CHAPTER II. THE COMIC MUSE
The company's entrance into the township of Guichen, if not exactlytriumphal, as Binet had expressed the desire that it should be, was atleast sufficiently startling and cacophonous to set the rustics gaping.To them these fantastic creatures appeared--as indeed they were--beingsfrom another world.
First went the great travelling chaise, creaking and groaning on itsway, drawn by two of the Flemish horses. It was Pantaloon who drove it,an obese and massive Pantaloon in a tight-fitting suit of scarlet undera long brown bed-gown, his countenance adorned by a colossal cardboardnose. Beside him on the box sat Pierrot in a white smock, with sleevesthat completely covered his hands, loose white trousers, and a blackskull-cap. He had whitened his face with flour, and he made hideousnoises with a trumpet.
On the roof of the coach were assembled Polichinelle, Scaramouche,Harlequin, and Pasquariel. Polichinelle in black and white, his doubletcut in the fashion of a century ago, with humps before and behind, awhite frill round his neck and a black mask upon the upper half of hisface, stood in the middle, his feet planted wide to steady him, solemnlyand viciously banging a big drum. The other three were seated each atone of the corners of the roof, their legs dangling over. Scaramouche,all in black in the Spanish fashion of the seventeenth century, hisface adorned with a pair of mostachios, jangled a guitar discordantly.Harlequin, ragged and patched in every colour of the rainbow, with hisleather girdle and sword of lath, the upper half of his face smearedin soot, clashed a pair of cymbals intermittently. Pasquariel, as anapothecary in skull-cap and white apron, excited the hilarity of theonlookers by his enormous tin clyster, which emitted when pumped adolorous squeak.
Within the chaise itself, but showing themselves freely at the windows,and exchanging quips with the townsfolk, sat the three ladies of thecompany. Climene, the amoureuse, beautifully gowned in flowered satin,her own clustering ringlets concealed under a pumpkin-shaped wig, lookedso much the lady of fashion that you might have wondered what she wasdoing in that fantastic rabble. Madame, as the mother, was also dressedwith splendour, but exaggerated to achieve the ridiculous. Her headdresswas a monstrous structure adorned with flowers, and superimposed bylittle ostrich plumes. Columbine sat facing them, her back to thehorses, falsely demure, in milkmaid bonnet of white muslin, and astriped gown of green and blue.
The marvel was that the old chaise, which in its halcyon days may haveserved to carry some dignitary of the Church, did not founder instead ofmerely groaning under that excessive and ribald load.
Next came the house on wheels, led by the long, lean Rhodomont, whohad daubed his face red, and increased the terror of it by a pair offormidable mostachios. He was in long thigh-boots and leather jerkin,trailing an enormous sword from a crimson baldrick. He wore a broadfelt hat with a draggled feather, and as he advanced he raised his greatvoice and roared out defiance, and threats of blood-curdling butcheryto be performed upon all and sundry. On the roof of this vehicle satLeandre alone. He was in blue satin, with ruffles, small sword,powdered hair, patches and spy-glass, and red-heeled shoes: thecomplete courtier, looking very handsome. The women of Guichen ogledhim coquettishly. He took the ogling as a proper tribute to his personalendowments, and returned it with interest. Like Climene, he looked outof place amid the bandits who composed the remainder of the company.
Bringing up the rear came Andre-Louis leading the two donkeys thatdragged the property-cart. He had insisted upon assuming a false nose,representing as for embellishment that which he intended for disguise.For the rest, he had retained his own garments. No one paidany attention to him as he trudged along beside his donkeys, aninsignificant rear guard, which he was well content to be.
They made the tour of the town, in which the activity was alreadyabove the normal in preparation for next week's fair. At intervalsthey halted, the cacophony would cease abruptly, and Polichinelle wouldannounce in a stentorian voice that at five o'clock that evening in theold market, M. Binet's famous company of improvisers would perform a newcomedy in four acts entitled, "The Heartless Father."
