vi 
PREFACE 
au Champagne by themselves ;  they must be led up to 
subtly and emphatically.  The jewel needs a setting.  
My preliminary studies for this play have consequently 
cost me a great deal of money, incredible toil and 
thought, and not a little indignation. 
I may as well confess it at once ;  I tried to dodge the 
artistic Boyg by drinking Mandarinette ;  and I fear that 
this shameful capitulation has left manifest traces 
throughout much of the play. 
But I cannot blame myself too severely ;  I made 
unwearied efforts.  At first I tried to obtain the proper 
degree of perfection on the basis of monotone—I 
ordered a dinner harmonized from gold to black, ad-
mitting no other ingredient.  The result was lament-
able, a mere Rembrandt. 
I tried, too, the assemblage of Monticelli colours, 
framing the obsidian of the truffle in its mirrored pool 
of brown diamond within Homard Cardinal on the 
vanguard and Pêches Richeliseu on the rearguard, as 
is only too evident from nearly the whole of the 
Second Act. 
And then in an evil hour, inauspicious in heaven, I 
took to the Salade Parisienne at the Rat Mort.  I have 
had the strength of mind to destroy the corresponding 
manuscript.