away from the Atelier for a year, and I lacked simplicity; he
helped me to understand that first and foremost I had to embrace
a profession wholeheartedly and cease behaving like a semi-
amateur.' If Jean-Louis accepted running the risk of obscuring the
direction of his first steps in the theatre and also of confusing his
friends by scoring a success as an actor, something which might
lead him away from the direction he wished to follow, he did so
out of friendship. Jean-Louis only lives for the theatre, and he is
immersed in it to an extent which he himself is not aware of.
After all we are not conscious of living surrounded by oxygen, yet
we do. As the saying goes, he is in the theatre like a fish in water.
He has found in it his love and his friendships, and one cannot
understand him if one ignores the great importance that friendship
plays in his make-up. To love friends and to be loved by them are
for him two such important things that love and friendship are like
twin islands bathed and surrounded by the warm and pure waters
of his whole being.

After the wonderful productions of Numantia, Hunger and after
La Terre est Ronde ¹ which he was going to produce but which was
produced by his master Dullin at the Atelier, Jean-Louis entered
the Comédie Française. I still remember his enthusiasm at his
discovery of the great French classical works which were given at
the Comédie. There he worked with Charles Granval, and listen-
ing to this great man of the theatre, he listened to a voice which
came from afar and carried with it echoes dating from the very
foundation of this illustrious institution and which mingled with
the perennial topicality of great plays. There, this 'young passionate
of the theatre', who not only wished to be a writer but also dreamt
already of total drama, fed upon traditions which helped him better
to understand and better to present what he wished to present.

It is extremely difficult to know which memories to select when
one talks about a friend whose life is intimately connected with
one's own. What should one reveal or hide? Where does indiscre-
tion begin? Yet there are anecdotes which would, I am sure, be
revealing of the man and would help one to understand some of his
works, some of his productions and some of his attachment to
certain dramatic characters and climates. It is often said that Jean-
Louis Barrault is served by an exceptional physique, but I don't
think that that is true. He is served by an exceptional love of the

-x-