Читать книгу Dracula: The Un-Dead - Ian Holt, Dacre Stoker - Страница 8

“I charge thee to return and change thy shape,” cried out a young man in a bowler hat, arms stretched out imploringly, speaking in a determined yet trembling voice. “Such is the force of magic and my spells: No, Faustus, thou art conjuror laureat, That canst command great Mephistopheles: Quin regis Mephistopheles fratris imagine.”

A hiss. A wall of smoke. Then flames erupted out of thin air. From the surrounding gas lamps sparked an extra roar. The small crowd that gathered in the Luxembourg Gardens gasped in unison.

Quincey Harker, his back turned to his audience, felt a surge of pride at his ingenuity. With a whiplash smile as he threw off his bowler hat, stuck on a false goatee, placed a pointed hat upon his brow, threw a cape over his shoulders, and, in what seemed a well-practiced continuous motion, leapt up and spun around onto the edge of La Fontaine Medici. The perfect setting for a one-man pantomime of Faust, for the Medici family had been a prominent Florentine family, patron saints of avant-garde artists and long rumored to be in league with the Devil. Quincey, completely at ease on his makeshift stage, reveled not only in his performance but also in his cleverness.

He did what was known as chapeaugraphy—changing hats to change characters. It was a well-known but seldom-used performance technique due to the high level of skill required and was thus attempted only by the most talented actors…or the most arrogant.

Quincey used the shadow cast by the figures on the fountain to ominous effect as he spread his cape and held himself with poised menace and growled in a deep, devilish voice, “Now, Faustus, what wouldst thou have me do?”

Quincey paused, expecting applause from his audience. There was none. This was odd. Quincey glanced up and was surprised to find the audience distracted. Something was drawing their attention to the north end of the park. Quincey tried not to let this momentary diversion throw off his concentration. He knew his talent was up to the challenge. He had performed this part at the London Hippodrome, and was so good that he’d even managed to secure the “deuce spot” just before the main attraction, Charles Chaplin, a master of physical comedy. Rumor had it that Chaplin was going to leave London to find his fortune in America. Quincey had hoped to win Chaplin’s spot. But Quincey’s overbearing father, Jonathan Harker, had smashed that dream by paying off the theatre manager and shipping Quincey off to a Paris prison with no bars—to study law at the Sorbonne.

Panic set in for Quincey as his meager audience began to disperse, heading off to investigate the commotion at the park’s north end. Checking his false beard to see if it was crooked, Quincey hurriedly bellowed one of Mephistopheles’ soliloquies as he ran down the fountain steps, in a desperate attempt to regain his audience’s attention. “I am a servant to great Lucifer, and may not follow thee without his leave: No more than he commands must we perform!”

For a moment, it appeared as if the power of his performance would recapture his audience, but all hope was lost when Mephistopheles slipped on the fountain’s wet stone, crashing onto his arse. Laughter erupted as the last of the crowd walked away.

Quincey pounded his fist on the ground and ripped off his beard, thankful for once that at the manly age of twenty-five, there were no whiskers beneath. That was when he saw him, laughing with that familiar sneer. That most loathsome waste of flesh, Braithwaite Lowery, Quincey’s fellow lodger at his digs at the Sorbonne. What was he doing here? The clod had no appreciation for anything artistic.

Braithwaite peered over his spectacles at the few scanty coins the audience had carelessly tossed about the cobblestones. “Daft as a brush. Are you aware of how much a real barrister earns in a day, Harker?”

“I don’t give a fig for money.”

“That’s because you were born under the comfort and protection of an inheritance. I am the descendant of Yorkshire fishermen. I will have to earn my fortune.”

If only Braithwaite knew what Quincey had had to give up to secure his family’s financial support.

“What do you want?” said Quincey as he scooped up his earnings.

“This post arrived for you. Another letter from your father,” Braithwaite replied with venomous glee. The sod enjoyed watching Quincey squirm as he received the scolding letters from his father. “Do you know what I like about you, Braithwaite?”

“I can’t imagine.”

“Neither can I,” Quincey said as he snatched the envelope from Braithwaite’s grasp with a flourish, and waved him away with the other hand.

