"Clear the stage! clear the stage!"
Those standing on the stage hastily moved back behind the scenes, for at the moment the entire chorus rushed out in a gallop: a throng of women, chiefly young women, but with painted faces, faded and blighted by their feverish life. There were blondes and brunettes, small and tall, thin and stout a motley gathering from all spheres of life. There were among them the faces of madonnas with defiant glances, and the smooth, round faces, expressionless and unintelligent, of peasant girls. And all were boredly cynical, or, at least, appeared so.
They began to sing.
"Halt! Start over again!" roared the director of the orchestra, an individual with a big red face and huge mutton-chop whiskers.
The chorus retired and came back again with heavy step, carrying on a sort of collective can-canade, but every minute there was heard the sharp bang of the conductor's baton against his desk and the hoarse yell—"Halt! Start over again!" And swinging his baton he would mutter under his nose: "You cattle!"
The chorus rehearsal dragged on interminably. The actors, scattered about in the seats, yawned wearily and those who took part in the evening's performance paced up and down behind the scenes, indifferently waiting for their turn to rehearse.
In the men's dressing-room Wicek was shining the shoes of the stage-manager and giving him a hasty account of his mission to Comely Street.
"Did you deliver the letter? . . . Have you an answer?"
"I should smile!" and he handed Topolski a long pink envelope.
"Wicek! . . . If you squeal a word of this to anyone, you clown, you know what awaits you!"