At this time of day I do not mind publishing the facts. It happened
a few weeks after those pillars of the State--Thibaudin and
Hazard--disappeared from Paris with a couple of million francs. They
were leading the police a pretty dance, and people said, "Ah, they are
probably at the world's end by this time!" I used to think to myself
how securely a man who had a mind to do so might lie hidden within an
hour's journey of the Grand Boulevard. It was really the disappearance
of Thibaudin and Hazard that originated my Idea.
I was manager at that period of the Théâtre Suprême, where we were
very soon to produce Beauregard's play, _Omphale_. I descried a way to
attract additional attention to our project. I went to see Beauregard
one October morning, and gave him a shock. He was breakfasting in bed.
"Bonjour, maître," I said. "Are you too much occupied to talk business?"
"Panage," exclaimed the dramatist, "if you have come to demand any more
mutilations of the manuscript, I tell you without parleying that no
consideration on earth will induce me to yield. There is a limit; mon
Dieu, there is a limit! Rather than cut another line, or substitute
another syllable I will put the contract in the fire."
"Dear friend, you have evidently slept ill and are testy this morning,"
I said. "Compose yourself. I come to exhilarate you with a great
scheme."
He still eyed me apprehensively, and to pacify him I made haste to
explain, "It has nothing to do with any alterations in the play."
"Ah!" He breathed relief, and dipped his croissant in his cup.
"It is a scheme for booming it."
My host was forthwith genial. A smile suffused his munching face, and
he offered me a cigarette.
"I ask your pardon if I was abrupt," he said. "As you surmise, I passed
a bad night. A boom? Well, you know my views on the subject of booming.
The ordinary puff preliminary is played out. One needs something novel,
Panage, something scholarly. 'Scholarly' is the word. For _Omphale,_ a
play of pre-Hellenic times, one needs the boom scholarly, classical,
and grandiose."
"You voice my own sentiments," said I. "One needs nothing less than
a production of 'unrivalled accuracy'--costumes 'copied from designs
discovered in Crete and dating back to the dim days of the Minotaur.'
That would look tasteful in print, would it not? Alors, what do you say
to our going to Crete and discovering them?"
"Crete?" stammered Beauregard. Have I mentioned that he was fat and
indolent and had never travelled further than Trouville?
"What think you of exploring the Minotaur's lair?" I questioned. "Of
penetrating to the apartments of Phædra? Of examining with your own
eyes the labyrinth of Ariadne?"
"I?" he ejaculated.
"You and I together, my old one! Our adventures would make pretty
reading, hein? Would not all Paris be chattering about your _Omphale?_
What a fever of impatience for the first night! Think of the effect
such paragraphs would have on the advance booking."
The corpulent Beauregard lay back on the pillows, pale and mute. I had
spoken too earnestly for him to suspect that I was pulling his leg, and
I could see that he was very seriously perturbed. His mind was torn in
halves between his longing for the advertisement and his horror of the
exertion and expense. After a moment he sat up, perspiring, and wrung
my hand.
"Panage," he cried, "you are a man of genius! Your idea is most
brilliant; I have never heard its equal. With all my heart I
congratulate you. I, alas! cannot accompany you on account of my wife's
ill-health, but _you_ are free. Go, mon ami! Your inspiration will
crowd your theatre."
His wife's health was offensively robust. I shook with laughter so
unrestrained that the cigarette fell out of my mouth.
"Let me be a trifle more explicit," I said. "It is not essential to my
scheme that either you or I should actually go to Crete. It is only
essential that we should be reported to have gone there. I propose that
we should blazon our departure in all the journals--we might give them
interviews in the midst of our packing--and that we should then retire
for two or three months to some secluded spot near at hand where there
will be nobody to recognise us. I shall confide only in Verdeille, my
secretary; I can rely on him, and he will keep the Press well supplied
with anecdotes of our vicissitudes during our absence. Mon Dieu! We
will make Paris bubble and boil with anticipation."
He was admiring, but timid. "Don't you think it would be very risky?"
he demurred. "If our imposture were found out? It would be ruin. For
example, what spot?"
