raid of a fiasco. The piece strikes me as idiotic."

Then he turned to Clarisse and again referred to what Rose had been
telling them:

"D'you believe in the offers of the Folies people, eh? Three hundred
francs an evening for a hundred nights! Why not a country house into the
bargain? If his wife were to be given three hundred francs Mignon would
chuck my friend Bordenave and do it jolly sharp too!"

Clarisse was a believer in the three hundred francs. That man Fontan
was always picking holes in his friends' successes! Just then Simonne
interrupted her. She was shivering with cold. Indeed, they were all
buttoned up to the ears and had comforters on, and they looked up at the
ray of sunlight which shone brightly above them but did not penetrate
the cold gloom of the theater. In the streets outside there was a frost
under a November sky.

"And there's no fire in the greenroom!" said Simonne. "It's disgusting;
he IS just becoming a skinflint! I want to be off; I don't want to get
seedy."

"Silence, I say!" Bordenave once more thundered.

Then for a minute or so a confused murmur alone was audible as the
actors went on repeating their parts. There was scarcely any appropriate
action, and they spoke in even tones so as not to tire themselves.
Nevertheless, when they did emphasize a particular shade of meaning they
cast a glance at the house, which lay before them like a yawning gulf.
It was suffused with vague, ambient shadow, which resembled the fine
dust floating pent in some high, windowless loft. The deserted house,
whose sole illumination was the twilight radiance of the stage, seemed
to slumber in melancholy and mysterious effacement. Near the ceiling
dense night smothered the frescoes, while from the several tiers of
stage boxes on either hand huge widths of gray canvas stretched down
to protect the neighboring hangings. In fact, there was no end to these
coverings; bands of canvas had been thrown over the velvet-covered
ledges in front of the various galleries which they shrouded thickly.
Their pale hue stained the surrounding shadows, and of the general
decorations of the house only the dark recesses of the boxes were
distinguishable. These served to outline the framework of the several
stories, where the seats were so many stains of red velvet turned black.
The chandelier had been let down as far as it would go, and it so filled
the region of the stalls with its pendants as to suggest a flitting and
to set