concentrated it upon a single point, and from the restless activity of the ardelio I have come to the dull somnolence of the teriaki and the stylite on his column.
“What I do has always the appearance of a dream; my actions seem to be the result rather of somnambulism than of a free-will; there is something within me which I feel vaguely at a great depth, and which causes me to act without my own participation and always independently of general laws; the simple and natural side of things is never revealed to me until after all the others, and at first I always fasten upon what is eccentric and odd. However slightly the line may slant I soon make it into a spiral more twisted than a serpent; outlines, if they are not fixed in the most precise manner, become confused and distorted. Faces assume a supernatural air, and look at you with frightful eyes.
“Thus, by a species of instinctive reaction, I have always clung desperately to matter, to the external silhouette of things, and in art have always given a very important place to the plastic. I understand a statue perfectly, while I cannot understand a man; where life begins, I stop and shrink back affrighted, as though I had seen Medusa's head. The phenomenon of life causes me an astonishment which I cannot overcome. No doubt I shall make an excellent dead man, for I am a very poor living one, and the sense of my existence completely escapes me. The sound of my voice surprises me to an unimaginable degree, and I might be tempted sometimes to take it for the voice of another. When I wish to stretch forth my arm, and my arm obeys me, the fact seems quite a prodigious one to me, and I sink into the profoundest stupefaction.
“On the other hand, Silvio, I have a perfect comprehension of the unintelligible; the most extravagant notions seem quite natural to me, and I enter into them with singular facility. I can find with ease the connection of the most capricious and disordered nightmare. This is the reason why the kind of pieces I was just speaking to you about pleases me beyond all others.
“We have great discussions on this subject with Theodore and Rosette. Rosette has little liking for my system, she is for the true truth; Theodore gives more latitude to the poet, and admits a conventional and optical truth; for my part, I maintain that the author must have a clear stage and that fancy should reign supreme.
“Many of the company grounded their arguments chiefly on the fact that such pieces were, as a general rule, independent of theatrical conditions and could not be performed; I replied that this was true in one sense and false in another, like nearly everything that is said, and that the ideas entertained respecting scenic possibilities and impossibilities appeared to me to be wanting in exactness, and to be the result rather of prejudices than of reason. Among other things, I said that the piece 'As You Like It' was assuredly most presentable, especially for people in society who were not practiced in other parts.
“This suggested the idea of performing it. The season is advancing, and we have exhausted every description of amusement; we are tired of hunting, and of parties on horseback, or on the water; the chances of boston, varied as they are, have not piquancy enough to fill up an evening, and the proposal was received with universal enthusiasm.
“A young man who knew how to paint volunteered to make the scenery; he is working at it now with much ardor, and in a few days it will be finished. The stage is erected in the orangery, which is the largest hall in the mansion, and I think that everything will turn out well. I am taking the part of Orlando, and Rosette was to have played Rosalind, — which was a most proper arrangement. As my mistress, and the mistress of the house, the part fell to her of right; but owing to a caprice singular enough in her, prudery not being one of her faults, she would not disguise herself as a man. Had I not been sure of the contrary, I should have believed that her legs were badly shaped. Actually none of the ladies of the party would show herself less scrupulous than Rosette, and this nearly caused the failure of the piece; but Theodore, who had taken the part of the melancholy Jacques, offered to replace her, seeing that Rosalind is a cavalier nearly the whole time, except in the first act where she is a woman, and that with paint, corset, and dress, he will be able to effect the illusion sufficiently well, having as yet no beard, and being of a very slight figure.
“We are engaged in learning our parts, and it is something curious to see us. In every solitary nook in the park you are sure to find some one, paper in hand, muttering phrases in a whisper, raising his eyes to heaven, suddenly casting them down, and repeating the same gesture seven or eight times. If it were not known that we are to perform a comedy, we should assuredly be taken for a houseful of lunatics or poets (which is almost a pleonasm).
