The papers of that period are all agreed that the eminent actor, Arthur
Wantage, was never seen to more advantage than on the last night of that
particular season. His _Voltaire_ had never been a more brilliant
impersonation. The irony, the cruelty of the character had rarely come
out more effectively; the ingenuity of the dialogue was displayed at its
best.
Yet, as a matter of fact, Arthur Wantage, all that day and evening, was
in Orson Vane's house, subject to a curious mental and spiritual aphasia
that afterwards became a puzzle to many famous physicians.
The _Voltaire_ was Orson Vane.
It was the final triumph of Professor Vanlief's thaumaturgy. Vane was
now in possession of the entire mental vitality sufficient for playing
the part of the evening; the lines, the every pose, came to him
spontaneously, as if he were machinery moving at another's guidance. The
detail of entering the theatre unobserved had been easy; it was dusk and
he was muffled to the eyes. Afterwards, it was merely a matter of
pigment and paints. His fingers found the use of the colors and powders
as easily as his mind held the words to be spoken. There was not a
soul, in the company, in the audience, that did not not find the
_Voltaire_ of that night the _Voltaire_ of the entire season.
Above the mere current of his speeches and his displayed emotions Orson
Vane found a tide of exaltation bearing him on to a triumphant feeling
of contempt for his audience. These sheep, these herdlings, these
creatures of the fashion, how fine it was to fling into their faces the
bitter taunts of a _Voltaire_, to see them take them smilingly,
indulgently. They paid him his price, and he hated them for it. He felt
that they did not really understand the half of the play's delicate
finesse; he felt their appreciation was a sham, a pose, a bit of mummery
even more contemptible than his own, since they paid to pose, while he,
at least, had the satisfaction of their money.
The curtain-fall found him aglow with the splendor of his success. The
two personalties in him joined in a fever of triumph. He, Orson Vane,
had been _Voltaire_; he would yet be all the other geniuses of history.
He would prove himself the greatest of them all, since he could simulate
them all. A certain vein of petty cunning ran under the major emotion;
Orson Vane laughed to think how he had despoiled Arthur Wantage of his
very temperament, his art, his spirit. This same cunning admonished,
too, the prompt return of Wantage's person, after the night was over, to
the Wantage residence.
The commotion "in front" brought Orson to a sense of the immediate
moment. The cries for a speech came over a crackling of hand-claps. He
waited for several minutes. It was not well to be too complaisant with
one's public. Then he gave the signal to the man at the curtain, and
moved past him, to the narrow space behind the lights. He bowed. It had
the very air of irony, had that bow. It does not seem humanly possible
to express irony in a curving in the spine, a declension of the head, a
certain pose of the hands, but Vane succeeded, just as Wantage had so
often succeeded, in giving that impression. The bow over, he turned to
withdraw. Let them wait, let them chafe I Commuters were missing the
last trains for the night? So much the better! They would not forget him
so easily.
When he finally condescended to stride before the curtain again, it was
a lift of the eyebrows, a little gesture, an air that said, quite
plainly: Really, it is very annoying of you. If I were not very gracious
indeed I should refuse to come out again. I do so, I assure you, under
protest.
He gave a little, delicate cough, he lifted his eyes. At that the house
became still, utterly still.
He began without any vocative at all.
"The actor," he said, "who wins the applause of so distinguished a
company is exceedingly fortunate. The applause of such a very
distinguished company--" he succeeded in emphasizing his phrase to the
point where it became a subtle insult--"is very sweet to the actor. It
reconciles him to what he must take to be a breach of true art, the
introduction of his own person on the scene where he has appeared as an
impersonator of character. Some actors are expected to make speeches
after their exertions should be over. I am one of those poor actors. In
the name of myself, a poor actor, and the poor actors in my company, I
must thank this distinguished body of ladies and gentlemen for the
patience with which they have listened to Mr. O'Deigh's little trifle.
It is, of course, merely a trifle, _pour passer le temps_. Next season,
I hope, I may give you a really serious production. Mr. O'Deigh cables
me that he is happy such distinguished persons in such a critical town
have applauded his little effort. I am sure ever so many of you would
rather be at home than listening to the apologies of a poor actor. For I
feel I must apologize for presenting so inconsiderable a trifle. A mere
summer night's amusement. I have played it as a sort of rest for myself,
as preparation for larger productions. If I have amused you, I am
pleased. The actors' province is to please. The poor actor thanks you."
He bowed, and the bewildered company who had heard him to the end,
clapped their hands a little. The newspaper men smiled at one another;
they had been there before. The old question of "Why does he do it?" no
longer stirred in them. They were used to Wantage's vagaries.
The newspapers of the following day had Wantage's speech in full. The
critics wrote editorials on the necessity for curbing this player's
arrogance. The public was astonished to find that it had been insulted,
but it took the press' word for it. Wantage had made that sort of thing
the convention; it was the fashion to call these curtain speeches an
insult, yet to invoke them as eagerly as possible. The widespread
advertising that accrued to Wantage from this episode enabled his
manager to obtain, in his bookings for the following season, an even
higher percentage than usual. To that extent Orson Vane's imitation of
an imitator benefited his subject. In other respects it left Wantage a
mere walking automaton.
It was fortunate that the closing time for Wantage's theatre was now on.
