文档介绍：NANA
by Emile Zola
CHAPTER I
At nine o'clock in the evening the body of the house at the Theatres
des Varietes was still all but empty. A few individuals, it is
true, were sitting quietly waiting in the balcony and stalls, but
these were lost, as it were, among the ranges of seats whose
coverings of cardinal velvet loomed in the subdued light of the
dimly burning luster. A shadow enveloped the great red splash of
the curtain, and not a sound came from the stage, the unlit
footlights, the scattered desks of the orchestra. It was only high
overhead in the third gallery, round the domed ceiling where nude
females and children flew in heavens which had turned green in the
gaslight, that calls and laughter were audible above a continuous
hubbub of voices, and heads in women's and workmen's caps were
ranged, row above row, under the wide-vaulted bays with their gilt-
surrounding adornments. Every few seconds an attendant would make
her appearance, bustling along with tickets in her hand and piloting
in front of her a gentleman and a lady, who took their seats, he in
his evening dress, she sitting slim and undulant beside him while
her eyes wandered slowly round the house.
Two young men appeared in the stalls; they kept standing and looked
about them.
"Didn't I say so, Hector?" cried the elder of the two, a tall fellow
with little black mustaches. "We're too early! You might quite
well have allowed me to finish my cigar."
An attendant was passing.
"Oh, Monsieur Fauchery," she said familiarly, "it won't begin for
half an hour yet!"
"Then why do they advertise for nine o'clock?" muttered Hector,
whose long thin face assumed an expression of vexation. "Only this
morning Clarisse, who's in the piece, swore that they'd begin at
nine o'clock punctually."
For a moment they remained silent and, looking upward, scanned the
shadowy boxes. But the green paper with which these were hung
rendered them more shadowy still. Down below, under the dres