irresistible Scaramouche swept away all objections.
"If we are to play at the Feydau, you want a company of self-respecting
comedians, and not a pack of cringing starvelings. The better we pay them in
reason, the more they will earn for us."
Thus was conquered the company's resentment of this too swift promotion
of its latest recruit. Cheerfully now - with one exception - they accepted
the dominance of Scaramouche, a dominance soon to be so firmly established
that M. Binet himself came under it.
The one exception was Climene. Her failure to bring to heel this
interesting young stranger, who had almost literally dropped into their
midst that morning outside Guichen, had begotten in her a malice which his
persistent ignoring of her had been steadily inflaming. She had remonstrated
with her father when the new partnership was first formed. She had lost her
temper with him, and called him a fool, whereupon M. Binet - in Pantaloon's
best manner - had lost his temper in his turn and boxed her ears. She piled
it up to the account of Scaramouche, and spied her opportunity to pay off
some of that ever-increasing score. But opportunities were few. Scaramouche
was too occupied just then. During the week of preparation at Fougeray, he
was hardly seen save at the performances, whilst when once they were at
Redon, he came and went like the wind between the theatre and the inn.
The Redon experiment had justified itself from the first. Stimulated
and encouraged by this, Andre-Louis worked day and night during the month
that they spent in that busy little town. The moment had been well chosen,
for the trade in chestnuts of which Redon is the centre was just then at its
height. And every afternoon the little theatre was packed with spectators.
The fame of the troupe had gone forth, borne by the chestnut-growers of the
district, who were bringing their wares to Redon market, and the audiences
were made up of people from the surrounding country, and from neighbouring
villages as far out as Allaire, Saint-Perrieux and Saint-Nicholas. To keep
the business from slackening, Andre-Louis prepared a new scenario every
week. He wrote three in addition to those two with which he had already
supplied the company; these were "The Marriage of Pantaloon," "The Shy
Lover," and "The Terrible Captain." Of these the last was the greatest
success. It was based upon the "Miles Gloriosus" of Plautus, with great
opportunities for Rhodomont, and a good part for Scaramouche as the roaring
captain's sly lieutenant. Its success was largely due to the fact that
Andre-Louis amplified the scenario to the extent of indicating very fully in
places the lines which the dialogue should follow, whilst here and there he
had gone so far as to supply some of the actual dialogue to be spoken,
without, however, making it obligatory upon the actors to keep to the letter
of it.
And meanwhile as the business prospered, he became busy with tailors,
improving the wardrobe of the company, which was sorely in need of
improvement. He ran to earth a couple of needy artists, lured them into the
company to play small parts - apothecaries and notaries - and set them to
beguile their leisure in painting new scenery, so as to be ready for what he
called the conquest of Nantes, which was to come in the new year. Never in
his life had he worked so hard; never in his life had he worked at all by
comparison with his activities now. His fund of energy and enthusiasm was
inexhaustible, like that of his good humour. He came and went, acted, wrote,
conceived, directed, planned, and executed, what time M. Binet took his ease
at last in comparative affluence, drank Burgundy every night, ate white
bread and other delicacies, and began to congratulate himself upon his
astuteness in having made this industrious, tireless fellow his partner.
Having discovered how idle had been his fears of performing at Redon, he now
began to dismiss the terrors with which the notion of Nantes had haunted
him.
And his happiness was reflected throughout the ranks of his company,
with the single exception always of Climene. She had ceased to sneer at
Scaramouche, haying realized at last that her sneers left him untouched and
recoiled upon herself. Thus her almost indefinable resentment of him was
increased by being stifled, until, at all costs, an outlet for it must be
found.
One day she threw herself in his way as he was leaving the theatre
after the performance. The others had already gone, and she had returned
upon pretence of having forgotten something.
"Will you tell me what I have done to you?" she asked him, point-blank.
"Done to me, mademoiselle?" He did not understand. She made a gesture
of impatience. "Why do you hate me?"
"Hate you, mademoiselle? I do not hate anybody. It is the most stupid
of all the emotions. I have never hated - not even my enemies."
"What Christian resignation!"
"As for hating you, of all people! Why... I consider you adorable. I
envy Leandre every day of my life. I have seriously thought of setting him
to play Scaramouche, and playing lovers myself."
"I don't think you would be a success," said she.
"That is the only consideration that restrains me. And yet, given the
inspiration that is given Leandre, it is possible that I might be
convincing."
"Why, what inspiration do you mean?"
"The inspiration of playing to so adorable a Climene."
Her lazy eyes were now alert to search that lean face of his.
"You are laughing at me," said she, and swept past him into the theatre
on her pretended quest. There was nothing to be done with such a fellow. He
was utterly without feeling. He was not a man at all.
Yet when she came forth again at the end of some five minutes, she
found him still lingering at the door.
"Not gone yet?" she asked him, superciliously.
"I was waiting for you, mademoiselle. You will be walking to the inn.
If I might escort you... "
"But what gallantry! What condescension!"
"Perhaps you would prefer that I did not?"
"How could I prefer that, M. Scaramouche? Besides, we are both going
the same way, and the streets are common to all. It is that I am overwhelmed
by the unusual honour."
He looked into her piquant little face, and noted how obscured it was
by its cloud of dignity. He laughed.
"Perhaps I feared that the honour was not sought."
"Ah, now I understand," she cried. "It is for me to seek these honours.
I am to woo a man before he will pay me the homage of civility. It must be
so, since you, who clearly know everything, have said so. It remains for me
to beg your pardon for my ignorance."
"It amuses you to be cruel," said Scaramouche. "No matter. Shall we
walk?"
They set out together, stepping briskly to warm their blood against the
wintry evening air. Awhile they went in silence, yet each furtively
observing the other.
"And so, you find me cruel?" she challenged him at length, thereby
betraying the fact that the accusation had struck home.
He looked at her with a half smile. "Will you deny it?"
"You are the first man that ever accused me of that."
"I dare not suppose myself the first man to whom you have been cruel.
That were an assumption too flattering to myself. I must prefer to think
that the others suffered in silence."
"Mon Dieu! Have you suffered?" She was between seriousness and
raillery.
"I place the confession as an offering on the altar of your vanity."
"I should never have suspected it."
"How could you? Am I not what your father calls a natural actor? I was
an actor long before I became Scaramouche. Therefore I have laughed. I often
do when I am hurt. When you were pleased to be disdainful, I acted disdain
in my turn."
"You acted very well," said she, without reflecting.
"Of course. I am an excellent actor."
"And why this sudden change?"
"In response to the change in you. You have grown weary of your part of
cruel madam - a dull part, believe me, and unworthy of your talents., Were I
a woman and had I your loveliness and your grace, Climene, I should disdain
to use them as weapons of offence."
"Loveliness and grace!" she echoed, feigning amused surprise. But the
vain baggage was mollified. "When was it that you discovered this beauty and
this grace, M. Scaramouche?"
He looked at her a moment, considering the sprightly beauty of her, the
adorable femininity that from the first had so irresistibly attracted him.
"One morning when I beheld you rehearsing a love-scene with Leandre."
He caught the surprise that leapt to her eyes, before she veiled them
under drooping lids from his too questing gaze.
"Why, that was the first time you saw me."
"I had no earlier occasion to remark your charms."
"You ask me to believe too much," said she, but her tone was softer
than he had ever known it yet.
"Then you'll refuse to believe me if I confess that it was this grace
and beauty that determined my destiny that day by urging me to join your
father's troupe."
At that she became a little out of breath. There was no longer any
question of finding an outlet for resentment. Resentment was all forgotten.
"But why? With what object?"
"With the object of asking you one day to be my wife."
She halted under the shock of that, and swung round to face him. Her
glance met his own without, shyness now; there was a hardening glitter in
her eyes, a faint stir of colour in her cheeks. She suspected him of an
unpardonable mockery.
"You go very fast, don't you?" she asked him, with heat.
"I do. haven't you observed it? I am a man of sudden impulses. See what
I have made of the Binet troupe in less than a couple of months. Another
might have laboured for a year and not achieved the half of it. Shall I be
slower in love than in work? Would it be reasonable to expect it? I have
curbed and repressed myself not to scare you by precipitancy. In that I have
done violence to my feelings, and more than all in using the same cold
aloofness with which you chose to treat me. I have waited - oh! so patiently
- until you should tire of that mood of cruelty."
"You are an amazing man," said she, quite colourlessly.
"I am," he agreed with her. "It is only the conviction that I am not
commonplace that has permitted me to hope as I have hoped."
Mechanically, and as if by tacit consent, they resumed their walk.
"And I ask you to observe," he said, "when you complain that I go very
fast, that, after all, I have so far asked you for nothing."
"How?" quoth she, frowning.
"I have merely told you of my hopes. I am not so rash as to ask at once
whether I may realize them."
"My faith, but that is prudent," said she, tartly.
"Of course."
It was his self-possession that exasperated her; for after that she
walked the short remainder of the way in silence, and so, for the moment,
the matter was left just there.
But that night, after they had supped, it chanced that when Climene was
about to retire, he and she were alone together in the room abovestairs that
her father kept exclusively for his company. The Binet Troupe, you see, was
rising in the world.
