In the scene with the wrestler, when Théodore took the chain from his neck and gave it to me, as the play requires, he bestowed a glance on me so soft and languorous, so full of promise, and he pronounced with such grace and nobility of utterance the phrase: "Gentleman, wear this for me; one out of suits with fortune; that could give more but that her hand lacks means,"—that I was really confused, and was hardly able to say: "What passion hangs these weights upon my tongue? I cannot speak to her, yet she urged conference. O poor Orlando!"
In the third act Rosalind, dressed as a man, reappeared under the name of Ganymede, with her cousin Celia, who has changed her name to Aliena.
That disguise made an unpleasant impression on me;—I was so accustomed already to the female costume which allowed my desires to hope, and which encouraged me, in a treacherous but seductive error! One becomes accustomed very quickly to regard his desires as realities on the strength of the most fleeting appearances, and I became very sombre when Théodore appeared in his male costume, more sombre than I had been before; for joy serves only to make grief more bitter, the sun shines only to make us more fully appreciate the horrors of darkness, and the cheerful aspect of white has no other object than to bring out all the melancholy of black.
His coat was the most coquettish and fascinating garment in the world, of a dainty, fanciful cut, all decked out with knots and ribbons, very much in the style reflected by the dandies of the court of Louis XIII.; a pointed hat, with a long curled feather, shaded the curls of his beautiful hair, and a damascened sword raised the hem of his travelling cloak.
He was dressed, however, in a way to make one feel that the virile garments had a feminine lining; something broader at the hips and fuller at the breast, an indefinable undulation that we do not see in cloth fitted to a man's body, left but faint doubts as to the sex of the individual.
His demeanor was half deliberate, half timid, and entertaining to the last degree, and with infinite skill he made himself appear as ill at ease in a costume to which he was accustomed, as he had seemed to be at home in clothes that were not his.
My serenity gradually returned, and I convinced myself anew that he was really a woman.—I recovered sufficient self-possession to carry out my rôle properly.
Do you know the play? perhaps not. As I have done nothing but read and declaim it for a fortnight I know it by heart from beginning to end, and I cannot realize that everybody is not as familiar as myself with the plot and the intrigue; it is an error into which I am very apt to fall, to think that, when I am drunk, everybody else is drunk and trying to knock down the walls, and if I knew Hebrew, I certainly should ask my valet for my dressing-gown and slippers in that tongue, and should be very much surprised if he did not understand me.—You can read it if you choose; I assume that you have read it and touch only on those passages that have some connection with my position.
Rosalind, walking in the forest with her cousin, is greatly surprised to find that the bushes bear, instead of blackberries and wild plums, madrigals in her praise; strange fruits which luckily are not accustomed to grow on bramble bushes; for when one is thirsty it is more satisfactory to find good berries on the branches than bad sonnets. She is much disturbed to know who has spoiled the bark of the young trees by carving her initials on them.—Celia, who has already met Orlando, tells her, after long urging, that the rhymer is no other than the young man who vanquished Charles the wrestler, the duke's athlete.
Soon Orlando himself appears and Rosalind enters into conversation with him by asking him the time.—Surely an extremely simple beginning; one can imagine nothing more commonplace.—But have no fear; from that trite, commonplace phrase you will see an unlooked-for crop spring up of witty conceits, overflowing with curious flowers and comparisons, as if from the richest and most thoroughly fertilized soil.