Note: Translator Pauline Bancroft Flach died in 1966, less than 70 years ago. Therefore, this work is protected by copyright, restricting your legal rights to reproduce it. However, you are welcome to view it on screen, as you do now. Read more about copyright.
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202 THE MIR A CLES OF ANTICHRIST
laughter? They were not the English signorina’s
slaves, I suppose.
It was a terrible blow to her. It was too great a
blow for her to understand. Were they hissing her?
It must be something happening among them;
something that she could not see. She sang the
aria to its end. She was convinced that the laughter
was for something with which she had nothing to
do.
When she had finished a sort of storm of
applause roared over her. At last she understood.
Torches and the moonlight made the night so bright
that she could see the rows of people twisting with
laughter. She heard the scoffs and the jests now,
when she was not singing. They were for her.
Then she fled from the stage. It seemed to her that
Etna itself heaved with laughter, and that the sea
sparkled with merriment.
But it grew worse and worse. They had had such
a good time, those poor people; they had never had
such a good time before, and they wished to hear
her once again. They called for her; they cried:
“ Bravo! Bis! Da capo!” They could not lose such
a pleasure. She, she was almost unconscious.
There was a storm about her. They screamed; they
roared to get her in. She saw them lift their arms
and threaten her to get her in. All at once it was
all turned into an old circus. She had to go in to
be devoured by monsters.
It went on; it went on; it became wilder and
wilder. The other performers were frightened and
begged her to yield. And she herself was frightened.
It looked as if they would have killed her if she did
not do what they wished.
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