LOVE'S INTERMEZZO
Bernhardt takes advantage of my day-dreams--My husband's indolent
_gaucherie_--Violent love-making--Ninon who loved families, not
men--Does Bernhardt really love me?
LOSCHWITZ, _April 10, 1901_.
Fortunately Bernhardt came for a few days to relieve the monotony of my
alcove life _par le droit du plus fort_.
Tall stories of dissipation, indiscipline, scandal, had preceded the
poor fellow. No doubt, his military superiors got orders to make his
life as unhappy as they possibly can, and he retaliates.
The Prince told me that, at last, he had succeeded arranging for an
audience with the King. His Majesty had denied himself to Bernhardt for
months past. He managed the coveted boon only by the intervention of
various high generals and the threat to appeal to the Kaiser.
The Royal House of Saxony, while compelled to recognize William as
War-Lord, doesn't court his interference, or attempted interference, in
matters military.
Flushed with this initial success and expecting lots of good things in
the future, Bernhardt was bent upon having a good time. He drank with
Frederick Augustus, made love to Lucretia and squeezed the chambermaids
on his floor to his heart's content.
To me he was the most gallant of cousins and, glad to contribute to the
happiness of the poor fellow, I gave him plenty of rope, perhaps too
much.
On the second day of his stay we had a very merry dinner, having
dispensed for the time with titled servants.
After dinner the three of us retired to the veranda. I was in a rocker,
showing perhaps more of my ankles than was absolutely necessary.
Frederick Augustus was smoking dreamily. Like an animal he likes to
sleep after he has gorged himself.
Bernhardt, with my permission, had thrown himself on a wicker lounge and
was absorbing cigarettes at a killing rate. I bantered him on his
laziness. But he only sighed.
"You wish that audience was past and forgotten," I asked.
"Pshaw, I'm thinking of something prettier than the King."
Remembering Bernhardt's chief weakness, I indulged in the old joke,
"_Cherchez la femme_."
Bernhardt replied, with another succession of groans, "You are right,
Louise; _parfaitement, cherchez la femme_."
"Egads," grunted Frederick Augustus, glad for an excuse to go to his
room, or play a game of pinochle with his aides, "egads, if you indulge
in intellectualities, I had better go. A full stomach and French
conversation--whew!"
The Tisch was in Dresden; _Fraeulein_ von Schoenberg with the children,
Lucretia flirting somewhere at a neighboring country chalet. We were
alone on the remote terrace and it was getting dark. Bernhardt sat up
and looked at me with eyes of life-giving fire, but continued silent.
"You want me to think that you command the rays of the sun stolen by
Prometheus?"
He answered not, but sought to burn the skin of my neck and bosom by
those Prometheus rays.
Now, in the morning I got a note from Henry, and I had been thinking of
the dear boy every minute. I was longing for him; my heart, my senses
were crying for him.
I forgot Bernhardt; I forgot all around me. With my fancies focussed on
my lover, I leaned back in my armchair, gazing at the rising moon. My
word, at that moment I was lost to everything.
I half-awoke from my dream when I heard Bernhardt rise. A moment later I
felt his eyes prowling over my body. Then a shadow darkened my face and
Bernhardt said with a strange quaver in his voice:
"_Cherchez la femme._ You are the woman, Louise, you and none else."
And wild, forbidden kisses burned on my face, on my neck, on my breasts.
Both hands claimed a lover's liberties.
I was taken completely unawares; in my mind of minds I was in the
Countess's pavilion, receiving Henry's caresses. All sense of location
had vanished. And, thinking of my lover, I clasped both arms about
Bernhardt's neck and drew him to me. We kissed like mad. The love feast
for Henry became Bernhardt's in the twinkling of an eye.
Whether he felt like a thief, I don't know; for my part my senses
responded to Henry, not to his substitute.
How long this embrace lasted, I don't know. Somebody, or some noise,
caused us to separate.
I fled and locked myself in my room.
"Tell His Royal Highness he must excuse me. I can't see him before he
goes away. Say I have a headache, or the gout, I don't care which," I
commanded Lucretia next morning.
The previous night I had denied myself to Frederick Augustus, though he
entreated and raved.
While I appreciate the arch-Lais's _bon mot_ that "one can't judge of a
family by a single specimen," which made Ninon talk of her lovers _not_
as Coligny, Villarceau, Sevigne, Conde, d'Albret, etc., but as _les_
Rochefoucaults, _les_ d'Effiats, _les_ Condes, _les_ Sevignes, etc., I
was determined not to betray Henry by the whole House of Saxony in a
single twelve-hours.
I wonder whether this Bernhardt loves me? Perhaps, on his part, it was
the longing for the girl he adores, as, on mine, it was longing for
Henry that drew us together with electric force. And, of course,
environment had something to do with it: moon, opportunity, Frederick
Augustus's indolent _gaucherie_. Yes, why deny it, the good dinner we
had, the champagne.