The Harlequinade: An Excursion Part 1

The Harlequinade.

by Dion Clayton Calthrop and Granville Barker.

JUST A WORD IN YOUR EAR

Not to put too fine a point to it, this isn't a play at all and it isn't a novel, or a treatise, or an essay, or anything like that; it is an excursion, and you who trouble to read it are the trippers.

Now in any excursion you get into all sorts of odd company, and fall into talk with persons out of your ordinary rule, and you borrow a match and get lent a magazine, and, as likely as not, you may hear the whole tragedy and comedy of a ham and beef carver's life. So you will get a view of the world as oddly coloured as Harlequin's clothes, with puffs of sentiment dear to the soul of Columbine, and Clownish fun with Pantaloonish wisdom and chuckles. When you were young, you used, I think, to enjoy a b.u.t.terfly's kiss; and that, you remember, was when your mother brushed your cheek with her eye-lashes. And also when you were young you held a b.u.t.tercup under other children's chins to see if they liked b.u.t.ter, and they always did, and the golden glow showed and the world was glad. And you held a sh.e.l.l to your ear to hear the sound of the sea, and when it rained, you pressed your nose against the window-pane until it looked flat and white to pa.s.sers-by.

It is rather in that spirit that Alice and her Uncle present this excursion to you.

I suppose it has taken over a thousand people to write this excursion, and we are, so far, the last. And not by any means do we pretend because of that to be the best of them; rather, because of that, perhaps, we cannot be the best. We should have done much better--if we could. Oh, this has been written by Greeks and Romans and Mediaeval Italians and Frenchmen and Englishmen, and it has been played thousands and thousands of times under every sort of weather and conditions. Think of it: when the gardeners of Egypt sent their boxes of roses to Italy to make chaplets for the Romans to wear at feasts this play was being performed; when the solemn Doges (which Alice once would call "Dogs") of Venice held festa days, this play was shown to the people.

And here Alice interrupts and says: "Do you think people really like to read all that sort of thing? Why don't you let me tell the story, please?

I'm sitting here waiting to." Well, so she shall.

THE HARLEQUINADE

For some time now she has been sitting there. Miss Alice Whistler is an attractive young person of about fifteen (very readily still she tells her age), dressed in a silver grey frock which she wishes were longer.

The frock has a white collar; she wears grey silk stockings and black shoes; and, finally, a little black silk ap.r.o.n, one of those French ap.r.o.ns. If you must know still more exactly how she is dressed, look at Whistler's portrait of Miss Alexander.

What happened was this. A pleasant old Victorian art fancier ( of) saw the child one day, and noted that her name was Whistler ("No relation," said her Uncle Edward, "so far as we know"), and "That's how to dress her," said he. And thereupon he forked out what he delicately called "The Wherewithal" ("Which sounded like a sort of mackintosh,"

said Alice afterwards), for they couldn't have afforded it themselves.

"You're still young enough to take presents," said Uncle Edward. And indeed Alice was very pleased, and saw that the hem was left wide enough to let down several times. And here she is; the dress is kept for these occasions.

Here she is in a low little chair, sitting with her basket of knitting beside her on one side of a simply painted grey and black proscenium, across which, masking the little stage, blue curtains hang in folds.

"The blue," said Miss Alice when she ordered them, "must be the colour of Blue-eyed Mary." The silly shopman did not know the flower. "Blue sky then," said Alice, "it's the blue that all skies seem to be when you're really happy under them." "Reckitt's blue is what you want," the shopman said, when nothing seemed to do. Yes; and a very good blue that is--by lamplight.

On the other side of the proscenium, ensconced (and the word was made to express just this)--ensconced in a porter's chair is Uncle Edward.

It is an old porter's chair, for they seem not to make them nowadays.

This one indeed was given to Uncle Edward by a club that had no further use for it, having cured the draughts in its front hall by puttin a patent door that the fat members stuck in and that tried to cut the thin members in half. A cross between a sentry-box and a cradle stuck on end it is, and very, very suitable to sit upright in and pretend you're not asleep. Years of that sitting in by porters, and of leaning against by under-porters and messengers who keep you awake with their chatter, and of daily dusting and rubbing, have made its leather uniform softly glow and its bra.s.s b.u.t.tons s.h.i.+ne till it looks a comfortable piece of furniture indeed. Now the side of a stage is draughty at the best of times, and Uncle Edward, says he, is by no means so young as he was (a real live joke to him that outworn phrase is), and how he managed before he had it he really cannot think!

However early you come to the performance you always find him there.

