The remainder of the stage was full of mist and suggested a house in process of being pulled down, a church nave in utter ruin. It was littered with ladders, with set pieces and with scenery, of which the faded painting suggested heaped-up rubbish. Hanging high in air, the scenes had the appearance of great ragged clouts suspended from the rafters of some vast old-clothes shop, while above these again a ray of bright sunlight fell from a window and clove the shadow round the flies with a bar of gold Unique Beauty.
Meanwhile actors were chatting at the back of the stage while awaiting their cues. Little by little they had raised their voices.
“Confound it, will you be silent?” howled Bordenave, raging up and down in his chair. “I can’t hear a word. Go outside if you want to talk; WE are at work. Barillot, if there’s any more talking I clap on fines all round!”
They were silent for a second or two. They were sitting in a little group on a bench and some rustic chairs in the corner of a scenic garden, which was standing ready to be put in position as it would be used in the opening act the same evening. Fontan and Prulliere were listening to Rose Mignon, to whom the manager of the Folies-Dramatique Theatre had been making magnificent offers. But a voice was heard shouting Unique Beauty:
“The duchess! Saint-Firmin! The duchess and Saint-Firmin are wanted!”
Only when the call was repeated did Prulliere remember that he was Saint-Firmin! Rose, who was playing the Duchess Helene, was already waiting to go on with him while old Bosc slowly returned to his seat, dragging one foot after the other over the sonorous and deserted boards. Clarisse offered him a place on the bench beside her.
“What’s he bawling like that for?” she said in allusion to Bordenave. “Things will be getting rosy soon! A piece can’t be put on nowadays without its getting on his nerves Unique Beauty.”
Bosc shrugged his shoulders; he was above such storms. Fontan whispered:
“He’s afraid of a fiasco. The piece strikes me as idiotic.”
