In the Wings

I

I HAVE already mentioned my mother’s father, René de Pont-Jest, and I must speak of him again. My conscience demands it.

This excessively forgotten novelist — and to be forgotten so totally is a form of injustice — this journalist, this brave and gallant gentleman, is one whom my brother and I most stupidly underrated. He published over forty volumes in his lifetime, and some of them, like The Trial of the Hindu Thugs, were enormously successful. He used to say of that particular novel that, published as a serial, it had made the fortune of the daily Petit Journal. He maintained also that it was he who had invented the colored poster at the time when another of his books, The River of Pearls, or the Red Spider, was being advertised. The French Academy awarded a prize to this novel. He flattered himself that he had saved the city of Dunkerque, and that it was he, moreover, who had first had the idea of using the marine corps to defend Paris in 1870.

Unfortunately, my brother and I had acquired the reprehensible habit of ridiculing our grandfather. We had agreed once and for all that it would be stupid to believe a single word of the stories he told, thus blinding ourselves to the advantage we might have received from the conversation of a perfectly intelligent, instructive, witty, cultivated, and kindly man. You may wonder why we had got so firmly into our heads the notion that everything he said was untrue. It must have been because he spoke exactly as he wrote his novels — that is, constantly concerned to awaken interest, hold attention, captivate the listener. He took up the conversation as he might take up his pen — for a long time; and everything he said began like the first volume of an endless novel expressly intended for popularity. This was our excuse, our sole excuse. Between two mouthfuls, for no special reason, without particular provocation, he would lay down his knife as if it were a sword and begin: —

‘On the eighteenth of April, 1865, on a day so cold that it nipped our ears, we arrived in Peking. . . .’

How could we but doubt the veracity of a story that began in this fashion? And besides, this charming man, like most writers who do not write extremely well, had an exaggerated respect for grammar, even in speaking. He spared us no imperfect of the subjunctive, and those with which he adorned his pompous sentences lent to his tales a flavor of artificiality which deprived them of all credibility.

Thus, having from childhood been convinced that Grandfather invented everything he said and never spoke the truth, we came easily to the conclusion that he had not written the novels that were mentioned, that he had not been awarded the decorations he spoke of, that he had not fought twelve duels, that he was neither a Bonapartist nor a royalist, that he had not managed the Indo-Chinese concession at the Exposition of 1900, and that he had not even been an officer of the marine corps. In short, we doubted everything we heard about or from him.

And to-day, by way of making full amends, I have gone through the trunk into which for the past thirty years I have thrown an enormous mass of family papers, and without trouble, though not without emotion, I have found evidence that everything Grandfather told us was true — the Indo-Chinese concession, the duels, everything. When Admiral Bouët-Willaumez recommended to Admiral Pothuau that René de Pont-Jest be awarded the Cross of the Legion of Honor, he did it ‘not only because of the services he had rendered the Baltic Squadron’ during his command of it, but also because he was the first to ‘suggest the defense of Paris by the marine corps.’

Going through these yellowing papers, I came upon a veritable mine of documents concerning the possible return of the monarchy in France. It appears that my grandfather had never been able to make up his mind between Prince Victor (Bonaparte) and the Due d’Orléans. I was about to conclude from this that his political opinions were chiefly remarkable for their instability when it occurred to me that, on the contrary, there could be no more precise and impartial fashion of being simply anti-republican.

I have often heard it said that certain diseases and physical disabilities jump a generation. This seems to me reasonable. Since looking through my grandfather’s papers I am certain that failings and weaknesses of character also have a tendency to jump a generation. I always knew that René de Pont-Jest loved gambling, and that he spent all his evenings and some of his nights at the Press Club tables. I knew that he ruined himself gambling; I knew how he had died; but what I did not know was that he had elaborated (with irrefutable demonstrations) a sort of infallible system for playing the squares about the zero, and that to his mind he would one day break the bank at Monte Carlo with this system. Now, for twenty years I have put down my money only in the neighborhood of zero. I concede that my system is fallible, but I am still hopeful of winning the chandeliers and carpets of the Casino one of these days.

My grandfather and I were walking in the rue Royale one summer evening. At the corner of the Faubourg-SaintHonoré a blind man sat on a folding stool, begging. Grandfather put his hand in his pocket and handed me four sous.

