Read Ebook: My Wonderful Visit by Chaplin Charlie

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Ebook has 854 lines and 37482 words, and 18 pages

The bridge is so small; I always thought it was much wider. We are held up by traffic. The driver tells the bobby that Charlie Chaplin is inside. There is a change in the expression of the cop.

"On your way."

There is an auto with a motion-picture camera on top of it photographing our car. I tell the driver to put down the top. Why didn't we do this before? I wanted to let the people see. It seemed a shame to hide in this way. I wanted to be seen. There are little crowds on the street corners again.

Ah yes, and Big Ben. It looks so small now. It was so big before I went away. We are turning up the Haymarket. People are looking and waving from their windows. I wave back. Crowded streets. We are nearing the Ritz, where I am to stop.

The crowds are much denser here. I am at a loss. I don't know what to do, what to say. I stand up. I wave and bow at them, smile at them, and go through the motions of shaking hands, using my own hands. Should I say something? Can I say anything? I feel the genuineness of it all, a real warmth. It is very touching. This is almost too much for me. I am afraid I am going to make a scene.

I stand up. The crowd comes to a hush. It is attentive. They see I am about to say something. I am surprised at my own voice. I can hear it. It is quite clear and distinct, saying something about its being a great moment, etc. But tame and stupid as it is, they like it.

There is a "Hooray!" "Good boy, Charlie!"

Now the problem is how am I going to get out of this? The police are there, pushing and shoving people aside to make way, but they are out-numbered. There are motion-picture cameras, cameras on the steps. The crowds close in. Then I step out. They close in. I am still smiling. I try to think of something useful, learned from my experience at the New York opening of "The Three Musketeers." But I am not much help to my comrades.

Then as we approach, the tide comes in toward the gates of the hotel. They have been kept locked to prevent the crowd from demolishing the building. I can see one intrepid motion-picture camera man at the door as the crowd starts to swarm. He begins to edge in, and starts grinding his camera frantically as he is lifted into the whirlpool of humanity. But he keeps turning, and his camera and himself are gradually turned up to the sky, and his lens is registering nothing but clouds as he goes down turning--the most honorable fall a camera man can have, to go down grinding. I wonder if he really got any pictures.

In some way my body has been pushed, carried, lifted, and projected into the hotel. I can assure you that through no action of mine was this accomplished. I am immediately introduced to some English nobleman. The air is electric. I feel now I am free. Everybody is smiling. Everybody is interested. I am shown to a suite of rooms.

I like the hotel lobby. It is grand. I am raced to my room. There are bouquets of flowers from two or three English friends whom I had forgotten. There come cards. I want to welcome them all. Do not mind in the least. Am out for the whole day of it. The crowds are outside. The manager presents himself. Everything has been spread to make my stay as happy as possible.

The crowd outside is cheering. What is the thing to do? I had better go to the window. I raise my hands again. I pantomime, shake hands with myself, throw them kisses. I see a bouquet of roses in the room. I grab it and start tossing the flowers into the crowd. There is a mad scramble for the souvenirs. In a moment the chief of police bursts into my room.

"Please, Mr. Chaplin, it is very fine, but don't throw anything. You will cause an accident. They will be crushed and killed. Anything but that, don't throw anything. If you don't mind, kindly refrain from throwing anything." Excitedly he repeats his message over and over again.

Of course I don't mind; the flowers are all gone, anyway. But I am theatrically concerned. "Ah, really I am so sorry. Has anything happened?" I feel that everything is all right.

The rest of my friends arrive all bruised and cut up. Now that the excitement has died down, what are we going to do? For no reason at all we order a meal. Nobody is hungry. I want to get out again. Wish I could.

I feel that everybody ought to leave immediately. I want to be alone. I want to get out and escape from all crowds. I want to get over London, over to Kennington, all by myself. I want to see some familiar sights. Here baskets of fruit keep pouring in, fresh bouquets, presents, trays full of cards, some of them titles, some well-known names--all paying their respects. Now I am muddled. I don't know what to do first. There is too much waiting. I have too much of a choice.

But I must get over to Kennington, and to-day. I am nervous, overstrung, tense. Crowds are still outside. I must go again and bow and wave my hands. I am used to it, am doing it mechanically; it has no effect. Lunch is ordered for everybody. Newspaper men are outside, visitors are outside. I tell Carl to get them to put it off until to-morrow. He tells them that I am tired, need a rest, for them to call to-morrow and they will be given an interview.

The bishop of something presents his compliments. He is in the room when I arrive. I can't hear what he is saying. I said 'yes, I shall be delighted.' We sit down to lunch. What a crowd there is eating with me! I am not quite sure I know them all.

Everyone is making plans for me. This irritates me. My cousin, Tom Geraghty, Knoblock--would I spend two or three days in the country and get a rest? No. I don't want to rest. Will you see somebody? I don't want to see anybody. I want to be left entirely alone. I've just got to have my whim.

I make a pretence at lunch. I whisper to Carl, "You explain everything to them--tell them that I am going out immediately after lunch." I am merely taking the lunch to discipline myself.

I look out the window. The crowds are still there. What a problem! How am I going to get out without being recognised? Shall I openly suggest going out, so I can get away? I hate disappointing them. But I must go out.

