not depend on us
alone. If the play is bad and falls flat, all that we have put into it,
our work, our talent, a bit of our own life, collapses with it. And the
number of 'frosts' I've seen! How often the play has fallen under me
like an old hack, and has chucked me into the gutter! Ah, if one were
punished only for one's own sins!"

"My dear Romilly," replied Meunier sharply, "do you imagine that the
fate of dramatic authors like myself does not depend as much upon the
actors as upon ourselves? Do you think it never happens that actors, by
their carelessness or clumsiness, ruin a work which was meant to reach
the heights? And do not we also, like Caesar's legionary, become seized
with dismay and anguish at the thought that our fate is not assured by
our own valour, but that it depends on those who fight beside us?"

"Such is life," observed Constantin Marc. "In every undertaking,
everywhere and always, we pay for the faults of others."

"That is only too true," resumed Meunier, who had just seen his lyric
drama, _Pandolphe et Clarimonde_, come hopelessly to grief. "But the
iniquity of it disgusts us."

"It should not disgust us in the least," replied Constantin Marc. "There
is a sacred law which governs the world, which we are forced to obey,
which we are proud to worship. It is injustice, holy injustice, august
injustice. It is everywhere blessed under the name of happiness,
fortune, genius and grace. It is a weakness not to acknowledge it and to
venerate it under its true name."

"That's rather weird, what you have just said!" remarked the gentle
Meunier.

"Think it over," resumed Constantin Marc. "You, too, belong yourself to
the party of injustice, for you are striving for distinction, and you
very reasonably want to throttle your competitors, a natural, unjust and
legitimate desire. Do you know of anything more stupid or more odious
than the sort of people we have seen demanding justice? Public opinion,
which is not, however, remarkable for its intelligence, and common
sense, which nevertheless is not a superior sense, have felt that they
constituted the precise contrary of nature, society and life."

"Quite so," said Meunier, "but justice----"

"Justice is nothing but the dream of a few simpletons. Injustice is the
thought of God Himself. The doctrine of original sin would alone
suffice to make me a Christian, while the doctrine of grace embodies all
truths divine and human."

"Then are you a believer