Nana (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Emile Zola [146]
At the back of the stage some of the actors were conversing together while waiting for their cues. They had gradually raised their voices.
“I say there! will you keep quiet?” yelled Bordenave, who sprung from his chair in a rage. “I can’t hear a word. Go outside if you want to talk; we’re working. Barillot, if any one talks again, I’ll fine the whole lot!”
They held their tongues for a short time. They formed a little group, seated on a bench and some rustic chairs in a bit of a garden—the first scene for the evening which was placed there, ready to be fixed. Fontan and Prullière were listening to Rose Mignon, who had just received a splendid offer from the manager of the Folies-Dramatiques Theatre. But a voice called out,
“The duchess! Saint-Firmin! Now then, the duchess and Saint-Firmin!”
Prullière did not recollect till the second call that he was Saint-Firmin. Rose, who played the part of the Duchess Hélène, was waiting for him to make their entrance. Slowly dragging his feet over the vacant, sonorous boards, old Bosc returned to sit down. Then Clarisse offered him half the bench.
“What does he yell about like that for?” asked she, speaking of Bordenave. “It will be getting unbearable soon. He can’t bring out a new piece now without giving vent to his feelings in that way.”
Bosc shrugged his shoulders; he was above all those shindies. Fontan whispered:
“He smells a failure. I think it’s a most idiotic piece.” Then, returning to Rose’s story, he said to Clarisse, “Do you believe it, eh? Three hundred francs a night, and a hundred performances guaranteed. Why not a country house into the bargain? If his wife was offered three hundred francs, Mignon would chuck up Bordenave, and without warning too!”
Clarisse believed in the truth of the offer. Fontan was always running his comrades down! But Simone interrupted them. She was shivering. All well buttoned up and with scarves round their necks, looked up at the sunbeam which shone without descending into the mournful coldness that hung about the stage. Outside it was freezing beneath a clear November sky.
“And there’s no fire in the green-room!” said Simone. “It’s disgusting; he’s becoming beastly miserly! I’ve a good mind to go home, I don’t want to be ill.”
“Silence there!” cried Bordenave again, in a voice of thunder.
Then for a few minutes nothing was heard but the confused voices of the actors. They scarcely indicated the gestures, and spoke in a quiet voice so as not to tire themselves. However, when they intended to score a point, they glanced at the auditorium. It appeared to them like an enormous hole in which floated a vague shadow, similar to a fine dust confined in a big loft without windows. The house, which was in darkness except for the feeble light transmitted from the stage, seemed wrapped in a troubled and melancholy sleep. The paintings on the ceiling were veiled in obscurity. From the top to the bottom of the stage-boxes, on the right and left, hung immense breadths of coarse grey linen to protect the hangings; and strips of the same material were thrown over the velvet of the balustrades, girdling the balconies with a double winding-sheet, staining, as it were, the gloom with their pale tint. In the general discolouration one could only distinguish the darker recesses of the boxes, which indicated the different storeys, and the breaks caused by the seats, the red velvet of which had a blackish look. The great crystal gasalier, lowered almost to the ground, filled the stalls with its pendants, and gave one the idea of a removal, of a departure of the public on a journey from which it would never return.
Rose, in her part of the little duchess lost at the house of some fast woman, just then advanced towards the footlights. She raised her hands and pouted adorably to that dark, empty house, which was as sad as though it were in mourning.
“Good heavens! what curious people!” said she, accentuating the phrase, certain of the effect.