As Climene now rose to withdraw for the night, Scaramouche rose with
her to light her candle. Holding it in her left hand, she offered him her
right, a long, tapering, white hand at the end of a softly rounded arm that
was bare to the elbow.
"Good-night, Scaramouche," she said, but so softly, so tenderly, that
he caught his breath, and stood conning her, his dark eyes aglow.
Thus a moment, then he took the tips of her fingers in his grasp, and
bowing over the hand, pressed his lips upon it. Then he looked at her again.
The intense femininity of her lured him on, invited him, surrendered to him.
Her face was pale, there was a glitter in her eyes, a curious smile upon her
parted lips, and under its fichu-menteur her bosom rose and fell to complete
the betrayal of her.
By the hand he continued to hold, he drew her towards him. She came
unresisting. He took the candle from her, and set it down on the sideboard
by which she stood. The next moment her slight, lithe body was in his arms,
and he was kissing her, murmuring her name as if it were a prayer.
"Am I cruel now?" she asked him, panting. He kissed her again for only
answer. "You made me cruel because you would not see," she told him next in
a whisper.
And then the door opened, and M. Binet came in to have his paternal
eyes regaled by this highly indecorous behaviour of his daughter.
He stood at gaze, whilst they quite leisurely, and in a self-possession
too complete to be natural, detached each from the other.
"And what may be the meaning of this?" demanded M. Binet, bewildered
and profoundly shocked.
"Does it require explaining?" asked Scaramouche. "Doesn't it speak for
itself - eloquently? It means that Climene and I have taken it into our
heads to be married."
"And doesn't it matter what I may take into my head?"
"Of course. But you could have neither the bad taste nor the bad heart
to offer any obstacle."
"You take that for granted? Aye, that is your way, to be sure - to take
things for granted. But my daughter is not to be taken for granted. I have
very definite views for my daughter. You have done an unworthy thing,
Scaramouche. You have betrayed my trust in you. I am very angry with you."
He rolled forward with his ponderous yet curiously noiseless gait.
Scaramouche turned to her, smiling, and handed her the candle.
"If you will leave us, Climene, I will ask your hand of your father in
proper form."
She vanished, a little fluttered, lovelier than ever in her mixture of
confusion and timidity. Scaramouche closed the door and faced the enraged M.
Binet, who had flung himself into an armchair at the head of the short
table, faced him with the avowed purpose of asking for Climene's hand in
proper form. And this was how he did it:
"Father-in-law," said he, "I congratulate you. This will certainly mean
the Comedie Francaise for Climene, and that before long, and you shall shine
in the glory she will reflect. As the father of Madame Scaramouche you may
yet be famous."
Binet, his face slowly empurpling, glared at him in speechless
stupefaction. His rage was the more utter from his humiliating conviction
that whatever he might say or do, this irresistible fellow would bend him to
his will. At last speech came to him.
"You're a damned corsair," he cried, thickly, banging his ham-like fist
upon the table. "A corsair! First you sail in and plunder me of half my
legitimate gains; and now you want to carry off my daughter. But I'll be
damned if I'll give her to a graceless, nameless scoundrel like you, for
whom the gallows are waiting already."
Scaramouche pulled the bell-rope, not at all discomposed. He smiled.
There was a flush on his cheeks and a gleam in his eyes. He was very pleased
with the world that night. He really owed a great debt to M. de
Lesdiguieres.
"Binet," said he, "forget for once that you are Pantaloon, and behave
as a nice, amiable father-in-law should behave when he has secured a
son-in-law of exceptionable merits. We are going to have a bottle of
Burgundy at my expense, and it shall be the best bottle of Burgundy to be
found in Redon. Compose yourself to do fitting honour to it. Excitations of
the bile invariably impair the fine sensitiveness of the palate."
The Binet Troupe opened in Nantes - as you may discover in surviving
copies of the "Courrier Nantais" - on the Feast of the Purification with
"Les Fourberies de Scaramouche." But they did not come to Nantes as hitherto
they had gone to little country villages and townships, unheralded and
depending entirely upon the parade of their entrance to attract attention to
themselves. Andre-Louis had borrowed from the business methods of the
Comedie Francaise. Carrying matters with a high hand entirely in his own
fashion, he had ordered at Redon the printing of playbills, and four days
before the company's descent upon Nantes, these bills were pasted outside
the Theatre Feydau and elsewhere about the town, and had attracted
- being still sufficiently unusual announcements at the time -
considerable attention. He had entrusted the matter to one of the company's
latest recruits, an intelligent young man named Basque, sending him on ahead
of the company for the purpose.
You may see for yourself one of these playbills in the Carnavalet
Museum. It details the players by their stage names only, with the exception
of M. Binet and his daughter, and leaving out of account that he who plays
Trivelin in one piece appears as Tabarin in another, it makes the company
appear to be at least half as numerous again as it really was. It announces
that they will open with "Les Fourberies de Scaramouche," to be followed by
five other plays of which it gives the titles, and by others not named,
which shall also be added should the patronage to be received in the
distinguished and enlightened city of Nantes encourage the Binet Troupe to
prolong its sojourn at the Theatre Feydau. It lays great stress upon the
fact that this is a company of improvisers in the old Italian manner, the
like of which has not been seen in France for half a century, and it exhorts
the public of Nantes not to miss this opportunity of witnessing these
distinguished mimes who are reviving for them the glories of the Comedie de
l'Art. Their visit to Nantes - the announcement proceeds - is preliminary to
their visit to Paris, where they intend to throw down the glove to the
actors of the Comedie Francaise, and to show the world how superior is the
art of the improviser to that of the actor who depends upon an author for
what he shall say, and who consequently says always the same thing every
time that he plays in the same piece.
It is an audacious bill, and its audacity had scared M. Binet out of
the little sense left him by the Burgundy which in these days he could
afford to abuse. He had offered the most vehement opposition. Part of this
Andre-Louis had swept aside; part he had disregarded.
"I admit that it is audacious," said Scaramouche. "But at your time of
life you should have learnt that in this world nothing succeeds like
audacity."
"I forbid it; I absolutely forbid it," M. Binet insisted.
"I knew you would. Just as I know that you'll be very grateful to me
presently for not obeying you.
"You are inviting a catastrophe."
"I am inviting fortune. The worst catastrophe that can overtake you is
to be back in the market-halls of the country villages from which I rescued
you. I'll have you in Paris yet in spite of yourself. Leave this to me."
And he went out to attend to the printing. Nor did his preparations end
there. He wrote a piquant article on the glories of the Comedie de l'Art,
and its resurrection by the improvising troupe of the great mime Florimond
Binet. Binet's name was not Florimond; it was just Pierre. But Andre-Louis
had a great sense of the theatre. That article was an amplification of the
stimulating matter contained in the playbills; and he persuaded Basque, who
had relations in Nantes, to use all the influence he could command, and all
the bribery they could afford, to get that article printed in the "Courrier
Nantais" a couple of days before the arrival of the Binet Troupe.
Basque had succeeded, and, considering the undoubted literary merits
and intrinsic interest of the article, this is not at all surprising.
And so it was upon an already expectant city that Binet and his company
descended in that first week of February. M. Binet would have made his
entrance in the usual manner - a full-dress parade with banging drums and
crashing cymbals. But to this Andre-Louis offered the most relentless
opposition.
"We should but discover our poverty," said he. "Instead, we will creep
into the city unobserved, and leave ourselves to the imagination of the
public."
He had his way, of course. M. Binet, worn already with battling against
the strong waters of this young man's will, was altogether unequal to the
contest now that he found CLIMENE in alliance with Scaramouche, adding her
insistence to his, and joining with him in reprobation of her father's
sluggish and reactionary wits. Metaphorically, M. Binet threw up his arms,
and cursing the day on which he had taken this young man into his troupe, he
allowed the current to carry him whither it would. He was persuaded that he
would be drowned in the end. Meanwhile he would drown his vexation in
Burgundy. At least there was abundance of Burgundy. Never in his life had he
found Burgundy so plentiful. Perhaps things were not as bad as he imagined,
after all. He reflected that, when all was said, he had to thank Scaramouche
for the Burgundy. Whilst fearing the worst, he would hope for the best.
And it was very much the worst that he feared as he waited in the wings
when the curtain rose on that first performance of theirs at the Theatre
Feydau to a house that was tolerably filled by a public whose curiosity the
preliminary announcements had thoroughly stimulated.
Although the scenario of "Lee Fourberies de Scaramouche" has not
apparently survived, yet we know from Andre-Louis' "Confessions" that it is
opened by Polichinelle in the character of an arrogant and fiercely jealous
lover shown in the act of beguiling the waiting-maid, Columbine, to play the
spy upon her mistress, Climene. Beginning with cajolery, but failing in this
with the saucy Columbine, who likes cajolers to be at least attractive and
to pay a due deference to her own very piquant charms, the fierce humpbacked
scoundrel passes on to threats of the terrible vengeance he will wreak upon
her if she betrays him or neglects to obey him implicitly; failing here,
likewise, he finally has recourse to bribery, and after he has bled himself
freely to the very expectant Columbine, he succeeds by these means in
obtaining her consent to spy upon Climene, and to report to him upon her
lady's conduct.
