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.