Gwen had called the quarter-hour. From the dressing-rooms could be heard the humming, the buzzing, now and then the full-throated vocalization, of singers getting their voices under command. In front of the curtain early birds among the audience—the kind of people who like lots of time to study their programs—could be heard arriving. Up and down the corridors among the dressing-rooms walked Hans Hoizknecht, wishing the company good luck. “Hals und beinbruch!” he shouted, and if it was a man, he gave him a sharp knee in the rump.

In the wings, out of earshot of Gwen Larking, Albert Greenlaw was about his favourite sport of instructing the gofers in the lore and tradition of the theatre. They stood about him, devouring the fine Belgian chocolates they had been given earlier by Oliver Twentyman, who believed in first-night presents, especially to the humbler members of the company.

“I don’t know if I ought to tell you,” he said, “because it is not the thing little girls ought to know. But if you’re really set on a stage career—”

“Oh yes, Albert. Be a sport. Tell us.”

“Well then, honey-child, you ought to know about critics. There are some in the audience tonight who are of the cream of that very creamy cream. And you can tell those real ones from the fellows who are just from local papers by one infallible sign, and it is this.” His voice sank to a whisper. “They never go to the John.”

“Not during the show?” said the prettiest gofer.

“Not ever. From womb to tomb—not ever. Nobody has ever met a critic in the Men’s, anywhere on this earth.”

“Albert, that can’t be,” said a dubious gofer, but in a tone that betrayed that she very much wished it to be so, and thirsted for marvels.

“Would I kid you? Have you ever known me to kid you? I’ll tell you something that will be invaluable to you when you are all happy wives and mothers—or maybe just mothers, in these carefree days. When your child is born, take a look right away at where its teeny-weeny exit ought to be. If it isn’t there, honey, you’ve borne a critic.”

“Albert, I don’t believe it!”

“Fact. Medical fact. Imperforate anus, it’s called, in medical circles. And it’s the mark of the critic. The real, top-flight critic. They have two or three of them, pickled, in the medical museum at Johns Hopkins and there you can observe the phenomenon as plain as if it were labelled No Exit. The little fellows, they’re like you and me; they have the normal disposal facilities. But not the biggies. No, no, no. Remember your Uncle Albert told you.”

“They say Claude Applegarth is here tonight,” said Schnak. She and Dr. Gunilla were in the small dressing-room reserved for the conductors. It was very close, for the Doctor was smoking one of her black cigars.

“Who is Claude Applegarth?” she asked.

“He’s supposed to be the most influential critic in New York. And I suppose that means the world,” said Schnak, who had all the Canadian awe of New York.

“I do not know his name,” said the Doctor. “And I blow my nose in his hair,” she added. This was to encourage Schnak, who was trying to dissemble her terror. Gunilla would conduct in the pit tonight, of course, but Schnak was to be offstage conductor; when the Chorus sang in the wings, it was she who must direct them, taking her time from a monitor on which appeared a ghostly, grey Gunilla. She must do this with an unwieldy baton that was, in fact, a small red lamp on the end of a metal stick, and her beat, never elegant, became ridiculous when she waved what the Chorus called her fairy wand.

Conducting! Oh, conducting! Would she ever master it? Conduct the libretto, not just the score, Gunilla was always saying. Easy for Gunilla, tall, elegant, romantic figure. In the evening dress that Dulcy had rigged up for her, Schnak felt like a scarecrow. With a razor she had painfully hoicked the hair from her armpits, and now, in Dulcy’s creation, they did not show. But they hurt. At this moment, Schnak would gladly have forgone any future as a public performer.

“Five minutes, please, ladies and gentlemen. Overture and beginners in five minutes.” Gwen’s voice, low and clear, came from the speaker on the wall.

“Perhaps you should go to your post,” said the Doctor.

“I haven’t anything until after the Overture.”

“But I have,” said the Doctor. “And I should like to be by myself.”

Darcourt, standing in the foyer, saw that at the five-minute call, which he could not hear but which he knew was being given, a special group of people arrived, and quickly dispersed themselves into twos and threes. There was nothing positively disturbing about them, but they seemed somewhat overdressed for the occasion. Of course, many of the people who had already entered the theatre were in evening clothes—dinner suits and dinner frocks—but several of these men wore full dress and white ties that spoke of antiquity. The ladies tended to be dressed in plushy materials, well worn and somewhat sprung in the seat. One had a plume in her hair, and another sported a metal headpiece studded with impressive, but not totally convincing, gems. It was the Yerko Claque, and in the midst of them Yerko rose like a mountain in shirt and tie that had grown yellow with time, and a coat, the tails of which hung to his calves; beside him was Mamusia, and it was she who wore the paste jewels and kid gloves that had once been white; they reached well above her elbows. The group comported itself with a stateliness rarely seen on the North American continent, and certainly never in Stratford.

Yerko’s eye met Darcourt’s, without a spark of recognition.

Well, God help us, here we go, thought Darcourt, and went inside to claim his seat.

AN OPERA IN THREE ACTS planned and sketched by E. T. A. HOFFMANN and completed from his notes by Hulda Schnakenburg under the direction of Dr. Gunilla Dahl-Soot.

King Arthur of BritainHans Hoizknecht

Modred, the King’s nephewGaetano Panisi

Sir LancelotGiles Shippen

MerlinOliver Twentyman

Sir Kay the SeneschalGeorge Sudlow

Sir GawaineJean Morant

Sir BedevereYuri Vollmer

Sir Gareth BeaumainsWilson Tinney

Sir Lucas, ButlerMark Horrebow

Sir Ulphius, ChamberlainCharles Bland

Sir DynadanMark Luppino

Sir Dagonet, the FoolNutcombe Puckler

Sir PellinoreAlbert Greenlaw

Sir PalomidesVincent LeMoyne

Queen GuenevereDonalda Roche

Morgan Le Fay, sister to the KingClara Intrepidi

The Lady ElaineMarta Ullmann

The Lady ClarissantVirginia Poole

Ladies of the Court: Ada Boscawen, Lucia Pozzi, Margaret Calnan, Lucy-Ellen Osier, Appoline Graves, Etain O’Hara, Esther Moss, Miriam Downey, Hosanna Marks, Karen Edey, Minnie Sainsbury

Heralds: James Mitchell, Ulick Carman

Attendants: Bessie Louth, Jane Holland, Primrose Maybon, Noble Grandy, Ellis Cronyn, Eden Wigglesworth

Costumes and settings designed by Dulcy Ringgold, and executed in the Festival workshops.

Scenic Artist: Willy Grieve

Head Carpenter: Dicky Plaunt

Lighting Director: Waldo Harris

Stage Manager: Gwenllian Larking

Concert-Master: Otto Klafsky

Répétiteur and Harpsichordist: Watkin Bourke

Director: Geraint Powell

Conductor: Gunilla Dahl-Soot