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 Preface vii

New to the Seventh Edition

The most prominent feature of this edition is the updating of the technology
and practices in almost every section of the book. Outdated tools and practices
have been eliminated. The tools, practices, and technology of industry-standard
techniques such as motorized scenery, digital recording, and digital projections
are thoroughly explained.
Chapter 1, “Production Organization and Management,” has been updated
to reflect the evolution of responsibilities and positions in each design area.
Chapter 10, “Tools and Materials,” has been extensively revised. The
descriptions of the various tools have been condensed; a variety of new tools
commonly used in the various shops have been added, and many outmoded
tools and techniques — such as lashing hardware, the brace and bit and (sob) the
clout nail — have been eliminated.
Chapter 11, “Scenic Production Techniques,” has also been extensively
revised. Changes in organizational responsibilities have been noted; the
descriptions of wood and welding joints have been condensed to “let the
pictures do the talking”; the sections on platforming, door construction, and
moving scenery have been revised to bring the information on the technology,
materials, and techniques used in these areas in line with current standards
and practice.
Chapter 14, “Lighting Design,” has been updated with numerous CAD-
drawn light plots and graphics (replacing the previously hand-drawn plots
and graphics) to reflect the reality that the majority of lighting paperwork is
now computer generated. Explanations of design concepts and drafting tech-
niques have been expanded in an effort to clarify the information. Because of
the increased use of lighting design drafting programs such as Vectorworks,
key elements of that program are explained. Lighting control technology, and
the methods of keeping track of the light cues, have changed rapidly since the
sixth edition of this book. Control methods that are no longer used have been
dropped, and coverage of new techniques has been introduced.
Chapter 16, “Lighting Production,” has been similarly updated. The technol-
ogy used in stage lighting continues to evolve with amazing speed. An entirely
new type of light source—light-emitting plasma—is explained. The information
on LED technology has been updated, and several new fixtures using this matur-
ing light source are discussed and illustrated. Outdated information on lenses,
fixtures, and control boards has been replaced with current techniques and prac-
tices. Photos reflecting industry standard technology have replaced the illustra-
tions of previous generations of equipment.
Chapter 17, “Projections and Media,” has been completely rewritten. This
wholesale change was necessitated by the reality that digital projection has all
but entirely replaced film-based projection techniques. The obsolete equipment
has been eliminated and replaced with a full explanation of both the equipment
and techniques used in digital projection and design.
Chapter 21, “Sound Design and Technology,” has also been completely
rewritten because of not only the obvious technological advances in the field,
but also the rapid evolution of the principles used in creating sound designs. A
full explanation is now offered of the sound team organization and functions,
the sound design process, as well as the digital and analog equipment currently
being used in the field of sound design.
The updating for this edition could not have been accomplished without the
information, ideas, and counsel provided by the following practicing professionals/
educators in their respective fields: Michael McNamara (lighting), Richard Dionne
viii Preface

(technical theatre), Richard K. Thomas (sound), Jake Pinholster (projections), and

Sandy Strawn (properties). Their knowledge, information, and assistance have
been invaluable in making this edition current in the areas of technology, materials,
and practice.
Finally, I would like to thank those friends and colleagues who have offered
suggestions for improving Theatrical Design and Production. In particular I would
like to thank the following reviewers for their help in preparing the seventh edi-
tion of this text.
Jan Chambers, University of North Carolina
Kirk Domer, Michigan State University
Janet Rose, University of Oregon
Eric Rouse, Pennsylvania State University
Brief Contents

1 Production Organization and Management 1

2 The Design Process 22

3 A Brief History of Theatre Architecture and Stage Technology 37

4 The Stage and Its Equipment 52

5 Style, Composition, and Design 76

6 Color 89

7 Mechanical Drafting 115

8 Perspective Drawing 138

9 Scenic Design 163

10 Tools and Materials 188

11 Scenic Production Techniques 237

12 Scene Painting 286

13 Stage Properties 316

14 Lighting Design 345

15 Electrical Theory and Practice 383

16 Lighting Production 394

17 Projections and Media 435

18 Costume Design 450

19 Costume Construction 473

20 Makeup 502

21 Sound Design and Technology 523

22 Drawing and Rendering 552

ix
This page intentionally left blank
Contents

Preface v Medieval Theatre 41

1500–1650 43
1. Production Organization 1650–1900 47
and Management 1 Twentieth Century 49

The Production Sequence 2 4. The Stage and Its

Script 2
Concept, Design, and Construction 2 Equipment 52
Rehearsals 4
Proscenium Stage 52
Theatre Organization 6 Proscenium Arch 52
Production Job Descriptions 8 Stage 54
Producer 8 Wings 54
Playwright 9 Apron 55
Director 9 Orchestra Pit 55
Production Manager 9 Auditorium 57
Stage Manager 12 Proscenium Stage Equipment 58
Scenic and Property Personnel 14 Fly Loft 58
Lighting Personnel 17 Fly Systems 59
Costume Personnel 18 Stage Drapes 66
Makeup Personnel 20 Thrust Stage 71
Sound Personnel 20
Arena Stage 74
Black Box Theatres 75
2. The Design Process 22 “Found” Theatre Spaces 75
Commitment 22
Analysis 23 5. Style, Composition,
Analyzing the Script 23 and Design 76
The Questioning Process 25
Research 25 Style and Stylization in Theatrical Design 76
Background Research 26 Production Style 76
Conceptual Research 27 Design Styles and Design Periods 77
Incubation 27 Stylization 77
Selection 30 Literary Style and Theatrical Design 78

Implementation 31 Elements of Design 78

Line 79
Evaluation 36 Shape 79
Mass 79
Measure 79
3. A Brief History of Theatre Position 79
Architecture and Stage Color 80
Technology 37 Texture 80
Principles of Composition 80
Greek Theatre 37 Unity 80
Roman Theatre 39 Harmony 81

xi
xii Contents

Contrast 82 Title Block 125

Variation 83 Dimensions 127
Balance 83 Symbols 128
Proportion 83 Types of Drawings 130
Emphasis 85 Ground Plan 130
Design Analysis of The Kitchen 85 Sectional Drawings 132
Unity 86 Front Elevations 132
Harmony 86 Rear Elevations 133
Contrast 86 Detail Drawings 134
Variation 87
Balance 87
Proportion 88 8. Perspective Drawing 138
Emphasis 88
Principles of Perspective 138
Creating a Perspective Drawing 141
6. Color 89 A Review of Perspective Procedure 147

Defining Color 89 Perspective Exercises 149

Exercise 1 149
Color Terminology 89
Exercise 2 150
Seeing Color 91 Exercise 3 151
Color Mixing 93 Exercise 4 152
Primary Colors 93 Exercise 5 153
Secondary Colors 93 Exercise 6 155
Complementary Colors 93 Exercise 7 157
Filtered Light 95 Exercise 8 159
Color Mixing in Paint 96 Exercise 9 160
Integrated Color Wheel 97
A Practical Postscript to Color Theory 99
Application of Color in the Theatre 99 9. Scenic Design 163
Meaning of Color 100
Practical Color Use 100 Considerations for the Scenic Designer 163
Color Analysis of Terra Nova and Cabaret 102 Mood and Spirit of the Play 164
Terra Nova 102 Historical Period of the Play 164
Cabaret 108 Locale of the Play 167
Magic or Cheat Sheets 113 Socioeconomic Level and Personality
of the Characters 168
Season of the Year 168
7. Mechanical Drafting 115 Elements of Composition 168
Practicality of the Setting 170
Drafting Materials and Instruments 115 Visual Presentation of Scenic Designs 173
Drafting Board 116 Sketches 173
T Square 116 Models 175
Triangles 117 Computer Presentations 177
Compass and Circle Template 118 Other Presentation Techniques 179
Architect’s Scale Rule 118 Designer’s Plans 180
Drawing Pencils 118
Eraser 119
Drafting Tape 119 10. Tools and Materials 188
Computer Drafting 119
Drafting Symbols and Conventions 123 Hand Tools 188
Line Weights 124 Measuring Tools 188
Drafting Conventions 125 Marking Tools 189
Lettering 125 Hammers 190
 Contents xiii

Cutting Tools 190 Block and Tackle 235

Drilling Tools 192
Safety Equipment 236
Bits 193
Clamping Tools 194
Screwdrivers 197
Miscellaneous Hand Tools 198 11. Scenic Production
Metalworking Hand Tools 199 Techniques 237
Power Tools 200
Stationary Power Saws 200 Scenic Construction Techniques 238
Power Handsaws 202 Woodworking 238
Power Drilling Tools 204 Welding 240
Battery-Powered Tools 204 Soldering 245
Pneumatic Tools 204 Two-Dimensional Scenery 246
Metalworking Power Tools 205 Flats 246
Miscellaneous Power Tools 207 Soft Scenery 256
Wood 209 Three-Dimensional Scenery 257
Stock Lumber 209 Stage Platforming 257
Molding and Trim 212 Stressed-Skin and Sandwich-Core
Sheet Stock 212 Platforms 260
Sonotube 215 Platform Legging Methods 264
Manufactured Wood 215 Stairs 268
Staircase Railings 270
Metal 215
Wagons 271
Mild Steel 215
Trusses 271
Proprietary Structural
Movable Scenery 274
Systems 217
Revolves 274
Aluminum 217
Skids 274
Plastics 218 Winch-Drive Systems 275
Acrylic 218 Motorized Scenery 278
Epoxy 219 Motion Control 279
Fluorocarbons 220 Platform-Anchoring
Polyesters 220 Techniques 281
Polyethylene 220 Rocks, Irregular Platforms,
Polystyrene 220 and 3-D Trees 283
Polyvinyl Chloride 221 Foam Carving 284
Urethanes 221
Fasteners 221
Nails 221 12. Scene Painting 286
Screws 223
Bolts 225 Materials 286
Washers 226 Scenic Paints 286
Nuts 227 Applicators 292
Glues and Adhesives 227 Auxiliary Scene-Painting Tools 295
Glues 227 Preparing Scenery for Painting 296
Adhesives 227 Repairing Holes 296
Hardware 229 Applying Dutchmen 296
Construction Hardware 229 Flameproofing 296
Stage Hardware 231 Horizontal and Vertical
Painting 297
Rope, Cable, and Wire 234
Synthetic Rope 234 Preliminary Coating 297
Monofilament Line 235 Size Coat 297
Aircraft Cable 235 Prime Coat 298
Wire 235 Paint-Mixing Techniques 299
xiv Contents

