A Tramp Abroad - The Original Classic Edition. Twain Mark

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СКАЧАТЬ people were streaming in, the clock-hand pointed to seven, the music struck up, and instantly

       all movement in the body of the house ceased--nobody was standing, or walking up the aisles, or fumbling with a seat, the stream of incomers had suddenly dried up at its source. I listened undisturbed to a piece

       of music that was fifteen minutes long--always expecting some tardy

       ticket-holders to come crowding past my knees, and being continuously and pleasantly disappointed--but when the last note was struck, here came the stream again. You see, they had made those late comers wait in the comfortable waiting-parlor from the time the music had begun until it was ended.

       It was the first time I had ever seen this sort of criminals denied the privilege of destroying the comfort of a house full of their betters. Some of these were pretty fine birds, but no matter, they had to tarry outside in the long parlor under the inspection of a double rank of liveried footmen and waiting-maids who supported the two walls with

       their backs and held the wraps and traps of their masters and mistresses on their arms.

       We had no footmen to hold our things, and it was not permissible to take them into the concert-room; but there were some men and women to take charge of them for us. They gave us checks for them and charged a fixed price, payable in advance--five cents.

       In Germany they always hear one thing at an opera which has never yet

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       been heard in America, perhaps--I mean the closing strain of a fine solo

       or duet. We always smash into it with an earthquake of applause. The result is that we rob ourselves of the sweetest part of the treat; we

       get the whiskey, but we don't get the sugar in the bottom of the glass.

       Our way of scattering applause along through an act seems to me to be better than the Mannheim way of saving it all up till the act is ended.

       I do not see how an actor can forget himself and portray hot passion before a cold still audience. I should think he would feel foolish. It

       is a pain to me to this day, to remember how that old German Lear raged and wept and howled around the stage, with never a response from that hushed house, never a single outburst till the act was ended. To

       me there was something unspeakably uncomfortable in the solemn dead silences that always followed this old person's tremendous outpourings of his feelings. I could not help putting myself in his place--I thought

       I knew how sick and flat he felt during those silences, because I

       remembered a case which came under my observation once, and which--but I

       will tell the incident:

       One evening on board a Mississippi steamboat, a boy of ten years lay asleep in a berth--a long, slim-legged boy, he was, encased in quite

       a short shirt; it was the first time he had ever made a trip on a

       steamboat, and so he was troubled, and scared, and had gone to bed with his head filled with impending snaggings, and explosions, and conflagrations, and sudden death. About ten o'clock some twenty ladies were sitting around about the ladies' saloon, quietly reading, sewing, embroidering, and so on, and among them sat a sweet, benignant old dame with round spectacles on her nose and her busy knitting-needles in her hands. Now all of a sudden, into the midst of this peaceful scene burst

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       that slim-shanked boy in the brief shirt, wild-eyed, erect-haired, and

       shouting, "Fire, fire! JUMP AND RUN, THE BOAT'S AFIRE AND THERE AIN'T A

       MINUTE TO LOSE!" All those ladies looked sweetly up and smiled, nobody stirred, the old lady pulled her spectacles down, looked over them, and

       said, gently:

       "But you mustn't catch cold, child. Run and put on your breastpin, and then come and tell us all about it."

       It was a cruel chill to give to a poor little devil's gushing vehemence.

       He was expecting to be a sort of hero--the creator of a wild panic--and

       here everybody sat and smiled a mocking smile, and an old woman made fun of his bugbear. I turned and crept away--for I was that boy--and never

       even cared to discover whether I had dreamed the fire or actually seen

       it.

       I am told that in a German concert or opera, they hardly ever encore a song; that though they may be dying to hear it again, their good breeding usually preserves them against requiring the repetition.

       Kings may encore; that is quite another matter; it delights everybody to see that the King is pleased; and as to the actor encored, his pride and gratification are simply boundless. Still, there are circumstances in

       which even a royal encore--

       But it is better to illustrate. The King of Bavaria is a poet, and has a poet's eccentricities--with the advantage over all other poets of being able to gratify them, no matter what form they may take. He is fond

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       of opera, but not fond of sitting in the presence of an audience;

       therefore, it has sometimes occurred, in Munich, that when an opera has

       been concluded and the players were getting off their paint and finery, a command has come to them to get their paint and finery on again. Presently the King would arrive, solitary and alone, and the players would begin at the beginning and do the entire opera over again with only that one individual in the vast solemn theater for audience. Once he took an odd freak into his head. High up and out of sight, over

       the prodigious stage of the court theater is a maze of interlacing

       water-pipes, so pierced that in case of fire, innumerable little

       thread-like streams of water can be caused to descend; and in case

       of need, this discharge can be augmented to a pouring flood. American managers might want to make a note of that. The King was sole audience. The opera proceeded, it was a piece with a storm in it; the mimic

       thunder began to mutter, the mimic wind began to wail and sough, and the mimic rain to patter. The King's interest rose higher and higher; it developed into enthusiasm. He cried out:

       "It is very, very good, indeed! But I will have real rain! Turn on the water!"

       The manager pleaded for a reversal of the command; said it would ruin

       the costly scenery and the splendid costumes, but the King cried:

       "No matter, no matter, I will have real rain! Turn on the water!"

       So the real rain was turned on and began to descend in gossamer lances to the mimic flower-beds and gravel walks of the stage. The richly dressed actresses and actors tripped about singing bravely and

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       pretending not to mind it. The King was delighted--his enthusiasm grew

       higher. He cried out:

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