The play was ready to be performed, when Bornier asked that his friend Emile Augier might attend the dress rehearsal. When this rehearsal was over Perrin came to me; he had an affectionate and constrained air. As to Bornier, he came straight to me in a decided and quarrelsome manner. Emile Augier followed him. “Well——” he said to me. I looked straight at him, feeling at the moment that he was my enemy. He stopped short and scratched his head, then turned towards Augier and said: “I beg you, _cher maître_, explain to Mademoiselle yourself.” Emile Augier was a broad man, with wide shoulders and a common appearance, and was at that time rather stout. He was in very good repute at the Théâtre Français, of which he was at that epoch the successful author. He came near me. “You managed the part at the window very well, Mademoiselle, but it is ridiculous; it is not your fault, but that of the author, who has written a most improbable scene. The public would laugh immoderately. This scene must be taken out.” I turned towards Perrin, who was listening silently. “Are you of the same opinion, sir?” “I talked it over a short time ago with these gentlemen, but the author is master to do as he pleases with his work.” Then, addressing myself to Bornier, I said, “Well, my dear author, what have you decided?” Little Bornier looked at big Emile Augier. There was in this beseeching and piteous glance an expression of sorrow at having to cut out a scene which he prized, and of fear at vexing an Academician just at the time when he was hoping to become a member of the Academy. “Cut it out, cut it out—or you are done for!” brutally replied Augier, and he turned his back. Then poor Bornier, who resembled a Breton gnome, came up to me. He scratched himself desperately, for the unfortunate man suffered from a distressing skin disease. He did not speak. He looked at us searchingly. Poignant anxiety was expressed on his face. Perrin, who had come up to me, guessed the private little drama which was taking place in the heart of the mild Bornier. “Refuse energetically,” murmured Perrin to me. I understood, and declared firmly to Bornier that if this scene were cut out I should refuse the part. Then Bornier seized both my hands, which he kissed ardently, and running up to Augier he exclaimed, with comic emphasis: “But I cannot cut it out—I cannot cut it out! She will not play! And the day after to-morrow the play is to be performed.” Then, as Emile Augier made a gesture and would have spoken: “No! No! To put back my play eight days would be to kill it! I cannot cut it out! Oh, mon Dieu!” And he cried and gesticulated with his two long arms, and he stamped with his short legs. His large hairy head went from right to left. He was at the same time funny and pitiable. Emile Augier was irritated, and turned on me like a hunted boar on a pursuing dog: “Will you take the responsibility, Mademoiselle, of the absurd window scene on the first performance?”