Chapter 15. The Theatrical Company "Phoenix"

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_ CHAPTER XV. THE THEATRICAL COMPANY "PHOENIX"

On the following day Rehnhjelm awoke late in the morning in his hotel bed. Memories of the previous night arose like phantoms and crowded round him.

He saw again the pretty, closely shuttered room, richly decorated with flowers, in which the orgy had been held. He saw the actress, a lady of thirty-five who, thanks to a younger rival, had to play the parts of old women; he saw her entering the room, in a frenzy of rage and despair at the fresh humiliations heaped upon her, throwing herself full length on the sofa, drinking glass after glass of wine and, when the temperature of the room rose, opening her bodice, as a man opens his waistcoat after a too-plentiful dinner.

He saw again the old comedian who, after a very short career, had been degraded from playing lead to taking servant's parts; he now entertained the tradespeople of the town with his songs, and, above all, with the stories of his short glory.

But, in the very heart of the clouds of smoke and his drunken visions Rehnhjelm saw the picture of a young girl of sixteen, who had arrived with tears in her eyes, and told the melancholy Falander that the great actor-manager had again been persecuting her with insulting proposals, vowing that in future, unless she would accede to them, she should play only the very smallest parts.

And he saw Falander, listening to everybody's troubles and complaints, breathing on them until they vanished; he watched him, reducing insults, humiliations, kicks, accidents, want, misery, and grief to nothing; watched him teaching his friends and warning them never to exaggerate anything, least of all their troubles.

But again and again his thoughts reverted to the little girl of sixteen with the innocent face, with whom he had made friends, and who had kissed him when they parted, hungrily, passionately. To be quite candid, her kiss had taken him by surprise. But what was her name?

He rose, and stretching out his hand for the water-bottle, he seized a tiny handkerchief, spotted with wine. Ah! Here was her name, ineffaceable, written in marking ink--Agnes! He kissed the handkerchief twice on the cleanest spot and put it into his box.

When he had carefully dressed himself, he went out to see the actor-manager, whom he confidently expected to find at the theatre between twelve and three.

To be on the safe side, he arrived at the office at twelve o'clock; he found no one there but a porter, who asked him what he wanted and put himself at his service.

Rehnhjelm did not think that he would need his help, and asked to see the actor-manager; he was told that the actor-manager was at the present moment at the factory, but would no doubt come to the office in the course of the afternoon.

Rehnhjelm supposed factory to be a slang expression for theatre, but the porter explained to him that the actor-manager was also a match manufacturer. His brother-in-law, the cashier, was a post office employé and never came to the theatre before two o'clock; his son, the secretary, had a post in the telegraph office, and his presence could never be safely relied upon. But the porter, who seemed to guess the object of Rehnhjelm's visit, handed him, on his own responsibility and in the name of the theatre, a copy of the statutes; the young gentleman was at liberty to amuse himself with it until one of the managerial staff arrived.

Rehnhjelm possessed his soul in patience and sat down on the sofa to study the documents. It was half-past twelve when he had finished reading them. He talked to the porter until a quarter to one, and then set himself to fathom the meaning of paragraph 1 of the statutes. "The theatre is a moral institution," it ran, "therefore the members of the company should endeavour to live in the fear of God, and to lead a virtuous and moral life." He turned and twisted the sentence about, trying to throw light upon it, without succeeding. "If the theatre is a moral institution," he mused, "the members who--in addition to the manager, the cashier, the secretary, the machinists, and scene-shifters--form the institution, need not endeavour to practise all these beautiful things. If it said: The theatre is an immoral institution and therefore ... there would be some sense in it; but that, surely, the management does not intend to convey."

He thought of Hamlet's "words, words," but immediately remembered that to quote Hamlet was stale, and that one ought to clothe one's thoughts in one's own words; he chose his own term, and called the regulations nonsense, but discarded the expression again, because it was not original; but then the original was not original either.

Paragraph 2 helped him to while away a quarter of an hour in meditation on the text: "The theatre is not a place for amusement; it does not merely exist to give pleasure." In one place it said the theatre is not a place for amusement and in another the theatre does not "merely" exist to give pleasure, therefore it did exist to give pleasure--to a certain extent.

He reflected under what circumstances the theatre ministered to one's pleasure. It was amusing to see children, especially sons, defrauding their parents, more particularly when the parents were thrifty, goodhearted, and sensible; it was amusing to see wives deceiving their husbands; especially when the husband was old and required his wife's care. Besides this he remembered having laughed very heartily at two old men who nearly died of starvation because their business was on the decline, and that to this day all the world laughed at it in a piece written by a classical author. He also recollected having been much amused by the misfortune of an elderly man who had become deaf; and that, together with six hundred other men and women, he had shouted with laughter at a priest, who tried, by natural means, to cure his insanity, the result of self-restraint; his mirth had been particularly stimulated by the hypocrisy displayed by the wily priest in order to gain the object of his desire.

