grazing!"
"They eat so little," Andre-Louis apologized, and again essayed his
ingratiating smile.
The sergeant grew more terrible than ever. "That is not the point. The
point is that you are committing what amounts to a theft, and there's the
gaol for thieves."
"Technically, I suppose you are right," sighed Andre-Louis, and fell to
combing his hair again, still looking up into the sergeant's face. "But we
have sinned in ignorance. We are grateful to you for the warning." He passed
the comb into his left hand, and with his right fumbled in his breeches'
pocket, whence there came a faint jingle of coins. "We are desolated to have
brought you out of your way. Perhaps for their trouble your men would honour
us by stopping at the next inn to drink the health of... of this M. de La
Tour d' Azyr, or any other health that they think proper.
Some of the clouds lifted from the sergeant's brow. But not yet all.
"Well, well," said he, gruffly. "But you must decamp, you understand."
He leaned from the saddle to bring his recipient hand to a convenient
distance. Andre-Louis placed in it a three-livre piece.
"In half an hour," said Andre-Louis.
"Why in half an hour? Why not at once?"
"Oh, but time to break our fast."
They looked at each other. The sergeant next considered the broad piece
of silver in his palm. Then at last his features relaxed from their
sternness.
"After all," said he, "it is none of our business to play the tipstaves
for M. de La Tour d'Azyr. We are of the marechaussee from Rennes."
Andre-Louis' eyelids played him false by flickering. "But if you linger,
look out for the gardes-champetres of the Marquis. You'll find them not at
all accommodating. Well, well
- a good appetite to you, monsieur," said he, in valediction.
"A pleasant ride, my captain," answered Andre-Louis.
The sergeant wheeled his horse about, his troop wheeled with him. They
were starting off, when he reined up again.
"You, monsieur!" he called over his shoulder. In a bound Andre-Louis
was beside his stirrup. "We are in quest of a scoundrel named Andre-Louis
Moreau, from Gavrillac, a fugitive from justice wanted for the gallows on a
matter of sedition. You've seen nothing, I suppose, of a man whose movements
seemed to you suspicious?"
"Indeed, we have," said Andre-Louis, very boldly, his face eager with
consciousness of the ability to oblige.
"You have?" cried the sergeant, in a ringing voice. "Where? When?"
"Yesterday evening in the neighbourhood of Guignen... "
"Yes, yes," the sergeant felt himself hot upon the trail.
"There was a fellow who seemed very fearful of being recognized ... a
man of fifty or thereabouts... "
"Fifty!" cried the sergeant, and his face fell. "Bah! This man of ours
is no older than yourself, a thin wisp of a fellow of about your own height
and of black hair, just like your own, by the description. Keep a lookout on
your travels, master player. The King's Lieutenant in Rennes has sent us
word this morning that he will pay ten louis to any one giving information
that will lead to this scoundrel's arrest. So there 's ten louis to be
earned by keeping your eyes open, and sending word to the nearest justices.
It would be a fine windfall for you, that."
"A fine windfall, indeed, captain," answered Andre-Louis, laughing.
But the sergeant had touched his horse with the spur, and was already
trotting off in the wake of his men. Andre-Louis continued to laugh, quite
silently, as he sometimes did when the humour of a jest was peculiarly keen.
Then he turned slowly about, and came back towards Pantaloon and the
rest of the company, who were now all grouped together, at gaze.
Pantaloon advanced to meet him with both hands out-held. For a moment
Andre-Louis thought he was about to be embraced.
"We hail you our saviour!" the big man declaimed. "Already the shadow
of the gaol was creeping over us, chilling us to the very marrow. For though
we be poor, yet are we all honest folk and not one of us has ever suffered
the indignity of prison. Nor is there one of us would survive it. But for
you, my friend, it might have happened. What magic did you work?"
"The magic that is to be worked in France with a King's portrait. The
French are a very loyal nation, as you will have observed. They love their
King - and his portrait even better than himself, especially when it is
wrought in gold. But even in silver it is respected. The sergeant was so
overcome by the sight of that noble visage - on a three-livre piece - that
his anger vanished, and he has gone his ways leaving us to depart in peace."
"Ah, true! He said we must decamp. About it, my lads! Come, come... "
"But not until after breakfast," said Andre-Louis. "A half-hour for
breakfast was conceded us by that loyal fellow, so deeply was he touched.
True, he spoke of possible gardes-champetres. But he knows as well as I do
that they are not seriously to be feared, and that if they came, again the
King's portrait - wrought in copper this time - would produce the same
melting effect upon them. So, my dear M. Pantaloon, break your fast at your
ease. I can smell your cooking from here, and from the smell I argue that
there is no need to wish you a good appetite."
"My friend, my saviour!" Pantaloon flung a great arm about the young
man's shoulders. "You shall stay to breakfast with us."
"I confess to a hope that you would ask me," said Andre-Louis.
They were, thought Andre-Louis, as he sat down to breakfast with them
behind the itinerant house, in the bright sunshine that tempered the cold
breath of that November morning, an odd and yet an attractive crew. An air
of gaiety pervaded them. They affected to have no cares, and made merry over
the trials and tribulations of their nomadic life. They were curiously, yet
amiably, artificial; histrionic in their manner of discharging the most
commonplace of functions; exaggerated in their gestures; stilted and
affected in their speech. They seemed, indeed, to belong to a world apart, a
world of unreality which became real only on the planks of their stage, in
the glare of their footlights. Good-fellowship bound them one to another;
and Andre-Louis reflected cynically that this harmony amongst them might be
the cause of their apparent unreality. In the real world, greedy striving
and the emulation of acquisitiveness preclude such amity as was present
here.
They numbered exactly eleven, three women and eight men; and they
addressed each other by their stage names: names which denoted their several
types, and never - or only very slightly - varied, no matter what might be
the play that they performed.
"We are," Pantaloon informed him, "one of those few remaining staunch
bands of real players, who uphold the traditions of the old Italian Commedia
dell' Arte. Not for us to vex our memories and stultify our wit with the
stilted phrases that are the fruit of a wretched author's lucubrations. Each
of us is in detail his own author in a measure as he develops the part
assigned to him. We are improvisers - improvisers of the old and noble
Italian school."
"I had guessed as much," said Andre-Louis, "when I discovered you
rehearsing your improvisations."
Pantaloon frowned.
"I have observed, young sir, that your humour inclines to the pungent,
not to say the acrid. It is very well. It is I suppose, the humour that
should go with such a countenance. But it may lead you astray, as in this
instance. That rehearsal - a most unusual thing with us - was necessitated
by the histrionic rawness of our Leandre. We are seeking to inculcate into
him by training an art with which Nature neglected to endow him against his
present needs. Should he continue to fail in doing justice to our
schooling... But we will not disturb our present harmony with the unpleasant
anticipation of misfortunes which we still hope to avert. We love our
Leandre, for all his faults. Let me make you acquainted with our company.
And he proceeded to introduction in detail. He pointed out the long and
amiable Rhodomont, whom Andre-Louis already knew.
"His length of limb and hooked nose were his superficial qualifications
to play roaring captains," Pantaloon explained. "His lungs have justified
our choice. You should hear him roar. At first we called him Spavento or
Epouvapte. But that was unworthy of so great an artist. Not since the superb
Mondor amazed the world has so thrasonical a bully been seen upon the stage.
So we conferred upon him the name of Rhodomont that Mondor made famous; and
I give you my word, as an actor and a gentleman - for I am a gentleman,
monsieur, or was - that he has justified us."
His little eyes beamed in his great swollen face as he turned their
gaze upon the object of his encomium. The terrible Rhodomont, confused by so
much praise, blushed like a schoolgirl as he met the solemn scrutiny of
Andre-Louis.
"Then here we have Scaramouche, whom also you already know. Sometimes
he is Scapin and sometimes Coviello, but in the main Scaramouche, to which
let me tell you he is best suited - sometimes too well suited, I think. For
he is Scaramouche not only on the stage, but also in the world. He has a
gift of sly intrigue, an art of setting folk by the ears, combined with an
impudent aggressiveness upon occasion when he considers himself safe from
reprisals. He is Scaramouche, the little skirmisher, to the very life. I
could say more. But I am by disposition charitable and loving to all
mankind."
"As the priest said when he kissed the serving-wench," snarled
Scaramouche, and went on eating.
"His humour, like your own, you will observe, is acrid," said
Pantaloon. He passed on. "Then that rascal with the lumpy nose and the
grinning bucolic countenance is, of course, Pierrot. Could he be aught
else?"
