Muffat was beginning to perspire; he had taken his hat
off. What inconvenienced him most was the stuffy, dense, overheated air
of the place with its strong, haunting smell, a smell peculiar to this
part of a theater, and, as such, compact of the reek of gas, of the glue
used in the manufacture of the scenery, of dirty dark nooks and corners
and of questionably clean chorus girls. In the passage the air was still
more suffocating, and one seemed to breathe a poisoned atmosphere, which
was occasionally relieved by the acid scents of toilet waters and the
perfumes of various soaps emanating from the dressing rooms. The count
lifted his eyes as he passed and glanced up the staircase, for he was
well-nigh startled by the keen flood of light and warmth which flowed
down upon his back and shoulders. High up above him there was a clicking
of ewers and basins, a sound of laughter and of people calling to
one another, a banging of doors, which in their continual opening and
shutting allowed an odor of womankind to escape--a musky scent of oils
and essences mingling with the natural pungency exhaled from human
tresses. He did not stop. Nay, he hastened his walk: he almost ran, his
skin tingling with the breath of that fiery approach to a world he knew
nothing of.
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