Memories of My Life by Sarah Bernhardt - HTML preview

CHAPTER XXIII
 I AGAIN LEAVE THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE

The stir that had been made about me, the good that had been said in my favor, and the bad things written against me, all this combined had created in the artistic world an atmosphere of battle. When on the point of leaving for Paris, some of my friends felt very anxious about the reception which I should get there. The public is very much mistaken in imagining that the agitation made about celebrated artistes is in reality instigated by the persons concerned and that they do it purposely. Irritated at seeing the same name constantly appearing on every occasion the public declares that the artiste who is either being slandered or pampered is an ardent lover of publicity. Alas! three times over alas! We are victims of the said advertisement. Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrity when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves. They are at the beginning of a series of small worries, thunderbolts hidden under flowers, but they know how to hold in check that monster advertisement. It is a sort of octopus with innumerable tentacles. It throws out its clammy arms on the right and on the left, in front and behind, and gathers in through its thousand little inhaling organs, all the gossip and slander and praise afloat to spit out again at the public when it is vomiting its black gall. But those who are caught in the clutches of celebrity at the age of twenty know nothing. I remember that the first time a reporter came to me I drew myself up straight and was as red as a coxcomb with joy. I was just seventeen years old—I had been acting in a private house and had taken the part of Richelieu with immense success. This gentleman came to call on me at home and asked me first one question and then another, and then another—I answered and chattered and was wild with pride and excitement. He took notes and I kept looking at my mother. It seemed to me that I was getting taller. I had to kiss my mother by way of keeping my composure and I hid my face on her shoulder to hide my delight. Finally, the gentleman rose, shook hands with me, and then took his departure. I skipped about in the room and began to turn round singing, “Trois petits pâtés, ma chemise brûle,” when suddenly the door opened and the gentleman said to mamma, “Oh, madame, I forgot, this is the receipt for the subscription to the journal! It is a mere nothing, only sixteen francs a year.” Mamma did not understand at first. As for me, I stood still with my mouth open, unable to digest my petits pâtés. Mamma then paid the sixteen francs and in her pity for me, as I was crying by that time, she stroked my hair gently. Since then I have been delivered over to the monster, bound hand and foot, and I have been and still am accused of adoring advertisement. And to think that my first claims to celebrity were my extraordinary thinness and delicate health. I had scarcely made my début when epigrams, puns, jokes, and caricatures concerning me were indulged in by everyone to their heart’s content. Was it really for the sake of advertising myself that I was so thin, so small, so weak, and was it for this, too, that I remained in bed six months of the year, laid low by illness? My name became celebrated before I was, myself. At the first night of Louis Bouilhet’s piece “Mlle. Aïssé” at the Odéon, Flaubert, who was an intimate friend of the author, introduced an attaché of the British Embassy to me.

SARAH BERNHARDT AS THE DUC DE RICHELIEU.

“Oh, I have known you for some time, mademoiselle,” he said, “you are the little stick with the sponge on the top!”

This caricature of me had just appeared and had been the delight of idle folks. I was quite a young girl at that time and nothing of that kind hurt me or troubled me. In the first place all the doctors had given me up, so that I was indifferent about things, but all the doctors were mistaken and twenty years later I had to fight against the monster.

The return of the Comédie to their homes was an event, but an event that was kept quiet. Our departure from Paris had been very lively and gay and quite a public event. Our return was clandestine for many of the members, and for me among the number. It was a doleful return for those who had not been appreciated and those who had been failures were furious. I had not been back home an hour when Perrin, the manager, was announced. He began to reproach me gently about the little care I took of my health. He said I caused too much fuss to be made about me.

“But,” I exclaimed, “is it my fault if I am thin? Is it my fault, too, that my hair is too curly and that I don’t think just as other people do? Supposing that I took arsenic enough, for a whole month, to make me swell out like a barrel and supposing I were to shave my head like an Arab and only answer ‘Yes’ to everything you said. People would declare I did it for advertisement.”

“But, my dear child,” answered Perrin, “there are people who are neither fat nor thin, neither close shaven nor with shocks of hair, and who answer yes and no.”

