II: Big Sea
Don’t Hit a Woman
One night there was a terrific fight in the Grand Duc.
It began like this: a little French danseuse named Annette was going to have a child. Still, to make a living, she had to come to work every night, dance with the patrons and drink as much champagne as she could, in order to get her commission. But she was not well and she shouldn’t have been there. Of course, if she had had any other way of making a living, she wouldn’t have been there, but she didn’t have any other way.
Feeling badly, no doubt, Annette began to be very spiteful to those clients who didn’t think that they could afford another bottle of champagne, so one night the owner of the place asked her not to come back any more. He was French and she was French, and they spoke the same language fluently, so Annette said some very unpleasant things to the owner. He called an attendant to eject her. Annette would not go. The attendant laid hands on her and pushed her, struggling in her satin evening gown, toward the door.
As she passed the last table, Annette seized a patron’s champagne bucket—ice, bottle, and all—and flung it straight at the proprietor at his cash desk behind the bar; whereupon the attendant slapped Annette to the floor with one blow of his hand.
Then it was that Florence, the famous entertainer, that same Florence who snubbed millionaires nightly, arose from her table near the orchestra to defend the poor little French danseuse in her troubles. Florence wore an evening gown of gold and a spray of orchids in her hair. She swept across the floor like a handsome tigress, blocking the path of the waiters, who, at the bidding of the management, rushed to eject the little danseuse.
Florence said: “Don’t touch that woman! She’s a woman and I’m a woman, and can’t nobody hit a woman in any place where I work! Don’t put your hands on that woman.”
By that time the little danseuse had risen from the floor and seized another ice bucket, which she sent whirling into space. Customers dodged behind tables. The orchestra struck up “Tuck me to sleep in my Old Kentucky Home,” to drown out the noise.
A waiter did lay hands on the danseuse, but Florence laid hands on the waiter. Then the Negro manager laid hands on Florence, and a battle royal began between the women (and those who sided with the women) and the management (and those who sided with the men).
“Je suis une femme,” screamed the little French girl, hurling whatever she could lay hands on. “Je suis une femme.”
“A woman and a mother,” cried Florence, “and nobody can hit a woman and a mother. I’ve got a mother and nobody can’t hit my mother.”
The orchids fell from Florence’s hair and her nails dug into the face of any man who came near her, boss, manager, waiters, or customers. But suddenly an unknown client sprang from his table to the protection of Florence and the embattled danseuse, a big man, a foreigner, never seen in the Grand Duc before or since, but who effectively defended all womankind with