Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/106

 own brains? At the same time, one thing was certain amid the profound silence that reigned—the young actress held enchained the rapt attention of her audience. If she was not yet the despotic sovereign she became later, she was already the skilful actress, who guessed by the disposition and attention of her audience how to sway and move it. Above all, the public will not allow hesitation, want of exactitude; they insist upon a genius whose education is finished. When they saw the actress perfectly at her ease, conveying naturally, calmly, and with dignity, the impression she desired, the most stiff-necked and rebellious enemies of classic art felt themselves taken possession of—above all, after the great scene of imprecation, begun in a low voice like distant thunder. Ah! it was splendidly and gloriously felt and expressed. From the orchestra, almost empty a voice was heard, saying, "That is Tragedy!"

Janin seems to forget that the year that elapsed between the time he had first seen her in the Vendéene, when she had acted "without skill of any kind," her voice hoarse and rough, a certain amount of promise in her, but no prospect of her ever being a prodigy, and the time when he saw her in Camille, already the skilful actress, perfectly at her ease, swaying her audience as she pleased, was passed under the tutelage of Samson.

The old professor appreciated her genius thoroughly, and knew what she could do and what she could not do, better even than she herself. From the time she first appeared at the Théâtre Français until the year in which she definitely retired, Rachel never undertook a new rôle or revived an old one, that she did not have recourse to the help of her master; but to say that she was but the echo of her inspiration, "a perfect instrument that only answered to his touch," is as unjust as to say "that the first thing she did on entering the Comédie Française, was to forget all the lessons Samson had given her, remembering only his historical explanations." The best answer, indeed, to the