The following is an extract from the Temps of November 11, 1872. It was written by Francisque Sarcey, with whom I was not then acquainted, but who was following my career with very great interest:
“It was a very brilliant assembly, as this début had attracted all theater lovers. The fact is, besides the special merit of Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt, a whole crowd of true or false stories had been circulated about her personally, and all this had excited the curiosity of the Parisian public. Her appearance was a disappointment. She had, by her costume, exaggerated in a most ostentatious way a slenderness which is elegant under the veils and ample drapery of the Grecian and Roman heroines, but which is objectionable in modern dress. Then, too, either powder does not suit her, or stage fright had made her terribly pale. The effect of this long, white face emerging from a long, black sheath was certainly unpleasant” (I looked like an ant), “particularly as the eyes had lost their brilliancy, and all that relieved the face were the sparkling white teeth. She went through the first three acts with a convulsive tremor, and we recognized the Sarah of ‘Ruy Blas’ only by two couplets which she gave in her enchanting voice with the most wonderful grace; but in all the more powerful passages she was a failure. I doubt whether Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt will ever, with her delicious voice, be able to render those deep, thrilling notes, expressive of paroxysms of violent passion, which are capable of carrying away an audience. If only nature had endowed her with this gift, she would be a perfect artiste, and there are none such on the stage. Roused by the coldness of her public, Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt was entirely herself in the fifth act. This was certainly our Sarah once more, the Sarah of ‘Ruy Blas,’ whom we had admired so much at the Odéon,” etc., etc.
As Sarcey said, I made a complete failure of my début. My excuse, though, was not the “stage fright” to which he attributed it, but the terrible anxiety I felt on seeing my mother hurriedly leave her seat in the dress circle five minutes after my appearance on the stage. I had glanced at her on entering, and had noticed her deathlike pallor. When she went out, I felt that she was about to have one of those attacks which endangered her life, so that my first act seemed to me interminable. I uttered one word after another, stammering through my sentences haphazard, with only one idea in my head, a longing to know what had happened. Oh, the public cannot conceive of the tortures endured by the unfortunate comedians who are there before them in flesh and blood on the stage, gesticulating and uttering phrases, while their heart, all torn with anguish, is with the beloved absent one who is suffering! As a rule, one can fling away the worries and anxieties of everyday life, put off one’s own personality for a few hours, take on another and, forgetting everything else, enter as it were into another life. But that is impossible when our dear ones are suffering; anxiety then lays hold of us, attenuating the bright side, magnifying the dark, maddening our brain, which is living two lives at once, and tormenting our heart, which is beating as though it would burst. These were the sensations I experienced during that first act.
“Mamma? What has happened to mamma?” were my first words on leaving the stage. No one could tell me anything.
Croizette came up to me and said: “What’s the matter? I hardly recognize you, and you weren’t yourself at all just now in the play.”
In a few words I told her what I had seen, and all that I had felt. Frédéric Febvre sent at once to get news, and the doctor came hurrying to me.
“Your mother had a fainting fit, mademoiselle,” he said, “but they have just taken her home.”
“It was her heart, wasn’t it?” I asked, looking at him.
“Yes,” he replied, “madame’s heart is in a very agitated state.”
“Oh, I know how ill she is!” I said, and not being able to control myself any longer, I burst into sobs. Croizette helped me back to my dressing-room. She was very kind, for we had known each other from childhood, and were very fond of each other. Nothing ever estranged us, in spite of all the malicious gossip of envious people, and all the little miseries due to vanity.