Page:The life and writings of Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) (IA lifewritingsofal00spurrich).pdf/105

 house (No. 22 Rue de Rivoli), his rooms plainly furnished with a big white-wood table, a sofa, two chairs, a few books on the mantelpiece, and an iron bedstead, where he slept for a few hours when the evening's work was prolonged into the night. "It was there," adds the son, addressing his father in apostrophe, "that you sought refuge, to be undisturbed by the importunate, and all the parasites who incessantly besieged that door which you did not close half often enough. Clothed in your pantalons à pied and shirt sleeves, your arms bare to the shoulder, your collar unfastened, you sat down to work at seven in the morning and you kept at it until seven at night, when I came to dine with you.

"Sometimes I found your lunch untouched, on the little table by your side, where the servant had placed it. You had forgotten to eat it. Then, whilst we dined and dined well, on the dishes which you yourself had prepared, you recounted to me, by way of relaxation, all that your characters had done during the day, and rejoiced in the thought of what they were going to do, on the morrow. This lasted for some months.

"Ah, those happy days! We were both of an age: you were forty-two, and I was twenty!"

Fiorentino declares that Dumas, being accustomed to fill his twenty sheets a day, finished "Monte