The Organist (dreamily). This passage always makes me think of moonlight on open fields and the spicy damp breath of a dark dewy wood, and of lilacs blowing over a wall, too. So suitable, but I would rather live than play. (He sighs. A gloomy ghost with sharp green eyes enters from the sacristy, and pauses in the dark angle of the wall).
The Ghost (a barrel house bum a dozen years dead, and still enamored of the earth). What’s doing here, I wonder? (He stares). A lot of fools dancing. (Turns and departs).
The Girl. Oh Sweetheart, isn’t it perfect. (She lays her head on his shoulder).
The Boy. Darling!
The Cat (springing). There! I almost caught him. (Peers into the hole). Just the same, I know where he is now. (He strolls off with an air of undefeated indifference).
The Organist (missing a note). This finale isn’t so easy. And I don’t like it as well, either. I always stumble in the allegro. (He wipes his brow, improvises a few bars, interpolating also a small portion of the triumphal march from “Aida”). This is different. I can do it better. (He begins upon the Grail motif from “Parsifal”).
Mrs. Stillwater (shifting her arm and moving her knee). I never like loud music as well as the softer kind. That middle part was beautiful.
Mrs. Pence. Well, I can’t say I like loud music, either, but now this—
(The Hama-dryads cease dancing and drift out of the window, followed by the fawn. An English minister, once of St. Giles, Circenster, who died in 1631, a monk of the Thebaid, A. D. 300, and three priests of Isis, B. C. 2840, enter, each independently of the others. On detecting the odour of reverence they visualize themselves to themselves as servitors of their respective earthly religions—the Egyptians in their winged hoods, the monk of the Thebaid in his high pointed cowl, the Rector of St. Giles in his broad-brimmed hat with the high conical crown, knee-length coat, and heavy, silver-buttoned shoes.)
The Minister (to himself). An unhappy costume, yet it is all that identifies me with my former earthly self, or with life. (He notes the Egyptians and the monk, but pays no attention to them for the moment).