Page:The Tattooed Countess (1924).pdf/146

 main floor were upholstered skimpingly in green plush; the seats in the balcony and nigger heaven were not upholstered at all. These seats made a great deal of noise when they were opened by the ushers.

The walls of this playhouse were hung with green baize, which, in the course of a decade, had faded considerably. The boxes were guarded by gilded plaster Cupids and the faces of the boxes and the railings of the balcony and gallery were adorned with ornate, gilt scroll-work. The ceiling, from which depended a heavy, brass chandelier, tricked out with upright green globes, enclosing gas-burners, and inverted white globes for electrical lighting, was a wild allegorical triumph, depicting angels blowing trumpets to the four points of the compass, floating in a sky of intense blue, spattered with woolly, pink clouds. The foreshortening of these figures was a masterpiece of eccentricity. The painting over the proscenium arch represented the artist's paraphrase of Sacred and Profane Love. Originally, it had been merely a bad copy of Titian's canvas, but after several leading citizens of Maple Valley had witnessed its unveiling, they had unanimously agreed that it was too Latin in spirit to satisfy the refined taste of the inhabitants of the fair state of Iowa, and the artist had been requested to add clothing to the figure of Profanity. Her position in the composition and the advanced stage to which work on