My idea of acting was to go into the part, be burned alive by it ... to
recite my lines naturally.
I was proud of myself. I was to act as lead in a play by a
world-celebrated author, in its premier American production.
The story of it was that of a young poet-student, Iistral ... eccentric
... a sensitive ... who had, while tutoring the children of a count,
fallen in love with the countess, his wife ... on the discovery of the
liaison, she had committed suicide in a lake on their private
grounds....
The play opened up with the young student, Iistral, come back home,
after the wife's death....
The tragedy had affected him strangely.
He wore a Hindoo robe, let his beard grow like a Yogi ... was irritated
with the unimaginative, self-seeking smugness of the grown-ups.
He found in Lisel, a little niece of his, the wise, innocent,
illuminated imagination of childhood. And he associated with her,
teaching her the mystic meanings of flowers in the garden.
But he lived for one thing only--the coming of the voice of Egeria, as
he called the spirit of the dead countess....
Her voice came to him continually ... preluded by strains of music ...
he lived from day to day with her lovely speech, a clairaudient.
As long as nothing material was involved, he was regarded as merely a
gentle eccentric ... by his relatives and the bourgeoisie....
But as soon as word came that he had inherited a fortune through the
death of a rich uncle in America--the attitude of the people around him
changed. His relatives began intriguing to have him declared insane.
But the village burgomaster, ordinarily decent, saw through their
artifices....
Goaded and goaded, finally Iistral assailed his pestering relatives with
a shovel with which he was working among the gentle flowers in the
garden ... at his customary task of tending them with Lisel....
And now the burgomaster, bribed, had reason to adjudge him insane.
And Iistral was dragged off, wailing, to the asylum.
* * * * *
With my clothes in literal rags I went through the rehearsals, attended
classes, kept up my athletics....
Often I woke up in the night, crying out, with tears rolling down my
cheeks, the lines of unhappy Iistral ... the spirit-woman Egeria grew
real as flesh and blood to me....
"Egeria! Egeria!--"
I woke, time and again, and heard my own voice, like the voice of
another, calling her name in the dark.
* * * * *
"You mustn't take the play so desperately ... remember it's just a play
... you rehearse as if the whole thing were a part of your life."
"Some of the boys," I replied, "some of the football boys lost ten or
twelve pounds in our Thanksgiving game at Kansas City last fall ... why
do you rebuke me for taking art and beauty as seriously as athletes take
a football match?"
* * * * *
Two days before the play, as I was walking by the Bellman House, I saw
Jarvis Alexander Mackworth standing there, come up from Osageville for a
regents' conference....
"Hello!" the dear, good man called, "you heavenly bum! You starry young
tramp!"
His eyes were twinkling in appreciative merriment over his quaint
phraseology.
"What are you doing in Laurel, Mr. Mackworth?"
I noticed that he did not wear his many-patched trousers, but was well
dressed....
--"attending a regents' meeting, young man,--where I suppose I'll have
to stand up in your defence again....
"It's a good thing you don't run after the women, Gregory, or your case
would be entirely lost."
(Yet Mackworth didn't know of the dirty trick that had been played on
me:
One of the boys from the school, running wild down in Kansas City, had,
with a curious sense of humour, given my name as his ... to the "girls"
in various houses of prostitution....
And "do you know Johnnie Gregory?" and "when is Johnnie Gregory coming
to see us again?" other students were asked who frequented the
"houses.")
"And what are you up to now?" asked Mackworth.
--"acting ... in Van Maarden's _Iistral_ ... leading rôle!"
"You look skinnier than ever!"
"I am taking the part seriously, and it's bringing me down. I like to
do real things when I get a chance, Mr. Mackworth ... and I am going
to make the two performances of _Iistral_ memorable ones."
"You need a new suit of clothes very badly."
"I know I do. But I have no money, and no credit."
"Well see about that, my young Villon."
Mackworth took me to one side and thrust a fifty-dollar bill into my
hand.