Next day, instead of opening the gates of life to her lover, Edith takes the king her betrothal ring. The king at first thinks she is the ghost of the woman whom he loved; then, by degrees, he is satisfied; he joyously touches the warm and living hand which he had touched when it was dead and cold; he renews to the Edith full of life the offers he had made to the Edith asleep in the tomb. The young girl turns giddy and needs to recollect all her promised ambitions. The key of the vault where her lover lies burns like red-hot iron. She goes to the window and asks if the river which flows at the foot of the palace is very deep. "It is a gulf which swallows up all that is thrown into it." Edith turns her head aside, and with a smothered cry lets the key fall into it, saying-- "Que pour l'éternité. L'abime l'engloutisse, ou le courant l'entraîne! LE ROI. Que faites-vous, Édith? ÉDITH. Moi, rien ... je me fais reine!" I had pondered over this subject for two years, and had worked for something like three to four months at the plan of this fine work. I was reasonably well satisfied with it, not because of its merit, but on account of the trouble it had cost me: in other words, I believed I had achieved a masterpiece. So, for the first time in my life--and also for the last--I invited two or three friends to come to hear the reading of it which I had to give before the Théâtre-Français. I had a splendid audience. My delusion lasted to the end of the first act; but I must say it went no further. At the end of that act, I already felt that my _chef d'œuvre_ had not caught on with the public. By the second act, it was still colder. By the third, it was frigid! One of the greatest punishments that can be imposed on an author, in expiation of his plays, is to read before a committee that has come with benevolent intentions, and to feel these intentions little by little fading away, turning yellow, falling at the breath of boredom, as autumn leaves fall under the killing winds of winter. Ah! what would one not give, at such a moment, not to have to go on to the finish, but to roll up one's manuscript, make one's bow and depart! But no such fate! In spite of the service the author would render to his audience, he is condemned to read and the audience to hear. He must go to the very end! He must descend the staircase of this tomb step by step, colder than the staircase of death itself! This was, I repeat, the first time the thing had happened to me; a just punishment for my pride. I rose immediately after the last hemistich and went out, leaving _Édith aux longs cheveux_ on the committee table. I felt that, this time, it was not a narcotic she had taken, like Juliet, but a fine, good poison she had swallowed, like Romeo. However, I had not the courage to go away without an answer. So I waited for it in the manager's office. It was Mademoiselle Mars herself who brought it me. Poor Mademoiselle