The first act of the Blonde Venus took place in Olympus, a pasteboard
Olympus, with clouds in the wings and the throne of Jupiter on the
right of the stage. First of all Iris and Ganymede, aided by a troupe of
celestial attendants, sang a chorus while they arranged the seats of
the gods for the council. Once again the prearranged applause of the
clappers alone burst forth; the public, a little out of their depth, sat
waiting. Nevertheless, La Faloise had clapped Clarisse Besnus, one of
Bordenave's little women, who played Iris in a soft blue dress with a
great scarf of the seven colors of the rainbow looped round her waist.

"You know, she draws up her chemise to put that on," he said to
Fauchery, loud enough to be heard by those around him. "We tried the
trick this morning. It was all up under her arms and round the small of
her back."

But a slight rustling movement ran through the house; Rose Mignon had
just come on the stage as Diana. Now though she had neither the face nor
the figure for the part, being thin and dark and of the adorable type of
ugliness peculiar to a Parisian street child, she nonetheless
appeared charming and as though she were a satire on the personage she
represented. Her song at her entrance on the stage was full of lines
quaint enough to make you cry with laughter and of complaints about
Mars, who was getting ready to desert her for the companionship
of Venus. She sang it with a chaste reserve so full of sprightly
suggestiveness that the public warmed amain. The husband and Steiner,
sitting side by side, were laughing complaisantly, and the whole house
broke out in a roar when Prulliere, that great favorite, appeared as a
general, a masquerade Mars, decked with an enormous plume and dragging
along a sword, the hilt of which reached to his shoulder. As for him, he
had had enough of Diana; she had been a great deal too coy with him, he