At this point his thoughts were arrested; the great actor-manager burst into the room, brushed past Rehnhjelm without apparently being aware of his presence and entered a room on the left, whither, a moment afterwards, the violent ringing of a bell summoned the porter. In less than half a minute he had gone in and come out again, announcing that his Highness was ready to receive the visitor.
As Rehnhjelm entered the director had already fired his shot and his mortar was fixed at an angle which quite prevented him from perceiving the nervous mortal who was timidly coming into the room. But he had no doubt heard him, for he asked him immediately, in an offensive manner, what he wanted.
Rehnhjelm stammered that he was anxious to make his début on the stage.
"What? A début? Have you a repertory, sir? Have you played 'Hamlet,' 'Lear,' 'Richard Sheridan'; been called ten times before the curtain after the third act? What?"
"I've never played a part."
"Oh, I see! That's quite another thing!"
He sat down in an easy-chair painted with silver paint and covered with blue brocade. His face had become a mask. He might have been sitting for a portrait for one of the biographies of Suetonius.
"Shall I give you my candid opinion, what? Leave the theatrical profession alone!"
"Impossible!"
"I repeat, leave it alone! It's the worst of all professions! Full of humiliations, unpleasantnesses, little annoyances, and thorns which will embitter your life so that you'll wish you had never been born."