“If it be now, ’tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now; if it be not now, yet it will come; the readiness is all.”
IV
Hamlet was played ninety-eight nights on that first season. Four of them hang in my mind for very different reasons. The first was that wonderful opening night when the great audience all aflame with generous welcome and exalted by ready sympathy lifted us to unwonted heights.
The second was on January 18, the eighteenth night of Hamlet. The Chinese Ambassador, the Marquis Tsêng, came to see the play and with him came Sir Halliday Macartney.
After the third act the Ambassador and Sir Halliday Macartney came to see Irving in his dressing-room, where they stayed some time talking. It was interesting to note—Sir Halliday translated his remarks verbally—how accurately the Ambassador followed the play, which he had not read nor heard of. Where he failed was only on some small points of racial or theological difference. He seemed to be absolutely correct on the human side.
Presently we all went down on the stage whilst Ellen Terry as Ophelia was in the midst of her mad scene. Irving and Sir Halliday and I were talking and, in the interest of the conversation, we all temporarily overlooked the Ambassador. Presently I looked round instinctively and was horrified to see that he had moved in on the stage and was then close to the edge of the arch at the back of the scene where Ophelia had made her entrance and would make her exit. He was in magnificent robes of Mandarin yellow, and wore such adornments as are possible to a great official who holds the high grade and honour of the Peacock’s Feather. I jumped for him and just succeeded in catching him before he had passed into the blaze of the limelight. I could fancy the sudden amazement of the audience and the wild roar of laughter that would follow when in the midst of this most sad and pathetic of scenes would enter unheralded this gorgeous anachronism. Under ordinary circumstances I think I should have allowed the contretemps to occur. Its unique grotesqueness would have ensured a widespread publicity not to be acquired by ordinary forms of advertisement. But there was greater force to the contrary. The play was not yet three weeks old in its run; it was a tragedy, and the holy of holies to my actor chief to whom full measure of loyalty was due; and beyond all it was Ellen Terry who would suffer.
V
The third was a very sad occasion, but one which showed that the manager of a theatre must have “nerve” to do the work entailed by his high responsibility. He remained in the wings O.P. (“Opposite Prompt” in stage parlance) after scene ii of Act I of Hamlet. The following scene (iii) is a front scene ready for the change to the scene where Polonius gives good advice to his children Laertes and Ophelia. After the few words between the brother and sister on the cue of Laertes: “here my father comes,” Polonius enters speaking quickly as one in surprise: “Yet here Laertes! Aboard, aboard, for shame!”
Irving instinctively turned on hearing the intonation of the voice, and after one lightning glance signed to the prompter to let down the act drop, which was done instantly. I was standing beside him at the time talking to him and was struck by the marvellous rapidity of thought and action; of the decision which seemed almost automatic. Then, the curtain having been drawn back sufficiently to let him pass, he stepped to the footlights and said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to have to tell you that something has happened which I should not like to tell you; and will ask you to bear in patience a minute. We shall, with your permission, go on from the beginning of the third scene of Act I.” He stepped back amid instantaneous and sympathetic applause. Perhaps they knew; some few must have seen for themselves what had occurred, and many undoubtedly guessed. But all recognised the mastery and decision which had saved a very painful and difficult situation. The curtain straightened behind him as he passed in on the stage.