What is the most unpleasant experience in the daily life of a young actress?
Without pause for thought, and most emphatically too, I answer, her passing unattended through the city streets at night; that is made unalloyed misery, through terror and humiliation. The backwoods girl makes her lonely way through the forest by blazed trees, but the way of the lonely girl through the city streets is marked by blazing blushes.
It is an infamy that a girl's honesty should not protect her by night as well as by day. Those hideous hyenas of the midnight streets are never deceived. By one glance they can distinguish between a good woman and those poor wandering ghosts of dead modesty and honour, who flit restlessly back and forth from alleys dark to bright gas glare; but bring one of these men to book, and he will declare that "decent women have no right to be in the streets after nightfall," as though citizens were to maintain public highways for the sole use one-half the time of all the evil things that hide from light to creep out at dark and meet those companions who are fair by day and foul by night.
Some girls never learn to face the homeward walk with steady nerves, others grow used to the swift approach, the rapidly spoken word, and receive them with set, stony face and deaf ears; but oh, the terror and the shame of it at first! And this horror of the night takes so many forms that it is hard to say which one is the most revolting—hard to decide between the vile innuendo whispered by a sober brute or the roared ribaldry of a drunken beast.
In one respect I differ from most of my companions in misery, since they almost invariably fear most the drunkard; while I ground my greater fear of the sober man upon the simple fact that I can't outrun him as I can a drunken one, at a pinch. One night, in returning home from a performance of "Divorce,"—a very long play that brought me into the street extra late,—a shrieking man flew across my path, and as a second rushed after him with knife uplifted for a killing blow, his foot caught in mine, and as he pitched forward the knife sank into his victim's arm instead of his back as he had intended; and with the cries of "Murder! Police!" ringing in my ears, I ran as if I were the murderess. These things are in themselves a pretty high price to pay for being an actress.
I had a friend, an ancient lady, a relative of one of our greatest actors, who, for independence' sake, taught music in her old age. One night she had played at a concert and was returning home. Tall and slight and heavily veiled, she walked alone. Then suddenly appeared a well-looking young son of Belial, undoubtedly a gentleman by daylight. He tipped his hat and twirled his mustache; she turned away her head. He cleared his throat; she seemed quite deaf. He spoke; he called her "girlie" (the scamp!). She walked the faster; so did he. He protested she should not walk home alone; she stopped; she spoke, "Will you please allow me to walk home in peace?"
But, no, that was just what he would not do, and suddenly she answered, "Very well, then, I accept your escort, though under protest."
[Illustration: Clara Morris in "Evadne"]
Surprised, he walked at her side. The way was long, the silence grew painful. He ventured to suggest supper as they passed a restaurant; she gently declined. At last she stopped directly beneath a gas-lamp, and from her face, with sorrow-hollowed eyes and temples, where everyone of her seventy-six years had been stamped in cruel line and crease and wrinkle, she lifted up the veil and raised her sad old eyes reproachfully to his. He staggered back, turned red, turned white, stammered, took off his hat, attempted to apologize, then turned and fled.
"And what," I asked, "did you say to him?"
"Say, say," she repeated; "justice need not be cruel. Why add anything to the sight of this?" and she drew a finger down her withered cheek.
'Twas said with laughing bitterness, for she had been very fair, and well guarded, too, in the distant past; while then I could but catch her tired hands and kiss them, in a burst of pity that this ancient gentlewoman might not walk in peace through the city streets because fate had left her without a protector.
Appeal to the police, I think some one says. Of course, if he is about; but recall that famous old recipe of Mrs. Glass beginning, "First catch your hare and then—" so, just catch your policeman. But believe me, they rarely appear together,—your tormentor of women and your policeman,—unless, indeed, the former is stupidly in liquor; and then what good if he is arrested? shame will prevent you from appearing against him. Silence and speed, therefore, are generally the best defensive weapons of the frightened, lonely girl.
Once through fright, fatigue, and shame I lost all self-control, and turning to the creature whom I could not outwalk, I cried out with a sob, "Oh, I am so tired, so frightened, and so ashamed; you make me wish that I were dead!" And to my amazement, he answered gruffly, "It's a pity I'm not," and disappeared in the dark side street.
After an actress has married and has a protector to see her safely home nights, she is apt to recall and to tell amusing stories of her past experiences; but I notice those tales are never told by the girls—they only become funny when looked at from the point of perfect safety, though like everything else in the world, the dreaded midnight walk shows a touch of the ludicrous now and then.
I recall one snowy January night when I was returning home. It was on a Saturday, and I had played a five-act play twice with but a sandwich for my dinner, the weather forbidding my going home after the matinee. So being without change to ride with, hungry and unutterably weary, I started, bag in hand, to walk up Sixth Avenue. On the east side stood a certain club house (it stands there yet, by the way), whose peculiar feature was a vine-hung veranda across its entire front, from which an unusually long flight of steps led to the sidewalk. Quite unmolested, I had walked from the stage door almost to this building, when suddenly, as if he had sprung from the very earth, a man was at my elbow addressing me, and the fact that he was not English, and so not understood, did not in the slightest degree lessen the terror his evil face inspired. I shrank away from him, and he caught at my wrist. It was too much. I gave a cry and started to run, when, tall and broad, a man appeared at the foot of the club-house steps, just ahead of me. Ashamed to be seen running, I halted, and dropped into a walk again.
Then with that exaggerated straightening of back and stiffening of knee adopted by one who tries to walk a floor-crack or chalk-line, the second man approached me. He was very big, he was silvery grey, and his dignity was portentous. At every step he struck the pavement a ringing blow with a splendid malacca cane. Old-fashioned and gold-headed, it looked enough like its owner to have been his twin brother. He lifted his high silk hat, and with somewhat florid indignation inquired: "My c-hild, was that in-nfamous cur annoying you shust now? A-a-h!" he broke off, flourishing his cane over his head, "there y-you slink; I w-wish I had hold of you." And I heard the running footsteps of No. 1 as he darted away, across and down the avenue.