I was simply petrified by the justice and reason of the remark and I understand the “because” of all the “whys” I had been asking myself for some years. There was no happy medium about me. I was “too much” and “too little” and I felt that there was nothing to be done for it. I owned it to Perrin and told him that he was quite right. He took advantage of my mood for lecturing me and for advising me not to put in an appearance at the opening ceremony that was to take place at the Comédie. He feared a cabal against me. “Some people were rather excited, rightly or wrongly, a little of both,” he added, in that shrewd and courteous way which was peculiar to him. I listened to him without interrupting, which slightly embarrassed him, for Perrin was an arguer but not an orator.

When he had finished I said: “You have told me too many things that excite me, M. Perrin. I love a battle and I shall appear at the ceremony. You see I have already been warned about it. Here are three anonymous letters. Read this one, it is the nicest.”

He unfolded the letter, which was perfumed with amber, and read as follows:

My poor skeleton, you will do well not to show your horrible Jewish nose at the opening ceremony the day after to-morrow. I fear that it would serve as a target for all the potatoes that are now being cooked specially for you in your kind city of Paris. Have some paragraphs put in the papers to the effect that you have been spitting blood and remain in bed and think over the consequences of excessive advertisement.

A SUBSCRIBER

Perrin pushed the letter away from him in disgust.

“Here are two more,” I said, “but they are so coarse that I will spare you. I shall go to the opening ceremony.”

“Good!” replied Perrin. “They are rehearsing to-morrow, shall you come?”

“I shall come,” I answered.

The next day at the rehearsal the artistes, men and women, did not care about going on to the stage to make their bow with me. I must say, though, that they all nevertheless showed much good grace. But I declared that I wished to go on alone, although it was against the rule, but I thought I ought to face the ill humor and the cabal alone.

The house was crowded when the curtain rose. The ceremony commenced in the midst of “Bravos!” The public was delighted to see its beloved artistes again. They advanced two by two, one on the right and the other on the left, holding the palm and the crown to place on the pedestal of Molière’s bust. My turn came and I advanced alone. I felt that I was pale and then livid, with a will that was determined to conquer. I went forward slowly toward the footlights, but instead of bowing as my comrades had done I stood up erect and gazed with my two eyes into all the eyes turning toward me. I had been warned of the battle and did not wish to provoke it, but I would not fly from it. I waited a second and felt the thrill and the emotion that ran through the house, and then, suddenly stirred by an impulse of generous kindliness, the whole house burst into wild applause and shouts. The public, so beloved and so loving, was intoxicated with joy. That was certainly one of the finest triumphs of my whole career. Some of the artistes were very delighted, especially the women, for there is one thing to remark with regard to our art, the men are more jealous of the women than the women are among themselves. I have met with many enemies among the men comedians and with very few among the women. I think that the dramatic art is essentially feminine. To paint one’s face, to hide one’s real feelings, to try to please and to endeavor to attract attention, these are all faults for which we blame women and for which great indulgence is shown. These same defects seem odious in a man. And yet the actor must endeavor to be as attractive as possible, even if he is obliged to have recourse to paint and to false beard and hair. He may be a Republican and he must uphold with warmth and conviction royalist theories. He may be a Conservative and must maintain anarchist principles, if such be the good pleasure of the author.

