THE NIGHTMARE OF GENIUS.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 10777, 3 October 1900, Page 2

THE NIGHTMARE OF GENIUS.

Bt KokxjUl Hear. "Stop!" The sharp nervous voice of Mr Eric Carrington. the foremost dramatist of the day, intorupted the rehearsal of bis new camedy at the Mariborough. He was a man to br instantly obeyed, and eilence reigned on th: stage. The new play had shaped wonderfully, and gave promise of being the greatest of hi 3 many suocessjs that London had applauded." The first and second acts were done with; everyone was delighted, and Mr Stafford Jermynj the lessee and manager of the Mariborough, canpratulaied himself upon having secured what -undoubtedly would prove to be Eric Carrlngton's masterpiece. Great as had been his achievements in the past, he had completely surpassed himself in his new work, "Lady Hilda's Irresponsibilities." "Stop!" he repeated, arresting the rehearsal midway through the last act. "Right so far, but everything after that line must be akered." The company and turned and looked in astonishment at"the author, who stood facing them, with his back to the footlights, holding the manuscript in his hand, and then the voice of the manager broke the silence : "Alter the end, Carrington?" he cried in bewilderment. "Why?" The playwright did not answer him for a moment, his face was twitching nervously, and the fingers that held the manuscript trembled .till the pages rustled. "I'm not satisfied with it," he said. "But there's really no time for alteration ; to-day's Wednesday, and the show's on Saturday. Besides, it's " "Dismiss the rehearsal until ten to-morrow morning," the author interrupted; and the order being given, th« company trailed away through the stage door, lost in wonderment at this sudden freak upon the part of Eric Carrington, and assuring one another that it would be absolutely impossible to get any new lines perfect between Thursday morning and Saturday evening. "It will mean failure, that's what it will mean," asserted one of them; in which gloomy prediction the others all concurred. Left alone upon the empty stage, except for a few carpenters noisily striking the set, the manager laid his hand upon the author's arm and led him to his room. He poured out a glass of wine, and handed it to him, and as he drank it the colour gradually returned to the cheeks that it had deserted, the deathlike pallor left his face, and i>is unstrung nerves recovered their tension a little. Eric Carrington's physician had warned him over and over again that his heart was unequal to any strain whatever; had pleaded with him, more as a friend than as a mere medical man, to avoid all possible excitement, and to hold a reserve force over himself. He might as well have spoken to the stones of the street. The man listened to his advice and resolved to follow it, to'hold a restraint upon his every action, but his determination wag futile; nothing cou3d allay his neurotic temperament, and the doctor almost counted the days of his life, knowing that some time or other the morbid fancies and strange frenziee of anxiety that the author lashed himself into would assuredly be his doom. "Eric, my dear fellow, you're r.ct vnurself this morning, ar you'd never i ''.: such utter nonsense as altering tin- ■ host third act you've written in you ,, 'Ihe dramatist sat looking v,u :■:::,: '.:;f(.re him, his interlaced fingers still tviiching a little, and then rousing himself, ha saiJ: "Ymfll have to humour mc in this, Stafford; I can't have that act played as it is. I must, alter it." "Nonsense, my dear fellow; what's the matter with it? Let it stand as it is." "I dare not." "Dare not. Why?" "I dare not," he repeated; "I must alter it." "What are you going to write?" "I don't know yet." "But it's announced for Saturday." "1 shall have the new end ready in the morning. Rehearsal's at ten. I'll read it to them then, and you can have the parts tukerc out while they go over the first two acts again." "But " "No bets, Stafford, there's a good chap. It's got to be so. I know you're going to say they can't learn it in the time, and you'll disappoint the public. Not a bit of it. Your company are tho best lot of people in the world; they'll do anything for you." "And you." "Yes. Well, then, for both our sakes, they'll get it letter perfect by Saturday. It will be all right on the night, old chap." And with that consoling belief of the theatrical world, he shook hands with his friend and departed. The golden sunlight filtering through the pale green muslin curtains of Ethel Delise's boudoir in Sloane street fell upon the clear, oval face of its occupant, lighting ur> her chestnut hair with gleams of burnished copper, and then danced away to the watercolours on the walls, and the hundred-and-ons nicknacks which a young and pretty woman loves to gather about her, making her home as dainty as herself. She ~ws,s alone, sitting back in a comfortable chair, reading. Ileading a book from the pen of the man she admired most in the world ; the man she was ere long to marry, Eric Caixington. By-and-bye, as the shadows lengthened, a 'hansom drew up at the house, and a minuta sifter the man himself entered; and while he sipped the afternoon tea that of late it had been his custom to taks with her, she drew closer to him, and touched upon the subject she knew was dearest to his heart. "Was it a good rehearsal to-day, Eric?" For a moment ha did not answer, but the nervous tremor came to his hands again, and his cup rattled as he placed it down. ''Yes," he answered, hesitatingly. "Yes, very good." "You are not quite satisfied?" she asked, anxiously, noting his reserve, and her slender white fingers stretched out and rested on his arm. "Not quite satisfied, Eric?" "No, not quite satisfied," be answered, looking into her eyes, where a shadow of sadness had come. "But I thought it had progressed so well." "It's the last act that drags," he said, longing to tell her aJL, and to gain her sympathy in hie determination to re-write the end. "The last act?" she cried in astonishment ; "why, it is the strongest in the play. You said so yourself, Eric." "I know, I know," he answered, almost testily; "but it's wrong. It won't do. I'm going to re-write it." She gazed at him in bewilderment. Her mind recalled the time when be first read the play to her, and how he had evinced hia delight with the last act. For » moment tihey sat silent, and then taking both her hands in his, he said, in tones that almost frightened her: "My dearest, I cannot let that last act be played as it is. I dare not." '"Dare not?" she repeated in wonder. "Dare not?" "I would sooner never write another line, sooner sink into the oblivion of idleness than let it go as it is." "Tsut, why, Eric, why?" "Because something terrible, horrible, intangible haunts mc; because something I do not realise, something.l cannot understand, warns mc." His face grew a little pale even in the glow of the autumn sunlight, and the nervous twitching came round the corners of his mouth again. She looked at him in sympathetic silence ; she had realised more than anyone else the highly-wrought, nervous temperament of the man she loved, nnd she wondered what etranee phantasy possessed him now. "What is it you are going to alter?" she asked at length, not knowing what else to say. "All aiter this line," he answered, taking the manuscript from his pocket and rustling over the leaves until he came to the place where he suddenly stopped the rehearsal. • Her eyes followed his finger, and saw that he pointed to.tbe most dramatic scene in the play. ••All after that must be different," he Baid. '■Hou-r ''It does not matter how, I shall think of gowtfiing. It doe* art matter wiAij

