I Go to the Sea-shore--The Search for a "Scar"--I Make a Study of
Insanity, and Meet with Success in "L'Article 47."
I had got safely through my first dreaded vacation. I had had two
wonderful weeks at the seaside, where, with Mr. and Mrs. James Lewis and
George Parkes, I had boarded with Mrs. By Baker, whom we left firmly
convinced of our general insanity--harmless, but quite hopeless cases she
thought us. Awed into reverent silence I had taken my first long look at
the ocean; that mighty monster, object of my day-dreams all the years,
lay that day outstretched, smiling, dimpling, blinking like the babe of
giants, basking in the sun.
I had inhaled with delight the briny coolness of its breath, and with my
friends had engaged in wild romps in its waves, all of us arrayed
meanwhile in bathing dresses of hideous aspect, made from gray flannel of
penitential color and scratchiness, and most malignant modesty of cut;
which were yet the eminently proper thing at that time.
I almost wonder, looking at the bathing dresses of to-day, that old
Ocean, who is a lover of beauty, did not dash the breath out of us, and
then fling us high and dry on the beach, where the sands might quickly
drift over our ugly shells and hide them from view.
All this happened, and much more, before I came to the play "L'Article
47," famous for its great French court scene, and for the madness of its
heroine. I am so utterly lacking in self-confidence that it was little
short of cruelty for Mr. Daly to tell me, as he did, that the fate of the
play hung upon that single scene; that the production would be expensive
and troublesome, and its success or failure lay absolutely in my hands.
I turned white as chalk, with sheer fright, and could scarcely force
myself to speak audibly, when asked if I could do the part.
I answered, slowly, that I thought it unfair for Mr. Daly first to reduce
me to a state of imbecility, through fear, and then ask me to make a
close study of violent madness--since the two conditions were generally
reversed.
The people laughed, but there was no responsive smile on my lips, as I
entered upon a period of mental misery that only ended with the
triumphant first night.
I did all I could do to get at _Cora's_ character and standing before the
dread catastrophe--feeling that her madness must to some extent be tinged
by past habits and personal peculiarities. I got a copy of the French
novel--that was not an affectation, but a necessity, as it had not then
been translated, and I was greatly impressed with the minute description
of the destruction done by the bullet _George_ had fired into her face.
Portions of the jaw-bone had been shot away; the eye, much injured, had
barely been saved, but it was drawn and distorted.
As the woman's beauty had been her letter of introduction to the gilded
world, indeed had been her sole capital, that "scar" became of tremendous
value in the make-up of the part, since it would explain, and in some
scant measure excuse, her revengeful actions.
Still, as the play was done in Paris, the "scar" was almost ignored by
that brilliant actress, Madame Rousseil. I had her photograph in the part
of _Cora_, and while she had a drapery passed low beneath her jaws to
indicate some injury to her neck or breast, her face was absolutely
unblemished.
To my mind that weakened _Cora's_ case greatly--she had so much less to
resent, to brood over.
I took my trouble to Mr. Daly, after I had been out to the mad-house at
Blackwell's Island, and had gained some useful information from that
awful aggregation of human woe. He listened to Belot's description of
_Cora's_ beauty and its wrecking "scar"; he looked condemningly at the
Rousseil picture, and then asked me what I wanted to do.
I told him I wanted a dreadful scar--then I wanted to veil it always; and
he broke in with, "Then why have the scar, if it is to be veiled?"
But I hurried on: "My constant care to keep it covered will make people
imagine it a hundred times worse than it really is. Then when the veil is
torn off by main force, and they catch a glimpse of the horror, they will
not wonder that her already-tottering brain should give way under such a
blow to her vanity."
Mr. Daly studied over the matter silently for a few moments, then he
said: "Yes, you are right. That scar is a great factor in the play; go
ahead, and make as much of it as you can."
But right there I came up against an obstacle. I was not good at even an
eccentric make-up. I did not know how to proceed to represent such a
scar, as I had in my mind.
"Try," said Mr. Daly. I tried, and with tear-reddened eyes announced my
failure, but I said: "I shall ask Mr. Lemoyne to help me--he is the
cleverest and most artistic maker-up of faces I ever saw."
"Yes," said Mr. Daly, "get him to try it after rehearsal; you have no
time to lose now!"
Only too well I knew that; so at once I approached Mr. Lemoyne, and made
my wants known. I had not the slightest hesitation in doing so, because,
in spite of his sinful delight in playing jokes on me, he was the
kindest, most warm-hearted of comrades; and true to that character he at
once placed his services at my disposal, though he shook his head very
doubtfully over the undertaking.
"You know I never saw a scar of such a nature in my life," he said, as he
lighted up his dressing-room.
"Oh," I said, "you, who can change your nose or your mouth or your eyes
at will, can make an ugly scar, easily enough," and off went hat and
veil, and Mr. Lemoyne, using my countenance for his canvas, began work.
