“Where are you going?” asked Mayer, perfectly stupefied.
“To the theater ... quick ... quick...!” I answered.
The cab started and I then explained to him that if I had stayed at home, neither Dr. Parrot nor Dr. Vintras would have let me act upon any account.
“The die is cast now,” I added, “and we shall see what happens.”
When once I was at the theater I took refuge in the manager’s private office, in order to avoid Dr. Parrot’s anger. I was very fond of him and I knew how wrongly I was acting toward him, considering the inconvenience to which he had put himself in making the journey specially for me in response to my summons. I knew, though, how impossible it would have been to have made him understand that I felt really better, and that in risking my life I was really only risking what was my own to dispose of as I pleased.
Half an hour later my maid joined me. She brought with her a letter from Dr. Parrot, full of gentle reproaches and furious advice, finishing with a prescription, in case of a relapse. He was leaving an hour later and would not even come and shake hands with me. I felt quite sure, though, that we should make it all up again on my return. I then began to prepare for my rôle in “L’Etrangère.” While dressing, I fainted three times, but I was determined to play quand-même.
The opium that I had taken in my potion made my head rather heavy. I arrived on the stage in a semiconscious state, delighted with the applause I received. I walked along as though I were in a dream and could scarcely distinguish my surroundings. The house itself I saw only through a luminous mist. My feet glided along on the carpet without any effort, and my voice sounded to me far away, very far away. I was in that delicious stupor that one experiences after chloroform, morphine, opium, or hasheesh.
The first act went off very well, but in the third act, just when I was to tell the Duchess de Septmonts (Croizette) all the troubles that I, Mrs. Clarkson, had gone through during my life, just as I should have commenced my interminable story I could not remember anything. Croizette murmured my first phrase for me, but I could only see her lips move without hearing a word. I then said quite calmly:
“The reason I sent for you here, madame, is because I wanted to tell you my reasons for acting as I have done, but I have thought it over and have decided not to tell you them to-day.”
Sophie Croizette gazed at me with a terrified look in her eyes, she then rose and left the stage, her lips trembling, and her eyes fixed on me all the time.