Casein 299 Visibility 347

Latex 299 Selective Focus 348
Vinyl Acrylic 299 Modeling 348
Make Test Samples 300 Mood 349
Scene Painter’s Palette 300 Designing with Light 349
Painting Techniques 301 Key and Fill 349
Base Coats 301 Psychological Effects of Light 350
Painting Techniques with Aniline Dye 304 The Light Plot and Related Paperwork 351
Spraying Techniques 304 The Light Plot 351
Cartooning 305 The Lighting Section 356
Grid Transfer 306 The Legend 356
Standard Texture Coats 308 The Instrument Schedule 358
Applications of Painting Techniques 310
The Image of Light 362
Specialized Finishing Techniques 310
The Lighting Key 362
Wallpapering 314
Using the Lighting Key to Draw
Drop Painting Techniques 314
the Light Plot 366
Layering 366
Designing Lights for Thrust and
13. Stage Properties 316
Arena Stages 369
What Is a Prop? 317 Drawing the Light Plot
Set Props 317 and Lighting Section 373
Hand Props 318 Determining the Sectional Angle 375
Decorative Props 318 Selecting Instrument Size 375
Property Design 318 Rehearsal and Performance Procedures 376
Real or Fake? 319 Manual Preset Boards 377
Property Organization 319 Board Operator’s Cue Sheet 378
Property Acquisition 320 Designer’s Cue Sheet 379
Organizing Props for a Production 323 Magic Sheet/Cheat Sheet 380
Preproduction Planning 324 Lighting Rehearsal 380
Running Props 328 Technical and Dress Rehearsals 382
Craft Techniques 330 Channel/Dimmer/Instrument Check 382
Furniture 330
Wood Turning 333
Upholstery 334 15. Electrical Theory
Decorative Curtains and Draperies 336 and Practice 383
Papier-Mâché 337
Vacuum Forming 338 Electricity — What Is It? 383
Molds 339
Fake Food 342
Electricity at Work 385
Ohm’s Law 386
Heat Forming 342
The Power Formula 387
Fiberglass 342
Electrical Circuits 390
CNC Machines 343
Electrical Current 391

14. Lighting Design 345

16. Lighting Production 394
Controllable Qualities of Light 345
Light and Perception 345 Lenses and Lens Systems 394
Distribution 347 Optical Theory 394
Intensity 347 Types of Lenses 395
Movement 347 Lamps 396
Color 347 Incandescent Lamp 396
Functions of Stage Light 347 Arc Sources 397
 Contents xv

Light-Emitting Diodes (LED) 397 Keystoning 445

Light-Emitting Plasma (LEP) 398
Projection Mapping 445
Color Temperature 399
Focus Grid 446
Incandescent Lamp Structure 400
3-D Modeling 446
MR16 Lamps 401
Light Output of Lamps 401 Playback 446
Color Media 401 Slide-Based Digital Systems 446
Cue-Based Systems 447
Lighting Instruments 403 Timeline Systems 447
Ellipsoidal Reflector Spotlight 403
Media Servers 447
Accessories 405
Display Technologies 449
Fresnel Spotlight 407
The Future 449
Striplight 409
Cyc Light 410
Floodlights 410
PAR Can 411 18. Costume Design 450
Followspot 412
Intelligent Fixtures 413 The Nature of Costume Design 450
Costume Design for the Theatre 453
Dimmers 418
The Psychological Meaning of Clothes 454
Electronic Dimmer Control 418
Objective Information Provided
Silicon-Controlled Rectifier Dimmer 420
by Clothes 454
Sine Wave Dimmer 422
Control Consoles 422 General Considerations for
Wireless Dimmer Control 425 Costume Design 457
Computer Memory 425 Analyzing the Script 457
Computer Board Control Capabilities 426 Other Conceptual Considerations 458
Practical Considerations 460
Cables and Connectors 428
Electrical Cable for Stage Use 428 Organizational Paperwork 461
Wire Gauge 428 Costume Chart 462
Connecting Devices 429 Costume List 463
Extension Cables 430 Character-Actor Dressing List 464
Costume Calendar 465
Circuiting 430
Permanent Wiring 431 Visual Presentation of the
Spidering 431 Costume Design 466
Connecting Strips and Patch Panels 431 Preliminary Sketches 467
Dimmer per Circuit 434 Costume Layout 467
Costume Sketch 469

17. Projections and Media 435

19. Costume Construction 473
Film-Based Media 435
Organization of Costume Shops 473
Digital Projectors 435
Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) 436 The Costume Shop 474
Digital Light Processor (DLP) 436 Basic Equipment 474
Sewing Equipment 477
Digital Projector Characteristics 438
Contrast Ratios 439 Fabrics 479
Resolution and Format 439 Fabric Fibers 479
Images Sizes and Lenses 440 Weaves 481
Additional Functions and Concerns 441 Fabrics and Nonfabric Materials Used
Projection Surfaces 442 in Costume Construction 482
Front-Screen Materials 442 Fabrics 482
Rear-Screen Materials 443 Nonfabric Materials 484
Reflective Characteristics of Garment Construction 486
Screen Materials 444 Patterns 486
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xvi Contents

Special-Effects Treatment of Fabrics 489 Basic Acoustics 529

Fabric Dyeing 489 Timbre 529
Fabric Painting 492 Phase 529
Costume Aging 492 Sound Production 530
Costume Crafts 493 Sound Systems 531
Wigs 494 Sound System Configuration 531
Millinery 496 Sound System Components 532
Footwear 499
Recording and Playback Equipment 539
Jewelry 499
Live Recording 540
Armor 500
Prerecorded Sources 541
Masks 501
Mixdown 541
Sound Score Playback 541
Playback Software 542
20. Makeup 502
Playback Mixer 542
Designing the Makeup 502 Reinforcement Systems 543
Makeup Drawings 505 Loudspeaker Placement 544
Types of Makeup 507 Rehearsal and Performance Procedures 546
Cake Makeup 507 Installation, Verification, and Calibration 549
Creme Makeup 507
Liquid Makeup 508
Dry Makeup 508
Greasepaint 508 22. Drawing and Rendering 552
Rubber-Mask Greasepaint 509
Makeup Removers 509 Materials 552
Pencils 552
Application Techniques 509 Inks 553
Highlights and Shadows 510
Paint 553
Highlight and Shadow Colors 512
Pastels 554
Stippling 512
Markers 554
Corrective Makeup 512
Paper 556
Three-Dimensional Makeup 512 Computer Drawing 556
Nose Putty 513
Drawing and Rendering Techniques 559
Derma Wax 514
Sketching 559
Gelatin 514
Figure Drawing 561
Latex 515
Graphite Transfers 564
Prosthetics 515
Scanning 565
Beards and Mustaches 519
Watercolor 565
Pastels 565
Pencils and Markers 566
21. Sound Design Combined Media 566
and Technology 523 Appendix A: USITT RP-2, Recommended
Practice for Theatrical Lighting Design
The Sound Team 523 Graphics—(2006) 568
Sound Designer 524
Appendix B: Building and Covering
Production Sound Engineer 524
Wooden–Framed Soft Flats 578
Head Sound Engineer 524
Glossary 581
Sound in the Theatre 524
Sound Reinforcment 526 Selected References 602
The Nature of Sound 526 Credits 604
Frequency 527 Index 607
Intensity 527
Chapter 1

Production
Organization
and Management

“Great art conceals art.” That statement has been attributed to Konstantin
Stanislavski, founder of the Moscow Art Theatre and developer of Method act-
ing. He was referring to the phenomenon that occurs when actors create bril-
liantly believable roles. Great actors don’t seem to be working. They make us
believe that they are the characters they are playing and that everything they say
or do is happening spontaneously, without thought or effort. Stanislavski meant
by his aphorism that a seemingly effortless job of acting is the end result of years
of training, dedication, and just plain hard work.
Great art does conceal art, but not just the art of the actor. Imagine a male
actor, wrapped in a heavy fur cape, standing in the middle of the stage and
delivering a soliloquy. The stage resembles a craggy mountain peak, with an
angular platform surrounded by an immense expanse of solemn purple and
blue sky. The actor strides to a rocky outcropping. Under his weight the
platform slowly starts to tip. The actor scrambles backward to save himself
and catches the hem of his cape on another “rock.” The cape comes off, and
the followspot reveals the actor standing in his BVDs with his cape around
his ankles. The spotlight operator, horrified, tries to turn off her light. But she
doesn’t hit the right lever and, instead of turning it off, changes its color from
deep blue to brilliant white.
This unlikely scenario illustrates the fact that less-than-great art conceals
little. It also demonstrates that Stanislavski’s injunction can be just as true
for the design and technical elements of the production as it is for the actors.
Together, they can create the delicate illusionary reality that we call theatre. The
illusion that the spectators see is just that. A great performance doesn’t simply
happen; it is the product of a great deal of organization, teamwork, talent, and
dedication.
Theatre folk have always delighted in surrounding the process of putting on
plays with an aura of mystery. This tradition stems from the probably accurate
belief that a play’s entertainment value increases if the audience thinks that the
production just happens spontaneously. The Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland
movies of the 1930s are perfect examples. Mickey, Judy, or one of their friends
says, “Let’s put on a show!” Someone chimes in that her uncle owns a barn.
Amazingly, the barn happens to have a highly polished linoleum floor that is followspot: A lighting instrument with a
high-intensity, narrow beam, mounted in a
perfect for tap dancing, and the barn is equipped with a full orchestra, sets, stand that allows it to tilt and swivel so the
lights, and spectacular costumes. The show is an astounding success. beam can “follow” an actor.

1
2 Chapter 1 ◆ Production Organization and Management

production team: Everyone working, The real world of theatrical production isn’t like that. Getting a play from the
in any capacity, on the production of written word to the stage requires a lot of challenging work. The result of all this
the play.
effort, the production team hopes, will be artistic and artful, but the business of
production design team: The producer,
director, and scenic, costume, lighting, making a script come alive on the stage is a process that isn’t all that mysterious.
sound, and other designers who develop
the visual and aural concept for the
production.
production concept: The creative The Production Sequence
interpretation of the script, which will
unify the artistic vision of producer,
director, and designers. How does a play happen? What sequence of events must occur for it to move
production meeting: A conference of from the pages of a script to a live performance before an audience? Every play
appropriate production personnel to share goes through several stages of development.
information.
supernumerary: An actor, normally Script
not called for in the script, used in a
production; an extra; a walk-on. The overwhelming majority of theatrical productions begin with a script. This is
not true, however, for every theatrical performance. The production of some plays
begins with just an idea. That idea may be developed by the performing group
in a variety of interesting and creative ways. Some of these concepts may evolve
into written scripts, and others may remain as conceptual cores that the actors
use as guides when they improvise dialogue during the actual performance.

