Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

MEMORIES OF MY LIFE

SARAH BERNHARDT AS GISMONDA, FROM A PAINTING BY CHARTRAN.

MEMORIES OF MY LIFE
Being my Personal, Professional, and Social Recollections as Woman and Artist

By

SARAH BERNHARDT

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

NEW YORK MCMVII

Copyright, 1907, by

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Published October, 1907

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

MEMORIES OF MY LIFE

CHAPTER I
MY AUNTS

My mother was fond of traveling: she would go from Spain to England, from London to Paris, from Paris to Berlin, and from there to Christiania; then she would come back, embrace me, and set out again for Holland, her native country. She used to send my nurse clothing for herself and cakes for me. To one of my aunts she would write: “Look after little Sarah; I shall return in a month’s time.” A month later she would write to another of her sisters: “Go and see the child at her nurse’s; I shall be back in a couple of weeks.”

My mother’s age was nineteen; I was three years old, and my two aunts were seventeen and twenty years of age; another aunt was fifteen, and the eldest was twenty-eight, but the latter lived at Martinique, and was the mother of six children. My grandmother was blind, my grandfather dead, and my father had been in China for the last two years. I have no idea why he had gone there.

My youthful aunts were always promising to come to see me, but rarely kept their word. My nurse hailed from Brittany and lived near Quimperle in a little white house with a low thatched roof, on which wild gilly-flowers grew. That was the first flower which charmed my eyes as a child, and I have loved it ever since. Its leaves are heavy and sad-looking, and its petals are made of the setting sun.

Brittany is a long way off, even in our present epoch of velocity of travel. In those days it was the end of the world. Fortunately, my nurse was, it appears, a good, kind woman, and as her own child had died, she had only me to love. But she loved after the manner of poor people—when she had time.

One day, as her husband was ill, she went into the field to help gather in potatoes. The over-damp soil was rotting them, and there was no time to be lost. She left me in charge of her husband, who was lying on his Breton bed suffering from a bad attack of lumbago. The good woman had placed me in my high chair, and had been careful to put in the wooden peg which supported the narrow tray for my toys. She threw a fagot in the grate, and said to me in Breton language: (until the age of four I only understood Breton) “Be a good girl, Milk Blossom.” That was my only name at the time. When she had gone, I tried to withdraw the wooden peg which she had taken so much trouble to put in place. Finally, I succeeded in pushing aside the little rampart. I wanted to reach the ground, but poor little me, I fell into the fire which was burning joyfully.

The screams of my foster father, who could not move, brought in some neighbors. I was thrown, all smoking, into a large pail of fresh milk. My aunts were informed of what had happened; they communicated the news to my mother, and, for the next four days, that quiet part of the country was plowed by stagecoaches that arrived in rapid succession. My aunts came from all parts of the world, and my mother, in the greatest alarm, hastened from Brussels with Baron Larrey, one of her friends, who was a young doctor just beginning to acquire celebrity, and a house surgeon whom Baron Larrey had brought with him. I have been told since that nothing was more painful to witness and yet so charming, as my mother’s despair. The doctor approved of the “mask of butter,” which was changed every two hours.

Dear Baron Larrey! I often saw him afterwards, and now and again we shall meet him in the pages of my Memoirs. He used to tell me in such charming fashion how those kind folk loved Milk Blossom. And he could never refrain from laughing at the thought of that butter. There was butter everywhere, he used to say: on the bedsteads, on the cupboards, on the chairs, on the tables, hanging up on nails in bladders. All the neighbors used to bring butter to make masks for Milk Blossom.

Mother, admirably beautiful, looked like a Madonna, with her golden hair and her eyes fringed with such long lashes that they made a shadow on her cheeks when she lowered her eyes. She distributed money on all sides. She would have given her golden hair, her slender white fingers, her tiny feet, her life itself, in order to save her child. And she was as sincere in her despair and her love as in her unconscious forgetfulness. Baron Larrey returned to Paris, leaving my mother, Aunt Rosine, and the surgeon with me. Forty-two days later, mother took the nurse, the foster father, and me back in triumph to Paris, and installed us in a little house at Neuilly, on the banks of the Seine. I had not even a scar, it appears. My skin was rather too bright a pink, but that was all. My mother, happy and trustful once more, began to travel again, leaving me in care of my aunts.

Two years were spent in the little garden at Neuilly, which was full of horrible dahlias growing close together and colored like wooden balls. My aunts never came there. My mother used to send money, bonbons, and toys. The foster father died and my nurse married a concierge, who used to open the door at 65, rue de Provence.

Not knowing where to find my mother, and not being able to write, my nurse, without telling any of my friends, took me with her to her new abode.

The change delighted me. I was five years old at the time, and I remember the day as if it were yesterday. My nurse’s abode was just over the doorway of the house, and the window was framed in the heavy and monumental door. From outside, I thought it was beautiful, and I began to clap my hands on reaching the house. It was toward five o’clock in the evening, in the month of November, when everything looks gray. I was put to bed and no doubt I went to sleep at once, for there end my recollections of that day.

The next morning there was terrible grief in store for me. There was no window in the little room in which I slept, and I began to cry, and escaped from the arms of my nurse, who was dressing me, so that I could go into the adjoining room. I ran to the round window, which was an immense “bull’s eye” above the doorway. I pressed my stubborn brow against the glass and began to scream with rage on seeing no trees, no boxwood, no leaves falling, nothing, nothing, but stone, cold, gray, ugly stone, and panes of glass opposite me.

“I want to go away,” I screamed. “I don’t want to stay here! It is all black, black! It is ugly! I want to see the ceiling of the street!” and I burst into tears. My poor nurse took me up in her arms and, folding me in a rug, took me down into the courtyard.

“Lift up your head, Milk Blossom, and look! See, there is the ceiling of the street!”

It comforted me somewhat to see that there was some sky in this ugly place, but my little soul was very sad. I could not eat, and I grew pale and became anæmic, and I should certainly have died of consumption if it had not been for a mere chance, a most unexpected incident. One day I was playing in the courtyard with a little girl named Titine, who lived on the second floor and whose face or real name I cannot recall, when I saw my nurse’s husband walking across the courtyard with two ladies, one of whom was most fashionably attired. I could only see their backs, but the voice of the fashionably attired lady caused my heart to stop beating. My poor little body trembled with nervous excitement.

“Do any of the windows look on to the courtyard?” she asked.

“Yes, madame, those four,” he replied, pointing to four open ones on the first floor.

The lady turned to look at them, and I uttered a cry of joy.

“Aunt Rosine! Aunt Rosine!” I exclaimed, clinging to the skirts of the pretty visitor. I buried my face in her furs, stamping, sobbing, laughing, and tearing her wide, lace sleeves in my frenzy of delight. She took me in her arms and tried to calm me, and questioning the concierge she stammered out to her friend:

“I can’t understand what it all means! This is little Sarah! My sister Youle’s child!”

The noise I made had attracted attention, and people opened their windows. My aunt decided to take refuge in the concierge’s lodge, in order to come to an explanation. My poor nurse told her about all that had taken place, her husband’s death, and her second marriage. I do not remember what she said to excuse herself. I clung to my aunt, who was deliciously perfumed, and I would not let her go. She promised to come the following day to fetch me, but I did not want to stay any longer in that dark place. I asked to start at once with my nurse. My aunt stroked my hair gently, and spoke to her friend in a language I did not understand. She tried, in vain, to explain something to me, I do not know what it was, but I insisted that I wanted to go away with her at once. In a gentle, tender, caressing voice, but without any real affection, she said all kinds of pretty things, stroked me with her gloved hands, patted my frock, which was turned up, and made any amount of charming, frivolous little gestures, but all without any real feeling. She then went away, at her friend’s entreaty, after emptying her purse in my nurse’s hands. I rushed toward the door, but the husband of my nurse, who had opened it for her, now closed it again. My nurse was crying, and, taking me in her arms, she opened the window, saying to me: “Don’t cry, Milk Blossom, look at your pretty aunt; she will come back again, and then you can go away with her.” Great tears rolled down her calm, round, handsome face. I could see nothing but the dark, black hole which remained there immutable behind me, and in a fit of despair, I rushed out to my aunt who was just getting into a carriage. After that I knew nothing more; everything seemed dark; there was a noise in the distance. I could hear voices far, far away. I had managed to escape from my poor nurse, and had fallen down on the pavement in front of my aunt. I had broken my arm in two places, and injured my left kneecap. I only came to myself again a few hours later, to find that I was in a beautiful, wide bed which smelled very nice. It stood in the middle of a large room, with two lovely windows, which made me very joyful, for I could see the ceiling of the street through them.

My mother, who had been sent for immediately, came to take care of me, and I saw the rest of my family, my aunts and my cousins. My poor little brain could not understand why all these people should suddenly be so fond of me, when I had passed so many days and nights only cared for by one single person. As I was weakly, and my bones small and friable, I was two years recovering from this terrible fall, and during that time was nearly always carried about. I will pass over these two years of my life, which have left me only a vague memory of being petted, and of a chronic state of torpor.

One day my mother took me on her knees, and said to me: “You are a big girl now, and you must learn to read and write.” I was then seven years old, and could neither read, write, nor count, as I had been five years with the old nurse, and two years ill. “You must go to school,” continued my mother, playing with my curly hair, “like a big girl.”

I did not know what all this meant, and I asked what a school was.

“It’s a place where there are many little girls,” replied my mother.

“Are they ill?” I asked.

“Oh, no! They are quite well, as you are now, and they play together, and are very gay and happy.”

I jumped about in delight, and gave free vent to my joy, but on seeing tears in my mother’s eyes, I flung myself in her arms.

“But what about you, mamma?” I asked. “You will be all alone, and you won’t have any little girl.”

She bent down to me and said:

“God has told me that he will send me some flowers, and a little baby.”

My delight was more and more boisterous.

“Then I shall have a little brother?” I exclaimed, “or else a little sister? Oh, no, I don’t want that, I don’t like little sisters!”

Mamma kissed me very affectionately, and then I was dressed, I remember, in a blue, corded velvet frock, of which I was very proud. Arrayed thus in all my splendor, I waited impatiently for Aunt Rosine’s carriage, which was to take us to Auteuil.

It was about three when she arrived. The housemaid had gone on about an hour before, and I had watched with delight my little trunk and my toys being packed into the carriage. The maid climbed up and took the seat by the driver, in spite of my mother protesting at first against this. When my aunt’s magnificent equipage arrived, mamma was the first to get in, slowly and calmly. I got in slowly, too, giving myself airs, because the concierge and some of the shopkeepers were watching. My aunt then sprang in lightly, but by no means calmly, after giving her orders in English to the stiff, ridiculous-looking coachman, and handing him a paper on which the address was written. Another carriage followed ours, in which three men were seated: Régie L——, a friend of my father’s, General de P—— and an artist named Fleury, I think, whose pictures of horses and sporting subjects were very much in vogue just then.

I heard on the way that these gentlemen were going to arrange about a little dinner near Auteuil, to console mamma for her great trouble in being separated from me. Some other guests were to be there to meet them. I did not pay very much attention to what my mother and my aunt said to each other. Sometimes when they spoke of me they talked either English or German, and smiled at me affectionately. The long drive was greatly appreciated by me, for with my face pressed against the window, and my eyes wide open, I gazed out eagerly at the gray, muddy road, with its ugly houses on each side, and its bare trees. I thought it was all very beautiful, because it kept changing.

The carriage stopped at 18, Rue Boileau, Auteuil. On the iron gate was a long, dark signboard, with gold letters. I looked up at it, and mamma said: “You will be able to read that soon, I hope.” My aunt whispered to me, “Boarding School, Madame Fressard,” and, very promptly, I said to mamma: “It says ‘Boarding School, Madame Fressard.’”

Mamma, my aunt, and the three gentlemen laughed heartily at my assurance, and we entered the house. Mme. Fressard came forward to meet us, and I liked her at once. She was of medium height, rather stout, with a small waist, and her hair turning gray, en Sévigné. She had beautiful, large eyes, rather like George Sand’s, very white teeth which showed up all the more as her complexion was rather tawny. She looked healthy, spoke kindly, her hands were plump and her fingers long. She took my hand gently in hers and half-kneeling so that her face was level with mine, she said in a musical voice: “You won’t be afraid of me, will you, little girl?” I did not answer, but my face flushed as red as a coxcomb. She asked me several questions, but I refused to reply. They all gathered round me—“Speak, child—come, Sarah, be a good girl—oh, the naughty little child!”

It was all in vain. I remained perfectly mute. The customary round was then made, to the bedrooms, the dining-hall, the class-rooms, and the usual exaggerated compliments were paid. “How beautifully it is all kept! How spotlessly clean everything is!” and a hundred stupidities of this kind about the comfort of these prisons for children. My mother went aside with Mme. Fressard, and I clung to her knees so that she could not walk. “This is the doctor’s prescription,” she said, and then followed a long list of things that were to be done for me.

Mme. Fressard smiled rather ironically.

“You know, madame,” she said to my mother, “we shall not be able to curl her hair like that.”

“And you certainly will not be able to uncurl it,” replied my mother, stroking my head with her gloved hands. “It’s a regular wig, and they must never attempt to comb it until it has been well brushed. They could not possibly get the knots out otherwise, and it would hurt her too much. What do you give the children at four o’clock?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Oh, a slice of bread and just what the parents leave for them.”

“There are twelve pots of different kinds of jam,” said my mother, “but she must have jam one day and chocolate another, as she has not a good appetite, and requires change of food. I have brought six pounds of chocolate.” Mme. Fressard smiled in a good-natured, but rather ironical way. She picked up a packet of the chocolate, and looked at the mark.

“Ah! from Marquis! What a spoiled little girl it is!” She patted my cheek with her white fingers, and then, as her eyes fell on a large jar, she looked surprised.

“That’s cold cream,” said my mother. “I make it myself, and I should like my little girl’s face and hands to be rubbed with it every night when she goes to bed.”

“But——” began Mme. Fressard.

“Oh, I’ll pay double laundry expenses for the sheets,” interrupted my mother, impatiently. Ah, my poor mother, I remember quite well that my sheets were changed once a month, like those of the other pupils!

The farewell moment came at last, and everyone gathered round mamma, and finally carried her off, after a great deal of kissing, and with all kinds of consoling words: “It will be so good for her—it is just what she needs—you’ll find her quite changed when you see her again, etc.”

The General, who was very fond of me, picked me up in his arms and tossed me in the air.

“You little chit,” he said; “they are putting you to the barracks, and you’ll have to mind your pace!”

I pulled his long mustache, and he said, winking, and looking in the direction of Mme. Fressard, who had a slight mustache: “You mustn’t do that to a lady, you know!”

My aunt laughed heartily, and my mother gave a little stifled laugh, and the whole troop went off in a regular whirlwind of rustling skirts and farewells, while I was taken away to the cage where I was to be imprisoned.

I spent two years at the pension. I was taught reading, writing, and reckoning. I also learned a hundred new games. I learned to sing rondeaus and to embroider handkerchiefs for my mother. I was relatively happy there, as we always went out somewhere on Thursdays and Sundays, and this gave me the sensation of liberty. The very ground in the street seemed to me quite different from the ground of the large garden belonging to the pension. Besides, there were little festivities at Mme. Fressard’s which used to send me into raptures. Mlle. Stella Colas, who had just made her début at the Théâtre Français, came sometimes on Thursdays and recited poetry to us. I could never sleep a wink the night before, and in the morning I used to comb my hair carefully and get ready, my heart beating fast with excitement, in order to listen to something I did not understand at all, but which, nevertheless, left me spellbound. Then, too, there was quite a legend attached to this pretty girl. She had flung herself almost under the horses’ feet as the Emperor was driving along, in order to attract his attention and obtain the pardon of her brother who had conspired against his sovereign.

Mlle. Stella Colas had a sister at Mme. Fressard’s, and this sister, Clothilde, is now the wife of M. Pierre Merlon, Under-Secretary of State in the Treasury Department. Stella was slight and fair, with blue eyes that were rather hard, but expressive. She had a deep voice and when this pale, fragile girl began to recite “Athalie’s Dream” it thrilled me through and through. How many times, seated on my child’s bed, did I practice saying in a low voice: “Tremble, fille digne de moi.” I used to twist my head in my shoulders, swell out my cheeks and commence:

“Tremble—trem-ble—trem-em-em—ble——”

But it always ended badly and I would begin again very quietly in a stifled voice and then unconsciously speak louder, and my companions, roused by the noise, were amused at my attempts and roared with laughter. I would then rush about to the right and left, giving them kicks and blows which they returned with interest.

Mme. Fressard’s adopted daughter, Mlle. Caroline—whom I chanced to meet a long time after, married to the celebrated artist, Yvon—would then appear on the scene, angry and implacable, and would give us all kinds of punishments for the following day. As for me, I used to get locked up for three days. That was followed by my being detained on the first day we were allowed out. And, in addition, I would receive five strokes with a ruler on my fingers. Ah! those ruler blows of Mlle. Caroline’s! I reproached her about them when I met her again twenty-five years later. She used to make us put all our fingers round the thumb and hold our hands out straight near to her and then, bang came her wide, ebony ruler. She used to give us a cruelly hard, dry blow which made the tears spurt to our eyes. I took a dislike to Mlle. Caroline. She was beautiful, but with the kind of beauty I did not care for. She had a very white complexion and very black hair which she wore in waved bandeaux. When I saw her a long time afterwards, one of my relatives brought her to my house and said: “I am sure you will not recognize this lady and yet you know her very well.”

I was leaning against the large mantelpiece in the hall and I saw this tall woman, still beautiful, but rather provincial-looking, coming through the first drawing-room. As she descended the three steps into the hall, the light fell on her protruding forehead, framed on each side with the hard, waved bandeaux.

“Mlle. Caroline!” I exclaimed, and with a furtive, childish movement, I hid my two hands behind my back. I never saw her again, for the grudge I had owed her from my childhood must have been apparent under my politeness as hostess.

As I said before, I was not unhappy at Mme. Fressard’s, and it seemed quite natural to me that I should stay there until I was quite grown up. My uncle, Felix Faure, who at present has entered the Carthusian monastery, had stipulated that his wife, my mother’s sister, should often take me out. He had a very fine country place at Neuilly with a stream running through the grounds, and I used to fish there for hours together, with my two cousins, a boy and girl.

These two years of my life passed peacefully, without any other events than my terrible fits of temper, which upset the whole pension and always left me in the sick-room for two or three days. These outbursts of temper were like attacks of madness.

One day Aunt Rosine arrived suddenly, to take me away altogether. My father had written giving orders as to where I was to be placed, and these orders were imperative. My mother was traveling, so she had sent word to my aunt, who had hurried off at once, between two dances, to carry out the instructions she had received.

The idea that I was to be ordered about, without any regard to my own wishes or inclinations, put me into an indescribable rage. I rolled about on the ground, uttering the most heartrending cries. I yelled out all kinds of reproaches, blaming my mother, my aunts, and Mme. Fressard for not finding some way to keep me with her. The struggle lasted two hours, and, while I was being dressed, I escaped twice into the garden and attempted to climb the trees, and to throw myself into the pond, in which there was more mud than water.

Finally, when I was completely exhausted and subdued, I was taken off, sobbing, in my aunt’s carriage.

I stayed three days at her house, as I was so feverish that my life was said to be in danger.

My father used to come to the house of my Aunt Rosine, who was then living at 6 Rue de la Chaussée d’Antin. He was on friendly terms with Rossini, who lived at No. 4 in the same street. He often brought him in, and Rossini made me laugh with his clever stories and comic grimaces. My father was as “handsome as a god,” and I used to look at him with pride. I did not know him well, as I saw him so rarely, but I loved him for his seductive voice and his slow, gentle gestures. He commanded a certain respect and I noticed that even my exuberant aunt calmed down in his presence.

I recovered, and Dr. Monod, who was attending me, said that I could now be moved without any fear of ill effects. We had been waiting for my mother, but she was ill at Haarlem. My aunt offered to accompany us if my father would take me to the convent, but he refused, and I can hear him now with his gentle voice, saying:

“No, her mother will take her to the convent. I have written to the Faures and the child is to stay there a fortnight.”

My aunt was about to protest, but my father replied: “It’s quieter there, my dear Rosine, and the child needs tranquillity more than anything else.”

I went that very evening to my Aunt Faure’s. I did not care much for her, as she was cold and affected, but I adored my uncle. He was so gentle and so calm, and there was an infinite charm in his smile. His son was as turbulent as I was myself, adventurous and rather hare-brained, so that we always liked being together. His sister, an adorable Greuze-like girl, was reserved and always afraid of soiling her frocks, and even her pinafores. The poor child married Baron Cerise and died during her confinement, in the very flower of youth and beauty, because her timidity, her reserve and narrow education had made her refuse to see a doctor when the intervention of a medical man was absolutely necessary. I was very fond of her, and her death was a great grief to me. At present, I never see the faintest ray of moonlight without its evoking a pale vision of her.

I stayed three weeks at my uncle’s, roaming about with my cousin and spending hours lying down flat, fishing for crayfish in the little stream that ran through the park. This park was immense and surrounded by a wide ditch. How many times I used to have bets with my cousins that I would jump that ditch! The bet was sometimes three sheets of paper, or five pins, or perhaps my two pancakes, for we used to have pancakes every Tuesday. And after the bet I jumped, more often than not falling into the ditch and splashing about in the green water, screaming because I was afraid of the frogs, and yelling with terror when my cousins pretended to rush away.

When I returned to the house my aunt was always watching anxiously at the top of the stone steps for our arrival. What a lecture I had and what a cold look!

“Go upstairs and change your clothes, mademoiselle,” she would say, “and thou stay in your room. Your dinner will be sent to you there without any dessert.”

As I passed the big glass in the hall I would catch sight of myself, looking like a rotten tree stump, and see my cousin making signs that he would bring me some dessert, by putting his hand to his mouth.

His sister used to go to his mother who fondled her and seemed to say: “Thank Heaven you are not like that little Bohemian!” This was my aunt’s stinging epithet for me in moments of anger. I used to go up to my room with a heavy heart, thoroughly ashamed and vexed, vowing to myself that I would never again jump the ditch, but on reaching my room I would find the gardener’s daughter there—a big, awkward, merry girl who used to wait on me.

“Oh, how comic mademoiselle looks like that!” she would say, laughing so heartily that I was proud of looking comic and decided that when I jumped the ditch again I would get weeds and mud all over me. When I had undressed and washed I used to put on a flannel gown and wait in my room until my dinner came. Soup was sent up and then meat, bread, and water. I detested meat then, just as I do now, and threw it out of the window, after cutting off the fat, which I put on the rim of my plate, as my aunt used to come up unexpectedly.

“Have you eaten your dinner, mademoiselle?” she would ask.

“Yes, aunt,” I replied.

“Are you still hungry?”

“No, aunt.”

“Write out ‘Our Father’ and the ‘Creed’ three times, you little heathen.” This was because I had not been baptized. A quarter of an hour later my uncle would come upstairs.

“Have you had enough dinner?” he would ask.

“Yes, uncle,” I replied.

“Did you eat your meat?”

“No, I threw it out of the window. I don’t like meat.”

“You told your aunt an untruth, then.”

“No, she asked me if I had eaten my dinner and I answered that I had, but I did not say that I had eaten my meat.”

“What punishment has she given you?”

“I am to write out ‘Our Father’ and the ‘Creed’ three times before going to bed.”

“Do you know them by heart?”

“No, not very well. I make mistakes always.”

And the adorable man would then dictate to me “Our Father” and the “Creed” and I would copy it in the most devout way, as he used to dictate with deep feeling and emotion. He was religious, very religious indeed, this uncle of mine, and after the death of my aunt he became a Carthusian monk. At the present moment, ill and aged as he is, and bent with pain, I know he is digging his own grave, weak with the weight of the spade, imploring God to take him, and thinking sometimes of me, his little Bohemian. Ah, the dear, good man, it is to him that I owe all that is best in me! I love him devotedly and have the greatest respect for him. How many times in the difficult phases of my life I have thought of him and consulted his ideas, for I never saw him again, as my aunt quarreled purposely with my mother and me. He was always fond of me, though, and has told his friends to assure me of this. Occasionally, too, he has sent me his advice, which has always been very straightforward and full of intelligence and common sense. Recently I went to the country where the Carthusians have taken refuge. A friend of mine went to see my uncle, and I wept on hearing the words he had dictated to be repeated to me.

To return to my story: after my uncle’s visit, Marie, the gardener’s daughter, came to my room, looking quite indifferent but with her pockets stuffed with apples, biscuits, raisins, and nuts. My cousin had sent me some dessert, but she, the good-hearted girl, had cleared all the dessert dishes. I told her to sit down and crack the nuts and I would eat them when I had finished my “Lord’s Prayer” and “Creed.” She sat down on the floor, so that she could hide everything quickly under the table, in case my aunt returned. But my aunt seldom came again, as she and her daughter used to spend their evenings at the piano while my uncle taught his son mathematics.

Finally my mother wrote to say that she was coming. There was great excitement in my uncle’s house, and my little trunk was packed in readiness. The Grandchamps Convent, which I was about to enter, had a prescribed uniform, and my cousin, who loved sewing, marked all my things with the initials S. B. in red cotton. My uncle gave me a silver spoon, fork, and goblet and these were all marked 32, which was the number under which I was registered there. Marie gave me a thick woolen muffler in different shades of violet, which she had been knitting for me in secret the last few days. My aunt put round my neck a little scapulary which had been blessed, and when my mother and father arrived everything was ready. A farewell dinner was given to which two of my mother’s friends, Aunt Rosine, and four other members of the family were invited.

I felt very important. I was neither sad nor gay, but had just this feeling of importance which was quite enough for me. Everyone at table talked about me. My uncle kept stroking my hair and my cousin from her end of the table threw me kisses. Suddenly my father’s musical voice made me turn toward him.

“Listen to me, Sarah,” he said; “if you are very good at the convent I will come in four years and fetch you away, and you shall travel with me and see some beautiful countries.”

“Oh, I will be good!” I exclaimed. “I’ll be as good as Aunt Henriette!”

This was my Aunt Faure. Everybody smiled.

After dinner, the weather being very fine, we all went out to stroll in the park. My father took me with him and talked to me very seriously. He told me things that were sad which I had never heard before. I understood, although I was so young, and my eyes filled with tears. He was sitting on an old bench and I was on his knee with my head resting on his shoulder. I listened to all he said and cried silently, my childish mind disturbed by his words. Poor father! I was never, never to see him again.

CHAPTER II
I BEGIN MY CONVENT LIFE

I did not sleep well that night and the following morning, at eight o’clock, we started by diligence for Versailles. I can see Marie now, in tears, great big girl as she was. All the members of the family were assembled at the top of the stone steps. There was my little trunk and then a wooden case of games which my mother had brought, and a kite that my cousin had made, which he gave me at the last moment just as the carriage was starting. I can still see the large white house, which seemed to get smaller and smaller the farther we drove away from it. I stood up, with my father holding me and waved his blue silk muffler which I had taken from his neck. After this I sat down in the carriage and fell asleep, only rousing up again when we were at the heavy-looking door of the Grandchamps Convent. I rubbed my eyes and tried to collect my thoughts. I then jumped down from the diligence and looked at everything around me. The paving stones of the street were round and small, with grass growing everywhere. There was a wall and then a great gateway surmounted by a cross, and nothing behind it, nothing whatever to be seen. To the left there was a house and to the right the Sartory barracks. Not a sound to be heard, not a footfall, not even an echo.

“Oh, mamma!” I exclaimed, “is it inside there I am to go? Oh, no, I would rather go back to Mme. Fressard’s.”

My mother shrugged her shoulders and pointed to my father, thus explaining that she was not responsible for this step. I rushed to him, and while ringing the bell, he took me by the hand. The door opened, and he led me gently in, followed by my mother and Aunt Rosine.

The courtyard was large and dreary-looking, but there were buildings to be seen, and windows from which children’s faces were gazing curiously at us. My father said something to the nun who came forward, and she took us into the parlor. This was large, with a polished floor, and was divided by an enormous black grating which ran the whole length of the room. There were benches covered with red velvet by the wall and a few chairs and armchairs near the grating. On the walls were the portraits of Pius IX., a full-length one of St. Augustine, and one of Henri V. My teeth chattered, for it seemed to me that I remembered reading in some book the description of a prison and that it was just like this. I looked at my father and at my mother and began to distrust them. I had so often heard that I was ungovernable, that I needed an iron hand to rule me, and that I was the devil incarnate in a child. My Aunt Faure had so often repeated: “That child will come to a bad end, she has such mad ideas, etc., etc.”

“Papa, papa,” I suddenly cried out, seized with terror, “I won’t go to prison. This is a prison I am sure. I am frightened; oh, I am so frightened!”

On the other side of the grating a door had just opened, and I stopped to see who was coming. A little round, short woman made her appearance and came up to the grating. Her black veil was lowered as far as her mouth, so that I could see scarcely anything of her face. She recognized my father, whom she had probably seen before when matters were being arranged. She opened the door in the grating and we all went through to the other side of the room. On seeing me pale and my terrified eyes full of tears, she gently took my hand in hers, and turning her back to my father raised her veil. I then saw the sweetest and merriest face imaginable, with large, childlike blue eyes, a turn-up nose, a laughing mouth with full lips and beautiful, strong, white teeth. She looked so kind, so energetic, and so gay that I flung myself at once into her arms. It was Mother Ste. Sophie, the Superior of the Grandchamps Convent.

