SO few people have any definite idea of the stage behind the scenes, or of the little busy world that congregates there nightly, in the production of a great spectacle like "Undine," requiring all the resources of music, scenery, the drama and the ballet, that, a few evenings since, I conceived it to be my duty to expose myself to demoralization for the public good.

The great public in front of the curtain only see the beautiful effects and the smooth movements, with no idea of the powers that are in exercise and the hidden springs that set at work all this great machinery. I shall not attempt to expose these secrets, but at the same time hope to give you some conception of life on the stage.

Upon expressing my wish to the management to be demoralized for this laudable purpose, they gave me their hearty approval, and on Tuesday night, at half-past seven, I bade good-bye for a brief evening to the great world outside, and passed within the realms of romance, clad in double-proof mail of morality, invulnerable to the combined attacks of naiads, coryphees and Amazons.

Has chaos come again? Will order ever come out of this wilderness of scenes, ropes, weights, pulleys, calcium burners, step ladders, gauze waters, tinseled cars, demon masks, gas tubes, sceptres, levers, crowns, eccentric iron rods, goblets, the fabulous Rhine treasures, tables, lounges, gongs and pistols? What secret charm is to resolve all these into their proper places and make them fill their parts in the production of grace and beauty?

There are few people visible on the stage. Two or three Amazons are sitting on the banquet-table, discussing a question in political economy, as to the relative profit of running sewing-machines and making warlike marches under the Rhine. Two demons are engaged in a friendly game of euchre on the Lurlei Berg, for the stage discipline has not yet commenced. Undoubtedly, after they have accomplished their unearthly mission, and the audience goes home, one of these demons will enjoy stewed oysters and ale in the upper world at the expense of the other. A coryphee is testing her pretty little toes in Sir Hubert's skiff. The seneschal and a scene-shifter are rehearsing Macbeth in the triumphal car which is shortly to ascend to Heaven with Sir Hubert and Undine. There is, as yet, little life on the stage, but it is very busy below in the dressing-rooms. The last stitches are being made, the last touches of rouge—for even the immortals use the same color that flushes the cheeks of Aurelia and Celeste—are being put on. Sir Hubert is cursing his refractory red tights. Undine is in despair over the loss of her crown, which she will find on the stage in the possession of an Amazon, who is strutting the boards for a brief minute as the Water Queen. Kuhleborn is arraying himself in his spotted mail, and the large green-room is swarming with naiads, fays and elves. The bell tinkles for the orchestra. The call-boy rushes down the stairs and cries "All up and dressed for the first act." His voice finds an echo above in the prompter, who shouts "Clear the stage." How that stage was cleared still remains a mystery to me. All the disjecta membra are in place. Outside you hear the overture, and now and then the buzz of the audience; and an inquisitive coryphee, who has cautiously pulled the curtain a trifle aside, informs me that it is a splendid house. The prompter is at the first entrance. The gas man is at the wheels. The property man is everywhere. The scene-shifters are in the wings. Way up in the flies, in a wilderness of ropes, men are taking their places. The calcium men are arranging their reflectors, which will soon flood the stage with their powerful, rich light. The trap men are at their stations. The banquet scene is set. Hubert, Baptiste, the Pilgrim and the Knights are in the narrow space between it and the curtain.

The Water Lily Ballet are in the wings on both sides, rattling away in French and German, standing upon their toes, stretching their limbs and preparing themselves for the dance. Westmael will have a solo, but she looks dejected, faint and spiritless, and a racking cough tells a sad story of the toil and weariness and excitement of the ballet. She is sick to-night. Another leans her head against a side-scene totally unmindful of what is going on in the physical pain she is suffering. Still others look weary and sad-eyed, while some are merry and voluble. But the great audience will know nothing of the aches and pains, the weariness and suffering. The strong will, the excitement and the rivalry will hide all this behind the temporary smile and the coquetry and fascinations of the dance. The ballet-master is hopping about from wing to wing with the proverbial Gallic sprightliness, which will, before the evening is over, change to utter distraction and tearing of hair at the possibility of a faux pas in the ballet or the total depravity of some leading instruments in the orchestra, which will be tearing a rhythm to tatters.

The orchestral prelude ceases. The stage manager casts his quick eye over the stage and gives the word. The gas man turns on the light. The bell tinkles and the curtain rises. While the banquet scene is progressing, the frightful declivity of the Lurlei Berg goes into position, and the gauzy waters of the Rhine are set, across which the moon is sending a tinsel shimmer.