"An-and the police?" sarcastically resumed the big man, who wavered unsteadily now and then. "H-how useful are the police! How many do y-you see at this moment, pray, eh? And, by the way, m' child, what in the devil's name brings yer on the street alone at this hour, say, tell me that?" and he assumed a most judicial attitude and manner.
I replied, "I am going home from my work, sir."
"Y-your w-what?" he growled.
"My work, sir, at the theatre."
"Good Lord!" he groaned, "and t-that crawlin' r-reptile couldn't let you pass, you poor little soul, you!"
Upon my word, I thought he was going to weep over me. Next moment he turned his collar up with a violence that nearly upset him, and exclaimed: "D-don't you be a-fraid. I'll see you safely home. G-go by yourself? not much you won't! I'll take you to your mother. S-say, you've got a mother, haven't you? Yes, that's right; every girl's worth anythin's got a mother. I-I'll take you to her, sure; receive maternal thanks, a-and all that. Oh, say, boys! look here!" he shouted, and holding out the big cane in front of me to prevent my passing, he called to him two other men, who slowly and with almost superhuman caution were negotiating the snowy steps.
"Say, Colonel! Judge! come here and help me p-pr'tect this un-fortunate child." The Judge at that moment sat heavily and unintentionally down on the bottom step, and the Colonel remarked pleasantly, though a trifle vaguely, "T-that's the time he hit it"; while the fallen man asked calmly from his snowy seat, "P-pr-protect what—f-from who?"
"This poor ch-i-ld from raging beasts and in-famous scoundrels, Judge," remarked my bombastic friend.
"We're gentlemen, my dear; and say, get the Judge up, Colonel, and start him, and we'll all see her safe home. Damn shame, a la-dy can't walk in safety, w-without 'er body of able-bodied cit-zens to protect her! Com'er long, now, child." And he grasped my arm and pushed me gently forward.
The Colonel tipped his hat over one eye, gave a military salute, and wavered back and forth. The Judge muttered something about "Honest woman against city of New York," and something "and costs," and both fell to the rear.
And thus escorted by all these intoxicated old gallants, I made my mortified way up the avenue, they wobbling and sliding and stammering, and he who held my arm, I distinctly remember, recited Byron to me, and told me many times that the Judge was "a p-perfect gentleman, and so was his wife."
This startling statement was delivered just as we reached Thirty-second Street. Like an eel I slipped from his grasp, and whirling about, I said as rapidly as I could speak, "I'm almost home now. I can see the light from here, and I can't take you any farther out of your way," and I darted down the darker street.
Looking back from my own stoop, I saw the three kindly old sinners making salutations at the corner. My bombastic friend and the Judge had their hats off, waving them, and the Colonel saluted with such rigid propriety, it seems a pity that he was facing the wrong way.
I laugh, oh, yes, I laugh at the memory, until I think how silvery were these three wine-muddled old heads, and then I feel "the pity, oh, the pity of it!"
It was in a city in the far West that this small incident took place—a city of the mountains still so young that some of its stateliest business buildings of stone or marble, with plate-glass, fine furniture, and electric lighting, were neighboured not merely by shanties, but actually by tents.
But though high up in the mountains, the young city was neither too far nor too high for vice to reach it; and so it came about that a certain woman, whose gold-bought smiles had become a trifle too mocking and satirical to be attractive, had come to the young city and placed herself at the head of an establishment where, at command, every one from sunset laughed and was merry, and held out hungry, grasping little hands for the gold showered upon them—laughed, with weary, pain-filled eyes—laughed, with stiff, tired lips sometimes—but still laughed till sunrise—and then, well, who cared what they did then?
And this woman had waxed rich, and owned valuable property and much mining stock, and was generous to those who were down on their luck, and was quick with her revolver—as the man who tried to hold her up on a lonely road found out to his sorrow.
Now to this city there came a certain actress, and the papers and the theatre bills announced a performance of the old French play of "Camille." The wealthy Madame Elize, as she styled herself, had heard and read much of both actress and play, and knew that it was almost a nightly occurrence for men to shed tears over two of the scenes, while women wept deliciously through the whole play.
She determined that she would go to that performance, though the manager assured the public, in large letters, that no one of her order could possibly be admitted. And she declared "that she could sit out that or any other play without tears. That no amount of play-acting could move her, unless it was to laughter."
And so the night came, and the best seat in the best box in all that crowded theatre was occupied by a woman of forty-five, who looked about thirty-eight, who, but for the fixed, immovable colour in her cheeks and her somewhat too large and too numerous diamonds, might from her black silk, rich dark furs, and her dignified bearing have passed for an honest woman.
She watched the first act with a somewhat supercilious manner, but the second act found her wiping her eyes—very cautiously; there was that unvarying colour to think of. The third act found her well back in the shadow of the box curtain, and the last act she watched with a face of such fixed determination as to attract the wondering comment of several of the actors.
When the curtain fell, one of them remarked, "I'd like to know what that woman will do in the next few hours?"
This is what she did. Keeping back till the house was nearly empty, she left the theatre alone. Then she engaged a carriage—of which there were very, very few in that city of the mountains, where the people did most of their going and coming on horseback—and had herself conveyed to her home, ablaze with light and full of laughter; and bidding the driver wait, she entered quietly and went swiftly to her own apartment, where a man in slippers and dressing-gown sat in a big armchair, sleeping over the evening paper.
She lost no time, but aroused him at once, shaking him by the shoulder, and in cold, curt tones ordered him "to rise and dress for the street, and to go with her."
[Illustration: Clara Morris in the 1st Act of "Camille"]
But he objected, asking: "Why the deuce he should go out that bitter night? And was she a fool, or did she take him for one?"
Upon which she had so savagely ordered him "to get on his boots, his coat, and overcoat" that the sleepiness had vanished from his sharp eyes, and he had exclaimed, "What is it, Kate? what's happened to you?"
And she answered: "I've had a blow—no, don't reach for your gun. I don't mean that—but, Jim, it hurts. (Here, let me tie that for you.) I've had a blow straight at the heart, and a woman gave it—God bless her! (Can't you brush your hair up over that thin place? Jim—why, Jim, upon my soul, you're grey!) Oh, hurry! here, take your fur coat—you'll need it. Come now—no, I won't tell till we're outside this house. Come—on the quiet, now—come," and taking him by the arm she dragged him down the hall and stairs, and so outside the front door.
