Part 4
R.D.RD K.PL.NG, THE ACTOR, THE ACTRESS, THE AUTHORS (To the spectators) Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay! Pay!
THE PROMPTER
The theatre, my dear brothers, is a school for scandal, it is a place of perdition for the soul and the body. According to the testimony of the stage carpenters everything is faked in the theatre. Witches older than Morgane come there to pose as little girls of fifteen years.
How much blood is spilt in a melodrama! I say truthfully, though it be false, this blood will be upon the heads of the children of the authors, the actors, the directors, and the spectators, unto the seventh generation. _Ne mater suam_, the little girls used to say to their mothers. Nowadays they ask: "Are we going to the theatre tonight?"
I tell you frankly my friends. There are few shows which do not endanger the soul. Outside of the spectacle of nature I know of nothing that one may witness without fear. This last spectacle is Gallic and healthy, my dear friends. The sound dilates the glands, chases Satan from the stinking shades where he lies and thus the Fathers come in from the desert to exorcise themselves.
THE MOTHER OF AN ACTRESS
Are you p..., Charlotte?
THE ACTRESS
No, mama, I am roasting.
M. MAURICE BOISSARD
We have with us today the entrails of a mother!
AN AUTHOR WHO HAS A PLAY ACCEPTED BY THE COMEDIE-FRANÇAISE
My friend, you do not look very confident today. I am going to explain the meaning of several words from the theatrical vocabulary. Listen attentively and remember them if you can.
_Acheron_ (ch hard)--A river of Hades, not of hell.
_Artists_ (two types)--Is never used except in speaking of a comedian or a comedienne.
_Brother_--Avoid using this substantive together with "little." The adjective "young" is more proper.
NOTA BENE--This phrase does not apply to operettas.
"_High Life_"--This very French expression is translated in English as "_fashionable people._"
_Liaisons_--They are always dangerous in the theatre.
_Papa_--Two negatives are equal to an affirmative.
_Cooked Potatoes_--(never used in the singular)--A crudity that is deleterious to the stomach.
_Tut-tut_--This worn expression...
Would you like to have some titles for plays also? They are very important in order to succeed. Here are some sure ones:
THE CONTOUR; _The Circumference_; THE CONDOR; _Hurry up Harry_; THE TOWER; _Louise, your shirt is coming out_; STEP ALONG; _The Mysterious Bar_; HUNDREDTH TO THE RIGHT; _The Magician_; THE GUELF; _I am going to kill you_; MY PRINCE; _The Artichoke_; THE SCHOOL FOR LAWYERS; _The Torch-bearer!_
Good-bye, sir, don't thank me.
A GREAT CRITIC
Gentlemen, I have come to give you a report of the triumph, last night. Are you ready? I begin:
GRIT AND GRIP
A play in three acts by Messrs. Julien Tandis, Jean de la Fente, Prosper Mordus and Mmes Nathalie de l'Angoumois, Jane Fontaine and the countess M. Des Etangs, etc. Sets by Messrs. Alfred Mone, Leon Minie, Al. de Lemere. Costumes by Jeanette, hats by Wilhelmine, properties by the MacTead Company, phonographs by Hernstein and Company, sanitary napkins by Van Feuler Brothers.
I recall the captive who dared to p... before Sesostris. I never saw a more poignant scene than this from the play of Messrs, and Mmes etc. I must speak of the scene which made such a great hit at the opening night and in which the financier Prominoff bursts into a fit of rage against the coroner.
The play, which was very good, otherwise, did not accomplish all that was expected of it. The courtesan wife who feathers her nest out of the green old age of a vulgar brewer, remains, however, an unforgettable and touching figure which leaves in the shadow that of Cleopatra and Mme de Pompadour. M. Layol is an excellent comedian. He acted the father of a family in every sense of the expression. Mlle Jeannine Letrou, a young star of tomorrow, has very pretty legs. But the real revelation was Mme Perdreau whose sensitive nature we know so well. She acted the scene of the reconciliation with the most perfect naturalism. In short a great evening and prospects for a hundred night run.[10]
THE THEATRE
Young man we are going to give some subjects for plays. If they were signed by famous names we would play them, but they are masterpieces by unknowns which were given to us and which we are generously turning over to you because of your nice face.
