"I was sure that with patience I should dispose of it somehow," he exclaimed. "What a pretty fagot! If I could have foreseen what would happen, I could have written a prologue, and then I should have more fuel tonight. But one can't foresee everything." He lit some leaves of the manuscript, in the flame of which he thawed his hands. In five minutes the first act of "The Avenger" was over, and Rodolphe had written three verses of his epitaph.
It would be impossible to describe the astonishment of the four winds when they felt fire in the chimney.
"It's an illusion," quoth Boreas, as he amused himself by brushing back the hair of Rodolphe's bear skin.
"Let's blow down the pipe," suggested another wind, "and make the chimney smoke." But just as they were about to plague the poor poet, the south wind perceived Monsieur Arago at a window of the Observatory threatening them with his finger; so they all made off, for fear of being put under arrest. Meanwhile the second act of "The Avenger" was going off with immense success, and Rodolphe had written ten lines. But he only achieved two during the third act.
"I always thought that third act too short," said Rodolphe, "luckily the next one will take longer; there are twenty three scenes in it, including the great one of the throne." As the last flourish of the throne scene went up the chimney in fiery flakes, Rodolphe had only three couplets more to write. "Now for the last act. This is all monologue. It may last five minutes." The catastrophe flashed and smouldered, and Rodolphe in a magnificent transport of poetry had enshrined in lyric stanzas the last words of the illustrious deceased. "There is enough left for a second representation," said he, pushing the remainder of the manuscript under his bed.
At eight o'clock next evening, Mademoiselle Angela entered the ballroom; in her hand was a splendid nosegay of white violets, and among them two budding roses, white also. During the whole night men and women were complimenting the young girl on her bouquet. Angela could not but feel a little grateful to her cousin who had procured this little triumph for her vanity; and perhaps she would have thought more of him but for the gallant persecutions of one of the bride's relatives who had danced several times with her. He was a fair-haired youth, with a magnificent moustache curled up at the ends, to hook innocent hearts. The bouquet had been pulled to pieces by everybody; only two white roses were left. The young man asked Angela for them; she refused—only to forget them after the ball on a bench, whence the young fair-haired youth hastened to take them.
At that moment it was fourteen degrees below freezing point in Rodolphe's belvidere. He was leaning against his window looking out at the lights in the ballroom, where his cousin Angela, who didn't care for him, was dancing.