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THE CONFESSION OF A FOOL 193
in writing comedies, and was angry with me. I begged
her to await results, and not condemn my work prema-
turely as waste of time. But she would have none of
these Chinese researches which brought in no money. A
new Xanthippe, she severely tried my Socratic patience
by reiterating that I was frittering away her dowry—her
dowry !
My life was a strange mingling of sweetness and
bitterness, and one of my greatest worries was Marie’s
theatrical career. In March it was rumoured that the
company of the Royal Theatre would be reduced at the
end of May, the period when contracts were renewed.
This gave rise to fresh floods of tears during the next
three months, in addition to the usual every-day griev-
ances. The house was overrun by all the failures from
the Royal Theatre. My soul, broadened and uplifted by
the knowledge I had acquired, and the growth and
development of my talent, rebelled against the presence
of these unfit ones, these incapables who possessed no
culture, who were detestable on account of their vanity,
their ceaseless flow of banalities, uttered in the slang of
the theatre, which they called new truths.
I became so sick of the torture of their tittle-tattle
that I begged to be in future excused from my wife’s
parties. I urged her to cut her connection with those
mental lepers, those disqualified ones, whose presence must
of necessity depress us and rob us of our courage.
’’Aristocrat! "’
she sneered.
" Aristocrat, if you like, but aristocrat in the true sense
of the word," I replied; "for I yearn for the summits
of genius, not for the mole-hills of the titled aristocracy.
Nevertheless, I suffer all the sorrows of the disinherited."
When I ask myself to-day how I could have lived for
years the slave of a woman who treated me disgracefully,
who shamelessly robbed me in company of her friends
o
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