Chapter Twentieth
I Have to Pass through Bitter Humiliation to Win High Encomiums from Herr Bandmann; while Edwin Booth’s Kindness Fills the Theatre with Pink Clouds, and I Float Thereon.
Occasionally one person united two “lines of business,” as in the case of Mrs. Bradshaw, who played “old women” and “heavy business” both, and when anything happened to disqualify such a person for work the inconvenience was of course very great. Mrs. Bradshaw, as I have said before, was very stout, but her frame was delicate in the extreme, and her slender ankles were unable to bear her great weight, and one of them broke. Of course that meant a long lying up in dry-dock for her, and any amount of worry for ever so many other people. Right in the middle of her imprisonment came the engagement of the German actor, Herr Daniel Bandmann. He was to open with “Hamlet,” and, gracious Heaven! I was cast for the Queen-mother. It took a good deal in the way of being asked to do strange parts to startle me, but the Queen-mother did it. I was just nicely past sixteen, but even I dared not yet lay claim to seventeen, and I was to go on the stage for the serious Shakespearian mother of a star.
“Oh, I couldn’t!”
“Can’t be helped—no one else,” growled Mr. Ellsler. “Just study your lines, right away, and do the best you can.”
I had been brought up to obey, and I obeyed. We had heard much of Mr. Bandmann, of his originality, his impetuosity, and I had been very anxious to see him. After that cast, however, I would gladly have deferred the pleasure. The dreaded morning came. Mr. Bandmann, a very big man, to my frightened eyes looked gigantic. He was dark-skinned, he had crinkly, flowing hair, his eyes were of the curious red-brown color of a ripe chestnut. He was large of voice, and large of gesture. There was a greeting, a few introductions, and then rehearsal was on, and soon, oh! so soon, there came the call for the Queen. I came forward. He glanced down at me, half smiled, waved his arm, and said: “Not you, not the Player-Queen, but Gertrude.”
I faintly answered: “I’m sorry, sir, but I have to play Gertrude.”
“Oh, no you won’t!” he cried, “not with me!” He was furious, he stamped his feet, he turned to the manager: “What’s all this infernal nonsense? I want a woman for this part! What kind of witches’ broth are you serving me, with an old woman for my Ophelia, and an apple-cheeked girl for my mother! She can’t speak these lines! she, dumpling face!”
Mr. Ellsler said, quietly: “There is sickness in my company. The heavy woman cannot act; this young girl will not look the part, of course, but you need have no fear about the lines, she never loses a word.”
“Curse the words! It is, that that little girl shall not read with the sense one line, no, not one line of the Shakespeare!” his English was fast going in his rage.
Mr. Ellsler answered: “She will read the part as well as you ever heard it in your life, Mr. Bandmann.” And Mr. Bandmann gave a jeering laugh, and snapped his fingers loudly.
It was most insulting, and I felt overwhelmed with humiliation. Mr. Ellsler said, angrily: “Very well, as I have no one else to offer you, we will close the theatre for the night!”
But Mr. Bandmann did not want to close—not he. So, after swearing in German for a time, he resumed rehearsal, and when my time came to speak I could scarcely lift my drooping head or conquer the lump in my throat, but, somehow, I got out the entreating words:
“Good Hamlet, cast thy Knighted color off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.”
He lifted his head suddenly—I went on:
“Do not, for ever, with thy veiled lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust.”
He exclaimed, surprisedly: “So! so!” as I continued my speech. Now in this country, “So—so!” is a term applied to restless cows at milking-time, and the devil of ridicule, never long at rest in my mind, suddenly wakened, so that when I had to say:
“Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.”
and Mr. Bandmann smilingly cried: “So! so!” and I swiftly added the word “Bossy,” and every soul on the stage broke into laughter. He saw he was laughed at, and it took a whole week’s time and an elaborate explanation, to enable him to grasp the jest—but when he got a good hold of it, he so! so! bossied and stamped and laughed at a great rate.
During the rehearsal—which was difficult in the extreme, as his business (i.e., actions or poses accompanying certain words) was very different from that we were used to—he never found one single fault with my reading, and made just one suggestion, which I was most careful to follow—for one taste of his temper had been enough.
