To this the lady, though naturally rather afraid of him, answers with great sweetness, that in that case she shall be extremely happy to go with him; adding tenderly, that she would willingly die to prove her devotion.
Nothing could be so unfortunate as this expression. At the bare mention of his hobby-horse, death, his malady revives, and he instantly manifests a strong inclination to murder her,—and this time without even the ceremony of going to sleep.
Big with the darling thought, his eyes rolling, his cheek pale, his bristling hair on end, and the awful genius of Melodrame swelling in every vein, Balthazar seats himself on the sofa beside his trembling wife, and taking the comb out of her (Mademoiselle Noblet's) beautiful hair, appears about to strangle her in the rope of jet that he pulls out to its utmost length, and twists, and twists, and twists, till one really feels a cold shiver from head to foot. But at length, at the very moment when matters seem drawing to a close, the lady throws herself lovingly on his bosom, and his purpose changes, or at least for a moment seems to change, and he relaxes his hold.
At this critical juncture the two doctors enter. Balthazar looks at them wildly, then at his wife, then at the doctors again, and finally tells them all that he must beg leave to retire for a few moments. He passes through the group, who look at him in mournful silence; but as he approaches the door, he utters the word 'poison,' then enters, and locks and bolts it after him.
Upon this the lady screams, and the two doctors fly for a crow-bar. The door is burst open, and the procureur du roi comes forward, wide awake, but having swallowed the poison he had mentioned.
This being "the last scene of all that ends this strange eventful history," the curtain falls upon the enthusiastic attorney-general as he expires in the arms of his wife and friends.
We are always so apt, when we see anything remarkably absurd abroad, to flatter ourselves with the belief that nothing like it exists at home, that I am almost afraid to draw a parallel between this inconceivable trash, and the very worst and vilest piece that ever was permitted to keep possession of the stage in England, lest some one better informed on the subject than myself should quote some British enormity unknown to me, and so prove my patriotic theory false.
Nevertheless, I cannot quit the subject without saying, that as far as my knowledge and belief go, English people never did sit by hundreds and listen patiently to such stuff as this. There is no very atrocious vice, no terrific wickedness in the piece, as far as I could understand its recondite philosophy; but its silliness surely possesses the silliness of a little child. The grimaces, the dumb show, the newly-invented passions, and the series of impossible events, which drag through these five longsome acts, seem to show a species of anomaly in the human mind that composed the piece, to which I imagine no parallel can be found on record.
Is this the result of the march of mind?—is it the fruit of that universal diffusion of knowledge which we are told is at work throughout the world, but most busily in France?... I shall never understand the mystery, let me meditate upon it as long as I will. No! never shall I understand how a French audience, lively, witty, acute, and prone to seize upon whatever is ridiculous, can thus sit night after night with profound gravity, and the highest apparent satisfaction, to witness the incredible absurdity of such a piece as "Le Monomane."
There is one way, and one way only, in which the success of this drama can be accounted for intelligibly. May it not be, that "les jeunes gens," wanton in their power, have determined in merry mood to mystify their fellow-citizens by passing a favourable judgment upon this tedious performance? And may they not now be enjoying the success of their plot in ecstasies of private laughter, at seeing how meekly the dutiful Parisians go nightly to the Porte St. Martin, and sit in obedient admiration of what it has pleased their youthful tyrants to denominate "a fine drama"?