waltz,

_Je suis la femme,_
_On me connait._

Her interpretation belies the lines. She has contrived to put all the
mystery of the sphinx into her rendering of them. How has she done this?
By means of the cigarette which she smokes throughout the song. She has
confessed as much. Always on the lookout for material which will assist
her in perfecting her art she has observed that when a woman smokes a
cigarette her expression becomes inscrutable. Her effects are
cumulative, built up out of an inexhaustible fund of detail. In those
songs in which she professes to do the least she is really doing the
most. Have you heard her sing _Le Lien Serre_ and witnessed the
impression she produces by sewing, a piece of action not indicated in
the text of the song? Have you heard her sing _L'Hotel Numero 3_, one of
the repertoire of the _gants noirs_ and the old days of the Divan
Japonais? In this song she does not move her body; she scarcely makes a
gesture, and yet her crisp manner of utterance, her subtle emphasis, her
angular pose, are all that are needed to expose the humour of the ditty.
Much the same comment could be made in regard to her interpretation of
_Le Jeune Homme Triste_. The _apache_ songs, on the contrary, are
replete with gesture. Do you remember the splendid _apache_ saluting his
head before he goes to the guillotine? Again Yvette has given away her
secret: "Naturally I have deep feelings. To be an artist one must feel
intensely, but I find that it is sometimes well to give these feelings a
spur. In this instance I have sewn weights into the lining of the cap of
the _apache_. When I drop the cap it falls with a thud and I am reminded
instinctively of the fall of the knife of the guillotine. This trick
always furnishes me with the thrill I need and I can never sing the
last lines without tears in my eyes and voice."

It seems ungracious to speak of Yvette Guilbert as a great artist. She
is so much less than that and so much more. She has dedicated her
autobiography to God and it is certain that she believes her genius to
be a holy thing. No one else on the stage to-day has worked so
faithfully, or so long, no one else has so completely fulfilled her
obligations to her art, and certainly no one else is so nearly human.
She compasses the chasm between the artist and the public with ease. She
is even able to do this in America, speaking a foreign tongue, for it
has only been recently that she has learned to s