"I felt obliged to do so for your sake, Dumas. You haven't General Foy any longer to uphold your interests here. I don't know who has done you a bad turn by speaking to M. de Broval, but they do not at all look upon your literary propensities with friendly eyes."
I do not think my heart ever felt heavier. The two or three hundred francs which la Chasse et l'Amour had brought in had so sensibly lightened our circumstances, that I had been looking forward to the time when I should be drawing not merely twenty to twenty-five francs more per month, but earning four times that amount by literary work. Moreover, a portion of what la Noce et l'Enterrement was to bring me in was hypothecated to Porcher, who had lent me 300 francs. What Lassagne had just told me pretty well overthrew all my castles in Spain. It seemed to me most cruel to forbid me working for the drama out of office hours, and to insist that my mother, my son and I should be compelled to live on 125 francs per month. This feeling was so strong that it fired me with courage to go straight to Oudard. I entered his office with tears in my eyes but my voice under control.
"Is it true, monsieur," I asked, "that you have forbidden Lassagne to work with me?"
"Yes," was his reply. "Why do you ask me that?"
"Because I should not have thought you would have had the courage to do so."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, it seems to me a man needs courage to condemn three persons to live on a hundred and twenty-five francs a month."
"And it seems to me you ought to think yourself very fortunate to have the hundred and twenty-five francs per month, instead of despising them."
"I do not despise them, monsieur; on the contrary, I am very grateful to those who give them to me; only, I repeat that the sum is not sufficient and that I think I ought to be allowed the right to add to it so long as it does not interfere with attention to my office work."