“Ah, we are friends now, you see!” she said to my father, lowering her veil again. What secret instinct could have told this woman, who was not coquettish, who had no looking-glass and never troubled about beauty, that her face was fascinating and that her bright smile could enliven the gloom of the convent?

“We will now go and visit the house,” she said.

We at once started, she and my father each holding one of my hands. Two other nuns accompanied us, one of whom was the mother-prefect, a tall, cold woman with thin lips, and Sister Séraphine, who was as white and supple as a spray of lily of the valley. We started by entering the building and came first to the large class-room in which all the pupils met on Thursdays at the lectures, which were nearly always given by Mother Ste. Sophie. Most of them did needle-work all day long, tapestry, embroidery, etc., and others decalcomania.

The room was very large and on St. Catherine’s Day and other holidays we used to dance there. It was in this room, too, that once a year the Mother Superior gave to each of the Sisters the sou which represented her annual income. The walls were adorned with religious engravings and with a few oil paintings done by the pupils. The place of honor, though, belonged to St. Augustine. A magnificent large engraving depicted the conversion of this saint, and, oh, how often I have looked at that engraving! St. Augustine has certainly caused me very much emotion and greatly disturbed my childish heart. Mamma admired the cleanliness of the refectory. She asked to see which would be my seat at table, and when this was shown to her she objected strongly to my having that place.

“No,” she said, “the child has not a strong chest and she would always be in a draught. I will not let her sit there.”

My father agreed with my mother and insisted on a change being made. It was therefore decided that I should sit at the end of the room, and the promise given was faithfully kept.

When mamma saw the wide staircase leading to the dormitories she was aghast. It was very, very wide and the steps were low and easy to mount, but there were so many of them before one reached the first floor. For a few seconds mamma hesitated and stood there gazing at them, her arms hanging down in despair.

“Stay down here, Youle,” said my aunt, “and I will go up.”

“No, no,” replied my mother in a sorrowful voice. “I must see where the child is to sleep; she is so delicate.”

My father helped her, and indeed almost carried her up, and we then went into one of the immense dormitories. It was very much like the dormitory at Mme. Fressard’s, but a great deal larger and there was a tiled floor without any carpet.

“Oh, this is quite impossible!” exclaimed mamma, “the child cannot sleep here; it is too cold; it would kill her.”

The Mother Superior, Ste. Sophie, gave my mother a chair and tried to soothe her. She was pale, for her heart was already very much affected.

“We will put your little girl in this dormitory, madame,” she said, opening a door that led into a room with eight beds. The floor was of polished wood and this room, adjoining the infirmary, was the one in which delicate or convalescent children slept. Mamma was reassured on seeing this, and we then went down and inspected the grounds. There were three woods, the Little Wood, the Middle Wood, and the Big Wood, and then there was an orchard that stretched along as far as the eye could see. In this orchard was the building where the poor children lived. They were taught gratis by the nuns, and every week they helped with the laundry for the convent.

The sight of these immense woods with swings, hammocks, and a gymnasium delighted me, for I thought I should be able to roam about at pleasure there. Mother Ste. Sophie explained to us that the Little Wood was reserved for the older pupils and the Middle Wood for the little ones, while the Big Wood was for the whole convent on holidays. Then after telling us about the collecting of the chestnuts and the gathering of the acacia, Mother Ste. Sophie informed us that every child could have a small garden and that sometimes two or three of them had a larger one between them.

REAR VIEW OF GRANDCHAMPS CONVENT, VERSAILLES.

“Oh, can I have a garden of my own!” I exclaimed, “a garden all to myself?”

“Yes,” replied my mother, “one of your own.”

The Mother Superior called the gardener, Père Larcher, the only man, with the exception of the almoner, who was on the convent staff.

“Père Larcher,” said the kind woman, “here is a little girl who wants a beautiful garden. Find a nice place for it.”

“Very good, Reverend Mother,” answered the honest fellow, and I saw my father slip a coin into his hand, for which the man thanked him in an embarrassed way.

It was getting late and we had to separate. I remember quite well that I did not feel any grief, as I was thinking of nothing but my garden. The convent no longer seemed to me like a prison but like Paradise. I kissed my mother and my aunt. Papa drew me to him and held me a moment in a close embrace. When I looked at him I saw that his eyes were full of tears. I did not feel at all inclined to cry, and I gave him a hearty kiss and whispered: “I am going to be very, very good and work well, so that I can go with you at the end of four years.” I then went toward my mother, who was giving Mother Ste. Sophie the same instructions she had given to Mme. Fressard about “cold cream, chocolate, jam, etc.” Mother Ste. Sophie wrote down all these instructions, and it is only fair to say that she carried them out afterwards most scrupulously.

When my parents had gone I felt inclined to cry, but the Mother Superior took me by the hand, and leading me to the Second Wood, showed me where my garden would be. That was quite enough to distract my thoughts, for we found Père Larcher there marking out my piece of ground in a corner of the wood. There was a young birch tree against the wall. The corner was formed by the joining of two walls, one of which bounded the railway line of the left bank of the river which cuts the Sartory Woods in two. The other wall was that of the cemetery. All the woods of the convent were part of the beautiful Sartory Forest.

They had all given me money, my father, my mother, and my aunt. I had altogether about forty or fifty francs, and I wanted to give all to Père Larcher for buying seed. The Mother Superior smiled and sent for the Mother Treasurer and Mother Ste. Appoline. I had to hand all my money over to the former, with the exception of twenty sous which she left me, saying: “When that is all gone, little girl, come and get some more from me.”

Mère Ste. Appoline, who taught botany, then asked me what kind of flowers I wanted. What kind of flowers! Why I wanted every sort that grew. She at once proceeded to give me a botany lesson, by explaining that all flowers did not grow at the same season. She then asked the Mother Treasurer for some of my money, which she gave to Père Larcher, telling him to buy me a spade, a rake, a hoe, and a watering-can, some seeds and a few plants, the names of which she wrote down for him. I was delighted, and I then went with Mother Ste. Sophie to the refectory to have dinner. On entering the immense room I stood still for a second, amazed and confused. More than a hundred girls were assembled there, standing up for the benediction to be pronounced. When the Mother Superior appeared, everyone bowed respectfully, and then all eyes were turned on me. Mother Ste. Sophie took me to the seat which had been chosen for me at the end of the room and then returned to the middle of the refectory. She stood still, made the sign of the cross, and in an audible voice pronounced the benediction. As she left the room, everyone bowed again and I then found myself alone, quite alone in this cage of little wild animals. I was seated between two little girls of from ten to twelve years old, both as dusky as two young moles. They were twins from Jamaica, and their names were Dolores and Pepa Cardanos. They had been in the convent only two months and appeared to be as timid as I was. The dinner was composed of soup, made of everything, and of veal with haricot beans. I detested soup and I have always had a horror of veal. I turned my plate over when the soup was handed round, but the nun who waited on us turned it up again and poured the hot soup in, regardless of scalding me.

“You must drink your soup,” whispered my right-hand neighbor, whose name was Pepa.

“I don’t like that sort and I don’t want any,” I said aloud. The inspectress was passing by just at that moment.

“You must drink your soup, mademoiselle,” she said.

“No, I don’t like that sort of soup,” I answered.

She smiled and said in a gentle voice:

“We must like everything. I shall be coming round again soon. Be a good girl and take your soup.”

I was getting into a rage, but Dolores gave me her empty plate and drank the soup for me. When the inspectress came round again she expressed her satisfaction. I was furious and put my tongue out, and this made all the table laugh. She turned round, and the pupil who sat at the end of the table and was appointed to watch over us, because she was the eldest, said to her in a low voice:

“It’s the new girl making grimaces.”

The inspectress moved away again, and when the veal was served my portion found its way to the plate of my neighbor, Dolores. I wanted to keep the haricot beans though, and we almost came to a quarrel over them. She gave way finally, but with the veal she dragged away a few beans which I tried to keep on my plate.

An hour later we had evening prayers and afterwards all went up to bed. My bed was placed against the wall, in which there was a niche for the statue of the Virgin Mary. A lamp was always kept burning in this niche, and the oil for it was provided by the children who had been ill and were grateful for their recovery. Two tiny flower-pots were placed at the foot of the little statue. The pots were of terra cotta and the flowers of paper. I made paper flowers very well, and I at once decided that I would make all the flowers for the Virgin Mary. I fell asleep to dream of garlands of flowers, of haricot beans, and of distant countries, for the twins from Jamaica had made an impression on my mind.

The awakening was cruel. I was not accustomed to get up so early. Daylight was scarcely visible through the opaque windowpanes. I grumbled as I dressed, for we were allowed only a quarter of an hour and it always took me a good half hour to comb my hair. Sister Marie, seeing that I was not ready, came toward me, and before I knew what she was going to do, snatched the comb violently out of my hand.

“Come, come,” she said, “you must not dawdle like this.” She then planted the comb in my mop of hair and tore out a handful of it. Pain and anger at seeing myself treated in this way threw me immediately into one of my fits of rage which always terrified those who witnessed them. I flung myself upon the unfortunate Sister and with feet, teeth, hands, elbows, head and, indeed, all my poor little body I hit, thumped, and at the same time yelled. All the pupils, all the Sisters, and indeed everyone came running to see what was the matter. The Sisters made the sign of the cross but did not venture to approach me. The Mother Prefect threw some holy water over me to exorcise the evil spirit. Finally the Mother Superior arrived on the scene. My father had told her of my fits of wild fury, which were my only serious fault, and my state of health was quite as much responsible for them as the violence of my disposition. She approached me. I was still clutching Sister Marie, but was exhausted by this struggle with the poor woman, who although tall and strong, only tried to ward off my blows without retaliating, endeavoring to hold first my feet, and then my hands.

I looked up on hearing Mother Ste. Sophie’s voice. My eyes were bathed in tears, but nevertheless I saw such an expression of pity on her sweet face that without altogether letting go I ceased fighting for a second, and trembling and ashamed, said very quickly:

“She commenced it, she snatched the comb out of my hand like a wicked woman, and tore out my hair. She was rough and hurt me. She is a wicked, wicked woman.” I then burst into sobs and my hands loosed their hold. The next thing I knew was that I found myself lying on my little bed with Mother Ste. Sophie’s hand on my forehead and her kind, deep voice lecturing me gently. All the others had gone and I was quite alone with her and the Holy Virgin in the niche. From that day forth Mother Ste. Sophie had an immense influence over me. Every morning I went to her, and Sister Marie, whose forgiveness I had been obliged to ask before the whole convent, combed my hair out in her presence. Seated on a little stool I listened to the book that the Mother Superior read to me or to the instructive story she told me.

Ah, what an adorable woman she was, and how I love to recall her to my memory! I adored her as a little child adores the being who has entirely won its heart, without knowing, without reasoning, without even being aware that it was so, but I was simply under the spell of an infinite fascination. Since then, though, I have understood and admired her, realizing how unique and radiant a soul was imprisoned under the thick-set exterior and happy face of that holy woman, I have loved her for all that she awakened within me of nobleness. I love her for the letters which she wrote to me, letters that I often read over and over again. I love her, also, because imperfect as I am, it seems to me that I should have been one hundred times more so, had I not known and loved that pure creature. Once only did I see her severe and feel that she was suddenly angry. In the little room used as a parlor, leading into her cell, there was a portrait of a young man, whose handsome face was stamped with a certain nobility.

“Is that the Emperor?” I asked her.

“No,” she answered, turning quickly toward me, “it is the King, it is Henri V.”

It was only later on that I understood the meaning of her emotion. All the convent was royalist, and Henri V. was their recognized sovereign. They all had the most utter contempt for Napoleon III., and on the day when the Prince Imperial was baptized there was no distribution of bonbons for us, and we were not allowed the holiday that was accorded to all the colleges, boarding schools, and convents. Politics were a dead letter to me and I was happy at the convent, thanks to Mother Ste. Sophie.

Then, too, I was a favorite with my schoolfellows, who frequently did my compositions for me. I did not care for any studies except geography and drawing. Arithmetic drove me wild, spelling plagued my life out, and I thoroughly despised the piano. I was very timid and quite lost my head when questioned unexpectedly.

I had a passion for animals of all kinds. I used to carry about with me in small cardboard boxes, or cages that I manufactured myself, adders, with which the woods were full, crickets, that I found on the leaves of the tiger lilies, and lizards. The latter nearly always had their tails broken, as in order to see if they were eating, I used to lift the lid of the box a little. On seeing this the lizards rushed to the opening. I would shut the box very quickly, red with surprise at such assurance, when, crack! in a twinkling, either at the right or left, there was nearly always a tail caught. This used to grieve me for hours, and while one of the Sisters was explaining to us, by figures on the blackboard, the metric system, I was wondering, with my lizard’s tail in my hand, how I could fasten it on again. I had some death-watches in a little box, and five spiders in a cage that Père Larcher had made for me with some wire netting. I used, very cruelly, to give flies to my spiders and they, fat and well-fed, would spin their webs. Very often during recreation a whole group of us, ten or twelve little girls, would stand round, with a cage on a bench or tree stump, and watch the wonderful work of these little creatures. If one of my schoolfellows cut herself I used to go quickly to her, feeling very proud and important: “Come at once,” I would say, “I have some fresh spider-web and I will wrap your finger in it.” Provided with a little thin stick I would take the web and wrap it round the wounded finger. “And now, my lady spiders,” I would say, “you must begin your work again,” and, active and minute, mesdames, the spiders, began their spinning once more.

I was looked upon as a little authority and was made umpire in questions that had to be decided. I used to receive orders for fashionable trousseaux, made of paper, for dolls. It was quite an easy thing for me in those days to make long ermine cloaks with fur tippets and muff, and this filled my little playfellows with admiration. I charged for my trousseaux, according to their importance, two pencils, five tête-de-mort nibs, or a couple of sheets of white paper. In short, I became a personality, and that sufficed for my childish pride. I did not learn anything and I received no distinctions. My name was only once on the honor list, and that was not as a studious pupil but for a courageous deed. I had fished a little girl out of the big pool. She had fallen in while trying to catch frogs. The pool was in the large orchard on the poor children’s side of the grounds. As a punishment for some misdeed, which I do not remember, I had been sent away for two days among the poor children. This was supposed to be a punishment and I delighted in it. In the first place I was looked upon by them as a “young lady.” Then I used to give the day pupils a few sous to bring me, on the sly, a little moist sugar. During recreation I heard some heartrending shrieks and, rushing to the pool from whence they came, I saw a little girl immersed in it. I jumped into the water without reflecting. There was so much mud that we both sank in it. The little girl was only four years old and so small that she kept disappearing. I was over ten at that time. I do not know how I managed to rescue her, but I dragged her out of the water with her mouth, nose, ears, and eyes all filled with mud. I was told afterwards that it was a long time before she was restored to consciousness. As for me, I was carried away with my teeth chattering, nervous and half fainting. I was very feverish afterwards and Mother Ste. Sophie herself sat up with me. I overheard her words to the doctor:

“This child,” she said, “is one of the best we have here. She will be perfect when once she has received the Holy Chrism.”

This speech made such an impression on me that, from that day forth, mysticism had a great hold on me. I had a very vivid imagination and was extremely sensitive, and the Christian legend took possession of me, heart and soul. The Son of God became the object of my worship and the Mother of the Seven Sorrows, my ideal.

An event, very simple in itself, was destined to disturb the silence of our secluded life and to attach me more than ever to my convent, where I wanted to remain forever.

The Archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur Sibour, was paying a round of visits to some of the communities and ours was among the chosen ones. The news was told us by Mother Ste. Alexis, the senior, who was so tall, so thin, and so old that I never looked upon her as a human being, or as a living being. It always seemed to me as though she were stuffed and as though she moved by machinery. She frightened me and I never consented to go near to her until after her death.

We were all assembled in the large room which we used on Thursdays. Mother Ste. Alexis, supported by two lay Sisters, stood on the little platform and, in a voice that sounded far, far off, announced to us the approaching visit of monseigneur. He was to come on Ste. Catherine’s Day, just a fortnight after the speech of the Reverend Mother.

Our peaceful convent was thenceforth like a beehive in which a hornet had entered. Our lesson hours were curtailed, so that we might have time to make festoons of roses and lilies. The wide, tall armchair of carved wood was uncushioned, so that it might be varnished and polished. We made lamp shades covered with crystalline. The grass was pulled up in the courtyard ... and I cannot tell what was not done in honor of this visitor.

Two days after the announcement made by Mother Ste. Alexis the programme of the fête was read to us by Mother Ste. Sophie. The youngest of the nuns was to read a few words of welcome to monseigneur. This was the delightful Sister Séraphine. After that Marie Buguet was to play a pianoforte solo by Henri Herz. Marie de Lacour was to sing a song by Louise Puget, and then a little play in three scenes was to be given, entitled, “Toby Recovering His Eyesight.” It had been written by Mother Thérèse. I have now before me the little manuscript, all yellow with age and torn, and I can only just make out the sense of it and a few of the phrases.

The little play was read to us by Mother Ste. Thérèse one Thursday, in the large assembly room. We were all in tears at the end, and Mother Ste. Thérèse was obliged to make a great effort in order to avoid committing, if only for a second, the sin of pride.

Scene I. Toby’s farewell to his blind father. He vows to bring back to him the ten talents lent to Gabelus, one of his relatives. Scene II. Toby, asleep on the banks of the Tiber, is being watched over by the Angel Raphael. Struggle with a monster fish which had attacked Toby while he slept. When the fish is killed the angel advises Toby to take its heart, its liver, and its gall, and to preserve these religiously. Scene III. Toby’s return to his blind father. The angel tells him to rub the old man’s eyes with the entrails of the fish. The father’s eyesight is restored, and when Toby begs the Angel Raphael to accept some reward the latter makes himself known, and in a song to the glory of God, vanishes to heaven.

I wondered anxiously what part I should take in this religious comedy, for, considering that I was now treated as a little personage, I had no doubt but that some rôle would be distributed to me. The very thought of it made me tremble beforehand, and I kept saying to myself: “Oh, no, I could never say anything aloud!” I began to get quite nervous, my hands became quite cold, my heart beat furiously, and my temples throbbed. I did not approach, but remained sulkily seated on my stool when Mother Ste. Thérèse said in her calm voice:

“Young ladies, please pay attention, and listen for your names for the different parts:

I had been listening, although pretending not to, and I was stupefied, amazed, and furious. Mother Ste. Thérèse then added: “Here are your manuscripts, young ladies,” and a manuscript of the little play was handed to each pupil chosen to take part in it.

Louise Buguet was my favorite playmate, and I went up to her and asked her to let me see her manuscript, which I read again enthusiastically.

“You’ll hear me rehearse, when I have learned it, won’t you?” she asked, and I answered:

“Yes, certainly.”

“Oh, how frightened I shall be!” she said.

She had been chosen for the angel, I suppose, because she was as pale and sweet as a moonbeam. She had a soft, timid voice, and sometimes we used to make her cry, as she was so pretty then. The tears used to flow limpid and pearl-like from her gray, questioning eyes.

She began at once to learn her part, and I was like a shepherd’s dog going from one to another among the chosen ones. I had really nothing to do with it, but I wanted to be “in it.” The Mother Superior passed by, and as we all courtesied to her she patted my cheek.

“We thought of you, little girl,” she said, “but you are so timid when you are asked anything.”

“Oh, that’s when it is history or arithmetic!” I said. “This is not the same thing, and I should not have been afraid.”

She smiled distrustfully and moved on.

There were rehearsals during the next week. I asked to be allowed to take the part of the monster, as I wanted to have some rôle in the play, at any cost. It was decided, though, that César, the convent dog, should be the fish monster.

A competition was opened for the fish costume. I went to an endless amount of trouble, cutting out scales from cardboard that I had painted, and sewing them together afterward. I made some enormous gills, which were to be glued on to César. My costume was not chosen; it was passed over for that of a stupid, big girl, whose name I cannot remember. She had made a huge tail of kid and a mask with big eyes and gills, but there were no scales, and we should have to see César’s shaggy coat. I nevertheless turned my attention to Louise Buguet’s costume, and worked at it with two of the lay Sisters, Sister Ste. Cécile and Sister Ste. Jeanne, who had charge of the linen room.

At the rehearsals not a word could be extorted from the Angel Raphael. She stood there stupefied, on the little platform, tears dimming her beautiful eyes. She brought the whole play to a standstill, and kept appealing to me in a weeping voice. I prompted her, and getting up, rushed to her, kissed her, and whispered her whole speech to her. I was beginning to be “in it” myself, at last.

Finally, two days before the great solemnity, there was a dress rehearsal. The angel looked lovely, but immediately on entering, he sank down on a bench sobbing out in an imploring voice:

“Oh, no, I shall never be able to do it, never!”

“Quite true, she never will be able to,” sighed Mother Ste. Sophie.

Forgetting for the moment my little friend’s grief, and wild with joy, pride, and assurance, I ran up to the platform and bounded on to the form on which the Angel Raphael had sunk down weeping.

“Oh, Mother, I know her part, shall I take her place for the rehearsal?”

“Yes, yes,” exclaimed voices from all sides.

“Oh, yes, you know it so well,” said Louise Buguet, and she wanted to put her band on my head.

“No, let me rehearse as I am, first,” I answered.

They began the second scene again and I came in carrying a long branch of willow.

“Fear nothing, Toby,” I commenced. “I will be your guide. I will remove from your path all thorns and stones.... You are overwhelmed with fatigue. Lie down and rest, for I will watch over you.”

Thereupon Toby, worn out, lay down by the side of a strip of blue muslin, about five yards of which, stretched out and winding about, represented the Tiber.

I then continued by a prayer to God while Toby fell asleep. César next appeared as the monster fish and the audience trembled with fear. César had been well taught by the gardener, Père Larcher, and he advanced slowly from under the blue muslin. He was wearing his mask, representing the head of a fish. Two enormous nutshells for his eyes had been painted white, and a hole pierced through them, so that the dog could see. The mask was fastened with wire to his collar, which also supported two gills as large as palm leaves. César, sniffing the ground, snorted and growled and then leaped wildly on to Toby, who with his cudgel, slew the monster at one blow. The dog fell on his back with his four paws in the air, and then rolled over on his side, pretending to be dead.

There was wild delight in the house, and the audience clapped and stamped. The younger pupils stood up on their stools and shouted: “Good César! Clever César! Oh, good dog, good dog!” The Sisters, touched by the efforts of the guardian of the convent, shook their heads with emotion. As for me, I quite forgot that I was the Angel Raphael, and I stooped down and stroked César affectionately. “Ah, how well he has acted his part!” I said, kissing him and taking one paw and then the other in my hand, while the dog, motionless, continued to be dead.

The little bell was rung to call us to order. I stood up again, and accompanied by the piano, we burst into a hymn of praise, a duet to the glory of God, who had just saved Toby from the fearful monster.

After this the little green serge curtain was drawn and I was surrounded, petted, and praised. Mother Ste. Sophie came up onto the platform and kissed me affectionately. As to Louise Buguet, she was now joyful again and her angelic face beamed.

“Oh, how well you knew the part!” she said. “And then, too, everyone can hear what you say. Oh, thank you so much!” She kissed me and I hugged her with all my might—at last I was in it!

The third scene began. The action took place in Father Toby’s house. Gabelus, the Angel, and young Toby were holding the entrails of the fish in their hands and looking at them. The Angel explained how they must be used for rubbing the blind father’s eyes. I felt rather sick, for I was holding in my hand a skate’s liver, and the heart and gizzard of a fowl. I had never touched such things before and every now and then the sick feeling made me heave, and the tears came into my eyes.

Finally, the blind father came in, led by Toby’s sister. Gabelus knelt down before the old man and gave him the ten silver talents, telling him in a long recital, of Toby’s exploits in Media. After this Toby advanced, embraced his father and then rubbed his eyes with the skate’s liver.

Eugénie Charmel made a grimace, but after wiping her eyes she exclaimed:

“I can see, I can see. O God of goodness, God of mercy, I can see, I can see!”

She came forward with outstretched arms, her eyes open, in an ecstatic attitude, and the whole little assembly, so simple-minded and loving, wept.

All the actors except old Toby and the Angel sank on their knees and gave praise to God, and at the close of this thanksgiving the public, moved by religious sentiment and discipline, repeated, Amen!

Toby’s mother then approached the Angel and said:

“Oh, noble stranger, take up your abode from henceforth with us; you shall be our guest, our son, our brother!”

I then advanced, and in a long speech of at least thirty lines, made known that I was the messenger of God, that I was the Angel Raphael. I then gathered up quickly the pale blue tarlatan, which was being concealed for a final effect, and veiled myself in cloudy tissue which was intended to simulate my flight heavenward. The little green serge curtain was then closed on this apotheosis.

Finally the solemn day arrived. I was so feverish with expectation that I could not sleep the last three nights. The dressing bell was rung for us earlier than usual, but I was already up and trying to smooth my rebellious hair, which I brushed with a wet brush by way of making it behave better.

Monseigneur was to arrive at eleven o’clock in the morning. We therefore lunched at ten and were then drawn up in the principal courtyard. Only Mother Ste. Alexis, the eldest of the nuns, was in the front and Mother Ste. Sophie just behind her. The almoner was a little distance away from the two Superiors. Then came the other nuns, and behind them the girls, and then all the little children. The lay Sisters and the servants were also there. We were all dressed in white with the respective colors of our various classes.

The bell rang out a peal. The large carriage entered the first courtyard. The gate of the principal courtyard was then opened and Monseigneur appeared on the carriage steps, which the footman lowered for him. Mother Ste. Alexis advanced, and bending down, kissed the episcopal ring. Mother Ste. Sophie, the Superior, who was younger, knelt down to kiss the ring. The signal was then given to us and we all knelt to receive the benediction of Monseigneur. When we looked up again the big gate was closed and Monseigneur had disappeared, conducted by the Mother Superior. Mother Ste. Alexis was exhausted, and went back to her cell.

In obedience to the signal given we all rose from our knees. We then went to the chapel where a short mass was celebrated, after which we had an hour’s recreation. The concert was to commence at half past one. The recreation hour was devoted to preparing the large room and to getting ready to appear before Monseigneur. I wore the Angel’s long robe with a blue sash round my waist, and two paper wings fastened on with narrow blue straps, that crossed over each other in front. Round my head was a band of gold braid, fastening behind. I kept mumbling my “part” (for in those days we did not know the word “rôle”). We are more used to the theater at present, but at the convent we always said “part,” and years afterwards I was surprised, the first time I played in England, to hear a young English girl say: “Oh, what a fine part you had in ‘Hernani.’”

The room looked beautiful, oh, so beautiful! There were festoons of green leaves, with paper flowers at intervals, everywhere. Then there were little lusters hung about with gold cord. A wide piece of red velvet carpet was laid down from the door to Monseigneur’s armchair, upon which were two cushions of red velvet with gold fringe.

I thought all these horrors very fine, very beautiful!

The concert began and it seemed to me that everything went very well. Monseigneur, however, could not help smiling at the sight of César, and it was he who led the applause when the dog died. It was César, in fact, who had the greatest success, but we were nevertheless sent for to appear before Monseigneur Sibour. He was certainly the kindest and most charming of prelates and on this occasion he gave to each of us a consecrated medal.

When my turn came he took my hand in his and said:

“It is you, my child, who are not baptized, is it not?”

“Yes, Reverend Father, yes, Monseigneur,” I replied in confusion.

“She is to be baptized this spring,” said the Mother Superior. “Her father is coming back specially from a very distant country.”

She and Monseigneur then said a few words to each other in a very low voice.

“Very well, if I can, I will come again for the ceremony,” said the archbishop aloud.

I was trembling with emotion and pride as I kissed the old man’s ring and then ran away to the dormitory, and cried for a long time. I was found there, later on, fast asleep from exhaustion.

From that day forth I was a better child, more studious and less violent. In my fits of anger I was calmed by the mention of Monseigneur Sibour’s name, and reminded of his promise to come for my baptism.

Alas! I was not destined to have that great joy. One morning in January, when we were all assembled in the chapel for mass, I was surprised, and had a foreboding of coming evil, when I saw the Abbé Lethurgi go up into the pulpit before commencing the mass. He was very pale, and I turned instinctively to look at the Mother Superior. She was seated in her regular place. The almoner then began, in a voice broken with emotion, to tell us of the murder of Monseigneur Sibour.

Murdered! A thrill of horror went through us and a hundred stifled cries, forming one great sob, drowned for an instant the priest’s voice. Murdered! The word seemed to sting me personally even more than the others. Had I not been, for one instant, the favorite of the kind old man! It was as though the murderer, Verger, had struck at me, too, in my grateful love for the prelate, in my little fame of which he had now robbed me. I burst into sobs, and the organ accompanying the prayer for the dead increased my grief, which became so intense that I fainted. It was from this moment that I was taken with an ardent love for mysticism. It was fortified by the religious exercises, the dramatic effort of our worship and the gentle encouragement, both fervent and sincere, of those who were educating me. They were very fond of me and I adored them so that even now the very memory of them, fascinating and restful as it is, thrills me with affection.

The time appointed for my baptism drew near, and I grew more and more excitable. My nervous attacks were more and more frequent, fits of tears for no reason at all, and fits of terror without any cause. Everything seemed to take strange proportions, as far as I was concerned. One day one of my little friends dropped a doll that I had lent her (for I played with dolls until I was over thirteen). I began to tremble all over, as I adored that doll, which had been given to me by my father.

“You have broken my doll’s head, you naughty girl!” I exclaimed. “You have hurt my father!”

I would not eat anything afterwards, and in the night I woke up in a great perspiration, with haggard eyes, sobbing:

“Papa is dead! Papa is dead!”

