woman in me and the
artist are always fighting for the upper hand. But the artist
always wins in the end."
She retired to her house in Neuilly and set herself to work
124
You Must Be My Children 125
with renewed vigor, composing a whole program of new dances.
She remarked at the time:
There was a time when I filled my copybooks with notes and
observations when I, myself, was filled with an apostolic senti-
ment for my art. When all kinds of naive audacities were mine.
In those times I wanted to reform human life in its smallest de-
tails of costume, morals or nourishment.
But ten years have passed since then and I have since had the
leisure to prove the vanity of my noble ambitions. I now occupy
myself entirely with the joys of my work and the preoccupation of
my art. One can speak better of the dance by dancing than by
the publication of commentaries and explanations. True art has
no need for them, it speaks for itself.*
Entering her beautiful three-story studio in Neuilly was
like entering a cathedral. The long blue drapes covering the
walls and hanging down from the ceiling in heavy folds sug-
gested a Gothic interior. The soft light filtering through ala-
baster lamps overhead lent a mystic atmosphere. An open stair-
way at one end led to her private apartment upstairs, which
was lavishly decorated by Paul Poiret. In this Parisian retreat
the American dancer lived and worked alone. Her two children,
with the nurse and servants, lived in a separate adjoining
dwelling.
She took her work very seriously. Like other great creative
artists, she craved solitude to work out her ideas. Nobody ever
watched her doing it. Aside from the indispensable musician
who acted as her accompanist and usually played in a corner
with his back to her, no one was present. Not even her pupils
were there unless she was choreographing special dances for
them. That was the only time I ever saw her at work creatively.
Otherwise, her studio was sacrosanct, and not even members of
her family could enter. "My dance is my religion," she had
often said; and she meant it. Of course, occasionally when she
*From a program note, Teatro Costanzi, Rome; cf. Art, p. I oo.
!26 DUNCAN DANCER
gave some of her gay parties in the studio, she would improvise
on the spur of the moment if her guests asked her to dance. But
then it would be something light and frivolous; never anything
senous.
Another detail connected with her method of work I want
to explain: she never practiced her dances before a mirror. She
used the large wall mirror hidden behind the curtains only to
check on her gymnastics and exercises at the barre, which she
vigorously engaged in every morning. But when it came to
dancing, she rejected this method of self-observation, claiming
it only interfered with her inner concentration and expression.
None of her pupils used a mirror in her work. Her credo when
it come to expressing music, as she often told her pupils, was
"to look within and dance in accordance with a music heard
inwardly."
She claimed that there were three kinds of dancers: first,
those who consider dancing as a sort of gymnastic drill, made up
of impersonal and graceful arabesques; second, those who, by
concentrating their minds, lead the body into the rhythm of a
desired emotion, expressing a remembered feeling or experience;
and finally, those who "convert the body into a luminous fluidity,
surrendering it to the inspiration of the soul." This last she saw
as the truly creative dancer.*
In the spring of r 9 I 3 Isadora asked her sister to bring the
older girls, her original pupils, to Paris to appear with her in
a series of performances at the Chatelet Theatre. The last time
we had entered her beautiful studio on the Rue Chauveau was
in I 909, as children. We now returned as young girls, eager to
resume our studies with the only person in the world who
could teach us to progress in our art.
Our happy anticipation was dashed to the ground the day
of our first lesson. It was only natural that Isadora (whose
brain-children we represented) should be disappointed with our
* CЈ. Art, pp. 5 r-sz.
You Must Be My Children 127
manner of dancing. Four years of regimented training under
the tutelage of her sister had left their mark on us.
"They are terrible, simply terrible! Impossible! Whatever
shall I do with them?" she wailed disconsolately, addressing
her pianist Hener Skene.
Her reaction, though not quite unexpected, was neverthe-
less a shock to her doting pupils, who stood there speechless
and with long faces, wishing they could crawl under a stone
and hide. Her words cut deep. "What has happened to them?
They dance without animation, stiff, without expression, with-
out inner feeling-like automations! "
With these words she pronounced her verdict on the Eliz-
abeth Duncan School of which we were only the pitiful products.
But we girls, or rather victims of Max Merz and his obsession
with his Korperkultur and racial hygiene, had to bear the brunt
of Isadora's condemnation in silence. We swallowed hard,
choked back our tears, and tried with all our might to do better,
hoping that under her inspired guidance we would soon re-
capture her spirit and come closer to her ideal.
Unfortunately, she turned out to be a very impatient teacher.
Her method consisted in demonstrating the sequence of a dance
perfectly executed by herself. Then, without demonstrating it
step by step, she expected her pupils to understand immediately
and repeat it. Impossible, of course. She danced the sequence
again and again without obtaining any result and then gave up in
disgust. When her pianist politely suggested she repeat the fast
dance movement at a slower tempo so we could get the steps,
she readily consented.
And then a curious thing happened. She floundered and
found herself incapable of demonstrating the movement step
by step. She looked surprised and then annoyed at several un-
successful attempts to come to grips with the situation. Wearily,
she leaned against the piano and said to Skene, "How perfectly
extraordinary! This is quite a revelation to me. I am apparently
unable to dissect my own dance in order to teach it to others. I
128 DUNCAN DANCER
had no idea how difficult this would be for me. I can dance my
own choreography, but am unable to analyse any part of it for
the benefit of others."
"That often happens to creative artists," Skene interposed.
"The methodical approach is not a basis for inspiration. Teaching
is an art in itself. Your own style of teaching is entirely by ex-
ample and inspiration. There is nothing wrong with this method,
only it is more difficult for the pupil, that's all."
Difficult was right. She continued to train us in this "catch
as catch can" fashion, repeating the dance movement until at
least one of us caught on. Then she would say, "You have got
the movement correctly. Now teach the others and I expect
everybody to have it right by tomorrow." And that was that.
Our dogged determination to master the advanced technique
she had developed over the past years, while we were deprived
of her teaching, paid off in the end. Seeing us work so hard
every day, eager to make up for so much time lost, she took
note of our progress and eventually devoted much of her time
to teaching us a whole series of new dances, most of them set to
the music of Schubert and Gluck. The audience, when they
watched us perform in the theatre and admired our dancing be-
cause it seemed so effortless and spontaneous, imagined that all
they needed was a few yards of chiffon and they could do the
same. They had not the slightest conception of the amount of
work and technique involved.
Finally came the day when we once more danced with Isa-
dora on the same Chatelet stage where we had last performed
together in 1909. The French writer Fernand Divoire, who first
coined the expression "Isadorable," wrote at the time:
Six slender young girls appeared on the scene attired in rose-
colored scarves and crowned with flowers. Bare-limbed and
light-footed they throw themselves joyfully into the dance. They
are the little Isadorables we used to see dance when they were
children. They are grown up now. Tall, supple and graceful,
they combine their erstwhile naive gaiety with all the charm of
You Must Be My Children 129
young girls. No painting of Botticelli or Angelico, no Greek
fresco depicting the vernal season expresses as much beauty,
chastity and artlessness as these youthful dancers.
Isadora dances with them and is part of them. And the de-
lighted audience applauds and applauds, freed of all everyday
worries and care, left with no other thoughts but those of grace
and youth eternal.
Such a performance rarely happens where, the orchestra gone,
the lights extinguished, the ushers waiting to close the doors, so
many of the audience remain to applaud frantically and acclaim
the artist they worship. They insist on recalling the Isadorable
one again and again, unable to part from her. After masses of
flowers have been presented she gives the enthusiastic audience
one last dance.
Joining hands with her six young girls they dance silently,
without music, around the flawers heaped in the center of the
stage--a ring around the roses-such as children play. This
charming improvisation as we watch it unfold is unforgettable.
Oh, garden of happy spirits!
Later that spring season we also danced with Isadora at the
Trocadero, taking part in her Orpheus program. I still recall
the thrill I experienced when she taught me the solo part in the
dance depicting the scene of the Happy Spirit, a part she had
always danced herself. To make matters even more exciting,
she gave me the tunic of pale blue Liberty silk that she herself
had always worn. I treasured it for many years.
During this particular period Isadora was at the zenith of
her career. At the age of thirty-five she had everything any
artist or young woman could wish: fame, success, money, two
lovely children, and a man who was not only devoted to her
but willing to put himself and his fortune to work for the cause
of her art. He planned to build a theatre of the dance in Paris
that would bear her name. It was to outshine the recently com-
pleted Theatre des Champs-Elysees, which in its exterior archi-
tectural decoration-as well as in its interior, painted frescos-
had been inspired by her dances. The two artists who executed
130 DUNCAN DANCER
the decorations, the sculptor Bourdelle and the painter Denis,
both admired Isadora's art profoundly and admitted to being
greatly influenced by her. Among the dance decorations done by
Maurice Denis is a gilded bas-relief panel on the mezzanine
floor representing the six girls who appeared with her at the
time.
The future seemed bright for me and my schoolmates, too.
Our dream had come true at last-to be studying once more
with Isadora. This had been our secret wish all along, while
marking time at the Darmstadt school. When all looked so
promising for the future that lovely month of April in Paris,
in that "garden of happy spirits" the poet spoke of, who could
have foreseen the unspeakable calamity hovering menacingly in
the background, ready to pounce on its innocent victims, destroy-
ing them in a flash, and with them, our innocent dreams.
The nineteenth of April, that tragic turning point in Isadora
Duncan's life, dawned wet and cold. We girls went as usual
from our pension around the corner from the Rue Chauveau for
our morning workout at the studio. A pleasant surprise awaited
us. We found Deirdre and her little brother Patrick there play-
ing games. They had come in that morning from Versailles,
where they had spent the winter months. At the age of three
Patrick could not yet talk except for a few words, but he under-
stood quite well when his nanny coaxed him to show us how his
mama bowed to the audience at the end of a performance.
Deirdre always acted bashful when asked to do something, but
not Patrick. Like a real actor he gave a cunning imitation of his
famous mother acknowledging the applause. As we laughed and
asked him to do it again, Isadora came in. She joined in the
laughter and told us that we would all have luncheon at an
Italian restaurant in town as the guests of Paris Singer. It was
the last time we would all be so happily together.
We girls returned to our pension after lunch for our daily
music lesson. Professor Edlinger, our teacher, had a nice bari-
tone voice and loved to sing entire scores of operas, doing all the
You Must Be My Children 131
parts. That particular afternoon, while the rain continued un-
abated, he chose the stirring music of Wagner's Die Walkiire
for our lesson. All devout music lovers, we could sit and listen
to him for hours.
While he sang Sigmund's impassioned "Winterstiirme
wichen dem W onnemond," I watched the heavy rainstorm
bending the budding trees outside on the lawn, tearing off the
tender green shoots and scattering them about in its fury. With
branches wildly waving, the trees seemed to be dancing gro-
tesquely to Wagner's music.
The room felt cold and damp. I shivered and drew my
woolen jacket closer about me. The hours passed. Twilight was
descending when we reached that state of repleteness which
beautiful music engenders and which is accompanied by a mild
state of drowsiness. Then suddenly, like one of the great com-
poser's own leitmotifs, we were all roused from our lethargy by
a frantic knocking at the front door. We heard a door slam and
rapid footsteps approached our room.
Temple's father appeared pale and haggard-looking like a
phantom in the twilight. In a frantic state, his clothes dripping
wet, he rushed to his daughter and held her tight. Frightened,
she cried out in alarm, "What is the matter, father, what has
happened?"
In a broken voice that sounded hollow in the gloom he
announced the dreadful news: "Isadora's children are dead."
After a night of terror in which I for one found little sleep,
we all welcomed the sight of Mary Sturges who came to see us
early the next morning. She described in detail the automobile
accident that had caused the drowning of the two dear little
children and their nurse in the river Seine. She told us to pack
our things, since we would leave for Darmstadt immediately.
But first we must say goodbye to Isadora.
The storm had passed during the night. Walking the short
distance to Isadora's house in the sunshine, listening to the
chirping of the birds, my mind was filled with the saddest
132 DUNCAN DANCER
thoughts. At sixteen one believes death happens only to older
people. It is quite incomprehensible to see innocent children
struck down. I was frightened at the thought of having to look
at them in death, while remembering their laughing faces of
the day before.
We entered by a side door. The house was shrouded in si-
lence, and only the blue alabaster lamps were lit, shedding an
eerie light over everything. With fear in my heart I entered the
downstairs library. There, on a couch covered by a black silk
shawl embroidered with many small flowers, reposed the lifeless
forms of the two children, lying close beside each other, their
blond heads touching. Deirdre had her right arm curved lov-
ingly about her baby brother as if to protect him even in sleep.
How often had I seen them together like this. I could not be-
lieve that they were dead despite the tall flickering tapers and
the flowers heaped all around them. Seeing them thus I was
more shocked than sad, and unable to shed tears. A black velvet
rope stretched across the room separating us from them, and we
stood there in silent contemplation for a few minutes. Then I
heard someone whisper, "Come along now, girls, and say good-
bye to Isadora."
We parted the long blue curtains and entered the vast stu-
dio. This was the moment I dreaded most. In the semidarkness
I could at first barely see her. Immobile, like a statue, her head
thrown back and eyes closed, she sat in an armchair. Tears
flowed down her face. Her usually smiling, engaging counte-
nance had, through unbearable grief, been distorted into a tor-
tured mask. The picture of martyrdom incarnate, she resembled
a Gothic saint carved in wood.
The moment we beheld her silent agony we all started to
cry. Standing close beside her, I could not control my wild
sobbing when she looked at me and, taking me into her arms,
held my head close to her breast. Through my sobs I heard her
say in a gentle, pitiful voice, "You must be rny children now."
I doubt if there are many women in the world, including
You Must Be My Children 133
myself, who would be capable of expressing so humane and
generous a thought at so tragic a moment. That she could find
no bitterness in her heart toward a fate that left her foster
children unharmed while these of her own flesh and blood lay
dead beside her proves the greatness of her soul. If all human
beings are ultimately judged by their acts on earth, I would
say this was Isadora Duncan's finest hour.
PART II. I9IJ-I92I
Dionysion
WouLD Isadora ever dance again? That was the question upper-
most in our minds. It did not seem likely. She once confessed
that in those dark moments she thought of committing suicide.
She left her house in Neuilly after the funeral, never to return.
In her subsequent restless wanderings through Greece and
Italy, all that summer, she found no peace. At the beginning of
September she settled for a long stay in Viareggio, where her
friend Eleonora Duse lived. Since Isadora did not have a tele-
phone, Duse would leave little penciled notes for her at the
hotel whenever she came to call and did not find her in.
These notes, written in French, expressed Duse's concern and
devotion for a friend and fellow artist she so greatly admired. La
Duse scrawled them in her large handwriting, three or four
words covering a whole page. The first note, dated September 13
(1913), was delivered by hand to the hotel where Isadora was
staying.
Chere-My heart has been awaiting you for a long time-
am here within two steps of you and shall come to you as soon as
you desire-yours with all my heart.
This morning at the Grand Hotel I left a letter and some
flowers for you. C here Isadora, des roses de la campagne, flowers
from my garden. Tell me that you are not too sad to be in a
hotel room. Dear, all day I hoped to be with you and tomorrow
morning early I shall come and fetch you. But forgive my not
coming this evening. It is raining too hard and I am not feeling
well. I embrace you and thank you, de tout ame, for having
137
DUNCAN DANCER
come and searched me out at this moment which is without life,
without art for you.
Dear, I have called four times today at the Grand Hotel to
see you. The last time they told me you had moved to the Regina.
I would like to see you this evening but a headache and the
thunderstorm prevented me from going out again. I hope the
sojourn at the seashore, so lonesome for you, will not be too
painful. Shelley will speak to you there. Dream, work, and be
valiant in your beautiful strength.
Of seeking out Eleonora Duse to comfort her in this tragic
moment of her life, Isadora has said, "If I had not been able to
bear the society of other people it was because they all played
the comedy of trying to cheer me with forgetfulness. But
Eleonora said: 'Tell me of your children' and she made me
repeat all their little sayings and ways."
In another note left at the hotel for her friend, Duse said:
Forgive my fatigue the other night. I could not speak to you,
my heart pains me when I see you suffer. Be of good cheer
tomorrow! I hope the view of the sea and the mountains will
bring you peace. My thoughts watch over you and wish you
courage, Chere loyale amie. To regain my own strength I must
rest a little while longer by my doctor's orders. But I shall see
you again soon and we will talk some more about the children-
and art.
Isadora loved the sea, having been born near the Pacific
Ocean, and she enjoyed swimming in salt water. She always
used to go bathing wearing a black one-piece suit. Those were
the days when women entered the water fully covered, even
with stockings and shoes. In her simple, sensible attire, then
considered outrageously scant, she naturally attracted much at-
tention. Besides, she was a celebrity who only recently made
tragic headlines the world over and photographers stuck to her
heels and pestered her no matter how much she tried to evade
them and other curiosity-seekers. When she complained of this
Dionysian 139
to Duse, the latter said, "You cannot escape the crowds, they
will always search you out."
Tired and annoyed by the curious throngs who trailed her
wherever she went, Isadora rented a villa with a high wall
around it, in a pine forest. Living there all alone, she had only
the presence of Duse to comfort her. That great Italian actress
was a devoted admirer of Isadora's art and encouraged her to
find solace in her work. As the foremost tragedienne of her day,
Eleonora Duse appreciated the noble sentiment of sorrow. They
always spoke French together. Duse would say, "N e perdez pas
la belle douleur."
She advised Isadora to incorporate this ennobling experience
into her art; to transfigure grief into a dance. And so Isadora
wrote to her musician Skene:
Life is nothing but chaos and terror; only music, beauty and
art exist. Everything else is but a confused dream.
Have you found a chorale or hymn by Bach or Palestrina on
which I could work? I completely despair of life ••• but per-
haps I could create something beautiful in movement grown in
the midst of a requiem which might comfort some people on
earth sad as myself. Please search for me.
In Cesar Franck's Redemption she found the inspiration to
translate her tragic experience into movement, guided by the
Biblical words, "Thou hast turned for me my mourning into
dancing."
Years later, after Isadora's death, I asked Mary Desti (who
had been with her that tragic day in I 9 I 3) whether Isadora had
actually danced at her children's funeral as some newspapers
reported at the time. She said, "No, Isadora never even entered
her studio where the funeral service was held. She only listened
to the music (played by the Paris Symphony Orchestra) below
while sitting upstairs in the narrow gallery fronting her private
apartment. But everybody watched her intently, and every time
she as much as raised her head or moved her arm-since all her
q.o DUNCAN DANCER
movements were beautiful-they thought she was dancing! Only
I could see that she was numb with grief."
Duse encouraged her with tender words to continue working
as a form of salvation. Living in enforced retirement herself for
lack of engagements, Eleonora knew from personal experience
how it felt to be deprived of the exercise of one's art. Watching
her dance one day and admiring Isadora's capacity to lose herself
in the expression of music, feeling envious not to be able to do
this herself, she told her friend:
"You, who can flee reality, chere genereuse! So courageous
in life and gentle and submissive before death, how I wish I too
could escape from reality! Without work, without risks life is
nothing-a dream empty of dreams. What joy to see you take
up anew the flight toward the light! May a beautiful dream of
art carry you far, far away from here. Man coeur et man iime
sont remplis de votre grandeur. For all the beauty I perceive in
you, I thank you."
A deep-seated restlessness embedded in her nature, aug-
mented by that constant torment gnawing at her vitals, impelled
Isadora to leave the villa and her work. She had a sudden desire
to go to Rome. St. Peter's with its great art works, the many
fountains, the ancient ruins, the tombs along the Appian Way,
all breathed eternal peace and calm. When Duse heard of this
plan, she wrote:
Dear Isadora,
Since we must say farewell, I beg you not to say it tonight
but rather tomorrow in the full light of day at noon. C here
Isadora, how sad to see you leave! But you must find your
wings again all by yourself, then you will re-enter a state of
grace which is your art, your strength, your nobility-for sorrow
is everywhere in this world .... My thoughts are with you, re-
cuperate, have a good rest, do not despair. Your benevolence and
all the illusions of your heart will never be lost.
Adieu, et au revoir.
Eleonora Duse
Dionysian J4.1
Isadora later confessed that when she was in the depths of
despair only the thought of her school, "my other child" as she
called it, saved her reason. A supernatural voice seemed to
whisper to her to continue to teach little children to dance in
beauty and according to the divine law.
Paris Singer, concerned for her welfare, did everything in
his power to help her regain an interest in her work. With this
aim in mind, he presented her, around Christmas time, with a
magnificent building of palatial proportions to house her new
school. He had bought the former Paillard Palace Hotel, com-
pletely furnished including silver, linen, and china. A fifteen-
minute drive from Paris, it was situated in the rural hamlet of
Bellevue-sur-Seine, close to the forests of Meudon and Saint-
Cloud. On a bluff directly above the river, where the Seine
makes a big loop, the sixty-two-room house had a magnificent
panorama of Paris in the distance and the Seine valley in the
foreground.
Soon Isadora was busy remodeling the house to suit her
purpose and preparing it for the influx of new pupils whom she
expected.
In the meantime, we girls in Darmstadt had no inkling of
these interesting developments. As usual, not a word concerning
Isadora reached our ears. Early in the summer Augustin Dun-
can paid the school a visit, bringing with him his second wife,
Margherita, and their little boy, Angus. As upon former occa-
sions "Uncle Gus," as we called him, soon had an artistic project
under way. In Grunewald he had taught us to recite and act
small parts of Shakespeare's plays, such as A Midsummer
Night's Dream. This time he wanted us to dance and mime the
opera Echo and Narcisse by Gluck. He always took a great in-
terest and an active part in furthering the artistic education of
his sister's pupils-the only one of her brothers to do so.
While we were on tour with our new show, Augustin wrote
to Isadora, who was then still living in Viareggio. In the hope
of arousing her interest in our activities and thus taking her mind
J4.2 DUNCAN DANCER
off her sorrow for a while, he wrote from Hamburg on October
18, 1913:
My dearest Isadora,
We have received some beautiful notices for "Echo and Nar-
cisse," that show an appreciation of what I have been trying to
realize. The lighting effects have been especially appreciated.
We opened in Darmstadt with very good results. The Grand
Duke and Prince Henry of Prussia attended with their wives.
We repeated it in Mainz and had much better music.
Now we are here for two evenings. The first performance is
bought out by the Lessing Society and the second is a public eve-
ning. It is being given in the new Opera House where they have
a very good orchestra and a director from the Stadt Theater in
Leipzig. This director is a famous man in Germany and is to
give a fifteen-minute conference to the press to prepare them.
We travel from here to Munich on November 4th, and are in
Stuttgart Nov. 5th. Can't you come and see us at one of these
places? We are to appear in Zurich on the 27th.
Margherita is corning on to see us at Stuttgart. The baby
[Angus J is splendid and runs about the place his nose scratched
up from tumbling. I do wish you would come either to Munich
or Stuttgart because we have a beautiful plan if you would like it
-without you it is unrealizable and must then remain a
dream ....
I will write again more fully, am hurried this morning. We
have just arrived here and there is a great deal to attend to. I
will send you some clippings. It is a great success and a great
advance and a tiny step forward towards your great idea.
Love from us all,
Gus
Our tour ended in Berlin. The recently opened Hotel Eden
on the Kurfuerstendamm then represented the height in luxuri-
ous accommodations. We spent several weeks there over the
Christmas and New Year's holidays. Gus, who was well aware
of our love for Isadora and our antipathy toward his older
Dionysion 143
sister, gave us the best Christmas present in the world when he
surprised us with the wonderful news that Isadora wanted us
six older girls and her niece to join her immediately in Paris,
where she had founded a new school.
We shouted for joy and could hardly restrain our happiness,
when the door opened and Tante Miss walked in, accompanied
by Max Merz. Our faces fell, and solemnity descended like a
pall over our exuberance. She showed us Isadora's telegram,
saying, "I have no objection to your going to my sister for a
while to help her get started with the school in France. After
all, the main thing is that she finds a renewed interest in life.
And we must do everything we can to help her."
Mr. Merz, who had been impatiently stalking up and down
the room, interrupted her. "This is absurd, Elizabeth, utterly
senseless. Why must we send all the girls at the same time?
Can't we simply send one or two, and keep the rest? You know
very well that we have a command performance to give for the
Crown Prince and his wife in Potsdam in a few weeks. And
what about our plans for appearing at the Salzburg festival this
summer? Have you thought of that?"
"Yes, Merzl, yes, they will be back for that," Elizabeth re-
assured him. She always called him "Merzl" when she wanted
to have her own way. Red in the face with fury, he stormed out
of the room shouting, "You don't know what you are doing!
This is ruin for us! "
He went out, slamming the door behind him, and that was
the last we girls saw of him for many years. He fully realized
that, given a choice, we older girls without exception would
prefer to remain with Isadora.
Elizabeth later came to Paris and tried to force us back for
the command performance and Salzburg festival-without suc-
cess, as far as I was concerned. I happened at the time to be ill
with influenza. She found me in bed with a nurse in attendance.
I had a high fever, but she imagined I was shamming and-dis-
regarding the nurse's shocked protest-yanked me bodily out of
DUNCAN DANCER
bed. In my weakened condition, I fell down in a dead faint at
her feet.
Isadora did not want us to go, and we, of course, resisted
with all our might. The two or three girls that Elizabeth cor-
ralled for the command performance for the German Crown
Prince insisted on coming back to Paris afterward. And that was
the end of our association with Tante Miss. She functioned on
her own from then on, with Max Merz beside her. For a few
years she was in America, but most of her time was spent in
Austria and Germany till her death in Stuttgart in 1948.
The night in January, 1914, when we arrived at the gates of
Isadora's school on top of a hill overlooking Paris, our jubilance
at being reunited with her cannot be imagined. In the train
coming from Berlin to Paris, we practically sang all the way.
And now, when we saw her again after her terrible tragedy,
waiting for her "other childrenn at the top of a flight of stairs,
we rushed up two steps at a time into her outstretched arms. I
felt I had come home at last.
Life took on a fresh meaning for all of us, working here
together in harmony in this "Temple of the Dance of the Fu-
ture" she had named Dionysian, after the ancient Greek god
of creation. Since Isadora did not teach beginners, the instruc-
tion of the new pupils (mostly French and Russian children)
devolved upon us older girls. She expressed herself most pleased
with the knowledge and confidence with which we passed on
her teachings.
Because she was expecting the birth of her third child (it
was to die a few hours after birth), she herself would teach the
older group while reclining on a couch, using only her hands
and arms. She had changed much in appearance. She had cut her
hair, and with this simple act set a fashion soon to be copied by
other dancers and women all over the world, chalking up an-
other reform to her credit.
Immersed in her work and surrounded by happy, laughing
children, she made a valiant effort to overcome the effects of
Dionysian 145
the recent tragedy whose memory haunted her day and night.
We six girls had nothing to offer her but our youthful enthu-
siasm for the dance, and our devotion. She said, "In the morn-
ing, when I entered the dancing room and they saw me, they
would shout, 'Good morning Isadora!' It sounded so joyful.
How could I be sad amongst them?" *
In April she sent Anna and me to Russia to choose some
Russian children for the school. Her brother and sister-in-law
accompanied us. And here I ran into an unexpected and curious
experience. One had to have a passport to visit Tsarist Russia.
The regulations demanded a baptismal certificate in order to
obtain a visa. This necessitated my going back to Hamburg, as
I had no documents with me and Mr. Merz refused to be co-
operative. When Margherita, who chaperoned me, discovered
by talking with mother that I had never been baptized, it did
not faze her in the least. I myself had been completely ignorant
of my heathen status all these years, and could not have been
more surprised. Fearing this would prevent my going to Russia,
I said to Margherita, "I am afraid we are out of luck and must
return to Paris. There is nothing we can do about this now."
"Oh yes there is," Margherita retorted firmly. "We are go-
ing to have you baptized right away!"
In her breezy American style that would not admit to being
thwarted in any undertaking, she picked up the phone and called
the nearest Protestant church to arrange an interview with the
pastor. The St. Petrikirche, consecrated in the twelfth century,
is the oldest church in Hamburg. The pastor received us kindly
in his study and, though sympathetic to our request, gravely re-
fused to baptize me in a hurry merely to let me get a Russian
visa. He insisted on a minimum three-week course of preparation
and instruction in the Lutheran faith.
We persuaded him that this was impossible. Margherita ex-
plained in English that it was now or never. I suppose it was to
save my soul that he then agreed to do it on the spot. While he
* Cf. Life, p. 302.
DUNCAN DANCER
retired to don his vestments, I entered the old church, where
someone began to light the candles by the altar. The very mo-
ment Pastor Poppe gave me the benediction, a ray of sunlight
pierced the beautiful stained-glass window and fell directly· on
my head as I was kneeling by the altar rail. I suddenly felt very
sanctified. I heard mother crying softly into her handkerchief,
and then the pastor solemnly shook hands with us as we de-
parted. Half-way up the aisle he called out, "Wait a minute!
Haven't you forgotten something?" And he waved the precious
baptismal certificate for which Margherita, who acted as my
godmother, had paid ten gold marks. We rushed to get it,
jumped into a taxi, and drove to the Russian consulate.
And here occurred the most ironic thing. When I handed in
my passport, the clerk stamped on the Russian visa without de-
manding to see my certificate of baptism! Annoyed at his dis-
interest after all I had gone through to get it, I asked him why.
He answered blandly, "Not necessary in your case. One can see
at a glance you belong to the Aryan race."
Margherita and I met Anna and Augustin in Berlin and
gaily continued on our mission to St. Petersburg. We stayed at
the new Hotel Astoria, opposite the grand St. Isaac cathedral.
Anna and I gave a small dance recital in the ballroom of that
hotel. I remember how terribly thrilled we were to have the
great Constantin Stanislawsky of the Moscow Art Theatre con-
sent to introduce us to the audience and give a lecture on Isa-
dora's art. At the end of our performance he personally pre-
sented each one of us with a lovely bouquet of :flowers. Im-
mensely proud and :flattered, we took a snapshot of each other
holding his :flowers and posing with them on the window sill of
our hotel room with the huge cathedral looming in the back-
ground. A nice souvenir of our only joint performance anywhere.
We remained in Russia for two months. Later, some of the
other girls and Hener Skene joined us so we could give a few
performances before returning to Paris with a group of newly
recruited pupils.
Dionysian
We all led a happy, wonderful life with Isadora in that
beautiful school. The fact that she treated us like adults and
allowed us each a room to ourselves started things off to our
entire satisfaction. She told us of her plan to build that theatre
of the dance and drama so long dreamed of, and how she in-
tended to make us members of a company patterned after the
Comedie Fran~aise. Our artistic future seemed assured. Isadora
too firmly believed that Dionysian had taken permanent roots
and that she would live there for the rest of her life, continuing
to do creative work. .
All these noble prospects came to an end when disaster
struck once more-this time on a gigantic scale. In August the
First World War set cannons to roaring over most of Europe,
and the millions of soldiers wounded in battle needed help.
Isadora gave her temple of the dance to the Red Cross for a
hospital. She and her pupils fled to America, via London and
Liverpool, where the streets were crowded with soldiers going
off to war singing, "It's a long way to Tipperary."
The wild excitement engendered by those stirring times,
added to the intriguing adventure of crossing the ocean to an-
other continent, prevented my realizing what sad consequences
the war would have for our school. In years to come, I have
often looked back with deep regret that Dionysian existed for
only seven short months. For it represented Isadora Duncan's
ideal school, the perfect center and environment-now lost to
posterity-for preserving the results of her work. And I regret
also that she did not make more of an effort to keep it function-
ing despite the world-wide catastrophe. For wars have come and
gone, and life is short, but art lives on forever.
Growing Up
WE reached New York on September 13, 1914, after an un-
eventful voyage on the Cunard liner Lapland. But the moment
we landed, all sorts of unforeseen and startling things happened
in quick succession.
As soon as the immigration officials discovered that Isadora
Duncan's school had arrived without the protection of a legal
guardian, they barred our entry. To the great consternation of
Mr. and Mrs. Augustin Duncan, who had safely brought us
through war-torn Europe to America, we were not permitted
to disembark, though their children were allowed to go ashore.
With Alicia Franck, the school secretary, and Miss Baker, our
English governess who volunteered to remain with us, we were
locked up in that ignoble detention pen called Ellis Island. For
this reason, my first impression of the United States was not a
favorable one.
We remained incarcerated under armed guards, like a bunch
of criminals, for two interminable weeks before the necessary
formalities could be straightened out. I used to gaze in amaze-
ment at the heroic Statue of Liberty standing in the harbor
nearby and wonder: Is this the land of the free?
New York at the time was in the grip of a formidable heat
wave. This circumstance contributed no little to our extreme
discomfort, for eighteen of us were crowded together in one
small room with bath, sleeping on the bare floor like animals,
without any covers or bedding. At that, we considered ourselves
lucky when a kind immigration commissioner by the name of
F. C. Howe placed his private quarters at our disposal, thus
148
Growing Up 149
eliminating our having to sleep in the barrack-style dormitories
with the rest of the unfortunate immigrants. We had also been
accorded the privilege of eating in the public restaurant instead
of having our meals at the community table, where fork and
knife were chained to the tin plate in front of each person.
On the day of our release, I learned what a condemned per-
son must feel when suddenly granted freedom. That first free
breath of air tastes like ambrosia. After that unpleasant experi-
ence, nothing seemed more wonderful than Ellsworth Ford's
house near the water in Rye, where we found a hearty welcome.
Under the giant elms and maples, late summer flowers still
bloomed in profusion. Mrs. Ford, whose husband had owned a
large hotel on Forty-second Street, was a lady of some literary
pretentions and loved to be in the company of writers and poets.
Through her we met the poets Witter Bynner and Percy Mac-
Kaye. And it was here that MacKaye wrote the following poem
about the young guests, refugees from war-torn Europe:
THE CHILD-DANCERS
A bomb has fallen over Notre Dame:
Germans have burned another Belgian town:
Russians quelled in the East: England in qualm:
I closed my eyes, and laid the paper down.
Grey ledge and moor-grass and pale bloom of light
By pale blue seas!
What laughter of a child world-sprite,
Sweet as the horns of lone October bees,
Shrills the faint shore with mellow, old delight?
vVhat elves are these
In smocks gray-blue as sea and ledge,
Dancing upon the silvered edge
Of darkness-each ecstatic one
Making a happy orison,
With shining limbs, to the low sunken sun?-
See: now they cease
DUNCAN DANCER
Like nesting birds from flight:
Demure and debonair
They troop beside their hostess' chair
To make their bedtime courtesies:
"Spokoinoi note hi! -Gute N achtf
Bon soir! Bon soir!-Good night!"
What far-gleaned lives are these
Linked in one holy family of art?-
Dreams: dreams once Christ and Plato dreamed:
How fair their happy shades depart!
Dear God! how simple it all seemed,
Till once again
Before my eyes the red type quivered: Slain:
Ten thousand of the enemy.
Then laughter! laughter from the ancient sea
Sang in the gloaming: Athens! Galilee!
And elfin voices called from the extinguished light:
"Spokoinoi notchi!-Gute Nacht!
Bon soir! Bon soir!-Good night!"
Isadora turned up unexpectedly in October. None of us had
been sure she would come to America. By that time we were
cozily and comfortably settled for the winter in an old brown-
stone house on Gramercy Park. We lived there under the benign
supervision of Margherita and Gus, with a Southern mammy in
the basement kitchen to serve up real American cooking. I had
a room of my own on the top floor; it looked out on the small
square called a park, to which we had a key though we never
used it.
The one thing that stands out in my memory is Miss B:1ker's
presenting me with a pink silk nightgown for my birthday. For
a strictly brought up European girl, this was a sure sign-like
the first kiss on the hand-that I had definitely grown up. I did
not wear it for a long time, but kept it wrapped in white tissue
paper, naively believing this to be the beginning of a hope chest.
Our days, as usual, started with early morning workouts
Growing Up
over on Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue, where Isadora
had fixed up a studio in an old loft. Mary Fanton Roberts, a
very good friend and editor of the art magazine The Touch-
stone, described it:
A great space, silent and high, separated from the world by
curtains of blue; soft lights streaming down rose scarves; back
in the shadows low couches in brilliant colors-this is the setting
for Isadora Duncan's school in the heart of New York.*
Into this setting one day marched the Mayor of New York,
to a meeting arranged by a group of writers including Mabel
Dodge, Walter Lippmann, John Collier, and others, who repre-
sented the Greenwich Village intelligentsia of that era. For
some reason, Isadora was in a bad mood that day and refused to
dance. She did, however, have the pupils parade in front of
Mayor John Purroy Mitchel in their school uniforms. As an
ardent advocate of dress reform, she tried to persuade the Mayor
to make our costume official for all the children in New York.
He gravely assured her he had no authority to enforce any
attire on the populace, healthy or otherwise. Yet what no edict
could enforce, the passing of time has successfully accomplished.
Mayor Mitchel would be surprised if he lived today to see the
many women and children on the sidewalks of his city clad in
simple, sleeveless sheaths and with bare feet in sandals!
On a rainy November afternoon at the Metropolitan Opera
House, Isadora's European school made its American debut.
Since this was her first public dance performance after the death
of her children, the program had a religious character. It opened
with a requiem march and her premiere presentation of Schu-
bert's "Ave Maria," the huge audience listening with profound
reverence. Her hold on the mind of her spectators had not
diminished with the years. Her older pupils did most of the
dancing. As Minna Lederman commented later in the Mail,
June 27, 1918:
*Art, p. 28.
DUNCAN DANCER
I see them now, circling on the immense stage, six girls, the
light falling yellow over their young heads and along their arms
so gently linked. Something idyllic, something innocent, tender,
something indefinably grave was the slow movement of these
young people together.
Under Isadora's guidance we made much progress that sea-
son. Early in the spring of the following year, she undertook a
very ambitious project. A New York financier and art patron,
Otto H. Kahn, made it possible for her to use the former Cen-
tury Theatre on Central Park West as an experimental Greek
theatre. "The Greek was essentially a democratic theatre," Isa-
dora once stated in a pamphlet she wrote on the subject.*
She removed the orchestra seats and covered the boxes
with long draperies to make the old-fashioned theatre conform
more closely to her ideal. Here she presented that spring season
several shows composed of "Drama, Music, and Dance."
For me personally, the outstanding event remains my taking
part in the speaking chorus of an English version of Euripides'
Iphigenia in Tauris, written especially by Witter Bynner for
Isadora's presentation. It was staged by Augustin Duncan, who
persuaded me, much against my will, to take part in the chorus.
The stage directions say: "The great bell rings. One by one the
Temple Maidens assemble." As the first chorister I had the
opening lines, and can still hear myself proclaiming:
0 ye who dwell upon these Clashing Rocks
That guard the Euxine Sea,
Keep silence now before Latona's Daughter,
Artemis, Goddess of the pointed hills!
The whole thing was to be a wonderful surprise for Isadora
-so Gus assured me when I voiced my qualms about accepting
the speaking part. "I am sure she won't like it," I kept repeat-
ing, while he kept insisting, "Nonsense, she will love it; you
are very good in the part."
* Cf. Art, p. 87.
Growing Up 153
And so I let myself be persuaded against my better judg-
ment. At the initial rehearsal, the curtain went up on the big
stage, where I suddenly stood revealed in solitary splendor high
on a scaffolding representing the "Clashing Rocks." I had no
sooner finished speaking when Isadora's voice rose in an angry
pitch from the front row of the orchestra: "Take her away!
Take her away! What is this, Gus? She can't do that; take her
away!"
At her unexpectedly vehement outburst, I fled from the
stage. Back in my dressing room I had an attack of hysterics.
No sooner had I vanished than both Gus and Mr. Bynner
rushed backstage. Both tried to console me and assuage my hurt
feelings by telling me how effective my recitation had been.
Bynner even threatened to withdraw his verse unless Isadora
permitted me to act.
"I told you, I told you," I repeated over and over again to
Gus, who had brought all this about. He urged me not to give
up. He said very earnestly, "Isadora is jealous. She thinks I am
trying to make an actress of you." I could not quite believe this.
But it must have been true, because a year later, when Attmore
Robinson-who owned the Philadelphia Opera House at that
time-sponsored my singing lessons with an Italian maestro and
offered me operatic parts a la Mary Garden, she reacted in ex-
actly the same way. She accused him of trying to alienate me
from her school and make an opera star of me-something I had
never considered seriously. As a matter of fact, I gave up my
singing studies altogether after that scene with Isadora.
But to return to the Century Theatre: the upshot of it all
was that she gave in and I continued to perform the speaking
part. As one of the four actresses (the others were Margherita
Sargent, Helen Freeman, and Sarah Whitman), I had to have
my name printed in the program. So far we all had performed
anonymously whenever we danced with Isadora. She herself
suggested that I use the name IRMA DuNCAN, and so it has
been ever since.
154 DUNCAN DANCER
Because we spent all our waking hours in the Century The-
atre for rehearsals and matinees and evening performances, Isa-
dora decided to give up the Gramercy House and have us
actually live there. The huge theatre had a complete set of
private rooms, including a library and a kitchen, on the mezza-
nine floor. A Greek chef was hired and everything seemed very
comfortable and most convenient. But there was one big flaw in
this ideal situation that no one had reckoned with: namely, the
Fire Department. One dark night after the show, when the
lights were doused and all of us were fast asleep, a whole
brigade of firemen forced their way in without warning and
rudely evicted us. The next day (April24, 1915) the New York
Tribune related this story in detail. Here are a few excerpts:
Twenty sleepy little girls, pupils of Isadora Duncan, the
dancer, were routed from their beds in the Century Theatre
last night and were forced to find sleeping quarters elsewhere.
Art and the Fire Department had clashed.
Shortly before midnight the youngsters were safely quartered
in the Hotel Empire, Broadway and Sixty-third Street. Miss
Duncan was at her apartment in the Hotel Majestic, Central
Park West, ill and suffering from the nervous strain attending
the ousting of her little dancers from their cots, and vowing she
would leave New York forever.
Yesterday afternoon, Commissioner Adamson declared that
the Century Theatre could not be used as a dormitory under the
law and that the girls quartered there would have to lay their
curly heads somewhere else than on cots in the theatre building.
The dancer was ill when the edict from Fire Headquarters
was brought to her by Frederick H. Toye, her manager. She
promptly gave way to her emotions. She refused to take the order
to quit the improvised dormitories seriously, however and at eight
o'clock last night, shortly before the curtain rose on "Oedipus
Rex," in which she and some of her older girls danced, the little
ones were tucked into their beds in the pressroom on the prom-
enade. Three hours later the nurses in charge awakened them
with orders to dress quickly. Sleepy, and not knowing where they
Growing Up 155
were going, they were bundled into taxicabs and taken to the
Hotel Empire to complete their night's rest.
Miss Duncan was beside herself with indignation. She could
not comprehend why she was forced to remove her girls from
the Century Theatre building which she said was as safe as any
hotel or apartment house in the city, merely because there was a
building law that forebade their sleeping there. Furthermore, she
said she would terminate her appearance in New York this eve-
ning. She declared she was being persecuted by the city officials.
Lieutenant Gallagher of the theatre inspection squad of the
Fire Department unearthed the violation of the law. Wednesday
afternoon Lieutenant Gallagher took a stroll along the second
floor promenade. He pushed open a door and found himself in a
room that bore evidences of being a dormitory, although a sign
above his head proclaimed it a library .... Right before Gal-
lagher's eyes were seven neatly covered beds in an orderly row,
with as many dressing-tables littered with the appurtenances of
feminine adornment.
On the lower floor he found nineteen cots in the pressroom.
The tearoom had been converted into a dining room and the
kitchen bore signs of being used not many hours since. The larder
and ice.:box were well stocked. Wishing to be sure of his grounds
before reporting to headquarters, Gallagher bode his time. He
waited till after the night performance.
Making his way along the darkened corridor, he approached
the room where the seven cots stood in a row. He stepped inside
and, hearing soft breathing, switched on the electric light. Seven
curly heads lay upon seven white pillows. Seven pairs of sandals
stood beside seven little beds, while from the wall hung seven
Greek togas. Here and there were seven times seven flimsy
articles of attire. \Vhen seven pairs of sleepy eyes opened and
gazed in astonishment and seven startled "Ah's!" escaped from
the awakened dancers, Lieutenant Gallagher blushed and fled in
confusion.
When our eight months' sojourn in the United States thus
came to a sudden dramatic end, Isadora decided to turn her back
on America and as one paper headlined it, "leave New York to
DUNCAN DANCER
Philistine Darkness! " She made good her threat; we sailed late
in May on the Dante Alighieri for Naples, Italy, hoping to
find a safe haven in one of the neutral countries. As ill luck
would have it, immediately after our arrival Italy entered the
war. So Isadora had to look elsewhere to shelter her school.
Her next choice was Greece, where her brother Raymond
lived close to nature, weaving cloth in the mountains. Wanting
no part of that, we put our collective foot down on the proposi-
tion. But it took a real mutiny on her pupils' part before she
would change her mind.
"Then where would you like to gor" she demanded, dis-
pleased with our insubordination, for Isadora always had her
own way. "To Switzerland!" was our answer.