At the Théâtre Français poor Maubant was a most advanced Radical and his stature and handsome face doomed him to play the parts of kings, emperors, and tyrants. As long as the rehearsals went on, Charlemagne or Cæsar could be heard swearing at tyrants, cursing the conquerors, and claiming the hardest punishments for them. I thoroughly enjoyed this struggle between the man and the actor. Perhaps this perpetual abstraction from himself gives the comedian a more feminine nature. However that may be, it is certain that the actor is jealous of the actress. The courtesy of the well-educated man vanishes before the footlights, and the comedian, who in private life would render a service to a woman in any difficulty, will pick a quarrel with her on the stage. He would risk his life to save her from any danger in the road, on the railway, or on a boat, but when once on the boards he will not do anything to help her out of a difficulty. If her memory should fail, or if she should make a false step, he would not hesitate to push her—I am going a long way, perhaps, but not so far as people may think. I have performed with some celebrated comedians who have played me some bad tricks. On the other hand, there are some actors who are admirable and who are more men than comedians when on the stage. Pierre Berton, Worms, and Guitry are, and always will be, the most perfect models of friendly and protecting courtesy toward the woman comedian. I have played in a number of pieces with each of them and, subject as I am to stage fright, I have always felt perfect confidence when acting with these three artistes. I knew that their intelligence was of a high order, that they had pity on me for my fright, and that they would be prepared for any nervous weaknesses caused by it. Pierre Berton and Worms, both of them very great artistes, left the stage in full artistic vigor and vital strength, Pierre Berton to devote himself to literature, and Worms—no one knows why. As to Guitry, much the youngest of the three, he is now the first artiste on the French stage, for he is an admirable comedian and at the same time an artist, a very rare thing in a man. I know very few artistes in France or in other countries with these two qualities combined. Henry Irving is an admirable artiste but not a comedian; Coquelin is an admirable comedian, but he is not an artiste. Mounet-Sully has genius which he sometimes places at the service of the artiste and sometimes at the service of the comedian, but on the other hand, he sometimes gives us exaggerations as artiste and comedian which make lovers of Beauty and Truth gnash their teeth. Bartet is a perfect comedienne with a very delicate artistic sense. Réjane is the most comedian of comedians and an artiste when she wishes to be. Eleonora Duse is more a comedian than an artiste. She walks in paths that have been traced out by others. She does not imitate them, certainly not, for she plants flowers where there were trees and trees where there were flowers, but she has never by her art made a single personage stand out identified by her name; she has not created a being or a vision which reminds one of herself. She has put on other people’s gloves, but she has put them on inside out. And all this she has done with infinite grace and with careless unconsciousness. She is a great comedienne, a very great comedienne, but not a great artiste. Novelli is a comedian of the old school which did not trouble much about the artistic side. He is perfect in laughter and tears. Beatrice Patrick Campbell is especially an artiste and her talent is that of charm and thought; she execrates beaten paths, she wants to create and she creates. Antoine is often betrayed by his own powers, for his voice is heavy and his general appearance rather ordinary. As a comedian there is therefore often much to be desired, but he is always an artiste without equal and our art owes much to him in its evolution in the direction of truth. Antoine, too, is not jealous of the woman comedian.

The days which followed the return of the Comédie to its own home were very trying for me. Our manager wanted to subdue me and he tortured me with a thousand little pin pricks which were much more painful for a nature like mine than so many stabs with a knife. I became irritable, bad tempered, on the slightest provocation and was, in fact, ill. I had always been gay and now I was sad. My health, which had ever been feeble, was endangered by this state of chaos.

Perrin gave me the rôle of the Aventurière to study. I detested the piece and did not like the part, and I considered the lines of “L’Aventurière” very bad poetry indeed. As I cannot dissimulate well, in a fit of temper I said this straight out to Emile Augier, and he avenged himself in a most discourteous way on the first opportunity that presented itself. This was on the occasion of my definite rupture with the Comédie Française, the day after the first performance of “L’Aventurière” on Saturday, April 17, 1880. I was not ready to play my part and the proof of this was a letter I wrote to M. Perrin, April 14, 1880.

I regret very much, my dear Monsieur Perrin, but I have such a sore throat that I cannot speak and am obliged to stay in bed. Will you kindly excuse me? It was at that wretched Trocadéro that I took cold on Sunday. I am very much worried, as I know it will cause you inconvenience. Anyhow, I will be ready for Saturday, whatever happens. A thousand excuses and kind regards.

SARAH BERNHARDT.

I was able to play, as I had recovered from my sore throat, but I had not studied my part during the three days, as I could not speak. I had not been able to try on my costumes, either, as I had been in bed all the time. On Friday I went to ask Perrin to put off the performance of “L’Aventurière” until the next week. He replied that it was impossible, that every seat was booked, and that the piece had to be played the following Tuesday for the subscription night. I let myself be persuaded to act, as I had confidence in my star.

“Oh!” I said to myself, “I shall get through it all right.”