Then came the night—a big house, too, I remember. I wore long and loose garments to make me look more matronly; but, alas! the drapery Queen Gertrude wears, passed under her jaws from ear to ear, was particularly becoming to me, and brought me uncommonly near to prettiness. Mr. Ellsler groaned, but said nothing, while Mr. Bandmann sneered out an “Ach Himmel!” shrugged his shoulders, and made me feel real nice and happy. And when one considers that without me the theatre must have closed or changed its bill, even while one pities him for the infliction, one feels he was unnecessarily unkind.
Well, all went quietly until the closet scene—between Hamlet, the Queen, and the Ghost. It is a great scene, and he had some very effective business. I forgot Bandmann in Hamlet. I tried hard to show shame, pride, and terror. The applause was rapturous. The curtain fell, and—why, what, in the name of heaven, was happening to me?
I was caught by the arms and lifted high in air; when I came down I was crushed to Hamlet’s bosom, with a crackling sound of breaking Roman-pearl beads, and in a whirlwind of “Himmels!” “Gotts!” and things, I was kissed with frenzied wet kisses on either cheek—on my brow—my eyes. Then disjointed English came forth: “Oh, you so great, you kleine apple-cheeked girl! you maker of the fraud—you so great nobody! ach! you are fire—you have pride—you are a Gertrude who have shame!” More kisses, then suddenly he realized the audience was still applauding—loudly and heartily. He grasped my hand, he dragged me before the curtain, he bowed, he waved his hands, he threw one arm about my shoulders.
“Good Lord!” I thought, “he isn’t going to do it all over again—out here, is he?” and I began backing out of sight as quickly as possible.
It was a very comforting plaster to apply to my wounds—such a success as that, but it would have been so much pleasanter not to have received the wound in the first place.
Mr. Bandmann’s best work, I think, was done in “Narcisse.” His Hamlet seemed to me too melodramatic—if I may say so. If Hamlet had had all that tremendous fund of energy, all that love of action, the Ghost need never have returned to “whet his almost blunted purpose.” Nor could I like his scene with his guilty mother. There was not even a forced show of respect for her. There was no grief for her wrong-doing—rather, his whole tone was that of a triumphant detective. And his speeches, “Such an act!” and “Look upon this picture!” were given with such unction—such a sneeringly, perfect comprehension of her lust, as to become themselves lustful.
His Shylock was much admired, I believe, but Narcisse was a most artistic piece of work. His appearance was superb; his philosophical flippancy anent his poverty, his biting contempt of the powerful Pompadour; his passion and madness on discovering his lost wife in the person of the dying favorite, and his own death, were really great.
And just one little month after the departure of the impetuous German, who should be announced but Mr. Edwin Booth. I felt my eyes growing wider as I read in the cast, “Queen Gertrude—Miss Morris.” Uncle Dick, behind me, said: “Would you like me to d——n poor Brad’s bones for you, Clara? It’s hard lines on you, and that’s a fact!”
“Oh!” I thought, “why won’t her blessed old bones mend themselves! she is not lazy, but they are! oh, dear! oh, dear!” and miserable tears slid down my cheeks all the way home, and moistened saltily my supper of crackers after I got there.
I had succeeded before, oh, yes; but I could not help recalling just how hot the ploughshares were over which I had walked to reach that success. Then, too, all girls have their gods—some have many of them. Some girls change them often. My gods were few. Sometimes I cast one down, but I never changed them, and on the highest, whitest pedestal of all, grave and gentle, stood the god of my professional idolatry—Edwin Booth. I wiped off cracker-crumbs with one hand and tears with the other.
It was so humiliating to be forced upon anyone, as I should be forced upon Mr. Booth, since there was still no one but my “apple-cheeked” self to go on for the Queen; and though I dreaded indignant complaint or disparaging remarks from him, I was honestly more unhappy over the annoyance this blemish on the cast would cause him. Well, it could not be helped, I should have to bear a second cruel mortification, that was all. I put my four remaining crackers back in their box, brushed up the crumbs, wiped my eyes, repeated my childish little old-time “Now I lay me,” and went to sleep; only to dream of Mr. Booth holding out a hideous mask, and pressing me to have the decency to put it on before going on the stage for Gertrude.