For a year and four months, she settled her refugee school
in a pensionnat des jeunes fiZZes, first in Lausanne, later in Geneva.
In the latter establishment, called "Les Hirondelles" (all Swiss
pensionnats have floral or bird or insect nomenclature), Madame
Dourouze, the headmistress, had her hands full. When the
monthly check stopped coming in regularly, her sixteen new
pensionaires presented a real problem. Wartime communica-
tions, difficult at best, failed completely when the checks had to
come all the way from South America, where Isadora was on
tour. In the end, when her own resources failed to take care of
all of us, Madame Dourouze and others suggested we give a
benefit performance to make up the debt. I immediately agreed
to that plan enthusiastically. But some of the other girls had
grave doubts whether we could engage in a performance of that
sort without authorization. Anna especially had misgivings and
would not consent to the plan without consulting our friends,
among them the composer Ernest Bloch and his wife, who then
lived in Geneva.
But each and every one urged us to do it. In this way we
pupils of the Isadora Duncan School undertook our first inde-
pendent venture.
The successful outcome encouraged us to organize a tour
Growing Up 157
through Switzerland, which we did under the management of
Augustin Duncan, who had meanwhile been dispatched by Isa-
dora from Buenos Aires to rescue her school. She had given him
strict instructions to discourage us from returning to America,
as we all fervently desired to do. The ten younger pupils, when
funds ran low, were forced to go back home to their respective
parents. Thus only we six original Grunewald pupils (myself,
Anna, Erica, Lisa, Margot, and Theresa) remained. And noth-
ing, no edict from Isadora or anyone else, could turn us from
our firm determination to return to New York.
We arrived at that crucial moment in world history when
America was about to enter the war. New complications now
arose because of our German nationality. Isadora, who was
really delighted to see us again, said, ''I have decided to adopt
you girls legally as my daughters." And she added, "I should
have done this long ago."
However, because of the war, the necessary papers from
abroad could not be obtained. And so we only changed our
names to Duncan * as she suggested, legalizing this act in the
New York court. We also applied for American citizenship.
From this period dates the more intimate association I had
with the woman who was now my foster mother. A growing,
affectionate friendship would forge the already existing bond
between us into an even closer one. This opportunity to get to
know each other better arose after her break with Singer. His
financial assistance had ceased abruptly, leaving her short of
funds. Suddenly she found herself unable to keep up the style
she was accustomed to. Nor could she maintain a school for
grown-up girls. She gave up her elegant suite at the Ritz and
reluctantly moved to a cheaper hotel. The six of us found tem-
porary homes with relatives and friends.
"Irma, you come and live with me," she said. "We'll make
out somehow."
So I roomed with her at the Woolcott on the west side of
* My original name was Irma Dorette Henriette Erich-Grimme.
DUNCAN DANCER
town. We managed to share the same room for a while until
things became too cramped and, flinging economy to the winds,
she engaged a three-room suite. We now each enjoyed a room
and bath with a nice sitting room between. She had a knack for
transforming a banal hotel room with a few deft touches here
and there, using a Spanish shawl or an embroidered cloth to
hide some ugly piece of furniture; creating an attractive, per-
sonal atmosphere.
She always carried certain personal belongings with her on
her travels. There was, for instance, the handsome Tiffany
vanity set of vermeil silver and the tall fla~on of "Ambre An-
tique" by Coty-her favorite perfume. On the bedside table was
a photograph of Paris Singer and their little boy Patrick in a
red leather frame, beside a small cluster of books, her constant
traveling companions-The Bacclzae, Electra, The Trojan
Women, and other plays by Euripides. Also there was a slim
volume of Sappho's poems in a French translation and Gabriele
D' Annunzio's Contemplatione della Morte with the inscription,
"To the divine Isadora Duncan who dances along the lines of
immortality." On the writing desk was her red leather case con-
taining her personal note paper, a small bottle of black India
ink, and an ivory pen with a very broad nib. And, of course,
always the photograph albums of herself and her children,
bound in striped leather.
Living and sharing things together, as any mother and young
daughter would, I got to know her well. For the first time I
got acquainted with the human side of the great artist who had
always-from the beginning when I met her in that other hotel
room in far-away Hamburg-been my sole inspiration.
Being temporarily deprived of the services of a personal
maid, she was sitting on the bed sewing on a button when I
happened to come in one day. Seeing her occupied with such a
domestic chore gave me quite a start. It struck me for some
reason as being very funny, and I started to laugh. "Why do
you laugh?" she asked. "Do you think I am incapable of doing
Growing Up 159
this sort of thing? I want you to know that I can also bake a
very good peach pie. I bet that is more than you can do!"
She was right. We had been taught housekeeping at school,
but not cooking. Our hands had to be beautiful for dancing.
Since then, however, I have made up for that deficiency.
We also discovered we had much in common. "Have you
noticed that we both react to things in the same way?" she
would ask.
"I have noticed that we laugh at the same things, if this is
what you mean."
"Yes, but there is more to it than that. It is curious how one
often finds a closer relationship with people to whom one is not
related by flesh and blood."
"I once read a book by Goethe," I said, remembering my
literary class at Madame Dourouze's pensionnat, "in which he
expounds the same idea. It is called 'elective affinities.'"
She did not generally take life too seriously-only her art.
She had a nice sense of humor and liked to tell amusing anecdotes
that had happened to her. My own sense of humor is fairly acute
and I could not live for long with anybody who totally lacked it.
As for that anecdote which connects her name with George Ber-
nard Shaw, he himself admitted that the "dancer" in question
was not Isadora. The latter had no occasion to meet G. B.S. nor
did she correspond with him. Her letters and writings give ample
proof of her own native intelligence and wit.
That summer Isadora rented a small beach cottage on Long
Island. We girls, reunited once mo.re, had an apartment next
door. I remember coaxing her into a movie house one evening
when I discovered she had never seen a moving picture. "What,
me! Set foot in there?" she exclaimed, horrified, but went in
anyway. "How did you enjoy it?" I asked when it was over.
She laughed and said, "It was more fun than I imagined-but
what an awful picture 1"
Soon thereafter a movie company offered her a contract for
a dance film. They were willing to pay a high price for it, and
16o DUNCAN DANCER
though she needed the money badly she adamantly refused.
No one could persuade her to sell her art to the "flickers." In
those jumpy pictures she was afraid her art would appear like a
St. Vitus' dance. "I would rather not be remembered by poster-
ity like that," she said.
She had a great craving for speed and for being constantly
on the go. She liked to ride in her open touring car, a Packard
with chauffeur, en grande vitesse (in those days, forty-five
miles an hour was fast), over the narrow, dusty road all the way
out to Montauk Point and back. The fresh air soon aroused her
healthy appetite and she would say, "Let's stop at the Inn and
get a nice rare steak and a bottle of red wine-unless you would
rather have some steamed clams and Guinness stout."
Her enormous vitality and energetic stamina often left me
completely worn out. I weighed only a hundred pounds then
and did not feel very strong.
A continuous flow of visitors came to her beach cottage that
summer of 1917. There we met such avant-garde artists as
Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Edgard Varese, and the
Russian diplomats Count Florinsky and Baron U ngern-Sternberg.
A frequent visitor was Elsa Maxwell, who played tangos for us
that she had composed herself. The famous Belgian violinist
Eugene Y saye came, and Andres de Segurola of the Metropoli-
tan Opera, and of course always our old friend Arnold Genthe
with Stephan Bourgeois, in whose Fifth Avenue Gallery I saw
the first abstract sculpture. At about the same time we made
friends with Wienold Reiss, the painter of Blackfoot Indians,
in whose Greenwich Village studio we met such artists as Fritz
Kreisler. And then of course Olga and Hans von Kaltenborn
when the latter was still with the Brooklyn Eagle. Then there
were Stuart Benson, editor of Collier's, and his friend Bill Ham-
ilton. Later also our acquaintances included Max Eastman and
Eugen Boissevain, who eventually married Edna St. Vincent
Millay. It was a cross-section of the "people about town" during
the war years. Most of them were more or less contemporaries
Growing Up
of our foster mother. The marriageable men of our age-alas-
were all in uniform "over there," fighting in the muddy trenches
of the Argonne.
I suppose the most important factor in the process of growing
up is the age-old story of falling in love. The sheltered life we
girls had led so far, despite our many public appearances (and
this was during the innocent years when the word "sex" could
never be mentioned openly), prevented us from coming in con-
tact with young men of our own age. We did not attend social
affairs or organized dances as young people do nowadays. I
imagine our professional existence acted as a hindrance. Every-
where advertised as a highbrow concert attraction, we had little
opportunity to run into even that common garden variety called
a stage-door Johnny.
But never underestimate the power of love. Love always
finds a way. In my case, stringent wartime circumstances un-
fortunately imposed a long separation. In the end, it turned
out to have been an ill-starred romance, which caused me a great
deal of unhappiness.
In order to find a few moments of forgetfulness and dis-
traction at that time, I used to frequent a small nickelodeon at
the intersection of Broadway and Columbus A venue on the
west side, where I spent hours almost daily watching Lillian
Gish, Norma Talmadge, Theda Bara or Pauline Frederick
emote. And my favorite, the one I considered the most beau-
tiful of all (though not the moving picture) Priscilla Dean in
The Darling of Paris. Watching these stars of the silent pic-
tures, I became quite screen-struck and harbored a secret
ambition to become a moving picture actress. However, that
youthful ambition is buried with the past together with the
heartbreak of my young and romantic days. That nickelodeon
is no more. In its stead, like Phoenix rising from the ashes, on
that same spot there now stands the magnificent monument
dedicated to the performing arts-Lincoln Center.
Despite our close relationship Isadora knew nothing about
162 DUNCAN DANCER
this unhappy state of affairs that put a blight on my youth.
Though she and I talked freely on many subjects, I did not
care to discuss so private a matter concerning one's heart emo-
tions with anyone. I put on a brave front. Outwardly I main-
tained a cheerful attitude in the company of others and so suc-
cessfully learned to hide my tears.
This, I also learned, was one of the sad penalties for having
at last grown up.
Isadora Duncan Dancers
Bv the above title the Isadora sextette eventually emerged as
an independent group. Because of Isadora's constant opposition
to our ambitious aims, it proved not at all an easy matter to
accomplish. Our successful Swiss tour, where we appeared on
our own and gave ample proof of being able to support our-
selves, had encouraged us to continue in that path and had also
bolstered our youthful self-esteem. We had reached a point of
no return.
Much as we loved Isadora and venerated her as an artist
and teacher, knowing she would spare nothing to keep us well
and happy, we nevertheless ardently wished to be independent.
Not merely financially but also artistically independent. With
growing maturity, we came to realize that our franchise con-
stituted a vital development in our character as creative artists
and self-respecting human beings. A God-given right, so to
speak. This overwhelming motivating force in our new relation-
ship with Isadora, unfortunately, placed us in opposition to our
mentor. It unavoidably became a constant cause of friction and
contention between us which, with the passing of time, threat-
ened to come inevitably to a head-on collision of wills. For she
continued to treat us like children, subject to her every whim. I
found it irritating that she persisted in looking upon her grown-
up group of young girls as her "little pupils" from the Grune-
wald School, and not as individual artists developing to what-
ever degree each one could hope to reach. Whenever we aired
our opinions on this subject of greater freedom and independ-
ence, she invariably voiced her objection. She insisted we stay
163
DUNCAN DANCER
away from the city and urged us to continue our studies. "New
York is no place for young girls," she said.
The same old story of children rebelling against parental
authority repeated itself; the big city exerted a powerful fas-
cination and drew us like a magnet. In the fall, while Isadora
toured the West Coast, our wish was granted. Before leaving,
she rented a large studio on the top floor of the newly con-
structed Hotel des Artistes on the upper west side, just off
Central Park. Artists such as Alia Nazimova, James Mont-
gomery Flagg, and the eccentric Russian timpano player Sasha
Votichenko, also had studio apartments there. vVe got to know
them well.
Here I resumed teaching children's classes, with little Marta
Rousseau as my first American pupil. The idea of devoting my
entire time to teaching had no particular appeal to me then.
Most of the other girls were in complete accord. We confided
our discontent to dear old Uncle Gus, who as ever had our best
interest at heart. He warmly sympathized with our longing for
greater freedom of expression in the art for which we had been
trained since childhood. Our education as "dancers of the future"
needed to find fulfillment, even as Isadora promised years
ago. Now the time had come.
Without special authorization by his sister, Gus organized
some performances for us at the Booth Theatre, in the heart of
New York's theatrical district, under Charles Coburn's manage-
ment. When the news reached Isadora in California, she in-
stantly voiced her severe disapproval of Gus's action. This caused
a serious disagreement between them for a while. I believe it
left a wound that never quite healed on the part of Augustin
Duncan. She sent a terse wire saying: "I forbid it. The girls
are not yet ready for performances of their own in New York."
She chose to ignore completely the inescapable fact that her
pupils, ever since the early Grunewald days, were used to giving
public performances on their own. Had she forgotten the special
matinees at the Duke of York's Theatre in London in 1908?
Isadora Duncan Dancers
And, much more recently, the memorial performance she her-
self organized at the Trocadero in Paris before the outbreak
of the war, when she occupied the stage box and proudly
watched her pupils dance? Or the performances she permitted
us to give in Russia in the spring of that same year? Hardly
possible. Whatever her motives, the Booth Theatre engagement
came to an abrupt end, placing Gus in an awkward position for
having negotiated the whole thing with Coburn. And there was
our displeasure. If she did not consider us ready now at the
age of twenty, she probably never would, we told ourselves.
Her explanation always remained the same. She had "not trained
her pupils for the stage."
Fate often has a way of accomplishing what cannot other-
wise be changed. One need only cultivate enough patience. Dis-
illusioned with life in her native land, ever homesick for
France-though the war still raged there-Isadora decided at
the end of her California tour to return to Paris.
"I am going back to France, because I find conditions here
more than I can bear," she announced one day in February of
1918. "My struggles to establish a permanent school here have
been to no avail. I feel utterly disheartened and much too dis-
couraged to continue. Perhaps in France, where I have certain
properties left, I may be able to raise some money and return
in the fall."
Here it was again-that eternal question of finding the
money to finance the school. Why would she not let us support
ourselves? I began actually to resent my utter dependence on
her for sustenance and support. Her objection to our making our
own way and contributing to the school, rather than being a
burden, was incomprehensible to me. Feeling just as discouraged
on our own part, we queried, "What shall we do while you are
abroad?"
Her answer really floored us and left me dumbfounded.
She gave us a searching look and said nothing for a minute or
two. Then came the bombshell, as far as we girls were con-
166 DUNCAN DANCER
cerned. She announced in a serious tone, "I want you all to re-
turn to Elizabeth's school here in Tarrytown."
We were up in arms at once at the very thought of having
to come under Elizabeth's thumb again. We all refused, point
blank. "Oh, no! Isadora, not that!" we shouted angrily. "That
is impossible!"
"I for one won't do it!" I pronounced flatly, stamping my
foot. "You can bet on that! "
"Don't be impertinent! " she flashed back. "This is my
earnest wish, because I know you will be safe there until I
return."
We angrily argued back and forth, really frightened at the
thought of having to submit once more to the unreasonable dis-
cipline of Tante Miss, especially now when most of us had
come of age. The proposition seemed utterly preposterous. Re-
senting our foster mother's treachery-as we called it-we fu-
riously stomped out of her room. Our adamant refusal to obey
aroused her anger too, for her word had hitherto been law.
Our insubordination made her so furious that she left a few
weeks later for France without seeing us or saying goodbye. It
was most unusual for her generous, kindhearted nature.
Gus once again stepped into the breach. Finding ourselves
suddenly completely penniless and on our own, we listened
to his sage advice when he suggested that we find shelter at
Elizabeth's school for the present, just long enough for him
to get us another engagement.
"I know how you girls feel about Elizabeth. I have spoken
to her and she is quite agreeable to the idea that you merely
board with her as paying guests, not pupils."
That clinched the deal, and we moved to Tarrytown with-
out further protest. Hearing of our move, Isadora wrote to her
sister:
Dearest Elizabeth:
The first letter I received from any of you was Apn1 20th-
so you see I was more than two months without news. If the
Isadora Duncan Dancers
girls had only told me the last evening that they would go to
Tarrytown we could have enjoyed four weeks of pleasant work.
But human beings, contrary and cussed-and such a pity. It
would have been such a comfort to know.
Our citizenship papers had not yet become final and, theo-
retically at least, we could still be considered "enemy aliens."
Very conscious of this twilight-zone status as far as patriotic
sentiments were concerned, with the red-lettered headlines
screeching hatred for the enemy every day while General Foch
and his valiant army made a desperate stand on the Marne, our
utter surprise can be imagined at the news Gus brought to us.
"Guess where I have booked you," he asked with a twinkle
in his eye. "On a tour through the soldiers' camps!" And he
added, "With the full approval of the War Department Com-
mission on Training Camp Activities, of course."
In this way we were happy to be able to contribute our mite
to a patriotic cause and to do what we could through our art
to make the American doughboy happy. Camp Dix, Camp
Upton, and all the other camps had their first cultural enter-
tainment. I am afraid not many soldiers had a hankering for
this spiritual sort of uplift; for the halls were nearly always
half-empty. But we girls, on our way to becoming full-fledged
citizens, got a great kick out of it and a wonderful sense of
belonging.
We had engaged the well-known pianist George Copeland
to accompany us. Isadora Duncan was not at all aquainted with
George Copeland, nor had she ever heard him play. The only
thing she had heard about him was his reputation as the fore-
most interpeter of modern music, especially Debussy, in this
country. Under the erroneous impression that we too inter-
preted Dubussy's music and being ever so watchful of our artis-
tic presentation of her dance, she wrote to her pupils the
following epistle:
Please don't let anyone persuade you to try to dance to De-
bussy. It is only the music of the Senses and has no message to the
168 DUNCAN DANCER
Spirit. And then the gesture of Debussy is all inward- and has no
outward or upward. I want you to dance only that music which
goes from the soul in mounting circles. Why not study the Suite in
D of Bach? Do you remember my dancing it? Please also con-
tinue always your studies of the Beethoven Seventh and the Schu-
bert Seventh; and why not dance with Copeland the seven
minuets of Beethoven that we studied in Fourth Avenue? And
the Symphony in G of Mozart. There is a whole world of
Mozart that you might study.
Plunge your soul in divine unconscious Giving deep within it,
until it gives to your soul its Secret. That is how I have always
tried to express music. My soul should become one with it, and
the dance born from that embrace. Music has been in all my life
the great Inspiration and will be perhaps someday the Consola-
tion, for I have gone through such terrible years. No one has
understood since I lost Deirdre and Patrick how pain has caused
me at times to live in almost a delirium. In fact my poor brain has
more often been crazed than anyone can know. Sometimes quite
recently I feel as if I were awakening from a long fever. When
you think of these years, think of the Funeral March of Schubert,
the Ave Maria, the Redemption, and forget the times when my
poor distracted soul trying to escape from suffering may well have
given you all the appearance of madness.
I have reached such high peaks flooded with light, but my soul
has no strength to live there-and no one has realized the horrible
torture from which I have tried to escape. Some day if you under-
stand sorrow you will understand too all I have lived through,
and then you will only think of the light towards which I
have pointed and you will know the real Isadora is there. In the
meantime work and create Beauty and Harmony. The poor
world has need of it, and with your six spirits going with one will,
you can create a Beauty and Inspiration for a new Life.
I am so happy that you are working and that you love it.
Nourish your spirit from Plato and Dante, from Goethe and
Schiller, Shakespeare and Nietzsche (don't forget that the Birth
of Tragedy and the Spirit of Music are my Bible). With these
to guide you, and the greatest music, you may go far.
Isadora Duncan Dancers
Dear children, I take you in my arms. And here is a kiss for
Anna, and here one for Therese, and one for Irma, and here is a
kiss for Gretel (Margot) and one for little Erika-and a kiss
for you, dearest Lise!. Let us pray that this separation will only
bring us nearer and closer in a higher communion-and soon we
will all dance together Reigen.
All my love,
Isadora*
DuNCAN DANCERS oN THEIR OwN AT LAST read the head-
line of an article written by the distinguished music critic Pitts
Sanborn of the Globe. He went on to say:
It might seem incredible that one of the rarest and most en-
chanting events of all the musical year should be reserved for the
twenty-seventh day of June, but in time of war, at any rate, the
Isadora Duncan Dancers gave last evening an entertainment
truly exquisite in its charm and artistic quality. For the nonce let
comment stop with the general impression of a ravishing per-
formance-altogether a memorable evening.
And Sigmund Spaeth wrote for the Mail:
It may truthfully be claimed that no dancing in the world to-
day has more of truth and sincerity in its appeal than has the
dancing of these six adopted daughters of Isadora Duncan. When
people thronged about the stage of Carnegie Hall waving hats
and handkerchiefs with loud shouts from the gallery and no
inclination or any desire to go home, it was a spontaneous
demonstration of approval. There can be no doubt of the fitness
of the Duncan Dancers to carry on the unique art created by
Isadora Duncan. It makes little difference whether they appear
singly or in groups, always they impart the same involuntary
thrill that comes only when art is based on something very real.
Whether it is Anna's interpretive art, or the rhythmic certainty
of Theresa, or Lisa's airy leaps, or the dramatic eloquence of
Irma ..• there is always the effect of a youthful spontaneity,
*Isadora, by Allan Ross Macdougall, pp. 173-174.
170 DUNCAN DANCER
a direct challenge to everything that is artificial and insincere.
There are no cut and dried methods in this art and there is little
evidence of the stupendous technique that underlies it. A tech-
nique of which one becomes aware only in seeing the clumsy
efforts of untrained and uninitiated imitators. This individualizing
of the dancers is making them for the first time in their careers,
distinct artistic personalities.
I would like to stress here that his last remark proves what
Isadora years ago predicted and hoped would come to pass. Ob-
serving her apprentice pupils in Grunewald developing her new
idea of the dance, she said, "While forming part of a whole, they
will preserve a creative individuality."
We lived at the time in a large studio on the top floor of
the Carnegie Hall annex which we sublet from Alys Bently. To
have emerged finally from our chrysalis (from "a moving row
of shadow shapes in imitation of Isadora," as one severe critic
remarked of our previous joint appearances with her), and to
have, at long last, gained individual recognition, was a great
source of satisfaction to each one of us. Now that we were free
to dance to the music of our own choice (apart from the modern
composers), the music of Chopin especially afforded us a wider
scope for individual interpretations, some of them based on our
teacher's choreography, some on our own. For she had previ-
ously-on the advice of Hener Skene-encouraged her pupils
to compose their own dances.
I still recall the initial lesson in dance composition she
gave me privately and how miserably I erred in interpreting
the Brahms song she had chosen. It began "If I were a bird,"
so I flew about the room as if I were a bird. When I stopped,
I saw "that look" on Isadora's face. I was terrified. No, she
explained, the song did not say "I am a bird," it said "If I were
a bird." It meant, "I wish I could fly to you, but I am earth-
bound." From her couch, she demonstrated with beautiful ges-
tures how the dance should have been done. She had really
thought out the language of movement. There and then she
Isadora Duncan Dancers 171
taught me a valuable lesson, which I subsequently used as an
example whenever I tried my hand at choreography.
We six Duncan girls knew we had definitely "arrived" as
a distinct artistic ensemble when-the day after our successful
New York debut-a lady reporter asked for an interview. As
an outsider's point of view, it may be of some interest here to
show how each girl impressed her:
Modest and charming are these young women, ranging in age
from a little under to a little over twenty, with a pleasant affec-
tion for one another and single in their ambition to dance any-
where, everywhere, so long as they can appear uncompromisingly
as interpreters of music ..•.
They speak many languages. • . . Anna, the black-eyed, the
black-haired, is the leader in their lives as in their dancing. She is
practical, she always plans. She has a way of saying "We chil-
dren," and her voice carries great authority. And she is very
beautiful, beautifully made, with a most exquisite modeling of
chin and neck and shoulders. Though she is not tall there is
something heroic in her structure.
All of them are rather small, surprisingly fragile to see after
their dancing, which leaves the impression of long bodies. Lisa of
the famous leapings, and Margot, both unusually slender, are still
more delicate in repose than in motion ..•. Erica is the young-
est, a quiet dark-eyed child, who looks upon the world with great
solemnity and on rare occasion smiles.
Theresa is to my mind the loveliest of all-a simple maiden
with long, blond braids wound round her head. She is complete
in her response to music, and when she dances, her face, alight
with joy, gives me great pleasure. Waltzing, she is more than
anyone like Isadora, lost ecstatic, whirling through an immense
quiet ....
Irma is another very slight girl, perhaps the most distinctive
member of the group, in whose mocking grey-eyed face there is
mingled wisdom with a mischievous gaiety. She has an amusing
wit. She is gifted; the others speak of a singing voice which she,
however, has neglected. To see her dance is to have a feeling
that some day she may make of herself an actress. . . •
DUNCAN DANCER
When Isadora passes, nothing of her will remain but these
young girls. After her own dancing they are her greatest contri-
bution to art. They are the mould into which she has struggled
to pour her genius. . . . Through their magnificent bodies,
Isadora has projected a new ideal of woman's beauty .•.•
Today, Isadora, who assembled and brought them here, is far
from them. • . . And today they are making their first large
venture unguided by her. From under the protecting wing of
genius they emerge to test themselves, to feel their own weight
and the space about them.
Though they are the offerings of Isadora's spirit, each one be-
gins now to measure her lot and her fame alone.
One engagement led to another and eventually to a trans-
continental tour. We also did our bit for various war charities.
The major event of this kind was an open-air recital with the
Barrere Orchestra for Italian war relief that was staged at
Kenilworth, the George Pratt estate in Glen Cove on Long
Island Sound. Mr. Pratt, an amateur color photographer, took
many pictures of us the week end we stayed with him and his
wife. He posed us in graceful attitudes holding aloft garlands
of roses or standing among the tall Madonna lilies and among
the blue iris reflected in the limpid pool of the sunken garden
where we danced.
Even while dancing for Allied war relief, I could never
quite forget the "other side." In my mind's eye I saw mother
living in Germany, now an enemy country and my homeland
no more. With a heavy heart, I wondered what her fate might
be, for I had not heard from her since America entered the fray.
I worried a great deal over her. And then one glorious morning
I awoke to the ringing of bells and blowing of whistles. The
shrieks of sirens brought me rushing to the window. There, in
the street, was the strangest sight. Grown-up people holding
hands like children and dancing for joy down the avenue! Then
I knew. The war was over, the armistice had been signed. Over-
Isadora Duncan Dancers 173
come with long-pent-up emotion and utter relief that the hor-
rible, bloody nightmare was terminated, I sank down on my
bed and cried, thanking God for PEACE. That same day, the
eleventh of November, I wrote two letters; one to my German
mother, the other to my dear foster mother. Weeks later I
received answers from both. Mother had survived the holocaust
but was very ill. I sent her money and food packages, doing
what I could from that distance to help. Isadora wrote from
the Riviera Palace Hotel in Nice:
Dearest Irma,
If you knew how happy it makes me to receive letters from
you, you would all write oftener. Now you must admit I am a
good prophet-since the beginning I predicted the Republic of
Germany. What good news! And think how wonderful, for you
all can now hope to dance the Marche Lorraine at Munich!
I started bravely to make a tour of the French provinces but
after three evenings was stopped by the Grippe closing all the
theatres so have come back to Nice where, as usual, am living on
Hopes.
I think now, if you wish it, I can arrange for you all to join
me very soon. Passports etc., will be simplified.
I have given up writing to Elizabeth and Augustin as they
never answered even once-it is true many letters are lost. Tell
me your plans, how far is your tour booked and what prospects,
and send me your programmes. Everything you are doing in-
terests me. I have the promise of a beautiful large hall to work in
here. Perhaps you would all like to come in the spring1 But tell
me frankly your ideas and wishes.
It is a beautiful morning the sun is sparkling on the sea and
warm. I take long walks by the sea and my heart goes over to
you. Do write me news of all our friends. • . .
If you were here we would study the 9th Symphony [of
Beethoven] to celebrate the Peace. Here is a kiss of Peace and
Hope for each of you.
With all my love-
Isadora
DUNCAN DANCER
Our reunion had to be postponed for more than a year. We
girls had contracts for a second tour. During the season of I 9 19-
1920 our tour brought us all the way across the country to
California, Isadora's birthplace. She had been born in San Fran-
cisco, and that lovely city exerted a special appeal for her pupils.
We tried to dance our very best at our first matinee at the Col-
umbia Theatre to make her fellow Californians proud of us. We
must have succeeded, for Redfern Mason of the San Francisco
Examiner wrote:
One goes to see these six girls in a mood that has a note of
reverence in it. During the trials of the war they have not yielded
to the voice of those who would commercialize their art. They
have closed their ears to the gilded seduction of vaudeville. Their
ideal has remained inviolate and uncheapened. . . .
Gluck, Chopin and Schubert; that is the lyre of three chords
from which they drew their inspiration .... The Chopin group
brought out the personality of each individual dancer. Anna
danced a mazurka and a valse. Irma gave us the "Minute Valse."
In another life I think she danced at the Feast of Reason during
the French Revolution. She has the tenseness and clean-cut emo-
tional suggestiveness of Yvette Guilbert.
Lisa of the golden locks is kin to Undine of romantic legend.
In the Schubert dances we saw the other girls. Nothing is more
beautiful than are those Schubert waltzes with their old-time
memories and their sentiment of "Heimweh." The girls put their
hearts into the dancing and the house simmered with content-
ment.
In the audience was Mrs. Duncan, the mother and first teacher
of Isadora, happy to see her daughter's art pulsating and young
in another generation. It is wonderful to have revitalized an art
and that is what Isadora and her disciples have done .••. To-
day the Isadora Duncan girls dance in Oakland, next Sunday
they will again be seen at the Columbia. Not to see them is a mis-
fortune; carelessly to miss them would be a crime.
We had not seen Isadora's mother since we were children
in Grunewald. She used to sit on the garden steps in the pale
Isadora Duncan Dancers 175
northern sun and tell us about her home-California; of the
abundance of flowers and fruit growing there, and the glorious
hot sun shining every day, and of her longing to go back. "Some
day you will go there and love it too," she said. Her prediction
had now come true. She seemed happy to see us. A very ancient
lady then, she nevertheless accepted with pleasure when we in-
vited her and her Norwegian companion (who in the old Grune-
wald days had been our governess for a while) to spend the
two weeks of Christmas with us at the St. Francis Hotel.
We received a hearty welcome everywhere in the larger
towns of California. The only prudish place was Santa Barbara,
where the mayor refused us permission to dance with bare legs.
When I think of the bikini suits currently en vogue there, I feel
quite proud of having been a martyr for the adoption of a more
enlightened attitude by the present generation. Not only that,
but considering that we encountered nowhere a real dance
audience such as exists nowadays, we Duncan girls can be proud
also of having contributed our share toward bringing about a
greater appreciation of that art in this country.
I am not able to recall the many details of our grand tour
through the States. I kept a little diary at the time, and a few
pages from it may give a better idea of what was involved in
such one-night stands as it mostly turned out to be. Our return
trip started with the end of the holiday season.
Saturday, Jan. 3, I920.
Goodbye California! We are taking 6 o'clock train to Colorado
Springs.
Tuesday, Jan. 6.
Arrived 1 :30 Colorado Springs. Antlers Hotel. A health resort
kind of a place. Surprise! Wienold Reiss showed up, he is on his
way to paint Blackfoot Indians in Montana. In the evening saw
a vaudeville show at the Burns Theatre.
Wednesday, Jan. 7·
A nice day. Took a motor drive out to the Garden of the Gods,
huge, red water-washed rocks in various shapes of corrosion. 8:30
DUNCAN DANCER
performance at the Burns Theatre. A very small but select
audience.
Thursday, fan. 8.
A magnificent day, snow on the mountains and sunshine. Took
a train to Denver and arrived at 5 o'clock. Brown Palace Hotel.
A horrible place. 8:30 performance at the Auditorium with an
enormous stage and a correspondingly large audience. Had sup-
per afterwards at the hotel with Judge Lindsey and his wife.
The Judge, of course, was Ben B. Lindsey of the Juvenile
Court, whose ideas about "companionate marriage" caused some-
thing of a national sensation when he published them in book
form several years later. Our Denver performance seemed to
impress him, as it did at least some others of the audience. But
we were working against a real handicap. The Denver Times
reported the circumstances the next day:
Those who did not attend the performance of the Isadora
Duncan dancers and George Copeland, pianist, last night at the
Auditorium missed a rare combination of the terpsichorean art
with that of the musician and deprived themselves of a share in
one of the most restful, refreshing evenings that has been offered
Denver concertgoers this season. The Lions Club of Denver
sponsored the event. . • •
The huge stage was so effectively draped and curtained that
it gave the impression of unlimited space, and the slender figures
stole from its recesses like nymphs slipping thru wondrous woods.
So carefully are the dances and the music blended that the
portrayal of emotion is absolute and distinctive. One of the most
effective was the "March Funebre," by Chopin, in which five of
the graceful figures draped in purple robes glide forth in slow,
steady rhythm truly typifying a funeral cortege, while one of the
figures in a filmy shroud portrays the dead for whom they mourn
and the resurrection. . . •
Unfortunately the Auditorium grew so cold during the per-
formance that it was impossible to sit thru the entire program with
any degree of comfort and many left before the end for that
reason. One shivered in sympathy for the bare-footed dancers in
their filmy attire.
Isadora Duncan Dancers
Friday, Jan. 9·
Judge Lindsey invited us to visit his court this morning. Only
Theresa, Margot, and I went. He is presiding over the "Stokes
Case." Mrs. Stokes is suing for the custody of her children and
she will get custody too if Judge Lindsey wins out. After lunch
listened to more Juvenile cases of boys and girls in trouble with
the law. Very, very interesting. It gives one a different slant on
life. Had dinner with the Judge and his lovely wife.
Saturday, Jan. IO.
The Lindseys invited us to see Trixie Friganza in "Oh Mama!"
We met her backstage. She is amusing off as on stage.
Sunday, Jan. II.
The Judge and his wife called on us this morning and drove us
up through the mountains covered with snow for a wonderful
view down on Denver. We all lunched together at our hotel.
Leaving at 8 o'clock for Kansas City.
Tuesday, Jan. IJ.
Kansas City is a big, sooty town. Had a 3 o'clock matinee at the
Schubert Theatre. A lovely audience, very appreciative but we
had to rush our performance on account of the Sothern-Marlowe
show that followed immediately.
Wednesday, Jan. I4.
In St. Joseph. All hotels overcrowded because of convention. Had
to stop at a second rate Station Hotel. 8:30 performance on a
rotten stage. No more St. Joe for mel Tomorrow we dance in
Topeka.
Friday, Jan. I6.
Arrived late in Newton and on account of a train wreck had to
motor over to Hutchinson. 8:30 performance at Convention Hall
with a fine, big stage but a very noisy audience. Dogs barking,
children screaming, first George made a speech asking them to
be quiet and then Anna did the same.
Saturday, Jan. I7.
Leaving for Wichita on the Interurban. Catastrophe! Found
there was a strike on and our stagehands are not allowed to
work. The Theatre manager himself and several other gentle-
DUNCAN DANCER
men volunteered to help set the stage (lay the carpet, hang the
curtains, set the lights, move the piano) and work during the
performance at Forum Hall. For some reason the lights worked
only on one side the other pitch darkness but we didn't care the
audience was large and most enthusia!'tic.
Sunday, Jan. z8.
We spent all day in a day coach on the Santa Fe which is in-
variably late and uncomfortable. Arrived after midnight in Okla-
homa City. Hotels had no vacancies-drat those conventions--
and so we were forced to spend the night in what looked suspi-
ciously like a disreputable house, dirty as Hell.
Monday, Jan. I9.
A perfectly glorious day, warm and sunny spring-like weather.
We decided to enjoy it and rented an open car for an hour's drive
to get some fresh air in our lungs after those long train rides and
soak up the sunshine. Evening performance at Overhulser (what
a name! ) Opera House and leaving immediately afterwards for
Tulsa, another big "oil town."
One had to be very young and healthy for that kind of a
life. The dancing was always a pleasure but oh, those train
rides! And the incessant packing and unpacking, since we had
no maid and had to do everything ourselves. We always envied
George Copeland, whose traveling companion acted as his valet.
He went through none of the frenzy of having to change cos-
tumes while performing. He always appeared cool and col1ected.
His favorite pastime during the interminable train rides con-
sisted in a game of cards; he was also a collector of fine antique
jewelry. In the end, he came out far ahead of us girls financially.
We had to pay not only our own traveling expenses but his
and those of a stage crew of three men. We carted our own
decor with us everywhere.
From Tulsa we proceeded to St. Louis, and from there to
Ohio, via Hamilton, making large jumps through the Middle
\Vest. When we arrived in Detroit on January 27, we discovered
to our great annoyance that we had a whole long week to wait
Isadora Duncan Dancers •79
before our performance there. A full week's delay meant more
expense, and it also increased our impatience to return home
as soon as possible.
Wienold Reiss had been commissioned by Otto Baumgarten,
the owner of the new Crillon Restaurant on East Fifty-~hird
Street in New York, to paint our individual portraits. On his
way north, he told us that they had been installed in the blue
and gray "Duncan Room" at the fashionable restaurant. We
were dying to see this, for fame seemed to have caught up
with us.
Wednesday, fan. 29.
Snow and very cold here in Detroit and found an influenza epi-
demic raging. Oh, how I long for sunny California! We shall
have to stay at the Tuller Hotel for a week, with nothing to do
but go to the movies. They are showing Theda Bara in "The
Blue Flame" and "Don't Change Your Husband" with Gloria
Swanson and my favorite-Tom Meighan.
Tuesday, Feb. 3·
Evening performance at the Powers Theatre in Grand Rapids.
A sold-out house! Erica became suddenly very sick; we called
doctor and he says she has to have her appendix out at once!
Erica went to the hospital alone, for the rest of us had to leave
for Toledo. Poor Erica!
Wednesday, Feb. 4·
Toledo. We received a wire from Erica's doctor. The operation
was successful and she is O.K. Gave a performance at Coliseum
Hall. It is freezingly cold here and for that reason had not a big
audience.
Thursday, Feb. 5·
In Cleveland at the Hotel Statler. Danced to a sold-out house at
the new Masonic Temple with a nice ample stage but, alas, poor
lighting. Many of the music critics here are Copeland's friends.
Saturday, Feb. 7·
The critics wrote only about George; didn't mention us girls at
all. Heard from Erica. She is quite out of danger and sitting up
ISO DUNCAN DANCER
in a chair already. I see in the papers that they are having terrible
blizzards in New York. Am not too anxious now to return would
much rather go back to California. Depart for Utica on Sunday.
Monday, Feb. 9·
Encountered a heavy snowstorm in Utica. Tonight we are giv-
ing our 62nd performance on this trip. Full house and a nice
audience. Left for home.
Tuesday, Feb. 10.
We arrived an hour late at Grand Central Station. Back at last!
Nearly all our friends there to greet us. Gus and Margherita,
Stephan, Bill, Arnold, Stuart etc. We all had dinner together in
the famous "Duncan Room" at the Crillon. Otto Baumgarten
gave us a fine dinner with wine and liqueurs. Grossing seventy-
five thousand dollars on this tour we only deposited twelve thou-
sand to our credit at the Guaranty Trust.
We rented a small furnished apartment on West Fifty-
eighth Street near the Plaza. Our former English teacher from
Geneva, Miss Annie von Stockhausen, acted as chaperone. Here
we often entertained our various friends for tea, cocktail parties
being unknown in those days. We were celebrities in our own
right and attracted much attention wherever we went as a
group. The fashionable, glossy magazines frequently repro-
duced our photographs, most of them by Arnold Genthe. Like
other attractive young women in the limelight, we too had a
number of admirers; some with serious intentions, others not.
Of the latter species Isadora, who always acted much as any
bourgeois mother toward her adopted daughters, would warn
us by saying, "They are men who only care to profit by your
youth and give you nothing in return. It sickens me when I think
of it and raises my indignation."
However, none of us had any immediate plans for mar-
riage. Too immersed in our burgeoning careers, anxious to
build a little financial security for ourselves, we were quite con-
tent to turn all our efforts in that direction. Everybody made
Isadora Duncan Dancers 181
much of us on our return from a successful tour. For a while
we led a gay social life, as can be seen from my diary notes:
Feb. I2.
We had tea at Stuart Benson's place. Johnny Aubert [Erica's
beau from Geneva] is in town. He has already given several
piano recitals. We shall hear him on Saturday.
Feb. I4·
Went over to Brooklyn to hear Johnny Aubert with the Sym-
phony Orchestra, Stransky conducting. A concerto by Grieg. He
seems to have put on some weight but otherwise looks the same.
He is a good musician and very charming young man, I like him.
He is going to dine with us on Thursday, the day Erica returns
from Grand Rapids.
Sunday, Feb. IS.
The other girls have all gone to Tenafly for a visit with the
Rousseaus and their two little children Marta and Theodore Jr.
I have the blues and remained at home. Freddo Sides who works
for Alavoine's called and invited me to luncheon. We talked
about Isadora, he admires her tremendously. Likes my dancing
too.
Feb. q.
Expected ] ohnny for tea but he never showed up. W.R. came
instead. Freddo sent me two seats for the Opera to see the Sak-
haroffs dance. They used an exact copy of our stage setting.
Their dance had no continuity of movement-nothing but poses.
Feb. 25.
We all had dinner at Albert Rothbart's. He engaged an Egyp-
tian necromancer to amuse us with tricks evoking spirits, etc.
Quite funny.
Feb. 26.
I received a lot of flowers for my birthday. Miss Annie served
tea. Arnold presented me with a new dance photo of myself.
Feb. 28.
Gave a children's matinee at 10:30 A.M. over in New Jersey at
the Lyceum Theatre with Beryl Rubenstein at the piano. Miss
DUNCAN DANCER
N., the manager, a beast of a woman, spoiled the whole show by
insisting on interrupting our dances in order to explain things to
the children. When Anna objected she insulted her in front of
the audience. Oh, it was dreadful. The stage and lights were
pretty awful too and Beryl didn't play too well either-anyhow,
what can one expect at ten in the morning!
Sunday, Feb. 29.
Rosenbach, Genthe, the Sigmund Spaeths, came to tea with us
here at our diggings. Our primitive way of making tea on a
spirit lamp is quite interesting to watch. In the evening we girls
had dinner at Billy and Mary Roberts' apartment on East I 8th
Street. (How their wooden stairs do creak!)
March I.
Johnny Aubert played for us tonight at our studio in Carnegie
Hall. Bach, Mozart, Schumann and Chopin, very beautifully. He
has much improved since we heard him in Geneva .... To-
morrow afternoon we have a dress rehearsal at Aeolian Hall with
our conductor Edward Falck. We are going over the orchestra
mUSIC.
Sunday, March 7·
Rosenbach, Ordinsky, Johnny, Max Eastman and Eugene Bois-
sevain for tea. Afterwards we girls had dinner at Max Eastman's
apartment in Greenwich Village that he shares with Boissevain.
He recited poems all evening by the fireside.
March zo.
Worked at the studio. Gene and Max came around later, and
Lisa and I went for a drive with them out to the Bronx Zoo.
March IJ.
At 8:30 performance at Carnegie Hall with orchestra. A won-
derful performance to a capacity house. The audience actually
cheered at the end. Supper party at Voisin's with friends after-
wards.
The following day all the New York papers carried rave
notices. Just for the record, it may not be amiss to quote a few
lines. Heywood Broun, writing in the Tribune, said:
Isadora Duncan Dancers
The Isadora Duncan Dancers made their first appearance of
this season. • . . They have just got back from the Pacific coast
and in the year of absence have made great steps towards artistic
maturity .... The program was largely of ensembles from
Gluck's Iphigenia, the Schmitt waltzes and a war horse of
Johann Strauss's called "Southern Roses." For encores there were
Chopin's Polonaise and the Marche Lorraine.
In the ensemble dancing the personal idiosyncrasies of the
dancers were properly subdued, but that Lisa must needs show off
her jumping. • . • The dancers in the Gluck Amazon dance
and the two encores gave the finest thrill that the present stage
in this country can afford. . . .
A capacity audience first applauded, then cheered, then sat
motionless at the end of the program till it got more dances.
These children, who two years ago were pleading at our door-
step for attention, have gone in with tremendous blessings.
Another reviewer, writing under the pseudonym The Lis-
tener, observed:
Without the aid of Isadora, the Isadora Duncan Dancers have,
in a swift, hard working year, become the chief champions of that
art which she revived. Today they are undoubtedly its most in-
spiring interpreters too. Youth, Grace, Beauty, a thorough school-
ing in aesthetics; a year ago they had all these as their assets. To-
day they have that one thing more necessary-a power of imag-
ination which enables them to create, actually to create a sheer
and independent beauty from out of the moments of their faith-
fullest interpretations.
Carnegie Hall held an audience of amazingly large size on
Saturday night to see these young dancers . . . an audience
which thundered and thirsted for more through a blue darkness
and which found in the dances, both separate and ensemble, to
Chopin's music a succession of glowing explanations. No explana-
tion of Chopin alone-for that would be a sorry task to ask of
youth-but for life itself and all it hides of poetry and beauty.
Sunday, March 2 I.
Gene has sent me a lovely Java Batik. He and Max invited Lisa
DUNCAN DANCER
and me to lunch at Longue Vue by the river. A sunny day, the
first day of spring. Band I heard Jascha Heifetz at Aeolian Hall.
We all had dinner together at St. Luke's Place and then went to
another concert at the Hippodrome with the Ampico piano • • .
March 27.
Margherita and Angus went with us to Boston, at the Copley
Plaza. We gave a 3 o'clock matinee at Symphony Hall. Full
house, great success. Beryl Rubinstein made good music at the
piano for us. Many prominent people in audience including Sena-
tor Lodge. Leaving on the midnight train.
March 28.
We arrived early in New York on a beautiful day. Had luncheon
at the Crillon with Otto, Miss Annie came too. Later we heard
Galli-Curci at the Hippodrome.
Sunday, April 4.
Left early this morning for Croton with Anna, Lisa and Margot.
A nasty, rainy day. Had lunch with Max Eastman at his bunga-
low and went for a drive afterwards, called on Isabelle and her
baby. She is the same as she always was at school. After dinner
went up the hill to Dudley Field Malone's house. Had drinks and
danced. Motored back late at night. It was fun.
April 6.
Performance at the Metropolitan Opera House with orchestra,
danced Symphony by Schubert. A big success. What a thrill it
was to dance again at the Met, what memories of our appear-
ances together with Isadora l Had supper party at Reiss' studio in
the village.
April IO.
We received a cable from Isadora. She wants us to come over and
work with her in France from June to October on new programs
and also give performances.
Happy in the thought of seeing Isadora again and craving
the fresh inspiration working with her would bring us, we girls
nonetheless found ourselves in a quandary. Should we accept
her offer or decline it? We had several important factors to
Isadora Duncan Dancers
consider. Knowing our foster mother as well as we did, we had
no assurance that she would let us return to the States at the
appointed time. Sol Hurok, our new manager, had signed us
up for another season, a commitment we intended to keep at
all costs. Our newly won emancipation and financial independ-
ence had to be maintained, come what might. There was also
the question of citizenship papers. Would the State Department
allow us to leave? I especially held back from committing
myself to this trip abroad. I voiced my doubts to Gus, who
wrote his sister: "All the girls are willing to accept your offer.
Only Irma is 'holding out.' "
I insisted on a written contract from Isadora, stating the
conditions and guaranteeing our release at the end of the season,
so we could return in time for our winter engagements. Being
a bit psychic, I could not suppress a distinct feeling that, once
in Isadora's grip, we would not be able to extricate ourselves.
To my utter surprise, she readily agreed to signing a contract
with us. But once I held it in my hands, I instantly realized
the complete futility of this gesture. It was just a piece of paper.
In my diary for May 15, I noted, "Our last performance
of the season at Carnegie Hall"-not suspecting in the least
what my inner voice kept trying to tell me: namely, that this
was indeed the end of the Isadora Duncan Dancers as a group
of six. The first link in the chain would be broken by Erica.
She and Margot never having been particularly outstanding
in the dance, Erica decided to make an end of her own dance
career. Her ambition now was to study painting with Wienold
Reiss. This she did after a summer vacation in Switzerland. As
for myself, little did I dream that with destiny pulling unseen
strings, I would not set foot on American soil for many years.
Here are the last entries of my diary before I left:
April2o.
To Baltimore. It is always lovely in Baltimore, but we had a poor
house. And this was a Benefit performance for our manager Mr.
Hurok at the Lyric Theatre.
186 DUNCAN DANCER
April 2I.
Took an early train to Washington. Gus went with us. Matinee
at Poli-Schubert Theatre-an old place but a good house. The
audience not quite so enthusiastic as last year. Here we met Mr.
F. Howe again former Immigration Commissioner when we
landed on Ellis Island. He wants to help us with obtaining pass-
ports for France. We have still two years to go before we become
citizens. So it is necessary to get special permission in order to
leave the country.
April 22.
It is so lovely in Washington, everything green and in blossom.
Went for a long drive into the surrounding country, after a bit of
sight-seeing. Leaving on the midnight train for Altoona. Saturday
we dance in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And then home.
Sunday, May 2.
Got up early to go to Yonkers by train where Gene and Max met
us with their car. We motored over to Connecticut to visit Art
Young than back to Croton for lunch, out of doors picnic style.
Dudley Field Malone came. He promised to help with the pass-
ports.
May 27.
Anna returned from her trip to Washington where she had an
interview with Secretary of State Polk. He gave her a letter with
permission to leave the country only temporarily for the purpose
of engagements abroad. So all is well. This is Isadora's birthday.
May 29.
Motored out to the U ntermeyer estate in Yonkers to have our
pictures taken for Vogue in the Greek Garden by Arnold Genthe.
We have another cable from Isadora saying she sent the contracts
for us to sign.
June 22.
Goodbye America. Sailing at I o'clock on the S.S. Leopoldina for
France.
Demeter and Persephone
EvER since she went to Greece in 1904, when she thought of
founding a school, Isadora had dreamed of bringing her pupils
there some day. Soon after we joined her in Paris, she said,
"Let us all go to Athens and look upon the Parthenon. I may
yet found a school there."
With the sale of her property at Bellevue-sur-Seine to the
French government (something she had been trying to nego-
tiate unsuccessfully for a long time), her dream was to be real-
ized. Her plans called for our departure at the end of July. I
remember Paul Poiret giving a fancy farewell party for us
with some of his beautiful models at the Oasis Club-a very
chic place. As bad luck would have it, that same night poor
Anna was stricken with an inflamed appendix. This necessitated
a change of plans.
Isadora had to stay, but she sent Lisa and me, chaperoned
by Christine Dallies, ahead to Venice. She told us to wait there.
The rest, including her friend and pianist Walter Rummel,
intended to follow when Anna could make the journey. Once
again, exact details of our trip to Italy and Greece escape me,
and I must needs consult my faithful diary.
July JI, I920.
Departing for Venice tonight via Milano. Arrived on Sunday
Aug. 1, in a downpour. To make matters worse I caught a pain-
ful cinder in my eye. Eager to catch my first sight of the Queen
of the Adriatic, I leaned too far out of the train window com-
pletely disregarding the warning below, "E pericoloso sporghesi!"
A motorboat whisked us out to the Lido and the Hotel Ex-
r87
188 DUNCAN DANCER
celsior. Got only a glimpse and even less because of the cinder
which inflamed my eye. But what a mysterious, fascinating place
is Venice!
Aug. 2.
Sasha and Dolly Votichenko are also staying at the Lido. Could
hardly wait to get back to Venice. St. Mark's is perfectly ador-
able, the Palais des Doges lovely. I am crazy about Venice and
its atmosphere of an operatic stage setting. Had tea at Florian's
on the piazza. Did some shopping and had dinner at Bonevechiat-
ti's. Wonderful moonlight ride in gondola along the Grand
Canal.
Aug.j.
Went bathing in the blue Adriatic at Lido Beach directly in front
of hotel. After lunch returned to town. Tea at Florian's. Some
more shopping and a lengthy promenade around town. Dined
again on the little open terrace of Bonevechiatti, an excellent
restaurant. The risotto is superb, exactly the way I like it.
Aug. 5·
To Venice and stopped at Florian's for an ice cream. Then down
the canal to the station to meet Margot and Theresa. The others
won't be long in joining us, they said. Anna is rapidly mending.
Aug. 7·
Visited the church of San Marco and the Palais des Doges. At
Florian's as usual. We expected Isadora today but no sign of her
yet.
Sunday, Aug. 8
They came today. We all went bathing together except Anna
who still looks frail and very pale. Isadora invited me for a gon-
dola ride. We dined at the Danieli and watched the Tom bola
on the piazza afterwards. She appeared to be in a state of shock.
Very taciturn and morose. It seems she and the Archangel
[Walter Rummel] had a serious quarrel.
dug. IO.
\Vho would surprise us today but George Copeland and his
friend Arthur. Both have been in Venice for weeks. \Ve intro-
Demeter and Persephone
duced him to Isadora since they had not met before. We invited
them to luncheon. There is dancing on the terrace tonight.
George made a date with us for tomorrow's lunch at Vapois in
Venice including Sasha, Dolly and Isadora.
Friday, Aug. 13.
Unlucky Friday! And how!! Seems that Anna and the Arch-
angel have fallen in love. Isadora is awfully jealous. She made
us all move to the Danieli, forsaking the Excelsior and the Lido.
I told Christine: ac ette histoire avec Anna et l' Archangel est
vraiement embetante. ll parait qu' elle est amoureuse de lui, mais
lui aime encore beaucoup Isadora. Grande tragedie!"
Aug. 14.
After a good luncheon at our favorite place-Bonevechiatti-we
went, accompanied by Sasha to show us the way, to the famous
Fortuni Shop. We each bought a different color dress. Mine is
rose-colored. I love it.
The pleated Fortuni gown came into existence in 1910,
when Signor Fortuni designed the first one for Isadora, in the
hope she would display it in her performances and help to
make him famous. She did not, however, consider his gowns
suitable for dancing professionally, and never wore one on the
stage. She did invariably wear them at home or to parties and
frequently was photographed in one of Fortuni's creations made
of fine India silk, often gold-stenciled and with Venetian beads
along the sides.
It amused us to see how the gowns were twisted together
and tied with a belt-an exact imitation of the way we treated
our dance tunics. To achieve the same pleated effect observed
on Greek statuary, we started out by sprinkling the tunics with
water. Two girls then got hold of the ends, folding one tiny
pleat upon the other, and then gave the whole thing a twist,
held together by a ribbon. This had to be repeated after each
performance, so the tunics would be in proper shape for the
next one. ·with so many tunics involved, it was a laborious and
patience-demanding process. Isadora herself taught us this trick.
DUNCAN DANCER
She must also have shown it to Fortuni, who invented a secret
process to keep the gowns artificially though not permanently
pleated.
We girls always longed to own one of these long, clinging
tunics that give women the beauty of archaic Greek statues.
Only now could we afford to buy them. We soon discovered
their one big flaw. It was absolutely fatal to sit down in these
gowns-the pleats all disappeared! If I may be allowed a bad
pun: an un-fortuniate situation, indeed, which permanent pleat-
ing corrects in modern dresses.
Society ladies with an artistic bent eventually took up the
fad of wearing F ortuni dresses, another instance of the influence
exerted by Isadora Duncan on the world of fashion.
Monday, Aug. I6.
After luncheon we rented a gondola for the Lido where we met
Isadora. At sunset we returned and had dinner on Isadora's
balcony at the Hotel Britannia. Steichen arrived tonight. We are
getting ready to leave for Greece tomorrow.
Aug. I7·
We got up at six A.M. only to find that all the motorboats are
on strike. Were obliged to rent gondolas with all our baggage and
row way out into the middle of the harbour in order to board
the Austrian vessel, S.S. C anonia. Luckily it was a lovely warm
day. The Adriatic's deep blue color is quite startling to see after
the dull, muddy waters of the canal.
Aug. I8.
Reached Bari late in the day. A hot little town. Had dinner and
went to the hot little theatre where we saw a Neapolitan group
of actors perform a completely incomprehensible play with all
the exaggerations of a Polichinelle show. Didn't like it. Tomorrow
we expect to reach Brindisi.
Aug. I9·
Brindisi looks exactly the way I remembered it from my last
visit on our way to Egypt. Same old place with same old stairs
leading up to an uninteresting town.
Demeter and Persephone
Aug. 20.
Stopped at Corfu for a few hours, visited the former German
Kaiser's villa-the Achillion. \V onderful view from up there.
The sea so blue and the islands in the distance like rosy clouds.
Sunday, Aug. 22.
Passed the Isthmus of Corinth very early in the morning. At
high noon in ferocious heat set foot on Attic soil. Landed at
Piraeus and immediately motored out to Falerone near the sea.
Not much of a place. I didn't care for it nor did the other girls.
We returned to Athens and engaged rooms at the Grande
Bretagne. The ones that face the square and open into a long
balcony-terrace. Isadora occupied the end suite on the right.
At the Zappeion Garden we bought the fragrant white jasmine
blossoms for our hair from the boy flower vendors who followed
us-shouting with shrill, high voices: "Smeen! Smeen!" until we
gave in. Had a gay dinner there. Greek food-caille aux riz,
black olives, stuffed eggplant washed down with Resin wine and
to the accompaniment of Greek zither music. Afterwards looked
at the Temple of Zeus in the moonlight. Beautiful!
Aug. 23.
I forgot to record yesterday that the first thing Isadora did after
we unpacked at the hotel was to show us Copanos, the Greek
house she started to build in 1904 when she first visited Athens.
It was never finished and only one room has a roof over it.
There is no water, and goats were stabled here, by the looks of
things. She wants to have it cleaned and to furnish it with a
grand piano for a studio. What optimism. The heat is atrocious,
I nearly succumbed to it. Only the marvelous view of the
Acropolis opposite made it all worth while.
Aug. 24.
Modern Athens is not particularly attractive, I noticed going
shopping. Saw some lovely Amazon statues at the National Mu-
seum. Isadora and the rest went up to the Acropolis to look at
the Parthenon. I refused to go. She was displeased. I intend to
wait till there is a full moon and, if possible, go up there alone.
At a moment like that I don't relish crowds.
DUNCAN DANCER
Aug. 27.
Full moon! As luck would have it, the nice young man I met
on the boat coming to Greece called on me after dinner. He
asked me to see the Parthenon by moonlight. By a strange co-
incidence, no other visitors were up there.
Overcome himself by the glorious sight, he let me wander off
in silence as I wanted to be alone. An unearthly vision of beauty
-no words can describe it. In the moonlight the marble shim-
mered snowy white, the way it must originally have appeared.
Its daytime color is orange.
Sunday, Aug. 29.
Early this morning, Isadora, showing herself very restless,
suddenly ordered an open touring car. She invited Edward
[Steichen], Lisa, Margot and myself to accompany her on a
trip to Aulis and Chalcis. We rushed northward raising a cloud
of dust behind us. Coming down the mountain near the island
of Euboea we stopped to gaze at one of the most surprisin~Iy
beautiful views in the world-the seashore of Chalcis. There, in
Euripides' legend, Iphigenia and her handmaidens played on the
shore. How often, in our imagination, had we simulated their
Attic games there in our dances to the music of Gluck! What a
thn11 actually to see it there below us in the sunlight.
Were in time for luncheon at the hotel. In the evening walked
along the shore where Iphigenia and her maidens trod of yore.
Had a nice dinner at San Stephan by the sea.
Aug. 30.
Continued down the coast to view the Temple and Theatre of
Dionysos. Just a few stones left, and overgrown with vegetation.
Steichen, having forgotten in the hurry of sudden departure to
bring his camera along, asked me to lend him my little Brownie.
He snapped a few pictures of us three girls and Isadora in the
ancient theatre.
After lunch we motored back to Athens via Thebes. There is
great excitement in Athens over the arrival of Venizelos. We
watched him pass from the hotel balcony.
The month of August had passed pleasantly. But in Septem-
ber all sorts of unpleasant things occurred. To begin with,
Demeter and Persephone 193
Theresa had a nearly fatal sunstroke. I nursed her day and
night applying cold compresses over her feverish body till a
doctor could be summoned, it being a holiday. He said my
treatment saved her life. Then Anna had to go to the hospital
with an infection and Margot, too, was unwell. Lisa caught a
bad cold, and later I myself came down with a strep throat.
The Greek doctor told me to gargle with lemon juice. Isadora
suffered mostly from bad humor on that never-to-be-forgotten
trip to Greece.
So it happened that she only started to work with us on
September 25, in the Zappeion Museum, where the government
provided her with a large hall. Three years had elapsed since
last we worked together. She started on the Seventh Symphony
of Beethoven, parts of which we knew and had performed with
her in New York. Following that, she taught us the Scherzo
of Tchaikowsky's Sixth. Two weeks before we began to work
with her, she told us quite frankly that she opposed our return
to the States. This was my turn to say to the other girls, "I told
you so!" It did not exactly come as a surprise to me.
Several days later, when we failed to show up in New York
on the prescribed date, we received a cable from our American
manager. He threatened us with breach of contract and heavy
costs. Lisa and I offered to come immediately, but he wanted
all six or none. A huge argument resulted with Isadora. I sug-
gested quite logically, so it seemed to me, in order to evade a
lawsuit, that we fulfill our contract and then return to her. But
she would have none of this.
"I did not bring you up and teach you my art, only to have
you exploited by theatrical managers," she admonished us.
She wanted us to perform only under her guidance and to
help her found a school for a thousand children in Greece.
Most of the other girls had meekly given in to her wishes. I
made the big mistake of growing more obstinate and infuriated
by the minute. And when I do, I am bound to say almost any-
thing. This unreasonable attitude of hers aroused all my ire. In
the heat of the argument, which developed into an angry
194 DUNCAN DANCER
dialogue, the other girls not saying a word, I really lost my
temper. She said I had an ugly Broadway spirit and if I felt
that way I had better return to America. With that, I stormed
out of her suite and rushed straightaway to the steamship office,
still smarting from the verbal blows. Back at the Hotel d' Angle-
terre, where we girls lived, I sat down and tried to be calm.
My anger is soon spent; I seldom harbor grievances for long.
I regretted the vehemence of my unguarded utterances. On
calmer judgment, I sat down and wrote her a letter, trying to
explain my motives and all those things one really can't explain,
that remain the secrets of a human heart.
Hotel d' Angleterre, Athens, Sept. 30, I 920.
Dear Isadora:
I inquired at the steamship office and there is a very good
boat sailing for New York on the I oth of October. I think I
had better book a passage on it-this will be the most con-
venient way to get rid of me. I quite understand that a "cheap
Broadway spirit" has nothing to do with your art. Because, if
that is all you see in me, I should certainly not remain another
day with you.
Words are futile. I really cannot explain my true nature to
you. It is, at times, even too complicated for me. Your art which
is the highest expression of all that is pure and divine in man,
makes those who practice it-if they are pure at heart-purer.
And if they are great-greater. But a spirit that is fundamentally
not simple and naive cannot so easily be molded. I cannot change
my inner self, nor can you.
One thing I am unable to comprehend: How is it that you,
with your intelligence and intuition, have not been able correctly
to judge my character before? I think it is rather too late now.
What a waste and what a crime! For another person might have
profited in my stead and been of real help to you. Someone to be
proud of, and of real value to you, who could be a fine example
to those hundreds who are going to follow.
I don't feel I can thank you for what you have done for me,
since it has apparently all been in vain. On the contrary, I would
Demeter and Persephone 195
rather curse the day you took my hand and led me to your school.
Your hand has always pointed upward. This made us sense there
is something beyond-something more important than life. And
willingly I wanted to be led. Now, you turn around with a
frown on your face and point a finger of scorn at me and say
that you see into my soul and what you see is • • . Isadora, do
you really think you have the eyes of God?
Maybe only very earthly, petty things are obscuring your vi-
sion. Perhaps, if you had tried to peer into my soul with a little
more understanding, you would truly have been able to see. I
am a queer girl, one must take me as I am. If you could have
done so, who knows, I might have been of genuine service to you
until my death. But I don't believe in sacrifice. You did not
sacrifice your life either for the sake of your school. The idea of
the school has always been your salvation. In your worst mo-
ments of anguish and misery it has been your only joy and in-
spiration. But it has not been everything in your life! How then
can you expect that I should devote mine entirely to the future of
the school?
Two days later I received a message delivered by hand:
Dearest Irma-
! have just received your letter. I can't answer it now but will
tomorrow. I think there is a great deal of misunderstanding. At
any rate, you must confess that the things you say sometimes
would make a saint angry. Whatever you decide and whether
you really want to go back to New York or not, please don't
doubt of my very great love for you who are to me exactly like
my own little girl. And if I become so furious it is only that I
want your future to be splendid. I am probably stupid to take the
small things you say in earnest.
I will answer your letter tomorrow. With a kiss and all my
love-
Isadora
I waited anxiously for her letter, glad that she held no
rancor and much comforted by her nice note. When the mes-
senger appeared next day at my hotel, he handed me an envelope
DUNCAN DANCER
that contained not only her letter of explanation but also a
picture. The picture was self-explanatory. It portrayed the
Greek goddess Demeter, Mother Earth, handing on a torch
to her young daughter Persephone, the new life, bringing
light to the world.
Dear Irma-
! answer your letter. In the first place, do not believe the
words which were wrung from me in anger by your extraor-
dinary exasperating attitude. Blot out the "Broadway" phrase,
it has nothing to do with you or me. And as for "Getting rid of
you," it is because you are so precious to me and to my art that I
have made such an effort to tell you the real future of the work,
which is not for you or me but for the generations to come.
As for sacrifice-take one example. When in December, 1914,
Paris Singer said to me, "If you have the courage to start your
school now, I will give you the house in Bellevue and 1oo,ooo
francs a year to do it with," I hesitated, for the idea of seeing
little children at that time meant absolute torture to me. But I
answered, "yes," for the thought this opportunity might never
come again and it would be a crime to deprive those children.
No one will ever know what it cost me to teach those children
at Bellevue. Often, in the midst of a lesson, I went upstairs and
cried with agony, "No, I can't look at them!" But the next day
I tried again.
I think in fact it was this fearful struggle that killed the little
Baby that was my only hope. And you know since then I have
not been able to look at a child without bursting into tears. And
yet, I am willing to take them again and teach them. Is not that
sacrifice?
And such a useless sacrifice, as all Bellevue is gone and the
little children that were there have come to nothing.
I only have a few more years to do it. Won't you help me?
Before I die, at least one hundred beings must understand the
work and give it to others.
You irritated me the other day by the stupid things you said
until I would have said anything. But my expression and tears
often when you dance must have proved to you that I found it
Demeter and Persephone 197
beautiful. I want it to be more so and glorious, especially the
Beethoven.
I don't ask any of you to sacrifice all your life for the school.
I only want you to give me a part of each year to helping me.
The rest of the year you may tour as you like. And above all, I
want you to learn the Iphigenie, the Orphee, the Beethoven and
all to a state of perfection, or as near it as possible, before dancing
it in a theatre.
Come this morning to work. Forgive anything I have said that
wounded you-1 did not mean it. You are for me always my
little Irma whom I love most dearly. And I am for you-your
friend.
Isadora
Dear, dear Isadora:
I read your beautiful letter and I think if we don't speak to
each other we understand each other better. I also want to ask
you a hundred times pardon for everything I have said-it must
all have been very insulting to you. For there is nothing in this
wide world too beautiful that I could say or do to compensate
you for all that you have given me spiritually and materially. I
do want to aid you in every way possible so that your wonderful
idea shall be realized. And on the day we actually see a hundred
children dance, I too will shed tears of joy. You are right; we
should all agree to work part of the time together as you sug-
gest. I am willing to wait and not perform till we have perfected
our work. \Ve look up to you to guide us and let us know when
the time has come.
I want you to know that I love you more than my own
mother. I cannot show you my affection but it is all in my heart.
-Love,
Irma
October 1, 1920.
Dearest lrma-
y our letter has made me happy. Now, hand in hand, we will
go forward and conquer the world in harmony and love.
-Isadora:
The School Is Dead, Long Live
the School
THE bite of a pet monkey that killed the King of Greece decided
our departure. The performances we planned to give in Athens
had to be canceled. \V e left toward the end of October for Paris.
There is a street in Passy, which George du Maurier de-
scribes in his Peter lbbetson as the "Street of the Pump," wind-
ing its way to Paris through the Arc de Triomphe at one end
and to the river Seine at the other. He called it a delightful
street where the "butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker" still
had their boutiques within the residential quarter. Here Isadora
bought a house because of the large room in the rear, called
"Salle Beethoven," where intime concerts could be given. She
converted it into a studio with the same blue curtains and carpet.
We girls had rooms in a small hotel nearby.
What little money we had saved from our tours in the States
dwindled alarmingly. In order to economize, we rented a small
furnished apartment on the Rue Eugene Manuel, in Passy, a
short distance away from Isadora's house. Here we were left to
struggle along financially as best we could; for one moment our
foster mother lavished everything on her adopted children, the
next she withdrew her support. That is why we were so eager to
give performances. As always, we had to wait for Isadora's con-
sent. We chafed under this inactivity, having no outlet for our
pent-up energies. But, being young, we managed to enjoy life
from day to day, whatever it might bring. \Ve hired a cook from
the provinces, a bonne at oute faire, who went on her daily er-
rand dressed in a black shawl with a market basket on her arm.
The School Is Dead, Long Live the School 199
Like all French women, she had the culinary touch with a
Gallic flavor, and I can still see us girls sitting at the round table
in our tiny salle a manger, relishing every savory morsel. The
lamp with a green shade suspended from the ceiling directly
over the dining table created a warm, homey atmosphere. As
soon as the table was cleared, with no neighborhood movies
available to attend, we sought amusement in a game of whist.
Working at the studio on Rue de la Pompe, we frequently
lunched with Isadora and Rummel. On those occasions she
would take the precaution of drawing the dark velvet curtains
over the windows to shut out the brilliant spring sunshine,
which left us in the dark except for a red Japanese lantern
burning on the side table. She said it created a more restful light.
But it also erased all those fine encroaching lines and wrinkles
on the face of any woman in her forties, a little vanity on the
part of the famous dancer that fooled no one. Sunday was her
day at home when friends dropped in for tea. I often went with
her to shop in an American bakery on the Rue de Bac for her
favorite-coconut cake. Afternoon tea was a daily habit with her.
That winter and spring of I 921 turned out to be quite a
social season. We attended the theatre frequently, concerts ga-
lore. The Ukrainian Chorus was the big attraction in Paris that
season, and the elegant Bal Noire et Blanc at the Champs
Elysee Theatre. We often had friends take us to night clubs
such as the Peroquet, where the American Negro entertainer
Josephine Baker held forth.
I must interrupt my story here to point out and correct some
popular misconceptions. In all my life with Isadora I never
attended a so-called "orgy," staged either by her or by anyone
else, as the newspapers loved to misrepresent. A champagne
party and supper where guests dance, cut funny capers, and gen-
erally enjoy themselves in public cannot exactly be termed an
"orgy"! That happened every day in the social world I used to
know and is a festive occasion most people have enjoyed at least
once in their lives.
200 DUNCAN DANCER
Outside of an occasional cocktail before meals, none of us
girls, nor Isadora, ever indulged in drinking or especially crav-
ing hard liquor. Our European tastes were conditioned to wines.
Only in her late forties, after her marriage to a Russian and
under his malign influence, did she acquire a habit for stronger
stuff. But no one who ever knew her intimately in her day-by-day
existence could ever honestly accuse her of becoming an alcoholic
in her last years. That, to my certain knowledge, represents a
gross calumny.
Now to go on: Afterward we continued on to Joe Zelli's
opening with Maurice and Hughes, the popular ballroom
dancers of that period. Maurice had lately dropped his former
long-time partner Florence Walton, which created a sensation.
Isadora, in a short Chanel gown covered with gold beads, liked
to dance to tango music rather than the fox trot. She knew none
of the conventional steps; she always improvised her own, much
to the confusion of her male partners.
I recall her telling me that once in San Francisco in 19 r 8,
when she appeared there in a Chopin recital with the pianist
Harold Bauer, the audience as usual clamored for an encore at
the end. Tired of hearing more Chopin she decided on a sudden,
whimsical impulse to dance a tango. The tango was then the
latest craze in popular dance. Harold Bauer protested, not know-
ing any popular tunes as a concert pianist of the first order. He
considered it below his dignity but Isadora urged him along
saying, "Oh just improvise on the rhythm and I'll do the same,"
adding slyly, "The public won't be able to tell the difference!"
She was right, they loved it and wanted her to repeat the
"Duncan Tango" but she never did that again.
In Paris that year the tango was still very popular, thanks
to the expert ballroom dancers who specialized in this Argentine
dance like Maurice and the American movie star Rudolph Val-
entino. A place called El Garron on Montmartre caught her
fancy. It was a small room, with banquettes upholstered in red
velvet along three walls; the fourth was taken over by two rows
The School Is Dead, Long Live the School 201
of sixteen Argentine accordion players in red coats. And how
electrifyingly they could play those exotic Latin tunes. I learned
to dance the Argentine tango very well, with a professional
partner as tutor. Even today, my feet can't resist beating the
measure whenever I hear one played. We usually danced
through the night and at dawn sped over to Les Hailes for the
traditional reveler's soupe a l'oignon and crusty French bread
warm from the oven. Ah, sacree jeunesse! What exuberant
fun we had! Curiously enough for one so young, those diversions
did not make me forget the more serious ambition then nagging
at my psyche-to make a name for myself as an artist.
The year before, in the fall of I 920, it all had seemed so
promising when Isadora and Rummel and we girls worked in
artistic harmony and enthusiasm on a new project, the study of
Parsifal. She taught us the Flower Maiden Scene, while she
portrayed Kundry in her bewitched garden enticing Parsifal.
And a beautiful etherealized choreography for the Holy Grail
mustc.
The world premiere took place on November 2 7, 1 920, at
the now-vanished Trocadero. That evening, at the theatre, she
summoned us to her dressing room a few minutes before curtain
time. It was an event for her pupils, because this joint appearance
was the first in two years. Her dressing room had the familiar
look I had seen so many times since my childhood, for she
always liked to say a word or two of encouragement and give us
inspiration. She sat in front of her dressing table which was
covered with a lace cloth and littered with an assortment of
makeup. Leaning against the frame of the mirror and pinned
above it were reproductions of Greek sculpture and friezes. On
a table beside her, still partly wrapped in green tissue from the
florist's box, lay the fresh flowers she used as wreaths or decora-
tions for her various dances. The open wardrobe trunk spilled
over with a profusion of tunics and scarfs needed for the per-
formance. The chaise longue in a corner held her white and red
Indian shawls, so she could stretch out and rest during the inter-
202 DUNCAN DANCER
mission. A three-hour program of uninterrupted dancing is a
most strenuous affair. The throat gets parched, and to quench
one's thirst with water is fatal. Aqua pura has a funny way of
jumping around inside with every lively step, a horrid sensa-
tion. For that reason, to ease the maddening thirst, she pre-
ferred a glass of champagne during the intermission. She never
touched a drop of anything stronger.
A pleasant perfume of flowers and cologne enveloped us six
girls as we entered, dressed in flesh-colored Flower Maiden
attire with blooms in our hair and a garland from shoulder to
waist. Each one was different. My floral adornment consisted of
large anemones in a combination of vivid red, purple, and white.
She smiled and looked us over critically. "You all look ravish-
ing," she whispered. Then she fixed her glance on me with a
small moue of dissatisfaction and said, "I do wish, Irma, that
you would not wear your hair so low over the forehead. It hides
your nice wide brow." She got up and brushed my forelocks
back as far as they could go, tilting my anemone wreath to the
back of my head. Inwardly I seethed with annoyance, just wait-
ing to push it all forward again as soon as I left her dressing
room. She insisted in having her own way even in such trifles.
Then she did something she hitherto had refrained from doing.
She offered us a large goblet of champagne and urged each of
us to take one sip. "It won't hurt you and may put you in the
right mood for the seduction scene," she whispered. (It was her
habit to keep complete silence for hours on the day of a per-
formance.) She herself looked like the Goddess of Seduction, in
a long cream-colored satin gown, a flowing red velvet cape, and
a crown of red and white roses in her auburn hair.
She reminded us that we had a truly magnificent orchestra
of a hundred musicians to play Wagner's glorious music for our
dancing, so we must give our very best performance that night.
She changed after the intermission and donned the gray, drab
shift of a penitente to pray for divine grace and forgiveness. She
danced to the Good Friday music-and danced it as no Wagne-
The School Is Dead, Long Live the School 203
rian Kundry of the great master's imagination ever interpreted
this role. The program ended with the Venusberg and Bac-
chanale from T annhiiuser in which she danced the part of Venus,
with rose petals floating down over her throughout that sensi-
tively imagined scene. Here all the love and sensuality inherent
in the score were merely indicated by her, brought to life in the
imagination rather than the flesh. It was one of her most perfect
choreographic masterpieces.
Thrilling as was this experience at the Trocadero-it eventu-
ally proved to have been the culmination of our artistic collabo-
ration-it left me strangely dissatisfied. Isadora tolerated no
solo dancing by her disciples in our joint appearances. However
humble my own efforts compared to her genius, I chafed at re-
maining part of the chorus all my life. The artist in me longed
for self-expression.
Isadora arranged several performances during the winter
season-the opening one, with an all-Wagner program, took
place on November 27 as already mentioned. It was our first pub-
lic appearance since we girls had come abroad five months before.
The famous contract we signed with Isadora, being of no further
value, we tore up and threw away. Dissension was in the air.
One of the causes, which we resented and which disrupted the
harmony that should have prevailed, was the discovery that she
had tried to enter into negotiations with Hurok, our New York
manager, without consulting us. Her secretary, Norman Harle,
inquired of Augustin Duncan what the prospects might be. Gus,
still annoyed about the contract which he had once arranged for
his sister and which she did not keep, answered:
Nov. 25, 1920
My dear Mr. Harle:
Your letter received, but I have had no opportunity of replying
to it until now. I had occasion to see Mr. Hurok the other day
and he asked me to write you the following and to give you his
address in case you cared to write to him. He expresses a willing-
ness to arrange some appearances in this country, with or without
204 DUNCAN DANCER
the girls, after the first of January. Even as late as March run-
ning into April and May provided the negotiation was com-
pleted by Christmas time.
Orchestra is only possible for New York (Metropolitan) ;
piano on the road. Isadora could get a large fee, possibly $2,000
a performance, if she appeared with piano. But even $I ,ooo is
unlikely if orchestra is insisted upon, outside of New York. In the
latter case Hurok would not guarantee but only share on per-
centage. However, I advise you to write to him direct and leave
me out of the negotiation. Do not ask less than $2,000 guar-
antee with piano. You can get it. Turn that into francs at the
present rate of exchange and realize what that would mean.
H. also offers a tour of the Orient. My advice is that you deal
with him direct and not any representative, as they do not rep-
resent him.
My own opinion is that Isadora should not come to this coun-
try. The conditions are worse than ever before and I do not be-
lieve she would fulfill her contract. No one else in the business
is more hopeful than I am on that point and therefore she could
not make advantageous terms. For instance, payment in advance
and steamer fares paid-entirely out of the question. She would
be forced to stand all the risk of failure to carry out the bookings,
as confidence in the likelihood of fulfilling a contract once made,
is down to Zero.
Very truly yours,
Augustin Duncan
Nothing came of this plan. What little money we had saved
from our American tour, even changed into francs at the then
favorable rate of exchange, soon came to an end. The only way
we knew to earn a living was by giving public performances,
though every time we did, we ran counter to our teacher's wishes.
Naturally we resented this situation, which caused much un-
happiness. Money matters are notoriousfor causing trouble and
ruining the best of friendships. To make up for our financial
deficiency, we entered into negotiations with a French concert
manager, who was willing to arrange a tour of the provinces
The School Is Dead, Long Live the School 205
for us. Because of her personal estrangement from Isadora,
Anna had left the group. Thus only four girls remained-Lisa,
Theresa, Margot, and myself.
Being careful to obtain Isadora's consent, I wrote to her.
She was at that time in London, giving joint recitals with ·walter
Rummel. She agreed, providing she received 33 per cent of our
fees after expenses had been paid. Her wire to me stated: "Pro-
gramme Lyon: first part selection Iphigenie; second part Schu-
bert Waltzes, Marche Militaire. Pianist playing solos Bach,
Mozart, or Beethoven. No Chopin or any modern music."
As artists in our own right, we did not like her dictating to
us. We considered it unreasonable and unjust on her part to
interfere with our own mature judgment on such matters. We
could not go on forever performing the same dances. She toler-
ated no solo dancing when we girls appeared with her. To me,
the freedom of expression provided by a solo dance was neces-
sary to my own artistic satisfaction. I suggested we call the whole
thing off. Feeling frustrated and chafing under this constant
control, we foolishly let ofF steam by talking the situation over
with close friends, such as Mary Desti (formerly Mary Sturges)
and Dolly Votichenko. \Ve had no one else to help or advise us.
As usual under such circumstances, where dissension is in the
offing, the inevitable gossips-who simply itched to carry a tale
and to embroider it in the telling-came to the fore. On hearing
these exaggerated reports about us, our foster mother dispatched
a letter from London:
My dear Children-
This is a message for all of you. Please reflect that all the
things you say to my discredit reflect eventually on yourselves.
And the people to whom you give your love and confidence have
never done for you and will never do for you one per cent of
what I have done, and am still willing to do for you. But it is
discouraging when I hear from all sides that in return you only
try to break all my relations in Paris and cut all my friendships.
I assure you that this can do you no good and my patience is
206 DUNCAN DANCER
almost at an end. If you could only learn a bit of discretion.
Please work and live simply-read and study-and either be
true to me or leave me on your own names and your own re-
sponsibility. Please write me. With love,
Isadora
In our apartment on the Rue Eugene Manuel in Passy, we
immediately held a council of war. Isadora had offered to pay
our rent but had failed to do so. The landlord threatened to
evict us. Not knowing what to do, our own funds being depleted,
Lisa managed to borrow enough to tide us over. Borrowing
money was not to our liking. We aspired only to achieve inde-
pendence, to earn our own living as we had done in the States.
This could, under no provocation, be construed as showing in-
gratitude to our dear foster mother. I wrote her again of our
financial dilemma and the trouble with the landlord, mentioning
the loan we had to get. She immediately sent word through her
secretary for us to move into her house at 103 Rue de la Pompe.
But she sent no funds to pay off the loan.
Meanwhile Dolly Votichenko made a special trip to Brussels,
where Isadora had a dance engagement. Within a short space of
time, we received another sharp letter from our foster mother,
written from the Hotel Metropole and dated April 30, I 92 I :
My dear Children:
I had a great joy and some hope in recervmg Lisel's letter
which I confess has been rather dampened since meeting Dolly
Votichenko here who says that the way you all speak of me made
her think that I was possibly some sort of monster. And in fact
she repeated to me word for word what Mary had already told
me. This is really too much and my patience is at an end. That
you should speak of me this way is simply disgusting.
First, she says, you accuse me of having "left you to starve" in
Geneva. Whereas you know perfectly well that I sent you by
telegraph all the money I had in the bank in Buenos Aires and
left myself not enough to pay my hotel bill. When on account
The School Is Dead, Long Live the School 207
of the war conditions this money did not reach you, I sent Au-
gustin from Buenos Aires to Geneva to rescue you, leaving me
alone and without aid in a strange country.
Second, it seems you accuse me of having "deserted you," in
New York. You will please remember that I sold all I had, even
my shawls, and only left New York when you were successfully
launched at Carnegie Hall, with a lucrative contract before you.
I arrived in London ill and penniless and telegraphed to Augustin
that I had no money to reach Paris but received no answer from
any of you.
Third, it seems you accuse me of not procuring you engage-
ments. On this score I am writing Mr. Harle to write you an
account of money spent and time and cables amounting to Boo
francs, to America trying to fix contracts for you. Also he will
give you the true account of the contract which you seem to
ignore.
Fourth, it seems you accuse me of not teaching you, when I
have given you the very secret and most holy of my art. And to
crown this you tell Dolly that I am jealous of you as an artist.
Really, my poor children, I think you have all taken leave of
your senses. And to comblc that you say I owe Lisel money.
This is shameful!
That I should hear all this from a stranger-really my affec-
tion for you and my patience is about at an end. As for the way
Anna has spoken of me, I think she must be demented. My only
crime toward her was a too great indulgence and affection for
her. But my patience is at an end. If you can not understand
that talking of me in this way you are doing me a great deal of
harm and in doing me harm, are doing yourself harm . . .
In the meantime I beg you learn not to tell every little stupid
idea in your heads to strangers. If you wish your tickets to
America or elsewhere, Mr. Harle will arrange them, as your
present attitude toward me seems to me to make further rela-
tions very difficult. I am, as Harle says, "fed up."
Isadora
Merely to set the record straight, I want to point out that
Isadora left four months before we were "successfully launched
208 DUNCAN DANCER
at Carnegie Hall" in New York, and with "a lucrative contract"
ahead of us.
However, these recriminations were not getting us anywhere.
Isadora returned from her successful tour of England and Bel-
gium in May. On the twenty-sixth, the day before her forty-
third birthday, the French papers fairly brimmed over with the
news that she had decided to go to Soviet Russia. Reporters
swarmed all over her house, jostling each other in order to ob-
tain a first-hand interview. Apparently, while she was in London,
the head of the Russian Trade Commission, Leonide Krassine,
hearing of her desire to go to Russia under the Communist
regime, promised to help her obtain an official invitation. Her
idea of founding a great school of the dance there appealed to the
Bolsheviks, primarily as a wonderful piece of propaganda.
Her desire to go to Soviet Russia was no news to us girls.
Her reason for this move was made quite explicit in an interview
she had granted a woman reporter in Paris even before we left
America. The article, which appeared in an English paper, stated:
She received us graciously, with all the ease and naturalness
which characterizes her dancing. In a dark, loose-fitting dress,
her mink toque on the table beside her and fur coat thrown back,
Isadora looked most charming. Her bobbed coiffure is most be-
coming and harmonizes with the expression of Irish sympathy
and humour alternating with the warm California sunshine
laughing in her eyes and mouth. There is in her face also--be-
hind its vivaciousness-that indefinable mystic or spiritual quality
which is so peculiar to great teachers. Asked, if she expected to
start a new school of dancing this was her reply:
"Nothing would please me more, but this time it must have a
government guarantee. There must be some protection against
the pupils of the school leaving and commercializing their knowl-
edge before it has reached the stage of perfection. And this can
only come about through the cooperation of a government. You
may recall how under the Czar's regime that very thing was
accomplished for the Imperial Russian Ballet. It is the only as-
surance of success."
"What about the French government! The French have al-
The School Is Dead, Long Live the School 209
ways been liberal patrons of art and they have admired your
dancing," was the interpolated remark.
"Poufl It's a question of money. The state of French fi-
nances ..." and she dismissed them with a broad comprehensive
gesture.
"And this story of your going to Russia to receive help from
the Bolsheviki, what about that?"
"I did say that it didn't matter to me what the government
was and that if Russia offered me a school I would go there and
accept it. But of the Bolsheviks and their politics I know nothing.
So contradictory are the stories concerning the Bolshevist atti-
tude toward art, that one doesn't have any conception what it
really is. I most certainly wouldn't hesitate to accept an offer
from Russia .... Four fortunes have disappeared in this effort
of mine to re-create dancing as the Greeks knew it-a natural
expression of the spirit or the soul. Out of the twenty-five chil-
dren whom I trained, only six were loyal. ... These six girls
could teach hundreds of pupils. But people say, they are beautiful
and I suppose they will marry."
She smiled sweetly though a bit sadly at this conclusion. Miss
Duncan, during the course of afternoon tea related the history of
her school which has never before been published. It is a fas-
cinating tale.
''Who wants to go to Russia with me?" Isadora asked us
when she came back from London. I unhesitatingly said I would.
The other two girls (Lisa and Theresa, for we were only three
now dancing with her) seemed less interested. She smiled at me
and said, "I knew I could count on you."
"I'll go wherever you want to go," I assured her. "I'll even
follow you to Mars, if that is the place you have chosen to found
your new school. Providing you are serious and really mean to
go through with it."
She triumphantly produced a telegram she had just received
from the People's Commissar of Education, Anatole Vasilief
Lunacharsky, officially inviting her to Moscow. Overjoyed, she
immediately thought of giving a party for her friends to tell
them the good news. Among them were several Russian immi-
210 DUNCAN DANCER
grants who had fled from the Revolution. When they heard that
Isadora had really made up her mind to go to the land of the
Bolsheviks, they seemed terribly shocked. One of the women
went down on her knees before Isadora and implored her by all
the holy saints not to go.
"You don't know what you are letting yourself in for! Food
is so scarce that the Communists are slaughtering four-year-old
children and eating them! Look, I have a letter here, smuggled
out of Russia, telling us about this. Please, please, don't go, Isa-
dora!" she implored her.
"Well, if this is true," Isadora responded, looking pale and
grim, "then I must go."
After the guests departed, and she and I remained alone in
the studio where the planned festivity had turned ihto a session
of horror tales, she looked ruefully at me, trying to gauge my
reaction. By way of laughing the whole thing off, she said as a
joke, "Don't worry, Irma; they'll eat me first anyway. There is
a whole lot more of me than you. In the meanwhile, you'll
manage to escape!"
I confess the stories made my flesh creep. However, having
heard the worst about the Communists, I still could not quite
believe that they officially sanctioned cannibalism.
On the last day of May, Isadora gave another reception, a
far pleasanter one, for artists and writers. The pianist de Renne-
ville played, Jacques Copeau read his poems, and we danced.
Cecile Sartoris, a woman journalist who was present, later wrote:
This evening Isadora dances for us; a dozen friends. It is her
adieu. She is off to Brussels, then on to London. And after • . .
