Impressions of Africa (French Literature Series) (21 page)

With scissors and pins, the tragedienne fashioned for Kalj and Meisdehl the two classic headpieces worn by the lovers from Verona.

That first matter settled, Adinolfa returned to Shakespeare’s text, carefully studying the stage directions in every detail.

Certain episodes of the final portion were explained in a fairly lengthy prologue, comprising two scenes devoted to Romeo and Juliet’s childhoods, before they’d met.

It was this prologue that absorbed Adinolfa’s particular attention.

In the first scene, young Romeo listened to the teachings of his preceptor, Father Valdivieso, a learned monk who inculcated in his pupil the purest and most devout moral principles.

For a number of years, Valdivieso had burned the midnight oil, surrounded by the folios that were his joy and the ancient parchments whose secrets unfailingly yielded to his wisdom. Gifted with phenomenal memory and inspiring elocution, he charmed his disciple with highly imagistic stories, whose meanings nearly always contained some worthy moral. The initial scene was almost entirely composed of his monologues, which were only occasionally interrupted by little Romeo’s naïve interjections.

Bible stories flowed from the monk’s lips. He evoked in minute detail the temptations of Eve, then recounted the adventures of the debauched Thisias, who, in the middle of an orgy in Zion, saw before him the fearsome and livid specter of God the Father.

Then came the following details on the legend of Pheor of Alexandria, a young libertine and Thisias’s contemporary:

Devastated at being left by a beloved mistress, who had let him know of their breakup by not bothering to arrive for a rendezvous, Pheor, renouncing his life of pleasures and seeking consolation in faith, had retreated to the desert to live as an anchorite, sometimes returning to spread the good word in the same places where he had committed his past errors.

Following long privations, Pheor had grown alarmingly thin; his unusually large head seemed immense compared to his frail body, and his salient temples protruded from both sides of his gaunt face.

One day, Pheor appeared in the public square just when the citizens had gathered to discuss matters of state. At the time, two distinct assemblies, one for the young and one for the elderly, met on an appointed day at this forum, the former proposing bold initiatives that the latter tempered with moderation. Each group was arranged in a perfect square that might cover as much as an acre.

The arrival of Pheor, famous for his sudden conversion, momentarily suspended the debates.

Immediately the neophyte, as was his habit, began preaching his fervent disdain of wealth and pleasures, especially aiming his remarks at the younger group, to which he seemed to impute every vice and turpitude.

Incensed by this provocative stance, the targets of his harangue leapt onto him and knocked him down in a rage. Too weak to defend himself, Pheor painfully stood and hobbled away covered in bruises, cursing his attackers. Then, at a bend in the road, he fell to his knees in ecstasy at the sight of his former lover, who passed by without a hint of recognition, richly adorned and trailing a crowd of slaves. For a moment, Pheor felt his old passion well up inside him; but, once the vision had passed, he regained control of himself and returned to the desert, where after years of constant penitence he died free of his obsessions and forgiven of his sins.

After the legend of Pheor, the monk Valdivieso described two famous martyrdoms, that of Jeremiah whom his countrymen stoned with many sharp, pointed flints, then that of Saint Ignatius thrust among wild beasts, which lacerated his body while his soul, in a contrary movement, rose to heaven, fancifully portrayed as an enchanted isle.

As a whole, these lessons had great coherence. Their striking subjects were clearly intended to guide Romeo’s spirit toward good, which also explained how Juliet, the very image of pure, conjugal love, could so easily conquer a young man who had initially given in to frivolous, debasing affairs.

The second scene of the prologue, a touching counterpart to the first, showed little Juliet sitting with her nurse, who kept her spellbound with tales both delightful and terrifying; among other fabulous characters, the storyteller depicted the good fairy Urgela, who shook out her tresses to spread countless gold coins along her path, and the ogress Pergovedula, she of the hideous yellow face and green lips, who wolfed down two heifers for supper when she had no children to sate her.

