Dialogues & Interviews
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Natalie Clifford Barney
by
Audrey Regan
Time engraves our faces with all the tears we have not shed. Natalie Clifford Barney
There are no photographs of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald chatting above the voice of a perfumed chanteuse, in the parlor of Natalie's salon. No pictures of Greta Garbo strolling in Natalie's garden after a soft Paris rain. It would be a Friday night. They all gathered at Natalie's on Friday nights. And they've taken their secrets and anecdotes to their graves, leaving us to call up mental images of the madcap schemes and licentious escapades that occurred between 1910 and 1970, in the rooms and by-rooms at 20, rue Jacob, the most famous of all the literary salons in Paris.
Somewhere between a cathedral and a bordello is how it has been described.
If we know anything for certain, it's that Natalie Clifford Barney was a piece of work.
Consider her mother, Alice Pike Barney, married to a wealthy conservative, yet famous in her own right, as a painter and fringe Bohemian - the wife with interesting hobbies - not the least of which was her smart little daughter, Natalie, a child who knew by age twelve that it was women, not men, who would accompany her through life. Alice Pike Barney, feeling her own restraints in life, may have passed the torch of independence to her daughter, when daddy wasn't watching.
Poor daddy. Upon discovering that his daughter was sexually involved over in Paris, with a famous courtesan named Liane de Pougy, he ordered her to return home to America so he could find her a husband. He died shortly after, his mission incomplete. Natalie scooped up her inheritance, returned to Paris and bought the house on rue Jacob. She was 33 years old and as free as the wind.
The
French writer, Colette, made Natalie the heroines of her "Claudine" novels
(as the character Flossie). Djuna Barnes (1892-1982), one of Natalie's lovers,
fashioned the character of Dame Evangeline Musset, after Natalie, in the Ladies
Almanack, a journal for the expatriate lesbians of Left Bank Paris in the
1920's and the poet and novelist, Renee Vivienne (1877-1909), translated the
work of Sappho into modern French, then traveled with Natalie to Lesbos, in
an attempt to revive a women's artist colony on the island. The aforementioned
Lianne de Pougy wrote "Idylle Sapphique", the story of her affair with Natalie.
But, among all the women Natalie loved in her lifetime, only one stood the
test of time - the painter and beauty, Romaine Brooks, another American girl
who had moved to Paris to live openly among her peers, the bohemians of the
Lost Generation.
Self-portrait by
Romaine Brooks, 1912
History reminds us that Natalie loved women, but it is clear she also inspired them. By living an unrestrained and abundant life, she provided them with flesh for the bones of their stories and wings for the souls of their poems. As we read the books by and about the great women in her life, we are taken back in time; to the best of times despite the World War - to the wildest of times, despite the German invasion of Paris in 1940. Nothing stood in the way of Natalie Clifford Barney, referred to as the Amazon of the Left Bank by her friends--friends like Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas and Isadora Duncan - not to mention the Mata Hari, who danced naked on Natalie's front lawn, while the best minds of the 20th century nibbled cucumber sandwiches in the parlor.
Natalie Barney (L) with Romaine Brooks 1915
The women at the dawn this 21st century are no more amazed by Natalie Barney than women of the next century will be, and we will always have her books, twelve of which were published in her lifetime, most of them written in French and most inspired by the women she loved - women who remained Natalie's devoted friends, long after their hearts had healed, despite the fits of outrageous behavior and threats of suicide that sometimes followed, when it was once more realized that Natalie had found someone new.
Natalie found someone new, for the last time, at the age of 85. Imagine her moving about her salon, dressed in a silk kimono, her silver hair clasped in a tight chignon, as she recounted stories, to her last lover, about the good old days and what fun it all had been. In those final years of her life, Natalie surely talked about James Joyce, Rodin, T. S. Elliot, Ernest Hemingway, Apollinaire and Ezra Pound, all of them good friends. She might have snickered when describing the evening William Carlos Williams stepped out into the garden, to "take a good piss" after a few of the girls went off into a room by themselves for a little private enjoyment. William was in like and worthy company, for the men of Natalie's salon were not lightweights - Jean Cocteau, Hart Crane, Alan Seeger, Sinclair Lewis, and so many others.
Oneday, a film may be made in which Sharon Stone or Julianne Moore might be cast in the character of Natalie Barney. The streets of the Left Bank will be closed to all traffic for the filming. Children and old folks will gather at curbside to watch the scenes being filmed. A man in the crowd might turn to the woman beside him and explain that his late-grandfather once tended the gardens at Natalie Barney's salon and that he would find such interesting things scattered about the flowers and pathways on Saturday mornings. He will be sorry his grandfather didn't save them.
Natalie wrote her own epitaph:
"Elle
était l'amie des hommes et l'amant des femmes."
(She was the friend of men and the lover of women.)
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