Page:The Yellow Book - 02.djvu/84

74 horrors that surround you. As for me, I continue to reproach myself with my inaction, for in truth my conscience is anything but at rest; but you know well what keeps me here. We really cannot be said to eat any longer. Suzanne has just brought in some horse bones, which I believe are to form our meal. Geneviève dreams nightly of chickens and lobsters."

Not till the following year, during the days of the Commune, do we find him at le Vésinet. Then he writes (also to Guiraud): "Here we are without half our things, without our books, with out anything in fact, and absolutely there are no means of getting into Paris. . . . . So, dear friend, if you have any news, do, I pray you, let us have it. I read the Versailles papers, but they tell their wretched readers (and expect them to believe it) that France is 'trés tranquille', Paris alone excepted (sic). The day before yesterday was anything but tranquil. For twelve hours there was nothing but a continuous cannonade. . . . . But we are safe enough, for although the Prussian patrols continue to increase in number we are not inconvenienced by them, and they will not, in all probability, occupy le Vésinet. But it seems quite impossible to say how all this is going to end. I am absolutely discouraged, and what is more, I fear, dear friend, there is worse trouble ahead of us. I am off now to the village to look at a piano; I must work and try to forget it all."

He finished "Djamileh" at le Vésinet. It was produced at the Opéra Comique in May of 1872. Gallet tells us that he did not write the book specially for Bizet. Under the title of "Namouna," it had been given by M. du Locle to Jules Duprato, a musician and a "prix de Rome." But Duprato paressait agreablement, and never got much further with it than the composition of a certain air de danse to the verses commencing: "Indolente, grave et lente," which are to be found also in Bizet's Rh