PLAY WITH A THESIS--The prince of San Meco finds a louse on his wife's head and makes a scene. The princess has not slept with the viscount of Dendelope for the past six months. The couple make a scene before the viscount, who, not having slept with anyone but the princess and Mme Lafoulue, wife of a Secretary of State, causes the ministry to fall and overwhelms Mme Lafoulue with his scorn.
Mme Lafoulue makes a scene with her husband. Everything becomes clear, however, when Monsieur Bibier, the Deputy, arrives. He scratches his head. He is stripped. He accuses his electors of being lousy. Finally everything is in order once more. Title: _Parliamentarism._
COMEDY OF MANNERS--Isabelle Lefaucheux promises her husband that she will be faithful to him. Then she remembers that she has promised the same thing to Jules, the boy who works in their store. She suffers from not being able to grant her faith and her love.
However, Lefaucheux fires Jules. This event precipitates a dramatic triumph of love, and we soon find Isabelle cashier in a department store where Jules is salesman. Title: _Isabelle Lefaucheux._
HISTORICAL PLAY--The famous novelist Stendhal is the ringleader of a Bonapartist plot which ends in the heroic death of a young singer during a presentation of _Don Juan_ at the Scala Theatre in Milan. Since Stendhal had hidden his identity under a pseudonym, he withdraws from the affair admirably. Grand marches, procession of historical personages.
OPERA--Buridan's ass hesitates to satisfy his hunger and his thirst. The she-ass of Balaam prophesies that the ass will die. The golden ass comes, eats and drinks. The Wild-Ass's-Skin comes and displays his nudity to this asinine herd. Passing by, Sancho's ass thinks that he can prove his robustness by carrying off the child, but the traitor, Melo, warns the Genius of la Fontaine. He proclaims his jealousy and beats the golden ass. Metamorphoses. The Prince and the Infant make their entrance on horseback. The King abdicates in their favor.
PATRIOTIC PLAY--The Swedish government lays suit against the French Government for manufacturing an imitation of "Swedish matches." In the last act they exhume the remains of an alchemist of the XIVth Century who invented these matches, at La Ferté-Gaucher, a village in France, not far from Paris.
COMEDY----
_The handsome chauffeur Cried to his neighbor If you will show me your salon I wilt show you my kitchen._
Here is enough to nourish a whole career of playwriting, sir.
M. LACOUFF, SCHOLAR
Young man, it is also important to know theatrical anecdotes; they help to fill out the conversation of a young dramatic author; here are a few:
Frederick the Great was accustomed to having his court actresses whipped before each presentation. He believed that flagellation communicated a rosy tint to their skin which was not without its charm.
At the court of the Grand Turk, the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_ was being played, but in order to adapt it to the taste of the environment the _mamamouchi_ became a Knight of the Garter.[9]
Cecile Vestris, while returning to Mayence, one day, had her carriage held up by the famous Rhenish bandit Schinderhans. She rallied her spirits against this ill-fortune and danced for Schinderhans in the hall of a roadside tavern.
Ibsen was sleeping one time with a young Spanish lady who cried out at the proper moment:
"Now!... now!... Mr. Dramatist!"
An erudite actor admitted to me that he had liked only one statue in all his life: _The Squatting Scribe_, sculptured by an Egyptian, long before Jesus-Christ, and which he saw in the Louvre. But they are beginning to talk much less of Scribe, and yet he still reigns over the theatre.
THE THEATRE
Do not forget the final scene, nor the words at the end, nor the fact that the more crust you have the more you shine, nor that a number that is cited must end in 7 or 3 in order to seem accurate; nor not to lend money to anybody who says: "I have five acts at the Odéon," or "I have three acts at the Comédie-Française," nor to say carelessly: "If you want some free passes, I have so many of them, that I am obliged to give them to my concierge;" that doesn't lead to anything.
A young man at this point made good the occasion to come and sing with equivocal gestures and a lascivious air, some childish and entrancing songs.
M. PINGU
What juice, sir!
M. LACOUFF
Juice of the hat?
M. PINGU
No-no! I am mistaken. What a fluid!
He trembles like the paunch of an archbishop.
M. LACOUFF
Use the proper word, not your paunch.
M. PINGU
What a joy, sir, what a joy! It would soften a crocodile to tears and would please a scholar as well as a financier.
CRONIAMANTAL
Good-bye, gentlemen, I am your devoted servant. With your permission I will return in a few days. I feel that my play is not in proper shape yet.
XII. LOVE
On a spring morning, Croniamantal, following the instructions of the Bird of Benin, reached the Meudon woods and stretched himself out in the shade of a tree whose branches hung very low.
CRONIAMANTAL
God I am tired, not of walking but of being alone. I am thirsty--not for wine, hydromel or beer, but for water, fresh water from that lovely wood where the grass and the trees are rose at every dawn, but where no spring arrests the progress of the parched traveller. The walk has sharpened my appetite; I am hungry, though not for the flesh nor for fruit, but for bread, good solid bread, swollen like mammals, bread, round as the moon and gilded as she.
He arose then. He went deep into the woods and came to the clearing, where he was to meet Tristouse Ballerinette. The damsel had not yet arrived. Croniamantal longed for a fountain and his imagination, or perhaps some sorcerer's talent in himself which he had never suspected, caused a limpid water suddenly to flow among the grass.
Croniamantal flung himself down and drank avidly, when he heard the voice of a woman singing far off:
_Dondidondaine 'Tis the shepherdess beloved of the king Who has gone to the fountain Dondidondaine In the dewy fields, all blossoming To the fountain But here comes Croquemitaine To the fountain And Hickorydock! advance no further._
CRONIAMANTAL
Dost thou think already of her who sings? Thou laughest dully in this clearing. Dost thou believe that she has been rounded like a round table for the equality of men and weeks? Thou knowest well, the days do not resemble each other.
About the round table, the good are no longer equal; one has the sun in his face, it dazzles him and soon quits him for his neighbor. Another has his shadow before him. All are good, and good thou art thyself, but they are no more equal than the day and the night.
THE VOICE
_Croquemitaine Wears the rose and the lilac The king rides off--Hello Germaine --Croquemitaine Thou wilt come back again_
CRONIAMANTAL
The voices of women are always ironical. Is the weather always fair? Someone is already damned instead of me. It is nice in the deep woods. Hearken no longer to the voice of woman! Ask! Ask!
THE VOICE
--_Hello Germaine I come to love between thine arms --Ah! Sire, our cow is full --Really Germaine --Your servant also, I believe._
CRONIAMANTAL
She who sings in order to lure me will be ignorant as I, and dancing with lassitudes.
THE VOICE
_The cow is full When autumn comes she'll calve Farewell my king Dondidondaine The cow is full And my heart empty without thee_
Croniamantal stands on the tip of his toes to see if he can perceive through the branches the so-beloved who comes.
THE VOICE
_Dondidondaine But when will come my Croquemitaine At the fountain it is very cold Dondidondaine After the winter I shall be less cold._
In the clearing there appeared a young girl, svelte and brunette. Her countenance was sombre and starred with roving eyes like birds of bright plumage. Her sparse but short hair left her neck bare; her hair was tousled and dark, and by the skipping rope which she carried, Croniamantal recognized her to be Tristouse Ballerinette.
CRONIAMANTAL
No further, child with bare arms! I shall come to you myself. Someone has just hushed under the pines and will be able to overhear us.
TRISTOUSE
This one is surely the issue of an egg, like Castor and Pollax. I recall how my mother, who was very foolish, used to talk to me about them of long evenings. The hunter of serpent's eggs, son of the serpent himself,--I am afraid of those old memories.
CRONIAMANTAL
Have no fear, woman of the naked arms. Stay with me. My lips are filled with kisses. Here, here. I lay them on thy brow, on thy hair. I caress thy hair with its ancient perfume. I caress thy hairs which intertwine like the worms on the bodies of the dead. O death, o death, hairy with worms. I have kisses on my lips. Here, here they are, on thy hands, on thy neck, on thine eyes, thine eyes. I have lips full of kisses, here, here, burning like a fever, sustained to enchant thee, kisses, mad kisses, on the ear, the temple, the cheek. Feel my embraces, bend under the effort of my arm, be languid, be languid. I have kisses upon my lips, here, here, mad ones, upon thine eyes, upon thy neck, upon thy brow, upon thy youth, I longed so to love thee, this spring day when there are no more blossoms on the branches which prepare themselves to bear fruit.
TRISTOUSE
Leave me, go away. Those who move each other are happy, but I do not love you. You frighten me. However, do not despair, o poet. Listen, this is my best advice: Go away!
CRONIAMANTAL
Alas! Alas! To leave again, to wander unto the oceanic limits, through the brush, the evergreen, in the scum, in the mud, the dust, across the forests, the prairies, the plantations, and the very happy gardens.
TRISTOUSE
Go away. Go away, far from the antique perfume of my hair, o thou who belongest to me.
And Croniamantal went off without turning his head once; he could be seen for a long time through the branches, and then his voice could be heard growing fainter and fainter as he disappeared from view.
CRONIAMANTAL
Traveller without a stick, pilgrim without staff and poet without a writing pad, I am more powerless than all other men, I own nothing more and I know nothing...
And his voice no longer reached Tristouse Ballerinette who was admiring her image in the pool.
In another age monks cultivated the forest of Malverne.
MONKS
The sun declines slowly, and blessing thee, O Lord; we are going to sleep in the monastery so that the dawn may find us in the forest.
THE FOREST OF MALVERNE
Every day, every day, flights of anguished birds see their nests crushed and their eggs broken when the trees sway with shaking branches.
THE BIRDS
It is the happy hour of twilight when the girls and boys come to roll on the grass. And all of them have kisses that want to fall like over-ripe fruit or like the egg when it is about to be laid. Do you see them there, do you see them dance, muse, haunt, chant from dusk to the dawn, his pale sister?
A RED-HAIRED MONK
(_In the middle of the Cortège_)
I am afraid to live and I should like to die. Convulsions of earth. Labor! O lost time...
THE BIRDS
_Gay! Gay! the broken eggs The ready-made omelette cooked on a downy fire Here! Here! Take to the right_
_Turn to the left Straight ahead Behind the fallen oak There and everywhere._
CRONIAMANTAL
(_In another age, near the Forest of Malverne and a little before the passage of the monks._)
The winds disperse before me, the forests fall away and become a wide track with corpses here and there. The travellers meet with too many corpses for some time, with garrulous corpses.
THE RED-HAIRED MONK
I don't want to work any more, I want to dream and pray.
He sleeps, his face turned to the sky, on the road bordered with willows of the color of mist.
The night had come with the moonlight. Croniamantal saw the monks bent over the nonchalant bodies of their brothers. Then he heard a little plaint, a feeble cry that died in a last sigh. And slowly they passed in Indian file before Croniamantal, who was hidden behind a clump of willows.
THE GLORIDE FOREST
I should love to send this man astray amid the spectres that float among the bubbles. But he flees toward the times that come, and whither he is already arrived.
The banging of distant doors changes into the sound of trains in motion. A large, grassy track, barred by trunks and fenced with enormous joined stones. Life commits suicide. A path that people follow. They never tire. Subways where the air is poisoned. Corpses. Voices call Croniamantal. He runs, he runs, he descends.
* * *
In the lovely woods, Tristouse promenaded meditating.
TRISTOUSE
My heart is sad without thee, Croniamantal. I loved thee without knowing it. All is green. All is green above my head and beneath my feet. I have lost him whom I loved. I must search this way and that way, here and yonder. And among them all I shall surely find someone who will please me.
Returned from other times, Croniamantal cried out at sight of Tristouse and the fountain again:
CRONIAMANTAL
Goddess! who art thou? Where is thine eternal form?
TRISTOUSE
Oh, there he is again, handsomer than ever... Listen, o poet. I belong to thee, henceforth.
Without looking at Tristouse, Croniamantal bent over the pool.
CRONIAMANTAL
I love fountains, they are beautiful symbols of immortality when they never run dry. This one has never run dry. And I seek a divinity, but I desire her to appear eternal to me. And my fountain has never run dry.
He knelt and prayed to the fountain, while Tristouse, all in tears, lamented.
O poet, adorest thou the fountain? O Lord, return my lover to me! Come to me! I know such lovely songs.
CRONIAMANTAL
The fountain hath its murmur.
TRISTOUSE
Very well, then! Sleep with thy cold lover, let her drown thee! But if thou livest, thou belongest to me and thou shalt obey me.
She was gone, and throughout the forest of twittering birds, the fountain flowed and murmured, while there arose the voice of Croniamantal who wept and whose tears mingled with the worshipped flood.
CRONIAMANTAL
O fountain! Thou who springest like a staunchless blood. Thou who art cold as marble, but living, transparent and fluid. Thou, ever renewed and ever the same. Thou who makest living thy verdant banks, I love thee. Thou art my unrivalled goddess. Thou quenchest my thirst. Thou purifiest me. Thou murmurest to me thine eternal song which rocks me to sleep in the evenings.
THE FOUNTAIN
At the bottom of my little bed full of an Orient of gems, I hear thee with contentment, o poet whom I have enchanted. I recall Avallon where we might have lived, thou as the King Fisher and I awaiting thee under the apple trees. O islands of apple trees. But I am happy in my precious little bed. These amethysts are sweet to my gaze. This lapis-lazuli is more blue than a fair sky. This malachite represents to me a prairie. Sardonyx, onyx, agate, rock-crystal, you shall scintillate tonight, for I will give a feast in honor of my lover. I shall come alone as befits a virgin. The power of my lover has already been manifested and his gifts are sweet to my soul. He has given me his eyes all in tears, two adorable fountains, sweet tributaries of my stream.
CRONIAMANTAL
O fecund fountain, thy waters resemble thy hair. Thy flowers are born about thee and we shall love each other always.
Nothing could be heard but the song of birds and the rustling of leaves, and at times the plashing of a bird playing in the water.
A dandy appeared in the little wood: It was Paponat the Algerian. He approached the fountain dancing.
CRONIAMANTAL
I know you. You are Paponat who studied in the Orient.
PAPONAT
Himself. O poet of the Occident, I come to visit you. I have learned of your enchantment, but I hear that it is not yet too late to converse with you. How humid it is here! It is not at all surprising that your voice is harsh, and you will certainly need a medicament to clear it. I approached you dancing. Is there no way of saving you from the situation in which you have placed yourself.
CRONIAMANTAL
Bah! But tell me who taught you to dance.
PAPONAT
The angels themselves were my dancing masters.
CRONIAMANTAL
The good or the bad angels? But no matter. I have had enough of all the dances, save one which the Greeks call _kordax._
PAPONAT
You are gay, Croniamantal, we shall be able to amuse ourselves. I am glad I came here. I love gaiety. I am happy!
And Paponat, his bright eyes profoundly whirling, rubbed his hands gleefully.
CRONIAMANTAL
You look like me!
PAPONAT
Not much. I am happy to live, while you die beside the fountain.
CRONIAMANTAL
But the happiness which you proclaim, do you not forget it? and forget mine? You resemble me! The happy man rubs his hands. Smell them. What do they smell like?
PAPONAT
The odour of death.
CRONIAMANTAL
Ha! ha! ha! The happy man has the same odour as death! Rub your hands. What difference between the happy man and the corpse! I am also happy, although I don't want to rub my hands. Be happy, rub your hands. Be happy! again! Now do you know it, the odour of happiness?
PAPONAT
Farewell. If you make no case for the living, there is no way of talking to you.
And as Paponat disappeared into the night where glittered the innumerable eyes of the celestial animals of impalpable flesh, Croniamantal rose suddenly thinking to himself: "Well--enough of the beauties of Nature and of the thoughts she evokes. I know enough about that for a long time; we had better return to Paris and try to find that exquisite little Tristouse who loves me madly."
XIII. MODES
Paponat who came back that night from the Meudon woods where he had gone in search of adventure arrived just in time to take the last boat. He had the good luck to run into Tristouse Ballerinette there.
"How are you, young lady?" he asked. "I just saw your lover, Croniamantal, in the woods. He is on the verge of going mad."
"My lover?" said Tristouse. "He is not my lover."
"He is said to be. At least they have been saying he is, in our literary and artistic circles, ever since yesterday."
"They can say whatever they want," said Tristouse firmly. "Anyway I shall have nothing to be ashamed about in such a lover. Is he not handsome and has he not a great talent?"
"You are right. But my, what a pretty hat you have, and what a pretty dress! I am very much interested in the fashions."
"You are always very elegant, Mr. Paponat. Give me the address of your tailor and I shall tell Croniamantal about it."
"Quite useless, he would not use it," said Paponat laughing. "But tell me now, what are the women wearing this year? I have just come from Italy and I am not in touch with things. Please tell me all about it."