In later years it was fairly well known amongst theatrical people that
Sarah was subject to “stage fright.” The only occasion however on which
nerves actually stopped her performance, occurred at Auteuil school,
when she was eight years and three months old. Sarah told this story to
me on one memorable day at Ville d’Avray, when, during a fête given by
the Grand Duke Peter of Russia, we had stolen away from the crowd into
Bellevue woods. I have never seen the incident referred to in print.
“I had been at the school a little more than a year,” Sarah told me,
“when it was decided to give a performance of _Clotilde_, a play for
children, which concerned a little girl’s adventures in fairyland.
Stella Colas, afterwards the wife of Pierre de Corvin, was cast for the
name part. Another little fair girl (whose name I have forgotten) was
to play the rôle of Augustine, the partner of Clotilde. And I was cast
for the part of the Queen of the Fairies.
“At the rehearsals--we rehearsed all the winter--everything went well.
My part was not an important one, but it involved some pretty realistic
acting in the second act, when the Queen of the Fairies dies of
mortification on hearing Clotilde affirm that the fairies do not really
exist. This was the first ‘death scene’ in which I ever acted.
“I wore wings, of course, and many rehearsals were necessary before
the stage-manager, who was our kindergarten teacher, could get me to
fall without breaking them. Finally I learned the part, and managed to
do it to the entire satisfaction of everyone.
“When the great night came, we were, of course, all very nervous,
myself most of all, for my mother and two aunts had written that they
would be present accompanied by no less a personage than the Duc de
Morny, then considered to be the power behind Napoleon the Third’s
throne.
“Before the curtain went up, my knees were knocking together and I felt
a wild desire to fly. I tried to run away and hide, in fact, but the
teacher found me, petted me and made me promise to go on with the part.
“I had nothing to do until the end of the first act, when Clotilde
and Augustine fall asleep at the foot of a great tree and dream of
the fairies. My part was to descend from the tree, assisted by unseen
wires, float to the middle of the stage, and then pronounce the words:
‘_On demande la reine des rêves? Me voici!_’ (‘They want the Queen of
Dreams? Here I am!’)
“Clotilde and Augustine fell asleep, and trembling all over I
floated down and advanced to the front of the stage. We had no
regular footlights, and everyone in the little auditorium could be
distinguished from the stage.
“Instead of pronouncing the sentence about the Queen of Dreams, I stood
tongue-tied, unable to utter a syllable. Several times my mouth opened,
and I tried to speak, but the words would not come. All the time I was
anxiously searching the audience for familiar faces. It was only when I
saw none, and realised that my mother was not present, that I managed
to stutter:
“‘_On d-d-dem-m-m-mande la reine d-des rêves? M-m-me voici!_’
“The last word I uttered in one breathless syllable; then rushed off
the stage to the accompaniment of much amused applause.
“In the wings of the tiny stage I was met by the principal of the
school, who, affecting not to notice my embarrassment, complimented me
warmly on my ‘success,’ and then told me that my mother and her party
had not arrived. This, more than anything else, gave me the necessary
courage to go through with my part.
“Even in later years when I was on the regular stage, the presence of
my mother in an audience invariably made me so nervous that I could
hardly play. She was ever the harshest critic I had!
“The second act proceeded fairly well, since it was chiefly a dance by
the fairies, with myself in the centre, wielding a mystic sceptre. All
I had to do was wave the sceptre, and the fairies would bow as it was
raised and lowered. Finally came the big moment when Clotilde awakens,
and says: ‘Pshaw, I was dreaming; there are no such things as fairies!’
“With these words I was supposed to stop and wave my sceptre
indignantly, on which all the other fairies disappeared, leaving me
alone with Clotilde and the sleeping Augustine. Clotilde advances to me
and asks: ‘Who are you?’ To my reply ‘I am the Queen of the Fairies,’
she answers scornfully: ‘You are a fraud, for there are no such things
as fairies.’
“When she utters these words I stagger and then, moaning and clasping
my hand to my heart, sink slowly to the ground. Clotilde, agonised,
asks: ‘What is the matter?’ and I reply: ‘You have killed me, for when
a little girl says she doesn’t believe in the fairies, she mortally
wounds their Queen.’
“We had got as far as my reply ‘I am the Queen,’ when suddenly I
perceived, in the front row of the audience, six beautifully-gowned
ladies and two gentlemen, who had not been there before. In trepidation
I searched their faces, standing stock-still and not listening to
Clotilde’s scornful reply. Yes! There was my mother, and there were my
two aunts, as I had feared!
“All my stage-fright came back to me. And, instead of sinking to the
ground as I was supposed to do, I burst out sobbing and ran off the
stage, in the centre of which I left poor Clotilde standing, a forlorn
little girl of ten. Instantly there was a storm of laughter and
applause. Unable to stand it, Clotilde too ran off the stage, and the
curtain was hastily rung down.
