In the bad days of Balmeceda, when Chili was rent in twain, and its
capital was practically a besieged city, two actors walked together
along the chief street of the place towards the one theatre that was
then open. They belonged to a French dramatic company that would gladly
have left Chili if it could, but, being compelled by stress of war to
remain, the company did the next best thing, and gave performances at
the principal theatre on such nights as a paying audience came.
A stranger would hardly have suspected, by the look of the streets,
that a deadly war was going on, and that the rebels--so called--were
almost at the city gates. Although business was ruined, credit dead,
and no man's life or liberty safe, the streets were filled with a crowd
that seemed bent on enjoyment and making the best of things.
As Jacques Dupré and Carlos Lemoine walked together they conversed
earnestly, not of the real war so close to their doors, but of the
mimic conflicts of the stage. M. Dupré was the leading man of the
company, and he listened with the amused tolerance of an elder man to
the energetic vehemence of the younger.
"You are all wrong, Dupré," cried Lemoine, "all wrong. I have studied
the subject. Remember, I am saying nothing against your acting in
general. You know you have no greater admirer than I am, and that is
something to say when the members of a dramatic company are usually at
loggerheads through jealousy."
"Speak for yourself, Lemoine. You know I am green with jealousy of you.
You are the rising star and I am setting. You can't teach an old dog
new tricks, Carl, my boy."
"That's nonsense, Dupré. I wish you would consider this seriously. It
is because you are so good on the stage that I can't bear to see you
false to your art just to please the gallery. You should be above all
that."
"How can a man be above his gallery--the highest spot in the house?
Talk sense, Carlos, and then I'll listen."
"Yes, you're flippant, simply because you know you're wrong, and dare
not argue this matter soberly. Now she stabs you through the heart----"
"No. False premises entirely. She says something about my wicked heart,
and evidently _intends_ to pierce that depraved organ, but a woman
never hits what she aims at, and I deny that I'm ever stabbed through
the heart. Say in the region or the neighbourhood of the heart, and go
on with your talk."
"Very well. She stabs you in a spot so vital that you die in a few
minutes. You throw up your hands, you stagger against the mantel-shelf,
you tear open your collar and then grope at nothing, you press your
hands on your wound and take two reeling steps forward, you call feebly
for help and stumble against the sofa, which you fall upon, and,
finally, still groping wildly, you roll off on the floor, where you
kick out once or twice, your clinched hand comes with a thud on the
boards, and all is over."
"Admirably described, Carlos. Lord! I wish my audience paid such
attention to my efforts as you do. Now you claim this is all wrong, do
you?"
"All wrong."
"Suppose she stabbed you, what would _you_ do?"
"I would plunge forward on my face--dead."
"Great heavens! What would become of your curtain?"
"Oh, hang the curtain!"
"It's all very well for you to maledict the curtain, Carl, but you must
work up to it. Your curtain would come down, and your friends in the
gallery wouldn't know what had happened. Now I go through the
evolutions you so graphically describe, and the audience gets time to
take in the situation. They say, chuckling to themselves, 'that
villain's got his dose at last, and serve him right too.' They want to
enjoy his struggles, while the heroine stands grimly at the door taking
care that he doesn't get away. Then when my fist comes down flop on the
stage and they realise that I am indeed done for, the yell of triumph
that goes up is something delicious to hear."
"That's just the point, Dupré. I claim the actor has no right to hear
applause--that he should not know there is such a thing as an audience.
His business is to portray life exactly as it is."
"You can't portray life in a death scene, Carl."
"Dupré, I lose all patience with you, or rather I would did I not know
that you are much deeper than you would have us suppose. You apparently
won't see that I am very much in earnest about this."
"Of course you are, my boy; and that is one reason why you will become
a very great actor. I was ambitious myself once, but as we grow older"
--Dupré shrugged his shoulders--"well, we begin to have an eye on box-
office receipts. I think you sometimes forget that I am a good deal
older than you are."
"You mean I am a fool, and that I may learn wisdom with age. I quite
admit you are a better actor than I am; in fact I said so only a moment
ago, but----"
"'You wrong me, Brutus; I said an elder soldier, not a better.' But I
will take you on your own ground. Have you ever seen a man stabbed or
shot through the heart?"
"I never have, but I know mighty well he wouldn't undo his necktie
afterwards."
Dupré threw back his head and laughed.
"Who is flippant now?" he asked. "I don't undo my necktie, I merely
tear off my collar, which a dying man may surely be permitted to do.
But until you have seen a man die from such a stab as I receive every
night, I don't understand how you can justly find fault with my
rendition of the tragedy. I imagine, you know, that the truth lies
between the two extremes. The man done to death would likely not make
such a fuss as I make, nor would he depart so quickly as you say he
would, without giving the gallery gods a show for their money. But here
we are at the theatre, Carlos, and this acrimonious debate is closed--
until we take our next walk together."
In front of the theatre, soldiers were on duty, marching up and down
with muskets on their shoulders, to show that the state was mighty and
could take charge of a theatre as well as conduct a war. There were
many loungers about, which might have indicated to a person who did not
know, that there would be a good house when the play began. The two
actors met the manager in the throng near the door.
"How are prospects to-night?" asked Dupré.
"Very poor," replied the manager. "Not half a dozen seats have been
sold."
"Then it isn't worth while beginning?"
"We must begin," said the manager, lowering his voice, "the President
has ordered me not to close the theatre."
"Oh, hang the President!" cried Lemoine impatiently. "Why doesn't he
put a stop to the war, and then the theatre would remain open of its
own accord."
"He is doing his best to put a stop to the war, only his army does not
carry out his orders as implicitly as our manager does," said Dupré,
smiling at the other's vehemence.