I did not get through it, though, or rather I came through it very badly. My costume was a failure: it did not fit me. They had always jeered at me for my thinness and in this dress I looked like an English teapot. My voice was still rather hoarse, which very much disconcerted me. I played the first part of the rôle very badly and the second part rather better. At a certain moment during the scene of violence I was standing up, resting my two hands on the table on which there was a lighted candelabrum. There was a cry raised in the house, for my hair was very near to the flame. The following day one of the papers said that, as I felt things were all going wrong, I wanted to set my hair on fire so that the piece should come to an end before I failed completely. That was certainly the very climax of stupidity. The press did not praise me and the press was quite right. I had played badly, looked ugly, and been in a bad temper, but I considered that there was nevertheless a want of courtesy and indulgence toward me. Auguste Vitu, in the Figaro of April 18, 1880, finished his article with the phrase: “The new Clorinde (the Adventuress) in the last two acts made some gestures with her arms and movements of her body which one regrets to see taken from Virginie of “L’Assommoir” and introduced at the Comédie Française.”

The only fault which I never have had, which I never shall have, is vulgarity. That was an injustice and a determination to hurt my feelings. Vitu was no friend of mine, but I understood from this way of attacking me that petty hatreds were lifting up their rattlesnake heads. All the low-down little viper world was crawling about under my flowers and my laurels. I had known what was going on for a long time, and sometimes I had heard rattling behind the scenes. I wanted to have the enjoyment of hearing them all rattle together and so I threw my laurels and my flowers to the four winds of heaven. In the most abrupt way I broke the contract which bound me to the Comédie Française, and through that to Paris.

I shut myself up all the morning, and after endless discussions with myself, I decided to send in my resignation to the Comédie. I therefore wrote to M. Perrin, this letter:

TO THE DIRECTOR:

You have compelled me to play when I was not ready. You have accorded me only eight rehearsals on the stage and the play has been rehearsed entirely only three times. I was very unwilling to appear before the public. You insisted absolutely. What I foresaw has happened. The result of the performance has surpassed my anticipations. A critic pretended that I played Virginie de l’Assommoir instead of Doña Clorinde de “l’Aventurière.” May Emile Augier and Zola absolve me! It is my first rebuff at the Comédie and shall be my last. I warned you the day of the general rehearsal. You have gone too far. I keep my word. By the time you receive this letter I shall have left Paris. Will you kindly accept my immediate resignation and believe me, yours sincerely,

SARAH BERNHARDT.

In order that this resignation might not be refused at the Committee meeting I sent copies of my letter to the Gaulois and the Figaro, and it was published at the same time as M. Perrin received it.

Then, quite decided not to be influenced by anybody, I set off at once, with my maid, for Hâvre. I had left orders that no one was to be told where I was, and the first evening I was there I passed in strict incognito. But the next morning I was recognized and telegrams were sent to Paris to that effect. I was besieged by reporters.

I took refuge at La Hêve where I spent the whole day on the beach in spite of the cold rain which fell without ceasing.

SARAH BERNHARDT, 1879.

I went back to the Hotel Frascati, frozen, and in the night I was so feverish that the doctor was summoned. Mme. Guérard, who was sent for by my alarmed maid, came at once, and I was feverish for two days. During this time the newspapers continued to pour out a flood of ink on paper. This turned to bitterness and I was accused of the worst misdeeds. The Committee sent a huissier to my hotel in the Avenue de Villiers, and this man declared that after having knocked three times at the door and having received no answer he had left copy, etc., etc....

The man was lying. In the hotel there were my son and his tutor, my steward, the husband of my maid, my butler, the cook, the kitchenmaid, the second lady’s maid, and five dogs; but it was all in vain that I protested against the minion of the law; it was useless.

The Comédie must, according to the rules, send me three summonses; this was not done and a lawsuit was commenced against me. It was lost in advance.

Maître Allon, the advocate of the Comédie Française, invented wicked little histories about me. He took a pleasure in trying to make me ridiculous. He had a big file of letters from me to Perrin, letters which I had written in softer moments or in anger. Perrin had kept them all, even the shortest notes. I had kept none of his. The few letters to myself from Perrin which have been published were given by him from his letter-copy book. Of course he gave only those which could inspire the public with an idea of his paternal kindness to me etc., etc....

