The rain that Wednesday evening didn't dim my enthusiasm for the opera I was planning to attend. It was an opera I had never seen, though I had heard the music often and loved it. In addition, the tenor role was to be sung by one of my favorite singers. No wonder my anticipation was so great!
It had been my custom, however, as a Christian Scientist, to attend the testimony meeting each Wednesday evening in a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, and I never missed if it was humanly possible to be there. My making this exception was very unusual. I had recently revived an old interest in opera, and I found I was becoming more and more engrossed in the opera world. On this occasion I reasoned that since I had been so faithful in my attendance at the Wednesday meetings, one absence would certainly be permissible—and besides, it was the only night in the entire season that this particular opera would be performed with my favorite tenor singing in it. This reasoning having assuaged my conscience, off I went.
Alas, that night there was a flood in the subway because of the steady rain, and we experienced severe delays. We arrived just as the curtain was going up and barely made it to our seats before the ushers closed the doors on latecomers. Breathless and rather distraught, I sank into my balcony seat; it proved to be uncomfortable, with little legroom, and soon I became aware that the tenor who was singing down there on the faraway stage was not the tenor I had been so looking forward to seeing and hearing. Someone else had had to substitute for him at the last minute.
