It was with difficulty that Natalie could keep from sobbing aloud. Again her smile sought his. A beautiful expression of noble, earnest peace was on his features, but his glance did not answer hers, he had forgotten her for his work.
The curtain rose. Natalie scarcely breathed, her hot blood crept slowly through her veins like chilling metal, her ears no longer buzzed, on the contrary her hearing was uncommonly sharp; only she could not take in the music, but listened to all kinds of other things. The rustling of a dress, the rattling of a fan, the whispering of a voice caused her such excitement that it seemed to her, each time, as if she had been shot through the heart by a pistol. The unexpected result of the overture had increased her nervous tension still further.
During the first two acts the opinion remained favorable. After the second act, the Russian ambassador presented himself to Natalie to congratulate her.
While she received his congratulations, still trembling with excitement, she suddenly heard quite loud talking, in a box not far from her.
It was the box of that same Princess C., who was mentioned as particularly musical, and who had invited Lensky to a soirée and passed over Natalie. Between her and another art-loving woman sat Mr. Arnold Spatzig. Up to a certain point, he had access to the highest circles of society, that is to say, he was patronized by a couple of ladies who were bored in their "world," and who consequently liked to attract men from some "other world" to them for a short entertainment, not a long engagement, to be amused by them.
"These plebeian men at least take pains to amuse," the ladies were accustomed to remark, and Arnold Spatzig decidedly took pains to amuse.
Once he raised his opera-glass to his eyes, and stared long and boldly in Natalie's face.
The third act began with an aria by Gualnare, that is to say, with a kind of duet between her and the ocean, which was represented by the orchestra. For a concert piece the number was interesting and original, but peculiarly unsuited to the beginning of the third act of an opera. Only the splendid vocal powers and the poetic comprehension of Madame D., for whom the aria was written, could have saved it; the powers of the beginner who sang the part of Gualnare that evening were not at all equal to her task, her voice, wearied by the exertions of the two preceding acts, sounded almost extinct, her acting was awkward.
Natalie observed the bad impression which this number made on the audience. Anxiously she looked around the theatre: the people were patient, had too much sympathy for the virtuoso Lensky to inconsiderately insult the composer.
On the stage, still continued the endless ocean duet. Still, in the same monotonous time, Gualnare advanced to the waves and retreated from them, quite as if she were dancing a pas de deux with the sea. Then Natalie heard laughing; the laughing sounded from the box of Princess C.