I had never been on the sea when it was decided that the artistes of the Comédie Française should go to London. The determined ignorance of the French concerning all things foreign was much more pronounced in those days than it is at present. As for me, my ignorance was quite pathetic. I had a very warm cloak made, as I had been assured that the crossing was icy cold, even in the very middle of summer, and I believed this. On every side I was besieged with lozenges for seasickness, sedative for headache, tissue paper to put down my back, little compress plasters to put on my diaphragm, and waterproof cork soles for my shoes, for it appeared that above all things I must not have cold feet. Oh, how droll and amusing it all was! I took everything, paid attention to all the recommendations and believed everything I was told.
The most inconceivable thing of all, though, was the arrival, five minutes before the boat started, of an enormous wooden case. It was very light and was held by a tall young man, who to-day is a most remarkable individual, with all the crosses, all the honors, an immense fortune, and the most outrageous vanity. At that time he was a shy inventor, young, poor, and sad; he was always buried in books which treated of abstract questions, while of life he knew absolutely nothing. He had a great admiration for me, mingled with a trifle of awe. My little court had surnamed him “La Quenelle.” He was long, vacillating, colorless, and really did resemble the thin roll of forcemeat in a vol-au-vent.
He came up to me, his face more wan looking even than usual. The boat was moving a little, my departure terrified him, and the wind caused him to plunge from right to left. He made a mysterious sign to me and I followed him, accompanied by ma petite dame and leaving my friends, who were inclined to be ironical, behind. When I was seated, he opened the case and took out an enormous life belt invented by himself. I was perfectly astounded, for I was unused to sea voyages, and the idea had never even occurred to me that we might be shipwrecked during one hour’s crossing. “La Quenelle” was by no means disconcerted, and he put the belt on himself in order to show me how it was used.
Nothing could have looked more foolish than this man with his sad, serious face, putting on this apparatus. There were a dozen egg-sized bladders round the belt, eleven of which were filled with air and contained a lump of sugar each. In the twelfth, a very small bladder, were ten drops of brandy. In the middle of the belt was a tiny cushion with a few pins on it.
“You understand,” he said to me. “You fall in the water paff—you stay like this.” Hereupon he pretended to sit down, rising and sinking with the movement of the waves, his two hands in front of him laid upon the imaginary sea, and his neck stretched like that of a tortoise in order to keep his head above water.
“You see, you have now been in the water for two hours,” he explained, “and you want to get back your strength. You take a pin and prick an egg, like this. You take your lump of sugar and eat it, that is as good as a quarter of a pound of meat.” He then threw the broken bladder overboard, and from the packing case brought out another, which he fastened to the life belt. He had evidently thought of everything. I was petrified with amazement. A few of my friends had gathered round, hoping for one of “La Quenelle’s” mad freaks, but they had never expected anything like this one.
M. Mayer, one of our impresarios, fearing a scandal of too absurd a kind, dispersed the people who were gathering round us. I did not know whether to be angry or to laugh, but the jeering, unjust speech of one of my friends roused my pity for this poor “Quenelle.” I thought of the hours he had spent in planning, combining, and then manufacturing his ridiculous machine. I was touched by the anxiety and affection which had prompted the invention of this life-saving apparatus, and I held out my hand to my poor “Quenelle,” saying: “Be off, now, quickly, the boat is just going to start.”
He kissed the hand held out to him in a friendly way, and hurried off. I then called my steward Claude, and I said, “As soon as we are out of sight of land throw that case and all it contains into the sea.”
The departure of the boat was accompanied by shouts of “Hurrah! Au revoir! Success! Good luck!” There was a waving of hands, handkerchiefs floating in the air, and kisses thrown haphazard to everyone.
But what was really fine and a sight I shall never forget, was our landing at Folkestone. There were thousands of people there, and it was the first time I had ever heard the cry of “Vive Sarah Bernhardt!”
I turned my head and saw before me a pale young man, the ideal face of Hamlet. He presented me with a gardenia. I was destined to admire him later on as Hamlet. He was Forbes-Robertson. We passed on through a crowd offering us flowers and shaking hands, and I soon saw that I was more favored than the others. This slightly embarrassed me, but I was delighted all the same. One of my comrades, who was just near, and with whom I was not a favorite, said to me, in a spiteful tone: “They’ll make you a carpet of flowers soon.”