Why does one laugh? he wondered. And as he had nothing else to do, he tried to find an answer. One laughed at misfortune, want, misery, vice, virtue, the defeat of good, the victory of evil.

This conclusion, which was partly new to him, put him into a good temper; he found a great deal of amusement in playing with his thoughts. As the management still remained invisible, he went on playing, and, before the lapse of five minutes, he had come to the following conclusion: In a tragedy one weeps at just those things which in comedy make one laugh.

At this point his thoughts were arrested; the great actor-manager burst into the room, brushed past Rehnhjelm without apparently being aware of his presence and entered a room on the left, whither, a moment afterwards, the violent ringing of a bell summoned the porter. In less than half a minute he had gone in and come out again, announcing that his Highness was ready to receive the visitor.

As Rehnhjelm entered the director had already fired his shot and his mortar was fixed at an angle which quite prevented him from perceiving the nervous mortal who was timidly coming into the room. But he had no doubt heard him, for he asked him immediately, in an offensive manner, what he wanted.

Rehnhjelm stammered that he was anxious to make his début on the stage.

"What? A début? Have you a repertory, sir? Have you played 'Hamlet,' 'Lear,' 'Richard Sheridan'; been called ten times before the curtain after the third act? What?"

"I've never played a part."

"Oh, I see! That's quite another thing!"

He sat down in an easy-chair painted with silver paint and covered with blue brocade. His face had become a mask. He might have been sitting for a portrait for one of the biographies of Suetonius.

"Shall I give you my candid opinion, what? Leave the theatrical profession alone!"

"Impossible!"

"I repeat, leave it alone! It's the worst of all professions! Full of humiliations, unpleasantnesses, little annoyances, and thorns which will embitter your life so that you'll wish you had never been born."

He looked as if he were speaking the truth, but Rehnhjelm's resolution was not to be shaken.

"I beg you to take my advice! I solemnly adjure you to drop this idea. I tell you that the prospects are so bad, that for years to come you'll have simply to walk on. Think of it! And don't come to me with complaints when it is too late. The theatrical career is so infernally difficult, sir, that you would not dream of taking it up, if you had the least knowledge of it! It's a hell! believe me. I have spoken."

It was a waste of breath.

"Well, wouldn't you prefer an engagement without a début? The risk is less great."

"I shall be only too pleased; I never expected more."

"Then you'd better sign this agreement. A salary of twelve hundred crowns and a two years' engagement. Do you agree?"

He pulled a filled-up agreement, signed by the management, from underneath the blotting-pad, and gave it to Rehnhjelm. The latter's brain was whirling at the thought of the twelve hundred crowns and he signed it without a look at the contents.

When he had signed the actor-manager held out his large middle finger with the cornelian ring, and said: "Be welcome!" He flashed at him with the gums of his upper jaw and the yellow and bloodshot whites of his eyes with their green irises.

The audience was over. But Rehnhjelm--in whose opinion the whole business had been hurried through far too quickly--instead of moving, took the liberty of asking whether he had not better wait until all the members of the management were assembled.

"The management?" shouted the great tragedian. "I am the management. If you have any questions to ask, address yourself to me! If you want advice, come to me! To me, sir! To nobody else! That's all! You can go now!"

The skirt of Rehnhjelm's coat must have caught on a nail, for he turned on the threshold to see what the last words looked like; but he saw only the red gums, which had the appearance of an instrument of torture, and the bloodshot eyes; he felt no desire to ask for an explanation, but went straight to the vaults of the town hall to have some dinner and meet Falander.

Falander was sitting at one of the tables, calm and indifferent, as if he were prepared for the worst. He was not surprised to hear that Rehnhjelm had been engaged, although this news considerably increased his gloom.

"And what did you think of the manager?" he asked.

"I wanted to box his ears, but I hadn't the courage."

"Nor has the management, and therefore he rules autocratically--brutality always rules! Perhaps you know that he is a playwright as well as all the rest?"

"I've heard about it."

