CHAPTER IV. THE THEATRE BOOTH.
Although an open secret is now called Punch’s secret, it is certain that the marionettes’ theatre and the puppet dance are great mysteries in their way.
Very few people have ever penetrated behind the scenes of these theatres. They are far better defended than the Opera, and I am not a little proud of having been admitted one day at the Versailles Fair behind the curtain of the Bermont Theatre during the performance of a grand drama, in one act, The Spanish Brigands.
I had been attracted by a very brilliant oration from Punch, detailing all the amusements to be found within. [p082]
“This, ladies and gentlemen,” he spluttered between his teeth in the usual way, “this is the real society and family entertainment. Everything is calculated, everything is arranged, to please the eye: a review of the greatest Parisian artists, dances in character, Icarian games held in honour both by the Greeks and Romans, a Spanish bolero, Harlequin’s celebrated feats on a bicycle, and, lastly, the great unpublished drama, now performed for the first time in this town, The Brigands.”
We crowded in, about one hundred urchins, grandmothers, and nurses, eyes wide open in pleasant anticipation.
A small Italian musician, his teeth gleaming like ivory from contact with hard crusts, formed the whole orchestra. He played the accordion on the front bench. His melody ended, some one rapped three times, the performance commenced.
First, two Polish warriors entered and performed a military dance, marking the time with their heels. Then followed a couple of Spanish dancers, who executed some wonderful pirouettes and pigeons’ flights. Then appeared the india-rubber man, who stretched and stretched himself, and finally bent himself until his nose touched his heels, and then he sneezed, a performance which convulsed the spectators with delight. He was succeeded by a lawyer in a black dress, who doubled himself, became triple and quadruple—a naïve symbol of the craftiness of his profession—then played in each of the four corners of the stage with his duplicates and suddenly flew through the frieze.
The curtain falls.
From every bench a sorrowful cry is heard, “Is it over?” [p083]