“Alas! this was not the last time that my mother’s chilly behaviour towards me threw me into a paroxysm of misery resulting in illness. I never grew callous to her disapproval of me; her cutting criticisms had always the power to wound me to the heart. And yet I loved her! More, I adored her! Poor, lonely, friendless child that I was and had ever been, my starved heart cried out to the one human being whose love I had the right to claim, and who responded to my caresses sometimes almost as if I had been a stranger.”
This was the only occasion on which Sarah Bernhardt ever bewailed to me or to anyone else, her mother’s lack of affection for her. She was scrupulously loyal to both her parents, and on the rare occasions when she mentioned them, it was always in terms of genuine love and respect.
During her two years in Auteuil, Sarah’s mother went to see her only three times, and her father only once. Her father’s visit took place at the end of the first year, in December 1851. It was the first time, to her recollection, that Sarah had ever seen him. They met in the head-mistress’s office, and the occasion must have been replete with drama.
“I was called from study one afternoon about three o’clock,” said Sarah, “and taken to Mme. Fressard’s bureau. I found her waiting for me at the door with a peculiar expression on her face, and in the arm-chair near the fireplace I saw a very well-dressed man of about thirty, with a waxed moustache.
“‘Ma chérie,’ said Madame Fressard, ‘here is your father come to see you.’
“Mon père! So this was the mysterious personage whose wish and order governed my life; this the parent of whom my mother was apparently so much in fear, and yet whom she seldom saw; this the stranger who was responsible for my being!
“I advanced shyly and gave my face to be kissed, an operation which my father performed twice, on both sides, his moustache giving me a prickly sensation on my cheeks.
“‘Why, she is growing into quite a little beauty!’ he said to Madame Fressard, holding me so that he could look at me closely. Then he asked me many questions: Was I happy? Was I well? Had I playmates? What had I learned? Could I read and write?—and spell?—and do sums?
“The interrogation lasted ten minutes and then my father took his tall grey hat and gloves, and prepared to leave.
“‘We will leave her with you for a little while longer, madame,’ he said to Madame Fressard, while I listened with all my ears.