JOHN CARLSON began the rehearsals of “Nicoline” in early August of 1895. For a week he tried to correct the hot labours of the whole, large company. He was nervous about this production. His digestion interfered. His temper grew explosive. The leading woman was alarmed for her gentility. The leading man disliked his part of a cheap rake. Carlson abandoned the minor folk to his stage manager, Rothenstein, and nursed these two clumsy celebrities toward a certain ease. But his stomach suffered. He attended the opening night of “The Prisoner of Zenda” at the Lyceum, fainted during the second act and was revived with brandy in Mr. Frohman’s office. The brandy gave him fever; he spent the six days remaining before “Nicoline” opened, in his bed. Yet on a warm Monday night he dressed his gaunt body gorgeously, shaved his yellow face, thrust an orchid into his coat and dined at Martin’s with young Mr. Fitch who had adapted “Nicoline” from the French. Carlson swore in Swedish[10] when agony seized his stomach. Mr. Fitch, sipping white Burgundy, observed that it must be pleasant to swear incomprehensibly. “Sure,” said Carlson, shivering, “but what was you sayin’?”
“You’ll feel better by midnight,” Mr. Fitch murmured, “You’ve worried too much. This’ll be a hit. It’s been a hit in London and Paris. The critics”—the adapter smiled—“won’t dare say anything worse than that it’s immoral. And Cora Boyle will make them laugh in the third act, so that’ll be safe.”
“Boyle? Who’s she? That black headed gal that plays the street walker, y’mean? She’s no good. Had her last winter in Mountain Dew. Common as dirt and no more sense than a turnip.”
Mr. Fitch answered in his affable whisper, “Of course she’s common as dirt. That’s why I asked you to get her. Why waste time training some one to be common when the town’s full of them?”
“But that ain’t actin’, Clyde!”
“It’s quite as good. And,” Mr. Fitch declared, “she’s what the women like.”
“You always talk as if women made a show pay!”
“That happens to be just what they do, Mr. Carlson. That’s why Richard the Third doesn’t[11] make as much money as Camille or East Lynne. Women come to a play to see other women wear clothes they wouldn’t be seen in and do things they wouldn’t dream of doing. Please try to eat something.”
“You’re all wrong,” Carlson said, chewing a pepsin tablet.
Mr. Fitch shrugged, arranged his moustaches and mentioned a dozen actresses whose success was built on the art of enchanting their own sex. Carlson had a respect for this playwright’s opinion and while the two early acts of “Nicoline” played he saw from his box that Cora Boyle’s swagger carried some message to the female part of the audience. For her, women laughed loudly. They merely sniffled over the well bred woes of the heroine. The heroine’s antics were insupportable. The second curtain fell and Carlson descended to the dressing room of this unsatisfactory gentlewoman, gave a rasping lecture that scared her maid away. He had to help hook her gown and yelled over the powder of her advertised shoulders, “If you want that sassy Boyle gal to be the hit of the show, go on! You act like you’d lost your last cent on the races and had sand in your shoes. Now, you!” A feeling of heated blades in his stomach stopped the speech. He heard the stage manager knock on the dressing room door. The actress moved weeping past his[12] anguish. He leaned on the table and saw his sweating face in the tilted mirror. The thin, remote music of the orchestra began behind the curtain. This third act was set in the rowdy café of a small French city. If it went well, the play was safe, would last out the winter, make him richer. He should go up to his box and show himself unperturbed to rival managers civilly tranquil in their free seats. But he leaned, looking at his wet, bald head with a sick weariness. What was the use of this trade? He wore down his years trying to teach silly women and sillier men to act. He got nothing from living but stomach trouble and money. The money would go to his sister in Stockholm when he died. He had never liked his sister, hadn’t seen her in thirty years. He pitied himself so extremely that tears wriggled down the spread of seams in his yellow face. Life was an iniquity contrived for his torture. Carlson deeply enjoyed his woe for five minutes. Then Mr. Fitch came in to urge that Cora Boyle be corrected before her present entrance.
“What’s the good, Clyde? She ain’t any sense. She’s a actress, ain’t she?”
“She’ll spoil the act if she carries on too much,” said Mr. Fitch and at once Carlson thrilled with an automatic anxiety; the act mustn’t be spoiled. He hurried up the iron stairs to the platform,[13] wiping his face. Cora Boyle was standing ten feet back from the canvas arch that was, for the audience, the street door of the Café Printemps. She patted the vast sleeves of her gaudy frock and whispered to a fellow in blue clothes. Carlson had to pull her from these occupations and gave his orders in a hiss.
“Don’t you laugh too loud when Miss Leslie’s tellin’ about her mother or talk as loud as you’ve been doin’, neither. This ain’t a camp meetin’, hear?”
The black haired girl grinned at him, nodding. She spat out a fold of chewing gum and patted her pink sleeves again. She said, “All right, boss, but, say, don’t the folks like me, though?”
Fitch chuckled behind the manager. Carlson wouldn’t be bested by an impudent hussy who was paid thirty-five dollars a week and didn’t earn it. He stared at Cora Boyle, biting his lips and hunting words wherewith to blast her. She let him stare unchecked. A false diamond on its thin chain glittered and slid when she breathed into the cleft of her breasts. She was excellently made and highly perfumed. Her black eyes caught a vague point of red from the rim of a jaunty hat that slanted its flowers on the mass of her hair. She had rouged her chin to offset a wide mouth. Carlson jeered, “Better get somebody to show you a good makeup, sister, and quit[14] talkin’ through your nose. You sound like you’re out of New Jersey!”
Cora Boyle giggled. She glanced at the fellow in blue and said, “I was boardin’ at Fayettesville, New Jersey, all summer. Wasn’t I, Mark?”
The fellow bobbed his head, shuffling his feet. His feet were bare and by that sign Carlson knew him for the supposed peasant lad who would bring the heroine news of her dear mother’s death at the end of the act. Cora Boyle gave this unimportant creature a long, amorous look, then told Carlson, “I was boardin’ with Mark’s folks. He—”
“Your cue,” said Mr. Fitch and the girl, with a splendid swagger, marched into the lit scene beyond this nervous shadow. Her finery shimmered and directly the women outside the hedge of footlights laughed. The audience tittered at her first line and Mr. Fitch, a hand on his moustache, smiled at Carlson.
“She’s got a voice like a saw,” Carlson snapped and walked down the steps. At the bottom a roar halted him. The audience laughed in a steady bawl. He grunted but the noise came in repeating volleys every time the girl’s shrill speech rose grinding and these bursts had an effect of surging water wonderful to hear, soothing his conceit. But as he listened a spasm took his stomach. Fitch helped him to a cab[15] and the cab delivered Carlson trembling to his valet in 18th Street.
The attack lasted all night and did not wane until twilight of next day when Carlson could drink some drugged milk and roll a cigarette. He bade his valet bring up the morning papers and was not surprised when Fitch preceded the man into the room, walking silently on his trim feet, a flower in his blue coat and his white hands full of scribbled foolscap.
“I’ve been writing two scenes in the library,” he said, in his usual, even whisper, “and I’d like to read them, if you feel well enough.”
“Two scenes?”
“One’s for the first act and one’s for the last. I’d like a full rehearsal in the morning, too.”
Carlson lifted himself and slapped the counterpane. He cried, “Now, Clyde, listen here! That Boyle gal’s got enough. I expect she hit but she’s a sassy little hen. I’m not goin’ to spoil her with—”
“Nom de dieu,” said the playwright, “I didn’t say anything about the Boyle girl. No. These scenes are for young Walling. He can come on with some flowers for Nicoline in the first act and say something. Then he can bring the dogs in at the last, instead of the maid. We might dress him as a gamekeeper in the last act. Green coat, corduroy breeches—”
[16]Carlson screamed, “Cord’roy pants? Who the hell you talkin’ about? Walling? Who’s Walling?”