There she stopped. The man shivered at the cold, but kept his gleaming eyes fastened on her white face, "Well?" he said.
She stood looking up at the glory of the sky above her, where the stars glittered with extraordinary brilliancy, and in an abstracted tone she observed, "There's the 'Dipper.'"
He watched her still silently; she went on: "Do you remember, Jim, when I taught school down in Westbury, how we used to look at the 'Dipper' together, because you didn't dare speak—of anything else? You got seven dollars a week, then, and I—oh, Jim! why in God's name didn't you speak? Then I might never have come to this." She struck the lintel of the door passionately, but went right on: "Yes—yes, I'm going to tell you, and you've got to make a decision, right here, now! You'll think I'm mad, I know; but see here now, I've got that woman's dying eyes looking into mine; I've got that woman's voice in my ears, and her words burnt into my living heart! I'll tell you by and by, perhaps, what those words are, but first, my proposal: you are free to accept it, you are free to refuse it, or you are free to curse me for a drivelling idiot; but look you here, man, if you laugh at it, I swear I'll kill you! Now, will you help me out of this awful life? Jim, will you get into that carriage and take me to the nearest minister and marry me, or will you take this 'wad' and go down that street and out of my life forever?"
In the pause that followed they looked hard into one another's eyes. Then the man answered in six words. Pushing away the hand that offered him a great tight-rolled mass of paper money, he said, "Put that away—now, come on," and they entered the carriage, and drove to the home of a minister. There a curious thing happened. They had answered satisfactorily the reverend gentleman's many questions before he quite realized who the woman was. When he did recognize her, he refused to perform the ceremony, and with words of contemptuous condemnation literally drove them from the house, and with his ecclesiastical hand banged the door after them.
They visited another minister, and their second experience differed from their first in two points,—the gentleman was quicker in his recognition and refusal, and refrained from banging the door. And so they drove up and down and across the city, till at last they stood at the carriage door and looked helpless at each other. Then the man said, "That's the last one, Kate," and the woman answered, "Yes, I know—I know." She drew a long, hard breath that was not far from a sob, and added, "Yes, they've downed me; but it wasn't a fair game, Jim, for they've played with marked cards."
She had entered the carriage when the driver with the all-pervading knowledge and unlimited assurance of the Western hackman remarked genially: "Madame Elize, there's another gospel-sharp out on the edge of the town. He's poorer than Job's turkey, and his whole dorgon'd little scantlin' church ain't bigger than one of them Saratogy trunks, but his people just swear by him. Shall I take you out there?"
Madame Elize nodded an assent, and once more they started. It was a long drive. The horses strained up killing grades, sending out on the cold air columns of steam from their dilating nostrils. The driver beat first one hand and then the other upon his knees, and talked amicably if profanely to his horses; but inside the carriage there was utter silence.
At last they stopped before a poor, cold-looking little cottage, and entering made their wishes known to a blue-eyed, tall young man, with thin, sensitive lips, who listened with grave attention. He knew precisely who and what she was, and very gently told her he would have to ask one unpleasant question, "Was the man at her side acquainted with her past, or was he a stranger who was being deceived—victimized, in fact?"
And Kate, with shining eyes, turned and said: "Tell him, Jim, how for six honest, innocent years we were friends. Then tell him how for fifteen years we've been partners in life. Tell him whether you know me, Jim, or whether you're victimized."
And then the young minister had told them he was proud and thankful to clasp their hands and start them on their new path, with God's blessing on them. And they were married at last; and as they drove away, they noted the strange outlines of the mountains, where they reared their stupendous bulk against the star-sown sky. A sense of awe came upon them—of smallness, of helplessness. Instinctively they clasped hands, and presently the woman said: "Oh, Jim, the comfort of a wedding ring! It circles us about so closely, and keeps out all the rest of the world."
And Jim stooped his head and kissed her.
It is not often, I fancy, that one defends one's hero or friend from himself. Yet that about describes what I am doing now for the famous Salvini. An acquaintance of mine, a man self-contained and dignified, who was reading the other day, startled me by muttering aloud, "Oh, that mine enemy would write a book!" and a moment later, flinging the volume from him, he cried: "Where were his friends? Why did they permit him to write of himself?"
"Good gracious!" I exclaimed in bewilderment, "where were whose friends? Of whom are you speaking, and why are you so excited?"
"Oh," he answered impatiently, "it's the disappointment! I judged the man by his splendid work; but look at that book—the personal pronoun forms one solid third of it. I know it does!" and he handed me the volume in question.
"Well," I said, as I glanced at the title,—"Autobiography of Tommaso Salvini,"—"no matter what the book may say, Tommaso Salvini is a mighty actor." And then I began to read. At first I was a bit taken aback. I had thought Mr. Macready considered himself pretty favourably, had made a heavy demand on the I's and my's in his book; but the bouquets he presented to himself were modest little nosegays when compared with the gorgeous floral set pieces provided ad libitum for "Signor Salvini" by Signor Salvini.
Then presently I began to smile at the open honesty of this self-appreciation, at the naïve admiration he expresses for his figure, his voice, his power. "After all," I said, "when the whole civilized world has for years and years affirmed and reaffirmed that he is the greatest actor living, is it strange that he should come to believe the world?"
"But," growled my friend, "why could he not be content with the world's statement? Why had he no reticence? Look at these declarations: that no words can describe his power, that everybody wished to know him, that everybody wished to claim his friendship, that everybody made it his boast to be seen in his company, etc."
"Well," I answered, "you certainly cannot doubt the truth of the assertions. I believe every one of them. You see, you are not making any allowance for temperament or early environment. Those who are humbly born in a kingdom are lifted by a monarch's praise to the very pinnacle of pride and joy and superiority. Think of the compliments paid this man by royalty. Think, too, of his hot blood, his quick imagination. You can't expect calm self-restraint from him; and just let me tell you, for your comfort, that this 'book Salvini' is utterly unlike the kindly gentleman who is the real, everyday Salvini."
