Note 122 — ELEONORA DUSE
Reading edition
In 1898 Mme. Vivanti Chartres, one of Duse’s few intimate friends, said (in the New York Dramatic Mirror): “Duse’s hatred of publicity and newspaper interviews has assumed the proportions of a mania.... When we were alone together, talking of the play I was writing for her, or discussing modern art, her youthful struggles with poverty, or the world weariness that came to her finally with her splendid success, Duse was herself—impulsive, eager, passionate, tender, sad. But the mere announcement of a visitor would freeze her into silent hauteur.
“I stayed with her in Turin for some time. We used to go out driving in the Valentino every morning, for Duse said she needed to begin the day by looking at ‘green things.’ She was crowding the Teatro Carignano, the receipts averaging 10,000 francs for each performance—a stupendous sum for Italy. Yes, Duse certainly makes a great deal of money, but she spends all that she makes. She is exceedingly generous. One day she gave a magnificent diamond ring to a dressmaker whom Worth had sent to her from Paris with her Dame aux Camélias dresses. And she pays her entire company all the year round, although during the last eighteen months she has given only twenty-two performances.
“At Monte Carlo we stayed at the Victoria, the dullest if most aristocratic hotel in the place. But Duse has a taste for the dismal and the melancholy. She is very sad—the saddest woman I have ever known. She cannot even bear people’s voices. After the strain of her performance she drives home quite alone, and sits down to her supper in solitude and silence. During the days that I was with her we used to sit at opposite ends of the large table, sometimes without exchanging half a dozen words, and she used to laugh her approval across to me when I absolutely refused to answer her if she made any attempts at polite conversation.
“Duse chez elle dresses almost always in white satin. Her gowns are loose and limp, and folded carelessly around her.... She is a charming woman, highly cultured, sincere, brave and good. Her conversation, when she chooses to speak, is startlingly brilliant.”