“Soon I was surrounded with teachers and elder girls, some abusing
me, others begging me to finish the play. But it was useless. I could
act no more and the play, for lack of an understudy, was over. I was
hustled, a weeping and very bedraggled-looking fairy, to the dormitory,
where I was left alone with my thoughts.
“I would have given worlds to have been left alone for the remainder
of the day! But it was not to be, for scarcely fifteen minutes passed
before the door opened and my mother appeared, followed by my aunts and
their whole party!
“I could have prayed for the floor to open and swallow me! I hid my
head in the bedclothes, like an ostrich, and affected not to hear the
words addressed to me. Finally I felt firm hands on my shoulders and I
was dragged forth, weeping violently.
“If mother had only taken me in her arms and kissed and comforted
me! I was only a tiny child, not yet nine years old and still
constitutionally weak, with high-strung nerves. But she stood there
holding me and looking coldly into my tear-filled eyes.
“‘And to think,’ she said icily, ‘that this is a child of mine!’
“‘One would never think it,’ said Aunt Rosine, sternly.
“All were hard, unsympathetic, seeming not to realise that they were
bullying a child whose nerves were at the breaking point and who was
in reality almost dead from exhaustion. I broke into another storm of
sobs and, kicking myself free from my mother, ran to the bed and threw
myself upon it in despair. With some further unkindly remarks from my
mother and aunts, the party finally left, but as he reached the door
the Duc de Morny, the last to go out, turned and retraced the few steps
to my bed.
“‘Never mind, my little one,’ he whispered. ‘You will show them all how
to act one of these days, won’t you?’
“His comforting words, however, had come too late. I had sobbed myself
into a fever and the next morning the doctor had to be called. For
several days I was kept in bed and forbidden to see the other girls.
Through these long four days I kept thinking constantly of my mother.
Why had she been so cruel, so cold to her daughter? I knew that another
child had been born the year before, and with childish intuition I
hit upon the right answer. Mother loved the baby more than she loved
me--if, indeed, she loved me at all. I was inconsolable at the thought.
How lonely a vista the coming years opened to my immature imagination!
Scores of times I sobbed out loud: ‘I would rather be dead! I would
rather be dead!’
“Alas! this was not the last time that my mother’s chilly behaviour
towards me threw me into a paroxysm of misery resulting in illness. I
never grew callous to her disapproval of me; her cutting criticisms
had always the power to wound me to the heart. And yet I loved her!
More, I adored her! Poor, lonely, friendless child that I was and had
ever been, my starved heart cried out to the one human being whose love
I had the right to claim, and who responded to my caresses sometimes
almost as if I had been a stranger.”
This was the only occasion on which Sarah Bernhardt ever bewailed to
me or to anyone else, her mother’s lack of affection for her. She was
scrupulously loyal to both her parents, and on the rare occasions when
she mentioned them, it was always in terms of genuine love and respect.
During her two years in Auteuil, Sarah’s mother went to see her only
three times, and her father only once. Her father’s visit took place
at the end of the first year, in December 1851. It was the first time,
to her recollection, that Sarah had ever seen him. They met in the
head-mistress’s office, and the occasion must have been replete with
drama.
“I was called from study one afternoon about three o’clock,” said
Sarah, “and taken to Mme. Fressard’s _bureau_. I found her waiting
for me at the door with a peculiar expression on her face, and in the
arm-chair near the fireplace I saw a very well-dressed man of about
thirty, with a waxed moustache.
“‘_Ma chérie_,’ said Madame Fressard, ‘here is your father come to see
you.’
“_Mon père!_ So this was the mysterious personage whose wish and order
governed my life; this the parent of whom my mother was apparently so
much in fear, and yet whom she seldom saw; this the stranger who was
responsible for my being!
“I advanced shyly and gave my face to be kissed, an operation which
my father performed twice, on both sides, his moustache giving me a
prickly sensation on my cheeks.
“‘Why, she is growing into quite a little beauty!’ he said to Madame
Fressard, holding me so that he could look at me closely. Then he asked
me many questions: Was I happy? Was I well? Had I playmates? What had I
learned? Could I read and write?--and spell?--and do sums?
“The interrogation lasted ten minutes and then my father took his tall
grey hat and gloves, and prepared to leave.
“‘We will leave her with you for a little while longer, madame,’ he
said to Madame Fressard, while I listened with all my ears.
“‘I am going for a long journey and do not expect to return for eight
or ten months. When I come back we will consider what is best to be
done.’
“Kissing me again, he took his departure and Madame Fressard drew me to
her.
“‘I should think you would love your father very, very much,’ she said.
‘He is such a handsome man!’
“‘How can I love him?’ I replied wonderingly. ‘I have never seen him
before.’”
A year later Bernhardt had not returned from South America, but he
sent Julie a letter, in which he urged that Sarah should be taken
from Madame Fressard’s preparatory school and sent to a convent; he
suggested Grandchamps Convent, at Versailles. He had written to the
Superior, he said, explaining the circumstances, and the latter had
replied that if little Sarah was sponsored by one other gentleman,
preferably one in Paris, the matter could be arranged. Julie at once
asked the Duc de Morny, who agreed to sponsor the child.