He grew more and more glum as he wiped off and repainted. One scar was
too small--oh, much too small. Then the shattered jaw-bone was described.
Again he tried. "Clara," he said, "I can't do it, because I don't know
what I am aiming at!"
"Oh, go on!" I pleaded, "make a hideous scar, then I'll learn how from
you, and do it myself."
He was patience and kindness personified, but when at last he said he
could do no more, I looked in the glass, and--well, we both laughed
aloud, in spite of our chagrin. He said: "It looks as though some
street-boy had given you a swat in the eye with a chunk of mud."
I mournfully washed it off and begged him to try just once
more--to-morrow; and he promised with a doleful air.
I had tears in my eyes as I left the theatre, I was so horribly cast
down, for if Mr. Lemoyne could not make up that scar no one could. But he
used too much black--that was a grave mistake, and--oh, dear! _now_ what?
Men were peeling up the stone walk. I could not go home by the Sixth
Avenue car as usual, without a lot of bother and muddy shoes. I was just
tired enough from rehearsal and disappointed enough to be irritated by
the tiniest _contretemps_, and I almost whimpered, as I turned the other
way and took a Broadway car. I dropped into a corner. Three men were on
my side of the car. I glanced casually at them, and, "Goodness mercy!"
said I to myself, "what are they gazing at--they look fairly frightened?"
I followed the direction of their eyes, and, I gasped! I felt goose-flesh
creeping up my arms! On the opposite side sat a large and handsome
mulatto woman, a small basket of white linen was on her knees, her face
was turned toward the driver, and oh, good God! not so long ago, her
throat had been cut almost from ear to ear!
The scar was hideous--sickening, it made one feel faint and frightened,
but I held my quivering nerves with an iron hand--here was my scar for
_Cora_! I must study it while I could. It had not been well cared for, I
imagine, for the edges of the awful gash were puckered, as though a
gathering thread held them. There was a queer, cord-like welt that looked
white, while the flesh either side was red and threatening; and then, as
if she felt my eyes, the woman turned and faced me. A dull color rose
slowly over her mutilated throat and handsome face, and she felt hastily
for a kerchief, which was pinned at the back of her dress-collar, and
drew the ends forward and tied them.
I kept my eyes averted after that, but when I left the car weariness was
forgotten. I stopped at a druggist's shop, bought sticking-plaster,
gold-beaters' skin, and absorbent cotton, and with springy steps reached
home, materials in hand, model in memory--I was content, I had found my
scar at last!
If you are about to accuse me of hardness of heart in using, to my own
advantage, this poor woman's misfortune, don't, or at least wait a moment
first.
When I had gone through the asylum's wards and the doctor had called my
attention to this or that exceptional case and had tried to make clear
_cause_ and _effect_; when I had noted ophidian's stealth in one and
tigerish ferocity in another, I suddenly realized that to single one of
these unfortunates out, then to go before an indifferent crowd of people
and present to them a close copy of the helpless afflicted one, would be
an act of atrocious cruelty. I could not do it! I would instead seize
upon some of the general symptoms, common to all mad people, and build up
a mad-scene with their aid, thus avoiding a cruel imitation of one of
God's afflicted.
So in this scar I was not going exactly to copy that riven throat, but,
with slender rolls of cotton, covered and held by gold-beaters' skin, I
was going to create dull white welts with angry red spaces painted
between--with strong sticking-plaster attached to my eyelid, I was going
to draw it from its natural position. Oh, I should have a rare scar! yet
that poor woman might herself see it without suspecting she had given me
the idea.
Oh, what a time of misery it was, the preparation of that play! Poor Mr.
Daly--and poor, poor Miss Morris!
You see everything hung upon the mad-scene. Yet, when we came to that, I
simply stood still and spoke the broken, disjointed words.
"But what are you going to do at night?" Mr. Daly cried. "Act your scene,
Miss Morris."
Act it, in cold blood, there, in the gray, lifeless daylight? with a
circle of grinning, sardonic faces, ready to be vastly amused over my
efforts? He might better have asked me to deliver a polished address in
beautiful, pellucid Greek, to compose at command a charming little
_rondeau_ in sparkling French, or a prayer in sonorous Latin--they would
have been easier for me to do, than to gibber, to laugh, to screech, to
whisper, whimper, rave, to crouch, crawl, stride, fall to order in
street-clothes, and always with those fiendish "guyers" ready to assist
in my undoing. Yet, poor Mr. Daly, too! I was sorry for him, he had so
much at stake. It _was_ asking a good deal of him to trust his fate
entirely, blindly to me.
"Oh!" I said, "I would if I could--do please believe me! I want to do as
you wish me to, but, dear Mr. Daly, I can't, my blood is cold in
daylight, I am ashamed, constrained! I cannot act then!"