Three days later my mother came. She asked to see me in the parlor, and making me stand in front of her, she said:

“My poor little girl, I have something to tell you that will cause you great sorrow. Papa is dead.”

“I know,” I said, “I know,” and the expression in my eyes, my mother frequently told me afterwards, was such that she trembled a long time for my reason.

SARAH BERNHARDT AND HER MOTHER.

I was very sad and not at all well. I refused to learn anything except the catechism and Scripture, and I wanted to be a nun.

My mother begged to have my two sisters baptized with me; Jeanne, who was then six years old, and Régina, who was not three, but who had been taken as a boarder at the convent, with the idea that her presence might cheer me a little.

I was isolated for a week before my baptism and for a week afterwards, as I was to be confirmed the week after my baptism.

My mother, Aunt Rosine Berendt, and Aunt Henriette Faure, my godfather, Regis Lavallée, M. Lesprin, Jeanne’s godfather, and General Polès, Régina’s godfather, the godmothers of my two sisters, and my various cousins all came and revolutionized the convent. My mother and my aunts were in fashionable mourning attire. Aunt Rosine had put a spray of lilac in her bonnet “to enliven her mourning,” as she said. It was a strange expression, but I have certainly heard it since used by other people besides her.

I had never before felt so far away from all these people who had come there on my account. I adored my mother, but with a touching and fervent desire to leave her, never to see her again, to sacrifice her to God. As to the others I did not see them. I was very grave and rather moody. A short time previously a nun had taken the veil at the convent and I could think of nothing else.

This baptismal ceremony was the prelude to my dream. I could see myself like the novice who had just been admitted as a nun. I pictured myself lying down on the ground, covered over with a heavy, black cloth, with its white cross, and four massive candlesticks placed at the four corners of the cloth. And I planned to die under this cloth. How I was to do this I did not know. I did not think of killing myself, as I knew that would be a crime. But I made up my mind to die like this, and my ideas galloped along so that I saw in my imagination the horror of the Sisters and heard the cries of the pupils and was delighted at the emotion which I had caused.

After the baptismal ceremony my mother wished to take me away with her. She had rented a small house with a garden in the Boulevard de la Reine, at Versailles, for my holidays, and she had decorated it with flowers for this fête day, as she wanted to celebrate the baptism of her three children. She was very gently told that, as I was to be confirmed in a week’s time, I was not to be isolated until then. My mother cried, and I can remember now, to my sorrow, that it did not make me sad to see her tears, but quite the contrary.

When everyone had gone and I went into the little cell, in which I had been living for the last week and was to live for another week, I fell on my knees in a state of exaltation and offered up to God my mother’s sorrow.

“You saw, O Lord God, that mamma cried and that it did not affect me.” Poor child that I was, I imagined in my wild exaggeration of everything that what was expected from me was the renunciation of all affection, devotion, and pity.

The following day, Mother Ste. Sophie lectured me gently about my wrong comprehension of religious duties, and she told me that when once I was confirmed she should give me a fortnight’s holiday, to go and make my mother forget her sorrow and disappointment.

My confirmation took place with the same pompous ceremonial. All the pupils, dressed in white, carried wax tapers. For the whole week I had refused to eat. I was pale and had grown thinner and my eyes looked larger from my perpetual transports, for I went to extremes in everything.

Baron Larrey, who came with my mother to my confirmation, begged for me to have a month’s holiday to recruit, and this was accorded.

Accordingly we started, my mother, Mme. Guérard, her son Ernest, my sister Jeanne and I, for Cauterets in the Pyrénées.

The movement, the packing of the trunks, parcels, and packages, the railway, the diligence, the scenery, the crowds, and the general disturbance cured me and my nerves and my mysticism. I clapped my hands, laughed aloud, flung myself on mamma and nearly stifled her with kisses. I sang hymns at the top of my voice, I was hungry and thirsty, so I ate, drank, and in a word, lived.

CHAPTER III
A PRANK AND ITS RESULTS

Cauterets at that time was not what it is now. It was an abominable but charming little hole of a place with plenty of verdure, very few houses, and a great many huts belonging to the mountain people. There were plenty of donkeys to be hired that took us up the mountains by extraordinary paths. I adore the sea and the plain, but I care neither for mountains nor for forests. Mountains seem to crush me, and forests to stifle me. I must, at any cost, have the horizon stretching out as far as the eye can see, and skies to dream about.

I wanted to go up the mountains, so that they should lose their crushing effect. And consequently we went up always higher and higher. Mamma used to stay at home with her sweet friend Mme. Guérard. She used to read novels while Mme. Guérard embroidered. They would sit there together without speaking, each dreaming her own dream, seeing it fade away and beginning it over again. The old servant Marguerite was the only domestic mamma had brought with her, and she used to accompany us, and was always gay and daring. She always knew how to make the men laugh with speeches, the sense and crudeness of which I did not understand until much later. She was the life of the party always. As she had been with us from the time we were born, she was very familiar, and sometimes objectionably so. I would not let her have her own way with me, though, and I used to answer her back in the most cutting manner. She would take her revenge in the evening by giving us a dish of sweets for dinner that I did not like.

I began to look better for the change, and although still very religious, my mysticism was growing calmer. As I could not exist, however, without a passion of some kind I began to get very fond of the goats, and I asked mamma quite seriously whether I might become a goat-herd.

“I would rather you were that than a nun,” she replied, and then she added: “We will talk about it later on.”

Every day I brought down with me from the mountain another little kid, and we already had seven when my mother interfered and put a stop to my zeal.

Finally it was time to return to the convent. My holiday was over and I was quite well again. I was to go back to work once more. I accepted the situation willingly to the great surprise of mamma, who loved traveling, but detested the actual moving from one place to another.

I was delighted at the idea of the repacking of the parcels and trunks, of being seated in things that moved along, of seeing again all the villages, towns, people, and trees that changed all the time. I wanted to take my goats with me but my mother very positively refused.

“You are mad,” she exclaimed, “seven goats in a train and in a carriage! Where could you put them? No, a hundred times no!”

She finally consented to my taking two of them and a blackbird that one of the mountaineers had given me.

And so we returned to the convent. I was received there with such sincere joy that I felt very happy again immediately. I was allowed to keep my two goats there and to have them out at playtime. We had great fun with them; they used to bunt us and we used to bunt them, and we laughed, frolicked, and were very foolish. And yet I was nearly fourteen at this time, but very puny and childish.

I stayed at the convent another ten months without learning anything more. The idea of becoming a nun always haunted me, but I was no longer a mystic.

My godfather looked upon me as the greatest dunce. I worked, though, during the holidays and I used to have lessons with Sophie Croizette who lived near to our country house. This gave a slight impetus to me in my studies, but it was only slight. Sophie was very gay, and what we liked best was to go to the Museum where her sister Pauline, who was later on to become Mme. Carolus Duran, was copying pictures by the great masters.

Pauline was as cold and calm as Sophie was charming, talkative, and noisy. Pauline Croizette was beautiful, but I liked Sophie better; she was more gracious and pretty. Mme. Croizette, their mother, always seemed sad and resigned. She had given up her career very early. She had been a dancer at the Opera in St. Petersburg and had been very much adored and flattered and spoiled. I fancy it was the birth of Sophie that had compelled her to leave the stage. Her money then had been injudiciously invested and she had been ruined. She was very distinguished-looking, her face had a kind expression, there was an infinite melancholy about her and people were instinctively drawn toward her. Mamma had made her acquaintance while listening to the music in the park at Versailles, and for some time we saw a great deal of her.

Sophie and I had some fine games in that magnificent park. Our greatest joy, though, was to go to Mme. Masson’s in the Rue de la Gare. Mme. Masson had a curiosity shop. Her daughter Cécile was a perfect little beauty. We three used to delight in changing the tickets on the vases, snuffboxes, fans, and jewels, and then, when poor M. Masson came back with a rich customer—for Masson, the antiquary, enjoyed a world-wide reputation—Sophie and I used to hide so that we should see his fury. Cécile, with an innocent air, would be helping her mother and glancing slyly at us from time to time.

The whirl of life separated me brusquely from all these people whom I loved, and an incident, trivial in itself, caused me to leave the convent earlier than my mother wished.

It was a fête day and we had two hours for recreation. We were marching in procession along the wall which skirts the railway on the left bank of the Seine and as we were burying my pet lizard we were chanting the “De Profundis.” About twenty of my little playfellows were following me, when suddenly a soldier’s cap fell at my feet.

“What’s that?” called out one of the girls.

“A soldier’s cap.”

“Did it come from over the wall?”

“Yes, yes.... Listen, there’s a quarrel going on!”

We were suddenly silent, listening with all our ears.

“Don’t be stupid! It’s idiotic!”

“It’s the Grandchamps Convent!”

“How am I to get my cap back?”

These were the words we overheard and then, as a soldier suddenly appeared astride our wall, there were shrieks from the terrified children and angry exclamations from the nuns.

In a second we were all about twenty yards away from the wall, like a group of frightened sparrows flying off to land a little farther away, inquisitive and very much on the alert. “Have you seen my cap, young ladies?” called out the unfortunate soldier in a beseeching tone.

“No, no!” I cried, hiding it behind my back.

“Oh, no!” echoed the other girls with peals of laughter, and in the most tormenting, insolent, jeering way we continued shouting “No!” “No!” running backward all the time in reply to the Sisters who, veiled and hidden behind the trees, were in despair.

We were only a few yards from the huge gymnasium. I climbed up breathless at full speed and reached the wide plank at the top. When there, I unfastened the rope ladder, but as I could not get the wooden ladder up to me by which I had mounted, I unfastened the rings and banged it down so that it broke, making a great noise. I then stood up wickedly triumphant on the plank, calling out: “Here it is—your cap, but you won’t get it now!” I put it on my head and walked up and down, as no one could get to me there. I suppose my first idea had just been to have a little fun, but the girls had laughed and clapped, and my strength had held out better than I had hoped, so that my head was turned, and nothing could stop me then.

The young soldier was furious. He jumped down from the wall and rushed in my direction, pushing the girls out of his way. The Sisters, beside themselves, ran to the house calling for help. The chaplain, the Mother Superior, Père Larcher and everyone else came running out. I believe the soldier swore like a trooper, and it was really quite excusable. Mother Ste. Sophie, from below, besought me to come down and to give up the cap. The soldier tried to get up to me by means of the trapeze, but on seeing this I quickly drew up the knotted rope.

His useless efforts delighted all the pupils, whom the Sisters had in vain tried to send away. Finally the Sister who was doorkeeper sounded the alarm bell, and five minutes later the soldiers from the Sartory Barracks arrived, thinking that a fire had broken out. When the officer in command was told what was the matter, he sent back his men and asked to see the Mother Superior. He was brought to Mother Ste. Sophie, whom he found at the foot of the gymnasium, crying with shame and impotence. He ordered the soldier to return immediately to the barracks. He obeyed after clenching his fist at me, but on looking up he could not help laughing. His cap came down to my eyes and was only kept back by my ears, which were bent, to prevent it from covering my face.

I was furious and wildly excited with the turn my joke had taken.

“There it is—your cap!” I called out, and flung it violently over the wall which skirted the gymnasium and formed the boundary to the cemetery.

“Oh, the young plague!” muttered the officer, and then, apologizing to the nuns, he saluted them and went away accompanied by Père Larcher.

As for me I felt like a fox after having its tail cut. I refused to come down immediately.

“I shall come down when everyone has gone away,” I announced. All the girls received punishments and I was left alone. The sun set and the silence then terrified me, looking as I did out on the cemetery. The dark trees took mournful or threatening shapes. The moisture from the wood fell like a mantle over my shoulders and seemed to get heavier every moment. I felt abandoned by everyone and I began to cry. I was angry with myself, with the soldier, with Mother Ste. Sophie, with the pupils who had excited me by their laughter, with the officer who had humiliated me, and with the Sister who had sounded the alarm bell.

Then I began to think about getting down the rope ladder, which I had pulled up on the plank. Very clumsily, trembling with fear at the least sound, listening eagerly all the time, and with eyes looking to the right and left, I was a long time unhooking it, being very much afraid. Finally, I managed to unroll it, and I was just about to put my foot on the first rung when the barking of César alarmed me. He was tearing along from the wood. The sight of the dark figure on the gymnasium appeared to the faithful dog to bode no good. He was furious and began to scratch the thick wooden uprights.

“Why, César, don’t you know your friend?” I said very gently. He growled in reply and in a louder voice I said:

“Fie, César, bad César, you ought to be ashamed! Fancy barking at your friend!” He now began to howl and I was seized with terror. I pulled the ladder up again and sat down at the top. César lay down at the bottom of the gymnasium, his tail straight out, his ears pricked up, his coat bristling, growling in a sullen way. I appealed to the Holy Virgin to help me. I prayed fervently, vowed to say three Aves, three Credos, and three Paters as well every day.

When I was a little calmer I called out in a subdued voice: “César! my dear César, my beautiful César! You know I am the Angel Raphael!”

Ah, much César cared for him! He considered my presence, quite alone, at so late an hour, in the garden and on the gymnasium, quite incomprehensible. Why was I not in the refectory?

Poor César, he went on growling, and I was getting very hungry and began to think things were most unjust. It was true that I had been to blame for taking the soldier’s cap, but after all he had begun it all. Why had he thrown his cap over the wall? My imagination now came to my aid, and in the end I began to look upon myself as a martyr. I had been left to the dog, and he would eat me. I was terrified at the dead people behind me, and everyone knew I was very nervous. My chest, too, was delicate, and there I was exposed to the biting cold with no protection whatever. I began to think about Mother Ste. Sophie, who evidently no longer cared for me, as she was deserting me so cruelly. I lay with my face downward on the plank, and gave myself up to the wildest despair, calling my mother, my father, and Mother Ste. Sophie, sobbing, wishing I could die there and then; between my sobs I suddenly heard my name pronounced by a gentle voice. I got up, and peering through the gloom, caught a glimpse of my beloved Mother Ste. Sophie. She was there, the dear saint, and had never left her rebellious child. Concealed behind the statue of St. Augustine, she had been praying while awaiting the end of this crisis, which in her simplicity she had believed might prove fatal to my reason and perhaps to my salvation. She had sent everyone away and remained there alone and she, too, had not dined. I came down and threw myself repentant and wretched into her motherly arms. She did not say a word to me about the horrible incident, but took me quickly back to the convent. I was all damp, with the icy evening dew, my cheeks were feverish, and my hands and feet frozen.

I had an attack of pleurisy after this and was twenty-three days between life and death. Mother Ste. Sophie never left me an instant. The sweet Mother blamed herself for my illness, declaring as she beat her breast that she had left me outside too long.

“It’s my fault! It’s my fault!” she kept exclaiming.

My Aunt Faure came to see me nearly every day. My mother was in Scotland and came back by short stages. My Aunt Rosine was at Baden-Baden and was ruining the whole family. “I am coming back,” she kept writing from time to time, when she wrote to ask how I was. Dr. D’Espagne and Dr. Monod, who had been called in for a consultation, did not think there was any hope. Baron Larrey, who was very fond of me, came often. He had a certain influence over me and I willingly obeyed him. My mother arrived a short time before my convalescence and did not leave me again. As soon as I could be moved she took me to Paris, promising to send me back to the convent as soon as I was quite well.

It was forever, though, that I had left my dear convent, but it was not forever that I left Mother Ste. Sophie. I seemed to take something of her away with me. For a long time she made part of my life and even to-day, when she has been dead for years, the recollection of her brings back to me the simple thoughts of former days and makes the flowers of youth to bloom again.

Life for me now began in earnest. Cloister existence is one of unbroken sameness for all. There may be a hundred or a thousand individuals there, but everyone lives a life which is the same and the only one for all. The rumor of the outside world dies away at the heavy cloister gate. The sole ambition is to sing more loudly than the others at Vespers, to take a little more of the form, to be at the end of the table, to be on the list of honor. When I was told that I was not to go back to the convent, it was to me as though I was to be thrown into the sea when I could not swim.

I besought my godfather to let me go back. The dowry left to me by my father was ample enough for the dowry of a nun. I wanted to take the veil.

“Very well,” replied my godfather, “you can take the veil in two years’ time, but not before. In the mean time learn all that you do not yet know, and that means everything, from the governess your mother has chosen for you.”

That very day an elderly, unmarried lady with soft, gray, gentle eyes came and took possession of my life, my mind, and my conscience for eight hours every day. Her name was Mlle. De Brabender and she had educated a grand duchess in Russia. She had a sweet voice, an enormous sandy mustache, a grotesque nose, but a way of walking, of expressing herself, and of bowing which simply commanded all deference. She lived at the convent in Rue Notre Dame des Champs, and this was why in spite of my mother’s entreaties she refused to come and live with us.

She soon won my affection and I learned quite easily with her everything that she wanted me to learn. I worked eagerly, for my dream was to return to the convent, not as a pupil but as a teaching Sister.

CHAPTER IV
IN FAMILY COUNCIL ASSEMBLED

I arose one September morning, my heart leaping with some remote joy. It was eight o’clock. I pressed my forehead against the windowpanes and gazed out, looking at I know not what. I had been roused with a start in the midst of some fine dream, and I had rushed toward the light in the hope of finding in the infinite space of the gray sky the luminous point that would explain my anxious and blissful expectation. Expectation of what? I could not have answered that question then, any more than I can now, after much reflection. I was on the eve of my fifteenth birthday and I was in a state of expectation as to the future of my life. That particular morning seemed to me to be the precursor of a new era. I was not mistaken, for on that September day my fate was settled for me.

Hypnotized by what was taking place in my mind, I remained with my forehead pressed against the windowpane, gazing, through the halo of vapor formed by my breath, at houses, palaces, carriages, jewels, and pearls passing along in front of me. Oh, what a number of pearls there were! There were princes and kings, too; yes, I could even see kings! Oh, how fast one’s imagination travels, and its enemy, reason, always allows it to roam on alone! In my fancy, I proudly rejected the princes, I rejected the kings, refused the pearls and the palaces, and declared that I was going to be a nun, for in the infinite gray sky I had caught a glimpse of the convent of Grandchamps, of my white bedroom, and of the small lamp that swung to and fro above the little Virgin all decorated with flowers. The king offered me a throne, but I preferred the throne of our Mother Superior, and I entertained a vague ambition to occupy it some far-off day in the distant future; the king was heartbroken, and dying of despair. Yes, mon Dieu! I preferred to the pearls that were offered me by princes the pearls of the rosary I was telling with my fingers, and no costume could compete in my mind with the black barège veil that fell like a soft shadow over the snowy white cambric that encircled the beloved faces of the nuns of Grandchamps.

I do not know how long I had been dreaming thus when I heard my mother’s voice asking our old servant, Marguerite, if I were awake. With one bound I was back in bed, and I buried my face under the sheet. Mamma half opened the door very gently and I pretended to wake up.

“How lazy you are to-day!” she said.

I kissed her and answered in a coaxing tone:

“It is Thursday and I have no music lesson.”

“And are you glad?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” I replied promptly.

My mother frowned; she adored music, and I hated the piano. She was so fond of music, that although she was then about thirty, she took lessons herself in order to encourage me to practice. What horrible torture it was! I used, very wickedly, to do my utmost to set my mother and my music mistress at variance. They were both of them as shortsighted as possible. When my mother had practiced a new piece three or four days she knew it by heart, and played it fairly well, to the astonishment of Mlle. Clarisse, my insufferable old teacher, who held the music in her hand and read every note with her nose nearly touching the page. One day I heard with joy a quarrel beginning between mamma and this disagreeable Mlle. Clarisse.

“There, that’s a quaver!”

“No, there’s no quaver!”

“This is a flat!”

“No, you forget the sharp! How absurd you are, mademoiselle,” added my mother, perfectly furious.

A few minutes later my mother went to her room and Mlle. Clarisse departed, muttering as she left.

As for me, I was choking with laughter in my bedroom, for one of my cousins, who was a good musician, had helped me to add sharps, flats, and quavers, and we had done it with such care that even a trained eye would have had difficulty in discerning the fraud immediately. As Mile. Clarisse had been sent off, I had no lesson that day. Mamma gazed at me a long time with her mysterious eyes, the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen in my life, and then she said, speaking very slowly:

“After luncheon there is to be a family council.”

I felt myself turning pale.

“All right,” I answered, “what frock am I to put on, mamma?” I said this merely for the sake of saying something, and to keep myself from crying.

“Put your blue silk on, you look more staid in that.”

Just at this moment, my sister Jeanne opened the door boisterously and with a burst of laughter jumped on my bed and slipping under the sheets called out: “I’m there!”

Marguerite had followed her into the room, panting and scolding. The child had escaped from her just as she was about to bathe her and had announced that she was going into my bed. Jeanne’s mirth at this moment, which I felt was a very serious one for me, made me burst out crying and sobbing. My mother, not understanding the reason of this grief, shrugged her shoulders, told Marguerite to fetch Jeanne’s slippers, and taking the little bare feet in her hands, kissed them tenderly.

I sobbed more bitterly than ever. It was very evident that mamma loved my sister more than me, and this preference, which did not trouble me ordinarily, hurt me sorely now.

Mamma went away quite out of patience with me. I fell asleep, in order to forget, and was roused by Marguerite who helped me to dress, as otherwise I should have been late for luncheon. The guests that day were Aunt Rosine, Mlle. De Brabender, my governess, a charming creature whom I have always regretted, my godfather, and the Duc de Morny, a great friend of my godfather and of my mother. The luncheon was a mournful meal for me, as I was thinking all the time about the family council. Mlle. De Brabender, in her gentle way, and with her affectionate words, insisted on my eating. My sister burst out laughing when she looked at me.

“Your eyes are as little as that,” she said, putting her small thumb on the tip of her forefinger, “and it serves you right, because you’ve been crying, and mamma doesn’t like anyone to cry—do you, mamma?”

“What have you been crying about?” asked the Duc de Morny.

I did not answer in spite of the friendly nudge Mlle. De Brabender gave me with her sharp elbow. The Duc de Morny always awed me a little. He was gentle and kind but he was a great quiz. I knew, too, that he occupied a high place at court, and that my family considered his friendship a great honor.

“Because I told her that after luncheon there was to be a family council on her behalf,” said my mother, speaking slowly. “At times it seems to me that she is quite idiotic. She quite disheartens me.”

“Come, come!” exclaimed my godfather, and Aunt Rosine said something in English to the Duc de Morny which made him smile shrewdly under his fine mustache. Mlle. De Brabender scolded me in a low voice, and her scoldings were like words from heaven. When at last luncheon was over, mamma told me, as she passed, to pour the coffee. Marguerite helped me to arrange the cups and I went into the drawing-room. Maître G——, the notary from Hâvre, whom I detested, was already there. He represented the family of my father, who had died at Pisa in a way which had never been explained, but which seemed mysterious. My childish hatred was instinctive and I learned later on that this man had been my father’s bitter enemy. He was very, very ugly, this notary; his whole face seemed to have moved up higher. It was as though he had been hanging by his hair for a long time, and his eyes, his mouth, his cheeks, and his nose had got into the habit of trying to reach the back of his head. He ought to have had a joyful expression, as so many of his features turned up, but instead of this his face was smooth and sinister-looking. He had red hair planted on his head like couch grass and on his nose he wore a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. Oh, the horrible man! What a torturing nightmare the very memory of him is, for he was the evil genius of my father, and his hatred now pursued me. My poor grandmother, since the death of my father, never went out, but spent her time mourning the loss of her beloved son who had died so young. She had absolute faith in this man, who, besides, was the executor of my father’s will. He had the control of the money that my dear father had left me. I was not to touch it until the day of my marriage, but my mother was to use the interest for my education.

My uncle Félix Faure was also there. Seated near the fireplace, buried in an armchair, M. Meydieu pulled out his watch in a querulous way. He was an old friend of the family, and he always called me “ma fille,” which annoyed me greatly, as did his familiarity. He considered me stupid, and when I handed him his coffee, he said in a jeering tone:

“And is it for you, ma fille, that so many honest people have been hindered in their work? We have plenty of other things to attend to, I can assure you, than to discuss the fate of a little brat like you. Ah, if it had been her sister, there would have been no difficulty!” and with his benumbed fingers he patted Jeanne’s head as she remained on the floor plaiting the fringe of the sofa upon which he was seated.

When the coffee was taken, the cups carried away, and my sister also, there was a short silence. The Duc de Morny rose to take his leave, but my mother begged him to stay. “You will be able to advise us,” she urged, and the duke took his seat again near my aunt with whom it seemed to me he was carrying on a slight flirtation.

Mamma had moved nearer to the window, her embroidery frame in front of her, and her beautiful, clear-cut profile showing to advantage against the light. She looked as though she had nothing to do with what was about to be discussed. The hideous notary was standing up by the chimney-piece, and my uncle had drawn me near to him. My godfather Régis seemed to be the exact counterpart of M. Meydieu. They both of them had the same bourgeois mind and were equally stubborn and obstinate. They were both devoted to whist and good wine, and they both agreed that I was thin enough for a scarecrow.

The door opened and a pale, dark-haired woman entered, a most poetical-looking and charming creature. It was Mme. Guérard, “the lady of the upstairs flat,” as Marguerite always called her. My mother had made friends with her in rather a patronizing way certainly, but Mme. Guérard was devoted to me and endured the little slights to which she was treated, very patiently, for my sake. She was tall and slender as a lath, very compliant and demure. She had come down without a hat; she was wearing an indoor gown of indienne with a design of little brown leaves.

M. Meydieu muttered something, I did not catch what. The abominable notary made a very curt bow to Mme. Guérard. The Duc de Morny was very gracious, for the newcomer was so pretty. My godfather merely bent his head, as Mme. Guérard was nothing to him. Aunt Rosine glanced at her from head to foot. Mlle. De Brabender shook hands cordially with her, for Mme. Guérard was fond of me. My uncle, Félix Faure, gave her a chair, and asked her to sit down, and then inquired in a kindly way about her husband, a savant, with whom my uncle collaborated sometimes for his book, “The Life of St. Louis.”

Mamma had merely glanced across the room without raising her head, for Mme. Guérard did not prefer my sister to me.

“Well, as we have come here on account of this child,” said my godfather, “we must begin and discuss what is to be done with her.”

I began to tremble and drew closer to Mlle. De Brabender, and to “ma petite dame,” as I had always called Mme. Guérard from my infancy. They each took my hand by way of encouraging me.

“Yes,” continued M. Meydieu, with a laugh, “it appears you want to be a nun.”

“Ah, indeed?” said the Duc de Morny to Aunt Rosine.

“Sh....” she retorted with a laugh. Mamma sighed and held her wools up close to her eyes to match them.

“You have to be rich, though, to enter a convent,” grunted the Hâvre notary, “and you have not a sou.”

I leaned toward Mlle. De Brabender, and whispered: “I have the money that papa left.”

The horrid man overheard.

“Your father left some money to get you married,” he said.

“Well, then, I’ll marry the Bon Dieu,” I answered, and my voice was quite resolute now. I turned very red, and for the second time in my life I felt a desire and a strong inclination to fight for myself. I had no more fear, as everyone had gone too far and provoked me too much. I slipped away from my two kind friends, and advanced toward the other group.

“I will be a nun, I will!” I exclaimed. “I know that papa left me some money so that I should be married, and I know that the nuns marry the Saviour. Mamma says she does not care; it is all the same to her, so that it won’t be vexing her at all, and they love me better at the convent than you do here!”

“My dear child,” said my uncle, drawing me toward him, “your religious vocation appears to me to be more a wish to love.”

“And to be loved,” murmured Mme. Guérard, in a very low voice.

Everyone glanced at mamma, who shrugged her shoulders slightly. It seemed to me as though the glance they all gave her was a reproachful one, and I felt a pang of remorse at once. I went across to her, and throwing my arms round her neck said:

“You don’t mind my being a nun, do you? It won’t make you unhappy, will it?”

Mamma stroked my hair, of which she was very proud.

“Yes, it would make me unhappy. You know very well that after your sister, I love you better than anyone else in the world.”

She said this very slowly in a gentle voice. It was like the sound of a little waterfall as it flows down, babbling and clear, from the mountain, dragging with it the gravel, and gradually increasing in volume, with the thawed snow, until it sweeps along rocks and trees in its course. This was the effect my mother’s clear, drawling voice had upon me at that moment. I rushed back impulsively to the others, who were all speechless at this unexpected and spontaneous burst of confidence. I went from one to the other, explaining my decision, and giving reasons which were certainly no reasons at all. I did my utmost to get someone to support me in the matter. Finally the Duc de Morny was bored, and rose to go.

“Do you know what you ought to do with this child?” he said. “You ought to send her to the Conservatoire.” He then patted my cheek, kissed my aunt’s hand, and bowed to all the others. As he bent over my mother’s hand, I heard him say to her: “You would have made a bad diplomatist, but take my advice, and send her to the Conservatoire.”

He then took his departure and I gazed at everyone in perfect anguish.

The Conservatoire! What was it? What did it mean?

I went up to my governess, Mlle. De Brabender. Her lips were firmly pressed together, and she looked shocked, just as she did sometimes when my godfather told some story that she did not approve of, at table. My uncle, Félix Faure, was looking at the floor in an absent-minded way; the notary had a spiteful look in his eyes, my aunt was holding forth in a very excited manner, and M. Meydieu kept shaking his head and muttering: “Perhaps ... yes.... Who knows?... Hum ... hum...!” Mme. Guérard was very pale and sad, and she looked at me with infinite tenderness.

