The Amazing City :: X AFTER CHANTECLER

X AFTER CHANTECLER

More than a fortnight has passed since I witnessed the dress rehearsal of Chantecler: and what an odd, what an exhausting fortnight it has been! First of all dreams—or rather nightmares. Strangely, preposterously, I am majestic, cock-crowing “Chantecler” himself. A few minutes later, with wild, delirious rapidity, I turn into the Blackbird. M. Rostand’s Blackbird can hop in and out of his cage, and mingle with the hens, the ducks, the fluffy little chicks, and the other feathered creatures in the farm-yard; but I—am a prisoner in my cage—no one heeds my cries, no one releases me, and to add to my panic huge owls with shining eyes gather around my cage and hoot lugubriously at me.

Nor is this all. I get hopelessly entangled in the gigantic cobweb, which is one of the most wonderful scenic effects of the Fourth Act (the “Hen Pheasant’s Forest”) of Chantecler. Also I stumble over the great toadstools, fall heavily to the ground; and the gorgeous Hen Pheasant herself appearing, I feel humiliated and ashamed that so elegant and beautiful a creature should find me sprawling thus awkwardly on the turf. “What a nuisance these toadstools are,” I observe. “What are you doing in my forest? Leave it immediately,” commands the Hen Pheasant. But I have sprained my ankle; impossible to rise, even to move. And I burst into tears, and I implore the beautiful Pheasant to pardon me, and then a great bat gets caught in my hair, and——

Enough. Although my sufferings in these nightmares have been acute, I have one thing to be thankful for. Up to now I have not been attacked, as “Chantecler” is in the Third Act, by a fierce, bloodthirsty Prize Fighting Cock.

Gracious goodness, this Chantecler! Rising unrefreshed from my troubled, restless sleep, I find, on the breakfast-table, letters from London, Birmingham, Manchester, which show that M. Edmond Rostand’s masterpiece has interested those cities as much as it has agitated and excited Paris.

“My Dear Boy” (writes a frail, silver-haired and very charming old lady who gave me half-crowns in my schooldays),—“I live very much out of the world, as old people should do; but I confess to my curiosity having been aroused by a very peculiar play now being acted in Paris. I mean Chantecler, by a M. Edmond Rostand. It seems that the characters in it—if one can call them characters?—are animals. How very remarkable! I wonder how it can be done! Such things are seen, of course, in pantomimes (do you remember my taking you to Drury Lane Theatre many, many years ago to see Puss-in-Boots?). But the newspapers here say that this play is wonderfully natural, and full of true poetry and feeling. When you can spare half-an-hour, pray satisfy an old lady’s curiosity by giving her an account of the piece.”

Then, with innumerable dashes, exclamation marks, and words underlined, the following appeal from fascinating, lovely, irresistible Miss Ethel Tempest:—

“Of course, lucky man, you have seen Chantecler, and if you don’t tell me all about it by return of post I shall never write to you, and never look at you, and never speak to you again. I don’t want to know anything about the plot of the play, as I have read all about that in the papers. You have got to be a dear, and tell me about the hat that Madame Simone wears as the Hen Pheasant. It’s made of straw and feathers, and it’s going to be the rage in London. Sybil Osborne tells me chic Parisiennes are wearing it already. No; on second thoughts, send me all the fashionable illustrated papers that give sketches of the hat. As you’re a man, you won’t understand it. Mind, all the papers: you can’t send enough. If you could get a special sketch done by one of your artist friends in the Latin Quarter, it would be lovely.”

Well, of course I write to the gentle, kindly silver-haired lady who once took me to a Drury Lane pantomime; and of course, too, I send illustrated papers—thirteen of them—to exquisite Miss Tempest, and ask Raoul Fauchois, a gay, sympathetic art student, to “do” me a sketch of the Hen Pheasant’s straw hat. He consents, and I fancy he will keep his promise. “Naturally, the sketch is not for you,” he says, at once wisely and poetically. “It is for one of those blonde English misses whose chevelure, so radiant, so golden, lights up the sombre streets of old London. You may rely upon me, mon pauvre ami. I understand; I know exactly how you feel—for I myself have had affairs of the heart.”

Again, always from London and the provinces, requests for picture post cards of the principal scenes in Chantecler; for gilt brooches (3 f. 50 c. in the tawdry shops of the rue de Rivoli) representing “Chantecler” crowing and crowing with his chest thrown outwards and his beak raised heavenwards; for the Porte St-Martin theatre programme of Chantecler; and for—“if you possibly can manage it”—the autograph of M. Edmond Rostand.

And then a telegram:

“Wife and self arrive Gare du Nord Wednesday 5.45. Please meet us. Not understanding French wish you accompany us see and interpret Chantecler.”

What worry, what exhaustion!

“Monsieur would be kind to explain this extraordinary ‘Chantecler’ to me. I am from the country, and have had much to do with poultry; but I have never seen a cock like Chantecler,” says my servant, a simple, naÏve soul from Normandy.

Then my concierge, a practical lady: “But it’s ridiculous, but it’s mad! Cocks and hens cannot even speak, and yet this M. Rostand makes them recite poetry. What is France coming to? What will be the end of us all? Think, just think, what has been happening since the New Year. That sinister comet, the terrible floods, and now Chantecler.”

Very unwisely, I explain to my servant and to my concierge that M. Rostand’s glorious chef-d’oeuvre is symbolical.

Chantecler is a symbolic play in verse.

The feathered creatures in the farm-yard represent human beings. “Chantecler” himself is the artist, the idealist. The Hen Pheasant is the coquettish, seductive, brilliant woman of the world. The Blackbird——

But here I stop, silenced by the startled expression of the concierge and the servant. It is plain they think I have become irresponsible, light-headed. “Monsieur is tired. Monsieur should lie down and rest. Monsieur is not quite himself,” says my servant.

“The comet—the floods—Chantecler, have been too much for Monsieur,” sighs the concierge.

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