"Well," exclaimed Austin, fetching a deep breath, "of course if a man has to do this sort of thing for a living—if it's his only way of making money—I don't think I despise him so much. But if he does it because he loves it, loves it better than any other earthly thing, then I despise him with all my heart and soul. I cannot conceive a more utterly unworthy existence."
"And to such an existence our friend Buskin has sacrificed his whole career," replied St Aubyn, gravely.
"What a tragedy," observed the boy.
"Yes; a tragedy," agreed the other. "A truer tragedy than the imitation one that he's been acting in, if he could only see it. Well, here is my turning. Good-night! I'm very glad we met. Come and see me soon. I'm not going away again."
Then Austin, left alone, stumped thoughtfully along the country road. The sweet smell of the flowery hedges pervaded the night air, and from the fields on either side was heard ever and anon the bleating of some wakeful sheep. How peaceful, how reposeful, everything was! How strong and solemn the great trees looked, standing here and there in the wide meadows under the moonlight and the stars! And what a contrast—oh, what a contrast—was the beauty of these calm pastoral scenes to the tawdry gorgeousness of those other "scenes" he had been witnessing, with their false effects, and coloured fires, and painted, spouting occupants! There was no need for him to argue the question any more, even with himself. It was as clear as the moon in the steel-blue sky above him that the associations of the theatre were totally, hopelessly, and radically incompatible with the ideals of the Daphnis life.
Chapter the Eighth[ToC]
It is scarcely necessary to say that Austin knew nothing whatever about his aunt's preoccupation, and that even if she had taken him into her confidence, he would have paid little or no attention to the matter. I am afraid that his ideas about finance were crude in the extreme, being limited to a sort of vague impression that capital was what you put into a bank, and interest was what you took out; while the difference between the par value of a security and the price you could get for it on the market, would have been to him a hopelessly unfathomable mystery. Aunt Charlotte, therefore, was very wise in abstaining from any reference, in conversation, to the great enterprise for extracting gold from sea-water, in which she hoped to purchase shares; for one could never have told what foolish remark he might have made, though it was quite certain that he would have said something foolish, and probably very exasperating. So she kept her secret locked up in her own breast, and silently counted the hours till she could get a reply from her bankers.
Of course Austin had to give his aunt an account, at breakfast-time next morning, of the pageant of the previous night; and as he confined himself to saying that the scenery and dresses were very fine, and that Mr Buskin was quite unrecognisable, and that all the performers knew their parts, and that he had walked part of the way home with Roger St Aubyn afterwards, the impression left on the good lady's mind was that he had enjoyed himself very much. This inevitable duty accomplished, Austin straightway banished the whole subject from his memory and gave himself up more unreservedly than ever to his garden and his thoughts. How fresh and sweet and welcoming the garden looked on that calm, lovely summer day! How brightly the morning dewdrops twinkled on the leaves, like a sprinkling of liquid diamonds! Every flower seemed to greet him with silent laughter: "Aha, you've been playing truant, have you? Straying into alien precincts, roving in search of something newer and gaudier than anything you have here? Sunlight palls on you; gas is so much more festive! The scents of the fields are vulgar; finer the hot smells of the playhouse, more meet for a cultured nostril!" Of course Austin made all this nonsense up himself, but he felt so happy that it amused him to attribute the words to the dear flower-friends who were all around him, and to whom he could never be really faithless. Faugh! that playhouse! He would never enter one again. Be an actor! Lubin was a cleaner gentleman than any painted Buskin on the stage. Here, in the clear, pure splendour of the sunlit air, the place where he had been last night loomed up in his consciousness as something meretricious and unwholesome. Yet he was glad he had been, for it made everything so much purer and sweeter by contrast. Never had the garden looked more meetly set, never had the sun shone more genially, and the air impelled the blood and sent it coursing more joyously through his veins, than on that morning of the rejuvenescence of all his high ideals.