章节正文
ings must not be neglected. Silk does wear out so,
but -- after all, isn't it just the only goods there is?
The Hotel Thalia looks on Broadway as Marathon
looks on the sea. It stands like a gloomy cliff above
the whirlpool where the tides of two great thorough-
fares clash. Here the player-bands gather at the end
of their wanderings, to loosen the buskin and dust the
sock. Thick in the streets around it are booking-
offices, theatres, agents, schools, and the lobster-pal-
aces to which those thorny paths lead.
Wandering through the eccentric halls of the dim
and fusty Thalia, you seem to have found yourself
in some great ark or caravan about to sail, or fly, or
roll away on wheels. About the house lingers a sense
of unrest, of expectation, of transientness, even of
anxiety and apprehension. The halls are a labyrinth.
Without a guide, you wander like a lost soul in a
Sam Loyd puzzle.
Turning any corner, a dressing-sack or a cul-de-sac
may bring you up short. You meet alarming
tragedians stalking in bath-robes in search of ru-
mored bathrooms. From hundreds of rooms come the
buzz of talk, scraps of new and old songs, and the
ready laughter of the convened players.
Summer has come; their companies have disbanded,
and they take their rest in their favorite caravansary,
while they besiege the managers for engagements for
the coming season.
At this hour of the afternoon the day's work of
tramping the rounds of the agents' offices is over.
Past you, as you ramble distractedly through the
mossy halls, flit audible visions of houris, with veiled,
starry eyes, flying tag-ends of things and a swish of
silk, bequeathing to the dull hallways an odor of
gaiety and a memory of frangipanni. Serious young
comedians, with versatile Adam's apples, gather in
doorways and talk of Booth. Far-reaching from
somewhere comes the smell of ham and red cabbage,
and the crash of dishes on the American plan.
The indeterminate hum of life in the Thalia is
enlivened by the discreet popping -- at reasonable
and salubrious intervals -- of beer-bottle corks.
Thus punctuated, life in the genial hostel scans easily
-- the comma being the favorite mark, semicolons
frowned upon, and periods barred.
Miss D'Armannde's room was a small one. There
was room for her rocker between the dresser and the
wash-stand if it were placed longitudinally. On the
dresser were its usual accoutrements, plus the ex-lead-
ing lady's collected souvenirs of road engagements
and photographs of her dearest and best professional
friends.
At one of these photographs she looked twice or
thrice as she darned, and smiled friendlily.
"I'd like to know where Lee is just this minute,"
she said, half-aloud.
If you had been privileged to view the photograph
thus flattered, you would have thought at the first
glance that you saw the picture of a many-petalled
white flower, blown through the air by a storm. But
the floral kingdom was not responsible for that swirl
of petalous whiteness.
You saw the filmy, brief skirt of Miss Rosalie Ray
as she made a complete heels-over-head turn in her
wistaria-entwined swing, far out from the stage, high
above the heads of the audience. You saw the cam-
era's inadequate representation of the graceful,
strong kick, with which she, at this exciting moment,
sent flying, high and far, the yellow silk garter that
each evening spun from her agile limb and descended
upon the delightedaudience below.
You saw, too, amid the black-clothed, mainly mas-
culine patrons of select vaudeville a hundred hands
raised with the hope of staying the flight of the bril-
liant aerial token.
Forty weeks of the best circuits this act had
brought Miss Rosalie Ray, for each of two years.
She did other things during her twelve minutes -- a
song and dance, imitations of two or three actors who
are but imitations of themselves, and a balancing
feat with a step-ladder and feather-duster; but when
the blossom-decked swing was let down from the flies,
and Miss Rosalie sprang smiling into the seat, with
the golden circlet conspicuous in the place whence it
was soon to slide and become a soaring and coveted
guerdon -- then it was that the audience rose in its
seat as a single man -- or presumably so -- and in-
dorsed the specialty that made Miss Ray's name a
favorite in the booking-offices.
At the end of the two years Miss Ray suddenly an-
nounced to her dear friend, Miss D'Armande, that
she was going to spend the summer at an antediluvian
village on the north shore of Long Island, and that
the stage would see her no more.
Seventeen minutes after Miss Lynnette D'Armande
had expressed her wish to know the whereabouts of
her old chum, there were sharp raps at her door.
Doubt not that it was Rosalie Ray. At the shrill
command to enter she did so, with something of a
tired flutter, and dropped a heavy hand-bag on the
floor. Upon my word, it was Rosalie, in a loose,
travel-stained automobileless coat, closely tied brown
veil with yard-long, flying ends, gray walking-suit and
tan oxfords with lavender overgaiters.