‘Give this to the poor chap.’

I dropped the coins in the man’s hat and rejoined my grandfather. We walked on, and he said: —

‘You ought to have touched your cap.’

‘To him?’

‘Of course.’

‘Why?’

‘One should always do that when giving alms.’

I said, ‘But not this one: he’s blind.’

Not bad; but my grandfather, who always had a rejoinder to everything, had a rather pretty one for me that day.

‘He may be a fraud,’ said he.

II

I must now tell about my first love. I was thirteen years old. She was ravishing. Ravishing, did I say? She was one of the prettiest women in Paris.

But I did n’t know that. I thought she was pretty, and it happened that she was, extremely. That was a mere coincidence.

She was the daughter of a famous painter and was married to the most successful of writers. He was one of my father’s intimate friends and later became one of mine. I was then the constant companion of their son and was in their house almost every Sunday at tea time. All the family were handsome and their home life was happiness itself.

Her smile was adorable and her eyes were all tenderness. How could I but be in love with her? As for why I loved her, not to love her would have been monstrous, criminal, disquieting even. It was more than my right, it was my duty to love her, for at thirteen one cannot know what it is to love. I dreamed about her. Could I tell her so? I would have died first. What to do, then? Prove it to her: save my pennies during the week and commit a great folly the next Sunday. I saved my pennies and I committed the folly. Eight francs — an enormous bouquet of violets. It was the handsomest bouquet of violets ever known, and so big that I had to hold it in both hands.

My plan was to call at two o’clock and ask to see her instead of going directly up to her son’s room. It turned out a little difficult. She was engaged. I insisted. The maid led me to her boudoir. She was putting on her hat and about to go out. I went in with beating heart.

‘Hello, my dear. What do you want to see me about?’

She had not even turned round. She had not yet seen the bouquet. She could not understand.

I held out my eight francs’ worth of violets.

‘Oh, the beautiful violets!’ she exclaimed.

It seemed to me the game was won.

I went toward her, trembling. She took my bouquet into her hands as if it were a baby’s face and raised it up as if to kiss it.

‘How good they smell!’

Then, indicating that I might go, she added: —

‘Do tell your papa how much I thank him.’

III

My father was playing in L’Assammoir at the Porte-Saint-Martin. I went into his dressing room between the acts one evening and found with him Mounet-Sully, who had come to see the play. I must have been about fifteen years old then and I was seeing Mounet-Sully off stage for the first time. He made a great impression upon me. He was a handsome man, his smile was attractive, and when he spoke in a low voice one heard a distant, very distant sort of thunder rumbling in his chest. He was handsome, indeed, but his eyes were already very bad, so that when his head was in profile one almost thought he was looking one straight in the face.

My father introduced me in these words: ‘My dear Mounet, this is my son Sacha, your future pupil.’

It was a habit he had adopted when making me known to any celebrated actor, French or foreign.

Mounet-Sully, who took everything seriously and doubtless wanted to show that he liked me, opened his arms with a familiar majesty and said in a ringing voice, as if I had been fifty paces off and separated from him by a river, ‘Come! Come, my child! Allow me to embrace you.’

It was impossible for me to refuse; and besides, he had already put his right hand to the nape of my neck and drawn me forward. Never in my life shall I forget the violence of the kiss he placed upon my forehead.

Then he resumed the conversation with my father which I had interrupted. They talked about the Comédie-Française and about Claretie, whom Mounet-Sully called ‘Monsieur Clarecie,’ holding on to the last syllable until he had transformed it into a sort of hiss. He left a few minutes later, forgetting to say good-bye to me as he passed before me to the door which my father’s dresser was respectfully holding open. This dresser was very small and wore heavy moustaches. There was really no resemblance between him and me. Yet Mounet-Sully looked at him fixedly and exclaimed, ‘Once more, my child. I must kiss you once more.’ And on the forehead of the astounded and perhaps delighted dresser Mounet imprinted a swift but fervent kiss.

IV

My schoolmate Colin and I had between us thirty years of age and about fifty francs of money the day we determined to have an adventure. Our plan was very simple: it was to invite a pretty woman, an actress, to supper. Yes, only one: supper once over, she would choose between us.