The pair played the scene well together, stimulated, perhaps, by their
very nervousness at finding themselves before so imposing an audience.
Polichinelle was everything that is fierce, contemptuous, and insistent.
Columbine was the essence of pert indifference under his cajolery, saucily
mocking under his threats, and finely sly in extorting the very maximum when
it came to accepting a bribe. Laughter rippled through the audience and
promised well. But M. Binet, standing trembling in the wings, missed the
great guffaws of the rustic spectators to whom they had played hitherto, and
his fears steadily mounted.
Then, scarcely has Polichinelle departed by the door than Scaramouche
bounds in through the window. It was an effective entrance, usually
performed with a broad comic effect that set the people in a roar. Not so on
this occasion. Meditating in bed that morning, Scaramouche had decided to
present himself in a totally different aspect. He would cut out all the
broad play, all the usual clowning which had delighted their past rude
audiences, and he would obtain his effects by subtlety instead. He would
present a slyly humorous rogue, restrained, and of a certain dignity,
wearing a countenance of complete solemnity, speaking his lines drily, as if
unconscious of the humour with which he intended to invest them. Thus,
though it might take the audience longer to understand and discover him,
they would like him all the better in the end.
True to that resolve, he now played his part as the friend and hired
ally of the lovesick Leandre, on whose behalf he came for news of Climene,
seizing the opportunity to further his own amour with Columbine and his
designs upon the money-bags of Pantaloon. Also he had taken certain
liberties with the traditional costume of Scaramouche; he had caused the
black doublet and breeches to be slashed with red, and the doublet to be cut
more to a peak, a la Henri III. The conventional black velvet cap he had
replaced by a conical hat with a turned-up brim, and a tuft of feathers on
the left, and he had discarded the guitar.
M. Binet listened desperately for the roar of laughter that usually
greeted the entrance of Scaramouche, and his dismay increased when it did
not come. And then he became conscious of something alarmingly unusual in
Scaramouche's manner. The sibilant foreign accent was there, but none of the
broad boisterousness their audiences had loved.
He wrung his hands in despair. "It is all over!" he said. "The fellow
has ruined us! It serves me right for being a fool, and allowing him to take
control of everything!"
But he was profoundly mistaken. He began to have an inkling of this
when presently himself he took the stage, and found the public attentive,
remarked a grin of quiet appreciation on every upturned face. It was not,
however, until the thunders of applause greeted the fall of the curtain on
the first act that he felt quite sure they would be allowed to escape with
their lives.
Had the part of Pantaloon in "Les Fourberies" been other than that of a
blundering, timid old idiot, Binet would have ruined it by his
apprehensions. As it was, those very apprehensions, magnifying as they did
the hesitancy and bewilderment that were the essence of his part,
contributed to the success. And a success it proved that more than justified
all the heralding of which Scaramouche had been guilty.
For Scaramouche himself this success was not confined to the public. At
the end of the play a great reception awaited him from his companions
assembled in the green-room of the theatre. His talent, resource, and energy
had raised them in a few weeks from a pack of vagrant mountebanks to a
self-respecting company of first-rate players. They acknowledged it
generously in a speech entrusted to Polichinelle, adding the tribute to his
genius that, as they had conquered Nantes, so would they conquer the world
under his guidance.
In their enthusiasm they were a little neglectful of the feelings of M.
Binet. Irritated enough had he been already by the overriding of his every
wish, by the consciousness of his weakness when opposed to Scaramouche. And,
although he had suffered the gradual process of usurpation of authority
because its every step had been attended by his own greater profit, deep
down in him the resentment abode to stifle every spark of that gratitude due
from him to his partner. To-night his nerves had been on the rack, and he
had suffered agonies of apprehension, for all of which he blamed Scaramouche
so bitterly that not even the ultimate success - almost miraculous when all
the elements are considered - could justify his partner in his eyes.
And now, to find himself, in addition, ignored by this company - his
own company, which he had so laboriously and slowly assembled and selected
among the men of ability whom he had found here and there in the dregs of
cities was something that stirred his bile, and aroused the malevolence that
never did more than slumber in him. But deeply though his rage was moved, it
did not blind him to the folly of betraying it. Yet that he should assert
himself in this hour was imperative unless he were for ever to become a
thing of no account in this troupe over which he had lorded it for long
months before this interloper came amongst them to fill his purse and
destroy his authority.
So he stepped forward now when Polichinelle had done. His make-up
assisting him to mask his bitter feelings, he professed to add his own to
Polichinelle's acclamations of his dear partner. But he did it in such a
manner as to make it clear that what Scaramouche had done, he had done by M.
Binet's favour, and that in all M. Binet's had been the guiding hand. In
associating himself with Polichinelle, he desired to thank Scaramouche, much
in the manner of a lord rendering thanks to his steward for services
diligently rendered and orders scrupulously carried out.
It neither deceived the troupe nor mollified himself. Indeed, his
consciousness of the mockery of it but increased his bitterness. But at
least it saved his face and rescued him from nullity - he who was their
chief.
To say, as I have said, that it did not deceive them, is perhaps to say
too much, for it deceived them at least on the score of his feelings. They
believed, after discounting the insinuations in which he took all credit to
himself, that at heart he was filled with gratitude, as they were. That
belief was shared by Andre-Louis himself, who in his brief, grateful answer
was very generous to M. Binet, more than endorsing the claims that M. Binet
had made.
And then followed from him the announcement that their success in
Nantes was the sweeter to him because it rendered almost immediately
attainable the dearest wish of his heart, which was to make Climene his
wife. It was a felicity of which he was the first to acknowledge his utter
unworthiness. It was to bring him into still closer relations with his good
friend M. Binet, to whom he owed all that he had achieved for himself and
for them. The announcement was joyously received, for the world of the
theatre loves a lover as dearly as does the greater world. So they acclaimed
the happy pair, with the exception of poor Leandre, whose eyes were more
melancholy than ever.
They were a happy family that night in the upstairs room of their inn
on the Quai La Fosse - the same inn from which Andre-Louis had set out some
weeks ago to play a vastly different role before an audience of Nantes. Yet
was it so different, he wondered? Had he not then been a sort of Scaramouche
- an intriguer, glib and specious, deceiving folk, cynically misleading them
with opinions that were not really his own? Was it at all surprising that he
should have made so rapid and signal a success as a mime? Was not this
really all that he had ever been, the thing for which Nature had designed
him?
On the following night they played "The Shy Lover" to a full house, the
fame of their debut having gone abroad, and the success of Monday was
confirmed. On Wednesday they gave "Figaro-Scaramouche," and on Thursday
morning the "Courrier Nantais" came out with an article of more than a
column of praise of these brilliant improvisers, for whom it claimed that
they utterly put to shame the mere reciters of memorized parts.
Andre-Louis, reading the sheet at breakfast, and having no delusions on
the score of the falseness of that statement, laughed inwardly. The novelty
of the thing, and the pretentiousness in which he had swaddled it, had
deceived them finely. He turned to greet Binet and Climene, who entered at
that moment. He waved the sheet above his head.
"It is settled," he announced, "we stay in Nantes until Easter."
"Do we?" said Binet, sourly. "You settle everything, my friend."
"Read for yourself." And he handed him the paper.
Moodily M. Binet read. He set the sheet down in silence, and turned his
attention to his breakfast.
"Was I justified or not?" quoth Andre-Louis, who found M. Binet's
behaviour a thought intriguing.
"In what?"
"In coming to Nantes?"
"If I had not thought so, we should not have come," said Binet, and he
began to eat.
Andre-Louis dropped the subject, wondering.
After breakfast he and Climene sallied forth to take the air upon the
quays. It was a day of brilliant sunshine and less cold than it had lately
been. Columbine tactlessly joined them as they were setting out, though in
this respect matters were improved a little when Harlequin came running
after them, and attached himself to Columbine.
Andre-Louis, stepping out ahead with Climene, spoke of the thing that
was uppermost in his mind at the moment.
"Your father is behaving very oddly towards me," said he. "It is almost
as if he had suddenly become hostile."
"You imagine it," said she. "My father is very grateful to you, as we
all are."
"He is anything but grateful. He is infuriated against me; and I think
I know the reason. Don't you? Can't you guess?"
"I can't, indeed."
"If you were my daughter, Climene, which God be thanked you are not, I
should feel aggrieved against the man who carried you away from me. Poor old
Pantaloon! He called me a corsair when I told him that I intend to marry
you."
"He was right. You are a bold robber, Scaramouche."
"It is in the character," said he. "Your father believes in having his
mimes play upon the stage the parts that suit their natural temperaments."
"Yes, you take everything you want, don't you?" She looked up at him,
half adoringly, half shyly.
"If it is possible," said he. "I took his consent to our marriage by
main force from him. I never waited for him to give it. When, in fact, he
refused it, I just snatched it from him, and I'll defy him now to win it
back from me. I think that is what he most resents."
She laughed, and launched upon an animated answer. But he did not hear
a word of it. Through the bustle of traffic on the quay a cabriolet, the
upper half of which was almost entirely made of glass, had approached them.
It was drawn by two magnificent bay horses and driven by a superbly livened
coachman.