When she threw off her veil and hat, you saw a
pretty enough face, now flushed and disturbed by
some unusualemotion, and restless, large eyes with
discontent marring their brightness. A heavy pile
of dull auburn hair, hastily put up, was escaping in
crinkly, waving strands and curling, small locks from
the confining combs and pins.
The meeting of the two was not marked by the
effusion vocal, gymnastical, osculatory and catecheti-
cal that distinguishes the greetings of their unpro-
fessional sisters in society. There was a brief clinch,
two simultaneous labial dabs and they stood on the
same footing of the old days. Very much like the
short salutations of soldiers or of travellers in for-
eign wilds are the welcomes between the strollers at
the corners of their crisscross roads.
"I've got the hall-room two flights up above
yours," said Rosalie, "but I came straight to see you
before going up. I didn't know you were here till
they told me."
"I've been in since the last of April," said Lyn-
nette. "And I'm going on the road with a 'Fatal
Inheritance' company. We open next week in Eliz-
abeth. I thought you'd quit the stage, Lee. Tell
me about yourself."
Rosalie settled herself with a skilful wriggle on
the top of Miss D'Armande's wardrobe trunk, and
leaned her head against the papered wall. From
long habit, thus can peripatetic leading ladies
and their sisters make themselves as comfort.
able as though the deepest armchairs embraced them.
"I'm going to tell you, Lynn," she said, with a
strangely sardonic and yet carelessly resigned look
on her youthful face. "And then to-morrow I'll
strike the old Broadway trail again, and wear some
more paint off the chairs in the agents' offices. If
anybody had told me any time in the last three months
up to four o'clock this afternoon that I'd ever listen
to that 'Leave-your-name-and-address' rot of the
booking bunch again, I'd have given 'em the real Mrs.
Fiske laugh. Loan me a handkerchief, Lynn. Gee!
but those Long Island trains are fierce. I've got
enough soft-coal cinders on my face to go on and play
Topsy without using the cork. And, speaking of
corks -- got anything to drink, Lynn?"
Miss D'Armande opened a door of the wash-stand
and took out a bottle.
"There's nearly a pint of Manhattan. There's a
cluster of carnations in the drinking glass, but -- "
"Oh, pass the bottle. Save the glass for com-
pany. Thanks! That hits the spot. The same to
you. My first drink in three months!"
"Yes, Lynn, I quit the stage at the end of last
season. I quit it because I was sick of the life. And
especially because my heart and soul were sick of men
of the kind of men we stage people have to be up
against. You know what the game is to us -- it's a
fight against 'em all the way down the line from the
manager who wants us to try his new motor-car to the
bill-posters who want to call us by our front names.
"And the men we have to meet after the show are
the worst of all. The stage-door kind, and the man-
ager's friends who take us to supper and show their
diamonds and talk about seeing 'Dan' and 'Dave'
and 'Charlie' for us. They're beasts, and I hate 'em.
"I tell you, Lynn, it's the girls like us on the stage
that ought to be pitied. It's girls from good homes
that are honestlyambitious and work hard to rise in
the profession, but never do get there. You bear a
lot of sympathy sloshed around on chorus girls and
their fifteen dollars a week. Piffle! There ain't a
sorrow in the chorus that a lobster cannot heal.
"If there's any tears to shed, let 'em fall for the
actress that gets a salary of from thirty to forty-five
dollars a week for taking a leading part in a bum
show. She knows she'll never do any better; but she
hangs on for years, hoping for the 'chance I that
never comes.
"And the fool plays we have to work in! Having
another girl roll you around the stage by the hind legs
in a 'Wheelbarrow Chorus' in a musicalcomedy is
dignified drama compared with the idiotic things I've
had to do in the thirty-centers.
"But what I hated most was the men -- the men
leering and blathering at you across tables, trying
to buy you with Wurzburger or Extra Dry, accord-
ing to their estimate of your price. And the men in
the audiences, clapping, yelling, snarling, crowding,
writhing, gloating -- like a lot of wild beasts, with
their eyes fixed on you, ready to eat you up if you
come in reach of their claws. Oh, how I hate 'em!
"Well, I'm not telling you much about myself, am
I, Lynn ?
"I had two hundred dollars saved up, and I cut
the stage the first of the summer. I went over on
Long Island and found the sweetest little village that
ever was, called Soundport, right on the water. I was
but -- after all, isn't it just the only goods there is?
The Hotel Thalia looks on Broadway as Marathon
looks on the sea. It stands like a gloomy cliff above
the whirlpool where the tides of two great thorough-
fares clash. Here the player-bands gather at the end
of their wanderings, to loosen the buskin and dust the
sock. Thick in the streets around it are booking-
offices, theatres, agents, schools, and the lobster-pal-
aces to which those thorny paths lead.
