Then it happened we could not produce the play on Monday. An old comedy was put on for that one night. I was not in it, and Mr. Daly, seeing how near I was to the breaking-point with hard work and terror, tried to give me a bit of pleasure. He got tickets for my mother and me, and sent us to the opera to hear Parepa and Wachtel. I was radiant with delight; but, alas, when did I ever have such high spirits without a swift dampening down. Elaborately dressed as to hair, all the rest of my little best was singularly plain for the opera. Still I was happy enough and greatly excited over our promised treat.
Mother and I set out to go to Miss Linda Dietz's home, where we were to pick her up, and, under escort of her brother, go over to the Academy of Music. We could not afford a carriage, so we had to take one of the 'busses then in existence. Mr. Daly had sent me, with my box tickets, a pair of white gloves, and with extreme carefulness I placed them in my pocket, drawing on an old pair to wear down to Fifteenth Street, where I would don the new ones at Miss Dietz's house. How I blessed my fore-thought later on!
Long skirts were worn, so were bustles. A man in the omnibus was in liquor; he sat opposite me, right by the door. I signaled to stop. Mother passed out before me—I descended. The man's feet were on my dress-skirt. I tried to pull it free—he stupidly pulled in the door. The 'bus started—I was flung to the pavement!
I threw my head back violently to save my face from the cobbles, my hands and one knee were beating the cruel stones. Mother screamed to the driver, a gentleman sprang to the horses, stopped them, picked me up, and even then had to thrust the drunken man's feet from my torn flounce. I had faintly whispered: "My glass—my fan!" and the gentleman, placing me in mother's arms, went out into the street and found them for me. I sat on a bench in the Park: I was shaken and bruised and torn and muddy, but I would not go home—not I, I was going to hear Parepa and Wachtel!
The gentleman simply would not leave us; he gave me his arm to Miss Dietz's house, and I needed its aid, for each moment proved I was worse hurt than I had at first thought. There, however, when with my heartiest thanks we parted from our good Samaritan, the Dietz family, with dismayed faces, received us. They were kindness personified. I was sponged and arnicaed and plastered and sewed and brushed, and at last my ankle's hurt being acknowledged, it was tightly bound. The new white gloves safely came forth, and "Dietzie and Morrie" (our nicknames for each other) set forth, with brother Frank and mother in attendance, and arrived at the crowded Academy just as the curtain rose. We went quite wild with delight over the old moss-draped "Il Trovatore." I broke my only handsome fan—applauding. Suddenly "Dietzie" saw me whiten—saw me close my eyes. She thought it was the pain of my ankle, but it was a sudden memory of Cora and the mad-scene. As the whirlwind of applause roared about me, I sickened with a mortal terror of the ordeal awaiting me. I hope I may always thrust Satan behind me with the whole-hearted force I used in thrusting "L'Article 47" behind me on that occasion. I returned to "Il Trovatore." I enjoyed each liquid jewel of a note, helped to raise the roof, afterward declined supper, hastened home, romped my dog, and put her to bed. Got into a dressing-gown, locked myself in my room, and had it out with Cora, from A to Z. Tried this walk and that crouch; read this way and that way. Found the exact moment when her mind began to cloud, to waver, to recover, to break finally and irretrievably. Determined positively just where I should be at certain times; allowed a margin for the impulse or inspiration of the moment, and at last, with the character crystal-clear before me, I ended my work and my vigil.
After turning out the gas I went to the window and looked at the sky. The stars had gone in; low down in the east a faint, faint band of pink held earth and sky together. I was calm and quite ready to rest. All my uncertainty was at an end. What the public would do I could not know; what I would do was clear and plain before me at last.
Poor Mr. Daly! I sighed, for I knew his anxiety and uneasiness were not allayed. Bertie, tired of waiting for me, had curled her loving little body up in my pillow—a distinct breach of family discipline. A few moments later, feeling her small tail beating a blissful tattoo on my feet, I muttered, laughingly: "A little prayer, a little dog, and a little rest," and so sank into the sound sleep I so desperately needed, in preparation for the ever-to-be-dreaded first night of "L'Article 47" of the French Penal Code.
The house was packed. Well-known people were seen all through the theatre. Act I. represented the French Court with a trial in full swing—it played for one hour, lacking three minutes. I was on the stage ten minutes only. I was told Mr. Daly shook his head violently at the curtain's fall.
The next act I was not in at all, but it dragged, and when that was over Mr. Daly's peculiar test of public feeling showed the presence of disappointment. Like many other managers, he often placed men here and there to listen to the comments made by his patrons, but his quickest, surest way of judging the effect a new play was making, was by watching and listening at the very moment of the curtain's fall. If the people instantly turned to one another in eager speech, and a bee-like hum of conversation arose, he nodded his head with pleased satisfaction—he knew they were saying, "How lovely!" "That was a fine effect!" "We've had nothing better for a long time!" "It's just divine!" "It's great!" etc.
When they spoke slowly and briefly, he shook his head; but when they sat still and gazed steadily straight ahead of them, he called a new play for rehearsal next morning.