inything -will be better than what is now." "But. it may— —" phe paused and caught her breath, sne did not like to use the words that caino to her mind—"lt may mean failure." "Whatever it means," he answered j<er:ouaiy, "it must be done. For days I nave hesitated, ior days I have told myself it's but a foolish "fancy, but the foolish fancy, if so it be, has conquered, and I am going to re-write it by to-morrow. I must begin, at once." "Eric," she cried, still retaining his nervous hand ; "tell mc all. Tell mc what this foolish fancy is. I have a right to know," she added softly. He sat down again and gazed before him as one who saw a vision; then when he spoke his voice sounded strange to her, while to himself it came as that of someone speaking far away. "Night after night," be said, "I have dreamed of this day. Night after night I have seen the theatre on th« first performance, seen it as one sees it from the staee, a sea of faces, rising tier on tier. I have seen the curtain rung up on the first act and fall at its close 'midst thunder of applause. T have heard the music of the entr'acte, the hum and buzz sounding from the house, and then has come the second act; greater enthusiasm and a double call, and then the last act, but only half way through ; just at this very line," and his trembling finger pointed to the place, "just then I have awakened, awakened in an agony of terror; why, I know not. One second before my dream has been reality itself, the theatre, the audience, the people on the stage, my own words ringing in my ears, and then a ghastly horror has gripped mc, chilled my heart, until it felt as ice, and sent a shivering thrill through all my veins. I have cried aloud to the Wackness of the night in my fear—my dread of the unknown, of the impending calamity, and then I have lain skepless through the long, dark hours till daylight." "It was but a dream," she answered, softly; "a terrible dream, but nothing more." "It is some warning," he cried. "It is ever the same thing, until the same instant in the play, and then, -when a ghastly horror is about to buret upon mc, I awaken with the clinging dread upon , mc that something is about to happen ; what, I know not. "And so you realise, dearest," he said in answer to the pressure of her hand, for she could not think what words to use, "it must be altered." "Yes," she quietly agreed, "it must be altered" ; and so from the presence of the girl who was all the world to him he went back to his chambers and wrote on through the night, until the grey dawn broke chilly in the sky, and shamed the lamp by which he worked. There could be no doubt about it, for tie first time in his career Eric Carrtngton had scored a failure. He sat in his study and gazed blankly at the wall. Strewn about the floor were the morning papers, and in every one of them was written the same story in different words—Failure!