"Well, give me some _faint_ idea of what you are going to do," he cried,
impatiently.
"Dear goodness!" I groaned, "I am going to try to do all sorts of
things--loud and quiet, fast and slow, close-eyed cunning, wide-eyed
terror! There, that's all I can tell about it!" and I burst into harassed
tears.
He said never another word, but I used to feel dreadfully when, at
rehearsals, he would rise and leave the stage as soon as we reached the
mad-scene.
Then it happened we could not produce the play on Monday. An old comedy
was put on for that one night. I was not in it, and Mr. Daly, seeing how
near I was to the breaking-point with hard work and terror, tried to give
me a bit of pleasure. He got tickets for my mother and me, and sent us to
the opera to hear Parepa and Wachtel. I was radiant with delight; but,
alas, when did I ever have such high spirits without a swift dampening
down. Elaborately dressed as to hair, all the rest of my little best was
singularly plain for the opera. Still I was happy enough and greatly
excited over our promised treat.
Mother and I set out to go to Miss Linda Dietz's home, where we were to
pick her up, and, under escort of her brother, go over to the Academy of
Music. We could not afford a carriage, so we had to take one of the
'busses then in existence. Mr. Daly had sent me, with my box tickets, a
pair of white gloves, and with extreme carefulness I placed them in my
pocket, drawing on an old pair to wear down to Fifteenth Street, where I
would don the new ones at Miss Dietz's house. How I blessed my
fore-thought later on!
Long skirts were worn, so were bustles. A man in the omnibus was in
liquor; he sat opposite me, right by the door. I signaled to stop. Mother
passed out before me--I descended. The man's feet were on my dress-skirt.
I tried to pull it free--he stupidly pulled in the door. The 'bus
started--I was flung to the pavement!
I threw my head back violently to save my face from the cobbles, my hands
and one knee were beating the cruel stones. Mother screamed to the
driver, a gentleman sprang to the horses, stopped them, picked me up, and
even then had to thrust the drunken man's feet from my torn flounce. I
had faintly whispered: "My glass--my fan!" and the gentleman, placing me
in mother's arms, went out into the street and found them for me. I sat
on a bench in the Park: I was shaken and bruised and torn and muddy, but
I would not go home--not I, I was going to hear Parepa and Wachtel!
The gentleman simply would not leave us; he gave me his arm to Miss
Dietz's house, and I needed its aid, for each moment proved I was worse
hurt than I had at first thought. There, however, when with my heartiest
thanks we parted from our good Samaritan, the Dietz family, with dismayed
faces, received us. They were kindness personified. I was sponged and
arnicaed and plastered and sewed and brushed, and at last my ankle's hurt
being acknowledged, it was tightly bound. The new white gloves safely
came forth, and "Dietzie and Morrie" (our nicknames for each other) set
forth, with brother Frank and mother in attendance, and arrived at the
crowded Academy just as the curtain rose. We went quite wild with delight
over the old moss-draped "Il Trovatore." I broke my only handsome
fan--applauding. Suddenly "Dietzie" saw me whiten--saw me close my eyes.
She thought it was the pain of my ankle, but it was a sudden memory of
_Cora_ and the mad-scene. As the whirlwind of applause roared about me, I
sickened with a mortal terror of the ordeal awaiting me. I hope I may
always thrust Satan behind me with the whole-hearted force I used in
thrusting "L'Article 47" behind me on that occasion. I returned to "Il
Trovatore." I enjoyed each liquid jewel of a note, helped to raise the
roof, afterward declined supper, hastened home, romped my dog, and put
her to bed. Got into a dressing-gown, locked myself in my room, and had
it out with _Cora_, from A to Z. Tried this walk and that crouch; read
this way and that way. Found the exact moment when her mind began to
cloud, to waver, to recover, to break finally and irretrievably.
Determined positively just where I should be at certain times; allowed a
margin for the impulse or inspiration of the moment, and at last, with
the character crystal-clear before me, I ended my work and my vigil.
After turning out the gas I went to the window and looked at the sky. The
stars had gone in; low down in the east a faint, faint band of pink held
earth and sky together. I was calm and quite ready to rest. All my
uncertainty was at an end. What the public would do I could not know;
what I would do was clear and plain before me at last.
Poor Mr. Daly! I sighed, for I knew _his_ anxiety and uneasiness were not
allayed. Bertie, tired of waiting for me, had curled her loving little
body up in my pillow--a distinct breach of family discipline. A few
moments later, feeling her small tail beating a blissful tattoo on my
feet, I muttered, laughingly: "A little prayer, a little dog, and a
little rest," and so sank into the sound sleep I so desperately needed,
in preparation for the ever-to-be-dreaded first night of "L'Article 47"
of the French Penal Code.
