The Complete Works of Washington Irving: Short Stories, Plays, Historical Works, Poetry and Autobiographical Writings (Illustrated). Вашингтон Ирвинг

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СКАЧАТЬ and manufacturing town. The mischief was that their greatness was of a kind not to be settled by reference to the court calendar, or college of heraldry. It was therefore the most quarrelsome kind of greatness in existence. You smile, sir, but let me tell you there are no feuds more furious than the frontier feuds, which take place on these “debatable lands” of gentility. The most violent dispute that I ever knew in high life, was one that occurred at a country town, on a question of precedence between the ladies of a manufacturer of pins and a manufacturer of needles.

      At the town where I was situated there were perpetual altercations of the kind. The head manufacturer’s lady, for instance, was at daggers drawings with the head shopkeeper’s, and both were too rich and had too many friends to be treated lightly. The doctor’s and lawyer’s ladies held their heads still higher; but they in their turn were kept in check by the wife of a country banker, who kept her own carriage; while a masculine widow of cracked character, and secondhand fashion, who lived in a large house, and was in some way related to nobility, looked down upon them all. She had been exiled from the great world, but here she ruled absolute. To be sure her manners were not over-elegant, nor her fortune over-large; but then, sir, her blood — oh, her blood carried it all hollow, there was no withstanding a woman with such blood in her veins.

      After all, she had frequent battles for precedence at balls and assemblies, with some of the sturdy dames of the neighborhood, who stood upon their wealth and their reputations; but then she had two dashing daughters, who dressed as fine as dragons, and had as high blood as their mother, and seconded her in everything. So they carried their point with high heads, and every body hated, abused, and stood in awe of the Fantadlins.

      Such was the state of the fashionable world in this self-important little town. Unluckily I was not as well acquainted with its politics as I should have been. I had found myself a stranger and in great perplexities during my first season; I determined, therefore, to put myself under the patronage of some powerful name, and thus to take the field with the prejudices of the public in my favor. I cast round my thoughts for the purpose, and in an evil hour they fell upon Mrs. Fantadlin. No one seemed to me to have a more absolute sway in the world of fashion. I had always noticed that her party slammed the box door the loudest at the theatre; had most beaux attending on them; and talked and laughed loudest during the performance; and then the Miss Fantadlins wore always more feathers and flowers than any other ladies; and used quizzing glasses incessantly. The first evening of my theatre’s reopening, therefore, was announced in flaring capitals on the play bills, “under the patronage of the Honorable Mrs. Fantadlin,”

      Sir, the whole community flew to arms! The banker’s wife felt her Dignity grievously insulted at not having the preference; her husband being high bailiff, and the richest man in the place. She immediately issued invitations for a large party, for the night of the performance, and asked many a lady to it whom she never had noticed before. The fashionable world had long groaned under the tyranny of the Fantadlins, and were glad to make a common cause against this new instance of assumption. — Presume to patronize the theatre! insufferable! Those, too, who had never before been noticed by the banker’s lady, were ready to enlist in any quarrel, for the honor of her acquaintance. All minor feuds were therefore forgotten. The doctor’s lady and the lawyer’s lady met together; and the manufacturer’s lady and the shopkeeper’s lady kissed each other, and all, headed by the banker’s lady, voted the theatre a bore, and determined to encourage nothing but the Indian Jugglers, and Mr. Walker’s Eidonianeon.

      Alas for poor Pillgarlick! I little knew the mischief that was brewing against me. My box book remained blank. The evening arrived, but no audience. The music struck up to a tolerable pit and gallery, but no fashionables! I peeped anxiously from behind the curtain, but the time passed away; the play was retarded until pit and gallery became furious; and I had to raise the curtain, and play my greatest part in tragedy to “a beggarly account of empty boxes.”

      It is true the Fantadlins came late, as was their custom, and entered like a tempest, with a flutter of feathers and red shawls; but they were evidently disconcerted at finding they had no one to admire and envy them, and were enraged at this glaring defection of their fashionable followers. All the beau-monde were engaged at the banker’s lady’s rout. They remained for some time in solitary and uncomfortable state, and though they had the theatre almost to themselves, yet, for the first time, they talked in whispers. They left the house at the end of the first piece, and I never saw them afterwards.

      Such was the rock on which I split. I never got over the patronage of the Fantadlin family. It became the vogue to abuse the theatre and declare the performers shocking. An equestrian troupe opened a circus in the town about the same time, and rose on my ruins. My house was deserted; my actors grew discontented because they were ill paid; my door became a hammering-place for every bailiff in the county; and my wife became more and more shrewish and tormenting, the more I wanted comfort.

      The establishment now became a scene of confusion and peculation. I Was considered a ruined man, and of course fair game for every one to pluck at, as every one plunders a sinking ship. Day after day some of the troupe deserted, and like deserting soldiers, carried off their arms and accoutrements with them. In this manner my wardrobe took legs and walked away; my finery strolled all over the country; my swords and daggers glittered in every barn; until at last my tailor made “one fell swoop,” and carried off three dress coats, half a dozen doublets, and nineteen pair of flesh-colored pantaloons.

      This was the “be all and the end all” of my fortune. I no longer hesitated what to do. Egad, thought I, since stealing is the order of the day, I’ll steal too. So I secretly gathered together the jewels of my wardrobe; packed up a hero’s dress in a handkerchief, slung it on the end of a tragedy sword, and quietly stole off at dead of night—”the bell then beating one,” — leaving my queen and kingdom to the mercy of my rebellious subjects, and my merciless foes, the bumbailiffs.

      Such, sir, was the “end of all my greatness.” I was heartily cured of All passion for governing, and returned once more into the ranks. I had for some time the usual run of an actor’s life. I played in various country theatres, at fairs, and in barns; sometimes hard pushed; sometimes flush, until on one occasion I came within an ace of making my fortune, and becoming one of the wonders of the age.

      I was playing the part of Richard the Third in a country barn, and Absolutely “out-Heroding Herod.” An agent of one of the great London theatres was present. He was on the lookout for something that might be got up as a prodigy. The theatre, it seems, was in desperate condition — nothing but a miracle could save it. He pitched upon me for that miracle. I had a remarkable bluster in my style, and swagger in my gait, and having taken to drink a little during my troubles, my voice was somewhat cracked; so that it seemed like two voices run into one. The thought struck the agent to bring me out as a theatrical wonder; as the restorer of natural and legitimate acting; as the only one who could understand and act Shakespeare rightly. He waited upon me the next morning, and opened his plan. I shrunk from it with becoming modesty; for well as I thought of myself, I felt myself unworthy of such praise.

      “‘Sblood, man!” said he, “no praise at all. You don’t imagine that I think you all this. I only want the public to think so. Nothing so easy as gulling the public if you only set up a prodigy. You need not try to act well, you must only act furiously. No matter what you do, or how you act, so that it be but odd and strange. We will have all the pit packed, and the newspapers hired. Whatever you do different from famous actors, it shall be insisted that you are right and they were wrong. If you rant, it shall be pure passion; if you are vulgar, it shall be a touch of nature. Every one shall be prepared to fall into raptures, and shout and yell, at certain points which you shall make. If you do but escape pelting the first night, your fortune and the fortune of the theatre is made.”

      I set off for London, therefore, full of new hopes. I was to be the restorer of Shakespeare and nature, and the legitimate drama; my very swagger was to be heroic, and my cracked voice the standard of elocution. Alas, sir! my usual luck attended СКАЧАТЬ