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He held it out in his open palm for all of them to see, and they noted that it was strangely shortened that the point of the sliding blade was barely exposed beneath the hilt. Francis wiped his wet face, then shuddered and cursed weakly with relief, meanwhile groping at the prompter's table for support. "Sold! A prop knife!" he cried.
His version was made from the prompter's copy, before the play was published, and, like Coleridge's Wallenstein, contains many passages not found in the printed edition. These are distinguished by brackets. On the other hand, Mr. Mellish omitted many passages which now form part of the printed drama, all of which are now added.
The fiddles struck up "Hounds in the Woods," the prompter's voice rang out "Honors to your pardner," and the dance was on. Edwards close-herded the black-eyed girl till supper time. Not a one of us got a dance with her even.
The play is done; the curtain drops, Slow falling, to the prompter's bell: A moment yet the actor stops, And looks around, to say farewell. It is an irksome word and task; And when he's laughed and said his say, He shows, as he removes the mask, A face that's anything but gay.
Raoul precipitates himself from the window. It was high time. The orchestra, really intoxicated, could not have gone on. The leader's baton is no longer anything but a broken stick on the prompter's box. The violin strings are broken, and their necks twisted. In his fury the drummer has burst his drum. The counter-bassist has perched on the top of his musical monster.
Who does not remember his first play? the proudly concealed impatience which seemed seething in the very blood, the provoking coolness of old play-goers, the music that rather excited than soothed the fever of expectation, the mystery of mimic life that throbbed behind the curtain, the welcome tinkle of the prompter's bell, the capricious swaying to and fro of that mighty painted scroll, its slow uplift, revealing for an instant, perhaps, the twinkle of flying dancers' feet and the shuffle of belated buskins?
He saw her from behind, noted her swelling hips, her outstretched arms, while down on the floor, on the same level as her feet, the prompter's head an old man's head with a humble, honest face stood on the edge of the stage, looking as though it had been severed from the body.
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid? Is this printer's ink? Or is it the ink of the prompter's book? or the fading ink of those loose papers, so soon to be 'yellowed with age, scattered about no one knew where, that some busy-body, who had nothing else to do, might perhaps take it into his head to save?
Irritated convictions, embittered enthusiasms, agitated indignations, instincts of war which have been repressed, youthful courage which has been exalted, generous blindness; curiosity, the taste for change, the thirst for the unexpected, the sentiment which causes one to take pleasure in reading the posters for the new play, and love, the prompter's whistle, at the theatre; the vague hatreds, rancors, disappointments, every vanity which thinks that destiny has bankrupted it; discomfort, empty dreams, ambitious that are hedged about, whoever hopes for a downfall, some outcome, in short, at the very bottom, the rabble, that mud which catches fire, such are the elements of revolt.
By a supreme effort, in the last scene, he saw and heard her again clearly and distinctly, yet not as with his ordinary senses, for she wore for him the elemental guise of a supernatural vision. When the prompter's bell tinkled and the curtain descended for the last time, he had a feeling as though the universe had collapsed in irretrievable ruin.
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