"Well, I am not prepared with spots at the instant; I came to you on
the effervescence of the notion. But somewhere off the beaten track.
One can hide very effectually without going far--I would not mind
wagering that Thibaudin and Hazard are lying low in some hamlet. While
the police are watching Marseilles and Havre, or picturing them already
in South America, they are probably concealed within an easy run of the
gare St. Lazare, waiting till the search is relaxed. What about one of
the little seaside places in Normandy--have you ever stumbled on one
of them a day after the season finished? There is nobody left but the
garde-champêtre."
He shivered. "Three months of it?" he queried piteously.
"Our investigations, which we undertake 'to complete the previous
labours of the archæologists,' ought to be thorough," I pointed out.
"Is it not worth our while to suffer a little tedium for such an end?
Lift your gaze to the cash that will accrue, Beauregard. Dwell upon the
box-office besieged. Positively we shall double the value of your play.
Also you can take plenty of exercise and improve your figure."
"I abhor exercise," he murmured.
"And you could keep early hours and prolong your life."
"My life is a series of vexations--to prolong it would be fatuous."
"Further, everybody will say what a conscientious artist you are; I
don't mind asserting that your passion for accuracy is sweeping me to
the Minotaur's lair against my will."
"Well, I will think about it," he said heavily.
He promised to write to me on the morrow.
There was no difficulty about finding a summer resort forsaken enough
in October--the difficulty was to find one sufficiently animated to
boast an hotel that remained open; and at last I authorised Verdeille
to provide us with a furnished chalet. Of these he had reported an
unlimited choice everywhere. The resort finally approved for our
purpose contained thirty furnished chalets, and they were all to
be let with alacrity until the following July. We took ours until
February. I had extracted Beauregard's consent, and a fortnight later
I hustled him into a cab. He looked as if he were being removed for
a kill-or-cure operation, and I am sure he had half a mind to break
his word even when we were in the train. On the journey I perused with
pleasure _Le Matin_, and the current issue of _L'Illustration_, in
which the programme of our imaginary trip was set forth with a wealth
of invention that did me credit. The deception, in fact, had been
engineered so eloquently that at moments I had almost begun to fancy we
were really bound for Crete.
We travelled to Dieppe, and then a cab crawled into a void with us--the
motor service, we learnt, was discontinued for the next nine months.
The chalet was a high, gaunt house called "Les Myosotis." A peasant,
who represented the agence de location, stood at her door to wonder at
our arrival. A primitive bonne, whom Verdeille had engaged to attend
upon us, appeared to entertain doubts of our sanity. We entered the
scene as messieurs "Poupard," and "Bachelet." It was _my_ precaution to
choose names beginning with a P and a B; I thought of the initials on
our luggage, and our washing--the dramatist had overlooked that point.
Well, I shall not pretend that I was in for a rollicking time. I have
a high esteem for Beauregard in the theatre, but Beauregard in a
village was unspeakable. His lamentations linger with me yet. We had
nothing to do, except to walk in the mud and regard the shutters of
the twenty-nine other chalets. At seven o'clock in the evening, the
distant lighthouse, and the lamp in our own salon afforded the only
lights discoverable for miles round. That fat Parisian's melancholy,
his reproaches, his attitudes of despair, defy description. Even when
the weather improved, he would perceive no virtue in it. I exclaimed
once, "What a beautiful sky to-night!" He replied, "It _would_ be
beautiful from the Place de la Concorde!" He had brought a cartload of
novels--and before we had been in the place a week he was complaining
that he had nothing to read.
"I shall die if I remain any longer," he declared. "I shall be buried
here, I foresee it. The climate doesn't agree with me. Honestly, I feel
very unwell. I ought to return to Paris, it is my duty--I have my wife
to consider."
"You were never so well in your life," I remonstrated sharply.
"Rubbish! there's no escape now, you've got to see it through.
Foretaste the triumph of _Omphale_ and be blithe."