“Here is one!” exclaimed a young man, throwing an armful of lilies on the ground in front of me. I stopped short, rather confused, not daring to walk on these white flowers, but the crowd pressing on behind compelled me to advance, and the poor lilies had to be trodden under foot.
“Hip, hip, hurrah! a cheer for Sarah Bernhardt!” shouted the turbulent young man. His head was above all the other heads, he had luminous eyes and long hair, and looked like a German student. He was an English poet, though, and one of the greatest of this century, a poet who was a genius, but who was, alas! tortured and finally vanquished by madness. It was Oscar Wilde. The crowd responded to his appeal, and we reached our train amid shouts of “Hip, hip, hurrah, for Sarah Bernhardt! Hip, hip, hurrah, for the French artistes!”
When the train arrived at Charing Cross toward nine o’clock, we were nearly an hour late. A feeling of sadness came over me. The weather was gloomy, and then, too, I thought we should have been greeted again upon our arrival in London with more “hurrahs!...” There were plenty of people, crowds of people, but none appeared to know us.
On reaching the station I had noticed that there was a handsome carpet laid down and I thought it was for us. Oh, I was prepared for anything, as our reception at Folkestone had turned my head. The carpet, however, had been laid down for their Royal Highnesses the Prince and the Princess of Wales, who had just left for Paris.
This news disappointed me and even annoyed me personally. I had been told that all London was quivering with excitement at the very idea of the visit of the Comédie Française, and I had found London extremely indifferent. The crowd was large and very compact, but cold.
“Why have the Prince and Princess gone away to-day?” I asked M. Mayer.
“Well, because they had decided beforehand about this visit to Paris,” he replied.
“Oh, then they won’t be here for our first night?” I continued.
“No, the Prince has taken a box for the season for which he has paid four hundred pounds, but it will be used by the Duke of Connaught.”
I was in despair. I don’t know why, but I certainly was in despair, as I felt that everything was going wrong.
A footman led the way to my carriage, and I drove through London with a heavy heart. Everything looked dark and dismal, and when I reached the house—77, Chester Square—I did not want to get out of my carriage.
The door of the house was wide open, though, and in the brilliantly lighted hall I could see what looked like all the flowers on earth arranged in baskets, bouquets, and huge bunches. I got out of the carriage and entered the house in which I was to live for the next six weeks. All the branches seemed to be stretching out their flowers to me.
“Have you the cards that came with all these flowers?” I asked my manservant.
“Yes,” he replied. “I have put them together on a tray. All of them are from Paris, from madame’s friends there. This one is the only bouquet from here.” He handed me an enormous one, and on the card with it, I read the words: “Welcome!—Henry Irving.”
I went all through the house and it seemed to me very dismal looking. I visited the garden, but the damp seemed to go through me, and my teeth chattered when I came in again. That night, when I went to sleep, my heart was heavy with foreboding, as though I were on the eve of some misfortune.
The following day was given up to receiving journalists. I wanted to see them all at the same time, but Mr. Jarrett objected to this. The man was a veritable advertising genius. I had no idea of it at that time. He had made me some very good offers for America, and although I had refused them, I nevertheless held a very high opinion of him, on account of his intelligence, his comic humor, and my need of being piloted in this new country.
“No,” he said, “if you receive them all together, they will all be furious, and you will get some wretched articles; you must receive them one after the other.”
Thirty-seven journalists came that day, and Jarrett insisted on my seeing every one of them. He stayed in the room and saved the situation when I said anything foolish. I spoke English very badly, and some of the men spoke French very badly. Jarrett translated my answers to them. I remember perfectly well that all of them began with: “Well, mademoiselle, what do you think of London?”
I had arrived the previous evening at nine o’clock, and the first of these journalists asked me this question at ten in the morning. I had drawn my curtain back on getting up, and all I knew of London was Chester Square, a small square of somber verdure, in the midst of which was a black statue, and the horizon bounded by an ugly church.
I really could not answer the question, but Jarrett was quite prepared for this, and I learned the following morning that “I was most enthusiastic about the beauty of London, that I had already seen a number of the public buildings,” etc., etc.
Toward five o’clock, Hortense Damian arrived. She was a charming woman, and a favorite in London society. She had come to inform me that the Duchess of —— and Lady R—— would call on me at half past five.
“Oh, stay with me, then!” I said to her. “You know how unsociable I am; I feel sure that I shall be stupid.”
At the time fixed my visitors were announced. This was the first time I had come into contact with any members of the English aristocracy, and I have always had since a very pleasant memory of it.
