Meanwhile, I had been receiving reproaches from an exceedingly charming young lady at the Théâtre-Français, who grumbled because, after having had an insignificant part in Henri III. there was none at all for her in Christine—for I still flattered myself with the hope that my Christine would yet be played at the Théâtre-Français, in spite of the delay owing to M. Brault, who had died meanwhile; and now the Comédie-Française was not in a hurry to take up either. Her reproaches went home, as they were deserved, and I felt I owed her a double reparation. I therefore replied—
"Set your mind at rest: I will recast Christine in order to make it more dramatic and up to date, and something shall come out of the transformation that will, I hope, satisfy you."
The mind of a worker is often full of singular prejudices, which are sometimes odd enough to border upon mania: at times he imagines he can only conceive his schemes in such and such a place; at others, that he can only write his play on some special kind of paper. I got it into my head that I could only evolve a fresh Christine out of my old Christine if I took a short journey, and was rocked by the motion of a carriage. As I was not yet rich enough to go in a carriage, I chose a diligence; it did not matter where the diligence was going, provided I had the coupé, the inside or the rotonde to myself. I went to the cour des Messageries and, after a couple of hours' waiting, I found what I wanted, a coach with no passenger in the coupé. The diligence was bound for Havre. This was, indeed, a chance for me, for I had never been to a seaport, and I should be killing two birds with one stone. In those days it took fully twenty hours to go from Paris to Havre; this, again, suited me well enough. Inspiration would have plenty of time to work, or it would never come at all. I set off and, as imagination, naturally, plays a principal part in works of art, when my imagination had what it wanted in the way of external conditions for working, it began to work. By the time I reached Havre, my play was recast; I had divided the scenes between Stockholm, Fontainebleau and Rome, and the character of Paula rose out of this fresh genesis. It meant a complete overhauling and rewriting of the entire play, and very little was left of the original one. Although I was in great haste to set to work, I did not start back again to Paris before I had seen the sea. I stayed at Havre just long enough to eat some oysters, to have a sail on the sea, and to buy a couple of china vases which I could have got cheaper in Paris, and then I got into the diligence. In seventy-two hours I had been my journey and reconstructed my play.
I have spoken of the strange prejudices which imperiously impose certain conditions under which work shall be fulfilled. No one is less of a maniac than myself; nobody who acquires the habit of working incessantly, as I did, could work with greater ease than I, and yet, three times, I have felt absolutely compelled to obey a caprice. The first occasion I have just related; the second was over the composition of Don Juan de Marana, and the third was connected with Capitaine Paul. I was possessed with the notion that I could only conceive my fantastic drama to the sound of some music. I asked for tickets from my friend Zimmermann, for the Conservatoire, and, in the corner of a box together with three strangers, my eyes closed as though I were asleep, soothed into semi-unconsciousness by Beethoven and Weber, I composed the principal scenes of my drama in two hours.
It was different in the case of Capitaine Paul: I needed sea, a wide horizon, clouds scudding across the sky, and breezes whistling through the rigging and masts of ships. I went a voyage to Sicily and anchored my little boat for a couple of hours at the entrance to the Straits of Messina. In two days' time Capitaine Paul was finished.
On my return, I found a letter from Hugo. The success of Henri III. had inspired him with the desire to write a drama, and he invited me to go and hear it read at the house of Devéria. That drama was Marion Delorme.