Mr. Fitch lit a cigar and selected a paper from the bundle the valet held. He bent himself over the back of a cherry velvet chair which turned his suit vile purple in the dusk and began to read genially.... “‘Into the sordid and sensuous atmosphere of this third act there came a second of relief when the messenger brought Nicoline news of her mother’s death. We too rarely see such acting as Mr. Walling’s performance of this petty part. His embarrassed, sympathetic stare at Nicoline, his boyish, unaffected speech—’” The playwright laughed and took another paper, “That’s William Winter. Here’s this idiot. ‘This little episode exactly proves the soundness of Carlson’s method in rehearsing a company. I am told that Mark Walling, the young actor who plays the r?le, has been drilled by Mr. Carlson as carefully as though he were a principal’—I told him that,” Mr. Fitch explained, changing papers. “‘One of the best performances in the long list of forty was that of Mark Walling as’—”
Carlson lay back dizzy on his pillows and snarled, “What’s it all about, for hell’s sake? This feller comes on and gives the gal the letter and says the funeral’ll be next day. Well?”
“Well,” said his ally, “I’d just put you in your[17] cab. I was out in front, standing. This boy came on. They were still laughing at Cora Boyle. The minute Walling spoke, every one shut up. He gave his line about the funeral and some women commenced snivelling. Wiped his nose on his sleeve. Some more women cried. I thought they’d applaud for a minute. He’s in all the papers. Nice voice. It’s his looks mostly.”
“Never noticed him. Where did we get him?”
Mr. Fitch blew some smoke toward the red velvet curtains and chuckled. “We didn’t get him. He belongs to Cora Boyle. She brought him to Rothenstein at the first rehearsal and asked for a part for him. She kidnapped him down in Jersey.”
“She—what?”
“Kidnapped him.” The playwright assumed a high drawl and recited, “Cora, she was boardin’ with Mark’s folks down to Fayettesville. Mark, he used to speak pieces after supper. Cora, she thought he spoke real nice—So she kidnapped him. She mesmerized him—like Trilby—and brought him along. She’s got him cooped up at her boarding house. She’s married him. He says he thinks acting’s awful easy”—Mr. Fitch again drawled, “cause all you gotta do is walk out, an’ speak your piece. He’s got a brother[18] name of Joe and his mamma she’s dead and sister Sadie she’s married to Eddie something or other. I heard his whole family tree. I went to see him this morning. Some one else is likely to grab him, you know? He told me his sad story in a pair of blue drawers and one sock. He’s scared to death of Cora Boyle.”
“But—can he act?”
The playwright shook his head. “No. He hasn’t any brains. Are you well enough to get dressed?”
At half past ten an usher came into the box office where Carlson was sitting and summoned the manager to the rear of the house. Fitch stood at the throat of an aisle, his pallor made orange by the glow from the stage on which Cora Boyle was chaffing the sinful heroine. Amusement sped up this lustrous, stirring slope of heads. It was the year of Violette Amère among perfumes and the scent rolled back to Carlson with the laughter of these ninnies who took Cora Boyle for a good comedian. Carlson chafed, but when the lad in blue walked into the light of the untinted globes, this laughter flickered down. Fitch whispered, “Hear?” and promptly the boy spoke in a husky, middling voice that somehow reached Carlson clearly. Close by a woman gurgled, “Sweet!” and Carlson felt the warm attention of the crowd, half understood it[19] as the few lines drawled on. The boy stood square on his brown, painted feet. His flat face was comely. He had dull red, curling hair. As he tramped out there was a faint and scattered rumour like the birth of applause, cut by the heroine’s shriek.
“You see?” Fitch smiled.