Concept, Design, and Construction

We will assume that our hypothetical production begins with a traditional script.
After the script has been selected, the producer options it, or secures the legal
rights to produce it, and hires the director, designers, and actors. The members of
the production design team read the script and then develop the production concept,
also referred to as the “production approach.”
The production concept is the central creative idea that unifies the artistic
vision of the producer, director, and designers. In many ways, any production
concept originates with the personal artistic “points of view” of the members of
the production design team. The personality, training, and prior experiences of
each team member will shape and color his or her thoughts about the play. One
of the primary jobs of the director is to mold these individual artistic ideas and
expressions into a unified vision — the production concept — so that, ideally,
each designer’s work supports the work of the other designers as well as the cen-
tral artistic theme of the production. Normally, the production concept evolves
during the first few production meetings from the combined input of the mem-
bers of the production design team. The principles of the production concept are
best explained by example.
Let’s assume that our hypothetical production team is working on a pro-
duction of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice. Most productions of this play
would probably be traditional: Elizabethan costumes and a set that mimics the
appearance of the Globe Theatre, the theatre most scholars think was used by
Shakespeare. However, some production groups might choose, for a variety of
reasons, to develop a nontraditional production concept. In a production of this
play directed by Cosmo Catellano at the University of Iowa, the performance was
set inside a World War II Nazi concentration camp. In this production, all of the
actors in the play were portrayed as Jewish interns of the camp. Supernumeraries,
dressed as Nazi officers and their female companions, sat in the auditorium and
watched the play alongside the paying audience. Additional extras, in the uni-
forms of concentration camp guards and carrying weapons, patrolled the stage
throughout the performance. While the script wasn’t altered, the radical produc-
tion concept forced the audience to concentrate on the Jewish persecution themes
that are very much a part of the script.
 The Production Sequence 3

FIGURE 1.1
A great deal of backstage activity occurs
before the production reaches the
stage. Photo 1, 2 by Evon Photography,
courtesy of the University of Arizona
School of Theatre, Film, and Television.
Photos 3–7 by author.

(2)

(1)

(4)

(3)

(5)

(6) (7)
4 Chapter 1 ◆ Production Organization and Management

FIGURE 1.2
The director discusses a scene with
the actors.

FIGURE 1.3
Scene shifting must be carefully After the production concept is agreed on, the sets, props, lights, costumes,
organized and choreographed. and sound are designed. Then the various diagrams, sketches, and other plans
are sent to shops for construction, fabrication, or acquisition of the production
elements (see Figure 1.1).
While the various visual elements are being built, the director and actors
are busy rehearsing (see Figure 1.2). After the rehearsal and construction period,
which usually lasts three to seven weeks, the play moves into the theatre, and
the technical and dress rehearsals begin.

Rehearsals
Technical rehearsals are devoted to integrating the sets, props, lighting, and sound
with the actors into the action of the play. During this hectic period, the patterns
and timing for shifting the scenery and props are established. The movements of
technical rehearsals: Run-throughs in any scenic or property elements (see Figure 1.3), regardless of whether those
which the sets, lights, props, and sound are
introduced into the action of the play. movements happen in front of the audience or behind a curtain, have to be cho-
blocking: Movement patterns, usually of reographed, or blocked, just as are the movements of the actors. This ensures that
actors, on the stage. each shift will be consistent in timing and efficiency for every performance.
 The Production Sequence 5

FIGURE 1.4
Sound is normally run from an in-house
position. Purdue Theatre sound mix
position (courtesy of Michael Banks).

The shifts may be numerous or complex enough to warrant holding a separate

shift rehearsal, in which the director, scene designer, technical director, and stage
manager work with the scenery and prop crews to perfect the choreography and
timing of all scenic and prop shifts.
The basic timing and intensity of the light cues will have been established
during the lighting rehearsal (which precedes the first technical rehearsal). But
during the tech rehearsals almost all of the light cues have to be adjusted in some
way, because it is the rule rather than the exception that new lighting cues are
added and old ones deleted or modified during this time. The lighting designer
meets with the director and stage manager in the theatre to discuss the modifica-
tions and have a look at them. The intensity, timing, and nature of the sound cues
are subjected to similar changes during the technical rehearsals (see Figure 1.4).
Depending on the production schedule and the complexity of the show, there are
generally one to three tech rehearsals over the course of a week or so.
Prior to any technical rehearsals, preliminary sound levels will have been
roughly set for all prerecorded cues. After load-in, those cues will be tweaked
for the acoustics of the auditorium. Ideally, separate rehearsals will be held to
ensure that all wireless mics are working properly and that the positioning of the
orchestra mics results in a well-balanced mix of their performance.
When producing a musical, there should be a full technical sound rehearsal,
often called the sitzprobe, where the actors and orchestra sit (the sitz of sitz-
probe), and sing/play through the score. This rehearsal is used to get prelimi-
nary balance levels between the orchestra and the performers’ wireless mics in
the performance space.
Unionized productions normally hold a “10-out-of-12” rehearsal: ten hours
of rehearsal in a twelve-hour period. This is the first opportunity to bring all
of the various design/technical elements together into a seamless whole and to
practice all shifts and transitions so they will flow smoothly during the ensuing
technical and dress rehearsals.
The dress rehearsals begin toward the end of “tech week.” During these
shift rehearsal: A run-through without
rehearsals, which are a natural extension of the tech rehearsals, any adjustments actors to practice changing the scenery
to costumes and makeup are noted and corrected by the next rehearsal time (see and props.
Figure 1.5). Adjustments to the various sound, lighting, and shifting cues con- cue: A directive for action, for example, a
tinue to be made during the dress rehearsals. Depending on the complexity of change in the lighting.
the production and the number of costumes and costume changes, there may be lighting rehearsal: A run-through without
one to three dress rehearsals. the actors to look at the intensity, timing,
and placement of the various lighting
After the last dress rehearsal, there are sometimes one to ten or more pre- cues.
view performances (with an invited audience and/or reduced ticket prices and dress rehearsal: A run-through in which
no critics) before the production officially opens to the public and critics. the actors wear costumes and makeup.
6 Chapter 1 ◆ Production Organization and Management

FIGURE 1.5
Costumes must be adjusted to fit
properly. Photo by Evon Photography.
Courtesy of University of Arizona School
of Theatre, Film, and Television.

Theatre Organization
More than anything else good theatre requires good organization. Every success-
ful production has a strong “artistic responsibility” organizational structure that
follows a fairly standard pattern. Figure 1.6 depicts the organization of a hypo-
thetical, but typical, theatrical production company. Each company’s structure is
unique to its own needs, and it is doubtful that any two companies would be set
up exactly the same. One particular feature of Figure 1.6 should be noted. In this
flowchart the director and the designers are symbolized as equals. This equality
is essential to the collaborative process that is theatre art and will be discussed at
greater length throughout this book. The functions of the various members of the
company will be taken up in the next section. It should be reiterated that this is
an artistic responsibility or “make happy” flowchart. This simply means that the
work produced by someone “reporting” to a position higher on the flowchart must
artistically satisfy the visual requirements stipulated by that higher position. To
illustrate, the visual appearance of the properties must satisfy the scenic designer.
It is also important to note what this chart is not: this is not a work responsibility
flowchart. A “work responsibility” flowchart would look significantly different.
In the real world property masters normally do not “work for” scenic designers.
Most property masters work for — are accountable to — the production manager
for the on-time, on-budget, as-designed production of properties.
The production meeting is probably the single most important device for
ensuring smooth communication among the various production departments. The
initial production conferences are attended by members of the production design
team. Their purpose is to develop the production concept. After the designers
begin to produce their drawings, sketches, and plans, the production meeting is
used as a forum to keep other members of the team informed about the progress in
all design areas. At this time, the stage manager normally joins in the discussions.
When the designs are approved and construction begins, the production
meeting expands to include the technical director and appropriate crew heads.
As construction starts, the director becomes heavily involved in rehearsals. At
this time, a few adjustments are almost inevitably necessary in one or more of
the design elements. These changes should be discussed and resolved at the
 Producer or
board of directors

Artistic Managing
director director

Scenic Costume Lighting Sound Production Production Fund Box

designer designer designer designer Playwright Director manager budget office
develop-
ment

Stage
Property Scenic Technical Costume Master Sound Actors
manager
master artist director shop supervisor electrician crew

Prop Paint Scene shop Cutter/ Stage Wardrobe

Electricians
crew crew foreman draper crew run crew

Scenery Costume
construction crew crew

FIGURE 1.6
The organizational structure chart of a typical theatrical production company.

Theatre Organization
7
8 Chapter 1 ◆ Production Organization and Management

production meeting so that all departments are aware of the progress and evolu-
tion of the production concept.
While the production concept is being developed, the production meetings
are usually held as often as it is practicable and necessary — daily or less fre-
quently. As the meetings become less developmental and more informational,
their frequency decreases to about once a week. The last meeting is usually held
just before the opening of the production.
Who participates in production meetings depends, to a great extent, on the
nature of the producing organization. A single-run, Broadway-type professional
conference usually includes only the members of the production design team
and their assistants. A production conference at a regional professional theatre
includes the production design team and some of the other members of the per-
manent production staff, such as the production manager and technical director.
For a professionally oriented educational theatre, the staffing of the production
meeting is generally the same as for the regional professional production group
and ideally will include those faculty supervisors overseeing the work of student
designers, technical directors, and crew heads.
The development of advanced communication technologies and the real-
ity that most professional designers are working on more than one project at
a time often necessitate that much of the direct communication between mem-
bers of the production design team take place over great geographical distances.
Designs can be sent by overnight express, forwarded as e-mail attachments, or
faxed. Phone or video conferences can be used in place of face-to-face meetings.
While these developments speed the transfer of data and information, the iso-
lation of the design team members from each other may break down the nec-
essary communication flow within the group. But if everyone is aware of this
potential “communication gap,” it doesn’t have to become a problem. More and
more designers are communicating electronically, and we can expect even more
“remote conferencing” in the future.