In the play’s final scene, the one Adinolfa intended to stage, numerous images borrowed from the prologue reappeared before the eyes of the two lovers, who, having downed a lethal potion, were subject to constant hallucinations.

Following the manuscript’s indications, all these phantoms composed a series of tableaux vivants in rapid succession, which would no doubt prove hugely difficult to produce in Ejur.

Adinolfa immediately thought of Fuxier, whose picturesque lozenges might stand in for costumes and stage props.

Acquiescing to the actress’s wishes and promising to perfect all the requested visions, Fuxier, who was quite conversant with the subtleties of the English language, familiarized himself with the prologue and the final scene; these gave him ample material on which to exercise his talents.

One direction in the manuscript called for a greenish hearth next to Juliet’s tomb, which might cast a tragic light over the poignant scene the two lovers played. This brazier, whose flames could be colored with sea salts, seemed the perfect vehicle for burning the evocative lozenges. Adinolfa, made up so she could appear toward the end as the ogress Pergovedula, would lie down behind the tomb and, thus hidden from sight, toss into the coals, at the opportune moment, the lozenge needed to produce a given image.

Even so, they could not dispense entirely with cameo roles. Two apparitions, Capulet dressed in a shining gold robe and Christ seated on the famous donkey, had to be acted by Soreau, who had in his costume chest all the necessary components to fashion what he needed. It would take him only a few seconds to change from one costume to the other offstage, and the docile ass Milenkaya could be pressed into service. Chènevillot agreed to fit into the backdrop two fine grilles, cleverly painted, which the light from a reflector lamp would make transparent at the appropriate moment; behind them, two niches of sufficient size would be installed at the requisite height.

As Romeo’s ghost was supposed to descend from heaven at the end above Romeo’s own corpse, one of Kalj’s brothers, who bore a striking likeness in age and features, was designated as his double. From the rest of the page illustrating the cavalrymen at Reichshoffen they cut a second cap identical to the first, and Chènevillot easily devised a hand-operated suspension system with some rope and a pulley from the
Lynceus
.

For Urgela, they took from the ship’s hold a certain mannequin head that had remained intact at the bottom of a trunk addressed to a barber in Buenos Aires. A rolling pedestal was quickly fashioned to support the white-and-pink bust with wide blue eyes. Not far from the trunk, a cascade of gilded tokens, like twenty-franc louis, had spilled from a crushed package filled with various games. Using a tiny dab of glue, they attached them tentatively to the bust’s magnificent blonde hair, which fell in loose braids over both shoulders; the slightest jostle would dislodge these dazzling coins, which the generous fairy could thus sow in profusion.

The rest of the staging, including the tomb and the brazier, they left entirely to Chènevillot.

According to a brief indication in the manuscript, Romeo placed on Juliet, who had just awoken from her lethargic slumber, a rich necklace of rubies, which the groom at first thought would adorn only his beloved’s cold corpse.

This detail gave Bex the chance to use a balm of his own devising, with which he’d always had success when handling materials for his experiments.

This was an anesthetic strong enough to make the skin insensitive to burns; by applying this protective coating to his hands, Bex could manipulate at any temperature a certain metal he’d invented called
bexium
. Had he not discovered this precious element beforehand, the chemist could never have brought forth bexium, whose special properties were triggered by extremes of heat or cold.

To replace the rubies, which were unavailable in Ejur, even in imitation, Bex suggested several glowing coals strung onto asbestos, which he’d supply. Kalj would have only to take from the brazier the strange, sparkling red jewel and put it on Meisdehl, whose chest and shoulders would be immunized in advance with the infallible balm.

The tragedienne accepted Bex’s offer, having first made sure that the trusting, brave Meisdehl would consent.

The entire scene was to be played without dialogue. But, in rehearsing their gestures, Kalj and Meisdehl demonstrated so much intelligence and good will that Adinolfa, encouraged by this success, also tried to teach her pupils a few phrases translated into French, which would help explain the various apparitions. The attempt yielded rapid results, and at that point all that remained was to fine-tune, until the day of the gala, the touching pantomime that the two children had understood so completely.