The pleading of Maître Allon was very successful; he claimed three hundred thousand francs damages, in addition to the confiscation for the benefit of the Comédie Française, of the 43,000 francs which that theater owed me.

Maître Barboux was my advocate. He was an intimate friend of Perrin. He defended me very indifferently. I was condemned to pay a hundred thousand francs to the Comédie Française and to lose the 43,000 francs which I had left with the management. I may say that I did not trouble much about this law suit.

Three days after my resignation Jarrett called upon me. He proposed to me for the third time to make a contract for America. This time I lent an ear to his propositions. We had never spoken about prices and this is what he proposed:

Five thousand francs for each performance and the half of the takings above 15,000 francs; that is to say, if the day the receipts reached the sum of 20,000 francs, I should receive 7,500 francs. In addition: 1,000 francs per week for my hotel bill; also, a special Pullman for my journeys, containing my bedroom, a drawing-room with a piano, four beds for my staff, and two cooks to cook for me on the way. Mr. Jarrett was to have ten per cent. on all sums received by me.

I accepted everything. I was anxious to leave Paris. Jarrett immediately sent a telegram to Mr. Abbey, the great American impresario, and he landed on this side thirteen days later. I signed the contract made by Jarrett, which was discussed clause by clause with the American manager.

I was given, on signing the contract, 100,000 francs as advance payment for the expenses of departure. I was to play eight pieces: “Hernani,” “Phèdre,” “Adrienne Lecouvreur,” “Froufrou,” “La Dame aux Camélias,” “Le Sphinx,” “L’Etrangère,” and “La Princesse George.”

I ordered twenty-five costumes for town wear at Laferrière’s, with whom I then dealt.

At Baron’s I ordered six costumes for “Adrienne Lecouvreur,” and four costumes for “Hernani.” I ordered from a young theater costumier named Lepaul, my costume for “Phèdre.” These thirty-six costumes cost me 61,000 francs; but out of this my costume for “Phèdre” alone cost 4,000 francs. The poor artiste-costumier had embroidered it himself. It was a marvel. It was brought to me two days before my departure and I cannot think of this moment without emotion. Irritated by long waiting, I was writing an angry letter to the costumier when he was announced. At first I received him very badly, but I found him looking so ill, the poor man, that I made him sit down and asked how he came to be so ill.

“Yes, I am not at all well,” he said in such a weak voice, that I was quite upset. “I wanted to finish this dress and I have worked at it three days and nights. But look how nice it is, your costume!” And he spread it out with loving respect before me.

“Look!” remarked Guérard, “a little spot!”

“Ah, I pricked myself,” answered the poor artiste quickly.

But I had just caught sight of a drop of blood at the corner of his lips. He wiped it quickly away so that it should not fall on the pretty costume as the other little spot had done. I gave the artiste the 4,000 francs, which he took with trembling hands. He murmured some unintelligible words and withdrew.

“Take away this costume, take it away!” I cried to my petite dame and my maid. And I cried so much that I had the hiccough all the evening. Nobody understood why I was crying. But I reproached myself bitterly for having worried the poor man. It was plain that he was dying. And by the force of circumstances I had unwittingly forged the first link of the chain of death which was dragging to the tomb this youth of twenty-two—this artiste with a future before him.

I would never wear this costume. It is still in its box yellowed with age. Its gold embroidery is tarnished by time, and the little spot of blood has slightly reddened the stuff. As to the poor artiste, I learned of his death during my stay in London in the month of May, for before leaving for America I signed with Hollingshead and Mayer, the impresarios of the Comédie, a contract which bound me to them from the 24th May to the 24th June (1880).

It was during this period that the lawsuit which the Comédie Française brought against me was judged.

Maître Barboux did not consult me about anything, and my success in London, which was achieved without the help of the Comédie, irritated the Committee, the press, and the public.

Maître Allon, in his pleadings, pretended that the London public, which was quickly tired of me, would not now come to those performances of the Comédie in which I appeared.

The following list gives the best possible denial to the assertions of Maître Allon: