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THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL 165
melodrama ;
great passions cannot be expressed in the
same way as the whims and witticisms of a drawing-room
conversation.
But this distinction was too subtle for a mediocre brain,
which could only generalise and assume that because a
certain thing happened in one case, it must infallibly
become the rule and happen in all others.
On the day before her appearance Marie showed me
her dresses. In spite of my opposition and entreaties
she had chosen a dull grey material, most unbecoming to
her because it gave her complexion an ashen hue. Her
only reply had been a curt repulse and the truly feminine
argument
—
" But Mrs. X., the great tragedienne, created the part
in a grey dress !"
"True, but Mrs. X. is not fair like you! And what
suits a dark woman doesn’t always suit a fair one."
She had not been able to see my point and had only
been angry with me.
I had prophesied a fiasco, and her second appearance
really was a dead failure.
The tears, the reproaches, the insults even which
followed !
As misfortune would have it, a week later the great
actress appeared in the same part, in a special perform-
ance, and received cart-loads of flowers.
Of course Marie was furious with me and made me
responsible for her failure, simply because I had pro-
phesied it ; the grief and disappointment brought her still
nearer to the Baron ; it drew them together Avith the
sympathy which always unites inferior characters.
I, the man of letters, the playwright, the dramatic
critic, at home in all the literatures, through my work
and position at the library in correspondence with the
finest intellects of the world, I was cast aside like a worn-
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