"How much will a triumph be worth to me if I am dead?" he wailed. "Mon
Dieu! what an existence, what demoniac desolation! I shudder when I
wake in the morning; the thought of the terrible day before me weighs
me down. I have scarcely the energy to put on my socks. To wash my
neck exhausts me. Is there nothing, nothing to be done for an hour's
respite--is there no entertainment within reasonable distance?"
"My beloved 'Bachelet,'" I said, "you forget; at a place of
entertainment we might be recognised. Besides, there isn't any."
He threw up his arms. "It is like being in gaol, word of honour! Who
directed you to this fatal hole, where a postman collects letters only
when he pleases--this desert, where Monday's _Matin_ drifts by Tuesday
night? By what perverse ingenuity did you contrive to find it? How long
have we endured it now?"
"Ten days," I told him cheerfully. "Why, we have only got about eighty
more!"
He groaned. "It seems like centuries. My misgiving, of course, is
that it will drive me to intemperance: such ordeals as this develop
the vice. The natives themselves are staggered by our presence;
they whisper about me as I pass. Children follow me up the roads,
marvelling; if the population sufficed, I should be followed by crowds.
I tell you, we are objects of suspicion; we are a local mystery;
they conclude we must have 'done something.' Also the laundress here
is a violent savage--she is not a laundress at all. I had six new
collars when we came, six collars absolutely new from the box--and
this devil has frayed them already. I would never have believed it
could be accomplished in the time, but she has managed it. Six collars
absolutely new from the box!"
Don't imagine that he had finished! don't suppose that it was merely
a bad mood. It was the kind of thing I had to bear from him daily,
hourly--from the early coffee to the latest cigarette.
One afternoon, when I had gone for a stroll without him, a contretemps
occurred. I had entered the outfitter's, and stationer's, and
tobacconist's and provision merchant's--the miniature shop was
the only one in the place that had not closed until the following
summer--to obtain a pair of shoelaces. That the clod-hoppers cackled
about our sojourn was a small matter to me, and I paid no more heed to
the woman's curious stare to-day than usual. But I was to meet another
stare!
As I waited for my change, a shabby young man came in to ask for a copy
of _Le Petit Journal_, and a toy for five sous. _Le Petit Journal_,
which I had just read, contained the latest details of my explorations
in Crete, and instinctively I looked round. His eyes widened. I did not
know him from Adam; but it was evident that _he_ knew _me_, at least by
sight! I turned hot and cold with confusion.
Grabbing at my coppers, I hurried out, wondering what I had better do
if he addressed me. Before I had time to solve the question I heard
him striding at my heels. With a deprecating bow that told me he had
favours to solicit, he exclaimed, "Monsieur Panage!"
"You are mistaken," I said promptly.
"Oh, monsieur, I beg you to hear me," he cried, "I entreat you! In the
theatre you are for ever inaccessible--will you not spare an instant to
me here?"
He was so sure of my identity that I realised it would be indiscreet of
me to deny it any longer. Since I could not deceive, my only course was
to ingratiate him.
"What do you want?" I asked, fuming.
"Monsieur," he broke out, "I am an actor. I have been acting in the
provinces since I was a boy. I have played every kind of part from
farce to tragedy. I have talent, but I have no influence, and the stage
doors of Paris are shut and barred against me! No manager will listen
to me, because I am too obscure to obtain an introduction to him; no
one will believe that I have ability, because I cannot get a chance to
prove it. Oh, I know very well what a liberty I have taken in speaking
to you, but I want to get on, I want to get on--I implore you to give
me a trial!"
He had me in a nice fix. Apparently he was unaware that I was believed
to be in Crete, but he would soon learn it by the newspaper in his
pocket, and if I snubbed him he would certainly give me away. He could
hold me up to ridicule--I should be the laughing-stock of Paris. It was
a fine situation for me. I, the director of the Théâtre Suprême, was
compelled to temporise with this provincial mummer!
I scrutinised him in encouraging silence, as if mentally casting him
for a part. I saw hope bounding in him.
"Ah!" I said thoughtfully. "Y-e-s.... What is your favourite line?"
