Reading of Marion Delorme at the house of Devéria—Steeplechase of directors—Marion Delorme is stopped by the Censorship—Hugo obtains an audience with Charles X.—His drama is definitely interdicted—They send him the brevet of a pension, which he declines—He sets to work on Hernani, and completes it in twenty-four days
Hugo had no need to write to Nodier as I had done, and to wait for an appointment with Taylor: he was already as famous before Marion Delorme as I was unknown before Henri III.
As I have already mentioned, Hugo notified me of a reading at Devéria's house, and invited Taylor to this reading, together with de Vigny, Émile Deschamps, Sainte-Beuve, Soumet, Boulanger and Beauchesne—in fact, the whole Pleiades; and so the reading began.
The first act of Marion Delorme is a masterpiece; there is nothing in it to which one can take exception, apart from Hugo's mania for making his characters enter by windows instead of by doors, which here betrayed itself for the first time. No one could be more free from envious feelings than I am. So I listened to this first act with the profoundest admiration, intermingled, however, with some sadness. I felt how far behind his style I was, and how long it would be before I attained to it, if I ever should at all. Then came the second and the last three acts successively. I was seated next to Taylor, and at the last line of the play he leant over to me and said—
"Well, what do you think of that?"
I replied that I would be hanged if Victor had not shown us his finest piece of work. And I added, "I am certain he has."
"Why do you think so?"
"Because Marion Delorme shows all the qualities of the work of a mature man and none of the faults of a young one. Progress is impossible to one who begins by perfect work or work very nearly perfect."