Production Job Descriptions

Although the organization of any company will fit its own needs, the duties of
those holding the various positions will be much the same.

Producer
The producer is the ultimate authority in the organizational structure of a theatri-
cal production. He or she is, arguably, the most influential member of the team.
The producer secures the rights to perform the play; hires the director, designers,
actors, and crews; leases the theatre; and secures financial backing for the play.
The specific functions of the producer can vary considerably. In the New York
professional theatre, most productions are set up as individual entities. As a con-
sequence, the producer and his or her staff are able to concentrate their efforts on
each production. They will sometimes be working on the preliminary phases of
a second or third production while another show is in production or in the final
stages of rehearsal, but in general they concentrate on one show at a time.
Regional professional theatres such as the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis,
the American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) in San Francisco, the Arizona Theatre
Company in Tucson and Phoenix, the Asolo Theatre in Sarasota, Florida, and oth-
ers have been set up in every section of North America over the past forty years.
Generally, these theatres produce a full seven- or eight-month season of limited-
run productions. Some of them have active summer programs. Because of the
 Production Job Descriptions 9

sweeping responsibilities imposed on the producer within these organizations, the

functions of the position are generally divided between two persons, the managing
director and the artistic director. The business functions of the producer — contracts,
fund-raising, ticket sales, box-office management — are handled by the managing
director, and any artistic decisions — selection of directors, actors, and designers,
for example — are made by the artistic director. The managing and artistic direc-
tors are hired by the theatre’s board of directors, which is responsible for deter-
mining the long-range artistic and fiscal goals of the theatre.
In educational theatre, the department chair and administrative staff fre-
quently function in the same capacity as the managing director. The duties of the
artistic director are often assigned to a production committee, which selects the
plays and is responsible for their artistic quality.
In other nonprofit theatres, such as community or church groups, the func-
tions of the producer are usually carried out by a production committee or board
of directors, which functions as previously described.

Playwright
The playwright is obviously a vital and essential link in the production chain.
The playwright creates and develops the ideas that ultimately evolve into the
written script. In the initial public performance of the play, he or she may be
involved in the production process. The playwright frequently helps the director
by explaining his or her interpretation of various plot and character develop-
ments. During this developmental process, the playwright often needs to rewrite
portions of some scenes or even whole scenes or acts. If the playwright is not
available for conferences or meetings, the production design team proceeds with
the development and interpretation of the script on its own.

Director
The director is the artistic manager and inspirational leader of the production
team. He or she coordinates the work of the actors, designers, and crews so that
the production accurately expresses the production concept. Any complex activ-
ity such as the production of a play must have someone with the vision, energy,
and ability to focus everyone else’s efforts on the common goal. The director is
this leader. He or she works closely with the other members of the production
design team to develop the production concept and also works with the actors to
develop their roles in a way that is consistent with the production concept. The
director is ultimately responsible for the unified creative interpretation of the
play as it is expressed in production.

