and “resorts.” With all these Vandover
kept the pace at the Imperial, at the race-track, at
the gambling tables in the saloons and bars along
Kearney and Market streets, and in the disreputable
houses amid the strong odours of musk and the rustle
of heavy silk dresses. It lasted for a year;
by the end of that time he had about forgotten his
determination to go to Paris and had grown out of
touch with his three old friends, Ellis, Geary, and
Haight. He seldom saw them now; occasionally
he met them in one of the little rooms of the Imperial
over their beer and Welsh rabbits, but now he always
went on to the larger rooms where one had champagne
and terrapin. He felt that he no longer was one
of them.
That year the opera came to San Francisco, and Vandover
hired a messenger boy to stand in line all night at
the door of the music store where the tickets were
to be sold. Vandover could still love music.
In the wreckage of all that was good that had been
going on in him his love for all art was yet intact.
It was the strongest side of his nature and it would
be the last to go.
The house was crowded to the doors; there was no longer
any standing room and many were even sitting on the
steps of the aisles. In the boxes the gentlemen
were standing up behind the chairs of large plain ladies
in showy toilets and diamonds. The atmosphere
was heavy with the smell of gas, of plush upholstery,
of wilting bouquets and of sachet. A fine vapour
as of the visible exhalation of many breaths pervaded
the house, blurring the lowered lights and dimming
the splendour of the great glass chandelier.
It was warm to suffocation, a dry, irritating warmth
that perspiration did not relieve, while the air itself
was stale and close as though fouled by being breathed
over and over again. In the topmost galleries,
banked with tiers of watching faces, the heat must
have been unbearable.
The only movement perceptible throughout the audience
was the little swaying of gay-coloured fans like the
balancing of butterflies about to light. Occasionally
there would be a vast rustling like the sound of wind
in a forest, as the holders of librettos turned the
leaves simultaneously.
The orchestra thundered; the French horns snarling,
the first violins wailing in unison, while all the
bows went up and down together like parts of a well-regulated
machine; the kettle-drums rolled sonorously at exact
intervals, and now and then one heard the tinkling
of the harp like the pattering of raindrops between
peals of thunder. The leader swayed from side
to side in his place, beating time with his baton,
his hand, and his head.
