第182页 / 共490页

with the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a thoroughly

artificial manner. The voice was exquisite, but from the point of

view of tone it was absolutely false. It was wrong in colour. It

took away all the life from the verse. It made the passion

unreal.

Dorian Gray grew pale as he watched her. He was puzzled and

anxious. Neither of his friends dared to say anything to him. She

seemed to them to be absolutely incompetent. They were horribly

disappointed.

Yet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony

scene of the second act. They waited for that. If she failed

there, there was nothing in her.

She looked charming as she came out in the moonlight. That could

not be denied. But the staginess of her acting was unbearable,

and grew worse as she went on. Her gestures became absurdly

artificial. She overemphasized everything that she had to say.

The beautiful passage-