The house was packed. Well-known people were seen all through the
theatre. Act I. represented the French Court with a trial in full
swing--it played for one hour, lacking three minutes. I was on the stage
ten minutes only. I was told Mr. Daly shook his head violently at the
curtain's fall.
The next act I was not in at all, but it dragged, and when that was over
Mr. Daly's peculiar test of public feeling showed the presence of
disappointment. Like many other managers, he often placed men here and
there to listen to the comments made by his patrons, but his quickest,
surest way of judging the effect a new play was making, was by watching
and listening at the very moment of the curtain's fall. If the people
instantly turned to one another in eager speech, and a bee-like hum of
conversation arose, he nodded his head with pleased satisfaction--he knew
they were saying, "How lovely!" "That was a fine effect!" "We've had
nothing better for a long time!" "It's just divine!" "It's great!" etc.
When they spoke slowly and briefly, he shook his head; but when they sat
still and gazed steadily straight ahead of them, he called a new play for
rehearsal next morning.
That second act had made him shake his head; the third came on with
_Cora's_ rejected love, her strangling tears of self-pity, her whirlwind
of passion, ending with that frantic and incredible threat. The people
caught at it! I suppose the swiftness of its action, the heat and fury
following so close upon the two slow, dull acts, pleased and aroused
them. The curtain went up and down, up and down, call after call, and
when at last it was allowed to remain down, myriads of bees might have
been swarming in front, and Mr. Daly, nodding and smiling as I rushed
past on my way to change my gown, said: "Hear 'em--hear the bees
buzz--that's good! Now if only you----"
I waited not for the rest--too well I knew how to complete the sentence:
"If only I could safely hive those swarming bees" for him. Could I? Oh,
could I? for the moment was at hand, the "mad-scene," so dreaded, so
feared!
Three things I had counted upon to help my effects: the crouch, the
laugh, the scar. The crouch had just done splendid service at the end of
Act III. Would the other two be as effective?
I went up to the stage; I was to be discovered lying on a lounge. Miss
Davenport, magnificently handsome in person and gown, beside me; the
others at the gambling-table. As she took my hand she gave a sharp little
cry: "Heavens!" she said, "you might be dead, you are like ice!" She
touched my forehead, asking, "Are you ill? Why, your head is burning,
hot! hot! hot! Mr. Daly, just touch her hands and head!"
He looked down on me in silence; two pairs of frightened eyes met; he
gave a groan; threw out his hands helplessly; stepped off the stage, and
signaled the curtain up on what was to make or break the play--and he
knew no more what to expect than did one of the ushers out in front.
Under cover of the music and the applause accompanying the curtain's
rise, I caught myself muttering, vaguely: "The power and the glory--the
power and the glory," and knew that involuntarily I was reaching out for
the old staff on which I had leaned so many times before.
The scene was on--the laughing cynicism of the _Baroness_--the chatter of
the players--then, at last, _George_ and _Cora_ were alone!
My terror had slipped from me like a garment, I was in the play once
more; save for just one awful moment! _George_ had torn the veil from my
disfigured face, and, casting in my teeth the accusation: "You are mad!"
had left me there alone, standing, stunned by the word! That was the
moment of actual dethronement of reason, and, as I slowly, stupidly
turned my eyes, I saw Mr. Daly's white face thrust forward eagerly. His
gray eyes wide and glowing, his thin hand tightly grasping the lapel of
his coat, his whole being expressing the very anguish of anxiety!
One moment I felt I was lost! I had been dragged out of the play at the
crucial moment! I clasped my hands across my eyes: "The kingdom and the
power!" I groaned--I faced the other way! The low, eerie music caught my
attention and awakened my imagination, in another second I was as mad as
a March hare. The first time the low, gibbering laugh swelled into the
wild, long-sustained shrieking _ha! ha!_ a voice said, low and clear:
"Oh, dear God!"
Yet I who had heard the genuine laugh at the mad-house knew this to be
but a poor, tame, soulless thing, compared to that Hecate-like
distillation--the very essence of madness, that ran through that real
gibber of laughter.
Yet it was enough. At the end there came to me one of those moments God
grants now and then as a reward for long thirst, way-weariness, and
heart-sickness patiently borne! One of those foolishly divine moments you
stand with the gods and, like them, are young and fair and powerful! Your
very nerves thrill harmonious, like harp-strings attune--your blood
courses like quicksilver for swiftness, like wine for warmth, and on that
fair peak of Triumph, where one tarries but by moments, there is no
knowledge of sin or suffering, of death or hate; there is only sunshine,
the sunshine of success! love for all those creatures who turn smiling
faces on you, who hold their hands to you with joyous cries!
There is no question of deserts, of qualifications! No analysis, no
criticism then--they follow later! That is just a moment of delicious
madness; and to distinguish it from other frenzies it is called--a
Dramatic Triumph!