An actress; but which one? There were almost too many to choose from, for did n’t I know them all? Jane Hading, Andrée Mégard, Lavallière, Germaine Gallois, and the rest.

‘They’re all playing to-night,’ said I. ‘Let’s go. We’ll begin with . . .’ I shall not say who, but I can swear that she thought the idea of supping with me very funny.

When I said to her, ‘Madame, I have come to ask if you will have the kindness to take supper with my friend Colin and me,’ she let out a ‘What!’ and a gale of laughter that I could readily translate into, ‘Well, I’ll be . . . The nerve of the kid!’

Our second try came to the same thing, and so did our third. Disgusted then with actresses, who seemed really lacking in imagination, we went off to the Moulin-Rouge. It was in the days of the famous quadrille — La Goulue, Grille d’Egout, I don’t recall the name of the third, and Mélinite, the delightful Jane Avril. One of them in particular took our eye, and I went boldly up to her. It was between dances and she was out of breath and in a temper. My proposal that she sup with us brought no smile to her lips, for she could not look forward to it with a smile. She stared at me contemptuously and then said, ‘Later, maybe — if nobody else asks me.’

At one o’clock in the morning we crossed the Place Blanche — she, Colin, and I. We were in an indescribable state of pride — not she, but Colin and I. She was still as ill-tempered as ever. Five minutes later we were in an upstairs room of a restaurant opposite the Moulin-Rouge. We were having supper with an actress, in a private room! But our joy was somewhat confined. Our conquest was lugubrious. High cheekbones; great, magnificent eyes with rings under them, eyes that burned up her face; too much make-up: she was a perfect ToulouseLautrec, and indeed he immortalized her on canvas. The conversation was dreary, our dancer avoiding taking any part in it. We were drinking champagne, demi-sec, and eating ham. Colin and I chattered on.

‘Why don’t you get your father to give us two seats at the Gymnase for next Sunday matinée?’ asked Colin.

Idly she asked: ‘Is your father a ham?’

‘Yes.’

‘What’s his name?’

‘Lucien Guitry.’

She jumped in astonishment. ‘ Is Guitry your father?’

‘Of course.’

‘What are you doing out at this hour of the night?’

‘Why, I . . .’

‘Are n’t you in school, you two?’

‘Yes, but we sneaked out.’

‘And you come here and pick up the first woman you run into at the Moulin-Rouge, a woman you’ve never seen before? Don’t you know the risk you run? To think that parents go to the trouble to bring their children up as best they know how — and you do this kind of thing! You finish eating that ham this minute and come along back to your school!’

And she took us back to the school door, to Mariaud’s, to be sure that we should not go on when her back was turned.

V

Imagine what Lucien Guitry must have been at the age of thirty-two years, when he embarked upon his career. He seized life and embraced it, sought only to make it constantly more beautiful; and it was in those days that he began to gather about him that court of familiar friends in which new faces continued to appear throughout the whole of his sumptuous existence — the most sumptuous possible, since he always spent in advance all the money he was about to earn.

His homes changed with his theatres: going into the Renaissance in 1894, he stayed there until 1910, and from 1894 to 1910 he lived at 26, place Vendôme.

His earliest friends were Forain, Edmond Haraucourt, de Maupassant, Georges and Henri Cain, and Messenger. Later came Noblet, Feydeau, Calmettes, and Maurice Donnay. Thereafter came the great collection, so to say, of all those whose plays he performed: Francois de Curel, Abel Hermant, Octave Mirbeau, Georges de Porto-Riche, Vandérem, Gustave Guiches, Anatole France, Edmond Rostand, Alfred Capus, Eugene Brieux, Jules Lemaître, Henri Lavedan, Paul Bourget, Henry Bataille, Henry Bernstein. One after the other, I saw all these men, all these eminent dramatists, seated at my father’s table, and from the next room I heard all or nearly all of them read their manuscripts. And the absorbing and interesting conversations that followed the readings! The things said round that table! The advice given — and followed by the great! How many ‘curtains’ I heard instantly rectified and played by my father — rectified as an expert shot rectifies the handling of a gun in the field. What promises of success given and kept! What plans and projects for the following season! After such readings life seemed very beautiful to those two men constantly in search of one another, indispensable to one another — the author and the interpreter.

