"I haven't got more than two hundred lines.

I wanted to give the part up.

It's too bad to make me play that fellow Saint-Firmin; why, it's a regular failure! And then what a style it's written in, my dears! It'll fall dead flat, you may be sure." But just then Simonne, who had been chatting with Father Barillot, came back breathless and announced: "By the by, talking of Nana, she's in the house." "Where, where ?" asked Clarisse briskly, getting up to look for her.
The news spread at once, and everyone craned forward.

The rehearsal was, as it were, momentarily interrupted.

But Bordenave emerged from his quiescent condition, shouting: "What's up, eh?
Finish the act, I say.