to talk about the theatre, invited Venik and Krista also to accompany them thither. Krista looked at Venik, and Venik went with her.
All the way there they scarcely spoke a word. Krista was wondering what it would be like in the theatre, and Venik’s mind was perhaps similarly engaged. They were about to look upon an unknown world, and their eyes were downcast.
They had never yet been at the theatre, and when they had taken their places in it they felt as though a ton weight had fallen upon them. They saw a number of people before the curtain, and behind the curtain—who could tell what there might be? Then the curtain was drawn up and they saw a wood, and here both bethought them of that wood which stretched behind their hill-side; they bethought them of the hollow tree and of that river which ran below the hill-side; they were half inclined to weep, and again they were half inclined to rapture. But all was different in that wood behind the curtain. There people walked and conversed and acted together, and our two spectators felt even that wood behind the curtain grew dear to them. Their whole attention was fixed upon it, and everything happened quite naturally in it, and like real life. Now they were constrained to laugh, and the next moment they were fain to cry.
The play was over, and in the body of the hall twilight reigned. When they listened they seemed to hear their own names called, and that by many voices. It really was their names, and before they could recover from their surprise they felt themselves touched by hands, many hands, and again before they could recover from their surprise, they were gently lifted off their feet, and pushed behind the curtain into the wood, and a hundred throats clamoured for Venik to play and Krista to sing.
It was like a revelation. They did not know how it all happened, but they sang and played. It half seemed to them as though they were standing on their own hill-side, and yet somehow it was quite different. When they had concluded the theatre was all agape with excitement, and like one mouth, and they were obliged to play and sing afresh, and when even this was concluded Venik saw that a body of fine gentlemen had gathered round Krista and were conversing with her about the stage, and about matters which he himself did not understand, and which she, perhaps, also did not understand. And then again they talked to her about matters which pained him, and which he did not wish
