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Chapter 88 - Page 1 of 5

Book 2 Chapter 28 The Meaning of Mariettes Attraction

Nekhludoff would have left Petersburg on the evening of the same
day, but he had promised Mariette to meet her at the theatre, and
though he knew that he ought not to keep that promise, he
deceived himself into the belief that it would not be right to
break his word.

"Am I capable of withstanding these temptations?" he asked
himself not quite honestly. "I shall try for the last time."

He dressed in his evening clothes, and arrived at the theatre
during the second act of the eternal Dame aux Camelias, in which
a foreign actress once again, and in a novel manner, showed how
women die of consumption.

The theatre was quite full. Mariette's box was at once, and with
great deference, shown to Nekhludoff at his request. A liveried
servant stood in the corridor outside; he bowed to Nekhludoff as
to one whom he knew, and opened the door of the box.

All the people who sat and stood in the boxes on the opposite
side, those who sat near and those who were in the parterre, with
their grey, grizzly, bald, or curly heads--all were absorbed in
watching the thin, bony actress who, dressed in silks and laces,
was wriggling before them, and speaking in an unnatural voice.

Some one called "Hush!" when the door opened, and two streams,
one of cool, the other of hot, air touched Nekhludoff's face.

Chapter 88 - Page 1 of 5