Page:Rachel (1887 Nina H. Kennard).djvu/22

 Les Folies Amoureuses. She laughed at those who declared that her voice and appearance were only suited for tragedy, and it was with the greatest difficulty that her master could persuade her of the justice of the decision. It is noteworthy that to the last day she occupied the stage Rachel retained her love of comic parts, in which none of her best dramatic qualities appeared. On the 1st of July 1844, she ventured to act Mariette on the boards where she had just enchanted her Parisian audience with PhêdrePhèdre [sic], and is said to have affirmed that her representation of the soubrettes' part was better than that of the Greek Queen.

Now and then Saint Aulaire received the reward of his trouble by a flash of genius and comprehension that startled him. He had hired the Salle Molière, and allowed his pupils to act there once a week. The arrangements relating to these performances were unique in their way. A list of the pieces to be played being hung up, anyone by selecting his part and paying for it—the amount charged being in proportion to the importance of the character—could strut his brief hour upon the stage; the amount expended in acting was returned in tickets, so that the aspiring amateurs were always sure of an audience. Here one day Rachel recited the narrative of Salema in l'Abufar of Ducis, describing the anguish of the mother who, while dying of thirst in the desert, gives birth to her child. While uttering the thrilling story, the thin face seemed to lengthen with horror, the small deep-set black eyes dilated with a fixed stare, as though she witnessed the harrowing scene, and the deep guttural tones, despite a slight Jewish accent, awoke a nameless terror in the hearer, carry-