Page:Ambulance 464 by Julien Bryan.djvu/36

 buildings. Entertainment in the evening is not difficult, for many of the big theatres and both the Opera and Opera Comique are still running. Anderson, my roommate on the Espagne, who is now at Neuilly, and I have gone three times already to the Opera, where we saw Manon and L'Etranger. The music was wonderful but I think we enjoyed the comfortable warmth of the building almost as much. Everyone goes, from the poor poilu, in on a few days' furlough, who listens enraptured from his two-franc seat in the fourth balcony, to the bemedalled Russian and Italian officers, who, as guests of the French Republic, occupy the seats in the Orchestra Circle far below. There are usually many women in the audience, but most of them are widows; at least you seldom see one who isn't in mourning for a brother, a son or a husband. . . . Broadway is still lit up after the theatres are out, but here everything is dark. It is against the law to use electricity for illuminating signs or store-windows. I have noticed that some of the fashionable shops are using long tapering candles which probably burn out by themselves in the early hours of the morning.