CHAPTER VI A Visit to Box Five.
We left M.Firmin Richard and M.Armand Moncharmin at the moment when they were deciding "to look into that little matter of Box Five." Leaving behind them the broad staircase which leads from the lobby outside the managers' offices to the stage and its dependencies, they crossed the stage, went out by the subscribers' door and entered the house through the first little passage on the left.

Then they made their way through the front rows of stalls and looked at Box Five on the grand tier, They could not see it well, because it was half in darkness and because great covers were flung over the red velvet of the ledges of all the boxes.
They were almost alone in the huge, gloomy house; and a great silence surrounded them.

It was the time when most of the stage-hands go out for a drink.

The staff had left the boards for the moment, leaving a scene half set.

A few rays of light, a wan, sinister light, that seemed to have been stolen from an expiring luminary, fell through some opening or other upon an old tower that raised its pasteboard battlements on the stage; everything, in this deceptive light, adopted a fantastic shape.