Thus at last they came to the old market, which was the groundfloor ofthe town hall, and open to the four winds by two archways on eachside of its length, and one archway on each side of its breadth. Thesearchways, with two exceptions, had been boarded up. Through thosetwo, which gave admission to what presently would be the theatre, theragamuffins of the town, and the niggards who were reluctant to spendthe necessary sous to obtain proper admission, might catch furtiveglimpses of the performance.
That afternoon was the most strenuous of Andre-Louis' life, unaccustomedas he was to any sort of manual labour. It was spent in erecting andpreparing the stage at one end of the market-hall; and he began torealize how hard-earned were to be his monthly fifteen livres. At firstthere were four of them to the task--or really three, for Pantaloon didno more than bawl directions. Stripped of their finery, Rhodomont andLeandre assisted Andre-Louis in that carpentering. Meanwhile the otherfour were at dinner with the ladies. When a half-hour or so later theycame to carry on the work, Andre-Louis and his companions went to dinein their turn, leaving Polichinelle to direct the operations as well asassist in them.
They crossed the square to the cheap little inn where they had taken uptheir quarters. In the narrow passage Andre-Louis came face to facewith Climene, her fine feathers cast, and restored by now to her normalappearance.
"And how do you like it?" she asked him, pertly.
He looked her in the eyes. "It has its compensations," quoth he, in thatcurious cold tone of his that left one wondering whether he meant or notwhat he seemed to mean.
She knit her brows. "You... you feel the need of compensations already?"
"Faith, I felt it from the beginning," said he. "It was the perceptionof them allured me."
They were quite alone, the others having gone on into the room set apartfor them, where food was spread. Andre-Louis, who was as unlearned inWoman as he was learned in Man, was not to know, upon feeling himselfsuddenly extraordinarily aware of her femininity, that it was she who insome subtle, imperceptible manner so rendered him.
"What," she asked him, with demurest innocence, "are thesecompensations?"
He caught himself upon the brink of the abyss.
"Fifteen livres a month," said he, abruptly.
A moment she stared at him bewildered. He was very disconcerting. Thenshe recovered.
"Oh, and bed and board," said she. "Don't be leaving that from thereckoning, as you seem to be doing; for your dinner will be going cold.Aren't you coming?"
"Haven't you dined?" he cried, and she wondered had she caught a note ofeagerness.
"No," she answered, over her shoulder. "I waited."
"What for?" quoth his innocence, hopefully.
"I had to change, of course, zany," she answered, rudely. Having draggedhim, as she imagined, to the chopping-block, she could not refrain fromchopping. But then he was of those who must be chopping back.
"And you left your manners upstairs with your grand-lady clothes,mademoiselle. I understand."
A scarlet flame suffused her face. "You are very insolent," she said,lamely.
"I've often been told so. But I don't believe it." He thrust open thedoor for her, and bowing with an air which imposed upon her, although itwas merely copied from Fleury of the Comedie Francaise, so often visitedin the Louis le Grand days, he waved her in. "After you, ma demoiselle."For greater emphasis he deliberately broke the word into its twocomponent parts.
"I thank you, monsieur," she answered, frostily, as near sneering as waspossible to so charming a person, and went in, nor addressed him againthroughout the meal. Instead, she devoted herself with an unusual anddevastating assiduity to the suspiring Leandre, that poor devil whocould not successfully play the lover with her on the stage because ofhis longing to play it in reality.
Andre-Louis ate his herrings and black bread with a good appetitenevertheless. It was poor fare, but then poor fare was the common lot ofpoor pe
ople in that winter of starvation, and since he had cast in hisfortunes with a company whose affairs were not flourishing, he mustaccept the evils of the situation philosophically.
"Have you a name?" Binet asked him once in the course of that repast andduring a pause in the conversation.
"It happens that I have," said he. "I think it is Parvissimus."