Wandering through the eccentric halls of the dim
and fusty Thalia, you seem to have found yourself
in some great ark or caravan about to sail, or fly, or
roll away on wheels. About the house lingers a sense
of unrest, of expectation, of transientness, even of
anxiety and apprehension. The halls are a labyrinth.
Without a guide, you wander like a lost soul in a
Sam Loyd puzzle.
Turning any corner, a dressing-sack or a cul-de-sac
may bring you up short. You meet alarming
tragedians stalking in bath-robes in search of ru-
mored bathrooms. From hundreds of rooms come the
buzz of talk, scraps of new and old songs, and the
ready laughter of the convened players.
Summer has come; their companies have disbanded,
and they take their rest in their favorite caravansary,
while they besiege the managers for engagements for
the coming season.
At this hour of the afternoon the day's work of
tramping the rounds of the agents' offices is over.
Past you, as you ramble distractedly through the
mossy halls, flit audible visions of houris, with veiled,
starry eyes, flying tag-ends of things and a swish of
silk, bequeathing to the dull hallways an odor of
gaiety and a memory of frangipanni. Serious young
comedians, with versatile Adam's apples, gather in
doorways and talk of Booth. Far-reaching from
somewhere comes the smell of ham and red cabbage,
and the crash of dishes on the American plan.
The indeterminate hum of life in the Thalia is
enlivened by the discreet popping -- at reasonable
and salubrious intervals -- of beer-bottle corks.
Thus punctuated, life in the genial hostel scans easily
-- the comma being the favorite mark, semicolons
frowned upon, and periods barred.
Miss D'Armannde's room was a small one. There
was room for her rocker between the dresser and the
wash-stand if it were placed longitudinally. On the
dresser were its usual accoutrements, plus the ex-lead-
ing lady's collected souvenirs of road engagements
and photographs of her dearest and best professional
friends.
At one of these photographs she looked twice or
thrice as she darned, and smiled friendlily.
"I'd like to know where Lee is just this minute,"
she said, half-aloud.
If you had been privileged to view the photograph
thus flattered, you would have thought at the first
glance that you saw the picture of a many-petalled
white flower, blown through the air by a storm. But
the floral kingdom was not responsible for that swirl
of petalous whiteness.
You saw the filmy, brief skirt of Miss Rosalie Ray
as she made a complete heels-over-head turn in her
wistaria-entwined swing, far out from the stage, high
above the heads of the audience. You saw the cam-
era's inadequate representation of the graceful,
strong kick, with which she, at this exciting moment,
sent flying, high and far, the yellow silk garter that
each evening spun from her agile limb and descended
upon the delightedaudience below.
You saw, too, amid the black-clothed, mainly mas-
culine patrons of select vaudeville a hundred hands
raised with the hope of staying the flight of the bril-
liant aerial token.
Forty weeks of the best circuits this act had
brought Miss Rosalie Ray, for each of two years.
She did other things during her twelve minutes -- a
song and dance, imitations of two or three actors who
are but imitations of themselves, and a balancing
feat with a step-ladder and feather-duster; but when
the blossom-decked swing was let down from the flies,
and Miss Rosalie sprang smiling into the seat, with
the golden circlet conspicuous in the place whence it
was soon to slide and become a soaring and coveted
guerdon -- then it was that the audience rose in its
seat as a single man -- or presumably so -- and in-
dorsed the specialty that made Miss Ray's name a
favorite in the booking-offices.
At the end of the two years Miss Ray suddenly an-
nounced to her dear friend, Miss D'Armande, that
she was going to spend the summer at an antediluvian
village on the north shore of Long Island, and that
the stage would see her no more.
Seventeen minutes after Miss Lynnette D'Armande
had expressed her wish to know the whereabouts of
her old chum, there were sharp raps at her door.
Doubt not that it was Rosalie Ray. At the shrill
command to enter she did so, with something of a
tired flutter, and dropped a heavy hand-bag on the
floor. Upon my word, it was Rosalie, in a loose,
travel-stained automobileless coat, closely tied brown
veil with yard-long, flying ends, gray walking-suit and
tan oxfords with lavender overgaiters.
When she threw off her veil and hat, you saw a
pretty enough face, now flushed and disturbed by
some unusualemotion, and restless, large eyes with
discontent marring their brightness. A heavy pile
of dull auburn hair, hastily put up, was escaping in
crinkly, waving strands and curling, small locks from
the confining combs and pins.
