in a central position. In this old shanty everything was musty.
Right at the entrance the ladies always giggled because there was a statue of Friendship clothed in nothing more substantial than a wig. "Be careful," said Diederich on the stairs, "or well fall through." The two slender curves of the stairway stretched out like the skinny arms of an old man. The reddish brown of the woodwork had faded, but at the top, where they met, there smiled from the bannisters the white marble face of the bewigged mayor, who had left all this to the city, and whose name had been Buck. Diederich sullenly ignored him, as he passed.
In the long mirrored gallery all was quiet. A solitary lady was standing in the background and seemed to be peeping into the entertainment hall through a cleft in the door. Suddenly the girls were seized with horror: the play had begun! Magda ran along the gallery and burst into tears. Then the lady turned round and put her finger to her lips. It was Frau von Wulckow, the authoress. She smiled excitedly and whispered: "It's going splendidly. They like my play. You are just in time, Fraulein Hessling; go now and change your clothes." Of course! Emma and Magda did not appear until the second act. Diederich had also lost his head. While his sisters hurried off through the ante-rooms with Inge Tietz, who was to help them, he introduced himself to the Governor's wife and stood there not knowing what to do. "You can't go in now," she said, "it would disturb people." Diederich stammered his apologies and then rolled his eyes, and thus caught a glimpse of his mysteriously pale reflection among the gaudy rows of half-dulled mirrors. The tender yellow varnish of the walls played freakish tricks and the colours of flowers and faces were extinguished in the panels. … Frau von Wulckow shut a little door, through which somebody seemed to enter, a shepherdess with her beribboned staff.
