into his company. At first I was everybody's servant, I played little
scraps of parts. Then one night, when the soubrette was ill, they risked
giving me her part. I went on from that. They thought me impossible,
grotesque, uncouth. I was ugly then. I remained ugly until I was
decreed,--if not 'divine' like the other Woman,--the highest, the ideal
type of woman, ... 'Woman.' ... Idiots! As for my acting, it was thought
extravagant and incorrect. The public did not like me. The other players
used to make fun of me. I was kept on because I was useful in spite of
everything, and was not expensive. Not only was I not expensive, but I
paid! Ah! I paid for every step, every advance, rung by rung, with my
suffering, with my body. Fellow-actors, the manager, the impresario, the
impresario's friends...."

She stopped: her face was very pale, her lips were pressed together,
there was a hard stare in her eyes: no tears came, but it was plain to
see that her soul was shedding tears of blood. In a flash she was living
through the shameful past, and the consuming desire to conquer which had
upheld her--a desire that burned the more with every fresh stain and
degradation that she had had to endure. She would sometimes have been
glad to die: but it would have been too abominable to succumb in the
midst of humiliation and to go no farther. Better to take her life
before--if so it must be--or after victory. But not when she had
degraded herself and not enjoyed the price of it....

She said no more. Christophe was pacing up and down the room in anger:
he was in a mood to slay these men who had made this woman suffer and
besmirched her. Then he looked at her with the eyes of pity: and he
stood near her and took her face in his hands and pressed it fondly, and
said: