This was even greater insolence than he had shown before. Sarah was angry, mortified—and interested. Within a week she confounded her friends by accepting an invitation to dine with Damala alone.
Although his family in Athens had destined him for the diplomatic service, his own private ambition was to be an actor. As I have said, he was an amateur comedian of no small merit, and when Sarah discovered this she invited him to become a member of her company.
He accepted at once, but his family intervened and—a curious case of history repeating itself—had him sent on a diplomatic mission to Russia, whither young de Lagrenée had gone a few years before.
Sarah was now all ready to depart on her Grand Tour of Europe, during which she was to visit all the principal capitals and was to give performances literally before “all the crowned heads.” In fact, many of those crowned heads were destined before long seriously to feel her powers of attraction.
She had already included in her itinerary Spain, Italy, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. It was an enormous undertaking, having regard to difficulties of transport at that time, when the train services in many countries were the worst imaginable. On this tour, I was again included in her company.
When Damala went to Russia, he begged her to follow, and as her itinerary included Denmark, it was not difficult for her to arrange to go from there to Reval, and thence to St. Petersburg. Russia had always possessed an enormous attraction for her.
Voluminous descriptions of this tour have already been given, and I shall not therefore say much about it, except as regards Sarah personally.
In Lisbon, the actor Décori jumped into the first place in Sarah’s affections, and Décori was extremely jealous of another actor named Dumeny, because he had a better part in the piece.
During the rehearsals for L’Aveu, however, Décori pretended to be a great friend of Dumeny’s, and carried him off every day on fishing trips. As a consequence, Dumeny did not properly learn his part, and his performance on the opening night was farcical.
Sarah called him into her dressing-room for an hour, and gave him one of the most frightful reprimands I have ever heard. It was devastating. When Dumeny came out, he was pale and trembling like a leaf.