The poor ballet-girl had been chosen for this duty less because
of her courage than on account of an accidental resemblance she bore
to Mrs. Mowatt. "She stopped and shrieked halfway, protested she was
dizzy, and might fall, and would not advance a step farther. After
about half-an-hour's delay, during which the poor girl was encouraged,
coaxed, and scolded abundantly, she allowed the carpenter, who had
planned the rocky pathway, to lead her carefully up and down the
declivity, and finally rushed up alone." At a certain cue she was
required to fall upon her face, concealed from the audience by an
intercepting rock, and then the lay figure took its flight through the
air.
The success of the performance appears to have been complete. The
substitution of the double for Ariadne, and the dummy for the double,
even puzzled spectators who were provided with powerful opera-glasses.
"The illusion was so perfect," Mrs. Mowatt writes, "that on the first
night of the representation, when Ariadne leaped from the rock, a man
started up in the pit, exclaiming in a tone of genuine horror: 'Good
God! she is killed!'" How this exclamation must have rejoiced the
heart of the stage-manager! For one would rather not consider the
possibility of the "man in the pit" having been placed there by that
functionary with due instructions as to when and what he was to
exclaim.
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