The meeting of the two was not marked by the
effusion vocal, gymnastical, osculatory and catecheti-
cal that distinguishes the greetings of their unpro-
fessional sisters in society. There was a brief clinch,
two simultaneous labial dabs and they stood on the
same footing of the old days. Very much like the
short salutations of soldiers or of travellers in for-
eign wilds are the welcomes between the strollers at
the corners of their crisscross roads.
"I've got the hall-room two flights up above
yours," said Rosalie, "but I came straight to see you
before going up. I didn't know you were here till
they told me."
"I've been in since the last of April," said Lyn-
nette. "And I'm going on the road with a 'Fatal
Inheritance' company. We open next week in Eliz-
abeth. I thought you'd quit the stage, Lee. Tell
me about yourself."
Rosalie settled herself with a skilful wriggle on
the top of Miss D'Armande's wardrobe trunk, and
leaned her head against the papered wall. From
long habit, thus can peripatetic leading ladies
and their sisters make themselves as comfort.
able as though the deepest armchairs embraced them.
"I'm going to tell you, Lynn," she said, with a
strangely sardonic and yet carelessly resigned look
on her youthful face. "And then to-morrow I'll
strike the old Broadway trail again, and wear some
more paint off the chairs in the agents' offices. If
anybody had told me any time in the last three months
up to four o'clock this afternoon that I'd ever listen
to that 'Leave-your-name-and-address' rot of the
booking bunch again, I'd have given 'em the real Mrs.
Fiske laugh. Loan me a handkerchief, Lynn. Gee!
but those Long Island trains are fierce. I've got
enough soft-coal cinders on my face to go on and play
Topsy without using the cork. And, speaking of
corks -- got anything to drink, Lynn?"
Miss D'Armande opened a door of the wash-stand
and took out a bottle.
"There's nearly a pint of Manhattan. There's a
cluster of carnations in the drinking glass, but -- "
"Oh, pass the bottle. Save the glass for com-
pany. Thanks! That hits the spot. The same to
you. My first drink in three months!"
"Yes, Lynn, I quit the stage at the end of last
season. I quit it because I was sick of the life. And
especially because my heart and soul were sick of men
of the kind of men we stage people have to be up
against. You know what the game is to us -- it's a
fight against 'em all the way down the line from the
manager who wants us to try his new motor-car to the
bill-posters who want to call us by our front names.
"And the men we have to meet after the show are
the worst of all. The stage-door kind, and the man-
ager's friends who take us to supper and show their
diamonds and talk about seeing 'Dan' and 'Dave'
and 'Charlie' for us. They're beasts, and I hate 'em.
"I tell you, Lynn, it's the girls like us on the stage
that ought to be pitied. It's girls from good homes
that are honestlyambitious and work hard to rise in
the profession, but never do get there. You bear a
lot of sympathy sloshed around on chorus girls and
their fifteen dollars a week. Piffle! There ain't a
sorrow in the chorus that a lobster cannot heal.
"If there's any tears to shed, let 'em fall for the
actress that gets a salary of from thirty to forty-five
dollars a week for taking a leading part in a bum
show. She knows she'll never do any better; but she
hangs on for years, hoping for the 'chance I that
never comes.
"And the fool plays we have to work in! Having
another girl roll you around the stage by the hind legs
in a 'Wheelbarrow Chorus' in a musicalcomedy is
dignified drama compared with the idiotic things I've
had to do in the thirty-centers.
"But what I hated most was the men -- the men
leering and blathering at you across tables, trying
to buy you with Wurzburger or Extra Dry, accord-
ing to their estimate of your price. And the men in
the audiences, clapping, yelling, snarling, crowding,
writhing, gloating -- like a lot of wild beasts, with
their eyes fixed on you, ready to eat you up if you
come in reach of their claws. Oh, how I hate 'em!
"Well, I'm not telling you much about myself, am
I, Lynn ?
