Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 86, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1909 — THE LUCK OF BEN ABBAS [ARTICLE]

THE LUCK OF BEN ABBAS

Ben Abbas was sitting disconsolately on a trank. There were many others around him; just where the hurried baggage man had scattered them. Through the flies he caught 0 # , glimpses of the stagehands hurrying to set up the stuff for the first act. He heard the wheezy sound of the musicians tuning their instruments. Above all was the voice of the stage manager swearing. Someone had said it was a Quarter to eight. It might have been a quarter to eight hut Ben Abbas did not care. The jump had been a long one, and he was tired; to himself he softly cursed the one-night stand business. Then his greater trouble came back to him, and a mist in his eyes that might have been tears, blotted out the trunk-filled space, with its two fluttering, spluttering gas jets. For Abbas was emotional, and the little blue devils were crushing him down with a force that he could not resist. It was all Blanche’s fault, for Blanche was different than she had been before. But a moment later, however, he was blaming Miss Pollier. Then he was sure that it was Miss Pollier’s fault. For Miss Pollier had been leading lady until a week before, when a severe cold settling in her throat, forced her to retire, temporarily at least. And the blondly beautiful Blanche had been her understudy. The second night she was —well, Indifferent was the only word that expressed it. Sitting there oblivious to all the thousand sounds. Abbas suddenly heard someone shout to the stage manager that Perhans had the delirium tremens. The stage manager’s reply was brief, and to the point. He said: “Damn it!’’ Ben Abbas roused himself suddenly, and as he did so his troubles fell from him as a mantel. For Perhans, played Mephisto, and of all that company Ben Abbas was the one man who could replace him. Ben Abbas knew this, so did the stage manager, for In a second he was howling Ben Abbas’ name. How often in the last six months Ben Abbas has seen Perhans playing Mephisto! He knew every line of the part, knew every move of it. because his soul had danced in his eyes as be had watched. And every night the sardonic smile and the mocking laughter had thrilled him. Because his soul had been there, no anticipation could rob him of his thrills. And tonight he was to be Mephisto! In his heart —the true heart of a player —a new elation crowded out the old pain. Tonight—ls only for one hour! —he would be her equal! He would be the master of her fate; he would sweep aside the differences; he would make her. his again! Most of those in the audience had never seen good acting. Into their simple lives great passions and complex emotions had never entered. So they marvelled that night at Ben Abbas. Tricked out in the motley of Mephisto, he seemed to them to be mocking at all humanity, all of jthelr weaknesses and all of their petty vices. So in their simplicity they were stilled into a silence that was almost awe. And to Ben Abbas the silence was an Incentive, the awe an Inspiration. Once the symbolism of It all struck him. He as Mephisto. she as Marguerite; and he the master of the fiction’s fate as he had been master of her’s but one short week before — was this the way to make her his again? Then, for one moment, the thought came to him, that, perhaps, it was this symbolism that had awed Blanche into fear; that she had seen him as a true Mephisto, and herself as a true Marguerite, and that in Marguerite’s fate she had read her own. But it was only for one horrible moment of fear. Then the assurance came that she was too true an artist ever to see the allegory behind the art. It could be only art to her; it was real, so she shuddered; she could understand. Thus, in the end, his fear became an inspiration. The moment came when the curtain fell on the last encore; when the audience, the actors and the musicians clattered noisily away; when the lights went out, and the hurrying stagehands packed up the stuff for the next jump. And, in that moment, his fleeting glory gone, Ben Abbas wondered if, after all, it were not as unreal as unstable as a dream. At that Instant he saw Blanche standing near with downcast face, Btlll In the guise of Marguerite. Then he, who had forgotten, knew why his triumph had been real. Through the fellowship of their act, he had made her his again. He went toward her, but she did not see him. Yet, even as he moved toward her, of it struck him. He in the motley of Mephisto going to claim her love —and she In the guise of Marguerite! for another moment the symbolism Then as he saw her beauty glowing through her pallor. It made him forget all his doubts, and all his fears. Blindly he stretched out both I his arms, and cried: "Blanche!—Blanche! ’* "Go back! go back! Do not corns near me! You have shown me your true character tonight-” Her voice was almost a sob as.

turning, she moved swiftly to her dressing room. As for Ben Abbas, there was a moment of stupefaction before he quite understood. But it was only for a moment. The thought of her beauty smote him and raised an agony in his heart. The little blue devils came trooping back, and, sinking on one of the trunks, he surrendered to them. Sitting there in the tattered motley of Mephisto, the glamor and the triumph gone, the familiar, softened voice of the stage manager sounded in his ears, telling him that Perhans was dead. He was the best actor of the lot, so he paused for dramatic effect, then added that Ben Abbas was to have the dead man's role. But Ben Abbas did not heed him for Ben Abbas did not care.— Ethelbert Mounte. A forfeit of $5,000 was posted Saturday by the Mission Athletic club for a twenty round fight in San Francisco between Stanley Ketchell and Sam Langford some time in August. While laborers were excavating for the foundation of a building in I street, Bedford, they unearthed a petrified duck. It was found several feet beneath the surface.