“Euripide à l’autel, conduisez la victime,” he said: “Mlle. Favart was very effective there....”
The artistes gradually began to arrive, grumbling more or less. They glanced at me, and then rehearsed their scenes without taking any further notice of me at all.
I felt inclined to cry, but I was more vexed than anything else. I heard a few words that sounded to me coarse, used by one or another of the artistes. I was not accustomed to such language, as at home everyone was rather scrupulous, and at my aunt’s a trifle affected, while at the convent it is unnecessary to say I had never heard a word that was out of place. It is true that I had been through the Conservatoire, but I had not associated intimately with any of the pupils, with the exception of Marie Lloyd and Rose Baretta, the elder sister of Blanche Baretta, who is now an associate of the Comédie Française.
When the rehearsal was over, it was decided that there should be another one at the same hour the following day, in the public foyer.
The costume maker came in search of me, as she wanted to try on my costume. Mlle. De Brabender, who had arrived during the rehearsal, went up with me to the costume room. She wanted my arms to be covered, but the costume maker told her gently that this was impossible for tragedy.
A dress of white woolen material was tried on me. It was very ugly, and the veil was so stiff that I refused it. A wreath of roses was tried on, but this, too, was so ugly that I refused to wear it.
“Well, then, mademoiselle,” said the costume maker dryly, “you will have to get these things and pay for them yourself, as this is the costume supplied by the Comédie.”
“Very well,” I answered, blushing, “I will get them myself.”
On returning home I told my mother my troubles, and, as she was always very generous, she promptly bought me a veil of white barège that fell in beautiful, large, soft folds, and a wreath of hedge roses which, at night, looked very soft and white. She also ordered me buskins from the shoemaker employed by the Comédie.
The next thing to think about was the make-up box. For this my mother had recourse to the mother of Dica Petit, my fellow student at the Conservatoire. I went with Mme. Dica Petit to M. Massin, a manufacturer of these make-up boxes. He was the father of Léontine Massin, another Conservatoire pupil.