They were singing now as well as dancing.
The massive, voluminously quiescent sensation induced by the liqueurs
had passed away, and in its place came increased weariness of the
spectacular entertainment. The light, and the music, and the
half-naked women, who still danced and pranced, were affecting his
nerves unpleasantly now. He looked away from the stage, and stared at
the audience. Behind him, as he knew, there were all those hussies
with painted faces offering themselves for hire. And wherever he
looked, he seemed to see evidences of amorous traffic. When you
examined it attentively, the entire audience seemed to resolve itself
into an endless repetition of the same small group of two persons of
two sexes, each soliciting the other's favor; a man and a woman
sitting close together, the couple, the factorial two--everywhere, all
round the circle, along the three visible rows of stalls, and again in
the private boxes. Those wealthy men in the boxes were unquestionably
accompanied by their mistresses and not by their wives or sisters.
Through the vibrating music and the super-heated atmosphere, on a
river of vivid light, they were all drifting fast toward the night of
love that each pair had arranged for itself.
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