The reading of L’Aiglon was something which I shall never forget. It began one day toward noon in the apartment on the place Vendôme, and because of it I still own the Louis XIV tabouret, upholstered in red velvet, on which Edmond Rostand laid his manuscript as he read.

He had come round, not without some apprehension, to ask my father to play the part of Flambeau. This part had been written originally for Coquelin, but there were reasons that were not mentioned why Coquelin was now not to play it. Rostand and my father sat in the study while I listened, enraptured, from the adjoining room. The first act was read very rapidly, Rostand having forewarned my father that he did not appear in it. It is probably the most dazzling first act ever written, and my father was enchanted with it. The second act also produced a great effect.

Indeed, Rostand did not read his play, he acted it. He imitated Sarah Bernhardt a little, and he acted admirably. He knew the play by heart and often forgot to turn the pages of his script. Everything about him was attractive — his recent celebrity, his sensitive face, his pleasing voice. When he reached the third act he read that less well than the first two, but the effect of the first two acts remained.

‘Magnificent,’ my father said; ‘magnificent!’

‘Well?’ asked Rostand.

‘Well . . . yes . . . I think so. I don’t see why I might not do this admirable play.’

But Rostand felt that my father had already sensed why he might not do it. The reason was the next two acts, the scene of the ball and of Wagram, and the last act, in which Flambeau does not appear. Not to be in the first act is bad enough; but to die before the last act . . .

boor Rostand! As he read out, ‘Act Four,’ he seemed to swoon a little. I don’t say he was pretending, but one could see that he was doing nothing to master himself. He closed his eyes, mopped his forehead, excused himself, and declared that he could not go on — he was loo tired, and besides he was dying of hunger.

My father let it go at that and we three went to lunch at Prunier’s. Obviously, my father had not been taken in by this little scene, and Rostand knew it. If the one had pretended to be overcome, the other had certainly pretended belief. I could feel in them both a like fear that their pleasure might be spoiled; and as Sarah Bernhardt had sent word that she wanted my father’s answer by two o’clock, both feigned to believe it impossible that she be kept waiting. The result of this comedy was that by the end of luncheon it was agreed that Lucien Guitry would play Flambeau.

Amongst those friends of my father whom we saw only occasionally there was one who, at the time, impressed me more than all the rest. I could not guess that he was later to become my closest friend. He was a big man with red hair, bushy eyebrows, and sky-blue eyes. He did not chew his words, he chopped them; and he looked like a sheep dog. It was Octave Mirbeau.

He always arrived with terrifying news: Clemenceau had just told him so-and-so; Labori had just told him this-and-that; Colonel du Paty de Clam was a liar, and Scheurer-Kestner knew the truth well enough. I used to wonder what Mirbeau did. Was he an army officer in mufti? A politician? A lawyer? I had then seen him only three times, and each time he had talked only about the Dreyfus affair. In those days the Dreyfus affair was the sole subject of conversation.

Nobody born since 1885 can have any notion what the Dreyfus affair was. As I write, the Stavisky affair is a subject of interest, passion, and disgust throughout France, but compared with the Dreyfus affair it is very small beer. The reason is simply that the Stavisky case concerns guilty men, while the Dreyfus affair was built up round an innocent man.

Mirbeau, as I say, seemed to me a sort of politician. He arrived one day in a state of even greater effervescence than usual. What had happened, we wanted to know. Was Colonel Picquart to be executed? Not at all. Mirbeau had discovered Maeterlinck. The next week he was again in the same state, engaged in glorifying Rodin.

Renard used to say that every morning Mirbeau woke up furious. It was true. He would open his eyes convinced that in the course of the day a hundred injustices would be committed, and he was exasperated in advance of their commission. He took it for granted that his interlocutors were his adversaries, and he had a fashion of urging you to go to see an exposition of paintings by Monet which was like a challenge to mortal combat. This way of his — shall I say this oddity? — made some people detest him and others adore him. He was actually an adorable man. Like all extremely violent people, like all people ready to do battle for an idea, he must himself have committed injustices, but always in the service of justice and of a noble cause.