In the cabriolet alone sat a slight young girl wrapped in a lynx-fur
pelisse, her face of a delicate loveliness. She was leaning forward, her
lips parted, her eyes devouring Scaramouche until they drew his gaze. When
that happened, the shock of it brought him abruptly to a dumfounded halt.
Climene, checking in the middle of a sentence, arrested by his own
sudden stopping, plucked at his sleeve.
"What is it, Scaramouche?"
But he made no attempt to answer her, and at that moment the coachman,
to whom the little lady had already signalled, brought the carriage to a
standstill beside them. Seen in the gorgeous setting of that coach with its
escutcheoned panels, its portly coachman and its white-stockinged footman -
who swung instantly to earth as the vehicle stopped - its dainty occupant
seemed to Climene a princess out of a fairy-tale. And this princess leaned
forward, with eyes aglow and cheeks aflush, stretching out a choicely gloved
hand to Scaramouche.
"Andre-Louis!" she called him.
And Scaramouche took the hand of that exalted being, just as he might
have taken the hand of Climene herself, and with eyes that reflected the
gladness of her own, in a voice that echoed the joyous surprise of hers, he
addressed her familiarly by name, just as she had addressed him.
"Aline!"
"The door," Aline commanded her footman, and "Mount here beside me,"
she commanded Andre-Louis, in the same breath.
"A moment, Aline."
He turned to his companion, who was all amazement, and to Harlequin and
Columbine, who had that moment come up to share it. "You permit me,
Climene?" said he, breathlessly. But it was more a statement than a
question. "Fortunately you are not alone. Harlequin will take care of you.
Au revoir, at dinner."
With that he sprang into the cabriolet without waiting for a reply. The
footman dosed the door, the coachman cracked his whip, and the regal
equipage rolled away along the quay, leaving the three comedians staring
after it, open-mouthed... Then Harlequin laughed.
"A prince in disguise, our Scaramouche!" said he.
Columbine clapped her hands and flashed her strong teeth. "But what a
romance for you, Climene! How wonderful!"
The frown melted from Climene's brow. Resentment changed to
bewilderment.
"But who is she?"
"His sister, of course," said Harlequin, quite definitely.
"His sister? How do you know?"
"I know what he will tell you on his return."
"But why?"
"Because you wouldn't believe him if he said she was his mother."
Following the carriage with their glance, they wandered on in the
direction it had taken. And in the carriage Aline was considering
Andre-Louis with grave eyes, lips slightly compressed, and a tiny frown
between her finely drawn eyebrows.
"You have taken to queer company, Andre," was the first thing she said
to him. "Or else I am mistaken in thinking that your companion was Mlle.
Binet of the Theatre Feydau."
"You are not mistaken. But I had not imagined Mlle. Binet so famous
already."
"Oh, as to that... " mademoiselle shrugged, her tone quietly scornful.
And she explained. "It is simply that I was at the play last night. I
thought I recognized her."
"You were at the Feydau last night? And I never saw you!"
"Were you there, too?"
"Was I there!" he cried. Then he checked, and abruptly changed his
tone. "Oh, yes, I was there," he said, as commonplace as he could, beset by
a sudden reluctance to avow that he had so willingly descended to depths
that she must account unworthy, and grateful that his disguise of face and
voice should have proved impenetrable even to one who knew him so very well.
"I understand," said she, and compressed her lips a little more
tightly.
"But what do you understand?"
"The rare attractions of Mlle. Binet. Naturally you would be at the
theatre. Your tone conveyed it very clearly. Do you know that you disappoint
me, Andre? It is stupid of me, perhaps; it betrays, I suppose, my imperfect
knowledge of your sex. I am aware that most young men of fashion find an
irresistible attraction for creatures who parade themselves upon the stage.
But I did not expect you to ape the ways of a man of fashion. I was foolish
enough to imagine you to be different; rather above such trivial pursuits. I
conceived you something of an idealist."
"Sheer flattery."
"So I perceive. But you misled me. You talked so much morality of a
kind, you made philosophy so readily, that I came to be deceived. In fact,
your hypocrisy was so consummate that I never suspected it. With your gift
of acting I wonder that you haven't joined Mlle. Binet's troupe."
"I have," said he.
It had really become necessary to tell her, making choice of the lesser
of the two evils with which she confronted him.
He saw first incredulity, then consternation, and lastly disgust
overspread her face.
"Of course," said she, after a long pause, "that would have the
advantage of bringing you closer to your charmer."
"That was only one of the inducements. There was another. Finding
myself forced to choose between the stage and the gallows, I had the
incredible weakness to prefer the former. It was utterly unworthy of a man
of my lofty ideals, but - what would you? Like other ideologists, I find it
easier to preach than to practise. Shall I stop the carriage and remove the
contamination of my disgusting person? Or shall I tell you how it happened?"
"Tell me how it happened first. Then we will decide."
He told her how he met the Binet Troupe, and how the men of the
marechaussee forced upon him the discovery that in its bosom he could lie
safely lost until the hue and cry had died down. The explanation dissolved
her iciness.
"My poor Andre, why didn't you tell me this at first?"
"For one thing, you didn't give me time; for another, I feared to shock
you with the spectacle of my degradation."
She took him seriously. "But where was the need of it? And why did you
not send us word as I required you of your whereabouts?"
"I was thinking of it only yesterday. I have hesitated for several
reasons."
"You thought it would offend us to know what you were doing?"
"I think that I preferred to surprise you by the magnitude of my
ultimate achievements."
"Oh, you are to become a great actor?" She was frankly scornful.
"That is not impossible. But I am more concerned to become a great
author. There is no reason why you should sniff. The calling is an
honourable one. All the world is proud to know such men as Beaumarchais and
Chenier."
"And you hope to equal them?"
"I hope to surpass them, whilst acknowledging that it was they who
taught me how to walk. What did you think of the play last night?"
"It was amusing and well conceived."
"Let me present you to the author."
"You? But the company is one of the improvisers."
"Even improvisers require an author to write their scenarios. That is
all I write at present. Soon I shall be writing plays in the modern manner."
"You deceive yourself, my poor Andre. The piece last night would have
been nothing without the players. You are fortunate in your Scaramouche."
"In confidence - I present you to him."
"You - Scaramouche? You?" She turned to regard him fully. He smiled his
close-lipped smile that made wrinkles like gashes in his cheeks. He nodded.
"And I didn't recognize you!"
"I thank you for the tribute. You imagined, of course, that I was a
scene-shifter. And now that you know all about me, what of Gavrillac? What
of my godfather?"
He was well, she told him, and still profoundly indignant with
Andre-Louis for his defection, whilst secretly concerned on his behalf.
"I shall write to him to-day that I have seen you."
"Do so. Tell him that I am well and prospering. But say no more. Do not
tell him what I am doing. He has his prejudices too. Besides, it might not
be prudent. And now the question I have been burning to ask ever since I
entered your carriage. Why are you in Nantes, Aline?"
"I am on a visit to my aunt, Mme. de Sautron. It was with her that I
came to the play yesterday. We have been dull at the chateau; but it will be
different now. Madame my aunt is receiving several guests to-day. M. de La
Tour d'Azyr is to be one of them."
Andre-Louis frowned and sighed. "Did you ever hear, Aline, how poor
Philippe de Vilmorin came by his end?"
"Yes; I was told, first by my uncle; then by M. de La Tour d'Azyr,
himself."
"Did not that help you to decide this marriage question?"
"How could it? You forget that I am but a woman. You don't expect me to
judge between men in matters such as these?"
"Why not? You are well able to do so. The more since you have heard two
sides. For my godfather would tell you the truth. If you cannot judge, it is
that you do not wish to judge." His tone became harsh. "Wilfully you close
your eyes to justice that might check the course of your unhealthy,
unnatural ambition."
"Excellent!" she exclaimed, and considered him with amusement and
something else. "Do you know that you are almost droll? You rise unblushing
from the dregs of life in which I find you, and shake off the arm of that
theatre girl, to come and preach to me."
"If these were the dregs of life I might still speak from them to
counsel you out of my respect and devotion ,Aline." He was very stiff and
stern. "But they are not the dregs of life. Honour and virtue are possible
to a theatre girl; they are impossible to a lady who sells herself to
gratify ambition; who for position, riches, and a great title barters
herself in marriage."
She looked at him breathlessly. Anger turned her pale. She reached for
the cord.
"I think I had better let you alight so that you may go back to
practise virtue and honour with your theatre wench."
"You shall not speak so of her, Aline."
"Faith, now we are to have heat on her behalf. You think I am too
delicate? You think I should speak of her as a... "
"If you must speak of her at all," he interrupted, hotly, "you'll speak
of her as my wife."
Amazement smothered her anger. Her pallor deepened. "My God!" she said,
and looked at him in horror. And in horror she asked him presently: "You are
married - married to that -?"
"Not yet. But I shall be, soon. And let me tell you that this girl whom
you visit with your ignorant contempt is as good and pure as you are, Aline.
She has wit and talent which have placed her where she is and shall carry
her a deal farther. And she has the womanliness to be guided by natural
instincts in the selection of her mate."
She was trembling with passion. She tugged the cord.
