"No, no, no; I am not dressed yet, I am only in my chemise! He's a pretty fellow, that Moëssard! What would the audience say?... It is you who have hindered me like this ... Go off with you then!" "Put me out." "Go! go! go!" She kissed me three times and pushed me to the door. Poor lips, then fresh and smiling and trembling, which I was to see closed and frozen for ever at the touch of death! I went outside; as I was in need of air. I met Bixio in the corridors. "Come with me," I said. "Where the dickens are you off to?" "I am going for a walk." "What! a walk?" "Yes!" "Just when the curtain is going to rise?" "Exactly! I do not feel sure about the fourth act and would much rather it began without me." "Are you sure about the end?" "Oh! the end is a different matter ... We will come back for that, never fear!" And we hurried out on to the boulevard. "Ah!" I exclaimed, as I breathed the air. "What is the matter with you?... Is it your piece that is upsetting you like this?" "Get along, hang my piece!" I dragged Bixio in the direction of the Bastille. I do not remember what we talked of. I only know we walked for half a league, there and back, chattering and laughing. If anybody had said to the passers-by, "You see that great lunatic of a man over there? He is the author of the play being acted at this very moment at the theatre of la Porte-Saint-Martin!" they would indeed have been amazed. I came in again at the right moment, at the scene of the insult. The _feuilleton_, as Dorval called it, meaning the apology for this modern style of drama, the real preface to _Antony_, had passed over without hindrance and had even been applauded. I had a box close to the stage and I made a sign to Dorval that I was there; she signalled back that she saw me. Then the scene began between Adèle and the Vicomtesse, which is summed up in these words, "But I have done nothing to this woman!" Next comes the scene between Adèle and Antony, where Adèle repeatedly exclaims, "She is his mistress!" Well! I say it after twenty-two years have passed by,--and during those years I have composed many plays, and seen many pieces acted, and applauded many actors,--he who never saw Dorval act those two scenes, although he may have seen the whole repertory of modern drama, can have no conception how far pathos can be carried. The reader knows how this act ends; the Vicomtesse enters; Adèle, surprised in the arms of Antony, utters a cry and disappears. Behind the Vicomtesse, Antony's servant enters in his turn. He has ridden full gallop from Strassburg, to announce to his master the return of Adèle's husband. Antony dashes from the stage like a madman, or one driven desperate, crying, "Wretch! shall I arrive in time?"