I
NSPIRED BY THE SUCCESS
of the Incomparables’ Theater, Juillard suggested another innovation that would generate excitement over the big day and afford Chènevillot a new opportunity to use his building skills. The plan was to offer shares in each member of the club and create a game of chance, for which the grand prize would hinge on whoever won the grand ribbon of the new order. Once this proposal was ratified, they immediately set about putting it into action.

Fifty passengers began by contributing two hundred francs each to create a kitty of ten thousand francs; then each member of the club was represented by one hundred shares, small squares of paper endorsed with his or her signature.

All the shares, gathered together, were lightly shuffled like playing cards, then split into fifty equal packets, fairly distributed one each to the fifty contributing passengers.

At the conclusion of the gala, the ten thousand francs would be divvied up among those who held shares in the lucky wearer of the supreme
delta
insignia; until that time, the shares might undergo all sorts of fluctuations, depending on each contestant’s perceived chances of winning.

The club members were prohibited from partaking in the lottery, for the same reason that jockeys are not allowed to place bets.

Intermediaries were needed to handle the trading of shares. Hounsfield, Cerjat, and their three clerks, all five having accepted the role of stockbrokers, took in the jackpot for safekeeping, and Chènevillot was asked to create a new edifice for these transactions.

Two weeks later, a miniature Stock Exchange, an exact reduction of the one in Paris, rose opposite the Incomparables’ stage; though made of wood, the monument gave the perfect illusion of stone, owing to a coat of white paint that Toresse had applied.

To provide clear access to the much-used structure, they had moved the mortal remains of the Zouave a few yards to the south, along with his tombstone still accompanied by its black slab and brilliant watercolors.

The originality of investing in the Incomparables themselves demanded a language of its own, and it was decided that only orders written in alexandrines would be honored.

At six o’clock on the very day of its completion, the Stock Exchange opened for the first time, and the five stockbrokers sat at five tables set up for them behind the diminutive colonnade. Soon they were reading aloud a host of slips that, thrust into their hands by the players thronging around them, contained buy and sell orders written in mediocre twelve-syllable lines rife with padding and false enjambments. Stock quotes were established based on the size of the offer or demand, and the shares, immediately paid for and delivered, passed from hand to hand. New slips of paper constantly flowed onto the tables, and for one hour there was a bustle of hectic activity. Each name preceded by a definite article served to indicate one of the stocks. At the close of business,
the Carmichael
was worth fifty-two francs and
the Tancrède Boucharessas
two louis, whereas
the Martignon
paid twenty-eight sous and
the Olga Chervonenkhov
sixty centimes.
The Balbet
, on the promise of his demonstration of marksmanship, found a buyer at fourteen francs, and
the Luxo
was at eighteen francs ninety, counting on stupendous results from his fireworks display.

The exchange closed at seven o’clock sharp, but from then on it opened for twenty minutes each day, to the intense delight of the investors. A large number of them, uninterested in the final outcome, tried instead to make a killing on rising and falling stock prices, and toward this end spread all kinds of rumors. One day, the Carmichael dropped nine points because the young singer was supposedly suffering from a hoarse voice; the next day, after the news was proven false, the stock rebounded twelve francs. The Balbet also underwent strong fluctuations, due to endlessly conflicting reports on the working order of the Gras rifle and the condition of its cartridges.

Thanks to daily lessons, Talou had learned to sing Dariccelli’s
Aubade
, repeating the measures that Carmichael whispered in his ear one after another. The emperor now wanted to don the female attire that had aroused his envy from first glance, so as to endow his performance with the proper theatrical gestures and costuming. Sirdah translated her father’s wishes and, helped by the young Marseillais, he adorned himself carefully, with childish glee, in the blue gown and blonde wig; the double strangeness of it delighted his poet-monarch’s soul, usually so little prone to exhibitionism.

