The next few days passed by without any particular events. I was working hard at Iphigénie, as M. Thierry had told me that I was to make my début in that rôle.
At the end of August I received a notice requesting me to attend the rehearsal of Iphigénie. Oh, that first notice, how it made my heart beat. I could not sleep at night, and daylight did not come quickly enough for me. I kept getting up to look at the time. It seemed to me that the clock had stopped. I had dozed, and I fancied it was the same time as before. Finally a streak of light coming through my window-panes was, I thought, the triumphant sun illuminating my room. I got up at once, pulled back the curtains, and mumbled my rôle while dressing.
I thought of my rehearsing with Madame Devoyod, the leading tragédienne of the Comédie Française, with Maubant, with——I trembled as I thought of all this, for Madame Devoyod was said to be anything but indulgent. I arrived for the rehearsal an hour before the time. The stage manager, Davenne, smiled and asked me whether I knew my rôle. “Oh yes,” I exclaimed with conviction. “Come and rehearse it. Would you like to?” and he took me to the stage.
I went with him through the long corridor of busts which leads from the green-room to the stage. He told me the names of the celebrities represented by these busts. I stood still a moment before that of Adrienne Lecouvreur.
“I love that artiste,” I said.
“Do you know her story?” he asked.
“Yes; I have read all that has been written about her.”
“That’s right, my child,” said the worthy man. “You ought to read all that concerns your art. I will lend you some interesting books.”
He took me towards the stage. The mysterious gloom, the scenery reared up like fortifications, the bareness of the floor, the endless number of weights, ropes, trees, borders, battens overhead, the yawning house completely dark, the silence, broken by the creaking of the floor, and the vault-like chill that one felt—all this together awed me. It did not seem to me as if I were entering the brilliant ranks of living artistes who every night won the applause of the house by their merriment or their sobs. No, I felt as though I were in the tomb of dead glories, and the stage seemed to me to be getting crowded with the illustrious shadows of those whom the stage manager had just mentioned. With my highly strung nerves, my imagination, which was always evoking something, now saw them advance towards me stretching out their hands. These spectres wanted to take me away with them. I put my hands over my eyes and stood still.
“Are you not well?” asked M. Davenne.