Americans In Paris

There is a wonderful collection of books here in the apartment and tonight I picked up Americans in Paris to read. I have come to realize that because I am in Paris for two months, I am privileged to indulge myself in whatever I wish to do. Reading about life in Paris is one of those special pleasures that I have been enjoying.

The book is a record of the American experience in Paris from 1776 until the present--Americans who came to study, to paint, to sculpt, to dance, to sing, to write, to love--in a word, to live. What Paris gave them was a sense of personal and artistic freedom and the experience of a very different way of life. I was fascinated by what Isadora Duncan wrote in My Life about a meeting she had with Rodin in his study on Rue de l'Universite, a meeting which terminated in her studio on Avenue de Villiers, just a short distance from where I am living.

"Rodin was short, square, powerful with close-cropped head and plentiful beard. He showed his works with the simplicity of the great. Sometimes he murmured the names for his statues, but one felt that names meant little to him. He ran his hands over them and caressed them. I remember thinking that beneath his hands the marble seemed to flow like molten lead. Finally he took a small quantity of clay and pressed it between his palms. He breathed hard as he did so. The heat streamed from him like a radiant furnace. In a few moments he had formed a woman's breast, that palpitated beneath his fingers.

He took me by the hand, took a cab and came to my studio. There I quickly changed into my tunic and danced for him.

Then I stopped to explain to him my theories for a new dance, but soon I realized that he was not listening. He gazed at me with lowered lids, his eyes blazing, and then, with the same expression that he had before his works, he came toward me. He ran his hands over my neck, breast, stroked my arms and ran his hands over my hips, my bare legs and feet. He began to knead my whole body as if it were clay, while from him emanated heat that scorched and melted me. My whole desire was to yield to him my entire being and, indeed, I would have done so if it had not been that my absurd up-bringing caused me to become frightened and I withdrew, threw my dress over my tunic and sent him away bewildered. What a pity! How often I have regretted this childish miscomprehension which lost to me the divine chance of giving my virginity to the Great God Pan himself, to the Mighty Rodin. Surely Art and all Life would have been richer thereby."


Isadora Duncan (May 26, 1877 – September 14, 1927) was an American dancer. She is considered by many to be the creator of modern dance. In the United States she was popular only in New York, and then only later in her life. She performed to acclaim throughout Europe,