"I could play lovers a deal better," said the rustic cherub.
"That is the delusion proper to Pierrot," said Pantaloon,
contemptuously. "This heavy, beetle-browed ruffian, who has grown old in
sin, and whose appetite increases with his years, is Polichinelle. Each one,
as you perceive, is designed by Nature for the part he plays. This nimble,
freckled jackanapes is Harlequin; not your spangled Harlequin into which
modern degeneracy has debased that first-born of Momus, but the genuine
original zany of the Commedia, ragged and patched, an impudent, cowardly,
blackguardly clown."
"Each one of us, as you perceive," said Harlequin, mimicking the leader
of the troupe, "is designed by Nature for the part he plays."
"Physically, my friend, physically only, else we should not have so
much trouble in teaching this beautiful Leandre to become a lover. Then we
have Pasquariel here, who is sometimes an apothecary, sometimes a notary,
sometimes a lackey - an amiable, accommodating fellow. He is also an
excellent cook, being a child of Italy, that land of gluttons. And finally,
you have myself, who as the father of the company very properly play as
Pantaloon the roles of father. Sometimes, it is true, I am a deluded
husband, and sometimes an ignorant, self-sufficient doctor. But it is rarely
that I find it necessary to call myself other than Pantaloon. For the rest,
I am the only one who has a name - a real name. It is Binet, monsieur.
"And now for the ladies... First in order of seniority we have Madame
there." He waved one of his great hands towards a buxom, smiling blonde of
five-and-forty, who was seated on the lowest of the steps of the travelling
house. "She is our Duegne, or Mother, or Nurse, as the case requires. She is
known quite simply and royally as Madame. If she ever had a name in the
world, she has long since forgotten it, which is perhaps as well. Then we
have this pert jade with the tip-tilted nose and the wide mouth, who is of
course our soubrette Columbine, and lastly, my daughter Climene, an
amoureuse of talents not to be matched outside the Comedie Francaise, of
which she has the bad taste to aspire to become a member."
The lovely Climene - and lovely indeed she was - tossed her nut-brown
curls and laughed as she looked across at Andre-Louis. Her eyes, he had
perceived by now, were not blue, but hazel.
"Do not believe him, monsieur. Here I am queen, and I prefer to be
queen here rather than a slave in Paris."
"Mademoiselle," said Andre-Louis, quite solemnly, "will be queen
wherever she condescends to reign."
Her only answer was a timid - timid and yet alluring - glance from
under fluttering lids. Meanwhile her father was bawling at the comely young
man who played lovers - "You hear, Leandre! That is the sort of speech you
should practise."
Leandre raised languid eyebrows. "That?" quoth he, and shrugged. "The
merest commonplace."
Andre-Louis laughed approval. "M. Leandre is of a readier wit than you
concede. There is subtlety in pronouncing it a commonplace to call Mlle.
Climene a queen.
Some laughed, M. Binet amongst them, with good-humoured mockery.
"You think he has the wit to mean it thus? Bah! His subtleties are all
unconscious."
The conversation becoming general, Andre-Louis soon learnt what yet
there was to learn of this strolling band. They were on their way to
Guichen, where they hoped to prosper at the fair that was to open on Monday
next. They would make their triumphal entry into the town at noon, and
setting up their stage in the old market, they would give their first
performance that same Saturday night, in a new canevas - or scenario - of M.
Binet's own, which should set the rustics gaping. And then M. Binet fetched
a sigh, and addressed himself to the elderly, swarthy, beetle-browed
Polichinelle, who sat on his left.
"But we shall miss Felicien," said he. "Indeed, I do not know what we
shall do without him."
"Oh, we shall contrive," said Polichinelle, with his mouth full.
"So you always say, whatever happens, knowing that in any case the
contriving will not fall upon yourself."
"He should not be difficult to replace," said Harlequin.
"True, if we were in a civilized land. But where among the rustics of
Brittany are we to find a fellow of even his poor parts?" M. Binet turned to
Andre-Louis. "He was our property-man, our machinist, our stage-carpenter,
our man of affairs, and occasionally he acted."
"The part of Figaro, I presume," said Andre-Louis, which elicited a
laugh.
"So you are acquainted with Beaumarchais!" Binet eyed the young man
with fresh interest.
"He is tolerably well known, I think."
"In Paris, to be sure. But I had not dreamt his fame had reached the
wilds of Brittany."
"But then I was some years in Paris - at the Lycee of Louis le Grand.
It was there I made acquaintance with his work."
"A dangerous man," said Polichinelle, sententiously.
"Indeed, and you are right," Pantaloon agreed. "Clever - I do not deny
him that, although myself I find little use for authors. But of a sinister
cleverness responsible for the dissemination of many of these subversive new
ideas. I think such writers should be suppressed."
"M. de La Tour d'Azyr would probably agree with you - the gentleman who
by the simple exertion of his will turns this communal land into his own
property." And Andre-Louis drained his cup, which had been filled with the
poor vin gris that was the players' drink.
It was a remark that might have precipitated an argument had it not
also reminded M. Binet of the terms on which they were encamped there, and
of the fact that the half-hour was more than past. In a moment he was on his
feet, leaping up with an agility surprising in so corpulent a man, issuing
his commands like a marshal on a field of battle.
"Come, come, my lads! Are we to sit guzzling here all day? Time flees,
and there's a deal to be done if we are to make our entry into Guichen at
noon. Go, get you dressed. We strike camp in twenty minutes. Bestir, ladies!
To your chaise, and see that you contrive to look your best. Soon the eyes
of Guichen will be upon you, and the condition of your interior to-morrow
will depend upon the impression made by your exterior to-day. Away! Away!"
The implicit obedience this autocrat commanded set them in a whirl.
Baskets and boxes were dragged forth to receive the platters and remains of
their meagre feast. In an instant the ground was cleared, and the three
ladies had taken their departure to the chaise, which was set apart for
their use. The men were already climbing into the house on wheels, when
Binet turned to Andre-Louis.
"We part here, sir," said he, dramatically, "the richer by your
acquaintance; your debtors and your friends." He put forth his podgy hand.
Slowly Andre-Louis took it in his own. He had been thinking swiftly in
the last few moments. And remembering the safety he had found from his
pursuers in the bosom of this company, it occurred to him hat nowhere could
he be better hidden for the present, until the quest for him should have
died down.
"Sir," he said, "the indebtedness is on my side. It is not every day
one has the felicity to sit down with so illustrious and engaging a
company."
Binet's little eyes peered suspiciously at the young man, in quest of
irony. He found nothing but candour and simple good faith.
"I part from you reluctantly," Andre-Louis continued. "The more
reluctantly since I do not perceive the absolute necessity for parting."
"How?" quoth Binet, frowning, and slowly withdrawing the hand which the
other had already retained rather longer than was necessary.
"Thus," Andre-Louis explained himself. "You may set me down as a sort
of knight of rueful countenance in quest of adventure, with no fixed purpose
in life at present. You will not marvel that what I have seen of yourself
and your distinguished troupe should inspire me to desire your better
acquaintance. On your side you tell me that you are in need of some one to
replace your Figaro - your Felicien, I think you called him. Whilst it may
be presumptuous of me to hope that I could discharge an office so varied and
so onerous... "
"You are indulging that acrid humour of yours again, my friend," Binet
interrupted him. "Excepting for that," he added, slowly, meditatively, his
little eyes screwed up, "we might discuss this proposal that you seem to be
making."
"Alas! we can except nothing. If you take me, you take me as I am. What
else is possible? As for this humour - such as it is - which you decry, you
might turn it to profitable account."
"How so?"
"In several ways. I might, for instance, teach Leandre to make love."
Pantaloon burst into laughter. "You do not lack confidence in your
powers. Modesty does not afflict you."
"Therefore I evince the first quality necessary in an actor."
"Can you act?"
"Upon occasion, I think," said Andre-Louis, his thoughts upon his
performance at Rennes and Nantes, and wondering when in all his histrionic
career Pantaloon's improvisations had so rent the heart of mobs.
M. Binet was musing. "Do you know much of the theatre?" quoth he.
"Everything," said Andre-Louis.
"I said that modesty will prove no obstacle in your career."
"But consider. I know the work of Beaumarchais, Eglantine, Mercier,
Chenier, and many others of our contemporaries. Then I have read, of course,
Moliere, Racine, Corneille, besides many other lesser French
writers. Of foreign authors, I am intimate with the works of Gozzi,
Goldoni, Guarini, Bibbiena, Machiavelli, Secchi, Tasso, Ariosto, and Fedini.