For minutes and minutes you may only be aware of very s.h.i.+ny square-toed boots and black-trousered legs and a newspaper that hides the of him. On most days it will be "The Times", on Wednesday it may be "Punch", and on Sat.u.r.days "The Spectator." "That is a gentleman's reading," he says. When the paper is lowered, as he turns a page, you behold one of those oldish gentlemen with a rather pleasant bad temper who really only mean to demand by it that young people shall pay them the compliment of "getting round" them. As the time of the performance draws near he is apt, at each lowering of the paper, to count you up as you sit there waiting, and if there are not enough of you he looks very disapproving indeed.

Alice watches you furtively almost all the time as she knits or crochets. For audiences make such a difference to her, and she is always hoping for a good one. It need not be a big one to be good (Uncle Edward likes them big). To be a good audience is to take your share of the performance by enjoying it in a simple jolly way--if you can. That eases the actors of half the strain, and then they can enjoy it, too. And if you can't do this, you'd much better go home.

When it is quite near the time to begin, you hear the orchestra tuning up. This you should never miss. There is nothing like it as a t to rouse the theatre appet.i.te. At the sound of it Alice puts away her knitting, and hopes her hair is tidy.

Then on a single flute a little tune is played, and the child's eyes light up. Music excites her, sets all the gaiety in her free. If it wasn't for the help that music is she'd quite despair sometimes of getting through the play.

"That's mine. That's my theme," she says. "I've had a piece of music to myself because every one in this has a piece of music. But mine is--"

But Uncle Edward has finally put his paper down. And now--by mean a violent operation on his waistcoat--he produces an enormous silver watch, like those that railway guards have. And he turns to Alice.

"Time," he says magnificently.

Alice looks doubtfully at the laggards trailing to their places and snapping down the stalls. But Uncle Edward is adamant to her if tolerant to them.

"Some of 'em always late," and his blue eye roves round. "It's their dinner. But go and begin your bit like a good girl."

So then Alice comes to the middle of the stage; swallows a little from nervousness, and begins...

ALICE. If you please, this is going to be a Harlequinade ... a real one.

And we begin it at the beginning, which is as many thousand years ago as you like to believe. It's about how ... how ...

UNCLE EDWARD. Psyche.

ALICE. When I was young I would call her Fishy. It is all about how Psyche, who is a perfect darling ...

UNCLE EDWARD. You are not to put bits in.

ALICE. Well, she is a perfect darling. But you don't see her in the first scene. Now Psyche, who is the Soul, comes down ... whenever a baby's born, of course, a little sc.r.a.p of Psyche is sent down! ... But this is how the story goes ... That she comes down from Mount Olympus where the G.o.ds live to adventure on the earth. And in the Harlequinade she's Columbine, but that only means a dove, and a dove is the symbol of the soul. And anybody who is fond of flowers knows that, because if you look at Columbine flowers you can see that they are made of doves with their wings out. And so she ought always to be dressed in blue.

UNCLE EDWARD. What's that?

ALICE. Well, I like blue. She's a restless adventurous person, and she's always running away from the other G.o.ds. For you see the Soul has need of human love, and, of course, G.o.ds that are nothing but G.o.ds can't appreciate that. Now when she gets to earth her wings drop off. And when she tries to get back to the G.o.ds, she can't until she finds another love as great as hers. For two souls that love become more than human; and when their earthly course is run (as Doctor Watts says), it gives them wings again, and back they can fly.

UNCLE EDWARD. Pretty.

ALICE. But ... to resume. Mercury, who used to spend weekends in Athens and Corinth and those places, was sent to try and find her. Mercury has to get old Charon, who is the ferryman for rowing souls over the Styx ... which is a river all the dead have to cross ... and my aunt, who's dead and full of fun ... oh, I'm sure she still is full of fun ... always said it was the most interesting place in spiritual geography.

UNCLE EDWARD. Steady! Steady!

ALICE. You told me she said so.

UNCLE EDWARD. In private. Mercury gets Charon...?

ALICE. To ferry him across. And on the earth side they meet ...

UNCLE EDWARD. Not so fast.

ALICE. They meet a Greek philosopher whose name is ...

UNCLE EDWARD. Hipponax.

ALICE. Aren't some of these names dreadfully difficult to remember.

Hipponax has just died, and he is waiting to be ferried over. And it's rather awkward for him, as, when he was alive, he wrote a book to prove there weren't any G.o.ds and there wasn't any after life. And then comes Momus, who's a sort of half-G.o.d, not important enough to be rowed over, but he has swum the river as he wants to join the party. Hipponax stays to look after Charon's boat. And that's how it all begins. When the three of them get to earth Mercury's called Harlequin, and Momus, Clown; and ... But I tell you all that later.

UNCLE EDWARD. You missed out again about how Harlequin got his mask.

ALICE. Sorry! So I did. The Greek philosopher always wore a mask, so that people shouldn't see whether he was talking sense or not. For you can tell that by looking at people. And he wore a cloak all patches to pretend he was poor, because you aren't a philosopher at all unless you're poor ...

there's no need. But Columbine's the nicest. You'll see.