He found them both looking
extremely worried. Their own friends did not recognize them:
they had lost all their gaiety and spirits. They were seen crossing
the stage with hanging heads, care-worn brows, pale cheeks, as though
pursued by some abominable thought or a prey to some persistent sport
of fate.
The fall of the chandelier had involved them in no little responsibility;
but it was difficult to make them speak about it. The inquest had
ended in a verdict of accidental death, caused by the wear and tear
of the chains by which the chandelier was hung from the ceiling;
but it was the duty of both the old and the new managers to have
discovered this wear and tear and to have remedied it in time.
And I feel bound to say that MM. Richard and Moncharmin at this
time appeared so changed, so absent-minded, so mysterious,
so incomprehensible that many of the subscribers thought that some
event even more horrible than the fall of the chandelier must
have affected their state of mind.
In their daily intercourse, they showed themselves very impatient,
except with Mme. Giry, who had been reinstated in her functions.
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