"Oh, monsieur, you may joke!... Rue Chauchat, monsieur, in the rue Chauchat!" Now, the rue Chauchat is next to the rue Saint-Lazare. What could prevent the cholera in leaving the rue Chauchat from passing along the rue Saint-Lazare and knocking at my own door? "If the cholera rings, do not open to it, Catherine," I resumed. "I am going to see what is happening." I took up my hat and went out. Then it was that I saw with my own eyes the spectacle of terror that I have tried to describe. I returned home, very much disinclined to write my comedy, I confess, and I wrote to Mademoiselle Dupont:-- "MA BELLE MARTINE,--I presume that when you settled the day for your performance you had reckoned without the cholera. It has just come from London and made its début two hours ago in the rue Chauchat. Its début is making such a commotion that it will, I am afraid, spoil your takings. What ought I to do about the one-act comedy?--Yours always, ALEX. DUMAS" Mademoiselle Dupont was at home, and I received the following reply by the same messenger as had taken my letter:-- "MY DEAR DUMAS,--My benefit has been on the way for such a long time that I want it done with, one way or another. Finish your play, then, I beseech you; it must take its chance.--Always yours, DUPONT" So I returned to _Le Mari de la veuve._ The play was finished in twenty-four hours, as I had promised. The principal part pleased Mademoiselle Mars, and she accepted it. Her presence in a play was a guarantee for speed. Indeed, we have already said how honest Mademoiselle Mars was in theatrical matters and with authors. She came punctually to the rehearsals, in spite of the cholera, and enraged me just as much over one act as she would have done over a five-act play. Each day she found some thing to correct; and I had to take the play home and make the correction there. This was how _Le Mari de la veuve_ was created, with that funereal background of which I have just been telling you. The play was exquisitely mounted: the five parts it contained were filled by Mademoiselle Mars, Monrose, Anaïs, Menjaud and Mademoiselle Dupont. The play was performed on the appointed day. The cholera had proved a troublesome competitor; there were not five hundred people in the theatre. The play had but a moderate success and obtained even a round of hissing. After Menjaud had been caught in a shower, he re-entered the castle shaking himself. "What weather!" he said; "I am as drenched as College wine!" A spectator hissed; no doubt some schoolmaster. The saying, though, was not mine; I had heard it said to Soulié a few days before, and had utilised it because I thought it so funny.