r, jostling one another in the soft, snowy light from
the wings, soon to give place, when the curtain rises, to the brilliant
light from the theatre, Cardailhac in black coat and white cravat, his
hat cocked over one ear, casts a last glance over the arrangement of the
scenery, hastens the workmen, compliments the _ingenue_, humming a tune
the while, radiant and superb. To see him, no one would ever suspect the
terrible anxieties by which his mind is beset. As he was involved with
all the others in the Nabob's downfall, in which his stock company was
swallowed up, he is staking his little all on the play to be given this
evening, and will be forced--if it does not succeed--to leave this
marvellous scenery, these rich stuffs at a hundred francs the yard,
unpaid for. His fourth failure is staring him in the face. But, deuce
take it! our manager has confidence. Success, like all the monsters that
feed on man, loves youth; and this unknown author whose name is entirely
new on the posters, flatters the gambler's superstitions.

Andre Maranne is not so confident. As the time for the performance draws
near, he loses faith in his work, dismayed by the sight of the crowded
hall, which he surveys through a hole in the curtain as through the
small end of a stereoscope.

A magnificent audience, filling the hall to the ceiling, despite the
lateness of the season and the fashionable taste for going early to the
country; for Cardailhac, the declared foe of nature and the country, who
always struggles to keep Parisians in Paris as late as possible, has
succeeded in filling his theatre, in making it as brilliant as in
mid-winter. Fifteen hundred heads swarming under the chandeliers, erect,
leaning forward, turned aside, questioning, with a great abundance of
shadows and reflections; some massed in the dark corners of the pit,
others brilliantly illuminated by the reflection of the white walls of
the lobby shining through the open doors of the boxes; a first-night
audience, always the same, that collective brigand from the theatrical
columns of the newspapers, who goes everywhere and carries by assault
those much-envied places when some claim to favor or the exercise of
some public function does not give them to him.

In the orchestra-stalls, lady-killers, clubmen, glistening craniums with
broad bald streaks fringed with scanty hair, light gloves, huge
opera-glasses levelled at the boxes. In the galleries, a medley of
castes and fine d