"You will descend this instant!" she told him fiercely. "That you
should dare to make a comparison between me and that... "
"And my wife-to-be," he interrupted, before she could speak the
infamous word. He opened the door for himself without waiting for the
"If we are to play at the Feydau, you want a company of self-respecting
comedians, and not a pack of cringing starvelings. The better we pay them in
reason, the more they will earn for us."
Thus was conquered the company's resentment of this too swift promotion
of its latest recruit. Cheerfully now - with one exception - they accepted
the dominance of Scaramouche, a dominance soon to be so firmly established
that M. Binet himself came under it.
The one exception was Climene. Her failure to bring to heel this
interesting young stranger, who had almost literally dropped into their
midst that morning outside Guichen, had begotten in her a malice which his
persistent ignoring of her had been steadily inflaming. She had remonstrated
with her father when the new partnership was first formed. She had lost her
temper with him, and called him a fool, whereupon M. Binet - in Pantaloon's
best manner - had lost his temper in his turn and boxed her ears. She piled
it up to the account of Scaramouche, and spied her opportunity to pay off
some of that ever-increasing score. But opportunities were few. Scaramouche
was too occupied just then. During the week of preparation at Fougeray, he
was hardly seen save at the performances, whilst when once they were at
Redon, he came and went like the wind between the theatre and the inn.
The Redon experiment had justified itself from the first. Stimulated
and encouraged by this, Andre-Louis worked day and night during the month
that they spent in that busy little town. The moment had been well chosen,
for the trade in chestnuts of which Redon is the centre was just then at its
height. And every afternoon the little theatre was packed with spectators.
The fame of the troupe had gone forth, borne by the chestnut-growers of the
district, who were bringing their wares to Redon market, and the audiences
were made up of people from the surrounding country, and from neighbouring
villages as far out as Allaire, Saint-Perrieux and Saint-Nicholas. To keep
the business from slackening, Andre-Louis prepared a new scenario every
week. He wrote three in addition to those two with which he had already
supplied the company; these were "The Marriage of Pantaloon," "The Shy
Lover," and "The Terrible Captain." Of these the last was the greatest
success. It was based upon the "Miles Gloriosus" of Plautus, with great
opportunities for Rhodomont, and a good part for Scaramouche as the roaring
captain's sly lieutenant. Its success was largely due to the fact that
Andre-Louis amplified the scenario to the extent of indicating very fully in
places the lines which the dialogue should follow, whilst here and there he
had gone so far as to supply some of the actual dialogue to be spoken,
without, however, making it obligatory upon the actors to keep to the letter
of it.
And meanwhile as the business prospered, he became busy with tailors,
improving the wardrobe of the company, which was sorely in need of
improvement. He ran to earth a couple of needy artists, lured them into the
company to play small parts - apothecaries and notaries - and set them to
beguile their leisure in painting new scenery, so as to be ready for what he
called the conquest of Nantes, which was to come in the new year. Never in
his life had he worked so hard; never in his life had he worked at all by
comparison with his activities now. His fund of energy and enthusiasm was
inexhaustible, like that of his good humour. He came and went, acted, wrote,
conceived, directed, planned, and executed, what time M. Binet took his ease
at last in comparative affluence, drank Burgundy every night, ate white
bread and other delicacies, and began to congratulate himself upon his
astuteness in having made this industrious, tireless fellow his partner.
Having discovered how idle had been his fears of performing at Redon, he now
began to dismiss the terrors with which the notion of Nantes had haunted
him.
And his happiness was reflected throughout the ranks of his company,
with the single exception always of Climene. She had ceased to sneer at
Scaramouche, haying realized at last that her sneers left him untouched and
recoiled upon herself. Thus her almost indefinable resentment of him was
increased by being stifled, until, at all costs, an outlet for it must be
found.
One day she threw herself in his way as he was leaving the theatre
after the performance. The others had already gone, and she had returned
upon pretence of having forgotten something.
"Will you tell me what I have done to you?" she asked him, point-blank.
"Done to me, mademoiselle?" He did not understand. She made a gesture
of impatience. "Why do you hate me?"
"Hate you, mademoiselle? I do not hate anybody. It is the most stupid
of all the emotions. I have never hated - not even my enemies."
"What Christian resignation!"
"As for hating you, of all people! Why... I consider you adorable. I
envy Leandre every day of my life. I have seriously thought of setting him
to play Scaramouche, and playing lovers myself."
"I don't think you would be a success," said she.
"That is the only consideration that restrains me. And yet, given the
inspiration that is given Leandre, it is possible that I might be
convincing."
"Why, what inspiration do you mean?"
"The inspiration of playing to so adorable a Climene."
Her lazy eyes were now alert to search that lean face of his.
"You are laughing at me," said she, and swept past him into the theatre
on her pretended quest. There was nothing to be done with such a fellow. He
was utterly without feeling. He was not a man at all.
Yet when she came forth again at the end of some five minutes, she
found him still lingering at the door.
"Not gone yet?" she asked him, superciliously.
"I was waiting for you, mademoiselle. You will be walking to the inn.
If I might escort you... "
"But what gallantry! What condescension!"
"Perhaps you would prefer that I did not?"
"How could I prefer that, M. Scaramouche? Besides, we are both going
the same way, and the streets are common to all. It is that I am overwhelmed
by the unusual honour."
He looked into her piquant little face, and noted how obscured it was
by its cloud of dignity. He laughed.
"Perhaps I feared that the honour was not sought."
"Ah, now I understand," she cried. "It is for me to seek these honours.
I am to woo a man before he will pay me the homage of civility. It must be
so, since you, who clearly know everything, have said so. It remains for me
to beg your pardon for my ignorance."
"It amuses you to be cruel," said Scaramouche. "No matter. Shall we
walk?"
They set out together, stepping briskly to warm their blood against the
wintry evening air. Awhile they went in silence, yet each furtively
observing the other.
"And so, you find me cruel?" she challenged him at length, thereby
betraying the fact that the accusation had struck home.
He looked at her with a half smile. "Will you deny it?"
"You are the first man that ever accused me of that."
"I dare not suppose myself the first man to whom you have been cruel.
That were an assumption too flattering to myself. I must prefer to think
that the others suffered in silence."
"Mon Dieu! Have you suffered?" She was between seriousness and
raillery.
"I place the confession as an offering on the altar of your vanity."
"I should never have suspected it."
"How could you? Am I not what your father calls a natural actor? I was
an actor long before I became Scaramouche. Therefore I have laughed. I often
do when I am hurt. When you were pleased to be disdainful, I acted disdain
in my turn."
"You acted very well," said she, without reflecting.
"Of course. I am an excellent actor."
"And why this sudden change?"
"In response to the change in you. You have grown weary of your part of
cruel madam - a dull part, believe me, and unworthy of your talents., Were I
a woman and had I your loveliness and your grace, Climene, I should disdain
to use them as weapons of offence."
"Loveliness and grace!" she echoed, feigning amused surprise. But the
vain baggage was mollified. "When was it that you discovered this beauty and
this grace, M. Scaramouche?"
He looked at her a moment, considering the sprightly beauty of her, the
adorable femininity that from the first had so irresistibly attracted him.
"One morning when I beheld you rehearsing a love-scene with Leandre."
He caught the surprise that leapt to her eyes, before she veiled them
under drooping lids from his too questing gaze.
"Why, that was the first time you saw me."
"I had no earlier occasion to remark your charms."
"You ask me to believe too much," said she, but her tone was softer
than he had ever known it yet.
"Then you'll refuse to believe me if I confess that it was this grace
and beauty that determined my destiny that day by urging me to join your
father's troupe."
At that she became a little out of breath. There was no longer any
question of finding an outlet for resentment. Resentment was all forgotten.
"But why? With what object?"
"With the object of asking you one day to be my wife."
She halted under the shock of that, and swung round to face him. Her
glance met his own without, shyness now; there was a hardening glitter in
her eyes, a faint stir of colour in her cheeks. She suspected him of an
unpardonable mockery.
"You go very fast, don't you?" she asked him, with heat.
"I do. haven't you observed it? I am a man of sudden impulses. See what
I have made of the Binet troupe in less than a couple of months. Another
might have laboured for a year and not achieved the half of it. Shall I be
slower in love than in work? Would it be reasonable to expect it? I have
curbed and repressed myself not to scare you by precipitancy. In that I have
done violence to my feelings, and more than all in using the same cold
aloofness with which you chose to treat me. I have waited - oh! so patiently
- until you should tire of that mood of cruelty."
"You are an amazing man," said she, quite colourlessly.
"I am," he agreed with her. "It is only the conviction that I am not
commonplace that has permitted me to hope as I have hoped."
Mechanically, and as if by tacit consent, they resumed their walk.
"And I ask you to observe," he said, "when you complain that I go very
fast, that, after all, I have so far asked you for nothing."
"How?" quoth she, frowning.
"I have merely told you of my hopes. I am not so rash as to ask at once
whether I may realize them."
"My faith, but that is prudent," said she, tartly.
"Of course."
It was his self-possession that exasperated her; for after that she
walked the short remainder of the way in silence, and so, for the moment,
the matter was left just there.
But that night, after they had supped, it chanced that when Climene was
about to retire, he and she were alone together in the room abovestairs that
her father kept exclusively for his company. The Binet Troupe, you see, was
rising in the world.
