Granville's estate

The entrance of the Misard Opera House is neither gorgeous nor spacious, and a section of the passage is even deliberately set up very narrow, which can only accommodate two or three people at a time; two men wearing opera livery take Waiting there with scissors, let those who can't wait to enter the masquerade hand over their tickets, cut off a corner before throwing them in the wastebasket at their feet, in case someone steals the used one from the wastebasket. Tickets caused the Opera House to suffer undue losses.

There were as many people crowded in the entrance passage as there were people queuing up to buy tickets. Finally, it was their turn. Alred handed over the three tickets in his hand. The ticket inspector looked at their attire and nodded, letting them Passed; but they had not gone far before Louis heard one of the tellers behind them shouting to the other: "Look, those noble gentlemen who dare not show their faces again!"

"Who knows if it's the real lord or the fake lord!" replied the other vulgarly, "Maybe it's a woman!"

Alrede also heard this conversation, and he was so angry that he wanted to go back and talk to the two rude men for an argument. Louis hurriedly grabbed his arm and walked forward to prevent Alredh from being angry. The next really quarreled with the people from the Opera House.

"Ignore these people," he said to his friend, without calling Alrede's name to avoid revealing his identity: "We didn't come here to quarrel with them!"

"This is really outrageous!" Alred said angrily, but for the sake of Louis and his beloved woman, he could only endure it.

At this time, they had already reached the end of the passage, which was different from the dimly lit passage. As soon as they stepped into the hall of the opera house, the dazzling light of gas lamps and intense music rushed towards them, almost drowning out Alred's complaints. .

This is an opera house with quite a large interior space. Although the scale is not as grand as the Comic Opera House that Allaide once took Louis to, it is more amazing than any other opera house: from the height of four floors Dozens of gas lamps that radiate light are falling down from the dome. In addition, there are chandeliers that are as tall as giant corals on the bottom of the sea arranged in a patchwork pattern next to the pillars that support the dome. It looks like the street outside. It was as if the street lights had been moved to this opera house; all the curtains were drawn on the stage that should be the center of the theater in any theater, and there were no actors, props, or plays on it, but a whole orchestra in the dark —To be precise, it was a whole orchestra, their size even comparable to that of Emperor Napoleon's famous guard; Louis would bet there were at least a hundred people on it, otherwise the sound of the instruments would not be loud enough for this kind of song It can be heard from any corner of the theater.

The most amazing thing is not the huge orchestra of the Misard Opera House, but the seating area on the first floor that should face the stage: if all opera houses have the same layout, then according to the layout of the Comic Opera House, this There should have been hundreds of stepped seats in the area for people who came here to sit and enjoy the performances on the stage, but in the Misard Opera House, all these seats on the first floor disappeared like magic. A new smooth floor was laid on the ground afterwards.In this way, the entire hall on the first floor of the opera house becomes a huge dance floor that is enough for thousands of people to dance together. Except for the stage occupied by the band playing music, people can dance in the hall on the first floor as much as they want encounter any obstacles.

"It turns out that the Misard Opera House is such that people can dance in the opera house!"

Louis was amazed. At this time, people from the back of the passage were still pouring in, pushing the people in front to continue to move forward until they also walked off the dance floor or left the direction of this invisible torrent; Now, they had no choice but to walk forward with this invisible force, almost reaching the edge of the dance floor before finding a place to stay temporarily.

At this time, there are already many people dancing on the dance floor, dressed in all kinds of strange shapes: Indians, gypsies, barbarians, pirates, sailors, soldiers, knights, princesses, goblins, white bears, brown bears, and monsters with heads. Trees, all the most bizarre costumes you can imagine can be seen here; ghosts who have been dead for 200 years dance gracefully in the costumes of Henry III, savages with feathers and shawls Sultan's female slaves greeted each other, and riders in riding costumes galloped around the edge of the dance floor, as if they were driving invisible horses; of course, there were also many men and women in less bizarre costumes on the dance floor, dancing heartily , perhaps because of the mask and music cover, the movements are very bold and presumptuous.

"Let's act separately, first search the first floor, and then go up to the boxes on other floors." Because the sound of music in the opera house and the sound of dancing people shouting and laughing were very noisy, Alred had to While talking to Louis in his ear, he gestured their route with his hands, and then he told Joseph: "No matter what happens, you must follow him closely, and don't let him get lost!"

"I know, sir." Joseph replied very seriously, "With me here, I will definitely not let you get lost."

Joseph spoke as if Louis was not an adult gentleman in his twenties, but a child who was only three or four years old and needed his care, which made Louis a little dumbfounded.