"He writes a sort of historical play which is always successful. The reason is that he writes parts instead of creating characters; he manipulates the applause at the exits and trades on so-called patriotism. His characters never talk, they quarrel; men and women, old and young, all of them; for this reason his popular piece, The Sons of King Gustavus, is rightly called a historical quarrel in five acts; it contains no action, nothing but quarrels: family rows, street brawls, scenes in Parliament, and so on. Questions are answered by sly cuts, which do not provoke scenes, but the most terrible scuffles. There is no dialogue, nothing but squabbling, in which the characters insult each other, and the highest dramatic effect is attained by blows. The critics call his characterisation great. What has he made of Gustavus Vasa in the play I just mentioned? A broad-shouldered, long-bearded, bragging, untenable fellow of enormous strength; at the meeting of Parliament at Västeros, he breaks a table with his fist, and at Vadstena he kicks a door panel to pieces. On one occasion however the critics said there was no meaning in his plays; it made him angry, and he resolved to write comedies with plenty of meaning. He had a boy at school--the blackguard's married--who had been playing pranks and got a thrashing. Immediately his father wrote a comedy in which he drew the masters and exposed the inhuman treatment boys receive at school in these days. On another occasion he was criticized by an honest reviewer, and immediately he wrote a comedy, libelling the liberal journalists of the town. But I'll say no more about him!"

"Why does he hate you?"

"Because I said, at a rehearsal, Don Pasquale, in spite of his maintaining that the proper pronunciation was Pascal. Result: I was ordered, on penalty of a fine, to pronounce the word in his way. It was immaterial to him, he said, how the rest of the world pronounced the word, at X-köping it was to be pronounced Pascal, because it was his wish."

"Where does he come from? What was he before?"

"Can't you guess that he was a wheelwright? He'd poison you if he thought you knew it. But let us change the subject; how do you feel after last night's revels?"

"Splendid! I quite forgot to thank you!"

"Don't mention it! Are you fond of the girl? I mean Agnes?"

"Yes, I'm very fond of her."

"And she loves you? That's all right, then! Take her!"

"What nonsense you talk! We couldn't be married for a long time!"

"Who told you to be married?"

"What are you driving at?"

"You're eighteen, she's sixteen! You're in love with each other! If you're agreed, only the most private detail is wanting."

"I don't understand what you mean! Are you trying to encourage me to behave like a scoundrel towards her?"

"I am trying to encourage you to obey the great voice of nature and snap your fingers at the petty commands of men. It's only envy if men condemn your conduct; their much-talked-of morality is nothing but malice, in a suitable, presentable guise. Hasn't nature called you for some time to her great banquet, the delight of the gods and the horror of society afraid of having to pay alimony?"

"Why don't you advise me to marry her?"

"Because that's quite another thing! One doesn't bind oneself for life after having spent one evening together; it doesn't follow that he who has enjoyed the rapture, must also undergo the pain. Matrimony is an affair of souls; there can be no question of this in your case. However, there's no need for me to spur you on; the inevitable is bound to happen. Love each other while you're young, before it's too late; love each other as birds love, without worrying about how to furnish a home; love as the flowers of the species Dioecia."

"You've no right to talk disrespectfully of the girl. She is good, innocent, and to be pitied, and whoever denies it is a liar. Have you ever seen more innocent eyes than hers? Doesn't truth proclaim itself in the sound of her voice? She is worthy of a great and pure love, not merely of the passion you speak of. Don't ever talk to me about her in this way again. You can tell her that I shall look upon it as the greatest happiness, the highest honour, to ask her to marry me when I'm worthy of her."

Falander shook his head so violently that the snakes on his forehead wriggled.

"Worthy of her? Marriage? What stuff!"

"I mean it!"

"Dreadful! And if I should tell you that the girl does not only lack all the qualities which you ascribe to her, but possesses all the reverse ones, you wouldn't believe me, but would deprive me of your friendship?"

"Yes!"

"The world is so full of lies, that nobody will believe a man when he speaks the truth."

"How can a man believe you, who have no morals?"

"That word again! What an extraordinary word it is! It answers all questions, cuts off all discussions, excuses all failings--one's own, not those of others--strikes down all adversaries, pleads for or against a cause, just like a lawyer. For the moment you have defeated me with it, next time I shall defeat you. I must be off, I have a lesson at three! Good-bye, good luck!"

And he left Rehnhjelm to his dinner and his reflections.

* * * * *

When Falander arrived home, he put on a dressing-gown and slippers, as if he were expecting no visitors. But he seemed full of an uncontrollable restlessness. He walked up and down the room, stopping every now and then at the window and gazing at the street from behind the curtain. After a while he stopped before the looking-glass, took his collar off and laid it on the sofa table. For a few more minutes he continued his promenade, but suddenly, coming to a standstill before a card-tray, he took up the photograph of a lady, placed it under a strong magnifying glass and examined it as if it were a microscopic slide. He lingered a long time over his examination.

Presently he heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs; quickly concealing the photograph in the place from where he had taken it, he jumped up and went and sat at his writing-table, turning his back to the door. He was apparently absorbed in writing when a knocking--two short, gentle raps--broke the silence.

"Come in," he called, in a voice which was anything but inviting.

A young girl, small but well-proportioned, entered the room. She had a delicate, oval face, surrounded by an aureole of hair which might have been bleached by the sun, for it was of a less pronounced tint than the usual natural blond. The constant play of the small nose and exquisitely cut mouth produced roguish curves which were incessantly changing, like the figures in a kaleidoscope; when, for instance, she moved the wings of her nose, so that the bright red cartilage showed like the leaf of the liverwort, her lips fell apart and disclosed the edges of very small, straight teeth which, although her own, were too white and even to inspire confidence. Her eyes were drawn up at the root of the nose and slanted towards the temples; this gave them a pleading, pathetic expression, which stood in bewitching contrast to the lower, roguish parts of her face; she had restless pupils, small like the point of a needle at one moment, and distended at the next, like the objective of a night-telescope.

On entering the room, she removed the key from the lock and shot the bolt.

Falander remained sitting at his table, writing.

"You are late to-day, Agnes," he said.

"Yes, I know," she replied, defiantly, taking off her hat.

"We were up late last night."

"Why don't you get up and say how do you do to me? You can't be as tired as all that!"

"I beg your pardon, I forgot all about it!"

"You forgot? I have noticed for some time that you've been forgetting yourself in many ways."

"Indeed? Since when have you noticed it?"

"Since when? What do you mean? Please change your dressing-gown and slippers."

"This is the first time you have found me in them, and you said for some time. Isn't that funny? Don't you think it is?"

"You are laughing at me! What's the matter with you? You've been strange for some time."

"For some time? There you are at it again! Why do you say for some time? Is it because lies have got to be told? Why should it be necessary to tell lies?"

"Are you accusing me of telling lies?"

"Oh! no, I'm only teasing you!"

"Do you think I can't see that you are tired of me? Do you think I didn't see last night how attentive you were to that stupid Jenny? You hadn't a word for me!"

"Do you mean to say you're jealous?"

"Jealous! No, my dear, not in the least! If you prefer her to me, well and good! I don't care a toss!"

"Really? You're not jealous? Under ordinary circumstances this would be an unpleasant fact."

"Under ordinary circumstances? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean--quite plainly--that I'm tired of you, as you just suggested."

"It's a lie! You're not!"

The wings of her nose trembled, she showed her teeth and stabbed him with the needles.

"Let's talk of something else," he said. "What do you think of Rehnhjelm?"

"I like him very much! He's a dear boy!"

"He's fallen in love with you!"

"Nonsense!"

"And the worst of it is he wants to marry you!"

"Please spare me these inanities!"

"But as he's not twenty, he's going to wait until he's worthy of you, so he said."

"The little idiot!"

"By worthy he means when he's made a name as an actor. And he can't succeed in that until he's allowed to play parts. Can't you manage it for him?"

Agnes blushed, threw herself back on the sofa cushions and exhibited a pair of elegant little boots with gold tassels.

"I? I can't manage it for myself! You're making fun of me!"

"Yes, I am!"

"You're a friend, Gustav, you really are!"

"Perhaps I am, perhaps I'm not. It's difficult to say. But as a sensible girl...."

"Oh! shut up!"

She took up a keen-edged paper knife and threatened him in fun, but it looked very much as if she were in earnest.

"You are very beautiful to-day, Agnes," said Falander.

"To-day? Why to-day? Has it never struck you before?"

"Of course it has!"

"Why are you sighing?"

"Too much drink last night!"

"Let me look at you! What's the matter with your eyes?"

"No sleep last night, my dear!"

"I'll go, then you can take a nap."

"Don't go! I can't sleep anyhow!"

"I must be off! I really only came to tell you that."

Her voice softened; her eyelids dropped slowly, like the curtain after a death scene.

"It was kind of you to come and tell me that it's all over," said Falander.

She rose and pinned on her hat before the glass.

"Have you any scent?" she asked.

"Not here; at the theatre."

"You should stop smoking a pipe; the smell hangs about one's clothes."

"I will."

She stooped and fastened her garter.

"I beg your pardon," she said, looking at Falander, pleadingly.

"What for?" he asked, absent-mindedly.

As she made no reply, he took courage and drew a deep breath.

"Where are you going?" he said.

"To be fitted for a dress; you needn't be afraid," she replied, innocently, as she thought.

Falander could easily tell that it was an excuse.

"Good-bye, then," he said.

She went to him to be kissed. He took her in his arms and pressed her against him as if he wanted to crush her; then he kissed her on the forehead, led her to the door, pushed her outside, and said briefly: "Good-bye!" _

Read next: Chapter 16. In The White Mountains

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