“I feel that I shall never be yielding nor docile, my friend,” I answered looking at him, “I will try to be more sociable, but that is all I can promise. As to my crown, I assure you that in spite of my risky jumps, and I feel that I shall always be making some, the crown will not shake off.”
Paul Meurice, who had come up to us, overheard this conversation, and reminded me of it on the evening of the first performance of Angelo at the Sarah Bernhardt Theatre, on February 7, 1905.
On returning home, I sat up a long time talking to Madame Guérard, and when she wanted to go I begged her to stay longer. I had become so rich in hopes for the future that I was afraid of thieves. Mon petit Dame stayed on with me, and we talked till daybreak. At seven o’clock we took a cab and I drove my dear friend home, and then continued driving for another hour. I had already achieved a fair number of successes: Le Passant, Le Drame de la Rue de la Paix, Anna Danby in Kean, and Jean-Marie, but I felt that the Ruy Blas success was greater than any of the others, and that this time I had become some one to be criticised, but not to be overlooked.
I often went in the morning to Victor Hugo’s, and he was always very charming and kind.
SKULL IN SARAH BERNHARDT’S
LIBRARY, WITH AUTOGRAPH
VERSES BY VICTOR HUGO
When I was quite at my ease with him, I spoke to him about my first impressions, about all my stupid, nervous rebellion with regard to him, about all that I had been told and all that I had believed in my naïve ignorance about political matters.
One morning the Master took great delight in my conversation. He sent for Madame Drouet, the sweet soul, the companion of his glorious and rebellious mind. He told her, in a laughing but melancholy way, that the evil work of bad people is to sow error in every soil, whether favourable or not. That morning is engraved for ever in my mind, for the great man talked a long time. Oh, it was not for me, but for what I represented in his eyes. Was I not, as a matter of fact, the young generation, in which a bourgeois and clerical education had warped the intelligence by closing the mind to every generous idea, to every flight towards the new?
When I left Victor Hugo that morning I felt myself more worthy of his friendship.
I then went to Girardin’s, as I wanted to talk to some one who loved the poet, but he was out.