Nana | Page 7

latter not
having been to see Rose's costume. At the very first tinkle of the bell
La Faloise had cloven a way through the crowd, pulling Fauchery with
him, so as not to miss the opening scene. But all this eagerness on the
part of the public irritated Lucy Stewart. What brutes were these people
to be pushing women like that! She stayed in the rear of them all with
Caroline Hequet and her mother. The entrance hall was now empty,
while beyond it was still heard the long-drawn rumble of the boulevard.
"As though they were always funny, those pieces of theirs!" Lucy kept
repeating as she climbed the stair.
In the house Fauchery and La Faloise, in front of their stalls, were
gazing about them anew. By this time the house was resplendent. High
jets of gas illumined the great glass chandelier with a rustling of yellow
and rosy flames, which rained down a stream of brilliant light from
dome to floor. The cardinal velvets of the seats were shot with hues of
lake, while all the gilding shonc again, the soft green decorations
chastening its effect beneath the too-decided paintings of the ceiling.
The footlights were turned up and with a vivid flood of brilliance lit up
the curtain, the heavy purple drapery of which had all the richness
befitting a palace in a fairy tale and contrasted with the meanness of the
proscenium, where cracks showed the plaster under the gilding. The
place was already warm. At their music stands the orchestra were
tuning their instruments amid a delicate trilling of flutes, a stifled
tooting of horns, a singing of violin notes, which floated forth amid the
increasing uproar of voices. All the spectators were talking, jostling,
settling themselves in a general assault upon seats; and the hustling
rush in the side passages was now so violent that every door into the
house was laboriously admitting the inexhaustible flood of people.
There were signals, rustlings of fabrics, a continual march past of skirts
and head dresses, accentuated by the black hue of a dress coat or a
surtout. Notwithstanding this, the rows of seats were little by little
getting filled up, while here and there a light toilet stood out from its
surroundings, a head with a delicate profile bent forward under its
chignon, where flashed the lightning of a jewel. In one of the boxes the

tip of a bare shoulder glimmered like snowy silk. Other ladies, sitting at
ease, languidly fanned themselves, following with their gaze the
pushing movements of the crowd, while young gentlemen, standing up
in the stalls, their waistcoats cut very low, gardenias in their
buttonholes, pointed their opera glasses with gloved finger tips.
It was now that the two cousins began searching for the faces of those
they knew. Mignon and Steiner were together in a lower box, sitting
side by side with their arms leaning for support on the velvet balustrade.
Blanche de Sivry seemed to be in sole possession of a stage box on the
level of the stalls. But La Faloise examined Daguenet before anyone
else, he being in occupation of a stall two rows in front of his own.
Close to him, a very young man, seventeen years old at the outside,
some truant from college, it may be, was straining wide a pair of fine
eyes such as a cherub might have owned. Fauchery smiled when he
looked at him.
"Who is that lady in the balcony?" La Faloise asked suddenly. "The
lady with a young girl in blue beside her."
He pointed out a large woman who was excessively tight-laced, a
woman who had been a blonde and had now become white and yellow
of tint, her broad face, reddened with paint, looking puffy under a rain
of little childish curls.
"It's Gaga," was Fauchery's simple reply, and as this name seemed to
astound his cousin, he added:
"You don't know Gaga? She was the delight of the early years of Louis
Philippe. Nowadays she drags her daughter about with her wherever
she goes."
La Faloise never once glanced at the young girl. The sight of Gaga
moved him; his eyes did not leave her again. He still found her very
good looking but he dared not say so.
Meanwhile the conductor lifted his violin bow and the orchestra
attacked the overture. People still kept coming in; the stir and noise

were on the increase. Among that public, peculiar to first nights and
never subject to change, there were little subsections composed of
intimate friends, who smilingly forgathered again. Old first-nighters,
hat on head, seemed familiar and quite at ease and kept exchanging
salutations. All Paris was there, the Paris of literature, of finance and of
pleasure. There were many journalists, several authors, a number of