Another represented a savage or a bear, it was hard to tell which. He had made himself a sort of crown with those little brooms which are sold for three sous. He carried an umbrella in one hand and a fan in the other. The more extravagant one's costume, the more trouble one takes to be seen by the multitude.
But the orchestra gave the signal for a quadrille. As a general rule, all those maskers who are costumed in character dance, for they aim to display as much extravagance in their dancing as in their costumes. Unluckily for them, there are officials whose duty it is to moderate their enthusiasm and to call them to order when they put too much laissez-aller into their steps. In heaven's name, what would they do if they were not watched!
The quadrille almost always ends in a general galop. Thereupon everyone joins in and is whirled away in the vortex. The innumerable sets are confounded in a resistless torrent of gallopers which roars around the ball-room, in five, six, sometimes seven rows at once; all galloping and jumping and running! Woe to the unlucky wight who stumbles! the torrent stops only with the music, and he would inevitably be trampled under the feet of the dancers.
But do not be alarmed, nobody falls; they all are sure-footed and agile performers; and those pretty little female débardeurs, who seemed to you but now so slender and delicate, are often the most intrepid of all in that mad galop in which one must not pause.
Toward the end, the orchestra quickens the time; then it ceases to be a dance; it is a genuine delirium, a frenzy; shouts and singing blend with the music, and the whirling mass passes before you like a railroad train. At that moment, the sight is truly miraculous, truly interesting to watch; and we know many people who go to the Opéra ball solely to sit in a box and watch the galop at their ease. In truth, I doubt whether anything similar can be seen elsewhere.
Two dominos had just entered one of the proscenium boxes. The first, pearl-gray, trimmed with rich lace, was worn by a tall, slender woman whose well-developed figure it outlined sharply. Despite her disguise, one could divine that the costume covered a person well accustomed to the noisy demonstrations of the maskers and to the eccentricities of the dancers. There was something bold and determined in her manner, and, as she watched the galop which was then at its height, the gray domino seemed neither surprised nor fascinated; she gazed at that rushing torrent, not like a person enjoying an entertaining spectacle, but like a person at the theatre who pays no attention to the play that is in progress, but is solely occupied in looking for someone among the audience.
The second domino was black; it was worn by a person of medium height and decent demeanor, in whose appearance there was nothing to attract attention. She, however, seemed to take much pleasure in watching the galop, and from time to time uttered exclamations eloquent of the surprise which that frenzied dance caused her.
The two ladies had seated themselves at the front of the box, where, in all probability, their seats had been engaged. The gray domino, whose eyes were fastened on the dancing throng, was certainly looking for someone; the black domino, who was looking for no one, cried from time to time:
"Oh! look there, my dear! how they push one another! See! that tall Pierrot has taken his partner in his arms and away he dances with her! Mon Dieu! suppose he should fall! And see that Marquise Pompadour with her wig half off; she's going to lose her wig! look, Thélénie!"
"Yes, yes, I see; but I beg you, my dear Héloïse, not to make so many exclamations; anyone would think you had never seen anything."