So ardent and impetuous did his passion hourly grow, that it
became a species of insanity. On the other hand, the high-born
dame, who had thus captivated him, felt all the attractions of
his simple and untutored love, further set off by the fine manly
figure of the young shopman. Indeed, so much novelty and interest
did she experience in her new amour, that, far from finding
herself, as she had expected, disposed to relinquish the affair
(as she had anticipated) at the end of two or three interviews,
which she had imagined would have satisfied her capricious fancy,
she put off, to an indefinite period, her original project of ending
the affair by feigning a return to the country.
This resolution, however, she did not feel courage to carry into
effect; and two or three months rolled rapidly away without any
diminution of their reciprocal flame, when one fine Sunday
evening Moireau, whose time hung heavily on his hands, took it
into his head to visit the opera. This species of amusement
constitutes the
of the delights of a French cit.
Moireau seated himself in the pit, just opposite the box of the
gentlemen in waiting. The performance was "Castor and Pollux."
At the commencement of the second act a sudden noise and bustle
drew Moireau from the contemplative admiration into which the
splendor of the piece had thrown him.
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