My friend looked at me a moment, then shaking hands he added gravely: "Thank you. The great actor goes upon his pedestal again, to my own satisfaction; but—but—don't think I care for this book. I'll wait till some one else tells of his triumphs and his gifts," and laying it upon the table he took his departure.
It is astonishing what a misleading portrait Signor Salvini has drawn of himself. I worked with him, and I found him a gentleman of modest, even retiring, disposition and most courtly manners. He was remarkably patient at the long rehearsals which were so trying to him because his company spoke a language he could not understand.
The love of acting and the love of saving were veritable passions with him, and many were the amusing stories told of his economies; but, in spite of his personal frugality, he was generous in the extreme to his dear ones.
When I had got over my first amazement at receiving a proposal to act with the great Italian, Mr. Chizzola, his manager, stated terms, and hastened to say that a way had been found by which the two names could be presented without either taking preference of the other on the bill, and that the type would of course be the same in both—questions I should never have given a thought to, but over which my manager stood ready to shed his heart's blood. And when I said that I should willingly have gone on the bills as "supporting Signor Salvini," I thought he was going to rend his garments, and he indignantly declared that such talk was nothing less than heresy when coming from a securely established star.
At one of our rehearsals for the "Morte Civile," a small incident occurred that will show how gracious Signor Salvini could be. Most stars, having the "business" of their play once settled upon, seem to think it veritable sacrilege to alter it, no matter how good the reason for an alteration; and a suggestion offered to a star is generally considered an impertinence. In studying my part of Rosalia, the convict's wife, a very pretty bit of "business" occurred to my mind. I was to wear the black cross so commonly seen on the breast of the Roman peasant women, and once at an outbreak of Conrad's, I thought if I raised that cross without speaking, and he drooped before it, it would be effective and quite appropriate, as he was supposed to be superstitiously devout. I mentioned it to young Salvini, who cried eagerly, "Did you tell my father—did he see it?"
"Good heavens!" I answered, "do you suppose I would presume to suggest 'business' to a Salvini? Besides, could anything new be found for him in a play he has acted for twenty years? No, I have not told your father, nor do I intend to take such a liberty."
But next morning, when we came to that scene, Signor Salvini held up his hand for a halt in the rehearsal, called for Alessandro, and, bidding him act as interpreter, said, smiling pleasantly, to me, "Now zee i-dee please you, madame?" for young Alessandro had betrayed my confidence. There was a mocking sparkle in Salvini's blue eyes, but he was politely ready to hear and reject "zee i-dee." I felt hot and embarrassed, but I stood by my guns, and placing Alessandro in the chair, I made him represent Conrad; and when he came to the furious outburst, I swiftly lifted the cross and held it before his eyes till his head sank upon my breast. But in a twinkling, with the cry, "No—no! I show!" Salvini plucked Alessandro out of the seat, flung himself into it, resumed the scene, and as I lifted the cross before his convulsed features, his breath halted, slowly he lifted his face, when, divining his meaning, I pressed the cross gently upon his trembling lips, and with a sob his head fell weakly upon my breast. It was beautifully done; even the actors were moved. Then he spoke rapidly to his son, who translated to me thus: "How have I missed this 'business' all these years? It is good—we will keep it always—tell madame that." And so, courteously and without offence, this greatest of actors accepted a suggestion from a newcomer in his play.
A certain English actor, who had been with him two or three seasons, made a curious little mistake night after night, season after season, and no one seemed to heed it. Of course Salvini, not speaking English, could not be expected to detect the error. Where the venomous priest should humbly bow himself out with the veiled threat, "This may yet end in a trial—and—conviction!" the actor invariably said, "This may yet end in a trial of convictions!" Barely three nights had passed when Signor Salvini said to his son, "Why does Miss Morris smile at that man's exit? It is not funny. Ask why she smiles." And he was greatly put out with his actor when he learned the cause of my amusement. A very observant man, you see.
He is a thinking actor; he knows why he does a thing, and he used to be very intolerant of some of the old-school "tricks of the trade." Mind, when I was acting with him, he had come to understand fairly well the English of our ordinary, everyday vocabulary, and if he was quite calm and not on exhibition in any way, he could speak it a little and quite to the point, as you will see. He particularly disliked the old, old trick called "taking the stage," that is, when a good speech has been made, the actor at its end crosses the stage, changing his position for no reason on earth save to add to his own importance. It seemed Salvini had tried through his stage manager to break up the wretched habit; but one morning he saw an actor end his speech at the centre of the stage, and march in front of every one to the extreme right-hand corner. A curl came to the great actor's lip, then he said inquiringly, "What for?" The actor stammered, "I—I—it's my cross, you know—the end of my speech."—"Y-e-es," sweetly acquiesced the star. "Y-e-es, you cross, I see—but what for?" The actor hesitated. "You do so," went on Salvini, giving a merciless imitation of the swelling chest and stage stride of the guilty one, as he had crossed from centre down to extreme right. "You do so—but for why? A-a-ah!" Suddenly he seemed to catch an idea. "A-a-ah! is it that you have zee business with zee people in zee box? A-a-ah! you come spik to zose people? No? Not for that you come? You have no reason for come here, you say? Then, for God's sake, stay centre till you have a reason!"
It was an awful lesson, but what delicious acting. The simple, earnest inquiry, the delighted catching at an idea, the following disappointment, and the final outburst of indignant authority—he never did anything better for the public.
