“. . . Something unexpected has happened to me,” hisses the prompter from his little box in the middle of the footlights.
In despair, the actor seeks a way of transition to what he should really say. He has just remembered that the author has fixed the time not in the morning but in the late afternoon.
“Begin . . .” whispers Clara, destroyed.
“Hm . . . yes . . .” the actor flounders, “just imagine, Clara, just . . . yes . . .”
“Perhaps something unexpected has happened to you?” Clara firmly helps him out.
“Yes . . . yes . . .” replies the actor, now enthusiastically, “just imagine, something unexpected has happened to me.”
“Whatever is that?” now asks Clara.
In the author’s box a moment of deadly fear has ended in a great sigh of relief. The situation has been saved. But in the first few moments of the play the author had clutched the ledge of his box convulsively, longing to jump into the stalls, and scream: “Back! You are all wrong. Begin all over again,
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