The Rush for the Spoil by Émile Zola

There was a fancy dress ball at the Saccards' on the Mid-Lent Thursday. The great curiosity, however, was the poem of the "Amours of handsome Narcissus and the nymph Echo" in three _tableaux_, which the ladies were to perform. For more than a month the author of this poem, Monsieur Hupel de la Noue, had been travelling from his Prefecture to the mansion of the Parc Monceaux, so as to superintend the rehearsals, and give his opinion on the costumes. He had at first thought of writing his work in verse, but later on he had decided in favour of _tableaux vivants_; it was more noble, he said, nearer to antique beauty.

The ladies no longer slept. Some of them changed their costumes no fewer than three times. There were some interminable conferences, over which the prefect presided. The personage of Narcissus was at first discussed at length. Should a man or a woman personate him? At last, at the instance of Renée, it was decided that the part should be confided to Maxime, but he was to be the only man in the _tableaux_; and, indeed, Madame de Lauwerens declared that she would never have consented to it if "little Maxime had not been so like a real girl. " Renée was to be the nymph Echo. The question of the costumes was far more complicated. Maxime gave a good lift up to the prefect, who was quite tired out amid nine women, whose mad imaginations threatened to grievously impair his conception's purity of lines. If he had listened to them, his Olympus would have worn powder.