Production Manager
Theatres with heavy annual production programs, such as regional profes-
sional theatres and many educational theatre programs, frequently mount sev-
eral productions or production series simultaneously, often in multiple theatres
or venues. In many of these situations the directors and designers are hired or
assigned for only one production per year. At the same time the “construction
people” — those who actually build the scenery, props, costumes, lights, and
sound — are normally hired on an annual basis to work/supervise all of the
shows that are produced by that organization. Typically, the technical director
runs the scene shop and supervises the production of the scenery for every play
in the company’s season. Similarly, the property director runs the prop shop and
supervises the creation/acquisition of the props used in each production. The
same applies for the costume shop supervisor, master electrician, and so forth.
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intellectual life of Port Royal seemed to her fancy still to linger in the
air, and make classic all the rustic paths of this quiet valley.
When she walked over the daisied grass that grew about the ruined
dovecot, Pascal seemed to pace beside her, and as she leaned over
the little brook which finds its way amongst the cresses and the
mouse-ear, she fancied she saw the face of her great master Racine
reflected in its shallow waters.
Her hostess, though a woman of no great culture, yet was learned
enough in the literature of earlier days, and in the associations of
her birthplace, to know every legend and name that are attached to
the stones and the meadows of Les Hameaux. She was no
uncongenial companion to an imaginative girl, for though taciturn,
she could have a certain rude eloquence when strongly moved, and
to her reverent and unworldly mind 'les Messieurs de Port-Royal'
were ever present memories, both saintly and heroic.
 CHAPTER XXVII.
He had apportioned the sum needed at a lower figure than his own
wishes would have dictated, that it might seem to her more natural
as the legacy of Jean Bérarde; it was enough to keep her in such
simple ways of life as she had been used to, no more. He told her of
it, as of a legacy, the first day that he saw her at Les Hameaux: told
it in few words, for all equivocation was painful to him. She never for
a moment doubted the truth of the story, and he was touched to see
that her first emotion was not relief at the material safety insured to
her, but joy that the old man dying had forgiven her.
'If I had only known,' she said through her tears, 'I would have gone
back to him! I would have gone back just to have heard him say one
kind word for the last!'
The thought that her grandsire had pardoned and remembered her
was a philtre of health and strength to her. It brought back all the
warmth to her cheeks, all the depth of colour to her eyes; she wept
passionately, but from a sweet not harsh sorrow, from gratitude to
his memory, from thankfulness that his last thought of her had been
one of kindness.
Othmar watched and heard her with an embarrassment which she
was too absorbed in her own emotions to notice.
'All the money I shall give her would not suffice to buy one of
Nadine's rows of pearls,' he thought. 'Yet what rapture it affords her!
A lie! of course it is a lie; and all my Jesuit tutors could never make
me credit that a lie could be a good thing, however good its motive.
But this lie is innocent if ever there were one innocent, and even if it
were a crime the crime would be worth the doing, to set this poor
lost sea-bird safe from storm upon a ledge of rock. She would be
beaten to death by the waves without some shelter.'
Yet his conscience was not wholly easy as he responded to her warm
words of gratitude to himself for having discovered this bequest for
her, and answered her many questions as to the island that she
loved, the children of Raphael, the dogs, the trees, the boat; all
things on Bonaventure were living things to her. However long her
life might last, always the clearest and the dearest of her memories
would be those sunny childish years in the little isle of fruit and
flowers, where for sixteen years the sun had shone and the sea wind
blown on her, and the fish and the birds and the beasts been her
schoolfellows.
She had something of meridional heedlessness, and much of
meridional imagination, which made the fiction of her grandsire's
legacy more easily believed by her than it would have been by more
prosaic and cautious tempers. To her it seemed so natural that he
should have relented towards her and provided for her. All her
memories were of wants provided for by him; he had been her
providence, if a harsh one, for so long that it seemed a natural part
of his character and of her destiny that he should continue to be her
providence even in his grave.
'If I could only be sure that he is happy in heaven,' she said to
Othmar, with a certain appeal and doubt in her accent. Even to her,
though she had respected him, it was difficult to think of Jean
Bérarde of Bonaventure in any celestial life. 'Do you not think,' she
added wistfully, 'that God would remember that he was a very good
man in many ways, and always honest and upright in all his dealings
with rich and poor? He loved money, but he was not mean—not to
me, never to me—and if laborare est orare, as the Sisters used to
say, surely he must be in peace?'
Othmar heard the tormenting fear which was expressed in her tone,
and refrained from adding one grain of doubt to it.
'Be sure he is at peace, my dear,' he answered; while he thought,
'more peace than such a brute deserves—the peace of utter
extinction; the peace of dissolution and absorption into the earth
which holds him, into the grass which covers him; peace which he
shares with kings and poets and heroes!'
'He believed nothing, you know,' said Damaris wistfully, 'nothing of
any creed, I mean. But then, if he could not, was it any more his
fault than it is a deaf man's fault that he cannot hear? I think not.
Do you remember that poem of Victor Hugo's? I forget its name, but
the one in which a great wicked king of the east, all black with
crime, is saved from hell because he has a moment of pity for a pig
that is sick and tormented with flies and lies helpless in the sun? The
king drew the pig aside out of the sun and drove the flies away. It is
beautifully told in the poem; I tell it ill. But what I mean is, that I
think if they are angered in heaven with my grandfather because he
led a hard, selfish, crooked, cramped life, they will yet let him into
paradise because he was so good to me.'
Othmar assented, with a sense of infinite compassion for her. All her
dream was as baseless as the golden city which an evening sun
builds out of clouds for a moment in the western sky. But he let it
be. Life would soon enough wake her from such dreams with the
rough hand of a stepmother, who grudges motherless children sleep.
'Let us speak of present things,' he said, to distract her thoughts.
'This is very little money, though you think so much of it, which is
left to stand between you and all kinds of want. Will you let me
place it out for you where it will bring you most? You may have
heard, my dear, that I am one of those hapless persons who are
doomed by circumstance to have much to do with gold. I hate it, but
that is no matter. It is my fate. Will you trust me to try and multiply
your little fortune? I will be very careful of it, but something more it
shall make for you in my hands than if it were lying in a kitchen
chimney or under an orchard wall, which you are too true to your
nation not to think the safest kind of investment. I may? Then be it
so. No, do not thank me, there is no need for that. But you are very
young and you are not very prudent, I should say, and in these
matters you will need advice. Remember always to command mine.'
She looked at him with grateful but questioning eyes.
'Why should you do so much for me?' she said with wonder.
'I do very little,' returned Othmar. 'And were it far more, you have a
direct claim on me—on us. If my wife had not tempted you away
that memorable day, you would have been dwelling contented on
your island still, and probably for ever.'
'No: not there,' she said slowly, as if she reasoned with herself. 'I do
not think I should ever have stayed there very long. I loved it, but I
wanted something else. When I used to sit, as so often I sat, all
alone on the balcony that hangs over the sea, when it was late at
night, and everyone else was asleep, and the nightingales were
shouting in the orange-boughs underneath, I used to think that
some other world there must be where some one cared for Ondine
and Athalie, where some one had cried as I cried for Triboulet and
Hernani; where they did not all talk all day long of the price of oil,
and the cost of cargoes, and the disease in the lemons, and the
worm in the olive wood. I knew that all these great and beautiful
things could not have been written unless men and women were,
somewhere, great and beautiful also; and very often—oh, often!
long before your Lady spoke to me—I had thought that whenever
my grandfather should die I would go and find that world for myself.
And now——'
He waited some moments, but her sentence remained incomplete.
'And now?' he repeated at last. 'Now do you think still that there is
such a world, or do you not see that no one does care for Ondine or
Athalie? that the price of oil and the worm in the olive (or their
equivalents) are the sole carking cares of the great world, just as
much as of your peasant-proprietors? Did you not dream of Hernani,
and did you not only meet the sergent de ville?'
'I met you!' she said gently, with a tinge of reproach in her voice.
'My dear child!' said Othmar, touched and a little embarrassed. 'I am
far from heroic. Ask the person who knows me best, and she will tell
you so. I only rake the world's gold to and fro as if I were a croupier,
and I assure you the olives and the lemons are much worthier
subjects of thought.'
She made a little involuntary gesture of her hand, as if she pushed
away some unworthy suggestion which it was not needful to refute
in words. Her face had grown serious and resolute; she had the look
of a young Pallas Athene. Innumerable thoughts were crowding on
her which she could ill express.
Ever since a possible fate had been suggested to her in which fame
might attend on her, ever since a vague immeasurable ideal had
been suggested to her in the music of Paul of Lemberg, it had
become impossible for her ever to remain content with the homely
aims and the prosaic thoughts of the people amongst whom she had
been born. Heredity and accident had alike combined to divorce her
from her natural fate. Of those thus severed from their original
source, thus rebellious against their native air, two or three in a
generation become great, famous, victorious; the larger number fall
back from the summits which they aspire to reach, and fill the
restless, dissatisfied, tarnished ranks which are comprised in the all-
expressive word déclassés. But the word seemed unfitted to her;
there were that simplicity, that originality, that force in the child
which mark the higher natures of humanity, whether they be found
in peasants or in princes; there were in her also that natural high
breeding and absolute self-unconsciousness which render all
vulgarity and assumption impossible; those marks of race which are
wholly independent of all circumstance. Jeanne d'Arc greeted her
king as her brother, and Christine Nilsson meets sovereigns as her
sisters.
He had seen this child also bear herself with inborn grace and
natural dignity in the first dazzling scene and unkind embarrassment
of circumstance which she had ever known. It seemed to him that
she would go thus through life.
'I think I could make the world care,' she said, with a curious
mingling of dreaminess and decision, of ardour and of doubt in her
tone. 'Even your wife said I might do so—it is something outside
myself, beyond myself. I do not mean any vanity or folly. It is
something one has, as the nightingale has its song, and the lemon
flower its odour. If they would hear me—as your Lady heard? How
could I make them hear me?'
Othmar was silent.
Then he added almost cruelly, but cruelty seemed to him kindness:
'My wife forgot that she had heard you five minutes afterwards: so
perhaps would the world. And if so, what then?'
'At least I should have tried.'
The divine obstinacy of genius spoke in the words. Better failure and
oblivion than oblivion without effort.
'If only I could try?' she repeated with imploring prayer: to her he
seemed the master of the world, as utterly as Agrippa or Augustus
seemed so to the Roman girls who saw them pass from palace to
temple, 'I know it would be only interpretation; but I feel their words
say so much to me that I surely could interpret them, aloud, so that
I could move some to feel them as I do.'
He knew she meant the words of those poets which had taken so
strong and firm a hold upon her imagination, read as she had read
them in the glory of the southern light, between the sea and sky.
'Perhaps you could,' he answered reluctantly. 'But if you did, what
would be your fate? You would die like Aimée Desclée. My wife
likened you to her.'
'Who was she?'
He told her, with the pathetic force of a profound sympathy; for poor
Frou-frou had been well known to him in her brief career, and all the
feverish yearning, the tumult of unsatisfied desires, the conflict of
genius and malady in that tender and hapless soul had been sacred
to him. He passed in silence over the passions of that life, but he
dwelt long and earnestly on its storm-tossed youth, and its
premature and tragic close.
Damaris listened; her whole countenance reflecting the narrative she
heard.
'I think she was happy,' she said at length. 'You do not, but I do. She
broke her heart singing, like the nightingales in the poem. I read
once of a sword which wore out its scabbard. Who would not sooner
be that than the sword which rusts unused?'
Othmar did not reply. To him the life and the death of Aimée Desclée
were the saddest of his generation; but he could not tell this child
why he thought them so, and even if he could have done it would
have been of no avail. He knew that he argued with that thing which
no example appals, no warning affects, no prescience intimidates;
the thing at once so strong and so feeble, at once blind as the bat
and far-sighted as the eagle—the instinct of genius.
When he quitted her that day he left her with disquietude and
uncertainty. It seemed to him as if he held her fate, like a bird, in his
hand, and could either close the cage-door on it in safety, or toss it