Undine hurries through the wing and mounts to the dizzy height of the Lurlei Berg, in the meantime holding an animated conversation with the young man below, who will gallantly help her down the sloat, below the blue waters of the Rhine, to the Stalactite Cave, which a score of busy hands are already preparing for her reception. A young man in the opposite wing is preparing to play the invisible boatman for Sir Hubert and Baptiste, while I quietly go to the bottom of the Rhine by the down-stairs route, and anticipate the arrival of the trio, who do not express any astonishment whatever at finding me in the Naiad's home, but converse with each other very much in the strain of ordinary mortals.

In the meantime, overhead, the Stalactite Cave is set, and I hear the feet of the ballet dancers skimming over the floor. I get into the outskirts of the Cave by means of the stairs again, meeting a mortal on the way, eating a substantial Spitzenberg, and that Nemesis, the call-boy, in search of some of the Immortals, to find the Water Lily Ballet in full operation. There are no signs of weariness or dejection now. Every face is full of expression. Every limb is posed in elegance. There is pleasure for pain; smiles for dejection; fascination for weariness; coquetry for listlessness; and the Westmael, who looked so sad and weary, is flashing across the stage like a will o' the wisp, compelling, with her wonderful steps upon her toes, her pirouettes and postures, round upon round of applause from the audience, which comes to me behind the scenes like the pattering of rain upon the shingles, what time her rival, Venturola, already dressed for her solo in the Fish Ballet of the next act, is standing near me, closely scrutinizing, with her keen black eyes and nervous manner, every step of her great rival. Westmael comes off, panting like a deer in the chase. All the smiles and fascinations have gone, and in their place the weariness and sadness return to her face, and even Venturola regards her with pity, and the other dancers speak to her in low tones. She passes slowly, almost feebly, to her dressing-room, dropping the bouquet upon the floor which a frantic young man in front, with crimson face, has tossed to her.

Will it comfort that frantic young man to know that an Amazon picks up the emblem of his devotion at the shrine of Terpsichore, and that she will probably convey it to her home on Archer Avenue, where it will waste its sweetness on the desert air? I would not ruthlessly turn iconoclast to his aspirations by intimating that all his bouquets have gone to Amazonian abodes on that avenue. I would let him down easily from the heights of aspiration and the stars of devotion to the depths of content and the earth of common regard. His bouquet has helped to swell the triumph, to set the seal of success. That ends its little mission. It will hardly be preserved in wax for an eternity of memory. Its delicate beauty will not long survive in the warlike abodes of the Amazons.

But the ballet is over, and Undine and the good Knight, Sir Hubert, mount the triumphal car, which has just arrived from the bottom of the Rhine, and commence going to Heaven, with which ascent the men in the wilderness of ropes, up in the roof-tree, have some mysterious connection. The audience desiring a second view, the vehicle kindly pauses in its upward flight for a minute, and the curtain falls.

For the information of the audience, I am warranted in stating that they did not get to Heaven, as I was on the Lurlei Berg when they descended, and have reason to know that both Undine and Sir Hubert went by the down-stairs route to the bottom of the Rhine again, to make ready for another act, what time the Nemesis of a call-boy shall make his appearance among the Immortals and summon them again to their work.

While John Henry in the audience steps out to see a man; while Young Boosey is telling Celestina his experiences at the Biche au Bois, in Paris; while the newly-married couple from Kankakee, who have never done the ballet before, are discussing its propriety, and the policy of not mentioning it to the old folks, the orchestra has drawn itself into its room, as a turtle draws its head into its shell, and proceeds immediately to beer.

If there is one part of the music which the orchestra can execute better than another, it is the moistening of the whistle. To an unbiased observer, the amount of beer which the trombone and double-bass, for instance, can absorb is simply remarkable, while the quantity which the small first violins and piccolo can hold, is appalling to the aforesaid unbiased observer, but calculated to induce cheerfulness on the part of heavy brewers and a sense of gratitude to the makers of that class of porous instruments.

The Lurlei Berg with its dangerous descent, the boat practical and all that part of the country about the Rhine is put out of the way for the evening, for in the next act we shall all be at the bottom of the Rhine, among the fish, who are now arraying themselves for the dance, in spangles and scaly armor of gold and silver. Meantime the call-boy is sent up for Undine and the gas-man for Sir Hubert, and the demons are rehearsing at them. A mild young man with whom I was talking on the Lurlei Berg, a few minutes ago, as we stood together and watched the moonlight wavering in the ripples of the Rhine, who might from his looks have been one of those good young men who die early, is in the infuriated crowd, with a nugget of silver for a head, nondescript raiment on his body, and a huge club in hand rushing wildly towards me and looking like an exaggerated type of the Jibbenainosay.

Which is only another mournful instance of the truth of the remark that "things are not what they seem."

