At length, when Chantecler appears, we perceive that there is something wrong with the Cock. “Does not my forest please you?” asks the Hen Pheasant tenderly. “Oh yes,” replies Chantecler half-heartedly. The fact is, he pines after the farm-yard. Every night in the forest he telephones to the Blackbird, through the flower of the bindweed, for news of his old foster-mother, the hens, the chicks, the dog Patou. Then the Hen Pheasant is jealous of his love for the sun. Cruelly, she has insisted that he is to crow only once every day. But it is the Hen Pheasant’s design to make Chantecler forget the dawn. He, of the farm-yard, has never heard the song of the nightingale. So glorious are her notes that Chantecler, the poet, the idealist, will be enraptured by them—and lose count of time. And the nightingale sings; and Chantecler, enthralled, listens attentively—and as he stands there, spellbound, beneath the nightingale’s tree,—_the sun rises and lights up the forest_. A peal of mocking laughter betrays the presence of the Blackbird. So it is not the imperious “Cocorico” who summons the sun! So the day breaks without Chantecler’s shrill crow! At first the Cock refuses to admit it: “That is the sun I summoned yesterday.” But when his illusions are gone he returns, humbled but not despairing, to the farm-yard. If he has not the supreme power to create the day, at least he can herald it. When Chantecler has vanished, the Hen Pheasant, out of love for the Cock, deliberately flies into a trap set by the owner of the poultry yard. She remembers Chantecler having described the farmer as an admirable man: Car le propriétaire est un végétarien. C’est un homme étonnant. Il adore les bêtes. Il leur donne des noms qu’il prend dans les poètes. So the farmer, after releasing the Hen Pheasant from the trap, will restore her to Chantecler. More and more golden becomes the forest. A strident “Cocorico” from the distance announces Chantecler’s return to the yard. When footsteps are heard, the birds stop singing. And the curtain falls. It falls on a _chef-d’œuvre_. X AFTER _CHANTECLER_ More than a fortnight has passed since I witnessed the dress rehearsal of _Chantecler_: and what an odd, what an exhausting fortnight it has been! First of all dreams—or rather nightmares. Strangely, preposterously, I am majestic, cock-crowing “Chantecler” himself. A few minutes later, with wild, delirious rapidity, I turn into the Blackbird. M. Rostand’s Blackbird can hop in and out of his cage, and mingle with the hens, the ducks, the fluffy little chicks, and the other feathered creatures in the farm-yard; but I—am a prisoner in my cage—no one heeds my cries, no one releases me, and to add to my panic huge owls with shining eyes gather around my cage and hoot lugubriously at me.