Pages from the Life of Gibran and Howayek in Paris – 2

Opinions have clashed a great deal over the nature of the life Gibran lived in Paris. Here we publish, for the first time, truthful pictures of that period, related by the man closest of all to Gibran in those days — the dean of our artists, Howayek — may God prolong his life.

In the coming issue: "Gibran's Illness and Rosine's Care of Him," then Ameen Rihani in Paris and the evening at the "Moulin Rouge"...

– 2 –

... While Miss Rosine (1) was putting on her clothes, Gibran noticed that the little metal cross at her neck hung from a string!.. and that the coarse black "peasant" shoes did not go with those soft, fair feet, so he whispered to me: "Look at her... she's poor!" Then he asked her politely whether she was free the coming week, and she hesitated to answer...

A knocking sounded at the door, and Gibran turned to me saying: "You understand her language. Arrange the matter as you know best. We need four or five sittings." And he went toward the door to open it,

then came back with Mrs. Hamilton on his arm. She sized up Rosine with a searching look from top to bottom, and Rosine sized her up from bottom to top. The American lady busied herself talking with Gibran in English, and Rosine said goodbye and went off without answering my question whether she was free...

The famous writer had come to invite us to lunch and to a party to be given in the afternoon, which the master Rodin might perhaps attend. Since I knew no English, and American society did not appeal to me, nor did I care to see Rodin either, I begged off accepting the invitation and made for the door. Gibran said to me in farewell: "I'll be at your place at 5 or 6... Give my greetings to Miss Olga..."

(1) The name is Rosine, not "Rosina," as it appeared in the last issue. We apologize to Howayek.

A few steps along the "Boulevard Raspail" I caught sight of Rosine walking the same way. I noticed her linger a little before a shoe shop, then approach an old woman sitting on a bench beside the road and place alms in her hand. A young man passed her and whispered something in her ear; she recoiled from him and quickened her step as far as the crossing... By then I had come up close to her, and I addressed her in Italian: "Where are you going? Give me your hand and I'll help you across..." She started at first, but when she recognized me she felt at ease and gave me her hand quite simply, saying: "I'm going to near the 'Montsouris' garden... half an hour on foot. Goodness! And where are you going?"

— To Madame Baudet's restaurant, there at the corner of the street. Is anyone expecting you?

— No...

— And will you accept my invitation?

— With pleasure. I'm dying of hunger!

At the table the knot of her tongue came undone, and she recounted her story to me. She told me that her family lives in the village of "Anticoli" in Italy, and that she began her working life going in winter to Rome to sit before the artists. Then she was told that the field of work in Paris was wider, so she came with her three brothers, builders by trade... Here she choked on her words and said:

— "If only I had never come to Paris! I am a stranger in it — no mother, no sister, no..." And she choked again...

— And your brothers?..

— "My brothers are always at their work. And besides, they are hard on me; they don't understand me, and they take from me everything I earn!" And her tears rolled down her cheeks...

— And do you always manage to find work, when the Parisian girls are so many?

— I have found no difficulty at all... Whenever I sit at the Academy, plenty of work is offered me. But I only agree if I like the artist's head!!..

I wanted to lighten her gloom, so I asked her with a smile:

— And how did you find my head, and Gibran's?

But she did not answer my flat question, and went on with her story:

— And when I find no work, the door of the mocking old man, "the Satyr," is always open!

— The old Satyr?

— Yes. The master "Rodin"!!

I gasped on hearing the name and said to Rosine, cautioning her gently:

— The master Rodin is the dean of artists, Mademoiselle. Why do you call him "the Satyr"?!

She smiled and answered:

— When I went to his studio the first time with a girlfriend of mine, he came up to me, felt my shoulders and my breast, and asked me — laughing, with his beard, like "a Satyr" — whether I was still a virgin!! I made to run away, feeling insulted... but he stopped me, laughing all the while "with his beard"!!

— And after that?

— After that, there were three nude girls in his studio, playing and laughing. "Do as they do," the master Rodin told us. "And eat what chocolate you please!!" He showed us a full box on the table, and he sat drawing while we played and ate chocolate, not knowing which of us he was drawing!! And from time to time he would call to us to move, and not stay stock-still...

I said to Rosine: — These drawings, Mademoiselle, the lovers of art race one another to buy at high prices, and they have begun to take pride of place in the museums!...

Rosine shrugged her shoulders indifferently and went on with her story:

— And once there came to him "one" like the one who came to your friend. On her head a great bonnet with flowers and a bird in it, wearing a long dress whose train she held up in her hand... and high-heeled shoes... She spoke in a language I didn't understand, and at once Rodin got up, paid each of us five francs, and we went off home...

— Rodin is a great artist, and a rich one, I told her; his works bring him a great deal of money.

And to change the subject I asked Rosine whether she was good at dancing and singing. Her eyes lit up and she answered with a naive, childlike joy:

— My friend Marguerite and I have begun learning the "rhythmic" dance with the pupils of "Isadora," in the hope that we may manage to reach the stage.

An idea occurred to me; I put it to Rosine and she accepted it at once.

It was agreed that she would come with her friend Marguerite to my place at five o'clock, and that they would bring their dancing clothes with them. And I wrote the address down for her.

★

We return now to Olga, to whom Gibran, before I left him, had charged me to give his greetings... She was a Russian girl of his acquaintance who had come to Paris to pursue her higher studies in elocution and music. She was from the city of "Tomsk," fifteen days from Paris by train.

It happened that spring of 1910 that the Seine overflowed and the waters flooded the low-lying quarters, among them the house where Olga used to practice at the piano. She asked her friend Gibran to let her move the piano to his place, but the wooden staircase and the entrance were too narrow to let the piano through, so she sent the piano to my place, whose door was wide and gave onto the street. So Olga would come in the afternoons to practice her playing while I was at my work in the Academy...

And every now and then Olga would invite us — Gibran and me — to hear whatever we pleased of the melodies of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky... And the Russian "samovar" was always brimming with boiling water for the tea!

Forty-six years have passed since those days, and still among the loveliest of my Parisian memories are those sweet hours which fortune and the gods allowed us to live!.. I would sit with Gibran on a soft seat, sipping tea in a warm half-darkness, while Olga sat at the piano under the pale light, a gray shawl with brocaded borders hanging from her shoulders, fluttering like butterflies with the trembling of the melodies beneath her graceful fingertips...

And to those melodies Rosine danced with Marguerite, their marble bodies swaying like the columns of the Acropolis — now in ancient Greek robes, now in a sheer, coquettish drape that lent the dancing, pulsing beauty a sacred cast, before which my friend Gibran and I would sink into contemplation and reverence... and rapture!

Do you still wonder, my friend, why my eyes fill with tears?