CHAPTER IX

The theatre ticket--The _Café du Roi_--Auguste Lafarge--Théaulon--Rochefort--Ferdinand Langlé--People who dine and people who don't--Canaris--First sight of Talma--Appreciation of Mars and Rachel--Why Talma has no successor--_Sylla_ and the Censorship--Talma's box--A cab-drive after midnight--The return to Crespy--M. Lefèvre explains that a machine, in order to work well, needs all its wheels--I hand in my resignation as his third clerk

I went back to de Leuven's house hugging the order in my pocket. With the possibility of procuring another by the means of it, I would not have parted with it for five hundred francs! I was filled with pride at the thought of going to the Théâtre-Français, with an order signed "_Talma_." We lunched.

De Leuven raised great difficulties about going to the play: he had an engagement with Scribe, a meeting with Théaulon, an appointment with I don't know how many other celebrities besides, that night. His father shrugged his shoulders, and de Leuven raised no more objections. It was arranged that we were to go to the Français together; but, as I wanted to see the Musée, the Jardin des Plantes and the Luxembourg, he arranged to meet me at the _Café du Roi_ at seven o'clock. The _Café du Roi_ formed the corner of the rue de Richelieu and the rue Saint-Honoré. We shall have more to say about it later.

After luncheon, I set out by myself and went to the Musée. At six o'clock, I had tramped the tourists' round--that is to say, having entered the Tuileries by the gate of the rue de la Paix, I had passed under the Arch, visited the Musée, gone along the Quays, examined Nôtre-Dame inside and out, made Martin climb up his tree and, under cover of being a stranger--a title which only a blind man or an evilly disposed person could dispute--I had forced my way through the gates of the Luxembourg.

I returned at six o'clock to the hotel, where I found Paillet. Upon my word, we dined well! Our host was a conscientious man, and he gave us soup, a _filet_ with olives, roast beef and potatoes _à la maître d'hôtel_, the worth of two hares and four partridges, which we absorbed under other guises. I urged Paillet in vain to come to the Français with us: Paillet was formerly a second clerk in Paris; he had friends, or perhaps it would be more truthful to say girl-friends, of other days, to see again; he refused the offer, pressing though it was, and I set off for the _Café du Roi_, not comprehending how there could be anything more vitally important than to see Talma, or, if one had already seen him, than to see him again. I reached our rendezvous some minutes before Adolphe. Paillet had foreseen that I should probably have some indispensable expenses: he had generously drawn three francs from the common purse and given them to me. After this, a total of twenty francs fifty centimes remained to us.

I went into the _Café du Roi_ and sat down at a table; I calculated what would cost me the least; I concluded that a small glass of brandy would give me the right to wait, and at least to look as though I was a habitué of the establishment; so I ordered one. Now, I had never managed to swallow one drop of that abominable liquor; however, although obliged to order it, I was not obliged to drink it. I had scarcely taken my seat when I saw one of the regular customers (I judged he was a regular attender, because I saw that he had nothing at all on the table before him) get up and come towards me. I uttered a cry of surprise and joy: it was Lafarge. Lafarge had gone a step lower towards poverty: he wore a coat shiny at the elbows, trousers shiny at the knees.

"Why, surely I am not mistaken, it is really you?" he said.

"It is really I. Sit down here."

"With pleasure. Ask for another glass."

"For you?"

"Yes."

"Take mine, my dear fellow. I never touch brandy."

"Then why did you ask for it?"

"Because I did not like to wait till Adolphe came in without asking for something."

"Is Adolphe coming here?"

"Yes. We are going to see _Sylla_ together."

"What! you are going to see that filth?"

"Filth, _Sylla_? Why, it is an enormous success!"

"Yes, the success of a wig."

"The success of a wig?" I echoed, not understanding. "Certainly! Take away from Sylla his Napoleonic locks, and the piece would never be played through."

"But surely M. de Jouy is a great poet?"

"In the provinces he may be thought great, my dear boy; but here we are in Paris, and we see things differently."

"If he is not a great poet, he is at least a man of infinite resource." "Well, perhaps he might have been thought clever under the Empire; but you see, my boy, the wit of 1809 is not the wit of 1822."

"Still, I thought that _l'Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin_ was written under the Restoration."

"Why, certainly; but do you think _l'Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin_ was by M. de Jouy?"

"Most certainly, since it appears under his name."

"Oh, what sweet simplicity!"

"Then who wrote it?"

"Why, Merle."

"Who is Merle?"

"Hush! he is that gentleman you see over there in a big coat and a wide-brimmed hat. He has ten times more wit than M. de Jouy."

"But if he has ten times M. de Jouy's wit, how is it he has not a quarter of his reputation?"

"Oh, because, you see, my boy, reputations, as you will find later, are not made either by wit or talents, but by coteries.... Just ask for the sugar; brandy makes me ill if I drink it neat. Waiter! some sugar."

"But if brandy upsets you, why drink it?"

"What else can one do?" said Lafarge; "if one passes one's life in cafés, one must drink something."

"So you spend all your time in cafés?"

"Nearly all: I can work best so."

"In the midst of all the noise and talking?"

"I am used to that: Théaulon works thus, Francis works thus, Rochefort works thus, we all work thus. Don't we, Théaulon?"

A man of thirty to thirty-five, who had been writing rapidly, on quarto paper, something that looked like dialogue, at this interpellation lifted up his pale face--red about the cheek bones--and looked at us kindly.

"Yes," he said; "what is it? Ah! it is you, Lafarge? Good-evening." And he resumed his work.

"Is that Théaulon?" I asked.

"Yes; there's a man of ready wit for you! only he squanders and abuses his ready wit. Do you know what he is doing now?" "No."

"He is writing a comedy, in five acts, in verse."

"What! he can write poetry here, in a café?"

"In the first place, dear boy, this is not a café: it is a kind of literary club; everybody you see here is either an author or a journalist."

"Well," I said to Lafarge, "I have never seen a café where they consumed so little and wrote so much."

"The deuce, you are framing already. You almost made a witticism just then, do you know?"

"Well, then, in return for the witticism I have almost perpetrated, tell me who some of these gentlemen are."

"My dear fellow, it would be useless: you need to be a Parisian to be acquainted with reputations which are wholly Parisian."

"But I assure you, my dear Auguste, I am not so provincial in such matters as you think I am."

"Have you heard of Rochefort?"

"Yes. Has he not composed some very pretty songs and two or three successful vaudevilles?"

"Exactly so. Very well! he is that tall thin man, who is playing dominoes."

"Both players are of equal thinness."

"Ah! quite true!... He is the one whose face always plays and never wins." A way Rochefort had, gave rise to this joke on the part of his friend Lafarge. I say gave rise to, and not _excused._

"And who is his partner?"

"That is Ferdinand Langlé."

"Ah! little Fleuriet's lover?"

"Little Fleuriet's lover!... Hang it, you talk like a Parisian.... Who has primed you so well?"

"Hang it all! Adolphe ... he does not appear to hurry himself."

"You are in a hurry, then?"

"Of course I am, and naturally enough: I have never seen Talma."

"Ah, well, dear boy, hurry up and see him."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because he is _wearing out_ horribly."

"What do you mean by _wearing out_?"

"I mean he is getting old and growing rusty."

"I see! But the papers say he has never been fresher in talent or more beautiful in facial expression."

"Do you believe what the papers say?"

"Oh!"

"You may be a journalist yourself one day, my boy."

"Well, if I am?"

"Why, then, when you are, you will see how things come about."

"And ...?"

"And you will not believe what the papers say--that is all!" At this moment the door opened, and Adolphe poked his head in.

"Be quick," he said; "if we do not hurry, we shall find the curtain raised."

"Oh! it is you at last!"

I darted towards Adolphe.

"You have forgotten to pay," said Lafarge.

"Oh! so I have.... Waiter, how much?"

"One small glass, four sous; six sous of sugar, ten."

I drew ten sous from my pocket and flung them on the table, and then, the lighter by fifty centimes, I rushed out of the café.

"You were with Lafarge?" said Adolphe.

"Yes.... What is wrong with him?"

"What do you mean by what is wrong with him?"