Whilst of those of antiquity I know most of the work of Euripides,
Aristophanes, Terence, Plautus... "
"Enough!" roared Pantaloon.
"I am not nearly through with my list," said Andre-Louis.
"You may keep the rest for another day. In Heaven's name, what can have
induced you to read so many dramatic authors?"
"In my humble way I am a student of man, and some years ago I made the
discovery that he is most intimately to be studied in the reflections of him
provided for the theatre."
"That is a very original and profound discovery," said Pantaloon, quite
seriously. "It had never occurred to me. Yet is it true. Sir, it is a truth
that dignifies our art. You are a man of parts, that is clear to me. It has
been clear since first I met you. I can read a man. I knew you from the
moment that you said 'good-morning.' Tell me, now: Do you think you could
assist me upon occasion in the preparation of a scenario? My mind, fully
engaged as it is with a thousand details of organization, is not always as
clear as I would have it for such work. Could you assist me there, do you
think?"
"I am quite sure I could."
"Hum, yes. I was sure you would be. The other duties that were
Felicien's you would soon learn. Well, well, if you are willing, you may
come along with us. You'd want some salary, I suppose?"
"If it is usual," said Andre-Louis.
"What should you say to ten livres a month?"
"I should say that it isn't exactly the riches of Peru."
"I might go as far as fifteen," said Binet, reluctantly. "But times are
bad."
"I'll make them better for you."
"I've no doubt you believe it. Then we understand each other?"
"Perfectly," said Andre-Louis, dryly, and was thus committed to the
service of Thespis.
The company's entrance into the township of Guichen, if not exactly
triumphal, as Binet had expressed the desire that it should be, was at least
sufficiently startling and cacophonous to set the rustics gaping. To them
these fantastic creatures appeared - as indeed they were - beings from
another world.
First went the great travelling chaise, creaking and groaning on its
way, 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 under a long
brown bed-gown, his countenance adorned by a colossal cardboard nose. Beside
him on the box sat Pierrot in a white smock, with sleeves that completely
covered his hands, loose white trousers, and a black skull-cap. He had
whitened his face with flour, and he made hideous noises with a trumpet.
On the roof of the coach were assembled Polichinelle, Scaramouche,
Harlequin, and Pasquariel. Polichinelle in black and white, his doublet cut
in the fashion of a century ago, with humps before and behind, a white frill
round his neck and a black mask upon the upper half of his face, stood in
the middle, his feet planted wide to steady him, solemnly and viciously
banging a big drum. The other three were seated each at one of the corners
of the roof, their legs dangling over. Scaramouche, all in black in the
Spanish fashion of the seventeenth century, his face adorned with a pair of
mostachios, jangled a guitar discordantly. Harlequin, ragged and patched in
every colour of the rainbow, with his leather girdle and sword of lath, the
upper half of his face smeared in soot, clashed a pair of cymbals
intermittently. Pasquariel, as an apothecary in skull-cap and white apron,
excited the hilarity of the onlookers by his enormous tin clyster, which
emitted when pumped a dolorous squeak.
Within the chaise itself, but showing themselves freely at the windows,
and exchanging quips with the townsfolk, sat the three ladies of the
company. Climene, the amoureuse, beautifully gowned in flowered satin, her
own clustering ringlets concealed under a pumpkin-shaped wig, looked so much
the lady of fashion that you might have wondered what she was dong in that
fantastic rabble. Madame, as the mother, was also dressed with splendour,
but exaggerated to achieve the ridiculous. Her headdress was a monstrous
structure adorned with flowers, and superimposed by little ostrich plumes.
Columbine sat facing them, her back to the horses, falsely demure, in
milkmaid bonnet of white muslin, and a striped gown of green and blue.
The marvel was that the old chaise, which in its halcyon days may have
served to carry some dignitary of the Church, did not founder instead of
merely groaning under that excessive and ribald load.
Next came the house on wheels, led by the long, lean Rhodomont, who had
daubed his face red, and increased the terror of it by a pair of formidable
mostachios. He was in long thigh-boots and leather jerkin, trailing an
enormous sword from a crimson baldrick. He wore a broad felt hat with a
draggled feather, and as he advanced he raised his great voice and roared
out defiance, and threats of blood-curdling butchery to be performed upon
all and sundry. On the roof of this vehicle sat Leandre alone. He was in
blue satin, with ruffles, small sword, powdered hair, patches and spy-glass,
and red-heeled shoes: the complete courtier, looking very handsome. The
women of Guichen ogled him coquettishly. He took the ogling as a proper
tribute to his personal endowments, and returned it with interest. Like
Climene, he looked out of place amid the bandits who composed the remainder
of the company.
Bringing up the rear came Andre-Louis leading the two donkeys that
dragged 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 paid any attention to him
as he trudged along beside his donkeys, an insignificant rear guard, which
he was well content to be.
They made the tour of the town, in which the activity was already above
the normal in preparation for next week's fair. At intervals they halted,
the cacophony would cease abruptly, and Polichinelle would announce in a
stentorian voice that at five o'clock that evening in the old market, M.
Binet's famous company of improvisers would perform a new comedy in four
acts entitled, "The Heartless Father."
Thus at last they came to the old market, which was the groundfloor of
the town hall, and open to the four winds by two archways on each side of
its length, and one archway on each side of its breadth. These archways,
with two exceptions, had been boarded up. Through those two, which gave
admission to what presently would be the theatre, the ragamuffins of the
town, and the niggards who were reluctant to spend the necessary sous to
obtain proper admission, might catch furtive glimpses of the performance.
That afternoon was the most strenuous of Andre-Louis' life,
unaccustomed as he was to any sort of manual labour. It was spent in
erecting and preparing the stage at one end of the market-hall; and he began
to realize how hard-earned were to be his monthly fifteen livres. At first
there were four of them to the task - or really three, for Pantaloon did no
more than bawl directions. Stripped of their finery, Rhodomont and Leandre
assisted Andre-Louis in that carpentering. Meanwhile the other four were at
dinner with the ladies. When a half-hour or so later they came to carry on
the work, Andre-Louis and his companions went to dine in their turn, leaving
Polichinelle to direct the operations as well as assist in them.
They crossed the square to the cheap little inn where they had taken up
their quarters. In the narrow passage Andre-Louis came face to face with
Climene, her fine feathers cast, and restored by now to her normal
appearance
"And how do you like it?" she asked him, pertly.
He looked her in the eyes. "It has its compensations," quoth he, in
that curious cold tone of his that left one wondering whether he meant or
not what 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 perception
of them allured me."
They were quite alone, the others having gone on into the room set
apart for them, where food was spread. Andre-Louis, who was as unlearned in
Woman as he was learned in Man, was not to know, upon feeling himself
suddenly extraordinarily aware of her femininity, that it was she who in
some subtle, imperceptible manner so rendered him.
"What," she asked him, with demurest innocence, "are these
compensations?"
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. Then
she recovered.
"Oh, and bed and board," said she. "Don't be leaving that from the
reckoning, 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
of eagerness.
"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
dragged him, as she imagined, to the chopping-block, she could not refrain
from chopping. 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 the
door for her, and bowing with an air which imposed upon her, although it was
merely copied from Fleury of the Comedie Francaise, so often visited in the
Louis le Grand days, he waved her in. "After you, ma demoiselle." For
greater emphasis he deliberately broke the word into its two component
parts.
"I thank you, monsieur," she answered, frostily, as near sneering as
was possible to so charming a person, and went in, nor addressed him again
throughout the meal. Instead, she devoted herself with an unusual and
devastating assiduity to the suspiring Leandre, that poor devil who could
not successfully play the lover with her on the stage because of his longing
to play it in reality.
Andre-Louis ate his herrings and black bread with a good appetite
nevertheless. It was poor fare, but then poor fare was the common lot of
poor people in that winter of starvation, and since he had cast in his
fortunes with a company whose affairs were not flourishing, he must accept
the evils of the situation philosophically.
"Have you a name?" Binet asked him once in the course of that repast
and during 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 a
family name, the like would be unbecoming its least member. So I take the
name that best becomes in me. And I think it is Parvissimus
- the very least."
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 he
had to go back to it that afternoon, and to labour strenuously until four
o'clock, when at last the autocratic Binet announced himself satisfied with
the preparations, and proceeded, again with the help of Andre-Louis, to
prepare the lights, which were supplied partly by tallow candles and partly
by lamps burning fish-oil.
At five o'clock that evening the three knocks were sounded, and the
curtain rose on "The Heartless Father."
