The occupation of Eusebe consisted in going to the theatre every
evening, an amusement which he now thought as sublime as he
formerly thought it despicable. _Voici pourquoi._
Faithful to his programme, he had visited the “Opéra Comique.”
The evening on which accident conducted him to the Rue Favart,
the bills announced “The Black Domino.” Our hero was entirely
ignorant of the meaning of the word “domino;” but he courageously
entered, saying to himself that since he had seen a dozen persons
assassinated at the “Gaieté” and at the “Porte Saint-Martin,” and
double that number married at the “Gymnase” and at the “Français,”
nothing worse could possibly happen to him.
Installed in an orchestra-chair, he looked around at the spectators
with profound surprise.
“What!” said he to himself; “these are the same faces, the same
men, the same women, I have seen elsewhere!”
And he was right. At Paris there are two thousand persons who go
to the theatres every evening for nothing,--artists, literary men,
or employés of certain branches of the government, besides a large
number of persons who are neither the one nor the other, but who
know an _artiste_ of the circus, who has introduced them to an
actor of the “Vaudeville,” who knows a musician of the “Variétés,”
who is intimate with the secretary of the “Porte Saint-Martin,” who
is the friend of M’lle X. of the Grand Opera, who is the mistress
of Binet the vaudevillist. Then there are the wives of journalists,
the mistresses of journalists, the friends of journalists, the
comrades of journalists, the porters of journalists, and the
washerwomen of authors.
Eusebe was lost in a thousand conjectures. He was asking himself
how he should ever succeed in getting accustomed to the habits
and tastes of a people whom he saw only at a distance, when his
neighbor at the right, a lean, sallow individual, nudged him with
his elbow, saying,--
“Ah! there is Mdme. de Cornacé.”
“Where?” asked Eusebe.
“There, in the private box to the right,--the lady with curls _à
l’anglaise_, wearing a low-necked dress.”
“I do not know her.”
“Indeed!”
“Pardon me if I am indiscreet,” said Eusebe; “but----”
“No indiscretion,” replied his neighbor. “All Paris knows her.
Her mother was a dealer in butter at the _Halle_. She was very
handsome, and when she married M. de Cornacé, who was a ruined
nobleman, she brought him a dowry of one hundred and fifty thousand
francs. To-day they have three millions, thanks to an intimacy that
exists between Mdme. de Cornacé and Froment, the banker. You see
she is a woman of the times.”
“How so?”
“How? Why, that is not difficult to comprehend.”
“I do not understand you, sir.”
“When one does not understand French, one ought not to enter into
conversation,” replied the neighbor, angrily, turning his back to
Eusebe.
Our hero was on the point of assuring his interlocutor that it
was not his intention to be inquisitive, when the conductor
gave the signal to begin the overture. The son of M. Martin had
never heard any music but that of the vaudeville. From the first
measures executed by the orchestra, he experienced certain strange
sensations, for which, however, he did not pause to account.
Enchanted by the melody, he found himself isolated in the middle
of the crowd, and a prey to emotions that were unknown to him, and
really inexpressible.