"He told me that M. de Jouy was an idiot, and Talma a Cassandra."

"Poor Lafarge!" said Adolphe; "perhaps he had not dined."

"Not dined! Is he reduced so low as that?"

"Pretty nearly."

"Ah!" I said, "that explains many things!... MM. de Jouy and Talma dine every day, and poor Lafarge cannot forgive them for it."

Alas! I have since seen critics, besides Lafarge, who could not forgive those who dined.

I had dined so well that I had quite as much of the spirit of indulgence in my stomach as curiosity in my mind.

We went into the theatre. The hall was crowded, although it was about the eighth performance of the play. We had terrible difficulty in obtaining seats: our places were unreserved. Adolphe generously gave forty sous to the woman who showed people to their seats, and she wriggled a way in so well for us that she found us a corner in the centre of the orchestra, into which we slipped like a couple of wedges, which we must have resembled in shape and appearance. We were only just in time, as Adolphe had said. Scarcely were we seated before the curtain went up.

It is odd, is it not, that I should be talking of _Sylla_ to the public of 1851? "What was _Sylla_?" a whole generation will exclaim. O Hugo! how true are your lines upon Canaris! They come back to me now, and, in spite of my will, flow from my pen:--

"Canaris! Canaris! nous t'avons oublie! Lorsque sur un héros le temps c'est replie, Quand ce sublime acteur a fait pleurer ou lire, Et qu'il a dit le mot que Dieu lui donne à dire; Quand, venus au hasard des revolutions, Les grands hommes out fait leurs grandes actions, Qu'ils ont jeté leur lustre étincelant ou sombre, Et qu'ils sont, pas à pas, redescendus dans l'ombre; Leur nom s'éteint aussi! Tout est vain, tout est vain! Et jusqu'à ce qu'un jour le poëte divin, Qui peut créer un monde avec une parole, Les prenne et leur rallume au front une auréole, Nul ne se souvient d'eux, et la foule aux cent voix, Qui, rien qu'en les voyant, hurlait d'aise autrefois, Hélas! si par hasard devant elle on les nomme, Interroge et s'étonne, et dit:'Quel est cet homme?'"

No! it is true M. de Jouy was not a hero, although he had fought bravely in India, nor a great man, although he had composed _l'Ermite de la Chaussée-d'Antin_ and _Sylla_; but M. de Jouy was a man of parts, or rather he possessed talent.

This was my conviction then. Thirty years have rolled by since the evening on which I first saw Talma appear on the stage. I have just re-read _Sylla_ and it is my opinion to-day. No doubt M. de Jouy had cleverly turned to account both the historical and the physical likeness. The abdication of _Sylla_ called to mind the emperor's abdication; Talma's head the cast of Napoleon's. No doubt this was the reason why the work met with such an enthusiastic reception, and ran for a hundred times. But there was something else besides the actor's looks and the allusions in the tragedy; there were fine lines, good situations, a _dénoûment_ daring in its simplicity. I am well aware that very often the fine lines of one period are not the fine lines of another,--at least so people hold,--but the four lines which the poet puts into the mouth of Roscius are fine lines for all time: Roscius, the Talma of those last days of Rome, who had witnessed the fall of the Roman Republic, as Talma had witnessed the fall of the French Republic:--

"Ah! puisse la nature épargner aux Romains Ces sublimes esprits au-dessus des humains! Trop de maux, trop de pleurs attestent le passage De ces astres brûlants nés du sein de l'orage!"

Then, again, very fine are the lines that the proscriber, who arrests with his powerful hand the proscription, which was going to include Cæsar, addresses to Ophelia when Ophelia says to him:--

"Oserais-je, à mon tour, demander à Sylla Quel pouvoir inconnu, quelle ombre protectrice, Peut dérober César à sa lente justice?

_Sylla._ J'ai pesé comme vous ses vices, ses vertus, Et mon œil dans César voit plus d'un Marius! Je sais de quel espoir son jeune orgueil s'énivre; Mais Pompée est vivant, César aussi doit vivre. Parmi tous ces Romains à mon pouvoir soumis, Je n'ai plus de rivaux, j'ai besoin d'ennemis, D'ennemis fibres, fiers, dont la seule presence Atteste mon génie ainsi que ma puissance; L'histoire à Marius pourrait m'associer, César aura vécu pour me justifier!"