Lady R—— was extremely beautiful, and the Duchess was so gracious, so distinguished and so kind that I was very much touched by her visit.
A few minutes later Lord Dudley called. I knew him very well, as he had been introduced to me by Marshal Canrobert, one of my dearest friends. He asked me if I would care to have a ride the following morning, and said he had a very nice lady’s horse which was entirely at my service. I thanked him, but I wanted first to drive in Rotten Row.
At seven o’clock Hortense Damian came to fetch me to dine with her at the house of the Baroness M——. She had a very nice home in Prince’s Gate. There were about twenty guests, among others the painter, Millais. I had been told that the cuisine was very bad in England, but I thought this dinner perfect. I had been told that the English were cold and sedate. I found them charming and full of humor. Everyone spoke French very well and I was ashamed of my ignorance of the English language. After dinner there were recitations and music. I was touched by the gracefulness and tact of my hosts in not asking me to say any poetry.
I was very much interested in observing the society in which I found myself. It did not in any way resemble a French gathering. The young girls seemed to be enjoying themselves on their own account and enjoying themselves thoroughly. They had not come there to find a husband. What surprised me a little was the décolleté of ladies who were getting on in years and to whom time had not been very merciful. I spoke of this to Hortense Damian.
“It’s frightful!” I said.
“Yes, but it’s chic!”
She was very charming, my friend Hortense, but she troubled about nothing that was not chic. She sent me the “Chic commandments” a few days before I left Paris.
Chester Square, tu habiteras.
Rotten Row, tu monteras.
Le Parlement visiteras.
Garden-parties fréquenteras.
Chaque visite, tu rendras.
A chaque lettre, tu repondras.
Photographies, tu signeras.
Hortense Damain, tu écouteras,
Et tous ses conseils, les suivras.
(In Chester Square thou shalt live.
In Rotten Row thou shalt ride.
Parliament thou shalt visit.
Garden parties thou shalt frequent.
Every visit thou shalt return.
Every letter thou shalt answer.
Photographs thou shalt sign.
To Hortense Damian thou shalt listen,
And all her counsels thou shalt follow.)
I laughed at these “commandments,” but I soon realized that, under this jocular form, she considered them as very serious and important. Alas! my poor friend had hit upon the wrong person for her counsels. I detested paying visits, writing letters, signing photographs, or following anyone’s advice. I adore having people come to see me, and I detest going to see them. I adore receiving letters, reading them, commenting on them, but I detest writing them. I detest riding and driving in frequented parts, and I adore lonely roads and solitary places. I adore giving advice and I detest receiving it, and I never follow at once any wise advice that is given me. It always requires an effort of my will to recognize the justice of any counsel, and then an effort of my intellect to be grateful for it; at first it simply annoys me. Consequently, I paid no attention to Hortense Damian’s counsels, nor yet to Jarrett’s, and in this I made a great mistake, for many people were vexed with me—and, in any other country, I should have made enemies. On that first visit to London what a quantity of letters of invitation I received to which I never replied! How many charming women called upon me and I never returned their calls! Then, too, how many times I accepted invitations to dinner and never went after all, nor did I even send a line of excuse. It is perfectly odious, I know, and yet I always accept with pleasure and intend to go; but when the day comes I am tired, perhaps, or want to have a quiet time, or to be free from any obligation, and when I am obliged to decide one way or another, the time has gone by, and it is too late to send word and too late to go. And so I stay at home, dissatisfied with myself, with everyone else, and with everything.
Hospitality is a quality made up of primitive taste and antique grandeur. The English are, in my opinion, the most hospitable people on earth, and they are hospitable simply and munificently. When an Englishman has opened his door to you he never closes it again. He excuses your faults and accepts your peculiarities. It is thanks to this broadness of ideas that I have been for twenty-five years the beloved and pampered artiste.
I was delighted with my first soirée in London, and I returned home very gay and very much “anglomaniaized.” I found some of my friends there—Parisians who had just arrived, and they were furious. My enthusiasm exasperated them, and we sat up arguing until two in the morning.
The next day I went to Rotten Row. It was glorious weather, and all Hyde Park seemed to be strewn with enormous bouquets. There were the flower beds wonderfully arranged by the gardeners, then there were the clusters of sunshades, blue, pink, red, white, or yellow, which sheltered the light hats covered with flowers, under which shone the pretty faces of babies and women. Along the riding path there was an exciting gallop of graceful thoroughbreds bearing along some hundreds of horsewomen, slender, supple, and courageous; there were men and children, the latter mounted on big Irish ponies. There were other children, too, galloping along on Scotch ponies with long, shaggy manes, and the children’s hair and the manes of the horses blew about with the wind caused by the ride.
