A Place Called Freedom - Ken Follett [49]
Then he stopped, laughed softly at himself, and walked on down the glen.
II
London
13
SHYLOCK WORE WIDE TROUSERS, A LONG BLACK GOWN and a red three-cornered hat. The actor was bloodcurdlingly ugly, with a big nose, a long double chin, and a slitted mouth set in a permanent one-sided grimace. He came on stage with a slow, deliberate walk, the picture of evil. In a voluptuous growl he said: “Three thousand ducats.” A shudder went through the audience.
Mack was spellbound. Even in the pit, where he stood with Dermot Riley, the crowd was still and silent. Shylock spoke every word in a husky voice between a grunt and a bark. His eyes stared brightly from under shaggy eyebrows. “Three thousand ducats for three months, and Antonio bound.…”
Dermot whispered in Mack’s ear: “That’s Charles Macklin—an Irishman. He killed a man and stood trial for murder, but he pleaded provocation and got off.”
Mack hardly heard. He had known there were such things as theaters and plays, of course, but he had never imagined it would be like this: the heat, the smoky oil lamps, the fantastic costumes, the painted faces, and most of all the emotion—rage, passionate love, envy and hatred, portrayed so vividly that his heart beat as fast as if it were real.
When Shylock found out that his daughter had run away, he hurtled on stage with no hat, hair flying, hands clenched, in a perfect fury of grief, screaming “You knew!” like a man in the torment of hell. And when he said “Since I am a dog, beware my fangs!” he darted forward, as if to lunge across the footlights, and the entire audience flinched back.
Leaving the theater, Mack said to Dermot: “Is that what Jews are like?” He had never met a Jew, as far as he knew, but most people in the Bible were Jewish, and they were not portrayed that way.
“I’ve known Jews but never one like Shy lock, thank God,” Dermot replied. “Everyone hates a moneylender, though. They’re all right when you need a loan, but it’s the paying it back that causes the trouble.”
London did not have many Jews but it was full of foreigners. There were dark-skinned Asian sailors called lascars; Huguenots from France; thousands of Africans with rich brown skin and tightly curled hair; and countless Irish like Dermot. For Mack this was part of the tingling excitement of the city. In Scotland everyone looked the same.
He loved London. He felt a thrill every morning when he woke up and remembered where he was. The city was full of sights and surprises, strange people and new experiences. He loved the enticing smell of coffee from the scores of coffeehouses, although he could not afford to drink it. He stared at the gorgeous colors of the clothes—bright yellow, purple, emerald green, scarlet, sky blue—worn by men and women. He heard the bellowing herds of terrified cattle being driven through the narrow streets to the city’s slaughterhouses, and he dodged the swarms of nearly naked children, begging and stealing. He saw prostitutes and bishops, he went to bullfights and auctions, he tasted banana and ginger and red wine. Everything was exciting. Best of all, he was free to go where he would and do as he liked.
Of course he had to earn his living. It was not easy. London swarmed with starving families who had fled from country districts where there was no food, for there had been two years of bad harvests. There were also thousands of hand-loom silk weavers, put out of work by the new northern factories, so Dermot said. For every job there were five desperate applicants. The unlucky ones had to beg, steal, prostitute themselves or starve.
Dermot himself was a weaver. He had a wife and five children living in two rooms in Spitalfields. In order to get by they had to sublet Dermot’s workroom, and Mack slept there,