The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [18]
Amazing the disappointments to which you can accommodate yourself in life, she thought, watching Bendigo pace the floor, flinging his arms about like an angry monkey. What was he raving on about now?
".. .he had no legitimate reason to let me go! I was brilliant in that role. Brilliant! I modeled my performance after Kean: Shakespeare played by flashes of lightning! It was only the damn-ned jealousy of Booth himself...."
Ah, the Edwin - Booth - fired - me - at - twenty - six - threatened - by - my - genius - single - handedly - destroyed -my - reputation - preventing - my - career - from - reaching - the - Olympian - heights - which - had - always -been - my - destiny routine. No wonder my mind wandered. Look at him fume, the fossilized clown. Shame he hasn't any talent to complement his epic self-esteem. But then if it weren't for delusions of grandeur, he'd have no grandeur at all.
Yes, well, on the other hand, Miss High and Mighty, look, who's sharing the short end of his Butte, Montana, dressing room: Is your common sense any more use to you than his delusions are to him? They tossed gold nuggets on the stage when the great Adah Isaacs Menken toured the West. Bendigo still snags the occasional threadbare bouquet on opening nights. You're so grateful for a wilted handful of daisies from some lovesick high-plains Romeo, offered with dumb, stuttering sincerity as you slip out the stage door, that it reduces you to tears.
Not much of a life, finally, but your own, dear. No husband to order you about with his sweaty socks to mend. No bawling babies crawling up the drapes. New places to see. New people to meet. Always the chance something sunny and surprising might lie around the next bend. And how many girls can wake up to that thought every morning?
The triumph of hope over experience.
After I've strutted and fretted my hour on the stage, she thought, let them carve that on my tombstone.
chapter 3
German flags on the tables. german songs from the Bavarian band in the dining hall. German wines and beers and German food from the German waiters, speaking German to the German passengers. It was getting to be all so, well, Germanic, thought Doyle. And the decor: Prussian banners, double-headed eagles, heraldic shields on the walls. All that's missing is Kaiser Wilhelm. At least the good burghers of Frankfurt and Munich didn't throw their noses out of joint when we retaliated in our good-natured way; Innes planting his hand-fashioned. Union Jack on the table, me commandeering the band's tuba, playing my oompah version of "God Save the Queen."
Innes even clapped me on the back after I hijacked that tuba. Seemed almost proud of his old brother. Warmed my heart. Come to think of it, Innes had been civil enough all afternoon, executing his secretarial duties briskly, efficiently. And the name of Pinkus/Pimmel not even mentioned since dinner. Perhaps I shouldn't give up on the boy just yet.
The brothers' patriotic counterattack cheered the hearts of the few English souls on board and Doyle realized he needn't have worried that the Germans would take offense; he'd always found them a jovial, high-spirited people—although he occasionally suspected that if one were shipwrecked alone on a desert island, he would eventually begin to lunge about and brandish a club. But their applause after his performance had seemed sincere enough; a smile even cracked the granite face of Captain Hoffner. Doyle had noted this loosening of inhibition often during previous voyages; the farther people ventured out to sea, the less encumbered they became by their landlocked identities.
But what had that disagreeable incident before