Then a sudden idea made him glance behind, and he marveled at what he saw in the Muffats' box.
Behind the countess, who was white and serious as usual, the count was sitting straight upright, with mouth agape and face mottled with red, while close by him, in the shadow, the restless eyes of the Marquis de Chouard had become catlike phosphorescent, full of golden sparkles.

The house was suffocating; people's very hair grew heavy on their perspiring heads.

For three hours back the breath of the multitude had filled and heated the atmosphere with a scent of crowded humanity.

Under the swaying glare of the gas the dust clouds in mid-air had grown constantly denser as they hung motionless beneath the chandelier.

The whole house seemed to be oscillating, to be lapsing toward dizziness in its fatigue and excitement, full, as it was, of those drowsy midnight desires which flutter in the recesses of the bed of passion.