Thus costumed as a soprano, the emperor mounted the stage, and this time Carmichael, as he gave his lesson, slowly deconstructed the various arm movements that were so familiar to him, and trained his pupil to walk naturally while adroitly kicking the long, cumbersome train out of the way. From then on, Talou always practiced in full regalia and ultimately acquitted himself honorably of the task he’d taken on.

On the day of the gala, a series of tableaux vivants was to be staged by the troupe of operetta singers, who were hardly lacking for costumes and accessories.

Soreau, who had taken initiative and leadership of the project, decided to begin with a
Feast of the Olympian Gods
, easily staged with props left over from
Orpheus in Hell
.

For the other groupings, Soreau took inspiration from five anecdotes he’d recently heard during his tours of North America, England, Russia, Greece, and Italy.

First came a Canadian tale heard in Quebec, a kind of children’s legend that goes like this:

On the banks of Lake Ontario lived a rich planter of French origin named Jouandon. Recently widowed, Jouandon transferred all his love onto his daughter Ursule, a charming girl of eight in the care of the devoted Maffa, a kind and considerate Huron who had nursed the child at her own breast.

Jouandon at the time was prey to the scheming of a busybody named Gervaise, whose ugliness and poverty had left her an old maid, and who was determined to marry the well-to-do planter.

Weak by nature, Jouandon let himself be snared by the shrew’s adroit semblance of love, and she soon became his second wife.

From that moment, life in the planter’s house, once so peaceful and radiant, became intolerable. Gervaise had invited her sister Agatha and her two brothers Claude and Justin to move into the house, all three as greedy as she was; this infernal clique set the rules, shouting and waving their arms from morning until night. Ursule became the chief target of mocking comments from Gervaise and her acolytes, and only with great difficulty was Maffa able to save the girl from the ill treatment they threatened.

After two years Jouandon died of consumption, worn down by sorrow and remorse, wracked with guilt over the unhappiness he had visited on his daughter and himself by the deplorable union that he hadn’t had the strength to terminate.

Gervaise and her three accomplices set more fiercely than ever on the unhappy Ursule, whom they hoped to kill off like her father in order to lay their hands on her wealth.

Outraged, Maffa went one day to visit the warriors of her tribe and described the situation to the old sorcerer No, famous for his great powers.

No pledged to punish the guilty parties and followed Maffa to the cursed abode.

Skirting Lake Ontario, they spotted from afar Gervaise and Agatha heading to the banks, escorted by their two brothers carrying a still, silent Ursule.

The four miscreants, taking advantage of the nurse’s absence, had bound and gagged the child, whom they planned to drown in the deep waters of the lake.

Maffa and No hid behind a clump of trees, and the group arrived at the bank without seeing them.

Just as the two brothers were swinging Ursule’s body to toss it into the currents, No pronounced a magic and resonant incantation that immediately caused four sudden metamorphoses.

Gervaise was changed into a she-donkey and placed before a pail full of appetizing bran; but, the moment she approached the abundant sustenance, a kind of seton suddenly passed through her jaws and kept her from satisfying her ravenous hunger. When, weary of this torture, she tried to flee the frustrating temptation, a golden harrow rose in front of her, blocking her passage and unpredictably springing up at any given point of a strictly defined enclosure.

Agatha, transformed into a goose, ran about in a frenzy, chased by Boreas who blew on her with all his might and whipped her with a thorny rose.

Claude retained his human body but his head turned into a wild boar’s. Three objects of different weights, an egg, a glove, and a wisp of straw, began jumping from his hands, which uncontrollably and continually tossed them in the air and caught them again. Like a juggler who, instead of commanding his knickknacks, was at their mercy, the wretched fellow ran in a straight line, prey to a kind of dizzying magnetic pull.

Justin metamorphosed into a pike and went flying into the lake, which he had to swim around indefinitely at great speed, like a horse let loose in a giant hippodrome.

Maffa and No rushed to Ursule to rid her of her gag.

