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.”
“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.