upward free to roam through fields of air or to sink under showers of
stones as chance might choose.
He believed that she did not deceive herself when she thought that
she could move others by the electric forces within herself. He
recognised a certain volition in her which resembled that of genius.
Her imagination, which could console her for so much, her quick
assimilation of high thoughts and poetic fancies, her power of feeling
impersonal interest, her very ignorance of real life, and imprudence
in its circumstances, were all those of genius. Reared in prosaic
habits, she had forced her own way to a subjective and idealistic
mental life, even amidst the most opposing influences. She had
heard the nightingale in the orange-boughs, though all those around
her had been only busied counting the oranges to pack the crates.
She had watched the shoal of fishes spread its silver over the waves
beneath the moon, though all those around her at such a sight had
only thought of the deep sea seine, the casks for market, and the
curing brine. Surely this power of withdrawing from all familiar
association, and escaping from all compelling forces of habit, could
only exist where genius begat it?
But then he knew that even with the wedding-garment of genius on,
yet to the wedding-feast of fame many are called but few are
chosen. And it might be only a breath, a flash, a touch of inspiration,
un brin de génie, as his wife had said, enough to have impelled her
to push open the doors of her narrow destiny, and look thence with
longing eyes, but not enough to force her with untired feet and
unconquerable courage across that desert of effort which parts effort
from triumph, poetic faculty from mere dreamy indolence. He who
had always from his boyhood honoured and assisted talent,
wherever he had found it, with a patience and a liberality very rare
in this world, had suffered much disappointment from many ordinary
and pretentious lives which he had been led to believe had had the
hall-mark of intellectual superiority. He had too often found what
deemed itself genius was mere facility; originality, mere eccentricity;
ambition mere instinct of imitation; the 'coal from the altar' only the
momentary blaze of a match. Many and many a time he might have
said of the immature Muses who sought him, in the words of Victor
Hugo, 'Que de jeunes filles j'ai vues mourir!'
Damaris Bérarde appeared to him, as to his wife, a beautiful child
with an uncommon nature, and with possibly uncommon gifts; but
between the mere promise of the dawn of youth and the full heat of
the meridian of genius what a difference there was!
 CHAPTER XXVIII.
In lieu of driving homeward to Paris that day, he turned his horses'
heads in the direction of Asnières, where a once famous artist, David
Rosselin, lived.
'I will ask Rosselin,' he thought. 'Rosselin can judge as I have no
power to do; and if he decide that she has genius she had better
make a career so for herself. I have no business to stand between
her and any future she may be able to create.'
He disliked the idea of his wife's careless predictions being fulfilled.
It seemed to him barbarous to let this white-souled sea-bird soar to
the electric-flame life in Paris, fancying its light the sun. But who
could tell?
It was a doubt which troubled and oppressed him as he drove back
to Paris through the pastoral country, consecrated by the memory of
Port-Royal. He felt that he had no right to make himself the arbiter
of her destinies; he would be no more to her in her future than the
dead thinkers whose brains had once been quick with philosophic
and poetic creation amidst these quiet green meadows.
So he opened the little green trellis-work gate which was set in the
acacia hedge of the cottage at Asnières, and found the once great
impersonator of Alceste, of Tartuffe, of Sganarelle sitting beside his
beehives and behind his rose-beds, with a white sun umbrella
shading his comely and silvered head, and in his hand a miniature
Aldine Plautus. His old servant was close by carefully dusting the
cobwebs off the branches of an espaliered nectarine.
It was a small suburban villa which sheltered the last years of the
great actor; a square white house set in a garden, over whose trim
hedges of clipped acacia Rosselin could see the groups of students
and work-girls going down to the landing-stairs of the Seine, and
farther yet could see the grey-green shine of the river itself with its
pleasure craft going to and fro in the midsummer sunshine.
David Rosselin in his prime had made many millions of francs, but
they had gone as fast as they were gained, and in his old age he
was poor: he had only this little square white box, so gay in summer
with its roses and wistaria, and within it some few remnants of those
magnificent gifts which nations and sovereigns and women and
artists had all alike showered upon him in those far-off years of his
greatness; and some souvenir from Othmar of an Aldine classic, or a
volume bound by Clovis, which had lain on his table some New Year
morning.
Othmar, who was quickly wearied by men in general, appreciated the
intelligence and the character of this true philosophe sans le savoir,
and would have made Rosselin free of all his libraries and welcome
at all his houses if the old man would have left for them his white-
walled and rose-covered cottage at Asnières.
'No one who is old,' said Rosselin, 'should ever go out, though he
may receive, because he knows that those whom he receives care to
see him, or they would not come to him; but how can he be ever
sure that those who invite him do not do so out of charity, out of
pity, out of complacency?'
And save those of the theatres, of the Conservatoire, and of the
public librairie, he crossed no threshold save his own.
'If I had only been a grocer,' he used to say with his mellow laugh, 'a
good plump grocer, as my poor father wished, who knows? I might
have even been mayor of my native town by this, and had a son a
vice-préfet!'
He was a man now nigh on eighty years, erect, vivacious, combating
age with all the eternal youthfulness of genius, his black eyes had
still a flash of those fires which had once scorched up the souls of
women, and his handsome mouth had still the smile of fine irony
which had adorned and accentuated his Alceste and his Mascarille.
He dwelt alone with a servant nearly as old as himself; he had a
great natural contempt for all domestic ties.
'Had I become a grocer I would have married,' he was wont to say.
'If you are in trade, respectability is as necessary to you as
dishonesty; but to the artist the nightcap of marriage is like the
biretta which they draw over a man's head in Spain before they
garotte him. When once you put it on, adieu les rêves!'
And in his celibate old age, if he had no longer dreams, he had
recollections and interests which kept him mentally young. His Paris
was his one mistress, of whom he never tired.
He had left the stage five-and-twenty years and more, in his own
person, but he still took the keenest interest, possessed the highest
influence, in all higher dramatic art and life. The silence of David
Rosselin on a first night condemned a play as an irrevocable failure,
whilst his smile of approval was assurance to an author that he had
successfully empoigné his public. He was the most accurate of
judges, the most penetrating of critics; he would occasionally make
little epigrammatic speeches which remained like little barbed steel
darts, but he was indulgent to youth and encouraging to modesty.
When Rosselin said that a pupil of the Conservatoire had a future,
the future, when it became the present, never belied his judgment.
For the rest, he was in a small way a bibliophile, delighted in rare
copies and delicate bindings, and was an unerring authority on all
centuries of costume and custom.
'Incessantly acting all your life, when did you find all the time to
acquire so much knowledge?' Paul Jacob had said once to him.
David Rosselin had replied with his genial laugh:
'Ah, mon cher, I have had all the time that I should have spent in
quarrelling with my wife if I had had one!'
This love of books had been a bond of sympathy between him and
Othmar ever since one night in the green-room of the Français,
when they had spoken of fifteenth-century Virgils; and to him the
thoughts of Othmar had turned more than once since the problem of
Damaris and her destiny had come before him. There was no one in
all Europe who could discern the gold from the pinchbeck in human
talent with such precision; no one who could more unerringly
discriminate between the aspirations of genius and its capabilities,
between the mere audacities of youth and the staying powers of
true strength.
An absurd reluctance to speak of her, of which he was ashamed, and
for which he would have assigned no definite reason even to himself,
had made him indisposed to seek his old friend on such a subject;
but it seemed to him, now that her soul was apparently set on the
career which his wife's careless praise had suggested to her, no
other way of life was so possible for her, or so likely to afford her
interest, occupation and independence.
He had seen the life of the stage near enough to loathe it. The
woman whom he had adored with all a boy's belief and passion, and
who had been hired by his father's gold to do him the cruel service
of destroying all belief in him, had been an actress, famous for the
brief day of splendour which beauty without genius can gain in the
cities of the world. He hated to imagine that the time might come
when this child, full now of ideals of heroisms, of innocence and of
faithfulness, might grow to be such a woman as Sara Vernon had
been! Sara Vernon, who had now turned saint and dwelt in the
odour of good works on her estates in Franche-Comté: the estates
which had been his father's purchase-money of her.
But it seemed to him that he had no right to let his personal
prejudices, his personal sentiments or sentimentality, stand between
Damaris and any possibility of future independence, of future
happiness which might open out before her through her natural
gifts. He felt nothing for her except a great compassion and a
passionless admiration, and he had a sense of indefinite self-blame
and of infinite embarrassment for the position towards her into
which circumstances had drifted him. It was not possible to retreat
from it: he had become her only friend, her sole support; but the
sense that to the world, and perhaps even to his wife, his too
impulsive actions would bear a very different aspect, haunted him
with a feeling which was foreboding rather than regret.
'Ah! my friend!' said Rosselin in some surprise, as he passed through
the gate. 'Is it possible you are in Paris while Sirius reigns over the
asphalte? It is charming and gracious of you to remember a decrepit
old gardener. Come and sit by me in the shade here, and Pierre shall
bring you the biggest of the nectarines. If Virgil could have tasted a
nectarine! There may be doubts about every other form of progress,
but there can be no manner of doubt that we have improved fruits
since the Georgics, and wines.'
Othmar answered a little at random, and accepted the nectarine.
The quick regard of Rosselin read easily that there was something in
the air graver than their usual talk of rare editions and coming book-
sales which his visitor desired to say to him, and with a sign
dismissed the old servant to the strip of kitchen garden on the other
side of the house.
Othmar made his narrative as brief, his own share in it as small, and
the facts as prosaic as he could; but he could not divest them of a
tinge of romance which he was ill-pleased to discover to the shrewd
comprehension of the great artist who listened to him.
'Do what I will, tell it all how I may,' he thought angrily, 'how
ridiculous I shall look to him, playing knight-errant like this!'
And as he related the story of Damaris to Rosselin he seemed in
fancy to hear the voice of his wife behind him commenting in her
delicate suggestive tones on his own exaggerated share in it. What
she would say, and what the world would say, seemed to him to be
said for both in the momentary smile which passed over Rosselin's
face.
'Of course he does not believe me,' he thought. 'Nobody will ever
believe me. They will always suppose that I have base reasons
which have never even approached me; they will always accredit me
with the coarsest of motives.'
Rosselin, with his power of divining the thoughts of others, guessed
what was thus passing through his mind.
'Yes, they will certainly never accredit you with a good motive,' he
said, answering the unspoken thoughts of his visitor. 'For that you
must be prepared. But if you think that I shall do so, you mistake.
You are a man, my dear Count Othmar, who is much more likely to
be fascinated by a disinterested action than by a vulgar amour. I
understand you, but I warn you that nobody else will.'
'I suppose not,' said Othmar. 'That must be as it may. How did you
divine so well what I was thinking of?'
'Divination of that kind is easy after experiences as long as mine
are,' answered Rosselin, gathering one of his carnations and
fastening it in his linen coat. 'If we do not acquire that much from
life we live to be old to little purpose. You have done a generous
thing, and probably the world will punish you for it; it always does.
The position your chivalry has led you into is of course certain to be
explained in one way, and one only, by people in general. The world
is not delicate, and it never appreciates delicacy.'
'Of that I am well aware,' returned Othmar. 'It is on account of the
coarseness of all hasty and ordinary judgments that I wish to keep
my own name and personality hidden as much as possible in relation
to this child. If her own talents could secure independence for her, it
would be very much to be desired that they should do so. Will you
do me the favour to judge of them?'
Rosselin hesitated.
'You can command me in all ways,' he added. 'But I think it only fair
to warn you that, even if she have very great talent, as you seem to
believe, neither technique nor culture come by nature. Training,
long, arduous, severe, and to the young most odious, is the treadmill
on which everyone must work for years before being admitted into
the kingdom of art. Has she enough to live on during these years of
probation?'
'Yes,' answered Othmar; he did not feel called upon to confess his
device for supplying this necessity. 'All I would ask of you is your
judgment of her talents. Of course she is only a child; she has seen
and heard nothing; even the poorest stage she has never seen. She
has not had any of those indirect lessons which the very poverty and
misery of their surroundings gave Rachel and Desclée. They were