"You don't have to worry about me. Finding her is the most important thing now." Louis said to Alred, at this moment he suddenly saw two men entangled with each other and danced past them, he gasped in astonishment Taking a breath, his eyes unconsciously followed the footsteps of those two people.

Those were two slender young men wearing masks. They danced Quadriel majestically to the music—I don’t know if it was because of the famous orchestra conductor. The supposedly elegant and lively Quadriel The dance music here has a subtle sloppiness, and the rhythm has become faster and more intense--the dance steps, and the people around them seem to have completely ignored this kind of dance combination that violates religious teachings. ignore or reprimand them.

"I'll go that way, you go the other way." Alred followed Louis's gaze and looked at the pair of dancing men, but he only glanced back with no interest, as if he didn't feel that much about it. What a strange look.

"Uh...oh, okay." Louis was still immersed in his own astonishment and didn't recover, he agreed to Alred in a daze.

"I seem to see Lisa." Just when Louis was distracted, Alred suddenly saw a woman wearing a red mask flash by from the dance floor. He hurriedly confessed to Louis and chased after her. Go up, and almost immediately disappear among the huge swirl-like dancing crowd.

"Oh!" This time when Louis came back to his senses, only Joseph was left in front of him.

"Sir, let's go that way." Joseph didn't notice Louis' abnormality, and while talking to Louis, he led him to another direction.

The direction they chose is exactly opposite to the direction of people dancing on the dance floor. In this way, moving forward becomes a very difficult thing, but the advantage is that it is relatively easy to find those who may move forward from the oncoming people. It was Margaret and her girlfriend Elisa.

During this period, Louis saw many men who looked like lovers dancing together, but after careful observation, he finally found that in many of these so-called two men dancing pairs, one of them was actually a girl disguised as a man. Sometimes even two were women dressed as men to dance—although women wearing men's clothes and men wearing women's clothes are religiously forbidden, but in this kind of masquerade ball with all kinds of costumes and chaos In the world, this kind of inversion of religious precepts and secular rules is completely left alone; and among these inversions and chaos, there really is the most religious existence!

Over time, more and more people entered the dance floor to dance, and finally formed a huge crowd of at least 1000 people. This group of people danced the wildest moves to the music from the stage, and exchanged partners. ; after the Quadrille, the orchestra on the stage played a more lively—in other words, a more intense—Galop under the command, with the rhythm of the Gallop getting stronger and stronger. The faster the crowd swirled, they swam like a school of sardines, and like a whirlpool, they sucked in everyone they went.

Unprepared for this change, Louis was dragged dizzily from the edge of the dance floor into this vortex, dragged for a while by a woman dressed as a twelfth-century court squire, and then changed to another. The dance partner dressed as a sailor; when he finally broke away from the middle of the dance floor, panting, he had been led by the dancing crowd to a huge pillar.

"Oops! Joseph is gone!"

After finally calming down his breathing, Louis finally realized that the little manservant who had been following him had probably also been sucked into the dancing crowd.

"gentlemen."

Just when Louis was about to go back to find Joseph, a woman dressed as a forest elf stopped him. This woman was wearing a black half-mask, and her clothes were embroidered with exquisite vines and flower patterns. The emerald green shawl woven like a peacock's tail feathers was as transparent as tulle, and she said to Louis, "May I ask you to dance with me?"

Louis was stunned for a moment, and then subconsciously refused: "I'm really flattered by your invitation, but I'm sorry, I have to find my friend now."

The goblin-like woman smiled charmingly. This is a rather bold and attractive woman. Judging from her clothes, her status must be quite high: "Sir, this is the Opera House in Misard. Here, anyone You can’t refuse someone’s invitation to dance!”

"Ah, this, I'm so sorry..."

Louis tried to find a way around the woman, but the forest goblin seemed to have read his mind and deliberately blocked the direction he could leave. In this way, unless Louis pushed her away, he could only go Backed away—and he couldn't do the faux pas of pushing a woman away.

"Don't you think I don't have any charm that makes you want to dance with me?"

The unknown woman said so in a resentful tone, and she stretched out her hand to Louis, as if to beg for his response.

At this moment, another person's hand stretched out from the side and grabbed the forest elf's wrist.

"Excuse me, ma'am."

The man also wearing a black domino cloak said to the forest goblin that he was wearing a silver half mask, his uncovered jaw line was sharp, and when he raised it slightly, he looked even more arrogant under the light of the gas lamp: "This is me. companion."