the Beresina."

All at once he uttered a cry of joy from the depths of his bear-skin
breast, and jumped up so suddenly as to overturn some of his ink on its
snowy fur. He had an idea!

Rodolphe drew from beneath his bed a considerable mass of papers, among
which were a dozen huge manuscripts of his famous drama, "The Avenger."
This drama, on which he had spent two years, had been made, unmade, and
remade so often that all the copies together weighed fully fifteen
pounds. He put the last version on one side, and dragged the others
towards the fireplace.

"I was sure that with patience I should dispose of it somehow," he
exclaimed. "What a pretty fagot! If I could have foreseen what would
happen, I could have written a prologue, and then I should have more
fuel tonight. But one can't foresee everything." He lit some leaves of
the manuscript, in the flame of which he thawed his hands. In five
minutes the first act of "The Avenger" was over, and Rodolphe had
written three verses of his epitaph.

It would be impossible to describe the astonishment of the four winds
when they felt fire in the chimney.

"It's an illusion," quoth Boreas, as he amused himself by brushing back
the hair of Rodolphe's bear skin.

"Let's blow down the pipe," suggested another wind, "and make the
chimney smoke." But just as they were about to plague the poor poet, the
south wind perceived Monsieur Arago at a window of the Observatory
threatening them with his finger; so they all made off, for fear of
being put under arrest. Meanwhile the second act of "The Avenger" was
going off with immense success, and Rodolphe had written ten lines. But
he only achieved two during the third act.

"I always thought that third act too short," said Rodolphe, "luckily the
next one will take longer; there are twenty three scenes in it,
including the great one of the throne." As the last flourish of the
throne scene went up the chimney in fiery flakes, Rodolphe had only
three couplets more to write. "Now for the last act. This is all
monologue. It may last five minutes." The catastrophe flashed and
smouldered, and Rodolphe in a magnificent transport of poetry had
enshrined in lyric stanzas the last words of the illustrious deceased.
"There is enough left for a second representation," said he, pushing the
remainder of the manuscript under his bed.

At eight o'clock next evening, Mademoiselle Angela entered the ballroom;
in her hand was a splendid nosegay of wh