What could be this Conservatoire? The word uttered so carelessly seemed to have entirely disturbed the equanimity of all present. Each one of them seemed to me to have a different impression about it, but none looked pleased. Suddenly in the midst of the general embarrassment my godfather exclaimed brutally:

“She is too thin to make an actress.”

“I won’t be an actress!” I exclaimed.

“You don’t know what an actress is,” said my aunt.

“Oh, yes, I do. Rachel is an actress!”

“You know Rachel?” asked mamma, getting up.

“Oh, yes, she came to the convent once, to see little Adèle Sarony. She went all over the convent and into the garden, and she had to sit down because she could not get her breath. They fetched her something to bring her round, and she was so pale, oh, so pale! I was very sorry for her and Sister Appoline told me that what she did was killing her, for she was an actress, and so I won’t be an actress, I won’t.”

I had said all this in a breath, with my cheeks on fire and my voice hard.

I remembered all that Sister Appoline had told me, and Mother Ste. Sophie, too. I remembered, also, that when Rachel had gone out of the garden, looking very pale, and holding a lady’s arm for support, a little girl had put her tongue out at her. I did not want people to put out their tongues at me when I was grown up.

Conservatoire! That word alarmed me. The duke had wanted me to be an actress and he had now gone away so that I could not talk things over with him. He went away smiling and tranquil, after caressing me in the usual friendly way. He had gone—caring little about the scraggy child whose future had been discussed.

“Send her to the Conservatoire!”

That sentence uttered so carelessly had come like a bomb into my life. I, the dreamy child, who that morning was ready to repulse princes and kings; I, whose trembling fingers had that morning told over chaplets of dreams, who only a few hours ago had felt my heart beating with emotion hitherto unknown to me; I, who had got up expecting some great event to take place, was to see everything disappear, thanks to that phrase as heavy as lead and as deadly as a bullet: “Send her to the Conservatoire!”

And I divined that this phrase was to be the signpost of my life. All those people had gathered together at the turning of the crossroads. “Send her to the Conservatoire!” I wanted to be a nun and this was considered absurd, idiotic, unreasonable. “Send her to the Conservatoire” had opened out a field for discussion, the horizon of the future. My uncle, Félix Faure, and Mlle. Brabender were the only ones against this idea. They tried in vain to make my mother understand that with the hundred thousand francs that my father had left me I might marry. But my mother had replied that I had declared I had a horror of marriage, and that I should wait until I was of age to go into a convent.

“Under these conditions,” she said, “Sarah will never have her father’s money.”

“No, certainly not,” put in the notary.

“Then,” continued my mother, “she would enter the convent as a servant and I will not have that! My money is an annuity, so that I cannot leave anything to my children. I, therefore, want them to have a career of their own.” My mother was now exhausted with so much talking and lay back in an armchair. I got very much excited and my mother asked me to go away.

Mlle. Brabender and Mme. Guérard were arguing in a low voice, and I thought of the aristocratic man who had just left us. I was very angry with him, for this idea of the Conservatoire was his.

Mlle. Brabender tried to console me. Mme. Guérard said that this career had its advantages. Mlle. Brabender considered that the convent would have a great fascination for so dreamy a nature as mine. The latter was very religious and a great churchgoer; “ma petite dame,” was a pagan in the purest acceptation of that word, and yet the two women got on very well together, thanks to their affectionate devotion to me.

Mme. Guérard adored the proud rebelliousness of my nature, my pretty face, and the slenderness of my figure; Mlle. De Brabender was touched by my delicate health. She endeavored to comfort me when I was jealous for not being loved as much as my sister, but what she liked best about me was my voice. She always declared that my voice was modulated for prayers and my delight in the convent appeared to her quite natural. She loved me with a gentle, pious affection, and Mme. Guérard loved me with bursts of paganism. These two women, whose memory is still dear to me, shared me between them and made the best of my good qualities and my faults. I certainly owe to both of them this study of myself and the vision I have of myself.

The day was destined to end in the strangest of fashions. Mme. Guérard had gone back to her apartment upstairs and I was lying on a little straw armchair which was the most ornamental piece of furniture in my room. I felt very drowsy and was holding Mlle. De Brabender’s hand in mine, when the door opened and my aunt entered, followed by my mother. I can see them now, my aunt in her dress of puce silk trimmed with fur, her brown velvet hat tied under her chin with long, wide strings, and mamma, who had taken off her dress and put on a white woolen dressing gown. She always detested keeping on her dress in the house, and I understood by her change of costume that everyone else had gone, and that my aunt was ready to leave. I got up from my armchair, but mamma made me sit down again.

“Rest yourself thoroughly,” she said, “for we are going to take you to the theater this evening, to the Français.” I felt sure that this was just a bait and I would not show any sign of pleasure, although in my heart I was delighted at the idea of going to the Français. The only theater I knew anything of was the Robert Houdin, to which I was taken sometimes with my sister, and I fancy that it was for her benefit we went as I was really too old to care for that kind of performance.

“Will you come with us?” mamma said, turning to Mlle. De Brabender.

“Willingly, madame,” replied this dear creature. “I will go home and change my dress.”

My aunt laughed at my sullen looks.

“Little fraud,” she said, as she went away, “you are hiding your delight. Ah, well, you will see some actresses to-night!”

“Is Rachel going to act?” I asked.

“Oh, no, she is ill.”

My aunt kissed me and went away, saying she would see me again later on, and my mother followed her out of the room. Mlle. De Brabender then hurriedly prepared to leave me. She had to go home to dress and to tell them that she would not be in until quite late, for, in her convent, special permission had to be obtained when one wished to be out later than ten at night. When I was alone I swung myself backward and forward in my armchair which, by the way, was anything but a rocking-chair. I began to think, and for the first time in my life my critical comprehension came to my aid. And so all these serious people had been inconvenienced, the notary fetched from Hâvre, my uncle dragged away from working at his book, the old bachelor, M. Meydieu, disturbed in his habits and customs, my godfather kept away from the Stock Exchange, and that aristocratic and skeptical Duc de Morny cramped up for two hours in the midst of our bourgeois surroundings, and all to end in this decision: “She shall be taken to the theater!” I do not know what part my uncle had taken in this burlesque plan, but I doubt whether it was to his taste. All the same, I was glad to go to the theater; it made me feel more important. That morning on waking up I was quite a child, and now events had taken place which had transformed me into a young girl. I had been discussed by everyone, and I had expressed my wishes, without any result, certainly, but all the same I had expressed them, and now it was deemed necessary to humor and indulge me in order to win me over. They could not force me into agreeing to what they wanted me to do; my consent was necessary, and I felt so joyful and so proud about it that I was quite touched and almost ready to yield. However, I said to myself that it would be better to hold my own and let them ask me again.

After dinner we all squeezed into a cab—mamma, my godfather, Mlle. De Brabender, and I. My godfather made me a present of some white gloves.

On mounting the steps at the Théâtre Français I trod on a lady’s dress. She turned round and called me a “stupid child.” I moved back hastily and came into collision with a very stout old gentleman who gave me a rough push forward.

When once we were all installed in a box facing the stage, mamma and I in the first row with Mlle. De Brabender behind me, I felt more reassured. I was close against the partition of the box, and I could feel Mlle. De Brabender’s sharp knees through the velvet of my chair. This gave me confidence, and I leaned against the back of the chair, purposely to feel the support of those two knees.

When the curtain slowly rose, I thought I should have fainted. It was as though the curtain of my future life were being raised. Those columns—“Britannicus” was being played—were to be my palaces, the friezes above were to be my skies, and those boards were to bend under my frail weight. I heard nothing of “Britannicus,” for I was far, far away, at Grandchamps in my dormitory there.

“Well, what do you think of it?” asked my godfather, when the curtain fell. I did not answer and he laid his hand on my head and turned my face round toward him. I was crying, big tears rolling slowly down my cheeks, those tears that come without any sobs and without any hope of ever ceasing.

My godfather shrugged his shoulders, and getting up, left the box, banging the door after him. Mamma, losing all patience with me, proceeded to review the house through her opera glass, Mlle. De Brabender passed me her handkerchief; my own had fallen down and I had not the courage to pick it up.

The curtain had been raised for the second piece, “Amphytrion,” and I made an effort to listen, for the sake of pleasing my governess, who was so gentle and conciliating. I can only remember one thing, and that is that Alcinène seemed to me to be so unhappy that I burst into loud sobs, and that the whole house, very much amused, looked at our box. My mother, deeply annoyed, took me out, and Mlle. De Brabender went with us. My godfather was furious, and muttered: “She ought to be shut up in a convent and left there! Good Heavens, what a little idiot the child is!”

This was the début of my artistic life!

CHAPTER V
I RECITE “THE TWO PIGEONS”

I was beginning to think, though, of my new career. Books were sent to me from everywhere: Racine, Corneille, Molière, Casimir Delavigne.... I opened them, but as I did not understand them at all, I quickly closed them again, and read my little La Fontaine, which I loved passionately. I knew all his fables, and one of my delights was to make a bet with my godfather or with M. Meydieu, our learned and tiresome friend. I used to bet that they would not recognize all the fables, if I began with the last verse and went backward to the first one, and I often won the bet.

A line from my aunt arrived one day, telling my mother that M. Auber, who was then Director of the Conservatoire, was expecting us the next day at nine in the morning. I was about to put my foot in the stirrup. My mother sent me with Mme. Guérard. M. Auber received us very affably, as the Duc de Morny had spoken to him of me. I was very much impressed by him, with his refined face and white hair, his ivory complexion and magnificent black eyes, his fragile and distinguished look, his melodious voice and the celebrity of his name. I scarcely dared answer his questions. He spoke to me very gently, and told me to sit down.

“You are very fond of the stage?” he began.

“Oh, no, monsieur!” I answered.

This unexpected reply amazed him. He looked at Mme. Guérard from under his heavy eyelids, and she at once said:

“No, she does not care for the stage, but she does not want to marry, and consequently she will have no money, as her father left her a hundred thousand francs, which she can only have on her wedding-day. Her mother, therefore, wants her to have some profession, for Mme. Bernhardt only has an annuity, a fairly good one, but it is only an annuity, and so she will not be able to leave her daughters anything. On that account she wants Sarah to become independent. Sarah would like to enter a convent.”

“But that is not an independent career, my child,” said M. Auber, slowly. “How old is she?” he asked.

“Fourteen and a half,” replied Mme. Guérard.

“No,” I exclaimed, “I am nearly fifteen.”

The kind old man smiled.

“In twenty years from now,” he said, “you will insist less about the exact figures,” and, evidently thinking the visit had lasted long enough, he rose.

“It appears,” he said to Mme. Guérard, “that this little girl’s mother is very beautiful?”

“Oh, very beautiful!” she replied.

“You will please express my regret to her that I have not seen her, and my thanks for having so thoughtfully sent you.” He thereupon kissed Mme. Guérard’s hand, and she colored slightly.

This conversation remained engraved on my mind. I remember every word of it, every movement and every gesture of M. Auber’s, for this little man, so charming and so gentle, held my future in his transparent-looking hand. He opened the door for us and, touching me on my shoulder, said:

“Come, courage, little girl. Believe me, you will thank your mother some day for driving you to it. Don’t look so sad; life is well worth beginning, seriously, but gayly.”

I stammered out a few words of thanks, and, just as I was making my exit, a fine-looking woman knocked against me. She was heavy and extremely bustling, though, and M. Auber bent his head toward me and said quietly:

“Above all things don’t let yourself get stout like this singer. Stoutness is the enemy of a woman and of an artiste.”

The manservant was now holding the door open for us, and, as M. Auber returned to his visitor, I heard him say:

“Well, ... most ideal of women....”

I went away rather astounded, and did not say a word in the carriage. Mme. Guérard told my mother about our interview, but the latter did not even let her finish, and only said: “Good, good; thank you.”

The examination was to take place a month after this visit. The difficulty was to choose a piece for the examination. My mother did not know any theatrical people. My godfather advised me to learn “Phèdre,” but Mlle. De Brabender objected, as she thought it a little offensive, and refused to help me if I chose that. M. Meydieu, our old friend, wanted me to work at Chimène, in “Le Cid,” but first he declared that I clenched my teeth too much for it. It was quite true that I did not make the O open enough, and did not roll the R sufficiently, either. He wrote a little notebook for me, which I am copying exactly, as my poor, dear Guérard kept religiously everything concerning me, and she gave me, later on, a quantity of papers which are very useful now.

The following are my old friend’s instructions:

“Every morning instead of do ... re ... mi ... practice te ... de ... de ... in order to learn to vibrate....

“Before breakfast repeat forty times over: Un-très-gros-rat-dans-un-très-gros-trou—in order to vibrate the R.

“Before dinner repeat forty times: Combien ces six saucisses-ci? C’est six sous, ces six saucisses-ci. Six sous ces six saucisses-ci? Six sous ceux-ci, six sous ceux-ci, six sous ceux-là; six sous ces six saucisses-ci!—in order to learn not to whizz the S.

“At night when going to bed repeat twenty times: Didon, dina dit-on du dos d’un dodu dindon.... And twenty times: Le plus petit papa petit pipi petit popo petit pupu.... Open the mouth square for the D, and pout for the P....”

He gave this piece of work quite seriously to Mlle. De Brabender, who quite seriously wanted me to practice it. My governess was charming, and I was very fond of her, but I could not help yelling with laughter when, after making me go through the “te ... de ... de” exercise, which went fairly well, and then the “très-gros-rat,” etc., she started on the saucisses (sausages). Ah, no, that was a cacophony of hisses in her toothless mouth, enough to make all the dogs in Paris howl! And when she began with the “Didon” ... accompanied by the “plus petit papa,” I thought my dear governess was losing her reason. She half closed her eyes, her face was red, her mustache bristled up, she put on a sententious, hurried manner, her mouth widened out and looked like the slit in a money box, or else it was creased up into a little ring, and she purred and hissed and chirped without ceasing. I flung myself exhausted into my wicker-work chair, choking with laughter, and great tears poured from my eyes. I stamped on the floor, flung my arms out right and left until they were useless, and rocked myself backward and forward, screaming with laughter.

My mother, attracted by the noise I was making, half opened the door. Mlle. De Brabender explained to her very gravely that she was showing me M. Meydieu’s method. My mother expostulated with me, but I would not listen to anything, as I was nearly beside myself with laughter. She then took Mlle. De Brabender away and left me alone, for she feared that I would finish with hysterics. When once I was by myself, I began to calm down. I closed my eyes and thought of my convent again. The “te ... de ... de” got mixed up in my enervated brain with the “Our Father,” which I used to have to repeat some days fifteen or twenty times as a punishment. Finally, I came to myself again, got up, and, after bathing my face in cold water, went to my mother, whom I found playing whist with my governess and godfather. I kissed Mlle. De Brabender, and she returned my kiss with such indulgent kindness that I felt quite embarrassed by it.

Ten days passed by and I did none of M. Meydieu’s exercises, except the “te ... de ... de” at the piano. My mother came and woke me every morning for this, and it drove me wild. My godfather made me learn “Aricie,” but I understood nothing of what he told me about the verses. He considered, and explained to me, that poetry must be said with an intonation, and that the value must only be put on the rhyme. His theories were boring to listen to and impossible to execute. Then I could not understand Aricie’s character, for it did not seem to me that she loved Hippolyte at all, and she appeared to me to be a scheming flirt. My godfather explained to me that in olden times this was the way people loved each other, and when I remarked that Phèdre appeared to love in a better way than that, he took me by the chin, and said:

“Just look at this naughty child. She is pretending not to understand, and would like us to explain to her....”

This was simply idiotic. I did not understand, and had not asked anything, but this man had a bourgeois mind, and was sly and lewd. He did not like me because I was thin, but he was interested in me because I was going to be an actress. That word evoked for him the weak side of our art. He did not see the beauty, the nobleness of it, nor yet its beneficial power.

I could not fathom all this at that time, but I did not feel at ease with this man, whom I had seen from my childhood, and who was almost like a father to me. I did not want to continue learning “Aricie.” In the first place, I could not talk about it with my governess, as she would not discuss the piece at all.

I then learned the “Ecole des Femmes,” and Mlle. De Brabender explained Agnes to me. The dear, good lady did not see much in it, for the whole story appeared to her of childlike simplicity, and when I said the lines: “He has taken from me, he has taken from me the ribbon you gave me,” she smiled in all confidence when Meydieu and my godfather laughed heartily.

Finally the examination day arrived. Everyone had given me advice, but no one any really helpful counsel. It had not occurred to anyone that I ought to have had a professional to prepare me for my examination. I got up in the morning with a heavy heart and an anxious mind. My mother had had a black silk dress made for me. It was slightly low-necked, and was finished with a gathered bertha. The frock was rather short, and showed my drawers. These were trimmed with embroidery, and came down to my brown kid boots. A white guimpe emerged from my black bodice and was fastened round my throat, which was too slender. My hair was parted on my forehead, and then fell as it liked, for it was not held by pins or ribbons. I wore a large straw hat, although the season was rather advanced. Everyone came to inspect my dress, and I was turned round and round twenty times at least. I had to make my courtesy for everyone to see. Finally I seemed to give general satisfaction. My petite dame came downstairs, with her grave husband, and kissed me. She was deeply affected. Our old Marguerite made me sit down, and put before me a cup of cold beef tea, which she had simmered so carefully for a long time that it was then a delicious jelly, and I swallowed it in a second. I was in a great hurry to start. On rising from my chair I moved so brusquely that my dress caught on an invisible splinter of wood, and was torn. My mother turned to a visitor who had arrived about five minutes before, and had remained in contemplative admiration ever since.

“There,” she said to him in a vexed tone, “that is a proof of what I told you. All your silks tear with the slightest movement.”

“Oh, no,” replied our visitor quickly, “I told you that this one was not well ‘dressed,’ and let you have it at a low price on that account.”

The man who spoke was the most extraordinary individual imaginable. I do not mean as regards his appearance, as he was like a not too ugly young Jew. He was shy and a Dutchman; never violent, but tenacious. I had known him from my childhood. His father, who was a friend of my grandfather’s on my mother’s side, was a rich tradesman, and the father of a tribe of children. He gave each of his sons a small sum of money, and sent them all out to make their fortune where they liked. Jacques, the one of whom I am speaking, came to Paris. He had commenced by selling Passover cakes, and, as a boy, had often brought me some of them to the convent, together with the dainties that my mother sent me. Later on, my surprise was great on seeing him offer my mother rolls of oilcloth such as is used for tablecloths for early breakfast. I remember one of those cloths, the border of which was formed of medallions representing the French kings. It was from that oilcloth that I learned my history best. For the last month he had owned quite an elegant vehicle, and he sold “silks that were not well dressed.” At present he is one of the leading jewelers of Paris.

The slit in my dress was soon mended and, knowing now that the silk was not well dressed, I treated it with respect. Finally we started—Mlle. De Brabender, Mme. Guérard, and I in a carriage that was only intended for two persons, and I was glad that it was so small, for I was close to two people who were fond of me, and my silk frock was spread carefully over their knees.

When I entered the waiting room that leads into the recital hall of the Conservatoire, there were about twenty young men and about thirty girls there. All these girls were accompanied by their mother, father, aunt, brother, or sister. There was an odor of pomade and vanilla that made me feel sick.

When we were shown into this room, I felt that everyone was looking at me, and I blushed to the back of my head. Mme. Guérard drew me gently along, and I turned to take Mlle. De Brabender’s hand. She came shyly forward, blushing more, and still more confused than I was. Everyone looked at her, and I saw the girls nudge each other and nod in her direction. One of them suddenly got up and moved across to her mother.

“Oh, mercy, look at that old sight!” she said.

My poor governess felt most uncomfortable, and I was furious. I thought she was a thousand times nicer than all those fat, dressed-up, common-looking mothers. Certainly she was different from other people in her appearance, for Mlle. De Brabender was wearing a salmon-colored dress, an Indian shawl drawn tightly across her shoulders, and fastened with a very large cameo brooch. Her bonnet was trimmed with ruches so close together that it looked like a nun’s headgear. She certainly was not at all like these dreadful people in whose society we found ourselves, and among whom there were not more than ten exceptions to the rule. The young men were standing in compact groups near the windows. They were laughing and, I suspect, making remarks in doubtful taste.

The heavy, red baize door opened, and a girl with a red face and a young man perfectly scarlet came back after acting their scene. They each went to their respective friends and then chattered away, finding fault with each other. A name was called out—Mlle. Dica Petit—and I saw a tall, fair, distinguished-looking girl move forward without any embarrassment. She stopped on her way to kiss a pretty woman, stout, with a pink-and-white complexion, and very much dressed up.

“Don’t be afraid, mother dear,” she said, and then she added a few words in Dutch before disappearing, followed by a young man and a very thin girl who were to give her her cues.

This was explained to me by Leautaud, who called over the names of the pupils and took down the names of those who were to act and those who were to give the cues. I knew nothing of all this, and wondered who was to give me the cues for Agnes. He mentioned several young men, but I interrupted him.

“Oh, no,” I said, “I will not ask anyone. I do not know any of them, and I will not ask.”

“Well, then, what will you recite, mademoiselle?” asked Leautaud, with the most outré accent possible.

“I will recite a fable,” I replied.

He burst out laughing as he wrote down my name and the title, “Deux Pigeons,” which I gave him. I heard him still laughing under his heavy mustache as he continued his round. He then went back into the Conservatoire, and I began to get feverish with excitement, so that Mme. Guérard was anxious about me, as my health, unfortunately, was very delicate. She made me sit down, and then she put a few drops of eau de Cologne behind my ears.

“There, that will teach you to wink like that!” were the words I suddenly heard, and a girl with the prettiest face imaginable had her ears boxed soundly. Nathalie Mauvoy’s mother was correcting her daughter. I sprang up, trembling with fright and indignation, and was as angry as a young turkey cock. I wanted to go and box the horrible woman’s ears in return, and then to kiss the pretty girl who had been insulted in this way, but I was held back firmly by my two guardians.

Dica Petit now returned, and this caused a diversion in the waiting room. She was radiant and quite satisfied with herself. Oh, very well satisfied, indeed! Her father held out a little flask to her in which was some kind of cordial, and I should have liked some of it, too, for my mouth was dry and burning. Her mother then put a little woolen square over her chest before fastening her coat for her, and then all three of them went away. Several other girls and young men were called before my turn came.

Finally, the call of my name made me jump as a sardine does when pursued by a big fish. I tossed my head to shake my hair back, and my petite dame stroked my “badly dressed” silk. Mlle. De Brabender reminded me about the O and the A, the R, the P, and the T, and I then went alone into the hall. I had never been alone an hour in my life. As a little child I was always clinging to the skirts of my nurse; at the convent I was always with one of my friends or one of the Sisters; at home either with Mlle. De Brabender or Mme. Guérard, or if they were not there, in the kitchen with Marguerite. And now, there I was alone in that strange-looking room, with a platform at the end, a large table in the middle, and, seated round this table, men who either grumbled, growled, or jeered. There was only one woman present, and she had a loud voice. She was holding an eyeglass, and, as I entered, she dropped it and looked at me through her opera glass. I felt everyone’s gaze on my back as I climbed up the few steps to the platform. Leautaud bent forward and whispered:

“Make your bow and commence, and then stop when the chairman rings.”

I looked at the chairman, and saw that it was M. Auber. I had forgotten that he was Director of the Conservatoire, just as I had forgotten everything else. I at once made my bow, and began:

“Deux pigeons s’aimaient d’amour tendre

L’un d’eux s’ennuyant....”

A low, grumbling sound was heard, and then a ventriloquist muttered:

“It isn’t an elocution class here. What an idea to come here reciting fables!”

It was Beauvallet, the thundering tragedian of the Comédie Française. I stopped short, my heart beating wildly.

“Go on, my child,” said a man with silvery hair. This was Provost.

“Yes, it won’t be as long as a scene from a play,” exclaimed Augustine Brohan, the one woman present.

I began again:

“Deux pigeons s’aimaient d’amour tendre

L’un d’eux s’ennuyant au logis....”

“Louder, my child, louder,” said a little man with curly white hair, in a kindly tone. This was Samson. I stopped again, confused and frightened, seized suddenly with such a foolish fit of nervousness that I could have shouted or howled. Samson saw this, and said to me: “Come, come, we are not ogres!” He had just been talking in a low voice with Auber.

“Come, now, begin again,” he said, “and speak up.”

“Ah, no,” put in Augustine Brohan, “if she is to begin again, it will be longer than a scene!” This speech made all the table laugh, and that gave me time to recover myself. I thought all these people unkind to laugh like this at the expense of a poor, little, trembling creature who had been delivered over to them, bound hand and foot.

I felt, without exactly defining it, a slight contempt for these pitiless judges. Since then I have very often thought of that trial of mine, and I have come to the conclusion that individuals who are kind, intelligent, and compassionate become less estimable when they are together. The feeling of personal irresponsibility encourages their evil instincts, and the fear of ridicule chases away their good ones.

When I had recovered my will power I began my fable again, determined not to mind what happened. My voice was more liquid on account of emotion, and the desire to make myself heard caused it to be more resonant. There was silence, and before I had finished my fable the little bell rang. I bowed, and came down the few steps from the platform thoroughly exhausted. M. Auber stopped me as I was passing by the table.

“Well, little girl,” he said, “that was very good indeed. M. Provost and M. Beauvallet both want you in their class.”

I recoiled slightly when he told me which was M. Beauvallet, for he was the “ventriloquist” who had given me such a fright.

“Well, which of these two gentlemen should you prefer?” he asked.

I did not utter a word, but pointed to M. Provost.

“Ah, well, that’s all right! Get your handkerchief out, my poor Beauvallet, and I shall intrust this child to you, my dear Provost.”

It was only at that moment that I comprehended, and, wild with joy, I exclaimed:

“Then I have passed?”

“Yes, you have passed, and there is only one thing I regret, and that is that such a pretty voice should not be for music.”

I did not hear anything else, for I was beside myself with joy. I did not stay to thank anyone, but bounded to the door.

“Ma petite dame! Mademoiselle! I have passed!” I exclaimed, and when they shook hands and asked me no end of questions I could only reply:

“Oh, it’s quite true—I have passed, I have passed!”

I was surrounded and questioned.

“How do you know that you have passed? No one knows beforehand.”

“Yes, yes, I know, though. M. Auber told me. I am to go into M. Provost’s class. M. Beauvallet wanted me, but his voice is too loud for me!”

A disagreeable girl exclaimed: “Can’t you stop that? And so they all want you!”

A pretty girl, who was too dark, though, for my taste, came nearer and asked me gently what I had recited.

“The fable of the ‘Two Pigeons,’” I replied.

She was surprised, and so was everyone; while, as for me, I was wildly delighted to surprise them all. I tossed my hat on my head, shook my frock out, and dragging my two friends along, ran away dancing. They wanted to take me to the confectioner’s to have something, but I refused. We got into a cab, and I should have liked to push that cab along myself. I fancied I saw the words “I have passed” written up over all the shops. When, on account of the crowded streets, the cab had to stand, it seemed to me that the people stared at me, and I caught myself tossing my head as though telling them all that it was quite true I had passed my examination. I never thought any more about the convent, and only experienced a feeling of pride at having succeeded in my first venturesome enterprise. Venturesome, but the success had depended only on me. It seemed to me as though the cabman would never arrive at 265 Rue St. Honoré. I kept putting my head out of the window and saying: “Faster, cabby; faster, please!” At last we reached the house, and I sprang out of the cab and hurried along to tell the good news to my mother. On the way I was stopped by the daughter of the hall porter. She was a staymaker, and worked in a little room on the top floor of the house, the window of which was opposite our dining-room where I used to do my lessons with my governess, so that I could not help seeing her ruddy, wide-awake face constantly. I had never spoken to her, but I knew who she was.

“Well, Mlle. Sarah, are you satisfied?” she called out.

“Oh, yes, I have passed,” I answered, and I could not resist stopping a minute in order to enjoy the astonishment of the hall-porter family. I then hurried on, but on reaching the courtyard came to a dead stand, anger and grief taking possession of me, for there I beheld my petite dame, her two hands forming a trumpet, her head thrown back, shouting to my mother who was leaning out of the window: “Yes, yes, she has passed!” I gave her a thump with my clenched hand and began to cry with rage, for I had prepared a little story for my mother, ending up with the joyful surprise. I had intended putting on a very sad look on arriving at the door, and pretending to be broken-hearted and ashamed. I felt sure she would say: “Oh, I am not surprised, my poor child, you are so foolish!” and then I should have thrown my arms round her neck and said: “It isn’t true, it isn’t true; I have passed!” I had pictured to myself her face brightening up, and then old Marguerite and my godfather laughing heartily, and my sisters dancing with joy, and here was Mme. Guérard sounding her trumpet and spoiling all my effects that I had prepared so well.

I must say that the kind woman continued as long as she lived (that is the greater part of my life) spoiling all my effects. It was all in vain that I made scenes; she could not help herself. Whenever I told a good story and wanted it to be very effective, she would invariably burst into fits of laughter before the end of it. If I started on a story with a very lamentable ending, which was to be a surprise, she would sigh, roll her eyes, and murmur: “Oh, dear! oh, dear!” so that I always missed the effect I was counting on. Still more often, when anything was being guessed and I asked people for the answer, she would reply before anyone else, as she was always in my confidence, and I had perhaps told her the answer a second before. All this used to exasperate me to such a degree that, before beginning a story or a game, I used to ask her to go out of the room, and she would get up and go, laughing at the idea of the blunder she would make if there.

Furious, then, on this occasion, and abusing Mme. Guérard, I went upstairs to my mother, whom I found at the open door. She kissed me affectionately, and on seeing my sulky face asked if I was not satisfied.