Among the duties inherited by Andre-Louis from the departed Felicien
whom he replaced, was that of doorkeeper. This duty he discharged dressed in
a Polichinelle costume, and wearing a pasteboard nose. It was an arrangement
mutually agreeable to M. Binet and himself. M. Binet - who had taken the
further precaution of retaining Andre-Louis' own garments - was thereby
protected against the risk of his latest recruit absconding with the
takings. Andre-Louis, without illusions on the score of Pantaloon's real
object, agreed to it willingly enough, since it protected him from the
chance of recognition by any acquaintance who might possibly be in Guichen.
The performance was in every sense unexciting; the audience meagre and
unenthusiastic. The benches provided in the front half of the market
contained some twenty-seven persons: eleven at twenty sous a head and
sixteen at twelve. Behind these stood a rabble of some thirty others at six
sous apiece. Thus the gross takings were two louis, ten livres, and two
sous. By the time M. Binet had paid for the use of the market, his lights,
and the expenses of his company at the inn over Sunday, there was not likely
to be very much left towards the wages of his players. It is not surprising,
therefore, that M. Binet's bonhomie should have been a trifle overcast that
evening.
"And what do you think of it?" he asked Andre-Louis, as they were
walking 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
at his 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 assuming
intelligence in you, M. Binet."
"Oh, you do?" quoth M. Binet. "And who the devil are you to assume
anything? Your assumptions are presumptuous, sir." And with that he lapsed
into silence and the gloomy business of mentally casting up his accounts.
But at table over supper a half-hour later he revived the topic.
"Our latest recruit, this excellent M. Parvissimus," he announced, "has
the 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 cheeks to
invite a laugh at the expense of that foolish critic.
"That's bad," said the swarthy and sardonic Polichinelle. He was grave
as Rhadamanthus pronouncing judgment. "That's bad. But what is infinitely
worse is that the audience had the impudence to be of the same mind."
"An ignorant pack of clods," sneered Leandre, with a toss of his
handsome head.
"You are wrong," quoth Harlequin. "You were born for love, my dear, not
criticism."
Leandre - a dull dog, as you will have conceived - looked
contemptuously down upon the little man. "And you, what were you born for?"
he wondered.
"Nobody knows," was the candid admission. "Nor yet why. It is the case
of many of us, my dear, believe me."
"But why" - M. Binet took him up, and thus spoilt the beginnings of a
very pretty quarrel - "why do you say that Leandre is wrong?"
"To be general, because he is always wrong. To be particular, because I
judge the audience of Guichen to be too sophisticated for 'The Heartless
Father.'"
"You would put it more happily," interposed Andre-Louis - who was the
cause of this discussion - "if you said that 'The Heartless Father' is too
unsophisticated 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 happier
way 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 the
sophistication of the Guichen audience, than the Guichen audience to the
unsophistication of 'The Heartless Father.'"
"Let me think it out," groaned Polichinelle, and he took his head in
his hands.
But from the tail of the table Andre-Louis was challenged by Climene
who sat 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!" said
he. "I am between bludgeon and dagger. If I escape with my life, I shall be
fortunate. Why, then, since you pin me to the very wall, I'll tell you what
I should do. I should go back to the original and help myself more freely
from it."
"The original?" questioned M. Binet - the author.
"It is called, I believe, 'Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,' and was written
by Moliere."
Somebody tittered, but that somebody was not M. Binet. He had been
touched on the raw, and the look in his little eyes betrayed the fact that
his bonhomme exterior covered anything but a bonhomme.
"You charge me with plagiarism," he said at last; "with filching the
ideas of Moliere."
"There is always, of course," said Andre-Louis, unruffled, "the
alternative possibility of two great minds working upon parallel lines."
M. Binet studied the young man attentively a moment. He found him bland
and 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
thief at my age!"
"He is outrageous," said mademoiselle, indignantly.
"Outrageous is the word. I thank you for it, my dear. I take you on
trust, sir. You sit at my table, you have the honour to be included in my
company, and to my face you have the audacity to advise me to become a thief
- the worst kind of thief that is conceivable, a thief of spiritual things,
a thief of ideas! It is insufferable, intolerable! I have been, I fear,
deeply mistaken in you, monsieur; just as you appear to 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 I should become one. Outrageous!"
He was very angry. His voice boomed through the little room, and the
company sat hushed and something scared, their eyes upon Andre-Louis, who
was the only one entirely unmoved by this outburst of virtuous indignation.
"You realize, monsieur," he said, very quietly, "that you are insulting
the memory of the illustrious dead?"
"Eh?" said Binet.
Andre-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 there is
vileness in doing that which he never hesitated to do, which no great author
yet has hesitated to do. You cannot suppose that Moliere ever troubled
himself to be original in the matter of ideas. You cannot suppose that the
stories he tells in his plays have never been told before. They were culled,
as you very well know - though you seem momentarily to have forgotten it,
and it is therefore necessary that I should remind you - they were culled,
many of them, from the Italian authors, who themselves had culled them
Heaven alone knows where. Moliere took those old stories and retold them in
his own language. That is precisely what I am suggesting that you should do.
Your company is a company of improvisers. You supply the dialogue as you
proceed, which is rather more than Moliere ever attempted. You may, if you
prefer it
- though it would seem to me to be yielding to an excess of scruple
- go straight to Boccaccio or Sacchetti. But even then you cannot be
sure that you have reached the sources."
Andre-Louis came off with flying colours after that. You see what a
debater was lost in him; how nimble he was in the art of making white look
black. The company was impressed, and no one more that M. Binet, who found
himself supplied with a crushing argument against those who in future might
tax him with the impudent plagiarisms which he undoubtedly perpetrated. He
retired in the best order he could from the position he had taken up at the
outset.
"So that you think," he said, at the end of a long outburst of
agreement, "you think that our story of 'The Heartless Father' could be
enriched by dipping into 'Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,' to which I confess upon
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 that Binet retired soon after, taking Andre-Louis with him. The pair
sat together late that night, and were again in close communion throughout
the whole of Sunday morning.
After dinner M. Binet read to the assembled company the amended and
amplified canevas of "The Heartless Father," which, acting upon the advice
of M. Parvissimus, he had been at great pains to prepare. The company had
few doubts as to the real authorship before he began to read; none at all
when he had read. There was a verve, a grip about this story; and, what was
more, those of them who knew their Moliere realized that far from
approaching the original more closely, this canevas had drawn farther away
from it. Moliere's original part - the title role - had dwindled into
insignificance, to the great disgust of Polichinelle, to whom it fell. But
the other parts had all been built up into importance, with the exception of
Leandre, who remained as before. The two great roles were now Scaramouche,
in the character of the intriguing Sbrigandini, and Pantaloon the father.
There was, too, a comical part for Rhodomont, as the roaring bully hired by
Polichinelle to cut Leandre into ribbons. And in view of the importance now
of Scaramouche, the play had been rechristened "Figaro-Scaramouche."
This last had not been without a deal of opposition from M. Binet. But
his relentless collaborator, who was in reality the real author
- drawing shamelessly, but practically at last upon his great store of
reading - had overborne him.
"You must move with the times, monsieur. In Paris Beaumarchais is the
rage. 'Figaro' is known to-day throughout the world. Let us borrow a little
of his glory. It will draw the people in. They will come to see half a
'Figaro' when they will not come to see a dozen 'Heartless Fathers.'
Therefore let us cast the mantle of Figaro upon some one, and proclaim 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 head
without a body. And what use is that? Can the shoulders of Pantaloon carry
the mantle of Figaro? You laugh. Of course you laugh. The notion is 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 reflection
that if he understood anything at all about the theatre, he had for fifteen
livres a month acquired something that would presently be earning him as
many louis.
The company's reception of the canevas now confirmed him, if we except
Polichinelle, who, annoyed at having lost half his part in the alterations,
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," said
Polichinelle, 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
infuriated Binet.
Polichinelle got up slowly, and stretched himself.
"Dieu de Dieu!" said he. "If Pantaloon is to play Rhodomont, I think
I'll leave you. He is not amusing in the part." And he swaggered out before
M. Binet had recovered from his speechlessness.
Ar four o'clock on Monday afternoon the curtain rose on
"Figaro-Scaramouche" to an audience that filled three quarters of the
market-hall. M. Binet attributed this good attendance to the influx of
people to Guichen for the fair, and to the magnificent parade of his company
through the streets of the township at the busiest time of the day.
Andre-Louis attributed it entirely to the title. It was the "Figaro" touch
"They eat so little," Andre-Louis apologized, and again essayed his
ingratiating smile.
