Читать книгу Sandow on physical training: a study in the perfect type of the human form - Eugene Sandow - Страница 21
ОглавлениеIV.
SANDOW AS A STRONGMAN IN HOLLAND.
With no decided views as to where, after parting with Atilla, he would be likely to find employment, Sandow found the occasion urgent to go in search of it, for he was again entirely dependent upon his own resources. In passing from his native Prussia to Belgium, he left behind him not only those who knew and loved him, but, to some extent also, the interest actively felt throughout the Fatherland in wrestling and all manner of gymnastics. To the young adventurer the situation was more serious when he had to pass from Belgium into Holland, because this took him still further from hope of engagement, where he was known as an athlete, besides, as we have seen, having now to get along without his father's allowance. In proceeding to Amsterdam, he was venturing his barque on an entirely unknown sea. He as yet knew no one in the city, though he possessed the pleasant manners and frank, open countenance of one ere long certain to make friends. He had, moreover, youth and hope on his side, and, by this time, had acquired remarkable strength, with a varied though miscellaneous experience of circuses, theatres, and shows. At the chief theatres he sought employment as a strongman, but strongman exhibitions, he was brusquely, almost rudely told, were not then in vogue; while the manager of the "Paleis voor Volksvlyt" would not pay Sandow the humble ten guilders ($4) a night the young athlete asked for his services. At this juncture, when fortune most frowned, his worthy father once more besought him to return home; but, though without prospects, and in almost extreme need of money, he refused. Depressed and crestfallen as he was, with his hotel bill in arrears and not a little of his effects in pawn, he yet had confidence in himself: in any case, he could not brook the idea of acknowledging his life, so far, a failure.
Sarony—Photo.
Sandow. Club studies.
Sandow. Flexed forearm studies, showing deltoid and serratus magnus muscles.
ESCAPADE AT AMSTERDAM.
One day, when his store of money was quite gone, save a mere pittance in his pocket, a daring scheme entered his head, which, he thought, would be a novel mode, at least, of advertising himself, and might lead to his securing the employment which he now sorely needed. He was, as we have said, unknown in Amsterdam, and had had no chance afforded him to show his powers. What he did was to take a cabman into confidence and arrange with him to drive him round the city some morning between midnight and dawn. His purpose was to visit all the weight-lifting machines scattered throughout the town, outside the closed cafés, and wreck each in turn by a strong pull at the handle—a feat which only a very powerful man like young Sandow could do. Dependent upon the good-nature of the cabman, not only to keep his counsel as to what he intended to do, but for the necessary coin to put in the slot of each machine, he set out and only too well accomplished his purpose. In the morning, when the city was astir, every passer along the streets carried the news to the police stations, and soon bulletins were issued by the newspapers, saying that the city had been visited over night by a gang of ruffian marauders, who had, by their combined strength—so the account ran—dismantled and wrecked every weight-lifting machine. The whole city wondered at the deed, and for days it was the subject of universal talk. The authorities offered a thousand guilders reward for the discovery and capture of the miscreants. Every citizen, and of course every habited guardian of the city's nocturnal peace, had each his own theory of how the town came to be so invaded and the machines gutted. In time, the town breathed freely again; the machines were repaired; and the inexplicable deed was about forgotten. A second time, and, after a little, a third time, the city woke to a repetition of the machine-wrecking experience.
ARRESTED; AMUSING SCENE AT THE POLICE STATION.
After the second of the wrecking exploits, it was of course not easy to guard against surprisal, for by this time the police were officiously on the qui vive, while every porter and night-watchman was but too anxious to obtain the civic reward. The cabman, with Sandow, had almost completed the third night's round when the latter was espied by a porter at one of the cafés just as he was giving the wrench to a machine which threw it out of gear and broke the springs. The porter, realizing the apparent strength of the nightly depredator, kept at a respectful distance from the strongman, but having the reward of the authorities before his eyes was not willing to lose the chance of bagging his game. Sandow, on the other hand, having sufficiently stirred up the city to interest in his nocturnal acts, was but too ready to reap his own peculiar reward and inwardly was not averse from arrest.
