“And we have time to take breath! In good season, too; I have talked myself hoarse.”
“Take breath? Oh, not at all! The operators can never stop to take breath. We must hurry and take the actors for the next scene; and for fear the audience will lose its interest before an empty stage, we must keep up the dialogue, as if the actors who just went off were still quarrelling behind the scenes, or as if those on the point of coming on were chattering about what had just happened.”
“Plague on it! Why it’s a business that would wear out a horse!”
“I don’t deny it; still you get excited and warmed up, and keep on growing more and more spirited. Well, let us try another scene, M. Goefle. Let us bring out—”
“But I have had quite enough of it, I believe. Do you suppose I want to help you conduct the exhibition?”
“I thought you meant that you would help me this evening!”
“I? What! I go on the stage?”
“Who will know that it is you? The theatre will be set up immediately before the door of a room where no one is allowed to enter. There is a curtain between you and the audience; and, if necessary, you can mask yourself, if there is any risk of being met in the corridors as you go in or out.”
“True enough, nobody sees you, nobody knows that you are there; but my voice, my pronunciation? Before I should have uttered a dozen words every one would say: ‘Good! that’s M. Goefle!’ A fine effect that would have, from a man of my age, practising a dignified profession! It’s impossible; don’t think of it.”
“It’s a great pity—you would succeed capitally!”