When I exhibited the bust of my little sister, it was five months after her death, which occurred after a six months’ illness full of false hopes. I had taken her to my home, No. 4 Rue de Rome, to the little entresol which I had inhabited since the terrible fire which had destroyed my furniture, my books, my pictures, and all my scant possessions. This apartment in the Rue de Rome was small. My bedroom was very tiny. The big bamboo bed took up all the room. In front of the window was my coffin, where I frequently installed myself to learn my parts. Therefore when I took my sister to my home I found it quite natural to sleep every night in this little bed of white satin which was to be my last couch, and to put my sister in the big bamboo bed under the lace hangings. She herself found it quite natural, also, for I would not leave her at night and it was impossible to put another bed in this room. Besides, she was accustomed to my coffin.
Three days after this new arrangement my manicure came into the room to do my hands and my sister asked her to enter quietly because I was still asleep. The woman turned her head, believing that I was asleep in the armchair, but seeing me in my coffin she rushed away, shrieking wildly. From that moment all Paris knew that I slept in my coffin, and gossip with its thistledown wings took flight in all directions.
I was so accustomed to the turpitudes which were written about me that I did not trouble about this. But at the death of my poor little sister a tragic-comic incident happened: when the undertaker’s men came to the room to take away the body they found themselves confronted with two coffins, and losing his wits, the master of ceremonies sent in haste for a second hearse. I was at that moment with my mother, who had lost consciousness, and I got back just in time to prevent the black-clothed men taking away my coffin. The second hearse was sent back, but the papers got hold of this incident. I was blamed, criticised, etc.
After the death of my sister I fell seriously ill. I had tended her day and night, and this, in addition to the grief I was suffering, made me anæmic. I was ordered to the South for two months. I promised to go to Mentone and I turned immediately toward Bretagne, the country of my dreams. I had with me my little boy, my butler and his wife. My poor Guérard, who had helped me to tend my sister, was in bed ill with phlebitis. I would have much liked to have had her with me.
SARAH BERNHARDT IN HER COFFIN.
Oh, the lovely holiday that we had there! Thirty-five years ago Bretagne was wild, inhospitable, but as beautiful—perhaps more beautiful than at present, for it was not furrowed with roads, its green slopes were not dotted with small white villas, its inhabitants—the men—were not dressed in the abominable modern trousers, nor the women in the miserable little hat and feathers. No, the Bretons proudly displayed their well-shaped legs in gaiters or rough stockings, their feet shod with buckled shoes, their long hair was brought down on the temples, hiding any awkward ears, and giving to the face a nobility which the modern style does not admit of. The women, with their short skirts, which showed their slender ankles in black stockings, and with their small heads under the wings of the headdress, resembled seagulls. I am not speaking, of course, of the inhabitants of Pont l’Abbé or of Bourg de Batz, who have entirely different aspects.
I visited nearly the whole of Bretagne and stayed especially at Finistère. The Pointe du Raz enchanted me. I remained twelve days at Audierne, in the house of the Père Batifoulé, so big and so fat that they had been obliged to cut a piece out of the table to take in his immense abdomen. I set out every morning at ten o’clock. My butler Claude himself prepared my lunch, which he packed up very carefully in three little baskets; then climbing into the comical vehicle of the Père Batifoulé, my little boy driving, we set out for the Baie des Trépassés. Ah, that beautiful and mysterious shore, all bristling with rocks, all pale and sorrowful! The lighthouse keeper would be looking out for me and would come to meet me. Claude gave him my provisions with a thousand recommendations as to the manner of cooking the eggs, warming up the lentils, and toasting the bread. He carried off everything, then returned with two old sticks in which he had stuck nails to make them into picks and we recommenced the terrifying ascension of the Pointe du Raz, a kind of labyrinth full of disagreeable surprises; of crevasses across which we had to jump, over the gaping and roaring abyss; of arches and tunnels through which we had to crawl on all fours, having overhead—touching even—a rock which had fallen there in unknown ages and was only held in equilibrium by some inexplicable phenomena. Then, all at once, the way became so narrow that it was impossible to walk straight forward; we had to turn and put our backs against the rock and advance with both arms spread out and fingers holding on to the few projections of the rock.
When I think of what I did in those moments, I tremble, for I have always been and still am, subject to fits of dizziness. I went over this path along a steep precipitous rock, thirty meters high, in the midst of the infernal noise of the sea, at this place eternally furious and raging fearfully against indestructible rock. And I must have taken a mad pleasure in it, for I accomplished this journey five times in eleven days.
After this challenge thrown down to reason, we descended and installed ourselves in the Baie des Trépassés. After a bath we had lunch and I painted till sunset.