The Photoplay / A Psychological Study

f my heart was then fulfilled. Her last words, "When shall we meet again?" and my answer, "Soon!" echoed in my ears, like falsehoods which one is unwilling to confess. A foreboding said

my wife, my beautiful jail-keeper, who watched my soul day and night, guessed my secret tho

l to me. It was the fulfilment of a youthful dream which all my countrymen had dreamed, but which had been realised by me alone, to have a play of one's own performed in a Paris theatre. Now the theatre repelled me, as everything does when one

hem a long time ago, although they were too dear for my means. A pair of tongs and a packet of pure sulphur completed the apparatus of my laboratory. I kindled a smelting-furn

f carbon in what has been before considered an elementary substance. With this I believe I have solv

my victory. But, as I lie alone in bed, I feel happy, and I am sorry I have no one whom I can thank for my deliverance from the marital fetters which have been brok

o one there, and my involunt

ave persecuted me for years, and frustrate my endeavours. I avoid people, neglect society, refuse invitations, and make myself inaccessible to friends. I am surrounded by silence and loneliness. It is the solemn and terrible silence of the desert in which I defiantly challenge the unknown, in order to wrestle with him, body with body, and soul with soul. I have proved that sulphur contains carbon; now I intend to discover hydrogen a

I commit moral suicide by repudiating my wife and child in an unworthy, unpard

y wife answers with a

sorrow and care. No one visits me, and I can see no one, since I have alienated all.

ill, interrupts my scientific tasks and metaphy

ly, the atmosphere of which makes me uncomfortable because of their moral irregular

iarity of gestures and attitudes, a tone which is anything but domestic, repels and depresses me indescribably. In the middle of the orgy my sadness calls up to my inner vision a picture of

he gloomy silent Rue Delambre, which is more conducive to despair than any other street of the Quarter. I

riven by furies, I leave my glass of absinthe standing, and hasten to seek for another in the Café Fran?ois Premier on the Boulevard St. Michel. Out of the fryi

feel guiltless, and consider myself the object of an unjust persecution. The unknown powers have hindered

t the same time I am rig

ught several times blew on my face, and from t

. Anxiety about my unpaid hotel bill leaves me no peace, and I pace up and down my room like a wild beast in a cage. I eat no longer,

my countrymen, and one evening there comes the kind-hearted woman, whose Christmas dinner I had so abruptly left, who was antipath

s. She is seized with sympathy at seeing me so prostrate. Poor herself, and oppressed with daily anxieties

y on the man who has d

that there is an invisible hand which guides the irresistible logic of event

de Rennes, I get out in order to buy two white shirts. The winding-sheet for

it. It lies near the public sitting-room, where from morning to evening they smoke and play cards. The bell rings for breakfast. As I sit down at the table I find myself in a frightful company of death's-heads. Here a nose is wanting, there an eye; there the

inals and those condemned to death goes the good Mother, the Superintendent, in her severe black and white dress, and gives each of us his poisonous medicine. With a glass holding arsen

child. The kind sister takes a fancy to me, treats me li

who wears the garb of the dead, because she has never lived, is mild as resignation itself, and teaches us to smile at our sufferings as

for me permission to go out beyond the regulated limits of time. When she discovers that I am actively interested in chemistry, she takes me to the learned apothecary of the hospital. He lends me books, and invites me, when I acquaint him with my the

"Phosphorus." The author states briefly that the scientific chemist, Lockyer, has demonstrated by spectral analysis that phosphorus is not a simp

ompletely consumed remains of sulphur, and submit them to a bureau for ch

nd a letter from my wife. She laments my misfortune,

ing awakes in me the need of thankfulness. But to whom? T

ity, I ask for forgiveness, and before I am aware of it, I write again a lo

ital. When I come to the statue of St. Louis in the courtyard of the institution, I think of the Quinze-Vingt,[1] the Sorbonne, and the

ubmitted to our analysis has three properties-Colour: grey-blacky leaves marks on paper. Density: very great, greater than the average density of gr

hur conta

that of a charlatan or madman, making my family consequently thrust me out as a good-for-nothing, or Cagliostro. My opponents are pulverised! My heart beats in righteous pride; I will leave the hospit

om I should demonstrate the solution of the problem by experiment publicly. I, however, from dislike to p

s, am asked to contribute to a scientific paper, and am involved in

window. The two thieves walk up and down with their wives and children, and embrace each other

wife, which is of an icy coldness. My success has annoyed her, and she pretends that she will not believe it till I have consulted a chemical specialist. Moreover, sh

sitation I write a final crushing letter, and bid her good

Then I enter Rue Dieu. Why "Dieu," when the Republic has washed its hands of God? Then Rue Beaurepaire-a fine resort of criminals. Rue de Vaudry-is the Devil conducting me? I take no more notice of the names of the streets, wander on, turn round, find I have lost my way, and recoil from a shed which exhales an odour of raw flesh and bad vegetables, especially sauerkraut. Suspicious-looking figures brush past

et a great, coal-black gate is outlined against the sky. It seems a Cyclopean work, a gate without a

g for me as usual in the Café Neapel. I go on hurriedly, forgetting the hospital, trouble, and poverty. As I pass the Café du Cardinal, I brush by a table where someone

s, and colours my cheek with a burning blush of shame, humiliation, and rage. Six weeks ago I sat here at this table. My theatre manager sat opposite me, and called me "Dear Sir"; jou

, I recognise again that invisible Hand which scourges and chastises without my knowing its object. Does it grant me fame and at the same time deny me an honourable position in the world? Must I

thful Mother, who, without speaking many words, has taught me the way of the Cross, but a feeling of reverence, as if before something h

tal for t

to the