In the same letter Bernhardt said that he had made his will, in which
he left 20,000 francs to Sarah, providing she had married before the
age of twenty-one.
“I do not intend my daughter,” he wrote coldly, “to follow the example
of her mother.”
Until she was twenty-one the income from the 20,000 francs was to pay
for Sarah’s schooling. Her mother was to pay for her clothes.
Although the letter said that Bernhardt did not expect to return to
France for several months, he actually caught the next boat to that
which carried his letter, and arrived in Paris just after Sarah had
been withdrawn from the school at Auteuil.
This had not been effected without a storm of protest on Sarah’s part.
The two years had passed happily at Madame Fressard’s, and she feared
the future, surrounded by strange and cold relatives.
Julie had gone to London, and it was Aunt Rosine who went to the school
to fetch the child.
Sarah delighted to tell of this departure from the school.
“I hated to leave,” she told me, “and it was two hours before they
could succeed in dressing me. Once this was accomplished, I flew
at Tante Rosine like a young fury, and spoiled all her elaborate
_coiffure_.
“She was furious and, bundling me into her coach, commanded me to keep
silent. But I would not, and throughout the journey in the jolting
carriage from Auteuil to 6, rue de la Chaussée d’Antin, where my aunt
and my mother owned a joint flat, I tore at her hair and kicked at her
legs, and otherwise performed like the disgraceful young ragamuffin I
really was.
“I was no better on our arrival at the flat, and kept the whole
household in an uproar until I heard the sudden announcement that my
father had arrived! Then I collapsed and had to be carried to bed,
where I lost consciousness for three hours. When I awoke, it was to
find a doctor and nurse installed and an array of medicine bottles on
the table. I felt utterly exhausted and I heard Doctor Monod, the great
physician who had been called by the Duc de Morny, tell my father that
I was in an extremely delicate condition and that my recovery depended
upon my being kept absolutely quiet. ‘Above all,’ said he, ‘she is not
to be “crossed.”’”
Sarah’s father often visited her during her three days’ convalescence
from the fever brought on by a fit of temper, and on two occasions
he brought with him Rossini, who lived in the same street and was an
intimate friend.
Julie had been informed of Sarah’s illness, but was herself ill at
Haarlem, in Holland, where she had just arrived from London. It was a
fortnight before she reached Paris, and in the meantime Sarah stayed
at Neuilly, in the home of another and married aunt whose husband
afterwards became a monk.
When Julie finally arrived, a dinner was arranged to take place the
night before Sarah was taken to the Convent. Edouard Bernhardt was
present. This was the last time Sarah saw her father, for he died
shortly afterwards in Italy.
Sarah’s life at the Convent has been more or less faithfully described
in her own Memoirs, and I shall not dilate on it here. She was
expelled three times--the last time for good. She was baptised at the
age of twelve under the name of Rosine, and from then on dated her
determination to become a nun. For two years she was fanatical on the
subject of religion, but this did not prevent her fits of temper from
breaking out and disturbing the whole school.
“All my time at the Convent I was haunted by the desire to be a nun,”
she said to me once. “The beautiful life of the sisters who taught us
at Grandchamps, their almost unearthly purity, their tranquil tempers,
all made a tremendous impression on me. I dearly desired to take the
vows and, had it been left to me, Sarah Bernhardt would have become
Sister Rosine. But I doubt whether I would have remained a nun for life!
“I was never genuinely religious. It was the glamour and mystery and,
above all, the tranquillity surrounding the life of a cloistered nun
that attracted me. I should have run away from the Convent before many
weeks.”
Young Sarah was tremendously high-spirited and constantly in trouble.
The nuns were always sending despairing reports to her mother.
Once, during a presentation of prizes, she pretended to faint and acted
the part so realistically that even the Superior was deceived and
believed her pupil to be dead. It gave her such a shock that the poor
lady was ill for days. Sarah was sent to her bedroom in disgrace.
“I spent the time reading forbidden books and eating _bonbons_ that the
_concierge_ had smuggled in to me,” she said, in telling me the story.
On another occasion she organised a flight from the Convent. In the
dead of night she and six other girls of a similarly adventurous
disposition climbed down torn and knotted sheets from their dormitory
windows to the ground. Clambering over the high wall surrounding the
Convent grounds, they took to their heels and were caught only at noon
the next day, when in the act of throwing stones at horses of the Royal
Dragoons.
For this exploit she was expelled, but was allowed to return on her
promise never to give trouble again.
Scarcely two months afterwards, however, she was discovered by the
mother-superior on top of the Convent wall, imitating the Bishop of
Versailles, whom the day before she had seen conducting the Burial
Service at a graveside. Expelled again!
On still another occasion she was caught flirting with a young soldier,
who had tossed his cap over the wall. When the nuns tried to catch her,
she climbed the wall and stayed there for hours, until long after dark.
On this occasion she caught a chill which nearly resulted in her death,
and when she had recovered she left the Convent for good.