"That's just it!" leered Féresse, as he deposited fresh bottles by the old ones. "M. le Directeur général does not look upon it in that light: he wishes me to keep this room for myself, and does not intend a new-comer to lay down the law."
I walked up to him, the blood mantling my face.
"The new-comer, however insignificant he may be, is still your superior," I said; "so you should speak to him with your head uncovered. Take your cap off, you young cub!"
And, at the same moment, I gave the lad a back-hander that sent his hat flying against the wall, and took my departure. All this happened in the absence of M. Deviolaine; therefore I had not the last word in the matter. M. Deviolaine would not return for two or three days; so I decided to go home to my poor mother, and there await his return. But, before I left the office, I went and told Oudard all that had happened, who said he could not do anything in the matter, and I told M. Pieyre, who said that he could not do much. My mother was in a state of despair: it reminded her too much of my return home from Maître Lefèvre's in 1823. She rushed off to Madame Deviolaine. Madame Deviolaine was an excellent woman but narrow-minded, and she could not understand why a clerk should have any other ambition beyond that of ultimately becoming a first class clerk; why a first class clerk should desire to become anything beyond an assistant chief clerk; why an assistant chief clerk should have any other ambition than that of becoming chief clerk, and so forth. So she did not hold out any promises to my mother; for that matter, the poor woman had not much influence over her husband, as she well knew, and she but rarely tried to exercise what little she did possess. Meanwhile, I had begged Porcher to come to our house. I showed him my almost completed tragedy, and I asked him whether, in case of adverse circumstances, he would advance me a certain sum.
"Confound it!" Porcher replied—"a tragedy!... If it had been a vaudeville I do not say but that I would!... However, get it received and we will see."
"Get it received!" Therein, of course, lay the whole question.
My mother returned at that moment, and Porcher's answer was not of the kind to reassure her. I wrote to M. Deviolaine, and begged that my letter might be given him on his return; then I waited. We spent three days of suspense; but during those three days I stayed in bed and worked incessantly. Why did I stop in bed? That requires an explanation. Whilst I was at the Secretariat, and had to be at the office from ten in the morning until five in the evening, returning there from eight until ten o'clock, I had to traverse the distance between the faubourg Saint-Denis No. 53 to the rue Saint-Honoré No. 216, eight times a day, and I was so tired out that I could rarely work if I sat up. So I went to bed and slept, first putting my work on the table near my bed; I slept for two hours, and then at midnight my mother woke me and went to sleep in her turn. That was the reason I worked in bed. This habit of working in bed attained such hold of me that I kept it up long after I had gained freedom of action, doing all my theatrical work thus. Perhaps this revelation may satisfy those physiologists who dilated upon the kind of rude passion which has been noted in my earliest works, and with which, perhaps not unreasonably, I have been reproached. I contracted another habit, too, at that time, and that was to write my dramas in a backward style of handwriting: this habit I never lost, like the other, and to this day I have one style of handwriting for my dramas and another for my romances. During those three days I made immense progress with Christine. On the fourth day, I received a letter from M. Deviolaine, summoning me to his office. I hurried there, and this time my heart did not beat any the faster; I had faced the worst that could happen and I was prepared for anything.
"Ah! there you are, you cursed blockhead!" cried M. Deviolaine, when he saw me.