After “Le Passant” and the famous success of that adorable piece, a success in which Agar and I had our share, Chilly thought more of me and began to like me. He insisted on paying for our costumes, which was great extravagance for him. I had become the adored queen of the students, and I used to receive little bouquets of violets, sonnets, and long, long poems—too long to read. Sometimes, on arriving at the theater, as I was getting out of my carriage, I received a shower of flowers which simply covered me, and I was delighted and used to thank my worshipers. The only thing was that their admiration blinded them, so that when in some pieces I was not so good, and the house was rather chary of applause, my little army of students would be indignant, and would cheer wildly, without rhyme or reason. I can understand quite well that this used to exasperate the regular subscribers of the Odéon, who were very kindly disposed toward me, nevertheless. They, too, used to spoil me, but they would have liked me to be more humble and meek, and less headstrong. How many times one or another of those old subscribers would come and give me a word of advice! “Mademoiselle, you were charming in ‘Junie,’” one of them observed, “but you bite your lips, and the Roman women never did that!” “My dear girl,” another one said, “you were delicious in ‘François le Champi,’ but there is not a single Breton woman in the whole of Brittany with her hair frizzed.”
A professor from the Sorbonne said to me one day, rather curtly: “It is a want of respect, mademoiselle, to turn your back on the public!”
“But, monsieur,” I replied, “I was accompanying an old lady to a door at the back of the stage. I could not walk along with her backward.”
“The artistes we had before you, mademoiselle, who were quite as talented, found a way of going across the stage without turning their backs on the public.” With this he turned quickly on his heels and was going away, but I stopped him.
“Monsieur, will you go to that door, through which you intended to pass, without turning your back on me?”
He made an attempt, and then, furious, turned his back on me and disappeared, slamming the door after him.
I lived for some time at 16 Rue Auber, in a flat on the first floor, which was rather a nice one. I had furnished it with old Dutch furniture which my grandmother had sent me. My godfather advised me to insure against fire, as this furniture, he assured me, constituted a small fortune. I decided to follow his advice, and asked my petite dame to take the necessary steps for me. A few days later, she told me that some one would call about it on the 12th. On the day in question, toward two o’clock, a gentleman called, but I was in an extremely nervous condition, and could not see anyone. I had refused to be disturbed, and had shut myself up in my bedroom in a frightfully depressed state. That same evening, I received a letter from the fire insurance company, asking me which day their agent might call to have the agreement signed. I replied that he might come on Saturday. On Friday I was so utterly wretched that I sent to ask my mother to come and lunch with me. I was not playing that day, as I never used to play on Tuesdays and Fridays, the days we went through our repertory, for, as I was playing every other day in new pieces, it was feared that I should be overtired.
My mother, on arriving, thought I looked very pale.
“Yes,” I replied, “I do not know what is the matter with me, but I am in a very nervous state and most depressed.”