My poor skeleton, you will do well not to show your horrible Jewish nose at the opening ceremony the day after to-morrow. I fear that it would serve as a target for all the potatoes that are now being cooked specially for you in your kind city of Paris. Have some paragraphs put in the papers to the effect that you have been spitting blood and remain in bed and think over the consequences of excessive advertisement.
A Subscriber
Perrin pushed the letter away from him in disgust.
“Here are two more,” I said, “but they are so coarse that I will spare you. I shall go to the opening ceremony.”
“Good!” replied Perrin. “They are rehearsing to-morrow, shall you come?”
“I shall come,” I answered.
The next day at the rehearsal the artistes, men and women, did not care about going on to the stage to make their bow with me. I must say, though, that they all nevertheless showed much good grace. But I declared that I wished to go on alone, although it was against the rule, but I thought I ought to face the ill humor and the cabal alone.
The house was crowded when the curtain rose. The ceremony commenced in the midst of “Bravos!” The public was delighted to see its beloved artistes again. They advanced two by two, one on the right and the other on the left, holding the palm and the crown to place on the pedestal of Molière’s bust. My turn came and I advanced alone. I felt that I was pale and then livid, with a will that was determined to conquer. I went forward slowly toward the footlights, but instead of bowing as my comrades had done I stood up erect and gazed with my two eyes into all the eyes turning toward me. I had been warned of the battle and did not wish to provoke it, but I would not fly from it. I waited a second and felt the thrill and the emotion that ran through the house, and then, suddenly stirred by an impulse of generous kindliness, the whole house burst into wild applause and shouts. The public, so beloved and so loving, was intoxicated with joy. That was certainly one of the finest triumphs of my whole career. Some of the artistes were very delighted, especially the women, for there is one thing to remark with regard to our art, the men are more jealous of the women than the women are among themselves. I have met with many enemies among the men comedians and with very few among the women. I think that the dramatic art is essentially feminine. To paint one’s face, to hide one’s real feelings, to try to please and to endeavor to attract attention, these are all faults for which we blame women and for which great indulgence is shown. These same defects seem odious in a man. And yet the actor must endeavor to be as attractive as possible, even if he is obliged to have recourse to paint and to false beard and hair. He may be a Republican and he must uphold with warmth and conviction royalist theories. He may be a Conservative and must maintain anarchist principles, if such be the good pleasure of the author.
At the Théâtre Français poor Maubant was a most advanced Radical and his stature and handsome face doomed him to play the parts of kings, emperors, and tyrants. As long as the rehearsals went on, Charlemagne or Cæsar could be heard swearing at tyrants, cursing the conquerors, and claiming the hardest punishments for them. I thoroughly enjoyed this struggle between the man and the actor. Perhaps this perpetual abstraction from himself gives the comedian a more feminine nature. However that may be, it is certain that the actor is jealous of the actress. The courtesy of the well-educated man vanishes before the footlights, and the comedian, who in private life would render a service to a woman in any difficulty, will pick a quarrel with her on the stage. He would risk his life to save her from any danger in the road, on the railway, or on a boat, but when once on the boards he will not do anything to help her out of a difficulty. If her memory should fail, or if she should make a false step, he would not hesitate to push her—I am going a long way, perhaps, but not so far as people may think. I have performed with some celebrated comedians who have played me some bad tricks. On the other hand, there are some actors who are admirable and who are more men than comedians when on the stage. Pierre Berton, Worms, and Guitry are, and always will be, the most perfect models of friendly and protecting courtesy toward the woman comedian. I have played in a number of pieces with each of them and, subject as I am to stage fright, I have always felt perfect confidence when acting with these three artistes. I knew that their intelligence was of a high order, that they had pity on me for my fright, and that they would be prepared for any nervous weaknesses caused by it. Pierre Berton and Worms, both of them very great artistes, left the stage in full artistic vigor and vital strength, Pierre Berton to devote himself to literature, and Worms—no one knows why. As to Guitry, much the youngest of the three, he is now the first artiste on the French stage, for he is an admirable comedian and at the same time an artist, a very rare thing in a man. I know very few artistes in France or in other countries with these two qualities combined. Henry Irving is an admirable artiste but not a comedian; Coquelin is an admirable comedian, but he is not an artiste. Mounet-Sully has genius which he sometimes places at the service of the artiste and sometimes at the service of the comedian, but on the other hand, he sometimes gives us exaggerations as artiste and comedian which make lovers of Beauty and Truth gnash their teeth. Bartet is a perfect comedienne with a very delicate artistic sense. Réjane is the most comedian of comedians and an artiste when she wishes to be. Eleonora Duse is more a comedian than an artiste. She walks in paths that have been traced out by others. She does not imitate them, certainly not, for she plants flowers where there were trees and trees where there were flowers, but she has never by her art made a single personage stand out identified by her name; she has not created a being or a vision which reminds one of herself. She has put on other people’s gloves, but she has put them on inside out. And all this she has done with infinite grace and with careless unconsciousness. She is a great comedienne, a very great comedienne, but not a great artiste. Novelli is a comedian of the old school which did not trouble much about the artistic side. He is perfect in laughter and tears. Beatrice Patrick Campbell is especially an artiste and her talent is that of charm and thought; she execrates beaten paths, she wants to create and she creates. Antoine is often betrayed by his own powers, for his voice is heavy and his general appearance rather ordinary. As a comedian there is therefore often much to be desired, but he is always an artiste without equal and our art owes much to him in its evolution in the direction of truth. Antoine, too, is not jealous of the woman comedian.
The days which followed the return of the Comédie to its own home were very trying for me. Our manager wanted to subdue me and he tortured me with a thousand little pin pricks which were much more painful for a nature like mine than so many stabs with a knife. I became irritable, bad tempered, on the slightest provocation and was, in fact, ill. I had always been gay and now I was sad. My health, which had ever been feeble, was endangered by this state of chaos.