The sergeant grew more terrible than ever. "That is not the point. The
point is that you are committing what amounts to a theft, and there's the
gaol for thieves."
"Technically, I suppose you are right," sighed Andre-Louis, and fell to
combing his hair again, still looking up into the sergeant's face. "But we
have sinned in ignorance. We are grateful to you for the warning." He passed
the comb into his left hand, and with his right fumbled in his breeches'
pocket, whence there came a faint jingle of coins. "We are desolated to have
brought you out of your way. Perhaps for their trouble your men would honour
us by stopping at the next inn to drink the health of... of this M. de La
Tour d' Azyr, or any other health that they think proper.
Some of the clouds lifted from the sergeant's brow. But not yet all.
"Well, well," said he, gruffly. "But you must decamp, you understand."
He leaned from the saddle to bring his recipient hand to a convenient
distance. Andre-Louis placed in it a three-livre piece.
"In half an hour," said Andre-Louis.
"Why in half an hour? Why not at once?"
"Oh, but time to break our fast."
They looked at each other. The sergeant next considered the broad piece
of silver in his palm. Then at last his features relaxed from their
sternness.
"After all," said he, "it is none of our business to play the tipstaves
for M. de La Tour d'Azyr. We are of the marechaussee from Rennes."
Andre-Louis' eyelids played him false by flickering. "But if you linger,
look out for the gardes-champetres of the Marquis. You'll find them not at
all accommodating. Well, well
- a good appetite to you, monsieur," said he, in valediction.
"A pleasant ride, my captain," answered Andre-Louis.
The sergeant wheeled his horse about, his troop wheeled with him. They
were starting off, when he reined up again.
"You, monsieur!" he called over his shoulder. In a bound Andre-Louis
was beside his stirrup. "We are in quest of a scoundrel named Andre-Louis
Moreau, from Gavrillac, a fugitive from justice wanted for the gallows on a
matter of sedition. You've seen nothing, I suppose, of a man whose movements
seemed to you suspicious?"
"Indeed, we have," said Andre-Louis, very boldly, his face eager with
consciousness of the ability to oblige.
"You have?" cried the sergeant, in a ringing voice. "Where? When?"
"Yesterday evening in the neighbourhood of Guignen... "
"Yes, yes," the sergeant felt himself hot upon the trail.
"There was a fellow who seemed very fearful of being recognized ... a
man of fifty or thereabouts... "
"Fifty!" cried the sergeant, and his face fell. "Bah! This man of ours
is no older than yourself, a thin wisp of a fellow of about your own height
and of black hair, just like your own, by the description. Keep a lookout on
your travels, master player. The King's Lieutenant in Rennes has sent us
word this morning that he will pay ten louis to any one giving information
that will lead to this scoundrel's arrest. So there 's ten louis to be
earned by keeping your eyes open, and sending word to the nearest justices.
It would be a fine windfall for you, that."
"A fine windfall, indeed, captain," answered Andre-Louis, laughing.
But the sergeant had touched his horse with the spur, and was already
trotting off in the wake of his men. Andre-Louis continued to laugh, quite
silently, as he sometimes did when the humour of a jest was peculiarly keen.
Then he turned slowly about, and came back towards Pantaloon and the
rest of the company, who were now all grouped together, at gaze.
Pantaloon advanced to meet him with both hands out-held. For a moment
Andre-Louis thought he was about to be embraced.
"We hail you our saviour!" the big man declaimed. "Already the shadow
of the gaol was creeping over us, chilling us to the very marrow. For though
we be poor, yet are we all honest folk and not one of us has ever suffered
the indignity of prison. Nor is there one of us would survive it. But for
you, my friend, it might have happened. What magic did you work?"
"The magic that is to be worked in France with a King's portrait. The
French are a very loyal nation, as you will have observed. They love their
King - and his portrait even better than himself, especially when it is
wrought in gold. But even in silver it is respected. The sergeant was so
overcome by the sight of that noble visage - on a three-livre piece - that
his anger vanished, and he has gone his ways leaving us to depart in peace."
"Ah, true! He said we must decamp. About it, my lads! Come, come... "
"But not until after breakfast," said Andre-Louis. "A half-hour for
breakfast was conceded us by that loyal fellow, so deeply was he touched.
True, he spoke of possible gardes-champetres. But he knows as well as I do
that they are not seriously to be feared, and that if they came, again the
King's portrait - wrought in copper this time - would produce the same
melting effect upon them. So, my dear M. Pantaloon, break your fast at your
ease. I can smell your cooking from here, and from the smell I argue that
there is no need to wish you a good appetite."
"My friend, my saviour!" Pantaloon flung a great arm about the young
man's shoulders. "You shall stay to breakfast with us."
"I confess to a hope that you would ask me," said Andre-Louis.
They were, thought Andre-Louis, as he sat down to breakfast with them
behind the itinerant house, in the bright sunshine that tempered the cold
breath of that November morning, an odd and yet an attractive crew. An air
of gaiety pervaded them. They affected to have no cares, and made merry over
the trials and tribulations of their nomadic life. They were curiously, yet
amiably, artificial; histrionic in their manner of discharging the most
commonplace of functions; exaggerated in their gestures; stilted and
affected in their speech. They seemed, indeed, to belong to a world apart, a
world of unreality which became real only on the planks of their stage, in
the glare of their footlights. Good-fellowship bound them one to another;
and Andre-Louis reflected cynically that this harmony amongst them might be
the cause of their apparent unreality. In the real world, greedy striving
and the emulation of acquisitiveness preclude such amity as was present
here.
They numbered exactly eleven, three women and eight men; and they
addressed each other by their stage names: names which denoted their several
types, and never - or only very slightly - varied, no matter what might be
the play that they performed.
"We are," Pantaloon informed him, "one of those few remaining staunch
bands of real players, who uphold the traditions of the old Italian Commedia
dell' Arte. Not for us to vex our memories and stultify our wit with the
stilted phrases that are the fruit of a wretched author's lucubrations. Each
of us is in detail his own author in a measure as he develops the part
assigned to him. We are improvisers - improvisers of the old and noble
Italian school."
"I had guessed as much," said Andre-Louis, "when I discovered you
rehearsing your improvisations."
Pantaloon frowned.
"I have observed, young sir, that your humour inclines to the pungent,
not to say the acrid. It is very well. It is I suppose, the humour that
should go with such a countenance. But it may lead you astray, as in this
instance. That rehearsal - a most unusual thing with us - was necessitated
by the histrionic rawness of our Leandre. We are seeking to inculcate into
him by training an art with which Nature neglected to endow him against his
present needs. Should he continue to fail in doing justice to our
schooling... But we will not disturb our present harmony with the unpleasant
anticipation of misfortunes which we still hope to avert. We love our
Leandre, for all his faults. Let me make you acquainted with our company.
And he proceeded to introduction in detail. He pointed out the long and
amiable Rhodomont, whom Andre-Louis already knew.
"His length of limb and hooked nose were his superficial qualifications
to play roaring captains," Pantaloon explained. "His lungs have justified
our choice. You should hear him roar. At first we called him Spavento or
Epouvapte. But that was unworthy of so great an artist. Not since the superb
Mondor amazed the world has so thrasonical a bully been seen upon the stage.
So we conferred upon him the name of Rhodomont that Mondor made famous; and
I give you my word, as an actor and a gentleman - for I am a gentleman,
monsieur, or was - that he has justified us."
His little eyes beamed in his great swollen face as he turned their
gaze upon the object of his encomium. The terrible Rhodomont, confused by so
much praise, blushed like a schoolgirl as he met the solemn scrutiny of
Andre-Louis.
"Then here we have Scaramouche, whom also you already know. Sometimes
he is Scapin and sometimes Coviello, but in the main Scaramouche, to which
let me tell you he is best suited - sometimes too well suited, I think. For
he is Scaramouche not only on the stage, but also in the world. He has a
gift of sly intrigue, an art of setting folk by the ears, combined with an
impudent aggressiveness upon occasion when he considers himself safe from
reprisals. He is Scaramouche, the little skirmisher, to the very life. I
could say more. But I am by disposition charitable and loving to all
mankind."
"As the priest said when he kissed the serving-wench," snarled
Scaramouche, and went on eating.
"His humour, like your own, you will observe, is acrid," said
Pantaloon. He passed on. "Then that rascal with the lumpy nose and the
grinning bucolic countenance is, of course, Pierrot. Could he be aught
else?"
