The stage was set for the introduction to the first act of Rigoletto,

the curtain was down, the lights were already up in the house and a

good many people were in their seats or standing about and chatting

quietly. It was a hot afternoon in July, and high up in the gallery the

summer sunshine streamed through an open window full upon the blazing

lights of the central chandelier, a straight, square beam of yellow

gold thrown across a white fire, and clearly seen through it.

It was still afternoon when the dress rehearsal began, but the night

would have come when it ended. There is always a pleasant latitude

about dress rehearsals, even when the piece is old and there is no new

stage machinery to be tried. While the play or the opera is actually

going on, everything works quickly as in a real performance, but

between the acts, or even between one scene and another, there is a

tendency on the part of the actors and the invited public to treat the

whole affair as a party of pleasure.

Doors of communication are opened

which would otherwise be shut, people wander about the house, looking

for their friends, and if there is plenty of room they change seats now

and then. Many of the people are extremely shabby, others are

preternaturally smart; if it is in the daytime everybody wears street

clothes and the women rarely take off their hats. It is only at the

evening dress rehearsals of important new pieces at the great Paris

theatres that the house presents its usual appearance, but then there

have been already three or four real dress rehearsals at which the

necessary work has been done.

The theatre at which Margaret was making her début was a large one in

a Belgian city, a big modern house, to all appearance, and really

fitted with the usual modern machinery which has completely changed the

working of the stage since electricity was introduced. But the building

itself was old and was full of queer nooks at the back, and passages

and shafts long disused; and it had two stage entrances, one of which

was now kept locked, while the other had the usual swinging doors

guarded by a sharp-eyed doorkeeper who knew and remembered several

thousand faces of actors, singers, authors, painters, and carpenters,

and of other privileged persons from princes and bankers to

dressmakers' girls who had, or had once had, the right to enter by the

stage door. The two entrances were on opposite sides of the building.

The one no longer in use led out to a dark, vaulted passage or alley

wide enough for a carriage to enter; and formerly the carriages of the

leading singers had driven up by that way, entering at one end and

going out at the other, but the side that had formerly led to the

square before the theatre was now built up, and contained a small shop

having a back door in the dark alley, and only the other exit remained,

and it opened upon an unfrequented street behind the theatre.




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