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Stage-Land-Part8_Jerome K.Jerome(1859-1927)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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The stage Irishman is always doing the most wonderful things



imaginable. We do not see him do those wonderful things. He does

them when nobody is by and tells us all about them afterward: that is



how we know of them.

We remember on one occasion, when we were young and somewhat



inexperienced, planking our money down and going into a theater solely

and purposely to see the stage Irishman do the things he was depicted



as doing on the posters outside.

They were really marvelous, the things he did on that poster.



In the right-hand upper corner he appeared running across country on

all fours, with a red herring sticking out from his coat-tails, while



far behind came hounds and horsemen hunting him. But their chance of

ever catching him up was clearly hopeless.



To the left he was represented as running away over one of the wildest

and most rugged bits of landscape we have ever seen with a very big



man on his back. Six policemen stood scattered about a mile behind

him. They had evidently been running after him, but had at last given



up the pursuit as useless.

In the center of the poster he was having a friendly fight with



seventeen ladies and gentlemen. Judging from the costumes, the affair

appeared to be a wedding. A few of the guests had already been killed



and lay dead about the floor. The survivors, however, were enjoying

themselves immensely, and of all that gay group he was the gayest.



At the moment chosen by the artist, he had just succeeded in cracking

the bridegroom's skull.



"We must see this," said we to ourselves. "This is good." And we had

a bob's worth.



But he did not do any of the things that we have mentioned, after

all--at least, we mean we did not see him do any of them. It seems he



did them "off," and then came on and told his mother all about it

afterward.



He told it very well, but somehow or other we were disappointed. We

had so reckoned on that fight.



By the bye, we have noticed, even among the characters of real life, a

tendency to perform most of their wonderful feats "off."



It has been our privilege since then to gaze upon many posters on

which have been delineated strange and moving stage events.



We have seen the hero holding the villain up high above his head, and

throwing him about that carelessly that we have felt afraid he would



break something with him.

We have seen a heroine leaping from the roof of a house on one side of



the street and being caught by the comic man standing on the roof of a

house on the other side of the street and thinking nothing of it.



We have seen railway trains rushing into each other at the rate of

sixty miles an hour. We have seen houses blown up by dynamite two



hundred feet into the air. We have seen the defeat of the Spanish

Armada, the destruction of Pompeii, and the return of the British army



from Egypt in one "set" each.

Such incidents as earthquakes, wrecks in mid-ocean, revolutions and



battles we take no note of, they being commonplace and ordinary.

But we do not go inside to see these things now. We have two looks at



the poster instead; it is more satisfying.

The Irishman, to return to our friend, is very fond of whisky--the



stage Irishman, we mean. Whisky is forever in his thoughts--and often

in other places belonging to him, besides.



The fashion in dress among stage Irishmen is rather picturesque than

neat. Tailors must have a hard time of it in stage Ireland.



The stage Irishman has also an original taste in hats. He always

wears a hat without a crown; whether to keep his head cool or with any



political significance we cannot say.

THE DETECTIVE.



Ah! he is a cute one, he is. Possibly in real life he would not be

deemed anything extraordinary, but by contrast with the average of



stage men and women, any one who is not a born fool naturally appears

somewhat Machiavellian.



He is the only man in the play who does not swallow all the villain

tells him and believe it, and come up with his mouth open for more.



He is the only man who can see through the disguise of an overcoat and

a new hat.



There is something very wonderful about the disguising power of cloaks

and hats upon the stage. This comes from the habit people on the



stage have of recognizing their friends, not by their faces and

voices, but by their cloaks and hats.



A married man on the stage knows his wife, because he knows she wears

a blue ulster and a red bonnet. The moment she leaves off that blue



ulster and red bonnet he is lost and does not know where she is.




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