This incident recalled to me the apparition of my father, on the very night of his death, which woke me up when I was a little child, and I put to myself the question that is so often asked and never answered, "What are the mysterious bonds which bind the dead to the living?" Later, when I lost my mother, whom I loved more than anyone else in the world, and who, on her side, loved me beyond all telling, I remembered these two visions and, kneeling down by the bed on which she had just expired, with my lips on her hand, I implored her, if anything of her had survived, to appear to me just once again; then, when night came, I lay down in a lonely room and waited with a beating heart, hoping to see the beloved vision. I counted in vain nearly all the hours of that night, and not the slightest sound or apparition came to solace my sorrowful watch. After that, I doubted all such experiences, whether my own or others'; for my mother's love for me, and mine for her, were so great that I knew if she had been able to rise once more from her resting-place to bid me a last farewell she would surely have done it. But perhaps it is only children and old people who are privileged--children because they are nearer the cradle, old people because they are nearer the grave. CHAPTER XIV First representation of Soulié's _Roméo et Juliette_--Anaïs and Lockroy--Why French actresses cannot act Juliet--The studies of the Conservatoire--A second _Christine_ at the Théâtre-Français--M. Évariste Dumoulin and Madame Valmonzey--Conspiracy against me--I give up my turn to have my play produced--How I found the subject of _Henri III._--My opinion of that play Meantime, we had reached the beginning of June 1828, and I was informed by Soulié that the Odéon had accepted his _Roméo_, were rehearsing it and were nearly ready to perform it. We had not seen each other since the night when we had agreed each to write our own version of _Christine._ But he had not forgotten me, and I received two gallery stall tickets for the first night. As my mother had often heard me talk of Soulié, and as she knew that Soulié was one of my friends, it was by way of preparing her for the first representation of my work that I took her to see the first representation of Soulié's. Poor mother! It was a great treat to her to go out with me. Alas! I had neglected her sadly for months past. We become so accustomed to those guardian angels, our mothers, that we never dream, as we leave them to pursue all the foolish fancies of youth, that a moment will come--a terrible and unanticipated moment--when they, in their turn, will leave us! Then only do we recollect, with tears in our eyes and remorse at our hearts, those many thoughtless and cruel absences and we exclaim, "Good God! why did I so often leave her for this and that, now to be separated from her by you for ever?"