The morning of Mrs. Bergmann’s luncheon had arrived. She had asked
thirteen men and nine women.
But an hour before luncheon an incident happened which nearly drove Mrs.
Bergmann distracted. One of her guests, who was also one of her most
intimate friends, Mrs. Lockton, telephoned to her saying she had quite
forgotten, but she had asked on that day a man to luncheon whom she did
not know, and who had been sent to her by Walford, the famous professor.
She ended the message by saying she would bring the stranger with her.
“What is his name?” asked Mrs. Bergmann, not without intense irritation,
meaning to put a veto on the suggestion.
“His name is----” and at that moment the telephone communication was
interrupted, and in spite of desperate efforts Mrs. Bergmann was unable
to get on to Mrs. Lockton again. She reflected that it was quite useless
for her to send a message saying that she had no room at her table,
because Angela Lockton would probably bring the stranger all the same.
Then she further reflected that in the excitement caused by the presence
of Shakespeare it would not really much matter whether there was a
stranger there or not. A little before half-past one the guests began to
arrive. Lord Pantry of Assouan, the famous soldier, was the first
comer. He was soon followed by Professor Morgan, an authority on Greek
literature; Mr. Peebles, the ex-Prime Minister; Mrs. Hubert Baldwin, the
immensely popular novelist; the fascinating Mrs. Rupert Duncan, who was
lending her genius to one of Ibsen’s heroines at that moment; Miss
Medea Tring, one of the latest American beauties; Corporal, the
portrait-painter; Richard Giles, critic and man of letters; Hereward
Blenheim, a young and rising politician, who before the age of thirty
had already risen higher than most men of sixty; Sir Horace Silvester,
K.C.M.G., the brilliant financier, with his beautiful wife Lady Irene;
Professor Leo Newcastle, the eminent man of science; Lady Hyacinth
Gloucester, and Mrs. Milden, who were well known for their beauty and
charm; Osmond Hall, the paradoxical playwright; Monsieur Faubourg, the
psychological novelist; Count Sciarra, an Italian nobleman, about fifty
years old, who had written a history of the Popes, and who was now
staying in London; Lady Herman, the beauty of a former generation, still
extremely handsome; and Willmott, the successful actor-manager. They
were all assembled in the drawing-room upstairs, talking in knots
and groups, and pervaded by a feeling of pleasurable excitement and
expectation, so much so that conversation was intermittent, and nearly
everybody was talking about the weather. The Right Hon. John Lockton,
the eminent lawyer, was the last guest to arrive.
“Angela will be here in a moment,” he explained; “she asked me to come
on first.”
Mrs. Bergmann grew restless. It was half-past one, and no Shakespeare.
She tried to make her guests talk, with indifferent success. The
expectation was too great. Everybody was absorbed by the thought of what
was going to happen next. Ten minutes passed thus, and Mrs. Bergmann
grew more and more anxious.
At last the bell rang, and soon Mrs. Lockton walked upstairs, leading
with her a quite insignificant, ordinary-looking, middle-aged, rather
portly man with shiny black hair, bald on the top of his head, and a
blank, good-natured expression.
“I’m so sorry to be so late, Louise, dear,” she said. “Let me introduce
Mr. ---- to you.” And whether she had forgotten the name or not, Mrs.
Bergmann did not know or care at the time, but it was mumbled in such
a manner that it was impossible to catch it. Mrs. Bergmann shook hands
with him absent-mindedly, and, looking at the clock, saw that it was ten
minutes to two.
“I have been deceived,” she thought to herself, and anger rose in her
breast like a wave. At the same time she felt the one thing necessary
was not to lose her head, or let anything damp the spirits of her
guests.
“We’ll go down to luncheon directly,” she said. “I’m expecting some
one else, but he probably won’t come till later.” She led the way
and everybody trooped downstairs to the dining-room, feeling that
disappointment was in store for them. Mrs. Bergmann left the place on
her right vacant; she did not dare fill it up, because in her heart of
hearts she felt certain Shakespeare would arrive, and she looked forward
to a _coup de theatre_, which would be quite spoilt if his place was
occupied. On her left sat Count Sciarra; the unknown friend of Angela
Lockton sat at the end of the table next to Willmott.
The luncheon started haltingly. Angela Lockton’s friend was heard saying
in a clear voice that the dust in London was very trying.