"Parvissimus?" quoth Binet. "Is that a family name?"
"In such a company, where only the leader enjoys the privilege of afamily name, the like would be unbecoming its least member. So I takethe name that best becomes in me. And I think it is Parvissimus--the veryleast."
Binet was amused. It was droll; it showed a ready fancy. Oh, to be sure,they must get to work together on those scenarios.
"I shall prefer it to carpentering," said Andre-Louis. Nevertheless hehad to go back to it that afternoon, and to labour strenuously untilfour o'clock, when at last the autocratic Binet announced himselfsatisfied with the preparations, and proceeded, again with the help ofAndre-Louis, to prepare the lights, which were supplied partly by tallowcandles and partly by lamps burning fish-oil.
At five o'clock that evening the three knocks were sounded, and thecurtain rose on "The Heartless Father."
Among the duties inherited by Andre-Louis from the departed Felicienwhom he replaced, was that of doorkeeper. This duty he dischargeddressed in a Polichinelle costume, and wearing a pasteboard nose. It wasan arrangement mutually agreeable to M. Binet and himself. M. Binet--whohad taken the further precaution of retaining Andre-Louis' owngarments--was thereby protected against the risk of his latest recruitabsconding with the takings. Andre-Louis, without illusions on the scoreof Pantaloon's real object, agreed to it willingly enough, since itprotected him from the chance of recognition by any acquaintance whomight possibly be in Guichen.
The performance was in every sense unexciting; the audience meagre andunenthusiastic. The benches provided in the front half of the marketcontained some twenty-seven persons: eleven at twenty sous a head andsixteen at twelve. Behind these stood a rabble of some thirty others atsix sous apiece. Thus the gross takings were two louis, ten livres, andtwo sous. By the time M. Binet had paid for the use of the market, hislights, and the expenses of his company at the inn over Sunday, therewas not likely to be very much left towards the wages of his players. Itis not surprising, therefore, that M. Binet's bonhomie should have beena trifle overcast that evening.
"And what do you think of it?" he asked Andre-Louis, as they werewalking back to the inn after the performance.
"Possibly it could have been worse; probably it could not," said he.
In sheer amazement M. Binet checked in his stride, and turned to look athis companion.
"Huh!" said he. "Dieu de Dien! But you are frank."
"An unpopular form of service among fools, I know."
"Well, I am not a fool," said Binet.
"That is why I am frank. I pay you the compliment of assumingintelligence in you, M. Binet."
"Oh, you do?" quoth M. Binet. "And who the devil are you to assumeanything? Your assumptions are presumptuous, sir." And with that helapsed into silence and the gloomy business of mentally casting up hisaccounts.
But at table over supper a half-hour later he revived the topic.
"Our latest recruit, this excellent M. Parvissimus," he announced, "hasthe impudence to tell me that possibly our comedy could have been worse,but that probably it could not." And he blew out his great round cheeksto invite a laugh at the expense of that foolish critic.
"That's bad," said the swarthy and sardonic Polichinelle. He wasgrave as Rhadamanthus pronouncing judgment. "That's bad. But what isinfinitely worse is that the audience had the impudence to be of thesame mind."
"An ignorant pack of clods," sneered Leandre, with a toss of hishandsome head.
"You are wrong," quoth Harlequin. "You were born for love, my dear, notcriticism."
Leandre--a dull dog, as you will have conceived--looked contemptuouslydown upon the little man. "And you, what were you born for?" hewondered.
"Nobody knows," was the candid admission. "Nor yet why. It is the caseof many of us, my dear, believe me."
"But why"--M. Binet took him up, and thus spoilt the beginnings of a verypretty quarrel--"why do you say that Leandre is wrong?"
"To be general, because he is always wrong. To be particular, because Ijudge the audience of Guichen to be too sophisticated for 'The HeartlessFather.'"
