The people shouted with delight at this. Mademoiselle Adrienne Lecouvreur was then the idol of the Parisians, and she was moving all Paris to tears in Monsieur Arouet’s—or Voltaire’s, for I continually forget—tragedy of Mariamne. The present performance, I then knew, was to be a burlesque on the play of the notary’s son.
17
CHAPTER II
THE LITTLE ACTRESS
Just at that moment, a coach came lumbering through the narrow streets and stopped before the gate, where two persons alighted—Mademoiselle Lecouvreur herself and Monsieur Voltaire. I was surprised to see Monsieur Voltaire, because I supposed he was locked up in the Bastille, and would not be let out except to go to England. This man has friends, but I am not one of them. He had a way of sharpening his wit on Count Saxe, behind Count Saxe’s back—and besides, Mademoiselle Lecouvreur liked him too well. But that was because he wrote the part of Mariamne for her. Nevertheless, I did not make the mistake of belittling him.
Jacques Haret, who knew everybody in Paris, recognized the pair as they entered the garden. He ran forward, refused to let them pay, and escorted mademoiselle to a bench under the purple blooming lilac hedge where she could both see and hear well.
“It is a very great honor, Mademoiselle,” said Jacques Haret, “to entertain you in my theater.”
Mademoiselle Lecouvreur, with that smile which won all hearts, replied:
“I thank you very much, Monsieur. I can not be indifferent 18 to the actress who is to continue, and probably surpass, the Adrienne of to-day.”
She glanced my way, and I bowed to her, and she gave me one of those same sweet smiles. Twenty years before, my father, the notary, and her father, the hatter, lived next each other—and the notary’s son and the hatter’s daughter often played in the streets together. Now, she was a great actress, and I was a Tatar prince in command of Count Saxe’s body-guard. She had graciously remembered our early acquaintance when Count Saxe took me to her house—for he took me everywhere he went—and she treated me with the greatest kindness always; for which I love and thank her forever.
I was sorry to see she looked pale and weary in the strong afternoon light—she was ever frail, and adorned the world only too short a time. She wore neither rouge nor patches, nor was she ever remarkable for beauty; but she was charming as only Adrienne Lecouvreur was charming. As for Monsieur Voltaire, he looked both prosperous and impudent—and when Jacques Haret paid him a compliment he replied with a wink:
“Dear sir, I am not Monsieur Voltaire. That fellow is in the Bastille. I, as you see, am tall and thin and not ill-looking, while Voltaire, it is well known, is short and stout and red of hair—and is the worst poet in France besides.”
Jacques Haret winked back.
“Truly,” said he, “I was mistaken. As you say, Monsieur Voltaire is a short, red-haired man—but he is not the worst poet in France. The creature has written some things that are not so bad—the Henriade, for 19 example—it could not be better if I had done it myself. And I have made a little play after his Mariamne, which is not so bad either—my actors will now have pleasure in giving it. What a pity you are not Monsieur Voltaire!”
At this, Monsieur Voltaire laughed—he had a huge laugh and a loud and rich voice, and eyes that glowed like coals of fire. Nobody having once seen this man could forget him, or mistake him for another.
Then, amid a stormy clapping of hands, Jacques Haret gave three great thumps with a stick on the floor of the stage, in imitation of the House of Molière, the curtain was pulled apart and the little play began.
In a few minutes, the child actress advertised as Mademoiselle Adrienne came upon the stage, and was greeted with uproarious applause.
She was no child, but a young girl of thirteen or possibly fourteen, and taller than the cobbler’s boy, who played opposite to her. She was not strictly beautiful, but she had a spark of Heaven’s own light in her deep, dark eyes—and she had the most eloquent red mouth I ever saw, with a little, bewitching curve in it, that made a faint dimple in her cheek. The blond wig she wore evidently disguised hair of satin blackness. She was slight and unformed, but graceful beyond words. Jacques Haret’s version of Mariamne was a very good one—what a multiplicity of gifts the fellow had, and his dishonesty made each and all of no avail! But in this young girl whom he called Mademoiselle Adrienne, he had an actress worthy of better work than even he could do.
The part of Mariamne—Jacques Haret’s Mariamne—was 20 a very comic one, especially at the last, which was a burlesque on Mariamne’s parting from Herod. Up to that point, the young actress played with the true spirit of comedy. Her audience shouted with laughter. Even Mademoiselle Lecouvreur laughed as I have never known her to before or since. Monsieur Voltaire, however, sat grave and thoughtful, his chin in his hand. I, too, was serious, and felt little inclination to laugh in spite of the drollness of the young girl’s acting. I saw at the first glance she was of a grade entirely different from the cobbler’s boy and the other children, and I was troubled at seeing her in that company. Such was the effect produced on me by the first sight I had of Francezka Capello—for it was she and no other.
When she came to the last of all—the burlesque parting—she suddenly transposed it into the key of tragedy. She changed the words into those of Monsieur Voltaire’s Mariamne, which she spoke with vast force and pathos and passion. She laid her hand on the shoulder of the cobbler’s boy, with a gesture so full of love and longing and delicacy and despair, that the boy, seeing a mystery, but not understanding it, was dazed, and forgot his part, which was to seize her around the waist and whirl her off her feet. The laughter had suddenly subsided—the audience, like the boy, was stunned and confused and touched. Francezka, then, with a cry of despair that rang through the still, soft May evening, thrust the cobbler’s boy away and leaned sobbing against the cloth wall of the theater; and the people, after a full minute of delighted amazement, broke into thunders of applause.
Mademoiselle Lecouvreur and Monsieur Voltaire led 21 the hand clapping. The little actress, perfect mistress of herself, turned toward the bench where Mademoiselle Lecouvreur and Monsieur Voltaire sat. Her countenance had changed as if by magic—she showed a mouthful of beautiful teeth in a joyous smile. Then, the exigency of the play requiring her to turn again, instantly she resumed her touching and tragic air, and picking up her part, carried it through triumphantly. Her fellow actor, the cobbler’s boy, was disconcerted by the miraculous transformation she had made, and could only stand awkwardly about the stage, and act as a dummy for her to hang her emotions on. Nevertheless, she managed it perfectly, and when the end of the little play came, instead of the two galloping off the stage hand in hand, the young girl bade farewell to the cobbler’s boy in an improvised speech which made the cobbler himself, who was in the audience, and several other persons, to weep profusely.
The applause was sharp and loud; the young girl, as if disdaining it, had walked into the little booth used for a dressing room. Then Monsieur Voltaire said in Mademoiselle Lecouvreur’s ear:
“I am certain now who it is. She is the young niece of Peggy Kirkpatrick. I have often seen her in Peggy’s coach.”
“And in such company!” cried Mademoiselle Lecouvreur. “Surely Madame Riano can not know it.”
“Certainly she does not know it,” replied Monsieur Voltaire, “but this scoundrel of a Jacques Haret knows it. Come here, Jacques Haret.”
Jacques advanced, all smiles and holding his fine hat and feathers in