“Yes,” I replied, “but I am furious with Guérard. Be nice, mamma, and pretend you don’t know. Shut the door, and I will ring.”

She did this, and I rang the bell. Marguerite opened the door, and my mother came and pretended to be astonished. My sisters, too, arrived, and my godfather and my aunt. When I kissed my mother, exclaiming, “I have passed!” everyone shouted with joy, and I was gay again. I had made my effect anyhow. It was “the career” taking possession of me unawares.

My sister Régina, whom the Sisters would not have in the convent and so had sent home, began to dance a jig. She had learned this in the country when she had been put out to nurse, and upon every occasion she danced it, finishing always with this couplet:

My little dear, rejoice,

Everything is for you....

Nothing could be more comic than this chubby child with her serious air. Régina never laughed, and only a suspicion of a smile ever played over her thin lips and over her mouth, which was too small. Nothing could be more comic than to see her, looking grave and rough, dancing the jig. She was funnier than ever that day, as she was excited by the general joy. She was four years old, and nothing ever embarrassed her. She was both timid and bold. She detested society and people generally, but if made to go in the dining-room she embarrassed people by her crude remarks, which were most odd, by her rough answers and her kicks and blows. She was a terrible child, with silvery hair, dark complexion, blue eyes too large for her face, and thick lashes which made a shadow on her cheeks when she lowered the lids, and joined her eyebrows when her eyes were open. She would be four or five hours sometimes without uttering a word, without answering any question she was asked, and then she would jump up from her little chair, begin to sing as loud as she could, and dance the jig. On this day she was in a good temper, for she kissed me affectionately and opened her thin lips to smile. My sister Jeanne kissed me, and made me tell her about my examination. My godfather gave me a hundred francs, and M. Meydieu, who had just arrived to find out the result, promised to take me the next day to Barbédienne’s to choose a clock for my room, as that was one of my dreams.

CHAPTER VI
I DECLINE MATRIMONY AND WED ART

The great change began in me from that day. For rather a long time, indeed, my soul remained childlike, but my mind discerned life more distinctly. I felt the need of creating a personality for myself. That was the first awakening of my will. I wanted to be some one. Mlle. De Brabender declared to me that this was pride. It seemed to me that it was not quite that, but I could not then define what the sentiment was which imposed this wish on me. I did not understand until a few months later why I wished to be some one.

A friend of my godfather’s made me an offer of marriage. This man was a rich tanner, and very kind, but so dark and with such long hair and such a beard that he disgusted me. I refused him, and my godfather then asked to speak to me alone. He made me sit down in my mother’s boudoir, and said to me:

“My poor child, it is pure folly to refuse M. B——. He has sixty thousand francs a year and expectations.”

It was the first time I had heard this use of the word, and when the meaning was explained to me I wondered if that was the right thing to say on such an occasion.

“Why, yes,” replied my godfather, “you are idiotic with your romantic ideas. Marriage is a business affair, and must be considered as such. Your future father and mother-in-law will have to die, just as we shall, and it is by no means disagreeable to know that they will leave two million francs to their son, and consequently to you, if you marry him.”

“I shall not marry him, though.”

“Why?”

“Because I do not love him.”

“But you never love your husband before—” replied my practical adviser. “You can love him after.”

“After what?”

“Ask your mother. But listen to me now, for it is not a question of that. You must marry. Your mother has a small income which your father left her, but this income comes from the profits of the manufactory which belongs to your grandmother, and she cannot bear your mother, who will therefore lose that income, and then have nothing and three children on her hands. It is that accursed lawyer who is arranging all this. The whys and wherefores would take too long to explain. Your father managed his business affairs very badly. You must marry, therefore, if not for your own sake, for the sake of your mother and sisters. You can then give your mother the hundred thousand francs your father left you, which no one else can touch. M. B—— will allow you three hundred thousand francs. I have arranged everything, so that you can give this to your mother if you like, and with four hundred thousand francs she will be able to live very well.”

I cried and sobbed, and asked to have time to think it over. I found my mother in the dining-room.

“Has your godfather told you?” she asked gently, in rather a timid way.

“Yes, mother; yes, he has told me. Let me think it over, will you?” I said, sobbing, as I kissed her neck lingeringly.

I then locked myself in my bedroom, and, for the first time for many days, I regretted the separation from my convent. All my childhood rose up before me, and I cried more and more, and felt so unhappy that I wished I could die. Gradually, however, I began to get calm again and realized what had happened, and what my godfather’s words meant. Most decidedly I did not want to marry this man. Since I had been at the Conservatoire, I had learned a few things vaguely, very vaguely, for I was never alone, but I understood enough to make me not want to marry without being in love. I was, however, destined to be attacked in a quarter from which I should not have expected it. Mme. Guérard asked me to go up to her room to see the embroidery she was doing on a frame for my mother’s birthday.

My astonishment was great to find M. B—— there. He begged me to change my mind. He made me very wretched, for he pleaded with tears in his eyes.

“Do you want a larger marriage settlement?” he asked. “I would make it five hundred thousand francs.”

But it was not that at all, and I said in a very low voice:

“I do not love you, monsieur.”

“If you do not marry me, mademoiselle,” he said, “I shall die of grief.”

I looked at him and repeated to myself the words, “die of grief.” I was embarrassed and desperate, but at the same time delighted, for he loved me just as a man does in a play. Phrases that I had read or heard came to my mind vaguely, and I repeated them without any real conviction, and then left him without the slightest coquetry.

M. B—— did not die. He is still living, and has a very important financial position. He is much nicer now than when he was so black, for at present he is quite white.

I had just passed my first examination with remarkable success, particularly in tragedy. M. Provost, my professor, had not wanted me to compete in “Zaïre,” but I had insisted. I thought that scene with Zaïre and her brother Nivestan very fine, and it suited me. But when Zaïre, overwhelmed with her brother’s reproaches, falls on her knees at his feet, Provost wanted me to say the words, “Strike, I tell you! I love him!” with violence, and I wanted to say them gently, perfectly resigned to a death that was almost certain. I argued about it for a long time with my professor, and finally I appeared to give in to him during the lesson. But on the day of the competition I fell on my knees before Nerestan with a sob so real, my arms outstretched, offering my heart so full of love to the deadly blow that I expected, and I murmured with such tenderness, “Strike, I tell you! I love him!” that the whole house burst into applause and demanded it twice over.

The second prize for tragedy was awarded me, to the great dissatisfaction of the public, as it was thought that I ought to have had the first prize. And yet it was only just that I should have the second, on account of my age and the short time I had been studying. I had a first accessit for comedy in “La Fausse Agnes,” and Sarcey wrote an article about it.

I felt, therefore, that I had the right to refuse M. B——. My future lay open before me, and consequently my mother would not be in want if she should lose her present income. A few days later, M. Régnier, professor at the Conservatoire and secretary of the Comédie Française, came to ask my mother whether she would allow me to play in a piece of his at the Vaudeville. The piece was “Germaine,” and the managers would give me twenty-five francs for each performance. I was amazed at the sum! Seven hundred and fifty francs a month for my first appearance! I was wild with joy. I besought my mother to accept the offer made by the Vaudeville, and she told me to do as I liked in the matter.

I asked M. Camille Doucet, director of the Beaux-Arts, to allow me to recite something to him, and, as my mother always refused to accompany me, Mme. Guérard went with me. My little sister, Régina, begged me to take her, and very unwisely I consented. We had not been in the director’s office more than five minutes before my sister, who was only six years old, began to climb on the furniture. She jumped on a stool, and finally sat down on the floor, pulling the paper basket, which was under the desk, toward her, and proceeded to spread all the torn papers which it contained about the room. On seeing this, Camille Doucet mildly observed that she was not a very good little girl. My sister, with her head in the basket, answered in her husky voice:

“If you bother me, monsieur, I shall tell everyone that you are there to give out holy water that is poison—my aunt says so.”

My face turned purple with shame, and I stammered out:

“Please do not believe that, M. Doucet, my little sister is telling an untruth.”

Régina sprang to her feet and, clenching her fists, rushed at me like a little fury:

“Aunt Rosine never said that?” she exclaimed. “You are telling the untruth ... why, she said it to M. De Morny, and he answered....”

I had forgotten this, and I have forgotten what the Duc de Morny answered, but, beside myself with anger, I put my hand over my sister’s mouth and took her quickly away. She howled like a wildcat, and we rushed like a hurricane through the waiting room which was full of people. I then gave way to one of those violent fits of temper to which I had been subject in my childhood. I sprang into the first cab that passed the door, and, when once in the cab, struck my sister with such fury that Mme. Guérard was alarmed, and protected her with her own body, receiving all the blows I gave with my head, arms, and feet, for in my anger, rage, and shame I flung myself about to right and left. My rage was all the more profound from the fact that I was very fond of Camille Doucet. He was gentle and charming, affable and kind-hearted. He had refused my aunt something she had asked for, and, unaccustomed to being refused anything, she had a spite against him. This had nothing to do with me, though, and I wondered what Camille Doucet would think. And then, too, I had not asked him about the Vaudeville.

All my fine dreams had come to nothing. And it was this little monster, who looked as fair and as white as a seraph, who had just shattered my hopes. Huddled up in the cab, an expression of fear on her self-willed face, and her thin lips compressed, she was gazing at me under her long lashes with half-closed eyes. On reaching home I told my mother all that had happened, and she declared that my little sister should have no dessert for two days. Régina was greedy, but her pride was greater than her greediness. She turned round on her little heels and, dancing her jig, began to sing, “My little stomach isn’ at all glad,” until I wanted to rush at her and shake her.

A few days later, during my lessons, I was told that the Ministry refused to allow me to act at the Vaudeville.

M. Régnier told me how sorry he was, but he added in kindly tone:

“Oh, but, my dear child, the Conservatoire thinks a lot of you! Therefore you need not worry too much.”

“I am sure that Camille Doucet is at the bottom of it,” I said.

“No, he certainly is not,” answered M. Régnier, “Camille Doucet was our warmest advocate, but the Ministry will not, upon any account, hear of anything that might be detrimental to your début next year.”

I at once felt most grateful to Camille Doucet for his kindness in bearing no ill-will after my little sister’s stupid behavior. I began to work again with the greatest zeal, and did not miss a single lesson. Every morning I went to the Conservatoire with my governess. We started early, as I preferred walking to taking the omnibus, and I kept the franc which my mother gave me every morning, part of which was for the omnibus and part for cakes. We were to walk home always, but every other day we took a cab with the two francs I had saved for this purpose. My mother never knew about this little scheme, but it was not without remorse that my kind Brabender consented to be my accomplice.

As I said before, I did not miss a lesson, and I even went to the deportment class, at which poor old M. Elie, duly curled, powdered, and adorned with lace frills, presided. This was the most amusing lesson imaginable. Very few of us attended this class, and M. Elie avenged himself on us for the abstention of the others. At every lesson each one of us was called forward. He addressed us by the familiar term of thou, and considered us as his property. There were only five or six of us, but we each had to mount the stage. He always stood up with his little black stick in his hand. No one knew why he should have this stick.

LE CONSERVATOIRE NATIONAL DE MUSIQUE ET DE DECLAMATION, PARIS.

“Now, young ladies,” he would say, “the body thrown back, the head up, on tiptoes—that’s it—perfect. One, two, three, march.”

And we marched along on tiptoes with heads up and eyelids drawn over our eyes as we tried to look down in order to see where we were walking. We marched along like this with all the stateliness and solemnity of camels! He then taught us to make our exit with indifference, dignity, or fury, and it was amusing to see us going toward the doors either with a lagging step or in an animated or hurried way, according to the mood in which we were supposed to be. Then we heard: “Enough! Go! Not a word!” for M. Elie would not allow us to murmur a single word. “Everything,” he used to say, “is in the look, the gesture, the attitude!” Then there was what he called “l’assiette,” which meant the way to sit down in a dignified manner, to let oneself fall into a seat wearily, or the “assiette,” which meant: “I am listening, monsieur; say what you wish.” Ah, that was distractingly complicated, that way of sitting down! We had to put everything into it: the desire to know what was going to be said to us, the fear of hearing it, the determination to go away, the will to stay. Oh, the tears that this “assiette” cost me! Poor old M. Elie! I do not bear him any ill-will, but I did my utmost later on to forget everything he had taught me, for nothing could have been more useless than those deportment lessons. Every human being moves about according to his or her proportions. Women who are too tall take long strides, those who stoop walk like the Eastern women; stout women walk like ducks, short-legged ones trot; very small women skip along, and the gawky ones walk like cranes. Nothing can be done for them, and the deportment class has very wisely been abolished. The gesture must depict the thought, and it is harmonious or stupid, according to whether the artiste is intelligent or null. For the theater one needs long arms; it is better to have them too long than too short. An artiste with short arms can never, never make a fine gesture. It was all in vain that poor Elie told us this or that. We were always stupid and awkward, while he was always comic; oh, so comic, poor old man!

I also took fencing lessons. Aunt Rosine put this idea into my mother’s head. I had a lesson once a week from the famous Pons. Oh, what a terrible man he was! Brutal, rude, and always teasing, he was an incomparable fencing master, but he disliked giving lessons to “brats” like us, as he called us. He was not rich, though, and I believe, but am not sure of it, that this class had been organized for him by a distinguished patron of his. He always kept his hat on, and this horrified Mlle. De Brabender. He smoked his cigar, too, all the time, and this made his pupils cough, as they were already out of breath from the fencing exercise. What torture those lessons were! He brought with him sometimes friends of his who delighted in our awkwardness. This gave rise to a scandal, as one day one of these gay spectators made a most violent remark about one of the pupils named Châtelain, and the latter turned round quickly and gave him a blow in the face. A skirmish immediately occurred, and Pons, on endeavoring to intervene, received a blow or two himself. This made a great stir, and from that day forth visitors were not allowed to be present at the lesson. I persuaded my mother to let me discontinue attending this class, and this was a great relief to me.

I very much preferred Régnier’s lessons to any others. He was gentle, had nice manners, and taught us to be natural in what we recited, but I certainly owe all that I know to the variety of instruction which I had, and which I followed up in the most devoted way.

Provost taught a broad style, with diction somewhat pompous but sustained. He especially emphasized freedom of gesture and inflection. Beauvallet, in my opinion, did not teach anything that was good. He had a deep, effective voice, but that he could not give to anyone. It was an admirable instrument, but it did not give him any talent. He was awkward in his gestures, his arms were too short, and his face common. I detested him as a professor.

Samson was just the opposite. His voice was not strong, but piercing. He had a certain acquired distinction, but was very correct. His method was simplicity. Provost emphasized breadth; Samson exactitude, and he was very particular about the finals. He would not allow us to drop the voice at the end of the phrase. Coquelin, who is one of Régnier’s pupils, I believe, has a great deal of Samson’s style, although he has retained the essentials of his first master’s teaching. As for me, I remember my three professors, Régnier, Provost, and Samson, as though I had heard them only yesterday.

The year passed by without any great change in my life, but two months before my second examination I had the misfortune to have to change my professor. Provost was taken ill, and I went in to Samson’s class. He counted very much on me, but he was authoritative and persistent. He gave me two very bad parts in two very bad pieces: Hortense, in “L’Ecole des Vieillards,” by Casimir Delavigne, for comedy, and “La Fille du Cid,” for tragedy. This piece was also by Casimir Delavigne. I did not feel at all in my element in these two rôles, both of which were written in hard, emphatic language.

The examination day arrived, and I did not look at all nice. My mother had insisted on my having my hair done up by her hairdresser, and I had cried and sobbed on seeing this “Figaro” make partings all over my head in order to separate my rebellious mane. Idiot that he was, he had suggested this style to my mother, and my head was in his stupid hands for more than an hour and a half, for he never before had to deal with a mane like mine. He kept mopping his forehead every five minutes, and muttering: “What hair! Good heavens! it is horrible—just like tow! It might be the hair of a white negress!” Turning to my mother, he suggested that my head should be entirely shaved, and the hair then trained as it grew again. “I will think about it,” replied my mother in an absent-minded way. I turned my head so abruptly to look at her when she said this that the curling irons burned my forehead. The man was using the irons to uncurl my hair. He considered that it curled naturally in such a disordered style that he must get the natural curl out of it and then wave it, as this would be more becoming to the face.

“Mademoiselle’s hair is stopped in its growth by this extreme curliness. All the Tangiers girls and negresses have hair like this. As mademoiselle is going on the stage, she would look better if she had hair like madame,” he said, bowing with respectful admiration to my mother, who certainly had the most beautiful hair imaginable. It was fair and so long that, when standing up, she could tread on it and not bend her head. It is only fair to say, though, that my mother was very short.

Finally, I was out of the hands of this wretched man, and was nearly dead with fright after an hour and a half’s brushing, combing, curling, hairpinning, with my head turned from left to right and from right to left. I was completely disfigured at the end of it all, and did not recognize myself. My hair was drawn tightly back from my temples, my ears were very visible and stood out, looking positively improper in their nakedness, while on the top of my head was a parcel of little sausages arranged near each other to imitate the ancient diadem.

I was perfectly hideous. My forehead, of which I caught a glimpse under the golden mass of my hair, seemed to me immense, implacable. I did not recognize my eyes, accustomed as I was to see them veiled by the shadow of my hair. My head seemed to weigh two or three pounds. I was accustomed to do my hair as I still do, with two hairpins, and this man had put five or six packets in it. All this was heavy for my poor head.

I was late, and so I had to dress very quickly. I cried with anger, and my eyes grew smaller, my nose larger, and my veins swelled. But it was the climax when I had to put my hat on. It would not go on the pile of sausages, and my mother wrapped my head up in a lace scarf and hurried me to the door.

On arriving at the Conservatoire, I hurried with my petite dame to the waiting room, while my mother went direct to the hall. When once I was in the waiting room I tore off the lace, and, seated on a bench, after relating the Odyssey of my hairdressing, I gave my head up to my companions. All of them adored and envied my hair, because it was so soft and light and golden. All of them took pity on my sorrow, and were touched by my ugliness. Their mothers, however, were spluttering in their own fat with joy.

The girls began to take out my hairpins, and one of them, Marie Lloyd, whom I liked best, took my head in her hands and kissed it affectionately.

“Oh, your beautiful hair, what have they done to it!” she exclaimed, pulling out the last of the hairpins. This sympathy made me once more burst into tears.

Finally, I stood up triumphant, without any hairpins and without any sausages. But my poor hair was heavy with the beef marrow the wretched man had put on it, and it was full of the partings he had made for the creation of the sausages. It fell now in mournful-looking, greasy flakes around my face. I shook my head for five minutes in mad rage. I then succeeded in making the hair more loose, and I put it up as well as I could with a couple of hairpins.

The competition had commenced, and I was the tenth to be called. I could not remember what I had to say. Mme. Guérard moistened my temples with cold water, and Mlle. De Brabender, who had only just arrived, did not recognize me, and was looking about for me everywhere. She had broken her leg nearly three months ago, and had to support herself on a crutch, but she had wished to come.

Mme. Guérard was just beginning to tell her about the drama of the hair when my name echoed through the room. “Mlle. Chara Bernhardt!” It was Leautaud, who later on was prompter at the Comédie Française, and who had a strong Auvergne accent. “Mlle. Chara Bernhardt!” I heard again, and I then sprang up without an idea in my mind and without uttering a word. I looked round for the pupil who was to give me my answers, and together we made our entry.

I was surprised at the sound of my voice, which I did not recognize. I had cried so much that it had affected my voice, and I spoke through my nose.

I heard a woman’s voice say:

“Poor child, she ought not to have been allowed to compete; she has an atrocious cold, her nose is running, and her face is swollen.”

I finished my scene, made my bow, and went away in the midst of very feeble and spiritless applause. I walked like a somnambulist, and on reaching Mme. Guérard and Mlle. De Brabender fainted away in their arms. Some one went to the hall in search of a doctor, and the rumor that “the little Bernhardt had fainted” reached my mother. She was sitting far back in a box bored to death.

When I came to myself again, I opened my eyes and saw my mother’s pretty face, with tears hanging on her long lashes. I laid my head against hers and cried quietly, but this time the tears were refreshing, not salt ones that burned my eyelids.

I stood up, shook out my dress, and looked at myself in the greenish mirror. I was certainly less ugly now, for my face was rested, my hair was once more soft and light, and altogether there was a general improvement in my appearance.

The tragedy competition was over, and the prizes had been awarded. I had no recompense at all, but my last year’s second prize had been mentioned. I felt confused, but it did not cause me any disappointment, as I had quite expected things to be like this. Several persons had protested in my favor. Camille Doucet, who was a member of the jury, had argued a long time for me to have a first prize in spite of my bad recitation. He said that my examination reports ought to be taken into account, and they were excellent; and then, too, I had the best class reports. Nothing, however, could overcome the bad effect produced that day by my nasal voice, my swollen face, and my heavy flakes of hair. After half an hour’s interval, during which I drank a glass of port wine and ate cakes, the signal was given for the comedy competition. I was down as the fourteenth for this, so that I had ample time to recover. My fighting instinct now began to take possession of me, and a sense of injustice made me feel rebellious. I had not deserved my prize that day, but it seemed to me that I ought to have received it nevertheless.

SARAH BERNHARDT IN THE HANDS OF HER COIFFEUR.

I made up my mind that I would have the first prize for comedy, and with the exaggeration that I have always put into everything, I began to get excited, and I said to myself that if I did not have the first prize I must give up the idea of the stage as a career. My love of mysticism and weakness for the convent came back to me more strongly than ever.

“Yes,” I said to myself, “I will go back to the convent, but only if I do not get the first prize”; and then the most foolish, illogical strike imaginable was waged in my weak, girl’s brain. I felt a genuine vocation for the convent when distressed about losing the prize, and a genuine vocation for the theater when I was hopeful about winning the prize.

With a very natural partiality I discovered in myself the gift of absolute self-sacrifice, renunciation, and devotion of every kind—qualities which would win for me easily the post of Mother Superior in the Grandchamps Convent. Then with the most indulgent generosity I attributed to myself all the necessary gifts for the fulfillment of my other dream, namely, to become the first, the most celebrated, and the most envied of actresses. I counted on my fingers all my qualities: gracefulness, charm, distinction, beauty, mystery, piquancy. Oh, yes, I found I had all these, and when my reason and my honesty raised any doubt or suggested a “but” to this fabulous inventory of my qualities, my combative and paradoxical ego at once found a plain decisive answer which admitted of no further argument.

It was under these special conditions and in this frame of mind that I went on to the stage when my turn came. The choice of my rôle for this competition was a very stupid one. I had to represent a married woman who was reasonable and given to reasoning, and I was a mere child, and looked much younger than I was. In spite of this, I was very brilliant; I argued well, was very gay, and had immense success. I was transfigured with joy and wildly excited, so sure I felt of a first prize.

I never doubted for a moment that it would be awarded to me unanimously. When the competition was over, the committee met to discuss the awards, and in the meantime I asked for something to eat. A cutlet was brought from the pastry cook patronized by the Conservatoire, and I devoured it, to the great joy of Mme. Guérard and Mlle. De Brabender, for I detested meat, and always refused to eat it.

The members of the committee at last went to their places in the state box, and there was silence in the hall. The young men were called first on to the stage. There was no first prize awarded to them. Parfouru’s name was called for the second prize for comedy. Parfouru is known to-day as M. Paul Porel, director of the Vaudeville Theater, and Réjane’s husband. After this came the turn for the girls.

I was in the doorway, ready to rush up to the stage. The words “first prize for comedy” were uttered, and I made a step forward, pushing aside a girl who was a head taller than I was. “First prize for comedy awarded unanimously to Mlle. Marie Lloyd.” The tall girl I had pushed aside now went forward, slender and beaming, toward the stage.

There were a few muttered protests, but her beauty, her distinction, and her modest charm won the day with everyone, and Marie Lloyd was cheered. She passed me on her return, and kissed me affectionately. We were great friends, and I liked her very, much, but I considered her a nonentity as a pupil. I do not remember whether she had received any prize the previous year, but certainly no one expected her to have one now, and I was simply petrified.

“Second prize for comedy: Mlle. Bernhardt.”

I had not heard this, and was pushed forward by my companions. On reaching the stage I bowed, and all the time I could see hundreds of Marie Lloyds dancing before me. Some of them were making grimaces, others were throwing me kisses—some were fanning themselves and others bowing. They were very tall, all these Marie Lloyds—too tall for the ceiling, and they walked over the heads of all the people and came toward me, crushing me, stifling me, so that I could not breathe. My face, it seems, was whiter than my dress.

On returning to the green room, I sat down without uttering a word and looked at Marie Lloyd, who was being made much of, and who was greatly complimented by everyone. She was wearing a pale blue tarlatan dress, with a bunch of forget-me-nots in the bodice and another in her black hair. She was very tall, and her delicate, white shoulders emerged modestly from her dress, which was cut very low, as for her this did not matter. Her refined face, with its somewhat proud expression, was charming and very beautiful. Although very young, she had more womanly charm than all of us. Her large brown eyes had a certain play in them, her little round mouth gave a smile which was full of mischief, and the nostrils of her wonderfully cut nose dilated. The oval of her beautiful face was intercepted by two little pearly, transparent ears of the most exquisite shape. She had a long, flexible white neck, and the pose of her head was charming. It was a beauty prize that the jury had conscientiously awarded to Marie Lloyd. She had come on the stage gay and fascinating, in her rôle of Célimène, and in spite of the monotony of her delivery, the carelessness of her elocution, the impersonality of her acting, she had carried off all the votes because she was the very personification of Célimène, that coquette of twenty years of age who was unconsciously so cruel. She had realized for everyone the ideal dreamed of by Molière.

All these thoughts shaped themselves later on in my brain, and this first lesson, which was so painful at the time, was of great service to me in my career. I never forgot Marie Lloyd’s prize, and every time that I had to create a rôle, the physical body of the character always appeared before me dressed, with her hair done, walking, bowing, sitting down, getting up. But this was only a vision which lasted a second, for my mind always thought of the soul governing this personage. When listening to an author reading his work, I tried to define the intention of his idea, endeavoring to identify myself with that intention. I have never played an author false with regard to his idea, and I have always tried to represent the personage according to history, whenever it is a historical personage, and when it is an invention, according to the author.

I have sometimes tried to compel the public to return to the truth, and to destroy the legendary side of certain personages whom history, thanks to its documents, now represents to us as they were in reality; but the public never followed me. I soon realized that legend remains victorious in spite of history, and this is perhaps a good thing for the mind of the crowd. Jesus, Joan of Arc, Shakespeare, the Virgin Mary, Mahomet, and Napoleon I have all entered into legend.

It is impossible now for our brain to picture Jesus and the Virgin Mary accomplishing humiliating human functions. They lived the life that we are living. Death chilled their sacred limbs, and it is not without rebellion and grief that we accept this fact. We start off in pursuit of them in an ethereal heaven, in the infinite of our dreams. We cast down all the dross of humanity in order to let them, clothed in the ideal, be seated on a throne of love. We do not like Joan of Arc to be the rustic, bold, peasant woman, repulsing violently the old soldier who wants to joke with her, sitting astride her big steed like a man, laughing readily at the coarse jokes of the soldiers, submitting to the lewd promiscuities of the barbarous epoch in which she lived, and having, on that account, all the more merit in remaining a most heroic maiden.

We do not care for such useless truths. In the legend she is a fragile woman guided by a divine soul. Her girl’s arm which holds the heavy banner is sustained by an invisible angel. In her childish eyes there is something from another world, and it is from this that all the warriors get their strength and courage. It is thus that we wish it to be, and so the legend remains triumphant.

But to return to the Conservatoire. Nearly all the pupils had gone away, and I remained quiet and embarrassed on my bench. Marie Lloyd came and sat down by me.

“Are you unhappy?” she asked.

“Yes,” I answered. “I wanted the first prize, and you have it. It is unjust.”

“I do not know whether it is just or not,” answered Marie Lloyd, “but I assure you that it is not my fault.”

I could not help laughing at this.

“Shall I come home with you to luncheon?” she asked, and her beautiful eyes grew moist and beseeching. She was an orphan and unhappy, and on this day of triumph she felt the need of a family. My heart began to melt with pity and affection. I threw my arms round her neck, and we all four went away together—Marie Lloyd, Mme. Guérard, Mlle. De Brabender, and I. My mother had sent me word that she had gone on home.

In the cab my “don’t-care” character won the day once more, and we chatted gayly about one and another of the people we had seen during the morning. “Oh, how ridiculous such and such a person was!” “Did you see her mother’s bonnet?” “And old Estebenet, did you see his white gloves? He must have stolen them from some policeman!” And hereupon we laughed like idiots, and then began again. “And that poor Châtelain had had his hair curled!” said Marie Lloyd. “Did you see his head?”

I did not laugh any more, though, for this reminded me of how my own hair had been uncurled, and that it was thanks to that I had not won the first prize for tragedy.

On reaching home we found my mother, my aunt, my godfather, our old friend Meydieu, Mme. Guérard’s husband, and my sister Jeanne with her hair all curled. This gave me a pang, for she had straight hair, and it had been curled to make her prettier, although she was charming without that, and the curl had been taken out of my hair, so that I had looked uglier.

My mother spoke to Marie Lloyd with that charming and distinguished indifference peculiar to her. My godfather made a great fuss over her, for success was everything to this bourgeois. He had seen my young friend a hundred times before, and had not been struck by her beauty, nor yet touched by her poverty, but on this particular day he assured us that he had for a long time predicted Marie Lloyd’s triumph. He then came to me, put his two hands on my shoulders, and held me facing him.

