At a sign from Étienne Lousteau, the doorkeeper of the orchestra took out a little key and unlocked a door in the thickness of the wall. Lucien, following his friend, went suddenly out of the lighted corridor into the black darkness of the passage between the house and the wings. A short flight of damp steps surmounted, one of the strangest of all spectacles opened out before the provincial poet’s eyes. The height of the roof, the slenderness of the props, the ladders hung with Argand lamps, the atrocious ugliness of scenery beheld at close quarters, the thick paint on the actors’ faces, and their outlandish costumes, made of such coarse materials, the stage carpenters in greasy jackets, the firemen, the stage manager strutting about with his hat on his head, the supernumeraries sitting among the hanging back-scenes, the ropes and pulleys, the heterogeneous collection of absurdities, shabby, dirty, hideous, and gaudy, was something so altogether different from the stage seen over the footlights, that Lucien’s astonishment knew no bounds. The curtain was just about to fall on a good old-fashioned melodrama entitled _Bertram_, a play adapted from a tragedy by Maturin which Charles Nodier, together with Byron and Sir Walter Scott, held in the highest esteem, though the play was a failure on the stage in Paris. “Keep a tight hold of my arm, unless you have a mind to fall through a trap-door, or bring down a forest on your head; you will pull down a palace, or carry off a cottage, if you are not careful,” said Étienne.—“Is Florine in her dressing-room, my pet?” he added, addressing an actress who stood waiting for her cue. “Yes, love. Thank you for the things you said about me. You are so much nicer since Florine has come here.” “Come, don’t spoil your entry, little one. Quick with you, look sharp, and say, ‘Stop, wretched man!’ nicely, for there are two thousand francs of takings.” Lucien was struck with amazement when the girl’s whole face suddenly changed, and she shrieked, “Stop, wretched man!” a cry that froze the blood in your veins. She was no longer the same creature. “So this is the stage,” he said to Lousteau. “It is like the bookseller’s shop in the Wooden Galleries, or a literary paper,” said Étienne Lousteau; “it is a kitchen, neither more nor less.” Nathan appeared at this moment. “What brings you here?” inquired Lousteau. “Why, I am doing the minor theatres for the _Gazette_ until something better turns up.” “Oh! come to supper with us this evening; speak well of Florine, and I will do as much for you.” “Very much at your service,” returned Nathan. “You know; she is living in the Rue du Bondy now.” “Lousteau, dear boy, who is the handsome young man that you have brought with you?” asked the actress, now returned to the wings. “A great poet, dear, that will have a famous name one of these days.—M. Nathan, I must introduce M. Lucien de Rubempré to you, as you are to meet again at supper.”