Here she is then, surging out of the shadow, she who thought
to resuscitate in our midst the play of noble attitudes, the rhythm
of grace in the movements of life! Under the vaporous envelope
of her veils she embodies, successively inquietude, melancholy,
doubt, resignation, hope. Her face is like the surface of a lake
where the ripples pass, like a mirror reflecting the rapid race of
clouds.
Isadora to Irma, October 1, 1920 : "Your letter has made me Happy-"
Irma Duncan: portrait photo by Edward Steichen, Versailles, 1920.
Inscribed: "Gay dancing eyes of the eager dancing faun girL With a
vi vat- Edward Steichen."
The School Is Dead, Long Live the School 2 1 I
It is so beautiful that we do not applaud. Only our oppressed
breaths reveal in the silence what our dumb enthusiasm bears of
anguish.
Then she calls her pupils. There are only three, on this eve-
ning before departure, but it seems as though the Graces of
Falconnet have left the pedestal where they have stood for more
than a century. And these graces here have more than line;
they have the charm of life. They come and go, dancing a rondo,
while over them and about them floats the scarf with which
Proudhon encircled the delicate face of Psyche.
It is incomparably charming, youthful and gay. Isadora leans
over to me: "And if they were five hundred, if they were a
thousand, don't you think that they would be lovelier still; don't
you think that they would give the people something to rest them
from their blackest care? For there will not only be us; my pupils
will teach all the little ones. They will know how to dance as
they know how to read: there will be joy for all! "
"And if you are hungry?" asks a sceptic.
Isadora shrugs her magnificent shoulders, and with an accent
made grave by conviction: "We will dance so as not to think
of it!"
0 cricket! Delicious cricket that puts to shame the ants!
Isadora sublet her house on the Rue de la Pompe, and two
days later we got our visas. I noted in my diary: "June 3, 1921.
Leaving on the 4 o'clock train for Brussels. Poor little Gretel
has to stay behind all by herself. I don't believe we girls shall
ever live together again. Lisa, Theresa and myself are all that
are left of the Duncan Dancers."
Isadora considered Margot (or Gretel as we called her) too
frail to make the trip. The number of Isadora's disciples was
rapidly dwindling. We gave several performances in the Belgian
capital before proceeding to England. The London Observer
wrote of our recital at Queen's Hall:
Last night Isadora Duncan with her three pupils, Irma,
Theresa and Lisa, appeared ... in a Grand Festival of Music
and Dance. But Dance is surely hardly the right word; what we
212 DUNCAN DANCER
saw was Keats' Grecian Vase come to life-with some moving
tragedie added to its living grace. Tchaikovsky's Symphony
Pathetique teems with emotion-not pure musical emotion-but
emotion that can be expressed in bodily action and facial play. It
was very interesting to observe the interpretation of this by the
great artist and her three pupils.
The first movement she took alone and made it a wonderful
example of the beauty of slow motions . • . it became intensely
tragic rather than merely "pathetic" as indeed it should.
On the five-four movement that followed the younger artists
alone took the first section, the elder appearing and the younger
disappearing as the second and contrasting section began. (The
effect was perhaps that of Care driving away the Graces) ....
In the Scherzo all were on the stage together. The last move-
ment (the Lamentoso) Isadora Duncan alone ...
The experience last night was a very interesting one, and as
the music was played exactly as in a fine concert performance,
one did not feel the objection that one docs when one hears some
of these Chopin and Schumann ballets that have become so popu-
lar, where music is rhythmically and orchestrally sacrificed in
order that set forms of bodily movement and an arbitrary story
may be made of it. . . .
It was really in every way a great evening and one is amazed
that the hall should be half empty. Will it be full next Saturday?
This will be the last opportunity of seeing Isadora Duncan be-
fore she goes to her work in Russia-to return when?
Thirteen years had passed since we girls had last danced in
London in the Duke of Y ark's Theatre. What childhood mem-
ories it brought back! The golden watch that turned out to be
pure brass; the famous luncheon party at the Duchess of Man-
chester's house, and the purloined peaches; dancing for the King
and Queen; and oh! my lost sovereign! vVe reminisced about
these things in our dressing room after the performance when,
lo and behold! who should suddenly open the door and walk inr
As if con jured up from the past by our talking about it, like
some specter of our childhood days, the tormentor we all loathed
and feared-our former English governess!
The School Is Dead, Long Live the School 213
She stood there and silently looked at us, even as a serpent
hypnotizes its prey. We stared back in stony silence, then we
turned around and left. After all these years, she still personified
the serpent in our childhood paradise.
That last performance in London spelled finis to Isadora's
original school. Theresa and Lisa confided to me their fears and
their resolve not to accompany Isadora to Soviet Russia. "What
has gotten into her 1" Theresa wailed. "Why, of all places, revo-
lutionary Russia?"
"It must be perfectly awful there," Lisa chimed in. "The
people are starving, disease is rampant, and they walk about in
rags. At least, that is what the papers say. What sort of place is
that for her to found a dance school in? I cannot understand
herl"
"How shall I ever have the courage to tell her?" Theresa
worried. "I know she is going to have a real fit when she hears
we have decided not to go with her. It is going to be awful."
"Yes, please, Irma, be present when we tell her tomorrow
morning," Lisa said. "You may be able to help us explain our
reasons better than we can. I don't want her to think I am
refusing my help, but I am willing to do anything she asks-
except go to Russia. I am simply plain scared of the Bolshies-
and that is the whole truth."
I sympathized with the girls and their reluctance to embark
on so dangerous a mission. Few people in those days expressed a
willingness to enter, much less live in a country where law and
order as we knew it in the West had been completely abolished.
The dictatorship of Lenin and Trotsky had created an unholy
blood-bath in their unhappy country ever since the October Rev-
olution four years earlier. Certainly it was no fit place for a
group of young, sensitive girls, who were concerned for their
immediate future. I agreed to support them in their dreaded
interview with our foster mother.
It turned out exactly as we had feared: grand hysterics on
her part and a flood of tears on theirs. "Ingrates," she called
them. When they finally left her angry presence, pale and
214 DUNCAN DANCER
shaken, I turned to leave also, intending to see the girls off at
the station. She called after me, "And you, Irma, are you also
leaving me?"
I hastily assured her I had given her my solemn word and
that I meant to keep it. She embraced me, visibly moved, and
with tears in her eyes, softly whispered, "Thanks. You are all
I now have left in this world."
That afternoon I saw the girls off, saying a sad farewell,
since none of us knew when we would meet again. Theresa was
planning to marry Stephan Bourgeois, and Lisa was planning
an American tour with Anna and Margot. I returned to find
Isadora in the midst of a gay party. Dressed in a French gown
of lace over blue satin, she sat surrounded by English friends
all imbibing champagne. The moment I entered somebody
shouted facetiously, "Here comes the school!"
Everybody laughed and joined in nicknaming me "the
School." Only Isadora remained serious. Into my mind flashed
the silly game we children in Grunewald used to play with our
identification numbers and I always proudly ended up with the
best prize-number I 6, the house number of our beloved Dun-
can School. And now I myself had to laugh, for here I was
actually personifying it. At that instant, Isadora slowly rose
from her couch and solemnly called for attention. In the silence
that ensued she raised her glass and said, "I propose a toast to
Irma." Everybody stood up and Isadora continued, "Here is to
the school. God bless her!"
PART III. I92I-I933
Exile
BEFORE leaving London, I visited the British Museum. I wanted
to have a look at the Elgin Marbles, especially the caryatid that
was taken from the Erechtheion in Athens. What a sad sight it
was to see that noble statue confined in a somber hall in an alien
land of rain and mists and separated from her five companion
figures, who still stood together in the open air, under an Attic
sun, forever gazing out to the blue Aegean sea.
I could not help but commiserate with her unhappy lot. I too
would soon be exiled to another alien, northern country, whose
language had a strange sound that I could not understand.
Being more of a skeptic, I could not share Isadora's enthu-
siasm for Communist Russia. Her idea of what it represented
was na!ve in the extreme. As someone once remarked, "Good
sense travels on the well-worn paths; genius never!"
In her idealized conception of Russia, Isadora envisioned a
new Utopia where mankind lived in love, beauty, and harmony.
What a rude awakening was in store for her!
"Life in Europe is passe," she would say. "It is too hope-
lessly bourgeois ever to understand what I really am after. Of
course, I realize that present conditions in the Soviet Union are
difficult for a regime in the throes of stabilizing itself. But it
can't be as bad as the papers make out, or the Bolsheviks would
not have sent this friendly invitation."
She had accepted the "friendly invitation," and now we were
in for it; there was no turning back. Theresa had said to me on
the day of parting, "Dear Irma, I wish you good luck, and I do
hope you will find. a little happiness. I really do not like to
217
218 DUNCAN DANCER
think of you being all forsaken and exposed to Isadora's caprices.
But I know you'll get through all right and your temper won't
permit anybody to abuse you. So farewell-and may the gods
be with you!"
The day prior to our departure, Mrs. K. (a member of the
Soviet Commission in London), taking pity on us and our im-
pending adventure, took me aside and said, "Poor Isadora! She
has no conception of what she has to face. It will be very hard
for her. I don't want to discourage her, but I am warning you.
You will all have a very difficult time."
July I2, I92I.
Went aboard the S.S. Baltanic, but are not sailing today. Very
small boat but clean. Mary and Harle saw us off.
July IJ.
Sailed at 9 o'clock in the morning for Reval. The weather is
lovely, the sea is a bit rough. There are some nice passengers on
board, and Miss Ruth Mitchell from New York is sailing with us.
July I6.
Having heaps of fun on board with some jolly new friends in-
cluding the General. Playing Isadora's portable gramophone and
dancing with the "Tiger Man." \V e arrived in Danzig at I o
P.M. It was very dark but mother waited for me on the dock. She
appears to be the same. We motored into town with the General,
Miss Mitchell, and others to ha1 e supper at the Danziger Hof.
Danced to Viennese music. We spent the night at the hotel.
Isadora and I shared a room.
Sunday, July I7·
This far north it remains dark for only a few hours. I got up
early, drove back to the boat where I met mother at the dock.
She returned with me to the Danziger Hof and we had break-
fast together. Just then Isadora and Miss Mitchell left the dining
room. When Miss M. asked Isadora, "\Vho is that woman Irma
is with?" I heard her say, "That is Irma's mother." And turning
to me said, "You know I love your dear old mother. I wouldn't
cross the street with mine, but with yours-! could travel around
Exile 219
the world." [Isadora had been estranged from her mother for
many years.] I told mother about this. Later we all drove back
to the Baltanic. Brought mother home to the place she is staying
at. Poor mother, I was so glad to have seen her again. We sailed
in the afternoon. Though it was quite light at midnight, I slept
soundly, being very tired.
I had written mother about my prospective trip to Russia
and told her the boat would stop at Danzig. Despite the late
hour, there were many people on the dock when we made fast,
mostly stevedores and men whose business it was to unload the
freight. I did not exactly expect mother to be there. I leaned
against the railing on the upper deck and watched the scene,
which was illuminated by a few dim lamps. Suddenly there was
a slight commotion in back of the crowd, as of someone trying
desperately to push her way through. It was a frail old lady
dressed in black, holding onto her hat with one hand and hold-
ing up a huge bouquet of flowers with the other. At first I was
not quite sure, but as she managed to push herself through the
crowd toward the front I recognized mother. The gangplank
had not yet been lowered, so she had no way of coming aboard.
I was about to ask the captain for permission when the friendly
stevedores, hearing she had come all the way from Hamburg to
see her daughter off to Russia, made short shrift of the situation.
Lifting her bodily up in the air, they passed her on to the sailors
on deck, while she still clutched both her hat and bouquet. I led
her away from the stares of the curious into my cabin.
Not having set eyes on each other for seven years (not since
that day of my christening before the war), we naturally had
much to talk about. The strange thing was that neither of us
could find any words. We just sat and held hands and looked at
each other for a long time. What really was there to say? Liv-
ing on another continent, divided not only by the whole width
of an ocean but also by a completely different mode of existence,
and speaking a different language now, I had grown away from
her to such an extent that we met as strangers. The war years
220 DUNCAN DANCER
and suffering had taken their toll of my mother. She had aged
considerably since last I saw her. She too must have had difficulty
recognizing her little girl-a child no longer. Her first words
were to chide me for looking so thin and pale.
The next day, after the boat sailed and passed a narrow spit
of land jutting out into the harbor, I was surprised to see a
small figure dressed in black with a long white shawl across her
shoulders, standing below the lighthouse. Through a pair of
binoculars I recognized mother. As the boat slowly turned out
to sea, she removed her white shawl and waved and waved ....
I waved back, but she could not see me. No sooner did we meet
than we parted again; it had been like that ever since I left
home. Mother waved that scarf as long as the boat was visible.
And I seemed to hear her say, sadly but hopefully, as when we
said goodbye to each other, "Auf Wiedersehen! Auf Wieder-
sehen!"
July r9.
After dinner, at 8 o'clock, we anchored at Reval. A very pic-
turesque town on a hill with many church steeples. Mrs. Lit-
vino:ff of the Soviet Embassy came to meet us. Isadora was dis-
appointed to see only her and not a red automobile full of black-
haired and black-eyed Bolshies. All our luggage was sealed for
shipment to Moscow. They took us to headquarters where Mrs.
Litvino:ff, who speaks English and is the ambassador's wife, had
put us up on cots in her husband's study. Isadora refused to stay
there. "Let's return to the boat and get Ruth Mitchell and the
General and have dinner in town," she said. Had vodka, crabs,
and danced all night at Mon Repos, a nice restaurant by the sea.
Spent the rest of the night on the boat in Ruthie's cabin.
July 20.
Next morning Isadora and I took a droshky to the hotel where
we had a hot bath together, there being only enough hot water
for one, and a hot breakfast. The General invited us to lunch.
Lovely food-chicken salad, good cold beer, and fresh rasp-
Exile 221
berries with sour cream. Walked through the town. The Gen-
eral very thoughtfully, in fear we would starve on our trip, had
a food basket prepared as a goodbye present. I hated to see the
little Baltanic sail off without us. Isadora hugged me and,
smiling bravely, said, "Well, we are in for it now!" Leaving on
the midnight train for Petrograd. Mrs. Litvinoff saw us off.
Funny feeling to ride in a Russian train again. The same candle-
light and firing the engine with wood I remember from my two
previous visits.
July 21.
Stopped all day at Narva. We are now in Red Russia. They in-
spected our luggage but did not confiscate anything. Artists are
exempt. Isadora went to the market, bought some flowers and
raspberries, and we lunched from the General's basket in our
compartment, which we share with a young man, a diplomatic
courier. Went to the village and returned followed by a group
of children who were curious to see some strangers. Isadora
turned on her gramophone and made them dance on the plat-
form. Then we gave them all the candy and fruit we had. Train
finally got going again after midnight.
July 22.
We arrived at 1 o in the morning at Petro grad, as it is now
called, and were driven to headquarters, the former Hotel As-
toria. We walked along the Nevsky Prospect. How changed
everything is! The town appears dead and infinitely sad. Empty
shop windows, but the people do not look starved, though they
are all dressed in dirty rags. Glad to leave for Moscow.
Sunday, July 24.
At a snail's pace crawled into Moscow at 4 A.M. Nobody at the
station to meet us. Took a cab and drove to the foreign office
and who should we meet there? Our first Bolshevik, none other
than Count Florinsky from Long Beach! What a joke! Ele-
gantly dressed in dinner clothes, he had just come from a party.
He invited us in to his rooms. Isadora and I couldn't stop laugh-
ing, it was really too funny.
222 DUNCAN DANCER
Isadora noted in her memoirs:
I went to Russia accompanied only by my pupil Irma and my
faithful maid Jeanne. \V e had been told such terrible things that
as the train passed the red flag at the frontier, we would not
have been surprised if the pictured Bolshevik with red flannel
shirt, black beard, and a knife between his teeth, had appeared to
violate us all three and then cut our throats as an evening's amuse-
ment. We all confessed to some shiver of excitement. . . .
Our first night at Moscow we left Jeanne in the one room
available at the hotel, in the one bed, weeping hysterically because
she had seen "des grands rats," and we spent the night (with
the young man from the train), wandering about the mystically
beautiful city of the many churches and golden domes. He talked,
more and more inspired, of the future of communism, until dawn
we were also ready to die for Lenin and the cause. Then some
clouds blew up and it began to rain. Our guide seemed supremely
indifferent to the wet and I also noticed now that we hadn't
eaten anything for fourteen hours. I found, after meeting others,
that a real Communist is indifferent to heat or cold or hunger or
any material sufferings. As the early Christian martyrs, they live
so entirely in ideas that they simply don't notice these things. But
Irma and I were worn out; and so we tramped back to the train.
July 25.
\Ve have been waiting all morning to hear from Tovarish Luna-
charsky, who invited us here, but didn't get word till noon. They
conducted us to Madame Geltzer's apartment. The well-known
ballerina is away on a tour.
There we met Ilya Schneider, a journalist and an intimate
friend of Ekaterina Geltzer. He wrote in his reminiscences:
The telephone on my table rang, and Lunacharsky's secretary
said that the NARKOM wanted to speak to me. Lunacharsky
had reported the arrival of the famous dancer, Isadora Duncan,
who wanted to give her labor and experience in the artistic
education of children to Soviet Russia.
"We expected Duncan in three days from now," Lunacharsky
Exile 223
said to me, "but she came unexpectedly yesterday and had to stay
at a room in the Savoy Hotel, which, at the present time, is not
at all well built, one can even say it's a wreck. '-Vhile we are
looking for other lodgings, couldn't we put her up for a while
in Ekaterina Vasilyevna Geltzer's apartment who is away and
has, so I hear, entrusted her apartment to you?"
I didn't doubt Geltzer would agree to this but nonetheless I
asked permission to call back in a few minutes while I consulted
with Geltzer's sister, the wife of I van Mikhailovich Moskvin.
She of course agreed and I informed Lunacharsky about this.
"Please go to Geltzer's apartment," Lunacharsky replied,
"settle her there and look after her for a while."
When I entered Geltzer's apartment ... we were intro-
duced. I asked our guest if she was satisfied with her quarters
and how she felt. . • . Isadora, dissatisfied, frowned, but I
couldn't understand why-maybe my German pronunciation was
at fault-! thought. However, I found out later that her dis-
pleasure arose on account of my addressing her as "Miss Dun-
can." Despising all remnants of the world she had left, she
wanted to be addressed as Comrade or Tovarish Duncan ....
In the first conversation that sprung up between us at the tea
table Duncan told me that she saw the "Look of the new world"
only in the expression of the faces and eyes of the Red Army men
whom she saw marching in the streets. . . .
A young woman noiselessly entered the room.
"This is Irma-the only one of my pupils who has decided to
come with me to Moscow," Isadora said. "You know, they
frightened us with endless horrors which we would have to live
through and see here."
A big, full-bosomed person flew headlong into the room, bab-
bling quickly in French and making "big eyes" while clapping
her hands together. This was Jeanne, her French maid without
whom Duncan did not travel. It turned out that Duncan's bag-
gage had arrived. I stepped out onto the balcony of Gcltzer's
apartment and saw below baskets and suitcases and trunks rising
up like a tower on the cart. . . .
At the time of our talk, Jeanne was bustling about the table
serving tea and unloading jars of jam and marmalade, chocolate
224 DUNCAN DANCER
bars, sponge cakes and small packages wrapped in oil paper which
she noisily tore open. . . . I peered into the huge basket and
saw that it was filled with bread.
"Why did you bring so much bread with you from behind the
border?" I asked Duncan. She had no time to answer when
Irma blurted out with a laugh, "We still have two more such
baskets!"
Isadora indignantly explained that these small loaves of bread
were dietary . . . she burst out laughing and said in her special
German language in which she sprinkled French and sometimes
English words, "They all insisted that we take a lot of bread
with us since there isn't any in Russia."
At this point the bell rang. Lunacharsky made an appearance.
I was not going to hinder their discussion (for they spoke French
together) and left.
Lunacharsky commissioned Ilya Schneider to look after us
for a while. This he did for the rest of the time we lived in
Russia; first as interpreter, then as business manager of the Mos-
cow school. He was a slim young man of medium height, with
dark eyes and dark hair slicked back. We all became inseparable
friends. Lunacharsky, Commissioner of Education, a cultured
author and playwright, published an article shortly after his
interview with Isadora, which he titled "Our Guest." The article
is too long to be quoted in its entirety, but a few extracts may be
of interest:
What end had she in coming to Russia? The main end was an
educational one. She came to Russia with the approval of Nar-
kompross and Narkomindel, who made her an offer to or-
ganize in this country a big school of a new type. . . . Duncan
believed with all her soul that, in spite of the famine and the
lack of necessities, in spite of the terrible seriousness of the mo-
ment and the consequent preoccupation of the government officials
with other vital questions, a beginning of her idea could be made .
. . . Her vision reaches far. She is thinking of a large govern-
ment school with a thousand children. She is willing for the
moment, however, to begin with a smaller number. They shall
Exile 225
receive elementary education through our teachers. Their physical
and aesthetic education shall be under Duncan's sole direc-
tion ....
At present Duncan is going through a phase of rather militant
communism that sometimes makes us smile involuntarily ....
In one instance she was asked by some of our Communist com-
rades to a small, one might say, family fete. She found it possible
to call their attention to their bad Communist taste, because of the
bourgeois surroundings and because of their behavior, which was
so far from the flaming ideal she had painted in her imagination.
It would have developed into a small scandal, if our comrades
had not understood how much original charm was contained in
the naive criticism which was in substance true.
The People's Commissariat of Education greets Russia's guest
and believes that, on the occasion of her first public appearance,
the proletariat will confirm the greeting. Duncan has been called
the Queen of Movement, but of all her movements, this last
one-her coming to Red Russia in spite of being scared off-is
the most beautiful and demands the greatest applause.
When Isadora and I arrived in Moscow during the third
year of the Red Revolution, we were the first foreign women,
except for Anne Sheridan, to come to that country since the
uprising in 1918. The rest of the civilized world trembled to
come near it. America, and most Western nations, had not yet
recognized the new regime under Lenin and Trotsky. Lenin,
the father of the Bolshevik Revolution, once advocated that all
the streets should be paved with gold, for as a means of exchange
that metal would be made obsolete. We found the streets littered
with every conceivable object but gold. Money in any kind of
currency was out of circulation, throwing the whole economy
into chaos. Everything could be had free-if it was available. In
this short period of practical communism, people received sus-
tenance and other commodities necessary to their existence ac-
cording to their individual needs. Wherever one looked, one
saw endless lines of people queuing up for food. We, too, were
put on rations, or paiok as they called it for artists. Once a fort-
DUNCAN DANCER
night Jeanne went with her big market basket to the distributing
center in the Kremlin to collect the rations consisting of white
flour, pressed caviar, tea, sugar, and potatoes. For the rest of
that first year we lived chiefly on potatoes, a diet we shared with
all those lucky enough to obtain them, for elsewhere-outside
of Moscow-a terrible famine raged. The famine would have
caused a national disaster but for the food distributed from
America through the Hoover Commission.
Most of the month of August we spent in the country in a
small isba, or peasant's cottage, fashioned of rough-hewn logs.
Living simply off the land, drinking goat's milk and eating
goat's cheese, we waited patiently for the government to find a
suitable house for the school.
At last, on August 23, two carriages drove us and our lug-
gage back to town. They stopped in front of No. 20 Pretchis-
tenka, formerly a fashionable street running from the Cathedral
of the Savior, visible from afar, to the Zoubovsky Boulevard.
\Ve entered a house of palatial proportions done in the rococo
style. It had belonged to Ushkoff, a wealthy tea-plantation
owner, whose wife, Alexandra Balashova, had been a leading
member of the Bolshoi Ballet. She had only recently fled the
country.
One entered by a rather small door-small, that is, in rela-
tion to the immensity of the building-from Pretchistenka and
came upon a terra-cotta-tinted Pompeiian room that had four
marble columns and marble benches, whose backs were deco-
rated with bas-reliefs of nymphs and satyrs. In a niche stood a
marble statue of the goddess Venus. From this vestibule, one
ascended by a broad white marble stairway to the grand hall.
This hall had tapestries affixed to its four walls and a ceiling
painted with murals depicting scenes from Greek mythology.
The upstairs rooms were decorated in a surprising variety of
styles. There was the Empire room, the Louis XV boudoir, the
oak-paneled Gothic dining room, the Turkish smoking room
that led into a winter garden, and so on-but there was only
Exile 227
one bathroom. Isadora installed herself in the master bedroom,
which was decorated with every conceivable Napoleonic emblem
from bees to swans in red and gold. I occupied the Louis XV
boudoir next door, and we shared the bathroom between.
Of course all these elaborately decorated rooms were com-
pletely denuded of furniture. The last official occupant, Bela
Kun, had filched everything including the bric-a-brac; he had
even stripped the silk damask off the walls. The only fixtures
remaining in my room, apart from the large marble fireplace
(which was a comfort to me during the arctic winters), con-
sisted of a tall mirror in an elaborate gold frame over a rosewood
and ormolu commode, and the delicately constructed Saxe china
chandeliers. My bed stood on a raised dais, enclosed by a gilded
wooden balustrade, in one corner of the former boudoir. Two
large double windows opposite opened onto the spacious court-
yard, enclosed by additional wings of the house.
This private sanctum was home to me all the years I lived
in Moscow.
On the third of December we officially opened the school
with twenty-five children especially chosen for their dancing tal-
ents. Often in the beginning the dance room could not be heated,
and classes had to be canceled. Frequently we went hungry. But
the enthusiastic little pupils clamored for their lessons, and we
taught them to dance "so as not to think of it," as Isadora had
prophesied to Madame Sartoris.
The government had originally intended to settle us in the
warm south, the Crimea, where the Tsar's old summer palace
could easily accommodate a thousand children. For that reason,
we had come to Russia without sufficient warm clothing. As the
days began to get more sharply cold, we began to wonder about
the winter when temperatures sink below zero. An official sug-
gested we go to the fur storage warehouse and there choose
garments for ourselves. He obtained a written order, and in
great excitement Isadora and I set out for the warehouse. "We
must be like the other working people," Isadora said. She had
228 DUNCAN DANCER
admired the sheepskin coats-or shubas-the peasants wore into
town on market days, and suggested we get similar ones. How-
ever, that was not my idea of a proper fur coat.
At the warehouse we saw rows on rows of magnificent furs
of every description-enough to make one's head reel. I quickly
whispered to my foster mother, "Don't take anything but Rus-
sian sable! "
Isadora looked shocked. She picked the most modest speci-
mens she could find. For herself she chose a long mink coat
lined with ermine and for me a mink coat with a sable collar.
With these over our arms, we marched out of the warehouse.
But guards stopped us at the door, explaining that we had to
leave the coats until they could be properly evaluated.
A week passed without any sign of the fur coats arriving at
Pretchistenka. When we called up the warehouse, we were in-
formed of the fantastic price we had to pay. Simply out of the
question, we could not afford them. I turned to Isadora. "You
see! You should have let me have my wish. I would at least
have owned a sable coat once in my life, even if only for a week!"
She laughed and told me to have patience, that I would
eventually receive a fur coat. For Christmas she presented me
with a nice coat of silver-gray squirrel to keep me from freezing
to death in that arctic climate.
The fourth anniversary of the Russian Revolution was to be
celebrated on the seventh of November, 1921. Lunacharsky
asked Isadora if she would dance at the gala performance at the
Bolshoi Theatre. All the tickets were to be distributed free to
the various workers' organizations and the Red Army. She ac-
cepted the honor with pleasure and decided to dance T chaikov-
sky's Sixth Symphony and his "Marche Slav." Interwoven in
the composition of the "Marche Slav" are several bars of the
Tsarist Hymn. Several officials objected to her dancing to that
music, fearing it might call forth a counter-revolutionary dem-
onstration among some of the people. Their fear was completely
unfounded. They had not seen Isadora's interpretation of the
Exile 229
theme and did not know that she used the Tsarist Hymn motif
to express the utter oppression of the masses beaten down by
the knout. Her dancing and miming of the "Marche Slav" had
a tremendous impact on the audience. It was a magnificent per-
formance, not in the least "pretty"-which may be the reason
people schooled in ballet found it shocking-but its stark power
was obvious to everyone else. A critic wrote in I svestia the next
day:
Isadora Duncan depicted in moving gestures a bent, op-
pressed, burdened, fettered slave, who falls exhausted to his
knees. Now see what happens to this slave at the first notes of
the accursed Tsarist Hymn. He lifts his weighed-down head, and
his face shows an awful grimace of hate. With all his force he
straightens himself and breaks his chains. Then he brings from
behind his back his crooked and stiffened arms-forward to a
new and joyful life. The allegory was understood by every-
one ...•
The thrill of the evening came when after the emotion of the
"Marche Slav" calmed, the orchestra began to play the "Inter-
nationale," and Isadora moved to the center of the stage, draped
in red . . . when the dancer had mimed the first stanza, the
singing audience, standing up, saw Irma come from the side of
the stage leading by the hand a little child, who was followed by
another and another-a hundred little children in red tunics,
each with the right hand held high, clasping fraternally the left
hand of the one before, moving against the blue curtains, form-
ing a vivid, living frieze, and then circling the vast stage and sur-
rounding, with childish arms outstretched toward the light, the
noble, undaunted, and radiant figure of their great teacher.
The allegory was understood by everyone, the reviewer said,
all, that is, except the confraternity of the Russian Ballet whose
sole concept of the kinetic art represents the PRETTY dance. Of
course Isadora's March Slav was not meant to be pretty, on the
contrary. But that did not seem to penetrate their limited under-
standing of what the true art of the dance should represent in
all its multiple facets. Isadora Duncan's individualistic approach
230 DUNCAN DANCER
to the dance was apparently entirely incomprehensible to their
narrow, drilled-in conformity of thinking. Since then, some
leaders of the Russian Ballet have publicly voiced their total
incomprehension in really quite vulgar and stupid criticism of
her unique art, obviously motivated by envy because of their
own lack of creative originality.
Isadora's grand scheme of founding a free school supported
by a generous government slowly began to disintegrate. Finan-
cial assistance was not forthcoming. The spacious building was
about the only thing the government provided free of cost to
further the work for which Isadora Duncan came to Soviet
Russia. Lenin, the ruler of Red Russia, being above all a realist,
found it necessary to abolish War Communism in order to put
his country on its financial feet again. In December of r 92 r, he
inaugurated the New Economic Policy, called NEP. A money
system was re-established, standardizing the ruble on a gold
basis, and workers again became wage-earners.
Lunacharsky himself came to Pretchistenka to inform us of
these important matters and to tell us that the serious financial
crisis made it impossible for the government to support the
school. Isadora's idealism was blown sky high. She was right
back where she started-saddled with the enormous upkeep of
the newly installed school housing more than fifty people. As
of old, she saw herself once more forced to give paying per-
formances in order to support her idealistic enterprise. "Plus
fa change, plus c'est la meme chose."
At this moment in the history of her school, Isadora met the
young Russian poet Sergei Essenine, to whom she was married
in May of the following year. From that time, she became more
and more restless in Moscow. She felt that she must leave Rus-
sia. This was necessary for the simple reason that she needed
desperately to replenish her private coffers. She asked me to go
with her. "You know yourself that there is no future here for
us and our idea," she confided to me while in a discouraged
mood. "Come with me to America, half of everything I have
Exile 231
is yours." But she quickly added, jokingly, "Half of everything
-but my husband!"
I advised her not to take her husband to either Western
Europe or America, foreseeing nothing but disaster, for he was
a neurotic man, not the type to be suddenly uprooted from his
familiar environment. She would not listen to me, and I cer-
tainly wanted no part of that mad menage. I much preferred to
stay in Russia. Besides, what about the children? The thought
of sending them back to their miserable homes after they had
become used to the school (and loved it) was more than I
could bear. Remembering my own childhood and what dancing
with Isadora meant to me, I had not the heart to forsake them
now. And so I stayed, come what might, for better or for worse;
resolved to do my utmost to make this thing I helped to start
a success.
Before leaving, Isadora handed me a check for a hundred
dollars. "That is all I can spare," she said, "but I shall send
more from America."
The trouble was that these one hundred dollars did not last
very long. So when they were gone, here I was, in my early,
hopeful twenties; left stranded in a strange, forbidding land
without a kopek to my name. What would the future bring?
Little Dividend
To celebrate the official opening of the Moscow school, some
friends had invited Isadora and myself to a night club. Situ-
ated in the basement of an apartment house, it was the only sub
rosa night club in town. Being foreigners, we always created a
mild sensation wherever we went. The populace would approach
as close as they could and silently stare at us, as if seeing crea-
tures from another planet. As a celebrity, Isadora was given the
red-carpet treatment at the night club. When the master of
ceremonies saw her seated at a ringside table with her entourage,
he focused the spotlight on her. Then he made a little intro-
ductory speech to the assembled guests. In an allusion to Bala-
shova's secret flight from Red Russia and Isadora's candid
arrival, he said, "Now that the New Economic Policy is in
force, our government has recently made a very smart deal by
exchanging worthless Russian rubles for valuable American
valiuta. Comrades, I have the great honor of introducing Isadora
Duncan!"
When the applause died down, he continued, "It appears
they obtained not only valuable American valiuta-but even a
little dividend!"
The little dividend was me. Would this dividend, reinvested,
bring forth a goodly sum some day? That was the question.
Confronted with the biggest challenge of my career so far, I
asked myself whether I really had it in me to make good. Isa-
dora had left me in charge of the artistic direction of the Moscow
institution. But I must explain that without Ilya Schneider's
Little Dividend 233
clever business administration and the devoted help of the other
co-workers associated with me in this difficult venture, I could
not have achieved what I did.
Let no one imagine that it was an easy matter to earn a
living in those lean early years of Revolutionary Russia. Apart
from my free room and keep, I received no salary. Any money
I could possibly hope to earn would have to come from paid
performances. Up to this point I had appeared only as a mem-
ber of a group. Would the general public care to see me dance
alone? At one of her own recitals, Isadora had once introduced
me at the end to the public, who gave me a few cheers. That
was all. Except for leading the pupils onto the stage in the
"Internationale" as a sort of grande finale, I was not permitted
to dance. I therefore decided it would be of importance for my
future work in Russia that I should show the people what I
could do, both as dancer and as teacher. To achieve this, I
forced myself to cultivate patience and to concentrate on work-
ing hard for a whole year with the most talented of my pupils.
In Russia I had done all the teaching because Isadora never
instructed beginners. Every so often she would show them a
gesture, but nothing else. I had no doubt whatever that I would
attain good results. Here is where my practical experience in
developing my own method of teaching in Darmstadt proved to
be of great help. And, more important, my foster mother fully
endorsed it, for Isadora herself once said, "I have watched you
work. You never speak about it. You just quietly go in there to
teach every day for an hour or so, and the next time I see the
children-they can dance!" Her saying this gave me hope and
bolstered my courage in pursuing my goal.
To increase my effectiveness as a teacher, I had to study
Russian. Luckily I pick up foreign languages easily. By the end
of my third year in the Soviet Union, I spoke and read this
difficult language fluently. My knowledge of German and the
Greek alphabet were helpful in getting me started. Being able
to converse freely furthered my acquaintance with the Russian
234 DUNCAN DANCER
people, whom I came to understand and know more intimately
than do most foreigners.
A month after my foster mother left, I received a letter from
her, from Wiesbaden, Germany:
Dear Irma-
I have been expecting every day to leave for London, and
passports each day delayed. Therefore I telegraphed you three
times but waited to write from London. We are so tired with all
the waiting that we have come here to rest and recuperate. Lon-
don performances are all arranged • . . only the waiting on
account of formalities.
Berlin is very quiet and dull-was delighted to leave it. The
house in Grunewald was lost through the war, etc. The lawyer
handed me the absurd sum of 90,000 inflation marks for it. All
my moneys, properties, etc., in Paris were attached so we have
nothing but difficulties. Therefore I could not send you money
from Berlin. Hope everything can be cleared up soon. I am en-
closing check of ten pounds as experiment; if you succeed in
cashing it I can send you others. To send money through bank
is impossible.
From then on, I received no further funds from her. Nor
did I hear from her again till she returned to Russia a year later.
That summer and the following winter, I lived on the simple
fare the school provided, with an occasional dinner out with
friends; while my foster mother toured the States. All my ef-
forts were concentrated on my forthcoming debut as a solo
performer in Moscow.
In the spring of I 923, on the twenty-ninth of April, I made
my deb':t with a group of my little pupils at a Sunday matinee.
It took place in the Comedia, the former Korsh Theatre, situ-
ated on the Petrovka in the center of Moscow. What a lovely,
sunny day! Driving to the theatre in the morning in an open
carriage for this important event in my career, I thought of
Isadora, and how she must have felt once. Was she as proud
then as I felt now-on that date in July in 1905 when she
Little Dividend 235
showed off her pupils for the first time to the public? I remem-
ber what a thrill I experienced seeing the elegant cream-colored
posters with my name spelled in Russian in huge gold letters,
splashed on the walls all over town. Pierre Luboshutz, a well-
known Russian pianist, played for us. What can I say about the
artistic merit of my debut? Let the reviewer speak:
Anyone who sees this performance for the first time can imme-
diately appreciate its enormous value in an artistic and educa-
tional sense. It has immense public significance. What strikes one
above all is the extraordinary physical control of the dancers.
Irma Duncan, herself, is a very distinguished artist. She trans-
mits the interpretation of this dance of the future with great
ease and is besides full of temperament. She has a wonderful way
of using her draperies to excellent effect. She danced Schubert's
"Marche Militaire" beautifully, and with great skill manipulated
a big silken scarf that floated in the wind. Irma is the light, love,
and animating flame of her encircling young students.
The strong, healthy, uncomplicated art of the young dancers,
and the splendid mastery of Irma Duncan herself, harmonize
with the problems of our modern age. We are very glad that
the Duncan Dancers came here and we recommend to everyone
who has the means to in vest a poltinik [fifty kopeks] to go and
see them dance.
Two weeks later we danced in Leningrad. It amused me to
see how the history of the school repeated itself when I led my
little group to the station on our first tour. Each girl carried
her own little suitcase filled with dance tunics. Remembering
my childhood as a fledgling dancer and the discipline admin-
istered to me, I saw to it that a more enlightened attitude pre-
vailed while I was in charge. Every problem was explained to
the children intelligently, and they gave me their whole-hearted
cooperation without anyone's needing to take drastic disciplinary
measures. My main concern for these citizens of an autocratic
dictatorship was for them to grow up and develop in a congenial,
friendly atmosphere, free of too much restraint. The first Rus-
DUNCAN DANCER
sian word I used when teaching them to dance was svoboda-
freedom. Freedom in movement and in expression and-most
important-freedom of thought. They understood, and gave
me their love and devotion in return for my genuine interest
in their welfare. They always called me "lrmushka."
Though postal communications between Russia and the out-
side world were extremely uncertain, I nevertheless sent pic-
tures, articles, programs, and posters to my former colleagues
to inform them of my work. I knew they would be interested to
find out how the Moscow school was progressing. The three of
them-Anna, Lisa, and Margot-planned a tour through the
United States in the fall.
Lisa told me later that she had attended Isadora's all-Wag-
ner program on July 3-quite marvelous, though it contained
two numbers she had never rehearsed. The "Bacchanale," Lisa
said, had been wilder than ever-"as though Hell itself had
entered on scene." Isadora had also spoken to the audience-in
the dark, for the police had turned out the lights-saying she
was going back to Moscow because "la bourgeoisie m'a tuee."
Lisa added that Essenine had received some Russian papers,
in one of which was a long and enthusiastic article about me
and my work. Reading it, he screamed at Isadora with all the
malice of which he was capable, "Oh, Irma bolshoi success! Bravo
Irma!" But Isadora made no reply.
At about that time I received a letter from Anna. She had
recently come out of an unhappy experience, which made her
look at the world with bitterness and melancholy. She wrote:
My dearest Irma:
Paris, 6 Avenue Montaigne
June I I, 1923
Although I did not write to you, dear, I often think of you and
we frequently speak of you. Especially since we received your nice
letter and you told of your plucky work and doings. I certainly
am more than astonished and admire you for what you have
accomplished with the school and what you call so cutely "My
Little Dividend 237
children." My heartiest congratulations and good wishes, dear,
for your own future as well as that of the school.
I need not tell you of many things Lisa wrote you already. It is
a great tragedy that is now passing with Isadora and I think the
final curtain will come soon. Alas, the best intentions of the al-
ready so few friends cannot bring help, unfortunately. She was
wonderful at her two performances and if only she would just do
that-live for her work and dance as only she of all people in
the world knows how.
We are struggling to go on with what she gave us, in spite of
her. And I hope we shall be able to do as much and more than
we did last time in America, when we return in the autumn.
Dear, it would be lovely to go and spend the summer with you
as you suggest, but of course you know the reasons . . . you will
perhaps understand me, Irma dear, but I am another person in
my inner self. And I am only trying to do what I can to con-
tinue with our own work as long as it is still good and strong
enough.
Go on, dear Irma, you have found a great hold in your new
work, and I admire you for it. All the luck in the world-and
take much love from your always affectionate, old friend,
Anna
That summer in Moscow, Comrade Podvowsky, the Minis-
ter of Sports and Physical Culture, taking due note of my suc-
cessful appearances with my pupils, told me, "What a wonderful
thing it would be if you could make this fine work available to
many more children of our working population-to all those
thousands of boys and girls who cannot leave the hot and dusty
city in the summertime. It would be a real boon to them to
have some outdoor activity for their benefit and pleasure."
He promised to place the big sports arena, an open-air
stadium just outside Moscow, at our disposal. Willing to try
this experiment in mass teaching, we put an advertisement in
the papers, offering free lessons. The response was tremendous!
It seemed as if all the children in town wanted to dance. Pod-
vowsky supplied a brass band. With the musicians leading us
DUNCAN DANCER
and with my own pupils setting the pace, we carried a banner
with the slogan of our school emblazed in crimson letters on
white-"A free spirit in a healthy body"-as we proceeded
from the Pretchistenka to the stadium. A steadily mounting
crowd of children dressed in short red tunics and bare feet,
waiting to join us at each street corner, swelled the ranks of
our parade.
With the assistance of my young pupils, I taught five
hundred children the entire summer long. It was an inspiring
sight to see them all dancing together-"like a field of red pop-
pies swaying in the wind," as Isadora said when she saw them.
They made immense progress in so short a time. The Commu-
nist officials took notice, and Lunacharsky wrote an article in
Isvestzia, saying:
The Duncan School, conducting important work with hun-
dreds of Moscow workers' children, presents one of the priceless
and interesting artistic-educational institutions of the U.S.S.R.
The students of the Duncan School, renouncing their own sum-
mer vacation under the guidance and direction of Irma Duncan,
conducted throughout the summer open classes in the sports arena
of the Red Stadium. This occupation gave brilliant results. The
children, who looked weak and timid, soon became healthy,
tanned and literally reborn.
The Duncan School itself was created under immense diffi-
culties. But today I read with pleasure the delighted opinions of
the central press about the work they are doing. Recognizing for
the Duncan School extraordinary significance and an enormous
future in the matter of harmonic development of a new genera-
tion in Soviet Russia, the workers count it extremely desirable
and necessary to send large groups of their own children to the
school.
Other and equally appreciative articles appeared in the
press, many with pictures showing the children in action. All
this publicity could not escape the top leaders in the Kremlin,
though Lenin himself-popularly called "Ilyich"-was living
Little Dividend 239
in the country, recuperating from a severe illness. The entire
Duncan School was taken completely by surprise one day when
a car drove up with a couple of military men in uniform and
a little girl, holding a large bouquet of flowers in her hands.
The little girl, in Pioneer uniform, held out the bouquet and
made a little speech: "These flowers are from Ilyich for Duncan
with his compliments." "From Vladimir Il yich r" we inquired
incredulously, "You mean Tovarish Lenin?" "Yes, he picked
them this morning in his garden and told me to present them."
Since Isadora was not there, I accepted them with thanks.
"Is there a card with them?" I inquired. "No," retorted the
little Pioneer, whose father was military aide to Russia's ruler.
"Only his good wishes for the wonderful work the Duncan
school is doing."
I placed Lenin's flowers, such as grow in any man's garden,
in cool water in a crystal vase on the mantel in my room. During
the long ride from his dacha in the country they had wilted a
bit in the open car under a noonday sun. I hoped they would
revive. But like the great man who had sent them, they did
not last long. Six months later he too faded away, to lie em-
balmed forever in Red Square under the Kremlin wall, wor-
shiped by the masses as a god.
The highest award in Soviet Russia is the Order of Lenin.
After his death, everyone in our school felt proud that our work
had been given this lovely award on the order of Lenin himself.
Somehow this seemed to crown my own efforts with success.
It does not appear unduly boastful, I hope, if I confess to
having felt a thrill of real accomplishment. For the benefit of
all those children who profited from it, the "Little Dividend"
had at last turned into a worth-while investment indeed.
A Last J7isit
"LENIN is dead!"
I can still hear these words spoken when my train stopped
at the frontier the day he died. My instant reaction was that
maybe now, with the great leader of the Communist Revolution
gone, the unfortunate Russian people could anticipate a more
liberal regime. Alas, history has shown that the next ruler
turned out to be even more of a despot than Lenin had been.
I recalled the early days of our coming to Soviet Russia.
When, stirred by a wild enthusiasm for the new idea that was
born here, Isadora-who then saw everything through red-
colored glasses, as it were-cried out, "Isn't communism won-
derful!'' And I, politically every bit as ignorant as she though
not as gullible, cried out in disgust with the unrealism of this
new ideology, so incompatible with my own common sense,
"Communism is the bunk!"
"How can you say that," she protested, "when all the the-
atres and concerts are free for the common people to attend?
That is something I have always dreamed of!"
"That is exactly what I mean," I retorted, "when I main-
tain communism makes no sense. Everything is free-but the
people!"
I was definitely not receptive to my new environment. I
steadfastly refused to share my foster mother's vision of a con-
tented proletariat, happily building a new life for themselves.
Or, as she expressed it in an article she wrote at the time for
L'Humanite: "All men will be brothers carried away by the
great wave of liberation that has just been born here. • . • The
A Last Visit
prophecies of Beethoven, Nietzsche and Walt Whitman, are
being realized."
As I look back now, I recall the utter sense of boredom with
which I contemplated living among the Bolsheviks. In my eager
youth, I expected a finer life than this to be my lot. Impatience
to be gone and to return to the civilized existence I had led be-
fore was a feeling I had to suppress. I thus started out to ful-
fill my mission in Russia in a state of utter mental depression
of which I never spoke to Isadora.
In my effort to keep the establishment functioning during
Isadora's absence of more than a year, I had exerted myself
too much and I was not accustomed to such a meagre, unbalanced
diet. The strenuous physical work and deprivations had under-
mined my health. Never very robust, with a delicate nervous
system, I lost so much weight that I was a mere shadow. Night-
mares kept me awake at night, and the many worries and
frustrations upset my metabolism, so that I suffered from a
severe stomach ailment. The doctor prescribed a special diet
and ordered me under the care of a nurse. It so happened that
the mother of one of the pupils, Elisaveta Gregorievna My-
sovsky, was a registered nurse. During the First World War
she had been stationed at the military hospital in Tula, under
the direction of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna. She cared
for me day and night.
At this time, my foster mother returned from America.
Seeing how my health had suffered while she was away, she
suggested I come with her to the south for a cure. To start out,
we headed for the Caucasus where in Kislavodsk-a watering
place as famous as Vichy in France-! took the baths in spar-
kling Narzan waters. To replenish her coffers, Isadora decided
to give performances while I acted as her helper backstage. It
was there that I had the famous fight with the two armed
Tcheka men when they tried to stop her from dancing the
"Marche Slav" because of the Tsarist Hymn. While Isadora
stepped in front of the curtain and notified the audience that
DUNCAN DANCER
members of the police had come backstage to arrest her, I
forcibly pushed the armed and uniformed Tcheka men (fore-
runners of the dreaded GPU) off the sacred blue dance carpet,
not knowing how close I came to being shot for doing so. Only
because the president of the local political bureau happened to
be in the audience, we got off scot free, and Isadora received
permission to proceed with her program as planned.
After that episode, she felt it might be better and safer
for us to move further afield. That summer of 1923, we went
on to Baku, the famous oil city on the shores of the Caspian
Sea. From there we continued our journey to Tiflis. I loved
this beautiful old Georgian capital-the wonderful hot sulphur
baths and daily massage, the excellent wines, and the excursions
in the mountainous countryside way up to Mount Elbrus. There
was a nice little restaurant, overhanging the wildly rushing
river Kura, that we liked to visit in the evenings. There, over
a bottle of Zinandaly, with shashlik, we enjoyed listening to
the orchestra playing native music on native instruments and
watching the Georgian dances.
The Caucasian tour ended at Batum of the Black Sea, which
lay blistering under the scorching heat of the last days of
August. The government placed a beautiful little villa high up
on a cliff at our disposal. In this same villa Trotsky had lived
during his stay at the Black Sea port. And before the Revolution
it had been the property of a wealthy Frenchman, who had
planted the garden with a magnificent profusion of European
and tropical flowers. Unfortunately the rainy season began to
spoil our sojourn, and we proceeded to Yalta in the Crimea.
We resumed life at the Pretchistcnka school early in Oc-
tober. Separated from her mad poet husband, Isadora got do\vn
to serious work with the pupils. Though the memorable trip to
the south of Russia-where living seemed easier and pleasanter
for both visitors and population alike-had restored my strength
sufficiently for me to continue my classes, it had not helped me
A Last Visit 243
get rid of my mental depression. After two and a half years of
Russian exile, what I needed most was to get away from it all.
Like a caged bird, I desperately needed to escape, spread my
wings, and inhale for a while the heady air of freedom. With
some of the money I had saved from my performances, I
decided to take a long vacation by myself.
I left in January, via Warsaw, for Berlin. In my hurry to
make contact with the outside world after my exile, I rushed into
the station buffet at the Polish frontier, not merely to eat but
to buy up all the newspapers and magazines that were unobtain-
able inside Soviet Russia and that I had missed so much.
I stayed in Berlin just long enough to give a performance
in the Bluethner Saal. The real goal of my vacation was my
favorite big city-Paris. Before leaving for the French capital,
I decided to go to Hamburg for a visit with mother. I was now
in a much happier frame of mind. Ever since the train bearing
me westward had crossed the Red frontier into Poland, my
spirit experienced a wonderful lift, almost as if some oppressive
physical weight had been lifted from my shoulders. I believe
a similar sensation was experienced by every foreign visitor to
the USSR during those years when the dreaded GPU, knocking
on the door in the middle of the night, spread cold terror into the
hearts of the people. Unless one has lived in an atmosphere of
this kind, one does not really appreciate the meaning of the
word freedom.
I arrived in the town of my birth in the last week of Feb-
ruary. The train had been delayed because of a heavy snowfall.
Over the door of mother's apartment, which she shared with my
half-sister, hung a garland of evergreens; in the center was a
big ''W cleo me" sign. "How late you are! Mother has been
frantic!" my sister greeted me exactly as if she had seen me the
day before, rather than thirteen years ago. A family gathering
greeted me joyously when I entered the sitting room. They had
been waiting for me with coffee and cakes since early afternoon.
244 DUNCAN DANCER
The old familiar mahogany table presented a pretty picture with
the lace cloth, a vase of roses and carnations in the center, and
mother's best white, black, and gold china.
The tall green-tiled stove in the corner gave off a pleasant
warmth. Every now and then someone would put a little more
wood on the fire, for the snow continued to fall and the night
grew colder. But in the gute Stube we made ourselves cozy,
enjoying a late supper in the Hamburg manner with cold cuts,
smoked fish, dark and white bread, and beer. This evoked child-
hood memories.
That night I lay down under a mountain of goosedown
covers in the old mahogany bed where I was born and my
father had died. For an instant I had the strange sensation
that I had never left home. There was the same light from a
street lamp, filtering through the lace curtains, sketching a soft
pattern on the ceiling, that I had seen as a child before going
to sleep. Although this was a different apartment from the one
I knew in childhood-much more modern, less gloomy, and in
a more attractive section of town, on a street called Pappel-
allee-nothing important had really changed. Only I had
changed. For me this represented the old, narrow horizon. Like
a visitor from a distant star, I could never feel at home in this
small world again.
I tossed about thinking of these things in a restless state of
mind, unable to sleep, when mother whispered to me, "Irma, my
child, are you still awake?" And I answered as of old, "Yes,
Mama."
In my mind's eye mother had not changed a bit since my
childhood days, except that her hair was now snowy white. She
had given birth to me at the age of forty-five, and I had no
recollection of her as a young woman. She had always been my
dear old mother. Seeing I lay awake, she raised her voice.
"You know what I was thinking? Tomorrow is your birth-
day and . . . and . . . this is something I have never told
A Last Visit 245
you. But when you were born, I suffered such pain. I had no
doctor, only a midwife, and that dreadful pain lasted through
the night. I thought I would not be able to stand it longer
when-just as the sun was rising and cast a reddish glow over
the room-you were born. And oh, my Irma, how happy I felt
to hold you in my arms!"
In the dark room, lying in the bed beside me, she reached
over and grasped my hand. I heard her wail as if still in labor,
"My child, if I had only known! Oh God! If I had only known
I would see so little of you in my life-I would have never let
you go!"
And then I knew. In that heart-rending cry lay mother's
tragedy. And there was nothing in the world I could do about it.
The few weeks I spent with mother passed swiftly and
pleasantly for both of us. I left her in a cheerful frame of mind.
We made plans for taking a trip together next summer during
my vacation. Now that I could earn my own living, I could
lend her a little financial support. I asked her, ""Where would
you most like to go?" She said, "As long as I can remember,
I have always wanted to sail down the Rhine. Do you think we
could really make that journey together? That would be so
wonderful! At the same time we could visit my brother Ehrich,
the uncle you have never seen, in Mlinchen-Gladbach." I as-
sured her that she could plan for this trip next summer even if,
for some reason, I would be unable to join her.
The day of my departure for Paris, the train was delayed
for an hour. She saw me off, and we repaired to the station
buffet for a cup of coffee. She continued to chat animatedly
about the coming event that would fulfill a lifelong wish. Then,
inevitably, the moment came to say goodbye. It was that same
station where so long ago in the winter of 1905, we had said
goodbye. And suddenly when I heard the shrill blast of the
train whistle it all came back to my mind so poignantly; how
she had clung to my hand walking to the end of the platform
DUNCAN DANCER
and then watched the train depart with tears streaming down
her face. And now I had a sudden terrible premonition that this
was our last farewell.
Before the train started to move, mother turned away and
holding on to the bannister groped her way slowly up the steps.
I watched her black-clad figure until it was gone and then I
collapsed in my compartment overcome with sobs I could not
control.
Several days later, in Paris, I received a letter from her:
My dear, dear Irma:
I got your telegram in the evening and I am glad that you
arrived safely. After all the excitement of departure and the
long trip, you must have been very tired. I too quickly drove
home and went to bed and stayed there for a few days' rest.
Yesterday, Friday, Marie and I rearranged the rooms and were
delighted how inviting the new furniture looks. And I regretted
that you, the generous donor, could not be there to see it.
I hope that you enjoyed your stay with me and that everything
made a favorable impression on you, dear. I wanted so much to
make things even more gemiitlich and pleasant but with all the
visiting back and forth and the awfully cold weather it would
have been too much of an exertion for me. Next time you come
for a visit with us we shall pass quieter and happier hours by our-
selves.
Everybody here at home sends their best wishes for a pleasant
trip back to Moscow. I wish you all the luck and good health.
Please give my regards to Isadora and greetings to all the dear
children of your school. The photos we took, unfortunately, did
not come out; only one of me, too bad. I wanted so much to have
a picture of us together. Happy journey, dear Irma, and a thou-
sand kisses from your loving
Mama
The journey down the Rhine we planned together could
not be realized. My work in Russia kept me tied down and too
busy to join her. But she and my half-sister Marie visited with
A Last Visit 247
the relatives for a month or more. She wrote me from Miinchen-
Gladbach:
\Ve have been most hospitably received here by our relatives.
They have shown us a lot of the town and its surroundings. The
many industries, the tri-centenary festival, fairs, parades, etc. Also
they have here a beautiful theatre with a big restaurant situated
in a park among a parterre of roses. You ought to give a per-
formance there sometime and show the townspeople what real
dancing is! They simply have no conception of it.
We also visited Dusseldorf and saw the "Gesolei" exhibition
which was most instructive and interesting. We dined in the open
on the Rhine embankment and in the evening saw the big bridge,
the town and the entire exhibition illuminated. It was beautiful!
Our relatives have entertained us splendidly. Young Willi owns
a car and he sped us along the Rennbahn at terrific speed. Such
fun! In August, Marie and I took the long-awaited trip down
the river Rhine in a cabin steamer, food and everything included.
We sailed between mountains, ruins, and castles down to Ruedes-
heim, where we saw the National Monument and the wonderful
vineyards. On our way back, near Coblentz, we had to wait a
long time in order to pass, because the French are building a
bridge across the river, on to Cologne.
I admired the "Koelnischer Dom" so very much I did not
want to leave. I felt like looking at and admiring the beautiful
interior of the cathedral and the tall spires over and over again.
Tomorrow at ten o'clock we return to Hamburg. Uncle and his
family send greetings, and Marie and I send our dearest love to
you.
Mama
Still spry at seventy-one, though in delicate health, she
once showed me that she too could dance the foxtrot. I expected
her to go on living for at least another decade. But providence
decided otherwise. Three years later when the end came, I hap-
pened to be thousands of miles distant, unable to reach her in
time. My half-sister Anna, writing to me about the funeral,
which took place in the famous Ohlsdorf cemetery, the most
DUNCAN DANCER
beautiful in Germany, told me that on top of my mother's
coffin was a large wreath tied with a lilac ribbon on which my
name was engraved in gold, with an inscription saying, "From
her only daughter, absent in Moscow." And so it had been
most of her life.
Plough the Ground, Sow the Seed
"WHERE is Saturn?" Isadora wailed in her letter to me from
Samara. She was engaged on a tour of the Volga district, with
Mark Metchick, her pianist, and Zinoviev, her manager. The
trio went from misfortune to catastrophe. If, as the astrologers
believe, the planet Saturn stands for delay and death, then it
must indeed have loomed large in her horoscope at that period.
The evil planet must have foreshadowed the tragic end of her
existence, for within the short space of three years my foster
mother too was dead.
W c leave this Volga, which I prefer to remember from a dis-
tance. No public, no comprehension-nothing. Boats frightfully
crowded with screaming children and chattering women. Three
in a cabin, second class. Every corner taken in first. I sat on deck
all night and enjoyed some quiet hours of moonlit beauty, quite
alone. But the rest-nightmare!
We leave tonight for Orenburg. No news of curtains. Tele-
graph and inquire for them. Then to Tashkent. Send me books
and papers and write me news. How is the divine Comrade
Podvowsky?
This journey is a Calvary. Heat terrific, almost dead. . • .
How do things progress? Much love to you and love to the
children.
Hell of a life anyway.
Yours, in unholy martyrdom,
Poor Isadora
Next she wrote from Orenburg, a small town situated in the
southern Urals, where those lovely gossamer Orenburg shawls
are made:
249
DUNCAN DANCER
Dearest Irma:
We sent you letters and three telegrams without answer.
Just received word the curtains arrived only today in Kazan! ! !
Too late to take them to Tashkent. We leave at six tomorrow.
Heaven knows for what, but keep hoping. Have about fifty
kopeks in the caisse. Please telegraph and write me to Tashkent.
One feels so cut off from the world and all these towns so small,
ruined and God forlorn. I am almost at the last gasp. Dancing
in white lights without decors. The public understands nothing
at all.
Today I visited the children's colony and gave them a dancing
lesson. Their life and enthusiasm is touching-all orphans .•..
Have found no woman and no help at the theatre-very try-
ing. \V ell, love to you. For Heaven's sake telegraph me news.
With all good wishes and love to the children,
Isadora
Samarkand, the end of June, I 924.
Dearest Irma:
We go from one catastrophe to another. Arrived in Tashkent
without a kopek. Found theatre full of Geltzer, Hotel full of
Geltzer, whole town occupied. We had to go to an awful hotel
where they demanded "dingy" in advance, and, failing, would
not even give us a samovar. We wandered round the town with-
out even a cup of tea all day. In the evening we went to see
Geltzer dance to a packed house! After a second hungry day
Zinoviev pawned his valise with two suits for just enough to come
here. And who do you think he pawned it to? Why, Kalovsky,
who is now Gcltzer's official husband.
We arrived here also without a kopek. The baggage went by
mistake to another station. However, here is no Geltzer, it is
more hopeful. I dance here Thursday, but it seems, though very
beautiful, only a big village. So Heaven knows what will be the
result or whether we will be able to leave! ! !
I feel a bit dilapidated. Mctchick is gone in a hopeless melan-
choly and even Zinoviev has lost his sweet smiling nonchalance.
The country here is divine, fruits and trees and all like a
garden-very hot but lovely. But it's a terrible sensation to walk
Plough the Ground, Sow the Seed
about without a penny. Kiev was a prosperous exploit in com-
parison. The T ovarish that brings this note saved our lives by
giving us his room and sleeping in his private car. So be very nice
to him ..••
There are marvelous things here to buy, but alas! The land
seems a veritable paradise-for the natives. The whites don't
understand how to live here.
Well, we're hoping for better luck. So far the tour is a tragedy.
Why did we leave Friday the 13th? Please send me news and
papers if possible, I don't know what is going to happen next. At
any rate, I've grown very thin. Think of the lovely meals we
ate at Kiev! ! ! Much love to you.
In turn, I told her of the difficulties I encountered, of a
different nature-an ideological one. I came frequently in touch
with the Commissar of Physical Culture, Comrade Podvowsky,
who in the early days of the Revolution had inspired the Red
Army. He often criticized what he termed the too aesthetic side
of our dance. He wanted the pupils of our Moscow school to
strut about in imitation of his athletes, like young warriors shout-
ing, "Death to speculators! Death to parasites! We are the new
free army of the earth!"
Needless to say, I did not see eye to eye with him. It all
reminded me of that other fanatic and his Korperkultur and
Racial Hygiene ideology-Max Merz. Being myself primarily
an artist, I disliked placing too much emphasis on the physical
side of our ephemeral art. In her lessons to her pupils, Isadora
invariably emphasized the spiritual approach. When I wrote to
her about this, asking for guidance, she replied:
Tashkent, July lOth, 1924
Dearest Irma:
Thank you very much for your very beautiful letter. I can
quite understand how you feel. Blazing sun and prize-fighters
are far from my vision of a Ninth Symphony (Beethoven) to be
danced in a golden light of the intellectual radiance. But probably
you are digging the foundations on which the future columns
DUNCAN DANCER
will stand. At any rate, if it is only to take off these horrible
clothes and give the children of the new world red tunics, it is a
great work. Go on with it. Surely when the government sees that
this new dance has the sympathy of the working people, it WI11
do something for the school. As for Podvowsky's ideas of dance-
our dance will sweep them away, as it sweeps everything that
stands in its road.
The tournee is a continual catastrophe. We arrived again from
Samarkand without a kopek. Again no hotel. Spent two days
wandering round the streets very hungry. Zeno and Metchick
slept in the theatre. I, next door in a little house without water
or toilet. Finally we found rooms in this fearful hotel over-run
with vermin. We are so bitten, as to appear to have some sort of
illness.
Yesterday Zeno arranged on percentage an evening for the
students, and they advanced ten cctchervonetz.," so we went to a
restaurant and ate, the first time in three days. The theatre is
engaged. The first performance can only be given next Wednes-
day. Heaven knows what we will do until then. I only hope we
can make enough for the train.
The country is marvelous. I have never seen flowers and fruit
in such abundance. In Samarkand we saw the old temple, com-
posed of Chinese and Persian and Arab culture; wonderful mo-
S.'1ics. And I visited the tomb of Tamerlaine and the old Sartian
town. If one had money there are ravishing scarves and silks--
but helas!!!
All this discomfort and worry has made us all ill. Poor Met-
chick looks dying. We arrived early in the morning and had to
sit all day on park benches with nothing to eat. It's a horrid
sensation. But this is a primitive, wild place, and anything can
happen to one. It's the sort of place to come with Lohengrin
[Singer] and his millions; very like Egypt. The heat is forty de-
grees more in the shade and flies, bugs, mosquitoes make life un-
bearable.
The little photos are amusing. Try and send me some good
ones of you and the children.
Courage; it's a long way, but light is ahead. My art was the
flower of an epoch, but that epoch is dead and Europe is the past.
Plough the Ground, Saw the Seed 253
These red tunicked kids are the future. So it is fine to work for
them. Plough the ground, sow the seed and prepare for the next
generation that will express the new world. What else is there to
do? •..
Love to the children. All my love to you. You are my only
disciple and with you I see the Future. It is there-and we will
dance the Ninth Symphony yet. With love.
Isadora
"Plough the ground, sow the seed ... what else is there to
do?" she said. I wondered. This may have been the answer for a
disillusioned, middle-aged woman, jaded with life in general.
But was it the right answer for a young girl, eagerly standing
on the threshold of life? My art and my work could not, for me,
be all-encompassing as yet. As any normal young woman would,
I too dreamed of being able to find some day another chance at
happiness of the sort that culminates in marriage and raising a
family. Whenever a young man paid attention to me and my
foster mother saw me reciprocate, I was-in her eyes-as good
as married. Once she even went so far as to tell Walter Duranty,
the American correspondent in Moscow, that I had married.
Without first checking at the source, he cabled the "news" to
his paper.
No, my plans for the future-even if the right man had come
along at that time (which, incidentally, he didn't)-excluded
any marriage to a Soviet citizen. I had no intention whatsoever
of committing such a fatal mistake. The very thought of any
children of mine being born under a dictatorship and growing
up as Communist slaves filled me with revulsion.
In this sad world of ours, human beings are constantly forced
to make certain sacrifices at one time or another. And I fully
realized that this was the one I had been called upon to make, as
long as my work kept me chained to the land of the Soviets. I
therefore determined to put all personal dreams behind me for
the present, and devote all my energies and interests to the
furtherance of my career.
254 DUNCAN DANCER
My immediate concern had to do with my foster mother:
to bring her safely back from her disastrous tour and, if possible,
find her a more lucrative engagement, since we had to dance in
order to eat. A couple of entrepreneurs offered her a tour of
Germany. I immediately wrote her the good news, for so it
appeared to be then, since nothing could turn out worse than
the tour she had just made. She wrote:
Volga and Turkestan are countries to be avoided. We came
here because Zeno has an idiot for an advance man, who tele-
graphed us that prospects here were "brilliant." He must have
been hired by the ballet to bring us to ruin. When you have an
inspiration to save us, for heaven's sake act on it for it is the last
moment.
Ekaterinberg, 4/8/24
Dearest Irma:
The moment I received your letter I sent you a forty word
telegram expressing my willingness to sign at once, and travel
anywhere away from here! ! ! I still await anxiously the answer.
You have no idea what a living nightmare is untJ1 you see this
town. Perhaps the killing here of a certain family in a cellar has
cast a sort of Edgar Allen Poe gloom over the place-or perhaps
it was always like that. The melancholy church bells ring every
hour, fearful to hear. When you go in the streets the gitan yells
prava or lieva and points his gun at you. No one seems to have
any sense of humor whatever.
The head of the communists said, "How could Metchick play
such disgusting music as Liszt or Wagner! ! ! " Another said: "I
did not at all understand the lnternationale!! !"
Our two performances were a foure noire and, as usual, we
are stranded and don't know where to go. There is no restaurant
here, only "common eating houses," and no coiffeur. The only
remaining fossil of that name, while burning my hair off with
trembling fingers, assured me there was not a dama left here,
they shot 'em all.
We saw the house and the cellar where they shot a "certain"
Plough the Ground, Sow the Seed 255
family. Its psychosis seems to pervade the atmosphere. You can't
imagine anything more fearful. . . . In fact this town is as near
Hell as anything I have ever met.
Your letter sounds too good to be true. Telegraph us some
dingy and I will come at once to Moscow and sign, sign,
sign ....
With love to you,
Isadora
Poor Isadora returned from her tournee more dead than
alive. A season later I too, with my group of dancers, covered
substantially the identical ground under more favorable circum-
stances. Ilya Schneider's good management and improved or-
ganization helped turn our undertaking into a financial and
artistic success.
While I was absent on my vacation in France and Germany,
Isadora had taught the children a series of new dances executed
to songs of the Revolution and to folk songs. In all of these the
children both sang and danced in chorus, and I too took part,
eventually adding several numbers of my own choreography,
such as the tryptich called "Famine-Labor-Harvest"; and a
charming group of songs by Gretchaninoff, which always brought
to mind that memorable performance at Carnegie Hall when
the composer himself played the accompaniment. Whenever
they were performed, these dances invariably called forth an
enthusiastic reception. Apropos of these "Songs in Movement"
Isadora said: "I believe that my school will create a new art or
show the way towards it. Only the new generation will be able
to express the new world and find new genius and new ideas."
That fall, while preparing for her departure to Berlin, my
foster mother and I engaged in a long discussion about our work.
She suddenly said, "Do you remember the little dance you com-
posed in Grunewald called the 'Poor Orphan Child'?"
When she asked me to dance it for her, I laughed and told
her I could not remember all of it. "But I do!" she said, and
DUNCAN DANCER
surprised me no end by getting up and dancing it, movement
for movement, making the same simple, childish gestures I had
made. It gave me a strange turn to see so great an artist as
Isadora Duncan dance in all seriousness my first childhood at-
tempt at choreography. I was really touched. That called forth
my inquiry as to how she came to choose me for a pupil that
fateful day in Hamburg nearly two decades ago, and her sur-
prising answer that it had been because of Gordon Craig. It
suddenly illuminated so many things that occurred in my early
school days and her favoritism toward me from the beginning.
"Then you yourself found me not particularly promising?"
I asked. She looked at me fondly and said, "The moment I saw
you raise your arms with such childish fervor, I knew you had
something. I have always considered you and Lisa to be my
most talented pupils. You must often have noticed by my ex-
pression and my tears that I found your dancing very beautiful.
As I told you last summer when we danced together in Kiev and
I watched you do the 'Marche Militaire'-I could not have done
it much better."
"This is praise from Sir Hubert," I jokingly remarked to
cover my emotion, for she seldom spoke this way to me about
my dancing. "No, it is the simple truth," she said.
I had retired to my own room after this conversation and
left her to pack her things for her forthcoming trip. Then, very
softly, I heard a knock on my door. Isadora entered like a shy
little girl, saying in a wistful voice, "Isn't it remarkable that
through all the vicissitudes of life and considering all the things
I ever owned that have been lost, this"-and she stroked gently
the piece of rose and purple silk cradled in her arms like a baby-
"this should have survived."
I looked closer and recognized one of her first dance cos-
tumes-the one I remembered so well when I saw her dance
for the first time on the stage. My favorite-the tunic of "Angel
Playing the Viol." She came closer and said, "Here, I want you
Plough the GroundJ Sow the Seed 257
to have it in remembrance of me"; and she handed it over as
carefully and lovingly as if it were indeed a child. A rush of
memories from Grunewald-the picture of my guardian angel
over my Himmelbett-brought tears to my eyes. Too moved to
speak, I contemplated the tunic as one regards a religious object.
Wanting to thank her, I raised my eyes, but she had quietly dis-
appeared.
Later that night, when we were alone and saddened by her
remembrance of the past and her impending departure, she con-
fessed to me that she often thought of committing suicide. "If I
only knew a way that would not be too painful, I would not
hesitate." And she continued in this same melancholy mood,
"Please, don't ever grieve at my going. Promise to bury me in
my old red tunic in which I have danced all my revolutionary
dances, and give me a real Irish wake. Sing, and dance, and
drink, and give thanks for my blessed release from the constant
pain gnawing at my poor heart."
The next day was a Sunday, and she gave her farewell per-
formance at the Bolshoi Theatre. All of us-including the five
hundred red-tunicked children from the stadium-took part in
the grand finale, the "lnternationale." With me, as usual, lead-
ing the children, we wound in a snakelike pattern back and forth
until we reached the footlights. Then we broke the pattern to
form three concentric circles around Isadora, who stood in the
center like a flame with her red hair and red shawl. Then, with
hands raised high, we intoned the final triumphant crescendoing
stanza. The audience, of four thousand Young Pioneers and
Communist youth, who had been invited by Madame Kalenina
(wife of the Soviet President) to see us dance, gave Isadora and
her school a thunderous ovation.
That night there was no thought of going to bed, as Isadora's
plane for Berlin was to leave at dawn. She thought she ought
not to leave now that the President's wife and other Communist
leaders had taken an active interest. She felt that something
DUNCAN DANCER
would surely come of this, and if there seemed to be any chance
of the government's really doing what they originally promised
to do, she would return immediately.
At dawn, at the Trotsky air field, I saw her off. Neither of
us realized that she was leaving Russia for the last time; that
from now on the work we had begun together in that country
would be continued by myself alone.
If You Will Be Faithful
BY no stretch of the imagination could anyone claim that my
existence in Moscow was entertaining. The social amenities were
reduced to zero. In this impoverished country, few people-
apart from the ruling clique and the foreign embassies-could
obtain the products necessary to entertain. I had to rely on my
own efforts to find a small measure of distraction, and what I
found was not nearly enough to satisfy a fairly energetic young
woman unaccustomed to living alone among strangers. For that
is what I did in the midst of a teeming institution ever since
Isadora left. The few contacts I had made in Moscow with
Americans were mostly of a transient nature, people such as
Averell Harriman, who later became Governor of New York,
but was in 1922 connected with the Hoover Commission, or
my old friend Max Eastman whom I met only once. Then there
was a memorable evening when Walter Duranty brought the
world champion of chess, Capablanca, around for supper after
winning the game. I met a number of foreign journalists among
whom I became well aquainted with Eugene Lyons and his
attractive young wife, then on his first assignment to Russia. They
wanted to leave their baby daughter with me at the school but
she was too young to be accepted. And in 1927, most outstand-
ing of American correspondents, Dorothy Thompson, whom I
met through my good friends the Hoppers. Dorothy was then
soon to marry the famous American novelist Sinclair Lewis. She
invited me to her engagement party but I could unfortunately
not attend. On November 25, 1927, she wrote to "Red," as
all his intimates called Sinclair, from Moscow, and mentioned a
Z59
260 DUNCAN DANCER
visit to my school with the Hoppers. "Today is Thanksgiving,"
she said, spending the evening with the Hoppers. "After dinner,
an' there was a turkey, we went to Irma Duncan's and saw fair
maidens swathed in scarlet dance the Internationale." In her
book The New Russia she afterwards published, she wrote in
the chapter of First Impressions:
Years ago Isadora Duncan came out of the west to tell the
Russian ballet that all this artificial toe-stepping was out of date.
• . . And one of her pupils and adopted daughters, Irma Dun-
can, in her studio in a former palace, still teaches the children of
the proletarians to throw their arms earthward from whence all
good comes and revel in the free, untrammeled expression of their
revolutionary souls.
My daily existence had little of interest to offer me. Shops were
bare; moving picture theatres nonexistent; the fashion world
dead and buried; balls and parties unheard of. What was there
for a young girl to do in search of fun and amusements?
As far as my tastes go, once I'd seen the Bolshoi Ballet I had
had it. I frequently attended the opera, concerts, and the the-
atres during the season. I could, however, get small enjoyment
from the plays-mostly classics-until my Russian improved.
My usual day started with a late breakfast, brought to me on a
tray by my personal maid Ephrosinia, called Frossia for short.
I ate all my meals in my room; in front of the fireplace in win-
ter, in front of the open window looking out on the courtyard
in the warmer seasons. I would dress and take my daily outing,
snow or sunshine. I preferred riding to walking; dancing as
much as I did, I obtained sufficient exercise.
At the corner of Pretchistenka and Myortvy Pereoulok, or
Dead Alley (so named in time of the big plague), stood a
horse-drawn carriage or, in winter, a sleigh. The iz.voz.chik,
Piotr-in a half-somnolent state, patiently waiting for his steady
client-would suddenly spring into action the instant I opened
the heavy oak door and stepped into the street. I hardly needed
to give directions. He knew my initial stop was at Okhotny Riad
If You Will Be Faithful
to do some shopping for my dinner. The Hunter's Row had the
best game in town. I would select a grouse, perhaps, or a snow
chicken, with the customary sour cream to roast it in, and what-
ever fresh vegetables and fruit could be had-mostly cabbage,
onions, and beets, and those tart little apples, yellow and red,
called Antonovka. From there I continued via the Theatre Square
to the Petrovka, where I knew a pastry shop that made excellent
little pirozhnye, those cream-filled cakes the Russians love. In
those youthful days I had no reason to watch my weight, which
always remained the same. And of course my purchases were
never complete without Malosol caviar, smoked salmon and
that other tasty little Russian fish, smoked kilki. Sometimes,
if I was fortunate enough, I would discover a dusty bottle of
Abrao Durceaux, that extremely potable na.tive champagne of
pre-Revolutionary vintage, much enjoyed by the former tsars.
On my way back over the Arhat, a commercial center, I
would stop for an appointment with my hairdresser or continue
on to the Sofika, where a very good tailor would make me a
dress copied from one I had, or a coat to order. I also frequently
stopped at the Kusnetzky Most in the hope of finding something
to read in English, French, or German, at the only bookstore
open to customers. Usually I returned empty-handed, for books
in foreign languages, even second hand, were rarer than hen's
teeth. By the beginning of 1925, however, conditions had im-
proved sufficiently for people to purchase these things.
At home, I would hand my groceries to Pasha, our cook,
who ordinarily did all right with them, except once when I
brought back that very rare vegetable, asparagus. She apparently
had never cooked it before and served up the stalks without
the heads.
Every afternoon I held my dancing classes. First the
younger, or beginners group, followed by my more advanced stu-
dents. Teaching is more tiring than performing, and I always
welcomed the sight of the tall brass samovar, hissing a column
of steam to the ceiling, that Frossia had ready for me; with a
DUNCAN DANCER
pot of that good black China tea (the best in the world), which
the Russians drink out of glasses with lemon and sugar nibbled
on the side.
The absence of reading material in a language I could un-
derstand turned out to be a great nuisance. But according to
Emerson's law of compensation, there is a benefit to be derived
from every bad situation. Forced to read Russian, I made all
the better progress. And then there was always Vera Ilynishna,
or some other friend, to drop in and chat with me in that diffi-
cult language till I mastered it.
On big holidays, such as Easter or Christmas, I attended
the services at a small, rose-colored church at the bottom of the
hill near Pretchistenka Gate, now vanished from the Moscow
scene. In this way, I managed to find some small distractions.
Performances and tours came as a welcome relief from the bore-
dom and monotony of existence among the Soviets.
With Isadora's departure, I started once more to be inde-
pendently active on the stage, a venture that had been impossible
while she remained in charge of artistic matters. I slowly came to
the realization that if I wanted to make a name for myself in
Russia, it was now or never. Thus began the professional tours
I made the length and breadth of that vast land. In the end,
I was giving a hundred performances a year.
Isadora, in the interval since her departure and subsequent
arrival in Nice, had suffered continuous catastrophes. Her Ber-
lin engagement turned into a complete fiasco. She repeatedly
sent me letters asking for help. But since all my mail had to be
forwarded while I was in the Volga district, her letters reached
me too late. By the time I could answer, Isadora had left Ger-
many and settled in the south of France. She wrote me from
Paris in February of 1925, when she had finally obtained some
help from friends:
Dearest Irma:
I have not had the courage to write, I have been going through
sad, fearful experiences. At last I arrived here. I am hardly alive,
If You Will Be Faithful
just gasping. Now I have some faint hope on the horizon, but
nothing is sure yet. I was offered by the Chicago Tribune a sum
for my "memoirs" . . .
For three months they refused me a visa to come to Paris. At
last here I am. For Heaven's sake write to me. If you could only
send me good photos of the school, I am sure I could raise funds
for you. But people hardly believe there is a school. Write to me.
Tell me what hope is there for the school? Will the house re-
main? Is anything stable, or is it a quicksand? My only hope of
funds at this moment is the Memoirs. . . .
If I receive the $2o,ooo promised, I will either come to
Moscow in the spring with money, or if you think Moscow hope-
less, you can join me in London with sixteen pupils. But reflect
well which will be best.
I am much worried about Margot, who, I have just heard by
telephone, is in a hospital here very ill. I will go and see her
tomorrow, but Christine should have told me sooner ....
Dearest Irma, I was just writing the above when they sud-
denly telephoned me that Margot was dying. I took a taxi and
rushed to the hospital but too late. It all seems so unhappy and
miserable. I am ill but will write soon. . . •
Unbeknownst to Isadora, Gordon Craig took the initiative
to appeal to Paris Singer for help in this emergency. Singer,
who was at the time in Florida, wrote from Palm Beach to
Craig: "Although I did not hear of the trouble in Berlin I did
hear when little Margot died in Paris and I immediately tele-
graphed my agent to supply our friend with all necessary funds
without letting her know the source. Strange to say this was
exactly your idea.''
Her motto, she said, was Sans limites, struggling along to
earn a living and never relinquishing her dream of a school for
a thousand children. As if the one we had in Moscow, housing
half a hundred, was not enough of a headache! I explained to
her the endless difficulties I ran into trying to keep this estab-
lishment going. The government, so far, had not contributed
a sou. My performances in the provinces kept the school func-
DUNCAN DANCER
tioning; otherwise we would have no other alternative but
to close up shop. She wrote from Nice on the last day of March:
I have just received your letter; poor darling, it sounds awful.
By now you have my last letter and you know that if I haven't
written it is because I have been having such a hell of a time
that I really felt ashamed to send you one wail after another.
Nobody realized it, but poor little Margot's death was the
finishing touch. I simply almost gave up entirely. I am only just
recovering from the ghastly cruelty and terror of the whole
thing. I confess-! can't understand-the whole scheme of
things is too unbearable.
Any reports that I have spoken against the Soviet Gov't are
absolutely false, and unfounded ....
A friend took a studio for me here. It is a perfect gem. A little
theatre twice as big as the Rue de la Pompe with a stage, foot-
lights, etc. If we could arrange for you to come here with sixteen
of the most talented children, we might succeed in saving them.
I tried through the Soviet Embassy in Paris to have the school
brought in the Russian Dept. of the Decorative Arts Exposition,
but without success. Have you seen Tovarish Kalenina? Can
nothing be done?
The world is a sickening place. I am living from hand to
mouth. My friends have all deserted me. The joke of the whole
thing is that it is current gossip that I receive vast sums of money
from the Soviets. Isn't that beautiful? I am relying on money
that should come from Gordieff to pay for the studio. I think it
would be at least a refuge at the last extremity. It would be a good
idea, if all else fails, that you come here and perhaps together we
may find some way out. But unless the Soviet Gov't will help, I
think it is about hopeless for the school in Moscow. But you
know, being a bit prophetic, I sensed as much when I was last
there .... Ask Ilya to write and answer the following ques-
tions: What does he advise? Has he any hopes for this summer
from Podvowsky or others? W auld my return make things better
or worse? ...
If we are to die, better arrange a meeting and die together. At
the last extremity, come here. You can sleep in the studio, bathe
If You Will Be Faithful
in the sea and we will always find a meal. All my love. I kiss you
a thousand times and the poor, dear children.
Love,
Isadora
It was quite impossible to obtain permission for the children
to leave Russia. The authorities had even tried to hinder me
from taking them periodically on tour inside the country, though
we generally made the extensive trips during the summer va-
cation. Only because I put up a terrific fight-going straight over
the heads of the minor officials to Lunacharsky himself, who al-
ways was in my corner-was I allowed to continue. Nobody
seemed to be able to understand that these performances con-
stituted our sole support. For this reason another of Isadora's
schemes fell through. But she persisted in her grandiose schemes
and when nothing came of them told a friend:
I would have wished to devote myself entirely, creating a mag-
nificent social center, instead of little troups which, by the force
of circumstances, degenerate into theatrical groups, as in Mos-
cow. The principal thing, after all, is to do something, to make a
beginning. Better the Moscow school with all its faults than
nothing at all.
I fully agreed with her last statement. That is the reason I
too persisted in my small way to keep the enterprise, founded
under such difficulties and involving so may sacrifices, function-
ing by any and all means. I wrote and told her so. Her answer
reached me in Moscow, where I continued to direct the institu-
tion dedicated to the dance as she envisioned it, though local
forces not in sympathy with our ideology had already started
to undermine it.
Nice, January 27, 1926
Dearest Irma:
Thank you for your letter. I only received it today. I wish you
would try and write oftener, if only a line.
I was terribly shocked about Sergei's death [Essenine had com-
DUNCAN DANCER
mitted suicide], but I wept and sobbed so many hours about him
that it seems he had already exhausted any human capacity for
suffering. Myself, I'm having an epoch of such continual ca-
lamity that I am often tempted to follow his example, only I
will walk into the sea. Now in case I don't do that, here is a plan
for the future.
I have here a wonderful studio which I have not been able to
use. First no carpet, then no stove, then no piano. Now I have
carpet, stove, piano, thanks to dear Augustin, who gradually sent
me funds to get these things and to keep the studio. I have taken
a small apartment next to the studio, with kitchen and bath. My
plan is that you should come here on a visit as soon as possible,
if you can arrange to absent yourself. We could start here a pay-
ing school ala Elizabeth, and take pupils from America to board,
etc. I have a very good woman to look out for the kitchen. Food
is cheap, vegetables plenty. You could bring one or two of the
older girls as co-teachers. By spending six months here and six
months in Moscow we could join the ideal and the material.
Now I have a studio three times as big as Rue de la Pompe
with the stage and the apartment paid until April I sth, but I'm
sitting here without a cent or without a soul to help me. If you
could come and survey the situation, there is a possibility of mak-
ing a big school on business basis.
Here is ideal climate. The hills back of the studio are covered
with flowers and everything is wonderfully cheap. Yesterday I
ate fresh asparagus and little artichokes. I have become a vege-
tarian like Raymond, and have gone back to my simple dresses of
Grunewald, and sandals and bare feet. The little time I spent
in Paris, I realized that life there was finished with silk stockings
at 7 5 francs a pair.
I see a future in the combining of this studio as a practical
money-making affair and Moscow as Ideal and Art. But it has
cost me the most heart-breaking effort to keep the studio and if
something is not done before April I 5th, I'm afraid I will lose
it. . . .
No one else on God's earth is interested. Only you and I, and
that's all. Since my return I have been treated as a "Communist
If You Will Be Faithful
Sympathizer," and everything is impossible. But in spite of that,
if we open here a big paying school I am sure it will be a succes.<;.
The studio has a beautiful emerald green carpet and the only time
in my life I have a studio square and large enough. The apart-
ment has a terrace on the sea, where sixteen or twenty people
can sit at table. The autobus and tramway pass the door to the
heart of Nice, reach Massena and Casino in five minutes. Also
the Riviera is becoming more and more a summer resort.
Please answer this letter at once, dear Irma, and see if, with
what I have here as a foundation, we can't create a practical
money-making school. For I see at the present epoch that it is
either that or suicide. One can't continue to live on nothing. I
suggest that also Augustin could come over in the summer and
play in the theatre, which has real scenery and footlights, and
there is a large English colony here in the summer.
I hope you will appreciate my bull-dog tenacity in hanging on
to this studio as I appreciate yours in hanging on to the school.
And together we will accomplish something yet. Remember you
are the only pupil of mine who has understood what I am trying
to do in this world. And you are the only one who cares whether
myself or our work lives or dies, and it may be that the under-
standing of one will save all.
Can't you possibly manage to send me some pictures of the
children? Often I could make propaganda and obtain help for
you if I had photos. Do try and have some taken, and if you
cannot, send me at least some copies of what you have. Also I
would appreciate if you would let me have the dates of your
tournees and programs. Some one told me you were all on the
Volga. I knew nothing of it.
Dear Irma, if you will be faithful I still feel we may arise and
conquer the earth and knock all these sham schools and sham
disciples to smash. But the time is going and I am like a wrecked
mariner on a desert island, yelling for help.
I am feeling very lonely and homesick. I am here quite alone.
Only the little Russian woman who cooks, etc. When you get
this letter, do make an effort and come. I am sure we can ar-
range something. I can get the opera house and orchestra in
DUNCAN DANCER
Marseilles for a series of festival performances, if you could bring
twelve of the oldest pupils (children under twelve are no longer
allowed on the stage in France).
I press you to my heart, dear Irma. Let us hope for the future.
Isadora
This letter left me in a terrible quandary. Torn between my
love and loyalty to her on the one hand, and my work and
future career mapped out in Russia on the other, what was I
to do? Such a division of my labors as she outlined in her Jetter
was impractical. Since she relied entirely on my help, either
one school or the other would suffer because of my absence. I
have often asked myself in retrospect: By deciding ruthlessly
to tear up the roots in Moscow and throw in my lot with her-
since I could not do both-could I have been in a position to
prevent her tragic, premature demise? I doubt it, for fate has a
relentless way of catching up with its victim marked for death.
For me personally, the idea of spending the rest of my life
on the sunny Riviera in my beloved France had tremendous
appeal. There I would find all the amenities of existence in a
cultured, civilized manner of living, including all the many
little luxuries, so dear to a feminine heart, that I was completely
deprived of now. And perhaps I would have done so, except
that I found myself too deeply involved with the present. For
over a year, ever since our unprecedented, enthusiastic reception
by the public on our Volga tour, we had planned a similar un-
dertaking for Siberia. Under no circumstances could I cancel
it now. There were a host of other people involved in the suc-
cessful outcome of it. And most important of all, there was the
ever increasing number of pupils in the school, who were de-
pendent on my artistic efforts.