There was no hitch in Vane's plan of transporting Wantage to his home
quarters; the servants at the Wantage establishment found nothing
unusual in their master having been away for a day and a night; he was
too frequently in the habit, when his house displeased him in some
detail, to stay at hotels for weeks and months at a time; his household
was ready for any vagary. Indisposition was nothing new with him,
either; in reality and affectation these lapses from well-being were not
infrequent with the great player. The doctor told him he needed
rest--rest and sea-air; there was nothing to worry over; he had been
working too hard, that was all.
So the shell of what had been Wantage proceeded to a watering-place,
while the kernel, now a part of Orson Vane, proceeded to astonish the
town with its doings and sayings.
Practice had now enabled Vane to control, with a certain amount of
consciousness, whatsoever alien spirit he took to himself. Vigorous and
alert as was the mumming temperament he was now in possession of, he yet
contrived to exert a species of dominance over it; he submitted to it in
the mode, the expression of his character, yet in the main-spring of his
action he had it in subjection. He had reached, too, a plane from which
he was able, more than on any of the other occasions, to enjoy the
masquerade he knew himself taking part in. He realized, with a
contemptuous irony, that he was playing the part of one who played many
parts. The actor in him seemed, intellectually, merely a personified
palimpsest; the mind was receptive, ready to echo all it heard, keen to
reproduce traits and tricks of other characters.
He held in himself, to be brief, a mirror that reflected whatever
crossed its face; the base of that mirror itself was as characterless,
as colorless, as the mere metal and glass. Superficialities were caught
with a skill that was astonishing; little tricks of manner and speech
were reproduced to the very dot upon the i; yet, under all the raiment
of other men's merely material attributes, there was no change of soul
at all; no transformation touched the little ego-screaming soul of the
actor.
The superficial, in the meanwhile, was enough to make the town gossip
not a little about the newest diversions of Orson Vane. He talked, now,
of nothing but the theatre and the arts allied to it. He purposed doing
some little comedies at Newport in the course of the summer that was now
beginning. He eyed all the smart women of his acquaintance with an air
that implied either, "I wonder whether you could be cast for a girl I
must make love to," or, "You would be passable in _Prince Hal_ attire."
At home, to his servants, Vane was abominable. When the dreadful
champagne, that some impulse possessed him to buy of a Broadway
swindler, proved as flat as the Gowanus, his language to Nevins was
quite contemptible. "What," he shrieked, "do I pay you for? Tell me
that! This splendid wine spoiled, spoiled, utterly unfit for a gentleman
to drink, and all by your negligence. It is enough to turn one's mind.
It is an outrage. A splendid wine. And now--look at it!" As a conclusion
he threw the stuff in Nevins' face. Nevins made no answer at all. He
wiped the sour mess from his coat with the same air of apology that he
would have used had he spilt a glass himself. But his emotions were none
the less. They caused him, in the privacy of the servants' quarters, to
do what he had not done in years, to drop his h's. "It's the 'ost's
place," said Nevins, mournfully, "to entertain his guests, and not
bully the butler." Which, as a maxim, was valid enough, save that, in
this special case, the guests had come to look upon Vane's treatment of
the servants as part of the entertainment a dinner with him would
provide.
Another distress that fell to the lot of poor Nevins was the fact that
his master was become averse to the paying of bills. The profanity fell
upon Nevins from both the duns and the dunned.
"The man from Basser's, Mr. Vane, sir," Nevins would announce, timidly.
"Can't get him to go away at all, sir."
"Basser's, Basser's? Oh--that tailor fellow. An impudent creature, to
plague me so, when I do him the honor of wearing his coats; they fit
very badly, but I put up with that because I want to help the fellow on.
And what is my reward? He pesters me, pesters me. Tell him--tell him
anything, Nevins. Only do leave me alone; I am very busy, very nervous.
I am going to write a comedy for myself. I have some water-colors to
paint for Mrs. Carlos; I have a ride in the Park, and ever so many other
things to do to-day, and you bother me with pestiferous tailors. Nevins,
you are, you are--"
But Nevins quietly bowed himself out before he learned what new thing he
was in his master's eyes.
A malady--for it surely is no less than a malady--for attempting cutting
speeches at any time and place possessed Vane. Shortsightedness was
another quality now obvious in him. He knew you to-day, to-morrow he
looked at you with the most unseeing eyes. His voice was the most
prominent organ in whatever room or club he happened to be; when he
spoke none else could be intelligible. When he knew himself observed,
though alone, he hummed little snatches to himself. His gait took on a
mincing step. There was not a moment, not a pose of his that had not its
forethought, its deliberation, its premeditated effect.
The gradual increase in the publicity that was part of the penalty of
being in the smart world had made approachment between the stage and
society easier than ever before. Orson Vane's bias toward the theatre
did not displease the modish. Rumors as to this and that heroine of a
romantic divorce having theatric intentions became frequent. The gowns
of actresses were copied by the smart quite as much as the smart set's
gowns were copied by actresses. The intellectual factor had never been
very prominent in the social attitude toward the stage; it was now
frankly admitted that good-looking men and handsome dresses were as much
as one went to the theatre for. Theatrical people had a wonderful claim
upon the printer's ink of the continent; society was not averse to
borrowing as much of that claim as was possible. Compliments were
exchanged with amiable frequence; smart people married stage favorites,
and the stage looked to the smart for its recruits.
Orson Vane could not have shown his devotion to the mummeries of the
stage at a better time. He gained, rather than lost, prestige.