When I saw Talma come on to the stage I uttered a cry of astonishment. Oh yes I it was indeed the impassive mask of the man I had seen pass in his carriage, his head bent low on his breast, eight days before Ligny, whom I saw return the day following Waterloo. Many have tried since, with the aid of the green uniform, the grey overcoat and the little hat, to reproduce that antique medallion, that bronze, half Greek, half Roman; but not one of them, O Talma I possessed your lightning glance, with the calm and imperturbable countenance upon which neither the loss of a throne nor the death of thirty thousand men could imprint one single line of regret or trace of remorse. Those who have never seen Talma cannot imagine what he was: in him was the combination of three supreme qualities which I have never found elsewhere combined in one man--simplicity, power and poetry; it was impossible to be more magnificent, with the perfect grace of an actor; I mean that magnificence which has in it nothing personal attaching to the man, but which changes according to the characters of the heroes he is called upon to represent. It is impossible, I say, to find any actor so endowed with this type of magnificence as was Talma. Melancholy in _Orestes_, terrible in _Néro_, hideous in _Gloucester_, he could adapt his voice, his looks, his gestures to each character. Mademoiselle Mars was but the perfection of the graceful; Mademoiselle Rachel was but the imperfection of the beautiful; Talma was the ideally great. Actors lament that nothing of theirs survives themselves. O Talma! I was a child when on that solemn evening I saw you for the first time, as you came upon the stage and your gestures began, before that row of senators, your clients; well, of that first scene, not one of your actions is effaced from my memory, not one of your intonations is lost.... O Talma! I can see you still, when these four lines are uttered by Catiline:--

"Sur d'obscurs criminels qu'pargne ta clémence, Je me tais; mais mon zèle eclaire ma prudence; Le nom de Clodius sur la liste est omis, C'est le plus dangereux de tous tes ennemis!"

I can see you still, Talma!--may your great spirit hear me and thrill with pleasure at not being forgotten!--I can see you still as with scornful smile upon your lips you slowly diminish the distance that separates you from your accuser; I can see and hear you still as you place your hand upon his shoulder, and, draped like one of the finest statues in Herculaneum or Pompeii, you utter these words to him, in the vibrating voice which could penetrate to the very depths of one's being:--

"Je n'examine pas si ta haine enhardie Poursuit dans Clodius l'époux de Valérie; Et si Catiline, par cet avis fatal, Pretend servir ma cause ou punir un rival."

O Talma! your incisive and sonorous intonation took root in the hearts of all who heard you. It was indeed a fearfully ungrateful and barren soil which at that unpoetical period of the Empire was left you to cultivate, for, had you been disheartened by its sterility, there would have been nothing great, or fine, or wide-spreading, during all those thirty years in which you wore the Roman sandal or the Greek. Is it that the spirit of genius, with all its absorbing power, is mortal like that of the upas tree or the manchineel?

I should like to continue speaking of Sylla to the end of the play in order to render tribute to the prodigious talent Talma possessed, and to follow him in the twofold development of his creation of the rôle of Sylla and the details of that rôle. But what would be the good? Who is interested in these things nowadays? Who amuses himself by recalling thirty years after its extinction the intonation of an actor as he declaimed line or hemistich or word? What does it matter to M. Guizard, to M. Léon Faucher, to the President of the Republic, in what manner Talma replied to Lænas, when he was sent by the Roman populace to learn from Sylla the number of the condemned, and asked him--

"Combien en proscris-tu, Sylla?"

What matters it to those gentlemen to know how Talma uttered his

"Je ne sais pas!"

At the most, they can only remember the cadence of voice with which General Cavaignac pronounced those four words when he was asked how many people he had transported untried out of France. And let us remember that it is now but two years since the Dictator of 1848 uttered these four words, which richly deserve to hold a place in the annals of history beside those of Sylla. But though Talma was by turns simple, great, magnificent, it was in the abdication scene that he rose to actual sublimity. It is true that the abdication of Sylla recalled that at Fontainebleau, and, we repeat, we have no doubt that the resemblance between the modern and the ancient Dictator produced an immense impression upon the vulgar public. This opinion was held by the Censorship of 1821, which cut out these lines because they were supposed to refer in turn to Bonaparte, first consul, and Napoleon, the emperor.

