The Magic Curtain Part 21

CHAPTER XX A PLACE OF ENCHANTMENT

Then came for Pet.i.te Jeanne an hour of swiftly pa.s.sing glory.

She had arisen late, as was her custom, and was sipping her black coffee when the telephone rang.

"This is Marjory Dean." The words came to her over the wire in the faintest whisper. But how they thrilled her! "Is this Pet.i.te Jeanne? Or is it Pierre?" The prima donna was laughing.

"It is Pet.i.te Jeanne at breakfast," Jeanne answered. Her heart was in her throat. What was she to expect?

"Then will you please ask Pierre if it will be possible for him to meet me at the Opera House stage door at three this afternoon?"

"I shall ask him." Jeanne put on a business-like tone. For all that, her heart was pounding madly. "It may be my great opportunity!" she told herself. "I may yet appear for a brief s.p.a.ce of time in an opera. What glory!"

After allowing a s.p.a.ce of thirty seconds to elapse, during which time she might be supposed to have consulted the mythical Pierre, she replied quite simply:

"Yes, Miss Dean, Pierre will meet you at that hour. And he wishes me to thank you very much."

"Sh! Never a word of this!" came over the phone; then the voice was gone.

Jeanne spent the remainder of the forenoon in a tumult of excitement. At noon she ate a light lunch, drank black tea, then sat down to study the score of her favorite opera, "The Juggler of Notre Dame."

It is little wonder that Jeanne loved this more than any other opera. It is the story of a simple wanderer, a juggler. Jeanne, as we have said before, had been a wanderer in France. She had danced the gypsy dances with her bear in every village of France and every suburb of Paris.

And Cluny, a suburb of Paris, is the scene of this little opera. A juggler, curiously enough named Jean, arrives in this village just as the people have begun to celebrate May Day in the square before the convent.

The juggler is welcomed. But one by one his poor tricks are scorned. The people demand a drinking song. The juggler is pious. He fears to offend the Virgin. But at last, beseeching the Virgin's forgiveness, he grants their request.

Hearing the shouts of the crowd, the prior of the monastery comes out to scatter the crowd and rebuke the singer. He bids the poor juggler repent and, putting the world at his back, enter the monastery, never more to wander over the beautiful hills of France.

In the juggler's poor mind occurs a great struggle. And in this struggle these words are wrung from his lips:

"But renounce, when I am still young, Renounce to follow thee, oh, Liberty, beloved, Careless fay with clear golden smile!

'Tis she my heart for mistress has chosen; Hair in the wind laughing, she takes my hand, She drags me on chance of the hour and the road.

The silver of the waters, the gold of the blond harvest, The diamonds of the nights, through her are mine!

I have s.p.a.ce through her, and love and the world.

The villain, through her, becomes king!

By her divine charm, all smiles on me, all enchants, And, to accompany the flight of my song, The concert of the birds snaps in the green bush.

Gracious mistress and sister I have chosen.

Must I now lose you, oh, my royal treasure? Oh, Liberty, my beloved, Careless fay of the golden smile!"

"Liberty ... careless fay of the golden smile." Jeanne repeated these words three times. Then with dreamy eyes that spanned a nation and an ocean, she saw again the lanes, the hedges, the happy villages of France.

"Who better than I can feel as that poor juggler felt as he gave all this up for the monastery's narrow walls?" she asked. No answer came back. She knew the answer well enough for all that. And this knowledge gave her courage for the hours that were to come.

She met Marjory Dean by one of the ma.s.sive pillars that adorn the great Opera House.

"To think," she whispered, "that all this great building should be erected that thousands might hear you sing!"

"Not me alone." The prima donna smiled. "Many, many others and many, I hope, more worthy than I."

"What a life you have had!" the little French girl cried rapturously.

"You have truly lived!

"To work, to dream, to hope," she went on, "to struggle onward toward some distant goal, this is life."

"Ah, no, my child." Marjory Dean's face warmed with a kindly smile. "This is not life. It is but the beginning of life. One does not work long, hope much, struggle far, before he becomes conscious of someone on the way before him. As he becomes conscious of this one, the other puts out a hand to aid him forward. Together they work, dream, hope and struggle onward. Together they succeed more completely.

"And then," her tone was mellow, thoughtful, "there comes the time when the one who had been given the helping hand by one before looks back and sees still another who struggles bravely over the way he has come. His other hand stretches back to this weaker one. And so, with someone before to a.s.sist, with one behind to be a.s.sisted, he works, dreams, hopes and struggles on through his career, be it long or short. And this, my child, is life."

"Yes, I see it now. I knew it before. But one forgets. Watch me. I shall cling tightly to your hand. And when my turn comes I shall pray for courage and strength, then reach back to one who struggles a little way behind."

"Wise, brave child! How one could love you!"

With this the prima donna threw her arm across Jeanne's shoulder and together they marched into the place of solemn enchantment, an Opera House that is "dark."

CHAPTER XXI FROM THE HEIGHTS TO DESPAIR

"To-day," said Marjory Dean, as they came out upon the dimly lighted stage, "as you will see," she glanced about her where the setting of a French village was to be seen "we are to rehea.r.s.e 'The Juggler of Notre Dame.' And to-day, if you have the courage, you may play the juggler in my stead."

"Oh!" Jeanne's breath came short and quick. Her wild heartbeats of antic.i.p.ation had not been in vain.

"But the company!" she exclaimed in a low whisper. "Shall they know?"

"They will not be told. Many will guess that something unusual is happening. But they all are good sports. And besides they are all of my--what is it you have called it?--my 'Golden Circle.'"

"Yes, yes, your 'Golden Circle.'"

"And those of our 'Golden Circle' never betray us. It is an unwritten law."

"Ah!" Jeanne breathed deeply. "Can I do it?"

"Certainly you can. And perhaps, on the very next night when the 'Juggler' is done--oh, well, you know."

"Yes. I know." Jeanne was fairly choking with emotion.

When, however, half an hour later, garbed as the juggler with his hoop and his bag of tricks, she came before the troop of French villagers of the drama, she was her own calm self. For once again as in a dream, she trod the streets of a beautiful French village. As of yore she danced before the boisterous village throng.

Only now, instead of stick and bear, she danced with hoop and bag.

She was conscious at once that the members of the company realized that she was a stranger and not Marjory Dean.