For the next three days I was in utter despair, weeping bitter tears, tears that scalded my cheeks. Then I began to get calm again, my will power triumphed over my grief. On the fourth day I dressed at seven o’clock and went on deck to have some fresh air. It was icy cold and as I walked up and down I met a lady dressed in black with a sad, resigned face. The sea looked gloomy and colorless and there were no waves. Suddenly a wild billow dashed so violently against our boat that we were both thrown down. I immediately clutched hold of the leg of one of the benches, but the unfortunate lady was flung forward. Springing to my feet with a bound I was just in time to seize hold of the skirt of her dress, and with the help of my maid and a sailor, we managed to prevent the poor woman from falling head first down the staircase. Very much hurt, though, she was, and a trifle confused; she thanked me in such a gentle, dreamy voice that my heart began to beat with emotion.
“You might have been killed, madame,” I said, “down that horrible staircase.”
“Yes,” she answered, with a sigh of regret, “but it was not God’s will. Are you not Madame Hessler?” she continued, looking earnestly at me.
“No, madame,” I answered, “my name is Sarah Bernhardt.”
She stepped back and drawing herself up, her face very pale and her brows knitted, she said in a mournful voice, a voice that was scarcely audible: “I am the widow of President Lincoln.”
I, too, stepped back, and a thrill of anguish ran through me, for I had just done this unhappy woman the only service that I ought not to have done her—I had saved her from death. Her husband had been assassinated by an actor, Booth, and it was an actress who had now prevented her from joining her beloved husband. I went back again to my cabin and stayed there two days, for I had not the courage to meet that woman for whom I felt such sympathy, and to whom I should never dare to speak again.
On the 22d we were surprised by an abominable snowstorm. I was called up hurriedly by Captain Jonclas. I threw on a long ermine cloak and went on to the bridge. It was perfectly stupefying and at the same time fairylike. The heavy flakes met each other with a hiss in their mad waltzing provoked by the wind. The sky was suddenly veiled from us by all this whiteness which fell round us in avalanches, completely hiding the horizon. I was facing the sea and, as Captain Jonclas pointed out to me, we could not see a hundred yards in front of us. I then turned round and saw that the boat was as white as a seagull; the ropes, the cordage, the nettings, the portholes, the shrouds, the whalers, the deck, the sails, the ladders, the funnels, the airholes—everything was white. The sea was black and the sky was black. The boat alone was white, floating along in this immensity. There was a contest between the high funnel, sputtering forth with difficulty its smoke through the wind which was rushing wildly into its great mouth, and the prolonged shrieks of the siren. The contrast was so extraordinary between the virgin whiteness of this boat and the infernal uproar it made that it seemed to me as if I had before me an angel in a fit of hysterics.
In the evening of that strange day the doctor came to tell me of the birth of a child among the immigrants, in whom I was deeply interested. I went at once to the mother and did all I could for the poor little creature who had just come into the world. Oh, the dismal moans in that dismal night in the midst of all that misery! Oh, that first strident cry of the child affirming its will to live in the midst of all these sufferings, of all these hardships, and of all these hopes! Everything was there mingled together in that human medley—men, women, children, rags and preserves, oranges and basins, heads of hair and bald pates, half-open lips of young girls and tightly closed mouths of shrewish women, white caps and red handkerchiefs, hands stretched out in hope and fists clenched against adversity. I saw revolvers half concealed under the rags, knives in the men’s belts. A sudden roll of the boat showed us the contents of a parcel that had fallen from the hands of a rascally looking fellow with a very decided expression on his face, and a hatchet and a tomahawk fell to the ground. One of the sailors immediately seized the two weapons to take them to the purser. I shall never forget the scrutinizing glance of the man. He had evidently made a mental note of the features of the sailor, and I breathed a fervent prayer that the two might never meet in a solitary place.
I remember now with remorse the horrible disgust that took possession of me when the doctor handed the child over to me to wash. That dirty little red, moving, sticky object was a human being. It had a soul and would have thoughts. I felt quite sick and I could never again look at that child—although I was afterwards its godmother—without living over again that first impression. When the young mother had fallen asleep I wanted to go back to my cabin. The doctor helped me, but the sea was so rough that we could scarcely walk at all among the packages and immigrants. Some of them who were crouching on the floor watched us silently as we tottered and stumbled along like drunkards. I was annoyed at being watched by those malevolent, mocking eyes. “I say, doctor,” one of the men called out, “the sea water gets in the head like wine. You and your lady look as though you were coming back from a spree!” An old woman clung to me as we passed. “Oh, madame!” she said, “shall we be shipwrecked with the boats rolling like this? Oh, God! oh, God!” A tall fellow with red hair and beard came forward and laid the poor old woman down again gently. “You can sleep in peace, mother,” he said; “if we are shipwrecked I swear there shall be more, saved down here than up on the top.” He then came closer to me and continued in a defiant tone: “The rich folks ... first class, into the sea! ... the immigrants—seconds, in the boats!” As he uttered these words I heard a sly, stifled laugh from everywhere, in front of me, behind, at the side, and even from under my feet. It seemed to echo in the distance like the laughing behind the scenes on the stage. I drew nearer to the doctor and he saw that I was uneasy.
“Nonsense,” he said, laughing, “we should defend ourselves.”