"Not so many as you think; you get accustomed to the wings, as you do to the auditorium, and you talk with a Turk or a Polish girl without noticing their costumes."
"Of course; habit—I understand; but to produce a play, to superintend the rehearsals and the performance."
"It is delightful when one succeeds; but even so, what vexations have to be undergone before that point is reached! Rehearsals where people are never prompt, where they talk instead of studying their parts, which makes it necessary to rehearse forty times what they should have learned in fifteen; actors who want to make over their parts, managers who want to rewrite your plays, actresses who don’t like their costumes, claqueurs who want all your tickets, and last of all the public, that will have none of your play: such is often the result of six weeks of discomfort, annoyances and hard work!"
"He says all this to take away any inclination on my part to write plays," thought Robineau. "All authors are like that; they try to disgust beginners. I won’t show him my plots; he would steal my ideas, and then say they were his own.—You are rather inclined to look at the dark side of things now, Monsieur Edouard," he said aloud, "because you are still sore from your failure."
"Oh! I assure you that I have forgotten all about it."
"Bah! nonsense! For my part, if I should be hissed, I think that I should be in a horrible humor.—By the way, have you seen your little sempstress again? But I suppose that she is already replaced, is she not?"
"Faith, no! I am beginning to be tired of these bonnes fortunes, in which, as Larochefoucauld says, there is everything except love. I think that I should prefer a little love and less pleasure."
"That is like me, I am for sentiment, for what is called pure sentiment. I have adored all the women I ever knew, even my figurante at the Porte-Saint-Martin; and on their side, they have all treated me with peculiar favor; I am their spoiled child."
"You are very fortunate, Monsieur Robineau!—For my part, I would like to find—I don’t know just how to express it, but it seems to me that there should be a secret sympathy acting at the same time on two hearts that are made for each other."
"Yes, I understand you; that is what happened to me with my first inclination, whom I met at the Bal du Colisée. We fell while waltzing, both at the same time. I instantly discovered a secret sympathy therein."