[3] The Wallet of Time.
[4] “All these things that I have known only in the telling—all these journeys, these changing skies, these adoring hearts, these flowers, these jewels, these embroideries, these millions, these lions, these one hundred and twelve rôles, these eighty trunks, this glory, these caprices, these cheering crowds hauling her carriage, this crocodile drinking champagne—all these things, I say, astonish, dazzle, delight, and move me less than something else which I have often seen: this—
“A brougham stops at a door; a woman, enveloped in furs, jumps out, threads her way with a smile through the crowd attracted by the jingling of the bell on the harness, and mounts a winding stair; plunges into a room crowded with flowers and heated like a hothouse, throws her little beribboned handbag with its apparently inexhaustible contents into one corner, and her bewinged hat into another, takes off her furs and instantaneously dwindles into a mere scabbard of white silk; rushes on to a dimly lighted stage and immediately puts life into a whole crowd of listless, yawning, loitering folk; dashes forward and back, inspiring every one with her own feverish energy; goes into the prompter’s box, arranges her scenes, points out the proper gesture and intonation, rises up in wrath and insists on everything being done over again; shouts with fury; sits down, smiles, drinks tea and begins to rehearse her own part; draws tears from case-hardened actors who thrust their enraptured heads out of the wings to watch her; returns to her room, where the decorators are waiting, demolishes their plans and reconstructs them; collapses, wipes her brow with a lace handkerchief and thinks of fainting; suddenly rushes up to the fifth floor, invades the premises of the astonished costumier, rummages in the wardrobes, makes up a costume, pleats and adjusts it; returns to her room and teaches the figurantes how to dress their hair; has a piece read to her while she makes bouquets; listens to hundreds of letters, weeps over some tale of misfortune, and opens the inexhaustible little chinking handbag; confers with an English perruquier; returns to the stage to superintend the lighting of a scene, objurgates the lamps and reduces the electrician to a state of temporary insanity; sees a super who has blundered the day before, remembers it, and overwhelms him with her indignation; returns to her room for dinner; sits down to table, splendidly pale with fatigue; ruminates her plans; eats with peals of Bohemian laughter; has no time to finish; dresses for the evening performance while the manager reports from the other side of a curtain; acts with all her heart and soul; discusses business between the acts; remains at the theatre after the performance, and makes arrangements until three o’clock in the morning; does not make up her mind to go until she sees her staff respectfully endeavoring to keep awake; gets into her carriage; huddles herself into her furs and anticipates the delights of lying down and resting at last; bursts into laughing on remembering that some one is waiting to read her a five-act play; returns home, listens to the piece, becomes excited, weeps, accepts it, finds she cannot sleep, and takes advantage of the opportunity to study a part! This is the Sarah I have always known. I never made the acquaintance of the Sarah with the coffin and the alligators. The only Sarah I know is the one who works. She is the greater.”—Edmond Rostand, in Sarah Bernhardt, by Jules Huret.
[5] The correct date and place, according to the official record of the Conservatoire. The year has sometimes been given 1845. Some accounts have given Holland, others Havre, as the birthplace. Sarah herself says Paris.
[6] At Neuilly her aunt Rosine came one day to see her. “I insisted that I wanted to go away at once. In a gentle, tender, caressing voice, but without any real affection, she said all kinds of pretty things. She then went away. I could see nothing but the dark, black hole which remained there immutable behind me, and in a fit of despair I rushed out to my aunt who was just getting into her carriage. After that I knew nothing more. I had managed to escape from my poor nurse and had fallen down on the pavement. I had broken my arm in two places and injured my knee cap. I was two years recovering.” Memoirs.
[7] Memoirs.
[8] “One day, when we heard that all the schools in France, except ours, had been given bonbons on the occasion of the baptism of the Prince Imperial, I proposed to several other girls that we should run away, and I undertook to manage it. Being on good terms with the sister in charge of the gate, I went into her lodge and pretended to have a hole in my dress under the armpit. To let her examine the hole I raised my arms toward the cord communicating with the gate, and whilst she was looking at my dress I pulled the cord, my accomplices rushed out, and I followed them. Our entire stock of provisions, ammunition, and sinews of war consisted of a few clothes, three pieces of soap in a bag, and the sum of seven francs fifty centimes in money. This was to take us to the other end of the world! A search had to be made for us, and as the good sisters could hardly undertake it, the police were set on our track. There was not much difficulty in finding us, as you may imagine. I was sent home in disgrace. On another occasion, I had climbed on to the wall separating the convent from the cemetery. A grand funeral was in progress and the Bishop of Versailles was delivering an address. I immediately began to gesticulate, shout and sing at the top of my voice so as to interrupt the ceremony. You can imagine the scene—a child of twelve sitting astride a wall, and a bishop interrupted in the midst of a funeral oration! The scandal was great.”—Huret.
[9] “Consequently I entered the Conservatoire. The next question was, in which class was I to study? Beauvallet said: ‘She will be a tragedienne.’ Regnier maintained: ‘She will be a comédienne,’ and Provost put them in agreement by declaring: ‘She will be both.’ I joined Provost’s class.”—Huret.
[10] One for tragedy in 1861, and one for comedy in 1862. She never won a first prize.
[11] M. Regnier and M. Doucet among them. Both had been her teachers, as had M. Provost and M. Samson, the latter of whom had taught Rachel.