As Climene now rose to withdraw for the night, Scaramouche rose with
her to light her candle. Holding it in her left hand, she offered him her
right, a long, tapering, white hand at the end of a softly rounded arm that
was bare to the elbow.
"Good-night, Scaramouche," she said, but so softly, so tenderly, that
he caught his breath, and stood conning her, his dark eyes aglow.
Thus a moment, then he took the tips of her fingers in his grasp, and
bowing over the hand, pressed his lips upon it. Then he looked at her again.
The intense femininity of her lured him on, invited him, surrendered to him.
Her face was pale, there was a glitter in her eyes, a curious smile upon her
parted lips, and under its fichu-menteur her bosom rose and fell to complete
the betrayal of her.
By the hand he continued to hold, he drew her towards him. She came
unresisting. He took the candle from her, and set it down on the sideboard
by which she stood. The next moment her slight, lithe body was in his arms,
and he was kissing her, murmuring her name as if it were a prayer.
"Am I cruel now?" she asked him, panting. He kissed her again for only
answer. "You made me cruel because you would not see," she told him next in
a whisper.
And then the door opened, and M. Binet came in to have his paternal
eyes regaled by this highly indecorous behaviour of his daughter.
He stood at gaze, whilst they quite leisurely, and in a self-possession
too complete to be natural, detached each from the other.
"And what may be the meaning of this?" demanded M. Binet, bewildered
and profoundly shocked.
"Does it require explaining?" asked Scaramouche. "Doesn't it speak for
itself - eloquently? It means that Climene and I have taken it into our
heads to be married."
"And doesn't it matter what I may take into my head?"
"Of course. But you could have neither the bad taste nor the bad heart
to offer any obstacle."
"You take that for granted? Aye, that is your way, to be sure - to take
things for granted. But my daughter is not to be taken for granted. I have
very definite views for my daughter. You have done an unworthy thing,
Scaramouche. You have betrayed my trust in you. I am very angry with you."
He rolled forward with his ponderous yet curiously noiseless gait.
Scaramouche turned to her, smiling, and handed her the candle.
"If you will leave us, Climene, I will ask your hand of your father in
proper form."
She vanished, a little fluttered, lovelier than ever in her mixture of
confusion and timidity. Scaramouche closed the door and faced the enraged M.
Binet, who had flung himself into an armchair at the head of the short
table, faced him with the avowed purpose of asking for Climene's hand in
proper form. And this was how he did it:
"Father-in-law," said he, "I congratulate you. This will certainly mean
the Comedie Francaise for Climene, and that before long, and you shall shine
in the glory she will reflect. As the father of Madame Scaramouche you may
yet be famous."
Binet, his face slowly empurpling, glared at him in speechless
stupefaction. His rage was the more utter from his humiliating conviction
that whatever he might say or do, this irresistible fellow would bend him to
his will. At last speech came to him.
"You're a damned corsair," he cried, thickly, banging his ham-like fist
upon the table. "A corsair! First you sail in and plunder me of half my
legitimate gains; and now you want to carry off my daughter. But I'll be
damned if I'll give her to a graceless, nameless scoundrel like you, for
whom the gallows are waiting already."
Scaramouche pulled the bell-rope, not at all discomposed. He smiled.
There was a flush on his cheeks and a gleam in his eyes. He was very pleased
with the world that night. He really owed a great debt to M. de
Lesdiguieres.
"Binet," said he, "forget for once that you are Pantaloon, and behave
as a nice, amiable father-in-law should behave when he has secured a
son-in-law of exceptionable merits. We are going to have a bottle of
Burgundy at my expense, and it shall be the best bottle of Burgundy to be
found in Redon. Compose yourself to do fitting honour to it. Excitations of
the bile invariably impair the fine sensitiveness of the palate."
The Binet Troupe opened in Nantes - as you may discover in surviving
copies of the "Courrier Nantais" - on the Feast of the Purification with
"Les Fourberies de Scaramouche." But they did not come to Nantes as hitherto
they had gone to little country villages and townships, unheralded and
depending entirely upon the parade of their entrance to attract attention to
themselves. Andre-Louis had borrowed from the business methods of the
Comedie Francaise. Carrying matters with a high hand entirely in his own
fashion, he had ordered at Redon the printing of playbills, and four days
before the company's descent upon Nantes, these bills were pasted outside
the Theatre Feydau and elsewhere about the town, and had attracted
- being still sufficiently unusual announcements at the time -
considerable attention. He had entrusted the matter to one of the company's
latest recruits, an intelligent young man named Basque, sending him on ahead
of the company for the purpose.
You may see for yourself one of these playbills in the Carnavalet
Museum. It details the players by their stage names only, with the exception
of M. Binet and his daughter, and leaving out of account that he who plays
Trivelin in one piece appears as Tabarin in another, it makes the company
appear to be at least half as numerous again as it really was. It announces
that they will open with "Les Fourberies de Scaramouche," to be followed by
five other plays of which it gives the titles, and by others not named,
which shall also be added should the patronage to be received in the
distinguished and enlightened city of Nantes encourage the Binet Troupe to
prolong its sojourn at the Theatre Feydau. It lays great stress upon the
fact that this is a company of improvisers in the old Italian manner, the
like of which has not been seen in France for half a century, and it exhorts
the public of Nantes not to miss this opportunity of witnessing these
distinguished mimes who are reviving for them the glories of the Comedie de
l'Art. Their visit to Nantes - the announcement proceeds - is preliminary to
their visit to Paris, where they intend to throw down the glove to the
actors of the Comedie Francaise, and to show the world how superior is the
art of the improviser to that of the actor who depends upon an author for
what he shall say, and who consequently says always the same thing every
time that he plays in the same piece.
It is an audacious bill, and its audacity had scared M. Binet out of
the little sense left him by the Burgundy which in these days he could
afford to abuse. He had offered the most vehement opposition. Part of this
Andre-Louis had swept aside; part he had disregarded.
"I admit that it is audacious," said Scaramouche. "But at your time of
life you should have learnt that in this world nothing succeeds like
audacity."
"I forbid it; I absolutely forbid it," M. Binet insisted.
"I knew you would. Just as I know that you'll be very grateful to me
presently for not obeying you.
"You are inviting a catastrophe."
"I am inviting fortune. The worst catastrophe that can overtake you is
to be back in the market-halls of the country villages from which I rescued
you. I'll have you in Paris yet in spite of yourself. Leave this to me."
And he went out to attend to the printing. Nor did his preparations end
there. He wrote a piquant article on the glories of the Comedie de l'Art,
and its resurrection by the improvising troupe of the great mime Florimond
Binet. Binet's name was not Florimond; it was just Pierre. But Andre-Louis
had a great sense of the theatre. That article was an amplification of the
stimulating matter contained in the playbills; and he persuaded Basque, who
had relations in Nantes, to use all the influence he could command, and all
the bribery they could afford, to get that article printed in the "Courrier
Nantais" a couple of days before the arrival of the Binet Troupe.
Basque had succeeded, and, considering the undoubted literary merits
and intrinsic interest of the article, this is not at all surprising.
And so it was upon an already expectant city that Binet and his company
descended in that first week of February. M. Binet would have made his
entrance in the usual manner - a full-dress parade with banging drums and
crashing cymbals. But to this Andre-Louis offered the most relentless
opposition.
"We should but discover our poverty," said he. "Instead, we will creep
into the city unobserved, and leave ourselves to the imagination of the
public."
He had his way, of course. M. Binet, worn already with battling against
the strong waters of this young man's will, was altogether unequal to the
contest now that he found CLIMENE in alliance with Scaramouche, adding her
insistence to his, and joining with him in reprobation of her father's
sluggish and reactionary wits. Metaphorically, M. Binet threw up his arms,
and cursing the day on which he had taken this young man into his troupe, he
allowed the current to carry him whither it would. He was persuaded that he
would be drowned in the end. Meanwhile he would drown his vexation in
Burgundy. At least there was abundance of Burgundy. Never in his life had he
found Burgundy so plentiful. Perhaps things were not as bad as he imagined,
after all. He reflected that, when all was said, he had to thank Scaramouche
for the Burgundy. Whilst fearing the worst, he would hope for the best.
And it was very much the worst that he feared as he waited in the wings
when the curtain rose on that first performance of theirs at the Theatre
Feydau to a house that was tolerably filled by a public whose curiosity the
preliminary announcements had thoroughly stimulated.
Although the scenario of "Lee Fourberies de Scaramouche" has not
apparently survived, yet we know from Andre-Louis' "Confessions" that it is
opened by Polichinelle in the character of an arrogant and fiercely jealous
lover shown in the act of beguiling the waiting-maid, Columbine, to play the
spy upon her mistress, Climene. Beginning with cajolery, but failing in this
with the saucy Columbine, who likes cajolers to be at least attractive and
to pay a due deference to her own very piquant charms, the fierce humpbacked
scoundrel passes on to threats of the terrible vengeance he will wreak upon
her if she betrays him or neglects to obey him implicitly; failing here,
likewise, he finally has recourse to bribery, and after he has bled himself
freely to the very expectant Columbine, he succeeds by these means in
obtaining her consent to spy upon Climene, and to report to him upon her
lady's conduct.
The pair played the scene well together, stimulated, perhaps, by their
very nervousness at finding themselves before so imposing an audience.
