With these words he produced from his pocket a massive key, with which he unlocked the door, and led me forward by the arm into a dark passage, followed by our coatless friend, whom he addressed as “Herr Stauf,” desiring him to come in also. While the Herr Director was waiting for a light, which the Vrau seemed in no hurry to bring, he continued his recital. “When I perceived matters were thus, I vowed two vows, solemnly, and before the whole corps, ballet, chorus, and all; first, that I would give twelve representations—I mean announcements of representation—from twelve separate dramatists, before I left Erfurt; and, secondly, that for a single spectator, I would open the house, and have a play acted. One part of my oath is already accomplished; your appearance calls on me for the other. This over, I shall leave Erfurt for ever; and if,” continued he, “the fates ever discover me again within the walls of a fortified town—unless I be sent there in handcuffs, and with a peloton of dragoons—may I never cork my eyebrows while I live!”
This resolve, so perfectly in accordance with the meditations I had lately indulged in myself, gave me a higher opinion of the Herr Director’s judgment, and I followed him with a more tranquil conscience than at first.
“There are four steps there—take care,” cried he, “and feel along by the wall here; for though this place should be, and indeed is, by right, one blaze of lamps, I must now conduct you by this miserable candle.”
And so, through many a narrow passage, and narrower door, up-stairs and down, over benches, and under partitions, we went, until at length we arrived upon the stage itself. The curtain was up, and before it, in yawning blackness, lay the audience part of the house—a gloomy and dreary cavern; the dark cells of the boxes, and the long, untenanted, benches of the “balcon,” had an effect of melancholy desolation impossible to convey. Up above, the various skies and moon scenes hung, flapping to and fro with the cold wind, that came, Heaven knows whence, but with a piercing sharpness I never felt the equal of within doors; while the back of the stage was lost in a dim distance, where fragments of huts, and woods, mills, mountains, and rustic bridges, lay discordantly intermixed—the chaos of a stage world.
The Herr Director waved his dip candle to and fro, above his head, like a stage magician, invoking spirits and goblins damned; while he repeated, from one of Werner’s pieces, some lines of an incantation.
“Gelobt sey Marie!” said the Herr Stauf, blessing himself devoutly; for he had looked upon the whole as an act of devotion.
“And now, friend,” continued the Director, “wait here, at this fountain, and I will return in a few minutes.” And so saying, he quitted the place, leaving Stauf and me in perfect darkness—a circumstance which I soon discovered was not a whit more gratifying to my friend than myself.
“This is a fearful place to be in the dark,” quoth Stauf, edging close up to me; “you don’t know, but I do, that this was the Augustine Convent formerly, and the monks were all murdered by the Elector Frederick, in—What was that?—Didn’t you see something like a blue flame yonder?”
“Well, and what then; you know these people have a hundred contrivances for stage purposes——”
“Ach Gott! that’s true; but I wish I was out again, in the Mohren Gasse; I’m only a poor sausage maker, and one needn’t be brave for my trade.”