During the short time we acted together but one cloud, a tiny, tiny one of misunderstanding, rose between us, but according to reports made by lookers-on a good deal of lightning came out of it. Of course not understanding each other's language, we had each to watch the other as a cat would watch a mouse, in order to take our cues correctly. At one point I took for mine his sudden pause in a rapidly delivered speech, and at that pause I was to speak instantly. We got along remarkably well, for his soul was in his work, and I gave every spark of intelligence I had in me to the effort to satisfy him; so by the fifth or sixth performance we both felt less anxiety about the catching of our cues than we had at first. On the night I speak of, some one on Salvini's side of the stage greatly disturbed him by loud whispering in the entrance. He was nervous and excitable, the annoyance (of which I was unconscious) threw him out of his stride, so to speak. He glanced off warningly and snapped his fingers. No use; on went the giggling and whispering. At last, in the very middle of a speech, wrath overcame him. He stopped dead. That sudden stop was my cue. Instantly I spoke. Good heaven! he whirled upon me like a demon. I understood that a mistake had been made, but it was not mine. I knew my cue when I got it. The humble Rosalia was forgotten. With hot resentment my head went up and back with a fling, and I glared savagely back at him. A moment we stood in silent rage. Then his face softened, he laid the fingers of his left hand on his lips, extending his right with that unspeakably deprecating upturning of the palm known only to the foreign-born. An informing glance of the eye toward the right, followed by a faint "Pardon!" was enough. I dropped back to meek Rosalia, the scene was resumed, the cloud had passed. But one man who had been looking on said: "By Jove! you know, you two looked like a pair of blue-eyed devils, just ready to rend each other. Talk about black-eyed rage; it's the lightning of the blue eyes that sears every time."
I had been quite wild to see Signor Salvini on his first visit to America, and at last I caught up with him in Chicago, and was so happy as to find my opportunity in an extra matinee. The play was "Othello," and during the first act he looked not only a veritable Moor, but, what was far greater, he seemed to be Shakespeare's own "Moor of Venice." The splendid presence, the bluff, soldierly manner, the open, honest look, as the "round unvarnished tale" was delivered, made one understand, partly at least, how "that maiden never bold, a spirit so still and quiet," had come at last to see "Othello's visage in his mind, and to his honour and his valiant parts to consecrate her fortune and her soul!" Through all the noble scene, through all the soldierly dignity and candid speech, there was that tang of roughness that so naturally clung to the man whose life from his seventh year had been passed in the "tented field," and who himself declared, "Rude am I in speech, and little bless'd with the set phrase of peace."
In short, Salvini was a delight to eye and ear, and satisfied both imagination and judgment in that first act. Like many people who are much alone, I have the habit of speaking sometimes to myself—a habit I repented of that day, yes, verily I did; for when, at Cyprus, Othello entered and fiercely swept into his swarthy arms the pale loveliness of Desdemona, 'twas like a tiger's spring upon a lamb. The bluff and honest soldier, the English Shakespeare's Othello, was lost in an Italian Othello. Passion choked, his gloating eyes burned with the mere lust of the "sooty Moor" for that white creature of Venice. It was revolting, and with a shiver I exclaimed aloud, "Ugh, you splendid brute!" Realizing my fault, I drew quickly back into the shadow of the curtain; but a man's rough voice had answered instantly, "Make it a beast, ma'am, and I'm with you!" I was cruelly mortified.
[Illustration: Tommaso Salvini]
But there was worse to happen that day. The leading lady, Signora Piamonti, an admirable actress, was the Desdemona. She played the part remarkably well, and was a fairly attractive figure to the eye, if one excepted her foot. It was exceptionally long and shapeless, and was most vilely shod. Her dresses, too, all tipped up in the front, unduly exposing the faulty members; many were the comments made, and often the query followed, "Why doesn't she get some American shoes?" I am sorry to say that some of our daily papers even were ungracious enough to refer to that physical defect, when only her work should have been considered and criticised.
The actors had reached the last act. The bed stood in the centre of a shallow alcove, heavily curtained. These hangings were looped up at the beginning of the act, and were supposed to fall to the floor, completely concealing the bed and its occupant after the murder. The actor had long before become again Shakespeare's Othello. We had seen him tortured, racked, and played upon by the malignant Iago; seen him, while perplexed in the extreme, irascible, choleric, sullen, morose; but now, as with tense nerves we waited for the catastrophe, he was truly formidable. The great tragedy moved on. Desdemona's piteous entreaties had been choked in her slim throat, the smothering pillow held in place with merciless strength. Then at Emilia's disconcerting knock and demand for admission, Othello had let down and closely drawn the two curtains. But alas and alack a day! though they were thick and rich and wide, they failed to reach the floor by a good foot's breadth—a fact unnoticed by the star. You may not be an actor; but really when you add to that twelve or fourteen-inch space the steep incline of the stage—why, you can readily understand how advisable it was for the dead Desdemona that day to stay dead until the play was over.
Majestically Othello was striding down to the door, where Emilia was knocking for admittance, when there came that long in-drawn breath—that "a-a-h!" that from the auditorium always means mischief—and a sudden bobbing of heads this way and that in the front seats. In an instant the great actor felt the broken spell, knew he had lost his hold upon the people—but why? He went on steadily, and then, just as you have seen a field of wheat surged in one wave by the wind, I saw the closely packed people in that wide parquet sway forward in a great gust of laughter. With quick, experienced eye I scanned first Othello's garb from top to toe, and finding no unseemly rent or flaw of any kind to provoke laughter, I next swept the stage. Coming to the close-drawn curtains, I saw—heavens! No wonder the people laughed. The murdered Desdemona had risen, was evidently sitting on the side of the bed; for beneath the curtains her dangling feet alone were plainly seen, kicking cheerfully back and forth. Such utterly unconscious feet they were that I think the audience would not have laughed again had they kept still; but all at once they began a "heel-and-toe step," and people rocked back and forth, trying to suppress their merriment. And then—oh, Piamonti!—swiftly the toe of the right foot went to the back of the left ankle and scratched vigorously. Restraint was ended, every one let go and laughed and laughed. From the box I saw in the entrance the outspread fingers, the hoisted shoulders, the despairingly shaken heads of the Italian actors, who could find no cause for the uproar. Salvini behaved perfectly in that, disturbed, distressed, he showed no sign of anger, but maintained his dignity through all, even when in withdrawing the curtains and disclosing Desdemona dead once more the incomprehensible laughter again broke out. But late as it was and short the time left him, he got the house in hand again, again wove his charm, and sent the people away sick and shuddering over his too real self-murder.