“Well, you were a failure,” he said. “Why persist now in going in for the theater? You are thin and small, your face is rather nice close to, but ugly in the distance, and your voice does not carry!”

“Yes, my dear girl,” put in M. Meydieu, “your godfather is right. You had better marry the flour man who proposed, or that imbecile of a Spanish tanner who lost his brainless head for the sake of your pretty eyes. You will never do anything on the stage! You’d better marry!”

M. Guérard came and shook hands with me. He was a man of nearly sixty years of age, and Mme. Guérard was under thirty. He was melancholy, gentle, and shy; he had been awarded the distinction of the Legion of Honor, and he wore a long, shabby frock coat, had aristocratic gestures, and was private secretary to M. De la Tour Desmoulins, a deputy very much in favor. M. Guérard was a well of science, and I owe a great deal to his kindness.

Jeanne whispered to me:

“Sister’s godfather said when he came in that you looked as ugly as possible.” Jeanne always spoke of my godfather in this way. I pushed her away, and we sat down to table. All through the meal my one wish was to go back to the convent. I did not eat much, and directly after luncheon was so tired that I had to go to bed.

When once I was alone in my room between the sheets, with tired limbs, my head heavy and my heart oppressed with keeping back my sighs, I tried to consider my wretched situation, but sleep, the great restorer, came to the rescue and I was very soon slumbering peacefully. When I awoke I could not collect my thoughts at first. I wondered what time it was, and looked at my watch. It was just ten, and I had been asleep since three o’clock in the afternoon. I listened for a few minutes, but everything was silent in the house. On a table near my bed was a small tray on which was a cup of chocolate and a cake. A sheet of writing paper was placed upright against the cup. I trembled as I took it up, for I never received any letters. With great difficulty, by my night light, I managed to read the following words, written by Mme. Guérard:

“When you had gone to sleep the Duc de Morny sent word to your mother that Camille Doucet had just assured him that you were to be engaged for the Comédie Française. Do not worry any more, therefore, my dear child, but have faith in the future. Your petite dame.”

I pinched myself to make sure that I was really awake. I got up and rushed to the window. I looked out, and the sky was black. Yes, it was black to everyone else, but starry to me. The stars were shining, and I looked for my own special one, and chose the largest and brightest.

I went back toward my bed and amused myself with jumping on to it, holding my feet together. Each time I missed I laughed like a lunatic. I then drank my chocolate, and nearly choked myself devouring my cake.

Standing up on my bolster, I then made a long speech to the Virgin Mary at the head of my bed. I adored the Virgin Mary, and I explained to her my reasons for not being able to take the veil, in spite of my vocation. I tried to charm and persuade her, and I kissed her very gently on her foot, which was crushing the serpent. Then in the obscurity of the room I looked for my mother’s portrait. I could scarcely see this, but I threw kisses to it. I then took up the letter again from my petite dame and went to sleep with it in my mind. I do not remember what my dreams were that memorable night.

The next day everyone was very kind to me. My godfather, who arrived early, nodded his head in a contented way.

“She must have some fresh air,” he said. “I will pay for a landau.” The drive seemed to me delicious, for I could dream to my heart’s content, as my mother disliked talking when in a carriage.

Two days later, our old servant, Marguerite, breathless with excitement, brought me a letter. On the corner of the envelope there was a wide stamp around which stood the magic words: “Comédie Française.” I glanced at my mother and she nodded, as a sign that I might open the letter, after blaming Marguerite for giving me a letter before obtaining her permission to do so.

“It is for to-morrow, to-morrow!” I exclaimed. “I am to go there to-morrow, look—read it!”

My sisters came rushing to me and seized my hands. I danced round with them singing, “It is to-morrow, it’s to-morrow.” My youngest sister was eight years old, but I was only six that day. I went upstairs to the flat on the top floor to tell Mme. Guérard. She was just soaping her children’s white frocks and pinafores. She took my face in her hands and kissed me affectionately. Her two hands were covered with a soapy lather and left a snowy patch on each side of my head. I rushed downstairs again in that condition, and went noisily into the drawing-room. My godfather, M. Meydieu, my aunt, and my mother were just commencing whist. I kissed each of them, leaving a little lather on their faces, at which I laughed heartily. But I was allowed to do anything that day, for I had become a personage.

The next day, Tuesday, I was to go to the Théâtre Français at one o’clock to see M. Thierry, who was then director.

What was I to wear? That was the great question. My mother had sent for the milliner, who had arrived with various hats. I chose a white one trimmed with pale blue, a white bavolet and blue strings. Aunt Rosine had sent one of her dresses for me, for my mother thought all my frocks were too childish. Oh, that dress! I shall see it all my life. It was hideous cabbage green with black velvet put on in Grecian pattern. I looked like a monkey in that dress. But I was obliged to wear it. Fortunately it was covered by a mantle of black grosgrain stitched all round with white. It was thought better for me to be dressed like a grown-up person, and all my clothes were suitable only for a child. Mlle. De Brabender gave me a pair of white gloves, and Mme. Guérard a sunshade. My mother gave me a very pretty turquoise ring.

Dressed up in this way, looking pretty in my white hat, uncomfortable in my green dress, but comforted by my mantle, I went with Mme. Guérard to M. Thierry’s. My aunt lent me her carriage for the occasion, as she thought it would look better to arrive in a private carriage. Later on I found that this arrival in my own carriage, with a footman, made a very bad impression. What all the theater people thought, I never cared to consider, and it seems to me that my extreme youth must really have preserved me from all suspicion.

SARAH BERNHARDT WHEN SHE LEFT THE CONSERVATORY.

M. Thierry received me very kindly and made a little nonsensical speech. He then unfolded a paper, which he handed to Mme. Guérard, asking her to look at it and then to sign it. This paper was my engagement, and my petite dame explained that she was not my mother.

“Ah!” said M. Thierry, getting up, “then will you take it with you and have it signed by mademoiselle’s mother?”

He then took my hand. I felt an instinctive horror at the touch of his, for it was flabby, and there was no life or sincerity in its grasp. I quickly took mine away and looked at him. He was plain, with a red face, and eyes that avoided one’s gaze. As I was going away I met Coquelin, who, hearing I was there, had waited to see me. He had made his début a year before with great success.

“Well, it’s settled, then?” he said gayly.

I showed him the engagement and shook hands with him. I went quickly down the stairs, and just as I was leaving the theater, found myself in the midst of a group in the doorway.

“Are you satisfied?” asked a gentle voice, which I recognized as M. Doucet’s.

“Oh, yes, monsieur, thank you so much,” I answered.

“But my dear child, I have nothing to do with it,” he said.

“Your competition was not at all good, but nevertheless we count on you,” put in M. Régnier, and then turning to Camille Doucet he asked: “What do you think, your Excellency?”

“I think that this child will be a very great artiste,” he replied.

There was silence for a moment.

“Well, you have got a turnout!” exclaimed Beauvallet rudely. He was the first tragedian of the Comédie, and the worst-bred man in France or anywhere else.

“This turnout belongs to mademoiselle’s aunt,” remarked Camille Doucet, shaking hands with me gently.

“Oh, well, I would much rather it belonged to her than to me,” answered the tragedian.

I then stepped into the carriage which had caused such a sensation at the theater, and drove away. On reaching home I took the engagement to my mother. She signed it without reading it, and I then fully made up my mind to be some one, quand-même.

A few days after my engagement at the Comédie Française, my aunt gave a dinner party. Among her guests were the Duc de Morny, Camille Doucet, the Minister of the Beaux-Arts, M. De Walewski, Rossini, my mother, Mlle. De Brabender, and I. During the evening a great many other people came. My mother had dressed me very elegantly, and it was the first time I had worn a really low dress. Oh, how uncomfortable I was! Everyone paid me great attention. Rossini asked me to recite some poetry, and I consented willingly, glad and proud to be of some little importance. I chose Casimir Delavigne’s poem “L’âme du Purgatoire.”

“That should be said with music as an accompaniment,” exclaimed Rossini, when I came to an end. Everyone approved this idea, and Walewski said:

“Mademoiselle will begin again and you could improvise an accompaniment, cher maître.”

There was great excitement, and I at once began again. Rossini improvised the most delightful harmony, which filled me with emotion. My tears flowed freely without my being conscious of them, and at the end my mother kissed me, saying: “This is the first time that you have really moved me.”

As a matter of fact, she adored music, and it was Rossini’s improvisation that had moved her.

The Comte de Kératry was also present, an elegant young Hussar, who paid me great compliments, and invited me to go and recite some poetry at his mother’s house.

My aunt then sang a song which was very much in vogue, and had great success. She was coquettish and charming and just a trifle jealous of this insignificant niece who had taken up the attention of her admirers for a few minutes.

When I returned home I was quite another being. I sat down, dressed as I was, on my bed and remained for a long time deep in thought. Hitherto all I had known of life had been through my family and my work. I had now just had a glimpse of it through society, and I was struck by the hypocrisy of some of the people, and the conceit of others. I began to wonder uneasily what I should do, shy and frank as I was. I thought of my mother. She did not do anything, though. She was indifferent to everything. I thought of my Aunt Rosine, who, on the contrary, liked to mix in everything.

I remained there looking down on the ground, my head in a whirl, and feeling very anxious, and I did not go to bed until I was thoroughly cold.

CHAPTER VII
I MAKE MY DÉBUT AND EXIT

The next few days passed by without any particular events. I was working hard at Iphigénie, as M. Thierry had told me I was to make my début in this rôle.

At the end of August I received a notice requesting me to be at the rehearsal of Iphigénie. Oh, that first notice, how it made my heart beat! I could not sleep at night, and daylight did not come quickly enough for me. I kept getting up to look at the time. It seemed to me that the clock had stopped. I had dozed, and I fancied it was the same time as before. Finally, a streak of light coming through the windowpanes was, I thought, the triumphant sun illuminating my room. I got up at once, pulled back the curtains, and mumbled my rôle while dressing.

I thought of rehearsing with Mme. Devoyod, the first actress at the Comédie Française for tragedy, with Maubant, with ... I trembled as I thought of all this, for Mme. Devoyod was not supposed to be very indulgent. I arrived for the rehearsal an hour before the time. The stage manager, Davenne, smiled and asked me whether I knew my rôle.

“Oh, yes!” I exclaimed with conviction.

“Come and rehearse it. Would you like to?” and he took me to the stage.

I went with him through the long corridor of busts which leads from the foyer of the artistes to the stage. He told me the names of the celebrities represented by these busts. I stood still a moment before that of Adrienne Lecouvreur.

“I love that artiste,” I said.

“Do you know her story?” he asked.

“Yes, I have read all that has been written about her.”

“That’s quite right, my child,” said the worthy man. “You ought to read all that concerns your art. I will lend you some very interesting books.”

He took me on toward the stage. The mysterious gloom, the scenery reared up like fortifications, the bareness of the floor, the endless number of weights, ropes, trees, friezes, harrows overhead, the yawning house completely dark, the silence, broken by the creaking of the floor, and the vaultlike chill that one felt—all this together awed me. It did not seem to me to be part of that brilliant frame for the living artistes who every night won the applause of the house by their merriment or their sobs. No, I felt as though I were in the tomb of dead glories, and the stage seemed to me to be getting crowded with the illustrious ghosts of those whom the manager had just mentioned. With my highly strung nerves, my imagination, which was always evoking something, now saw them advance toward me, stretching out their hands. These specters wanted to take me away with them. I put my hands over my eyes and stood still.

“Are you not well?” asked M. Davenne.

“Oh, yes, thank you, it was just a little giddiness.”

His voice had chased away the specters, and I opened my eyes and paid attention to the worthy man’s advice. Book in hand, he explained to me where I was to stand, and my changes of place. He was rather pleased with my way of reciting, and he taught me a few of the traditions. At the line:

“Euripide à l’autel, conduisez la victime,” he said: “Mlle. Favart was very effective there....”

The artistes gradually began to arrive, grumbling more or less. They glanced at me, and then rehearsed their scenes without taking any further notice of me at all.

I felt inclined to cry, but I was more vexed than anything else. I heard a few words that sounded to me coarse, used by one or another of the artistes. I was not accustomed to such language, as at home everyone was rather scrupulous, and at my aunt’s a trifle affected, while at the convent it is unnecessary to say I had never heard a word that was out of place. It is true that I had been through the Conservatoire, but I had not associated intimately with any of the pupils, with the exception of Marie Lloyd and Rose Baretta, the elder sister of Blanche Baretta, who is now an associate of the Comédie Française.

When the rehearsal was over, it was decided that there should be another one at the same hour the following day, in the public foyer.

The costume maker came in search of me, as she wanted to try on my costume. Mlle. De Brabender, who had arrived during the rehearsal, went up with me to the costume room. She wanted my arms to be covered, but the costume maker told her gently that this was impossible for tragedy.

A dress of white woolen material was tried on me. It was very ugly, and the veil was so stiff that I refused it. A wreath of roses was tried on, but this, too, was so ugly that I refused to wear it.

“Well, then, mademoiselle,” said the costume maker dryly, “you will have to get these things and pay for them yourself, as this is the costume supplied by the Comédie.”

“Very well,” I answered, blushing, “I will get them myself.”

On returning home I told my mother my troubles, and, as she was always very generous, she promptly bought me a veil of white barège that fell in beautiful, large, soft folds, and a wreath of hedge roses which, at night, looked very soft and white. She also ordered me buskins from the shoemaker employed by the Comédie.

The next thing to think about was the make-up box. For this my mother had recourse to the mother of Dica Petit, my fellow student at the Conservatoire. I went with Mme. Dica Petit to M. Massin, a manufacturer of these make-up boxes. He was the father of Léontine Massin, another Conservatoire pupil.

We went up to the sixth floor of a house in the Rue Réamur, and on a plain-looking door read the words: “Massin, Manufacturer of Make-up Boxes.” I knocked and a little hunchback girl opened the door. I recognized Léontine’s sister, as she had come several times to the Conservatoire.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “what a surprise for us! Titine,” she then called out, “here is Mlle. Sarah!”

Léontine Massin came running out of the next room. She was a pretty girl, very gentle and calm in demeanor. She threw her arms round me, exclaiming:

“How glad I am to see you! And so you are coming out at the Comédie. I saw it in the paper.”

I blushed up to my ears at the idea of being mentioned in the paper.

“I am engaged at the Variétés,” she said, and then she talked away at such a rate that I was bewildered. Mme. Petit did not enter into all this, and tried in vain to separate us. She had replied by a nod and an indifferent “Thanks” to Léontine’s inquiries about her daughter’s health. Finally, when the young girl had finished saying all she had to say, Mme. Petit remarked:

“You must order your box; we have come here for that, you know.”

“Ah! then you will find my father in his workshop at the end of the passage, and if you are not very long I shall still be here. I am going to rehearsal at the Variétés later on.”

Mme. Petit was furious, for she did not like Léontine Massin.

“Don’t wait, mademoiselle,” she said, “it will be impossible for us to stay afterwards.”

Léontine was annoyed, and, shrugging her shoulders, she turned her back on my companion. She then put her hat on, kissed me, and bowing gravely to Mme. Petit, remarked:

“Good-by, Mme. Gros-tas, and I hope I shall never see you again.” She then ran off, laughing merrily. I heard Mme. Petit mutter a few disagreeable words in Dutch, but I did not understand the meaning of them at the time. We then went to the workshop and found old Massin at his workbench, planing some small planks of white wood. His hunchback daughter kept coming in and out, humming gayly all the time. The father was glum and harassed, and had an anxious look. As soon as we had ordered the box we took our leave. Mme. Petit went out first and Léontine’s sister then put her hand into mine and said quietly:

“Father was not very polite, but it is because he is jealous. He wanted my sister to be at the Théâtre Français.”

I was rather disturbed by this confidence, and I had a vague idea of the painful drama which was acting so differently on the various members of this humble home.

On September 1, 1862, the day I was to make my début, I was in the Rue Duphot looking at the theatrical posters. They used to be put up then just at the corner of the Rue Duphot and the Rue St. Honoré. On the poster of the Comédie Française I read the words: “Début of Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt.”... I have no idea how long I stood there, fascinated by the letters of my name, but I remember that it seemed to me as though every person who stopped to read the poster looked at me afterwards, and I blushed to the very roots of my hair.

At five o’clock I went to the theater. I had a dressing-room on the top floor which I shared with Mlle. Coblance. This room was on the other side of the Rue de Richelieu, in a house rented by the Comédie Française. A small covered bridge over the street served as a passage and means of communication for us to reach the theater.

I was a tremendously long time dressing, and did not know whether I looked nice or not. My petite dame thought I was too pale, and Mlle. De Brabender considered that I had too much color. My mother was to go direct to her seat in the theater, and Aunt Rosine was away in the country.

When we were told that the play was about to commence I broke out into a cold perspiration from head to foot, and felt ready to faint away. I went downstairs trembling, tottering, and my teeth chattering. When I arrived on the stage the curtain was being raised. That curtain, which was raised so slowly and solemnly, was, to me, like the veil being torn which was to let me have a glimpse of my future. A deep, gentle voice made me turn round. It was Provost, my first professor, who had come to encourage me. I greeted him warmly, so glad was I to see him again. Samson was there, too; I believe that he was playing that night in one of Molière’s comedies. The two men were very different. Provost was tall, his silvery hair was blown about, and he had a droll face. Samson was small, precise, dainty, his shiny white hair curled firmly and closely round his head. Both men had been moved by the same sentiment of protection for the poor, fragile, nervous girl, who was, nevertheless, so full of hope. Both of them knew my zeal for work, my obstinate will, which was always struggling for the victory over my physical weakness. They knew that my device “Quand-même” had not been adopted by me merely by chance, but that it was the outcome of a deliberate exercise of will power on my part. My mother had told them how I had chosen this device at the age of nine, after a formidable jump over a ditch which no one could jump, and which my young cousin had dared me to attempt. I had hurt my face, broken my wrist, and was in pain all over. While I was being carried home I exclaimed furiously: “Yes, I would do it again, quand-même, if anyone dared me again. And I will always do what I want to do all my life.” In the evening of that day, my aunt, who was grieved to see me in such pain, asked me what would give me any pleasure. My poor little body was all bandaged, but I jumped with joy at this, and quite consoled I whispered in a coaxing way: “I should like to have some writing paper with a motto of my own.”

My mother asked me rather slyly what my motto was. I did not answer for a minute, and then, as they were all waiting quietly, I uttered such a furious “Quand-même” that my Aunt Faure started back muttering, “What a terrible child!”

Samson and Provost reminded me of this story in order to give me courage; but my ears were buzzing so that I could not listen to them. Provost heard my catchword on the stage and pushed me gently forward. I made my entry and hurried toward Agamemnon, my father. I did not want to leave him again, as I felt I must have some one to hold on to. I then rushed to my mother, Clytemnestre. I got through my part, and on leaving the stage I tore up to my room and began to undress.

Mme. Guérard was terrified, and asked me if I was mad. I had only played in one scene and there were four more. I realized then that it would really be dangerous to give way to my nerves. I had recourse to my own motto, and, standing in front of the glass gazing into my own eyes, I ordered myself to be calm and to conquer myself, and my nerves, in a state of confusion, yielded to my brain. I got through the play, but was very insignificant in my part.

The next morning my mother sent for me early. She had been looking at Sarcey’s article in L’Opinion Nationale, and she now read me the following lines.... “Mlle. Bernhardt, who made her début yesterday in the rôle of Iphigénie, is a tall, pretty girl with a slender figure and a very pleasing expression, the upper part of her face is remarkably beautiful. She holds herself well, and her enunciation is perfectly clear. This is all that can be said for her at present.”

“The man is an idiot,” said my mother, drawing me to her. “You were charming.”

She then prepared a little cup of coffee for me, and made it with cream. I was happy, but not completely so. When my godfather arrived in the afternoon, he exclaimed:

“Good heavens! my poor child, what thin arms you have!”

As a matter of fact, people had laughed, and I had heard them, when, stretching out my arms, I had said the famous lines in which Favart had made her famous “effect” that was now a tradition. I certainly had made no “effect,” unless the smiles caused by my long, thin arms can be reckoned such.

My second appearance was in Valérie, when I did have some slight success.

My third appearance at the Comédie resulted in the following effusion from the pen of the same Sarcey:

SARAH BERNHARDT AT THE TIME OF HER DÉBUT IN “LES FEMMES SAVANTES.”

L’Opinion Nationale, September 12th.... “The same evening ‘Les Femmes Savantes’ was given. This was Mlle. Bernhardt’s third appearance, and she took the rôle of Henriette. She was just as pretty and insignificant in this as in that of Junie (he had made a mistake, as it was Iphigénie I had played) and of Valérie, both of which rôles had been entrusted to her previously. This performance was a very poor affair, and gives rise to reflections by no means gay. That Mlle. Bernhardt should be insignificant does not so much matter. She is a débutante, and among the number presented to us it is only natural that some should be failures. The pitiful part is, though, that the comedians playing with her were not much better than she was, and they are Sociétaires of the Théâtre Français. All that they had more than their young comrade was a greater familiarity with the boards. They are just as Mlle. Bernhardt may be in twenty years’ time, if she stays at the Comédie Française.”

I did not stay there, though; for one of those nothings which change a whole life changed mine. I had entered the Comédie expecting to remain there always. I had heard my godfather explain to my mother all about the various stages of my career.

“The child will have so much during the first five years,” he said, “and so much afterwards, and then at the end of thirty years she will have the pension given to Associates, that is, if she ever becomes an Associate.” He appeared to have his doubts about this.

My sister Régina was the cause, though quite involuntarily this time, of the drama which made me leave the Comédie. It was Molière’s anniversary, and all the artistes of the Français had to salute the bust of the great writer, according to the tradition of the theater. It was to be my first appearance at a “ceremony” and my little sister, on hearing me tell about it at home, besought me to take her to it.

My mother gave me permission to do so, and our old Marguerite was to accompany us. All the members of the Comédie were assembled in the foyer. The men and women, dressed in different costumes, all wore the famous doctor’s cloak. The signal was given that the ceremony was about to commence, and everyone hurried to the corridor where the busts were. I was holding my little sister’s hand, and just in front of us was the very fat and very solemn Mme. Nathalie. She was a Sociétaire of the Comédie, old, spiteful, and surly.

Régina, in trying to avoid the train of Marie Roger’s cloak, stepped on to Nathalie’s, and the latter turned round and gave the child such a violent push that she was knocked against a column holding a bust. Régina screamed out, and, as she turned back to me, I saw that her pretty face was bleeding.

“You miserable creature!” I called out to the fat woman, and, as she turned round to reply, I slapped her in the face. She proceeded to faint; there was a great tumult, and an uproar of indignation, approval, stifled laughter, satisfied revenge, pity from those artistes who were mothers, for the poor child, etc. Two groups were formed, one around the wretched Nathalie, who was still in her swoon, and the other around little Régina. And the different aspect of these two groups was rather strange. Around Nathalie were cold, solemn-looking men and women fanning the fat, helpless lump with their handkerchiefs or fans. A young, but severe-looking Sociétaire was sprinkling her with drops of water. Nathalie, on feeling this, roused up suddenly, put her hands over her face and muttered in a far-away voice:

“How stupid! You’ll spoil my make-up!”

The younger men were stooping over Régina, washing her pretty face, and the child was saying in her broken voice:

“I did not do it on purpose, sister, I am certain I didn’t. She’s an old cow, and she just kicked for nothing at all!”

Régina was a fair-haired seraph who might have made the angels envious, for she had the most ideal and poetical beauty—but her language was by no means choice, and nothing in the world could change it. Her coarse speech made the friendly group burst out laughing, while all the members of the enemy’s camp shrugged their shoulders. Bressant, who was the most charming of the comedians and a general favorite, came up to me and said:

“We must arrange this little matter, mademoiselle, for Nathalie’s short arms are really very long. Between ourselves you were a trifle hasty, but I like that, and then that child is so droll and pretty,” he added, looking at my little sister.

The house was stamping with impatience, for this little scene had caused twenty minutes’ delay, and we were obliged to go on to the stage at once. Marie Roger kissed me, saying: “You are a plucky little comrade!” Rose Baretta drew me to her, murmuring: “How dared you do it! She is a Sociétaire!”

As for me, I was not very clear about what I had done, but my instinct warned me that I should pay dearly for it.

The following day I received a letter from the manager asking me to call at the Comédie at one o’clock about a matter concerning me privately. I had been crying all night long, more through nervous excitement than from remorse, and I was more particularly annoyed at the idea of the attacks I should have to endure from my own family. I did not let my mother see the letter, for from the day that I had entered the Comédie she had given me full liberty. I received my letters now direct, without her supervision, and I went about alone.

At one o’clock precisely I was shown into the manager’s office. M. Thierry, his nose more congested than ever, and his eyes more crafty, preached me a deadly sermon, blamed my want of discipline, absence of respect, and scandalous conduct, and finished his pitiful harangue by advising me to beg Mme. Nathalie’s pardon.

“I have asked her to come,” he added, “and you must apologize to her before three Sociétaires belonging to the Committee. Is she consents to forgive you the Committee will then consider whether to fine you or to cancel your engagement.”

I did not reply for a few minutes. I thought of my mother in distress, my godfather laughing in his bourgeois way, and my Aunt Faure triumphant, with her usual phrase: “That child is terrible!” I thought, too, of my beloved Brabender with her hands clasped, her mustache drooping sadly, her small eyes full of tears, so touching in their mute supplication. I could hear my gentle, timid Mme. Guérard arguing with everyone, so courageous she was always in her confidence in my future.

“Well, mademoiselle?” said M. Thierry curtly.

I looked at him without speaking and he began to get impatient.

“I will go and ask Mme. Nathalie to come here,” he said, “and I beg you will do your part as quickly as possible, for I have other things to attend to than to put your blunders right.”

“Oh, no, do not fetch Mme. Nathalie,” I said at last, “I shall not apologize to her. I will leave. I will cancel my engagement at once.”

He was stupefied, and his arrogance melted away in pity for the ungovernable, willful child who was about to ruin her whole future for the sake of a question of self-esteem. He was at once gentler and more polite. He asked me to sit down, which he had not hitherto done, and he sat down himself opposite to me and spoke to me gently about the advantages of the Comédie, and of the danger that there would be for me in leaving that illustrious theater which had done me the honor of admitting me. He gave me a hundred other very good, wise reasons which softened me. When he saw the effect he had made, he wanted to send for Mme. Nathalie, but I roused up then like a little wild animal.

“Oh, don’t let her come here, I should slap her again!” I exclaimed.

“Well, then, I must ask your mother to come,” he said.

“My mother would never come,” I replied.

“Then I will go and call on her.”

“It will be quite useless,” I persisted, “my mother has given me my liberty, and I am quite free to lead my own life. I alone am responsible for all that I do.”

“Well, then, mademoiselle, I will think it over,” he said rising to show me that the interview was at an end. I went back home determined to say nothing to my mother, but my little sister when questioned about her wound had told everything in her own way, exaggerating, if possible, the brutality of Mme. Nathalie and the audacity of what I had done. Rosa Baretta, too, had been to see me and had burst into tears, assuring my mother that my engagement would be canceled. The whole family was very much excited and distressed when I arrived, and when they began to argue with me it made me still more nervous. I did not take calmly the reproaches which one and another of them addressed to me, and I was not at all willing to follow their advice. I went to my room and locked myself in.

The following day no one spoke to me and I went up to Mme. Guérard to be comforted and consoled.

Several days passed by and I had nothing to do at the theater. Finally, one morning, I received a notice requesting me to be present for the reading of a play. It was “Dolorès,” by M. De Bornier. This was the first time I had been asked to the reading of a new piece. I was evidently to have the creation of a rôle. All my sorrows were at once dispersed like a cloud of butterflies. I told my mother of my joy, and she naturally concluded that as I was asked to go to a reading, my engagement was not to be canceled and I was not to be asked again to apologize to Mme. Nathalie.

I went to the theater, and to my utter surprise I received from M. Davennes the rôle of Dolorès, the chief part in Bornier’s play. I knew that Favart, who should have had this rôle, was not well, but there were other artistes for it, and I could not get over my joy and surprise. Nevertheless, I felt somewhat uneasy. A terrible presentiment has always warned me of any troubles about to come upon me.

I had been rehearsing for five days when one morning, on going upstairs, I suddenly found myself face to face with Nathalie, seated under Gérôme’s portrait of Rachel, known as “The Red Pimento.” I did not know whether to go downstairs again or to pass by. My hesitation was noticed by the spiteful woman.

“Oh, you can go by, mademoiselle,” she said. “I have forgiven you, as I have avenged myself. The rôle that you like so much is not to be left to you after all.”

I went by without uttering a word. I was thunderstruck by her speech, which I guessed would prove true.

I did not mention this incident to anyone, but continued rehearsing. It was on Tuesday that Nathalie had spoken to me, and on Friday I was disappointed to hear that Davennes was not there and that there was to be no rehearsal. Just as I was getting into my cab the hall porter ran out to give me a letter from Davennes. The poor man had not ventured to come himself and give me the news, which he was sure would be so painful to me.

He explained to me in his letter that on account of my extreme youth—the importance of the rôle—such responsibility for such young shoulders—as Mme. Favart had recovered from her illness, it was wiser, etc. I finished reading the letter through blinding tears, but very soon anger took the place of grief. I rushed back again and up to the manager’s office. He could not see me just then, but I said I would wait. At the end of an hour, thoroughly impatient, taking no notice of the office boy and the secretary, who wanted to prevent my entering, I opened the door of M. Thierry’s office and walked in. I was desperate, and all that anger with injustice and fury with falsehood could inspire me with, I let him have in a stream of eloquence only interrupted by my sobs. The manager gazed at me in bewilderment. He could not conceive of such daring and such violence in a girl so young.