I was immensely relieved to hear from Isadora's next letters
that conditions seemed to improve by degrees. She arranged
for some intime performances in the studio she had discovered
in the California district of Nice, near the Promenade des
Anglais.
If You Will Be Faithful
Apn1 7, 1926
The Good Friday performance was a great success. A hundred
tickets were sold at hundred francs a ticket and great stimmung
and excitement. The studio was lovely with alabaster lamps,
candles, incense, heaps of white lilies and lilacs. Quite like the
Archangel's times. Of course it is the end of the season. If we
only had the money to open sooner we would have made a
fortune. I have hopes of building a theatre here in a year or two.
A Bayreuth by the Sea.
"Lohengrin" is coming to his villa here in May. Why not
come with sixteen children; we can always make their board.
And think of swimming in the lovely blue sea every mormng.
Please write soon. All my love to you. Love,
Dearest Irma:
Isadora
Hotel Lutetia, Paris
June 15, 1926
I was so glad to receive your letter with the program. Please
send me a line often. I have been seeing Comrade Rakowsky
about a plan to bring you with some of the children of the school
to Paris to make a great manifestation at the Trocadero. They
are very enthusiastic about the idea, but always the same cry:
"No Money."
I still keep the studio in Nice, but if something doesn't turn up
before July 15th, rent day, I'm afraid I will lose it. Did you re-
ceive programs, clippings, etc.? I have made a great struggle
(here), but absolutely no one to help me. Every one takes a little
piece of my idea and runs off with it to sell it ..•• It's a silly
world.
Do write and tell me if I can manage to be with you this sum-
mer. Where will I find you and when?
She would have found us that summer rusticating on a
pleasant imenie, the country seat of some former aristocrat, con-
fiscated during the Revolution and plundered of everything
but the four walls and roof. Situated about fifty versts from
Moscow, it had a large park and a river close by. The latter
270 DUNCAN DANCER
was an absolute necessity for bathing, and as a source of water;
for the house had no plumbing whatever, and no gas or elec-
tricity. Isadora, I'm afraid, would not have stayed there for
more than a day. Knowing her habits and her dislike of living
in the country (she claimed, "It always rained, and nothing
could be more boring, I much prefer the seashore anytime!"), I
knew she would have no part of it. The name of our imenie was
"Roumiantsev." Few foreigners ever penetrated into this part
of the provinces, so very Russian in character and completely
unspoiled.
At the end of June, when the bushes were in bloom and the
shiny buttercups had pushed their yellow faces high above the
meadow grass, we would start our yearly trek to the country.
Two truckloads of furniture and kitchen utensils preceded us.
With them went Pasha, the cook, and the two maids Masha
and Dasha, dressed like country babas, in long, straight shifts and
bare feet, and with white kerchiefs tied over their heads. Under
the supervision of our ruddy-cheeked housekeeper, a huge
dragon of a woman by the name of Alexandra Edmundnovna, the
house was primitively furnished with bare necessities to welcome
us by nightfall.
The local farmers, wearing shoes made of birch bark and
--at that period-not yet collectivized, sold us their produce.
So did the brown-robed monks of the nearby monastery, "New
Jerusalem," where they spent their days hoeing the garden,
while we spent ours swimming, hiking, and dancing. At the end
of each active day, everybody retired by candlelight the moment
the sun had set, which meant getting up with the first crow of
the cock in the barnyard. Thus the children gained health, stor-
ing it up for the long, dark winters in town. They happily whiled
away their spare time gathering maliny or other berries, and
the superlative Russian white mushrooms that are cooked in
sour cream with onions and taste as good as anything I have
ever eaten. Watched over tenderly by their academic instructor
Anna Vasilievna, and the nurse Elisaveta Gregorievna, the chil-
If You Will Be Faithful 271
dren grew stronger every day and led as happy a life as it was
in our power to provide for them.
Country existence presents not much of a problem when
the weather is cooperative, but woe when it starts to rain. Un-
fortunately, that summer we had an unusually prolonged spell
of wet weather. I remember standing forlornly in the former
owner's library, bewailing the empty bookshelves hidden behind
grilled doors. If only I could find a book to read! ·watching
the continuous downpour night and day for more than a week,
I had half a mind to emulate Isadora and do what she would
have done under the same circumstances: pack up and return to
Moscow; to my comfortable room on the Pretchistenka, where
I enjoyed the luxury of a real bathroom to myself, and electric
light, and whatever summer amusements could be had in town.
But that would have set a bad example for the rest of the
school. So I remained drenched, not merely in this deluge but
in utter boredom.
One afternoon, during a momentary respite from the mad-
dening drizzle, I donned my mackintosh and went for a stroll
in the park. I came by chance on a weather-beaten old barn I
hadn't noticed before. Out of sheer ennui, I climbed the narrow,
rickety ladder leading to the hayloft. The wild, hysterical cackle
of hens, disturbed from their roost, greeted me. I was about to
beat a hasty retreat when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed
a piece of white paper sticking out of what I imagined to be
a heap of chicken manure. I looked closer, and to my utter be-
wilderment discovered the "heap" to be an enormous cache of
books, which the chickens had used for a roost. And, wonder
upon wonders! they were foreign books! French, German, and,
Heaven be praised! English books galore of the T auchnitz
editions! Almost as hysterical as the hens, I gathered in my
arms as many of these precious tomes as I could, and ran back
to the house to get help in cleaning up the filthy mess, so the
treasures could be rescued and restored to the former owner's
library. Forgetting the rain, I curled up on my bed and spent
272 DUNCAN DANCER
the rest of the summer reveling in Trollope, Mrs. Humphry
Ward, and Baroness Orczy novels-a Lucullan mental feast
after a literary famine of more than five years.
So reluctant was I to abandon this feast that when Ilya
Schneider, our business manager, informed me that everything
was ready to start our Siberian tour, I almost felt inclined to
call the whole thing off. All I wanted was to be left in peace
with my hoard of books, more precious to me at that moment
than my career. I could not take them with me, since they were
not my property, and so had to abandon them to their fate. I
retained only a few as souvenirs. Years later, in America, I met
their owner, Colonel Serge Cheremeteff-but by that time the
books were long gone.
To China and Back
WHEN I set out in August with a company of nineteen on my
transcontinental Russian tour, I had the unusual privilege of
being the sole foreign artist performing in the USSR. Other
American artists did not penetrate that Communist country for
many years; not, in fact, until after Franklin D. Roosevelt
recognized the Soviet Union officially in 1935. I had the entire
:field to myself now that my foster mother had left. During the
three previous years I had occasionally appeared in public at
the head of my group of dancers, and we could already point
with pride to the slow but steady growth of our popularity.
Every recital was preceded by a short talk delivered by
Schneider, stating our aims and explaining what the true dance
should be and do for the physical education of children. I offered
the common people everywhere, whether in the more civilized
centers or in the humble backwoods settlements, the very best I
could achieve in my dance to the finest music, both flawlessly
executed in a sure, professional manner. The newspaper reviews
constitute a record of our combined achievement in this effort
to bring beauty, art, and culture to the downtrodden Soviet
masses, and tell to what extent we succeeded in giving them the
aesthetic values they so craved. A number of short excerpts from
reviews that appeared in some of the provincial towns where
we appeared may give an indication of how much the Russian
public enjoyed and appreciated our combined efforts.
Tomsk
To write about Irma Duncan's performance in simple prose is
impossible. In order to do it justice and describe this unusually
Z7J
DUNCAN DANCER
inspiring dance recital accurately one needs to express it in poetry.
A beautiful poem set to music. This is an amazing spectacle!
Voronish
Something new, something extraordinarily powerful and direct,
is the dancing of Irma Duncan and her dancers. We are used to
the ballet, we are accustomed to see physical culture parades but
we have never seen anything like the Duncan Dancers. An un-
forgettable spectacle. Every single dance they performed was
beautiful. The two impressive marches by Schubert, the Elegiac
and the Warrior one, will linger long in the memory.
Baku
The performance of Irma Duncan brought us an evening of
sheer beauty. Baku never witnessed such a wonderful sight. She
is a distinguished artist and danced marvelously, especially her
"Moment Musical" called forth rapture from the audience and a
storm of applause.
Tiflis
In the effervescent, intoxicating waltzes with their free-flowing
motions, Irma Duncan and her dancers carry the spectator away
beyond the limits of the stage to green meadows . • . reviving
for us the pastoral paintings of W atteau. Irma, the leader of the
group, creates miracles of inventiveness in her war-like dances
full of power and ecstasy. From this mighty portrayal to the
tender, delicate fluttering of a butterfly in the sunlight, lies the
immeasurable diapason of a great artist. In the revolutionary
dances Irma reaches an extraordinary power of expression.
Irkutsk
When one reads the enthusiastic reviews of the many news-
papers about Irma Duncan, and when one sees her perform, one
involuntarily asks oneself: in what lies her greatness? With what
means does she achieve such astounding beauty? How does she
have such a powerful influence over the audience? Her strength
of expression resides in the amazing eloquence and conviction of
her movements, and that is achieved entirely through her great
musicianship and by being the master of her art.
To China and Back 275
Chita
We were in great anticipation. We all had heard so much about
Duncan and so seldom saw her art. So let us go and see Irma,
the public said. As soon as the curtain rose a deathly silence and
hushed expectancy fell over the audience. At last she appears.
Whoever said about architecture that it is rigid music, here was
music made visible in sublime motion. The lines of the body, the
hands, the lines of every fold in the long, gray tunic expressed
sorrow in the Elegiac March. This was not ordinary dancing,
this was great art ... To watch Irma Duncan dance one
sharply realizes how much we are still shackled by our cultural
inheritance of the past. The Duncan performance is no ordinary
theatrical spectacle but a step forward into a new culture. Not
for us but for our children in this particular field there open
new and immeasurable horizons.
Krasnoyarsk
In one of his articles "The West and We," Trotsky, with a cer-
tain irony, recalls a literary critic's remark during the dark epoch
of Tsarism after seeing Isadora Duncan dance. He was so en-
chanted he could only write: "It is worth living!" Of course in
these days there is much else for us to live for. But Irma Duncan
and all her youthful dancers can truly claim, IT IS WORTH
LIVING, if we can create such harmony and beauty in our art.
And so we danced our way through Siberia. Omsk, Tomsk,
Irkutsk, Chita via Transbaikalia, on to Khabarovsk and Vladi-
vostok, reaping the harvest of the seed I had sown.
In Moyssei Borissovich Shein, from the Moscow Conserva-
tory, we acquired a very fine pianist. The romantic-looking type
of musician, dark-haired, tall, and slender; he added distinction
to our dance concerts by always appearing in white tie and for-
mal dress. This was something that impressed the audience
everywhere-especially in the hinterlands, where most of the
men could barely afford to own a suit. Clothes as well as all
other commodities, taken for granted elsewhere, were unavail-
able to the majority of the populace.
DUNCAN DANCER
I recall a funny incident that shows how threadbare the
average citizen's wardrobe was. It happened in Blagovyesh-
chensk on the left bank of the Amur River. On the right bank
was Manchuria, where freedom then prevailed and anything
could be bought in the stores of the small Chinese town. In
those days, Russian citizens could obtain a permit to cross the
river and buy anything they liked, providing they could wear
it on their persons. All the men in our party used this opportu-
nity to replenish their tattered wardrobes. Early one morning
they rowed over in a boat dressed only in shirtsleeves (though
the day was cold), old pants, torn shoes, and no hats. When
they returned at dusk, they all sported new fedora hats, gloves,
half a dozen of everything starting with underwear; two suits
fitted one on top of the other, a half-dozen socks on each foot,
and a pair of shiny new shoes. They could barely maneuver
in the clumsy get-ups. Their strategy to outwit the frontier
guards was so obvious that even the latter had to laugh, but
they got such a kick out of it that they closed an eye and let
the men pass. Otherwise they would have had to pay a heavy
fine; or worse, suffer imprisonment. But for the sake of some
decent clothes to wear, they would have gladly risked almost
anything short of death.
We had a few warm days left in Vladivostok before the
winter set in, and I used to drive to the shore and gaze out
across the Pacific toward America. California, I knew, lay
straight ahead. How I longed to be back there again! Of the
other Duncan girls, only Theresa lived over there-and Tem-
ple, who was married and made her home in New York. With
Lisa in France and Anna Lord knew where, how widely we
were scattered! With the cessation of all correspondence, we
had completely lost track of each other. I liked to have a look
at the Pacific as often as possible, not knowing when I would
visit the Far East again, and believing that my tour had come
to an end, with the return trip to Moscow next on our schedule.
To China and Back 277
My manager told me that in the old tsarist days, a theatri-
cal tour through Siberia invariably ended in Harbin, now no
longer Russian territory. It was still largely populated by Rus-
sians, though under Japanese occupation, and we decided to
make a try for it. This meant obtaining exit visas and passports
from the Soviets. We doubted very much we would receive
them, although the authorities occasionally permitted theatrical
groups to cross the frontier, in spite of the chance of their defect-
ing. To our pleasant surprise, the authorities let us go.
I never saw such elation among the members of my troupe.
They had no intention of defecting; they simply longed to
breathe a little free air and come in close touch with the outside
world, so long kept away from them. We stayed for two weeks,
giving a show nearly every day. At the termination of our en-
gagement, the Harbin paper noted:
The performance of Irma Duncan and her dancers was a real
triumph. The house was sold out to standing room only. Loud
applause after each number greeted the artists and at the end the
dancers received a standing ovation.
Each time Irma Duncan appears on the stage she is different.
Now she is joyful, then again she is proud, a flaming spirit calling
to the oppressed masses to rise and throw away their bonds. And
again she demonstrates her creative versatility in the interpreta-
tion of Chopin's Funeral March and the Berceuse, where she
gives us the picture of a tender-visaged mother bending over the
cradle of a child. One superbly moving impersonation succeeds
another. A scarf, a tunic and a mantle, those are the only props
with the aid of which she creates her beautiful art. She is as true
as only a fanatic can be to the ideals of her foster mother. Isa-
dora's work is embodied in Irma.
When the time came to depart, I was most reluctant to
leave. China exerted a strange fascination over me. Peking was
a city I had always wanted to visit. Now, only thirty hours
away, how could I resist? Our exit permit included only Harbin,
DUNCAN .DANCER
but that didn't worry me. The question that did worry me was
how we would be received in China without advance booking.
I decided to take a big gamble.
I gave the order to proceed, though neither I nor my man"
agers knew anything about theatrical or any other conditions in
China.
I can't remember when I had been more thrilled to enter a
foreign city (short of my initial arrival in Paris) than when,
on a beautiful October day, I first saw the enormous walls en"
circling Peking. Quickly settled at the Wagon"Lit Hotel, I
was impatient to go sightseeing. Transportation was by ricksha;
and I confess to a few embarrassed moments before I could
accustom myself to being drawn about, not by horse or by
motor, but by another human being.
It must be remembered that this was in the era of extra-
territoriality. Foreigners lived in their own concessions and
never mixed with the natives. Theatres were situated there, and
only a select number of high-ranking Chinese ever attended
them. For that reason, although I danced in several cities, I
never really performed for the Chinese themselves. As far as
our concert tour was concerned, it did not take place in China
proper, but only in the foreign concessions-English, French,
Japanese, or those of other occupying nations. Because of this
curious circumstance, it is not surprising to come across an article
written by a Britisher under the pseudonym of Argus, who re-
viewed our show in Tientsin, which was largely colonized by
the English. He wrote:
A hit! A very palpable hit, as was observed by Hamlet. Not
the most Philistinic would contradict the statement that Irma
Duncan held the audience at the Empire Theatre last night in
her graceful hand. The writer was acquainted with Isadora
Duncan, the founder of the Duncan school of dancing, on her
first visit to London about twenty-five years ago, when she gave
her initial recital at the New Gallery and no less a person than the
musical critic of "The Times,'' the great Fuller Maitland, played
To China and Back 279
accompaniments on the harpsichord to her interpretations of the
classics.
In those days her views on dancing were an innovation and
contrary to all the old ideas. Like Wagner, she met with opposi-
tion and cheap ridicule. Since then she has conquered the world.
And all dance recitals nowadays are more or less either Dun-
canesque or influenced by her teachings. Within the year we have
witnessed the work of many dancers of high repute and the great-
est executive ability, but the Duncan Dancers stand alone.
In the first part of the programme the audience were charmed
by the portrayals of Irma Duncan and Mr. Shein, who is her
companion in presenting "Chopiniana." If the great Polish master
could have witnessed this delightful materialization of his work,
he would have been happy that he had inspired such exquisite
poetry in motion. . . .
Mr. Shein, the pianist, is of a rank which does not frequently
favor Tientsin. He has a delicacy of touch and a technique not
excelled by many celebrities and the sympathy of all those
musically inclined went out to him last night.
Princess Der Ling, onetime lady-in-waiting to Tzu-Hsi,
Dowager Empress of China, was the first Chinese person of con-
sequence whom I met. She came to see me backstage at the
Apollo Theatre in the Legation Quarter in Peking. Educated
abroad-her father was once Chinese minister to France-she
spoke perfect English. After we had been introduced, she said,
"You know, I was a pupil of Isadora Duncan years ago." I
couldn't refrain from smiling and saying doubtfully, "Really?"
-for many people have claimed this and still do, though they
did no more than shake hands with her.
The Princess continued, "It was in 1902. My sister and I
attended her classes in Paris. That was long before she attained
fame as a dancer."
Then I remembered what Mary Sturges had told me. They
must both have attended Isadora's studio in the Avenue de
Villiars, where she opened classes for paying students soon after
her arrival in Paris. However, they were of short duration and
DUNCAN DANCER
conducted with no thought of training professional dancers. But
China was the last place I would have expected to find a former
pupil of Isadora!
Peking-with its monuments of former grandeur under the
Mandarin rule, such as the "Forbidden City"; the famed "Tem-
ple of Heaven," entirely carved of white stone; and the vast
expanse of gardens and low buildings with the peculiar, glazed,
upturned roofs in the bright yellow and blues of Chinese archi-
tecture-is the most Chinese of all the cities I saw in that coun-
try. Taking advantage of the splendid autumn weather, we
made several excursions to the Empress' summer palace, which
was shaped like a houseboat, floating in the center of a lake.
We also visited the western hills where the last remains of the
first president of the Chinese Republic, Sun Y at-sen, had tem-
porarily been laid to rest, high up in a tower overlooking the
whole countryside.
Before leaving Peking, I must mention the mysterious char-
acter who daily ensconced himself in the same armchair in a
dark corner of the big lobby of the Wagon-Lit Hotel. Every
time I appeared around tea time, he was there. He pretended
to read a newspaper but actually kept peeping over the edge
and staring at me. I thought I had made a new conquest, it was
most intriguing. At last he summoned up enough courage to
send his card over to me and requested an interview. He had a
very important matter to discuss with me, involving big profits.
I sent my manager over to talk to him. The mysterious stranger
turned out to be a White Russian officer of Denikin's former
army, now obviously living by his wits alone. He made me the
most amazing offer, one that really astonished me.
Before I tell what it was, I must mention here that Peking
and most of the Manchurian provinces were then held by that
most bloodthirsty of all warlords, the erstwhile bandit Chang-
Tso-lin. His son, commander of one of his father's armies, was
a notorious good-for-nothing. His feats as a gambler, woman-
chaser and rapist, his numerous orgies had made sensational
To China and Back
news in the foreign press. Well, hearing of our successful per-
formances in Peking, it pleased this unspeakable scoundrel to
invite us to his army camp to dance for him and his soldiers.
Naturally, I refused point-blank. The Russian intermediary
pleaded with me, almost threatening me with dire results if I
persisted in my refusal. He assured us we would be treated with
respect and like royalty strictly guarded and protected. A spe-
cial train with sleeping cars and dining saloon would take us
there and back. And, most important, a huge sum of money
would be paid in advance.
Finding ourselves practically penniless at that period, it
perhaps seemed folly not to accept this lucrative offer. It all
looked very suspicious to me and of course I had my great
responsibility vis-a-vis my young charges to consider. As luck
would have it, that same afternoon a young secretary of the
American Legation in Peking called on me. He instantly in-
formed me that they knew all about that offer from Chang-
Tso-lin's son, and earnestly warned me not to accept his offer no
matter how much money he was ready to pay me. I hastily as-
sured him I had already definitely made up my mind to have
nothing to do with this extraordinary scheme. He seemed much
relieved. I was quite touched that the American Legation should
take the trouble to warn me and profess such a personal inter-
est in me since at that time I was not yet a citizen of the United
States and therefore not entitled to their protection. I thanked
him warmly and felt much comforted to know I had invisible
friends in these dangerous surroundings and times.
In Tientsin, an American impresario offered me a contract
for Japan. I had originally intended to penetrate no farther
into China than the Celestial City. But once there, I could not
resist continuing south to discover what the rest of Cathay
looked like. Therefore the offer from the impresario came most
opportunely. Without a definite contract, it would have been
risky to stretch our lifeline to Russia too far.
The day we arrived in Shanghai, misfortune befell us. First,
DUNCAN DANCER
the Japanese Emperor died, and the tour was promptly cane
celed. That left us in grave financial straits, since we counted
on the tour for new funds. Second, having no advance agent,
we were unable to find a vacant theatre in any of the concessions
other than the Japanese quarter, which was shunned by all the
foreigners, on whom we relied exclusively for our audience. It
was a sort of pariah among concessions, something we could not
possibly have anticipated. We danced for a couple of weeks to
small crowds, consisting only of Japanese, at less than popular
prices-not enough to defray our expenses. The situation, es-
pecially around Christmas time, became alarming. I saw my-
self forced to ask for a loan. Ilya unearthed a Russian Jew who
acted as money lender in the Japanese concession, where we
then lived to save money. I hated to do it. But living was ex-
pensive in Shanghai, that teeming city on the Whangpoo River
by the Yellow Sea, with its strange admixture of Oriental and
European cultures. We continued to hope for a good break to
set us on our feet again. None appeared, and the Shanghai
Shylock demanded payment. The alternative was to have me
thrown into prison, which would have meant a Chinese prison.
This horrible fate was imminent when a policeman, accompanied
by Shylock, came to my lodgings to arrest me.
Not knowing how to escape this dreadful predicament, I
sat hopeless and forlorn in my locked and bolted room, while
a ferocious fracas went on outside. All the men in my company
tried to prevent the arresting officer from reaching my door.
Frightened, I jumped from my chair and ran to a closet to hide
when I heard a loud knock at my door. Careful inquiry revealed
that a Soviet Embassy secretary desired to speak to me. I opened
the door.
"What is that awful noise downstairs?" he asked on enter-
ing. "I could barely get by several fellows at grips with each
other, while an English bobby tried unsuccessfully to tear them
apart."
"Those are my friends trying to save my life. Somebody is
out to get my blood," I said with a laugh, trying to seem flippant
To China and Back
and unconcerned. The last thing I wanted the Soviets to know
was my financial dilemma.
"May I ask how large a sum you owe?" he asked casually,
surprising me no end. How did he know? I told him, and with-
out further ado he reached for his wallet and presented me with
the exact amount. I was speechless, and so terribly relieved I
could have kissed him. He, or rather the Soviet Embassy (which
knows all, sees all, and hears all), had literally saved my life.
He further passed on the information that the Embassy had
wired to Moscow for sufficient funds to bring me and my whole
company safely home. After the tumult and the shouting below
had died, with the fortuitous repayment of the debt, he invited
us all to a New Year's party at the Embassy.
I had corresponded with no one since leaving Moscow. No
news of Isadora had reached me. I made use of the Christmas
holidays to write letters to both my mother and foster mother.
The latter passed the time between the Hotel Lutetia in Paris
and her studio in Nice, preparing her memoirs for publication.
Since no further communications passed between us, I discovered
only years later that my journey to China had simply infuriated
her. She went so far in her anger as to tell friends that I was a
"bandit" who had "absconded with her school"-a statement
bordering on madness. She wrote a formal letter of protest to
some Soviet official complaining that when she received my news
it was:
The first word I have heard from the school for six months,
and the first knowledge I have had that they are in China. I
wish to protest that this school which I formed at the sacrifice of
my fortune and person, and for which I had become naturally
boycotted by all my former friends and audiences in Europe,
should be allowed to pass from my control and into the hands of
private speculation. Those sacrifices that I made, I made gladly
for the cause of the people; but when it comes to the exploita-
tion of my work by a private organization without so much as
asking my advice--! must protest!
This is an exploitation of my art which I would not have
DUNCAN DANCER
expected, considering the primary object of my visit to Russia
was to escape from just such exploitation of Art, which Soviet
Russia condemned Europe for in 1921.
"Private speculation?, "Exploitation of my work?, Was
she talking about me? I too had formed the school at the sacri-
fice of my future and person and fortune, since I received not a
penny for my work. And besides, from the opening in 1921 until
that Christmas of 1926, I had done all the work with the chil-
dren, Isadora being absent from the school 7 5 per cent of the
time. For some reason known only to her, it was all right for
me to perform in France with sixteen pupils from the school,
but not in China. In the former instance, it would have been
"for the cause of the people"; in the latter, she considered it
a dreadful "exploitation" of her work. These contradictions in
terms remained incomprehensible to me. Was I doing anything
wrong?
At the Embassy party to celebrate New Year's day in Shang-
hai, all the children-ranging in age from ten to sixteen-were
given presents. I too received a pair of handsome black cloisonne
vases filled with poinsettias, which, now holding other flowers,
grace my mantelpiece to this day. Among the guests were
foreign correspondents, who had come to China to cover the
civil war then raging in the interior. In Peking I had already
become familiar with the name of Chang Tso-lin, a mighty war
lord, and here in Shanghai the name of Chiang Kai-shek was
much in the news. Without realizing it-for I shied away from
politics--! had arrived at a crucial moment in the revolutionary
history of that country, in which I was to become unwittingly
embroiled to a minor extent. No one in the rest of the world,
except Soviet Russia, paid much attention to what was going on
in China. The American papers were concerned only with do-
mestic affairs.
The Chinese Revolution, which had started twenty years
earlier under the leadership of the great Sun Y at-sen (who had
been proclaimed president in I 9 1 I ) was about to enter a second
To China and Back
stage. The Bolsheviks, continuously on the prowl for further
acquisitions to their own cause, had given Sun Y at-sen money
and munitions, and also military and political advisers. When
Sun Yat-sen died in I 924, the revolutionary movement contin-
ued to grow. The various war lords, who governed China ac-
cording to a feudal system, opposed it to a man. The Canton
armies of the Kuomintang (People's Party), inspired by Sun
Yat-sen, were then sweeping down the Yangtze-Kiang under
the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek, and had recently taken
Hankow, soon to be followed by Nanking and Shanghai. Anti-
foreign feeling had been aroused among the armies, and all
foreigners were advised to settle on the coast near Shanghai or
Tientsin. The political adviser the Russians sent to the Kuomin-
tang was an aquaintance of mine, Michael Borodin.
The young, victorious commander-in-chief, Chiang Kai-shek,
even then engaged in certain maneuvres to further his own
ambition (which eventually culminated in making him presi-
dent), was trying to break with the left wing of the Kuomin-
tang, which was largely under Russian influence. Word had
reached the Soviet Embassy at this time that a critical situation
had developed with respect to the Kuomintang.
During the New Year's reception the Soviet Ambassador
asked me to step into his private office for a moment. He had
something important to say to me.
"I have received official notice from Narkompross [People's
Commissariat of Education] in Moscow that you are to return
immediately to Russia," he informed me, when we were seated
at his desk. I had no knowledge then of Isadora's protest, and
could not guess that she had a hand in this. I retorted, "That
suits me fine. Shall we be leaving at once?"
The Soviet Ambassador (I have forgotten his name) re-
garded me for a minute in silence. Then he leaned far across
his desk and said in a hushed voice, "No, I don't want you to
leave yet for Moscow."
Intrigued by his conspiratorial tone, I raised my eyebrows
286 DUNCAN DANCER
and asked for an explanation. In the same hushed tones he
added, "My staff and I have come to the unanimous. conclusion
that you and your company should proceed to Hankow instead."
"Hankow?" I cried in alarm. "Isn't that the place where a
wave of anti-foreign agitation has broken out, with foreigners
being killed right and left?"
"That is true," he admitted and raised a forefinger, quickly
adding, "but not Russians l "
How the enraged Chinese could tell the difference in na-
tionality or bother to find out before slaughtering anyone, I
couldn't imagine. I showed no enthusiasm for the idea of leav-
ing safe Shanghai and venturing forth into the front battle lines,
and told him so. He calmed my fears by explaining that the
Borodins would look after us and protect us and not to worry on
that account. Things were actually not so bad. ''The people will
welcome some diversion, and your performance will, I am sure,
give them new hope and inspiration."
He was so insistent that I got the impression this was more
of an order than a request. "How shall we get there?" I asked,
still not sure if this was the right thing for us to do. "We are
completely broke."
"You can use the money Lunacharsky forwarded for your
return trip."
"Isn't that going against official orders?" I asked, surprised
that he should even suggest such a thing, and unwilling to get
myself into trouble with the authorities in Moscow.
"Leave the rest to us," he assured me. "I shall give the
necessary explanation when the time comes. The important
thing is-will you consent to go?" I remained silent, thinking
of the enormous responsibility involved. It wasn't just myself
I had to consider, but all my company.
"Of course you are not forced to go. If you are afraid . . .
we will understand. This is only a suggestion on our part;" he
said.
Adventure is in my blood, and I had no actual fear for
To China and Back
myself to see a bit of history in the making. I hesitated only
because of the girls. "Will they be safe?" I inquired.
"The enemy has not yet reached the river, and although
the voyage to Hankow may not be too comfortable, there is
nothing to fear. Once you reach the Wuhan province upstream,
the Borodins and Chiang Kai-shek with his victorious army will
receive you with open arms. They are well supplied with every-
thing and will give you a good time."
"In that case, as long as I have your official assurance all
will be well with us," I said, "we shall go on to Hankow." One
is young only once and at that period of life seldom reckons
with the consequences. I asked him when he wished us to depart.
"Tomorrow. The sooner you get there the better. A Japa-
nese streamer is about to sail for Hankow. It will take only three
days."
What he did not communicate to me, so as not to alarm us
unduly, was the fact that the enemy army of the northern war
lord Chang Tso-lin, more ferocious even than the southern
army, was momentarily expected to capture Nanking. The
Soviets purposely left me in the dark, because they were anx-
ious-for reasons of their own-that we should make contact
with the Borodins. The Soviet Embassy saw in our dancers a
providential means of extending a friendly gesture to Chiang
Kai-shek. In other words, they tried to use us as propaganda to
help smooth the ruffied feathers of the Chinese-Russian en-
tente.
The parting words of the young secretary of the legation,
who once came to my rescue and who now saw us off, were,
"You don't know how courageous you are to undertake this
journey. If I were in your place, I don't think I would have
done the same."
This remark hardly helped to put my mind at ease. I some-
how sensed that my small bark, having so far navigated safely,
was about to encounter the ground swells of much deeper water.
Traveling native style in China is quite an experience. It is
288 DUNCAN DANCER
not one that I would ever care to repeat. In order to save
money, our manager had bought third-class accommodation for
all of us. We slept on hard bunks in cabins of our own, but
meals were another matter. There was no dining room. We
were obliged to squat, Chinese style, on the bare floor. The food
was served in porcelain cups with chopsticks. This would not
have been too bad, since one can adopt native customs temporar-
ily. It was instructive and might have been fun-but-there
were grave reasons for shunning these meals served on the
floor outside the cabins. That same place was also used by the
native passengers for other and more private purposes, as un-
concernedly as if they were animals.
I rushed in shocked protest to the Japanese captain of the
ship, asking permission for me and my company to eat in the
first-class dining saloon and paying for the privilege, but he re-
fused. What to do? I first thought of mutiny, by simply taking
over the dining saloon and staying there to the end of the trip.
I consulted with Elisaveta Gregorievna, who told me of a sup-
ply of baked beans she had taken along, just in case. That solved
the problem. For three days, three times a day, we all ate cold
beans, right out of the cans, in our own cabins. We never trav-
eled without tea and a couple of samovars; thus we had enough
to drink. The girls spent most of the time playing on deck,
but I never left my cabin. Frossia, my maid, took care of all
my wants. I invariably traveled with my own bedding, wash
basins, buckets, pitcher, etc., as well as linen and mosquito net-
ting. These were things one could not do without, considering
the primitive state of lodgings in all of Russia outside of the
larger cities. Fortunately, most places had public baths. In this
way, we kept clean and free of disease, despite the ravages of
typhoid fever and cholera rampant in certain areas. Though
none of us had been especially inoculated, our group suffered
no serious illness all the years we toured together. Whenever
one of the children complained of feeling sick, Elisaveta Gre-
gorievna employed but one remedy-castor oil. This, she in-
To China and Back
sisted, cured everything, and it worked wonders; but here in
China, under these unbelievably filthy conditions, I feared the
very worst.
From my cabin window, I watched the scenery along the
largest river in China. We passed Nanking safely. Soon there-
after the river narrowed and the mountains appeared in fan-
shape form-a view made familiar through Chinese art, which
has a character and charm all its own. We had come about six
hundred miles upstream when, in the second week of January
1927, with the civil war about to reach a climax, we landed in
Hankow, the most important commercial center in the mid-
lands.
The day was sunny and warm. The children stood lined up
on deck in their school outfits, with their overcoats cut in mili-
tary style resembling the Red Army uniform. I too came out
of my seclusion below deck, glad to see the sun and inhale some
fresh air. As the boat approached the landing stage, I noticed
two ladies, both dressed in Chinese garb-although one was a
foreigner-standing on the dock and waving at us. The foreign
woman, in her forties, very short and rather squat-looking in
her gray Chinese dress reaching to the ankles, called out in
Russian, "Hello, I'm Fanny Borodin. Welcome to Hank ow! "
Borodin was not her real name. Both she and her husband,
whom I had met before, came from Chicago, where he had
taught school. Delighted to be able to speak to an American
woman again, I said some words in English, upon which she
quickly shushed me, saying in Russian, "Please don't speak
English in public! Do you see that building full of bullet
holes?" and she pointed to a warehouse nearby. "That is where
they shot every man, woman, and child of the English colony,
who had barricaded themselves there last week. So, please, be
very careful. It's all right to speak Russian."
She introduced me to her companion, a Chinese lady of very
delicate proportions and a charming face. It turned out to be
the Martha Washington of revolutionary China, none other
DUNCAN DANCER
than the widow of the first president, Sun Y at-sen. Soong
Ching-ling is the sister of the present Madame Chiang Kai-shek.
She handed me a bouquet of flowers and whispered a few words
of greeting in English, for, like her more famous sister, she was
educated in America.
Fanny Borodin informed me that, besides her own family,
I and my company were the only foreigners then in Hankow.
That did not make me feel very much at ease. After that awful
boat trip, I fully anticipated the worst. She and Madame Sun
Y at-sen led me to a limousine in a line of other cars all promi-
nently displaying the Kuomintang flag-an eleven-pointed white
star in a field of blue. The English and French concessions ap-
peared to be completely evacuated, and we drove through them
without stopping anywhere. Presently we approached a polo
field on the outskirts of the city, and I prepared myself to be
housed in Chinese fashion with all the attending discomforts for
a Westerner. But the limousine entered some iron gates set in
a high wall and stopped in front of an impressive modern man-
Slon.
"What do you think of it?" Mrs. Borodin, now addressing
me in English, said as we mounted the stairs. "It looks brand
new," I retorted, gazing about in amazement, for this was the
last I had expected. "It is!" she said, and laughed. The house,
she explained, was especially built for Wu Pei-fu, the big war
lord of the midland provinces. "But we captured Hankow be-
fore he had a chance to occupy it, and now it is yours for the
duration of your visit with us."
So saying, she conducted us into the house; and indeed all
the furniture, down to the last lace doily, still had a price tag
attached. We all stood there laughing. It was so marvelous to
think we got there ahead of Wu Pei-fu! We moved in and took
possession of this grand trophy of war, whose wraps had not yet
been removed.
"I hope you will find everything to your liking, and that
you will all be happy here," Madame Sun said in her gracious
To China and Back
manner, so different from the abrupt Fanny Borodin. "This is
the very best place we can offer you," she continued, leading me
to the dining room that opened out onto a terrace. Her smooth
dark hair, tied back into a knot at the nape of the neck, framed
a pale, sensitive face with very black eyes. She spoke and moved
with the stately bearing of an aristocrat; her ideas of housekeepc
ing were those of a woman brought up in luxury. Surveying the
dining room she said nonchalantly, "Instead of hiring a cook
and servants, such a bother, I thought it would be ever so much
more convenient to hand the whole problem of meals over to a
good caterer. Don't you agree? "
The arrangement seemed perfect. The only thing that both-
ered me was the expense. "Are we to pay for them?" I inquired
of Mrs. Borodin before she left.
"Certainly not!" she exclaimed. "All of you are the honored
guests of the Kuomintang Party. Besides, Madame Sun's
brother, T. V. Soong, is Finance Minister, so you can just sit
back and relax; everything will work out."
I thanked them for the wonderful hospitality, and then
Mrs. Borodin warned me once more about speaking English
in public and told me not to worry about the isolated location.
"You shall have a round-the-dock bodyguard of armed sol-
diers," she assured me. "We have also placed a car with chauffeur
at your disposal, but don't go anywhere without taking two
armed guards along! " and she warned me further, "Always be
sure to display the Kuomintang flag prominently!"
Before driving back to town with Madame Sun, she gave me
her telephone number and promised to return the following day.
I entered the house again and noticed several white-coated
waiters setting the table as for a festive dinner. There were
flowers, silver, crystal, candles-and they served nothing less
than a seven-course meal every time we sat down at table. What
a far cry from the cold beans eaten out of a tin!
At night, when I retired to my private room and bath, all
the fixtures gleaming in a brand-new state, I looked out the
DUNCAN DANCER
window and saw the bonfires lit in front of the tents the eight
soldiers of our night watch had erected in back and in front of
the house. My thoughts went back to all the strange events
leading up to this moment. How did I ever get into a situation
like this? No matter how often I had dreamed of visiting Cathay,
not in my wildest imagination could I have conjured up an ad-
venture similar to this one. What was our next move? I won-
dered, for almost anything was possible now. The warlike at-
mosphere created by the soldiers guarding our high-walled
enclave brought a shiver of apprehension, for in spite of all the
luxurious surroundings in which we lived, I could not forget
that we were encamped in the midst of a fierce civil war whose
outcome still lay in the balance. At any moment the tide might
suddenly turn for the worse and engulf us all in the most
ghastly disaster. All night long the spectre of Wu Pei-fu, the
vanquished war lord, taking Hankow again by storm and mak-
ing us his prisoners, prevented me from sleeping soundly in his
house. And I wished I were a thousand miles from there. Why,
oh why! had I not heeded Isadora's plea? I would now be bask-
ing in the mild Riviera sun, bathing in the blue sea, instead of
facing terror and bloodshed and gruesome death from which
there might be no escape.
These nightmarish thoughts vanished on the following day.
We were too busy getting ready for our debut in Hankow to
think of anything but the business at hand. The night of our
performance in a small theatre in the former French concession,
the entire route leading from the center of town was lined with
soldiers. All the dignitaries from Chiang Kai-shek down would
attend. \Ve tried to give our best to our first all-Chinese audi-
ence, and they responded with great warmth. Mrs. Borodin
came backstage during the intermission and said, "Your dancing
is divine! It is a shame Chiang Kai-shek can't see it. He did
not come."
I told her we had then failed in our mission, for this was
the reason we were sent to Hankow. She told me to have pa-
To China and Back 293
tience; she had sent several messengers, and he might still ap-
pear. At the end of our performance she once more came to my
dressing room, this time elated and excited. "He is here! He is
here!" she shouted. "He just came! Now you must do the
whole thing over again!"
Exhausted from my three-hour show, I pleaded with her
not to insist on a repetition of the entire program, but only of
the last part, composed of our revolutionary songs and dances.
She agreed, and I had prepared a surprise. At the very end,
after several curtain calls (for none of the audience had left
and Chiang Kai-shek applauded as loudly as the rest), we all
came out dressed in little coolie shirts. I displayed the Kuomin-
tang flag, and the children sang the Kuomintang national
anthem in Chinese, to the incongruous tune of "Three Blind
Mice." It was a tremendous hit!
Mrs. Borodin embraced me in her enthusiasm crying, "That
was wonderful! Just the right thing! You have won over Chiang
Kai-shek completely. You know, all the top officials are so
pleased they are going to tender all of you a nice banquet to-
morrow."
Madame Sun Yat-sen called on me the next day and said,
"We all think it would be so much pleasanter to hold the ban-
quet in your honor right here in your house instead of at a
formal restaurant in town. The caterers are already here, and
we can spend the whole evening together, en famille as it were."
That evening the top officials arrived and many brought their
children along. I sat at the head of the table next to the hero of
the Chinese Revolution, Chiang Kai-shek, and the Foreign Min-
ister, Eugen Chen. Madame Sun Yat-sen sat on the other end
with her brother the Minister of Finance, and Michael Borodin.
They made speeches and drank my health in wine, all except
Chiang Kai-shek, who drank water. He also spoke no English.
He just sat there and smiled. So I conversed mainly with Eugen
Chen, a very cultured gentleman, educated in England, who had
a good sense of humor.
· DUNCAN DANCER
For this gala. occasion, I wore a Chinese costume that I had
bought in Peking on Silk Street, with a large jade pendant I had
bought there on Jade Street. Both the long jacket and the
trousers were of red silk. The loose-sleeved jacket was richly
embroidered in white, blue, and gold. I considered it most ap-
propriate and could not resist asking Eugen Chen whether he
did not agree. In his clipped Oxford accent he said, "It is of
course very lovely and all that, but ..."
"vVhat is the matter with it? Is something wrong?" I in-
quired, taken aback.
"Well now, I really don't know what to say. Let me put it
to you this way, my dear girl. Ah-h, suppose I had been given a
banquet in Paris and turned up dressed as Louis XIV! Eh! It
would be rather funny, wouldn't it? Ha, hal"
I saw the joke when he explained that the Mandarin style
had disappeared with the Manchu dynasty. To me, all Chinese
clothes looked alike. Then I learned that the modern Chinese
women no longer wore trousers nor tied their feet with bandages
in childhood to stunt their growth. I too promised to reform and
buy myself a modern Chinese dress. Only I could nowhere find
one to fit me-the Chinese women are all as small as dolls.
While the Russian and Chinese children amused themselves
with parlor games after dinner, I had a long conversation with
Borodin. I had met him before, in the summer of I 92 I shortly
after our arrival in Moscow. I remembered the occasion now.
It was on a day in August, after we had settled in the dacha in
Sparrow Hills (now called Lenin Hills). Isadora and I, simply
clad in white tunics and sandals, had been wandering among the
trees on the wooded heights above the river. Weary of our
promenade, we sat on an open grassy slope near the stream.
Soon several men in a rowboat appeared around the bend; and,
apparently attracted by our white-clad figures, they moored their
boat and climbed the slope toward us. They must have recog-
nized Isadora, because they asked if they could take a snapshot
of her. The chief of this little band was Borodin. Tall and dark
To China and Back 295
and good-looking, he seemed more cultured than the others and
was the only one who spoke English. We invited them to lunch
at our dacha. We did not have much food, but Jeanne managed
to rustle up a few eggs for an omelet and fresh tomatoes for a
salad; and they, used to a diet of dried fish and hard black bread,
considered it a lavish meal. We had never seen Borodin again,
and I certainly had not expected to run across him in the middle
of China. But here he was, and he had an interesting proposition
to make.
Would I, he wanted to know, consider giving up my per-
formances at the theatre in the French concession-which was,
after all, a symbol of colonialism in the eyes of any Chinese-
to dance instead in the theatre in the native quarter? That was
something no foreign artist had ever done. I readily consented,
without giving it a second thought. The fact that for the last
three months we had performed in every large city in China
and not once for a purely Chinese audience, except in Hankow,
was something I did not like. It did not seem fair. \Vhy should
the natives be forced to enter the hated foreign concessions in
order to see the artists who came to their country?
"Bravo!" Borodin exclaimed. "You will have the distinction
of being the first foreign artist to perform professionally in the
Chinese quarter; outside the settlements, and in a Chinese, not
European-style, theatre."
The population of Hankow was then about a million souls.
And I don't think it too much of an exaggeration when I claim
we must have danced for most of them! Borodin had warned
me that the Chinese theatre was different from what I was
accustomed to. Indeed it was! To begin with, the windows had
only transparent paper to cover them, most of it torn to shreds;
and cold blasts of air circulated through the auditorium, which
seated several thousand people. A heating system was conspicu·
ous by its absence. At the end of January it had started to snow,
a freak of the weather this southern town had not experienced
in thirty years. There was another inconvenience of a very serious
DUNCAN DANCER
sort-the theatre had no dressing rooms. The cold and the lack
of dressing rooms may have been perfectly all right for the all-
male Chinese performers, dressed in elaborate amounts of cos-
tume. But I and my girls needed a little privacy for disrobing
and change of costumes, which consisted in the main of diapha-
nous scarves worn over bare limbs. Borodin made a long face
when he noticed my disgust with the setup, afraid I would
renege on the whole scheme. However, I decided to go through
with it; which is my usual attitude when challenged.
