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There was talk of performing it at the Varietes in 1845; the year, however, slipped away, and it was not forthcoming. Dining with Gautier in December, at the house of Madame de Girardin, Balzac agreed with Theophile to go on with the drama in collaboration as soon as the theatres should have worked off some of their stock. Evidently, this was not done.
'Physiologic du Goût' was not published until 1825, and then anonymously, presumably because he thought its tone inconsistent with his dignity as magistrate. It would almost seem that he had a presentiment of impending death, for in the midst of his brightest 'Variétés' he has incongruously inserted a dolorous little poem, the burden of each verse being "Je vais mourir."
Without going quite so far, the actor showed himself none the less exacting. According to his ideas, Deborah, the tragedienne at the Odeon a Greek statue! had too large hands, and the fascinating Blanche Pompon at the Varietes was a mere wax doll.
Continuing our walk upon the Boulevards, it is worthy of remark how richly some of the new houses in and about the Rue Richelieu are sculptured, so as to present the appearance of a succession of palaces, we next arrive at the Boulevard Montmartre, where the influx of people is the greatest: we pass by the Passage des Panoramas but do not enter it just now, although it contains some of the handsomest shops in Paris, but it is too crowded, we prefer keeping our course on the Boulevards where we can look about us at our ease and contemplate the physiognomies of the varied groups before us; let us halt a while at the Theatre des Variétés and remark with what eagerness numbers stop to scan the programme of the entertainments for the evening, amongst them are all ages, all classes, the common soldier, porter, and servant girl, all possessing a high idea of their judgment in theatrical affairs; passing on a little further the Theatre du Gymnase arrests the observer's notice, where Bouffé has so long displayed his comic powers, which certainly in my recollection have never been surpassed, and I doubt if they ever have been equalled; there is ever a chasteness in his acting, from which he never departs, and keeps the audience in a roar of laughter without ever having recourse to grimace or buffoonery.
One evening, on October of that year, to escape the crying of the newly weaned child, Calyste, on whose forehead Sabine could not endure to see a frown, went, urged by her, to the Varietes, where a new play was to be given for the first time. The footman whose business it was to engage a stall had taken it quite near to that part of the theatre which is called the avant-scene.
I read the newspapers, and saw that there was a first night at the Varietes, and I thought you had meant to give the dinner to a collaborator. Left to myself, I gave way, I dressed to hurry out after you poor pet. "Du Bruel looked at me triumphantly, not a vestige of a recollection of his orations contra Tullia in his mind. "'Well, dearest, I have not spoken to any one of them, he said.
Marguerite, with eyes fixed into vacancy, seeing neither the speaker nor her surroundings, seeing only visions of those same poor wreckages of humanity, who had been goaded into thirst for blood, when their shrunken bodies should have been clamouring for healthy food, Marguerite thus absorbed, had totally forgotten her earlier prejudices and now completely failed to note all that was unreal, stagy, theatrical, in the oratorical declamations of the ex-actress from the Varietes.
At the Varietes they were giving the thirty-fourth performance of the Blonde Venus. The first act had just finished, and in the greenroom Simonne, dressed as the little laundress, was standing in front of a console table, surmounted by a looking glass and situated between the two corner doors which opened obliquely on the end of the dressing-room passage.
"We went to the Varietes after dinner; but before we left the house I slipped into du Bruel's room, and on a shelf among a pile of waste papers found the copy of the Petites-Affiches, in which, agreeably to the reformed law, notice of the purchase of the house was inserted.
Two days later, of a Monday evening, having dined for the last time at the Cafe Anglais, and seen the two first pieces at the Varietes, he went, at ten o'clock, to sleep for the first time in the rue Chanoinesse, where Manon conducted him to his room. Solitude has charms comparable only to those of savage life, which no European has ever really abandoned after once tasting them.
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