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noisy band of tipsy men and women, laughing and yelling and filling the night with their cacophony.
Chaplin's resistance snapped. There was a monstrous scene, in which, beside himself, he ordered Lita's half-scared guests out of the house. Lita went with her guests, taking the children with her, and filed her petition for divorce immediately.
This time was infinitely worse than the previous occasion, for there had been no malice in Mildred Harris, while there was an accumulated resentment of long standing in Mrs. MacMurray, who had never forgiven Chaplin for making The Gold Rush without Lita.
Lita's petition was filled with sensational accusations, all of which were avidly seized upon by that section of the press which had already vilified Chaplin over a period of years.
As before, Chaplin took refuge in silence. He went to stay with his brother Syd, his own house being closed to him since Lita's lawyers had impounded all his property, including the studio, pending the case.
The case was made as unsavoury as it well could be, and Chaplin retreated into the fastnesses of a depression that was all but suicidal. Every circumstance of his private life was made the subject of public and scurrilous discussion, and his enemies tasted all the satisfaction of scourging the man who was down.
He could not lose himself in his work, since he was denied access to his property; he could not escape the full glare of publicity. There is no doubt that this period in his life was the worst he was called upon to endure; and his life had never been easy, or particularly happy.
He saw finally that the dice were loaded too heavily against him, and that there was nothing he could do to combat the campaign that was being levied against him. He went to his old friend and lawyer in New York, Nathan Burke; and while his fate was being settled, he was at last mercifully unconscious of the struggle. His arrival in New York was followed by a total collapse; and only the devotion of Burke, and the unremitting efforts of the doctors he called in, saved Chaplin's life, and his reason.
Lita Grey won her case at a cost to Chaplin of his reputation, his health, and a million dollars. But in due course, Chaplin finished The Circus, and that he did so was abundant testimony to his courage and his tenacity. As he had built the Chilkoot Pass in the Rockies, so he achieved the infinitely more difficult task of finishing a film begun at a time of great stress, held up by domestic catastrophe, and completed in circumstances that were all adverse — ill-health, nervous exhaustion and near-ruin. He worked like a man possessed on the film, while none of his associates believed it would be possible for him to force himself to the end.