“Putting up what curtains? Go away! Why didn’t you put them up before?”
“Because the material wasn’t sent sooner, that’s why,” answers the man on the steps.
The producer makes a rush at him, prepared to throw both him and his precious steps on to the ground, burning to choke him, throttle him, trample on him, or assault him in some other manner. The poor author of the play, who is also present, covers both his eyes and ears. For now the proper dress-rehearsal row has burst out in its full glory. It is a wild, howling, screeching affair; a feverish stormy row, unjust as the world, and as necessary as a storm created by Nature herself; a row which fills all those present, whether author, actor, manager, producer, electrician, with dull despairing rage, weariness, disgust, and an intense longing to be outside; far away from this accursed atmosphere of the dress rehearsal.
Slowly the producer returns to his place in the auditorium. He has aged by ten years,
77
