And Valentine all this time leaned back in his chair, that stood in the
shadow of the box, and looked at the enlaced figures before him with an
unvarying smile.
Contrast and surprise are the essence of the successful "spectacle."
Just as the scarlet dervish whirl was at its height the character of
the music changed, slackened, softened, died from the angrily sensuous
into an ethereal delicacy. The stage filled with clouds that faded in
golden light, and a huge and glittering stairway rose towards the painted
sky. On either side of it hung in the blue ether guardian angels with
outstretched wings, and between their attentive ranks stood the radiant
figure of the purified Margaret, at whose white feet the red crowd of
women, even the majestic Cleopatra and pale voluptuous Venus, sank
abashed. Harps sounded frostily, suggesting that crystal heaven of St.
John, in which the beauties we know in nature are ousted by unbreathing
jewels, the lifeless pearl and chrysolite. The air filled with thin and
wintry light, that deepened, and began to glow, through lemon to amber
and to rose. The angels swam in it, and then the huge stairway leading
up to heaven shone with the violence of a gigantic star. Faust fell in
repentance before the girl he had ruined and failed to ruin, the girl who
bent as if to bless him upon this fiery ascent to heaven.
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