"I could play lovers a deal better," said the rustic cherub.
"That is the delusion proper to Pierrot," said Pantaloon,
contemptuously. "This heavy, beetle-browed ruffian, who has grown old in
sin, and whose appetite increases with his years, is Polichinelle. Each one,
as you perceive, is designed by Nature for the part he plays. This nimble,
freckled jackanapes is Harlequin; not your spangled Harlequin into which
modern degeneracy has debased that first-born of Momus, but the genuine
original zany of the Commedia, ragged and patched, an impudent, cowardly,
blackguardly clown."
"Each one of us, as you perceive," said Harlequin, mimicking the leader
of the troupe, "is designed by Nature for the part he plays."
"Physically, my friend, physically only, else we should not have so
much trouble in teaching this beautiful Leandre to become a lover. Then we
have Pasquariel here, who is sometimes an apothecary, sometimes a notary,
sometimes a lackey - an amiable, accommodating fellow. He is also an
excellent cook, being a child of Italy, that land of gluttons. And finally,
you have myself, who as the father of the company very properly play as
Pantaloon the roles of father. Sometimes, it is true, I am a deluded
husband, and sometimes an ignorant, self-sufficient doctor. But it is rarely
that I find it necessary to call myself other than Pantaloon. For the rest,
I am the only one who has a name - a real name. It is Binet, monsieur.
"And now for the ladies... First in order of seniority we have Madame
there." He waved one of his great hands towards a buxom, smiling blonde of
five-and-forty, who was seated on the lowest of the steps of the travelling
house. "She is our Duegne, or Mother, or Nurse, as the case requires. She is
known quite simply and royally as Madame. If she ever had a name in the
world, she has long since forgotten it, which is perhaps as well. Then we
have this pert jade with the tip-tilted nose and the wide mouth, who is of
course our soubrette Columbine, and lastly, my daughter Climene, an
amoureuse of talents not to be matched outside the Comedie Francaise, of
which she has the bad taste to aspire to become a member."
The lovely Climene - and lovely indeed she was - tossed her nut-brown
curls and laughed as she looked across at Andre-Louis. Her eyes, he had
perceived by now, were not blue, but hazel.
"Do not believe him, monsieur. Here I am queen, and I prefer to be
queen here rather than a slave in Paris."
"Mademoiselle," said Andre-Louis, quite solemnly, "will be queen
wherever she condescends to reign."
Her only answer was a timid - timid and yet alluring - glance from
under fluttering lids. Meanwhile her father was bawling at the comely young
man who played lovers - "You hear, Leandre! That is the sort of speech you
should practise."
Leandre raised languid eyebrows. "That?" quoth he, and shrugged. "The
merest commonplace."
Andre-Louis laughed approval. "M. Leandre is of a readier wit than you
concede. There is subtlety in pronouncing it a commonplace to call Mlle.
Climene a queen.
Some laughed, M. Binet amongst them, with good-humoured mockery.
"You think he has the wit to mean it thus? Bah! His subtleties are all
unconscious."
The conversation becoming general, Andre-Louis soon learnt what yet
there was to learn of this strolling band. They were on their way to
Guichen, where they hoped to prosper at the fair that was to open on Monday
next. They would make their triumphal entry into the town at noon, and
setting up their stage in the old market, they would give their first
performance that same Saturday night, in a new canevas - or scenario - of M.
Binet's own, which should set the rustics gaping. And then M. Binet fetched
a sigh, and addressed himself to the elderly, swarthy, beetle-browed
Polichinelle, who sat on his left.
"But we shall miss Felicien," said he. "Indeed, I do not know what we
shall do without him."
"Oh, we shall contrive," said Polichinelle, with his mouth full.
"So you always say, whatever happens, knowing that in any case the
contriving will not fall upon yourself."
"He should not be difficult to replace," said Harlequin.
"True, if we were in a civilized land. But where among the rustics of
Brittany are we to find a fellow of even his poor parts?" M. Binet turned to
Andre-Louis. "He was our property-man, our machinist, our stage-carpenter,
our man of affairs, and occasionally he acted."
"The part of Figaro, I presume," said Andre-Louis, which elicited a
laugh.
"So you are acquainted with Beaumarchais!" Binet eyed the young man
with fresh interest.
"He is tolerably well known, I think."
"In Paris, to be sure. But I had not dreamt his fame had reached the
wilds of Brittany."
"But then I was some years in Paris - at the Lycee of Louis le Grand.
It was there I made acquaintance with his work."
"A dangerous man," said Polichinelle, sententiously.
"Indeed, and you are right," Pantaloon agreed. "Clever - I do not deny
him that, although myself I find little use for authors. But of a sinister
cleverness responsible for the dissemination of many of these subversive new
ideas. I think such writers should be suppressed."
"M. de La Tour d'Azyr would probably agree with you - the gentleman who
by the simple exertion of his will turns this communal land into his own
property." And Andre-Louis drained his cup, which had been filled with the
poor vin gris that was the players' drink.
It was a remark that might have precipitated an argument had it not
also reminded M. Binet of the terms on which they were encamped there, and
of the fact that the half-hour was more than past. In a moment he was on his
feet, leaping up with an agility surprising in so corpulent a man, issuing
his commands like a marshal on a field of battle.
"Come, come, my lads! Are we to sit guzzling here all day? Time flees,
and there's a deal to be done if we are to make our entry into Guichen at
noon. Go, get you dressed. We strike camp in twenty minutes. Bestir, ladies!
To your chaise, and see that you contrive to look your best. Soon the eyes
of Guichen will be upon you, and the condition of your interior to-morrow
will depend upon the impression made by your exterior to-day. Away! Away!"
The implicit obedience this autocrat commanded set them in a whirl.
Baskets and boxes were dragged forth to receive the platters and remains of
their meagre feast. In an instant the ground was cleared, and the three
ladies had taken their departure to the chaise, which was set apart for
their use. The men were already climbing into the house on wheels, when
Binet turned to Andre-Louis.
"We part here, sir," said he, dramatically, "the richer by your
acquaintance; your debtors and your friends." He put forth his podgy hand.
Slowly Andre-Louis took it in his own. He had been thinking swiftly in
the last few moments. And remembering the safety he had found from his
pursuers in the bosom of this company, it occurred to him hat nowhere could
he be better hidden for the present, until the quest for him should have
died down.
"Sir," he said, "the indebtedness is on my side. It is not every day
one has the felicity to sit down with so illustrious and engaging a
company."
Binet's little eyes peered suspiciously at the young man, in quest of
irony. He found nothing but candour and simple good faith.
"I part from you reluctantly," Andre-Louis continued. "The more
reluctantly since I do not perceive the absolute necessity for parting."
"How?" quoth Binet, frowning, and slowly withdrawing the hand which the
other had already retained rather longer than was necessary.
"Thus," Andre-Louis explained himself. "You may set me down as a sort
of knight of rueful countenance in quest of adventure, with no fixed purpose
in life at present. You will not marvel that what I have seen of yourself
and your distinguished troupe should inspire me to desire your better
acquaintance. On your side you tell me that you are in need of some one to
replace your Figaro - your Felicien, I think you called him. Whilst it may
be presumptuous of me to hope that I could discharge an office so varied and
so onerous... "
"You are indulging that acrid humour of yours again, my friend," Binet
interrupted him. "Excepting for that," he added, slowly, meditatively, his
little eyes screwed up, "we might discuss this proposal that you seem to be
making."
"Alas! we can except nothing. If you take me, you take me as I am. What
else is possible? As for this humour - such as it is - which you decry, you
might turn it to profitable account."
"How so?"
"In several ways. I might, for instance, teach Leandre to make love."
Pantaloon burst into laughter. "You do not lack confidence in your
powers. Modesty does not afflict you."
"Therefore I evince the first quality necessary in an actor."
"Can you act?"
"Upon occasion, I think," said Andre-Louis, his thoughts upon his
performance at Rennes and Nantes, and wondering when in all his histrionic
career Pantaloon's improvisations had so rent the heart of mobs.
M. Binet was musing. "Do you know much of the theatre?" quoth he.
"Everything," said Andre-Louis.
"I said that modesty will prove no obstacle in your career."
"But consider. I know the work of Beaumarchais, Eglantine, Mercier,
Chenier, and many others of our contemporaries. Then I have read, of course,
Moliere, Racine, Corneille, besides many other lesser French
writers. Of foreign authors, I am intimate with the works of Gozzi,
Goldoni, Guarini, Bibbiena, Machiavelli, Secchi, Tasso, Ariosto, and Fedini.
