Part 25 (2/2)
”Yes, but see what they pay. It's the death of an actor to play to big populations that don't understand his language. It's nothing then but the _gros moyens_; all his delicacy perishes. However, they'll understand _you_.”
”Perhaps I shall be too affected,” she said.
”You won't be more so than Garrick or Mrs. Siddons or John Kemble or Edmund Kean. They understood Edmund Kean. All reflexion is affectation, and all acting's reflexion.”
”I don't know--mine's instinct,” Miriam contended.
”My dear young lady, you talk of 'yours'; but don't be offended if I tell you that yours doesn't exist. Some day it will--if the thing comes off. Madame Carre's does, because she has reflected. The talent, the desire, the energy are an instinct; but by the time these things become a performance they're an instinct put in its place.”
”Madame Carre's very philosophic. I shall never be like her.”
”Of course you won't--you'll be original. But you'll have your own ideas.”
”I daresay I shall have a good many of yours”--and she smiled at him across the table.
They sat a moment looking at each other. ”Don't go in for coquetry,”
Peter then said. ”It's a waste of time.”
”Well, that's civil!” the girl cried.
”Oh I don't mean for me, I mean for yourself I want you to be such good faith. I'm bound to give you stiff advice. You don't strike me as flirtatious and that sort of thing, and it's much in your favour.”
”In my favour?”
”It does save time.”
”Perhaps it saves too much. Don't you think the artist ought to have pa.s.sions?”
Peter had a pause; he thought an examination of this issue premature.
”Flirtations are not pa.s.sions,” he replied. ”No, you're simple--at least I suspect you are; for of course with a woman one would be clever to know.”
She asked why he p.r.o.nounced her simple, but he judged it best and more consonant with fair play to defer even a treatment of this branch of the question; so that to change the subject he said: ”Be sure you don't betray me to your friend Mr. Nash.”
”Betray you? Do you mean about your recommending affectation?”
”Dear me, no; he recommends it himself. That is, he practises it, and on a scale!”
”But he makes one hate it.”
”He proves what I mean,” said Sherringham: ”that the great comedian's the one who raises it to a science. If we paid ten s.h.i.+llings to listen to Mr. Nash we should think him very fine. But we want to know what it's supposed to be.”
”It's too odious, the way he talks about us!” Miriam cried a.s.sentingly.
”About 'us'?”
”Us poor actors.”
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