My mother returned at that moment, and Porcher's answer was not of the kind to reassure her. I wrote to M. Deviolaine, and begged that my letter might be given him on his return; then I waited. We spent three days of suspense; but during those three days I stayed in bed and worked incessantly. Why did I stop in bed? That requires an explanation. Whilst I was at the Secretariat, and had to be at the office from ten in the morning until five in the evening, returning there from eight until ten o'clock, I had to traverse the distance between the faubourg Saint-Denis No. 53 to the rue Saint-Honoré No. 216, eight times a day, and I was so tired out that I could rarely work if I sat up. So I went to bed and slept, first putting my work on the table near my bed; I slept for two hours, and then at midnight my mother woke me and went to sleep in her turn. That was the reason I worked in bed. This habit of working in bed attained such hold of me that I kept it up long after I had gained freedom of action, doing all my theatrical work thus. Perhaps this revelation may satisfy those physiologists who dilated upon the kind of rude passion which has been noted in my earliest works, and with which, perhaps not unreasonably, I have been reproached. I contracted another habit, too, at that time, and that was to write my dramas in a backward style of handwriting: this habit I never lost, like the other, and to this day I have one style of handwriting for my dramas and another for my romances. During those three days I made immense progress with _Christine._ On the fourth day, I received a letter from M. Deviolaine, summoning me to his office. I hurried there, and this time my heart did not beat any the faster; I had faced the worst that could happen and I was prepared for anything. "Ah! there you are, you cursed blockhead!" cried M. Deviolaine, when he saw me. "Yes, monsieur, here I am." "So! so, monsieur!" I made no reply. "So we are too grand a lord to work with ordinary mortals?" M. Deviolaine continued. "You are mistaken ... quite the contrary. I am not a sufficiently grand lord to work with the others, that is why I want to work alone." "And you ask for an office to yourself, on purpose to do nothing in it but to write your dirty plays?" "I ask for an office to myself so that I can have the right to think while I am working." "And if I do not let you have an office to yourself?" "I shall try to earn my living as an author. You know I have no other resource." "And if I do not immediately send you packing, you may be very sure it is for your mother's sake and not for your own." "I am fully aware of that, and I am grateful to you on my mother's account." "Very well, take your office to yourself, then; but I give you warning that...." "You will give me double the work of any other clerk?" "Exactly so." "It will be unjust, that is all; but, since I am not the stronger, I shall submit."