Page:Calvary mirbeau.djvu/120

114 off from view by a fan, I would say to myself: "That's Juliette!" And each time it was not Juliette at all. The play amused me; I laughed heartily at the flat jokes which constituted the essence of the piece: I enjoyed all this perverse ineptitude, this vulgar coarseness and really found in it a quality of irony which did not lack literary merit. At the love scenes I grew sentimental. During the last intermission I met a young man whom I scarcely knew. Glad of the opportunity to pour out the banalities which had accumulated in me and were pressing for an outlet, I clung to him.

"An amazing thing, isn't it?" he said to me. "It is stunning, eh?"

"Yes, it isn't bad!"

"Not bad! Not bad! . . . Why that is a masterpiece, an astounding masterpiece! What I especially like is the second act. There is a situation for you, not that . . . a tense situation! Why it is high comedy, you know! And the gowns! And that Judic, ah! that Judic! . . ."

He struck his thigh and clicked his tongue:

"It got me all excited, my dear! It's astonishing!"

We thus discussed the merits of the various acts, scenes and actors.

When we were parting:

"Tell me," I asked him, "do you happen to know a certain Juliette Roux?"

"Wait now! Oh, perfectly well! A little brunette, very 'chic'? No, I got mixed up. Wait now! Juliette Roux! Don't know her."

An hour later I was seated at a table with a glass of soda water in front of me, in the cafe de la Paix where, after the theatre, used to assemble the most beautiful representatives of the fashionable world. A great many women came in and out, insolent, loud-mouthed, their