Part 13 (1/2)
”Song?” cried Bakkus. ”What song? That meaningless bit of moons.h.i.+ne inept.i.tude I quoted the other day? I have far more use for my intellect than degrading it to such criminal prost.i.tution.”
Yes, he was beginning to know his Bakkus. His absorption in his new character was not entirely egotistic. Both his own intelligence and his professional experience told him that here, as he had worked out-the business in his mind, was an entirely novel attraction. In his young enthusiasm he saw hundreds crowding round the pitch on the sands. It was as much to Bakkus's interest as to his own that the new show should succeed.
And even before he had procured the costume from Covent Garden, Bakkus professed intolerable boredom. He shrugged his shoulders. Bored or not, Bakkus should go through with it. So again under the younger man's leaders.h.i.+p Bakkus led the strenuous life of rehearsal.
It took quite a day for their fame to spread. On the second day they attracted crowds. Money poured in upon them. Little Patou, like a double-tailed serpent rearing himself upright on his tail tips, appeared at first a creature remote, of some antediluvian race--until he talked a familiar, disarming patter with his human, disarming grin. The Great Patapon, contrary to jealous antic.i.p.ation, saw himself welcomed as a contrast and received more than his usual meed of applause. This satisfied, for the time, his singer's vanity which he professed so greatly to despise.
They entered on a spell of halcyon days.
The brilliant sunny season petered out in hopeless September, raw and chill. A week had pa.s.sed without the possibility of an audience. Said Bakkus:
”Of all the loathsome spots in a noisome universe this is the most purulent. In order to keep up our rudimentary self-respect we have done our best to veil our personal ident.i.ty as images of the Almighty from the higher promenades of the vulgar. Our sole a.s.sociates have been the blatant frequenters of evil smelling bars. We've not exchanged a word with a creature approaching our intellectual calibre. I am beginning to conceive for you the bitter hatred that one of a pair of castaways has for the other; and you must regard me with feelings of equal abhorrence.”
”By no means,” replied Andrew. ”You provide me with occupation, and that amuses me.”
As the occupation for the dismal week had mainly consisted in dragging a cursing Bakkus away from public-house whisky on damp and detested walks, and in imperturbably manoeuvring him out of an idle--and potentially vicious--intrigue with the landlady's pretty and rather silly daughter, his reply brought a tragic scowl to Bakkus's face.
”There are times when I lie awake, inventing lingering deaths for you. You occupy yourself too much with my affairs. It's time our partners.h.i.+p in this degrading mountebankery should cease.”
”Until it does, it's going to be efficient,” said Andrew. ”It's a come down for both of us to play on the sands and pa.s.s the hat round. I hate it as much as you do, but we've done it honourably and decently--and we'll end up in the same way.”
”We end now,” said Bakkus, staring out of their cheap lodging house sitting-room window at the dismal rain that veiled the row of cheap lodging houses opposite.
Andrew made a stride across the room, seized his shoulder and twisted him round.
”What about our bookings next month?”
For their success had brought them an offer of a month certain from a northern Palladium syndicate, with prospects of an extended tour.
”Dust and ashes,” said Bakkus.
”You may be dust,” cried Andrew hotly, ”but I'm d.a.m.ned if I'm ashes.”
Bakkus bit and lighted a cheap cigar and threw himself on the dilapidated sofa. ”No, my dear fellow, if it comes to that, I'm the ashes. Dead! With never a recrudescent Phoenix to rise up out of them. You're the dust, the merry sport of the winds of heaven.”
”Don't talk foolishness,” said Andrew.
”Was there ever a man living who used his breath for any other purpose?”
”Then,” said Andrew, ”your talk about breaking up the partners.h.i.+p is mere stupidity.”
”It is and it isn't,” replied Bakkus. ”Although I hate you, I love you.
You'll find the same paradoxical sentimental relations.h.i.+p in most cases between man and wife. I love you, and I wish you well, my dear boy. I should like to see you Merry-Andrew yourself to the top of the Merry-Andrew tree. But for insisting on my accompanying you on that uncomfortable and strenuous ascent, without very much glory to myself, I frankly detest you.”
”That doesn't matter a bit to me,” said Andrew. ”You've got to carry out your contract.”
Bakkus sighed. ”Need I? What's a contract? I say I am willing to perform vocal and other antics for so many s.h.i.+llings a week. When I come to think of it, my soul revolts at the sale of itself for so many s.h.i.+llings a week to perform actions utterly at variance with its aspirations. As a matter of fact I am tired. Thanks to my brain and your physical cooperation, I have my pockets full of money. I can afford a holiday. I long for bodily sloth, for the ragged intellectual companions.h.i.+p that only Paris can give me, for the resumption of study of the philosophy of the excellent Henri Bergson, for the absinthe that brings forgetfulness, for the Tanagra figured, broad-mouthed, snub-nosed shrew that fills every day with potential memories.”