The dressing-rooms had been disposed with respect to this old entrance,
and their position had never been changed. It had been convenient for
the prima donna to be able to reach her carriage after the performance
without crossing the stage; whereas, as things were now arranged, she
had a long distance to go. The new stage door had been made within the
last ten years, so that every one who had known the theatre longer than
that was well aware of the existence of the old one, though few people
knew that it could still be opened on emergency, as in case of fire,
and that it was also used for bringing in the unusually big boxes in
which some of the great singers sent their dresses. The dressing-rooms
opened upon a wide but ill-lighted corridor which led from the stage
near the back on the left; the last dressing-room was the largest and
was always the prima donna's. Just beyond it a door closed the end of
the passage, leading to the doorkeeper's former vestibule, which was
now never lighted, and beyond that a short flight of steps led down to
the locked outer door, on the level of the street. In the same corridor
there were of course other dressing-rooms which were not all used in
Rigoletto, an opera which has only two principal women's parts;
whereas in the Huguenots, for instance, the rooms would all have been
full, there would have been a number of maids about and more lights. In
Rigoletto, too, the contralto does not even come to the theatre to
dress until the opera is more than half over, as she is only on in the
third act. The Contessa and Giovanna do not count, as they have so
little to do.
This short explanation of the topography of the building is necessary
in order to understand clearly what happened on that memorable
afternoon and evening.
Margaret Donne was in her dressing-room, quite unaware that anything
was going to occur beyond the first great ordeal of singing to a full
house, a matter which was of itself enough to fill the day and to bring
even Margaret's solid nerves to a state of tension which she had not
anticipated. The bravest and coolest men have felt their hearts beating
faster just before facing cold steel or going into battle, and almost
all of them have felt something else too, which has nothing to do with
the heart, and which I can only compare to what many women suffer from
when there is going to be a thunderstorm--an indescribable physical
restlessness and bodily irritation which make it irksome to stay long
in one position and impossible to think consecutively and reasonably
about ordinary matters. There is no sport like fighting with real
weapons, with the certainty that life itself is depending at every
instant on one's own hand and eye. No other game of skill or hazard can
compare with that. It is chess, played for life and death, with an
element of chance which chess has not; your foot may slip, your eye may
be dazzled by a ray of light or a sudden reflection, or if you are not
a first-rate player you may miscalculate your distance by four inches,
which, in steel, is exactly enough; or if the weapons are fire-arms you
may aim a little too high or too low, or the other man may, and that
little will mean the difference between time and eternity.