always in the road of their art, even though they went to it through
mire. She knows nothing, absolutely nothing; I tell you she has not
been even inside the booth of strolling players at a fair. Yet she gave
to my wife and to me the impression of latent genius. Will you see
her and hear her, and then give me your opinion?'
'I would do much more for you, my dear friend,' replied Rosselin
with a vague sense of reluctance. 'But I have seen so many of these
maidens who dream of the stage—little, quiet, good girls, with
mended stockings and holes in their umbrellas, thronging to the
Conservatoire to pipe out "O sire! je vais mourir" or "Infame! croyez-
vous," going away with their mothers like chickens under the hen's
wing when a big dog is in the poultry-yard; falling in love with the
student who gives them the réplique, keeping chocolate in their
pockets to nibble at like little mice between the scenes; little good
girls, some pretty, some ugly, some saucy, some shy, all of them as
poor as church rats, all of them with hair-pins tumbling out of their
braids—j'en ai vu tant! And hardly a spark of genius amongst them!
When they have fine shoulders and big eyes, then their career is
certain—in a way; when they have no figure at all and no
complexion, then they go into the provinces and one hears no more
of them; or, perhaps, they leave their illusions altogether at the
Conservatoire, and take a place behind a counter. It is the prudent
ones who do that: "elles commencent où les autres finissent." Some
clever woman has said so before me. Is it not better to begin so?
Why not get a little snug shop for Mademoiselle Bérarde from the
first?'
Othmar moved impatiently.
'And the two or three who are better than the rest,' he asked; 'those
whose lips the bees of Hymettus have really kissed?'
'My dear friend, you know how it is with these also,' sighed Rosselin:
'immense success, immense insouciance, immense enjoyment for
the first few years; lovers like the leaves on the trees in midsummer;
debts as numerous as the leaves; enormous sums thrown away like
waste paper; beauty, health, power, all spent like a rouleau of gold in
a fool's hand at Monte Carlo; and then the dégringolade, the apathy
of the public, the indifference of the lovers, the persecution of the
creditors whose ardour grows as hotly as that of the others cools,
the infinite mortifications, humiliations, chagrins, disappointments;
then the death from anæmia or from consumption, or the still worse
end, which is a fifty-year-long obscurity: Sophie Arnould sweeping
out her garret with a two-sous broom! Ah bah! Marry Mlle. Bérarde
to one of your cashiers, and buy her a cottage at Neuilly.'
'Do you suppose Desclée or Rachel would have married a clerk, and
lived in a little house in the suburbs?' said Othmar with some
impatience.
'Ah, who can say? Neither would have stayed with the clerk
certainly,' replied Rosselin, lifting up the drooped stalk of one of his
picotees and fastening it to its deserted stick. 'It is all a matter of
chance and circumstance. Temperament goes for much, but accident
counts for more, and opportunity for most. You say yourself, for
instance, that Mlle. Bérarde might have lived and died on her island
but for some careless words of Madame Nadine and an invitation to
St. Pharamond. While we are young life is always inviting us
somewhere, and we accept the invitations, without thinking whether
they will lead us to Bicêtre or to a quiet cottage garden in our old
age. Allons donc! Let us do our best to secure the garden and the
sunshine for your little friend from the South. I need not assure you
that you shall have my perfect honesty of opinion and my absolute
discretion concerning her. Will you come into the house a moment? I
picked up yesterday, at a bookstall, a precious little bouquin; nothing
less than a copy of the "Terentii Comœdiæ" of 1552 by Roger
Payne.'
Othmar went in and admired the bouquin, and stayed a few
moments longer, while the evening grew duskier and the scent of
the carnations and stocks and great cabbage-roses came richer and
sweeter through the open windows into the small rooms, clean and
cosy, and raised from the commonplace by the rare volumes which
were gathered in them, and the fine pieces of porcelain standing
here and there on their wooden shelves.
Then, promising to return on the morrow, he took his leave. Rosselin
walked beside him down the little path to the gate. The sun had set
and the skies were growing quite dark. The ripple of the Seine water
under the sculls of a passing boat was audible in the stillness. From
the distance there came the sounds of a violin, and some voices
singing the postillions and travellers' chorus from the 'Manon
Lescaut' of Massenet.
Rosselin, left alone, leaned over his wooden gate between his acacia
hedges, and listened to the voices dying away in the distance, and
looked through the soft dusk to where his Paris lay.
'I wonder if he has told his wife?' he thought. 'If not—well, if not,
perhaps Madame may not care. She has never cared, why should
she care now?'
The interrogation had been on his lips more than once whilst Othmar
had been with him, but his worldly wisdom had kept it back
unspoken.
'Entre l'arbre et l'écorce ne mettez pas le doigt,' was an axiom of
which he, so often the exponent of Sganarelle, knew the profound
truth.
Aloud he added:
'Of course I will see her, and with the greatest pleasure. When and
where?'
'I will take you to-morrow. I shall remain in Paris two days.'
'Then to-morrow I will await you. Do not think me a cynical and
indifferent old hermit. If I dread to see youth throw itself into the
river of fire which leads to fame, it is only because I have seen so
many burned up in its course. I always advocate obscurity for
women. Penelope is a much happier woman than Circe, though the
latter is a goddess and a sorceress. Your protégée may become
great only to die like Desclée, like Rachel. You would do her a
greater service if you married her to one of your clerks, gave them a
modest little house in the banlieue, and became sponsor to their first
child. Though I have been a graceless artist all my life, I confess I
hesitate at being the person to assist such a friendless creature as
you describe to enter on a dramatic career. I have seen so many
failures! By-the-bye, is she handsome?'
'She has beauty,' said Othmar a little coldly, because the question
slightly confused and irritated him.
'It was a needless interrogation,' said Rosselin to himself. Even the
chivalry of Othmar would have deemed it necessary to do so much
for a plain woman.
When he went to Les Hameaux on the following day he saw her,
heard her, studied her, stayed some two hours near her, now and
then reciting to her himself, half a scene from 'Le Joueur,' a single
speech from the 'Misanthrope,' a few lines of Feuillet, a few stanzas
from the 'Odes et Ballades.'
'Oh, who are you?' she asked in transport, the tears of delight and
admiration rising to her eyes.
'My dear,' answered Rosselin with a smile, which for once was sad, 'I
am that most melancholy of all things—an artist who was once great
and now is old?'
She took his hand with reverence and kissed it.
'Va!' said the man whom the world had adored, with a little laugh
which had emotion it. 'Va! Life is always worth living. The flowers
always smell sweet and the sunshine is always warm. And so you,
too, would be an artist, would you? Well, well! every spring there are
young birds to fill the old nests.'
When he left her he was long silent. When he at last spoke, he said
briefly to Othmar: 'Elle a de l'avenir.'
 CHAPTER XXIX.
The day after Othmar went alone to the green shadows of the vale
of Port-Royal. It was five o'clock in the afternoon when he reached
there: he saw Damaris before she saw him; all her rural habits and
associations had come to her in this leafy and rustic place; she rose
with the sun and went to bed with it; she had recovered her colour
and her strength; she assisted in the out-of-door work and rejoiced
in it. As he drew near he saw her mowing a swath of the autumnal
aftermath of the little field, the two watch dogs of Bonaventure,
which he had bought and restored to her, lying near and watching
her with loving eyes. Her arms, vigorous as a youth's and white as a
swan's neck, were seen bare to the shoulder in the swaying sweep
of the scythe; her hair was bound closely round her head, and its
dark gold glistened in the sun. The veins in her throat stood out in
the effort of the movement; the linen of her bodice heaved and fell.
It was an attitude which Rude or Clésinger would have given ten
years of their lives to reproduce in marble; it was the perfection of
full and youthful female strength and health, teeming with all the
promise of a perfect organisation, all the vitality which makes strong
mothers of strong men.
It was womanhood; not the womanhood of the mondaines, delicate
and fragile as a hothouse flower, pale from late hours or faintly
tinted with the resources of art, serene and harmonious in tone, in
charm, in manner, the most perfect of all the products of artificial
culture; but womanhood as it was when the earth was young, and
when life was simple and straight as a rod of hazel; womanhood
buoyant, healthful, forceful, fearless; with limbs uncramped by
fashion and beauty ignorant of art, living in the wind, in the water, in
the grass, in the sun, like the dappled cattle and the strong-winged
bird.
He watched her awhile, himself unseen. With what grace, yet with
what vigour, she moved the scythe, sweeping round her in its wide
semicircle, the long grass falling about her in green billows, with
trails of bindweed and tall red heads of clover in it; beyond her, the
blue sky and the pastoral horizon of the vast wheat-fields of La
Beauce.
What would the hot, close, fevered pressure of life in the world give
her that was half so good as that? How much better to dwell so,
between the green grass and the wide sky, than to court the fickle
homage and the fleeting loves of men! How much better if all her
years could pass so on the peaceful breast of the kindly earth, living
to lead her children out amongst the swaths of hay and teach them
to love the lark's song and the face of the fields as she loved them!
How much better to be Baucis than Aspasia!
Perhaps! but where was Philemon?
As the thoughts drifted through his mind she paused to whet her
scythe, looked up, and saw him. With a smile that was as glad as
sunshine in May weather she came towards him, leaping lightly over
the hillocks of mown grass. She was happy to see him there. She felt
no embarrassment for her bare arms and her kilted skirt; she had
not been taught the immodesty of prudes.
'No, we will not go in the house,' he said to her when he had
greeted her. 'Let us stay in your sweet-smelling meadow. Why are
you mowing? Are there no mowers to do it?'
'I like doing it,' she answered; 'and it spares Madame Chabot the
day's pay of a man. I can mow very well,' she added, with that pride
in her pastoral skill which she had been imbued with on
Bonaventure.
She walked on by his side through the little narrow spaces of mown
ground which ran between the waves of the fallen grasses. She had
pulled down her sleeves and taken the pins out of her skirt, and
passed with her firm light tread and her uncovered head over the
rough soil, with the afternoon sun in her eyes and on the rich tints
of her face. It intensified the radiance of her colouring, as it did that
of the scarlet poppies which were blowing here and there where the
grass still stood uncut.
'What did he say of me?' she asked anxiously and wistfully, as
Othmar walked on in silence beside her.
'He says you have not deceived yourself.'
'Ah!'—she drew a deep breath of relief—'I pleased him, then? And
yet, when I heard him recite, it seemed to me that I could do
nothing more than stutter and gabble foolishly; his voice was music
——'
'He has been a very great artist, and speech is to him as the flute to
the flute-player: an instrument with which he does what he will. Yes,
you pleased him, my dear. He thinks that you have in you the soul of
an artist, the future of one if you choose.'
'Ah!' she laughed aloud for sheer happiness and triumph, in the joy
and the pride of a child. It seemed to her the most exquisite glad
tidings, the most superb success.
'He will even help you; he will train you himself; and whoever is
trained by David Rosselin is in a certain sense secure of the public
ear,' said Othmar with a reluctance which he felt was unjust to her,
for if she possessed this power why should she be denied the
knowledge of it? 'But,' he added slowly, 'I must warn you that even
he, great artist as he has been, thinks as I think—that it is better to
mow grass in the fresh air than to seek the suffrage of crowds in the
gaslight. He thinks as I think, that, for a woman, the more secluded
and sheltered be the path of life the happier and the better is it for
her. This sounds very cold and cautious to you, no doubt; but it
would be what every man of the world would tell you, who was
honest with you, and had your welfare at heart.'
Her face changed and clouded as she heard him.
'Why?' she said abruptly.
He was silent. It was impossible to tell this child, who was as
innocent as any one of the poppies blowing in the grass, all the
reasons which made the future she coveted look to him like the
open mouth of a furnace into which a white sea-bird was flying in its
ignorance.
'Private life is the best life,' he said as she repeated, a little
imperiously, her 'why?' 'It is the calmest, the simplest, the most
screened from envy and hatred. I suppose tranquillity does not seem
to you the one inestimable blessing which it really is. You are full of
ardours and enthusiasms and longings, as the vines are full of sap in
the springtime. You want the wine of life, because you do not know
that the intoxication of it is always coupled with nausea, and fever,
and unspeakable disgust. It is of no use saying this to you, because
you are so young; but it is true. If I could compel your future, I
would have it pass yonder, where, far away, we see that golden
haze. There are the great wheat-lands of La Beauce, and the thrift
and the peace and the abundance of a rich pastoral life. If you spent
your little fortune on a farm there, with your love of country sights
and sounds and ways, you would be happy; and you could take your
choice from the many gallant youths who reap the harvests of those
plains. You would be a rich demoiselle in La Beauce, but in the world
of art you may be poor, my dear, for all your gifts from nature. We
are poor, very poor, forever, when once we have failed.'
His own words sounded in his ears unkind, unsympathetic, harsh,