"You would put it more happily," interposed Andre-Louis--who was thecause of this discussion--"if you said that 'The Heartless Father' is toounsophisticated for the audience of Guichen."
"Why, what's the difference?" asked Leandre.
"I didn't imply a difference. I merely suggested that it is a happierway to express the fact."
"The gentleman is being subtle," sneered Binet.
"Why happier?" Harlequin demanded.
"Because it is easier to bring 'The Heartless Father' to thesophistication of the Guichen audience, than the Guichen audience to theunsophistication of 'The Heartless Father.'"
"Let me think it out," groaned Polichinelle, and he took his head in hishands.
But from the tail of the table Andre-Louis was challenged by Climene whosat there between Columbine and Madame.
"You would alter the comedy, would you, M. Parvissimus?" she cried.
He turned to parry her malice.
"I would suggest that it be altered," he corrected, inclining his head.
"And how would you alter it, monsieur?"
"I? Oh, for the better."
"But of course!" She was sleekest sarcasm. "And how would you do it?"
"Aye, tell us that," roared M. Binet, and added: "Silence, I pray you,gentlemen and ladies. Silence for M. Parvissimus."
Andre-Louis looked from father to daughter, and smiled. "Pardi!" saidhe. "I am between bludgeon and dagger. If I escape with my life, I shallbe fortunate. Why, then, since you pin me to the very wall, I'll tellyou what I should do. I should go back to the original and help myselfmore freely from it."
"The original?" questioned M. Binet--the author.
"It is called, I believe, 'Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,' and was written byMoliere."
Somebody tittered, but that somebody was not M. Binet. He had beentouched on the raw, and the look in his little eyes betrayed the factthat his bonhomme exterior covered anything but a bonhomme.
"You charge me with plagiarism," he said at last; "with filching theideas of Moliere."
"There is always, of course," said Andre-Louis, unruffled, "thealternative possibility of two great minds working upon parallel lines."
M. Binet studied the young man attentively a moment. He found him blandand inscrutable, and decided to pin him down.
"Then you do not imply that I have been stealing from Moliere?"
"I advise you to do so, monsieur," was the disconcerting reply.
M. Binet was shocked.
"You advise me to do so! You advise me, me, Antoine Binet, to turn thiefat my age!"
"He is outrageous," said mademoiselle, indignantly.
"Outrageous is the word. I thank you for it, my dear. I take you ontrust, sir. You sit at my table, you have the honour to be included inmy company, and to my face you have the audacity to advise me tobecome a thief--the worst kind of thief that is conceivable, a thief ofspiritual things, a thief of ideas! It is insufferable, intolerable! Ihave been, I fear, deeply mistaken in you, monsieur; just as you appearto have been mistaken in me. I am not the scoundrel you suppose me, sir,and I will not number in my company a man who dares to suggest that Ishould become one. Outrageous!"
He was very angry. His voice boomed through the little room, and thecompany sat hushed and something scared, their eyes upon Andre-Louis,who was the only one entirely unmoved by this outburst of virtuousindignation.
"You realize, monsieur," he said, very quietly, "that you are insultingthe memory of the illustrious dead?"
"Eh?" said Binet.
An
dre-Louis developed his sophistries.
"You insult the memory of Moliere, the greatest ornament of our stage,one of the greatest ornaments of our nation, when you suggest that thereis vileness in doing that which he never hesitated to do, which no greatauthor yet has hesitated to do. You cannot suppose that Moliere evertroubled himself to be original in the matter of ideas. You cannotsuppose that the stories he tells in his plays have never been toldbefore. They were culled, as you very well know--though you seemmomentarily to have forgotten it, and it is therefore necessary thatI should remind you--they were culled, many of them, from the Italianauthors, who themselves had culled them Heaven alone knows where.Moliere took those old stories and retold them in his own language. Thatis precisely what I am suggesting that you should do. Your company is acompany of improvisers. You supply the dialogue as you proceed, whichis rather more than Moliere ever attempted. You may, if you preferit--though it would seem to me to be yielding to an excess of scruple--gostraight to Boccaccio or Sacchetti. But even then you cannot be surethat you have reached the sources."
