The author’s hands grow moist with fear. He hears and sees nothing but that awful hat on the chair: the moment of catastrophe draws near, slowly but certain. If only a panic would break out in the theatre. Suppose he were to yell out “Fire” at the top of his voice?
At last, at last, the cue falls like lightning; at last Clara will sit down on the damned hat—ah, no, for the divine Clara, with wonderful presence of mind, merely takes up the hat, and then sinks into the chair, with the miserable hat still in her hand. But what will she do with it now? Will she hold it in her hand until the very end of the act? Why doesn’t she put it on to the table? Ah! at last she gets rid of it: she puts it on to the table. But, oh, how awkwardly, and in such a terribly ostentatious manner—the author looks at the audience, sees nothing but coughing, throat-clearing figures. Evidently no one has noticed the calamity of the hat.
The author turns to the stage again: what, the dialogue does not seem to have got any
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