Tom Geraghty, Donald Crisp, and myself suggest taking a walk. I do not tell them my plans, merely suggest taking the walk. We go through the back way and escape. I am sure that everything is all right, and that no one will recognise me. I cannot stand the strain any longer. I tell Donald and Tom--they really must leave me alone. I want to be alone, and want to visit alone. They understand. Tom is a good sort and so is Donald. I do not want to ride, but just for a quicker means of getting away I call a taxicab.

I tell him to drive to Lambeth. He is a good driver, and an old one. He has not recognised me, thank heaven!

But he is going too fast. I tell him to drive slower, to take his time. I sit back now. I am passing Westminster Bridge again. I see it better. Things are more familiar. On the other side is the new London County Council building. They have been building it for years. They started it before I left.

The Westminster Road has become very dilapidated, but perhaps it is because I am riding in an automobile. I used to travel across it another way. It doesn't seem so long ago, either.

My God! Look! Under the bridge! There's the old blind man. I stop the driver and drive back. We pull up outside the Canterbury.

"You wait there, or do you want me to pay you off?" He will wait. I walk back.

There he is, the same old figure, the same old blind man I used to see as a child of five, with the same old earmuffs, with his back against the wall and the same stream of greasy water trickling down the stone behind his back.

The same old clothes, a bit greener with age, and the irregular bush of whiskers coloured almost in a rainbow array, but with a dirty grey predominant.

What a symbol from which to count the years that I had been away. A little more green to his clothes! A bit more grey in his matted beard!

He has that same stark look in his eyes that used to make me sick as a child. Everything exactly the same, only a bit more dilapidated.

No. There is a change. The dirty little mat for the unhealthy-looking pup with the watering eyes that used to be with him--that is gone. I would like to hear the story of the missing pup.

Did its passing make much difference to the lonely derelict? Was its ending a tragic one, dramatic, or had it just passed out naturally?

The old man is laboriously reading the same chapter from his old, greasy, and bethumbed embossed Bible. His lips move, but silently, as his fingers travel over the letters. I wonder if he gets comfort there? Or does he need comfort?

To me it is all too horrible. He is the personification of poverty at its worst, sunk in that inertia that comes of lost hope. It is too terrible.

THE HAUNTS OF MY CHILDHOOD

I jump into the automobile again and we drive along past Christ Church. There's Baxter Hall, where we used to see magic-lantern slides for a penny. The forerunner of the movie of to-day. I see significance in everything around me. You could get a cup of coffee and a piece of cake there and see the Crucifixion of Christ all at the same time.

We are passing the police station. A drear place to youth. Kennington Road is more intimate. It has grown beautiful in its decay. There is something fascinating about it.

Sleepy people seem to be living in the streets more than they used to when I played there. Kennington Baths, the reason for many a day's hookey. You could go swimming there, second class, for three pence .

Through Brook Street to the upper Bohemian quarter, where third-rate music-hall artists appear. All the same, a little more decayed, perhaps. And yet it is not just the same.

I am seeing it through other eyes. Age trying to look back through the eyes of youth. A common pursuit, though a futile one.

It is bringing home to me that I am a different person. It takes the form of art; it is beautiful. I am very impersonal about it. It is another world, and yet in it I recognise something, as though in a dream.

We pass the Kennington "pub," Kennington Cross, Chester Street, where I used to sleep. The same, but, like its brother landmarks, a bit more dilapidated. There is the old tub outside the stables where I used to wash. The same old tub, a little more twisted.

I tell the driver to pull up again. "Wait a moment." I do not know why, but I want to get out and walk. An automobile has no place in this setting. I have no particular place to go. I just walk along down Chester Street. Children are playing, lovely children. I see myself among them back there in the past. I wonder if any of them will come back some day and look around enviously at other children.

Somehow they seem different from those children with whom I used to play. Sweeter, more dainty were these little, begrimed kids with their arms entwined around one another's waists. Others, little girls mostly, sitting on the doorsteps, with dolls, with sewing, all playing at that universal game of "mothers."

For some reason I feel choking up. As I pass they look up. Frankly and without embarrassment they look at the stranger with their beautiful, kindly eyes. They smile at me. I smile back. Oh, if I could only do something for them. These waifs with scarcely any chance at all.

Now a woman passes with a can of beer. With a white skirt hanging down, trailing at the back. She treads on it. There, she has done it again. I want to shriek with laughter at the joy of being in this same old familiar Kennington. I love it.

It is all so soft, so musical; there is so much affection in the voices. They seem to talk from their souls. There are the inflections that carry meanings, even if words were not understood. I think of Americans and myself. Our speech is hard, monotonous, except where excitement makes it more noisy.

There is a barber shop where I used to be the lather boy. I wonder if the same old barber is still there? I look. No, he is gone. I see two or three kiddies playing on the porch. Foolish, I give them something. It creates attention. I am about to be discovered.

I leap into the taxi again and ride on. We drive around until I have escaped from the neighbourhood where suspicion has been planted and come to the beginning of Lambeth Walk. I get out and walk along among the crowds.

People are shopping. How lovely the cockneys are! How romantic the figures, how sad, how fascinating! Their lovely eyes. How patient they are! Nothing conscious about them. No affectation, just themselves, their beautifully gay selves, serene in their limitations, perfect in their type.

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