Whilst conceiving and writing he was beginning to think of the public. He saw before him the house on the first night, the critics in their stalls, the fashionable people scattered here and there, and, seated in a box, Madame Moraines. He already heard the shouts of applause, as demoralising for a dramatic author as the number of editions is for a novelist. The desire to produce a certain effect took the place of that disinterested, natural, and irresistible impulse which is a necessary condition in true art. Still too young to possess the skill with which literary veterans can write impassioned phrases in cold blood, and even well enough to deceive the best critics, René sought in himself that source of ideas which he no longer found. His play would not take shape in his mind in a natural and easy way. The goat-like features of the Florentine monk and the tragic figures of the terrible pontiff Alexander VI., the violent Michael Angelo, the sour Machiavelli, and the formidable Cæsar Borgia would not clothe themselves in flesh and blood before his eyes, in spite of the heaps of notes and documents he had collected and the pages erased again and again. Frequently he would lay down his pen and gaze up at the blue sky through the lace curtains of his window; he would listen to the noises in the house--the closing of a door, Constant playing, Françoise grumbling, Emilie passing quietly, Fresneau walking heavily--and then find himself counting how many hours he had still to wait before seeing Suzanne. 'How I love her! How I love her!' he would exclaim, increasing his passion by the fervour with which he uttered these words. Again, he would delight in conjuring up a vision of the room in which these meetings, awaited with such feverish impatience, took place. He had been more lucky in finding a suitable place than his inexperience had led Suzanne to expect, It was a small suite consisting of three rooms, rather prettily furnished by Malvina Raulet, a brunette of about thirty-five, whose sweet voice, demure looks, and general air of propriety had at once enchanted René. This lady, whose attire was almost severe in its simplicity, gave herself out as a widow. She lived ostensibly on a small income left her by the late M. Raulet, an imaginary individual whose profession she defined in a vague way by saying that 'he was in business.' As a matter of fact, the shrewd and cunning landlady had never been married. She was, for the moment, being 'protected' by a respectable physician--a well-known man and the father of a family--whom she had so thoroughly taken in by her fine manners that she managed to get five hundred francs a month out of him, regularly paid on the first, like the salary of a Civil Servant.