When at last, thoroughly exhausted, I sank down on an armchair, he tried to calm me, but all in vain.

“I will leave at once,” I said. “Give me back my engagement and I will send you back mine.”

Finally, tired of argument and persuasion, he called his secretary in, gave him the necessary orders, and the latter soon brought in my engagement.

“Here is your mother’s signature, mademoiselle. I leave you free to bring it me back within forty-eight hours. After that time if I do not receive it I shall consider that you are no longer a member of the theater. But, believe me, you are acting unwisely. Think it over within the next forty-eight hours.”

I did not answer but went out of his office. That very evening I sent back to M. Thierry the engagement bearing his signature and tore up the one with that of my mother.

I had left Molière’s Theater and was not to re-enter it until twelve years later.

CHAPTER VIII
CASTLES IN SPAIN

This proceeding of mine was certainly violently decisive, and it completely upset my home life. I was not happy from this time forth among my own people, as I was continually being blamed for my violence. Irritating remarks with a double meaning were constantly being made by my aunt and my little sisters. My godfather, whom I had once for all requested to mind his own business, no longer dared to attack me openly, but he influenced my mother against me. There was no longer any peace for me except at Mme. Guerard’s, and so I was constantly with her. I enjoyed helping her in her domestic affairs. She taught me to make cakes, chocolate, and scrambled eggs. All this gave me something else to think about, and I soon recovered my gayety.

One morning there was something very mysterious about my mother. She kept looking at the clock and seemed uneasy because my godfather, who lunched and dined with us every day, had not arrived.

“It’s very strange,” my mother said, “for last night after whist he said he should be with us this morning before luncheon. It’s very strange indeed.”

She was usually calm, but she kept coming in and out of the room, and when Marguerite put her head in at the door to ask whether she should serve the luncheon, my mother told her to wait.

Finally, the bell rang, startling my mother and Jeanne. My little sister was evidently in the secret.

“Well, it’s settled!” exclaimed my godfather, shaking the snow from his hat. “Here, read that, you self-willed girl.”

He handed me a letter stamped with the words “Théâtre du Gymnase.” It was from Montigny, the manager at this theater, to M. De Gerbois, a friend of my godfather’s, whom I knew very well. The letter was very friendly, as far as M. De Gerbois was concerned, but it finished with the following words: “I will engage your protégée in order to be agreeable to you ... but she appears to me to have a vile temper.”

I blushed as I read these lines and I thought my godfather was wanting in tact, as he might have given me real delight and avoided wounding me in this way; but he was the clumsiest-minded man that ever lived. My mother seemed very much pleased, so that I kissed her pretty face, and thanked my godfather. Oh, how I loved kissing that pearly face, which was always so cool, and always slightly dewy! When I was a little child I used to ask her to play at butterfly on my cheeks with her long lashes, and she would put her face close to mine and open and shut her eyes, tickling my cheeks while I lay back breathless with delight.

The following day I went to the Gymnase. I was kept waiting for some little time, together with about fifty other girls. M. Monval, a cynical old man who was stage manager and almost general manager, then interviewed us. I liked him at first, because he was like M. Guérard, but I very soon disliked him. His way of looking at me, of speaking to me, and of taking stock of me generally, roused my ire at once. I answered his questions curtly and our conversation, which seemed likely to take an aggressive turn, was cut short by the arrival of M. Montigny, the manager.

“Which of you is Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt?” he asked.

I at once rose and he continued:

“Will you come into my office, mademoiselle?”

Montigny had been an actor, and was plump and good-humored. He appeared to be somewhat infatuated with his own personality, with his ego, but that did not matter to me. After some friendly conversation, he preached a little to me about my outburst at the Comédie and made me a great many promises about the rôles he should give me. He prepared my engagement and gave it to me to take home for my mother’s signature and that of my family.

“I am quite free,” I said to him, “so that my own signature is all that is required.”

“Oh, very good!” he said, “but what nonsense to give such a self-willed girl full liberty. Your parents did not do you a good turn by that.”

I was just on the point of replying that what my parents chose to do did not concern him, but I held my peace, signed the engagement, and hurried home feeling very joyful.

Montigny kept his word at first. He let me understudy Victoria Lafontaine, a young artiste very much in vogue just then, who had the most delightful talent. I played in “La Maison sans Enfants,” and I took her rôle at a moment’s notice in “Le Démon du Jeu,” a piece which had great success. I was fairly good in both pieces, but Montigny, in spite of my entreaties, never came to see me in them, and the spiteful stage manager played me various tricks. I used to feel a sullen anger stirring within me and I struggled with myself as much as possible to keep my nerves calm.

One evening, on leaving the theater, a notice was handed to me requesting me to be present at the reading of a play the following day. Montigny had promised me a good rôle, and I fell asleep that night lulled by fairies who carried me off into the land of glory and success. On arriving at the theater I found Blanche Pierson and Céline Montalant already there. Two of the prettiest creatures that God has been pleased to create, the one as fair as the rising sun, and the other as dark as a starry night, for she was brilliant looking in spite of her black hair. There were other women there, too, very, very pretty ones.

The play to be read was entitled, “Un Mari qui Lance sa Femme,” and it was by Raymond Deslandes. I listened to it without any great pleasure and I thought it stupid. I waited anxiously to see what rôle was to be given to me, and I discovered this only too soon. It was a certain Princess Dimchinka, a frivolous, foolish, laughing individual, who was always eating or dancing. I did not like this rôle at all. I was very inexperienced on the stage and my timidity made me rather awkward. Then, too, I had not worked for three years with such persistency and conviction to create now the rôle of an idiotic woman in an imbecile play. I was in despair, and the wildest ideas came into my head. I wanted to give up the stage and go into business. I spoke of this to our old family friend, Meydieu, who was so unbearable. He approved of my idea, and wanted me to take a shop, a confectioner’s, on the Boulevard des Italiens. This became a fixed idea with the worthy man. He loved sweets himself, and he knew lots of recipes for kinds that were not generally known, and which he wanted to introduce. I remember one kind that he wanted to call “bonbon nègre.” It was a mixture of chocolate and essence of coffee to be rolled into grilled licorice root. It was like black praline and was extremely good. I was very persistent in this idea at first, and went with Meydieu to look at a shop, but when he showed me the little flat over it where I should have to live, it upset me so much that I gave up forever the idea of business.

I went every day to the rehearsal of the stupid piece and was bad-tempered all the time. Finally, the first performance took place, and my part was neither a success nor a failure. I simply was not noticed, and at night my mother remarked:

“My poor child, you were ridiculous in your Russian princess rôle and I was very much grieved!”

I did not answer at all, but I should honestly have liked to kill myself. I slept very badly that night and toward six in the morning I rushed up to Mme. Guérard’s. I asked her to give me some laudanum, but she refused. When she saw that I really wanted it, the poor, dear woman understood my idea.

“Well, then,” I said, “swear by your children that you will not tell anyone what I am going to do, and then I will not kill myself.”

A sudden idea had just come into my mind, and without weighing it, I wanted to carry it out at once. She promised, and I then told her that I should go at once to Spain, as I had wanted to see that country for a long time.

“Go to Spain!” she exclaimed. “With whom, and when?”

“With the money I have saved,” I answered, “and this very morning. Everyone is asleep at home. I shall go and pack my trunk and start at once with you!”

“No, no, I cannot go!” exclaimed Mme. Guérard, nearly beside herself. “There is my husband to think of and, then, too, I have my children.”

Her little girl was scarcely two years old at that time.

“Well, then, ma petite dame, find me some one to go with me.”

“I do not know anyone,” she answered, crying in her excitement. “My dear little Sarah, give up such an idea, I beseech you.”

But by this time it was a fixed idea with me and I was very determined about it. I went downstairs, packed my trunk, and then returned to Mme. Guérard’s. I had wrapped up a pewter fork in paper and this I threw against one of the panes of glass in a skylight window opposite. The window was opened abruptly and the sleepy, angry face of a young woman appeared. I made a trumpet of my two hands and called out:

“Caroline, will you start with me at once to Spain?”

The bewildered expression on the young woman’s face showed that she had not comprehended what I had said, but she replied at once:

“I am coming, mademoiselle.” She then closed her window and ten minutes later Caroline was tapping at the door. Mme. Guérard had sunk down aghast in an armchair. M. Guérard had asked several times from his bedroom what was going on.

“Sarah is here,” his wife had replied; “I will tell you later on.”

Caroline did dressmaking by the day at Mme. Guérard’s and she had offered her services to me as lady’s maid. She was agreeable and rather daring, and she now accepted my offer at once. But as it would not do to arouse the suspicions of the concierge it was decided that I should take her dresses in my trunk, and that she should put her linen into a bag that ma petite dame should lend her. Poor, dear Mme. Guérard had given in. She was quite conquered and soon began to help in my preparations, which certainly did not take me long. The next thing was that I did not know how to get to Spain.

“You go through Bordeaux,” said Mme. Guérard.

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Caroline, “my brother-in-law is a skipper and he often goes to Spain by Marseilles.”

I had saved nine hundred francs and Mme. Guérard lent me six hundred. It was perfectly mad, but I felt ready to conquer the world and nothing would have induced me to give up my plan. Then, too, it seemed to me as though I had been wishing to see Spain for a long time. I had got it into my head that my Fate willed it, that I must obey my star, and a hundred other ideas, each one more foolish than the other, strengthened me in my plan. I was destined to act in this way, I thought.

I went downstairs again. The door was still ajar. With Caroline’s help I carried the empty trunk up to Mme. Guérard’s, and Caroline emptied my wardrobe and drawers and then packed the trunk. I shall never forget that delightful moment. It seemed to me as though the world was about to be mine. I was going to start off with a woman to wait on me. I was about to travel alone, with no one to criticise what I decided to do. I should see an unknown country about which I had dreamed, and I should cross the sea. Oh, how happy I was! Twenty times I must have gone up and down the staircase which separated our two flats. Everyone was asleep and the flat was so constructed that not a sound of our going in and out could reach my mother. I could go through the kitchen from my bedroom without any difficulty.

My trunk was at last strapped, Caroline’s valise fastened, and my little bag crammed full. I was quite ready to start, but the fingers of the clock had moved along by this time, and to my horror I discovered that it was eight o’clock. Marguerite would be going down from her bedroom at the top of the house to prepare my mother’s coffee, my chocolate, and bread and milk for my sisters. In a fit of despair and wild determination I kissed Mme. Guérard with such violence as almost to stifle her and rushed once more to my room to get my little Virgin Mary which went with me everywhere. I threw a hundred kisses to my mother’s room, and then, with wet eyes and a joyful heart went downstairs. My petite dame had asked the man who polished the floors to take the trunk and valise down, and Caroline had fetched a cab. I went like a whirlwind past the concierge’s door. She had her back turned toward me and was sweeping the floor. I sprang into the cab and the driver whipped up his horse. I was on my way to Spain. I had written an affectionate letter to my mother begging her to forgive me and not to be grieved. I had written a stupid letter of explanation to Montigny, the manager of the Gymnase Theater. The letter did not explain anything though. It was written by a child whose brain was certainly a little affected, and I finished up with these words: “Have pity on a poor, crazy girl.”

Sardou told me later on that he happened to be in Montigny’s office when he received my letter.

“I had been talking to Montigny for over an hour,” he said, “about a piece I was going to write. The conversation was very animated, and when the door was opened Montigny exclaimed in a fury: ‘I had given orders that I was not to be disturbed!’ He was somewhat appeased, however, on seeing old Monval’s troubled look and he knew there was some urgent matter. ‘Oh, what’s happened now?’ he asked, taking the letter that the old stage manager held out to him. On recognizing my paper, with its gray border, he said: ‘Oh, it’s from that mad child! Is she ill?’”

“No,” said Monval, “she has gone to Spain.”

“She can go to the deuce!” exclaimed Montigny. “Send for Mme. Dieudonnée to take her part. Bernhardt has a good memory, and half the rôle must be cut. That will settle it.”

“Any trouble for to-night?” Sardou asked Montigny.

“Oh, nothing,” he answered. “It is that little Sarah Bernhardt who has cleared off to Spain!”

“That girl from the Français who boxed Nathalie’s ears?”

“Yes.”

“She’s rather amusing.”

“Yes, but not for her managers,” remarked Montigny, continuing immediately afterwards the conversation which had been interrupted.

This is exactly as Victorien Sardou related the incident.

On arriving at Marseilles, Caroline went to get information about the journey. The result was that we embarked on an abominable trading boat, a dirty coaster smelling of oil and stale fish, a perfect horror.

I had never been on the sea, so I fancied that all the boats were like this and that it was no good complaining. After six days of rough sea we landed at Alicante. Oh, that landing, how well I remember it! I had to jump from boat to boat, from plank to plank, with the risk of falling into the water a hundred times over, for I am naturally inclined to dizziness and the little bridges without any rails, rope, or anything, thrown across from one boat to another and bending under my light weight, seemed to me like mere ropes stretched across space.

Exhausted with fatigue and hunger I went to the first hotel recommended to us at Alicante. Oh, what a hotel it was! The house itself was built of stone with low arcades. Rooms on the first floor were given to me, and certainly the owners of it had never had two ladies in their house before. The bedroom was large, but with a low ceiling. By way of decoration there were enormous real fish bones arranged in garlands caught up by the heads of fish. By half shutting one’s eyes this decoration might be taken for delicate sculpture of ancient times.

I had a bed put up for Caroline in this sinister-looking room. We pulled the furniture across against the doors, and I did not undress, for I could not venture on those sheets. I was accustomed to fine sheets perfumed with iris, for my pretty little mother, like all Dutch women, had a mania for linen and cleanliness and she had inculcated me with this harmless mania.

It was about five in the morning when I opened my eyes, no doubt instinctively, as there had been no sound to rouse me. A door, leading I did not know where, opened, and a man looked in. I gave a shrill cry, seized my little Virgin Mary, and waved her about, wild with terror.

Caroline roused up with a start and courageously rushed to the window. She threw it up screaming: “Fire! Thieves! Help.”

The man disappeared and the house was soon invaded by the police. I leave it to be imagined what the police of Alicante forty years ago were like. I answered all the questions asked me by a Vice-Consul who was Hungarian and spoke French. I had seen the man and he had a silk handkerchief on his head. He had a beard, and on his shoulder a poncho, but that was all I knew. The Hungarian Vice-Consul who, I believe, represented France, Austria, and Hungary, asked me the color of the brigand’s beard, silk handkerchief and poncho. It had been too dark for me to distinguish the colors exactly. The worthy man was very much annoyed at my answer. After taking down a few notes he was very thoughtful for a moment and then gave orders for a message to be taken to his home. It was to ask his wife to send a carriage and to prepare a room in order to receive a young foreigner in distress. I prepared to go with him, and after paying my bill at the hotel, we started off in the Hungarian’s carriage, and I was welcomed by his wife with the most touching cordiality. I drank the coffee with thick cream which she poured for me, and, during breakfast, told her who I was, and where I was going. She then told me in return that her father was an important manufacturer of cloth, that he was from Bohemia, and a great friend of my father’s. And she took me to the room that had been prepared for me, made me go to bed, and told me that while I was asleep she would write me some letters of introduction in Madrid. I slept for ten hours without waking, and at six in the evening when I roused up, was thoroughly rested in mind and body. I wanted to send a telegram to my mother, but this was impossible, as there was no telegraph at Alicante. I wrote a letter, therefore, to my poor, dear mother, telling her that I was in the house of friends of my father.

The following day I started for Madrid with a letter for the landlord of the Hotel de la Puerta del Sol. Nice rooms were given to us and I sent messengers with the letters from Mme. Rudcouritz. I spent a fortnight in Madrid, and was made a great deal of and generally fêted. I went to all the bullfights, and was infatuated with them. I had the honor of being invited to a great corrida given in honor of Victor Emmanuel who was just then the guest of the Queen of Spain. I forgot Paris, my sorrows, disappointments, ambitions, and everything else, and I wanted to live in Spain. A telegram sent by Mme. Guérard made me change all my plans. My mother was very ill, the telegram informed me. I packed my trunk and wanted to start off at once, but when my hotel bill was paid I had not a fraction for the railway journey. The landlord of the hotel took my two bank notes, prepared me a basket of provisions and gave me two hundred francs at the station, telling me that he had received orders from Mme. Rudcouritz not to let me want for anything. She and her husband were certainly most delightful people.

My heart beat fast when I reached my mother’s house in Paris. My petite dame was waiting for me downstairs in the concierge’s room. She was very excited to see me looking so well and kissed me with her eyes full of tears of joy. The concierge and family poured forth their compliments. Mme. Guérard went upstairs before me to prepare my mother, and I waited a moment in the kitchen and was hugged by our old servant Marguerite. My sisters both came running in. Jeanne kissed me, then turned me round and examined me. Régina, with her hands behind her back, leaned against the stove gazing at me furiously.

“Well, won’t you kiss me, Régina?” I asked, stooping down to her.

“No, don’t like you,” she answered. “You’ve went off without me. Don’t like you now.” She turned away brusquely to avoid my kiss and knocked her head against the stove.

Finally, Mme. Guérard appeared again, and I went with her. Oh, how repentant I was, and how deeply affected! I knocked gently at the door of the room which was hung with pale blue rep. My mother looked very white, lying in her bed. Her face was thinner, but wonderfully beautiful. She stretched out her arms like two wings and I rushed forward to this loving, white nest. My mother cried silently, as she always did. Then her hands played with my hair, which she let down and combed with her long, taper fingers. Then we asked each other a hundred questions. I wanted to know everything, and she did, too, so that we had the most amusing duet of words, phrases, and kisses. I found that my mother had had a rather severe attack of pleurisy, that she was now getting better, but was not yet well. I, therefore, took up my abode again with her, and for the time being went back to my old bedroom. Mme. Guérard had told me in a letter that my grandmother on my father’s side, had at last agreed to the proposal made by my mother. My father had left a certain sum of money which I was to have on my wedding-day. My mother, at my request, had asked my grandmother to let me have half this sum, and she had at last consented, saying that she should use the interest of the other half, but that the half would still be there for me if I changed my mind, and consented to marry. I was, therefore, quite decided to live my life as I wished, to go away from home, and be quite independent. I adored my mother, but our ideas were quite different. Then, too, my godfather was perfectly odious to me, and for years and years he had been in the habit of lunching and dining with us every day, and of playing whist every evening. He was always hurting my feelings in one way or another. He was an old bachelor, very rich, and with no near relatives. He adored my mother, but she had always refused to marry him. She had put up with him at first because he was a friend of my father. After my father’s death she had put up with him still, because she was then accustomed to him, until finally she quite missed him when he was ill or traveling. But, placid as she was, my mother was positive, and could not endure any kind of constraint. She, therefore, rebelled against the idea of another master. She was very gentle, but determined, and this determination of hers ended sometimes in the most violent anger. She used then to turn very pale and violet rings would come round her eyes, her lips would tremble, her teeth chatter, her beautiful eyes take a fixed gaze, the words would come at intervals from her throat, all chopped up, hissing and hoarse. After this she would faint, and the veins of her throat then used to swell, and her hands and feet turn icy cold. Sometimes she would be unconscious for hours, and the doctors told us that she might die in one of these attacks so that we did all ill our power to avoid these terrible accidents. My mother knew this and rather took advantage of it, and, as I had inherited this tendency to fits of rage from her, I could not and did not wish to live with her. As for me I am not placid. I am active, and always ready for fight, and what I want I always want immediately. I have not the gentle obstinacy peculiar to my mother. The blood begins to boil under my temples before I have time to control it. Time has made me wiser in this respect, but not sufficiently so. I am aware of this and it causes me suffering.

I did not say anything about my plans to our dear invalid, but I asked our old friend, Meydieu, to find me a flat. The old man who had tormented me so much during my childhood had been most kind to me ever since my début at the Théâtre Français, and, in spite of my escapade with Nathalie and my exploit when at the Gymnase, he was now ready to see the best in me. When he came to see us the day after my return home, I stayed talking with him for a time in the drawing-room and confided my intentions to him. He quite approved and said that my intercourse with my mother would be all the more agreeable through this separation. I took a flat in the Rue Duphot, quite near to my mother, and Mme. Guérard undertook to have it furnished for me. As soon as my mother was well again I talked to her about it, and several times over induced her to agree that it was really better I should live by myself and in my own way. When once she had accepted the situation everything went along satisfactorily. My sisters were present when we were talking about it. Jeanne was close to my mother, and Régina, who had refused to speak to me or look at me ever since my return three weeks ago, suddenly jumped on my lap.

“Take me with you this time,” she exclaimed suddenly. “I will kiss you if you will.”

I glanced at my mother, rather embarrassed.

“Oh, take her,” she said, “for she is unbearable!”

Régina jumped down again and began to dance a jig, muttering the rudest, silliest things at the same time. She then nearly stifled me with kisses, sprang on to my mother’s armchair and kissed her hair, her eyes, her cheeks, saying:

“You are glad I am going, aren’t you? You can give everything to your Jenny.”

My mother colored slightly, but as her eyes fell on Jeanne her expression changed, and a look of unspeakable affection came over her face. She pushed Régina gently aside, and the child went on with her jig.

“We two will stay together,” said my mother, leaning her head back on Jeanne’s shoulder, and she said this quite unconscious of the full force of her words, just in the same way as she had gazed at my sister. I was perfectly stupefied and closed my eyes so that I should not see. I could only hear my little sister dancing her jig and emphasizing every stamp on the floor with the words: “And we two, as well, we two, we two!”

It was a very painful little drama that was stirring our four hearts in this little bourgeois home, and the result of it was that I settled down finally with my little sister in the flat in Rue Duphot. I kept Caroline with me and engaged a cook. My petite dame, Mme. Guérard, was with me nearly all day and I dined every evening with my mother.

CHAPTER IX
I RETURN TO THE STAGE

I was still on friendly terms with an actor from the Porte Saint Martin Theater, who had been appointed stage manager there. Marc Fournier was at that time manager of this theater. A piece entitled “La Biche au Bois” was then being played. It was a fairyland story, and was having great success. A delicious actress from the Odéon Theater, Mlle. Debay, had been engaged for the principal rôle. She played tragedy princesses most charmingly. I often had tickets for the Porte Saint Martin, and I thoroughly enjoyed “La Biche au Bois.” Mme. Ulgade sang admirably in her rôle of the young prince, and amazed me. Then, too, Marquita charmed me with her dancing. She was delightful in her dances, which were so animated, so characteristic, and always so full of distinction. Thanks to old Josse I knew everyone; but to my surprise and terror, one evening, toward five o’clock, on arriving at the theater to take our seats, he exclaimed on seeing me:

“Why, here is our princess, our little “Biche au Bois.” Here she is! It is the Providence that watches over theaters who has sent her!”

I struggled like an eel caught in a net, but it was all in vain. M. Marc Fournier, who could be very charming, gave me to understand that I should be doing him a veritable service and keeping up the receipts. Josse, who guessed what my scruples were, exclaimed:

“But, my dear child, it will still be your high art, for it is Mlle. Debay from the Odéon Theater who is playing this rôle of Princess, and Mlle. Debay is the first artiste at the Odéon, and the Odéon is an imperial theater, so that it cannot be any disgrace after your studies.”

Marquita, who had just arrived, also persuaded me, and Mme. Ulgade was sent for to rehearse the duos I was to sing. Yes, and I was to sing with a veritable artiste, one who was considered to be the first artiste of the Opéra Comique.

The time passed by, and Josse helped me to rehearse my rôle, which I almost knew, as I had seen the piece often, and I had an extraordinary memory. The minutes flew, and the half hours made up entire hours. I kept looking at the clock, the large clock in the manager’s room, where I was studying my rôle. Mme. Ulgade rehearsed with me. She thought my voice was pretty, but I kept singing wrong, and she helped and encouraged me all the time.

I was dressed up in Mlle. Debay’s clothes, and finally the moment arrived and the curtain was raised. Poor me! I was more dead than alive, but my courage returned after a triple burst of applause for the couplet which I sang on waking, in very much the same way as I should have murmured a series of Racine’s lines.

When the performance was over Marc Fournier offered me, through Josse, a three years’ engagement; but I asked to be allowed to think it over. Josse had introduced me to a dramatic author, Lambert Thiboust, a charming man who was certainly talented, too. He thought I was just the ideal actress for his heroine, La Bergère d’Ivry, but M. Faille, an old actor who had become the manager of the Ambigu Theater, was not the only person to consult. A certain M. De Chilly had some interest in the theater. He had made his name in the rôle of Rodin in the “Juif Errant,” and, after marrying a rather wealthy wife, had left the stage, and was now interested in the business side of theatrical affairs. He had, I think, just given the Ambigu up to Faille. De Chilly was then helping on a charming girl named Laurence Gérard. She was gentle and very bourgeois, rather pretty, but without any real beauty or grace. Faille told Lambert Thiboust that he had spoken to Laurence Gérard, but that he was ready to do as the author wished in the matter. The only thing he stipulated was that he should hear me before deciding. I was willing to humor the poor fellow, who must have been as poor a manager as he had been an artiste. I acted for him at the Ambigu Theater. The stage was only lighted by the wretched servante, a little transportable lamp. About a yard in front of me I could see M. Faille balancing himself on his chair, one hand on his waistcoat and the fingers of the other hand in his enormous nostrils. This disgusted me horribly. Lambert Thiboust was seated near him, his handsome face smiling, as he looked at me encouragingly.

I was playing in “On ne Badine pas avec l’Amour,” because the play was in prose, and I did not want to take poetry. I believe I was perfectly charming in my rôle, and Lambert Thiboust thought so, too; but when I had finished, poor Faille got up in a clumsy, pretentious way, said something in a low voice to the author, and took me to his own room.

“My child,” remarked the worthy but stupid manager, “you are not at all suitable for the stage!”

I resented this, but he continued:

“Oh, no, not at all.” And, as the door then opened, he added, pointing to the newcomer, “Here is M. De Chilly, who was also listening to you, and he will say just the same as I say.”

M. De Chilly nodded and shrugged his shoulders.

“Lambert Thiboust is mad,” he remarked, “no one ever saw such a thin shepherdess!”

He then rang the bell and told the boy to fetch Mlle. Laurence Gérard. I understood and, without taking leave of the two boors, I left the room.

My heart was heavy, though, as I went back to the foyer, where I had left my hat. I found Laurence Gérard there, but she was fetched away the next moment. I was standing near her and, as I looked in the glass, I was struck by the contrast between us. She was plump, with a wide face, magnificent black eyes, her nose was rather canaille, her mouth heavy, and there was a very ordinary look about her generally. I was fair, slight, and frail-looking, like a reed, with a long, pale face, blue eyes, a rather sad mouth, and a general look of distinction. This hasty vision consoled me for my failure, and then, too, I felt that this Faille was a nonentity, and that De Chilly was common. Five days later Mlle. Debay was well again and took her rôle as usual.

I was destined to meet with both of these men again later on in my life. Chilly, soon after, as manager at the Odéon; and Faille, twenty years later, in such a wretched situation that the tears came to my eyes when he appeared before me and begged me to play for his benefit.

“I beseech you,” said the poor man. “You will be the only attraction at this performance, and I have only you to count on for the receipts.”

I shook hands with him. I do not know whether he remembered our first interview, but I remembered it well, and could only hope that he did not.

Before I would accept the engagement at the Porte Saint Martin, I wrote to Camille Doucet. The following day I received a letter asking me to go to the offices of the Ministry. It was not without some emotion that I went to see this kind man. He was standing up waiting for me when I was ushered into the room. He held out his hands to me and drew me gently toward him.

“Oh, what a terrible child!” he said, giving me a chair. “Come now, you must be calmer. It will never do to waste all these admirable gifts in voyages, escapades, and boxing people’s ears!”

I was deeply moved by his kindness, and my eyes were full of regret as I looked at him.

“Now, don’t cry, my dear child, don’t cry. Let us try and find out how we are to make up for all this folly.”

He was quiet for a moment, and then, opening a drawer, he took out a letter.

“Here is something which will perhaps save us,” he said.

It was a letter from Duquesnel, who had just been appointed manager at the Odéon Theater, together with Chilly.

“I am asked for some young artistes to make up the Odéon company. Well, we must attend to this.” He got up, and accompanying me to the door, said, as I went away: “We shall succeed.”

I went back home, and began at once to rehearse all my rôles in Racine’s plays. I waited very anxiously for several days, consoled by Mme. Guérard, who succeeded in restoring my confidence. Finally, I received a letter, and went at once to the Ministry. Camille Doucet received me with a beaming expression on his face.

“It’s settled,” he said. “Oh, but it has not been easy, though,” he added. “You are very young, but very celebrated already for your headstrong character. The only thing is, I have pledged my word that you will be as gentle as a young lamb.”

“Yes, I will be gentle, I promise,” I replied, “if only out of gratitude. But what am I to do?”

“Here is a letter for Félix Duquesnel,” he replied; “he is expecting you.”

I thanked Camille Doucet heartily, and he then said:

“I shall see you again less officially at your aunt’s on Thursday. I have had an invitation this morning to dine there, so you can tell me then what Duquesnel says.”

