Several girls (of course everyone in the audience knew me) began to
titter at my strange appearance, in my apotheosised bathrobe, in my
close Van Dyke beard....
I knew inwardly that in a moment all the house would be laughing ... at
first out of sheer nervousness over the delay in the progress of the
play--then from genuine amusement....
I threw my will, my entire spirit, against the incoming tide of ridicule
which would wreck the play even with the rising of the curtain.
I pictured to myself the beautiful woman who had drowned herself; I
burned with her unhappiness ... I felt her hovering near me ... I
thought of the lovely passion we had known together ... I _was_ Iistral.
I was not on a stage, but in a room, holding actual and rapt communion
with my spirit-bride, Egeria!...
"Egeria! Egeria!" I sobbed ... and tears streamed down my face.
I was miserable, without her, in the flesh ... though she was there,
beside me, in soul!
* * * * *
I was aware of the audience again. I was proud and strong in my
confidence now. The tittering had stopped. The house was filling with
awe. I was pushing something back, back, back--over the footlights. I
did not stop pushing till it had reached the topmost galleries....