Polichinelle was everything that is fierce, contemptuous, and insistent.
Columbine was the essence of pert indifference under his cajolery, saucily
mocking under his threats, and finely sly in extorting the very maximum when
it came to accepting a bribe. Laughter rippled through the audience and
promised well. But M. Binet, standing trembling in the wings, missed the
great guffaws of the rustic spectators to whom they had played hitherto, and
his fears steadily mounted.
Then, scarcely has Polichinelle departed by the door than Scaramouche
bounds in through the window. It was an effective entrance, usually
performed with a broad comic effect that set the people in a roar. Not so on
this occasion. Meditating in bed that morning, Scaramouche had decided to
present himself in a totally different aspect. He would cut out all the
broad play, all the usual clowning which had delighted their past rude
audiences, and he would obtain his effects by subtlety instead. He would
present a slyly humorous rogue, restrained, and of a certain dignity,
wearing a countenance of complete solemnity, speaking his lines drily, as if
unconscious of the humour with which he intended to invest them. Thus,
though it might take the audience longer to understand and discover him,
they would like him all the better in the end.
True to that resolve, he now played his part as the friend and hired
ally of the lovesick Leandre, on whose behalf he came for news of Climene,
seizing the opportunity to further his own amour with Columbine and his
designs upon the money-bags of Pantaloon. Also he had taken certain
liberties with the traditional costume of Scaramouche; he had caused the
black doublet and breeches to be slashed with red, and the doublet to be cut
more to a peak, a la Henri III. The conventional black velvet cap he had
replaced by a conical hat with a turned-up brim, and a tuft of feathers on
the left, and he had discarded the guitar.
M. Binet listened desperately for the roar of laughter that usually
greeted the entrance of Scaramouche, and his dismay increased when it did
not come. And then he became conscious of something alarmingly unusual in
Scaramouche's manner. The sibilant foreign accent was there, but none of the
broad boisterousness their audiences had loved.
He wrung his hands in despair. "It is all over!" he said. "The fellow
has ruined us! It serves me right for being a fool, and allowing him to take
control of everything!"
But he was profoundly mistaken. He began to have an inkling of this
when presently himself he took the stage, and found the public attentive,
remarked a grin of quiet appreciation on every upturned face. It was not,
however, until the thunders of applause greeted the fall of the curtain on
the first act that he felt quite sure they would be allowed to escape with
their lives.
Had the part of Pantaloon in "Les Fourberies" been other than that of a
blundering, timid old idiot, Binet would have ruined it by his
apprehensions. As it was, those very apprehensions, magnifying as they did
the hesitancy and bewilderment that were the essence of his part,
contributed to the success. And a success it proved that more than justified
all the heralding of which Scaramouche had been guilty.
For Scaramouche himself this success was not confined to the public. At
the end of the play a great reception awaited him from his companions
assembled in the green-room of the theatre. His talent, resource, and energy
had raised them in a few weeks from a pack of vagrant mountebanks to a
self-respecting company of first-rate players. They acknowledged it
generously in a speech entrusted to Polichinelle, adding the tribute to his
genius that, as they had conquered Nantes, so would they conquer the world
under his guidance.
In their enthusiasm they were a little neglectful of the feelings of M.
Binet. Irritated enough had he been already by the overriding of his every
wish, by the consciousness of his weakness when opposed to Scaramouche. And,
although he had suffered the gradual process of usurpation of authority
because its every step had been attended by his own greater profit, deep
down in him the resentment abode to stifle every spark of that gratitude due
from him to his partner. To-night his nerves had been on the rack, and he
had suffered agonies of apprehension, for all of which he blamed Scaramouche
so bitterly that not even the ultimate success - almost miraculous when all
the elements are considered - could justify his partner in his eyes.
And now, to find himself, in addition, ignored by this company - his
own company, which he had so laboriously and slowly assembled and selected
among the men of ability whom he had found here and there in the dregs of
cities was something that stirred his bile, and aroused the malevolence that
never did more than slumber in him. But deeply though his rage was moved, it
did not blind him to the folly of betraying it. Yet that he should assert
himself in this hour was imperative unless he were for ever to become a
thing of no account in this troupe over which he had lorded it for long
months before this interloper came amongst them to fill his purse and
destroy his authority.
So he stepped forward now when Polichinelle had done. His make-up
assisting him to mask his bitter feelings, he professed to add his own to
Polichinelle's acclamations of his dear partner. But he did it in such a
manner as to make it clear that what Scaramouche had done, he had done by M.
Binet's favour, and that in all M. Binet's had been the guiding hand. In
associating himself with Polichinelle, he desired to thank Scaramouche, much
in the manner of a lord rendering thanks to his steward for services
diligently rendered and orders scrupulously carried out.
It neither deceived the troupe nor mollified himself. Indeed, his
consciousness of the mockery of it but increased his bitterness. But at
least it saved his face and rescued him from nullity - he who was their
chief.
To say, as I have said, that it did not deceive them, is perhaps to say
too much, for it deceived them at least on the score of his feelings. They
believed, after discounting the insinuations in which he took all credit to
himself, that at heart he was filled with gratitude, as they were. That
belief was shared by Andre-Louis himself, who in his brief, grateful answer
was very generous to M. Binet, more than endorsing the claims that M. Binet
had made.
And then followed from him the announcement that their success in
Nantes was the sweeter to him because it rendered almost immediately
attainable the dearest wish of his heart, which was to make Climene his
wife. It was a felicity of which he was the first to acknowledge his utter
unworthiness. It was to bring him into still closer relations with his good
friend M. Binet, to whom he owed all that he had achieved for himself and
for them. The announcement was joyously received, for the world of the
theatre loves a lover as dearly as does the greater world. So they acclaimed
the happy pair, with the exception of poor Leandre, whose eyes were more
melancholy than ever.
They were a happy family that night in the upstairs room of their inn
on the Quai La Fosse - the same inn from which Andre-Louis had set out some
weeks ago to play a vastly different role before an audience of Nantes. Yet
was it so different, he wondered? Had he not then been a sort of Scaramouche
- an intriguer, glib and specious, deceiving folk, cynically misleading them
with opinions that were not really his own? Was it at all surprising that he
should have made so rapid and signal a success as a mime? Was not this
really all that he had ever been, the thing for which Nature had designed
him?
On the following night they played "The Shy Lover" to a full house, the
fame of their debut having gone abroad, and the success of Monday was
confirmed. On Wednesday they gave "Figaro-Scaramouche," and on Thursday
morning the "Courrier Nantais" came out with an article of more than a
column of praise of these brilliant improvisers, for whom it claimed that
they utterly put to shame the mere reciters of memorized parts.
Andre-Louis, reading the sheet at breakfast, and having no delusions on
the score of the falseness of that statement, laughed inwardly. The novelty
of the thing, and the pretentiousness in which he had swaddled it, had
deceived them finely. He turned to greet Binet and Climene, who entered at
that moment. He waved the sheet above his head.
"It is settled," he announced, "we stay in Nantes until Easter."
"Do we?" said Binet, sourly. "You settle everything, my friend."
"Read for yourself." And he handed him the paper.
Moodily M. Binet read. He set the sheet down in silence, and turned his
attention to his breakfast.
"Was I justified or not?" quoth Andre-Louis, who found M. Binet's
behaviour a thought intriguing.
"In what?"
"In coming to Nantes?"
"If I had not thought so, we should not have come," said Binet, and he
began to eat.
Andre-Louis dropped the subject, wondering.
After breakfast he and Climene sallied forth to take the air upon the
quays. It was a day of brilliant sunshine and less cold than it had lately
been. Columbine tactlessly joined them as they were setting out, though in
this respect matters were improved a little when Harlequin came running
after them, and attached himself to Columbine.
Andre-Louis, stepping out ahead with Climene, spoke of the thing that
was uppermost in his mind at the moment.
"Your father is behaving very oddly towards me," said he. "It is almost
as if he had suddenly become hostile."
"You imagine it," said she. "My father is very grateful to you, as we
all are."
"He is anything but grateful. He is infuriated against me; and I think
I know the reason. Don't you? Can't you guess?"
"I can't, indeed."
"If you were my daughter, Climene, which God be thanked you are not, I
should feel aggrieved against the man who carried you away from me. Poor old
Pantaloon! He called me a corsair when I told him that I intend to marry
you."
"He was right. You are a bold robber, Scaramouche."
"It is in the character," said he. "Your father believes in having his
mimes play upon the stage the parts that suit their natural temperaments."
"Yes, you take everything you want, don't you?" She looked up at him,
half adoringly, half shyly.
"If it is possible," said he. "I took his consent to our marriage by
main force from him. I never waited for him to give it. When, in fact, he
refused it, I just snatched it from him, and I'll defy him now to win it
back from me. I think that is what he most resents."
She laughed, and launched upon an animated answer. But he did not hear
a word of it. Through the bustle of traffic on the quay a cabriolet, the
upper half of which was almost entirely made of glass, had approached them.
It was drawn by two magnificent bay horses and driven by a superbly livened
coachman.
