Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini (best color ebook reader txt) 📕

“I beg that you’ll not apologize. You would be more tiresome than ever.”

“Of course you will be gibing. You never miss a chance to gibe. It’ll bring you trouble before you’re done with life. Come; here we are back at the inn, and you have not yet given me your decision.”

André-Louis looked at him. “I must yield, of course. I can’t help myself.”

M. Binet released his arm at last, and slapped him heartily upon the back. “Well declared, my lad. You’ll never regret it. If I know anything of the theatre, I know that you have made the great decision of your life. Tomorrow night you’ll thank me.”

André-Louis shrugged, and stepped out ahead towards the inn. But M. Binet called him back.

“M. Parvissimus!”

He turned. There stood the man’s great bulk, the moonlight beating down upon that round fat face of his, and he was holding out his hand.

“M. Parvissimus, no rancour. It is a thing I do not admit into my life. You will shake hands with me, and we will forget all this.”

André-Louis considered him a moment with disgust. He was growing angry. Then, realizing this, he conceived himself ridiculous, almost as ridiculous as that sly, scoundrelly Pantaloon. He laughed and took the outstretched hand. “No rancour?” M. Binet insisted.

“Oh, no rancour,” said André-Louis.

Dressed in the close-fitting suit of a bygone age, all black, from flat velvet cap to rosetted shoes, his face whitened and a slight up-curled moustache glued to his upper lip, a small-sword at his side and a guitar slung behind him, Scaramouche surveyed himself in a mirror, and was disposed to be sardonic⁠—which was the proper mood for the part.

He reflected that his life, which until lately had been of a stagnant, contemplative quality, had suddenly become excessively active. In the course of one week he had been lawyer, mob-orator, outlaw, property-man, and finally buffoon. Last Wednesday he had been engaged in moving an audience of Rennes to anger; on this Wednesday he was to move an audience of Guichen to mirth. Then he had been concerned to draw tears; today it was his business to provoke laughter. There was a difference, and yet there was a parallel. Then as now he had been a comedian; and the part that he had played then was, when you came to think of it, akin to the part he was to play this evening. For what had he been at Rennes but a sort of Scaramouche⁠—the little skirmisher, the astute intriguer, spattering the seed of trouble with a sly hand? The only difference lay in the fact that today he went forth under the name that properly described his type, whereas last week he had been disguised as a respectable young provincial attorney.

He bowed to his reflection in the mirror.

“Buffoon!” he apostrophized it. “At last you have found yourself. At last you have come into your heritage. You should be a great success.”

Hearing his new name called out by M. Binet, he went below to find the company assembled, and waiting in the entrance corridor of the inn.

He was, of course, an object of great interest to all the company. Most critically was he conned by M. Binet and mademoiselle; by the former with gravely searching eyes, by the latter with a curl of scornful lip.

“You’ll do,” M. Binet commended his makeup. “At least you look the part.”

“Unfortunately, men are not always what they look,” said Climène, acidly.

“That is a truth that does not at present apply to me,” said André-Louis. “For it is the first time in my life that I look what I am.”

Mademoiselle curled her lip a little further, and turned her shoulder to him. But the others thought him very witty⁠—probably because he was obscure. Columbine encouraged him with a friendly smile that displayed her large white teeth, and M. Binet swore yet once again that he would be a great success, since he threw himself with such spirit into the undertaking. Then in a voice that for the moment he appeared to have borrowed from the roaring captain, M. Binet marshalled them for the short parade across to the market-hall.

The new Scaramouche fell into place beside Rhodomont. The old one, hobbling on a crutch, had departed an hour ago to take the place of doorkeeper, vacated of necessity by André-Louis. So that the exchange between those two was a complete one.

Headed by Polichinelle banging his great drum and Pierrot blowing his trumpet, they set out, and were duly passed in review by the ragamuffins drawn up in files to enjoy so much of the spectacle as was to be obtained for nothing.

Ten minutes later the three knocks sounded, and the curtains were drawn aside to reveal a battered set that was partly garden, partly forest, in which Climène feverishly looked for the coming of Leandre. In the wings stood the beautiful, melancholy lover, awaiting his cue, and immediately behind him the unfledged Scaramouche, who was anon to follow him.

André-Louis was assailed with nausea in that dread moment. He attempted to take a lightning mental review of the first act of this scenario of which he was himself the author-in-chief; but found his mind a complete blank. With the perspiration starting from his skin, he stepped back to the wall, where above a dim lantern was pasted a sheet bearing the brief outline of the piece. He was still studying it, when his arm was clutched, and he was pulled violently towards the wings. He had a glimpse of Pantaloon’s grotesque face, its eyes blazing, and he caught a raucous growl:

“Climène has spoken your cue three times already.”

Before he realized it, he had been bundled on to the stage, and stood there foolishly, blinking in the glare of the footlights, with their tin reflectors. So utterly foolish and bewildered did he look that volley upon volley