'Certainly I must,' said René; 'I intend going to-night And you?' he asked, as he often did, 'how are you going to spend your evening?'
'I am going to the theatre, too,' she replied; 'but not behind the scenes. My husband wants to take me to the Gymnase. Why do you put me in mind of it? I shall be quite miserable enough when I'm there all alone with him. . . Come, give me a nice kiss.'
That voice, sweet as the sweetest music, was still in the poet's ears, and his soul was still troubled by those kisses, more intoxicating than strong drink, when about nine that night he entered the stage door of the Théâtre Français in order to reach the celebrated green-room. He cast a glance round the doorkeeper's lodge, remembering that the room had been one of the stations in Claude's Calvary. Frequently, when entering the theatre together, Larcher would say to his friend as he pointed to the pigeon-hole that contained Colette's letters: 'If I stole them I should perhaps know the truth.'
'How happy I am,' thought René, 'not to know that terrible malady called suspicion!' And he smiled as he ascended the staircase, whose walls are covered with the portraits of actors and actresses of a bygone age. There, fixed on the canvas, are the grinning faces of past Scapins—there the Célimènes, who lived and loved long years ago, still smile down upon us. These reminders of mirth for ever vanished, of passions for ever stilled, of once happy generations for ever gone, have something strangely sad about them for the dreamers who feel their life, like all life, slipping away, and who realise the brevity of human joys.
Often had René experienced this feeling of vague sadness; it came over him again now, in spite of himself, and made him hasten to the green-room, expecting to find a good many acquaintances there with whom he might exchange a few words of greeting. But he found the place entirely given up to two actors in Louis XIV. costumes, their heads adorned with enormous wigs, their legs incased in red stockings, and their feet cramped in high-heeled shoes. They were engaged in a political argument, and took no notice of the poet, who heard one of them, a long, thin, bilious-looking creature, say to the other, a round, red-faced individual, 'All the misfortunes of our country arise from the fact that people do not take sufficient interest in politics.'
'What a pity Larcher isn't here!' thought René as he caught these words; he knew what pleasure they would have given his friend, the exclamation that would have escaped him—'This is grand!'—and how he would have clapped his hands with delight. Everything in this part of the theatre reminded him of Claude, who had so often accompanied him there. They had sat together in the little green-room, now empty. Together they had descended the few steps that lead behind the scenes, and, slipping in between the properties, had mingled with the actors and actresses standing in the narrow passage waiting for their calls.
Colette was not there, and René determined to go up the steep staircase and along the interminable corridors lined with private dressing-rooms. He at length reached the door that bore the name of Mademoiselle Rigaud; he knocked, feebly at first, but conversation was probably going on inside, and he was not heard. He had to knock louder. 'Come in!' cried a shrill voice, which he recognised; it was the same that could make itself so sweet to recite:
If kisses for kisses the roses could pay . . .
On opening the door the visitor entered a tiny ante-room, which communicated with a tiny dressing-room. René lifted the gilt-embroidered curtain of black satin that divided the two miniature apartments, and found himself in an atmosphere overheated by the lamps and the presence of six people; five of these were men, two in evening dress being evidently 'swells,' and the other three friends of the actress of a slightly inferior order. One of the two black-coated gentlemen was Salvaney, but he did not recognise René. He and his friend were the only two who were seated. The ottoman on which they sat had been recovered with an old Chinese dress of pink satin; it was Claude who had given Colette that dress, and who, in the heyday of their love, had presided over the arrangement of the whole dressing-room. He had ransacked Paris to collect the panels set in bamboo frames which adorned the walls. Three of these panels bore figures of Chinese women painted on pale silk. The widest, which, like the heavy curtain, was of black satin, represented a flight of white birds amidst peach blossoms and lilies of the valley. Bright-coloured fans and bunches of peacock's feathers distributed here and there, and a great gilt dragon with enamelled eyes suspended from the ceiling, helped to give this pretty little cabin an air of charming originality.
Colette, with her hair all undone and her bare arms emerging from the wide sleeves of a loose bright blue dressing-gown, was 'making up' under the gaze of the five men. Before her, on the dressing-table, stood a whole row of pots filled with different salves. There were other pots, containing white, yellow, and pink powder, and a few saucers filled with long 'tragedy' pins, while hare's feet covered with paint, enormous powder puffs, black pencils, and small sponges lay scattered all about. The actress could see who entered by looking in the large glass before her. Recognising the author of the 'Sigisbée,' she half turned and showed him her hands covered with vaseline as an apology for not offering him one, and by the look she gave him René understood how prudent Claude had been in not coming back without some previous understanding.