Even at this early morning hour I had been at work for some time, and this practitioner, Imbert, who was in high good standing with his clients, brought me morning greetings from Alexander Dumas the Younger from whose house he had just come. As he came, he said, "I left the master with his candles lighted, his beard trimmed, and comfortably installed in his white dressing gown."
One morning he brought me these words—a reply to a reproach I had allowed myself to make to him:
"Confess that you thought that I had forgotten you, man of little faith.
"A. DUMAS."
Between whiles, and it was a delightful distraction, I had written Le Portrait de Manon, a delightful act by Georges Boyer, to whom I already owed the text of Les Enfants.
Some good friends of mine, Auguste Cain, the famous sculptor of animals, and his dear wife, had been generous and useful to me in difficult circumstances, and I was delighted to applaud the first dramatic work of their son Henri Cain. His success with La Vivandière affirmed his talent still more. The music of this work in three acts was the swan song of the genial Benjamin Godard. Ah! the dear great musician who was a real poet from his youth up, in the first bars he wrote. Who does not remember his masterpiece Le Tasse?
As I was strolling one day in the gardens of the dismal palace of the dukes d'Este at Ferrare, I picked a branch of oleander which was just in blossom and sent it to my friend. My gift recalled the incomparable duet in the first act of Le Tasse.
During the summer of 1893 my wife and I went to Avignon. This city of the popes, the terre papale, as Rabelais called it, attracted me almost as much as that other city of the popes, ancient Rome.
We lived at the excellent Hotel de l'Europe, Place Grillon. Our hosts, M. and Mme. Ville, were worthy and obliging persons and were full of attention for us. That was imperative for I needed quiet to write La Navarraise, the act which Jules Claretie had entrusted to me and my new librettist Henri Cain.
Every evening at five o'clock our hosts, who had forbidden our door all day with jealous care, served us a delicious lunch. My friends, the Provençal poets, used to gather around, and among them was Felix Gras, one of my dearest friends.