"Balmeceda is a fool," retorted the younger actor. "If he were out of
the way, the war would not last another day. I believe he is playing a
losing game, anyhow. It's a pity he hasn't to go to the front himself,
and then a stray bullet might find him and put an end to the war, which
would save the lives of many better men."
"I say, Lemoine, I wish you wouldn't talk like that," expostulated the
manager gently, "especially when there are so many listeners."
"Oh! the larger my audience, the better I like it," rejoined Lemoine.
"I have all an actor's vanity in that respect. I say what I think, and
I don't care who hears me."
"Yes, but you forget that we are, in a measure, guests of this country,
and we should not abuse our hosts, or the man who represents them."
"Ah, does he represent them? It seems to me you beg the whole question;
that's just what the war is about. The general opinion is that
Balmeceda misrepresents them, and that the country would be glad to be
rid of him."
"That may all be," said the manager almost in a whisper, for he was a
man evidently inclined towards peace; "but it does not rest with us to
say so. We are French, and I think, therefore, it is better not to
express an opinion."
"I'm not French," cried Lemoine. "I'm a native Chilian, and I have a
right to abuse my own country if I choose to do so."
"All the more reason, then," said the manager, looking timorously over
his shoulder--"all the more reason that you should be careful what you
say."
"I suppose," said Dupré, by way of putting an end to the discussion,
"it is time for us to get our war-paint on. Come along, Lemoine, and
lecture me on our common art, and stop talking politics, if the
nonsense you utter about Chili and its president is politics."
The two actors entered the theatre; they occupied the same dressing-
room, and the volatile Lemoine talked incessantly.
Although there were but few people in the stalls the gallery was well
filled, as was usually the case.
When going on for the last act in the final scene, Dupré whispered a
word to the man who controlled the falling of the curtain, and when the
actor, as the villain of the piece, received the fatal knife-thrust
from the ill-used heroine, he plunged forward on his face and died
without a struggle, to the amazement of the manager, who was watching
the play from the front of the house, and to the evident bewilderment
of the gallery, who had counted on an exciting struggle with death.
Much as they desired the cutting off of the villain, they were not
pleased to see him so suddenly shift his worlds without an agonising
realisation of the fact that he was quitting an existence in which he
had done nothing but evil. The curtain came down upon the climax, but
there was no applause, and the audience silently filtered out into the
street.
"There," said Dupré, when he returned to his dressing-room; "I hope you
are satisfied now, Lemoine, and if you are, you are the only satisfied
person in the house. I fell perfectly flat, as you suggested, and you
must have seen that the climax of the play fell flat also."
"Nevertheless," persisted Lemoine, stoutly, "it was the true rendering
of the part."
As they were talking the manager came into their dressing-room. "Good
heavens, Dupré!" he said, "why did you end the piece in that idiotic
way? What on earth got into you?"
"The knife," said Dupré, flippantly. "It went directly through the
heart, and Lemoine here insists that when that happens a man should
fall dead instantly. I did it to please Lemoine."
"But you spoiled your curtain," protested the manager.
"Yes, I knew that would happen, and I told Lemoine so; but he insists
on art for art's sake. You must expostulate with Lemoine, although I
don't mind telling you both frankly that I don't intend to die in that
way again."
"Well, I hope not," replied the manager. "I don't want you to kill the
play as well as yourself, you know, Dupré."
Lemoine, whose face had by this time become restored to its normal
appearance, retorted hotly--
"It all goes to show how we are surrounded and hampered by the
traditions of the stage. The gallery wants to see a man die all over
the place, and so the victim has to scatter the furniture about and
make a fool of himself generally, when he should quietly succumb to a
well-deserved blow. You ask any physician and he will tell you that a
man stabbed or shot through the heart collapses at once. There is no
jumping-jack business in such a case. He doesn't play at leapfrog with
the chairs and sofas, but sinks instantly to the floor and is done
for."
"Come along, Lemoine," cried Dupré, putting on his coat, "and stop
talking nonsense. True art consists in a judicious blending of the
preconceived ideas of the gallery with the usual facts of the case. An
instantaneous photograph of a trotting-horse is doubtless technically
and absolutely correct, yet it is not a true picture of the animal in
motion."
"Then you admit," said Lemoine, quickly, "that I am technically correct
in what I state about the result of such a wound."
"I admit nothing," said Dupré. "I don't believe you are correct in
anything you say about the matter. I suppose the truth is that no two
men die alike under the same circumstances."
"They do when the heart is touched."
"What absurd nonsense you talk! No two men act alike when the heart is
touched in love, why then should they when it is touched in death? Come
along to the hotel, and let us stop this idiotic discussion."
"Ah!" sighed Lemoine, "you will throw your chances away. You are too
careless, Dupré; you do not study enough. This kind of thing is all
very well in Chili, but it will wreck your chances when you go to
Paris. If you studied more deeply, Dupré, you would take Paris by
storm."
"Thanks," said Dupré, lightly; "but unless the rebels take this city by
storm, and that shortly, we may never see Paris again. To tell the
truth, I have no heart for anything but the heroine's knife. I am sick
and tired of the situation here."
As Dupré spoke they met a small squad of soldiers coming briskly
towards the theatre. The man in charge evidently recognised them, for,
saying a word to his men, they instantly surrounded the two actors. The
sergeant touched Lemoine on the shoulder, and said--
"It is my duty to arrest you, sir."
"In Heaven's name, why?" asked Lemoine.
The man did not answer, but a soldier stepped to either side of
Lemoine.
"Am I under arrest also?" asked Dupré.
"No."
"By what authority do you arrest my friend?" inquired Dupré.
"By the President's order."
"But where is your authority? Where are your papers? Why is this arrest
made?"