Mr. Gladstone did me the great honour of talking to me for about ten minutes. With his genial mind he spoke of everything in a singularly gracious way. He asked me what impression the attacks of certain clergymen on the Comédie Française and the damnable profession of dramatic artistes had made on me. I answered that I considered our art quite as profitable, morally, as the sermons of Catholic and Protestant preachers.
“But will you tell me, Mademoiselle,” he insisted, “what moral lesson you can draw from Phèdre?”
“Oh, Mr. Gladstone,” I replied, “you surprise me. Phèdre is an ancient tragedy; the morality and customs of those times belong to perspective quite different from ours and different from the morality of our present society. And yet in that there is the punishment of the old nurse Œnone, who commits the atrocious crime of accusing an innocent person. The love of Phèdre is excusable on account of the fatality which hangs over her family and descends pitilessly upon her. In our times we should call that fatality atavism, for Phèdre was the daughter of Minos and Pasiphaë. As to Theseus, his verdict, against which there could be no appeal, was an arbitrary and monstrous act, and was punished by the death of that beloved son of his, who was the sole and last hope of his life. We ought never to do what is irreparable.”
“Ah,” said the Grand Old Man, “you are against capital punishment?”
“Yes, Mr. Gladstone.”
“And quite right, Mademoiselle.”
Frederic Leighton then joined us, and with great kindness complimented me on one of my pictures, representing a young girl holding some palms. This picture was bought by Prince Leopold.
My little exhibition was a great success, but I never thought that it was to be the cause of so much gossip and of so many cowardly side-thrusts, until finally it led to my rupture with the Comédie Française.
“OPHELIA,” SCULPTURE BY SARAH BERNHARDT