I felt a
curious dread of the Empire.
We arrived there towards the end of the first ballet. Carlotta,
as soon as she had taken her seat, leaned both elbows on the
front of the box and surrendered her senses to the stage.
Pasquale talked to Judith. Wishing for a few moments alone I
left the box and sauntered moodily along the promenade behind the
First Circle. The occupants were either leaning over the
partitions and watching the spectacle or sitting with drink
before them at the little marble tables at the back. The gaudy,
gilded, tobacco-smoke and humanity-filled theatre seemed to be
unreal, the stage but a phantom cloud effect. I wondered why I,
a creature from the concrete world, was there. I had an insane
impulse to fly from it all, to go out into the streets, and
wander, wander for ever, away from the world. I was walking
along the promenade, lost in this lunacy, when I stumbled against
a fellow-promenader and the shock brought me to my senses. It
was an elderly, obese Oriental wearing a red fez.
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