Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1894-07-05
YVETTE GUILBERT.

Snfe cnantant singer III the WOrlu To-
day, waif from the storm, leaf
thrown UP against blase Paris for her
amusement.
She sprang into favor with gIimacc
directed at her companions in the vast
emporium, the "Printems." as well
known to tn modern female traveller
as the Louvre" or the Bon Marche"
She was born with knowledge of
the value of effect as supreme and dis
tinctivC as q song. A Sodden awk-
ward droop of Il woman, no grace, no
distinction, no taste: but she can be
tragic with q lift of her eyebrows,
comic with shrug of her shoulders,
and painfully realistic with il move
ment of her hands. She twits on the
weakness of the greatest ariStocrats of
the day, she sticks her tongue into her
cheek. and talks boulevard slang and
twang until the oldest boulevardier is
Vlutdone; she initiates all the famous
Actors and singers with one Suroke of
her gigantic talent as clean-cut and
acute rs if she had made an exhaustive
study of her art all her life. instead
of being, as she is, Il WORKOUT shop girl,
with the Odor of the streets in her
clothes, in her dyed hair, in her stock"
expression. She throws sentiment to
the winds, she mOckS at love, she snaps
her fingers at fate and she deti"S the
higher powers with every breath she
draws and almost every note she ut
tiers.
Her voice is low. and coarse and I'M
RuSical, her lips are painted vcrmilion
and colored thick and out of drawing,
gut she is intensely human, and that is
yhat the Parisians love. She is rs typi-
AL child of this generation as the dude
>r the female bicyciist, an Off-shoOt the
epitome of effete civilization, the an
swer to the universal cry for more, Il
new plat offered to the jaded palates
of the Satiated.
Her length is awkward. her COM
pleXiOn paSty, her hair champagne yel-
low. She is as devoid of chic as IL North
American Indian, and her toilette is as
nonsuggestive Of Paris.
1t consists of flimsy sulphur-colOred
SILK dress falling in unequal folds about
s,Ddaintily shod feet, her thin shoulders
wsd hipless sides aiding and abetting
y, sn it's ungraceful flop to the floor.
we yellow hair escapes in untidy
meShes at the sides of her head, her
eyes are faded her mouth droODS wcari-
~ little sideways, and the long, shape.
less arms fall from their sockets toward
her knees in line which must be rs
unStudied as it has hitherto, from its
urdesirability been unthought of.
Stretched from the elbows to the ends
of the long thin fingers are the black
gloves, by which all Paris and stranS-
erdom has grown to recognize her on
the bill posters, and which are to play
so prominent part in her presentation
of nSlde facts.
The audience has shifted in and out
lazy, sleepy, summer audience. They
have been presented with the inevitable
dance and song man and the UMPIRE
Scntable song and dance woman. Elcv-
en- o'clock strikes, and the almost eX-
tinguishable gas in the varied colored
bulbs bursts into new radience, club
dom and snubdom loom to the fore,
and as Yvette shuiileS awkwardly to
the footlightS the audience bursts into
raptlTous applause. which Immediately
dies away into brcathlcss silence.
The orchestra strikes up, the strange
droop Of body Quickens into life, the
song, the long arms point the moral to
the tale, and suddenly it dawns upon
IT'S that here is tie camera of O-day
embodied in Il slip of girl who is ia
nous. She rOuseS into speech, she
Winks into slyness. she shrugs i'll con-
tempt, she talks like street urchin or
grand dame or Il stump orator, or any
of the thousand and one types of Paris
ianiSm which are so inconteStably uni
que, and the black-gloved hands make
the shadow and the yellow dress and
hair the light, and she hints ut untold
depths with an ''um" and suggests I'M
felt heights with an 'ah," Il whole life
time of unuSualncsS, of cunning, or of
fun in everything she says and does.
Her shoulders Shrug out her innuen-
does her hands outline the Tilt of the
strange measure of her song.
She pOkeS fun ut the government and
is as full of gags as the local politician.
She turns human nature inside out
with a twist of her tongue, Il lift Of her
expressive brows, Il droOp of her I'M
naturally Redeemed lips.
They recall her again and again. and
she returns to snap her fingers at their
institutions and their constitutions. ut
their love of themselves and their love
of her. She is abundantly antagonistic.
but she idpaliZes effect. and she is some
thing new. When they are tired of her
she mods her head ut them. the limp
bands fall at her sides, the flimsy. char
aCtprleSS gown drOOpS into its usual url-
graceful folds. the eyes dull, the body
drOOpS. the orchestra stops, and the
curtain falls She is her own version
OF her own life. is Yvette Guilbert, the
spoiled child of the French public, so
happily so while it lasts. so unhappily
so when another fills her place.
You see" said she the other day
aud as she talked her elbows rested on
her knees in their customary spiritlesS
fashion, and the long, thin hands shot
in aud out to accentuatc the high lights
OF her chat-'yOu see l was born ugly
aud amaemic. but | had Il prodigiOus
memory. | used to carry home work to
great ladies from my mother who was Il
poor SeamstrCSS; but my mind even
then was full of street songs. which
used to hum to myself in my toS and
fr0S. The time was when that big fat
woman who runs the Eldorado would
Only pay me 600 francs month; that
was the first, and of course | failed
for she put me on ut the beginning OF
the evening and there was no one there
al that hour who knew enough to ap
preciate me; it all depends upon the