Backstage we rigged up screens like small nooks, with bra-
ziers of hot coals inside to keep us from freezing. Even so, the
cold was so severe that when the girls entered the stage singing,
little spirals of steam could be seen escaping from their open
mouths. No matter how energetically we moved about, our limbs
seemed absolutely frozen. As for poor Moissei Borissovich, he
insisted on wearing woolen gloves so he could play the rattling
old upright box that no true musician would honor by the name
of piano. None of us had ever experienced anything like it. We
thought the extreme cold would keep the audience away. But
no; they continued to pour into the theatre to full capacity at
each and every show. They had, of course, nothing to worry
about. The national costume is a padded suit and padded coat
in which they sat, warm as toast, drinking-throughout the re-
cital, if you please-pots of hot tea and eating sweet cakes.
The Chinese theatre also boasts of no curtain or spotlights.
While dancing I am usually unaware of the audience, for I am
completely wrapped up in my interpretation of the music. Here
this was impossible, no matter how much I tried to concentrate.
On that Oriental music box, even Chopin-played by my pianist
in woolen gloves-sounded Chinese. And out in the auditorium,
lit up as bright as day, I heard the noise of constant chatter and
saw the tea being served, while an occasional hot towel went
flying through the air from customer to towel-vendor for the
purpose-of all things!-of wiping sweat from the brow! To
cap the whole incredible performance (in which the public actu-
To China and Back 297
ally took a more prominent part than we, poor frozen dancers),
they all-thousands of them-held up their thumbs and shouted
"Ho!" instead of applauding at the end of a dance. No wonder
we were complete wrecks at the finish of our engagement, which
could have been prolonged indefinitely, because Borodin invited
the various labor groups and army units to see the show free.
A halt was called only because some army units mutinied, took
over the entire theatre, and refused to quit and make room for
others. They bivouacked there, and the riot squads had to be
called out of the barracks before they evacuated the premises.
With those fellows we had apparently made a smashing hit. The
Chinese masses had never seen Occidental performers before,
except in movies and, like shoo-fly pie, they simply couldn't "get
enough of that wonderful stuff."
But I decided we had had enough. And, undoubtedly leaving
in our wake uncounted new adherents of the Duncan dance
a !'Orientale, we bade farewell to our friendly hosts. But here,
too, Oriental style had to be observed. Madame Sun entertained
me at tea, presenting me with a pretty Chinese-embroidered
shawl in the Imperial color of the celestial kingdom-bright
yellow-symbolizing the heavenly orb. I still have it.
Then there was the governor of the province, who extended
us a farewell feast of thirty-five courses-all Chinese. It started
off with a hot, steaming shark-fin stew, prepared by his own
hands at the table. Seeing those bleeding pieces of fish drop into
the pot one by one had an effect the opposite of raising my
appetite. The various Oriental dishes followed one another in
slow procession, including such choice morsels as hundred-year-
old eggs that gave off enough ammonia fumes for a general gas
attack. Everything was eaten with chopsticks out of tiny, trans-
parent porcelain bowls. This went on for hours with nothing to
drink but green tea. To my Occidental palate, these dishes were
repulsive; I could not swallow a single bit, never knowing
whether it was a slice of chow dog or worse. I raised my chop-
sticks dutifully and pretended to taste each course as it was set
DUNCAN DANCER
before me, but not a wee morsel passed my lips. Finally, at the
end, the servants brought in large wooden bowls filled to over-
flowing with snow-white rice, every kernel separate, just the way
I like it. My face lit up; I smacked my lips. Starving for some
sustenance after a three-hour wait, I was about to raise my chop-
sticks and dig in with relish, when someone rudely kicked me
under the table.
I turned to my neighbor, Michael Borodin, and whispered,
"What's the matter?" He shook his head and whispered back,
"Don't eat it!" I turned pale, thinking it might be poisoned;
such things have happened at Oriental courts, I knew from
reading history.
"I like rice, and what's more I am starving!" I whispered,
fiercely determined to eat something at this gorgeous feast. He
reached for my arm and held onto it so I wouldn't commit a
grave breach of protocol.
"It's not proper. The host will be gravely offended if, after
a dinner of the finest Chinese food, his guests are hungry enough
to eat such common, every-coolie's-staple as rice."
"Then why do they serve it?"
"Ah, that is a curious Oriental ceremony having to do with
polite manners," he said; and as we got up from the table he
added with tongue in cheek, "Now, if you really want to show
your gratitude and appreciation of the excellent meal your kind
host has offered you, give a good, loud, resounding belch! "
"vVhat with?" I retorted petulantly. "1 haven't eaten any-
thing."
"No matter, do it anyway. It is a great compliment. Nothing
delights a Chinese host more."
"After you, Sire," I said and laughed. "Men come before
women in China." But he too would have no part of this particu-
lar Oriental protocol. And so I rose as hungry as I had sat down
at the governor's banquet in my honor.
On the morning of departure, a large delegation of men and
women, representing different organizations, appeared at our
To China and Back 299
house on the outskirts of town, where for the last six weeks we
had lived as guests of the Kuomintang government. They pre-
sented us with various painted silk scrolls and other gifts on
behalf of the Chinese people. There was also a letter from the
Foreign Minister:
Dear Miss Duncan:
Palace Yian-cen, Hankow
February 6, 1927
In the name of our Chinese comrades I wish to express to you
and the pupils of your school, our great appreciation of the unique
work and the beauty of your dancing, which you have shown us
during the period of your sojourn in Hankow.
You have not only brought us a cultural form new to our
people, but have also enriched our vision, and you have demon-
strated that your art expresses in movement all the natural
energies that create joy and beauty.
Very cordially yours,
Eugen Chen
I was grateful for their warm appreciation and felt that all
of us--dancers, pianist, managers, chaperone, and maid alike-
had bravely fulfilled the difficult assignment for which the So-
viet government had sent us to Hankow.
Return to Moscow
FoR our voyage down the Yangtze-Kiang to Shanghai, the first
lap of our trip, we boarded a Russian boat that had come to
Hankow to take on a cargo of black tea. We made the return
trip in far greater comfort. Several Chinese friends accompanied
us, as did Mrs. Borodin, with her son Norman. She told me she
was seeing her twelve-year-old boy off in Shanghai, where we
were to take a steamer for Vladivostok. She asked me to see that
he got safely on the train there for Moscow, where he would
go back to school. I promised to do so. This seemingly simple
circumstance was to play an important part in the life of Fanny
Borodin, who was soon to make the headlines the world over.
I must here tell the story and the key part I played in that
drama, details of which have up till now not been revealed.
On our way to Shanghai, while the Chinese civil war was still
raging, we got word that the enemy army led by Chang Tso-lin
had captured Nanking. This news threw everyone aboard into a
panic. My panic was the more terrifying since I remembered my
categorical refusal to dance for his army and naturally feared
the very worst of fates from his hands in revenge. Before reach-
ing Nanking we stopped several miles upstream to wait for
nightfall. Under the protection of a heavy February fog and
with all lights extinguished, we silently slipped past the enemy
foothold and got safely away, to our enormous relief. What
might actually have happened to any of us if we had fallen into
enemy hands can be seen by what did happen to Mrs. Borodin-
or Mrs. B. as she begged me to call her, being afraid to mention
her full name.
JOO
Return to Moscow 301
On her return trip to Hankow, sometime in March I believe,
she was captured and turned over to Chang Tso-lin. The irate
bandit wanted to strangle her on the spot, ostensibly as a spy,
but was dissuaded from taking so drastic an action. After lan-
guishing in prison for months, she was finally brought to trial
in the war lord's stronghold, Peking. They tried her and found
her guilty. The usual punishment for that crime was beheading,
but because she was a foreigner and a woman they were going to
give her an aristocrat's death without spilling any blood. She
was to die by either strangulation or drowning. Her defense at-
torney, A. I. Kantorovich, did everything in his power to free
her, offering bribes right and left, all to no avail. The affidavits
from Moscow in her defense proved to be mere scraps of paper
as far as the Chinese court was concerned. They needed some-
thing more credible than that: an affidavit as to her reason for
going to Shanghai in the first place, coming from an impartial
source. Fanny immediately thought of me, but hesitated to drag
me into this mess on account of my future career. The presiding
judge had accepted the bribe, a big one; all he needed to release
her was my affidavit. Her life depending on the outcome, they
very reluctantly got in touch with me. I was then in Paris.
I had absolutely no knowledge of any of this, because the Rus-
sian papers and their system of suppressing news inimical to the
Communist Party or any of its members carried nothing about
Borodin's story. It came as a complete surprise. I did not hesi-
tate to sign the affidavit proving that she had seen her son off to
Russia in Shanghai. This document, which I was supposed to
hand to the Chinese Ambassador in Paris, and a cable sent in my
name direct to Peking, apparently effected her release. The
judge acquitted her, and he, as well as Fanny Borodin, instantly
vanished off the face of the earth. Chang Tso-lin flew into a rage,
turning Peking upside down to find the escaped prisoner, but
she remained in hiding for months before starting her home-
ward journey in disguise.
I saw her again in Moscow. In the interim of her imprison-
302 DUNCAN DANCER
ment, the revolutionary movement in Hankow collapsed
through a counter-revolution led by one of their generals. Mad-
ame Sun Yat-sen, Eugen Chen and his family, and Borodin
scattered to the four winds. They eventually also ended up in
I\1oscow, where I encountered them all once more, and Eugen
Chen's daughter became my first Chinese pupil. Fanny Borodin
told me the story of her escape, saying, "I am writing a book
about my experiences. But don't worry, I won't mention your
name or the important part you played in effecting my rescue.
As a matter of fact, you did save my life, and I am eternally
grateful. That must remain a secret between ourselves, for two
reasons. You see, my husband has failed in his mission, and the
government is keeping us under house arrest. We are to speak
to no one and see no one. You are the only exception. And then
there is your career to think of. The less said about this, the
better. You understand, don't you?"
I failed to see where my personal career as an artist had
anything to do with it. All I did was tell the truth as I knew it
to be when asked about her whereabouts on a given date. I never
saw either of them again. That chapter in the book of my life
was closed.
We landed in Vladivostok at the end of February 1927. To the
Russian people in those early years of Communist rule, anyone
returning from abroad of his own free will, after having tasted
freedom, appeared as strange and marvelous as some weird ani-
mal in the zoo. Since we had been zagranitsa, as they call it, the
public looked at us in amazement. The local theatrical managers
refused to let us slip by without cashing in on the occasion. We
obtained a two-week engagement from them with a financial
guarantee. That was quite an ambitious undertaking on their
part, considering we had played that length of time in Vladi-
vostok before our departure in September. But we had not reck-
oned with their ingenuity.
They came to me one morning and asked me whether I
Return to Moscow
would consent to an exhibition of our trophies and purchases in
the foyer of the theatre. I had no objection. However, they
didn't stop with our trophies and Chinese souvenirs. They per-
suaded me to exhibit every dress and hat and piece of silk
underwear, including stockings, that I had bought; even such
silly items as powder compacts, lipsticks, and perfume, of which
I had brought along a considerable supply, knowing the total
dearth of such commodities in Russia. I laughed out loud and
exclaimed, "You must be joking!"
"Nyet! Nyet!" they said and assured me to the contrary.
How right they were in estimating the avid interest in for-
eign goods by the average citizen was proved the night of our
first performance. The audience could not be torn away from
the exhibit in the outer foyer, and had to be coaxed back into
their seats again. I was so delighted with this opportunity of
engaging in a bit of effective propaganda in reverse, by showing
off the sorts of goods available to all the people on the ((other
side," that I gladly agreed to Schneider's suggestion that we
stop over on our way home at all the larger centers--Khaba-
rovsk, Chita, Blagovyeshchensk, Irkutsk, Krasnojarsk, Tomsk,
Omsk, etc., right into Moscow. We would, as he put it in the
Russian equivalent, "clean up" and return solvent. This plan
was fouled up by an order from the Narkompross to come home
immediately. The children, absent from school for seven months,
had to make up their curriculum for that academic year. It never
occurred to the wise Big Brothers in the Kremlin that the chil-
dren had learned more, had gained a broader outlook on the
world by traveling, than through all the Marxist-doctored books
at school. But, having once more set foot on Soviet soil, we had
to obey.
Stopping over for a couple of days in Khabarovsk, where we
had already been booked in advance and could not break the
date, I had the oddest experience. The temperature in the mid-
dle of March was down to forty below zero. The snow lay foot-
high all over this city on the Amur, named after a hetman of
DUNCAN DANCER
the Cossacks. In front of my hotel the statue of the founder,
Count Mouraviev-Amoursky, was invisible under his mantle of
snow. Siberia, so warm in August, when the rich black earth was
yielding a golden harvest on our eastward trip, now showed
itself in its true colors. For this is how it looks the larger part of
the year-an icy, frozen waste, unrelieved by tree or bush. This
is the home of the ermine and the elusive sable. The houses are
log cabins with double windows sealed against the deadly cold.
The hotel offered its guests unusual comforts and warmth.
I had a big room, whose main feature of attraction in that arctic
climate was the white porcelain stove reaching to the ceiling in
one corner of the room, so situated that servants could easily
stoke it from the corridor outside.
The hour was nearly midnight on the seventeenth of March
when it happened. I had retired early after my performance; I
usually liked to stay up late, being too keyed up to go to sleep.
Lying stretched out on the bed in my nightgown, ready to turn
off the light, I was suddenly overcome by a choking sensation.
Gasping for breath, I rushed to the window for air. Because the
double window was sealed tight, I had to climb up onto the sill
in order to open the small ventilator that was just large enough
to push my head through. At that moment Elisaveta Gregori-
evna entered my room to bid me good night. When she saw me
sticking my head out the window ventilator, while the tempera-
ture hovered near forty below, she called out in alarm, "Why
Irmushka! What is the matter with you! Are you ill?"
"I can't breathe," I gasped, and tried to inhale the icy air.
"Come right down from there, you'll catch pneumonia!"
she commanded in her most professional accents as a nurse. I
meekly obeyed, feeling suddenly quite normal again. But she
insisted on getting a servant to inspect the stove for any possible
coal fumes, which could have been dangerous. All was in order.
"I hope you are not coming down with anything serious,"
she said, and took my temperature. All was in order here too,
Return to Moscow
and I assured her I felt fine and proved it by falling promptly
to sleep.
I slept soundly until morning when a rap at my door woke
me up. It was a telegram from my half-sister in Hamburg.
"Mother died last night," the message said. That was all. Under
these strange circumstances I learned that my dear mother had
passed away. I did not associate my previous night's experience
with this sad news. And I could not possibly get to Hamburg in
time for her funeral.
The Trans-Siberian Railway took eight days to reach Mos-
cow, and no plane could be had. Nothing was quite so mournful
as this long railway journey. It took the traveler through limit-
less steppes, empty of any sign of habitation, and passed for
days on end through the taiga, a forest wilderness, much like
our Middle West in flatness only more desolate in aspect. I was
glad to get off the train in Moscow. It seemed I had been gone
a lifetime.
Things had changed at 20 Pretchistenka during our long ab-
sence. Living quarters being at a premium, empty space filled
up automatically, like water running into a ditch. I suppose be-
cause we had gone to China, the housing authorities thought
it only natural that a group of Chinese students should occupy
our space while we were away. Luckily, my room was still
available, but my bathroom had been appropriated, the fixtures
torn out, and a row of six toilets installed instead. I was so out-
raged that I complained to the most important official-Luna-
charsky-and he as usual came to my assistance. ·within two
days I had my bathroom back intact. We discovered that the
heavy snows of winter had caved in part of the tin-covered roof
and that most of the money we had sent for the upkeep of our
school had gone to make repairs. The government refused to
allot funds for that purpose. It looked to me like a hopeless
situation. How could I ever make any real progress in this
country?
DUNCAN DANCER
The old depression took hold of me again. And on top of
all this, the sad news of mother's death made me feel low in
mind and spirit. I had written to my married half-sister Anna
Axen-who had told me about mother-and asked her to give
me all the details she could. I found her letter when I got home.
She described mother's funeral and went on to say:
It all happened so fast and even for us it came quite unex-
pected. Only a fortnight ago mother herself walked to the hos-
pital and the first eight days she seemed not to be very ill. She
even joked with the nurses. But our dear mother had an old
complaint, asthma and a weak heart, so the doctor said. At first
we went to several specialists because she always complained about
a pain in her throat but they could find nothing there.
On Wednesday last I visited her with my children. She was
ever so glad when someone came to see her. It was then already
very noticeable that her health had begun to fail. However, she
talked a lot and when I came again the next day we talked about
you. Once again I brought up the question of notifying you of
her illness, but her express wish was that you should not be told.
She would not hear of it. She repeated, as she had so often done,
that you should have no worries. But she thought of you always
and constantly nourished a great longing in her heart for her be-
loved daughter, Irma.
She appeared very weak on Thursday morning. She said to
me: "Oh Anna, how do I come to such suffering!" •.• and
then I had to open the window for her because her breath came
too short .•..
She said: "Take a chair and sit here beside me and keep quite
still."
I took her hand in mine and she never let it go. We sat thus
quietly for a long time, the stillness broken with an occasional
moan, for mother was in her last agony.
The doctor came, and mother complained she could not swal-
low. He said he would fix that and gave her an injection. After
that our dear mother gently breathed her last, she went to sleep
never to wake again.
Irma Duncan in Moscow, ca. 1925.
The Isadora, Duncan School, Moscow.
"The young woman I never knew." Irma's mother, photographed years
before her marriage.
Return to Moscow
When I read the sentence "I had to open the window for
her because her breath came too short," my mind instantly
flashed back to that hotel room in Siberia and how I suddenly
opened the small window, gasping for breath the day mother
died. And then I knew it had been a premonition, for there was
nothing physically the matter with me. Some strange, super-
natural manifestation had taken hold of me-what is known as
a psychic experience, to prepare me for the shock that was to
follow. I made preparations to leave for Hamburg and settle
mother's small estate. In the meantime I wrote another letter
to my sister and in due course received an answer from her. She
said:
I am so glad to know that you are safely back in Moscow from
your long oriental tour. Here at home, we have always followed
your travels on the map because this interested mother enor-
mously. She used to subscribe to a magazine, and last winter
there was much written about Siberia and China with many
illustrations. She used to tell me about these countries and remark
how much better she could now visualize what your surroundings
looked like.
Yes, dear sister, as you mentioned in your letter, you really
have lost a very devoted and self-sacrificing mother. She wept
bitter tears because of her longing for you, her only child. She
loved to pour her heart out to me since I too, in a way, was her
child, not having known any other mother but her. I was only
five years old when she came to us and took care of me after my
own mother died. Her life then was not an easy one, but she
always looked towards the future with optimism hoping for better
days.
I often tell my own children about grandmother and her
struggles in life and the cross she had to bear. And how sad that
in her last years, just when things looked brighter for her, she,
poor soul, had to leave us. You must have received her last letter
written on her birthday February 18th, when we all spent the
day together. She got so many presents and flowers and seemed
DUNCAN DANCER
so happy and gay. She even indulged in all sorts of nonsense with
the children. My own little Irma had crocheted the edge of a
handkerchief for her grandmother. This gave mother so much
pleasure she told her: "This lovely handkerchief I'll take with me
into my grave." And four weeks later she was dead. How strange
life is!
I visited mother's grave when I went to Hamburg. She
loved flowers. All her life some pots of cactus or geraniums
filled her kitchen windows. I planted roses on her last resting
place. I left everything she owned to my sisters and kept only
her photograph-a picture of her taken long before I was born,
of the young woman I never knew.
Finale
IN JUNE, as soon as my visit with my relatives had ended, I in-
tended to go straight back to Moscow where pressing work
awaited me. And if it had not been for a letter from Lisa, who
was then dancing in Brussels, telling me of Isadora's perform-
ance scheduled for the end of June at the Trocadero, I would
never have seen my foster mother again. That small inner voice,
which I so seldom heeded, told me quite plainly to drop every-
thing and go to Paris. This time I obeyed. I had some curious
premonition that this might be the last time Isadora would
dance in public. There was no particular reason for this notion.
In her forty-ninth year Isadora was still in good form-a little
too stout, perhaps, but otherwise strong and healthy. She could
easily count on several more years of artistic activity, sustained
as she was by world-wide fame.
When I arrived in Paris, I had not the slightest idea where
to find her. Our correspondence had stopped completely. Ex-
cept for a wire from her when my mother died, saying, "Deepest
sympathy, planning school you, me, Trocadero," sent from
Paris, I had no knowlege of her whereabouts. I stayed at a
small hotel just off the Rue St. Honore near the Elysee Palace.
The first thing I did was to consult the papers and affiches on
the street corners, hoping to find an advertisement of the per-
formance. There was nothing. Just by chance, strolling about
in the lovely June sunshine and breathing Parisian air I had
missed for so long, I ran into a friend I had not seen since
leaving America. Alfred Sides was able to tell me all about
Isadora.
310 DUNCAN DANCER
Since her return to Paris from Nice, a committee of friends,
with Fredo Sides as chairman, had attempted to collect funds
and buy back her former residence in Neuilly when it came up
for auction a second time. Madame Cecile Sartoris acted as
treasurer. With the aid of the French newspaper Comedia and
the Paris edition of the New York Herald, a public subscription
was started, and the committee also received gifts of works of
art, which were to be auctioned off to aid the fund. The idea
was to turn the house into an Isadora Duncan Memorial School,
where she could live for the rest of her life. Afterwards, it
would be turned over to the French government, which would
carry it on to perpetuate her name and ideals in the future. U n-
fortunately, nothing came of it. And I doubt very much that
Isadora would have liked to return to that house of tragedy,
haunted by the spectres of her dead children.
Fredo told me that she was living in a studio-apartment on
the Rue Delambre, in the Montparnasse district. It was a duplex
arrangement, with bedroom and bath opening onto a balcony
overhanging the studio below. He said she had finished her
memoirs, called My Life, and expected the book to be pub-
lished in America that fall. I thanked him for all this informa-
tion and told him I would see Isadora that afternoon.
On my way to see her, I stopped at the flower market in
front of the Madeleine. Seeing some roses I fancied of a very
delicate shade of pink, I bought the whole basketful from the
astonished woman-all my arms could carry. I was dressed in
brown for the reunion: a brown chiffon dress, brown straw
cloche fitting tight over my head, and brown suede shoes. I had
not seen Isadora for nearly three years, and I looked forward
to this meeting with great joy and excitement. I had so much to
tell her about my trip to China. I had no idea that she had gone
so far as to make an official protest to the powers that be. I
simply could not have imagined such a step on her part where
I was concerned. If I had known, I would have had it out with
Finale 311
her there and then. But since I did not know, there seemed
nothing to mar the pleasure of our reunion.
She was waiting for me at the Rue Delambre. Mary Desti
was there, and Isadora's friend and pianist, Victor Seroff. A long,
narrow corridor with doors on only one side of it led to her
studio at the very end. On opening the door, I brushed the
armful of flowers inadvertently against it, and some pink rose
petals scattered before me to the floor. The first words that
greeted me-like Poe's raven of doom-were Mary's cry, "Ah,
91 porte malheur!"
I disregarded this and presented the roses to Isadora, who
embraced me joyfully. Mary's superstitious belief that scattered
flowers bring bad luck had no effect on us. Isadora insisted on
ordering champagne, which she could ill afford, to toast my
arrival. I invited all three to have dinner with me in a little
restaurant I knew in Montmartre called Madelon. It was the
first time in my life that I was able to treat my foster mother
to a meal. When I told her I had come expressly to see her
performance, she informed me that it had been postponed till
July. She begged me to stay on, but this was quite impossible. I
had too many engagements booked for the summer. She wanted
to know if the rumor she heard of my going to America with
the pupils was correct. I told her I had thought of it.
"Then you must take me with you," she said, and added,
"You really should have asked my permission to go to China
with the school."
I assured her I would like nothing better than that we all
go to America together. "However, when it comes to asking
your permission every time I want to dance with my pupils
(for they are mine too, you must know)," I told her quite
bluntly, "that is out of the question!"
She gave me a startled look, for I had never been so out-
spoken on this particular subject. I had won my independence
the hard way and had no intention of giving it up a second time.
312 DUNCAN DANCER
The experience in Greece had taught me to beware of falling
into another trap of vague promises. The reins of my career
would remain in my own hands from now on. I spoke quite
frankly; and, surprisingly enough, Isadora seemed to under-
stand my viewpoint when I had explained.
"Remember that I kept the school functioning after you
yourself had given it up for lost," I reminded her, "and with-
out my heroic efFort in the face of every obstacle there would
be no school at all! "
While we were on the most important subject relating to
our working together, I confided to her exactly what was on
my mind in order to clear the air for future collaboration. I
told her I had earned the right to an equal partnership and
would tolerate no more nonsense about who was exploiting
whom. I had not meant to speak so severely, but this question
had nagged at me for a long time. She took it all very amiably
and was in complete accord with my views. I felt relieved and
glad we had this question of our relationship resolved at last. I
need not have taken the trouble. Fate has a way of settling
all human endeavors for good.
Much as I desired to prolong my visit with Isadora and stay
for the performance in July, it could not be arranged. Time
and money ran out. I had to return to Moscow. I spent a few
days alone with Isadora at a hotel in Saint-Germain-en Laye,
called Pavilion Henri IV. This typical French inn of the more
expensive kind had been part of the chateau built by the monarch
of that name, and Louis XIV was born there in r638. In this
old place, redolent with French history, Alexandre Dumas wrote
his Three Musketeers. It had a magnificent view over all of
Paris, and we were constantly reminded of a similar one--the
one spread out before us in her school at Bellevue-sur-Seine-
that short-lived dream called Dionysian. We talked of that and
of what the future might bring. A heavy, sad atmosphere hung
over the place, which no good French wines and food could
Finale
dispel. We both sensed this and decided to motor back to Paris.
I had to leave in any case.
I'll never forget that last day. In the morning, in her studio,
I spoke of the Chinese theatre and the acting I had seen there.
I showed her some of the curious gestures the actors make,
always very large and exaggerated. She told me she had been
working on Liszt's Dante Symphony, which inspired her to make
similar gestures. She asked Seroff to play parts of it and showed
them to me. Later she led me upstairs into her bedroom to show
me the small trunk containing her manuscript, which she had
written in longhand. Her large, flowing script filled each page
with only a few sentences; hence the manuscript filled the en-
tire trunk.
She laughed and said, "It is mostly about my love affairs.
I wanted to write about my art mostly, but the publishers were
not interested . . . and I needed the money desperately."
I always hated to leave Paris and, since it was a beautiful
day, I proposed a little promenade along the Champs-Elysees
so I could have another look at it. I then invited Isadora to
lunch at Fouquet's. We sat outside in the sun and ordered from
the huge menu a la carte, for that is the way she preferred to
eat, even with no money in her pocket. She had ham and aspar-
agus with holladaise sauce and brandied peaches for desert. I
took the chef's special, whatever it was, for I had to count my
francs, having just enough left over for my wagon-lit ticket to
Moscow. Afterward, we taxied back to her hotel on the Rue
Delambre.
Mary dropped in for a while, and some other people. In
the end we remained alone. We were talking of this and that
when the telephone rang. To my surprise, someone from the
Soviet Embassy wanted to see me immediately. I told him to
come to Isadora's studio.
"It is important that I see you alone," the man said when
he arrived. His voice sounded very mysterious. I told Isadora
DUNCAN DANCER
and she disappeared upstairs into her bedroom. This was the
precise moment when I was told of Fanny Borodin's plight,
which was considered a state secret at the time. I sent the tele-
gram to Peking, as the Secretary of the Soviet Embassy re-
quested, but could not promise to deliver the letter to the
Chinese Embassy the following day. My train was due to leave
in half an hour. I suggested that Isadora Duncan deliver the
letter in my stead. He agreed and I called to her to come down
again. She was quite willing to comply. The man left and we
were once more by ourselves. I recall we were sitting close to-
gether on the divan when I said, "Well, Isadora, I have to say
goodbye!"
We looked at each other for a while without saying a word.
And then we both broke down. We had taken leave of each
other many times without shedding any tears. But this time
it was different. We both must have sensed this, for we clung
together as fond pupil and teacher, daughter and foster mother,
and dearest of friends.
"When will we see each other again?"
"Soon, I hope."
"I'll come to Russia when I receive the money from my
memoirs."
But it was never to be. I had walked only a few paces down
that long corridor when she cried out, "Wait a minute!"
She disappeared into the studio for a second and came out
draped in her red shawl. She stood directly under a ceiling
light in flaming red as I had seen her so many times on the
stage. She suddenly started to sing and dance the "Internatio-
nale" as a farewell gesture to me on my way to Russia. I joined
her in the singing and the dancing, moving backward with each
step till I reached the end of the corridor. Then, with the usual
last flourish, we ended up in our grand finale. My last view of
her was in that triumphant gesture with arms raised, head
thrown back, and looking upward.
I never saw Isadora again.
Curtain
ON July eighth, an eyewitness reported:
Isadora gave her last performance in the Mogador Theatre.
Although it was the saison morte of the summer, the theatre was
packed by a very distinguished audience of French and Amer-
icans. The Pasdeloup Orchestra, conducted by Albert Wolff,
opened the matinee with the allegretto from Cesar Franck's
Symphony. This was followed by Isadora's mighty "Redemp-
tion," to the music of the same composer. Then came the beauti-
ful "Ave Maria" of Schubert, danced in such a way that there
were those in the audience who sobbed aloud. Who will ever
forget the ineffable gesture of the maternal arms cradling noth-
ing? The pitiful tenderness and heart-breaking beauty of it?
After the orchestra had played the first movement of the U n-
finished Symphony of Schubert, Isadora came out again to dance
the second with a more tragic profundity than ever before.
Following the intermission came the Tannhiiuser Overature
and the "Love-death" of Isolde, both danced by Isadora Duncan.
At the end of her last dance the audience rose and cheered . • •
The French writer Henriette Sauret gave her impressions
after the performance:
Poor great Isadora! After that performance, after the ap-
plause and the recalls, I saw her again before the blue curtains,
standing between clusters of trembling flowers, making toward
the orchestra leader and the musicians the sweet gesture that
associated them with her triumph.
We went to congratulate her in her dressing room. She lay
there, her bare feet coming out from her half-detached dress, her
lovely arms holding up her tired head. Her look was heavy, her
315
DUNCAN DANCER
made-up red mouth was silent, and the red locks of her hair,
twisted in curls like those of antique statues, fell on her shoulders
like weighty stalks. She had lain down, without paying much
attention, on the light costumes which she had successively worn
in the course of the matinee and thrown pell-mell on the divan.
And on that chaos of crumpled veils with rainbow colors she
seemed to have fallen, a vanquished goddess. . . •
I do not know why, at that moment, the heart oppressed in
spite of the joy she had just given us, I recalled the picture of
Elizabeth of England dying on her royal carpet piled high with
cushions, surrounded by courtiers and ladies of honor • • •
A month later Isadora motored to Nice with her friend
Mary Desti. They spent part of the summer at Juan-les-Pins.
With no money and none in sight, Mary Desti went boldly to
see Paris Singer, who was spending the summer at his villa on
Cap Ferrat. He agreed to offer financial help to Isadora for
the time she required to work out a new program, which was
to include an interpretation of the Dante Symphony by Liszt,
parts of which she had shown me at her studio in Paris.
Isadora had taken a passionate interest, it seemed, in a
small racing car, a Bugatti, and its handsome Italian driver. She
wanted to buy the car from its owner, Benoit Falchetto, who
also kept a garage. They made a date to go for a ride in the
car and try it out on the evening of September 14. Mary had
a strange premonition, she said, and begged her friend not to
go out on the road that night in the little Bugatti. Nobody
could stop her.
She wore her red shawl (the same one she had used on the
stage) and, sitting in the low vehicle, with the driver in front
and the passenger slightly behind, the end of her shawl dragged
on the ground. The moment the driver started the car and
raced off, that piece of her red shawl got entangled in the wire
spokes of one wheel. As the shawl had been wrapped about her
throat and flung over her shoulder, she was caught in it as in
a vice. Her body was pulled over the side, her face crushed
Curtain 317
against the car, and her neck instantly broken. The onlookers
screamed, the car stopped; they rushed to help her-but it was
too late. Isadora Duncan was dead.
At that tragic moment in my life I was far, far away, giving
a performance somewhere in Russia. The curtain had gone up
and we were in the midst of our opening dance, a funeral march,
which Isadora originally choreographed in memory of her chil-
dren, and with which we usually started our program by way of
dedication. Dressed in long, trailing chiffon robes of beige, the
girls formed the chorus; while I, the mourning figure, danced
the solo part. At the musical climax I sank to the ground in
sorrow in a kneeling position, my head and arms touching the
floor. I held this pose for a few bars and then slowly began to
rise again. I had danced it like that I don't know how many
times.
But on the night of September I 4, the moment I assumed
that kneeling pose with my body bent forward and my brow
touching the floor, something weird came over me, and I re-
mained frozen to the ground. As if paralyzed, I could not stir
a muscle. Without knowing, I had assumed the same position
in which my dear foster mother had died that night. While in
the grip of this strange trance, in full view of the audience, I
never lost consciousness. I commanded myself to rise and con-
tinue the dance, but my body refused to respond for several
minutes, and I remained where I was until just before the end.
My immobility had in no way interfered with the movements
of the chorus, who went through their motions as usual.
As soon as I could move again, I finished the dance and then
rushed backstage into my dressing room, where I collapsed into
a chair, white and shaken. I was sure I had creeping paralysis-
entirely unaware, again, that I had just experienced a psychic
phenomenon. Nowadays, with the study of extrasensory percep-
tion, scientists may be able to explain what happened to me. I
was at that time totally ignorant of such matters.
The news of Isadora's death was instantly flashed around
DUNCAN DANCER
the world by radio. It had that night also reached the place
where I performed. The authorities promptly sent a messenger
to the theatre to notify me of the tragic event, but my manager
intercepted him and would not let him come near me. He told
the messenger I had a performance to give and nothing must
disturb me till it was over. But my psyche had already received
the message through the spiritual world. As Shakespeare said
in Hamlet, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
That night after the program, the directors of the steel plant
for whose workers we had given the performance showed us all
over the factory. Watching the night shift forging the steel as
it came red hot out of the furnaces reminded me of Dante's in-
ferno. And as I jumped out of the way of those glowing red
bars snaking along the floor, I thought of Isadora and her in-
terpretation of Liszt's Symphony and wished she could be here to
see this. Most factories are dull and boring. But these steel mills,
especially at night when the glow and the fantastic shadows com-
bine to accentuate the forceful movements of the laborers-half-
naked and covered with sweat-are the stuff that pure drama in
motion is made of. I slept peacefully that night, my dreams
colored in fantastic lights. It would be quite a while before I
could slumber that soundly again.
They told me the next day, on the station platform while we
waited for the train to Moscow. I refused to believe it. Isadora
had often of late made attempts at suicide by walking into the
sea (so the papers claimed), and I insisted it was just another
sensational item about her, without foundation in fact. I wired
to Lisa in Paris for the truth. When it arrived, I collapsed.
I immediately made plans to fly to the funeral. In those days
in Russia, that was easier said than done. I had no trouble getting
my papers without red tape. But oh, that ancient Lufthansa
plane! It flew just above the tree tops in a dense fog, and when
I thought I had come down in Danzig, it was actually Moscow
Curtain 319
to which we had returned. I was all alone in an eight-passenger
plane on my first flight and scared to death. The engineer carried
the Russian pilot off the plane in a stupor, dead drunk. After
three days, I finally made the Tempelhof airfield in Berlin. I
wired to Raymond Duncan to postpone the funeral for a day.
He did not answer.
I might as well have taken the train and arrived in Paris
sooner and at less expense to my mind, my nervous system, and
my pocketbook. When I did arrive, the funeral was over. Lisa
was the only one of Isadora's disciples to walk in the procession
behind her coffin to the Pere Lachaise cemetery, where her body
was cremated and her ashes placed in a niche beside those of her
children. I was heartbroken not to have been beside her for that
last rite.
I arrived, sad and shaken, at Mary's apartment on the Bou-
levard des Capucines. She greeted me and then pressed some-
thing into my hand without saying a word. Lying in the palm
of my hand was a piece of red fringe caked with blood. No need
to ask what it was. The strange relic told a mute and horrible
story. Tears flooded my eyes, and I wanted to be alone for a few
moments. The door of the balcony stood open and I stepped
outside. I paid no attention to the traffic and the noise from the
street below. I was oblivious to everything that happened about
me, conscious only of the "souvenir," as Mary called it, in my
trembling hand. I closed my hand tight. I did not want to see
again this tiny red thread-the gruesome reminder of the mon-
strous blow that, like an executioner, had cruelly shed Isadora's
blood and snuffed out her life. By what bizarre twist of fate
should this great and generous-hearted woman, who sought only
to bring light and beauty into this world, suffer so horrible
an end?
The top-floor apartment afforded a typical view over the
roofs of the city which more than any other had been her home
and where her restless self had now found its last repose. So as
320 DUNCAN DANCER
not to break down, I tried to think of all the wonderful moments
we had shared, but only inconsequential things crowded into my
memory . . . the little wooly lamb she gave me when I was a
child ... and the magic spell she cast over me when I first
saw her, that foggy day in January so long ago. And it suddenly
struck me by what extraordinary coincidence (or was it that?)
we had met and we had parted.
We had danced together at the very beginning and danced
together at the very end. Initiation and consecration. In this same
year, 1927, I lost both my mothers; the one who gave me life,
and the one who made that life worth while. "If something gives
a value to human life," Plato said, "it is the contemplation of
absolute beauty." Thanks to Isadora and the beautiful way she
taught me to dance-always remembering her words: "1 have
given you the very secret and most holy of my art"-the prize
that gives value to human life was mine.
At the news of my foster mother's death I had experienced
the weird sensation of having lost the use of my limbs. And I
had lost also all desire ever to dance again; as if all along I had
done so only under the force and osmotic attraction of her spell,
which now was broken with her death. Still, I had to carry on
the torch (had she not given me that symbolic picture of Deme-
ter and Persephone?) and continue with my work as she would
wish me to do.
I had no sooner returned to Moscow than an amazing thing
happened to me. After years of utter neglect, the Soviet govern-
ment now sprang into action to support the work Isadora had
started there in I 92 I. One could only come to the conclusion
that they had waited for her to die. I received an official sum-
mons to attend an important conference to discuss the future of
the Isadora Duncan School in Moscow. I mapped out a plan for
the Ministry of Education that had occupied my mind for a
long time. This consisted of incorporating the Duncan method
of dancing into the curriculum of the public school system. The
Curtain 321
present institute on the Pretchistenka could be turned into a
teachers' college, where future instructors could be trained. This
plan was approved and fully endorsed by the Ministry. I was
elated. Our dream come true at last! All the hardships and pri-
vations I had endured to bring this about seemed worth while,
now that victory was in sight. And since the only true immortal-
ity we can achieve consists in the good works we leave behind us
on earth, I rejoiced that I could play a small part in building
this memorial to the great American whose genius had liberated
the art of the dance, from which millions could now benefit. In
my elation, however, I had not reckoned with the Marxist-
Leninist system that regulates all artistic matters by the ukase
of its cultural commissars.
It was pointed out to me that my former position as artistic
director would be eliminated, and I would henceforth act merely
as an instructor with the salary commensurate with that job.
Everybody now associated with the institute would be replaced
by Communist Party members, and I myself would have to
undergo indoctrination. They did not demand that I join the
Party immediately, but that would obviously have to follow if
I wanted to function successfully in an entirely communistic or-
ganization. I could never embrace such an autocratic ideology.
It went against my whole conception of what a free society of
men should be. I had been imbued too deeply with the Ameri-
can, democratic principle of government. When it came to my
own work, my allegiance belonged to Isadora and her ideals of
physical education for children, and not those of the Commu-
nists as represented by Comrade Podvowsky. I had fought that
principle all my life in the Elizabeth Duncan school under Max
Merz's direction, so how could I now, in all conscience, align
myself with it under the Soviets? They were determined to up-
root every single spiritual aspect of our dance and turn it into
simply another gymnastic for women and children. I would not
assist in the murder of an art that was created for the attainment
322 DUNCAN DANCER
of a noble beauty in movement. People who did not believe in
the human soul were out to kill the very soul of our dance, the
dance as Isadora Duncan envisioned it.
In those days, the late 1920's, I was one of the small number
of people from the West who knew what the Communists in
Russia were doing to artists. Today, especially with the sad ex-
ample of Boris Pasternak, it is common knowledge. That dom-
ination of the creative instinct in artists by the Big Brother in
the Kremlin was what I had to escape. There is no place for a
free-thinking artist in an enslaved society. That prophetic inner
voice of mine fairly shouted at me to get out before it was too
late. I had a big decision to face: remain, to see myself and my
art enslaved for the price of government support, and make at
least that part of Isadora's dream come true; or leave, and burn
my bridges behind me, with the prospect of starting all over
again in a free society. I chose the latter.
I entertained secret hopes of being able to save a remnant of
my work. To that end, I entered into negotiations with Sol
Hurok, the American impresario, to bring myself and my group
of Russian dancers to the United States. It was difficult business
to negotiate from such a great distance, since I had to labor
under the stringent restrictions that govern the actions of every
Soviet citizen. I was free to leave at any time. But would the
government consent to release the young girls, who had worked
and danced with me for seven years? With the aid of a few
influential friends in the upper hierarchy, I was finally given
permission to take the members of my dance troupe with me to
America for a grand memorial performance in Isadora Duncan's
honor. It was the first dance ensemble Hurok imported from the
Soviet Union, although many have followed since. I wrote him
then:
Moscow, May 27, 1928
As soon as I received your contract I started to put the
enormous bureaucratic machine here in motion. First of all, I had
to get official permission to take my ensemble out of Russia. Then
Curtain
the contract is looked over for sufficient guarantees. Last
but not least come the passports; each Soviet passport costs $I o.oo
and there are thirteen to be obtained. All this takes a long
time ....
I am sending you photos but no advertising material as it is in
Russian. It will surely be returned by the censor, as happened on
a former occasion. Kindly inform me about departure, tickets,
train connections and steamer, and opening dates.
On the eleventh of June we are giving a memorial perform-
ance for Isadora Duncan here in Moscow at the Bolshoi Thea-
tre. Lunacharsky will speak, Stanislavsky and others, important
personages in the arts and sciences. A short film, showing Isadora
on her last trip to Nice a few days before she died, will precede
the performance of myself and my girls in Tchaikowsky's "Sym-
phony Pathetique," with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra. I
shall send you programs and clipping afterwards.
During the summer months, before leaving for America in the
fall, I shall work and rehearse our programs. I heard through
Mrs. Augustin Duncan about the memorial festival you are plan-
ning at Madison Square Garden and I hope that something
beautiful will come of it. I will do everything in my power to
help make it so.
Since the planned memorial performance at the Bolshoi The-
atre was postponed till the month of October, I employed the
intervening time touring the south of Russia. In my diary for
that year I find nothing but empty pages, mere notations of the
various places we danced-Kharkov, Kremenchug, Cherson,
Kiev, Odessa, etc., etc.
At the beginning of June, the writer Allen Ross Macdougall,
a friend of Isadora and her former secretary, came to visit me in
Moscow. We agreed to collaborate on a book about Isadora's
Russian days to complete her own memoirs, which stopped with
her arrival in Moscow in 192 I. He accompanied me on our tour,
and in my free time I worked with him on the Russian part.
He was going to fill in her last years in France, having more
knowledge about them than I, since he had seen her often in
DUNCAN DANCER
Nice and Paris at that time. He left for America before we did,
hoping to get the book published in time for our performances
there. He wrote me from Paris in October:
Au Cafe, Lundi soir,
Dear Irma:
Just a word in haste. I shall sail Wednesday on the lle
de France. I'm just making it and very close. I shall arrive in
New York about the 16th. First I shall see Dudly Field Malone,
my lawyer, about the prospects of the book. Then I shall go to
the Farm (Stcepletop, in Austerlitz, Col. Co. N.Y.) of Edna
St. Vincent Millay. She has sent me a letter of invitation. And
with her I shall have time and peace to finish the book and she
will help me correct and revise it. And then give me letters to
the various publishers. . . •
I will do what I can in America. In the meantime you must
send me the rest of the Russian material right away to the
Banker's Trust, they will forward it to Miss Millay's farm. I
must have it to incorporate into the revised copy. All my love
and best wishes in the meantime for your successful voyage and
arrival in America. I'm happy the Memorial went off so well.
Dougie
That memorial performance to Isadora, on the first of Octo-
ber, was my farewell to seven years' work in Soviet Russia. The
newspaper lsvestia commented:
Isadora Duncan's whole life was devoted to beauty through
the means of physical education. Before her eyes she always
carried the Greek ideal. In her endeavor to find an enlarged
field for her experiments she wandered from one country to
another. From Germany, to France, from Greece and America
to the USSR. She wasn't satisfied to work with a small quantity
of children. Her goal was to see her ideas realized on a much
grander scale. She wished to see an entire generation of youth
educated in the spirit of her doctrine in order to re-create, if not
the whole world, at least one entire country ....
