Don't be discouraged!--things are brightening with you now.
Tomorrow morning I will send one of my stout farm-horses to bring your
chariot on here, and we will rig up a theatre in my big barn; there is a
large town not far from this which will send us plenty of spectators.
If the entertainment does not fetch as good a sum as I think it will, I
have a little fund of pistoles lying idle here that will be entirely at
your service, for, by Apollo! I would not leave my good Blazius and his
friends in distress so long as I had a copper in my purse."
"I see that you are always the same warm-hearted, openhanded Bellombre
as of old," cried the pedant, grasping the other's outstretched hand
warmly; "you have not grown rusty and hard in consequence of your
bucolic occupations."
"No," Bellombre replied, with a smile; "I do not let my brain lie fallow
while I cultivate my fields. I make a point of reading over frequently
the good old authors, seated comfortably by the fire with my feet on
the fender, and I read also such new works as I am able to procure, from
time to time, here in the depths of the country. I often go carefully
over my own old parts, and I see plainly what a self-satisfied fool
I was in the old days, when I was applauded to the echo every time I
appeared upon the stage, simply because I happened to be blessed with
a sonorous voice, a graceful carriage, and a fine leg; the doting
stupidity of the public, with which I chanced to be a favourite, was the
true cause of my success.
Pages:
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222