Sarah Bernhardt Encountered Series of Failures While Trying to Reward
Man Who Befriended Her Family.
Last June Sarah Bernhardt sailed back to Paris after the most successful
season she ever had in America. She took her profits with her in gold,
too, and nobody should begrudge her the money, for, besides being a
great artist, she is a generous soul, and is not chary of passing her
good fortune on to others.
The following instance of this spirit of generosity is recorded by the
San Francisco _Call_, and vouched for as authentic by one of THE SCRAP
BOOK staff who has personal knowledge of the affair:
When Sarah Bernhardt was in the city some years ago she gave a
breakfast to some of her friends at the California Hotel. It was
served about noon, and there were but three persons present besides
herself.
In the midst of the repast a bell-boy knocked at the door and said
that there was a man down-stairs who refused to give his card and
insisted on coming up to see her.
“Let him come, then,” was her reply.
The bell-boy explained that he had the appearance of a tough-looking
tramp and might be crazy.
“Never mind his looks or his clothes, he may be a friend of mine,” was
the reply.
In a few minutes a man of about sixty or more entered the room. He was
very shabbily dressed, had not shaved for a week, and his shirt-front
was well garnished with tobacco-juice.
The instant Bernhardt saw him she gave an exclamation and bounded
forward. She threw herself upon his neck and covered his rough face
with kisses.
The man was Mr. Levi, a furrier, who died recently in this city. Many
of the _Call_ readers will remember his short, heavy figure as he used
to walk the streets with furs thrown over his shoulder, looking for
customers.
Bernhardt at once made a place at the table and began opening
champagne for her guest. She introduced him as an old friend from
Paris and explained that when she was a child and her family was in
straits Mr. Levi had cared for them all one winter and kept them from
absolute want.
Every few moments she would jump up, clasp him about the neck and kiss
him again and again. There was no acting about these embraces, she was
glad to see him, and she wanted no misunderstanding on that score.
Presently she asked him why he did not go back to Paris and see his
relatives. He answered, sadly, that he was not able.
“Oh, that is easily remedied,” she said, and a moment later she had
written out a check for fifteen hundred dollars and thrown it across
the table to him.
He picked it up, and when he saw the amount he broke down completely.
With the tears streaming down his cheeks he said:
“Sarah, I didn’t come here for charity, but just to see you a few
moments.”
He handed the check back across the table.
“Oh, not enough? I make it bigger.”
She wrote another check for two thousand dollars and threw it over to
him. He looked at the second check and merely said:
“Give me the other, Sarah.”
She smiled as she handed it to him, and then the old man did a
magnificently independent thing. He slowly placed the two checks
together, tore them into bits and handed the fragments back to the
madame.
“No, no, Sarah; no money. Just your gratitude; that is all I ever
wanted.”
Then she was at his side again, kissing his tears away and sobbing
herself. It was a very pathetic scene and one not easily forgotten by
those who witnessed it.
She said that she would “fix him yet” in that peculiar way of hers,
which always means that she intends to have her own will.
Some months later I was in San Francisco and met old Levi waddling
along the streets with his furs. He stopped me and said he wanted my
advice.
“I have just got a letter from Sarah,” he said, “and I don’t know what
the devil to do about it.”
He translated the letter as he read it, and it went something like
this, as near as I can recall it:
“You tore up the last check I gave you, which was very mean of you. I
was very angry at the way you treated my checks. No one else ever did
such a thing to me but you, and you make me angry every time I think
of you and your treatment of me. You humiliate me before strangers.
They must have thought that my checks were worthless, or you must have
thought so.
“I now enclose another and larger one. It is for twenty-five hundred
dollars of your American money and if that is not big enough send it
back and I will make it larger, but some check of some denomination
you must accept, and if I gave you all the money I ever earned it
would not repay you for the time years ago in Paris you saved me from
want. I shall expect you to come to Paris at once and be my guest.
Answer yes by cable and make us all happy. If you do not do this you
must never call on me again, as I shall refuse to receive you.
Affectionately,
“SARAH.”
“What shall I do?” asked the old man with tears in his eyes. “She is
bound to have her way. She always was that way as a child.”
“Better send the despatch and then cash the check and go to Paris.”
“I guess I’ll have to,” said the old man, and he started for the
telegraph office.