People in the fashionable world imagine that all these theatres which have blossomed recently, where comedy is a serious business, are ill-kept, ill-furnished, ill-lit haunts of ill repute. In general they are quite right, but it takes all sorts to make a world. Some are indeed haunts of ill repute, but others are not haunted at all. Some are ill-furnished, others merely famished. One of them indeed—the Folies-Nouvelles theatre—is quite a stylish little place, simple, attractive, brightly lit, and patronised by a well-dressed and well-mannered audience.

A custom has developed there (this may explain the good manners of its clientèle) of eating large quantities of barley-sugar sticks in the intervals. As soon as the curtain falls, the young lions in the pit stand up, give a friendly wave to the gazelles in the gallery, and cram their mouths with long different-coloured objects which they suck with quite remarkable earnestness.

I’m wrong in saying these sugary objects are of different colours: a particular colour is settled on for each interval, and doesn’t change until the following act. After the initial scene-setting, everybody sucks yellow; as the climax approaches, pink is on every tongue; and at the dénouement, green triumphs, and everyone sucks green. It’s an extraordinary sight, which takes some getting used to. Why this pleasant custom exists at the Folies-Nouvelles, how it came to be established, what keeps it going … these are questions to which truly wise men can only reply as they reply to so many simple questions:

I haven’t the faintest idea!

And just to show how badly informed we are in Paris about even the most essential things, a fortnight ago I didn’t know where the Folies-Nouvelles theatre was, and it was only by asking people all along the boulevard who looked as if they might be willing to help, “Monsieur, may I venture to ask you to be so kind as to take the trouble to direct me to the Folies-Nouvelles theatre?” that I eventually found it. And this theatre is not only most attractive, as I said, but it has music.