X.
What! he, . . . the light sport of his frivolous ease!
Was he, too, a prey to a mortal disease?
My friend, hear a parable: ponder it well:
For a moral there is in the tale that I tell.
One evening I sat in the Palais Royal,
And there, while I laugh'd at Grassot and Arnal,
My eye fell on the face of a man at my side;
Every time that he laugh'd I observed that he sigh'd,
As though vex'd to be pleased. I remark'd that he sat
Ill at ease on his seat, and kept twirling his hat
In his hand, with a look of unquiet abstraction.
I inquired the cause of his dissatisfaction.
"Sir," he said, "if what vexes me here you would know,
Learn that, passing this way some few half-hours ago,
I walk'd into the Francais, to look at Rachel.
(Sir, that woman in Phedre is a miracle!)--Well,
I ask'd for a box: they were occupied all:
For a seat in the balcony: all taken! a stall:
Taken too: the whole house was as full as could be,--
Not a hole for a rat! I had just time to see
The lady I love tete-a-tete with a friend
In a box out of reach at the opposite end:
Then the crowd push'd me out. What was left me to do?
I tried for the tragedy . . . que voulez-vous?
Every place for the tragedy book'd! . . . mon ami.
The farce was close by: . . . at the farce me voici.
The piece is a new one: and Grassot plays well:
There is drollery, too, in that fellow Ravel:
And Hyacinth's nose is superb: . . . yet I meant
My evening elsewhere, and not thus to have spent.
Pages:
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140