But the
light changed. The moonlight slowly faded. Dancer and music faltered, in
the falling of the dark hour before dawn. The charm was waning. Soft
notes died, and quavered in apprehension. The magic charm of the moon
was breaking, had broken: a crash of cymbals and the studio was dark.
Then light began to glimmer once more, but it was the chill light of
dawn, and growing from purple to blue, from blue to rosy day, it showed
the marble statues fast locked in marble sleep again. On the platform
stood the girl with uplifted arm, holding her cup, now, to catch the
wine of sunrise; and on the delicately chiselled face was a faint smile
which seemed to hide a secret. When the first ray of yellow sunshine
gilded the big skylight, a door up-stage opened and the sculptor came
in, wearing his workman's blouse. He regarded his handiwork, as the
curtain came down.
When the music of the dream had ceased and suddenly became
ostentatiously puerile, the audience broke into a tumult of applause.
Women clapped their hands furiously and many men shouted "brava, brava,"
hoping that the curtain might rise once more on the picture; but it did
not rise, and Stephen was glad. The dream would have been vulgarized by
repetition.
For fully five minutes the orchestra played some gay tune which every
one there had heard a hundred times; but abruptly it stopped, as if on
a signal. For an instant there was a silence of waiting and suspense,
which roused interest and piqued curiosity.
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