The porter, meanwhile, having rushed to the nearest police-office, brought with him a posse of constables, who collectively pounced upon young Sandow, who suffered himself to be taken to the station. There he was catechised by the sergeant-in-charge as to who were his confederates in crime, for no one imagined that the machines had been wrecked by a single pair of arms. Sandow's protestation that he alone did the deed was received at first as a joke. Again and again was he interrogated on the point and threatened with handcuffs and imprisonment. He, of course, continued to make but one answer, and as its possible truth began to dawn on the police they treated him with more politic consideration. At this, Sandow, with a nonchalant air, repeated his protest against arrest, for, as he naïvely observed, he had been merely exercising his arms, and in the slot of each machine had honestly paid the toll. Presently, a commissary of police appeared on the scene, and, with amazement and curiosity, heard Sandow's account of the affair and his demurral to the indignity of arrest. The comic aspect of the scene was reached when the culprit gave indisputable evidence on the biggest of the constables that he was the strong man he claimed to be, to the amusement of the inspector and the crowd that by this time had gathered in and about the police station.
After this amusing exhibition of strength, which quite won the heart of the old commissaire, Sandow was released on his own recognizances, promising to appear should action by the authorities be pressed, which, we may say here, was not the case. On the contrary, the young athlete became the lion of the town, and he and the cabman were escorted in triumph to the hotel where Sandow lodged, which has since become a great resort owing to its connection with the morning's incidents. There the entire staff of the establishment was for hours kept busy drawing beer for the enthusiastic populace that had followed Sandow and were talking in hilarious glee over the affair. A suite of fine rooms, in exchange for his previous humble domicile, was offered our hero by the hotel-proprietor, who had caught the contagion of excitement from the crowd and was eager to show his gratitude to Sandow for bringing him such welcome and unlooked-for custom. This custom, thanks to the now notorious athlete, was not evanescent, but grew daily in volume, especially while Sandow made the city his home; and the hotel-proprietor, it may be remarked, emphatically dates the founding of his fortune from the day on which the incident transpired which we have just related.
At the theatre, it may be added, which had refused Sandow a salary of ten guilders a night, he now obtained a prolonged engagement at twelve hundred guilders a week!
AT LONDON AND PARIS.
The success of the machine-wrecking hero at Amsterdam brought together again Atilla and his quondam partner and pupil. Together they resumed for a time their itinerant exhibitions and afterwards crossed over to London, where Atilla had secured an engagement at the Crystal Palace, Sydenham. There Atilla, shortly after appearing, had the ill-luck to meet with an accident on the stage, which terminated his engagement and threw both himself and Sandow out of employment. Shortly after this, Sandow drifted across to Paris, where dame Fortune again became fickle and for a while treated him churlishly. He made repeated but fruitless efforts to get an engagement, and failing in that became exigently hard up. His ill-luck continued for some weeks, and only a forced resort to the pawn-shop enabled him to exist. To Sandow's surprise it was even difficult to hire himself out as a model. One day, after meeting with only mortifying rebuffs, the young athlete called upon a professor of anatomy, at the Academie des Beaux Arts. To the professor he made his usual request for employment and was met with the now familiar answer, that "just then he had no need of a model." Impatient at the stereotyped answer, he urged that he was a strong man and physically well-developed, adding, pathetically, that he would be thankful for even a day or two's engagement, that he might be fed. The professor, not heeding the appeal, or being in a hurry to get back to his class, turned to ascend the stair, leaving Sandow, in chagrin, to take himself off. But the latter was not thus to be got rid of, at least without giving the learned gentleman a practical proof of his strength. As the doctor, who was a large man, was mounting the stair, Sandow caught him by the legs, and with an easy, effortless movement he put him down at his side.
"Mon Dieu," said Esculapius, "you are indeed a phenomenon!"
"Yes," rejoined the athlete, "and if you give me a chance you will see what else I can do."
The doctor now invited Sandow to his class-room, where he exhibited his figure and some of his notable feats before an enthusiastic band of students, winning the deafening applause of all present, with a purse, to which each pupil contributed, containing two hundred francs. For several months, Sandow continued to exhibit at the Academy as a model, and also found remunerative work in giving private lessons as an athlete.
About this time, Sandow made the acquaintance of a strolling circus-man named Francois, with whom he made a lengthened tour with a pantomime show, Sandow contributing no little of the attraction by his gymnastic feats and unrivalled power as a wrestler. These exhibitions proving remunerative, Sandow finally embraced them as a profession, meeting henceforth an almost unbroken run of luck.
