Chapter III: Prologue

(_THE ASTROLOGER appears before the curtain with a magic
key in his hand._)

THE ASTROLOGER (_to the audience_).

I am a magician. By the occult sciences I am endowed with the extraordinary gift of evoking the shades, and in dead bodies breathing an enchanted life. Here before you will live again the droll masks of an old fairy tale. The tale’s not true, but there’s a hint in it; a lesson to all of you, good people.

(_Disappears._)