of voices hustles the air around in clammy arcs. Upstairs in the five-and three-shilling galleries they must be fainting like flies. The ladies and the so-called ladies flap their fans with such hectic energy that the stalls look like the breeding grounds of an enormous species of moth. The fans throb the faint stink of theater drains into a living pungency. Something is on the fret deep below the stalls.
Valentine makes his way to a ten-shilling seat in the front of the aristocrats’ enclosure. Who would dare deny him? His new neighbors flick him uneasy glances and then gaze intently in another direction, hiding the nervy drumming of their fingers in down-turned palms. Even this, inaudible beneath the whining and cavilling of stringed instruments tuning up, feeds Valentine’s fury. He loathes all these people calling out to each other in stage whispers, stupidly lifting their heads like birds drinking to gaze round the honeycombed galleries, or prematurely becalmed in slack-mouthed spectators’ passivity.
Why don’t they ever get started on the stage? It’s well after seven.
He’s sweating like a tumbler of iced beer, rubbing his back against the seat like a riggish dog. A woman behind him sniffs and he turns to fix her with a look that makes her recoil in her chair, her cheeks sucked in like paper bags and the whites straining out of her eyes.
This is of course by no means the normal state of play with the ladies. It’s just that Valentine’s pleasing features are temporarily deranged. Otherwise she, like all women, would have grown astoundingly fond and flirtish merely at the sight of that lean face and the shapely nose that lists very slightly to the right. The amiableslant of his eyebrows lends him a habitual expression of irrepressible good humor, and he can arch them independently, and frequently does so, in a way that never fails to endear. He wears his own auburn hair, even to the theater, and it grows so fine and gleaming soft that no one misses the wig. The offended woman is already hoping that he can feel her regretful sigh caressing his neck.
At last the velvet shuffles up on the stage. A breath of dusted air belches out from a radiant slit in the pall. The first true note of a violin makes a wet punch through the flabby chatter of the theatergoers. Officious people start shushing, and others mock the shushers with exaggerated shushes of their own. The curtain lifts on a rustic Italianate scene and the actors burst into ragged song and shabbier dancing.
Now he’s more than willing to be pleased, but this is not enough for Valentine, not by a long way. He shifts endlessly in his seat, unsticking his thighs from its hot embrace.
It’s the usual mediocre fare , he thinks, there’s no relief to be had here.
He’s about to rise and push his way out of the stalls when the leading lady makes her entrance.
She does so as the virgin of the piece. This is spelled out, as if in a printed caption, by the fact that she’s dressed in white gauze (fitted to her body with the utmost niceness), fever-spotted in the lily cheek, and subtly rouged at the tender point where her breasts meet. Each step is hesitant, childlike, but all the same avid. And every male actor she now encounters, for she straightaway does the rounds of them on a pretext of some inquiry, is pictured in the minds of the audience violently astride her. Yes, definitely the maiden: This does not happen in the case of actresses impersonating married women or widows.
At first sight I cannot endure her looks, she’s nothing to me, I wouldn’t go next or near to her, and nor would Tom have given her a second backways glance, much less the clicket she’s offering gratis to every man in this hall with that look over her shoulder.
The thought of Tom affixes Valentine to his seat again.
Is Tom’s murderer still at large in Venice or has he come to London now to continue his massacres? Does Valentine himselfknow the poxed dog that did it? Will
Valentine makes his way to a ten-shilling seat in the front of the aristocrats’ enclosure. Who would dare deny him? His new neighbors flick him uneasy glances and then gaze intently in another direction, hiding the nervy drumming of their fingers in down-turned palms. Even this, inaudible beneath the whining and cavilling of stringed instruments tuning up, feeds Valentine’s fury. He loathes all these people calling out to each other in stage whispers, stupidly lifting their heads like birds drinking to gaze round the honeycombed galleries, or prematurely becalmed in slack-mouthed spectators’ passivity.
Why don’t they ever get started on the stage? It’s well after seven.
He’s sweating like a tumbler of iced beer, rubbing his back against the seat like a riggish dog. A woman behind him sniffs and he turns to fix her with a look that makes her recoil in her chair, her cheeks sucked in like paper bags and the whites straining out of her eyes.
This is of course by no means the normal state of play with the ladies. It’s just that Valentine’s pleasing features are temporarily deranged. Otherwise she, like all women, would have grown astoundingly fond and flirtish merely at the sight of that lean face and the shapely nose that lists very slightly to the right. The amiableslant of his eyebrows lends him a habitual expression of irrepressible good humor, and he can arch them independently, and frequently does so, in a way that never fails to endear. He wears his own auburn hair, even to the theater, and it grows so fine and gleaming soft that no one misses the wig. The offended woman is already hoping that he can feel her regretful sigh caressing his neck.
At last the velvet shuffles up on the stage. A breath of dusted air belches out from a radiant slit in the pall. The first true note of a violin makes a wet punch through the flabby chatter of the theatergoers. Officious people start shushing, and others mock the shushers with exaggerated shushes of their own. The curtain lifts on a rustic Italianate scene and the actors burst into ragged song and shabbier dancing.
Now he’s more than willing to be pleased, but this is not enough for Valentine, not by a long way. He shifts endlessly in his seat, unsticking his thighs from its hot embrace.
It’s the usual mediocre fare , he thinks, there’s no relief to be had here.
He’s about to rise and push his way out of the stalls when the leading lady makes her entrance.
She does so as the virgin of the piece. This is spelled out, as if in a printed caption, by the fact that she’s dressed in white gauze (fitted to her body with the utmost niceness), fever-spotted in the lily cheek, and subtly rouged at the tender point where her breasts meet. Each step is hesitant, childlike, but all the same avid. And every male actor she now encounters, for she straightaway does the rounds of them on a pretext of some inquiry, is pictured in the minds of the audience violently astride her. Yes, definitely the maiden: This does not happen in the case of actresses impersonating married women or widows.
At first sight I cannot endure her looks, she’s nothing to me, I wouldn’t go next or near to her, and nor would Tom have given her a second backways glance, much less the clicket she’s offering gratis to every man in this hall with that look over her shoulder.
The thought of Tom affixes Valentine to his seat again.
Is Tom’s murderer still at large in Venice or has he come to London now to continue his massacres? Does Valentine himselfknow the poxed dog that did it? Will
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