“I think that we shall soon know enough to have a rehearsal. I am expecting something very singular. Perhaps I am wrong. I was afraid for a moment that instead of playing by inspiration our actors would endeavor to reproduce the attitudes and voice-inflections of some fashionable performer; but fortunately they have not watched the stage with sufficient accuracy to fall into this inconvenience, and it is to be expected that, through the awkwardness of people who have never trod the boards, they will display precious flashes of nature and that charming ingenuousness which the most consummate talent cannot reproduce.
“Our young painter has truly wrought wonders. It would be impossible to give a stranger shape to the old trunks of trees and the ivy which entwines them; he has taken pattern by those in the park, accentuating and exaggerating them as is necessary for the stage. Everything is expressed with admirable boldness and caprice; stones, rocks, clouds, are of a mysteriously grimacing form; mirrow-like reflections play on the trembling waters which are less stable than quicksilver, and the ordinary coldness of the foliage is marvellously relieved by saffron tints dashed in by the brush of autumn; the forest varies from emerald green to cornelian purple; the warmest and the freshest tones show harmoniously together, and the sky itself passes from the softest blue to the most burning colon.
“He has designed all the costumes after my instructions, and they are of the handsomest description. At first the performers cried that they could not be produced in silk or velvet nor in any known material, and I nearly saw the moment when troubadour costume was to be generally adopted. The ladies said that such glaring colors would eclipse their eyes. To which we replied that their eyes were stars which were perfectly inextinguishable, and that on the contrary it was their eyes that would eclipse the colore, and even, if need were, the Argand lamps, the lustre, and the sun. They had no reply to this; but there were other objections which kept springing up in a bristling crowd like the Lernean hydra; no sooner was the head of one cut off than another more obstinate and more stupid would arise.
“'How do you think this will keep together?'-'It is all very well on paper, but it is another matter when on one's back; I shall never be able to get into that!'-'My petticoat is at least four fingerlengths too short; I shall never dare to show myself in that disguise!'-'This ruff is too high; I look as if I were a hunchback and had no neck.-'This headdress makes me look intolerably old.
“With starch, pins, and goodwill, everything will hold.' — 'You are joking! a waist like yours, more frail than a wasp's, and one which would go through the ring on my little finger! I will wager twenty-five louis to a kiss that it will be necessary to take in this bodice!'-'Your petticoat is very far from being too short, and if you knew what an adorable leg you have, you would most certainly be of my opinion.'-' On the contrary, your neck stands out and is admirably set off by its aureola of lace.'-'This headdress does not make you look old in the least, and, even if you appear to be a few years older, you are so extremely young that this ought to be a matter of perfect indifference to you; indeed, you would give us grounds for strange suspicions if we did not know where the pieces of your last doll are '-etc.
“You cannot imagine what a prodigious quantity of madrigals we were obliged to dispense in order to compel our ladies to put on charming costumes which were most becoming to them.
“We found it equally troublesome to induce them to place their patches in an appropriate manner. What a devil of a taste women have! and what Titanic obstinacy possesses a vaporish, foppish woman who believes that glazed straw-yellow suits her better than jonquil or bright rose-color. I am sure that if I had devoted to public affairs half the artifices and intrigues that I have employed in order to have a red feather placed on the left and not on the right, I should be a minister of state or emperor at the least
“What a pandemonium! what an enormous and inextricable rout must a real theatre be!
“From the time that the performance of a comedy was first spoken of, everything here has been in the most complete disorder. All the drawers are opened, all the wardrobes emptied; it is genuine pillage. Tables, easy-chairs, consoles, everything is littered, and a person does not know where to set his foot. Trailing about the house are prodigious quantities of dresses, mantelets, veils, petticoats, cloaks, caps, and hats; and when you think that all these are to arranged on the bodies of seven or eight persons, you involuntary think of those mountebanks at the fair who wear eight or ten coats one over another, and you find it impossible to conceive that the whole of this heap will only furnish one costume for each.
