Love in a Mask by Honoré De Balzac — Read

Midnight was striking, and all Paris was astir; the streets were filled with people bent on merrymaking; it was the eve of _Mardi Gras_ (Shrove Tuesday).

Léon de Préval, a young cavalry officer, had just made his way into the Opera Ball. There, for over an hour, he wandered aimlessly amid the throng that seethed forward and backward, finding no one he knew, and quite failing to grasp the meaning of the stupid greetings flung at him from time to time by the women he passed. Finally, choked with dust, overcome with heat, dizzy with the ceaseless buzz of all these black-robed specters, he asked himself impatiently whether this were indeed pleasure, and turned to find the door.