Then Fauchery, to put him out of countenance:
"Well, well! What's your opinion of the new actress? She's being roughly
handled enough in the passages."
"Bah!" muttered Daguenet. "They're people whom she'll have had nothing
to do with!"
That was the sum of his criticism of Nana's talent. La Faloise leaned
forward and looked down at the boulevard. Over against them the windows
of a hotel and of a club were brightly lit up, while on the pavement
below a dark mass of customers occupied the tables of the Cafe de
Madrid. Despite the lateness of the hour the crowd were still crushing
and being crushed; people were advancing with shortened step; a throng
was constantly emerging from the Passage Jouffroy; individuals stood
waiting five or six minutes before they could cross the roadway, to such
a distance did the string of carriages extend.
"What a moving mass! And what a noise!" La Faloise kept reiterating, for
Paris still astonished him.
The bell rang for some time; the foyer emptied. There was a hurrying of
people in the passages. The curtain was already up when whole bands of
spectators re-entered the house amid the irritated expressions of those
who were once more in their places.
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