I heard an unknown voice crying excitedly (our wire was crossed):
"Oh, if I only knew who you were, you scoundrel, I would denounce you to the police. A crime like that! Who is to be the victim?"
Suddenly Claretie's voice:
"Once her throat is cut she will be put in the cart with her husband. I prefer that to poison."
The other man's voice:
"Oh, that's too much! Now the rascals want to poison her. I'll call the superintendent. I want an inquiry!"
A terrible buzzing ensued; then a blissful calm.
It was time; with a subscriber roused to such a pitch, Claretie and I ran the chance of a bad quarter of an hour! I still tremble at the thought of it.
After that I often worked with Claretie over the wire. The Ariane thread also took my voice to Perséphone, I should say ... Thérèse, whom I let hear in this way this or that vocal ending, so as to have her opinion before I wrote down the notes.
One beautiful spring day I went to revisit the Garden at Bagatelle and its pretty pavilion, then still abandoned, which the Comte d'Artois had built under Louis XVI. I fixed thoroughly in my memory that delightful little chateau which the triumphant Revolution allowed to be exploited for picnic parties after despoiling its oldtime owner of it. When he got it back under the Restoration, the Comte d'Artois called it Babiole, Bagatelle or Babiole it's all the same; and this same pavilion was occupied almost to our own time by Sir Richard Wallace, the famous millionaire, philanthropist and collector.