Carlson said, “I ain’t a fool. Tell Rothenstein to call a rehearsal for ten in the mornin’, will you.” He then went briskly to hunt down this asset. It took some minutes to locate the dressing room Mark Walling shared with five other small parts. He found Mark peeled to faded, azure cotton underclothes and talking happily to a tall, fair rustic who slouched on the wall beside the sink where Mark scrubbed paint from his feet with a sponge. Their drawls mixed and shut from them the noise of Carlson’s step, so the manager regarded his prize stealthily. Mark was a long lad, limber and burly, harmlessly good looking. His nose was short. His insteps and arms were thick with muscle. He smiled up at his rural friend who said, “But it ain’t a long trip, Bud. So I’ll get your papa to come up nex’ week.”
Mark shifted the sponge to his other hand and sighed. The sound touched Carlson who hated actors not old enough to court him cleverly. But this was a homesick peasant. He listened[20] to Mark’s answer of, “Wish you would, Eddie. I ain’t sure papa likes my bein’ here. Even if I do—”
The rustic saw Carlson and mumbled. Mark Walling hopped about on one foot and gave a solemn, frightened gulp. Carlson nodded, inquiring, “That your brother, sonny?”
“No, sir. Joe’s home. This is Eddie Bernamer. Well, he’s my brother-in-law. He’s married with Sadie.”
Eddie Bernamer gave out attenuated sounds, accepting the introduction. The manager asked lightly, “How many sisters have you, son?”
“Just Sadie. She’s out lookin’ at the play.”
“And you’ve married Cora Boyle?”
“Well,” said Mark, “that’s so.”
He seemed rather puzzled by the fact, suspended the sponge and said to Eddie Bernamer, “She ain’t but two years older’n me, Eddie.”
“I guess Mr. Carlson wants to talk to you, Bud,” his relative muttered, “So I’ll go on back and see some more.”
“But you’ll come round an’ wait after the show?” Mark wailed.
“We’ll have to catch the cars, Bud. Well, goo’ bye.”
Mark stood clutching the sponge and sighed a monstrous, woeful exhalation after Eddie Bernamer.[21] His grey eyes filled. He was hideously homesick, certain that Fayettesville was a better place than this cellar that stunk of sweated cloth and greasy paint. And Cora hadn’t been strikingly pleased by the news of him in this morning’s papers. She was odd. He wiped his nose on a wrist and looked hopelessly at Carlson.
“Rather be back on the farm, wouldn’t you?” the gaunt man asked.
Mark sat down on the floor and thought. His thoughts went slowly across the track of six weeks. He plodded. For all its demerits this red and gold theatre was thrilling. People were jolly, kind enough. The lewd stagehands had let him help set a scene tonight. The man who handled the lights had shown him how they were turned on and off to make stormy waverings. Cora was exciting. Winter at home was plagued by Aunt Edith who came out from Trenton to spend the cold months at the farm and who lectured Mark’s father on Methodism. And here was this easy, good job. If he worked hard it might be that Mr. Carlson—who wasn’t now the screaming beast of rehearsals—would let him run the lights instead of acting. Mark said, “Well, no. Just as soon stay here, I guess.”
“How old are you, sonny?”
“Goin’ on seventeen, sir.”
“I’ll give you forty a week to stay here,” said[22] Carlson, “Fitch tells me you think acting’s pretty easy.”
“I don’t see any trick to acting,” Mark mused, absorbing the offer of forty dollars a week, “There ain’t nothin’ to it but speakin’ out loud.... Yes, I’d like to stay here.” He wanted to show himself useful and got up, pointing to the bulbs clustered on the ceiling in a bed of tin, “I should think you’d ought to save money if you had them down here by the lookin’ glasses instead of this gas, y’see? The fellers don’t get any good of the electric light while they’re puttin’ paint on, and—”
“Rehearsal at ten in the morning,” said Carlson, “Good-night.”
Marked gaped at the black and empty door. Then his homesickness swelled up and he sighed, squeezing the sponge. His body trembled drearily. He lowered his head as does a lonesome calf turned into strange pastures.