Half an hour later she was back in his office. Advancing, she held out her arms to Chilly and embraced him.
“So,” he exclaimed joyfully. “You will stay?”
“No,” returned Sarah. “I am going! But I want to—to thank you....” And she burst into tears again.
Sarah signed her contract with the Comédie Française the same day. A week later Victor Hugo gave a banquet to celebrate the 100th performance of Ruy Blas.
It was in many ways a notable dinner. Not only did it commemorate the triumph of his greatest play, but it was Sarah’s farewell to the company at the Odéon, her adieu to the stage on which she had achieved renown.
And it was the last supper of Chilly, the director who had helped to mould her fame. He died of heart failure at the table, at the very moment when he was about to reply to the toast of his health.
CHAPTER XVI
The death of Chilly momentarily saddened Sarah Bernhardt, but did not check her rapid advance to fame. That event indeed once again brought her abruptly face to face with the elemental facts of life; and, like other experiences of the same nature, had a profound effect on her character, while it served as welding material for the art she displayed in her theatrical interpretations.
Her nature was that of the true artist—highly sensitive; once an impression was made on her it remained for ever as a component part of the edifice of her talent. Just as a portrait painter, away from his oils, will observe and remember in its minutest detail some tantalising cast of expression in the face of his model and will later reproduce it on canvas, so Sarah’s brain was constantly receiving impressions which she later translated into life, through the medium of the characters she portrayed.