?" asked Romilly respectfully.

"No, but I should like to be. I regard faith as the most precious
possession which a man can enjoy in this world. At Saint-Bartholome, I
go to Mass every Sunday and feast day, and I have never once listened to
the exposition of the Gospel by the _cure_ without saying to myself: 'I
would give all I possess, my house, my acres, my woods, to be as stupid
as that animal there.'"

Michel, the young painter with the mystic's beard, was saying to Roget,
the scene painter:

"That poor Chevalier was a man with ideas. But they were not all good
ones. One evening, he walked into the _brasserie_ radiant and
transfigured, sat himself beside us, and twirling his old felt hat
between his long red fingers, he cried: 'I have discovered the true
manner of acting tragedy. Hitherto no one has realized how to act
tragedy, no one, you understand!' And he told us what his discovery was.
'I've just come from the Chamber. They made me climb up to the
amphitheatre. I could see the Deputies swarming like black insects at
the bottom of a pit. Suddenly a stumpy little man mounted the tribune.
He looked as if he were carrying a sack of coals on his back. He threw
out his arms and clenched his fists. By Jove, he was comical! He had a
Southern accent, and his delivery was full of defects. He spoke of the
workers, of the proletariat, of social justice. It was magnificent; his
voice, his gestures gripped one's very bowels; the applause nearly
brought the house down. I said to myself "What he is doing, I'll do on
the stage, and I'll do it better. I, a comic actor, will play tragedy.
Great tragedy parts, if they are to produce their true effect, ought to
be played by a comedian, but he must have a soul."' The poor fellow
actually thought that he had imagined a new form of art. 'You'll see,'
he said."

At the corner of the Boulevard Saint-Michel, a journalist came up to
Meunier, and asked him:

"Is it true that Robert de Ligny was at one time madly in love with
Fagette?"

"If he's in love with her, he hasn't been so long. Only a fortnight ago
he asked me, in the theatre, 'Who is that little fair-haired woman?' and
he pointed to Fagette."

"I cannot understand," said the chronicler of an evening paper to a
chronicler of a morning paper, "what can be the origin of our mania for
calumniating humanity. I am amazed, on the other hand, by the number of
decent people I come across. It is enough to make one incline to the