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funeral prompt
I've always found funerals to be interesting in a variety of ways. So much that is normally hidden comes to the surface when you're confronting death. So this photo from the Bain Collection really grabbed my attention. A hugely elaborate funeral hearse being drawn by four white horses. Paris, May 5, 1913. The caption says only that this is the funeral of Isadora Duncan's children.
Isadora Duncan was just a name and a few facts to me when I first ran across this image. The mother of modern dance, flamboyant, controversial, that was about it.
So I did a brief search and found that a new biography of Isadora Duncan came out in 2001. There's an article about the biography at Salon, with a summary that tells me pretty much everything I need to know if I wanted to base a character on her life. Here's the relevant information about the funeral of her children from the article:
In 1913, her two children -- Deirdre, fathered by theater designer Gordon Craig, and Patrick, fathered by Paris Singer, the wealthy heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune -- drowned in the Seine when the driver of their car stepped out to crank the engine and failed to secure the brake. The Renault pitched over the embankment, trapping the two children and their nanny inside. One year later, a third child, who Duncan believed would be the reincarnation of either Deirdre or Patrick, died a few hours after birth.
--Isadora Duncan and her children, 1912
Detail is crucial to a well constructed story. Think of these things:
Early May in Paris along the Seine. The trees showing new green, and the air warm to the skin. Lily of the Valley and daffodils in blossom everywhere, and windows open to let the bedding air. People waking from the winter.
A uniformed driver leaning over the crank of an expensive Renault, and the violent motion of the car as it jumps the bank and goes into the Seine.
This is the rear seat of a 1913 Renault. I can imagine the children sitting there with their nurse. Maybe she had been with them since birth, and they were as attached to her as they were to their mother. I wonder how well the nurse and the driver knew each other, if they were friendly or if there was animosity. I wonder how the driver survived that day, if he was charged with some crime and went to jail, if he lost his family, if he simply went on to his next job, or went into the army and died the next year when the war broke out.
I wonder how it is that he forgot to secure the brake, if he was preoccupied with the health of his own children or gambling debts or if he was new at his job and just not very careful. If he was worried about getting the children home late and losing his job, if he was irritated because he had told Isadora Duncan many times that the car was unpredictable and really should be taken out of service. If he hated the spoiled children or felt pity for them or nothing at all.
Of course there are answers to these questions. It might even be possible to find those answers in newspapers of the time, in police reports and letters and biographies. But I'm not so much interested in the details of what really happened. That was Isadora Duncan's tragedy, and what is going on in my head has to do with my imagination and a different story.
Which I have to put aside now, and get my mind back to New Orleans.
November 6, 2005 03:05 PM
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Comments
It’s weird, but I find sometimes that even someone walking down the street gives me ideas. For example, last week there was a woman walking past the café I frequent, she was wearing the most extravagant hat and the plainest summer dress I ever saw. I loved her instantly and wanted to be her friend. What a fun person, and what a free spirit! – well, that was my interpretation. I imagined her getting up that morning, sending her eight blond-haired, freckled faced children off to school, cleaning the dishes and setting the house to rights. Then, taking a look in the mirror after a quick shower this woman – lets call her Annette – wonders to herself, “what happened to the girl I was? It doesn’t feel that long ago that I would never let my hair be this scraggly, I cared how I dressed. I dressed like a star some days.” And that was that, resolve was born and Annette went to her cupboard intent on making herself look like the girl she was before husband/babies/life. But a good ten years had passed since she had been that girl, and with the hips that bore eight children unlikely to fit into any of the old frills she used to don, she quietly resigned herself to wearing her faded blue summer dress. But wait – what’s that in the corner there? “My mothers hat!” Such a hat had to be seen to be believed. Pink and lavender, worn to weddings and funerals alike despite the inappropriateness of the latter. It had been stashed away, hidden for years because it made Annette miss her mother, but now here it was calling out to her. “WEAR ME!” And so she did, proudly down the street, ignoring stares and the occasional chuckle. She felt like a million bucks.
Sigh. Well, that’s my interpretation. The truth is probably less interesting. She was probably a bit clueless about fashion, or maybe she didn’t have all the eggs in the basket. Maybe her husband had left her that morning and this was her in a state of shock? Isn’t it fun speculating!
Posted by: Deborah at November 6, 2005 04:53 PM
Deborah, I agree: it is indeed fun.
Posted by: Sara Donati at November 6, 2005 05:08 PM