;⁠—not I,” cried De Vauversin, striking the table with his hand. “If anyone is a failure in the world, is it not I? I had an art, in which I have done things well⁠—as well as some⁠—better perhaps than others; and now it is closed against me. I must go about the country gathering coppers and singing nonsense. Do you think I regret my life? Do you think I would rather be a fat burgess, like a calf? Not I! I have had moments when I have been applauded on the boards: I think nothing of that; but I have known in my own mind sometimes, when I had not a clap from the whole house, that I had found a true intonation, or an exact and speaking gesture; and then, messieurs, I have known what pleasure was, what it was to do a thing well, what it was to be an artist. And to know what art is, is to have an interest forever, such as no burgess can find in his petty concerns. Tenez, messieurs, je vais vous le dire ⁠—it is like a religion.”