RECALCITRANT BENEFACTOR.
Sarah Bernhardt Encountered Series of Failures While Trying to Reward Man Who Befriended Her Family.
Last June Sarah Bernhardt sailed back to Paris after the most successful season she ever had in America. She took her profits with her in gold, too, and nobody should begrudge her the money, for, besides being a great artist, she is a generous soul, and is not chary of passing her good fortune on to others.
The following instance of this spirit of generosity is recorded by the San Francisco Call, and vouched for as authentic by one of The Scrap Book staff who has personal knowledge of the affair:
When Sarah Bernhardt was in the city some years ago she gave a breakfast to some of her friends at the California Hotel. It was served about noon, and there were but three persons present besides herself.
In the midst of the repast a bell-boy knocked at the door and said that there was a man down-stairs who refused to give his card and insisted on coming up to see her.
“Let him come, then,” was her reply.
The bell-boy explained that he had the appearance of a tough-looking tramp and might be crazy.
“Never mind his looks or his clothes, he may be a friend of mine,” was the reply.
In a few minutes a man of about sixty or more entered the room. He was very shabbily dressed, had not shaved for a week, and his shirt-front was well garnished with tobacco-juice.
The instant Bernhardt saw him she gave an exclamation and bounded forward. She threw herself upon his neck and covered his rough face with kisses.
The man was Mr. Levi, a furrier, who died recently in this city. Many of the Call readers will remember his short, heavy figure as he used to walk the streets with furs thrown over his shoulder, looking for customers.
Bernhardt at once made a place at the table and began opening champagne for her guest. She introduced him as an old friend from Paris and explained that when she was a child and her family was in straits Mr. Levi had cared for them all one winter and kept them from absolute want.
Every few moments she would jump up, clasp him about the neck and kiss him again and again. There was no acting about these embraces, she was glad to see him, and she wanted no misunderstanding on that score.
Presently she asked him why he did not go back to Paris and see his relatives. He answered, sadly, that he was not able.
“Oh, that is easily remedied,” she said, and a moment later she had written out a check for fifteen hundred dollars and thrown it across the table to him.
He picked it up, and when he saw the amount he broke down completely. With the tears streaming down his cheeks he said:
“Sarah, I didn’t come here for charity, but just to see you a few moments.”
He handed the check back across the table.
“Oh, not enough? I make it bigger.”
She wrote another check for two thousand dollars and threw it over to him. He looked at the second check and merely said:
“Give me the other, Sarah.”
She smiled as she handed it to him, and then the old man did a magnificently independent thing. He slowly placed the two checks together, tore them into bits and handed the fragments back to the madame.
“No, no, Sarah; no money. Just your gratitude; that is all I ever wanted.”
Then she was at his side again, kissing his tears away and sobbing herself. It was a very pathetic scene and one not easily forgotten by those who witnessed it.
She said that she would “fix him yet” in that peculiar way of hers, which always means that she intends to have her own will.
Some months later I was in San Francisco and met old Levi waddling along the streets with his furs. He stopped me and said he wanted my advice.
“I have just got a letter from Sarah,” he said, “and I don’t know what the devil to do about it.”
He translated the letter as he read it, and it went something like this, as near as I can recall it:
“You tore up the last check I gave you, which was very mean of you. I was very angry at the way you treated my checks. No one else ever did such a thing to me but you, and you make me angry every time I think of you and your treatment of me. You humiliate me before strangers. They must have thought that my checks were worthless, or you must have thought so.
“I now enclose another and larger one. It is for twenty-five hundred dollars of your American money and if that is not big enough send it back and I will make it larger, but some check of some denomination you must accept, and if I gave you all the money I ever earned it would not repay you for the time years ago in Paris you saved me from want. I shall expect you to come to Paris at once and be my guest. Answer yes by cable and make us all happy. If you do not do this you must never call on me again, as I shall refuse to receive you. Affectionately,
“Sarah.”
“What shall I do?” asked the old man with tears in his eyes. “She is bound to have her way. She always was that way as a child.”
“Better send the despatch and then cash the check and go to Paris.”
“I guess I’ll have to,” said the old man, and he started for the telegraph office.