These to Bonaparte:--

... C'était trop pour moi des lauriers de la guerre; Je voulais une gloire et plus rare et plus chère. Rome, en proie aux fureurs des partis triomphants, Mourante sous les coups de ses propres enfants, Invoquait à la fois mon bras et mon génie: Je me fis dictateur, je sauvai la patrie!"

These to Napoleon:--

"J'ai gouverné le monde à mes ordres soumis, Et j'impose silence à tous mes ennemis! Leur haine ne saurait atteindre ma mémoire, J'ai mis entre eux et moi l'abîme de ma gloire."

When one re-reads at the end of ten, twenty, or thirty years either the lines which the Censorship forbade, or the plays it suppressed, one is completely amazed at the stupidity of Governments. As soon as a revolution has cut off the seven heads of a literary hydra, governments make all speed to collect them again and to stick them back on the trunk that feigned death whilst taking care not to lose its hold on life. As though the Censorship had ever annihilated any of the works that have been forbidden to be played! As though the Censorship had strangled _Tartuffe, Mahomet, le Mariage de Figaro, Charles IX., Pinto, Marion Delorme_ and _Antony_! No, when one of these virile pieces is hounded from the theatre where it has made its mark, it waits, calm and erect, until those who have proscribed it fall or pass away, and, when they are fallen or dead, when its persecutors are hurled from their thrones, or entering their tombs, the calm and immortal daughter of Genius, omnipotent and great, enters the enclosure that the mannikins have closed against her, from whence they have disappeared, and their forgotten crowns being too small for her brow become the sport of her feet.

The curtain fell in the midst of immense applause. I was stunned, dazzled, fascinated. Adolphe proposed we should go to Talma's dressing-room to thank him. I followed him through that inextricable labyrinth of corridors which wind about the back regions of the Théâtre-Français, and which to-day unfortunately are no longer unknown regions to me. No client who ever knocked at the door of the original Sylla felt his heart beat so fast and so furiously as did mine at the door of the actor who had just personated him. De Leuven pushed open the door. The great actor's dressing-room lay before us: it was full of men whom I did not know, who were all famous or about to become famous. There was Casimir Delavigne, who had just written the last scenes of _l'École des Vieillards;_ there was Lucien Arnault, who had just had his _Régulus_ performed; there was Soumet, still very proud of his twofold success of _Saül_ and of _Clytemnestre_; there was Népomucène Lemercier, that paralysed sulky brute, whose talents were as crooked as his body, who in his healthy moments had composed _Agamemnon, Pinto,_ and _Fridegonde,_ and in his unhealthy hours _Christophe Colomb, la Panhypocrisiade,_ and _Cahin-Caha;_ there was Delrieu, who had been at work upon the revised version of his _Artaxerch,_ since 1809; there was Viennet, whose tragedies made a sensation for fifteen or twenty years on paper, to live and agonise and die within a week, like him whose reign lasted two hours and whose torture three days; there was, finally, the hero of the hour, M. de Jouy, with his tall figure, his fine white head, his intellectual and kindly eyes, and in the centre of them all--Talma in his simple white robe, just despoiled of its purple, his head from which he had just removed the crown and his two graceful white hands with which he had just broken the Dictator's palm. I stayed at the door, blushing vividly, and very humble.

"Talma," said Adolphe, "we have come to thank you." Talma looked round out of his eye-corners. He perceived me at the door.

"Ah! ah!" he said; "come in."

I took two steps towards him.

"Well, Mr. Poet," said he, "were you satisfied?"

"I am more than that, monsieur ... I am wonder-struck." "Very well, you must come and see me again, and ask for more seats."

"Alas! Monsieur Talma, I leave Paris to-morrow or the day after at latest."

"That is a pity! you might have seen me in _Régulus._ ... You know I have put _Régulus_ on the bill for the day after to-morrow, Lucien?"

