"Then, to the noise of these barouches, berlins and post-chaises, which increased in every direction, and tore along the roads, there succeeded a dull and continuous sound. A long file of hearses of all descriptions, from a simple black curtain converted into one (for these funeral equipages were soon insufficient for the number of guests invited), followed incessantly, at a walking pace, in a triple line, and before them yawned the jaws of a cemetery. Then, by another route, the carriages returned, empty and impatient to be refilled. All things disappear before the incessant fear of death: the Bourse was mute; the walks became solitary; the places of entertainment deserted; the theatre Porte-Saint-Martin, that king of money-makers, took 9000 francs only during the whole month of April. "One of the bomb-shells which had burst over Paris struck me. I was still laid on my bed, feverish, but convalescent when M. Harel came and sat by my bedside. The disease from which his theatre was suffering was following the reverse course from mine. M. Harel is one of those gladiators who, if not the strongest, are, at least, the most agile I know: a man of calculated cool-headedness, clever by nature, eloquent from necessity. For five years, I believe, fortune and he wrestled with one another and struggled in the lists that go by the name of the pit of a theatre; certainly, more than once, he bit the dust, but, more than once, he also floored his adversary and, each time the thing happened, the goddess did not rise except with empty pockets. Nevertheless, this time, he himself confessed she had her dagger at his throat! "With a man like M. Harel, circumstances may change from ill to good, and from good to ill ten times in one day; but, in either case, it is always a pleasure to see him because he is always amusing to listen to: Give him Mascarille and Figaro for _valets de chambre_ and, if he does not get the better of them, I wish I may be a Georges Dandin. It was, then, with the usual pleasure which his presence gave me, no matter, as I have previously said, what the position I might be in with respect to him, that I saw M. Harel come in. This time, moreover, I thought we were on friendly terms, and his visit was a real bit of good luck to a convalescent. He recounted to me, in the wittiest manner imaginable, all the tribulations the theatre was undergoing, enough to drive an ordinary man mad, and ended by saying that if my brains were as empty at that moment as his theatre he was a ruined man.