Many people in literary circles thought they disliked Mirbeau. They were wrong: it was he who disliked them.

VI

Everybody kept asking me what I was going to do when I grew up. It seemed to worry everybody, and to me it was unbearable. I knew no more than they did about it, and the thought of ‘doing something’ became hateful to me.

It was only when I was about fourteen years old that I began to think seriously about going on the stage. You have to bear in mind that an actor’s son does not look upon a career in the theatre quite as a son of the average citizen does. For a son of the average citizen the theatre is forbidden fruit; it is a sort of sin, and the temptation is the greater for this fact. For an actor’s son it is also something forbidden — not forbidden in principle, but because one must be worthy of the career. Actor and average citizen use the same word, but in how different a tone! When the boy, taking his courage in both his hands, comes to his father and declares that he wants to be an actor, the average citizen cries out, ‘You, an actor!’ by which he means, ‘You, a son of mine, to take an unspotted name and trail it in the mud!’ As for the actor, he also cries out, ‘You, an actor!’ but what he means is, ‘You, a son of mine, to run the risk of tarnishing the name you bear! Think twice about it, and make no mistake. The desire you feel to go on the stage is perfectly natural, but it is no indication of an irresistible vocation. One cannot buy one’s way on to the stage.’

And just as the average citizen will add, ‘Of course I can understand the son of an actor following in his father’s steps,’ so the actor will say to his son, ‘There is more chance of the average citizen’s son feeling a sincere vocation for the theatre than of an actor’s son feeling it.’

These words were not said to me, but I felt them nonetheless. They made me wonder if my desire to become an actor was justified by the gifts I possessed. It was natural that I should wonder. Despite this, to get it off my mind, I wrote my father of my desire. I was then spending the summer in Dieppe, separated from him. I have preserved his reply.

My dear boy, I have thought a good deal about the subject of your letter. We must talk about it together, and we shall.
Meanwhile, you ask me to suggest five or six scenes that you might learn. Learn anything that amuses you: men, women, princes, princesses, servants, mistresses, masters, valets — in a word, anything. To know one’s part is not the important thing. One always knows it. The important thing is to be able to express everything. You see how simple it is!
Your very affectionate father,
L. G.

The letter was scarcely encouraging. ‘We must talk about it together,’ he said. That expressed less a promise to talk later than a wish not to talk at all. He was putting me off. That letter gave me a lot to think about. To embark by oneself upon a career other than one’s father’s was bad enough; but to embark by oneself upon one’s father’s own career might prove impossible. I was very afraid.

Besides, one cannot hide for the purpose of being an actor. Change one’s name, yes; but not one’s face — unless one wore a false beard on stage and off. One can write, or draw, without revealing the fact to anybody. That can be done at home. But the stage is something else again. To be an actor requires the consent of a producer, an author, other people in the cast — and the consent of the public. Well . . . I took to drawing.

I take it that one has the right to speak of the young man one was when one is no longer that young man. I had a talent for drawing and a certain feeling for caricature. Naturally, I did not work at it. I drew too quickly and was always in a hurry to finish what I had begun. This haste was so great that I never finished anything. When I had enough of a drawing, I signed it; and the fact of signing it made me believe it was finished. I may say that this is a characteristic of which I have never wholly cured myself: I have several times scamped the end of a play in ten minutes in order to read it to someone who was coming to lunch.

Meanwhile, although I drew, I drew only for my own pleasure and without thought of a future; but another reason might have been that I wanted people to stop asking me what I meant to do when I grew up. I had observed that, if one drew, one was not bothered by people. In order not to have to do anything, I drew constantly.

One Sunday, at one o’clock in the morning, I had just finished my first play and was engaged in writing out a clean copy on the dining-room table when my grandfather came in from his club.

‘What are you doing there?”

‘Working.’

‘You, working!’

‘I’ve just written a play.’

‘A play! Read it to me right away.’

He listened with grandfatherly emotion, congratulated me, confessed his astonishment, kissed me—and advised me to bury my one-act play in the bottom of my desk drawer.

This scarcely veiled opinion did not offend me, but it seemed to me to attach a great deal of importance to my little play, and even to myself.