“Have you come from the country?” asked M. Faubourg. “I myself am just
returned from Oxford, where I once more admired your admirable English
lawns--_vos pelouses seculaires_.”
“Yes,” said the stranger, “I only came up to town to-day, because it
seems indeed a waste and a pity to spend the finest time of the year in
London.”
Count Sciarra, who had not uttered a word since he had entered the
house, turned to his hostess and asked her whom she considered, after
herself, to be the most beautiful woman in the room, Lady Irene, Lady
Hyacinth, or Mrs. Milden?
“Mrs. Milden,” he went on, “has the smile of La Gioconda, and hands and
hair for Leonardo to paint. Lady Gloucester,” he continued, leaving
out the Christian name, “is English, like one of Shakespeare’s women,
Desdemona or Imogen; and Lady Irene has no nationality, she belongs to
the dream worlds of Shelley and D’Annunzio: she is the guardian Lady of
Shelley’s ‘Sensitiva,’ the vision of the lily. ‘Quale un vaso liturgico
d’argento.’ And you, madame, you take away all my sense of criticism.
‘Vous me troublez trop pour que je definisse votre genre de beaute.’”
Mrs. Milden was soon engaged in a deep tete-a-tete with Mr. Peebles,
who was heard every now and then to say, “Quite, quite,” Miss Tring was
holding forth to Silvester on French sculpture, and Silvester now and
again said: “Oh! really!” in the tone of intense interest which his
friends knew indicated that he was being acutely bored. Lady Hyacinth
was discussing Socialism with Osmond Hall, Lady Herman was discussing
the theory of evolution with Professor Newcastle, Mrs. Lockton,
the question of the French Church, with Faubourg; and Blenheim was
discharging molten fragments of embryo exordiums and perorations on the
subject of the stage to Willmott; in fact, there was a general buzz of
conversation.
“Have you been to see Antony and Cleopatra?” asked Willmott of the
stranger.
“Yes,” said the neighbour, “I went last night; many authors have
treated the subject, and the version I saw last night was very pretty. I
couldn’t get a programme so I didn’t see who----”
“I think my version,” interrupted Willmott, with pride, “is admitted to
be the best.”
“Ah! it is your version!” said the stranger. “I beg your pardon, I think
you treated the subject very well.”
“Yes,” said Willmott, “it is ungrateful material, but I think I made
something fine of it.”
“No doubt, no doubt,” said the stranger.
“Do tell us,” Mrs. Baldwin was heard to ask M. Faubourg across the
table, “what the young generation are doing in France? Who are the young
novelists?”
“There are no young novelists worth mentioning,” answered M. Faubourg.
Miss Tring broke in and said she considered “Le Visage Emerveille,” by
the Comtesse de Noailles, to be the most beautiful book of the century,
with the exception, perhaps, of the “Tagebuch einer Verlorenen.”
But from the end of the table Blenheim’s utterance was heard
preponderating over that of his neighbours. He was making a fine
speech on the modern stage, comparing an actor-manager to Napoleon, and
commenting on the campaigns of the latter in detail.
Quite heedless of this Mr. Willmott was carrying on an equally
impassioned but much slower monologue on his conception of the character
of Cyrano de Bergerac, which he said he intended to produce. “Cyrano,”
he said, “has been maligned by Coquelin. Coquelin is a great artist,
but he did not understand Cyrano. Cyrano is a dreamer, a poet; he is a
martyr of thought like Tolstoi, a sacrifice to wasted, useless action,
like Hamlet; he is a Moliere come too soon, a Bayard come too late, a
John the Baptist of the stage, calling out in vain in the wilderness--of
bricks and mortar; he is misunderstood;--an enigma, an anachronism, a
premature herald, a false dawn.”
Count Sciarra was engaged in a third monologue at the head of the table.
He was talking at the same time to Mrs. Bergmann, Lady Irene, and Lady
Hyacinth about the devil. “Ah que j’aime le diable!” he was saying in
low, tender tones. “The devil who creates your beauty to lure us to
destruction, the devil who puts honey into the voice of the siren, the
dolce sirena--
“Che i marinari in mezzo il mar dismaga”
(and he hummed this line in a sing-song two or three times over)--“the
devil who makes us dream and doubt, and who made life interesting by
persuading Eve to eat the silver apple--what would life have been if
she had not eaten the apple? We should all be in the silly trees of the
Garden of Eden, and I should be sitting next to you” (he said to Mrs.
