That is the way I am made: it is not what can be called well made, I agree, but what would you have? the fault is with the gods and not with me, a poor devil who cannot help himself. I do not need to ask your indulgence, my dear Silvio; it is accorded me in advance, and you are kind enough to read my undecipherable scrawls to the end, my headless and tailless musings; however disjointed and absurd they may be, they always interest you, because they come from me, and anything that is a part of me, even when it is worthless, is not without some value to you. I can let you see the thing that most offends the common herd: honest pride.--But let us cry truce for a while to all these exalted topics, and as I am writing on the subject of the play we are to give, let us return to it and talk about it a little. The rehearsal took place to-day:--never in my life have I been so upset,--not because of the embarrassment that one always feels in reciting anything before a number of people, but from an entirely different cause. We were in costume and ready to begin; Théodore alone had not appeared; we sent to his room to see what delayed him; he replied that he was almost ready and would come down in a moment. He came; I heard his step in the corridor long before he appeared, and yet no one on earth has a lighter step than Théodore; but my feeling of sympathy for him is so strong that I divine his movements through the walls, and when I felt that he was about to put his hand on the door-knob, I began to tremble and my heart beat with horrible force. It seemed to me that something of importance in my life was about to be decided, and that I had reached a solemn, long-expected moment. The folding-doors slowly opened and closed. There was a general cry of admiration.--The men applauded, the women turned scarlet. Rosette alone became extremely pale and leaned against the wall, as if a sudden revelation were passing through her brain; she went through the same experience as myself in the opposite direction.--I have always suspected her of loving Théodore. I have no doubt that, at that moment, she believed as I did that the pretended Rosalind was nothing less than a young and lovely woman, and the fragile card-house of her hope suddenly collapsed, while mine rose on its ruins; at least that is what I thought; I may be mistaken, for I was hardly in a condition to make accurate observations. Aside from Rosette, there were three or four pretty women present; they looked disgustingly ugly.--Beside that sun, the star of their beauty was suddenly eclipsed, and every one wondered how he could ever have thought them passable. Men who, before that moment, would have deemed themselves very fortunate to have them for mistresses, would hardly have taken them for servants.