Man in leaving does not take with him all
drama. One can laugh and suffer without him. [_He listens again._]
Ardently humming, a velvety bumblebee hovers--then is still; he has
plunged into a flower--Let us begin. Pray note that Aesop's hump
to-night does duty as prompter's box!
The members of our company are small, but--[_Calling toward the flies._]
Alexander! [_To the audience._] He is my chief machinist. [_Calling
again._] Let it down!
A VOICE
[_From the flies._] It's coming, sir!
MANAGER
We have lowered between the audience and the stage an invisible screen
of magnifying glass--
But there the violins are tuning up: Scraping of crystal bows, picking
of strings!--Hush! Let the footlights now leap into brightness, for at a
signal from their little leader the crickets' orchestra have briskly
fallen to!
Frrrt! The bumblebee emerges from the flower, shaking the yellow dust--A
Hen comes on the scene as in La Fontaine's fable. A Cuckoo calls, as in
Beethoven's symphony.
Hush! Let the chandelier draw in its myriad lights--for the curious
call-boy of the woods has, airily, to summon us, repeated thrice his
double call--
And since Nature is one of our performers, and feathered notables are on
our staff--Hush! the curtain must go up: A wood-pecker's bill has rapped
out the three strokes!
ACT I
THE EVENING OF THE PHEASANT-HEN
_A farmyard such as the sounds from behind the curtain have described.
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