I have wondered from time to time how I got the notion of writing a play, and I have never been able to recall. Because everybody had so often said of me that I could never do anything, I thought I could do anything, and I had written the play for the same reason that I drew — out of pure distraction. How could I possibly know then that I was to write a hundred more? Why, then, should I bury this one?

I did not follow my grandfather’s advice (which was later given me a dozen times about Berg-op-Zoom, and Jean de la Fontaine, and Le Veilleur de Nuit, and other plays of mine). Instead, I took the little play to Francis de Croisset, whom I had recently met, and read it to him. I owe to him the fact that my play was performed. You may hold it against him if you like, but I owe thanks to the young man he then was, recently celebrated but already doing kindnesses to others and being loved by them — something that has been characteristic of him for thirty years. Thanks to him, the very next day Marguerite Deval accepted Le Page and it was performed at the Mathurins, which was later to be my theatre and bear my name from 1913 to 1920.

For twenty years I regretted not having preserved the manuscript of my first play. I would say to myself: After all, it was my first play. Maybe . . . Two years ago, on the thirtieth anniversary of my entry into the theatre, some of my friends planned a charming surprise. They found Le Page in the national archives where — I never knew this — manuscripts are deposited for censorship. They had it copied and presented the copy to me.

Alas, my dear friends, why did you not leave me with my illusions?

VII

Six months pass and I am beginning to be worried. My drawings fetch ten francs at the Rire or the Sourire; my play has brought me in perhaps three hundred francs; and there I am. Not very good.

What am I to do? Be an actor. Yes, but where shall I act? It was very hard. Wherever I went, I felt that people were fearful of displeasing my father by giving me a part. Nevertheless, one day a producer talked about engaging me. He even spoke of putting my name up in lights. That bothered me. The man did not like my father. I caught on just in time.

Then I thought of the phrase in my father’s letter: ‘We must talk about this together.’ One evening we talked.

‘But, my boy, if you really want to do it, why not? You know well enough that I shall do nothing to stop you. There is no finer profession in the world. Only, youll have to work at it seriously. Recite something for me.’

I can see the two of us: him in his armchair, smiling; me standing, paralyzed with fright, reciting Rodrigue’s combat against the Moors, out of Le Cid. When Rodrigue had finished the tale of his exploits, my father said, ‘Look here, that’s not bad. But since it could be better, you had best take some lessons. Only, with whom? I can’t think.’

‘But, Father . . .’

He interrupted me. ‘No, anybody but me. I should be either too patient or not hard enough on you. I’ll give you a note to Talbot.’

‘Very well, Father.’

Noblet, however, had other advice: ‘Play, play! That’s the best way to learn your job.’ A week later I made my first appearance at Versailles, in Hernani.

I did not play the part of Hernani, nor that of Don Carlos, nor the part of Don Ruy Gomez de Silva, but, with Pierre Juvenet, Mondolo, and a third actor called Guéguette, one of three other parts. Each of us was to be paid ten francs. Sogond, the tragedian, played Hernani, and Jeanne Morlet played Doña Sol.

The performance was a disaster from beginning to end, not so much because of us as because of my brother, who was in the theatre with a crowd of friends, male and female, who broke into thunders of applause every time I opened my mouth.

The producer had not respected Victor Hugo’s directions concerning the opening of the last act of his masterpiece. The author indicates that ‘people in masks and dominoes, singly or in groups, cross the terrace here and there.’ By way of representing all these people, ‘singly or in groups,’ there were Pierre Juvenet, Mondolo, Guéguette, and I. And it was n’t only that this crowd was made up of four people: the management had forgotten to hire dominoes for us. We could hardly appear as noblemen in the conspirators’ costumes we had worn in the preceding acts. Between the acts my brother had had an idea. He had gone to a neighboring house — which you will permit me not to designate more specifically — and had borrowed four pink and blue wrappers. Our entrance in these wrappers released a hilarity and then a riot such that at the end of the play the manager of the theatre, that worthy Félix Lagrange, said to me: —

‘Not only will I not pay you your ten francs, but I’ll be damned if I don’t see that you never play Versailles again!’

He was right: I never did play Versailles again.

(To be concluded)