LETTER, JONATHAN HARKER, EXETER, TO MASTER QUINCEY HARKER, THE SORBONNE UNIVERSITY, PARIS

29 February 1912

Dear Son,

I have received a most disturbing letter detailing your progress, or lack thereof, in your studies and have been advised that you are once again devoting far too much time to your extracurricular activities off campus. This is unacceptable. Though you have not been home these past three years, a fact that has injured your dear mother deeply, I should remind you that it is my money that is paying for your studies and lodgings. Should you fail this term, even my connections will be unable to prevent your expulsion. Of course this would mean the immediate termination of your per diem and

Quincey stopped reading. More and more people continued to hurry past him going northward, and he was only too glad for the distraction from hearing his father’s condescending voice in each typed word. His fingers rifled through the rest of the letter. Blast! Thirteen pages! The Harker family was famous for their voluminous letters, yet their dinner table was void of any conversation. Another gaggle of people hurried past. “Whatever is going on?”

Without breaking stride, a man called over his shoulder, “Basarab! He’s arriving. Here! Now!”

Basarab? Quincey recalled reading some weeks ago in Le Temps that Basarab, the great Shakespearean actor who billed himself under a single name, was due to perform in Paris. And although he longed to see the world-renowned actor on the stage, he had put it out of his mind, knowing he could never justify the cost of a ticket on the expenditure report he filed monthly for his father to audit. He had lied so many times before that his father knew all of his tricks.

What good fortune! Or was it fate that Quincey should be here at the moment of Basarab’s arrival in Paris? Suddenly, he felt at ease, realizing that it was not his performance that chased away his audience. He had simply been upstaged by a true star. Forgetting his props and costumes upon the fountain, he found himself running along with the crowd, hoping to glimpse the magnificence of the great Basarab with his own eyes.

Quincey emerged from the park onto the rue de Vaugirard and found a throng of people crowding the street. They were turned toward the Théâtre de l’Odéon, a white building with Roman-style columns adorning the front steps. The moonlight made the brass-lettered name of the theatre glow as if illuminated from within.

Quincey tried to move closer and found himself trapped in the roundabout, pressed against the monument to French playwright Émile Augier. Undeterred, he scaled its pedestal to get a better look.

A Benz Tourer motorcar circled the roundabout toward the theatre’s front steps. It honked, clearing a way through the crowd. Quincey climbed higher. The car stopped short of the front steps, and the driver walked around to the other side of the vehicle to open the door for his passenger. During the two years Quincey had struggled as an actor, he had come to the realization that since Shakespeare’s days, the profession was considered the vocation of sinners, drunks, prostitutes, and vagabonds. Yet here before him was an actor who was regarded like royalty, and all of France seemed to have turned out for his arrival.

The dashing young Romanian stepped out of the car and stood on the ride rail. Quincey recognized the dark hair and chiseled features of Basarab from the picture in Le Temps. The actor was wearing a cloak similar to one worn by Prince Edward, yet his was cut from crimson-dyed leather, very decadent for a mere actor. Reporters with cameras mounted on wooden legs waited on the steps to capture the first images of his arrival. When he turned to them and smiled, the flash powders ignited like lightning. After a few moments, Basarab stepped down from the motorcar and moved through the crowd with arms outstretched, palms up, allowing the adoring public to touch him. Quincey laughed when a woman touched Basarab’s elbow and fainted. If only he could evoke this sort of reaction from a crowd.

The portly figure of André Antoine, the theatre manager of l’Odéon, waited on the top step to greet his star. A man with a wooden film camera stood close by and wound the handle like an organ grinder as Basarab mounted the steps to shake the manager’s hand. Next to the handsome form of Basarab, Antoine’s pleasant face seemed like a dot in the center of his large round head. The crowd cheered Basarab’s name. Caught up in the frenzied energy, Quincey found himself chanting along: “Basarab! Basarab! Basarab!”

No wonder people adore him, Quincey thought. Even he was in awe. Basarab had not uttered a single word, yet he controlled everyone before him. How magnificent he must be to watch onstage. He would bring such life to Shakespeare’s words.

Basarab motioned to Antoine, and the two men disappeared into the theatre. The crowd lingered for a moment as if waiting for an encore. A small man emerged from within to announce that the box office would be extended for the night, selling tickets to the performances of Richard III.

The crowd turned into a mob as people pushed their way toward the door. Quincey’s spirits sank. Now he would never be able to put it out of his mind again. He desperately wanted to see Basarab perform, but he had not a franc to spare. The per diem his father gave him was measured out barely to cover the essentials—in order to prevent Quincey from wasting money on what Jonathan Harker would see as frivolities. Bloody hell. What is life without the theatre?

Quincey counted the coins he had made from the earlier performance. He was young enough to take risks, even if it meant dipping into his per diem and spending the last franc he had, even if it meant enduring his father’s wrath. He would attend Basarab’s opening performance at the Théâtre de l’Odéon tomorrow night.