In the middle of the stage, exposed to the view of all, at the bottom of the Rhine, are fabulous piles of gold, silver and jewels, heaped up on a table, and carelessly left without any watchman. The amount and value of these treasures I would not like to estimate, nor the temptation which I experienced to appropriate a solitary jewel, which might have made my fortune when I returned to the upper earth. As I am meditating on the expediency of it, two ruffianly looking demons of the most hideous description mount the table and significantly lean upon their clubs, as if inviting somebody to try it on. One of them glances at me, and I decline the experiment.

John Henry having seen his man, and the orchestra having returned from their beer, the scenery being in readiness, and the ubiquitous call-boy having again summoned the fish and other people to be up for the second act, the wings are full of fish. That little wasp, Venturola, is to have a solo, and that there may not be anything to offend her dainty feet, she seizes the broom and sweeps the bottom of the Rhine clear of all obstructions, for she is going to try to outdo Westmael to-night. The curtain rises, and my friends, the demons, have the stage. Kuhleborn, like a shot from a cannon ball, flies up through the star trap. Had there been a slight variation in the working of the nice machinery of the trap, poor Kuhleborn's brains would have been dashed out by the heavy counter-weights, which, in their descent, force him up; but the working is so well graduated that Kuhleborn is in no danger of injury, save from the apices of the triangular sections of the trap, which upon every exit manage to take off a small piece of his nose, whereupon, being a demon, he is excusable for indulging in slight expletives, such as are used by the Rhine demons. As the square trap, through which he shuts himself up like a jack-knife and disappears, also manages to take off a small piece of his back and shoulders, it would prove an interesting study to calculate how much of Kuhleborn will be left at the expiration of the allotted six weeks.

The preliminary scene over, the Fish Ballet commences. This is Venturola's opportunity. A little more resin on her pretty feet. A little impatiently she waves aside the Amazons and Naiads, who have congregated in her wing to see the dance, and bounds upon the stage like a ball hot from the striker, amid the applause of the audience. But not even her own fine effort, nor the graceful posturing of the coryphees, nor the acrobatic and unique dancing of Kuhleborn, in his oil-cloth fish-skin, secure for her an encore. She does not even get a bouquet.

Frantic young man! Where were you at this critical moment?

She comes off the stage, and there is a snapping of those black eyes as she brushes through the crowd down stairs to her dressing-room and slams the door. Westmael must look out for her laurels in the grand ballet of the next act, when the solo tests come.

I pass to the grand ballet. The stage is full of the Amazons and coryphees, and all the premiers are in the wings, Westmael looking sadder and more weary than ever; Venturola full of determination and talking chain-lightning at the ballet master; Fontana quietly walking about, and now and then rising on her toes; Mazzeri, Adrian, Oberti, Negri and Guerrero, all anxious, for thunderbolts have fallen ere this out of the clear sky, and who knows but one of them may get an encore? Little Schlager has already had her encore and gone off the stage with an approving pat on the head from the ballet-master, with her mother's face beaming with satisfaction, and her own lit up with triumph. Encore is the magic word which incites them all.

The ballet is drawing to a close. Only Venturola and Westmael are left. Venturola has outdone herself, and her fine diminuendo whirl has gained for her not only a bouquet but the coveted encore. She is satisfied, and in her nervous manner she chatters French, German and English to everybody. The familiar music of Westmael's brief closing solo strikes up. She is standing, as at the first, quietly in the wing. She has paid no attention to the dance. By a stranger she would have been taken only for a listless observer. She is evidently in pain and very sick to-night, and the hard, dry cough grates upon the ear, but at the first bar of the music her face lights up and she springs upon the stage with no trace of trouble. Every movement is perfect, from the dainty, spirited, bold walk upon the toes to the final pose, and there is no mistaking the encore that follows. The encore does not seem to have any charm for her to-night, but the audience compel it, and by a tremendous effort of the will she repeats. I say by a tremendous effort, for as she returns she instantly relapses into her old state. Her breath comes and goes spasmodically and her chest is thumping as if a sledge-hammer were at work within it. She staggers along a few steps and faints, and pitying hands carry her to her room. To-morrow night she will be herself again, but to-night it has been a burden.

It would not be proper for me to disclose the workings of the last, or Transformation Scene; and if it were, I would not strip off the romance, grace and beauty that surround and pervade it. I can only admire the skill, taste and knowledge of effects—the genius which with the slightest of materials can produce an illusion so brilliant and captivating, both to the eye and ear. It requires a genius akin to that of the best worker in oils, and a taste and imagination of the highest order.

The calcium lights are extinguished. The colored fires have burned down. The prompter closes his book. The figures of the tableaux descend from their graceful but uncomfortable positions. The property man is looking after his properties. The manager is thanking "you, ladies, very well done." The lights are turned off. Rhine land and Rhine River vanish, and I leave the stage for this upper world.

December 14, 1867.