CHAPTER III.
WHERE THE PASSER-BY REAPPEARS.
The Green Box, as we have just seen, had arrived in London. It wasestablished at Southwark. Ursus had been tempted by the bowling-green,which had one great recommendation, that it was always fair-day there,even in winter.
The dome of St. Paul's was a delight to Ursus.
London, take it all in all, has some good in it. It was a brave thing todedicate a cathedral to St. Paul. The real cathedral saint is St. Peter.St. Paul is suspected of imagination, and in matters ecclesiasticalimagination means heresy. St. Paul is a saint only with extenuatingcircumstances. He entered heaven only by the artists' door.
A cathedral is a sign. St. Peter is the sign of Rome, the city of thedogma; St. Paul that of London, the city of schism.
Ursus, whose philosophy had arms so long that it embraced everything,was a man who appreciated these shades of difference, and his attractiontowards London arose, perhaps, from a certain taste of his for St. Paul.
The yard of the Tadcaster Inn had taken the fancy of Ursus. It mighthave been ordered for the Green Box. It was a theatre ready-made. It wassquare, with three sides built round, and a wall forming the fourth.Against this wall was placed the Green Box, which they were able to drawinto the yard, owing to the height of the gate. A large wooden balcony,roofed over, and supported on posts, on which the rooms of the firststory opened, ran round the three fronts of the interior facade of thehouse, making two right angles. The windows of the ground floor madeboxes, the pavement of the court the pit, and the balcony the gallery.The Green Box, reared against the wall, was thus in front of a theatre.It was very like the Globe, where they played "Othello," "King Lear,"and "The Tempest."
In a corner behind the Green Box was a stable.
Ursus had made his arrangements with the tavern keeper, Master Nicless,who, owing to his respect for the law, would not admit the wolf withoutcharging him extra.
The placard, "Gwynplaine, the Laughing Man," taken from its nail in theGreen Box, was hung up close to the sign of the inn. The sitting-room ofthe tavern had, as we have seen, an inside door which opened into thecourt. By the side of the door was constructed off-hand, by means of anempty barrel, a box for the money-taker, who was sometimes Fibi andsometimes Vinos. This was managed much as at present. Pay and pass in.Under the placard announcing the Laughing Man was a piece of wood,painted white, hung on two nails, on which was written in charcoal inlarge letters the title of Ursus's grand piece, "Chaos Vanquished."
In the centre of the balcony, precisely opposite the Green Box, and in acompartment having for entrance a window reaching to the ground, therehad been partitioned off a space "for the nobility." It was large enoughto hold, in two rows, ten spectators.
"We are in London," said Ursus. "We must be prepared for the gentry."
He had furnished this box with the best chairs in the inn, and hadplaced in the centre a grand arm-chair of yellow Utrecht velvet, with acherry-coloured pattern, in case some alderman's wife should come.
They began their performances. The crowd immediately flocked to them,but the compartment for the nobility remained empty. With that exceptiontheir success became so great that no mountebank memory could recall itsparallel. All Southwark ran in crowds to admire the Laughing Man.
The merry-andrews and mountebanks of Tarrinzeau Field were aghast atGwynplaine. The effect he caused was as that of a sparrow-hawk flappinghis wings in a cage of goldfinches, and feeding in their seed-trough.Gwynplaine ate up their public.
Besides the small fry, the swallowers of swords and the grimace makers,real performances took place on the green. There was a circus of women,ringing from morning till night with a magnificent peal of all sorts ofinstruments--psalteries, drums, rebecks, micamons, timbrels, reeds,dulcimers, gongs, chevrettes, bagpipes, German horns, Englisheschaqueils, pipes, flutes, and flageolets.
In a large round tent were some tumblers, who could not have equalledour present climbers of the Pyrenees--Dulma, Bordenave, andMeylonga--who from the peak of Pierrefitte descend to the plateau ofLimacon, an almost perpendicular height. There was a travellingmenagerie, where was to be seen a performing tiger, who, lashed by thekeeper, snapped at the whip and tried to swallow the lash. Even thiscomedian of jaws and claws was eclipsed in success.
Curiosity, applause, receipts, crowds, the Laughing Man monopolizedeverything. It happened in the twinkling of an eye. Nothing was thoughtof but the Green Box.
"'Chaos Vanquished' is 'Chaos Victor,'" said Ursus, appropriating halfGwynplaine's success, and taking the wind out of his sails, as they sayat sea. That success was prodigious. Still it remained local. Fame doesnot cross the sea easily. It took a hundred and thirty years for thename of Shakespeare to penetrate from England into France. The sea is awall; and if Voltaire--a thing which he very much regretted when it wastoo late--had not thrown a bridge over to Shakespeare, Shakespeare mightstill be in England, on the other side of the wall, a captive in insularglory.
