"Is he asleep?"
"Ah, he sleeps profoundly. I prepared for him an intoxicating drink."
"His sleep is not yet profound enough. Let us finish what thou hast begun: that he may never waken again."
They decide then to assassinate the Tartar, and to conceal his body.
The lover steals into the next room, from which cries are very soon heard, and the sound of a struggle; then the murderer returns, dragging after him an inanimate body.
They must dispose of it, throw it into the river, and the lover tries to pull the dead man onto his back. But this Tartar, who was a man of importance with the rank of Mandarin, had been altogether too well fed and he is horribly heavy, so that the Chinaman is doubled up under his great bulk, and try as he may he cannot carry the unwieldy corpse.
"Ah well, cut him in two!"
Then, by the aid of a great sabre and their own tremendous efforts, they hack the Tartar in two—not very difficult really, considering the cushions of which he is formed. When this has been accomplished the lover wraps one of the halves in a rug and carries it off. He will come back for the remainder the next night.... Villiers, in the drawing-room, has already guessed that this first syllable which we have acted ought to be "Tar"—the half of a Tartar!
The next thing to do is to make them recognise the illustrious Pasdeloup directing a "popular concert" and that difficult task falls to my lot. I have made myself a beard with skeins of yellow silk, and donned an evening coat of Wagner's. Servais has to multiply himself to represent the public, the police, etc., while Richter in the distance is the orchestra.
All join in giving the "la"[1] with especial significance: then they begin the prelude to Lohengrin. Pasdeloup, according to his custom, rounds his back, wrinkles his good-natured face, extends his arms with gestures half supplicating, half soothing, in order to secure "Pianissimi" full of mystery, and the orchestra does his best to obey. But all is not in harmony in the audience. Murmurs arise, are hushed down, then an altercation follows, with a sound of slaps, and swells to an uproar—as it had so often done during those days at "The Cirque d'Hiver."[2]—