hat
he looked in."

"Coralie_! Coralie_!" shouted the enraptured house. "Florine, too!"
roared a voice of thunder from the opposite box, and other voices took
up the cry, "Florine and Coralie!"

The curtain rose, Vignol reappeared between the two actresses; Matifat
and Camusot flung wreaths on the stage, and Coralie stooped for her
flowers and held them out to Lucien.

For him those two hours spent in the theatre seemed to be a dream. The
spell that held him had begun to work when he went behind the scenes;
and, in spite of its horrors, the atmosphere of the place, its
sensuality and dissolute morals had affected the poet's still untainted
nature. A sort of malaria that infects the soul seems to lurk among
those dark, filthy passages filled with machinery, and lit with smoky,
greasy lamps. The solemnity and reality of life disappear, the most
sacred things are matter for a jest, the most impossible things seem to
be true. Lucien felt as if he had taken some narcotic, and Coralie had
completed the work. He plunged into this joyous intoxication.

The lights in the great chandelier were extinguished; there was no one
left in the house except the boxkeepers, busy taking away footstools and
shutting doors, the noises echoing strangely through the empty theatre.
The footlights, blown out as one candle, sent up a fetid reek of smoke.
The curtain rose again, a lantern was lowered from the ceiling, and
firemen and stage carpenters departed on their rounds. The fairy scenes
of the stage, the rows of fair faces in the boxes, the dazzling lights,
the magical illusion of new scenery and costume had all disappeared,
and dismal darkness, emptiness, and cold reigned in their stead. It was
hideous. Lucien sat on in bewilderment.

"Well! are you coming, my boy?" Lousteau's voice called from the stage.
"Jump down."

Lucien sprang over. He scarcely recognized Florine and Coralie in their
ordinary quilted paletots and cloaks, with their faces hidden by hats
and thick black veils. Two butterflies returned to the chrysalis stage
could not be more completely transformed.

"Will you honor me by giving me your arm?" Coralie asked tremulously.

"With pleasure," said Lucien. He could feel the beating of her heart
throbbing against his like some snared bird as she nestled closely
to his side, with something of the delight of a cat that rubs herself
against her master with eager silken caresses.

"So we are supping together!" she said.