Pictures and the Picturegoer (Jan-Dec 1924)

16 Pictures and P'chjreooer NOVEMBER 1924 Kip /\bKO^d Rudolph philosophises at Deauville, and then moves on with his wife and family (of Pekinese) to Juan Les Pines, Nice. Deauville, August 9th. Natacha and I were quite thrilled about going to the Casino. Natacha arrayed herself in her most gorgeous Poiret creation. A " Poiret paradox," I call them, because their simplicity is so confounded with their quality of seductiveness. Which is the nth degree of perfection to which a woman's gown can go — or anything else for the matter of that. Well, and so, thus arrayed, we betook ourselves tc the Casino, thinking to be dazzled by the fair women and exquisitelytailored men. It was most uninteresting ! The people were most uninteresting ! There were no smart women. Literally none at all. There were no smart men. There was not even that aura, that atmosphere of the ultrasophisticated, the ultra-smart that we had so confidently looked forward to seeking. HThe people were mostly tourists, who had come there, no doubt, on the same mission of curiosity that brought our disappointed selves. They were talking and laughing in loud voices, trying to make for themselves the gay and abandoned time they had thougnt to find ready-made for them. Any day, on Fifth Avenue, any evening in any cafe of London, Paris or New York, strolling in by the sheerest coincidence, I have found smarter-looking women and more correct-looking men. And the cuisine was worse than the people. Poor Hebertot seemed to fee) that he was somehow responsible for the badly dressed women and the poorly served food. He explained that most of the really smart people were at distances away and that, anyway, Deauville was not what it had once been. Doubtless Deauville is much like the places in New York. One winter the Ritz will be the place, where at tea time and at dinner foregather the orchid-gathering of New York. Another had winter it will be the Biltmore, the Ambassador, the smaller places such as Pierre's and the Avignon and so on. People are much like sheep. One goes and the others follow. That has been said before concerning a number of different things, but it is equally true of places where people dress to eat. and eat to dress. Sometimes, when I have spent an evening in such a place as the Casino here at Deauville, when I have seen the faces of the men; the hardened, painted, pitifully striving faces of the women, I think how much better it really is to be the humble blade of grass that knows the pulse of the earth, the warmth and nourishment of natural surroundings that ask so little and give so much, rather than a transplanted flower that is growing unhealthfully out of its native soil. ather life, I think, than a semblance of life! The faces of some of the women ; painted and hardened, set in lines of laughter, forced and unnatural to tb,em. Women who would have been far happier, had they H but known it, at home in some simple place tending their plants and flowers, watching their babies grow up, gossiping with VTi their neighbours for the sake of the fillip of excitement. If people could only be taught to J read their own hearts, to know what is in their hearts. One of the saddest and truest cries in all the world is the cry of the Arab when he says, " Only God and I know what is in my heart!" And the men there. Dead dreams staring from their hollow eyes, like so many ravaged ghosts. Tired men. Desperate men. Men at that very moment contemplating suicide. Men to whom life could have been sound and sweet, who had soured it and embittered it for the lust of gold. One man there to-night was pointed out to me as having lost 16,000.000 francs during the season. In the half hour that I was there, looking on, he lost 3,000,000 more. His face looked to me as though he had lost his immortal soul. I remained an onlooker, mote interested, really, in the tragic human