As I was leaving the box I met one connected with the management of the theatre, who, furious over the faux pas, was roughly denouncing the actress, whom he blamed entirely, and I took it upon myself to suggest that he pour a vial or two of his wrath upon the heads of his own property man and the stage manager, who had grossly neglected their duty in failing to provide curtains of the proper length. And I chuckled with satisfaction as I saw him plunge behind the scenes, calling angrily upon some invisible Jim to come forth. I had acted as a sort of lightning-rod for a sister actress.
Salvini's relations with his son were charming, though it sounded a bit odd to hear the stalwart young man calling him "papa." Alessandro had dark eyes and black hair, so naturally admired the opposite colouring, and I never heard him speak of his father's English second wife without some reference to her fairness. It would be "my blond mamma," "my little fair mamma," "my father's pretty English wife," or "before my little blond mamma died." He felt the "mamma" and "papa" jarred on American ears, and often corrected himself; but when Signor Salvini himself once told me a story of his father, he referred to him constantly as "my papa," just as he does in this book of his that makes him seem so egotistical and so determined to find at all costs the vulnerable spot, the weak joint in the armour, of all other actors.
Certainly he could not have been an egotist in the bosom of his family. A friend in London went to call upon his young wife, his "white lily." She was showing the house to her visitor, when, pausing suddenly before a large portrait of her famous husband, she became silent, her uplifted eyes filled, her lips smiled tremulously, she gave a little gasp, and whispered, "Oh, he's almost like God to me!"
The friend, startled, even shocked, was about to reprove her, but a glance into the innocent face showed no sacrilege had been meant, only she had never been honoured, protected, happy, before—and some women worship where they love. Could an egotist win and keep such affection and gratitude as that?
Among those who complain of his opinionated book I am amused to find one who fairly exhausted himself in praise, not to say flattery, of this same Salvini. It is very diverting to the mere looker-on, when the world first proclaims some man a god, bowing down and worshipping him, and then anathematizes him if he ventures to proclaim his own godship. I have my quarrel with the book, I confess it. I am sorry he does not show how he did his tremendous work, show the nature of those sacrifices he made. How one would enjoy a word-picture of the place where he obtained his humble meals in those earliest days of struggle; who shared them, and in what spirit they were discussed, grave or gay! Italian life is apt to be picturesque, and these minor circumstances mean much when one tries to get at the daily life of a man. But Salvini has given us merely splendid results, without showing us how he obtained them. Yet what a lesson the telling would have been for some of our indolent actors! Why, even at the zenith of his career, Salvini attended personally to duties most actors leave to their dressers. He used to be in his dressing-room hours before the overture was on, and in an ancient gown he would polish his armour, his precious weapons or ornaments, arrange his wigs, examine every article of dress he would require that night, and consequently he never had mishaps. He used to say: "The man there? Oh, yes, he can pack and lock and strap and check, but only an actor can understand the care of these artistic things. What I do myself is well done; this work is part of my profession; there is no shame in doing it. And all the time I work, I think—I think of the part—till I have all forgot—all but just that part's self."
And yet, O dear, these are the things he does not put in his book. When he was all dressed and ready for the performance, Salvini would go into a dark place and walk and walk and walk; sometimes droopingly, sometimes with martial tread. Once, I said, "You walk far, signor?"
"Si, signorina," he made answer, then eagerly, "I walk me into him!" And while the great man was "walking into the character," the actors who supported him smoked cigarettes at the stage door until the dash for dressing room and costume.
Some women scold because he has not given pictures of the great people whom he met. "Why," they ask, "did he not describe Crown Princess Victoria" (the late Empress Frederick) "at least—how she looked, what she wore? Such portraits would be interesting." But Salvini was not painting portraits, not even his own—truly. He was giving a list of his triumphs; and if he has shown self-appreciation, he was at least perfectly honest. There is no hypocrisy about him. If he knew Uriah Heep, he did not imitate him; for in no chapter has he proclaimed himself "'umble." If one will read Signor Salvini's book, remembering that the pæans of a world have been sung in his honour, and that he really had no superior in his artistic life, I think the I's and my's will seem simply natural.
However he may have been admired in other characters, I do truly believe that only those who have seen him in "Othello" and "Morte Civile" can fully appreciate the marvellous art of the actor. I carry in my mind two pictures of him,—Othello, the perfect animal man, in his splendid prime, where, in a very frenzy of conscious strength, he dashes Iago to the earth, man and soldier lost in the ferocity of a jungle male beast, jealously mad—an awful picture of raging passion. The other, Conrad, after the escape from prison; a strong man broken in spirit, wasted with disease, a great shell of a man—one who is legally dead, with the prison pallor, the shambling walk, the cringing manner, the furtive eyes. But oh, that piteous salute at that point when the priest dismisses him, and the wrecked giant, timid as a child, humbly, deprecatingly touches the priest's hand with his finger-tips and then kisses them devoutly! I see that picture yet, through tears, just as I saw for the first time that illustration of supreme humility and veneration.
Oh, never mind a little extravagance with personal pronouns! A beloved father, a very thorough gentleman, but above all else the greatest actor of his day. There is but the one Salvini, and how can he help knowing it? So to book and author—ready! Viva Salvini!
The circus season was over, the animals had gone into comfortable winter quarters, while the performers, less fortunate than the beasts, were scattered far and near, "some in rags and some in tags, and some" (a very few) "in velvet gowns." But one small group had found midwinter employment, a party of Japanese men and women, who were jugglers, contortionists, and acrobats; and as their work was pretty as well as novel, they found a place on the programme of some of the leading vaudeville theatres.
They were in a large Western city. Behind the curtain their retiring manners, their exquisite cleanliness, their grave and gentle politeness, made them favourites with the working forces of the theatre, while before the curtain the brilliant, graceful precision with which they carried out their difficult, often dangerous, performance won them the high favour of the public.
On that special day the matinee was largely attended, the theatre being filled, even to the upper circles, as at night. Smilingly the audience had watched the movements of the miniature men and women in their handsome native costumes, and with "Ohs!" and "Ahs!" had seen them emerge from those robes, already arrayed for acrobatic work, in suits of black silk tights with trunks and shoulder and wrist trimmings of red velvet fairly stiffened with gold embroideries; and then came the act the people liked best, because it contained the element of danger, because in its performance a young girl and a little lad smilingly risked life and limb to entertain them.
