Twenty minutes later I received a note from Mademoiselle Dupont telling me she had obtained a respite of twelve days, and asking me to make a part in it for Mademoiselle Mars. I had not been on very friendly terms with Mademoiselle Mars since _Antony,_ and she had not taken the trouble to make it up with me. Now I had one friend, a man of infinite cleverness, head or second in command at the Home Offices,--a friend who has since made his name in the Government. He was called, and happily still calls himself, Eugène Durieu. I had met him two or three times during the past year, and every time he had given me the subject for a play, either in one act, or two or in three. But I do not know why we had never yet settled anything. I wrote to him and he came to me. "Let us look over your subjects," I said; "I want a play in one act for Mademoiselle Dupont's benefit"-- "Are you crazy? She is billed for next Tuesday!" "It is put off for a week." "And you think a play could be written, read, distributed, learned and played between now and then?" "I will do my part." "Really." "A day to write the play, one to get it re-copied, one for reading it; there will still be seven days for the rehearsals; a luxurious allowance!" Eugène Durieu recognised the correctness of the calculation and gave me the benefit of his ideas. We thought of the subject of _Le Mari de la veuve_; but the plan was a long way from completion. "Listen!" I said to Durieu, "it is noon; I have business until five o'clock. Anicet Bourgeois wishes to have his turn at the Théâtre-Français; why, I don't know. Some whim of his! Go and find him for me; settle the outlines of the drama with him, return together at half-past four and we will dine together. In the evening we will arrange the numbering of the scenes; I can set to work on the play to-night or to-morrow morning, and, in any case, at whatever time I start upon it, it shall be finished twenty-four hours later." Durieu left at a run. I returned at five, as I had said, and found my two collaborators at the task. The foundations were not yet laid; I came to the rescue. They left me at midnight, leaving me a number of scenes nearly completed. The next day, as I had promised, I set to work. I was at my third or fourth scene when the chambermaid entered, looking terrified and as pale as death. "Ah! Monsieur! Monsieur! Monsieur!" she said. "Well, what is the matter, Catherine?" "Ah! Monsieur it is ... My God! My God!" "What?" "It is the cholera ... Ah! Monsieur, I have the cramp!" "The cholera is in Paris?" "Yes, monsieur, it is, the scoundrel!" "_Diable!_ Are you sure what you say is true?" "A man has just died in the rue Chauchat, monsieur. He had only been dead a quarter of an hour, and he is already as black as a nigger!" "How did they treat him?" "By rubbing, monsieur; but it was no use ... Black, monsieur--quite black!" "Perhaps they rubbed him with a blacking-brush."