Whilst of those of antiquity I know most of the work of Euripides,
Aristophanes, Terence, Plautus... "
"Enough!" roared Pantaloon.
"I am not nearly through with my list," said Andre-Louis.
"You may keep the rest for another day. In Heaven's name, what can have
induced you to read so many dramatic authors?"
"In my humble way I am a student of man, and some years ago I made the
discovery that he is most intimately to be studied in the reflections of him
provided for the theatre."
"That is a very original and profound discovery," said Pantaloon, quite
seriously. "It had never occurred to me. Yet is it true. Sir, it is a truth
that dignifies our art. You are a man of parts, that is clear to me. It has
been clear since first I met you. I can read a man. I knew you from the
moment that you said 'good-morning.' Tell me, now: Do you think you could
assist me upon occasion in the preparation of a scenario? My mind, fully
engaged as it is with a thousand details of organization, is not always as
clear as I would have it for such work. Could you assist me there, do you
think?"
"I am quite sure I could."
"Hum, yes. I was sure you would be. The other duties that were
Felicien's you would soon learn. Well, well, if you are willing, you may
come along with us. You'd want some salary, I suppose?"
"If it is usual," said Andre-Louis.
"What should you say to ten livres a month?"
"I should say that it isn't exactly the riches of Peru."
"I might go as far as fifteen," said Binet, reluctantly. "But times are
bad."
"I'll make them better for you."
"I've no doubt you believe it. Then we understand each other?"
"Perfectly," said Andre-Louis, dryly, and was thus committed to the
service of Thespis.
The company's entrance into the township of Guichen, if not exactly
triumphal, as Binet had expressed the desire that it should be, was at least
sufficiently startling and cacophonous to set the rustics gaping. To them
these fantastic creatures appeared - as indeed they were - beings from
another world.
First went the great travelling chaise, creaking and groaning on its
way, 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 under a long
brown bed-gown, his countenance adorned by a colossal cardboard nose. Beside
him on the box sat Pierrot in a white smock, with sleeves that completely
covered his hands, loose white trousers, and a black skull-cap. He had
whitened his face with flour, and he made hideous noises with a trumpet.
On the roof of the coach were assembled Polichinelle, Scaramouche,
Harlequin, and Pasquariel. Polichinelle in black and white, his doublet cut
in the fashion of a century ago, with humps before and behind, a white frill
round his neck and a black mask upon the upper half of his face, stood in
the middle, his feet planted wide to steady him, solemnly and viciously
banging a big drum. The other three were seated each at one of the corners
of the roof, their legs dangling over. Scaramouche, all in black in the
Spanish fashion of the seventeenth century, his face adorned with a pair of
mostachios, jangled a guitar discordantly. Harlequin, ragged and patched in
every colour of the rainbow, with his leather girdle and sword of lath, the
upper half of his face smeared in soot, clashed a pair of cymbals
intermittently. Pasquariel, as an apothecary in skull-cap and white apron,
excited the hilarity of the onlookers by his enormous tin clyster, which
emitted when pumped a dolorous squeak.
Within the chaise itself, but showing themselves freely at the windows,
and exchanging quips with the townsfolk, sat the three ladies of the
company. Climene, the amoureuse, beautifully gowned in flowered satin, her
own clustering ringlets concealed under a pumpkin-shaped wig, looked so much
the lady of fashion that you might have wondered what she was dong in that
fantastic rabble. Madame, as the mother, was also dressed with splendour,
but exaggerated to achieve the ridiculous. Her headdress was a monstrous
structure adorned with flowers, and superimposed by little ostrich plumes.
Columbine sat facing them, her back to the horses, falsely demure, in
milkmaid bonnet of white muslin, and a striped gown of green and blue.
The marvel was that the old chaise, which in its halcyon days may have
served to carry some dignitary of the Church, did not founder instead of
merely groaning under that excessive and ribald load.
Next came the house on wheels, led by the long, lean Rhodomont, who had
daubed his face red, and increased the terror of it by a pair of formidable
mostachios. He was in long thigh-boots and leather jerkin, trailing an
enormous sword from a crimson baldrick. He wore a broad felt hat with a
draggled feather, and as he advanced he raised his great voice and roared
out defiance, and threats of blood-curdling butchery to be performed upon
all and sundry. On the roof of this vehicle sat Leandre alone. He was in
blue satin, with ruffles, small sword, powdered hair, patches and spy-glass,
and red-heeled shoes: the complete courtier, looking very handsome. The
women of Guichen ogled him coquettishly. He took the ogling as a proper
tribute to his personal endowments, and returned it with interest. Like
Climene, he looked out of place amid the bandits who composed the remainder
of the company.
Bringing up the rear came Andre-Louis leading the two donkeys that
dragged 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 paid any attention to him
as he trudged along beside his donkeys, an insignificant rear guard, which
he was well content to be.
They made the tour of the town, in which the activity was already above
the normal in preparation for next week's fair. At intervals they halted,
the cacophony would cease abruptly, and Polichinelle would announce in a
stentorian voice that at five o'clock that evening in the old market, M.
Binet's famous company of improvisers would perform a new comedy in four
acts entitled, "The Heartless Father."
Thus at last they came to the old market, which was the groundfloor of
the town hall, and open to the four winds by two archways on each side of
its length, and one archway on each side of its breadth. These archways,
with two exceptions, had been boarded up. Through those two, which gave
admission to what presently would be the theatre, the ragamuffins of the
town, and the niggards who were reluctant to spend the necessary sous to
obtain proper admission, might catch furtive glimpses of the performance.
That afternoon was the most strenuous of Andre-Louis' life,
unaccustomed as he was to any sort of manual labour. It was spent in
erecting and preparing the stage at one end of the market-hall; and he began
to realize how hard-earned were to be his monthly fifteen livres. At first
there were four of them to the task - or really three, for Pantaloon did no
more than bawl directions. Stripped of their finery, Rhodomont and Leandre
assisted Andre-Louis in that carpentering. Meanwhile the other four were at
dinner with the ladies. When a half-hour or so later they came to carry on
the work, Andre-Louis and his companions went to dine in their turn, leaving
Polichinelle to direct the operations as well as assist in them.
They crossed the square to the cheap little inn where they had taken up
their quarters. In the narrow passage Andre-Louis came face to face with
Climene, her fine feathers cast, and restored by now to her normal
appearance
"And how do you like it?" she asked him, pertly.
He looked her in the eyes. "It has its compensations," quoth he, in
that curious cold tone of his that left one wondering whether he meant or
not what 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 perception
of them allured me."
They were quite alone, the others having gone on into the room set
apart for them, where food was spread. Andre-Louis, who was as unlearned in
Woman as he was learned in Man, was not to know, upon feeling himself
suddenly extraordinarily aware of her femininity, that it was she who in
some subtle, imperceptible manner so rendered him.
"What," she asked him, with demurest innocence, "are these
compensations?"
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. Then
she recovered.
"Oh, and bed and board," said she. "Don't be leaving that from the
reckoning, 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
of eagerness.
"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
dragged him, as she imagined, to the chopping-block, she could not refrain
from chopping. 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 the
door for her, and bowing with an air which imposed upon her, although it was
merely copied from Fleury of the Comedie Francaise, so often visited in the
Louis le Grand days, he waved her in. "After you, ma demoiselle." For
greater emphasis he deliberately broke the word into its two component
parts.
"I thank you, monsieur," she answered, frostily, as near sneering as
was possible to so charming a person, and went in, nor addressed him again
throughout the meal. Instead, she devoted herself with an unusual and
devastating assiduity to the suspiring Leandre, that poor devil who could
not successfully play the lover with her on the stage because of his longing
to play it in reality.
Andre-Louis ate his herrings and black bread with a good appetite
nevertheless. It was poor fare, but then poor fare was the common lot of
poor people in that winter of starvation, and since he had cast in his
fortunes with a company whose affairs were not flourishing, he must accept
the evils of the situation philosophically.
"Have you a name?" Binet asked him once in the course of that repast
and during 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 a
family name, the like would be unbecoming its least member. So I take the
name that best becomes in me. And I think it is Parvissimus
- the very least."
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 he
had to go back to it that afternoon, and to labour strenuously until four
o'clock, when at last the autocratic Binet announced himself satisfied with
the preparations, and proceeded, again with the help of Andre-Louis, to
prepare the lights, which were supplied partly by tallow candles and partly
by lamps burning fish-oil.
At five o'clock that evening the three knocks were sounded, and the
curtain rose on "The Heartless Father."
