Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller

follow. His Interior is comparatively severe; his Exterior also.

A true Temple of Art needs nothing but seats, drapery, a small

table with two moderator lamps hanging over it, and an ornamental

looking-glass let into the wall. Monsieur in uniform gets behind

the table and surveys us with disdain, his forehead becoming

diabolically intellectual under the moderators. ‘Messieurs et

Mesdames, I present to you the Ventriloquist. He will commence

with the celebrated Experience of the bee in the window. The bee,

apparently the veritable bee of Nature, will hover in the window,

and about the room. He will be with difficulty caught in the hand

of Monsieur the Ventriloquist – he will escape – he will again

hover – at length he will be recaptured by Monsieur the

Ventriloquist, and will be with difficulty put into a bottle.

Achieve then, Monsieur!’ Here the proprietor is replaced behind

the table by the Ventriloquist, who is thin and sallow, and of a

weakly aspect. While the bee is in progress, Monsieur the

Proprietor sits apart on a stool, immersed in dark and remote

thought. The moment the bee is bottled, he stalks forward, eyes us

gloomily as we applaud, and then announces, sternly waving his

hand: ‘The magnificent Experience of the child with the whoopingcough!’

The child disposed of, he starts up as before. ‘The

superb and extraordinary Experience of the dialogue between

Monsieur Tatambour in his dining-room, and his domestic, Jerome, in

the cellar; concluding with the songsters of the grove, and the

Concert of domestic Farm-yard animals.’ All this done, and well

done, Monsieur the Ventriloquist withdraws, and Monsieur the Face-

Maker bursts in, as if his retiring-room were a mile long instead

of a yard. A corpulent little man in a large white waistcoat, with

a comic countenance, and with a wig in his hand. Irreverent

disposition to laugh, instantly checked by the tremendous gravity

of the Face-Maker, who intimates in his bow that if we expect that

sort of thing we are mistaken. A very little shaving-glass with a

leg behind it is handed in, and placed on the table before the

Face-Maker. ‘Messieurs et Mesdames, with no other assistance than

this mirror and this wig, I shall have the honour of showing you a

thousand characters.’ As a preparation, the Face-Maker with both

hands gouges himself, and turns his mouth inside out. He then

becomes frightfully grave again, and says to the Proprietor, ‘I am

ready!’ Proprietor stalks forth from baleful reverie, and

announces ‘The Young Conscript!’ Face-Maker claps his wig on, hind

side before, looks in the glass, and appears above it as a

conscript so very imbecile, and squinting so extremely hard, that I

Page 172

Dickens, Charles – The Uncommercial Traveller

should think the State would never get any good of him. Thunders

of applause. Face-Maker dips behind the looking-glass, brings his

own hair forward, is himself again, is awfully grave. ‘A

distinguished inhabitant of the Faubourg St. Germain.’ Face-Maker

dips, rises, is supposed to be aged, blear-eyed, toothless,

slightly palsied, supernaturally polite, evidently of noble birth.

‘The oldest member of the Corps of Invalides on the fete-day of his

master.’ Face-Maker dips, rises, wears the wig on one side, has

become the feeblest military bore in existence, and (it is clear)

would lie frightfully about his past achievements, if he were not

confined to pantomime. ‘The Miser!’ Face-Maker dips, rises,

clutches a bag, and every hair of the wig is on end to express that

he lives in continual dread of thieves. ‘The Genius of France!’

Face-Maker dips, rises, wig pushed back and smoothed flat, little

cocked-hat (artfully concealed till now) put a-top of it, Face-

Maker’s white waistcoat much advanced, Face-Maker’s left hand in

bosom of white waistcoat, Face-Maker’s right hand behind his back.

Thunders. This is the first of three positions of the Genius of

France. In the second position, the Face-Maker takes snuff; in the

third, rolls up his fight hand, and surveys illimitable armies

through that pocket-glass. The Face-Maker then, by putting out his

tongue, and wearing the wig nohow in particular, becomes the

Village Idiot. The most remarkable feature in the whole of his

ingenious performance, is, that whatever he does to disguise

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