Although still early the house was already crowded in every part, and throngs were unable to gain even admission. The vast audience was made up chiefly of the best and most fashionable society in Rome. It included many of the highest nobility, who occupied the boxes they held for the season. Everywhere the bright colored, elegant toilets of the ladies met the eye, while the gentlemen were brilliant in fête attire. Fresh young faces and noble old visages were side by side, the beauty of youth and the impressiveness of age, and the male countenances were not less striking than those of the females. Truly, it was a grand assemblage, one that should delight the heart and flatter the vanity of even the most capricious of prima donnas.
At first there was a low hum of conversation throughout the theatre, together with preliminary visits from box to box, but the flutter began to subside as the musicians appeared, and by the time they were in their places in the orchestra absolute silence reigned. When the conductor made his appearance he was greeted with a burst of applause, which he gracefully acknowledged with a profound bow. Then he grasped his bâton, tapped lightly upon the rack in front of him, and the delightful overture to Donizetti's great work commenced.
At its conclusion the curtain slowly rose and the opera began. Mlle. d' Armilly came forth in due course, and the house fairly rung with plaudits of welcome. She sang divinely and acted with consummate art, receiving loud encores for all her numbers. Monte-Cristo who was passionately fond of music, caught the prevailing enthusiasm and gradually emerged from the shelter of the protecting curtains and drapery. He had scanned Mlle. d' Armilly carefully through his opera-glass and was thoroughly convinced that she was a perfect stranger to him, although now and then a tone, a gesture or a movement of the body vaguely conveyed a sense of recognition of some tone, gesture or movement he had heard or seen somewhere before. The Count, however, reflected that all women possessed certain points of resemblance in voice and bearing; he, therefore, passed the present coincidences over as purely accidental, thinking no more of them.
For a long while Mlle. d' Armilly did not glance at the box occupied by Captain Joliette and the Count of Monte-Cristo, and it was not until the former threw her a costly wreath of flowers that she turned her eyes in that direction. She was about bowing her acknowledgments, when her gaze rested upon the stately form of the Count. Instantly she paused in the centre of the stage, turned deadly pale beneath the paint of her make-up, and, with a loud scream, fell in a swoon. The curtain was at once rung down, and the director, stating that the prima donna had been seized with sudden and alarming indisposition, dismissed the audience. Captain Joliette rushed to Mlle. d' Armilly's dressing-room and the Count of Monte-Cristo wended his way back to the Palazzo Costi, utterly bewildered by what had taken place.