"Monsieur, you are a cur!"
As the rascal contented himself with shrugging his shoulders, in this way taking his key away, Entragues felt sadness and shame welling within him in place of anger.
"We will protest," said Sixtine, "by foregoing the rest of the play."
It was nine o'clock. Some persons, having been spared the rise of the curtain, were strolling under the Odéon galleries, looking at the latest novels: Hubert recognized several eminent critics and thought he could read, underneath the ribbon of their hats, the repetition of the naive avowal Collé made in his Journal: "I undertake to criticize plays because I cannot write any myself." They spoke of the revival of the little machine, and one of them deemed, in a simple and new style, that "the need of it did not perhaps make itself very acutely perceived." This irony was relished.
"We shall go on foot," said Sixtine.
The weather was humid, but mild. They walked through little dark streets, grazed by occasional passersby, in silence.
She asked him if he personally knew the author of this piece so unlike the things ordinarily heard at the theater.
"He is dead," said Hubert. "He was the noblest writer of our time."
Half of the young writers recognized him as their master and almost all had been touched by his influence. In his works were pages of an incomparable magnificence and purity of language. He truly gave the impression of the two souls of Goethe and Edgar Allen Poe melted into one and lodged in the same person.
Sixtine was surprised that he was not better known, but Hubert assured her that he was known to those who could understand him. Others would only be capable of acquiring the verbal knowledge of his name, and to what end? He proceeded just like some other contemporaries whom Hubert named, but when the thieves of glory would have used up their life-interest, the others would enter the house, the parchment of immortality in their hands, and would expel the intruders. Perhaps at this very hour still others, more unknown, were lying in a cellar or were dying bedridden, whose names would to-morrow fill the world with an unexpected gleam.