One-Act Plays Part 8

Keep up the call and by and by We'll make him sing, and find he's yet The same old Tark.

No 'Author Leonid' we spy In him, no cultured ladies' pet: He just drops in, and so we get The good old song, and gently guy The same old Tark--just watch him shy!"

No biography of Booth Tarkington, no matter how brief, should omit to mention that he was elected to the Indiana State Legislature and sat for a time in that body, where he acc.u.mulated, no doubt, some data on the subject of Indiana politics that he may afterwards have put to literary use.

He has found the subject for most of his novels and plays[24] in contemporary American life, which he treats unsentimentally, spiritedly, and vigorously. _Beauty and the Jacobin_, like his famous and fascinating tale, _Monsieur Beaucaire_, is exceptional among his works in deserting the modern American scene for an Eighteenth Century situation. The story and the play are likely, for this reason, to be compared. The tone of _Monsieur Beaucaire_ is more urbane, more whimsical, more romantic than the mood of _Beauty and the Jacobin_ which "breaks with the pretty, pretty kind of thing. There is a new quality in the texture of the writing.... The plot here springs directly from character, and the action of the piece is inevitable.

_Beauty and the Jacobin_ gives evidence of being the first conscious and determined, as it is the first consistent, effort of the author to leave the surface and work from the inside of his characters out....

The whole of the little drama is scintillant with wit, delicate and at times brilliant and somewhat Shavian, which flashes out poignantly against the sombreness of its background."[25]

[Footnote 24: For a bibliography of his works through the year 1913, see Asa Don d.i.c.kinson, _Booth Tarkington, a Gentleman from Indiana_, Garden City, no date.]

[Footnote 25: Robert Cortes Holliday, _Booth Tarkington_, Garden City and New York, 1918, pp. 155-156; p. 157.]

_Beauty and the Jacobin_ was published in 1912 and has had at least one performance on the professional stage. On November 12, 1912, it was played by members of the company then acting in _f.a.n.n.y's First Play_, at a matinee at the Comedy Theatre, in New York. It has always been a favorite with amateurs and quite recently was performed in St.

Louis by one of the dramatic clubs of that city.

BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN

_Our scene is in a rusty lodging-house of the Lower Town, Boulogne-sur-Mer, and the time, the early twilight of dark November in northern France. This particular November is dark indeed, for it is November of the year 1793, Frimaire of the Terror. The garret room disclosed to us, like the evening lowering outside its one window, and like the times, is mysterious, obscure, smoked with perplexing shadows; these flying and staggering to echo the s.h.i.+ftings of a young man writing at a desk by the light of a candle._

_We are just under the eaves here; the dim ceiling slants; and there are two doors: that in the rear wall is closed; the other, upon our right, and evidently leading to an inner chamber, we find ajar. The furniture of this mean apartment is chipped, faded, insecure, yet still possessed of a haggard elegance; shamed odds and ends, cheaply acquired by the proprietor of the lodging-house, no doubt at an auction of the confiscated leavings of some emigrant n.o.ble. The single window, square and mustily curtained, is so small that it cannot be imagined to admit much light on the brightest of days; however, it might afford a lodger a limited view of the houses opposite and the street below. In fact, as our eyes grow accustomed to the obscurity we discover it serving this very purpose at the present moment, for a tall woman stands close by in the shadow, peering between the curtains with the distrustfulness of a picket thrown far out into an enemy's country. Her coa.r.s.e blouse and skirt, new and as ill-fitting as sacks, her shop-woman's bonnet and cheap veil, and her rough shoes are navely denied by her sensitive, pale hands and the high-bred and in-bred face, long profoundly marked by loss and fear, and now very white, very watchful. She is not more than forty, but her hair, glimpsed beneath the clumsy bonnet, shows much grayer than need be at that age. This is ANNE DE LASEYNE_.

_The intent young man at the desk, easily recognizable as her brother, fair and of a singular physical delicacy, is a finely completed product of his race; one would p.r.o.nounce him gentle in each sense of the word. His costume rivals his sister's in the innocence of its attempt at disguise: he wears a carefully soiled carter's frock, rough new gaiters, and a pair of dangerously aristocratic shoes, which are not too dusty to conceal the fact that they are of excellent make and lately sported buckles. A tousled cap of rabbit-skin, exhibiting a tricolor c.o.c.kade, crowns these anomalies, though not at present his thin, blond curls, for it has been tossed upon a dressing-table which stands against the wall to the left. He is younger than MADAME DE LASEYNE, probably by more than ten years; and, though his features so strikingly resemble hers, they are free from the permanent impress of pain which she bears like a mourning-badge upon her own._

_He is expending a feverish attention upon his task, but with patently unsatisfactory results; for he whispers and mutters to himself, bites the feather of his pen, shakes his head forebodingly, and again and again crumples a written sheet and throws it upon the floor. Whenever this happens ANNE DE LASEYNE casts a white glance at him over her shoulder--his desk is in the center of the room--her anxiety is visibly increased, and the temptation to speak less and less easily controlled, until at last she gives way to it. Her voice is low and hurried._

ANNE. Louis, it is growing dark very fast.

LOUIS. I had not observed it, my sister. [_He lights a second candle from the first; then, pen in mouth, scratches at his writing with a little knife._]

ANNE. People are still crowding in front of the wine-shop across the street.

LOUIS [_smiling with one side of his mouth_]. Naturally. Reading the list of the proscribed that came at noon. Also waiting, amiable vultures, for the next bulletin from Paris. It will give the names of those guillotined day before yesterday. For a good bet: our own names [_he nods toward the other room_]--yes, hers, too--are all three in the former. As for the latter--well, they can't get us in that now.

ANNE [_eagerly_]. Then you are certain that we are safe?

