CHAPTER IV


In the dark auditorium large linen sheets protected the balcony and the
boxes. The orchestra was covered with a huge dust-cloth, which, being
turned back at the edges, left room for a few human figures,
indistinctly seen in the gloom: actors, scene-shifters, costumiers,
friends of the manager, mothers and lovers and actresses. Here and there
shone a pair of eyes from the black recesses of the boxes.

They were rehearsing, for the fifty-sixth time, _La Nuit du 23 octobre
1812_, a celebrated drama, dating twenty years back, which had not as
yet been performed in this theatre. The actors knew their parts, and the
following day had been chosen for that last private rehearsal which on
stages less austere than that of the Odéon is known as "the dressmakers'
rehearsal."

Nanteuil had no part in the play. But she had had business at the
theatre that day, and, as she had been informed that Marie-Claire was
execrable in the part of General Malet's wife, she had come to have a
peep at her, concealed in the depths of a box.

The great scene of the second act was about to begin. The stage setting
represented an attic in the private asylum where the conspirator was
confined in 1812. Durville, who filled the part of General Malet, had
just made his entrance. He was rehearsing in costume: a long blue