I
The third act of L'Africaine had just come to a close.
The minister, on leaving the manager's box, said smilingly, like a man glad to be rid of the cares of State: "Let us go to the greenroom, Granet, shall we?"
"Let us go to the greenroom, as your Excellency proposes!"
They were obliged to cross the immense stage where the stage carpenters were busy with the stage accessories as sailors with the equipment of a vessel; and men in evening dress, with white ties, looked natty without their greatcoats, and with opera hats on their heads were going to and fro, picking their way amongst the ropes and other impedimenta which littered the stage, on their way to the greenroom of the ballet.
They had come here from all parts of the house, from the stalls and boxes; most of them humming as they went the air from Nélusko's ballad, walking lightly as habitués through the species of antechamber which separates the body of the house from the stage.
A servant wearing a white cravat, was seated at a table writing down upon a sheet of paper the names of those who came in. One side of this sheet bore a headline reading: Messieurs, and the other Médecin, in two columns. From time to time this man would get up from his chair to bow respectfully to some official personage whom he recognized.
"Have you seen Monsieur Vaudrey come in yet, Louis?" asked a still young man with a monocle in his eye, who seemed quite at home behind the scenes.
"His Excellency is in the manager's box, monsieur!" answered the servant civilly.
"Thank you, Louis!"
And as the visitor turned to go up the narrow stairway leading to the greenroom, the servant wrote down in the running-hand of a clerk, upon the printed sheet: Monsieur Guy de Lissac.
Upon the stage, Vaudrey, the Minister whom Lissac had been inquiring for, stood arm in arm with his companion Granet, looking in astonishment at the vast machinery of the opera, operated by this army of workmen, whom he did not know. He was quite astonished at the sight, as he had never beheld its like. His astonishment was so evident and artless that Granet, his friend and colleague in the Chamber of Deputies, could not help smiling at it from under his carefully waxed moustaches.
"I consider all this much more wonderful than the opera itself," observed his Excellency. The floor and wings were like great yellow spots, and the whole immense stage resembled a great, sandy desert. Vaudrey raised his head to gaze at the symmetrical arrangement of the chandeliers, as bright as rows of gas-jets, amongst the hangings of the friezes. A huge canvas at the back represented a sunlit Indian landscape, and in the enormous space between the lowered curtain and the scenery, some black spots seemed as if dancing, strange silhouettes of the visitors in their dress clothes, standing out clearly against the yellow background like the shadows of Chinese figures.
"It is very amusing; but let us see the greenroom," said the minister. "You are familiar with the greenroom, Granet?"
"I am a Parisian," returned the deputy, without too great an emphasis; but the ironical smile which accompanied his words made Vaudrey understand that his colleague looked upon his Excellency as fresh from the province and still smacking of its manners.
Sulpice hesitatingly crossed the stage in the midst of a hubbub like that of a man-of-war getting ready for action, caused by the methodical destruction and removal of the scenery comprising the huge ship used in L'Africaine by a swarm of workmen in blue vests, yelling and shoving quickly before them, or carrying away sections of masts and parts of ladders, hurrying out of sight by way of trap-doors and man-holes, this carcass of a work of art; this spectacle of a great swarm of human ants, running hither and thither, pulling and tugging at this immense piece of stage decoration, in the vast frame capable of holding at one and the same time, a cathedral and a factory, was rather awe-inspiring to the statesman, who stopped short to look at it, while the tails of his coat brushed against the fallen curtain.
From both sides of the stage, from the stage-boxes, opera-glasses were turned upon him here and there and a murmur like a breeze came wafted towards him.
"It is the new Minister of the Interior!"
"Nonsense! Monsieur Vaudrey?"
"Monsieur Vaudrey."
Vaudrey proudly drew himself up under the battery of opera-glasses levelled at him, while Granet, smiling, said to the master of the chorus who, dressed in a black coat, stood near him:
"It can be easily seen that this is his first visit here!"
Oh! yes, truly, it was the first time that the new minister had set his foot in the wings of the Opéra! He relished it with all the curiosity of a youth and the gusto of a collegian. How fortunate that he had not brought Madame Vaudrey, who was slightly indisposed. This rapid survey of a world unknown to him, had the flavor of an escapade. There was a little spice in this amusing adventure.
Behind the canvas in the rear, some musicians, costumed as Brahmins, with spectacles on their noses, the better to decipher their score, fingered their brass instruments with a weary air, rocking them like infants in swaddling clothes. Actors in the garb of Indians, with painted cheeks, and legs encased in chocolate-colored bandages, were yawning, weary and flabby, and stretching themselves while awaiting the time for them to present themselves upon the stage. Others, dressed like soldiers, were sleeping on the wooden benches against the walls, their mouths open, their helmets drawn down over their noses like visors. Others, their pikes serving them for canes, had taken off their headgear and placed it at their feet, the better to rest their heads against the wall, where they leaned with their eyes shut.
Little girls, all of them thin, and in short skirts, were already pirouetting, and humming airs. Older girls stood about with their legs crossed, or, half-stooping, displayed their bosoms while retying the laces of their pink shoes. Others, wearing a kind of Siamese headdress with ornaments of gold, were laughing and clashing together their little silver cymbals. Awkward fellows with false beards, dressed like high priests in robes of yellow, striped with red, elbowed past and jostled against the girls quite unceremoniously. An usher, dressed à la Française, and wearing a chain around his neck, paced, grave and melancholy, amongst these shameless young girls.
The greenroom at the end of the stage was entered through a large vestibule hung with curtains of grayish velvet shot with violet, and at the top of the steps where some men in dress-clothes were talking to ballet-girls, Vaudrey could see in the great salon beyond, blazing with light, groups of half-nude women surrounded by men, resembling, in their black clothes, beetles crawling about roses, the whole company reflected in a flood of light, in an immense mirror that covered one end of the room. Little by little, Vaudrey could make out above the paintings representing ancient dances, and the portraits by Camargo or Noverre, a confusion of gaudy skirts, pink legs, white shoulders, with the ubiquitous black coats sprinkled about here and there amongst these bright colors like large blots of ink upon ball-dresses.
Sulpice had often heard the greenroom of the ballet spoken about, and he was at once completely disillusioned. The glaring, brutal light ruthlessly exposed the worn and faded hangings; and the pretty girls in their full, short, gauzy petticoats, with their bare arms, smiling and twisting about, their satin-shod feet resting upon gray velvet footstools, seemed to him, as they occupied the slanting floor, to move in a cloud of dust, and to be robbed of all naturalness and freshness.
"And is this all?" the minister exclaimed almost involuntarily.
"What!" answered Granet, "you seem hard to please!"
Amongst all these girls, there had been manifested an expression of mingled curiosity, coquetry and banter on Vaudrey's appearance in their midst. His presence in the manager's box had been noticed and his