I had got safely through my first dreaded vacation. I had had two wonderful weeks at the seaside, where, with Mr. and Mrs. James Lewis and George Parkes, I had boarded with Mrs. By Baker, whom we left firmly convinced of our general insanity—harmless, but quite hopeless cases she thought us. Awed into reverent silence I had taken my first long look at the ocean; that mighty monster, object of my day-dreams all the years, lay that day outstretched, smiling, dimpling, blinking like the babe of giants, basking in the sun.
I had inhaled with delight the briny coolness of its breath, and with my friends had engaged in wild romps in its waves, all of us arrayed meanwhile in bathing dresses of hideous aspect, made from gray flannel of penitential color and scratchiness, and most malignant modesty of cut; which were yet the eminently proper thing at that time.
I almost wonder, looking at the bathing dresses of to-day, that old Ocean, who is a lover of beauty, did not dash the breath out of us, and then fling us high and dry on the beach, where the sands might quickly drift over our ugly shells and hide them from view.
All this happened, and much more, before I came to the play "L'Article 47," famous for its great French court scene, and for the madness of its heroine. I am so utterly lacking in self-confidence that it was little short of cruelty for Mr. Daly to tell me, as he did, that the fate of the play hung upon that single scene; that the production would be expensive and troublesome, and its success or failure lay absolutely in my hands.
I turned white as chalk, with sheer fright, and could scarcely force myself to speak audibly, when asked if I could do the part.
I answered, slowly, that I thought it unfair for Mr. Daly first to reduce me to a state of imbecility, through fear, and then ask me to make a close study of violent madness—since the two conditions were generally reversed.
The people laughed, but there was no responsive smile on my lips, as I entered upon a period of mental misery that only ended with the triumphant first night.
I did all I could do to get at Cora's character and standing before the dread catastrophe—feeling that her madness must to some extent be tinged by past habits and personal peculiarities. I got a copy of the French novel—that was not an affectation, but a necessity, as it had not then been translated, and I was greatly impressed with the minute description of the destruction done by the bullet George had fired into her face. Portions of the jaw-bone had been shot away; the eye, much injured, had barely been saved, but it was drawn and distorted.
As the woman's beauty had been her letter of introduction to the gilded world, indeed had been her sole capital, that "scar" became of tremendous value in the make-up of the part, since it would explain, and in some scant measure excuse, her revengeful actions.
Still, as the play was done in Paris, the "scar" was almost ignored by that brilliant actress, Madame Rousseil. I had her photograph in the part of Cora, and while she had a drapery passed low beneath her jaws to indicate some injury to her neck or breast, her face was absolutely unblemished.