The carriage road between the riding track and the foot passengers was filled with dogcarts, open carriages of various kinds, mail coaches, and very smart cabs. There were powdered footmen, horses decorated with flowers, sportsmen driving, ladies, too, driving admirable horses. All this elegance, this essence of luxury and this joy of life, brought back to my memory the vision of our Bois de Boulogne, so elegant and so animated a few years before, when Napoleon III used to drive through in his daumont, nonchalant and smiling. Ah, how beautiful it was in those days—our Bois de Boulogne! with the officers caracoling in the Avenue des Acacias, admired by our beautiful society women!
The joy of life was everywhere—the love of Love enveloping life with an infinite charm. I closed my eyes, and I felt a pang at my heart as the awful recollections of 1870 crowded to my brain. He was dead, our gentle Emperor with his shrewd smile. Dead, vanquished by the sword, betrayed by fortune, crushed with grief!
The thread of life in Paris had been taken up again in all its intenseness; but the life of elegance, of charm, and of luxury was still shrouded in crape. Scarcely eight years had passed since the war had struck down our soldiers, ruined our hopes, and tarnished our glory. Three presidents had already succeeded each other. That wretched little Thiers, with his perverse, bourgeois soul, had worn his teeth out with nibbling at every kind of government: royalty under Louis Philippe, empire under Napoleon III, and the executive power of the French Republic. He had never even thought of lifting our beloved Paris up again, bowed down as she was under the weight of so many ruins. He had been succeeded by MacMahon, a good, brave man, but a cipher. Grévy had succeeded the marshal, but he was miserly and considered all outlay unnecessary for himself, for other people, and for the country. And so Paris remained sad, nursing the leprosy that the Commune had communicated to her by the kiss of its fires. And our delightful Bois de Boulogne still bore the traces of the injuries that the National Defense had inflicted on her. The Avenue des Acacias was deserted.
I opened my eyes again. They were filled with tears, and through their mist I caught a glimpse once more of the triumphant vitality which surrounded me.
I wanted to return home at once, for I was acting that night for the first time, and I felt rather wretched and despairing. There were several persons awaiting me at my house in Chester Square, but I did not want to see anyone. I took a cup of tea and went to the Gaiety Theater, where we were to face the English public for the first time. I knew already that I had been elected the favorite, and the idea of this chilled me with terror, for I am what is known as a traqueuse. I am subject to the trac or stage fright, and I have it terribly. When I first appeared on the stage I was timid, but I never had this trac. I used to turn as red as a poppy when I happened to meet the eye of some spectator. I was ashamed of talking so loud before so many silent people. That was the effect of my cloistered life, but I found no feeling of fear. The first time I ever had the real sensation of trac or stage fright, was in the month of January, 1869, at the seventh or perhaps the eighth performance of “Le Passant.” The success of this little masterpiece had been enormous, and my interpretation of the part of Zanetto had delighted the public, and particularly the students. When I went on the stage that day I was suddenly applauded by the whole house. I turned toward the Imperial box, thinking that the Emperor had just entered. But no, the box was empty, and I realized then that all the bravos were for me. I was seized with a fit of nervous trembling, and my eyes smarted with tears that I had to keep back. Agar and I were called back five times and, on leaving the theater, the students ranged on each side gave me three cheers. On reaching home I flung myself into the arms of my blind grandmother, who was then living with me.
“What’s the matter with you, my dear?” she asked.
“It’s all over with me, grandmother,” I said, “they want to make a ‘star’ of me, and I haven’t talent enough for that. You’ll see they’ll drag me down and finish me off with all their bravos.”
My grandmother took my head in her hands and I met the vacant look in her large, light eyes fixed on me. “You told me, my child, that you wanted to be the first in your profession, and when the opportunity comes to you, why, you are frightened. It seems to me that you are a very bad soldier.”
I drove back my tears and declared that I would bear up courageously against this success which had come to interfere with my tranquillity, my heedlessness and my “don’t-careism.” But, from that time forth, fear took possession of me, and stage fright martyrized me.
