II.
And with the rising of the curtain began Edward Henry's torture andbewilderment. The scene disclosed a cloth upon which was painted, tothe right, a vast writhing purple cuttlefish whose finer tentacles werelost above the proscenium-arch, and to the left an enormous crimsonoblong patch with a hole in it. He referred to the programme, whichsaid: "Act. I. A castle in the forest," and also "Scenery and costumesdesigned by Saracen Givington, A.R.A." The cuttlefish, then, was thepurple forest, or perhaps one tree in the forest, and the oblong patchwas the crimson castle. The stage remained empty, and Edward Henry hadtime to perceive that the footlights were unlit, and that rays came onlyfrom the flies and from the wings.
He glanced round. Nobody had blenched. Quite confused, he referredagain to the programme and deciphered in the increasing gloom, "Lightingby Cosmo Clark," in very large letters.
Two yellow-clad figures of no particular sex glided into view, and atthe first words which they uttered Edward Henry's heart seemed inapprehension to cease to beat. A fear seized him. A few more words,and the fear became a positive assurance and realisation of evil. "TheNew Don Juan" was simply a pseudonym for Carlo Trent's "Orient Pearl"!... He had always known that it would be. Ever since deciding to acceptthe invitation he had lived under just that menace. "The Orient Pearl"seemed to be pursuing him like a sinister destiny.
Weakly he consulted yet again the programme. Only one character bore aname familiar to the Don Juan story; to wit, "Haidee"; and opposite thatname was the name of Elsie April. He waited for her,--he had no otherinterest in the evening,--and he waited in resignation. A young femaletroubadour (styled in the programme "the messenger") emerged from theunseen depths of the forest in the wings and ejaculated to the hero andhis friend: "The woman appears." But it was not Elsie that appeared.Six times that troubadour messenger emerged and ejaculated, "The womanappears," and each time Edward Henry was disappointed. But at theseventh heralding--the heralding of the seventh and highest heroine ofthis drama in hexameters--Elsie did at length appear.
And Edward Henry became happy. He understood little more of the playthan at the historic breakfast-party of Sir John Pilgrim; he was wellconfirmed in his belief that the play was exactly as preposterous as aplay in verse must necessarily be; his manly contempt for verse was morefirmly established than ever--but Elsie April made an exquisite figurebetween the castle and the forest; her voice did really set up physicalvibrations in his spine. He was deliciously convinced that if sheremained on the stage from everlasting to everlasting, just so longcould he gaze thereat without surfeit and without other desire. Themischief was that she did not remain on the stage. With despair he sawher depart; and the close of the act was ashes in his mouth.
The applause was tremendous. It was not as tremendous as that which hadgreeted the plate-smashing comedy at the Hanbridge Empire, but it wasfar more than sufficiently enthusiastic to startle and shock EdwardHenry. In fact, his cold indifference was so conspicuous amid thatfever, that in order to save his face he had to clap and to smile.
And the dreadful thought crossed his mind, traversing it like theshudder of a distant earthquake that presages complete destruction:
"Are the ideas of the Five Towns all wrong? Am I a provincial afterall?"
For hitherto, though he had often admitted to himself that he was aprovincial, he had never done so with sincerity; but always in a mannerof playful and rather condescending badinage.