Free Prater Violet by Christopher Isherwood Page B

set with his hands behind his back, not even glancing around to see if I am following. We go through the double doors and out onto the fire-escape. Everybody retires to the fire-escape when they want to talk and smoke, because smoking isn’t allowed inside the building. I nod to the doorman, who is reading the Daily Herald through his pince-nez. He is a great admirer of Soviet Russia.
    Standing on the little iron platform, we can see a glimpse of the chilly gray river beyond the rooftops. The air smells damp and fresh, after being indoors, and there is a breeze which ruffles Bergmann’s bushy hair.
    â€œHow is the scene? Is it all right like this?”
    â€œYes, I think so.” I try to sound convincing. I feel lazy, this morning, and don’t want any trouble. We both examine our copies of the script; or, at least, I pretend to. I have read it so often that the words have lost their meaning.
    Bergmann frowns and grunts. “I thought, maybe, if we could find something. It seems so bare, so poor.… Couldn’t perhaps Toni say, ‘I cannot sell the violets of yesterday; they are unfresh?’”
    â€œâ€˜I can’t sell yesterday’s violets; they wither so quickly.’”
    â€œGood. Good … Write that down.”
    I write it into the script. Eliot appears at the door. “Ready to rehearse now, sir.”
    â€œLet us go.” Bergmann leads the way back to the set, with Eliot and myself following—a general attended by his staff. Everybody watches us, wondering if anything important has been decided. There is a childish satisfaction in having kept so many people waiting.
    Eliot goes over to the door of Anita Hayden’s portable dressing room. “Miss Hayden,” he says, very self-consciously, “would you come now, please? We’re ready.”
    Anita, looking like a petulant little girl in her short flowered dress, apron and frilly petticoats, emerges and walks onto the set. Like nearly all famous people, she seems a size smaller than her photographs.
    I approach her, afraid that this is going to be unpleasant. I try to grin. “Sorry! We’ve changed a line again.”
    But Anita, for some reason, is in a good mood.
    â€œBrute!” she exclaims, coquettishly. “Well, come on, let’s hear the worst.”
    Eliot blows his whistle. “Quiet there! Dead quiet! Full rehearsal! Green light!” This last order is for the doorman, who will switch on the sign over the sound-stage door: “Rehearsal. Enter quietly.”
    At last we are ready. The rehearsal begins.
    Toni is standing alone, looking pensively out of the window. It is the day after her meeting with Rudolf. And now she has just received a letter of love and farewell, cryptically worded, because he cannot tell her the whole truth: that he is the Prince and that he has been summoned to Borodania. So Toni is heartbroken and bewildered. Her eyes are full of tears. (This part of the scene is covered by a close-up.)
    The door opens. Toni’s father comes in.
    Father: “What’s the matter, Toni? Why aren’t you at the Prater?”
    Toni (inventing an excuse): “I—I haven’t any flowers.”
    Father: “Did you sell all you had yesterday?”
    Toni (with a faraway look in her eyes, which shows that her answer is symbolic): “I can’t sell yesterday’s violets. They wither so quickly.”
    She begins to sob, and runs out of the room, banging the door. Her father stands looking after her, in blank surprise. Then he shrugs his shoulders and grimaces, as much as to say that woman’s whims are beyond his understanding.
    â€œCut.” Bergmann rises quickly from his chair and goes over to Anita. “Let me tell you something, Madame. The way you throw open that door is great. It is altogether much too great. You give to the movement a theatrical importance beside which the slaughter of Rasputin is just a quick