I hate seeing public buildings and having them explained to me. I know most of the public sights of France, but I have visited them when I felt inclined and with my own chosen friends. As to the churches and other buildings, I find them very tiresome. I cannot help it—it really wearies me to see them.
I can admire their outline in passing, or when I see them silhouetted against the setting sun, that is all right, but further than that I will not go. The idea of entering these cold spaces, while some one explains their absurd and interminable history, of looking up at their ceilings with craning neck, of cramping my feet by walking unnaturally over highly waxed floors, of being obliged to admire the restoration of the left wing that they would have done better to let crumble to ruins; to have some one express wonder at the depth of some moat which once upon a time used to be full of water, but is now as dry as the east wind—all that is so tiresome it makes me want to howl. From my earliest childhood I have always detested houses, castles, churches, towers, and all buildings higher than a mill. I love low buildings, farms, huts, and I positively adore mills, because these little buildings do not obstruct the horizon. I have nothing to say against the Pyramids, but I would a hundred times rather they had never been built.
I begged Duquesnel to send telegrams at once to all the notabilities who had been so obliging. We passed two hours over this task, and on September 3, I set out, free, joyful, and content.
My friends came to see me while I was on tour, in accordance with the lots they had drawn, and we had picnics by coach into the surrounding country from all the towns in which I played.
I came back to Paris on September 30, and had only just time to prepare for my journey to America. I had only been a week in Paris when I had a visit from M. Bertrand, who was then director of the Variétés. His brother was director of the Vaudeville in partnership with Raymond Deslandes.
I did not know Eugène Bertrand, but I received him at once, for we had mutual friends.
“What are you going to do when you come back from America?” he asked me, after we had exchanged greetings.
“I really don’t know. Nothing. I have not thought of anything.”
“Well, I have thought of something for you. And if you like to make your reappearance in Paris in a play of Victorien Sardou’s, I will sign with you at once for the Vaudeville.”
“Ah!” I cried. “The Vaudeville! What are you thinking of? Raymond Deslandes is the manager, and he hates me like poison because I ran away from the Gymnase the day following the first performance of his play Un mari qui lance sa femme. His play was ridiculous, and I was even more ridiculous than his play in the part of a young Russian lady addicted to dancing and eating sandwiches. That man will never engage me!”