"I had two hundred dollars saved up, and I cut
the stage the first of the summer. I went over on
Long Island and found the sweetest little village that
ever was, called Soundport, right on the water. I was
- wander [´wɔndə, ´wɑ:n:dər]
v.徘徊；流浪 (初中英语单词) - laughter [´lɑ:ftə] n.笑，笑声 (初中英语单词)
- responsible [ri´spɔnsəbəl] a.尽责的；责任重大的 (初中英语单词)
- audience [´ɔ:diəns] n.听众；观众；接见 (初中英语单词)
- mainly [´meinli] ad.主要地；大体上 (初中英语单词)
- flight [flait] n.逃走；飞行；班机 (初中英语单词)
- sprang [spræŋ] spring 的过去式 (初中英语单词)
- flutter [´flʌtə] vi.飘扬；摆 n.拍动 (初中英语单词)
- unusual [ʌn´ju:ʒuəl] a.不平常的；异常的 (初中英语单词)
- emotion [i´məuʃən] n.感情；情绪；激动 (初中英语单词)
- restless [´restləs] a.没有休息的 (初中英语单词)
- hastily [´heistili] ad.急速地；草率地 (初中英语单词)
- youthful [´ju:θfəl] a.年轻的；青年的 (初中英语单词)
- handkerchief [´hæŋkətʃif] n.手帕，手绢 (初中英语单词)
- fierce [fiəs] a.残忍的；强烈的 (初中英语单词)
- honestly [´ɔnistli] ad.诚实地，老实地 (初中英语单词)
- ambitious [æm´biʃəs] a.有雄心的；热望的 (初中英语单词)
- profession [prə´feʃən] n.职业；声明；表白 (初中英语单词)
- sympathy [´simpəθi] n.同情，怜悯 (初中英语单词)
- chorus [´kɔ:rəs] n.合唱；齐声 v.合唱 (初中英语单词)
- musical [´mju:zikəl] a.音乐的；悦耳的 (初中英语单词)
- estimate [´estimət, ´estimeit] n.估计；评价 vt.估价 (初中英语单词)
- broadway [´brɔ:dwei] n.&a.百老汇大街(的) (高中英语单词)
- gloomy [´glu:mi] a.昏暗的；忧郁的 (高中英语单词)
- loosen [´lu:sən] v.放松；松弛 (高中英语单词)
- expectation [,ekspek´teiʃən] n.期待(望)；预期 (高中英语单词)
- apprehension [,æpri´henʃən] n.理解；忧虑；逮捕 (高中英语单词)
- besiege [bi´si:dʒ] vt.包围，围攻 (高中英语单词)
- representation [,reprizen´teiʃən] n.描写；表现(法) (高中英语单词)
- conspicuous [kən´spikjuəs] a.显著的；出众的 (高中英语单词)
- whereabouts [,weərə´bauts] n.下落；行踪；所在 (高中英语单词)
- lavender [´lævində] n.熏衣草；淡紫色 (高中英语单词)
- brightness [´braitnis] n.光明；快乐 (高中英语单词)
- labial [´leibiəl] a.嘴唇的；唇音的 (高中英语单词)
- carelessly [´kɛəlisli] ad.粗心地；疏忽地 (高中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- comedy [´kɔmidi] n.喜剧；喜剧场面 (高中英语单词)
- caravan [´kærəvæn] n.大蓬车 (英语四级单词)
- unrest [ʌn´rest] n.不安；不稳；动乱 (英语四级单词)
- ramble [´ræmbl] v.&n.闲逛；漫步 (英语四级单词)
- audible [´ɔ:dibəl] a.听得见的 (英语四级单词)
- genial [´dʒi:niəl] a.愉快的；和蔼的 (英语四级单词)
- dresser [´dresə] n.(剧院)服装员；碗柜 (英语四级单词)
- delighted [di´laitid] a.高兴的；喜欢的 (英语四级单词)
- aerial [´eəriəl] a.空中的 n.天线 (英语四级单词)
- whence [wens] ad.从何处；从那里 (英语四级单词)
- wriggle [´rigəl] v.&n.蠕动；(使)扭动 (英语四级单词)
- wardrobe [´wɔ:drəub] n.衣柜；全部服装 (英语四级单词)
- manhattan [mæn´hætən] n.曼哈顿 (英语四级单词)
- lobster [´lɔbstə] n.龙虾(肉) (英语四级单词)
- thorny [´θɔ:ni] a.多刺的，棘手的 (英语六级单词)
- eccentric [ik´sentrik] a.古怪的；离心的 (英语六级单词)
- far-reaching [fɑ:´ri:tʃiŋ] a.影响远大的；深远的 (英语六级单词)
- discreet [di´skri:t] a.谨慎的，考虑周到的 (英语六级单词)
- privileged [´privilidʒd] a.有特权的；特许的 (英语六级单词)
- garter [´gɑ:tə] n.吊袜带 (英语六级单词)
- vaudeville [´vɔ:dəvil] n.滑稽通俗喜剧；杂耍 (英语六级单词)
- presumably [pri´zju:məbli] ad.推测起来；大概 (英语六级单词)
- auburn [´ɔ:bən] n.&a.赭色(的) (英语六级单词)
- footing [´futiŋ] n.立脚点；基础；地位 (英语六级单词)
- speaking [´spi:kiŋ] n.说话 a.发言的 (英语六级单词)
- taking [´teikiŋ] a.迷人的 n.捕获物 (英语六级单词)
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章节正文
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