Presently he left me, and I understood, from his manner of speaking, that he was trying to give me courage and hope.
When he was no longer there my fears returned, and I found myself again as unhappy as before. I seemed to see my mother stretched before me in death. I saw once more the horrible men who dragged me to the station. I hated them wildly, and I fell into convulsive tremblings, which shook me from head to foot.
In this condition I reached Berlin. Luckily my friends were at the station. Before my arrival they had even telegraphed to Paris to learn the news. A reply had come to them that my poor mother was hovering between life and death. I still had twenty-four hours of waiting and anxiety.
When I arrived in Paris I perceived at once the beautiful white beard, the pale and weary face of Dr. Chapman, whose tall form rose above the crowd. He took me in his arms, and said:
“She is still alive. Come.”
In the carriage he gave me this advice:
“Enter the room and speak to your mother just as if you had never gone away. Your presence will save her.”
And that is what happened. From the moment of my return she began to improve. But this illness left her very weak. She had a first attack of paralysis and her trouble gained imperceptibly upon her, leaving each day less hope of her recovery.
She was destined, without ever being restored to health, to die in Paris in February, 1908.
In Russia they started a long lawsuit against me for not having kept my agreement, and before it was ended I lost, including other offers, which I could not accept without my electrical apparatus and my costumes that were held as security, fully 250,000 francs. During my second season at the Folies-Bergère, when, through the solicitude of M. Marchand, my dressing-room was always filled with flowers by reason of the distinguished visitors who came to see me and to whom the directors would offer champagne, an attachment was put upon my receipts and we often had hardly enough to eat. But for the manager’s wife, who at times sent us things to eat in a basket, I should often have danced on an empty stomach, and have sipped champagne in my dressing-room without having had anything to eat at home.