Sarah Bernhardt

“ It was forever, though, that I had left my dear convent, but it was not forever that I left Mother Ste. Sophie. I seemed to take something of her away with me. For a long time she made part of my life and even to-day, when she has been dead for years, the recollection of her brings back to me the simple thoughts of former days and makes the flowers of youth to bloom again.
Life for me now began in earnest. Cloister existence is one of unbroken sameness for all. There may be a hundred or a thousand individuals there, but everyone lives a life which is the same and the only one for all. ”

“ One morning I received from the Odéon a notice of rehearsal. I shook out my hair, stamped my feet, and sniffed the air like a young horse snorting. The race ground was to be opened for us again. We should be able to gallop afresh through our dreams. The lists were open. The contest was beginning. Life was commencing again. It is truly strange that man’s mind should have made of life a perpetual strife. When there is no longer War there is Battle, for there are a hundred thousand of us for the same object, God has created the earth and man for each other. The earth is vast. ”

“ Why did I always want to be before the public?
Perrin came to see me one day when I was very ill. He began to preach. “You are killing yourself, my dear child,” he said. “Why do you go in for sculpture, painting, etc.? Is it to prove that you can do it?”
“Oh, no, no,” I answered; “it is merely to create a necessity for staying here!”
“I don’t understand,” said Perrin, listening very attentively.
“This is how it is. I have a wild desire to travel, to see something else, to breathe another air, and to see skies that are higher than ours and trees that are bigger; something different, in short. ”

“ What with my somewhat cosmopolitan family, their rather snobbish acquaintances and friends, and the acquaintances and friends I had chosen in my independent life as an artiste, I was living in rather a bourgeois atmosphere. I had heard Victor Hugo spoken of ever since my childhood as a rebel and a renegade, and his works, which I had read with passion, did not prevent my judging him with very great severity. And I blush to-day with anger and shame, when I think of all my absurd prejudices, nourished by the imbecile or insincere little court which flattered me. ”

“ Mlle. Agar was an admirable creature. She had evidently been created for the joy of the eyes. She was a brunette, tall, pale, with large, dark, gentle eyes, a very small mouth with full rounded lips, which went up at the corners in an almost imperceptible smile. She had exquisite teeth, and her head was covered with thick, glossy hair. She was the living incarnation of one of the most beautiful types of ancient Greece. Her pretty hands were long and rather soft, while her slow and rather heavy walk completed the evocation. She was the great tragedian of the Odéon Theater. ”

“ I remained several days in Paris, then I set out for Brussels, where I was to play “Adrienne Lecouvreur” and “Froufrou.”
The Belgian public—by which I mean the Brussels public—is the most like our own. In Belgium I never feel that I am in a strange country. Our language is the language of the country; the horses and carriages are always in perfect taste; the fashionable women resemble our own fashionable women; cocottes abound; the hotels are as good as in Paris; the cab horses are as poor; the newspapers are as spiteful. Brussels is gossiping Paris in miniature. ”

“ But when M. De Fallesen, manager of the Theater Royal, and the first chamberlain of the king, entered my compartment and begged me to show myself at the window to gratify the curiosity of the public, the hurrahs began again, and then I understood. But a dreadful anxiety now took possession of me. I could never, I was sure, rise to what was expected from me. My slender frame would inspire disdain in those magnificent men and those splendid and healthy women. I stepped out of the train so diminished by comparison that I had the sensation of being nothing more than a breath of air ”

“ Oh, the public cannot conceive of the tortures endured by the unfortunate comedians who are there before them in flesh and blood on the stage, gesticulating and uttering phrases, while their heart, all torn with anguish, is with the beloved absent one who is suffering! As a rule, one can fling away the worries and anxieties of everyday life, put off one’s own personality for a few hours, take on another and, forgetting everything else, enter as it were into another life. ”

“ I went up to my governess, Mlle. De Brabender. Her lips were firmly pressed together, and she looked shocked, just as she did sometimes when my godfather told some story that she did not approve of, at table. My uncle, Félix Faure, was looking at the floor in an absent-minded way; the notary had a spiteful look in his eyes, my aunt was holding forth in a very excited manner, and M. Meydieu kept shaking his head and muttering: “Perhaps ... yes.... Who knows?... Hum ... hum...!” Mme. Guérard was very pale and sad, and she looked at me with infinite tenderness. ”

“ I know them all now and in any critical moment of my life they all rise up in armed legions, for or against me. I cannot walk a single step, or make any movement or gesture, sit down, go out, look at the sky or the ground, without finding some reason for hope or for despair until at last, exasperated by the trammels put upon my actions by my thought, I defy all my superstitions and just act as I want to. Delighted, then, with what seemed to me to be a good omen I began to dress gleefully. Mr. Jarrett had just knocked at my door. ”