"Character, monsieur," he panted. "And, of course, I would accept a
very small salary, a very small salary indeed."
I did not doubt it. I could picture him strutting and ranting on the
boards of a booth for a louis a week, and holding himself lucky when he
earned that.
"Walk on a little way with me," I said graciously; "we can talk as we
go along. I should have to see you do something before I could consider
you, you know; I must be sure that you are capable. Even the gentleman
who plays the servant at the Suprême and hasn't a single word to utter
is an experienced comedian. You are not playing any-where in the
neighbourhood? you are not in a travelling theatre about here?"
"No, monsieur," he sighed, "I am out of an engagement; I am here
because this is where I live."
"Rather remote from the dramatic world?" I suggested, smiling;
"something of a drawback, is it not?" His simplicity in crediting me
with the notion of recruiting the Suprême from a travelling theatre
tickled me nearly to death.
"A grave drawback, monsieur," he agreed. "But I am not alone--I have a
child, and she is too delicate to thrive in a city."
"A good many delicate children have thriven in Paris," I remarked.
"In thriving households, monsieur--in healthy quarters. Paris is dear,
and I am poor--_my_ child would be condemned to a slum. I should see
her lade away. Better to be a barnstormer all my life than lose my
child. She is all I have left to love."
"There is your art," I said, humbugging him.
"My art?" He gave an hysterical laugh. A nervous, jumpy fellow, without
a particle of repose. "Listen, monsieur, listen. I am an actor, and if
I could demolish the barrier that keeps me out, I might be a great
one; but I confess to you that I would abandon art and cast figures
on an office stool, or break flints on a road, and thank God for
the exchange, if it would buy my child a home! I want money. I want
to give my child the comforts that other children have. That's _my_
ambition. I have no loftier pose than fatherhood. My prayer is, not
applause, and compliments, and notoriety, not the petty pleasure of
hearing I have equalled one favourite or eclipsed another; my prayer
is--to give things to my child! I want to buy her nourishing food, and
a physician's advice, and the education of a gentlewoman. I want the
money to send her to the South when it snows, and to the mountains
when it's hot. I want to see her laughing in a garden, like the rich
men's children in Paris that you spoke of. I stand and watch them
sometimes--when I go there to beg at stage doors till an understrapper
kicks me out."
"Well, well, the sort of things you desire are not so expensive," I
said suavely. "Some day your salary may provide them all."
"You think it possible, monsieur? Really?" His haggard eyes devoured me.
"You have only to make one success. After that, you will be grossly
overpaid, like every other star."
"If I could but do it!" he gasped. "If I could only convince a
Paris manager that I have it in me! Year after year I've hoped, and
tried, and failed to get a hearing. You may judge my desperation by
my audacity in stopping you in the streets. What course is open to
me--what steps can I take? Even now, when I am pouring out my heart to
monsieur Panage himself, how much does it advance me?"
He was not so simple as I had thought.
"Enfin--by the way, what is your name?"
"My name is Paul Manesse, monsieur."
"Well, monsieur, you must surely understand that until I have seen you
act I cannot be of any service to you?"
"I could rehearse on approval," he pleaded.
"Moreover," I added hastily, "all my arrangements are made for some
time to come. Later on, when an opportunity arises, we shall see what
we shall see." I halted. "Write to me during the run of _Omphale_. I
shall not forget our little chat. A propos, I am starting to-morrow for
Crete; I see the papers are reporting that I am already there, so you
need not mention that you have met me--it is never policy to contradict
the Press. Yes, I shall bear your name in mind, I assure you."
He did not look assured, however; he stood silent, and his lips were
trembling. Heaven knows what solid help my amiability had led him to
expect, but it was plain that honeyed phrases were a meagre substitute.
"You have been most courteous to me," he stammered, "you have done me
a great honour--as long as I live I shall remember that I have talked
with monsieur Panage; but you are leaving what you found, monsieur--a
desperate man!"
"Bah! who knows when an opening may occur?" I said, a shade
embarrassed. "I may see a chance for you sooner than you think. When I
want you I shall send for you."