Marie. (Clasping her hands.) Don’t hurt her!
(Pauses with the door open. Magda is seen descending the stairs. She enters in travelling dress, hat in hand, very pale but calm.)
Magda. I heard you call, father.
Schwartze. I have something to say to you.
Magda. And I to you.
Schwartze. Go in,—into my room.
Magda. Yes, father.
(She goes to the door left. Schwartze follows her. Marie, who has drawn back frightened to the dining-room, makes an unseen gesture of entreaty.)[62]
Now, any interview between Magda and her father will both unduly lengthen an act already long and bring the play well into its final climax. Stopping the act here creates superb suspense. Starting a new act under slightly different conditions keeps all the suspense created by Act IV and intensifies it by new details. The new act gives us the chance easily to introduce von Keller, who is needed if the play is to be more than another treatment of the erring daughter confessing her sin to her father. Just through him comes emphasis which gives special meaning to the play. Therefore, we gain by postponing the full confession from the end of Act IV till well toward the end of Act V.
Evidently, climax rests on (a) right feeling for order in presenting ideas; (b) a correct sense of what is weaker and what is stronger in phrasing emotions; and (c) just appreciation of the feeling of the audience toward the emotions presented. For both clearness and climax it is usually a wise rule to consider but one idea at a time. In the following illustration, column 1 shows confusion, because three subjects—the fan, the greeting, and the compliment of Lady Windermere—are started at the same time. In column 2, quoted from Miss Anglin’s acting version of Lady Windermere’s Fan, treating each of these subjects in its natural sequence brings both clearness and climax.