Besides, always dressed up, hat, gloves and everything, all rigged out, except when she’d come back from her big drunks… in awful states.. her swinish sprees..
She’d stand in line for hours for the pit, the English nigger-heaven, all dolled up, feathers all over, silk evening dress..
At Claben’s she had a fancy choice, wardrobes galore! a whole floor of evening gowns, she was spoiled, all colors and materials, she’d borrow them, bring them back, she could bluff all Greenwich with her outfits, and even the streets in the center of London, and the lounges of the big theatres!. And she did!.. She didn’t miss a single premiere! nor the slightest artistic "event”.. She’d walk there and back.. she didn’t go unnoticed, she’d be seen in all kinds of outfits. she’d strut about between the acts, first and last one in the lounge.. She’d take from Claben’s wardrobes all the styles, winter and summer, of the past hundred years.. Naturally people noticed her, they’d take little digs at her, it sometimes caused incidents. but altogether things went off all right. Dignity!. But once at the Old Vic, carried away with enthusiasm, she’d disturbed the performance..
They were playing Romeo and Juliet. She’d screamed from the balcony… screaming congratulations at Miss "Juliet” Gleamor.. The cops had thrown her out.. She’d been wounded to the quick.. She’d postponed it to the intermission. Not tamed by any means!.. let the two thousand spectators see what real theatre was!. soul!. fire!. ringing text!.. She herself had played the text from the very top of the balcony.. jammed with people!.. the big "Duo” scene!
What a triumph! Endless applause! Romeo Juliet! Of course, they’d thrown her out again! The police!.. But how the spectators ate it up!. All standing and yelling enthusiastically!. She’d done the same thing all over again elsewhere.. from one theatre to the next. always impromptu!. always from the balcony!. the whole theatre would turn to her.. acclaim her! and always after the second act.
The performers would get to know her, she’d go to see them in their dressing-rooms.. She was often disappointed by the personal contact… "Excitable… but no soul!”. That was her verdict! She didn’t want any actors’ photos, even personally initialed, she’d refuse outright, even the great Barrymore’s..
"Poor mortal soul!”
That’s what she called him.
She took pity on all of them, however famous they might be, she thought them pygmy, piddling, lost in the presence of the masterpieces.. crushed by the text. Glad that she didn’t get angry!. She didn’t miss a thing during the season! Punctual at all the classics.. first in line for the pit.. often two and three times a week… of course it cost something!.. But she was independent, she pointed out, her little income, her pension, but still a little close for all her "spirituous” needs besides and her worldly life!.. She wouldn’t have been able to dress up.. But being "governess” at Titus’ made ends meet. the evening gowns and the pubs, and in addition all her freakish ideas, theatre, big musical galas, charity evenings.. She’d be everywhere.. More so since the war with parties for the wounded, recitals of the great virtuosos..
She was ready out of kindness to do some errands… to do little things for Titus. But only as a personal favor she let him know. not at all as a servant!. Ah! not a servant! She never took off her hat or her veil or her gloves, she did her housework as she was, harnessed from head to foot! with her feathers, her lorgnette, corset, high shoes, handbag.
"Just let some hoodlum touch me!”. She’d flare up thinking about the impertinent scoundrel. Brandishing her hatpin right away!. A dagger!..
With all her grand manners still and all she’d swipe things. not much!.. just odds and ends. that she’d sell in Petticoat Lane for her little incidental expenses.. not very much, just little trinkets, leftovers. Titus wanted to catch her..
He suspected, of course!.. It was a sort of comedy.. He’d been mistrusting her for twenty years. The mistrust was mutual.. From the moment she arrived he didn’t take his eyes off her.. until she left! In order that not a single movement, the slightest gesture, might escape him, he’d observe her with a spyglass from the other end of the room, his navigator’s "Zeiss.” He wanted the windows wide open while she moved the furniture around, it was the only time of the day he wanted to see clearly. so she wouldn’t run away with some treasure, an item in his great collection. He’d climb up the stairs, to the very top, he’d put on three or four overcoats because of the drafts. on top of his pasha brocades. He’d pull down his turban, squatting on the stairs, his blunderbuss on his knees, he wouldn’t let Delphine out of his sight. with the spyglass… It might last for hours..
"Delphine! Delphine! Hurry up!”
