She saw his foot tapping with rage—thought his fits might begin that way, and madly cried, at the top of her voice:
"Be quick—see—see! publicly they cross their financiers!"
then, through the laughter, rushed from the stage, crying, with streaming tears: "I don't care if he has a dozen fits! He has just scared the words out of my head with them!"
And truly, when Mr. Murdoch, trembling with weakness, excitement, and anger, staggered backward, clasping his brow, everyone thought the dreaded fit had arrived.
Next day he reproachfully informed Mr. Ellsler that he could not yet see blank verse and the King's English (so he termed it) murdered without suffering physically as well as mentally from the shocking spectacle. That he was an old man now, and should not be exposed to such tests of temper.
Yes, as he spoke, he was an old man—pallid, lined, weary-faced; but that same night he was young Mirabel—in spirit, voice, eye, and movement. Fluttering through the play, "Wine Works Wonders," in his satins and his laces—young to the heart—young with the immortal youth of the true artist.
Both these girls spoke plain prose well enough, and always had their share of the parts in modern plays; but, as all was grist to my individual mill, most of the blankverse and Shakespearean small characters came to me. Nor was I the lucky girl they believed me; there was no luck about it. My small success can be explained in two words—extra work. When they studied their parts they were contented if they could repeat their lines perfectly in the quiet of their rooms, and made no allowance for possible accidents or annoyances with power to confuse the mind and so cause loss of memory and ensuing shame. But I was a careful young person, and would not trust even my own memory without first taking every possible precaution. Therefore the repeating of my lines correctly in my room was but the beginning of my study of them. In crossing the crowded street I suddenly demanded of myself my lines. At the table, when all were chatting, I again made sudden demand for the same. If on either occasion my heart gave a jump and my memory failed to present the exact word, I knew I was not yet perfect, and I would repeat those lines until, had the very roof blown off the theatre at night, I should not have missed one. Then only could I turn my attention to the acting of them—oh, bless you, yes! I quite thought I was acting, and at all events I was doing the next best thing, which was trying to act.
But a change was coming to me, an experience was approaching which I cannot explain to myself, neither has anyone else explained it for me; but I mention it because it made such a different thing of dramatic life for me. Aye, such a difficult thing as well. Looking back to that time I see that all my childhood, all my youth, was crowded into that first year on the stage. There I first knew liberty of speech, freedom of motion. There I shared in the general brightness and seemed to live by right divine, not by the grudging permission of some task-mistress of my mother. I had had no youth before, for in what should have been babyhood I had been a troubled little woman, most wise in misery. In freedom my crushed spirits rose with a bound. The mimicry, the adaptability of childhood asserted themselves—I pranced about the stage happily but thoughtlessly.
It seems to me I was like a blind puppy, born into warmth and comfort and enjoying both, without any fear of the things it could not see. As I have said before, I knew no fear, I had no ambition, I was just happy, blindly happy; and now, all suddenly, I was to exchange this freedom of unconsciousness for the slavery of consciousness.