Sarah was at last at school.
CHAPTER V
In later years it was fairly well known amongst theatrical people that Sarah was subject to “stage fright.” The only occasion however on which nerves actually stopped her performance, occurred at Auteuil school, when she was eight years and three months old. Sarah told this story to me on one memorable day at Ville d’Avray, when, during a fête given by the Grand Duke Peter of Russia, we had stolen away from the crowd into Bellevue woods. I have never seen the incident referred to in print.
“I had been at the school a little more than a year,” Sarah told me, “when it was decided to give a performance of Clotilde, a play for children, which concerned a little girl’s adventures in fairyland. Stella Colas, afterwards the wife of Pierre de Corvin, was cast for the name part. Another little fair girl (whose name I have forgotten) was to play the rôle of Augustine, the partner of Clotilde. And I was cast for the part of the Queen of the Fairies.
“At the rehearsals—we rehearsed all the winter—everything went well. My part was not an important one, but it involved some pretty realistic acting in the second act, when the Queen of the Fairies dies of mortification on hearing Clotilde affirm that the fairies do not really exist. This was the first ‘death scene’ in which I ever acted.
“I wore wings, of course, and many rehearsals were necessary before the stage-manager, who was our kindergarten teacher, could get me to fall without breaking them. Finally I learned the part, and managed to do it to the entire satisfaction of everyone.
“When the great night came, we were, of course, all very nervous, myself most of all, for my mother and two aunts had written that they would be present accompanied by no less a personage than the Duc de Morny, then considered to be the power behind Napoleon the Third’s throne.
“Before the curtain went up, my knees were knocking together and I felt a wild desire to fly. I tried to run away and hide, in fact, but the teacher found me, petted me and made me promise to go on with the part.
“I had nothing to do until the end of the first act, when Clotilde and Augustine fall asleep at the foot of a great tree and dream of the fairies. My part was to descend from the tree, assisted by unseen wires, float to the middle of the stage, and then pronounce the words: ‘On demande la reine des rêves? Me voici!’ (‘They want the Queen of Dreams? Here I am!’)