A Mummer's Tale

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About this book

A Mummer's Tale is by Anatole France. Chapter I is set in an actress's dressing-room at the Odéon, where Félicie Nanteuil, made up with blue on her eyelids and rouge on her cheeks and ears, holds out her foot to Madame Michon, the dresser. Madame Doulce says that comedy is an imitative art and that you imitate an art all the better for not feeling it yourself.

The doctor says to Félicie that once an ingénue, always an ingénue, and that Mademoiselle Nanteuil will always be eighteen. Nanteuil says she cannot be expected to play all ingénues with the same pleasure, and names Agnès in L'École des femmes as a part she longs to play. One passage on morality calls it a mutual agreement to keep what we possess: land, houses, furniture, women, and our lives.

About the author

Anatole France

Anatole France (1844-1924) was a French novelist and Nobel laureate celebrated for his irony, elegance, and skeptical wit. He was one of the most admired French writers of his era.