From Edmond Gondinet.
My dear friend:
What is my way of working? It is deplorable. Do not recommend it to any
one. When the idea for a play occurs to me, I never ask myself whether
it will be possible to make a masterpiece out of it; I ask whether the
subject will be amusing to treat. A little pleasure in this life tempts
me a great deal more than a bust, even of marble, after I am gone. With
such sentiments one never accomplishes anything great.
Besides, I have the capital defect for a man of the theater of never
being able to beat it into my head that the public will be interested in
the marriage of Arthur and Colombe; and nevertheless that is the key to
the whole situation. You simply must suppose the public a trifle
naïf,--and be so yourself.
I should be so willingly, but I can't bring myself to admit that others
are.
For a long time I imagined that the details, if they were ingenious,
would please the public as much as an intrigue of which the ultimate
result is usually given in the first scene. I was absolutely wrong, and
I have suffered for it more than once. But at my age one doesn't reform.
When I have drawn up the plan, I no longer want to write the piece. You
see that I am a detestable collaborator. Say so, if you speak to me, but
don't hold me up as a model.
Edmond Gondinet.
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