y heart of the boulevard, where its portico glitters
all illuminated among the great restaurants of the smart clubs; this
theatre, to which people were accustomed to come in parties after a
luxurious dinner to listen until supper-time to an act or two of some
suggestive piece, had become in the hands of its clever manager the most
fashionable of all Parisian entertainments, without any very precise
character of its own, and partaking something of all, from the
fairy-operetta which exhibits undressed women, to the serious modern
drama. Cardailhac was especially anxious to justify his title of
"Manager of the Nouveautes," and, since the Nabob's millions had been
at the back of the undertaking, had made a point of preparing for
the boulevardiers the most dazzling surprises. That of this evening
surpassed them all; the piece was in verse--and moral.

A moral play!

The old rogue had realized that the moment had arrived to try that
effect, and he was trying it. After the astonishment of the first
minutes, a few disappointed exclamations here and there in the boxes,
"Why, it is in verse!" the house began to feel the charm of this
invigorating and healthy piece, as if there had been sprinkled on it,
in its rarefied atmosphere, some fresh and pungent essence, an elixir of
life perfumed with thyme from the hillside.

"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_, creat