'It's the last
piece,' they perpetually exclaimed, 'and we may come in for five sous a
head.'
Sidonia mounted the staircase, and, being a suitor for a ticket for the
principal seats, was received with a most gracious smile by a pretty
woman, fair-faced and arch, with a piquant nose and a laughing blue
eye, who sat at the door of the room. It was a long and rather narrow
apartment; at the end, a stage of rough planks, before a kind of
curtain, the whole rudely but not niggardly lighted. Unfortunately for
the Baroni family, Sidonia found himself the only first-class spectator.
There was a tolerable sprinkling of those who paid half a franc for
their amusement. These were separated from the first row, which Sidonia
alone was to occupy; in the extreme distance was a large space not
fitted up with benches, where the miscellaneous multitude, who could
summon up five sous apiece later in the evening, to see the Crucifixion,
were to be stowed.
'It hardly pays the lights,' said the pretty woman at the door. 'We have
not had good fortune in this town. It seems hard, when there is so much
for the money, and the children take such pains in going the rounds in
the morning.'
'And you are Madame Baroni?' said Sidonia.
'Yes; I am the mother,' she replied.
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