longed to feel, to seize, to hold this lovely, living thing that
moved before his eyes; in imagination he enfolded and embraced
the beautiful vision.

The wait between the acts (for the tragedy involved a change of
scenery) was intolerably tedious. His neighbours were talking
politics and passing one another quarters of orange across him;
the newspaper boy and the man who hired out opera-glasses deafened
him with their bawling. He was in terror of some sudden catastrophe
that might interrupt the play.

The curtain rose once more, on a succession of scenes of political
intrigue à la Corneille which had no meaning for Servien. To
his joy the lovely being in the white robe came on again. But
he had strained his sight too hard; he could see nothing; by
dint of riveting his gaze on the long gold pendants that hung
from the actress's ears, he was dazzled; his eyes swam and closed
involuntarily, and he could hear no sound but the beating of
the blood in his temples.

By a supreme effort, in the last scene, he saw and heard her again
clearly and distinctly, yet not as with his ordinary senses, for
she wore for him the elemental guise of a supernatural vision.
When the prompter's bell tinkled and the curtain descended for the
last time, he had a feeling as though the universe had collapsed
in irretrievable ruin.

_Tartuffe_ was the after-piece; but neither the spirit and perfection
of the acting, nor the pretty face and plump shoulders of Elmire,
nor the _soubrette_'s dimpled arms, nor the _ingénue_'s innocent