Read Ebook: My Wonderful Visit by Chaplin Charlie

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Ebook has 854 lines and 37482 words, and 18 pages

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.

I am the wrong note in this picture that nature has concentrated here. My clothes are a bit conspicuous in this setting, no matter how unobtrusive my thoughts and actions. Dressed as I am, one never strolls along Lambeth Walk.

I feel the attention I am attracting. I put my handkerchief to my face. People are looking at me, at first slyly, then insistently. Who am I? For a moment I am caught unawares.

A girl comes up--thin, narrow-chested, but with an eagerness in her eyes that lifts her above any physical defects.

"Charlie, don't you know me?"

Of course I know her. She is all excited, out of breath. I can almost feel her heart thumping with emotion as her narrow chest heaves with her hurried breathing. Her face is ghastly white, a girl about twenty-eight. She has a little girl with her.

This girl was a little servant girl who used to wait on us at the cheap lodging-house where I lived. I remembered that she had left in disgrace. There was tragedy in it. But I could detect a certain savage gloriousness in her. She was carrying on with all odds against her. Hers is the supreme battle of our age. May she and all others of her kind meet a kindly fate.

With pent-up feelings we talk about the most commonplace things.

"Well, how are you, Charlie?"

"Fine." I point to the little girl. "Is she your little girl?"

She says, "Yes."

That's all, but there doesn't seem to be much need of conversation. We just look and smile at each other and we both weave the other's story hurriedly through our own minds by way of the heart. Perhaps in our weaving we miss a detail or two, but substantially we are right. There is warmth in the renewed acquaintance. I feel that in this moment I know her better than I ever did in the many months I used to see her in the old days. And right now I feel that she is worth knowing.

There's a crowd gathering. It's come. I am discovered, with no chance for escape. I give the girl some money to buy something for the child, and hurry on my way. She understands and smiles. Crowds are following. I am discovered in Lambeth Walk.

But they are so charming about it. I walk along and they keep behind at an almost standard distance. I can feel rather than hear their shuffling footsteps as they follow along, getting no closer, losing no ground. It reminds me of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

All these people just about five yards away, all timid, thrilled, excited at hearing my name, but not having the courage to shout it under this spell.

"There he is." "That's 'im." All in whispers hoarse with excitement and carrying for great distance, but at the same time repressed by the effort of whispering. What manners these cockneys have! The crowds accumulate. I am getting very much concerned. Sooner or later they are going to come up, and I am alone, defenceless. What folly this going out alone, and along Lambeth Walk!

Eventually I see a bobby, a sergeant--or, rather, I think him one, he looks so immaculate in his uniform. I go to him for protection.

"Do you mind?" I say. "I find I have been discovered. I am Charlie Chaplin. Would you mind seeing me to a taxi?"

"That's all right, Charlie. These people won't hurt you. They are the best people in the world. I have been with them for fifteen years." He speaks with a conviction that makes me feel silly and deservedly rebuked.

I say, "I know it; they are perfectly charming."

"That's just it," he answers. "They are charming and nice."

They had hesitated to break in upon my solitude, but now, sensing that I have protection, they speak out.

"Hello, Charlie!" "God bless you, Charlie!" "Good luck to you, lad!" As each flings his or her greetings they smile and self-consciously back away into the group, bringing others to the fore for their greeting. All of them have a word--old women, men, children. I am almost overcome with the sincerity of their welcome.

We are moving along and come to a street corner and into Kennington Road again. The crowds continue following as though I were their leader, with nobody daring to approach within a certain radius.

The little cockney children circle around me to get a view from all sides.

I see myself among them. I, too, had followed celebrities in my time in Kennington. I, too, had pushed, edged, and fought my way to the front rank of crowds, led by curiosity. They are in rags, the same rags, only more ragged.

They are looking into my face and smiling, showing their blackened teeth. Good God! English children's teeth are terrible! Something can and should be done about it. But their eyes!

Soulful eyes with such a wonderful expression. I see a young girl glance slyly at her beau. What a beautiful look she gives him! I find myself wondering if he is worthy, if he realises the treasure that is his. What a lovely people!

We are waiting. The policeman is busy hailing a taxi. I just stand there self-conscious. Nobody asks any questions. They are content to look. Their steadfast watching is so impressing. I feel small--like a cheat. Their worship does not belong to me. God, if I could only do something for all of them!

But there are too many--too many. Good impulses so often die before this "too many."

I am in the taxi.

"Good-bye, Charlie! God bless you!" I am on my way.

The taxi is going up Kennington Road along Kennington Park. Kennington Park. How depressing Kennington Park is! How depressing to me are all parks! The loneliness of them. One never goes to a park unless one is lonesome. And lonesomeness is sad. The symbol of sadness, that's a park.

But I am fascinated now with it. I am lonesome and want to be. I want to commune with myself and the years that are gone. The years that were passed in the shadow of this same Kennington Park. I want to sit on its benches again in spite of their treacherous bleakness, in spite of the drabness.

But I am in a taxi. And taxis move fast. The park is out of sight. Its alluring spell is dismissed with its passing. I did not sit on the bench. We are driving toward Kennington Gate.

Kennington Gate. That has its memories. Sad, sweet, rapidly recurring memories.

'Twas here, my first appointment with Hetty . How I was dolled up in my little, tight-fitting frock coat, hat, and cane! I was quite the dude as I watched every street car until four o'clock waiting for Hetty to step off, smiling as she saw me waiting.

I get out and stand there for a few moments at Kennington Gate. My taxi driver thinks I am mad. But I am forgetting taxi drivers. I am seeing a lad of nineteen, dressed to the pink, with fluttering heart, waiting, waiting for the moment of the day when he and happiness walked along the road. The road is so alluring now. It beckons for another walk, and as I hear a street car approaching I turn eagerly, for the moment almost expecting to see the same trim Hetty step off, smiling.

The car stops. A couple of men get off. An old woman. Some children. But no Hetty.

Hetty is gone. So is the lad with the frock coat and cane.

Back into the cab, we drive up Brixton Road. We pass Glenshore Mansions--a more prosperous neighbourhood. Glenshore Mansions, which meant a step upward to me, where I had my Turkish carpets and my red lights in the beginning of my prosperity.

We pull up at The Horns for a drink. The same Horns. Used to adjoin the saloon bar. It has changed. Its arrangement is different. I do not recognise the keeper. I feel very much the foreigner now; do not know what to order. I am out of place. There's a barmaid.

How strange, this lady with the coiffured hair and neat little shirtwaist!

"What can I do for you, sir?"

I am swept off my feet. Impressed. I want to feel very much the foreigner. I find myself acting.

"What have you got?"

She looks surprised.

"Ah, give me ginger beer." I find myself becoming a little bit affected. I refuse to understand the money--the shillings and the pence. It is thoroughly explained to me as each piece is counted before me. I go over each one separately and then leave it all on the table.

There are two women seated at a near-by table. One is whispering to the other. I am recognised.

"That's 'im; I tell you 'tis."

"Ah, get out! And wot would 'e be a-doin' 'ere?"

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