I remained at the Odéon and worked very hard. I was always ready to take anyone’s place at a moment’s notice, for I knew all the rôles. I had some success, and the students approved of me. When I came on the stage I was always greeted by applause from them. A few old sticklers looked down at the pit to command silence, but no one cared a straw for them.
Finally, my day of triumph dawned. Duquesnel had the happy idea of putting “Athalie” on again with Mendelssohn’s choruses. Beauvallet, who had been odious as a professor, was charming as a comrade. By special permission from the Ministry he was to play Joad. The rôle of Zacharie was assigned to me. Some of the Conservatoire pupils were to take the spoken choruses, and the pupils who studied singing undertook the musical part. The rehearsals were so bad that Duquesnel and Chilly were in despair. Beauvallet, who was more agreeable now, but not choice as regarded his language, muttered some terrible words. We began over and over again, but it was all to no purpose. The spoken choruses were simply abominable. Chilly exclaimed at last:
“Well, let the young one say all the spoken choruses. That would be right enough with her pretty voice!”
Duquesnel did not utter a word, but he pulled his mustache to hide a smile. Chilly was coming round to his protégée after all. He nodded his head in an indifferent way in answer to his partner’s questioning look, and we began again, I reading all the spoken choruses. Everyone applauded, and the conductor of the orchestra was delighted, for the poor man had suffered enough. The first performance was a veritable small triumph for me! Oh! quite a small one, but still full of promise for my future. The public, charmed with the sweetness of my voice and its crystal purity, encored the part of the spoken choruses, and I was rewarded by three bursts of applause.
At the end of the act Chilly came to me and said:
“You were adorable!” He addressed me familiarly, using the French thou, and this rather annoyed me; but I answered mischievously, using the same form of speech:
“You think I am not so thin now?”
He burst into a fit of laughter, and from that day forth we both used the familiar thou and became the best friends imaginable.
Oh, that Odéon Theater! It is the theater I have loved most. I was very sorry to leave it, for everyone liked each other there, and everyone was gay. The theater was a little like the continuation of school. The young artistes came there, and Duquesnel was an intelligent manager, and very polite and young himself. During the rehearsal we often went off, several of us together, to play at hide and seek in the Luxembourg, during the scenes in which we were not acting. I used to think of my few months at the Comédie Française. The little world I had known there had been stiff, scandal-mongering, and jealous. I recalled my few months at the Gymnase. Hats and dresses were always discussed there, and everyone chattered about a hundred things that had nothing to do with art.
At the Odéon I was very happy. We thought of nothing but putting on plays, and we rehearsed morning, afternoon, and at all hours, and I liked that very much.