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.
XXIX
THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE RETURNS TO PARIS—SARAH BERNHARDT’S COMMENTS ON ACTORS AND ACTRESSES OF THE DAY
The return of the Comédie to its home was an event, but an event that was kept quiet. Our departure from Paris had been very lively and gay, and quite a public function. 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, whilst those who had been failures were furious.
I had not been back home an hour when Perrin 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 too thin? Is it my fault, too, if my hair is too curly, and if I don’t think just as other people do? Supposing that I took sufficient arsenic during a 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 this remark, and I understood 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 this. I owned it to Perrin, and told him that he was quite right. He took advantage of my mood to lecture me and advise me not to put in an appearance at the opening ceremony that was soon 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, Monsieur 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:
“My poor Skeleton,—You will do well not to show your horrible Jewish nose at the opening ceremony the day after to-morrow. I fear that it would serve as a target for all the potatoes that are now being cooked specially for you in your kind city of Paris. Have some paragraphs put in the papers to the effect that you have been spitting blood, and remain in bed and think over the consequence of excessive advertisement.