The glory of Gwynplaine had not passed London Bridge. It was not greatenough yet to re-echo throughout the city. At least not at first. ButSouthwark ought to have sufficed to satisfy the ambition of a clown.Ursus said,--
"The money bag grows palpably bigger."
They played "Ursus Rursus" and "Chaos Vanquished."
Between the acts Ursus exhibited his power as an engastrimist, andexecuted marvels of ventriloquism. He imitated every cry which occurredin the audience--a song, a cry, enough to startle, so exact theimitation, the singer or the crier himself; and now and then he copiedthe hubbub of the public, and whistled as if there were a crowd ofpeople within him. These were remarkable talents. Besides this heharangued like Cicero, as we have just seen, sold his drugs, attendedsickness, and even healed the sick.
Southwark was enthralled.
Ursus was satisfied with the applause of Southwark, but by no meansastonished.
"They are the ancient Trinobantes," he said.
Then he added, "I must not mistake them, for delicacy of taste, for theAtrobates, who people Berkshire, or the Belgians, who inhabitedSomersetshire, nor for the Parisians, who founded York."
At every performance the yard of the inn, transformed into a pit, wasfilled with a ragged and enthusiastic audience. It was composed ofwatermen, chairmen, coachmen, and bargemen, and sailors, just ashore,spending their wages in feasting and women. In it there were felons,ruffians, and blackguards, who were soldiers condemned for some crimeagainst discipline to wear their red coats, which were lined with black,inside out, and from thence the name of blackguard, which the Frenchturn into _blagueurs_. All these flowed from the street into thetheatre, and poured back from the theatre into the tap. The emptying oftankards did not decrease their success.
Amidst what it is usual to call the scum, there was one taller than therest, bigger, stronger, less poverty-stricken, broader in the shoulders;dressed like the common people, but not ragged.
Admiring and applauding everything to the skies, clearing his way withhis fists, wearing a disordered periwig, swearing, shouting, joking,never dirty, and, at need, ready to blacken an eye or pay for a bottle.
This frequenter was the passer-by whose cheer of enthusiasm has beenrecorded.
This connoisseur was suddenly fascinated, and had adopted the LaughingMan. He did not come every evening, but when he came he led thepublic--applause grew into acclamation--success rose not to the roof,for there was none, but to the clouds, for there were plenty of them.Which clouds (seeing that there was no roof) sometimes wept over themasterpiece of Ursus.
His enthusiasm caused Ursus to remark this man, and Gwynplaine toobserve him.
They had a great friend in this unknown visitor.
Ursus and Gwynplaine wanted to know him; at least, to know who he was.
One evening Ursus was in the side scene, which was the kitchen-door ofthe Green Box, seeing Master Nicless standing by him, showed him thisman in the crowd, and asked him,--
"Do you know that man?"
> "Of course I do."
"Who is he?"
"A sailor."
"What is his name?" said Gwynplaine, interrupting.
"Tom-Jim-Jack," replied the inn-keeper.
Then as he redescended the steps at the back of the Green Box, to enterthe inn, Master Nicless let fall this profound reflection, so deep as tobe unintelligible,--
"What a pity that he should not be a lord. He would make a famousscoundrel."
Otherwise, although established in the tavern, the group in the GreenBox had in no way altered their manner of living, and held to theirisolated habits. Except a few words exchanged now and then with thetavern-keeper, they held no communication with any of those who wereliving, either permanently or temporarily, in the inn; and continued tokeep to themselves.
Since they had been at Southwark, Gwynplaine had made it his habit,after the performance and the supper of both family and horses--whenUrsus and Dea had gone to bed in their respective compartments--tobreathe a little the fresh air of the bowling-green, between eleveno'clock and midnight.
A certain vagrancy in our spirits impels us to take walks at night, andto saunter under the stars. There is a mysterious expectation in youth.Therefore it is that we are prone to wander out in the night, without anobject.
At that hour there was no one in the fair-ground, except, perhaps, somereeling drunkard, making staggering shadows in dark corners. The emptytaverns were shut up, and the lower room in the Tadcaster Inn was dark,except where, in some corner, a solitary candle lighted a last reveller.An indistinct glow gleamed through the window-shutters of thehalf-closed tavern, as Gwynplaine, pensive, content, and dreaming, happyin a haze of divine joy, passed backwards and forwards in front of thehalf-open door.
Of what was he thinking? Of Dea--of nothing--of everything--of thedepths.
He never wandered far from the Green Box, being held, as by a thread, toDea. A few steps away from it was far enough for him.
Then he returned, found the whole Green Box asleep, and went to bedhimself.