“Are there any people who still pay for tickets?” I was asked in all seriousness by a man, who, as a result of his numerous connections, had been able to develop the art of getting passes to its utmost possibilities.

Ridiculous though the question may sound to some, there is, nevertheless, something very profound in it. The pursuit after passes is in our day a favourite “sport” of residents of large cities. To most such people a journalist or a writer is not an artist who laboriously strives to give adequate expression to his thoughts, who has to listen to the secret voices within his breast and to translate them into the language of every day. No, in their mind a writer is the Croesus of passes. He only sits in front of his desk, as there accumulate before him green, blue, and red tickets, the magic keys that open the doors to all the temples of art without having to go to the trouble of digging into his money bag and experiencing the pleasure of paying out his shining coins. And they take it ill of the Croesus that he is so niggardly as to guard his treasures so greedily and not make everybody he comes in contact with happy by distributing the little papers. For to them getting a pass is considered [Pg 109]a great piece of good fortune, almost like drawing a grand small prize in a lottery. It enables one to temporarily enjoy the greatest sensation in life: pleasure without cost. That is, it should so enable one.

With a pass one gets everything,—the respect of the upper classes, the right to be rude and the enforcement of courtesy. If it were possible to say of certain young women that for a ride they would part with their honour, then one might aptly vary the phrase and say: for a pass, with everything.

There are human beings, persons with so-called “good connections,” who lead a wonderful life with the aid of passes. The physician who is at their beck and call throughout the year is compensated for his efforts by the presentation from time to time of a box or a pair of seats for the theatre. So, too, the lawyer. The Cerberus rage of the most terrifying of all apartment-house superintendents melts into the gentlest humility at the prospect of a pass. We expect a thousand little favours from our fellow-citizens who assume the obligation to render these favours by the acceptance of a pass.

There are probably only very few persons who feel any shame on going on a trip with a pass. These exceptional beings have not yet discovered that nowadays it is only the person who pays who is looked down upon. Every one takes his hat off to the possessor of a pass. The train conductor makes a respectful bow [Pg 110]because he does not know whether the “dead-head” is an officer of the company or some other “big gun.” The ticket collector does the same because experience has taught him that the dead-head usually overcomes by a treat the social inferiority associated with “enjoyment without payment.” In short, a pass invests its possessor with the mysterious air of a great power and weaves about his head a halo which lifts him above the misers plebs contribuens.

But you must not think that the possessor of passes constitutes that part of the public that is particularly grateful for and appreciative of the artistic offerings. On the contrary! Artistic enjoyment in the theatre requires a certain capacity for illusion, and the purchase of a ticket exercises a considerable influence on this capacity. For one who has dearly paid for his seat has imposed the moral obligation upon himself to be entertained.

Down in his subliminal self there dwell forces that may be said to have been lessoned to applaud. The higher the price, the more painfully the pleasure was purchased, the greater is the willingness to be carried away by the work of art and the artists. The poor student who has stood for hours in front of the opera house and been lucky enough to secure admission to standing room in the gallery will have a better time than his rich colleague down in the orchestra, and a very much better time than the envied possessor of a free seat. For his capacity for [Pg 111]illusion has been tremendously heightened. He expects a reward commensurate with the trouble he went to and the money he sacrificed. His tension being much higher, the relaxation of that tension must yield him a much greater quantity of pleasure. The greater the restraints that one has to overcome the greater the pleasure in having succeeded in overcoming them.

The necessity for illusion is absent in the possessor of a pass. There is nothing to make it incumbent on him to be entertained; he has not paid anything. He can even leave the performance before it is concluded if it does not please him. He is more sceptical, more critical, and less grateful.

Any dramatist who at a première would fill the theatre with his good friends by giving them passes would have little knowledge of human nature; certain f............