She’d whip up a sirocco on purpose, whirlwinds, hurricanes of dust. They’d be completely enveloped. He’d cough, spit, choke, he’d stick to his guns. He’d stay perched up there yelling away at her..
In order to make a little room, she’d poke at the piles, setting off torrents of junk, it would all come tumbling down!.. when it crashed on her, that was another matter! she’d be buried!.. Had to be pulled out from under… the way I’d done for the customer. They’d have to stop yelling at each other, they’d be choking in the dust. When it came to weight, the worst was the bunch of old armor, the whole wall on the left, and the dentist chairs stuck into one another.. When all of that upset!.. Woe!.. In a second the wild session would be over.. they’d had enough choking and yelling and raving!..
"Stop! Delphine! Stop! I’m all in!”
He was the one who’d ask for an armistice!.. Then she’d open the other window, the one on the dead end, the draft would rush through… All the wobbling junk would come thundering down again!. And it was over for the week!..
Delphine would be triumphant on the heap!..
The whole effort for nothing!
My name is sweet Jenny!
My father ’e’s deafy!
Now I am the Queen!
The refrain! Quite satisfied! So much for Titus!.. She’d won!.. The customers waiting outside would start getting restless.. grumble, frowning.
Claben would start snarling too.
"Come on! Hurry up, Delphine! You see I’m catching cold!”
She still had to do the bed, the enormous heap of furs.. the back of the den… He never left his premises, never got undressed, he kept all his clothes on, his cloaks and his turban, he buried himself as is beneath the pile of sables, sealskins, minks… he slept with one eye, always worried about robbers.. Protected against drafts by the huge tapestried portiere, I still see the gigantic thing that cut the whole place in two, the "Prodigal Son”..
He’d cough, sniffle, wheeze… he was really going to catch cold. He was sore at Delphine… It was just about over.. The two or three big valleys of junk just about under control.. shakily stacked against the walls.. Delphine would shut the blinds, Titus would light his globe, his water-lamp. poke at the Greco-Byzantine incense burner.. swinging from the ceiling.. when it sizzled, smoked hard, he’d take a deep sniff. he was ready for business!. The customer would sit down facing him.. the discussion would get started.. but interrupted immediately. "Ooh!. Roch!”. another coughing fit! Asthma! His asthma! from having sat there like that in the cold! in the dust!. "Ah! now! by God!".. He tried everything for his asthma, all possible medicines, everything in the advertisements. and for emphysema. everything that Delphine brought back from her conversations with the asthmatic housewives in the neighborhood.. Clodovitz’ remedies, unguents, powders, bottles, all shapes and sizes.. Each new specialty.. Delphine would drop in at the hospital, would never return without a few drops, two or three phials, the day’s wonderful new product!. He tried everything!.. All the weird smells, all the worst quack powders.. he’d sniffed them all.. the headiest aromas, the most awful fetid scents.. absolutely everything for asthma.. wheeziness from the fogs.. When that got him! what a panic!.. Should've seen his eyes then!. the horror that seized him! All kinds of plants in a plate that were burned at the critical moment. Once it was Senegalese herbs with a bitter stink that’d knock you over and then little ground shells that he took before going to sleep.. It could also be smoked in a pipe.. The customers, in order to win him over, so that he’d be a little less of a louse when it came to renewals, were very anxious about his condition, they’d talk to him about his illness, they’d ask how he was, they were very concerned, they’d bring him candy, eucalyptus tablets to be inhaled over sugar as they were being burned.. You can’t imagine what a stinking horror that was! He tried all their stuff, he tried whatever they wanted, but he wasn’t much better. In fact it was even getting worse. his nose was rasping more and more. especially since the big bomb explosion, since the night of the Zeppelin, when it fell on Mill Wall, less than a mile away!. it had shaken everything, his house had got a jolt, been hurt. he’d thought it was the end! he’d sprung from his furs, squirted into the air, fallen on his belly with his full weight! Och! What a shake! a catapult-shock! He reacted two days later by throwing a fit, so intense and acute that he lay gasping at the bottom of the staircase!.. his tongue drooping to the mat. trying to catch his breath!.. for at least forty-eight hours unable to go up or down or even move, or call for help, his tongue completely tied, unable to answer anyone. The clients, after waiting, had alerted the neighborhood, sent for the firemen, the neighbors, the park guards, they’d forced the locks, they’d thought he was dead. That gives you an idea of the character.