Every critic had to confess tithe utter disappointment that had followed tbe fall of the curtain. There had been no tumult of applause, no enthusiastic calls of "Author." On the contrary, dissentient voices had sounded distinctly, and even a hies or two had been heard. The high hopes that everyone had held from tbeir experience of the past, from the promise of the first two acts, had been dashed to the ground. He picked up one of tie papers again and read tha critique. "Never," said the writer, "has such excellent promise been so ratihlessly broken. Through the fiist and second acts we realised that we were listening to tibe work of the greatest dramatist our age Las known. WJth the opening of the last act the belief grew that here was his magnus opus; but suddenly the whole play collapsed, tie brightness, and sparkle of the dialogue vanished, the plot failed, and drifted away into nothingness, the more irritating and bewildering because we had been expecting a splendid climax. Even now, hours afterwards, we do not understand it; we cannot pretend even to conjecture, but of one thing we are certain, the end that we saw of the last act is not tbe true end. It is not the end that should be; and more, we could even dare say it is not the end the author once conceived. The actors, too, lost the spirit which had animated them in the earlier Bcones of-the play. They one and all through that fatal last act struggled with a hopeless task. "Dare Mr Carrington be as courageous as he is clever? Dare , be re-write the last act and so turn failure into success?" The man finished and crashed his fist down on the table with a muttered oath. It was gall and wormwood to him to read such words as these, and it was tbe more maddening because, had he not allowed the foolish fancy that the hours of the night had brought to his brain to sway his better judgment, brilliant success would have been achieved. Then his thoughts turned to her and what she would say, and in an hour's time he sat beside her, listening to the gentle tones that soothed him, as a reassuring voice comforts a child affrighted by the darkness. "Eric/ , she said, "for my sake be true to yourself, true to your genius. Put away your fears, restore the play to what it was when you first told mc of it." "It shall be so," he answered; and bending down, he kiesed her. ■ The next day's papers announced that the Marlborough would remain closed until the end of the week, for Mr Eric Carrington had bad the courage to agree to what no other dramatist of his position had ever yet condescended to do—to accept without question the verdict of the Press and public and reconstruct the last act of his play; but only to the favoured few was it known that the end now to be played was the one originally written. The Mariborough was a blaze of light. The event was an unparalleled one in the history of the stage. Within a week, the same play was to be staged with a new last act. Seats had been booked by almost all those who were present at the first performance, tbeir curiosity drawing them again

to the unique function of a second first nigiit. Far back in the shadow of a stage-bos sat the man who had written the play, and by his side the woman to whom his success was all the world. Enthusiasm, genuine enthusiasm, broke forth as the curtain fell upon- the fast act. The play improved on acquaintance, and in crowded smoking-room and foyer unstinted praise was given, and the hope went forth that this new last act, which everyone awaited with the keenest interest, would. )» worthy of the man. The electric bells announced the rising of the curtain, and the faebionablo cwrwa ..." drifted back into the theatre again. lie ' second act was played; once more an« ■ thusiastdc plaudits burst forth, and new expectancy rose on tip-too; now what tbw haid gathered for was to come, and wita tingling anticipation they awaited the con , mencement of the last act. ; Screened from view, the man and tile woman wat together,' and her fingers Moth*' ingly caressed his trembling hands, while . her eyes gazed anxioualy into his white face. He had fought down the terror thai had possessed him, and had allowed the play to be acted as it woe first written, but now that the moment woe near, the nervons few ■ possessed his soul again, and something ■whispered in his ear urging him to sowhow 2>revent the last act being played, t» walk to the front of the box and confess, to the house his terror ; and his face grew deathly as he watched the curtain rise. With breathless interest the vast audience followed the progress of the last act, those who had seen the play a week before-re-calling this or that line; a,nd then Jfckt moment cam*. The moment when thelSSpi situation was expected. A week ago a failure—what would they see now? A sigh of satisfaction broke from tie * house. * In the shadow of the box the man lay back in his chair, his hand upon hie heart, and a woman knelt by his sid« and spoke to him; spoke to him in soft, endearing words, to which no answer came. Then ■ she became frightened, and opening_ tie door, looked out into the deserted corridor. On the stage the play was still in pro* gress, delighting everyone. Success was nc'iiin. and when the curtain dropped ,_ a ■'' < v roar burst out. Enthusiasm, wild insm! ..In and again the curtain wa« nißft. up., again and again the smiling actws bowed their acknowledgments; and thea came a shout that made the very air quiver, of "Author! author!" Stafford Jermyn looked around for Erie, and not finding him, rushed through Uμ pass-door to the author's box. There, the physician bending over him, lay the man for whose appearance the. theatre was still ringing with cri«s of welcome and applause. The man -whose own nervous fears had - conquered after all, for the excitement o! {{he last half-hour had staged his heart f« ever. -