At the Memorial performance last night Irma Duncan, her
adopted daughter, appeared with the pupils of her Moscow school.
Curtain
At the present time it is the only existing school preserving in
its purest form the legacy of Isadora Duncan.
And as far as Irma Duncan was concerned, that legacy would
remain that way for as long as she lived. In order to preserve it
in its purest form, I had to find a safe haven for it to grow and
flourish for the benefit of the DANCER OF THE FuTURE, a free
spirit in a free body, the dancer who will not belong to one
nation but to all humanity.
I left Russia hoping and praying that I would find that haven
elsewhere. For when I walked out of that heavy oak door in the
house on Pretchistenka, it closed behind me forever.
The End and a New Beginning
I ARRIVED in New York on Sunday, the twenty-third of Decem-
ber, 1928. For me it was a wonderful homecoming after an
eight-and-a-half year absence. Something, some force, had drawn
me irresistibly back to America. I came with ten of my pupils
in charge of Elisa veta Gregorievna, and Maurice Sheyne (as he
now Anglicized his name).* Newspaper reporters crowded in for
interviews on the pier, and the newsreel cameras ground away.
Friends, new and old, waited to welcome us. Coming from the
slow, deliberate pace of life in Russia, we required some time to
get accustomed to the pulsating, hectic atmosphere of New York,
where the air is charged with electricity and the unceasing, rest-
less traffic and noise continue unabated day and night.
"East side, west side, all around the town" was governed by
dapper, uninhibited Jimmy Walker, New York's most colorful
mayor. Under the influence of prohibition, a lively revival of
the old-fashioned melodrama The Black Crook flourished in
Hoboken, with bootleg beer served during the show. In sports,
Gertrude Ederle filled the front pages of all the newspapers
with her feat of swimming the English Channel-the first
woman to do so. Herbert Hoover, who had organized the won-
derful famine relief in Soviet Russia eight years earlier, had just
been elected President.
We made our New York debut on December 27, at the
Manhattan Opera House. I felt proud and happy to be able to
show my Russian pupils to America. On that day more than
*Mikhail Sheyne, as he is presently known, former head of the West-
chester Conservatory of Music, has again returned to the concert stage.
JZ6
The End and a New Beginning
eight years before when I sailed for France, I never imagined
what my homecoming would be like. When the curtain rose and
I made my first entrance on the stage, a storm of applause
greeted me. On the following day, the reviewers had many
complimentary things to say about my work and that of my
pupils. Mary Watkins of the New York Herald Tribune came
to interview me at the Alamac where I was staying. She wrote:
Irma Duncan was peacefully eating her supper, that is she was
doing it as peacefully as she had been able to do anything amid
the whirl of rehearsals and complications with the immigration
authorities which have marked the few days since her arrival at
this port, when this department walked in on her quite unex-
pected! y. Various telephone messages had crossed at random, but
nevertheless, the interview materialized, if somewhat informally.
Miss Irma talked in a very friendly manner while consuming
a lamb chop and tea •.. the talk lasted some ten or twelve
minutes, so impressions were naturally a little hurried. But we
recorded them much as they occurred.
This dancer, one of the torchbearers of the Duncan tradition,
adopted daughter of the illustrious Isadora and now head of the
Moscow school, is a wholesome-looking young woman who said
she felt tired and harassed, but whose appearance denied her. She
has very beautiful, expressive hands, black hair, and bears a most
striking resemblance to her foster mother. On this resemblance
we commented.
"Oh, yes," she said, and her English is excellent, although she
has spoken and thought in only Russian for over eight years she
asserts. "Everyone notices it, but you will find that all the girls
. . . show a strong 'family' resemblance, it comes from thinking
the same thoughts . • . and expressing physically the same artis-
tic ideals."
Irma's sense of harassment sprang, not unreasonably, from the
difficulties incident to extracting four of her youngest followers
from the grip of officialdom on Ellis Island. • . .
"But they are not the only ones who worry me, the others
are so excited at being in New York, that rehearsals are only
mad whirls of high spirits and dizzy heads. You can imagine
DUNCAN DANCER
that coming as we did with very little preparation and in, as you
might say, one jump from Moscow to Manhattan, with only a
foot touching the ground briefly at Berlin, was enough to take
away the breath of the seasoned traveler, not to speak of a group
of emotional young Russian girls who have never been to Amer-
ica. And we really didn't know until the very last minute that
we could actually come. That is the reason for the many rumors
and counter-rumors here about the dance festival. We were not
sure till we were actually on board the train and over the border,
anything can happen in Soviet Russia, you know ..•" she said
as a matter of familiar and accepted fact. We called on W ednes-
day ..• and the Duncan Memorial Festival flung wide its
doors last Thursday night at the Manhattan Opera House.
Among the many dance enthusiasts who always flocked back-
stage to greet me were quite a few dancers who, then practically
unknown, have since made names for themselves. One of my
female admirers said, "I saw you leave a mere slip of a girl and
here you have come back to us in beautiful, dominant woman-
hood. Isadora's ideal of the highest intelligence in a beautiful
body has been most certainly realized in you." I considered that
quite a compliment.
The reviewer of the New York American wrote:
A new generation of Duncan Dancers, was locally introduced
to us, a company of lithe young Russian girls ... formed this
latest contingent of classic dancers to perform publicly in New
York, and the shade of Isadora must have smiled benignly at the
fascinating artistry of her young disciples of a second generation.
. . . The spectator realized forcibly that not in her most fruitful
and successful epoch did the great California dancer produce any
more delightful or captivating pupils than those seen last night.
. • . Irma was the leading spirit in her elfin group. The others
were-Tamara, Alexandra, Marussia, Lisa, Lola, Vera, Manya,
Vala, Lily, Mussia and little Tamara.
This chapter of the dance deserves an important place in the
history of Isadora Duncan's most important achievements.
The End and a New Beginning
And the Herald Tribune:
As their leader and teacher, Irma has found her own valuable
niche . . . that she has so successfully instilled into the brains
and bodies of the later generation that devotion which is deeper
than outward gesture, is sufficient evidence of artistic worthiness
in her capacity as heiress and guardian of the Duncan formulae.
We appeared in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Bos-
ton, Montreal, Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago, St. Louis,
and Pittsburgh. Later, on our return engagement in New York,
when the public had a chance to appraise our work, we danced in
Carnegie Hall-scene of my former triumphs as one of the six
original Isadora Duncan Dancers-to standing room only. Ev-
erything was joy and harmony. How long would it last?
My manager informed me in June that in view of the suc-
cess we had attained he wished to engage us for another season.
I agreed to this, although the Russian girls had obtained per-
mission from their government for only one season. In this re-
spect, I envisioned no difficulties and decided to spend the
summer in France for economical reasons. A performance was
arranged in Paris in memory of Isadora at the Salle Pleyel. I
wrote to Paris Singer and notified him of this, as I very much
wanted him to be there. He answered from Bad Nauheim in
Germany:
My dearest Irma:
I have been thinking of you for days and wondering if you
were back from the U.S.A. and now I have your note. I am so
sorry I shall not be there to see you dance, but since I saw you in
Paris things have been very bad with my health and I was
brought up here on my back by a heart doctor and have been
here a month. I have to be here all July also but it has done me
a little good and I have great hopes.
Is there any chance of your looking me up on your way to
Russia? It is close by Cologne or nearer still to Frankfurt on
Main. How was poor old Gus? I feel always so anxious about
330 DUNCAN DANCER
him. Au revoir, my dear little Irma, do drop me a little reply
to this--
Your old friend,
Paris
I regretted he could not be present at my performance. I had
so hoped he would take an interest in the furtherance of her
ideas and, by way of a memorial, help endow her school. To
keep her ephemeral art alive from one generation to another,
by means of public performances, was becoming too great a
burden for me to bear alone.
I can't describe with what deep emotion I looked forward to
dancing again in Paris. My artistic association with Isadora al-
ways seemed to take on a closer tie here in this beautiful city of
so many wonderful memories. Here, I first appeared with her
as a child in the old Gaite-Lyrique. Then in the Chatelet, and
subsequently-when I was grown up and learned to appreciate
her art fully-we danced together at the beautiful Theatre des
Champs-Elysees. And then that final wonderful season at the
imposing Trocadero in January, the year she and I left for Rus-
sia. She had choreographed an entire Wagner program. We
girls danced the "Flower-maidens" scene in Parsifal, and I re-
call the garland of flowers I wore that night-fresh anemones,
the large kind, in vivid shades of red, purple, pink, and white, a
lovely combination of colors. I had not danced in Paris since.
Would our French audiences remember me, I wondered? I
thrilled at the idea of being able to show them what she and I
had accomplished in Russia. Our huge posters bearing the an-
nouncement: "Isadora Duncan Dancers de Moscou," and in
smaller print underneath: "Sous la direction d' IRMA DuNCAN,"
blazed on every street corner where the advertising columns
stood.
The performance was given at the Salle Pleyel. I can tell of
the French public's reaction and the impression we made only
through newspaper clippings. But I have a letter from Madame
Cecile Sartoris, the same journalist who saw me dance at Isa-
The End and a New Beginning 331
dora's studio before that eventful trip to the land of the Bol-
sheviks. She wrote:
My dearest Irma:
I did not come round last evening because I saw crowds of
people going and my emotions could not be expressed to you.
I suffered and was happy at the same time during the perform-
ance. The great spirit of Isadora hovered over you all, and she
must be proud and pleased with you for what you have accom-
plished. At moments her breath seemed to pass through you, and
the children were beautiful.
I think those last Russian dances remarkable with the singing
and it seems to me that you should go towards that expression
more and more as it moves with the spirit of today. I was happy
that you had such a large and appreciative audience . . . I quite
understand you haven't had a minute but I would like to see
you. This evening I will call up on chance of making an appoint-
ment.
Be proud of yourself, you have done a great work and you
ha'Ue Isadora's school. Don't let worries undermine you-yes-
terday you accomplished a great feat.
Very affectionately yours,
Cecile
That performance on July 2. was the only one we gave in
Paris. Later in that month we danced at the Casino Theatre in
Le Touquet, where the Prince of Wales spent the summer, and
we danced before a very mondaine, chic audience, entirely
dressed in black and white. The gentlemen attended in full dress
and the ladies all in black evening gowns with ermine wraps.
What a contrast to the high boots and shawls of the worker au-
dience in Russia!
It rained every day, and the Hotel Atlantic at the end of the
boardwalk had no heat. I had no desire to stay there any longer
than I needed to. I returned to the comfortable little hotel on
the Rue de Bassano, not far from the Etoile, while the girls with
Elisaveta Gregorievna spent the rest of the summer at Pont-
332 DUNCAN DANCER
chartrain in the country. I wrote once more to Singer, who had
returned to his lovely house on the Place des Vosges with his
wife, his former nurse, whose acquaintance I had made in I 91 7
at the time of his break with Isadora. Isadora had left a packet
of letters he wrote her in my care, and these I now sent back to
him. He answered me:
Many thanks dear, for your letter and for the letters of Isa-
dora's which a nice young man brought to me.
We are off to Paignton for a month, then Saint-Jean until
I have to go to Palm Beach in December. I think I am better
but still sleeping very badly.
Irma darling, I wish you every success in America this time
like the last and with better financial results without all those
worries. I can always prove Isadora wanted you to take on her
school for she told me so in Nice just before her death. vVith
love, dearest Irma,
Your old friend,
Paris Singer
This was the last word I had from my old friend, whom I
had known since my childhood days and who gave me that mar-
velous voyage on the Nile, which remains one of my most
treasured memories. He died two years later of a heart attack.
Paris Singer had wished me success in America for my second
season and without worries; but, instead of diminishing, my
worries mounted and mounted until I was engulfed by nothing
but trouble.
There was trouble with my impresario over financial matters.
Instead of my suing him for nonpayment of salary due me as
per contract, he sued me for $6o,ooo and also attached my bank
account! Some evil forces were conspiring against me. Ill-
meaning persons tipped off the unofficial representative of Soviet
Russia in Washington. America had not yet recognized the re-
gime in that country. This man, by the name of Borowsky, held
a secret meeting with my Russian girls, threatening them with
dire reprisals on their relatives in Russia if they refused to re-
The End and a New Beginning 333
tum home at once. The girls wanted to remain with me; so they
told me during a tearful session in the privacy of my room. But
after that talk with Borowsky, they were afraid even to say
"How do you do" to me. He had ordered their return to their
homeland and, as every Soviet citizen knows, failure to comply
means banishment to Siberian concentration camps for those in-
nocent pawns left behind.
Once their government had stepped in, I wielded no more
power over them. My strenuous protests were of no further
avail. Intimidated and afraid of what might be done to their
families, they all meekly obeyed and left on the appointed date
for home. Not one of my pupils had the courage to throw in
her lot with me, as I had done formerly with Isadora. For I had
no intention, especially after having breathed the air of freedom
in America, of returning to a country where people are treated
as abject slaves. It was a hard decision to make. It meant the loss
of all my work that had occupied the best years of my life. But
no sacrifice seemed too great for the sake of artistic integrity and
the adherence to one's principles that may only flourish in a
liberal climate. The same day I saw the girls sail away, I recalled
Isadora's words when she once said to me, "Courage, it's a long
way but light is ahead . • . these red-tunicked kids are. the fu-
ture, so it is fine to work for them. Plough the ground, sow the
seed, and prepare for the next generation that will express the
new world."
Well, I had done exactly that. Now it was up to that new
generation to sow the seeds. I wished them luck and hoped they
would succeed as well as I did with them in trying to propagate
Isadora's ideal.
Russia being the iron-walled society it is, I have had no
further contact with my former Soviet pupils. Overnight, all the
work I had built up at such expense of my young energies and
sacrifice fell like a house of cards into the sand. No one knew
what untold misery and regret it caused me. Nor did the news
item telling of their homecoming in that "Worker's Paradise"
334 DUNCAN DANCER
help me. Cabled from Moscow by the International Press, it
said:
The twelve young girl dancers who toured the United States
last season under the direction of Irma Duncan, and who were
forced to return to Russia last winter have been thrown into
prison by Soviet authorities, it was learned yesterday. The chil-
dren were imprisoned, according to reports, because of their
failure to send the Soviet authorities all or portions of their Amer-
ican earnings while on tour in this country.
Immediately upon arrival in Moscow from New York, the
youngsters' baggage including phonographs, trunks, musical in-
struments, etc., were confiscated. The girls said shopping tours
in America had converted them from Communism to admirers
of capitalism. At the conclusion of Miss Duncan's American con-
tract at Christmas time, I 929, local Soviet representatives in-
formed her that the girls must be sent home forthwith. Over the
strong objections of Irma Duncan the girls were taken from her
and sent back to Russia.
This indictment of that barbaric country speaks for itself.
I was relieved to be able to wash my hands of the whole matter.
For I was one of the few people in America at that epoch who
knew through personal experience-by trying to earn a living in
Soviet Russia-that conditions in that country, political and eco-
nomic as well as ideological, would not improve in time. On the
contrary. And therefore I saw no future there for me or my
work.
Never one to cry for long over spilt milk (although this was
actually a tragic event in my career), I girded myself for fur-
ther struggles on a new front. I gathered together a group of
young American girls, who had had-more or less-some train-
ing in the Duncan dance, and worked with them. By magic and
sheer hard work, I soon shaped them into a group that could
appear with me professionally. Teaching is a gift, and my powers
in that field had been early recognized by both Elizabeth and
Isadora. We appeared at Lewisohn Stadium in New York and
The End and a New Beginning 335
at Robin Hood Dell in Philadelphia in the summertime, dancing
out of doors to the music of a large symphony orchestra and to
an enthusiastic audience that filled every seat and open space,
crowding even into the aisles. My American pupils were as well
received as my Russian ones had been by the public and the
press. I am not in a position to laud my own efforts. The review
in the Minneapolis Tribune, where I presented my American
group for the first time to the public, had this to say:
Having seen the magnificent art of Irma Duncan, herself the
greatest exponent of the school founded by Isadora Duncan and
by many pronounced as even superior to her adopted mother in
her power of interpretation, it is a foregone conclusion that what-
ever group she leads, whether from Moscow, Paris or New York,
the result can be but the same, and that is--perfection of the art
of interpretive dance as has not been surpassed in this genera-
tion.
Of our Lewisohn Stadium performance the Herald Tribune
of July 14, 1932, remarked in part:
Miss Duncan, who has done wonders in two years with her
first non-Russian pupil group, demonstrated again last night her
supremacy as a torch bearer ..•. The girls, at first a little
nervous of the platform-edge, soon found themselves at ease and
gave an exhibition of intense training and temperamental de-
velopment which was admirable in every sense.
My press-clipping book is filled with such comments about
my art and work. They and a collection of photographs form
the only record. The dancer's is an ephemeral art, no sooner
performed than it vanishes into thin air. There is nothing left in
concrete form for posterity to judge. With this in mind, I
thought of doing a documentary film back in 1929, while I was
still in my prime and had the Russian pupils of Isadora's school
with me. I proposed this scheme to several moving picture pro-
ducers; but only one, Walter Wanger, showed enough interest
at least to discuss the idea with me. He thought we should wait
DUNCAN DANCER
until a story went with it. Well, the story has now been written,
but-as always-too late.
In April I9JO, while I went through this personal upheaval
in my career, I had no one to advise me or protect me. I was
still officially a foreigner in this country; my first papers had
lapsed, so that I needed to start all over again to apply for
citizenship. From out of the blue, I received an invitation from
Mr. and Mrs. Silas Newton, whom I had met only once, to be
their house guest for a while. I accepted with pleasure, and we
became close friends. They had a house on East Sixty-eighth
Street between Lexington and Park avenues. He had natural gas
and oil wells in Texas. His wife Nancy was a sports writer-
golf mainly-for the New York Journal.
Those were the days of the speakeasy and, because Silas was
a teetotaler, his wife would take an occasional drink with her
girl friends at one of the better-known subterranean establish-
ments. One sunny afternoon she invited me to Belle Livingstone's
place on Park A venue. As one of the notorious speakeasy queens,
Belle presided over the house in grand style; that is, rowdy in
manner and lewd of language. It was the fashionable spot to
imbibe forbidden spirits, and much frequented by writers and
artists of note. The day I called with Nan the doors had not yet
opened for business, since it was too early in the afternoon. We
found Belle alone in her negligee taking a rest. She invited us
upstairs to her room and offered us a cup of tea! But Nan or-
dered champagne and the reputation of the speakeasy was saved.
Nan, a typical Irish girl with red hair and gray eyes, and the
fun and laughter that go with them, liked Belle and invited her
to a party at her house.
That party had been secretly planned to take place during
her husband's absence in Texas, where he periodically inspected
his oil wells. That night, the sixth of April, Belle telephoned
beforehand to inquire whether she could bring a couple of men
friends along. They had apparently dropped in just as Belle,
all dressed in black lace and gardenias for the occasion, was about
The End and a New Beginning 337
to leave. Nan told her yes, the more the merrier! And so Belle
showed up with her two escorts. They were the writer Cameron
Rogers and his older brother Sherman Rogers, who was a lawyer.
I had on a long evening dress in a lovely shade of red, the
color of the American Beauty rose. I happened to be pouring
the martini cocktails when I was introduced. Cameron remained
with Belle, but his brother asked me if he could sit beside me.
The sitting room held a crowd of dinner guests, and all we had
to sit on was the piano bench. We talked animatedly and he,
being so fair with blond hair and blue eyes, gave me the im-
pression he might be a Scandinavian, except for his Harvard
accent. He did not leave my side and followed me around every-
where. We sat together at dinner; and afterward, when the
guests went upstairs to play roulette or bridge, we repaired to
the room where they had music and we danced.
Ten years before, almost to the day, a clairvoyant with a
genuine gift for prophecy, a Mademoiselle Berly who lived in
Paris, foretold that I would marry. She described my future
husband to me, saying he was very blond, had piercing eyes, and
was a lawyer. The moment Sherman put his arms about me and
we danced, her prophecy came back to me in a flash. "Why," I
said to myself, "shades of Mademoiselle Berly! Here he is in
the flesh!" The young man, only two years out of law school,
apparently had taken a real fancy to me, for he said, "What do
you say we go somewhere where we can talk? There are too
many people here."
I suggested we go to Belle Livingstone's place, because no-
body would be over there. I was right. The place was deserted
except for a woman covered with diamonds who had had too
much to drink; she was telling the captive audience in the per-
son of the bartender all her troubles. Up in the room with the
silver mattresses on the floor, Dwight Fiske played softly the
tune of the hour, "What is this thing called love?" We talked
till dawn. He told me he had been separated from his wife of
two years, but that the divorce had not yet been instituted.
DUNCAN DANCER
A son of California, he was born in a house in Mission Can-
yon, Santa Barbara. Of pioneer stock, he came of a distinguished
family that traced its ancestry to the Mayflower. His father also
belonged to the legal profession, but was at heart a poet. He was
the author of "The Rosary." These lovely words, written to his
wife, became world famous when Ethelbert Nevin set them to
music. By a strange coincidence, when that song was given its
first public performance at a concert by Nevin at the Carnegie
Lyceum in I 898, Isadora Duncan appeared on the same pro-
gram. I was delighted to discover that Sherman too possessed
the soul of a dreamer.
At dinner one wonderful night in May at the restaurant
"2 1 ," he wrote on the back of the menu the following lines
to me:
A REVERY
Music and laughter-a single flower glows
Bright crimson in the darkness of your hair;
Behind the jade-green of your eyes, who knows
What pagan Goddess beckons to me there.
Pagan Goddess or Hamadryad?
Two thousand years ago you danced for Pan,
Danced while he piped, white limbs with ivy clad;
What brings you here to dance for mortal man?
Let us enjoy your dancing; it is not long
I feel, before the shaggy one returns
To claim you. Even now his song
Shrills wild and in your hair a crimson flower burns.
Our attachment grew stronger with each day that passed. He
left for Paris that winter to obtain his divorce. But quite a few
more years had to pass before he was professionally established
and we could think of marriage. This supreme happiness came
to me at last, somewhat late in life, but better late where the
right man is concerned than never.
The End and a New Beginning 339
In the early part of 1933, I lived in a women's hotel on
Mitchell Place, near the East River. I held my dancing classes
there, as I now taught-for the first time in my career-paying
pupils. I had a livelihood to earn. One rainy morning, sitting by
the window in my room, I made a watercolor sketch of the view
in the distance-the Queensborough Bridge over the river and
Ward's Island in the center. I had not sketched since school days
and had no idea I had any talent for this art. Just then the
telephone rang. It was the secretary of Walter Damrosch. Dam-
rosch, who was then nearly eighty, had conducted for Isadora.
The secretary made an appointment for me to see the old gentle-
man, since he had something important to discuss with me. The
next day he told me of his plan to present the Ninth Symphony
of Beethoven as a huge pageant to Peace. He wanted me to stage
the choreography for the last movement, which contains Schil-
ler's "Ode to Joy." I remembered Isadora's lifelong ambition of
dancing the Ninth. I enthusiastically agreed to his plan. Isadora
had written of her vision:
I was possessed by the idea of a school-vast ensemble-
dancing in the Ninth Symphony of Beethoven. At night I had
only to shut my eyes and these figures danced through my brain
in mighty array, calling on me to bring them to life. "\Ve are
here! You are the one at whose touch we might live! . . ." I
was possessed by the dream of Promethean creation that, at my
call, might spring from the Earth, descend from the Heavens,
such dancing figures as the world had never seen.*
Damrosch told me, "Isadora Duncan's delineation of Be-
thoven's Seventh Symphony, twenty-five years ago, helped to
open my eyes and mind to the significant connection between the
art of music and dance. When I started to work on the scenario
of the dramatization of the Ninth, it was as if Beethoven's mu-
sic controlled me and prevented me from introducing any ele-
ment which smacked of the theatrical or artificial."
*Life, p. ZI 3·
340 DUNCAN DANCER
The scenario, which Walter Damrosch worked out for me to
follow in staging the last movement with its stupendous choral
"Ode to Joy," gives an indication of what we tried to express.
I will append it here the way he wrote it:
First, war and the desolation of war. The unhappy restlessness
of the world. Then remonstrance by the Priest of the Temple of
Peace with some hopeful pleading in pantomime, after which
comes the soft beginning by the orchestra only playing the Hymn
of the brotherhood of man, gradually increasing in strength as if
coming nearer and nearer from a great distance-indicating a
world awakening. During this music the dancer might begin to
decorate the altar and the temple with garlands. The stage be-
comes brighter and at the fortissimo reiteration of the hymn, the
dance becomes more and more joyous and triumphant in char-
acter. A short interruption by the renewed loud dissonance of
battle as the High Priest comes forward and slowly sings:
"0 Friends, no longer these sounds of war, let us intone more
peaceful and joyful ones! "
The great chorus now begins to chant the Hymn of Joy.
Representatives of all the nations of the world in their native
costumes begin to pour in through the two side entrances of the
auditorium and march up the middle of the aisle with their
banners, garlands, etc., towards the steps leading to the altar
of Peace. As the chorus chants the words: "And the cherub
stands before God," there is a great devotional climax from the
entire multitude.
To the music that follows this devotional climax a march of
youths, half-naked like athletes with garlands and banners sym-
bolizing the joyousness of youth in a world freed from war come
dancing forward. They ascend the stage and together with the
maidens execute a wild dance of joy. To the words: "Be em-
braced 0 Ye Millions, this kiss to the whole world!" they all
embrace and in pantomime express the symbolical words chanted
by the chorus:
"Brothers! over yonder starry tent a loving Father must be
dwelling! 0 ye millions, ye fall down, feel ye not the Creator?
The End and a New Beginning 341
Search Him above the starry tent, far above the stars he must
dwell."
Then the chorus chants the Hymn of Joy in quicker time and
new accentuations accompanied by dancing by the multitude. The
banner bearers and the soldiers carrying arms deposit them around
the altar on which a flame of eternal Peace had been lighted
followed by a general expression of joy.
The night dedicated to the grand music and dance festival at
Madison Square Garden in New York, at a time when warlike
rumbles were heard once more in Europe, was that of January
25, I933· Damrosch conducted the orchestra of a hundred men
and a mixed chorus of a hundred voices in a magnificent render-
ing of Beethoven's mighty symphony. I danced at the head of
a group of fifty men, women, and children-all humanity-as
my great teacher had always envisioned it. As the theme of the
"Ode to Joy" began, that hymn of the brotherhood of man,
played very softly by the strings alone, I stepped out onto the
big stage-a single figure dancing. As the grandiose melody
built higher with the whole orchestra coming in, two others
joined me, then more and more, until the entire stage was filled
with dancing figures in mighty array, exactly as Isadora Duncan
had dreamed it. Before the dance had ended, I surreptitiously
stole away from the whirling mass of dancing figures and stood
quietly in the shadow of the wings to watch them dance the
closing measures. No one had noticed my departure.
Among that crowd of eighteen thousand spectators filling
every seat in that vast auditorium, there was only one person,
the man I was going to marry, who knew that this was my swan
song-my last dance in public. As I stood and watched, I sud-
denly sensed a presence near, hovering over me, and seemed to
hear these whispered words: "I see the Future, it is there-and
we will dance the Ninth Symphony yet!"
I had come a long way. In my mind's eye I saw the little
girl in Hamburg, skipping along the darkened street with a red
342 DUNCAN DANCER
paper torch light in her hand. This light had turned into a
brighter flame as I had to uphold the torch of an ideal. All things
must come to an end. I had had my own share of public acclaim
during nearly thirty years of dancing on the stage. I did not
regret leaving the glaring spotlights for the obscurity of a pri-
vate existence. Life, at that moment, seemed to prove that won-
ders never cease; that out of the hardship and miseries of
existence should bloom the marvel of a great, true love.
And so, with a fervent heart, I thanked Providence for all
the blessings I had received and-at the end-for giving me
this unique opportunity to close that part of my life in harmony
and beauty and artistic fulfillment. For being able, through Bee-
thoven's immortal music and Schiller's inspired poem to the
brotherhood of mankind-for which all men of good will must
strive-to say a glorious and joyful farewell to my dance career.
Index of Names
Adamson, Fire Commissioner, I 54
Alexander, King of Greece, I 98
Alexandra, Queen, 8 I-8 2, 2 I 2
Andre Vladimirovitch, Grand Duke, 66-68
Arts of the Theatre, The, 79
Aubert, Johnny, 18I-I82
Auguste Victoria, Empress, 42, 7S
Axen, Mrs. Anna, 247, 306-308
Bach, Johann Sebastian, I6S, IS2, 205
Bacchae, The, I 5 S
Baker, Josephine, I99
Baker, Miss, I48, I 50
Balashova, Alexandra, 2 26, 2 3 2
Baltanic, S.S., 218-2 19, 22 I
Bara, Theda, I 6 I, I 79
Bauer, Harold, 200
Baumgarten, Otto, I 79-I So, I 84
Beethoven, Ludwig von, 20, II9, 168, 173, 193, 197, 205, 241, 251,
339, J41, 34-2
Begas, Mrs. Reinhold, 39
Bentley, Alys, I 70
Benson, Stuart, 160, I So-I 8 I
Berault, Count and Countess de, 122-123
Berly, Mademoiselle, 337
Black Crook, The, 326
Blake, William, I I 5
Bloch, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest, I 56
Boissevain, Eugen, I6o, I82-184, IS6
Bonaparte, Jerome, 89, 99
Borodin, Mrs. Fanny, 2S9-293, 300--301, 314
343
344 DUNCAN DANCER
Borodin, Michael, 28 5, 287, 293-298, 30 I-302
Borowsky, 3 3 2-33 3
Bourdelle, Antoine, I 30
Bourgeois, Stephan, I 6o, I So, z I 4-
Brahms, Johannes, I 70
British Museum, 2 I 7
Brooklyn Eagle, I 6o
Broun, Heywood, I 8 2
Bynner, Witter, I4-9, ISZ-I53
Canonia, S.S., 190
Capablanca, Jose, z 59
Chang Tso-lin, z8o-281, 284-, 287, 30o-301
Chen, Eugen, 293-294, 299, 302
Cheremeteff, Colonel Serge, 2 7 2
Chiang Kai-shek, 284-285, 287, 292-293
Chicago Tribune, 263
"Child-Dancers, The," 149
Chopin, Frederic, 7I, 170, 174, 176, 182-183, zoo, 205, 212, 277, 279,
296
Coburn, Charles, 164-165
Collier, John, I 5 I
Collier's Magazine, 160
Comedia, 310
Cornedie Fran~aise, 14 7
Contemplatione della Marte, I s8
Colonne, 79
Copanos, Athens, 191
Cope au, Jacques, 2 I o
Copeland, George, 167-I68, 176-179, I88
Corelli, Arcangelo, 50
Corey, Mrs. W. E., 86-88, 90
Craig, Edward Gordon, Iz, 34, 4-2, 57, 6o, 79-80, 256, 263
D' Annunzio, Gabriele, I 58
Dante Alighieri, s.s., I 56
Dante, 168, 318
Dallies, Christine, I 87, I 89, 263
Damrosch, Walter, 339-34I
Dean, Priscilla, I 6 r
Debussy, Claude, I67-168
Index of Names
Deirdre, 6I, 86, 88, I q.-I IS, I30, IJ2, I68
"Delight," 83
Denis, Maurice, I 30
Denver Times, I 76
Der Ling, Princess, 279
345
Desti, Mary (Sturges), 90, 99, I3I, 139, 205, 2I8, 279, 3II, 3I3, p6,
319
Diaghilev Ballets Russes, 71
Divoire, Fernand, I 28
Dodge, Mabel, I 5 I
Dourouze, Madame, I 56, I 59
Duchamp, Marcel, I6o
Dumas, Alexandre, 3 I 2
DuMaurier, George, I98
Duncan, Angus, I41-142, 184
Duncan, Anna, 16-I7, 106, 145-I46, 157, 169, 171, 174, 182, 184,
I86-I89, 193, 205, 2I4, 236-237, 276
Duncan, Augustin, I6, I3I, I4I-I42, 145-I46, 148, ISO, IS2-IS3, IS7•
I64-I6], 173, 180, 18S-I86, 203-204, 207, 266, 329
Duncan, Elizabeth, 6, I 7, 28, 30-3I, 37-38, 40-41, 43-44, 47-49, 5 I-
sS, 6o-6I, 63-64,67, 76-78, 86-9I, 93, 97, 99, IOI-103, I06-I I I,
IIJ-II4, II6-I17, II9-I20, I24, 143-144, I66, I73> 266,321,334
Duncan, Erica, IS, 18, 32, 61,95-96, 107, I57, I69, 17I, I79, I8I, 185
Duncan, Isadora, 3-6, 10-13, 16-17, 2o-31, 33-34, 36-41, 43-45, 47-
49, 51-62, 64, 66-72, 74-75, 78, 8o-82, 85-86, 88-91, 93, 97, 99-
1o4, I07-110, 112-119, 121-124, 126-133, I37-147, 15o-161,
I63-174· 180, I83-2I4, 2I]-225, 22]-234. 236-238, 24Q-242,
249-257, 260, 262-271, 277-280, 283-284, 292, 294, 309-325,
327-330, 332-335· 338-339· 34I
Duncan, Lisa (Liesel), I], 106, IS], I69, I]I, I]4, I82, I83-I84, I87,
I92-I93> 205-206, 209, 211, 213-214, 236-237, 256, 276, 309,
3I8-3I9
Duncan, Margherita, I41-142, I4S-I46, I48, 150, I53, I8o, 184, 323
Duncan, Margot (Gretel), I7, I06, IS], I69, I]I, 177, I84-I85, I88,
192-I93, 205, 2II, 214, 236, 263-264
Duncan, Mary Dora (Gray), I74-I75
Duncan, Raymond, I 56, 266, 3 I 9
Duncan, Temple, I6, 61, 95, 107, J3I, 276
Duncan, Theresa (Maria-Theresa), I6, I06, II], 157, I69, I]I, I88,
I93. 205, 209, 2II, 2I3-214., 276
Duncanides, I 02
DUNCAN DANCER
Dupin, 122
Duranty, Walter, 253, 259
Duse, Eleonora, 8 I, I 3 7-q.o
Eastman, Max, I6o, 182-I84, I86, 259
Ederle, Gertrude, 3 26
Edlinger, Ferdinand, 130
Edward VII, King, 81-82, 2 I 2
Electra, I58
Ellis Island, I 48
Emanuel, 44
Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 262
Essenine, Sergei, 2 3 o-2 3 I, 2 3 6, 24 I
Euripides, I 58
Falchetto, Benoit, 3 I6
Falck, Edward, I 8 2
Federn, Karl, 34
Fiske, Dwight, 337
Flagg, James Montgomery, I64
Florinsky, Count, r6o, zzi
Foch, Marshal Ferdinand, I67
Fokine, Michael, 69-71
Ford, Mr. and Mrs. Ellsworth, I49
Fortuni, I 8<)-190
Franck, Alicia, I 48
Franck, Cesar, I 3 9, 3 I 5
Freeman, Helen, I 53
Frederick, Pauline, I 61
Friganza, Trixie, 177
Frohman, Charles, So, 90
Gallagher, Lieutenant, I 55
Galli-Curci, Amelita, I 84
Galsworthy, John, 83, 85
Garden, Mary, I 53
Geltzer, Ekaterina, 222-223, 250
Genthe, Arnold, I6o, ISo-182, I86
Germanic Museum (Nuremberg), 106
Gilman, Mabel, 86-87, 97
Gilman, Mrs., 87-89, 92-93, 97-99
Index of Names
Gish, Lillian, I6I
Gluck, Christoph Willibald, 35, 128, J4.I, 174-, I83, 192
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, I59> I68
Grandjouan, Jean, 122
Grieg, Edvard, I 8 I
Gretchaninoff, Alexander, 2 55
Guilbert, Yvette, I 7 4-
Hamilton, Bill, 160, 180
Hamlet, 318
Harle, Norman, 203, 207, 2I8
Harrach, Countess, 39
Harriman, Averell, 2 59
Harting, Fraulein, 96-99
Heifetz, Jascha, 184
Hermitage Museum, 70
Hesse, Alix, Princess of (Tsarina), I I 1
Hesse, Elenore, Grand Duchess of, I I 1, I42
Hesse, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of, 91, III-liZ, 14-Z
Hochschule fiir Musik, 107
Hoffa, Dr., 3 3
Hohle, Professor, IOS-106
Hoover Commission, 226, 259, p6
Howe, F. C., I48, I86
Humperdinck, Engelbert, 39, 49
Hurok, Sol, I85, 203-204, 322-323
Ile de France, S.S., 324
Imperial Ballet School, 69, 208
Iphigenia in Tauris, I52
Isabelle, I 7, 82, I 84
lsvestia, 229, 2 3 8, 3 24-
Jaques-Dalcroze, Emile, 38
Kahn, Otto H., I 53
Kalenina, Madame, 257, z64
Kaltenborn, Hans and Olga von, I6o
Kantorovich, A. I., 301
Karsavina, Tamara, 71
Keats, John, 54, 2I2
347
Kellerman, Annette, 28
Kling, Dr., 106
DUNCAN DANCER
Kom Ombo Temple, 119
Konegen, Fraulein, IS-I91 53
Krassine, Leonide, 208
Kreisler, Fritz, I 6o
Kschessinska, Mathilde, 66-68, 70
Kun, Bela, 227
Lady Evelyn (yacht), II 5
Lanner, Joseph, 64-
Lapland, S.S., I<t-8
Lederman, Minna, 15 I
Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 213, 222, 225, 230, 238-24-0
Leopoldina, S.S., 186
Lessing Society, I4-2
Lewis, Sinclair, 259
Lincoln Center, I6I
Lindsey, Judge and Mrs. Ben B., 176-I 77
Lippach, Fraulein, IS-I6, 53
Lippmann, Walter, I 51
Liszt, Franz, 254-, 3 I 3, 3 I6
Litvinoff, Mrs. Maxim, 22D-22I
Livingstone, Belle, 336-337
Lodge, Senator Henry Cabot, I 84-
Louis XIV, King, 294-, 3 I 2
Luboshutz, Pierre, 2 3 5
L'Humaniti, 240
Lunacharsky, Anatole V., 209, 222, 224-225, 228, 230, 238, 265, 286,
305, 323
Lyons, Eugene, 259
Macdougall, Allan Ross, 3 2 3-3 24-
MacKaye, Percy, 149
Maeterlinck, Maurice, 3 5
Maitland, Fuller, 278
Malone, Dudley Field, 184, 186, 3 24
Manchester, Duchess of, So-8 I
Maria Pavlovna, Grand Duchess, 24 I
Mason, Redfern, 174
Maurice and Hughes, 200
Maxwell, Elsa, 1 6o
Index of Names
Mayflower, 338
Meighan, Tom, 174
Meiningen, Princess von, 39
Mendelsohn, Frau von, 39
Merz, Max, 67, 90, 103-112, 124, 127, 143-145, 251, 321
Metchik, Mark, 249, 2 52, 2 54
Midsummer Night's Dream, A, 141
Millay, Edna St. Vincent, 160, 324
Minneapolis Tribune, 335
Mitchel, John Purroy, I 5 I
Mitchell, Ruth, 218, 220
Morgen Post, 24
Moscow Conservatory, 275
Moskvin, Ivan M., 223
Mouraviev-Amoursky, Count, 304
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 168, 182, 205
Mysovsky, Elisaveta Gregorievna, 241, 270, 288, 304, 326, 331
Narkompross, 28 5, 303
National Museum, Athens, 191
National Zeitung, 49
Nazimova, Alia, 164
Nevin, Ethelbert, 338
New Gallery, 34, 278
Newton, Mr. and Mrs. Silas, 336-337
New Russia, The, 260
New York American, 328
New York Globe, 109
New York Journal, 336
New York Mail, 151, 169
349
New York Tribune and Herald Tribune, 154, 182, 310, 327, 329, 335
Nicholas II, Tsar, 68-69, 71, 208, 227
Nietzsche, Friedrich W., 34, 168, 241
Nijinsky, Vaslav, 7o-71
Oedipus Rex, I 54
Olga Alexandrovna, Grand Duchess, 64
Orczy, Baroness, 271.
Passmore, Professor, 30
Pasternak, Boris, 3 2 2
Patrick, 114, II6, 130, 158, 168
350
Pavlova, Anna, 65, 71
Peter Ibbetson, I98
Petipa, Marius, 69
Picabia, Francis, I6o
Plato, 168, 320
DUNCAN DANCER
Podvowsky, Commissar, 237, 24-9, 25I-252, 264-, 321
Poe, Edgar Allan, 2 54
Poiret, Paul, 113, 125, 187
Polk, Secretary of State, 186
Poppe, Pastor, 14-5-14-6
Pratt, George, I 72
Press Association, Berlin, 2 5
Princeton University, 8 5
Prussia, Prince and Princess Henry of, 14-2
Reiss, Wienold, 160, 175, 179, I8.j.-I85
Renneville, de, 21 o
Reuss, Princess Henry VII of, 37, 39
Roberts, Mrs. Mary Fanton, I 51, 182
Robinson, Attmore, I 53
Rogers, Cameron, 3 3 7
Rogers, ShermanS., 337-338, 341
Romanovsky-Krassinsky, Princess Mathilde, 68
Roosevelt, Franklin D., 273
"Rosary, The," 338
Rothbart, Albert, 1 8 I
Rousseau, Marta, I 64
Rubinstein, Beryl, I 8 I-I 82, I 84-
Rummel, Walter, 187, I88-189, I99, 20I, 205
Sanborn, Pitts, I69
San Francisco Examiner, I74
Sappho of Lesbos, I 58
Sartoris, Cecile, 210, 227, 310, 33o-331
Sauret, Henriette, 3 I 5
Schiller, Friedrich, I68, 342
Schleswig-Holstein, Princess Henry of, 34
Schneider, llya, 222-224, 232, 255, 264, 272-273, 282, 303
Schubert, Franz, 48, 128, 15I, 168, 174, I84, 205, 235, 315
Schumann-Heink, Ernestine, 3
Schumann, Robert, II, 48-5I, 182, 2I2
Segurola, Andres de, 160
Seroff, Victor, 3 II, 3 I 3
Index of Names 35 I
Shakespeare, William, 14- I, 168, 3 I 8
Shaw, Bernard, 159
Shein (Sheyne), Moyssei Borissovich, 275, 279, 296, 326
Sheridan, Anne, 22 5
Sides, Alfredo, 309, 310
Singer, Paris, JOI, I I3-I I4, I 16-I 17, 122, 129-130, 141, 157-158,
196, 252, 263, 3I6, 329-330, 332
Skene, Hener, I I<)-I20, I27-128, I39, q.6, 170
Soong, T. V., 29I
Spaeth, Sigmund, I69, 182
Stanislavsky, Constantine, I46, 323
Steichen, Edward, I 90, I 92
Stockhausen, Annie von, I So-1 8 I, 184
Strauss, Johann, 183
Sturges, Mary, see Mary Desti
Sturges, Preston, 90
Sun Yat-sen, 280, 284-285, 290
Sun Yat-sen, Madame, 29o-29I, 293, 297, 302
Susanna, 96, 104-106
Swanson, Gloria, I 79
Taisho, Emperor of Japan, 282
Talmadge, Norma, I6I
Tante Miss, see Elizabeth Duncan
Tchaikowsky, Peter llich, I93, 212, 228, 323
Terry, Ellen, 8o
Thompson, Dorothy, 259-260
Three Musketeers, The, 3 I 2
Touchstone, The, 1 5 I
Toy, Frederick H., I 54
Traveler's Aid Society, 96
Trojan Women, The, 158
Trollope, Anthony, 272
Trotsky, Leon, 2I3, 225, 242, 258, 275
Tzu-Hsi, Empress, 279
Ungern-Sternberg, Baron, I 6o
Valentino, Rudolph, 200
Varese, Edgard, 1 6o
352
Venizelos, Eleutherios, 192
Victoria, Queen, I I I
Vienna Conservatory, I07
Vogue, 186
DUNCAN DANCER
Votichenko, Dolly, I88-I89, 205-207
Votichenko, Sash a, I 64, I 8 8-I 89
Wagner, Richard, 20, 36, 39, 131, 202-203, 236, 254, 279, 330
Wagner, Siegfried, 39
Wales, Edward Prince of, 3 3 I
Walker, James J. ("Jimmy"}, 326
Walton, Florence, 200
Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 272
Watkins, Mary, 327-328
Weimar, Grand Duke and Duchess of, 124
Whittimore, Professor, I I 8
Whitman, Sarah, 15 3
Whitman, Walt, 24-I
Wilhelm, Crown Prince and Crown Princess, I43-I44
William I, Emperor, 39, 199
Wolff, Albert, 3 I 5
Wu Pei-fu, 290, 292
Young, Art, I 86
Ysaye, Eugene, I68
Zappeion Museum, I93
Zelli, Joe, 200
Zschetzsching, Frau, 58-60, 62, 79

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