It was under these conditions that I prepared for the second act of “Phèdre,” in which I was to appear for the first time before the English public. Three times over I put rouge on my cheeks, blackened my eyes, and three times over I took it all off again with a sponge. I thought I looked ugly, and it seemed to me I was thinner than ever and not as tall. I closed my eyes to listen to my voice. My special pitch is le bal, which I pronounced low down with the open a, le bâââl, or that I take high by dwelling on the l—le balll. Ah! but there was no doubt about it, my le bal neither sounded high nor low, my voice was hoarse in the low notes and not clear in the soprano. I cried with rage, and just then I was informed that the second act of “Phèdre” was about to commence. This drove me wild. I had not my veil on, nor my rings, and my cameo belt was not fastened.
I began to murmur:
“Le voici! Vers mon cœur tout mon sang se retire.
J’oublie en le voyant....”
That word j’oublie struck me with a new idea. What if I did forget the words I had to say? Why, yes.... What was it I had to say? I did not know.... I could not remember.... What was I to say after en le voyant...?
No one answered me. Everyone was alarmed at my nervous state. I heard Got mumble, “She’s going mad!” Mlle. Thénard, who was playing Œnone, my old nurse, said to me: “Calm yourself, all the English have gone to Paris, there’s no one in the house but Belgians.”
This foolishly comic speech turned my thoughts in another direction. “How stupid you are!” I said. “You know how frightened I was at Brussels!”
“Oh, all for nothing!” she answered calmly. “There were only English people in the theater that day.”
I had to go on the stage at once, and I could not even answer her, but she had changed the current of my ideas. I still had stage fright, but not the fright that paralyzes, only the kind that drives one wild. This is bad enough, but it is preferable to the other sort. It makes one do too much, but at any rate, one does something.
The whole house had applauded my arrival on the stage for a few seconds, and as I bent my head in acknowledgment, I said within myself: “Yes ... yes ... you shall see. I’m going to give you my very blood ... my life itself ... my soul....”
When I began my part, as I had lost my self-possession, I started on rather too high a note, and when once in full swing I could not get lower again, I simply could not stop. I suffered, I wept, I implored, I cried out, and it was all real. My suffering was horrible, my tears were flowing—scorching and bitter. I implored Hippolyte for the love which was killing me, and my arms stretched out to Mounet-Sully were the arms of Phèdre writhing in the cruel longing for his embrace.... God was within me——
When the curtain fell, Mounet-Sully lifted me up inanimate and carried me to my dressing-room.
The public, unaware of what was happening, wanted me to appear again and bow. I, too, wanted to return and thank the public for its attention, its kindliness, and its emotion.
I went back, and the following is what John Murray said in the Gaulois of June 5, 1879:
“When recalled with loud cries, Mlle. Bernhardt appeared, exhausted by her efforts and supported by Mounet-Sully; she received an ovation which I think is unique in the annals of the theater in England.”
The following morning the Daily Telegraph terminated its admirable criticism with these lines:
“Clearly Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt exerted every nerve and fiber and her passion grew with the excitement of the spectators, for when after a recall that could not be resisted the curtain drew up, Mr. Mounet-Sully was seen supporting the exhausted figure of the actress, who had won her triumph only after tremendous physical exertion, and triumph it was, however short and sudden.”
The Standard finished its article with these words:
“The subdued passion, repressed for a time, until at length it burst its bonds, and the despairing, heartbroken woman is revealed to Hippolyte, was shown with so vivid a reality that a scene of enthusiasm such as is rarely witnessed in a theater followed the fall of the curtain. Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt, in the few minutes she was upon the stage (and coming on it must be remembered to plunge into the middle of a stirring tragedy) yet contrived to make an impression which will not soon be effaced from those who were present.”
The Morning Post said:
“Very brief are the words spoken before Phèdre rushes into the room to commence tremblingly and nervously, with struggles which rend and tear and convulse the system, the secret of her shameful love. As her passion mastered what remained of modesty or reserve in her nature, the woman sprang forward and recoiled again, with the movements of a panther, striving, as it seemed, to tear from her bosom the heart which stifled her with its unholy longings, until in the end, when, terrified at the horror her breathings have provoked in Hippolyte, she strove to pull his sword from its sheath and plunge it in her own breast, she fell back in complete and absolute collapse. This exhibition, marvelous in beauty of pose, in febrile force, in intensity, and in purity of delivery, is the more remarkable as the passion had to be reached, so to speak, at a bound, no performance of the first act having roused the actress to the requisite heat. It proved Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt worthy of her reputation, and shows what may be expected from her by the public which has eagerly expected her coming.”
This London first night was definitive for my future.