My Double Life: The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt Part 16

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

"Well, it's settled!" exclaimed my G.o.dfather, shaking the snow from his hat. "Here, read that, you self-willed girl."

He handed me a letter stamped with the words "Theatre du Gymnase." It was from Montigny, the manager of the theatre, to M. de Gerbois, a friend of my G.o.dfather'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 _protegee_ 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 G.o.dfather was wanting in tact, as he might have given me real delight and avoided hurting my feelings in this way, but he was the clumsiest-minded man that ever lived. My mother seemed very much pleased, so I kissed her pretty face and thanked my G.o.dfather. 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 b.u.t.terfly 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 whilst 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. Guerard 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 Mademoiselle 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-humoured. 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 Comedie made me a great many promises about the _roles_ I should have to play. He prepared my contract, and gave it me to take home for my mother's signature and that of my family council.

"I am emanc.i.p.ated," I said to him, "so that my own signature is all that is required."

"Oh, very good," he said; "but what nonsense to have emanc.i.p.ated a self-willed girl. 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 contract, and hurried home feeling very joyful.

Montigny kept his word at first. He let me understudy Victoria Lafontaine, a young artist very much in vogue just then, who had the most delightful talent. I played in _La maison sans enfants_, and I took her _role_ at a moment's notice in _Le demon du jeu_, a piece which made a great success. I was fairly good in both plays, but Montigny, in spite of my entreaties, never came to see me in them, and the spiteful stage manager played me no end of tricks. I used to feel a sullen anger stirring within me, and I struggled with myself as much possible to keep my nerves calm.

One evening, on leaving the theatre, 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 part, and I fell asleep that night lulled by fairies, who carried me off into the land of glory and success. On arriving at the theatre I found Blanche Pierson and Celine Montalant already there--two of the prettiest creatures that G.o.d 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 ent.i.tled _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 _role_ was to be given to me, and I discovered this only too soon. It was a certain Princess Dimc.h.i.n.ka, a frivolous, foolish, laughing individual, who was always eating or dancing. I did not like the part at all. I was very inexperienced on the stage, and my timidity made me rather awkward.

Besides, I had not worked for three years with such persistency and conviction in order to create the _role_ 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 various sorts of sweets that were not generally known, and which he wanted to introduce. I remember one kind that he wanted to call _"bonbon negre."_ It was a mixture of chocolate and essence of coffee 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 for ever 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 _role_, 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 towards six in the morning I rushed up to Madame Guerard. 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 design. "Well, then," I said, "swear by your children that you will not tell any one what I am going to do, and then I will not kill myself." A sudden idea had just come into my mind, and, without going further into it, I wanted to carry it out at once. She promised, and I then told her that I was going at once to Spain, as I had longed 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. Every one is asleep at home. I shall go and pack my trunk, and start at once with you!"

"No, no, I cannot go," exclaimed Madame Guerard, nearly beside herself.

"There is my husband to think of, and my children."

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

"Well, then, _mon pet.i.t Dame_, find me some one to go with me."

"I do not know any one," 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 Madame Guerard. I had wrapped up a pewter fork in paper, and this I threw against one of the panes of gla.s.s 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 for Spain?" The bewildered expression on the woman's face showed that she had not comprehended, but she replied at once, "I am coming, Mademoiselle." She then closed her window, and ten minutes later Caroline was tapping at the door. Madame Guerard had sunk down aghast in an arm-chair.

M. Guerard 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 Madame Guerard'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 to be lent by _mon pet.i.t Dame_.

Poor dear Madame Guerard had given in. She was quite conquered, and soon began to help in my preparations, which certainly did not take me long.

But I did not know how to get to Spain.

"You go through Bordeaux," said Madame Guerard.

"Oh no," exclaimed Caroline; "my brother-in-law is a skipper, and he often goes to Spain by Ma.r.s.eilles."

I had saved nine hundred francs, and Madame Guerard lent me six hundred.

It was perfectly mad, but I felt ready to conquer the universe, and nothing would have induced me to abandon 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 Madame Guerard'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. Every one was asleep in my mother's flat, and the rooms were so disposed that not a sound of our going in and out could reach her.

My trunk was at last closed, 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 coming 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 Madame Guerard 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. _Mon pet.i.t Dame_ had asked the man who polished the floors to take the trunk and the valise down, and Caroline had fetched a cab. I went like a whirlwind past the concierge's door. She had her back turned towards 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 Theatre. 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.

"The conversation was very animated, and when the door 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 something urgent was the matter. 'Oh, what's happened now?' he asked, taking the letter that the old stage manager held out to him. On recognising my paper, with its grey 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 Madame Dieudonnee to take her part. She has a good memory, and half the _role_ must be cut. That will settle it.'

"'Any trouble for to-night?' I asked Montigny.

"'Oh, nothing,' he answered; 'it's that little Sarah Bernhardt who has cleared off to Spain!'

"'That girl from the Francais 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 Ma.r.s.eilles, 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.