Gentlemen Prefer Blondes / Джентльмены предпочитают блондинок. Анита Лус

e saw them[2], and this morning he sent me a book. So when my maid brought it to me, I said to her, “Well, Lulu, here is another book and we have not read half the ones we have got yet.” But when I opened it and saw that it was all a blank I remembered what my gentleman friend said, and so then I understood that it was a diary. So here I am writing a book instead of reading one.

      But now it is the 16th of March and of course it is too late to begin with January, but it does not matter as my gentleman friend, Mr. Eisman, was in town practically all of January and February, and when he is in town one day seems to be practically the same as the next day.

      I mean Mr. Eisman is in the wholesale button profession and he is the gentleman who is known practically all over Chicago as Gus Eisman the Button King. And he is the gentleman who is interested in educating me, so of course he is always coming down to New York to see how my brains have improved since the last time. But when Mr. Eisman is in New York we always seem to do the same thing. I mean we always have dinner at the Colony[3] and see a show and go to the Trocadero[4] and then Mr. Eisman shows me to my apartment. So of course when a gentleman is interested in educating a girl, he likes to stay and talk about the day until quite late, so I am quite tired the next day and I do not really get up until it is time to dress for dinner at the Colony.

      It would be strange if I turned out to be a writer. I mean at my home near Little Rock, Arkansas[5], my family all wanted me to do something about my music. Because all of my friends said I had talent and they all kept after me about practicing. But I never seemed to care so much about practicing. I mean I simply could not sit for hours practicing just for the sake of a career. So one day I got quite temperamental and threw the old mandolin across the room and I have really never touched it since. But writing is different because you do not have to learn or practice. So now I really almost have to smile because I have just noticed that I have written two pages, so this will do[6] for today and tomorrow. And it just shows how temperamental I am when I get started.

      March 19th:

      Well, last evening Dorothy called up and said she has met a gentleman who introduced himself to her in the lobby of the Ritz. So then they went to luncheon and tea and dinner and then they went to a show and then they went to the Trocadero. So Dorothy said his name was Lord Cooksleigh but what she really calls him is Coocoo. So Dorothy said why don’t you and I and Coocoo go to the Follies[7] tonight and bring Gus along if he is in town? So then Dorothy and I had quite a little quarrel because every time she mentions Mr. Eisman she calls him by his first name, and she does not seem to understand that when a gentleman who is as important as Mr. Eisman, spends quite a lot of money educating a girl, it really does not show respect to call him by his first name. I mean I never even think of calling Mr. Eisman by his first name, but if I want to call him anything at all, I call him “Daddy” and I do not even call him “Daddy” if a place seems to be public. So I told Dorothy that Mr. Eisman would not be in town until day after tomorrow. So then Dorothy and Coocoo came up and we went to the Follies.

      So this morning Coocoo called up and he wanted me to luncheon at the Ritz. I mean these foreigners really are bold. Just because Coocoo is an Englishman and a Lord he thinks a girl can waste hours on him just for a luncheon at the Ritz, when all he does is talk about some expedition to a place called Tibet. So I will be quite glad to see Mr. Eisman when he comes because he always has something quite interesting to talk about, as for instance the last time he was here he presented me with quite a beautiful emerald bracelet. So next week is my birthday and he always has some delightful surprise on holidays.

      So the reason I thought I would take luncheon at the Ritz was because Mr. Chaplin is at the Ritz and I always like to renew old acquaintances, because I met Mr. Chaplin once when we were both working on the same lot in Hollywood and I am sure he would remember me. Gentlemen always seem to remember blondes. I mean the only career I would like to be besides a writer is a cinema star and I was doing quite well in the cinema when Mr. Eisman made me give it all up. Because of course when a gentleman takes such a friendly interest in educating a girl as Mr. Eisman does, you like to show that you appreciate it, and he is against a girl being in the cinema.

      March 20th:

      Mr. Eisman comes here tomorrow in time for my birthday. So I thought it would really be great to have at least one good time before Mr. Eisman came, so last evening I had some literary gentlemen in the apartment because Mr. Eisman always likes me to have such people in and out. He is quite anxious for a girl to improve her mind and his greatest interest in me is because I always seem to want to improve my mind and not waste any time. So I invited all of the brainy gentlemen I could think up. So I thought up a gentleman who is the professor of all of the economics up at Columbia College, and another gentleman who is a famous playwright who writes very, very famous plays that are all about Life. I mean anybody would recognize his name but it always slips my memory[8] because all of us real friends of his only call him Sam. So Sam asked if he could bring a gentleman who writes novels from England, so I said yes, so he brought him. And then we all got together and I called up Dorothy and the gentlemen brought their own liquor. So of course the place was a wreck this morning and Lulu and I worked like dogs to get it cleaned up, but Heaven knows how long it will take to get the chandelier fixed.

      March 22nd:

      Well, my birthday has come and gone but it was really quite depressing. I mean it seems to me a gentleman who has a friendly interest in educating a girl like Gus Eisman, would want her to have the biggest diamond in New York. I mean I must say I was quite disappointed when he came to the apartment with a little thing you could hardly see. So I told him I thought it was quite cute, but I had quite a headache and I told him I would see him the next day, perhaps. Because even Lulu thought it was quite small. But he came in at dinner time with really a very very beautiful bracelet of diamonds so I was quite cheered up. So then we had dinner at the Colony and we went to a show and supper at the Trocadero as usual whenever he is in town. He kept talking about how bad business in the button profession was full of bolshevicks who make nothing but trouble. Because Mr. Eisman feels that the country is really on the verge of the bolshevicks and I become quite worried. I mean if the bolshevicks do come in, there is only one gentleman who could handle them and that is Mr. D. W. Griffith[9]. Because I will never forget when Mr. Griffith was directing Intolerance. I mean it was my last cinema just before Mr. Eisman made me give up my career and I was playing one of the girls that fainted at the battle when all of the gentlemen fell off the tower. And when I saw how Mr. Griffith handled all of those mobs in Intolerance I understood that he could do anything, and I really think that the government of America should tell Mr. Griffith to get all ready if the bolshevicks start to do it.

      Well, I forgot to mention that the English gentleman who writes novels has taken quite an interest in me, as soon as he found out that I was literary. I mean he has called up every day and I went to tea twice with him. So he has sent me a whole complete set of books for my birthday. They all seem to be about ocean travel although I have not had time to more than look through them. I have always liked novels about ocean travel ever since I posed for the front cover of a novel about ocean travel because I always say that a girl never really looks as well as she does on board a steamship, or even a yacht.

      So the English gentleman’s name is Mr. Gerald Lamson as those who have read his novels would know. And he also sent me some of his own novels and they all seem to be about middle-age English gentlemen who live in the country and ride bicycles. So I told Mr. Lamson how I write down all of my thoughts and he said he knew I had something to me from the first minute he saw me and when we become better acquainted I am going to let him read my diary. I mean I even told Mr. Eisman about him and he is quite pleased.

2

с первого взгляда видел, есть ли у человека мозги

3

«Колони» – фешенебельный ресторан в Нью-Йорке.

4

«Трокадеро» – ресторан и кабаре в Нью-Йорке.

5

Арканзас – американский штат.

6

этого хватит/достаточно

7

«Фоллиз» – знаменитое варьете и кабаре продюсера Ф. Зигфелда в Нью-Йорке.

8

забывается / выскакивает из головы

9

Дэвид Гриффит – американский режиссёр немого кино.