“People were bound to comment on the fact when a prominent man like Sarcey came night after night to the theatre and insisted on seeing me home. Why, he used to speak of me to his friends as his protégée. What actually happened was that my art and my determination to succeed triumphed over his enmity, and, finding that he could not hamper my career, he did his best to make people think he was responsible for it.
“He was subject to fits of extreme jealousy, and would carry on for hours if I so much as accepted another man’s invitation to dinner. He acted as though he owned me, and when things got to this pass I decided to demonstrate to him that he did not.”
She accomplished this very effectually by yielding to the supplications of Mounet-Sully.
When Sarah re-entered the Comédie Française, Mounet-Sully was the reigning power there. His fame was widespread; he was probably not only the finest but also the handsomest actor on the European stage.
Of Mounet-Sully it was written: “He is as handsome as a god, like a hero of Greek tragedy,” and it was of these tragedies that he was incomparably the greatest interpreter of his epoch.
There is reason to believe that Sarah’s affair with Sully was secret for many months during which she and Sarcey, who suspected nothing at the time, remained friends.
Later, however, he began to hear gossip linking their names, and once he overheard Sarah address Mounet-Sully by the familiar “tu.” This may or may not have been significant, for artists of the French stage generally use the second person singular in talking among themselves.
Mounet-Sully also was young, and of a jealous temperament. There came a day when he could no longer bear the covert sneers of the critic. Coming down from his dressing-room after a rehearsal, he found Sarcey striding backwards and forwards on the stage.
“What are you doing here?” he shouted. “Do not deny it—you are waiting for Sarah!”
