But as the play went forward they got to know Everyman, who with husky voice, thin face and kind but troubled eyes, went through his vanities and disappointments and gained salvation; his Sweetheart, a beautiful gay young woman with a wreath in her hair, who feared death; his Mother, a devout, singleminded lady in a nun’s bonnet, who got up before dawn to pray for her son; and Everyman’s Thin Cousin, who sang so sadly the Song of the Cold, Cold Snow. Thus they sat and listened, and for long after the sun had set, the birds had finished flying round and the chief actor had gone home to gargle his throat, the soft mountain shadows, the galleries and old streets, the restaurants and cafés, the quays and rooms full of company heard the cry, “Everyman, Everyman,” shouted, shrieked and sung in the voices of his angels and devils calling from the airy terraces of the Residence and the foul hellish depths. The golden afternoon passed magically into the starry evening, which called forth the musicians in evening dress and the women in long silk and velvet gowns and the searchlights lighting the Cathedral and Residence.
