The place was already warm. At their music stands the orchestra
were tuning their instruments amid a delicate trilling of flutes, a
stifled tooting of horns, a singing of violin notes, which floated forth
amid the increasing uproar of voices. All the spectators were talking,
jostling, settling themselves in a general assault upon seats; and the
hustling rush in the side passages was now so violent that every door
into the house was laboriously admitting the inexhaustible flood of
people. There were signals, rustlings of fabrics, a continual march past
of skirts and head dresses, accentuated by the black hue of a dress coat
or a surtout. Notwithstanding this, the rows of seats were little by
little getting filled up, while here and there a light toilet stood out
from its surroundings, a head with a delicate profile bent forward under
its chignon, where flashed the lightning of a jewel. In one of the boxes
the tip of a bare shoulder glimmered like snowy silk. Other ladies,
sitting at ease, languidly fanned themselves, following with their gaze
the pushing movements of the crowd, while young gentlemen, standing
up in the stalls, their waistcoats cut very low, gardenias in their
buttonholes, pointed their opera glasses with gloved finger tips.
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