CHAPTER IX
A DEBUT IN THE CRESCENT CITY
A versatile dramatic poet is grim Destiny, making with equal facility tragedy, farce, burletta, masque or mystery. The world is his inn, and, like the wandering master of interludes, he sets up his stage in the court-yard, beneath the windows of mortals, takes out his figures and evolves charming comedies, stirring melodramas, spirited harlequinades and moving divertissement. But it is in tragedy his constructive ability is especially apparent, and his characters, tripping along unsuspectingly in the sunny byways, are suddenly confronted by the terrifying mask and realize life is not all pleasant pastime and that the Greek philosophy of retribution is nature’s law, preserving the unities. When the time comes, the Master of events, adjusting them in prescribed lines, reaches by stern obligation the avoidless conclusion.
Consulting no law but his own will, the Marquis de Ligne had lived as though he were the autocrat of fate itself instead of one of its servants, and therefore was surprised when the venerable playwright prepared 324 the unexpected dénouement. In pursuance of this end, it was decreed by the imperious and incontrovertible dramatist of the human family that this crabbed, vicious, antiquated marionette should wend his way to the St. Charles on a particular evening. Since the day at the races, the eccentric nobleman had been ill and confined to his room, but now he was beginning to hobble around, and, immediately with returning strength, sought diversion.
“François,” he said, “what is there at the theater to-night?”
“Comic opera, my lord?”
The marquis made a grimace. “Comic opera outside of Paris!” he exclaimed, with a shrug of the shoulders.
“A new actress makes her début at the St. Charles.”