"Yes," Lucien replied.

"And cannot you stop till the evening of the day after to-morrow?"

"Impossible: I have to return to the provinces."

"What do you do in the provinces?"

"I dare not tell you: lama lawyer's clerk ..."

And I heaved a deep sigh.

"Bah!" said Talma, "you must not give way to despair on that account! Corneille was clerk to a procurator!... Gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to a future Corneille."

I blushed to the eyes.

"Lay your hand on my forehead: it will bring me good luck," I said to Talma.

Talma laid his hand on my head.

"There--so be it," he said. "Alexandre Dumas, I baptize thee poet in the name of Shakespeare, of Corneille and of Schiller!... Go back to the provinces, go back to your office, and if you really have a vocation, the angel of Poetry will know how to find you all right wherever you be, will carry you off by the hair of your head like the prophet Habakkuk and will take you where fate determines."

I took Talma's hand and tried to kiss it.

"Why, see!" he said, "the lad has enthusiasm and will make something of himself;" and he shook me cordially by the hand.

I had nothing more to wait for there. A longer stay in that dressing-room crowded with celebrities would have been both embarrassing and ridiculous: I made a sign to Adolphe, and we took our leave. I wanted to fling my arms round Adolphe's neck in the corridor.

"Yes, indeed," I said to him, "be sure I shall return to Paris. You may depend upon that!"

We went down by the little twisting staircase, which has since been condemned; we left by the black corridor; we went along the gallery then called the galerie de Nemours, and called to-day I know not what, and we came out on the place du Palais-Royal.

"There, you know your way," said Adolphe,--"the rue Croix-des-Petits Champs, the rue Coquillière, the rue des Vieux-Augustins. Good-night; I must leave you: it is late, and it is a long way from here to the rue Pigale.... By the way, remember we lunch at ten and we dine at five."

And Adolphe turned round the corner of the rue Richelieu and disappeared. It was indeed late; all lights were out, and only a few belated people were passing across the place du Palais-Royal. Although Adolphe had told it me, I did not in the least know my way, and I was extremely scared when I found myself alone. It must be confessed I felt very uneasy at being out in the streets of Paris at such a late hour; for I had heard heaps of stories of night attacks, robberies and assassinations, and, with my fifty sous in my pocket, I trembled at the thought of being plundered. A struggle went on in my mind between courage and fear. Fear won the day. I hailed a cab. The cab came up to me and I opened the door.

"Monsieur knows it is past midnight?" said the driver.

"Of course I know it," I replied; and I added to myself, "That is the very reason I am taking a cab."

"Where is the country squire going?"

"Rue des Vieux-Augustins, _Hôtel des Vieux-Augustins."_

"What?" said the driver.

I repeated it.

"Is monsieur quite sure he wants to go there?"

"The deuce I do!"

"In that case, off we go!"

And lashing his horses, at the same time clicking with his tongue as do all drivers, he urged them into a canter.

Twenty seconds later, he pulled up, got down from his seat, and opened the door.

"Well ...?" I asked.

"Well, my country lad, we are at your destination, rue des Vieux-Augustins, _Hôtel des Vieux-Augustins"_

I raised my head, and there, beyond doubt, was the house. I then understood the driver's astonishment at seeing a great bumpkin of twenty, who seemed in no way unsound of limb, wanting to take a cab from the place du Palais-Royal to go to the rue des Vieux-Augustins. But as it would have been too absurd to avow that I did not know the distance between the two places, I said in a stout voice--

"All right--what is the fare?"

"Oh, you know the fare well enough, young fellow."

"If I knew it, I should not ask you."

"It is fifty sous, then."

"Fifty sous?" I exclaimed, horrified at having incurred such useless expense.

"Certainly, young chap, that is the tariff."

"Fifty sous to come from the Palais-Royal here!"

"I warned monsieur it was past midnight."

"There you are," I said; "take your fifty sous."

"Aren't you going to give me a _pourboire_, young fellow?"

I made a movement to strangle the wretch; but he was strong and vigorous. I reflected that perhaps he would strangle me, so I stayed my hand. I rang the bell, the door was opened, and I went inside. I felt dreadfully stricken with remorse for having squandered my money, especially when I considered that even had Paillet spent nothing on his side, we only had twenty francs fifty centimes left. Paillet had been to the Opera, and had spent eight francs ten sous. Only a dozen francs were left us.

We looked at each other with some anxiety.

"Listen," he said: "you have seen Talma, I have heard _la Lampe mervilleuse_; this was all you wanted to see, all I wanted to hear: if you agree, let us leave to-morrow, instead of the next day."

"That is exactly what I was going to suggest to you."

"All right; do not let us lose any time. It is now one o'clock; let us get to bed as quickly as possible and sleep until six; then let us start at seven, and sleep, if we can manage it, at Manteuil."

"Good-night"

"Good-night...."

A quarter of an hour later, we were rivalling one another who could go to sleep the soundest.

Next day, or rather the same day, at eight o'clock, we had passed Villette; at three o'clock, we were dining at Dammartin, under the same conditions as we had lunched there; at seven, we were having our supper at Manteuil; and on Wednesday at one o'clock, loaded with two hares and six partridges,--the result of the economy we had exercised by our hunting of the previous night and day,--we entered Crespy, giving our last twenty sous to a poor beggar. Paillet and I parted at the entry to the large square. I went to Maître Lefèvre's by the little passage, and up to my room to change my things. I called Pierre, through the window, and asked him for news of M. Lefèvre. M. Lefèvre had returned in the night. I gave my game to the cook, went into the office and slipped into my place. My three office companions were all in their places. Nobody asked me a question. They thought I had just returned from one of my usual excursions, only one that had lasted rather longer than usual. I enquired if M. Lefèvre had asked any questions about me. M. Lefèvre had wanted to know where I was; they had replied that they did not know, and the matter had ended there. I drew my papers from my desk and set to work. A few minutes later, M. Lefèvre appeared. He went to the head clerk, gave him some instructions, and then returned to his room, without even having seemed to notice my presence, which led me to think he had taken particular notice of my absence. Dinner-time arrived. We sat down; all went on as usual; save that, after dinner, when I was rising to go, M. Lefèvre said to me--

"Monsieur Dumas, I want a few words with you."

I knew the storm was about to burst, and I resolved to keep myself well in hand.

"Certainly, monsieur," I replied.

The head clerk and the office boy, who shared the master's table with me, discreetly withdrew. M. Lefèvre pointed to a chair opposite his own, on the other side of the fireplace. I sat down. Then M. Lefèvre lifted his head as a horse does under the martingale, a gesture which was customary with him, crossed his right leg over his left leg, held up one leg till the slipper fell, took his gold snuff-box, inhaled a pinch of snuff, drew a dignified breath, and then, in a voice all the more threatening because of its dulcet tones, he said, scratching his right foot with his left hand, his most cherished habit--

"Monsieur Dumas, have you any knowledge of mechanics?"

"Not in theory, monsieur, only in practice."

"Well, then, you will know enough to understand my illustration."

"I am listening, monsieur."

"Monsieur Dumas, in order that a machine may work properly, none of its wheels must stop."

"Of course not, monsieur."

"Very well, Monsieur Dumas; I need not say more. I am the engineer, you are one of the wheels in the machine; for two days you have stopped, and consequently for two days the general action of the machine has lacked the co-operation of your individual movement."

I rose to my feet.

"Quite so, monsieur," I said.

"You will understand," added M. Lefèvre in a less dogmatic tone, "that this warning is merely provisional?"

"You are very good, monsieur, but I take it as definitive."

"Oh, then, that is better still," said M. Lefèvre. "It is now seven in the evening, night is coming on, and the weather is bad; but you may leave when you like, my dear Dumas. From the moment you cease to be third clerk here you can remain as a friend, and in that capacity the longer you stay the better I shall be pleased."

I bowed a graceful acknowledgment to M. Lefèvre and withdrew to my room. I had taken a great step, and an important career was now closed to me; henceforth my future was in Paris, and I made up my mind to move heaven and earth to leave the provinces. I spent half the night in thinking, and before I fell asleep all my plans were made.