Fantastics and other Fancies/Les Coulisses
LES COULISSES[1]
SOUVENIRS OF A STRAKOSCH OPERA NIGHT
Surely it cannot have been a poet who first inspired the popular mind with that widely spread and deeply erroneous belief that "behind the scenes" all is hollow mockery and emptiness and unsightliness;—that the comeliness of the pliant limbs which move to music before the starry row of shielded lights is due to a judicious distribution of sawdust; and that our visions of fair faces are created by the magic contained in pots of ointment and boxes of pearl powder of which the hiding-places are known only to those duly initiated into the awful mysteries of the Green Room.
No; the Curtain is assuredly the Veil which hides from unromantic eyes the mysteries of a veritable Fairy-World,—not a fairyland so clearly and sharply outlined as the artistic fantasies of Christmas picture-books, but a fairy-land of misty landscapes and dim shadows and bright shapes moving through the vagueness of mystery. There is really a world of stronger enchantment behind than before the scenes;—all that movement of white limbs and fair faces—that shifting of shadowy fields and plains, those changing visions of mountain and wold, of towers that disappear as in tales of knight-errantry, and cottages transformed into palaces as in the "Arabian Nights"—is but a small part of the great wizard-work nightly wrought by invisible hands behind the Curtain. And when, through devious corridors and dimly-lighted ways,—between rows of chambers through whose doors one catches sudden glimpses of the elves attiring in purple and silver, in scarlet and gold, for the gaslit holiday among canvas woods and flowing brooks of muslin, mystic, wonderful,—thou shalt arrive within the jagged borders of the Unknown World itself to behold the Circles of bright seats curving afar off in atmospheres of artificial light, and the Inhabitants of those Circles become themselves involuntary Actors for the amusement of the lesser audience, then verily doth the charm begin. There is no disillusion as yet. The Isis of the drama has lifted her outer veil; but a veil yet more impenetrable remains to conceal the mystery of her face. The Heart of all that Mimic Life—mimic yet warm and real—throbs about thee, but dost thou understand its pulsations? Thou art in the midst of a secret, in the innermost chamber of the witch-workers—yet the witchcraft remains. Thou hast approached too near the Fata Morgana of theatrical enchantment—all has vanished or tumbled into spectral ruin. Fragments of castles and antiquated cities—torn and uneven remnants of pictures of various centuries huddled together in mystic anachronism—surround and overshadow thee; but to comprehend that harmonious whole, thou must retire to the outer circles of the shining temple, before the tall Veil. About thee it is a world wrought of many broken worlds;—a world of picturesque ruin like the moon in heaven—a world of broken lights and shadows and haunted glooms—a wild dream—a work of goblinry. Content thyself, seek not disillusion; for to the gods of this mysterious sphere human curiosity is the greatest of abominations. Satisfy thyself with the knowledge that thou art in Fairyland; and that it is not given to mortals to learn all the ways of elves. What though the woods be mockeries, and the castles be thinner than Castles of Spain, and the white statues fair Emptinesses like the elf women of Northern dreams?—the elves and gnomes and fairies themselves are real and palpable and palpitant with the ruddy warmth of life.
Perhaps thou thinkest of those antique theatres—marble cups set between the breasts of sweetly-curving hills, with the cloud-frescoed dome of the Infinite for a ceiling, and for scenery nature's richest charms of purple mountain and azure sea and emerald groves of olive. But that beautiful materialism of the ancient theatre charmed not as the mystery of ours,—a mystery too delicate to suffer the eye of Day;—a mystery wrought by fairies who dare only toil by night. One sunbeam would destroy the charm of this dusky twilight world. Strange! how the mind wanders in this strange place! Yet it is easier to dream of two thousand years ago than to recollect that thou livest in the material present,—that only a painted ceiling lies between thy vision and the amethystine heaven of stars above, and that only a wall of plastered brick separates thee from the streets of New Orleans or the gardens westward where the bananas are nodding their heads under the moon. For the genii of this inner world are weaving their spells about thee. Figures of other centuries pass before thy eyes, as in the steel mirror of a wizard:—lords of Italian cities gorgeous as Emperor-moths, captains of free companies booted and spurred, phantoms, one may fancy, of fair women whose portraits hang in the Uffizi Gallery, and prelates of the sixteenth century. Did Macbeth's witches ever perform greater magic than this?—a series of tableaux after Racinet animated by some elfish art? If the human character of the witchery does not betray itself by a pretty anachronism!—some intermingling of the costumes of the sixteenth century with those of the seventeenth, a sacrifice of history to the beauty of woman,—the illusion remains unbroken. Thou art living, by magic, in the age of Lorenzo di Medici; and is it strange that they should address thee in the Italian tongue?
There is an earthquake of applauding, the Circles of seats are again hidden, and this world of canvas and paint is tumbling about thy ears. The spell is broken for a moment by Beings garbed in the everyday attire of the nineteenth century, who have devoted themselves to the work of destruction and reconstruction,—to whom dreamers are an abomination and idlers behind the scenes a vexation of spirit. Va t'en, inseq' de hois de lit!
Aye, thou mayst well start!—thou hast seen her before. Where?—when? In a little French store, not very, very far from the old Creole Opera House. This enchantment of the place has transformed her into a fairy. Ah, thou marvelest that she can be so pretty;—nor Shakespeare's Viola nor Gautier's Graciosa were fairer to look upon than this dream of white grace and pliant comeliness in the garb of dead centuries. And yet another and another Creole girl,—familiar faces to the dwellers in the Quaint Places of New Orleans. What is the secret of that strange enchantment which teaches us that the modest everyday robe of black merino may be but the chrysalis-shell within which God's own butterflies are hidden?
Suddenly through the motley rout of princes and princesses, of captains and conspirators, of soldiers and priests, of courtiers and dukes, there comes a vision of white fairies;—these be the Damosels of the Pirouette. Thou mayest watch them unobserved; for the other beings heed them not;—Cophetua-like, the King in his coronation robes is waltzing with a pretty Peasant Girl; and like Christina of Spain, the Queen is tête-à-tête with a soldier. The dancers give the impression of something aerial, ethereal, volatile,—something which rests and flies but walks not,—some species of splendid fly with wings half-open. The vulgar Idea of Sawdust vanishes before the reality of those slender and pliant limbs. They are preparing for the dance with a series of little exercises which provoke a number of charming images and call out all the supple graces of the figure; —it is Atalanta preparing to pursue Hippomenes; it is a butterfly shaking its wings; it is a white bird pluming itself with noiseless skill. But when the Terpsichorean flight is over, and the theatre shakes with applause; while the dancers shrink panting and exhausted into some shadowy hiding-place, breathing more hurriedly than a wrestler after a long bout,—thou wilt feel grateful to the humane spirits who break the applause with kindly hisses, and rebuke the ignorance which seeks only its own pleasure in cries of encore.
And the Asmodean Prompter who moves the dramatic strings that agitate all these Puppets of mimic passion, whose sonorous tones penetrate all the recesses of the mysterious scenery without being heard before the footlights, resumes his faithful task;—the story of harmony and tragedy is continued by the orchestra and the singers, while a Babel of many tongues is heard among the wooden rocks and the canvas trees and the silent rivers of muslin. But little canst thou reck of the mimic opera. That is for those who sit in the outer circles. The music of the many-toned Opera of Life envelops and absorbs the soul of the stranger,—teaching him that the acting behind the Curtain is not all a mimicry of the Real, but in truth a melodrama of visible, tangible, sentient life, which must endure through many thousand scenes until that Shadow, who is stronger than Love, shall put out the lights, and ring down the vast and sable Curtain. And thus dreaming, thou findest thyself again in the streets, whitened by the moon! Lights, fairies, kings, and captains are gone. Ah! thou hast not been dreaming, friend; but the hearts of those who have beheld Fairyland are heavy.
- ↑ Item, December 6, 1879. Hearn's own title.