hesitated to approach the dog-wolf, and it was all in vain that I
assured them that my cheetah was not dangerous. No one would open the
cage, and it was carried out into the garden. I asked for a hammer in
order to open the door of the cage which had been nailed down, thus
keeping the poor cheetah a prisoner. When my domestics heard me ask for
the hammer they decided to open it themselves. Madame Guérard and the
women servants watched from the windows. Presently the door burst open,
and the cheetah, beside himself with joy, sprang like a tiger out of his
cage, wild with liberty. He rushed at the trees and made straight for
the dogs, who all four began to howl with terror. The parrot was
excited, and uttered shrill cries; and the monkey, shaking his cage
about, gnashed his teeth to distraction. This concert in the silent
square made the most prodigious effect. All the windows were opened, and
more than twenty faces appeared above my garden wall, all of them
inquisitive, alarmed, or furious. I was seized with a fit of
uncontrollable laughter, and so was my friend Louise Abbema. Nittis the
painter, who had come to call on me, was in the same state, and so was
Gustave Doré, who had been waiting for me ever since two o’clock.
Georges Deschamp, an amateur musician with a great deal of talent, tried
to note down this Hoffmanesque harmony, whilst my friend Georges
Clairin, his back shaking with laughter, sketched the never-to-be-
forgotten scene.
The next day in London the chief topic of conversation was the Bedlam
that had been let loose at 77 Chester Square. So much was made of it
that our _doyen_, M. Got, came to beg me not to make such a scandal, as
it reflected on the Comédie Française. I listened to him in silence, and
when he had finished I took his hands.
“Come with me and I will show you the scandal,” I said. I led the way
into the garden, followed by my visitor and friends.
“Let the cheetah out!” I said, standing on the steps like a captain
ordering his men to take in a reef.
When the cheetah was free the same mad scene occurred again as on the
previous day.
“You see, Monsieur le Doyen,” I said, “this is my Bedlam.”
“You are mad,” he said, kissing me; “but it certainly is irresistibly
comic,” and he laughed until the tears came when he saw all the heads
appearing above the garden wall.
The hostilities continued, though, through scraps of gossip retailed by
one person to another and from one set to another. The French Press took
it up, and so did the English Press. In spite of my happy disposition
and my contempt for ill-natured tales, I began to feel irritated.
Injustice has always roused me to revolt, and injustice was certainly
having its fling. I could not do a thing that was not watched and
blamed.
One day I was complaining of this to Madeleine Brohan, whom I loved
dearly. That adorable artiste took my face in her hands, and looking
into my eyes, said:
[Illustration:
SARAH BERNHARDT
_From the portrait by Mlle. Louise Abbema_
]
“My poor dear, you can’t do anything to prevent it. You are original
without trying to be so. You have a dreadful head of hair that is
naturally curly and rebellious, your slenderness is exaggerated, you
have a natural harp in your throat, and all this makes of you a creature
apart, which is a crime of high treason against all that is commonplace.
That is what is the matter with you physically. Now for your moral
defects. You cannot hide your thoughts, you cannot stoop to anything,
you never accept any compromise, you will not lend yourself to any
hypocrisy—and all that is a crime of high treason against society. How
can you expect under these conditions not to arouse jealousy, not to
wound people’s susceptibilities, and not to make them spiteful? If you
are discouraged because of these attacks, it will be all over with you,
as you will have no strength left to withstand them. In that case I
advise you to brush your hair, to put oil on it, and so make it lie as
sleek as that of the famous Corsican; but even that would never do, for
Napoleon had such sleek hair that it was quite original. Well, you might
try to brush your hair as smooth as Prudhon’s,[4] then there would be no
risk for you. I would advise you,” she continued, “to get a little
stouter, and to let your voice break occasionally; then you would not
annoy any one. But if you wish to remain _yourself_, my dear, prepare to
mount on a little pedestal made of calumny, scandal, injustice,
adulation, flattery, lies, and truths. When you are once upon it,
though, do the right thing, and cement it by your talent, your work, and
your kindness. All the spiteful people who have unintentionally provided
the first materials for the edifice will kick it then, in hopes of
destroying it. They will be powerless to do this, though, if you choose
to prevent them; and that is just what I hope for you, my dear Sarah, as
you have an ambitious thirst for glory. I cannot understand that myself,
as I only like rest and retirement.”
Footnote 4:
Prudhon was one of the artistes of the Théâtre Français.
I looked at her with envy, she was so beautiful: with her liquid eyes,
her face with its pure, restful lines, and her weary smile. I wondered
in an uneasy way if happiness were not rather in this calm tranquillity,
in the disdain of all things. I asked her gently if this were so, for I
wanted to know; and she told me that the theatre bored her, that she had
had so many disappointments. She shuddered when she spoke of her
marriage, and as to her motherhood, that had only caused her sorrow. Her
love affairs had left her with affections crushed and physically
disabled. The light seemed doomed to fade from her beautiful eyes, her
legs were swollen and could scarcely carry her. She told me all this in
the same calm, half weary tone.
