Here I stopped short. I had gone as far as I could go. But there was the question of keeping my promise to Goubaux. I leapt out of my bed. It is impossible! I cried out to myself, and Goubaux said well. Richard is to be forced to take his wife, and drag her towards the window; she will defend herself; the public will not bear the sight of that struggle and it will be perfectly right ... Besides, when he lifts her up over the balcony, Richard will give the spectators a view of his wife's legs: the spectators will laugh, which is much worse than if they hissed ... Decidedly I am a fool. There must be some way out of the difficulty!... But it was not easy to find means. I racked my brains for a fortnight all in vain. Goubaux had no notion of the time it took me to compose the third act. He wrote me letter after letter. I did not wish to tell him the real cause of my delay; I made all sorts of excuses: I was busy with my rehearsals; I had gone to see my daughter at her nurse's house; I had a shooting party and all sorts of other things;--all pretexts nearly as valid as those which Pierre Schlemihl gave in excuse for not having a shadow. Finally, one fine night, I woke up with a start, crying like Archimedes Ευρηκα! and in the same costume as he, I ran, not through the streets of Syracuse, but into the corners and recesses of my bedroom to find a tinder-box. When the candles were lit, I got back into bed and took hold of my pencil and manuscript, shrugging my shoulders in disgust at myself. Good Heavens! said I, it is as simple as Christopher Columbus's egg; only, one must break the end off! The end was broken; there was no more difficulty, Jenny no longer would have to risk showing her ankles and Richard would still throw his wife out of the window. Behold the mechanism thereof! After the words: "Ils vont trouver une femme ici!" Richard ran to the door, closed it and double-locked it. Meanwhile, Jenny ran to the window and cried from the balcony, "Help! help!" Richard followed her precipitately; Jenny fell on her knees. A noise was heard on the stairs; Richard closed the two shutters of the window on himself, shutting himself out with Jenny on the balcony. A cry was heard. Richard, pale and wiping his brow, reopened the two shutters with a blow of his fist; he was alone on the balcony; Jenny had disappeared! The trick was taken. By eight o'clock next morning I was writing the last line of the third act of _Richard_, and, by nine, I was with Goubaux; by ten, he had acknowledged that the window was, indeed, Jenny's only way of exit. BOOK IV CHAPTER I