At nine o’clock in the evening the body of the house at the Theatres desVariétés was still all but empty. A few individuals, it is true, were sittingquietly waiting in the balcony and stalls, but these were lost, as it were,among the ranges of seats whose coverings of cardinal velvet loomed in thesubdued light of the dimly burning luster. A shadow enveloped the great redsplash of the curtain, and not a sound came from the stage, the unlitfootlights, the scattered desks of the orchestra. It was only high overhead inthe third gallery, round the domed ceiling where nude females and children flewin heavens which had turned green in the gaslight, that calls and laughter wereaudible above a continuous hubbub of voices, and heads in women’s andworkmen’s caps were ranged, row above row, under the wide-vaulted bayswith their gilt-surrounding adornments. Every few secon