“How long do you give me to live?” she asked one of the physicians.
“Not longer than five years, if you do not take a complete rest until you are cured,” he replied.
“Five years! But that is a lifetime!” she answered. “When I was seventeen the doctors gave me only three years, and I have lived thirteen. I shall continue acting until I die!”
And, despite all remonstrances from her friends, she returned to the theatre as soon as she was able to leave her bed. To the doctors’ astonishment also, ten months later the spot on her lung completely disappeared. Perhaps it had never existed!
About this time she was asked by an admirer what he could send her as a souvenir.
“They say I am to die,” said Sarah, gaily, “so you may send me a coffin!”
The admirer took her at her word, and a week later she received a letter from a famous firm of coffin makers, stating that an order had been received for a coffin for mademoiselle, which was to be constructed according to her own wishes.
Sarah was most particular in regard to this coffin. She made several designs, only to discard them one after the other. Finally she agreed that it should be constructed of fine-grained rosewood, and that the handles and “hoops” should be of solid silver. She afterwards had these changed to gold, but subsequently, during one of her frequent periods of impecuniosity, she sold the golden hoops and had them replaced with the silver ones that were on the coffin when she was buried.
For the remainder of her life this coffin, “le cercueil de Sarah Bernhardt,” never left her, even when she was travelling. It attained an almost legendary fame. She had a mahogany trestle made for the coffin, on which it stood at the end of her great bed, so that she could see it from her pillow, without an effort, on awakening.
“To remind me that my body will soon be dust and that my glory alone will live for ever!” she said.