Bergmann), “without knowing that you were beautiful; que vous etes belle
et que vous etes desirable; que vous etes puissante et caline, que je
fais naufrage dans une mer d’amour--e il naufragio m’e dolce in questo
mare--en un mot, que je vous aime.”
“Life outside the garden of Eden has many drawbacks,” said Mrs.
Bergmann, who, although she was inwardly pleased by Count Sciarra’s
remarks, saw by Lady Irene’s expression that she thought he was mad.
“Aucun ‘drawback,’” answered Sciarra, “n’egalerait celui de comtempler
les divins contours feminins sans un frisson. Pensez donc si Madame
Bergmann----”
“Count Sciarra,” interrupted Mrs. Bergmann, terrified of what was coming
next, “do tell me about the book you are writing on Venice.”
Mrs. Lockton was at that moment discussing portraiture in novels with M.
Faubourg, and during a pause Miss Tring was heard to make the following
remark: “And is it true M. Faubourg, that ‘Cecile’ in ‘La Mauvaise
Bonte’ is a portrait of some one you once loved and who treated you very
badly?”
M. Faubourg, a little embarrassed, said that a creative artist made a
character out of many originals.
Then, seeing that nobody was saying a word to his neighbour, he turned
round and asked him if he had been to the Academy.
“Yes,” answered the stranger; “it gets worse every year doesn’t it?”
“But Mr. Corporal’s pictures are always worth seeing,” said Faubourg.
“I think he paints men better than women,” said the stranger; “he
doesn’t flatter people, but of course his pictures are very clever.”
At this moment the attention of the whole table was monopolised by
Osmond Hall, who began to discuss the scenario of a new play he was
writing. “My play,” he began, “is going to be called ‘The King of the
North Pole.’ I have never been to the North Pole, and I don’t mean to
go there. It’s not necessary to have first-hand knowledge of technical
subjects in order to write a play. People say that Shakespeare must
have studied the law, because his allusions to the law are frequent and
accurate. That does not prove that he knew law any more than the fact
that he put a sea in Bohemia proves that he did not know geography.
It proves he was a dramatist. He wanted a sea in Bohemia. He wanted
lawyer’s ‘shop.’ I should do just the same thing myself. I wrote a play
about doctors, knowing nothing about medicine: I asked a friend to give
me the necessary information. Shakespeare, I expect, asked his friends
to give him the legal information he required.”
Every allusion to Shakespeare was a stab to Mrs. Bergmann.
“Shakespeare’s knowledge of the law is very thorough,” broke in Lockton.
“Not so thorough as the knowledge of medicine which is revealed in my
play,” said Hall.
“Shakespeare knew law by intuition,” murmured Willmott, “but he did not
guess what the modern stage would make of his plays.”
“Let us hope not,” said Giles.
“Shakespeare,” said Faubourg, “was a psychologue; he had the power, I
cannot say it in English, de deviner ce qu’il ne savait pas en puisant
dans le fond et le trefond de son ame.”
“Gammon!” said Hall; “he had the power of asking his friends for the
information he required.”
“Do you really think,” asked Giles, “that before he wrote ‘Time delves
the parallel on beauty’s brow,’ he consulted his lawyer as to a legal
metaphor suitable for a sonnet?”
“And do you think,” asked Mrs. Duncan, “that he asked his female
relations what it would feel like to be jealous of Octavia if one
happened to be Cleopatra?”
“Shakespeare was a married man,” said Hall, “and if his wife found the
MSS. of his sonnets lying about he must have known a jealous woman.”
“Shakespeare evidently didn’t trouble his friends for information on
natural history, not for a playwright,” said Hall. “I myself should not
mind what liberty I took with the cuckoo, the bee, or even the basilisk.
I should not trouble you for accurate information on the subject; I
should not even mind saying the cuckoo lays eggs in its own nest if it
suited the dramatic situation.”
The whole of this conversation was torture to Mrs. Bergmann.
“Shakespeare,” said Lady Hyacinth, “had a universal nature; one can’t
help thinking he was almost like God.”
“That’s what people will say of me a hundred years hence,” said Hall;
“only it is to be hoped they’ll leave out the ‘almost.’”
