Now, if you please, hold still. I’ll count up to three, and then you must hold perfectly still. [Grasps the cover of the lens and calls threateningly.] One—two—three! [He removes the cover; there is utter silence. But as he speaks the word “one” there is heard, very faintly in the distance, the refrain of the thieves’ song which FICSUR and LILIOM have been singing. The refrain continues until the fall of the curtain. As he speaks the word “three” everybody is perfectly rigid save JULIE, who lets her head sink slowly to the table. The distant refrain dies out.]
THE CURTAIN FALLS
[SCENE FOUR]
SCENE—In the fields on the outskirts of the city. At back a railroad embankment crosses the stage obliquely. At Center of the embankment stands a red and white signal flag, and near it a little red signal lamp which is not yet lighted. Here also a wooden stairway leads up to the embankment.
At the foot of the embankment to the right is a pile of used railroad ties. In the background a telegraph pole, beyond it a view of trees, fences and fields; still further back a factory building and a cluster of little dwellings.
It is six o’clock of the same afternoon. Dusk has begun to fall.
LILIOM and FICSUR are discovered on the stairway looking after the train which has just passed.
LILIOM
Can you still hear it snort?