In the cabriolet alone sat a slight young girl wrapped in a lynx-fur
pelisse, her face of a delicate loveliness. She was leaning forward, her
lips parted, her eyes devouring Scaramouche until they drew his gaze. When
that happened, the shock of it brought him abruptly to a dumfounded halt.
Climene, checking in the middle of a sentence, arrested by his own
sudden stopping, plucked at his sleeve.
"What is it, Scaramouche?"
But he made no attempt to answer her, and at that moment the coachman,
to whom the little lady had already signalled, brought the carriage to a
standstill beside them. Seen in the gorgeous setting of that coach with its
escutcheoned panels, its portly coachman and its white-stockinged footman -
who swung instantly to earth as the vehicle stopped - its dainty occupant
seemed to Climene a princess out of a fairy-tale. And this princess leaned
forward, with eyes aglow and cheeks aflush, stretching out a choicely gloved
hand to Scaramouche.
"Andre-Louis!" she called him.
And Scaramouche took the hand of that exalted being, just as he might
have taken the hand of Climene herself, and with eyes that reflected the
gladness of her own, in a voice that echoed the joyous surprise of hers, he
addressed her familiarly by name, just as she had addressed him.
"Aline!"
"The door," Aline commanded her footman, and "Mount here beside me,"
she commanded Andre-Louis, in the same breath.
"A moment, Aline."
He turned to his companion, who was all amazement, and to Harlequin and
Columbine, who had that moment come up to share it. "You permit me,
Climene?" said he, breathlessly. But it was more a statement than a
question. "Fortunately you are not alone. Harlequin will take care of you.
Au revoir, at dinner."
With that he sprang into the cabriolet without waiting for a reply. The
footman dosed the door, the coachman cracked his whip, and the regal
equipage rolled away along the quay, leaving the three comedians staring
after it, open-mouthed... Then Harlequin laughed.
"A prince in disguise, our Scaramouche!" said he.
Columbine clapped her hands and flashed her strong teeth. "But what a
romance for you, Climene! How wonderful!"
The frown melted from Climene's brow. Resentment changed to
bewilderment.
"But who is she?"
"His sister, of course," said Harlequin, quite definitely.
"His sister? How do you know?"
"I know what he will tell you on his return."
"But why?"
"Because you wouldn't believe him if he said she was his mother."
Following the carriage with their glance, they wandered on in the
direction it had taken. And in the carriage Aline was considering
Andre-Louis with grave eyes, lips slightly compressed, and a tiny frown
between her finely drawn eyebrows.
"You have taken to queer company, Andre," was the first thing she said
to him. "Or else I am mistaken in thinking that your companion was Mlle.
Binet of the Theatre Feydau."
"You are not mistaken. But I had not imagined Mlle. Binet so famous
already."
"Oh, as to that... " mademoiselle shrugged, her tone quietly scornful.
And she explained. "It is simply that I was at the play last night. I
thought I recognized her."
"You were at the Feydau last night? And I never saw you!"
"Were you there, too?"
"Was I there!" he cried. Then he checked, and abruptly changed his
tone. "Oh, yes, I was there," he said, as commonplace as he could, beset by
a sudden reluctance to avow that he had so willingly descended to depths
that she must account unworthy, and grateful that his disguise of face and
voice should have proved impenetrable even to one who knew him so very well.
"I understand," said she, and compressed her lips a little more
tightly.
"But what do you understand?"
"The rare attractions of Mlle. Binet. Naturally you would be at the
theatre. Your tone conveyed it very clearly. Do you know that you disappoint
me, Andre? It is stupid of me, perhaps; it betrays, I suppose, my imperfect
knowledge of your sex. I am aware that most young men of fashion find an
irresistible attraction for creatures who parade themselves upon the stage.
But I did not expect you to ape the ways of a man of fashion. I was foolish
enough to imagine you to be different; rather above such trivial pursuits. I
conceived you something of an idealist."
"Sheer flattery."
"So I perceive. But you misled me. You talked so much morality of a
kind, you made philosophy so readily, that I came to be deceived. In fact,
your hypocrisy was so consummate that I never suspected it. With your gift
of acting I wonder that you haven't joined Mlle. Binet's troupe."
"I have," said he.
It had really become necessary to tell her, making choice of the lesser
of the two evils with which she confronted him.
He saw first incredulity, then consternation, and lastly disgust
overspread her face.
"Of course," said she, after a long pause, "that would have the
advantage of bringing you closer to your charmer."
"That was only one of the inducements. There was another. Finding
myself forced to choose between the stage and the gallows, I had the
incredible weakness to prefer the former. It was utterly unworthy of a man
of my lofty ideals, but - what would you? Like other ideologists, I find it
easier to preach than to practise. Shall I stop the carriage and remove the
contamination of my disgusting person? Or shall I tell you how it happened?"
"Tell me how it happened first. Then we will decide."
He told her how he met the Binet Troupe, and how the men of the
marechaussee forced upon him the discovery that in its bosom he could lie
safely lost until the hue and cry had died down. The explanation dissolved
her iciness.
"My poor Andre, why didn't you tell me this at first?"
"For one thing, you didn't give me time; for another, I feared to shock
you with the spectacle of my degradation."
She took him seriously. "But where was the need of it? And why did you
not send us word as I required you of your whereabouts?"
"I was thinking of it only yesterday. I have hesitated for several
reasons."
"You thought it would offend us to know what you were doing?"
"I think that I preferred to surprise you by the magnitude of my
ultimate achievements."
"Oh, you are to become a great actor?" She was frankly scornful.
"That is not impossible. But I am more concerned to become a great
author. There is no reason why you should sniff. The calling is an
honourable one. All the world is proud to know such men as Beaumarchais and
Chenier."
"And you hope to equal them?"
"I hope to surpass them, whilst acknowledging that it was they who
taught me how to walk. What did you think of the play last night?"
"It was amusing and well conceived."
"Let me present you to the author."
"You? But the company is one of the improvisers."
"Even improvisers require an author to write their scenarios. That is
all I write at present. Soon I shall be writing plays in the modern manner."
"You deceive yourself, my poor Andre. The piece last night would have
been nothing without the players. You are fortunate in your Scaramouche."
"In confidence - I present you to him."
"You - Scaramouche? You?" She turned to regard him fully. He smiled his
close-lipped smile that made wrinkles like gashes in his cheeks. He nodded.
"And I didn't recognize you!"
"I thank you for the tribute. You imagined, of course, that I was a
scene-shifter. And now that you know all about me, what of Gavrillac? What
of my godfather?"
He was well, she told him, and still profoundly indignant with
Andre-Louis for his defection, whilst secretly concerned on his behalf.
"I shall write to him to-day that I have seen you."
"Do so. Tell him that I am well and prospering. But say no more. Do not
tell him what I am doing. He has his prejudices too. Besides, it might not
be prudent. And now the question I have been burning to ask ever since I
entered your carriage. Why are you in Nantes, Aline?"
"I am on a visit to my aunt, Mme. de Sautron. It was with her that I
came to the play yesterday. We have been dull at the chateau; but it will be
different now. Madame my aunt is receiving several guests to-day. M. de La
Tour d'Azyr is to be one of them."
Andre-Louis frowned and sighed. "Did you ever hear, Aline, how poor
Philippe de Vilmorin came by his end?"
"Yes; I was told, first by my uncle; then by M. de La Tour d'Azyr,
himself."
"Did not that help you to decide this marriage question?"
"How could it? You forget that I am but a woman. You don't expect me to
judge between men in matters such as these?"
"Why not? You are well able to do so. The more since you have heard two
sides. For my godfather would tell you the truth. If you cannot judge, it is
that you do not wish to judge." His tone became harsh. "Wilfully you close
your eyes to justice that might check the course of your unhealthy,
unnatural ambition."
"Excellent!" she exclaimed, and considered him with amusement and
something else. "Do you know that you are almost droll? You rise unblushing
from the dregs of life in which I find you, and shake off the arm of that
theatre girl, to come and preach to me."
"If these were the dregs of life I might still speak from them to
counsel you out of my respect and devotion ,Aline." He was very stiff and
stern. "But they are not the dregs of life. Honour and virtue are possible
to a theatre girl; they are impossible to a lady who sells herself to
gratify ambition; who for position, riches, and a great title barters
herself in marriage."
She looked at him breathlessly. Anger turned her pale. She reached for
the cord.
"I think I had better let you alight so that you may go back to
practise virtue and honour with your theatre wench."
"You shall not speak so of her, Aline."
"Faith, now we are to have heat on her behalf. You think I am too
delicate? You think I should speak of her as a... "
"If you must speak of her at all," he interrupted, hotly, "you'll speak
of her as my wife."
Amazement smothered her anger. Her pallor deepened. "My God!" she said,
and looked at him in horror. And in horror she asked him presently: "You are
married - married to that -?"
"Not yet. But I shall be, soon. And let me tell you that this girl whom
you visit with your ignorant contempt is as good and pure as you are, Aline.
She has wit and talent which have placed her where she is and shall carry
her a deal farther. And she has the womanliness to be guided by natural
instincts in the selection of her mate."
She was trembling with passion. She tugged the cord.
"You will descend this instant!" she told him fiercely. "That you
should dare to make a comparison between me and that... "
"And my wife-to-be," he interrupted, before she could speak the
infamous word. He opened the door for himself without waiting for the