I was appalled; I flung myself out of the room, followed even to the street door by shrieks that were like those cries of passion that come out of the caverns of the fallow deer. “I stopped a moment under the portico to collect myself; I did not wish to venture into the street; with such confusion still in my soul I might not be able to find my way; I might, perhaps, be thrown under the wheels of some carriage I had not seen coming. I was as a drunken man might be who begins to recover sufficient reason in his clouded brain to recognize his condition, and who, feeling the will return but not the power, with fixed eyes and staring, leans motionless against some street post or some tree on the public promenade. “At that moment a carriage stopped before the door, a woman alighted or rather shot herself from the doorway. “She entered beneath the peristyle, turning her head from right to left like one who had lost her way; she was dressed in a black domino, had her face covered by a velvet mask. She presented herself at the door. “‘Your ticket,’ said the doorkeeper. “‘My ticket?’ she replied. ‘I have none.’ “‘Then get one at the box-office.’ “The domino came back under the peristyle, fumbled nervously about in all her pockets. “‘No money!’ she cried. ‘Ah! this ring--a ticket of admission for this ring,’ she said. “‘Impossible,’ replied the woman who was distributing the cards; ‘we do not make bargains of that kind.’ “And she pushed away the brilliant, which fell to the ground and rolled to my side. “The domino remained still without moving, forgetting the ring, sunk in thought. “I picked up the ring and handed it to her. “Through her mask I saw her eyes fixed on mine. “‘You must help me to get in,’ she said to me; ‘You must, for pity’s sake.’ “‘But I am going out, madame,’ I said to her. “‘Then give me six francs for this ring, and you will render me a service for which I shall bless you my life long.’ “I replaced the ring on her finger; I went to the box-office, I took two tickets. We reentered together. “As we arrived within the corridor I felt that she was tottering. Then with her second hand she made a kind of ring around my arm. “‘Are you in pain?’ I asked her. “‘No, no, it is nothing,’ she replied, ‘a dizziness, that is all--’ “She hurried me into the hall. “We reentered into that giddy Charenton.[2] “Three times we made the tour, breaking our way with great difficulty through the waves of masks that were hurling themselves one upon the other; she trembling at every unseemly word that came to her ear; I blushing to be seen giving my arm to a woman who would thus put herself in the way of such words; then we returned to the end of the hall. “She fell upon a sofa. I remained standing in front of her, my hand leaning on the back of her seat.