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“Would that I had a bourgeois here on this terrain vague; a bourgeois I might terrify and harrow!” declaim the realistic chansonniers of the Montmartre cabarets. “‘Bourgeois,’ I would cry, ‘what do you see? Bourgeois, look well, look again, look always. Bourgeois, do you understand? It is well, wretched, cowardly Bourgeois—you tremble!’”

No less attracted by terrain vague are the frail, wistful poets of Paris, the poets (as they have been so admirably denominated) of “mists and half-moons, dead leaves and lost illusions.” On to the waste they bring Pierrot, their favourite, eternal hero. Midnight has long struck. A half-moon casts silvery shafts on to the wreckage—and on to Pierrot, who, as he stands there forlornly amidst the debris, proceeds to disclose the secret: “Pourquoi sont pâles les Pierrots....” Only the cheeks of the vulgar are rosy; for the vulgar cannot feel. But the artist is stung day after day by ironies, cruelties, bitter awakenings—and so is frail, and so is pale. How he suffers, how tragically is he disillusioned! There was a blonde... but she was capricious. There was a brune... but she, too, was fickle. There was a rousse, an auburn-haired goddess... but alas! she also was false. And Pierrot sobs. And Pierrot goes on his knees to the half-moon. And Pierrot prays. And suddenly a radiant figure appears on the waste ground, and a sweet, melodious voice murmurs: “Why sigh for the blonde? Why grieve for the brune? Why weep for the rousse? Am I not enough?” And Pierrot, looking up with his pale, tear-stained face, beholds his Muse, smiling down upon him—