Her reading was interrupted by a little boy, squinting as if he had a headache, who ran onto the lip of the stage. He had round shoulders, like most of our city-born Jews. His mouth opened up, but he didn’t say a word.

“What is your tidings?” demanded the woman with the lipstick.

But the boy from the Hatters’ Asylum just stood on his heels. He was wearing hip boots, like a fisherman.

“What is your tidings? Your tidings?”

A pity, the poor fellow was stumped. His eyes screwed tightly shut. The crowd wanted to help him, but no one knew the right words. In the awful silence, even the backstage noises ceased. In the front row Trumpelman, in an irritated way, slapped his knee. It was as if it were the boy’s face he’d struck. For he opened his eyes and spoke at once.

The king comes here tonight!

And the messenger whirled about and ran off in the direction he’d come from.

All eyes, however, were on the woman in front of the purple curtain. What she did then created a sensation in the House of Culture. There had never been anything like it in the whole history of our town. She undid her four top buttons and pulled her green gown away from her chest. What a tremendous shock! This wasn’t, after all, an anonymous actress, a stranger. It was our own Gutta Blit, all grown up. And you could practically see her bosom!

Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe, topfull
Of direst cruelty!

The woman’s face was twisted, terrible, as she said those words. The lights, once again, were fading out. Still she stood there, holding her dress that way.

Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall!

The stage front went dark. The Jews in the crowd gave a shudder.

Presto! The lights blazed on again. The double drapes of the curtain parted, and the spectators saw something more amazing still. For what had been, only minutes before, a heath or a forest, with a single gnarled and blasted tree, was now—one, two, three!—the great hall of an ancient castle! Real torches were fixed on the massive chunks of the wall, and battle flags hung from the ceiling. On the left, there was a big wooden door; on the right, a staircase, a high one, with a normal-sized door at the top. Without thinking, people applauded. Everything was so well done. There was even moss on the old hand-cut stones.

Mister Smolenskin played the part from Aida where the elephants and catapults arrive. The wooden door swung open and a half dozen Hatters’ orphans, in Scottish kilts and hats with feathers, stepped into the vaulted room. They were carrying dressed duck on platters, and realistic beef. How good the meat looked! How tasty! Through the door next came a row of archery experts, with their big bows strapped over their shoulders. In the middle of this crowd of lads and lassies stood Nathan Hobnover. He had the same bare knees as the others; the difference was, on the top of his head, glittering, glistening, there sat a round golden crown. The gramophone music stopped. The retainers held still. Then King Duncan, played by Hobnover, pointed across the stage, to the shadowy spot beneath the staircase. His little blond goat’s beard waggled when he talked.