and almost coarse; but he spoke as, it seemed to him, both
experience and conscience made it duty to do. Damaris looked down
on the shorn grass at her feet, and he saw her face and throat grow
red.
'If I had wished to marry I would have married my cousin,' she said
with a sound of anger and offence in her voice. 'Peasant life is good,
very good. Perhaps, if I had never seen anything different, it might
have seemed always the best. But not now—not now——'
'But you do not know——.' He left his reply unfinished.
Standing in the green warm meadow, with the light of afternoon
shed on it, and the golden haze of a late summer day on its horizon,
his thoughts were full of all the many things in life of which she
could imagine nothing. All the passions and pleasures and disgusts,
all the desires and satisfactions and satieties, all the tumult and
vanity and nausea and giddy haste of life in the world—what could
she tell of these? She would be handsome and young and alone;
what would that world not teach her in a year, a month, an hour?
Self-consciousness first; then, with that knowledge, all else.
As, to her, having never known anything but the close limits of
peasant life, the world which she did not know assumed the colours
and the rejoicing of a vast borealis pageantry, so to him, by whom
the world was known like an oft-read Virgil, it seemed that the
safety, the quietude, the daily round of simple duties, undisturbed by
ambition within or by contention from without, which the life of the
peasant afforded, was a kind of happiness, a positive security from
which any safe within it were ill-advised to wander.
Of all wretched creatures the déclassée seemed to him to be the
most wretched. He had reproached his wife with the effort to make
this child one of those pitiful anomalies, and he now reproached
himself with doing the same unkindness.
Damaris was a déclassée; she could never more return to the order
of life whence she had come. Ever since some indistinct glory for
herself had been suggested to her by the thoughtless words of the
great lady who had represented Fate to her, she had been haunted
by the desire for an existence wholly unlike that to which she had
been born and by which she had been surrounded. It had been only
a very few hours which she had passed under the roof of St.
Pharamond, but that short space had been long enough to make her
conceive a world wholly inconceivable to her before, a world in
which art and luxury were things of daily habit, in which leisure and
loveliness and gaiety and ease were matters of course, like the
coming and going of time, in which personal graces and personal
charm were all cultured as the flowers were cultured under glass; in
which even for her there might become possible the fruition of all
manner of gorgeous indefinite visions, born out of the suggestions of
poets and the phantasmagoria of romantic books—a world in which
all she had humbly longed for, as she had listened to the
nightingales in the orange thickets, would become visible to her and
possessed.
She was a déclassée: not in the vulgar sense, but in the sadder
meaning of a young life uprooted from its natural soil and filled with
desires, aspirations, dreams, which made all that was actually within
her grasp valueless to her. That one night, in which she had seen
around her the destinies which appeared to her like a tale of fairy-
land, had impressed her imagination with indelible memories and
her heart with ineffaceable wishes. He, who only saw in the life of
his own world tedium, inanity, stupidity, extravagance, monotonous
repetition, could not guess what enchantment its externals had worn
to her. He, who was tired of the unvaried paths of that garden of
pleasure whose habitués only see that in it 'grove nods to grove,
each alley has its fellow,' could not divine what a paradise it had
looked to this young waif and stray, who had been only able to catch
one glimpse of its beauties through the golden bars of its shut gates.
To him her wish for the world appeared the most pathetic of errors,
the most pitiable of blunders, a very madness of unwise choice. Had
not the world been with him always, and what had it given him?
Possibly it had in reality given him much more than he remembered:
it had given him culture with all its charms, and courtesy with all its
graces; it had given him the great powers which lie in wealth, and
the great light which shines from knowledge. But then he was so
used to these he counted them not, and the world only wore to him
the aspect of a monster devouring all leisure, all simplicity, all
repose, driving all mankind before it in a breathless chase of swiftly
escaping hours; and to her this monster would be ravenous as a
wolf, cruel as it could never be to any man! It would take everything
from her, and only give her in return worthless gifts of ruinous
passions, of consuming fevers, of poisoned fruits, of fierce desires.
It seemed to him as if he saw some young child coming gaily
through the grasses, clasping all unconscious to its breast a mass of
smoking dynamite, and deeming it a kindly playfellow.
And it was impossible to warn her in words brutal enough to scare
her from her purpose. He could not say to her, 'Men are beasts, and
women are worse: there are hideous pleasures, hateful appetites,
cruel temptations, of which you know nothing, but which will all
crowd on your knowledge and grow to your taste, once you are in
the midst of them. The world will embrace you, but as the bull
embraced the Christian maiden forced to appear as Pasiphaë in the
circus of Nero. Be wise while there is time. Stay in the clean, clear
daylight of a country life. Its paths are narrow and few, they only
lead from the hearth to the door, from the door to the brook or the
mill; but you may walk in them safe and content, and teach your
children to follow your steps. Peace of mind is the sweetest thing
upon earth; but it is like the wood-sorrel, it only grows in shady,
quiet, homely places. No one has it in the world.'
But he thought these thoughts, and did not say them. He looked at
her standing with dew-wet feet amongst the seeding grasses, the
warm fresh air about her, the blue sky above, and he thought of her
in the atmosphere of a supper-room in Paris, with the smoke, and
the perfumes, and the odours of the wines, and beside her men with
swimming lascivious eyes, and drôlesses with flushed faces and
indecent gestures. He would not take her there, but others would.
She raised her head suddenly and looked at him.
'What are you afraid of for me?' she said suddenly. 'There is nothing
to be afraid of. If I fail I fail; I have enough always to live on, you
say; and if I succeed——'
'Failure will not hurt you,' he said coldly; 'success may.'
'How can success hurt one unless one be very vain or very weak? I
do not think I am vain, and I know I am strong.'
'My dear—you can go from the meadows to the world if you will, but
remember you cannot come back from the world to the meadows.'
'Why? Did not many come from the world to Port-Royal when it
stood yonder?'
'Yes; they came with sick hearts, with defeated hopes, with aching
wounds, with disappointed passions; but they never stood in the
green pastures, in the morning of life, again.'
There was a sigh in the words which brought them home to her
heart with a sudden sense of all their meaning.
She was mute while the little crickets in the stalks of the hay grass
sung their last little song of one note, which would soon end with
the end of their tiny lives.
'You are not happy yourself?' she said after awhile. Astonishment
and regret were in the question.
Othmar hesitated. His sincerity combated the negative, which a
vague sense of loyalty to one absent made him desirous to utter.
'No one after a certain age is happy, my dear,' he answered
evasively. 'Illusions are happiness; and in the world which you think
must be a fairy tale, we lose them very quickly.'
'I should have thought you were happy,' she said regretfully; that
splendid pageantry of life of which she had seen a glimpse seemed
to her magical, marvellous, inexhaustible.
'I did not think she was,' she added, with that directness and
candour which made her great unlikeness to all of her sex whom he
had ever known.
'Why?' he asked abruptly; the supposition annoyed him.
'She looked tired, and as if she were looking for something she did
not find.'
The accuracy and divination in the words surprised him. How had
this child, who had never before seen any woman of the world,
guessed so accurately the perpetual vague desire and as vague
dissatisfaction which had always gone with the soul of his wife as a
shadow goes through brilliant light?
All her life long Nadège had found the old saw true, familiarity had
bred contempt in her; custom had made wisdom seem foolishness,
wit seem prose, amusement become tedium, and interest change to
apathy. Intimate knowledge of anything, of anyone, had always
altered each for her, as the fairy gold changed in mortal hands to
withered leaves.
It was no fault of hers; it was not even mere inconstancy of temper;
it was rather due to the infinitude of her inexhaustible expectations
and the microscopic penetration of her intelligence. The world was
small to her as to Alexander.
He knew that neither to her nor to himself had their life together
been that poem, that passion, that harmony which they—or he at
least—had imagined that it would be. But was not this due only to
that doom of human nature which they shared in common with all
the rest of mankind? Was it not merely the effect of that lassitude
and vague disappointment which must follow on the indulgence of
every great passion, simply because in its supreme hours it reaches
heights of rapture at which nothing human can remain?
Yet, however his philosophy may explain it, to have any other
imagine that he does not render a woman who belongs to him
perfectly contented with him always irritates and offends every man.
It is a suspicion cast on his powers, his loyalty, and his good sense:
it indirectly accuses him of deficiency in attraction or of feebleness of
character. Othmar had but little vanity; no more than human nature
naturally possesses in its unconscious forms of self-love; but the
little he had was mortified by this child's observation. She, ignorant
of all the fine intricacies of emotion which are the traits of such
highly-cultured and over-refined temperaments as were theirs, could
only say, in her simple and inadequate language, that they seemed
to her 'not happy.' It was not the phrase which expressed what they
lacked; it was too homely, too crude, too direct, to describe the
complicated world-weariness of which they both suffered the
penalties, the innumerable and conflicting sentiments and desires
which made of their lives a continual vague expectation and as
vague and continual a regret. But her young eyes, unused as they
were to read anything less clear than the open language of sea and
sky, and ignorant of the whole meaning of psychological analysis,
had yet been able to perceive the shadow of this which she had had
no power of understanding.
He was surprised at her penetration, whilst he wondered uneasily if
the world in general, so much keener of sight and more bitter of
tongue than she, saw as much as she saw. The idea that it might be
so was unwelcome to him. The supposition was horrible to him that
the great passion of his life had gone the way of most great passions
which are exposed to that most cruel of all slow destroyers—
familiarity; familiarity which is as the mildew to the wheat, as the
sirdax to the fir-tree, as the calandra to the sugar-cane. He loathed
to realise the fact, or think of it in any way; and when it was placed
before him by another's observation, he saw his own soul, as it were
in a mirror, and detested what he saw.
He answered with some constraint: 'I have told you, my dear, that
happiness is the fruit of illusions; it cannot exist without them any
more than we could have that beautiful haze yonder without water
in the atmosphere. Besides, in the world, people are only content so
long as they are of completely frivolous characters. My wife has
cultivated her intelligence and her wit too exquisitely to be capable
of that sort of coarse and common satisfaction with things as they
are which is so easy to mediocre minds.'
'Yet you advise me to be content?'
'My dear child, you are young, you are accustomed to an out-of-door
life, you have the felicity of belonging to country things and country
thoughts which give you a storehouse full of sunny memories. My
wife is a mondaine (if you have ever heard that word) who is also a
pessimist and a metaphysician. Life presents many intricate
problems to her mind which will, I hope, never trouble your joyous
acceptance of it as it is. Fénelon, I assure you, was a happier man
than Lamennais.'
'Because he was a stupider one.'
'Stupid? No, but simpler, cast in a different mould, naturally inclined
to faith, averse to speculation, taking things as he found them
without question. That is the cast of mind of all men and women
who are made to be happy.'
She was silent; wishfully thinking of those immense fields of
knowledge shut out from her own eyes like the aerial spheres of
unseen suns and planets which the unassisted sight can never
behold. She felt childish, ignorant, made of dull and common clay.
The bells of a little distant spire sounded for Vespers. The sun was
sinking beyond the edge of the wide green plain. A deeper stillness
was stealing over the meadow and the low coppices which made its
boundaries. Birds, looking grey in the shadows, flew low, to and fro,
restlessly, in that uncertain flight with which, near nightfall, they
always seek a resting-place for the dark hours.
Othmar looked at his watch. 'I must leave you or I shall miss the
train to Paris, and I go to-night to Russia.'
She changed colour.
'To Russia! That is very far away!'
'It does not seem so in these days. One sleeps and wakes and
sleeps again, and one is there. If you want me in any way, write to
me at the Paris house and they will forward your letter. Rosselin will
come to see you to-morrow. He will tell you, as no one else can, all
you will have to prepare for and encounter if you choose the life of
an artist. Do not decide too hastily. There is no hurry. I like best to
think of you in these safe pastures.'
'But the winter will come to them and—some time—to me?'
'It is far enough off you, at least, to be forgotten. Well, listen to
Rosselin and be guided by your own impulses; they are the only safe
guides in such a choice as this. I dare say the world will win you; the
world always does. It is only in fable that Herakles goes with Pallas.
Adieu.'
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