Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III Theatrical training—Ddbut at the Gymnase, and engagement at the Com6die Franjaise. Some of the girls at Saint-Aulaire's Dramatic Academy left their teacher from time to time in order to flit, gaily and gracefully, down the flowery track. So Arsene Houssaye tells us, hastening to add, however, that against that danger Rachel was immune. Not, indeed, that she had the temperament of a nun—a great actress never has. But she was ugly, and she was proud; and she had the instinctive perception belonging to genius of the goal for which she was bound, and of the fact that certain roads did not lead to it. The flowery track, she divined, was for the thddtreuse, not for the actress. The path of pleasure was not the way to glory, though the path of glory might be the way to pleasure. Moreover, as she was a plain child, the temptations were probably inconsiderable. She wore a calico frock—it was the only frock she possessed—of a red ground with white spots. Her boots were abominably coarse and clumsy. Her black hair was drawn tight, so that her huge forehead bulged, and hung, twisted into meagre pigtails, down her back. She hoped, with a longing like despair, that she would grow up to be beautiful; and she wondered what she could do to" make herself look like one of the Greek statues in the Louvre galleries. In the meantime, however, she did not look in the least like any of them, but was a puny freak with a voice like a big bassoon. She was intelligent, however, and she could act; and Saint-Aulaire was a teacher who found his pupils opportunities of showing what they could do. They gave public performances under his direction in the Salle Moliere, paying him fees for the privilege of appearing—from one to ten francs according to the importance of the part—and recoup...