The two young things had climbed like cats up to the swinging bars, high up, where the heat had risen from a thousand gas lights, and the blood thundered in their ears, and the pulses on their temples beat like hammers. So high, that looking down through the quivering, bluish mist, the upturned faces of the people merged together and became like the waters of a pale, wide pool. Their work was well advanced. With clocklike precision they had obeyed, ever-smilingly obeyed, the orders conveyed to them by the sharp tap of the fan their trainer held, though to the audience the two young forms glittering in black and scarlet and gold, poising and fluttering there, were merely playing in midair like a pair of tropical birds.
They were beginning their great feat, in which danger was so evident that women often cried out in terror and some covered their eyes and would not look at all—the music even had sunken to a sort of tremor of fear. They were for the moment hanging head downward from their separate bars, when across the stillness came the ominous sound of cracking, splintering wood; afterward it was known that the rung of a chair in an upper private box had broken, but then,—but then! the sound was close to the swaying girl's ear!
Believing it was her bar that was breaking, her strained nerves tore free from all control! Driven by fear, she made a mad leap out into space, reaching frantically for the little brown hands that a half second later would have been ready for her, with life and safety in their tenacious grasp.
To those who do their work in space and from high places, the distance between life and death, between time and eternity, is often measured by half seconds. Little Omassa had leaped too soon, the small brown hands with power to save were not extended. She grasped the empty air, gave a despairing cry, and as she whirled downward, had barely time to realize that the sun had gone black out in the sky, and that the world with its shrieking millions was thundering to its end, when the awful crash came.
There were shouts and shrieks, tears and groans, and here and there helpless fainting. Ushers rushed from place to place, the police appeared suddenly. The Japanese, silent, swift, self-controlled, were moving their paraphernalia that the curtain might be lowered, were stretching a small screen about the inert, fallen figure, were bringing a rug to lift her on, and their faces were like so many old, old ivory masks.
Tom McDermott, in his blue coat, stood by the silent little figure waiting for the rug and for the coming of the doctor, and groaned, "On her face, too—and she a girl child!"
Tom had seen three battle-fields and many worse sights, but none of them had misted his eyes as did this little glittering, broken heap, and he turned his face away and muttered, "If she'd only keep quiet!" for truly it was dreadful to see the long shudders that ran over the silent, huddled thing, to see certain red threads broadening into very rivulets. At last the ambulance, then the all-concealing curtain, the reviving music, a song, a pretty dance, and presto, all was forgotten!
When Omassa opened her eyes, her brain took up work just where it had left off; therefore she was astonished to find the sun shining, for had she not seen the sun go out quite black in the sky? Yet here it was so bright, and she was—was, where? The room was small and clean, oh, clean! like a Japanese house, and almost as empty. Could it be? But no, this bed was American, and then why was she so heavy? What great weight was upon her? She could not move one little bit, and oh, my! what was it she could faintly see beyond and below her own nose—was it shadow? Surely she could not see her own lip? She smiled at that, and the movement wrung a cry of agony from her—when, like magic, a face was bending over her, so kind and gentle, and then a joyous voice cried to some one in the next room, "This little girl, not content with being alive, sir, has her senses—is she not a marvel?"
And with light, delicate touch the stranger moistened the distended, immovable lip poor Omassa had dimly seen, through which her lower teeth had been driven in her fall, and in answer to her pleading, questioning glances at her own helpless body, told her she was encased in plaster now, but by and by she would be released, and now she was to be very quiet and try to sleep. And then she smoothed a tiny wrinkle out of the white quilt, shut out the sunlight, and, smiling kindly back at her, left Omassa, who obediently fell asleep—partly because her life was one of obedience, and partly because there was nothing else to do.
And then began the acquaintance between Mrs. Helen Holmes, nurse, and Omassa, Japanese acrobat. The other nurses teased Helen Holmes about her pet patient, saying she was only a commonplace, Japanese child woman; but Mrs. Holmes would exclaim, "If you could only see her light up and glow!"
And so they came to calling Omassa "the lantern," and would jestingly ask "when she was going to be lighted up"; but there came a time when Mrs. Holmes knew the magic word that would light the flame and make the lantern glow, like ruby, emerald, and sapphire; like opal and tourmaline.
The child suffered long and terribly; both arms were broken, and in several places, also her little finger, a number of ribs, her collar-bone, and one leg, while cuts were simply not counted. During her fever-haunted nights she babbled Japanese for hours, with one single English name appearing and reappearing almost continually,—the name of Frank; and when she called that name it was like the cooing of a pigeon, and the down-drooping corners of her grave mouth curled upward into smiles. She spoke English surprisingly well, as the other members of the troupe only knew a very little broken English; and had she not placed the emphasis on the wrong syllable, her speech, would have been almost perfect.
Generally she was silent and sad and unsmiling, but grateful, passionately grateful to her "nurse-lady," as she called Mrs. Holmes; yet when, that kind woman stooped to kiss her once, Omassa shrank from the caress with such repugnance as deeply to wound her, until the little Japanese had explained to her the national abhorrence of kissing, assuring her over and over again that even "the Japan ma'ma not kiss little wee baby she love."
Mrs. Holmes ceased to wonder at the girl's sadness when she found she was absolutely alone in the world: no father, no mother; no, no sister, no brother, "no what you call c-cousine?—no nothing, nobody have I got what belong to me," she said.
One morning, as her sick-room toilet was completed, Mrs. Holmes said lightly:—
"Omassa, who is Frank?" and then fairly jumped at the change in the ivory-tinted, expressionless face. Her long, narrow eyes glowed, a pink stain came on either cheek, she raised herself a little on her best arm, eagerly she cried, "You know him—oh, you know Frank?"
Regretfully Mrs. Holmes answered, "No, dear, I don't know him."
"But," persisted Omassa, "you know him, or how could you speak his name?"
