And so the action starts, and presently Walter Connolly comes yawning in, the weariest, most lethargic, ill-kempt man the stage has shown this season. What a contrast it all is to the smart soigné picture around the corner! Voices outside, and Gene Powers, wearing long whiskers, enters.... Then—a beam of pure light, a radiance—floats, glides, drifts across the stage, to a long, and prolonged, salvo of applause ... and then ... it is not Kate Mayhew and Perkins any more, or Walter Connolly and sweet Joanna Roos, but Marina and Astroff and Uncle Vanya and Sonia, figures in a sad, amusing dream—a dream that is real—truth reflected as in a looking-glass, and one no longer minds the heat, or thinks of it, or of anything except the figures that drift in and out, and carry on the dream ... especially the one figure, embodiment of the Chekhov spirit—that luminous being around which all the others revolve and bruise their wings. The lines of Astroff: “What does she think ... who is she ... what is inside her small blonde head? She drifts about here, mysterious, fascinating us.... She is like a firefly, that arrests our attention, but gives no warmth, nothing....” And by and by ... hours, days, maybe—time no longer counts—the futile human dream draws to its futile human ending, and Sonia’s sweet voice is saying—to Uncle Vanya, bowed and heartbroken, like herself: “You have never known what happiness was ... but wait, Uncle Vanya, wait. We shall rest. Beyond the grave we shall say that we have suffered and wept, and God will have pity on us. And we shall be happy.... The wheat fields will be there, and the blue cornflowers ... and the woods in Spring.” And to the low music of Telegin’s guitar, she adds: “And those who in this existence did not love us ... they’ll love us ... they’ll want us ... we shall rest.” The crowd flows out into the June sunshine, the dream with it ... and all the way home. Poor Uncle Vanya and Sonia ... one would like to comfort them ... and, yes, poor Helena...! This was on Wednesday, as I have said. I think it was on Sunday that I sent a note to Miss Gish, proposing to write of her. I had given up such work as too arduous, but it seemed to me that this might be a happy thing to do—the story of one who had begun humbly, and walked in beauty and humility to achievement, making the world better and lovelier for her coming. I suppose it was a week later that I received a characteristically simple reply. She expressed willingness to cooperate in the proposed work, modestly adding: “—if I really deserve it. Whatever I could do in the way of help, I should do most conscientiously.” One could rely upon that. Whatever she did was done in that way. She was on the eve of sailing for France, to visit Eugene O’Neill and his wife. She would return the last of August; then we could begin. * * * * *