What had charmed me only a short time before chilled me to the heart
now, for her dislike to movement was caused by the weakness of her eyes
and her legs, and her delight in retirement was only the love of that
peace which was so necessary to her, wounded as she was by the life she
had lived.
The love of life, though, took possession of me more violently than
ever. I thanked my dear friend, and profited by her advice. I armed
myself for the struggle, preferring to die in the midst of the battle
rather than to end my life regretting that it had been a failure. I made
up my mind not to weep over the base things that were said about me, and
not to suffer any more injustices. I made up my mind, too, to stand on
the defensive, and very soon an occasion presented itself.
_L’Etrangère_ was to be played for the second time at a _matinée_, June
21, 1879. The day before I had sent word to Mayer that I was not well,
and that as I was playing in _Hernani_ at night, I should be glad if he
could change the play announced for the afternoon if possible. The
advance booking, however, was more than £400, and the committee would
not hear of it.
“Oh well,” Got said to Mr. Mayer, “we must give the _rôle_ to some one
else if Sarah Bernhardt cannot play. There will be Croizette, Madeleine
Brohan, Coquelin, Febvre, and myself in the cast, and, _que diable!_ it
seems to me that all of us together will make up for Mademoiselle
Bernhardt.”
Coquelin was requested to ask Lloyd to take my part, as she had played
this _rôle_ at the Comédie when I was ill. Lloyd was afraid to undertake
it, though, and refused. It was decided to change the play, and
_Tartufe_ was given instead of _L’Etrangère_. Nearly all the public,
however, asked to have their money refunded, and the receipts, which
would have been about £500, only amounted to £84. All the spite and
jealousy now broke loose, and the whole company of the Comédie, more
particularly the men, with the exception of M. Worms, started a campaign
against me. Francisque Sarcey, as drum-major, beat the measure with his
terrible pen in his hand. The most foolish, slanderous, and stupid
inventions and the most odious lies took their flight like a cloud of
wild ducks, and swooped suddenly down upon all the newspapers that were
against me. It was said that for a shilling any one might see me dressed
as a man; that I smoked huge cigars, leaning on the balcony of my house;
that at the various receptions where I gave one-act plays I took my maid
with me to play a small part; that I practised fencing in my garden,
dressed as a pierrot in white; and that when taking boxing lessons I had
broken two teeth of my unfortunate professor.
Some of my friends advised me to take no notice of all these turpitudes,
assuring me that the public could not possibly believe them. They were
mistaken, though, for the public likes to believe bad things about any
one, as these are always more amusing than the good things. I soon had a
proof that the English public was beginning to believe what the French
papers said. I received a letter from a tailor asking me if I would
consent to wear a coat of his make when I appeared in masculine attire,
and not only did he offer me this coat for nothing, but he was willing
to pay me a hundred pounds if I would wear it. This man was an ill-bred
person, but he was sincere. I received several boxes of cigars, and the
boxing and fencing professors wrote to offer their services
gratuitously. All this annoyed me to such a degree that I resolved to
put an end to it. An article by Albert Wolff in the Paris _Figaro_
caused me to take steps to cut matters short.
This is what I wrote in reply to the article in the _Figaro_, June 27,
1879:
“ALBERT WOLFF, _Figaro_, Paris.
“And you, too, my dear Monsieur Wolff—you believe in such insanities?
Who can have been giving you such false information? Yes, you are my
friend, though, for in spite of all the infamies you have been told,
you have still a little indulgence left. Well then, I give you my word
of honour that I have never dressed as a man here in London. I did not
even bring my sculptor costume with me. I give the most emphatic
denial to this misrepresentation. I only went once to the exhibition
which I organised, and that was on the opening day, for which I had
only sent out a few private invitations, so that no one paid a
shilling to see me. It is true that I have accepted some private
engagements to act, but you know that I am one of the least
remunerated members of the Comédie Française. I certainly have the
right, therefore, to try to make up the difference. I have ten
pictures and eight pieces of sculpture on exhibition. That, too, is
quite true, but as I brought them over here to sell, really I must
show them. As to the respect due to the House of Molière, dear
Monsieur Wolff, I lay claim to keeping that in mind more than any one
else, for I am absolutely incapable of inventing such calumnies for
the sake of slaying one of its standard-bearers. And now, if the
stupidities invented about me have annoyed the Parisians, and if they
have decided to receive me ungraciously on my return, I do not wish
any one to be guilty of such baseness on my account, so I will send in
my resignation to the Comédie Française. If the London public is tired
of all this fuss and should be inclined to show me ill-will instead of
the indulgence hitherto accorded me, I shall ask the Comédie to allow
me to leave England, in order to spare our company the annoyance of
seeing one of its members hooted at and hissed. I am sending you this
letter by wire, as the consideration I have for public opinion gives
me the right to commit this little folly, and I beg you, dear Monsieur
Wolff, to accord to my letter the same honour as you did to the
calumnies of my enemies.—With very kind regards,
“Yours sincerely,
“SARAH BERNHARDT.”