When the dreaded Monday came, lo! a blizzard came with it. The trains were all late, or stalled entirely. We rehearsed, but there was no Mr. Booth present. He was held in a drift somewhere on the line, and at night, therefore, we all went early to the theatre, so that if he came we would have time to go over the important scenes—or if he did not come that we might prepare for another play.
He came. Oh, how my heart sank! This would be worse for him even than it had been for Mr. Bandmann, for the latter knew of his disappointing Queen in the morning, and had time to get over the shock, but poor Mr. Booth was to receive his blow only a few minutes before going on the stage. At last it came—the call.
“Mr. Booth would like to see you for a few moments in his room.”
I went, I was cold all over. He was so tired, he would be so angry. I tapped. I went in. He was dressed for Hamlet, but he was adding a touch to his brows, and snipping a little at his nails—hurriedly. He looked up, said “Good-evening!” rather absently, then stopped, looked again, smiled, and waving his hand slightly, said, just in Bandmann’s very words: “No, not you—not the Player-Queen—but Gertrude.”
Tears rushed to my eyes, my whole heart was in my voice as I gasped: “I’m so sorry, sir, but I have to do Queen Gertrude. You see,” I rushed on, “our heavy woman has a broken leg and can’t act.”
A whimsical look, half smile, half frown, came over his face. “That’s bad for the heavy woman,” he remarked.
“Yes,” I acquiesced, “but, if you please, I had to do this part with Mr. Bandmann too, and—and—I’ll only worry you with my looks, sir, not about the words or business.”
He rested his dark, unspeakably melancholy eyes on my face, his brows raised and then knit themselves in such troubled wise as made me long to put an arm about his shoulders and assure him I wouldn’t be so awfully bad.
Then he sighed and said: “Well, it was the closet-scene I wanted to speak to you about. When the Ghost appears, you are to be—” He stopped, a faint smile touched his lips, even reached his eyes; he laid down his scissors, and remarked, “There’s no denying it, my girl, I look a great deal more like your father than you look like my mother—but,” he went on with his directions, and, considerate gentleman that he was, spoke no single unkind word to me, though my playing of that part must have been a great annoyance to him, when added to hunger and fatigue.
When the closet-scene was over, the curtain down, I caught up my petticoats and made a rapid flight roomward. The applause was filling the theatre. Mr. Booth, turning, called after me: “You—er—Gertrude—er—Queen! Oh, somebody call that child back here,” and someone roared: “Clara—Mr. Booth is calling you!”
I turned, but stood still. He beckoned, then came to me, took my hand, and saying: “My dear, we must not keep them waiting too long!” led me before the curtain with him. I very slightly bent my head to the audience, whom I felt were applauding Hamlet only, but turned and bowed myself to the ground to him whose courtesy had brought me there.
When we came off he smiled amusedly, tapped me on the shoulder, and said: “My Gertrude, you are very young, but you know how to pay a pretty compliment—thank you, child!”
So, whenever you see pictures of nymphs or goddesses floating on pink clouds, and looking idiotically happy, you can say to yourself: “That’s just how Clara Morris felt when Edwin Booth said she had paid him a compliment.”
Yes, I floated, and I’ll take a solemn oath, if necessary, that the whole theatre was filled with pink clouds the rest of that night—for girls are made that way, and they can’t help it.
In after years I knew him better, and I treasure still the little note he sent me in answer to my congratulation on his escape from the bullet fired at him from the gallery of the theatre in Chicago. A note that expressed as much gentle surprise at my “kind thought for him,” as though I only, and not the whole country, was rejoicing at his safety.
He had a wonderful power to win love from other men—yes, I use the word advisedly. It was not mere good-fellowship or even affection, but there was something so fine and true, so strong and sweet in his nature, that it won the love of those who knew him best.
It would seem like presumption for me to try to add one little leaf to the tight-woven laurel crown he wore. Everyone knows the agony of his “Fool’s Revenge,” the damnable malice of his Iago, the beauty and fire of Antony, and the pure perfection of his Hamlet—but how many knew the slow, cruel martyrdom of his private life! which he bore with such mute patience that in my heart there is an altar raised to the memory of that Saint Edwin of many sorrows, who was known and envied by the world at large—as the great actor, Edwin Booth.