Florine’s life was by no means an idle one, or a life to be envied.  Many persons, misled by the magnificent pedestal that the stage gives to a woman, suppose her in the midst of a perpetual carnival.  In the dark recesses of a porter’s lodge, beneath the tiles of an attic roof, many a poor girl dreams, on returning from the theatre, of pearls and diamonds, gold-embroidered gowns and sumptuous girdles; she fancies herself adored, applauded, courted; but little she knows of that treadmill life, in which the actress is forced to rehearsals under pain of fines, to the reading of new pieces, to the constant study of new roles.  At each representation Florine changes her dress at least two or three times; often she comes home exhausted and half-dead; but before she can rest, she must wash off with various cosmetics the white and the red she has applied, and clean all the powder from her hair, if she has played a part from the eighteenth century.  She scarcely has time for food.  When she plays, an actress can live no life of her own; she can neither dress, nor eat, nor talk.  Florine often has no time to sup.  On returning from a play, which lasts, in these days, till after midnight, she does not get to bed before two in the morning; but she must rise early to study her part, order her dresses, try them on, breakfast, read her love-letters, answer them, discuss with the leader of the “claque” the place for the plaudits, pay for the triumphs of the last month in solid cash, and bespeak those of the month ahead.  In the days of Saint-Genest, the canonized comedian who fulfilled his duties in a pious manner and wore a hair shirt, we must suppose that an actor’s life did not demand this incessant activity.  Sometimes Florine, seized with a bourgeois desire to get out into the country and gather flowers, pretends to the manager that she is ill.

But even these mechanical operations are nothing in comparison with the intrigues to be carried on, the pains of wounded vanity to be endured,—­preferences shown by authors, parts taken away or given to others, exactions of the male actors, spite of rivals, naggings of the stage manager, struggles with journalists; all of which require another twelve hours to the day.  But even so far, nothing has been said of the art of acting, the expression of passion, the practice of positions and gesture, the minute care and watchfulness required on the stage, where a thousand opera-glasses are ready to detect a flaw, —­labors which consumed the life and thought of Talma, Lekain, Baron, Contat, Clairon, Champmesle.  In these infernal “coulisses” self-love has no sex; the artist who triumphs, be it man or woman, has all the other men and women against him or her.  Then, as to money, however many engagements Florine may have, her salary does not cover the costs of her stage toilet, which, in addition to its costumes, requires an immense variety of long gloves, shoes, and frippery; and all this exclusive of her personal clothing.  The first third of such a life is spent in struggling and imploring; the next third, in getting a foothold; the last third, in defending it.  If happiness is frantically grasped, it is because it is so rare, so long desired, and found at last only amid the odious fictitious pleasures and smiles of such a life.