LOUIS. I am certain only that they cannot murder us day before yesterday. [_As he bends his head to his writing a woman comes in languidly through the open door, bearing an armful of garments, among which one catches the gleam of fine silk, glimpses of lace and rich furs--a disordered burden which she dumps pell-mell into a large portmanteau lying open upon a chair near the desk. This new-comer is of a startling gold-and-ivory beauty; a beauty quite literally striking, for at the very first glance the whole force of it hits the beholder like a s...o...b..ll in the eye; a beauty so obvious, so completed, so rounded, that it is painful; a beauty to rivet the unenvious stare of women, but from the full blast of which either king or man-peasant would stagger away to the confessional. The egregious l.u.s.ter of it is not breathed upon even by its overspreading of sullen revolt, as its possessor carelessly arranges the garments in the portmanteau. She wears a dress all gray, of a coa.r.s.e texture, but exquisitely fitted to her; nothing could possibly be plainer, or of a more revealing simplicity. She might be twenty-two; at least it is certain that she is not thirty. At her coming, LOUIS looks up with a sigh of poignant wistfulness, evidently a habit; for as he leans back to watch her he sighs again. She does not so much as glance at him, but speaks absently to MADAME DE LASEYNE. Her voice is superb, as it should be; deep and musical, with a faint, silvery huskiness._]

ELOISE [_the new-comer_]. Is he still there?

ANNE. I lost sight of him in the crowd. I think he has gone. If only he does not come back!

LOUIS [_with grim conviction_]. He will.

ANNE. I am trying to hope not.

ELOISE. I have told you from the first that you overestimate his importance. Haven't I said it often enough?

ANNE [_under her breath_]. You have!

ELOISE [_coldly_]. He will not harm you.

ANNE [_looking out of the window_]. More people down there; they are running to the wine-shop.

LOUIS. Gentle idlers! [_The sound of triumphant shouting comes up from the street below._] That means that the list of the guillotined has arrived from Paris.

ANNE [_s.h.i.+vering_]. They are posting it in the wine-shop window.

[_The shouting increases suddenly to a roar of hilarity, in which the shrilling of women mingles._]

LOUIS. Ah! One remarks that the list is a long one. The good people are well satisfied with it. [_To ELOISE_] My cousin, in this amiable populace which you champion, do you never scent something of--well, something of the graveyard scavenger? [_She offers the response of an unmoved glance in his direction, and slowly goes out by the door at which she entered. Louis sighs again and returns to his scribbling._]

ANNE [_nervously_]. Haven't you finished, Louis?

LOUIS [_indicating the floor strewn with crumpled slips of paper_]. A dozen.

ANNE. Not good enough?

LOUIS [_with a rueful smile_]. I have lived to discover that among all the disadvantages of being a Peer of France the most dangerous is that one is so poor a forger. Truly, however, our parents are not to be blamed for neglecting to have me instructed in this art; evidently they perceived I had no talent for it. [_Lifting a sheet from the desk._] Oh, vile! I am not even an amateur. [_He leans back, tapping the paper thoughtfully with his pen._] Do you suppose the Fates took all the trouble to make the Revolution simply to teach me that I have no skill in forgery? Listen. [_He reads what he has written._]

"Committee of Public Safety. In the name of the Republic. To all Officers, Civil and Military: Permit the Citizen Balsage"--that's myself, remember--"and the Citizeness Virginie Balsage, his sister"--that's you, Anne--"and the Citizeness Marie Balsage, his second sister"--that is Eloise, you understand--"to embark in the vessel _Jeune Pierrette_ from the port of Boulogne for Barcelona.

Signed: Billaud Varennes. Carnot. Robespierre." Execrable! [_He tears up the paper, scattering the fragments on the floor._] I am not even sure it is the proper form. Ah, that Dossonville!

ANNE. But Dossonville helped us--

LOUIS. At a price. Dossonville! An individual of marked attainment, not only in penmans.h.i.+p, but in the art of plausibility. Before I paid him he swore that the pa.s.sports he forged for us would take us not only out of Paris, but out of the country.

ANNE. Are you sure we must have a separate permit to embark?

LOUIS. The captain of the _Jeune Pierrette_ sent one of his sailors to tell me. There is a new Commissioner from the National Committee, he said, and a special order was issued this morning. They have an officer and a file of the National Guard on the quay to see that the order is obeyed.

ANNE. But we bought pa.s.sports in Paris. Why can't we here?

LOUIS. Send out a street-crier for an accomplished forger? My poor Anne! We can only hope that the lieutenant on the quay may be drunk when he examines my dreadful "permit." Pray a great thirst upon him, my sister! [_He looks at a watch which he draws from beneath his frock._] Four o'clock. At five the tide in the river is poised at its highest; then it must run out, and the _Jeune Pierrette_ with it. We have an hour. I return to my crime. [_He takes a fresh sheet of paper and begins to write._]

ANNE [_urgently_]. Hurry, Louis!

LOUIS. Watch for Master Spy.

ANNE. I cannot see him. [_There is silence for a time, broken only by the nervous scratching of Louis's pen._]

LOUIS [_at work_]. Still you don't see him?

ANNE. No. The people are dispersing. They seem in a good humor.

LOUIS. Ah, if they knew--[_He breaks off, examines his latest effort attentively, and finds it unsatisfactory, as is evinced by the noiseless whistle of disgust to which his lips form themselves. He discards the sheet and begins another, speaking rather absently as he does so._] I suppose I have the distinction to be one of the most hated men in our country, now that all the decent people have left it--so many by a road something of the shortest! Yes, these merry gentlemen below there would be still merrier if they knew they had within their reach a forfeited "Emigrant." I wonder how long it would take them to climb the breakneck flights to our door. Lord, there'd be a race for it! Prize-money, too, I fancy, for the first with his bludgeon.