“The Princess of Prague”, it was called; it was a “musical comedy”; and evidently exactly what the public wanted, for the house was crowded to the doors. The leading comedian was said by the papers to be receiving a salary of a thousand dollars a week. He held the center of the stage, clad in the costume of a lieutenant of marines, and winked and grinned, and performed antics, and sang songs of no doubtful significance, and emitted a fusillade of cynical jests. He was supposed to be half-drunk, and making love to a run-away princess--who would at one moment accept his caresses, and then spurn him coquettishly, and then execute an unlovely dance with him. In between these diverting procedures a chorus would come on, a score or so of highly-painted women, hopping and gliding about, each time clad in new costumes more cunningly indecent than the last.
From beginning to end of this piece there was not a single line of real humor, a spark of human sentiment, a gleam of intelligence; it was a kind of delirium tremens of the drama. To Thyrsis it seemed as if a whole civilization, with all its resources of science and art--its music and painting and costumes, its poets and composers, its actors, singers, orchestra, and audience--had all at once fallen victims to an attack of St. Vitus’ dance. He sat and listened, while the theatre full of people roared and howled its applause; while the family beside him--mother and father and daughters--laughed over jokes that made him ashamed to turn and look at them. In the end the realization of what this scene meant--not only the break-down of a civilization, but the trap in which his own spirit was caught--made him sick and faint all over. He had to ask to be excused, and went out and sat in the lobby until the “show” was done.
The family found him there, and the bride-to-be inquired if he “felt better”; then, looking at his pale face, an idea occurred to her, and after a bit of hesitation, she asked him if he would not stay to dinner. In her mind was the conflict between pity for this poor boy, and doubt as to the fitness of his costume; and Thyrsis, having read her mind in a flash, was divided between his humiliation, and his desire for some food. In the end the baser motive won; he buried his pride, and went to dinner.--And so, as the fates had planned it, the impulse to his next book was born.