'It's not a parody, and my opinion is that it's better than Dante's,' declared Vava.
Stella laughed outright at this assertion.
But Vava was not crushed. 'You wait and see; it's got some lovely scenes in it, and the stage scenery is beautifully painted by ourselves—at least, in the school by the painting-mistress and the girls. There's the Bridge of the Trinità at Florence, where Dante meets me and makes a beautiful speech, and I have quite a lot to say to him there,' said Vava.
'You ought not to have,' interposed Stella, meaning from a historical point of view.
But Vava—who was 'rehearsing her play' to Stella more for her own benefit than to entertain her sister—was not at all pleased at this criticism, and replied irately, 'If you want to see your old Dante you'd better not come, for we are not going by it at all.'
'So it appears,' observed Stella dryly.
'How could we—horrid, gruesome stuff? Pray, how would you expect us to put on the stage a lake of boiling pitch, with a lot of people in it heads downwards and their legs struggling in the air? And who would come to see it if we did? I wouldn't take part in such a horrid piece! Why, even the reading of it made me feel quite ill,' argued Vava.
'You need not pick out that particular scene; there are beautiful passages in Dante; but I do not think it is suitable for staging, and I can't understand why it has been chosen,' remarked her sister.
'It is called Dante: an Idyll; and, as I said before, you wait and see whether it is not splendid. I must go and rehearse this with Doreen now,' replied Vava.
'Is Doreen to be in the play too?' asked Stella.