The stage rang with gay song: "Red or white liquor,
Coarse or fine!
What can it matter,
So we have wine?"
Students, citizens, soldiers, girls and matrons whirled light-heartedly
before the inn with the figure of Bacchus for a sign. Siebel made her
entrance. Christine Daae looked charming in her boy's clothes; and
Carlotta's partisans expected to hear her greeted with an ovation which
would have enlightened them as to the intentions of her friends. But
nothing happened.
On the other hand, when Margarita crossed the stage and sang the only
two lines allotted her in this second act: "No, my lord, not a lady am I, nor yet a beauty,
And do not need an arm to help me on my way," Carlotta was received with enthusiastic applause. It was so unexpected
and so uncalled for that those who knew nothing about the rumors looked
at one another and asked what was happening. And this act also was
finished without incident.
Then everybody said: "Of course, it will be during the next act."
Some, who seemed to be better informed than the rest, declared that the
"row" would begin with the ballad of the KING OF THULE and rushed to
the subscribers' entrance to warn Carlotta. The managers left the box
during the entr'acte to find out more about the cabal of which the
stage-manager had spoken; but they soon returned to their seats,
shrugging their shoulders and treating the whole affair as silly.
The first thing they saw, on entering the box, was a box of English
sweets on the little shelf of the ledge. Who had put it there? They
asked the box-keepers, but none of them knew. Then they went back to
the shelf and, next to the box of sweets, found an opera glass. They
looked at each other. They had no inclination to laugh. All that Mme.
Giry had told them returned to their memory ... and then ... and then
... they seemed to feel a curious sort of draft around them ... They
sat down in silence.
The scene represented Margarita's garden: "Gentle flow'rs in the dew,
Be message from me ..."
As she sang these first two lines, with her bunch of roses and lilacs
in her hand, Christine, raising her head, saw the Vicomte de Chagny in
his box; and, from that moment, her voice seemed less sure, less
crystal-clear than usual. Something seemed to deaden and dull her
singing...
"What a queer girl she is!" said one of Carlotta's friends in the
stalls, almost aloud. "The other day she was divine; and to-night
she's simply bleating. She has no experience, no training."
"Gentle flow'rs, lie ye there
And tell her from me ..."
The viscount put his head under his hands and wept. The count, behind
him, viciously gnawed his mustache, shrugged his shoulders and frowned.
For him, usually so cold and correct, to betray his inner feelings like
that, by outward signs, the count must be very angry. He was. He had
seen his brother return from a rapid and mysterious journey in an
alarming state of health. The explanation that followed was
unsatisfactory and the count asked Christine Daae for an appointment.
She had the audacity to reply that she could not see either him or his
brother...