“Shakespeare understood love,” said Lady Herman, in a loud voice; “he
knew how a man makes love to a woman. If Richard III. had made love to
me as Shakespeare describes him doing it, I’m not sure that I could have
resisted him. But the finest of all Shakespeare’s men is Othello. That’s
a real man. Desdemona was a fool. It’s not wonderful that Othello didn’t
see through Iago; but Desdemona ought to have seen through him. The
stupidest woman can see through a clever man like him; but, of course,
Othello was a fool too.”
“Yes,” broke in Mrs. Lockton, “if Napoleon had married Desdemona he
would have made Iago marry one of his sisters.”
“I think Desdemona is the most pathetic of Shakespeare’s heroines,” said
Lady Hyacinth; “don’t you think so, Mr. Hall?”
“It’s easy enough to make a figure pathetic, who is strangled by a
nigger,” answered Hall. “Now if Desdemona had been a negress Shakespeare
would have started fair.”
“If only Shakespeare had lived later,” sighed Willmott, “and understood
the condition of the modern stage, he would have written quite
differently.”
“If Shakespeare had lived now he would have written novels,” said
Faubourg.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Baldwin, “I feel sure you are right there.”
“If Shakespeare had lived now,” said Sciarra to Mrs. Bergmann, “we
shouldn’t notice his existence; he would be just un monsieur comme tout
le monde--like that monsieur sitting next to Faubourg,” he added in a
low voice.
“The problem about Shakespeare,” broke in Hall, “is not how he wrote
his plays. I could teach a poodle to do that in half an hour. But the
problem is--What made him leave off writing just when he was beginning
to know how to do it? It is as if I had left off writing plays ten years
ago.”
“Perhaps,” said the stranger, hesitatingly and modestly, “he had made
enough money by writing plays to retire on his earnings and live in the
country.”
Nobody took any notice of this remark.
“If Bacon was really the playwright,” said Lockton, “the problem is a
very different one.”
“If Bacon had written Shakespeare’s plays,” said Silvester, “they
wouldn’t have been so bad.”
“There seems to me to be only one argument,” said Professor Morgan, “in
favour of the Bacon theory, and that is that the range of mind displayed
in Shakespeare’s plays is so great that it would have been child’s play
for the man who wrote Shakespeare’s plays to have written the works of
Bacon.”
“Yes,” said Hall, “but because it would be child’s play for the man
who wrote my plays to have written your works and those of Professor
Newcastle--which it would--it doesn’t prove that you wrote my plays.”
“Bacon was a philosopher,” said Willmott, “and Shakespeare was a poet--a
dramatic poet; but Shakespeare was also an actor, an actor-manager, and
only an actor-manager could have written the plays.”
“What do you think of the Bacon theory?” asked Faubourg of the stranger.
“I think,” said the stranger, “that we shall soon have to say eggs and
Shakespeare instead of eggs and Bacon.”
This remark caused a slight shudder to pass through all the guests, and
Mrs. Bergmann felt sorry that she had not taken decisive measures to
prevent the stranger’s intrusion.
“Shakespeare wrote his own plays,” said Sciarra, “and I don’t know if he
knew law, but he knew _le coeur de la femme_. Cleopatra bids her slave
find out the colour of Octavia’s hair; that is just what my wife, my
Angelica, would do if I were to marry some one in London while she was
at Rome.”
“Mr. Gladstone used to say,” broke in Lockton, “that Dante was inferior
to Shakespeare, because he was too great an optimist.”
“Dante was not an optimist,” said Sciarra, “about the future life of
politicians. But I think they were both of them pessimists about man and
both optimists about God.”
“Shakespeare,” began Blenheim; but he was interrupted by Mrs. Duncan who
cried out:--
“I wish he were alive now and would write me a part, a real woman’s
part. The women have so little to do in Shakespeare’s plays. There’s
Juliet; but one can’t play Juliet till one’s forty, and then one’s too
old to look fourteen. There’s Lady Macbeth; but she’s got nothing to
do except walk in her sleep and say, ‘Out, damned spot!’ There were not
actresses in his days, and of course it was no use writing a woman’s
part for a boy.”
“You should have been born in France,” said Faubourg, “Racine’s women
are created for you to play.”
“Ah! you’ve got Sarah,” said Mrs. Duncan, “you don’t want anyone else.”
“I think Racine’s boring,” said Mrs. Lockton, “he’s so artificial.”
“Oh! don’t say that,” said Giles, “Racine is the most exquisite of
poets, so sensitive, so acute, and so harmonious.”
“I like Rostand better,” said Mrs. Lockton.
“Rostand!” exclaimed Miss Tring, in disgust, “he writes such bad
verses--du caoutchouc--he’s so vulgar.”
“It is true,” said Willmott, “he’s an amateur. He has never written
professionally for his bread but only for his pleasure.”
“But in that sense,” said Giles, “God is an amateur.”
“I confess,” said Peebles, “that I cannot appreciate French poetry.
I can read Rousseau with pleasure, and Bossuet; but I cannot admire
Corneille and Racine.”
“Everybody writes plays now,” said Faubourg, with a sigh.
“I have never written a play,” said Lord Pantry.
“Nor I,” said Lockton.
“But nearly everyone at this table has,” said Faubourg. “Mrs. Baldwin
has written ‘Matilda,’ Mr. Giles has written a tragedy called ‘Queen
Swaflod,’ I wrote a play in my youth, my ‘Le Menetrier de Parme’;
I’m sure Corporal has written a play. Count Sciarra must have written
several; have you ever written a play?” he said, turning to his
neighbour, the stranger.
“Yes,” answered the stranger, “I once wrote a play called ‘Hamlet.’”
“You were courageous with such an original before you,” said Faubourg,
severely.
“Yes,” said the stranger, “the original was very good, but I think,” he
added modestly, “that I improved upon it.”
“Encore un faiseur de paradoxes!” murmured Faubourg to himself in
disgust.
In the meantime Willmott was giving Professor Morgan the benefit of
his views on Greek art, punctuated with allusions to Tariff Reform and
devolution for the benefit of Blenheim.
Luncheon was over and cigarettes were lighted. Mrs. Bergmann had quite
made up her mind that she had been cheated, and there was only one thing
for which she consoled herself, and that was that she had not waited for
luncheon but had gone down immediately, since so far all her guests had
kept up a continuous stream of conversation, which had every now and
then become general, though they still every now and then glanced at
the empty chair and wondered what the coming attraction was going to be.
Mrs. Milden had carried on two almost interrupted tete-a-tetes, first
with one of her neighbours, then with the other. In fact everybody had
talked, except the stranger, who had hardly spoken, and since Faubourg
had turned away from him in disgust, nobody had taken any further notice
of him.
Mrs. Baldwin, remarking this, good-naturedly leant across the table and
asked him if he had come to London for the Wagner cycle.
“No,” he answered, “I came for the Horse Show at Olympia.”
At this moment Count Sciarra, having finished his third cigarette,
turned to his hostess and thanked her for having allowed him to meet the
most beautiful women of London in the most beautiful house in London,
and in the house of the most beautiful hostess in London.
“J’ai vu chez vous,” he said, “le lys argente et la rose blanche, mais
vous etes la rose ecarlate, la rose d’amour dont le parfum vivra dans
mon coeur comme un poison dore (and here he hummed in a sing-song):--
‘Io son, cantava, Io son, dolce sirena’ Addio, dolce sirena.”
Then he suddenly and abruptly got up, kissed his hostess’s hand
vehemently three times, and said he was very sorry, but he must hasten
to keep a pressing engagement. He then left the room.
Mrs. Bergmann got up and said, “Let us go upstairs.” But the men had
most of them to go, some to the House of Commons, others to fulfil
various engagements.
The stranger thanked Mrs. Bergmann for her kind hospitality and left.
And the remaining guests, seeing that it was obvious that no further
attraction was to be expected, now took their leave reluctantly and
went, feeling that they had been cheated.
Angela Lockton stayed a moment.
“Who were you expecting, Louise, dear?” she asked.
“Only an old friend,” said Mrs. Bergmann, “whom you would all have
been very glad to see. Only as he doesn’t want anybody to know he’s in
London, I couldn’t tell you all who he was.”
“But tell me now,” said Mrs. Lockton; “you know how discreet I am.”
“I promised not to, dearest Angela,” she answered; “and, by the way,
what was the name of the man you brought with you?”
“Didn’t I tell you? How stupid of me!” said Mrs. Lockton. “It’s a very
easy name to remember: Shakespeare, William Shakespeare.”