In spite of my confusion, I now made my curtsey again, but the Emperor said, smiling:
“Oh! no; it could not be better than it was just now. Save them for the Empress, who is expecting you.”
Oh, that “just now.” I wondered when it had been?
I could not question Madame Guérard, as she was following at some distance with M. de Laferrière. The Emperor was at my side, talking to me of a hundred things, but I could only answer in an absent-minded way, on account of that “just now.”
SARAH BERNHARDT IN A FANCY COSTUME
By Walter Spindler
I liked him much better thus, quite near, than in his portraits. He had such fine eyes, which he half closed whilst looking through his long lashes. His smile was sad and rather mocking. His face was pale and his voice faint, but seductive.
We found the Empress seated in a large arm-chair. Her body was sheathed in a grey dress, and seemed to have been moulded into the material. I thought her very beautiful. She too was more beautiful than her portraits. I made my three curtseys under the laughing eyes of the Emperor. The Empress spoke, and the spell was then broken. That rough, hard voice coming from that brilliant woman gave me a shock.
From that moment I felt ill at ease with her, in spite of her graciousness and her kindness. As soon as Agar arrived and had been introduced, the Empress had us conducted to the large drawing-room, where the performance was to take place. The measurements were taken for the platform, and there was to be the flight of steps where Agar had to pose as the unhappy courtesan cursing mercenary love and longing for ideal love.
This flight of steps was quite a problem. They were supposed to represent the first three steps of a huge flight leading up to a Florentine palace, and had to be half hidden in some way. I asked for some shrubs, flowers and plants, which I arranged along the three steps.