A wish to taste on one’s own account the sentiments one has tried so often to depict arises. I cannot explain that to you, but without a doubt I was born for the stage, where I cannot play a part without almost becoming that person I represent, and when I have to say to another character 'I feel that I love you.’ you don’t know how I sometimes desire to say this sweet caressing phrase on my own account.” “Alas!” I answered her when she was silent, “that is our story to every one. We read of this feeling in books. There is something contagious in a poet’s suffering. We imitate them unconsciously, and we are sincere in this imitation. All this once more proves that the heart is a very complicated machine.” “More complicated than you think,” she said with a knowing smile, “when it concerns a girl who lives as I lived. I have told you that I was madly enthusiastic over my art. Why did I decide, in my own poor head, that this art is not compatible with the middle-class respectability of a regular existence, and that prosaic and monotonous virtue is the enemy of talent? I don’t know how to explain it to you, but it is like this. I was convinced that no one could be a great artiste without passion. Even now I don’t think I was wrong. This evening, for example, I acted my last scene as I have never done before. There was nervousness in all my words and gestures. I gave myself up to my part madly! Why? Because I had seen Jacques leave your box and I did not understand. If you only knew what anguish I suffered at the moment I looked at that frightful Madam de Bonnivet’s box! How I hate that woman! She is my bad genius and that of Jacques as well. You see, if she had left the theatre before the end of the play with her fool of a husband, I should have thought that she and Jacques had gone away together; I should have fallen down on the stage. Forgive me, I will go on with my story if it does not weary you. All these romantic, confused and vague sentiments which moved in me while I worked hard at my studies on leaving the Conservatoire, are summed up in a dream at which I beg you not to laugh too much. Yes, all the sorrows and joys of love, all the emotions which must exalt the artiste and make me into a rival of Rachel, Desclée, Sarah Bernhardt and Julia Bartet, I desired to feel for some one whom they would exalt while they exalted me, for a man of genius whom I would inspire in inspiring myself, and who would write sublime plays which I should afterwards act with a genius equal to his own. How difficult it is to clearly describe what one feels! I am searching for a name in the history of the theatre which will explain to you these chimeras more clearly than my poor gossip.” “You would have liked to be a Champmeslé; to meet Racine and create for him '_Phédre_’ after posing to him,” I interrupted.