Note 54 — Chapter 3

Letters from the Avenue Marigny. ‘Why did you spoil your Chiffonnier by sticking on a happy ending which spoils the moral of the play as well as its artistic unity?’ I once asked Pyat. ‘Because,’ he answered, ‘if I had distressed the Parisians by the gloomy fate of the old man and the girl, nobody would have come to a second performance.’—(Author’s Note.)