I followed her and consoled her as well as I could. And in the midst of her tears she kissed me, murmuring, “It is true. It is they who instigated me to play this nasty trick, and now they are annoying me.” Croizette used vulgar expressions, very vulgar ones, and at times uttered many a Gallic joke. That day we made up our quarrel entirely. A week before the first performance I received an anonymous letter informing me that Perrin was trying his very best to get Dumas to change the name of the play. He wished—it goes without saying—to have the piece called _La Duchesse de Septmonts_. I rushed off to the theatre to find Perrin at once. At the entrance door I met Coquelin, who was playing the part of the Duc de Septmonts, which he did marvellously well. I showed him the letter. He shrugged his shoulders. “It is infamous! But why do you take any notice of an anonymous letter? It is not worthy of you!” We were talking at the foot of the staircase when the manager arrived. “Here, show the letter to Perrin!” And he took it from my hands in order to show it to him. Perrin blushed slightly. “I know this writing,” he said. “Some one from the theatre has written this letter.” I snatched it back from him. “Then it is some one who is well informed, and what he says is perhaps true. Is it not so? Tell me. I have the right to know.” “I detest anonymous letters.” And he went up the stairs, bowing slightly, but without saying anything further. “Ah, if it is true,” said Coquelin, “it is too much. Would you like me to go and see Dumas, and I will get to know at once?” “No, thank you. But you have put an idea into my head. I’ll go there.” And shaking hands with him, I went off to see the younger Dumas. He was just going out. “Well, well? What is the matter? Your eyes are blazing!” I went with him into the drawing-room and asked my question at once. He had kept his hat on, and took it off to recover his self-possession. And before he could speak a word I got furiously angry; I fell into one of those rages which I sometimes have, and which are more like attacks of madness. And in fact, all that I felt of bitterness towards this man, towards Perrin, towards all this theatrical world that should have loved me and upheld me, but which betrayed me on every occasion—all the hot anger that I had been accumulating during the rehearsals, the cries of revolt against the perpetual injustice of these two men, Perrin and Dumas—I burst out with everything in an avalanche of stinging words which were both furious and sincere. I reminded him of his promise made in former days; of his visit to my hotel in the Avenue de Villiers; of the cowardly and underhand manner in which he had sacrificed me, at Perrin’s request and on the wishes of the friends of Sophie. I spoke vehemently, without allowing him to edge in a single word. And when, worn out, I was forced to stop, I murmured, out of breath with fatigue, “What—what—what have you to say for yourself?”