a critical moment.
Mr. Irving again tries the steps personally, and decides what further alterations are required. Then he addresses the monks, who stand by the steps awaiting instructions. “This is a scene, gentlemen, which requires the utmost carefulness and patience, and all the earnestness you can throw into it. Now, gentlemen.”
The crowd: “Here is the great Archbishop. He lives! he lives!”
“No, I wouldn’t do it that way,” says Mr. Irving. “‘Here is the great Archbishop.’ You’re surprised to see me, you know. Then pause. ‘He lives! he lives!’ in a sort of whisper. Now, go back and chant the service, and do it all over again.”
miss genevieve ward and
master byrne rehearsing.
The solemn strains of the organ are heard, as Rosamond goes off, the cue for the monks to enter being, “And pass at once perfect to Paradise.” But the organ is too loud; so is the chant. After several attempts, the organ sounds more softly, the monks appear, and Becket enters, hurried along by his friends. But the monks have not yet caught the spirit of the scene. “You are frightened out of your lives. See,” says Mr. Irving, and, in a second, he personates a frightened monk. The next moment, with bewildering rapidity, he is the Archbishop again. “‘What do these people fear?’ When I say, ‘I will go out and meet them,’ you must murmur as if to stop me. I tell you, ‘Why, these are our own monks who follow’d us,’ and you are reassured. Then I open the door, with, ‘Come in, my friends, come in.’ Yes, that’s it. Who leads the monks as they come in? Mr. Belmore? Yes, that’s right. You rush in, followed by monks, crying out as if you were thoroughly frightened:
“‘A score of knights all arm’d with swords and axes.’
“Then pause a moment, and shout, ‘To the choir, to the choir.’ Some of you run half-way up the steps, then come down again as if you had changed your minds, and rush right across the other side. You are confused, and don’t know what to do. You, Mr. Bishop, shout out in your tremendous voice, ‘To the crypt.’”
This movement is rehearsed some twenty times before it satisfies Mr. Irving. At last, the monks disappear, and Becket is left to confront his murderers. “I stand here in the transept, and Fitzurse rushes up to me. What’s he say? Oh, ‘I will not only touch but drag thee hence.’ Then I say, ‘Thou art my man, thou art my vassal. Away,’ and push him off.”