Covent Gardens, 1701
My musings regarding Miss Barton's station in life were cut short, however, when the lights in the house began to go down. As one by one the lanthorns were extinguished, the temperature dropped steadily, and the relief it brought was perceptible as a vague tremor through the crowd.
I had never been to the opera, or to the theatre. The closest I had come was when at age seven my father had brought me to protest a bear-baiting and hand out libels. Needless to say, this was quite a different experience. When the theatre manager took the stage to say a few words about the opera, I was shocked that he did not speak in the fevered tones of the ringmaster, and rather with the sort of decent enthusiasm one might expect from someone who was tasked to look after such a show.
To signify that this was a High Class Event, he spoke a few words about the production. Or at least that was what I assumed, as I knew from overheard conversation that it was rare for any of the shows at the Dove or the Apple to have any sort of preamble to their shows. I remember thinking that whatever he was saying must be important in order to necessitate a monologue, but all the information therein has since fled to the recesses of my brain reserved for mathematical logic and color theory. Anyroad, he didn't talk long before the remaining lanthorns were dimmed and the music from the pit came to a frenzied crescendo.
Children do not normally enjoy opera, or so I am told. Perhaps I was a product of my environment. It was singly the most visual and aural stimulation I had ever experienced. The sets towered above the elaborately dressed actors, every gesture a perfectly choreographed dance that seemed to build upon the last until dancers were left leaping across the stage in a frantic ballet--and above it all, music. Such music I had never heard, and it reminded me of only one thing, of one voice alone and plaintive in my father's cellars.
And then I saw her. I was shocked that my eyes picked her out before my ears, but her voice seemed a simple and innocuous thing before it built and carried away all else. One moment, the lady's pale moony face floated into my vision, and the next all I could hear was the sound of her voice, joined with the orchestra like some strange and exotic instrument.
I could have lost consciousness then, were I not keenly aware of Newton's eyes on the back of my head. It seemed then that he saw my eyes on the lady on the stage, and he hated me for it. Somewhere in the back of my head, I hated him too. I hated him because he knew this lady, he possessed her, I understood then. I understood what he had meant those two years ago when he had spoken of a treasured possession of his that my father was looking in on. Perhaps I had always understood. The realization formed like a knot in my stomach and tossed back and forth there like a ship on a troubled sea. I felt as though I would be suddenly, violently ill, and I turned my back on the stage--on the entire box--and fled into the corridor with my hands pressed hard over my face.
I had never been to the opera, or to the theatre. The closest I had come was when at age seven my father had brought me to protest a bear-baiting and hand out libels. Needless to say, this was quite a different experience. When the theatre manager took the stage to say a few words about the opera, I was shocked that he did not speak in the fevered tones of the ringmaster, and rather with the sort of decent enthusiasm one might expect from someone who was tasked to look after such a show.
To signify that this was a High Class Event, he spoke a few words about the production. Or at least that was what I assumed, as I knew from overheard conversation that it was rare for any of the shows at the Dove or the Apple to have any sort of preamble to their shows. I remember thinking that whatever he was saying must be important in order to necessitate a monologue, but all the information therein has since fled to the recesses of my brain reserved for mathematical logic and color theory. Anyroad, he didn't talk long before the remaining lanthorns were dimmed and the music from the pit came to a frenzied crescendo.
Children do not normally enjoy opera, or so I am told. Perhaps I was a product of my environment. It was singly the most visual and aural stimulation I had ever experienced. The sets towered above the elaborately dressed actors, every gesture a perfectly choreographed dance that seemed to build upon the last until dancers were left leaping across the stage in a frantic ballet--and above it all, music. Such music I had never heard, and it reminded me of only one thing, of one voice alone and plaintive in my father's cellars.
And then I saw her. I was shocked that my eyes picked her out before my ears, but her voice seemed a simple and innocuous thing before it built and carried away all else. One moment, the lady's pale moony face floated into my vision, and the next all I could hear was the sound of her voice, joined with the orchestra like some strange and exotic instrument.
I could have lost consciousness then, were I not keenly aware of Newton's eyes on the back of my head. It seemed then that he saw my eyes on the lady on the stage, and he hated me for it. Somewhere in the back of my head, I hated him too. I hated him because he knew this lady, he possessed her, I understood then. I understood what he had meant those two years ago when he had spoken of a treasured possession of his that my father was looking in on. Perhaps I had always understood. The realization formed like a knot in my stomach and tossed back and forth there like a ship on a troubled sea. I felt as though I would be suddenly, violently ill, and I turned my back on the stage--on the entire box--and fled into the corridor with my hands pressed hard over my face.