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Page 13
All of my mice by this time had become quite tame. They had plenty to
eat and drink, and a comfortable home, and not a care in the world;
and familiarity with their master had bred assurance; and so they had
become quite tame, and shamefully, abominably lazy. Luxury, we are
taught, was ever the mother of sloth. I could put my hand in amongst
them, and not one would bestir himself the littlest bit to escape me.
Mercedes and I were inseparable. I used to take her to school with me
every day; she could be more conveniently and privately transported
than a lamb. Each _lyc�en_ had a desk in front of his form, and she
would spend the school-hours in mine, I leaving the lid raised a
little, that she might have light and air. One day, the usher having
left the room for a moment, I put her down on the floor, thereby
creating a great excitement amongst my fellow-pupils, who got up from
their places and formed an eager circle round her. Then suddenly the
usher came back, and we all hurried to our seats, while he, catching
sight of Mercedes, cried out, 'A mouse! A white mouse! Who dares to
bring a white mouse to the class?' And he made a dash for her. But she
was too quick, too 'cute, for 'the likes of' Monsieur le Pion. She
gave a jump, and in the twinkling of an eye had disappeared up my leg,
under my trousers. The usher searched high and low for her, but she
prudently remained in her hiding-place; and thus her life was saved,
for, when he had abandoned his ineffectual chase, he announced, 'I
should have wrung her neck.' I turned pale to imagine the doom she had
escaped as by a hair's-breadth. 'It is useless to ask which of you
brought her here,' he continued. 'But mark my words: if ever I find a
mouse again in the class _I will wring her neck_!' And yet, in private
life, this bloodthirsty _pion_ was a quite gentle, kindly, underfed,
underpaid, shabby, struggling fellow, with literary aspirations, who
would not have hurt a fly.
The secrets of a schoolboy's pocket! I once saw a boy surreptitiously
angling in Kensington Gardens, with a string and a bent pin. Presently
he landed a fish, a fish no bigger than your thumb perhaps, but still
a fish. Alive and wet and flopping as it was, he slipped it into his
pocket. I used to carry Mercedes about in mine. One evening, when I
put in my hand to take her out, I discovered to my bewilderment that
she was not alone. There were four little pink mites of infant mice
clinging to her.
I had enjoyed my visit to the theatre so much that at the _jour de
l'an_ my father included a toy-theatre among my presents. It had a
real curtain of green baize, that would roll up and down, and
beautiful coloured scenery that you could shift, and footlights, and a
trap-door in the middle of the stage; and indeed it would have been
altogether perfect, except for the Company. I have since learned that
this is not infrequently the case with theatres. My company consisted
of pasteboard men and women who, as artists, struck me as eminently
unsatisfactory. They couldn't move their arms or legs, and they had
such stolid, uninteresting faces. I don't know how it first occurred
to me to turn them all off, and fill their places with my mice.
Mercedes, of course, was leading lady; Monsieur and Madame Denis were
the heavy parents; and a gentlemanlike young mouse named Leander was
_jeune premier_. Then, in my leisure, they used to act the most
tremendous plays. I was stage-manager, prompter, playwright, chorus,
and audience, placing the theatre before a looking-glass, so that,
though my duties kept me behind, I could peer round the edge, and
watch the spectacle as from the front. I would invent the lines and
deliver them, but, that my illusion might be the more complete, I
would change my voice for each personage. The lines tried hard to be
verses; no doubt they were _vers libres_. At any rate, they were
mouth-filling and sonorous. The first play we attempted, I need hardly
say, was _Le Comte de Monte Cristo_, such version of it as I could
reconstruct from memory. That had rather a long run. Then I dramatised
_Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp_, _Paul et Virginie_, _Quentin
Durward_, and _La Dame de Monsoreau_. Mercedes made a charming Diane,
Leander a brilliant and dashing Bussy; Monsieur Denis was cast for the
r�le of Fr�re Gorenflot; and a long, thin, cadaverous-looking mouse,
Don Quichotte by name, somewhat inadequately represented Chicot. We
began, as you see, with melodrama; presently we descended to light
comedy, playing _Les M�moires d'un Ane_, _Jean qui rit_, and other
works of the immortal Madame de S�gur. And then at last we turned a
new leaf, and became naturalistic. We had never heard of the
naturalist school, though Monsieur Zola had already published some
volumes of the _Rougon-Macquart_; but ideas are in the air; and we,
for ourselves, discovered the possibilities of naturalism
simultaneously, as it were, with the acknowledged apostle of that form
of art. We would impersonate the characters of our own world--our
schoolfellows and masters, our parents, servants, friends--and carry
them through experiences and situations derived from our impressions
of real life. Perhaps we rather led them a dance; and I daresay those
we didn't like came in for a good deal of retributive justice. It was
a little universe, of which we were the arch-arbiters, our will the
final law.
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