“ I cried, “I am born for the strife, I feel it. Nothing pleases me like having to master a public—perhaps hostile—who have read and heard all that the Press have to say against me. But I am sorry that I cannot play, not only in Paris, but in all France, my two big successes, ‘Adrienne’ and ‘Froufrou.’”
“As to that, you can count on me,” cried Félix Duquesnel. ”

“ One morning after this my maid brought me a letter. The large round stamp, on which the words “Comédie Française” are to be read, was on the corner of the envelope.
I remembered that just ten years ago that very day, our old servant Marguerite had, without my mother’s permission, handed me a letter in the same kind of envelope. My face then had flushed with joy, but this time I felt a faint tinge of pallor touch my cheeks. When events occur which disturb my life, I always have a movement of recoil toward the past. ”

“ I had pictured to myself her face brightening up, and then old Marguerite and my godfather laughing heartily, and my sisters dancing with joy, and here was Mme. Guérard sounding her trumpet and spoiling all my effects that I had prepared so well.
I must say that the kind woman continued as long as she lived (that is the greater part of my life) spoiling all my effects. It was all in vain that I made scenes; she could not help herself. Whenever I told a good story and wanted it to be very effective, she would invariably burst into fits of laughter before the end of it. ”

“ IN FIRE AND WAR
After “Le Passant” and the famous success of that adorable piece, a success in which Agar and I had our share, Chilly thought more of me and began to like me. He insisted on paying for our costumes, which was great extravagance for him. I had become the adored queen of the students, and I used to receive little bouquets of violets, sonnets, and long, long poems—too long to read. Sometimes, on arriving at the theater, as I was getting out of my carriage, I received a shower of flowers which simply covered me, and I was delighted and used to thank my worshipers. ”

“ Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrity when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves. They are at the beginning of a series of small worries, thunderbolts hidden under flowers, but they know how to hold in check that monster advertisement. It is a sort of octopus with innumerable tentacles. It throws out its clammy arms on the right and on the left, in front and behind, and gathers in through its thousand little inhaling organs, all the gossip and slander and praise afloat to spit out again at the public when it is vomiting its black gall. ”

“ He thereupon kissed Mme. Guérard’s hand, and she colored slightly.
This conversation remained engraved on my mind. I remember every word of it, every movement and every gesture of M. Auber’s, for this little man, so charming and so gentle, held my future in his transparent-looking hand. He opened the door for us and, touching me on my shoulder, said:
“Come, courage, little girl. Believe me, you will thank your mother some day for driving you to it. Don’t look so sad; life is well worth beginning, seriously, but gayly.” ”

“ With Caroline’s help I carried the empty trunk up to Mme. Guérard’s, and Caroline emptied my wardrobe and drawers and then packed the trunk. I shall never forget that delightful moment. It seemed to me as though the world was about to be mine. I was going to start off with a woman to wait on me. I was about to travel alone, with no one to criticise what I decided to do. I should see an unknown country about which I had dreamed, and I should cross the sea. Oh, how happy I was! Twenty times I must have gone up and down the staircase which separated our two flats. ”

“ Then I undertook the bust of my young sister Régina, who had, alas, a weak chest. A more perfect face was never made by the hand of God! Two leonine eyes, shaded by long brown lashes—so long that they made a shadow on her cheeks when she lowered them—a slender nose with delicate nostrils, a tiny mouth, a willful chin and a pearly skin, crowned by meshes of sun rays, for I have never seen hair so blond and so pale, so bright and so silky. ”

“ In the most frightful circumstances and the most cruel moments of life, when I have felt that my reason was giving way under shocks that have been too great or too painful, my will has laid hold of my reason, just as one holds a bad-tempered little dog that wants to bite, and subjugating it, my will has said to my reason: “Enough, you can take up again to-morrow your suffering and your plans, your anxiety, your sorrow and your anguish. ”

“ Novelli is a comedian of the old school which did not trouble much about the artistic side. He is perfect in laughter and tears. Beatrice Patrick Campbell is especially an artiste and her talent is that of charm and thought; she execrates beaten paths, she wants to create and she creates. Antoine is often betrayed by his own powers, for his voice is heavy and his general appearance rather ordinary. As a comedian there is therefore often much to be desired, but he is always an artiste without equal and our art owes much to him in its evolution in the direction of truth. ”

“ It is just death in some out-of-the-world place after fruitless appeals to the justice of their fellow countrymen. They will breathe their life out in a sob or in a terrible curse of hatred. God will have mercy on all of them, though, for it is piteous to think that all these poor creatures are delivered over with their feet bound by suffering, and their hands bound by hope, to the slave drivers who trade in white slaves. ”

“ Our carriage passed under this bridge and stopped before a group of men who were waiting for us. The manager of the stockyards received us and led the way to the special slaughterhouses. On entering into the immense shed, which was dimly lighted by windows with greasy and ruddy panes, an abominable smell gets into one’s throat, a smell that only leaves one several days afterwards. A sanguinary mist rises everywhere like a light cloud floating on the side of a mountain and lit up by the setting sun. ”

“ I used to drive at full speed along the quays, and in spite of the atmosphere brilliant with the July sunshine and the gayety of everything outside, I always ran up the cold, cracked steps of the theater with veritable joy, and rushed up to my dressing-room, wishing everyone I passed “Good morning” on my way. When I had taken off my coat and gloves I went on the stage, delighted to be once more in that infinite darkness with only a poor light, a servante, hanging here and there on a tree, a turret, a wall, or placed on a bench, thrown on the faces of the artistes for a few seconds. ”

“ If anybody reminds me of what I have promised I tear my hair and to make up for my forgetfulness I say anything, I buy presents, in fact I complicate my life with useless worries. It has always been so and always will.
As I was grumbling one day to Victor Hugo that I never could have a chance of talking with him, he invited me to lunch, saying that after lunch we could talk together alone. I was delighted with this lunch, to which Paul Maurice the poet, Léon Gladel, Gustave Doré and the Cummunard X— (a Russian lady whose name I do not remember) were also invited. ”

“ I sprang into the first cab that passed the door, and, when once in the cab, struck my sister with such fury that Mme. Guérard was alarmed, and protected her with her own body, receiving all the blows I gave with my head, arms, and feet, for in my anger, rage, and shame I flung myself about to right and left. My rage was all the more profound from the fact that I was very fond of Camille Doucet. He was gentle and charming, affable and kind-hearted. He had refused my aunt something she had asked for, and, unaccustomed to being refused anything, she had a spite against him. ”

“ I waited a second and felt the thrill and the emotion that ran through the house, and then, suddenly 342stirred by an impulse of generous kindliness, the whole house burst into wild applause and shouts. The public, so beloved and so loving, was intoxicated with joy. That was certainly one of the finest triumphs of my whole career. Some of the artistes were very delighted, especially the women, for there is one thing to remark with regard to our art, the men are more jealous of the women than the women are among themselves. ”

“ With a very natural partiality I discovered in myself the gift of absolute self-sacrifice, renunciation, and devotion of every kind—qualities which would win for me easily the post of Mother Superior in the Grandchamps Convent. Then with the most indulgent generosity I attributed to myself all the necessary gifts for the fulfillment of my other dream, namely, to become the first, the most celebrated, and the most envied of actresses. I counted on my fingers all my qualities: gracefulness, charm, distinction, beauty, mystery, piquancy. ”

“ Régina jumped down again and began to dance a jig, muttering the rudest, silliest things at the same time. She then nearly stifled me with kisses, sprang on to my mother’s armchair and kissed her hair, her eyes, her cheeks, saying:
“You are glad I am going, aren’t you? You can give everything to your Jenny.”
My mother colored slightly, but as her eyes fell on Jeanne her expression changed, and a look of unspeakable affection came over her face. She pushed Régina gently aside, and the child went on with her jig. ”

“ This was rather daring in those days for the Comédie Française.
Suddenly a fresh burst of applause was heard. Amazement could be read on some faces, and Perrin stood up terrified. I was crossing the bridge, my pale face ravaged with grief, and the sortie de bal which was intended to cover my shoulders was dragging along, just held by my limp fingers; my arms were hanging down as though despair had taken the use out of them. I was bathed in the white light of the moon and the effect, it seems, was striking and deeply impressive. A nasal, aggressive voice cried out: “One moon effect is enough. ”

“ Mme. Ulgade sang admirably in her rôle of the young prince, and amazed me. Then, too, Marquita charmed me with her dancing. She was delightful in her dances, which were so animated, so characteristic, and always so full of distinction. Thanks to old Josse I knew everyone; but to my surprise and terror, one evening, toward five o’clock, on arriving at the theater to take our seats, he exclaimed on seeing me:
“Why, here is our princess, our little “Biche au Bois.” Here she is! It is the Providence that watches over theaters who has sent her!” ”