And we hurried out on to the boulevard.
"Ah!" I exclaimed, as I breathed the air.
"What is the matter with you?... Is it your piece that is upsetting you like this?"
"Get along, hang my piece!"
I dragged Bixio in the direction of the Bastille. I do not remember what we talked of. I only know we walked for half a league, there and back, chattering and laughing. If anybody had said to the passers-by, "You see that great lunatic of a man over there? He is the author of the play being acted at this very moment at the theatre of la Porte-Saint-Martin!" they would indeed have been amazed.
I came in again at the right moment, at the scene of the insult. The feuilleton, as Dorval called it, meaning the apology for this modern style of drama, the real preface to Antony, had passed over without hindrance and had even been applauded. I had a box close to the stage and I made a sign to Dorval that I was there; she signalled back that she saw me. Then the scene began between Adèle and the Vicomtesse, which is summed up in these words, "But I have done nothing to this woman!" Next comes the scene between Adèle and Antony, where Adèle repeatedly exclaims, "She is his mistress!"
Well! I say it after twenty-two years have passed by,—and during those years I have composed many plays, and seen many pieces acted, and applauded many actors,—he who never saw Dorval act those two scenes, although he may have seen the whole repertory of modern drama, can have no conception how far pathos can be carried.
The reader knows how this act ends; the Vicomtesse enters; Adèle, surprised in the arms of Antony, utters a cry and disappears. Behind the Vicomtesse, Antony's servant enters in his turn. He has ridden full gallop from Strassburg, to announce to his master the return of Adèle's husband. Antony dashes from the stage like a madman, or one driven desperate, crying, "Wretch! shall I arrive in time?"
I ran behind the scenes. Dorval was already on the stage, uncurling her hair and pulling her flowers to pieces; she had at times her moments of transports of passion, exceeding those of the actress. The scene-shifters were altering the scenes, whilst Dorval was acting her part. The audience applauded frantically. "A hundred francs," I cried to the shifters, "if the curtain be raised again before the applause ceases!" In two minutes' time the three raps were given: the curtain rose and the scene-shifters had won their hundred francs. The fifth act began literally before the applause for the fourth had died down. I had one moment of acute anguish. In the middle of the terrible scene where the two lovers, caught in a net of sorrows, are striving to extricate themselves, but can find no means of either living or dying together, a second before Dorval exclaimed, "Then I am lost!" I had, in the stage directions, arranged that Bocage should move the armchair ready to receive Adèle, when she is overwhelmed at the news of her husband's arrival. And Bocage forgot to turn the chair in readiness. But Dorval was too much carried away by passion to be put out by such a trifle. Instead of falling on the cushion, she fell on to the arm of the chair, and uttered a cry of despair, with such a piercing grief of soul wounded, torn, broken, that the whole audience rose to its feet. This time the cheers were not for me at all, but for the actress and for her alone, for her marvellous, magnificent performance! The dénoûment is known; it is utterly unexpected, and is summed up in a single phrase of six startling words. The door is burst open by M. de Hervey just as Adèle falls on a sofa, stabbed by Antony.
"Dead?" cries Baron de Hervey.