This telegram caused much ink to flow. Whilst treating me as a spoiled
child, people generally agreed that I was quite right. The Comédie was
most amiable. Perrin, the manager, wrote me an affectionate letter
begging me to give up my idea of leaving the company. The women were
most friendly. Croizette came to see me, and putting her arms round me,
said, “Tell me you won’t do such a thing, my dear, foolish child! You
won’t really send in your resignation? In the first place; it would not
be accepted, I can answer for that!”
Mounet-Sully talked to me of art and of probity. His whole speech
savoured of Protestantism. There are several Protestant pastors in his
family, and this influenced him unconsciously. Delaunay, surnamed Father
Candour, came solemnly to inform me of the bad impression my telegram
had made. He told me that the Comédie Française was a Ministry; that
there was the Minister, the secretary, the sub-chiefs and the
_employés_, and that each one must conform to the rules and bring in his
share either of talent or work, and so on and so on. I saw Coquelin at
the theatre in the evening. He came to me with outstretched hands.
“You know I can’t compliment you,” he said, “on your rash action, but
with good luck we shall make you change your mind. When one has the good
fortune and the honour of belonging to the Comédie Française, one must
remain there until the end of one’s career.”
Frédéric Febvre pointed out to me that I ought to stay with the Comédie,
because it would save money for me, and I was quite incapable of doing
that myself.
“Believe me,” he said, “when we are with the Comédie we must not leave;
it means our bread provided for us later on.”
Got, our _doyen_, then approached me.
“Do you know what you are doing in sending in your resignation?” he
asked.
“No,” I replied.
“Deserting.”
“You are mistaken,” I answered; “I am not deserting: I am changing
barracks.”
Others then came to me, and they all gave me advice tinged by their own
personality: Mounet as a seer or believer; Delaunay prompted by his
bureaucratic soul; Coquelin as a politician blaming another person’s
ideas, but extolling them later on and putting them into practice for
his own profit; Febvre, a lover of respectability; Got, as a selfish old
growler understanding nothing but the orders of the powers that be and
advancement as ordained on hierarchical lines. Worms said to me in his
melancholy way:
“Will they be better towards you elsewhere?”
Worms had the most dreamy soul and the most frank, straightforward
character of any member of our illustrious company. I liked him
immensely.
We were about to return to Paris, and I wanted to forget all these
things for a time. I was in a hesitating mood. I postponed taking a
definite decision. The stir that had been made about me, the good that
had been said in my favour 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 being either 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 on the right and on the left, in front and behind, its clammy
arms, 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 cock’s-comb 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 every one 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.
[Illustration:
SARAH BERNHARDT
_From the portrait by Jules Bastien-Lepage_
]
On the first night of Louis Bouilhet’s piece, _Mademoiselle Aïssé_, at
the Odéon, Flaubert, who was an intimate friend of the author,
introduced an _attaché_ of the British Embassy to me.
“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.
XXIX
THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE RETURNS TO PARIS—SARAH BERNHARDT’S COMMENTS ON
ACTORS AND ACTRESSES OF THE DAY
The return of the Comédie to its home was an event, but an event that
was kept quiet. Our departure from Paris had been very lively and gay,
and quite a public function. 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, whilst those who had been failures were
furious.
I had not been back home an hour when Perrin 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 too thin? Is it my fault,
too, if my hair is too curly, and if I don’t think just as other people
do? Supposing that I took sufficient arsenic during a 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 this remark, and I
understood 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 this. I
owned it to Perrin, and told him that he was quite right. He took
advantage of my mood to lecture me and advise me not to put in an
appearance at the opening ceremony that was soon 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, Monsieur 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 consequence 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. “There is a rehearsal to-morrow. Shall you
come?”
“I shall come,” I answered.
The next day at the rehearsal not one of the artistes, man or woman,
seemed to care about going on to the stage to bow with me. I must say,
though, that they all showed nevertheless much good grace. I declared,
however, that I would go on alone, although it was against the rule, for
I thought I ought to face the ill humour 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 or the
crown to be placed 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 towards 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 towards me. I
had been warned of the battle, and I did not wish to provoke it, but I
would not fly from it. I waited a second, and I 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 evening was certainly one of the finest triumphs of my whole
career.
Some artistes were 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 amongst themselves. I have met with many
enemies among male comedians, and with very few among actresses.
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 endeavour 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 endeavour 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.