Filled with compassion and not one to hold a grudge, the girl, who had seen the quadruple miracle occur, tried to intercede on her torturers’ behalf.

She asked the sorcerer if there was a way to break the spell, passionately pleading the guilty quartet’s cause, who according to her did not deserve eternal punishment.

Touched by such goodness, No gave her this precious information: once a year, on the anniversary and at the precise hour of the incantation, the four bewitched were fated to reunite on the bank at the exact spot occupied by the donkey, who would alone remain sedentary while the three wanderers rushed crazily onward; this reunion would last only a second, as the unlucky runaways were granted no rest. If, during that barely perceptible instant, a generous hand armed with some device managed to fish out the pike and throw it onto the bank, the charm would immediately end, and the four condemned souls would regain their human form; but even a minor slip in the liberating gesture would delay any chance at a new attempt for another year.

Ursule memorized every detail of this revelation and thanked No, who returned alone to his tribe of savages.

One year later, a few minutes before the prescribed hour, Ursule climbed into a skiff with Maffa and waited for the pike near the place where the she-donkey continued to sniff uselessly at her ever-full bucket.

Suddenly the girl saw in the distance, in the transparent waters, the swift-moving fish she awaited; just then, from two opposite points on the horizon, the boar-headed juggler and the wind-whipped goose came running toward the same goal.

Ursule vertically dipped a large fishing net, blocking the path of the pike, which dove like an arrow into the floating device.

With a sudden jerk, the young fisherwoman tried to flip the fish onto the bank. But no doubt their atonement wasn’t yet sufficient, for the netting, although fine and solid, let the captive through; the pike fell back into the water and resumed its mad race.

The juggler and the goose, for a moment reunited near the donkey, crossed paths without slowing down and soon disappeared in opposite directions.

Evidently Ursule’s mishap was due to supernatural intervention, for after that event the meshes of the net remained intact.

Three new attempts, each one year apart, yielded the same negative results. Finally, on the fifth year, Ursule made a movement so skillful and quick that the pike landed on the outer edge of the bank, without having time to slip through the imprisoning weave.

Instantly the four siblings regained human form and, terrified by the prospect of another spell, immediately fled the area and were never heard from again.

In England, Soreau had learned the following information, related in
Handel as I Knew Him
by Count Corfield, a close friend of the great composer. By 1756, Handel, already old and deprived of sight for more than four years, hardly ever left his London home, where his admirers flocked to see him.

One evening, the famous musician was in his upstairs study, a huge, sumptuously appointed room that he preferred to his ground-floor salons because of a magnificent organ leaning against the paneling of one wall.

Amid the bright lights, several guests conversed noisily, made merry by a copious dinner supplied by the maestro, a great lover of fine foods and good wines.

Count Corfield, who was present, steered the conversation to the genius of their gracious host, whose masterworks he praised with the most sincere enthusiasm. The others chorused their agreement, and each admired his innate creativity, which the hoi polloi could not acquire through even the most intense efforts.

According to Corfield, a musical phrase hatched by a brow endowed with such a divine spark could enliven many pages of score with its breath, even when banally developed by a mere technician. On the other hand, the speaker added, an ordinary theme, treated by even the most inspired mind, would necessarily preserve its heaviness and awkwardness, never managing to conceal the indelible stamp of its undistinguished origins.

At these words Handel let out a bellow of protest, claiming that, even on a mechanically devised motif furnished solely by chance, he was quite sure he could write an entire oratorio worthy of inclusion among his works.

This assertion having provoked certain murmurs of doubt, Handel, stimulated by the libations of the feast, stood abruptly, declaring that he wanted, then and there and before witnesses, to establish honestly the skeleton of such a work.

Feeling his way, the illustrious composer headed toward the fire-place and plucked from a vase several branches of holly left over from the previous Christmas. He lined them up on the marble mantelpiece, drawing everyone’s attention to their number, which rose to seven; each branch was to represent one note of the scale and carry some kind of sign that would make it identifiable as such.