u've heard the play twenty times this year past. When was
it she last walked?"

Martin was back and yanking down a blonde wig on my head and shoving
my arms into a light gray robe.

"I've never studied _the lines_," I squeaked at Sidney.

"Liar! I've watched your lips move a dozen nights when you watched the
scene from the wings. Close your eyes, girl! Martin, unhand her. Close
your eyes, girl, empty your mind, and listen, listen only. When was it
she last walked?"

In the blackness I heard myself replying to that cue, first in a
whisper, then more loudly, then full-throated but grave, "Since his
majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw
her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth--"

"Bravissimo!" Siddy cried and bombed me again. Martin hugged his arm
around my shoulders too, then quickly stooped to start hooking up my
robe from the bottom.

"But that's only the first lines, Siddy," I protested.

"They're enough!"

"But Siddy, what if I blow up?" I asked.

"Keep your mind empty. You won't. Further, I'll be at your side,
doubling the Doctor, to prompt you if you pause."

_That ought to take care of two of me_, I thought. Then something else
struck me. "But Siddy," I quavered, "how do I play the Gentlewoman as
a boy?"

"Boy?" he demanded wonderingly. "Play her without falling down flat on
your face and I'll be past measure happy!" And he smacked me hard on
the fanny.

Martin's fingers were darting at the next to the last hook. I stopped
him and shoved my hand down the neck of my sweater and got hold of the
subway token and the chain it was on and yanked. It burned my neck
but the gold links parted. I started to throw it across the room, but
instead I smiled at Siddy and dropped it in his palm.

"The Sleepwalking Scene!" Maud hissed insistently to us from the door.

VII

I know death hath ten thousand several doors
For men to take their exits, and 'tis found
They go on such strange geometrical hinges,
You may open them both ways.
--The Duchess

There is this about an actor on stage: he can see the audience but he
can't _look_ at them, unless he's a narrator or some sort of comic. I
wasn't the first (Grendel groks!) and only scared to death of becoming
the second as Siddy walked me out of the wings onto the stage, over
the groundcloth that felt so much like ground, with a sort of
interweaving policeman-gr