Among the duties inherited by Andre-Louis from the departed Felicien
whom he replaced, was that of doorkeeper. This duty he discharged dressed in
a Polichinelle costume, and wearing a pasteboard nose. It was an arrangement
mutually agreeable to M. Binet and himself. M. Binet - who had taken the
further precaution of retaining Andre-Louis' own garments - was thereby
protected against the risk of his latest recruit absconding with the
takings. Andre-Louis, without illusions on the score of Pantaloon's real
object, agreed to it willingly enough, since it protected him from the
chance of recognition by any acquaintance who might possibly be in Guichen.
The performance was in every sense unexciting; the audience meagre and
unenthusiastic. The benches provided in the front half of the market
contained some twenty-seven persons: eleven at twenty sous a head and
sixteen at twelve. Behind these stood a rabble of some thirty others at six
sous apiece. Thus the gross takings were two louis, ten livres, and two
sous. By the time M. Binet had paid for the use of the market, his lights,
and the expenses of his company at the inn over Sunday, there was not likely
to be very much left towards the wages of his players. It is not surprising,
therefore, that M. Binet's bonhomie should have been a trifle overcast that
evening.
"And what do you think of it?" he asked Andre-Louis, as they were
walking 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
at his 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 assuming
intelligence in you, M. Binet."
"Oh, you do?" quoth M. Binet. "And who the devil are you to assume
anything? Your assumptions are presumptuous, sir." And with that he lapsed
into silence and the gloomy business of mentally casting up his accounts.
But at table over supper a half-hour later he revived the topic.
"Our latest recruit, this excellent M. Parvissimus," he announced, "has
the 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 cheeks to
invite a laugh at the expense of that foolish critic.
"That's bad," said the swarthy and sardonic Polichinelle. He was grave
as Rhadamanthus pronouncing judgment. "That's bad. But what is infinitely
worse is that the audience had the impudence to be of the same mind."
"An ignorant pack of clods," sneered Leandre, with a toss of his
handsome head.
"You are wrong," quoth Harlequin. "You were born for love, my dear, not
criticism."
Leandre - a dull dog, as you will have conceived - looked
contemptuously down upon the little man. "And you, what were you born for?"
he wondered.
"Nobody knows," was the candid admission. "Nor yet why. It is the case
of many of us, my dear, believe me."
"But why" - M. Binet took him up, and thus spoilt the beginnings of a
very pretty quarrel - "why do you say that Leandre is wrong?"
"To be general, because he is always wrong. To be particular, because I
judge the audience of Guichen to be too sophisticated for 'The Heartless
Father.'"
"You would put it more happily," interposed Andre-Louis - who was the
cause of this discussion - "if you said that 'The Heartless Father' is too
unsophisticated 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 happier
way 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 the
sophistication of the Guichen audience, than the Guichen audience to the
unsophistication of 'The Heartless Father.'"
"Let me think it out," groaned Polichinelle, and he took his head in
his hands.
But from the tail of the table Andre-Louis was challenged by Climene
who sat 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!" said
he. "I am between bludgeon and dagger. If I escape with my life, I shall be
fortunate. Why, then, since you pin me to the very wall, I'll tell you what
I should do. I should go back to the original and help myself more freely
from it."
"The original?" questioned M. Binet - the author.
"It is called, I believe, 'Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,' and was written
by Moliere."
Somebody tittered, but that somebody was not M. Binet. He had been
touched on the raw, and the look in his little eyes betrayed the fact that
his bonhomme exterior covered anything but a bonhomme.
"You charge me with plagiarism," he said at last; "with filching the
ideas of Moliere."
"There is always, of course," said Andre-Louis, unruffled, "the
alternative possibility of two great minds working upon parallel lines."
M. Binet studied the young man attentively a moment. He found him bland
and 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
thief at my age!"
"He is outrageous," said mademoiselle, indignantly.
"Outrageous is the word. I thank you for it, my dear. I take you on
trust, sir. You sit at my table, you have the honour to be included in my
company, and to my face you have the audacity to advise me to become a thief
- the worst kind of thief that is conceivable, a thief of spiritual things,
a thief of ideas! It is insufferable, intolerable! I have been, I fear,
deeply mistaken in you, monsieur; just as you appear to 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 I should become one. Outrageous!"
He was very angry. His voice boomed through the little room, and the
company sat hushed and something scared, their eyes upon Andre-Louis, who
was the only one entirely unmoved by this outburst of virtuous indignation.
"You realize, monsieur," he said, very quietly, "that you are insulting
the memory of the illustrious dead?"
"Eh?" said Binet.
Andre-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 there is
vileness in doing that which he never hesitated to do, which no great author
yet has hesitated to do. You cannot suppose that Moliere ever troubled
himself to be original in the matter of ideas. You cannot suppose that the
stories he tells in his plays have never been told before. They were culled,
as you very well know - though you seem momentarily to have forgotten it,
and it is therefore necessary that I should remind you - they were culled,
many of them, from the Italian authors, who themselves had culled them
Heaven alone knows where. Moliere took those old stories and retold them in
his own language. That is precisely what I am suggesting that you should do.
Your company is a company of improvisers. You supply the dialogue as you
proceed, which is rather more than Moliere ever attempted. You may, if you
prefer it
- though it would seem to me to be yielding to an excess of scruple
- go straight to Boccaccio or Sacchetti. But even then you cannot be
sure that you have reached the sources."
Andre-Louis came off with flying colours after that. You see what a
debater was lost in him; how nimble he was in the art of making white look
black. The company was impressed, and no one more that M. Binet, who found
himself supplied with a crushing argument against those who in future might
tax him with the impudent plagiarisms which he undoubtedly perpetrated. He
retired in the best order he could from the position he had taken up at the
outset.
"So that you think," he said, at the end of a long outburst of
agreement, "you think that our story of 'The Heartless Father' could be
enriched by dipping into 'Monsieur de Pourceaugnac,' to which I confess upon
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 that Binet retired soon after, taking Andre-Louis with him. The pair
sat together late that night, and were again in close communion throughout
the whole of Sunday morning.
After dinner M. Binet read to the assembled company the amended and
amplified canevas of "The Heartless Father," which, acting upon the advice
of M. Parvissimus, he had been at great pains to prepare. The company had
few doubts as to the real authorship before he began to read; none at all
when he had read. There was a verve, a grip about this story; and, what was
more, those of them who knew their Moliere realized that far from
approaching the original more closely, this canevas had drawn farther away
from it. Moliere's original part - the title role - had dwindled into
insignificance, to the great disgust of Polichinelle, to whom it fell. But
the other parts had all been built up into importance, with the exception of
Leandre, who remained as before. The two great roles were now Scaramouche,
in the character of the intriguing Sbrigandini, and Pantaloon the father.
There was, too, a comical part for Rhodomont, as the roaring bully hired by
Polichinelle to cut Leandre into ribbons. And in view of the importance now
of Scaramouche, the play had been rechristened "Figaro-Scaramouche."
This last had not been without a deal of opposition from M. Binet. But
his relentless collaborator, who was in reality the real author
- drawing shamelessly, but practically at last upon his great store of
reading - had overborne him.
"You must move with the times, monsieur. In Paris Beaumarchais is the
rage. 'Figaro' is known to-day throughout the world. Let us borrow a little
of his glory. It will draw the people in. They will come to see half a
'Figaro' when they will not come to see a dozen 'Heartless Fathers.'
Therefore let us cast the mantle of Figaro upon some one, and proclaim 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 head
without a body. And what use is that? Can the shoulders of Pantaloon carry
the mantle of Figaro? You laugh. Of course you laugh. The notion is 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 reflection
that if he understood anything at all about the theatre, he had for fifteen
livres a month acquired something that would presently be earning him as
many louis.
The company's reception of the canevas now confirmed him, if we except
Polichinelle, who, annoyed at having lost half his part in the alterations,
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," said
Polichinelle, 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
infuriated Binet.
Polichinelle got up slowly, and stretched himself.
"Dieu de Dieu!" said he. "If Pantaloon is to play Rhodomont, I think
I'll leave you. He is not amusing in the part." And he swaggered out before
M. Binet had recovered from his speechlessness.
Ar four o'clock on Monday afternoon the curtain rose on
"Figaro-Scaramouche" to an audience that filled three quarters of the
market-hall. M. Binet attributed this good attendance to the influx of
people to Guichen for the fair, and to the magnificent parade of his company
through the streets of the township at the busiest time of the day.
Andre-Louis attributed it entirely to the title. It was the "Figaro" touch