Ariane! Ariane! The work which made me live in such lofty spheres! How could it have been otherwise with the superb, inspired collaboration of Catulle Mendes, the poet of ethereal hopes and dreams!
It was a memorable day in my life when my friend Heugel told me that Catulle Mendes was ready to read the text of Ariane to me.
For a long time I had wanted to weep the tears of Ariane. I was thrilled with all the strength of mind and heart before I even knew the first word of the first scene.
We engaged to meet for this reading at Catulle Mendes's house, in the artistic lodging of that great scholar and his exquisite wife who was also a most talented and real poet.
I came away actually feverish with excitement. The libretto was in my pocket, against my heart, as if to make it feel the throbs, as I got into a victoria to go home. Rain fell in torrents but I did not notice it. Surely Ariane's tears permeated my whole being with delight.
Dear, good tears, with what gladness you must have fallen during the rehearsals! I was overwhelmed with esteem and attention by my dear director, Gailhard, as well as by my remarkable interpreters.
In August, 1905, I was walking pensively under the pergola of our house at Égreville, when suddenly an automobile horn woke the echoes of that peaceful country.
Was not Jupiter thundering in the heavens, Caelo tonantem Jovem, as Horace says in the Odes. For a moment I could believe that such was the case, but what was my surprise—my very agreeable surprise—when I saw get down from that thundering sixty miles an hour two travelers, who, if they did not come from heaven, nevertheless let me hear the accents of Paradise in their friendly voices.
One was Gailhard, the director of the Opéra, and the other the learned architect of the Garnier monument. My director had come to ask me how I was getting on with Ariane and if I were willing to let the Opéra have it.
We went up to my large room which with its yellow hangings of the period might have easily been taken for that of a general of the First Empire. I at once pointed out a heap of pages on a large black marble table—the whole of the finished score.