“Ah! this is nice—­it is restful.”

Such was the general sense, a thrill of ease, a spasm of pleasure accompanying each line.  That fat old Hemerlingue found it restful, puffing in his stage-box on the ground floor as in a trough of cerise satin.  It was restful also to that tall Suzanne Bloch, her hair dressed in the antique way, ringlets flowing over a diadem of gold; and near her, Amy Ferat, all in white like a bride and with sprigs of orange-blossom in her fluffy hair, it was restful to her also, you may be sure.

A crowd of demi-mondaines were present, some very fat, with a dirty greasiness acquired in a hundred seraglios, three chins, and an air of stupidity; others absolutely green in spite of their paint, as if they had been dipped in a bath of that arsenate of copper which is called in the shops “Paris green.”  These were wrinkled, faded to such a degree that they hid in the back of their boxes, only allowing a portion of a white arm to be seen, a rounded shoulder protruding.  Then there were young men about town, flabby and without backbone, those who at that time used to be called petits creves, creatures worn out by dissipation, with stooping necks and drooping lids, incapable of standing erect or of articulating a single word perfectly.  And all these people exclaimed with one accord:  “This is nice—­it is restful.”  The handsome Moessard murmured it like a refrain beneath his little fair mustache, while his queen in the stage-box translated it into the barbarism of her foreign tongue.  Positively they found it restful.  They did not say after what—­after what heart-breaking labour, after what forced, idle and useless task.

All these friendly murmurs, united and mingled, began to give to the house an eventful appearance.  Success was felt in the air, faces became serene again, the women seemed the more beautiful for reflecting enthusiasm, for being moved to glances that were as exciting as applause.  Andre, at his mother’s side, thrilled with such an unknown pleasure, with that proud delight which a man feels when he stirs the multitude, be he only a singer in a suburban back-yard, with a patriotic refrain and two pathetic notes in his voice.  Suddenly the whisperings redoubled, were transformed into a tumult.  People were chuckling and fidgeting with excitement.  What had happened?  Some accident on the stage?  Andre, leaning terrified towards the actors as astonished as himself, saw every opera-glass turned towards the big stage-box which had remained empty until then, and which some one had just entered, who sat down immediately with both his elbows on the velvet ledge, and with his opera-glass drawn from its case, taking his place in gloomy solitude.