The art of Rejane accepts things as they are, without selection or
correction; unlike Duse, who chooses just those ways in which she shall
be nature. What one remembers are little homely details, in which the
shadow, of some overpowering impulse gives a sombre beauty to what is
common or ugly. She renders the despair of the woman whose lover is
leaving her by a single movement, the way in which she wipes her nose.
To her there is but one beauty, truth; and but one charm, energy. Where
nature has not chosen, she will not choose; she is content with whatever
form emotion snatches for itself as it struggles into speech out of an
untrained and unconscious body. In "Sapho" she is the everyday "Venus
toute entiere a sa proie attachee," and she has all the brutality and
all the clinging warmth of the flesh; vice, if you will, but serious
vice, vice plus passion. Her sordid, gluttonous, instructed eyes, in
which all the passions and all the vices have found a nest, speak their
own language, almost without the need of words, throughout the play; the
whole face suffers, exults, lies, despairs, with a homely sincerity
which cuts more sharply than any stage emphasis.
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