Part 18 (2/2)
”But consider I know the work of Beaulantine, Mercier, Chenier, and many others of our contemporaries Then I have read, of course, Moliere, Racine, Corneille, besides n authors, I am intimate with the works of Gozzi, Goldoni, Guarini, Bibbiena, Machiavelli, Secchi, Tasso, Ariosto, and Fedini Whilst of those of antiquity I know most of the work of Euripides, Aristophanes, Terence, Plautus”
”Enough!” roared Pantaloon
”I ah with my list,” said Andre-Louis
”You may keep the rest for another day In Heaven's name, what can have induced you to read so many dramatic authors?”
”In o I made the discovery that he is most intimately to be studied in the reflections of hiinal and profound discovery,” said Pantaloon, quite seriously ”It had never occurred to nifies our art You are a man of parts, that is clear to me It has been clear since first I met you I can read a ' Tell me, now: Do you think you could assist me upon occasion in the preparation of a scenario? My anization, is not always as clear as I would have it for such work
Could you assist me there, do you think?”
”I am quite sure I could”
”Hum, yes I was sure you would be The other duties that were Felicien's you would soon learn Well, well, if you are willing, youwith us You'd want some salary, I suppose?”
”If it is usual,” said Andre-Louis
”What should you say to ten livres a month?”
”I should say that it isn't exactly the riches of Peru”
”I o as far as fifteen,” said Binet, reluctantly ”But times are bad”
”I'll make them better for you”
”I've no doubt you believe it Then we understand each other?”
”Perfectly,” said Andre-Louis, dryly, and was thus committed to the service of Thespis
CHAPTER II THE COMIC MUSE
The company's entrance into the townshi+p of Guichen, if not exactly triumphal, as Binet had expressed the desire that it should be, was at least sufficiently startling and cacophonous to set the rustics gaping
To them these fantastic creatures appeared--as indeed they were--beings fro chaise, creaking and groaning on its way, drawn by two of the Flemish horses It was Pantaloon who drove it, an obese andsuit of scarlet under a long brown bed-gown, his countenance adorned by a colossal cardboard nose Beside him on the box sat Pierrot in a white smock, with sleeves that completely covered his hands, loose white trousers, and a black skull-cap He had whitened his face with flour, and he made hideous noises with a trumpet
On the roof of the coach were assembled Polichinelle, Scaramouche, Harlequin, and Pasquariel Polichinelle in black and white, his doublet cut in the fashi+on of a century ago, with humps before and behind, a white frill round his neck and a black mask upon the upper half of his face, stood in the middle, his feet planted wide to steady hi drum The other three were seated each at one of the corners of the roof, their legs dangling over Scaramouche, all in black in the Spanish fashi+on of the seventeenth century, his face adorned with a pair of uitar discordantly
Harlequin, ragged and patched in every colour of the rainboith his leather girdle and sword of lath, the upper half of his face smeared in soot, clashed a pair of cymbals intermittently Pasquariel, as an apothecary in skull-cap and white apron, excited the hilarity of the onlookers by his enormous tin clyster, which emitted when pumped a dolorous squeak
Within the chaise itself, but showing the quips with the townsfolk, sat the three ladies of the coowned in flowered satin, her own clustering ringlets concealed under a pu, looked so ht have wondered what she was doing in that fantastic rabble Madaerated to achieve the ridiculous Her headdress was a monstrous structure adorned with flowers, and superi them, her back to the horses, falsely deown of green and blue