ures 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.

In ten days the Nabob had aged twenty years. Violent southern natures
like his, if they are rich in enthusiasms, become also more utterly
prostrate than others. Since his unseating the unfortunate man had shut
himself up in his bedroom, with drawn curtains, no longer wishing even
to see the light of day nor to cross over the threshold beyond which
life was waiting for him, with the engagements he had undertaken,
the promises he had made, a mass of protested bills and writs. The
Levantine, gone off to some spa accompanied by her _masseur_ and her
negress, was totally indifferent to the ruin of the establishment;
Bompain--the man in the fez--in frightened bewilderment amid the demands
for money, not knowing how to approach his ill-starred master, who
persistently kept his bed and turned his face to the wall as soon as
business matters were mentioned. His old mother alone re