Victor Hugo.
With this letter came a small box containing a fine chain bracelet, from which hung one diamond drop. I lost this bracelet at the rich nabob’s, Alfred Sassoon. He would have given me another, but I refused. He could not give me back the tear of Victor Hugo.
My success at the Comédie was assured, and the public treated me as a spoiled child. My friends were a little jealous of me. Perrin made trouble for me at every turn. He had a sort of friendship for me, but he could not believe that I could get on without him, and as he always refused to do as I wanted I did not go to him for anything. I sent a letter to the Ministère and I always won my cause.
CHAPTER XX
A BALLOON ASCENSION
As I had a continual thirst for what was new, I now tried my hand at painting. I knew how to draw a little and had a well-developed sense of color. I first did two or three small pictures—then I undertook the portrait of my dear Guérard. Alfred Stevens thought it was vigorously done, and Georges Clairin encouraged me to continue with painting. Then I launched out courageously, boldly. I began a picture which was nearly two meters in size: “The Young Girl and Death.”
Then there was a cry of indignation against me.
Why did I want to do anything else but act, since that was my career?
Why did I always want to be before the public?
Perrin came to see me one day when I was very ill. He began to preach. “You are killing yourself, my dear child,” he said. “Why do you go in for sculpture, painting, etc.? Is it to prove that you can do it?”