"Will you kindly give yourself the trouble to send the box to M. Delille, Friedrich strasse 30?"
Ah ha! _Le voilà!_ There was my man. Strange I had not thought of him.
I had a season ticket at the French theatre for the purpose of learning French, and I had been as much entertained as instructed (I mean instructed in the language). Every one knows a Frenchman can infuse airy elegance into a button, bestow a marketable value upon a straw, breathe _esprit_ into a feather, and make ten dishes out of a nettle-top. So the poet can transform any incident into an attractive vaudeville. The tender _situation dramatique_, the humorous _coup de théâtre_, _the jeu d'esprit_ sparkling up into music, the elevated sentiment, the merciless exposure of vice and folly, the purest and noblest morality, largely mixed with an ostentatious ridicule of every sacred truth, and an absolute disregard of every principle of decency and duty, give strange glimpses into French social life.
As a school for the French student, however, the theatre is a useful institution. For French has got to be learned somehow or other. A dancing master of my acquaintance used always to commence his course by a short address to his class in which he remarked: "Mesdemoiselles! La chose la plus importante du monde c'est la danse!" (the most important thing in the world is dancing.) Perhaps he was right. In that case I must add that the next most important thing in the world is the French language; at least to a foreigner on the continent of Europe. Without that you do not know anything. You are a straw man. You are a deaf and dumb creature. Ladies gaze at you with compassion, gentlemen with contempt, children with wonder, while waiters quiz you, cheat you, and make the imaginary mill behind your back.
Impressed with the inconvenience of this position, I had long ago commenced a siege of the French language. I studied it _a fond_. I looked into every _y_ and _en_. I had attended the French theatre as a school, and profited by the performances. The company was excellent, particularly one young girl, Mlle. Fontaine. Her playing was unsurpassable. She knew always when to go on and when to stop. Perfect simplicity, a taste never at fault, delightful humor, a high tragic power; to these add a lovely face, a beautiful form, grace in every movement, a voice just as sweet as a voice could be, and you have a dim idea of Mlle. Fontaine. In her private life, moreover, she enjoyed the reputation of being without reproach. The whole world repeated of her the old saying: "Elle n'a qu'un défaut, celui de mettre de l'esprit partout!" (She has but one fault: she touches nothing without importing to it a charm of her own.)