Dove was waiting with the tickets, and they easily secured the desired
places; not in the middle of the gallery, where, as Madeleine
explained while she tucked her hat and jacket under the seat, the
monstrous chandelier hid the greater part of the stage, but at the
right-hand side, next the lattice that separated the seats at
seventy-five from those at fifty pfennigs.
"This is first-rate for seeing," said Maurice.
Madeleine laughed. "You see too much--that's the trouble. Wait till
you've watched the men running about the bottom of the Rhine, working
the cages the Rhine-daughters swim in."
As yet, with the exception of the gallery, the great building was
empty. Now the iron fire-curtain rose; but the sunken well of the
orchestra was in darkness, and the expanse of seats on the ground
floor far below, was still encased in white wrappings--her and there an
attendant began to peel them off. Maurice, poring over his book, had
to strain his eyes to read, and this, added to the difficulty of the
German, and his own sense of pleasurable excitement, made him soon
give up the attempt, and attend wholly to what Madeleine was saying.
It was hot already, and the air of the crowded gallery was permeated
with various, pungent odours: some people behind them were eating a
strong-smelling sausage, and the man on the other side of the lattice
reeked of cheap tobacco.
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