That Sarah returned his love is a fact too well known to need confirmation here, but I have always doubted whether she gave to Pierre the full and sincere depth of the passion he brought to her. Sarah’s was a nature too complex to harbour any deep feeling for long.
There is also the indisputable fact that at this moment she was living solely for the stage, the animating force within her being a determination that her baby son should never lack for money or advantages. Neither has he, throughout his long life.
Life at the Odéon was toil fierce and unremitting, but Sarah loved it. She would wake at nine o’clock and read over her parts, both in bed and while she was dressing. At eleven o’clock, and often again in the afternoon, there were rehearsals of plays quite different from the one that was to be given at night.
Her evident desire to work, combined with the glorious quality of her voice, which was already becoming renowned among playgoers, brought even the manager, Chilly, round to her side. Reliability and hard work were his two fetishes. He could not forgive Sarah her thin legs, but he was madly enthusiastic over her voice.
“Oh! if you could only act!” he said to her on more than one occasion.
Fine acting is not precisely a gift of the gods; it is the ultimate result of a willingness to acquire technique by constant attention to petty details. No actor ever became great over-night who had not spent weary months in the acquisition of technique.
Now, three principal acquirements go to make up stage technique. First, there is what is known as stage presence, or the ability to lose one’s own individuality in the part one is playing. Secondly, there is the speaking voice, which should be so perfected that a whisper may carry drama, pathos or humour to the topmost gallery and be understood. Thirdly, there is memory.
Sarah had the voice and she certainly had a marvellous memory. She could take the book of a new part at night and return on the following afternoon with the rôle committed to memory. Once she had learned it, Sarah never forgot a part, even though she might be playing two different pieces, afternoon and night.
When Berton wrote Zaza, the play for which he is best known in England, she went over it with him, taking a whole night to do it. The next day Berton was to read it to an audience of managers and producers. While he was reading the third act, Sarah objected to his way of interpreting one of the parts.
“It should go like this,” she said—and forthwith she recited for fifteen minutes words which she had only read once. On comparison with the book it was found that she had not made a single mistake.