The luncheon that I had so completely forgotten was nevertheless a luncheon arranged several days previously. On reaching home we found there Paul de Rémusat, charming Mlle. Hocquigny, and M. de Monbel, a young _attaché d’ambassade_. I explained my lateness as well as I could, and that morning finished in the most delicious harmony of ideas. I have never felt more than I did that day the infinite joy of listening. During a silence Mlle. Hocquigny turned to the Marshal and said: “Are you not of the opinion that our young friend should enter the Comédie Française?” “Ah, no, no!” I exclaimed; “I am so happy at the Odéon. I began at the Comédie, and the short time I remained there I was very unhappy.” “You will be obliged to go back there, my dear friend—obliged. Believe me, it will be better early than late.” “Well, do not spoil to-day’s pleasure for me, for I have never been happier!” One morning shortly after this my maid brought me a letter. The large round stamp, on which are the words “Comédie Française” was on the corner of the envelope. I remembered that ten years previously, almost day for day, our old servant Marguerite had, with my mother’s permission, handed me a letter in the same kind of envelope. My face then had flushed with joy, but this time I felt a faint tinge of pallor touch my cheeks. When events occur which disturb my life, I always have a movement of recoil. I cling for a second to what is, and then I fling myself headlong into what is to be. It is like a gymnast who clings first to his trapeze bar in order to fling himself afterwards with full force into space. In one second what now is becomes for me what was, and I love it with tender emotion as something dead. But I adore what is to be without seeking even to know about it, for what is to be is the unknown, the mysterious attraction. I always fancy that it will be something unheard of, and I shudder from head to foot in delicious uneasiness. I receive quantities of letters, and it seems to me that I never receive enough. I watch them accumulating just as I watch the waves of the sea. What are they going to bring me, these mysterious envelopes, large, small, pink, blue, yellow, white? What are they going to fling upon the rock, these great wild waves, dark with seaweed? What sailor-boy’s corpse? What remains of a wreck? What are these little brisk waves going to leave on the beach, these reflections of a blue sky, little laughing waves? What pink “sea-star”? What mauve anemone? What pearly shell? So I never open my letters immediately. I look at the envelopes, try to recognise the handwriting and the seal; and it is only when I am quite certain from whom the letter comes that I open it. The others I leave my secretary to open or a kind friend, Suzanne Seylor. My friends know this so well that they always put their initials in the corner of their envelopes. At that time I had no secretary, but _mon petit Dame_ served me as such.