Arnold Bennett

The Ghost Arnold Bennett

It was with a certain nervousness that I mentioned Sullivan's name to the gentleman at the receipt oftickets-a sort of transcendantly fine version of Keith Prowse's clerk-but Sullivan had notexaggerated his own importance. They did look after me. They looked after me with such respectfuldiligence that I might have been excused for supposing that they had mistaken me for the Shah ofPersia in disguise. I was introduced into Sullivan's box with every circumstance of pomp. The boxwas empty. Naturally I had arrived there first. I sat down, and watched the enormous house fill, butnot until I had glanced into the mirror that hung on the crimson partition of the box to make surethat my appearance did no discredit to Sullivan and the great lady, his wife. At eight o'clock, when the conductor appeared at his desk to an accompaniment of applauding tapsfrom the musicians, the house was nearly full. The four tiers sent forth a sparkle of diamonds, ofsilk, and of white arms and shoulders which rivalled the glitter of the vast crystal chandelier. Thewide floor of serried stalls (those stalls of which one pair at least had gone for six pound ten) addedtheir more sombre brilliance to the show, while far above, stretching away indefinitely to the veryfurthest roof, was the gallery (where but for Sullivan I should have been), a mass of black spottedwith white faces. Excitement was in the air: the expectation of seeing once again Rosetta Rosa, the girl with thegolden throat, the mere girl who, two years ago, had in one brief month captured London, and whonow, after a period of petulance, had decided to recapture London. On ordinary nights, for theinhabitants of boxes, the Opera is a social observance, an exhibition of jewels, something betweenan F. O. reception and a conversazione with music in the distance. But to-night the habituésconfessed a genuine interest in the stage itself, abandoning their rôle of players. Dozens of timessince then have I been to the Opera, and never have I witnessed the candid enthusiasm of thatnight. If London can be naïve, it was naïve then.