The noise from the adjoining room suddenly ceased, as if the poet had become aware of the voices of the innkeeper and the new-comers. The door burst open, and a man in his shirt-sleeves—a short, rather stout, clean-shaved individual, with a mobile face and bright, piercing eyes—appeared. He held a pen in his hand.
“Morbleu!” cried this apparition, in a testy voice, speaking to the landlord without even a glance at the others. “Have you no thought for the comfort of your guests? With your chatter, chatter, chatter, you have spoilt one of the finest of my passages.”
“And what about my tables?” burst out Turgis, suddenly flying into a rage, “and my glasses? Four broken this day, and my wainscoting pierced with the point of your rapier, and my room half wrecked—and you talk to me of your passages! What about my custom driven away? For one may not sneeze, it appears to me, without your poems being upset and your passages spoilt. What about my sixty-five francs?”
“They shall be paid,” said the poet, taking a minor key. “Ah, Monsieur Lavenne!” His eye had just fallen on Lavenne.
“Pardon me,” said Lavenne to Rochefort. He went towards the tragedian, took him by the arm and drew him into the adjoining room. Then he shut the door.
Turgis wiped his forehead. “His passages! I wish he would find a passage to take him to the devil. What may I get for monsieur?”
“Get me a bottle of that wine for which you are so famous,” said Rochefort, taking a seat at a table, “and two glasses—that is right. He seems a strange customer, this Monsieur Ferminard.”
“Oh, monsieur,” replied Turgis, opening the wine and filling the glasses, “he would be right enough were he only to stick to his trade.”
“And what is his trade?”
“An actor, monsieur; he is a great actor. He belonged to the Théâtre Molière; but he quarrelled with the director, and the quarrel came to blows, and Ferminard wounded the director. Yes, monsieur, he would now be in prison only for Monsieur de Sartines, who took an interest in him, having seen him act. Ah, monsieur, he was a great actor. But he was not content to be an actor. Oh, no! What does he do but write a comedy himself, to beat Molière? And what does he do but get the ear of the Duc de la Vrillière and his permission to produce this precious comedy at Versailles, with Court ladies and gentlemen to act in it. If he had acted himself in it, the thing would have been saved, but belonging to the Théâtre Molière, he was bound by agreement not to act elsewhere.