Her breast heaved, her breath came in short gasps. Sarah Bernhardt was “dying” in one of the most magnificent scenes she ever played. Her lips moved—and it is fortunate that the audience could not hear what they said!
They said, in fact: “You ugly cow! You have spoiled everything by your clumsiness! This is not the proper garment!”
And, in truth, I discovered to my horror that it wasn’t! I was in such a nervous state that I had chosen the wrong robe. However, I am certain that nobody except Sarah, not even the others in the company, noticed the fact. But, added to my previous grave fault, this error was enough for her.
She kept up her great death scene, taking twice as long as usual, because she kept on thinking of new reproaches to hurl at me. What reproaches they were, too! My ears burned. My cheeks were tingling with indignation.
Finally, when she uttered a really outrageous insult—it was with her supposedly last breath that she said it—I leaned down, and, making the motions of intense and tearful grief, hissed between my sobs:
“You say another word and I’ll smack your face here on the stage!”
I meant it, too, and Sarah must have seen that I did, for she “died” properly this time, and never pronounced another word.
And all this while there was the audience out in the mistiness beyond, tense and grief-stricken, held by the marvellous acting of the great tragédienne on her stage death-bed!
In Vienna the Archduke Frederick put one of his palaces at Sarah’s disposal, and in appreciation of his act of courtesy we gave a special performance for him, to which all the ladies of the Court were invited. The Emperor was away, or ill—I forget which.
The last act in La Dame aux Camélias, the very one which I have just been describing, made such an impression on one of these ladies, a beautiful Hungarian, that she fainted dead away and had to be carried out of the theatre.