Four and Twenty Fairy Tales: Selected from Those of Perrault, and Other Popular Writers
General
Four and Twenty Fairy Tales: Selected from Those of Perrault, and Other Popular Writers
Fairy tales
All her sleep passed in this manner, and yet, notwithstanding the
agitation it caused her, she felt it was too soon over, as her
awakening deprived her of the sight of the object of her affections.
After she had finished dressing, various sorts of work, books, and
animals occupied her attention until the hour when the play began. She
arrived just in time, but she was not at the same theatre. It was the
opera,[19] and the performance commenced as soon as she was seated.
The spectacle was magnificent, and the spectators were not less so.
The mirrors represented to her distinctly the most minute details of
the dresses even of the people in the pit. Delighted to behold human
forms and faces, many of which she recognised as those of persons she
knew, it would have been a still greater pleasure to her could she have
spoken to them, so that they could have heard her.
More gratified with this day's entertainment than with that of the
preceding, the rest of it passed in the same way that each had done
since she had been in that palace. The Beast came in the evening,
and after his visit she retired, as usual. The night resembled
former nights,--that is, it was passed in agreeable dreams. When
she awoke, she found the same number of domestics to wait upon her;
but after dinner her occupations were different. The day before, on
opening another of the windows, she had found herself at the opera.
To diversify her amusements, she now opened a third window, which
displayed to her all the pleasures of the Fair of St. Germain,[20] much
more brilliant then than it is at the present day. But as the hour had
not quite arrived when the best company resorted to it, she had leisure
to observe and examine everything. She saw the rarest curiosities, the
most extraordinary productions of nature and works of art. The minutest
trifles were visible to her. The puppet-show was not unworthy of her
attention,[21] whilst waiting for more refined entertainments. The
comic opera was in its splendour.[22] Beauty was very much delighted.
At the termination of the performances, she saw all the well-dressed
people visiting the tradesmen's shops. She recognised amongst the crowd
several professional gamesters, who flocked to this place as their
workshop.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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