Andre-Louis came off with flying colours after that. You see what adebater was lost in him; how nimble he was in the art of making whitelook black. The company was impressed, and no one more that M. Binet,who found himself supplied with a crushing argument against those who infuture might tax him with the impudent plagiarisms which he undoubtedlyperpetrated. He retired in the best order he could from the position hehad taken up at the outset.
"So that you think," he said, at the end of a long outburst ofagreement, "you think that our story of 'The Heartless Father' could beenriched by dipping into 'Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,' to which I confessupon reflection that it may present certain superficial resemblances?"
"I do; most certainly I do--always provided that you do so judiciously.Times have changed since Moliere." It was as a consequence of this thatBinet retired soon after, taking Andre-Louis with him. The pair sattogether late that night, and were again in close communion throughoutthe whole of Sunday morning.
After dinner M. Binet read to the assembled company the amended andamplified canevas of "The Heartless Father," which, acting upon theadvice of M. Parvissimus, he had been at great pains to prepare. Thecompany had few doubts as to the real authorship before he began toread; none at all when he had read. There was a verve, a grip about thisstory; and, what was more, those of them who knew their Moliere realizedthat far from approaching the original more closely, this canevas haddrawn farther away from it. Moliere's original part--the title role--haddwindled into insignificance, to the great disgust of Polichinelle, towhom it fell. But the other parts had all been built up into importance,with the exception of Leandre, who remained as before. The twogreat roles were now Scaramouche, in the character of the intriguingSbrigandini, and Pantaloon the father. There was, too, a comical partfor Rhodomont, as the roaring bully hired by Polichinelle to cut Leandreinto ribbons. And in view of the importance now of Scaramouche, the playhad been rechristened "Figaro-Scaramouche."
This last had not been without a deal of opposition from M. Binet. Buthis relentless collaborator, who was in reality the real author--drawingshamelessly, but practically at last upon his great store of reading--hadoverborne him.
"You must move with the times, monsieur. In Paris Beaumarchais is therage. 'Figaro' is known to-day throughout the world. Let us borrow alittle of his glory. It will draw the people in. They will come tosee half a 'Figaro' when they will not come to see a dozen 'HeartlessFathers.' Therefore let us cast the mantle of Figaro upon some one, andproclaim it in our title."
"But as I am the head of the company..." began M. Binet, weakly.
"If you will be blind to your interests, you will presently be a headwithout a body. And what use is that? Can the shoulders of Pantalooncarry the mantle of Figaro? You laugh. Of course you laugh. The notionis absurd. The proper person for the mantle of Figaro is Scaramouche,who is naturally Figaro's twin-brother."
Thus tyrannized, the tyrant Binet gave way, comforted by the reflectionthat if he understood anything at all about the theatre, he had forfifteen livres a month acquired something that would presently beearning him as many louis.
The company's reception of the canevas now confirmed him, if weexcept Polichinelle, who, annoyed at having lost half his part in thealterations, declared the new scenario fatuous.
"Ah! You call my work fatuous, do you?" M. Binet hectored him.
"Your work?" said Polichinelle, to add with his tongue in his cheek:"Ah, pardon. I had not realized that you were the author."
"Then realize it now."
"You were very close with M. Parvissimus over this authorship," saidPolichinelle, with impudent suggestiveness.
"And what if I was? What do you imply?"
"That you took him to cut quills for you, of course."
"I'll cut your ears for you if you're not civil," stormed the infuriatedBinet.
Polichinelle got up slowly, and stretched himself.
"Dieu de Dieu!" said he. "If Pantaloon is to play Rhodomont, I thinkI'll leave you. He is not amusing in the part." And he swaggered outbefore M. Binet had recovered from his speechlessness.
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