“I fancy,” he said, laughing, “that we shall have a brush together.”
Again I saw the captain’s mask on the general’s face.
I never saw him again, for he died six months afterwards.
We were at last able to go back to Paris. The abominable and shameful peace had been signed, the wretched Commune crushed. Everything was supposed to be in order again. But what blood and ashes! What women in mourning! What ruins!
In Paris, we inhaled the bitter odour of smoke. All that I touched at home left on my fingers a somewhat greasy and almost imperceptible colour. A general uneasiness beset France, and more especially Paris. The theatres, however, opened their doors once more, and that was a general relief.
One morning I received from the Odéon a notice of rehearsal. I shook out my hair, stamped my feet, and sniffed the air like a young horse snorting.
The race-ground was to be opened for us again. We should be able to gallop afresh through our dreams. The lists were ready. The contest was beginning. Life was commencing again. It is truly strange that man’s mind should have made of life a perpetual strife. When there is no longer war there is battle, for there are a hundred thousand of us aiming for the same object. God has created the earth and man for each other. The earth is vast. What ground there is uncultivated! Miles upon miles, acres upon acres of new land waiting for arms that will take from its bosom the treasures of inexhaustible Nature. And we remain grouped round each other, crowds of famishing people watching other groups, which are also lying in wait.
The Odéon opened its doors to the public with a repertory programme. Some new pieces were given us to study. One of these met with tremendous success. It was André Theuriet’s Jean-Marie, and was produced in October 1871. This one-act play is a veritable masterpiece, and it took its author straight to the Academy. Porel, who played the part of Jean-Marie, met with an enormous success. He was at that time slender, nimble, and full of youthful ardour. He needed a little more poetry, but the joyous laughter of his thirty-two teeth made up in ardour for what was wanting in poetic desire. It was very good, anyhow.
My rôle of the young Breton girl, submissive to the elderly husband forced upon her, and living eternally with the memory of the fiancé who was absent, and perhaps dead, was pretty, poetical, and touching by reason of the final sacrifice. There was even a certain grandeur in the concluding part of the piece. It had, I must repeat, an immense success, and increased my growing reputation.
I was, however, awaiting the event which was to consecrate me a star. I did not quite know what I was expecting, but I knew that my Messiah had to come. And it was the greatest poet of the last century who was to place on my head the crown of the elect.