piece approaches he loses faith in his work, terrified by the sight
of the house, at which he looks through the hole in the curtain as
through the narrow lens of a stereoscope.

A splendid house, crammed to the roof, notwithstanding the late period
of the spring and the fashionable taste for early departure to the
country; a house that Cardailhac, a declared enemy of nature and the
country, endeavouring always to keep Parisians in Paris till the latest
possible date, has succeeded in crowding and making as brilliant as in
midwinter. Fifteen hundred heads are swarming beneath the great central
chandelier, erect--bent forward--turning round--questioning amid a great
play of shadows and reflections; some massed in the obscure corners of
the floor, others in a bright light reflected through the open doors of
the boxes from the white walls of the corridor; the first-night public
which is always the same, that brigand-like _tout Paris_ which goes
everywhere, carrying those envied places by storm when a favour or a
claim by right of some official position fails to secure them.

In the stalls are low-cut waistcoats, clubmen, shining bald heads, wide
partings in scanty hair, light-coloured gloves, big opera-glasses raised
and directed towards various points. In the galleries a mixture of
different social sets and all kinds of dress, all the people well known
as figuring at this kind of solemnity, and the embarrassing promiscuity
which places the modest smile of the virtuous woman along-side of the
black-ringed eyes, the vermilion-painted lips of her who belongs to
another category. White hats, pink hats, diamonds and paint. Above, the
boxes present the same confusion; actresses and women of the demi-monde,
ministers, ambassadors, famous authors, critics--these last wearing a
grave air and frowning brow, sitting crosswise in their _fauteuils_ with
the impassive haughtiness of judges whom nothing can corrupt. The boxes
near the stage especially stand out in the general picture brilliantly
lighted, occupied by celebrities of the financial world, the women
_decollete_ and with bare arms, glittering with jewels like the Queen of
Sheba on her visit to the King of Judea. But on the left, one of these
large boxes, entirely empty, attracts attention by reason of its curious
decoration, lighted from the back by a Moorish lantern. Over the whole
assembly is an impalpable and floating dust, the flickering of the gas,
that odour that mingle