"It is a gulf which swallows up all that is thrown into it."
Edith turns her head aside, and with a smothered cry lets the key fall into it, saying—
"Que pour l'éternité.
L'abime l'engloutisse, ou le courant l'entraîne!
LE ROI.
Que faites-vous, Édith?
EDITH
Moi, rien ... je me fais reine!"
I had pondered over this subject for two years, and had worked for something like three to four months at the plan of this fine work. I was reasonably well satisfied with it, not because of its merit, but on account of the trouble it had cost me: in other words, I believed I had achieved a masterpiece. So, for the first time in my life—and also for the last—I invited two or three friends to come to hear the reading of it which I had to give before the Théâtre-Français. I had a splendid audience. My delusion lasted to the end of the first act; but I must say it went no further. At the end of that act, I already felt that my chef d'œuvre had not caught on with the public. By the second act, it was still colder. By the third, it was frigid! One of the greatest punishments that can be imposed on an author, in expiation of his plays, is to read before a committee that has come with benevolent intentions, and to feel these intentions little by little fading away, turning yellow, falling at the breath of boredom, as autumn leaves fall under the killing winds of winter. Ah! what would one not give, at such a moment, not to have to go on to the finish, but to roll up one's manuscript, make one's bow and depart! But no such fate! In spite of the service the author would render to his audience, he is condemned to read and the audience to hear. He must go to the very end! He must descend the staircase of this tomb step by step, colder than the staircase of death itself! This was, I repeat, the first time the thing had happened to me; a just punishment for my pride. I rose immediately after the last hemistich and went out, leaving Édith aux longs cheveux on the committee table. I felt that, this time, it was not a narcotic she had taken, like Juliet, but a fine, good poison she had swallowed, like Romeo. However, I had not the courage to go away without an answer. So I waited for it in the manager's office. It was Mademoiselle Mars herself who brought it me. Poor Mademoiselle Mars! She wore a funereal expression; one would have said that she had returned from Ethelwood's obsequies, after having the day before been at those of Edith. She beat about the bush in all sorts of ways to break it to me that the committee did not think my play was suitable for acting. According to her, the play was only half written, "What became of Edith after she had flung the key into the abyss? What became of Ethelwood, enclosed in the vault? What became of the king's sister, who was enamoured of this living dead man? Was it possible that Providence could look on at such a crime without interfering? That divine justice could hear of such a grievance and find no true bill? There must be a sequel to be joined to such a beginning, a second part to attach to this first. Was there no way of turning the sister of the king to account? Could she not represent faithfulness, as Edith represented ingratitude? Could she not descend into the vault to see her dead lover as the king had done to see his dead fiancée? Could not that happen to the sister which had nearly happened in the king's case and Ethelwood?..."
I took hold of Mademoiselle Mars's hand.
"The play is saved," I said to her; "it shall be called Catherine Howard. Thanks to you, I perceive the ending.... Where are my friends that I may announce the good news to them?"
But my friends were far away. They found a disused door by which they could make sure of fleeing without meeting me. Next day I received a letter from the secretary of the Comédie-Française, which invited me to take away the manuscript. "Fling it into the fire!" I replied. I do not know whether he obeyed my instructions; but I know I never saw it again and the only verses which I remember are the two and a half I have quoted—
"On les immola tous, sire:—ils étaient trois mille!"
And that was how the beautiful Édith aux longs cheveux was buried.
We will tell in due order and place how there came into existence her sister, Catherine Howard, who was not worth much more than she was, and who died in the flower of her age, in the year of grace 1834.