"I learned the name from you, child, when you talked in the fever. I am very sorry I have caused you a disappointment. I am to blame for my curiosity—forgive me."
All the light faded from her face and very quietly she lay down upon her pillow, her lips close-pressed, her eyes closed; but she could not hide the shining of the tears that squeezed between her short, thick lashes and clung to them. 'Twas long before his name was mentioned again; but one day something had been said of friends, when Omassa with intense pride had exclaimed:—"I have got my own self one friend—he—my friend Frank."
"What's his other name?" asked the nurse.
"Oh, he very poor, he got only one name."
"But, dear, he must have another name, he is Frank somebody or something."
"No! no!" persisted Omassa with gentle obstinacy, "he tell me always true, he very poor, good man—he got only one name, my Frank Sen."
"There," cried Mrs. Holmes, triumphantly, "you see he has two names after all, you have just called him by them both—Frank Sen."
At which the invalid sent forth a tinkling laugh of amusement, crying: "Oh, that not one man's name, oh, no! That Sen that like your Mr.—Mrs.; you nurse-lady, you Holmes Sen. Ito—big Japan fight man, he Ito Sen, you unnerstand me, nurse-lady?"
"Yes, child, I understand. Sen is a title, a term of respect, and you like to show your friend Frank all the honour you can, so you call him Frank Sen."
And Omassa with unconscious slanginess gravely answered: "You right on to it at first try. My boss" (her manager Kimoto) "find me baby in Japan, with very bad old man. He gamble all time. I not know why he have me, he not my old man, but he sell me for seven year to Kimoto, and Kimoto teach me jump, turn, twist, climb, and he send my money all to old man—all. We go Mexico—South America—many Islands—to German land, and long time here in this most big America—and the world so big—and then I so little Japan baby—I no play—I no sing—I know nothing what to do—and just one person in this big lonesomeness make a kindness to me—my Frank Sen—just one man—just one woman in all world make goodness to me—my Frank Sen and my nurse-lady," and she stroked with reverent little fingers the white hand resting on the bed beside her.
"What was he like, your Frank?" asked the nurse.
"Oh, he one big large American man—he not laugh many times loud, but he laugh in he blue eye. He got brown mustache and he hair all short, thick, wavy—like puppy dog's back. He poor—he not perform in circus, oh, no! He work for put up tents, for wagon, for horses. He ver good man for fight too—he smash man that hurt horse—he smash man that kick dog or push me, Japan baby. Oh, he best man in all the world" (the exquisite Madame Butterfly was not known yet, so Omassa was not quoting). "He tell me I shall not say some words, 'damn' and 'hell' and others more long, more bad, and he tell me all about that 'hell' and where is—and how you get in for steal, for lie, for hurt things not so big as you—and how you can't get out again where there is cool place for change—and he smooth my hair and pat my shoulder, for he know Japan people don't ever be kissed—and he call me one word I cannot know."
She shook her head regretfully. "He call me 'poor little wave'—why poor little wave—wave that mean water?" she sighed. "I can't know why Frank Sen call me that."
But quick-witted Mrs. Holmes guessed the word had been "waif"—poor little waif, and she began dimly to comprehend the big-hearted, rough tent-man, who had tried to guard this little foreign maid from the ignorance and evil about her.
"But," resumed Omassa, with perfect conviction, "Frank Sen meaned goodness for me when he called me 'wave'—I know that. What you think that big American man do for help me little Japan baby—with no sense? Well, I will tell you. When daylight circus-show over, he take me by hand and lead me to shady place between tents—he sit down—put me at he knee, and in what you call primer-book with he long brown finger he point out and make me know all those big fat letters—yes, he do that. Other mens make of him fun—and he only laugh; but when they say he my father and say of me names, he lay down primer and fight. When he lay out the whole deck, he come back and wash he hands and show me some more letters. Oh, I very stupid Japan baby; but at last I know all, and then he harness some together and make d-o-g say dog, and n-o say no, and so it come that one day next week was going to be his fête-day,—what you call birsday,—and I make very big large secret."
She lifted herself excitedly in bed, her glowing eyes were on her nurse's face, her lips trembled, the "lantern" was alight and glowing radiantly.
"What you think I do for my Frank Sen's birsday? I have never one penny,—I cannot buy,—but I make one big great try. I go to circus-lady, that ride horse and jump hoops—she read like Frank Sen. I ask her show me some right letters. Oh, I work hard—for I am very stupid Japan child; but when that day come, Frank Sen he lead me to shady place—he open primer—then," her whole face was quivering with fun at the recollection, "then I take he long finger off—I put my finger and I slow spell—not cat—not dog—oh, what you think?—I spell F-r-a-n-k—Frank! He look to me, and then he make a big jump—he catch me—toss me, high up in air, and he shout big glad shout, and then I say—'cause for your birsday.' He stop, he put me down, and he eyes come wet, and he take my hand and he say: 'Thank you, that's the only birsday gift I ever received that was not from my mother. Spell it again for me,' he said; and then he was very proud and said, 'there was not any-other birsday gift like that in all the world!' What you think of that?
"Then the end to season of circus come—Frank Sen he kneel down by me—he very sad—he say, 'I have nothing to give—I am such a fool—and the green-cloth—oh, the curse of the green-cloth!' He took off my Japan slippers and smiled at them and said, 'Poor little feet'; he stroked my hands and said, 'Poor little hands'; he lifted up my face and said, 'Poor little wave'; then he look up in air and he say, very troubled-like, 'A few home memories—some small knowledge, all I had, I have given her. To read a little is not much, but maybe it may help her some day, and I have nothing more to give!'
"And I feeling something grow very fast, here and here" (touching throat and breast), "and I say, 'You have nothing to give me? well'—and then I forget all about I am little Japan girl, and I cry, 'Well, I have something to give you, Frank Sen, and that is one kiss!' And I put my arms about he neck and make one big large kiss right on he kind lips."
Her chin sank upon her night-robed breast. After a moment she smiled deprecatingly at Mrs. Holmes and whispered: "You forgive me, other day? You see I Japan girl—and just once I give big American kiss to my friend, Frank Sen."