"No, by Jove," he said all of a sudden, "one's hair turns gray here.
I--I'm going out. Perhaps we shall find Bordenave downstairs. He'll give
us information about things."
Downstairs in the great marble-paved entrance hall, where the box office
was, the public were beginning to show themselves. Through the three
open gates might have been observed, passing in, the ardent life of the
boulevards, which were all astir and aflare under the fine April night.
The sound of carriage wheels kept stopping suddenly; carriage doors were
noisily shut again, and people began entering in small groups, taking
their stand before the ticket bureau and climbing the double flight of
stairs at the end of the hall, up which the women loitered with swaying
hips. Under the crude gaslight, round the pale, naked walls of the
entrance hall, which with its scanty First Empire decorations suggested
the peristyle of a toy temple, there was a flaring display of lofty
yellow posters bearing the name of "Nana" in great black letters.
Gentlemen, who seemed to be glued to the entry, were reading them;
others, standing about, were engaged in talk, barring the doors of the
house in so doing, while hard by the box office a thickset man with
an extensive, close-shaven visage was giving rough answers to such as
pressed to engage seats.
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