Snow Bound the Record of a Theatrical Touring Party by Bram Stoker--Delphi Classics (Illustrated) by Bram Stoker

Author:Bram Stoker [STOKER, BRAM]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Parts Edition 15 of 23 by Delphi Classics
Publisher: Delphi Classics (Parts Edition)
Published: 2017-08-12T00:00:00+00:00

A DEPUTY WAITER

‘When I began my career, I was ambitious to shine upon the lyric stage - no, sir! not in Shaftesbury Avenue.’ The interpolation was in answer to the Tragedian’s again removing his pipe from his lips, preparatory to some effort of biting sarcasm. I intended Grand Opera, the whole big thing. I didn’t take much stock of Comedy in those days. Indeed, I thought Comedy was vulgar!’ Here there was an approving grunt from the Tragedian. Without turning to him she went on:

‘As vulgar as tragedy was ridiculous! You needn’t laugh, boys and girls - that was when I was young - very young; I know better about both things now.

‘Well, they said at the Conservatoire in Paris that I might succeed if a something-or-other happened to my throat, and that in such case I would be a star, for my voice would be abnormally high. However, the something-or-other didn’t come off, and I had to look for success in a different way. I didn’t know at that time that I had latent those gifts of Comedy and humour which have since then lifted me to my present height in my career. This is all nothing, however; it is only to explain how I came to be an intimate friend of the great cantatrice, Helda, who was a class-fellow of my own. She went up like a rocket, if you like; and the stick never fell till it fell into her grave! In all her success she never forgot me, and whenever she knew I was in the same town, or near it, she always had me to come and stay with her. It was sometimes a nice change for me, too, for things were up-and-down with me. She was a good creature, and was able to take, in a lordly sort of way, all the honours that were showered upon her. But they must have oppressed her now and again; for when I would come to her she would love to pretend that I was the great star, and would make me sit opposite her at dinner, or at supper after the play, when we were alone, all hung over with the magnificent jewels that Kings and Queens had given her. I liked it all at first, but after a few years, when the hollowness of the world had been burned into me, I began to feel it in my inmost heart as a bitter sort of mockery. Of course, I wouldn’t have let her know my feeling for the world, for it would have cut her to the quick; so there was never any change, and the old girlish game went on to the end.

‘It was when I was with her in Chicago that I had an adventure of an odd kind. Some of you may have heard of it?’

She looked round interrogatively; the silence was broken by the voice of the Tragedian:

‘They’ve forgotten it, my dear, those who haven’t become doddery since then!’

‘Bones, when you

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