SARAH BERNHARDT AS THE DUC DE RICHELIEU.
“Oh, I have known you for some time, mademoiselle,” he said, “you are the little stick with the sponge on the top!”
This caricature of me had just appeared and had been the delight of idle folks. I was quite a young girl at that time and nothing of that kind hurt me or troubled me. In the first place all the doctors had given me up, so that I was indifferent about things, but all the doctors were mistaken and twenty years later I had to fight against the monster.
The return of the Comédie to their homes was an event, but an event that was kept quiet. Our departure from Paris had been very lively and gay and quite a public event. Our return was clandestine for many of the members, and for me among the number. It was a doleful return for those who had not been appreciated and those who had been failures were furious. I had not been back home an hour when Perrin, the manager, was announced. He began to reproach me gently about the little care I took of my health. He said I caused too much fuss to be made about me.
“But,” I exclaimed, “is it my fault if I am thin? Is it my fault, too, that my hair is too curly and that I don’t think just as other people do? Supposing that I took arsenic enough, for a whole month, to make me swell out like a barrel and supposing I were to shave my head like an Arab and only answer ‘Yes’ to everything you said. People would declare I did it for advertisement.”
“But, my dear child,” answered Perrin, “there are people who are neither fat nor thin, neither close shaven nor with shocks of hair, and who answer yes and no.”
I was simply petrified by the justice and reason of the remark and I understand the “because” of all the “whys” I had been asking myself for some years. There was no happy medium about me. I was “too much” and “too little” and I felt that there was nothing to be done for it. I owned it to Perrin and told him that he was quite right. He took advantage of my mood for lecturing me and for advising me not to put in an appearance at the opening ceremony that was to take place at the Comédie. He feared a cabal against me. “Some people were rather excited, rightly or wrongly, a little of both,” he added, in that shrewd and courteous way which was peculiar to him. I listened to him without interrupting, which slightly embarrassed him, for Perrin was an arguer but not an orator.
When he had finished I said: “You have told me too many things that excite me, M. Perrin. I love a battle and I shall appear at the ceremony. You see I have already been warned about it. Here are three anonymous letters. Read this one, it is the nicest.”
He unfolded the letter, which was perfumed with amber, and read as follows: