The Real and the Make-Believe Page #4

"The Real and the Make-Believe" is a collection of stories by Rex Ellingwood Beach that explores the intricate boundaries between reality and imagination. In this engaging anthology, Beach delves into the human experience, blending vivid storytelling with deep psychological insights. Through various characters and situations, he examines how our beliefs and perceptions shape our understanding of the world. The book captures the tension between truth and fiction, encouraging readers to reflect on their own lives and the narratives they create. Beach's rich prose and thought-provoking themes make this work a compelling read for those interested in the interplay of reality and fantasy.

• Short story

								

tone which sorely offended the already irritated Francis.

"I'm--afraid it's no use. You don't seem to get it."

"What is it I don't get?" roughly demanded the actor.

"You're not genuine--either of you. You don't seem to feel it."

"Humph! We're married!" said the star, so brutally that his wife
flushed painfully. "I tell you I get all it's possible to get out of
the scene. You wrote it and you see a lot of imaginary values; but
they're not there. I'm no superman--no god! I can't give you more than
the part contains."

"Look at it in this light," Phillips argued, after a pause. "Diane is
a married woman; she, too, is fighting a battle; she is restrained by
every convention, every sense of right, every instinct of wifehood and
womanhood. Now, then, you must sweep all that aside; your own fire
must set her ablaze despite--"

"I? I must do all this?" mocked the other, furiously. "Why must I
do it all? Make Norma play up to me. She underplays me all the time;
she's not in my key. That's what's the matter--and I'm damned tired of
this everlasting criticism."

There was a strained silence, during which the two men faced each
other threateningly, and a panic seized the woman.

She managed to say, uncertainly: "Perhaps I--should play up to you,
Irving."

"On the contrary, I don't think the fault is yours," Phillips said,
stiffly.

Again there was a dramatic silence, in which there was no element of
the make-believe. It was the clash of two strong men who disliked each
other intensely and whose masks were slipping. Neither they nor the
leading woman detected a figure stealing out from the gloom, as if
drawn by the magnetism of their anger.

"My fault, as usual," Francis sneered. "Understand this, Phillips, my
reputation means something to me, and I won't be forced out of a good
engagement by a--well, by you or by any other stage manager."

Phillips saw that same fearful look leap into the woman's eyes, and it
checked his heated retort. "I don't mean to find fault with you," he
declared, evenly. "I have the greatest respect for your ability as an
actor, but--"

The star tossed his massive head in a peculiarly aggravating manner.
"Perhaps you think you can play the part better than I?"

"Irving! Please!" breathed his wife.

"Show me how it should be done, if you feel it so strongly."

"Thank you, I will," Phillips answered, impulsively. "I'm not an
actor, but I wrote this piece. What's more, I lived it before I wrote
it. It's my own story, and I think I know how it should be played."

Francis smiled mockingly. "Good!" said he; "I shall learn something."

"Do you mind?" The author turned to the real Diane, and she shook her
head, saying, uncertainly:

"It's--very good of you."

"Very well. If you will hold the manuscript, Mr. Francis, I'll try to
show what I feel the scene lacks. However, I don't think I'll need any
prompting. Now, then, we'll begin at John Danton's entrance."

With the mocking smile still upon his lips, Francis took the
manuscript and seated himself upon the prompter's table.

It was by no means remarkable that Henry Phillips should know
something about acting, for he had long been a stage manager, and in
emergencies he has assumed a good many divergent rôles. He felt no
self-consciousness, therefore, as he exchanged places with Francis;
only an intense desire to prove his contentions. He nerved himself to
an unusual effort, but before he had played more than a few moments he
forgot the hostile husband and began to live the part of John Danton
as he had lived it in the writing, as he invariably lived it every
time he read the play or saw it acted.

Nor, as he had said, did he need prompting, for the lines were not the
written speeches of another which had been impressed upon his brain
by the mechanical process of repetition; they were his own thoughts
expressed in the simplest terms he knew, and they came forth unbidden,
hot, eager. Once he began to voice them he was seized by that same
mighty current which had drawn them from him in the first place and
left them strewn upon paper like driftwood after a flood. He had
acted every part of his play; he had spoken every line many times in
solitude; but this was the first time he had faced the real Diane. He
found himself mastered by a fierce exultation; he forgot that he
was acting or that the woman opposite him was playing a rôle of his
creation; he began to live his true life for the first time since he
had met the wife of Irving Francis. Clothed in the make-believe, the
real Henry Phillips spoke freely, feelingly. His very voice changed in
timbre, in quality; it became rich, alive; his eyes caressed the woman
and stirred her to a new response.

As for Irving Francis, he watched the transformation with
astonishment. Grudgingly, resentfully, he acknowledged that this was
indeed fine acting. He realized, too, that his blind egotism had
served merely to prove the truth of the author's criticism and
to emphasize his own shortcomings. The idea enraged him, but the
spectacle held him enthralled.

Norma Berwynd was not slow to appreciate the truth. Accustomed
thoroughly to every phase of the make-believe world in which she
dwelt, she recognized unerringly in the new John Danton's words and
actions something entirely unreal and apart from the theatrical. The
conviction that Henry Phillips was not acting came to her with a
blinding suddenness, and it threw her into momentary confusion, hence
her responses were mechanical. But soon, without effort on her part,
this embarrassment fell away and she in turn began to blaze. The flame
grew as Phillips breathed upon it. She realized wildly that her heart
had always hungered for words like these, and that, coming from his
lips, they carried an altogether new and wondrous meaning; that they
filled some long-felt, aching want of which she had been ignorant
until this moment. The certainty that it was Phillips himself who
spoke, and not a mere character of his creation, filled her with an
exultant recklessness. She forgot her surroundings, her husband's
presence, even the fact that the lines she spoke were not of her own
making.

Never had the scene been played like this. It grew vital, it took on
a tremendous significance. No one could have observed it and remained
unresponsive. Francis let fall the manuscript and stared at the actors
wonderingly. Since he was an actor, nothing was so real to him,
nothing so thrilling, as the make-believe. He realized that this was
indeed a magnificent exhibition of the artificial. With parted lips
and pulse athrob he followed the wooing of that imaginary John Danton,
in whom he could see no one but himself.

After a time he became conscious of a presence at his side, and heard
								Rate this book:0.0 / 0 votes