It was then half past ten in the morning. I went home to put some pretty clothes on. I chose an underskirt of canary yellow, a dress of black silk with the skirt scalloped round, and a straw hat trimmed with corn and black ribbon. It must have been delightfully mad looking. Arrayed in this style, feeling very joyful and full of confidence, I went to call on Félix Duquesnel. I waited a few moments in a little room very artistically furnished. A young man appeared, looking very elegant. He was smiling and altogether charming. I could not grasp the fact that this fair-haired, gay young man would be my manager.

After a short conversation we agreed on every point we touched.

“Come to the Odéon at two o’clock,” said Duquesnel, by way of leavetaking, “and I will introduce you to my partner. I ought to say it the other way round, according to society etiquette,” he added, laughing, “but we are talking theater.”

He came a few steps down the staircase with me and stayed there leaning over the balustrade to wish me good-by.

At two o’clock precisely I was at the Odéon, and had to wait an hour. I began to grind my teeth, and only the remembrance of my promise to Camille Doucet prevented me from departing.

Finally, Duquesnel appeared and took me across to the manager’s office.

“You will now see the other ogre,” he said, and I pictured to myself the other ogre as charming as his partner. I was therefore greatly disappointed on seeing a very ugly little man whom I recognized as Chilly.

He eyed me up and down most impolitely, and pretended not to recognize me. He signed to me to sit down and, without a word, handed me a pen and showed me where to sign my name on the paper before me.

Mme. Guérard interposed, laying her hand on mine.

“Do not sign without reading it,” she said.

“Are you mademoiselle’s mother?” he asked, looking up.

“No,” she said, “but it is just the same as though I were.”

“Well, yes, you are right. Read it quickly,” he continued, “and then sign or leave it alone, but be quick.”

I felt the color coming into my face, for this man was odious. Duquesnel whispered to me:

“There’s no ceremony about him, but he’s all right, don’t take offense.”

I signed my engagement and handed it to his ugly partner.

“You know,” he remarked, “M. Duquesnel is responsible for you. I should not upon any account have engaged you.”

“And if you had been alone, monsieur,” I answered, “I should not have signed; so we are quits.”

I went away at once and hurried to my mother’s to tell her, for I knew this would be a great joy for her. Then, that very day, I set off with my petite dame to buy everything necessary for furnishing my dressing-room. The following day I went to the convent in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs to see my dear governess, Mlle. De Brabender. She had been ill, with acute rheumatism in all her limbs, for the last thirteen months. She had suffered so much that she looked like a different person. She was lying in her little white bed, a little white cap covering her hair, her big nose was drawn with pain, her washed-out eyes seemed to have no color in them. Her formidable mustache alone bristled up with constant spasms of pain. Besides all this she was so strangely altered that I wondered what had caused the change. I went nearer and, bending down, kissed her gently. I then gazed at her so inquisitively that she understood instinctively. With her eyes she signed to me to look on the table near her, and there in a glass I saw all my dear old friend’s teeth. I put the three roses I had brought her in the glass and, kissing her again, I asked her forgiveness for my impertinent curiosity. I left the convent with a very heavy heart, for the Mother Superior took me in the garden and told me that my beloved Mlle. De Brabender could not live much longer. I therefore went every day for a time to see my gentle old governess, but as soon as the rehearsals commenced at the Odéon my visits had to be less frequent.

One morning about seven o’clock, a message came from the convent to fetch me in great haste, and I was present at the dear woman’s death agony. Her face lighted up at the supreme moment with such a holy look that I suddenly longed to die. I kissed her hands which were holding the crucifix: they had already turned cold. I asked to be allowed to be there when she was placed in her coffin.

On arriving at the convent the next day, at the hour fixed, I found the Sisters in such a state of consternation that I was alarmed. What could have happened, I wondered? They pointed to the door of the cell without uttering a word. The nuns were standing round the bed, on which was the most extraordinary-looking being imaginable. My poor governess, lying rigid on her deathbed, had a man’s face. Her mustache had grown longer, and she had a beard of half an inch all round her chin. Her mustache and beard were sandy, while the long hair framing her face was white. Her mouth, without the support of the teeth, had sunk in so that her nose fell on the sandy mustache. It was like a terrible and ridiculous-looking mask, instead of the sweet face of my friend. It was the face of a man, while the little, delicate hands were those of a woman.

There was an awestruck expression in the eyes of the nuns in spite of the assurance of the nurse, who had declared to them that the body was that of a woman. They had dressed the poor dead body, but the poor little Sisters were trembling and crossing themselves all the time.

The day after this dismal ceremony I made my début at the Odéon in “Le Jeu de l’Amour et du Hasard.” I was not suitable for Marivand’s pieces, as they require a certain coquettishness and an affectation which were not then among my qualities. Then, too, I was rather too slight, so that I had no success at all. Chilly happened to be passing along the corridor, just as Duquesnel was talking to me and encouraging me. Chilly pointed to me and remarked:

“They are no good, these grand folks, there is not even any pluck about them.”

I was furious at the man’s insolence, and the blood rushed to my face, but I saw through my half-closed eyes Camille Doucet’s face, that face always so clean shaven and young looking, under his crown of white hair. I thought it was a vision of my mind, which was always on the alert, on account of the promise I had made. But no, it was he himself, and he came up to me.

“What a pretty voice you have,” he said. “Your second appearance will be such a pleasure to us!”

This man was always courteous, but truthful. This début of mine had not given him any pleasure, but he was counting on my next appearance, and he had spoken the truth. I had a pretty voice, and that was all that anyone could say.

I remained at the Odéon and worked very hard. I was always ready to take anyone’s place at a moment’s notice, for I knew all the rôles. I had some success, and the students approved of me. When I came on the stage I was always greeted by applause from them. A few old sticklers looked down at the pit to command silence, but no one cared a straw for them.

Finally, my day of triumph dawned. Duquesnel had the happy idea of putting “Athalie” on again with Mendelssohn’s choruses. Beauvallet, who had been odious as a professor, was charming as a comrade. By special permission from the Ministry he was to play Joad. The rôle of Zacharie was assigned to me. Some of the Conservatoire pupils were to take the spoken choruses, and the pupils who studied singing undertook the musical part. The rehearsals were so bad that Duquesnel and Chilly were in despair. Beauvallet, who was more agreeable now, but not choice as regarded his language, muttered some terrible words. We began over and over again, but it was all to no purpose. The spoken choruses were simply abominable. Chilly exclaimed at last:

“Well, let the young one say all the spoken choruses. That would be right enough with her pretty voice!”

Duquesnel did not utter a word, but he pulled his mustache to hide a smile. Chilly was coming round to his protégée after all. He nodded his head in an indifferent way in answer to his partner’s questioning look, and we began again, I reading all the spoken choruses. Everyone applauded, and the conductor of the orchestra was delighted, for the poor man had suffered enough. The first performance was a veritable small triumph for me! Oh! quite a small one, but still full of promise for my future. The public, charmed with the sweetness of my voice and its crystal purity, encored the part of the spoken choruses, and I was rewarded by three bursts of applause.

At the end of the act Chilly came to me and said:

“You were adorable!” He addressed me familiarly, using the French thou, and this rather annoyed me; but I answered mischievously, using the same form of speech:

“You think I am not so thin now?”

He burst into a fit of laughter, and from that day forth we both used the familiar thou and became the best friends imaginable.

Oh, that Odéon Theater! It is the theater I have loved most. I was very sorry to leave it, for everyone liked each other there, and everyone was gay. The theater was a little like the continuation of school. The young artistes came there, and Duquesnel was an intelligent manager, and very polite and young himself. During the rehearsal we often went off, several of us together, to play at hide and seek in the Luxembourg, during the scenes in which we were not acting. I used to think of my few months at the Comédie Française. The little world I had known there had been stiff, scandal-mongering, and jealous. I recalled my few months at the Gymnase. Hats and dresses were always discussed there, and everyone chattered about a hundred things that had nothing to do with art.

At the Odéon I was very happy. We thought of nothing but putting on plays, and we rehearsed morning, afternoon, and at all hours, and I liked that very much.

For the summer I had taken a little house in the Villa Montmorency at Auteuil. I went to the theater in a “little duke,” which I drove myself. I had two wonderful ponies that Aunt Rosine had given to me, because they had very nearly broken her neck by taking fright at St. Cloud at a whirligig of wooden horses. I used to drive at full speed along the quays, and in spite of the atmosphere brilliant with the July sunshine and the gayety of everything outside, I always ran up the cold, cracked steps of the theater with veritable joy, and rushed up to my dressing-room, wishing everyone I passed “Good morning” on my way. When I had taken off my coat and gloves I went on the stage, delighted to be once more in that infinite darkness with only a poor light, a servante, hanging here and there on a tree, a turret, a wall, or placed on a bench, thrown on the faces of the artistes for a few seconds.

There was nothing more vivifying for me than that atmosphere full of microbes, nothing more gay than that obscurity, and nothing more brilliant than that darkness.

One day my mother had the curiosity to come behind the scenes. I thought she would have died with horror and disgust.

“Oh, you poor child!” she murmured, “How can you live in that?” When once she was outside again she began to breathe freely, taking long gasps several times. Oh! yes, I could live in it, and I could scarcely live except in it. Since then I have changed a little, but I still have a great liking for that gloomy workshop in which we joyous lapidaries of art cut the precious stones supplied to us by the poets.

The days passed by, carrying away with them all our little disappointed hopes, and fresh days dawned bringing fresh dreams, so that life seemed to me eternal happiness. I played in turn in “Le Marquis de Villemer” and “François le Champi.” In the former I took the part of the foolish Baroness, an expert woman of thirty-five years of age. I was scarcely twenty-one myself, and I looked seventeen. In the second piece I played Mariette, and had great success.

Those rehearsals of the “Marquis de Villemer” and “François le Champi” have remained in my memory as so many exquisite hours.

Mme. George Sand was a sweet, charming creature, extremely timid. She did not talk much, but smoked all the time. Her large eyes were always dreamy, and her mouth, which was rather heavy and common, had the kindest expression. She had, perhaps, a medium-sized figure, but she was no longer upright. I used to watch her with the most romantic affection, for had she not been the heroine of a fine love romance!

I used to sit down by her, and when I took her hand in mine I held it as long as possible. Her voice, too, was gentle and fascinating.

Prince Napoleon, commonly known as “Plon-Plon,” often used to come to George Sand’s rehearsals. He was extremely fond of her. The first time I ever saw that man I turned pale, and felt as though my heart had stopped beating. He looked so much like Napoleon I.

Mme. Sand introduced me to him in spite of my wishes. He looked at me in an impertinent way, and I did not like him. I scarcely replied to his compliments, and went closer to George Sand.

SARAH BERNHARDT IN “FRANÇOIS LE CHAMPI.”

“Why, she is in love with you!” he exclaimed, laughing.

George Sand stroked my cheek gently.

“She is my little Madonna,” she answered, “do not torment her.”

I stayed with her, casting displeased and furtive glances at the prince. Gradually, though, I began to enjoy listening to him, for his conversation was brilliant, serious, and at the same time witty. He sprinkled his discourses and his replies with words that were a trifle crude, but all that he said was interesting and instructive. He was not very indulgent, though, and I have heard him say base, horrible things about little Thiers which I believe had little truth in them. He drew such an amusing portrait one day of that agreeable Louis Bouilhet, that George Sand, who liked him, could not help laughing, although she called the prince a bad man. He was very unceremonious, too, but at the same time he did not like people to be wanting in respect to him. One day an artiste named Paul Deshayes, who was playing in “François le Champi,” came into the artistes’ foyer. Prince Napoleon was there, Mme. George Sand, the curator of the library, whose name I have forgotten, and I. This artiste was common and something of an anarchist. He bowed to Mme. Sand and, addressing the prince, said:

“You are sitting on my gloves, sir.”

The prince scarcely moved, pulled the gloves out and, throwing them on the floor, remarked:

“I thought this seat was clean.”

The actor colored, picked up the gloves, and went away murmuring some revolutionary threat.

I played the part of Hortense in “Le Testament de César Girôdot,” and of Anna Danby in Alexandre Dumas’ “Kean.”

On the evening of the first performance of the latter piece the public was very disagreeable. Dumas’ père was quite out of favor, on account of a private matter that had nothing to do with art. Politics, for some time past, had been exciting everyone, and the return of Victor Hugo from exile was very much desired. When Dumas entered his box, he was greeted by yells. The students were there in full force, and they began shouting for Ruy Blas. Dumas rose and asked to be allowed to speak. “My young friends ...” he began, as soon as there was silence. “We are quite willing to listen,” called out some one, “but you must be alone in your box.”

Dumas protested vehemently. Several members of the orchestra took his side, for he had invited a woman into his box, and whoever that woman might be, no one had any right to insult her in so outrageous a manner. I had never yet witnessed a scene of this kind. I looked through the hole in the curtain, and was very much interested and excited. I saw our great Dumas, pale with anger, clenching his fists, shouting, swearing, and storming. Then suddenly there was a burst of applause. The woman had disappeared from the box. She had taken advantage of the moment when Dumas, leaning well over the front of the box, was answering:

“No, no, this woman shall not leave the box!”

Just at this moment she slipped away, and the whole house, delighted, shouted: “Bravo!” Dumas was then allowed to continue, but only for a few seconds. Cries of “Ruy Blas! Ruy Blas! Victor Hugo! Hugo!” could then be heard again in the midst of an uproar truly infernal. We had been ready to commence the play for an hour, and I was greatly excited. Chilly and Duquesnel then came to us on the stage.

“Courage, mes enfants, for the house has gone mad,” they said. “We will commence, anyhow, let what will happen!”

“I’m afraid I shall faint,” I said to Duquesnel. My hands were as cold as ice and my heart was beating wildly. “What am I to do,” I asked him, “if I get too frightened?”

“There’s nothing to be done,” he replied. “Be frightened, but go on playing, and don’t faint upon any account!”

The curtain was drawn up in the midst of a veritable tempest, bird cries, mewing of cats, and a heavy rhythmical refrain of “Ruy Blas! Ruy Blas! Victor Hugo! Victor Hugo!”

My turn came. Berton père, who was playing Kean, had been received badly. I was wearing the eccentric costume of an Englishwoman in the year 1820. As soon as I appeared I heard a burst of laughter, and I stood still, rooted to the spot in the doorway. But the very same instant the cheers of my dear friends, the students, drowned the laughter of the disagreeable people. I took courage, and even felt a desire to fight. But it was not necessary, for after the second, endlessly long, harangue, in which I give an idea of my love for Kean, the house was delighted, and gave me an ovation. Ignotus wrote the following paragraph in the Figaro:

“Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt appeared wearing an eccentric costume, which increased the tumult, but her rich voice—that astonishing voice of hers—appealed to the public, and she charmed them like a little Orpheus.”

After “Kean” I played in “La Loterie du Mariage.” When we were rehearsing the piece, Agar came up to me one day, in the corner where I usually sat. I had a little armchair there from my dressing-room, and put my feet up on a straw chair. I liked this place, because there was a little gas burner there, and I could work while waiting for my turn to go on the stage. I loved embroidering and tapestry work. I had a quantity of different kinds of fancy work commenced, and could take up one or the other as I felt inclined.

Mlle. Agar was an admirable creature. She had evidently been created for the joy of the eyes. She was a brunette, tall, pale, with large, dark, gentle eyes, a very small mouth with full rounded lips, which went up at the corners in an almost imperceptible smile. She had exquisite teeth, and her head was covered with thick, glossy hair. She was the living incarnation of one of the most beautiful types of ancient Greece. Her pretty hands were long and rather soft, while her slow and rather heavy walk completed the evocation. She was the great tragedian of the Odéon Theater. She approached me with her measured tread, followed by a young man of from twenty-four to twenty-six years of age.

“Well, my dear,” she said, kissing me, “there is a chance for you to make a poet happy.” She then introduced François Coppée. I invited the young man to sit down, and then I looked at him more thoroughly. His handsome face, emaciated and pale, was that of the immortal Bonaparte. A thrill of emotion went through me, for I adored Napoleon I.

“Are you a poet, monsieur?” I asked.

“Yes, mademoiselle.”

His voice, too, trembled, for he was still more timid than I was.

“I have written a little piece,” he continued, “and Mlle. Agar is sure that you will play it with her.”

“Yes, my dear,” put in Agar, “you are going to play it for him. It is a little masterpiece, and I am sure you will have a gigantic success!”

“Oh, and you, too! You will be so beautiful in it!” said the poet, gazing rapturously at Agar.

I was called on to the stage just at this moment, and on returning a few minutes later I found the young poet talking in a low voice to the beautiful tragedian. I coughed, and Agar, who had taken my armchair, wanted to give it back. On my refusing it she pulled me down on her lap. The young man drew up his chair and we chatted away together, our three heads almost touching. It was decided that after reading the piece I should show it to Duquesnel, who alone was capable of judging poetry, and that we should then get permission from both managers to play it for the benefit of M. X—— after the first performance. The young man was delighted, and his pale face lighted up with a grateful smile as he shook hands excitedly. Agar walked away with him as far as the little landing which projected over the stage. I watched them as they went, the magnificent, statuelike woman and the slender outline of the young writer. Agar was perhaps thirty-five at that time. She was certainly very beautiful, but to me there was no charm about her, and I could not understand why this poetical Bonaparte was in love with this matronly woman. It was as clear as daylight that he was, and she, too, appeared to be, in love. This interested me infinitely. I watched them clasp each other’s hands, and then, with an abrupt and almost awkward movement, the young poet bent over the beautiful hand he was holding and kissed it fervently. Agar came back to me with a faint color in her cheeks. This was rare with her, for she had a marblelike complexion. “Here is the manuscript,” she said, giving me a little roll of paper.

The rehearsal was over and I wished Agar good-by; and, on my way home, read the piece while driving. I was so delighted with it that I drove straight back to the theater to give it to Duquesnel at once. I met him coming downstairs.

“Do come back again, please,” I exclaimed.

“Good heavens, my dear girl, what is the matter?” he asked. “You look as though you have won a big lottery prize!”

“Well, it is something like that,” I said, and entering his office I produced the manuscript.

“Read this, please,” I continued.

“I’ll take it with me,” he said.

“Oh, no, read it here at once!” I insisted. “Shall I read it to you?”

“No, no,” he replied, “your voice is treacherous. It makes charming poetry of the worst lines possible. Well, let me have it,” he continued, sitting down in his armchair. He began to read, while I looked at the newspapers.

“It’s delicious,” he soon exclaimed. “It’s a perfect masterpiece!”

I sprang to my feet in my joy.

“And you will get Chilly to accept it?”

“Oh, yes, you can make your mind easy! But when do you want to play it?”

“Well, the author seems to be in a great hurry,” I said, “and Agar, too——”

“And you as well,” he put in, laughing, “for this is a rôle that just suits your fancy.”

“Yes, my dear Duq,” I acknowledged. “I, too, want it put on at once. Do you want to be very nice?” I added. “If so, let us have it for the benefit of M. X—— in a fortnight from now. That would not make any difference to other arrangements, and our poet would be so happy.”

“Good!” said Duquesnel, “I will settle it like that. What about the scenery, though?” he muttered, meditatively, biting his nails, which were his favorite meal when disturbed in his mind.

I had already thought that out, so I offered to drive him home and on the way I put my plan before him.

We might have the scenery of “Jeanne de Signoris,” a piece that had recently been put on and taken off again immediately, after being jeered at by the public. The scenery consisted of a superb Italian park, with flowers, statues, and even a flight of steps. As to costumes, if we spoke of them to Chilly, no matter how little they might cost, he would shriek, as he had done in his rôle of Rodin. The only thing for it was that Agar and I would have to supply our own costumes.

On arriving at Duquesnel’s house, he suddenly asked me to go in with him and discuss the costumes with his wife. I accepted his invitation, and, after kissing the prettiest face imaginable, I told the owner of the face about our plot. She approved of everything, and promised to begin at once to look out for pretty designs for our costumes. While she was talking I compared her with Agar. Oh, how much I preferred that charming head with its fair hair, those large, limpid eyes, and the whole face, with its two little pink dimples! Her hair was soft and light, and formed a halo round her forehead. I admired, too, her delicate wrists, finishing with the prettiest hands imaginable, hands that were, later on, quite famous.

On leaving the friendly couple I drove straight to Agar’s, to tell her what had happened. She kissed me over and over again, and a cousin of hers, a priest, who happened to be there, appeared to be very delighted with my story. He seemed to know about everything. Presently there was a timid ring at the bell, and François Coppée was announced.

“I am just going away,” I said to him, as I met him in the doorway and shook hands. “Agar will tell you everything.”

The rehearsals of his piece, “Le Passant,” commenced very soon after this, and were delightful, for the shy young poet was a most interesting and intelligent talker.

The first performance took place as arranged, and “Le Passant” was a veritable triumph. The whole house cheered over and over again, and the curtain was raised eight times for Agar and me. We tried in vain to bring the author forward, as the public wished to see him. François Coppée was not to be found. The young poet, hitherto unknown, had become famous within a few hours. His name was on all lips. As for Agar and myself, we were simply overwhelmed with praise, and Chilly wanted to pay for our costumes. We played this one-act piece more than a hundred times consecutively, to a full house. We were asked to give it at the Tuileries, and at the house of the Princess Mathilde. Oh, that first performance at the Tuileries! It is stamped on my brain forever, and with my eyes shut I can see every detail again, even now.

It had been managed, between Duquesnel and the official sent from the court, that Agar and I should go to the Tuileries to see the room where we were to play, in order to have it arranged according to the requirements of the piece. The Comte de Laferrière was to introduce me to the Emperor, who would then introduce me to the Empress Eugénie. Agar was to be introduced by the Princess Mathilde, for whom she was then sitting as Minerva.

M. De Laferrière came for me at nine o’clock in a state carriage, and Mme. Guérard accompanied me.

M. De Laferrière was a very agreeable man with rather stiff manners. As we were turning round the Rue Royale the carriage had to draw up an instant, and General Fleury approached us. I knew him, as he had been introduced to me by Morny. He spoke to us, and the Comte de Laferrière explained where we were going. As he left us he said to me: “Good luck!” Just at that moment a man who was passing by took up the words and called out: “Good luck, perhaps, but not for long, you crowd of good-for-nothings!”

On arriving at the Tuileries Palace we all three got out of the carriage, and were shown into a small yellow drawing-room on the ground floor.

“I will go and inform his majesty that you are here,” said M. De Laferrière, leaving us.

When alone with Mme. Guérard, I thought I would rehearse my three courtesies:

“Now, ma petite dame,” I said, “tell me whether they are right.”

I made the courtesies, murmuring, “Sire—Sire.” I began over again several times, looking down at my dress, as I said “Sire,” when suddenly I heard a stifled laugh.

I stood up quickly, furious with Mme. Guérard, but I saw that she, too, was bent over in a half circle. I turned round quickly, and behind me was—the Emperor. He was clapping his hands silently and laughing quietly, but still he was laughing. My face flushed, and I was embarrassed, for I wondered how long he had been there. I had been courtesying I do not know how many times, trying to get my reverence to my mind, and saying: “There—that’s too low, though—There, is that right, Guérard?” “Good heavens!” I now said to myself, “has he heard all that?” In spite of my confusion, I now made my courtesy again, but the Emperor said, smiling:

“It’s no use, 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 Mme. 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.”

I liked him much better like this, quite near, than in his portraits. He had such fine eyes, which he half closed while 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 armchair. Her body was encased in a gray dress, and seemed to have been molded into the material. I thought her very beautiful. She, too, was more beautiful than her portrait. I made my three courtesies 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 and flowering plants, which I arranged along all three of the steps.

The Prince Imperial, who had come in, was then about thirteen years of age. He helped me to arrange the plants, and laughed wildly when Agar mounted the steps to try the effect.

He was delicious, with his magnificent eyes with heavy lids like those of his mother, and with his father’s long eyelashes. He was witty, like the Emperor, whom people surnamed “Louis the Imbecile,” and who certainly had the most refined, subtle, and at the same time the most generous wit.

We arranged everything as well as we could, and it was decided that we should return two days later for a rehearsal before their majesties.

How gracefully the Prince Imperial asked permission to be present at the rehearsal! His request was granted, and the Empress then took leave of us in the most charming manner; but her voice was very ugly. She told the two ladies who were with her to give us wine and biscuits and to show us over the palace if we wished to see it. I did not care much about this, but ma petite dame and Agar seemed so delighted at the offer that I gave in to them.

I have regretted ever since that I did so, for nothing could have been uglier than the private rooms, with the exception of the Emperor’s study and the staircases. This inspection of the palace bored me terribly. A few of the pictures consoled me, and I stayed some time gazing at Winterhalter’s portrait representing the Empress Eugénie. She looked beautiful, and I thanked Heaven that the portrait could not speak, for it served to explain and justify the wonderful good luck of her majesty.

The rehearsal took place without any special incident. The young prince did his utmost to prove to us his gratitude and delight, for it was a dress rehearsal on his account, as he was not to be present at the soirée. He sketched my costume, and intended to have it copied for a costume ball which was to be given for the imperial child. Our performance was in honor of the Queen of Holland, accompanied by the Prince of Orange, commonly known in Paris as “Prince Citron.”

A rather amusing incident occurred during the evening. The Empress had remarkably small feet, and, in order to make them look still smaller, she forced them into shoes that were too narrow. She looked wonderfully beautiful that night, with her pretty sloping shoulders emerging from a dress of pale blue satin, embroidered with silver. On her lovely hair she was wearing a little diadem of turquoises and diamonds, and her small feet were on a cushion of silver brocade. All through Coppée’s piece, my eyes wandered frequently to this cushion, and I saw the two little feet moving restlessly about. Finally, I saw one of the shoes pushing its little brother very, very gently, and then I saw the heel of the empress come out of its prison. The foot was then only covered at the toe, and I was very anxious to know how it would get back, for, under such circumstances, the foot swells and cannot go into a shoe that is too narrow. When the piece was over, we were recalled twice, and as it was the Empress who gave the signal for the applause, I thought she was putting off the moment for getting up, and I saw her pretty little sore foot trying in vain to get back into its shoe. The light curtain went down, and as I had told Agar about the cushion drama, we watched the various phases through the divisions in the curtains.

The Emperor rose and everyone followed his example. He offered his arm to the Queen of Holland, but she looked at the Empress, who had not yet risen. The Emperor’s face lighted up with that smile which I had already seen. He said a word to General Fleury, and immediately the generals and other officers on duty, who were seated behind the sovereigns, formed a rampart between the crowd and the Empress. The Emperor and the Queen of Holland then passed on, without appearing to have noticed her majesty’s distress, and the Prince of Orange, with one knee on the ground, helped the beautiful sovereign to put on her Cinderella-like slipper. I saw that the Empress leaned more heavily on the prince’s arm than she liked, for her pretty foot was evidently rather painful.

We were then sent for to be complimented, and we were surrounded and fêted so much that we were delighted with our evening.

CHAPTER X
IN FIRE AND WAR

After “Le Passant” and the famous success of that adorable piece, a success in which Agar and I had our share, Chilly thought more of me and began to like me. He insisted on paying for our costumes, which was great extravagance for him. I had become the adored queen of the students, and I used to receive little bouquets of violets, sonnets, and long, long poems—too long to read. Sometimes, on arriving at the theater, as I was getting out of my carriage, I received a shower of flowers which simply covered me, and I was delighted and used to thank my worshipers. The only thing was that their admiration blinded them, so that when in some pieces I was not so good, and the house was rather chary of applause, my little army of students would be indignant, and would cheer wildly, without rhyme or reason. I can understand quite well that this used to exasperate the regular subscribers of the Odéon, who were very kindly disposed toward me, nevertheless. They, too, used to spoil me, but they would have liked me to be more humble and meek, and less headstrong. How many times one or another of those old subscribers would come and give me a word of advice! “Mademoiselle, you were charming in ‘Junie,’” one of them observed, “but you bite your lips, and the Roman women never did that!” “My dear girl,” another one said, “you were delicious in ‘François le Champi,’ but there is not a single Breton woman in the whole of Brittany with her hair frizzed.”

A professor from the Sorbonne said to me one day, rather curtly: “It is a want of respect, mademoiselle, to turn your back on the public!”

“But, monsieur,” I replied, “I was accompanying an old lady to a door at the back of the stage. I could not walk along with her backward.”

“The artistes we had before you, mademoiselle, who were quite as talented, found a way of going across the stage without turning their backs on the public.” With this he turned quickly on his heels and was going away, but I stopped him.

“Monsieur, will you go to that door, through which you intended to pass, without turning your back on me?”

He made an attempt, and then, furious, turned his back on me and disappeared, slamming the door after him.

I lived for some time at 16 Rue Auber, in a flat on the first floor, which was rather a nice one. I had furnished it with old Dutch furniture which my grandmother had sent me. My godfather advised me to insure against fire, as this furniture, he assured me, constituted a small fortune. I decided to follow his advice, and asked my petite dame to take the necessary steps for me. A few days later, she told me that some one would call about it on the 12th. On the day in question, toward two o’clock, a gentleman called, but I was in an extremely nervous condition, and could not see anyone. I had refused to be disturbed, and had shut myself up in my bedroom in a frightfully depressed state. That same evening, I received a letter from the fire insurance company, asking me which day their agent might call to have the agreement signed. I replied that he might come on Saturday. On Friday I was so utterly wretched that I sent to ask my mother to come and lunch with me. I was not playing that day, as I never used to play on Tuesdays and Fridays, the days we went through our repertory, for, as I was playing every other day in new pieces, it was feared that I should be overtired.

My mother, on arriving, thought I looked very pale.

“Yes,” I replied, “I do not know what is the matter with me, but I am in a very nervous state and most depressed.”