My Double Life: The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt Part 11

IX

A MARRIAGE PROPOSAL AND EXAMINATIONS--THE CONSERVATOIRE

An evolution took place in me from that day. For rather a long time my soul remained child-like, but my mind discerned life more distinctly. I felt the need of creating a personality for myself. That was the first awakening of my will. I wanted to be some one. Mlle. de Brabender declared to me that this was pride. It seemed to me that it was not quite that, but I could not then define what the sentiment was which imposed this wish on me. I did not understand until a few months later why I wished to be some one.

A friend of my G.o.dfather's made me an offer of marriage. This man was a rich tanner and very kind, but so dark and with such long hair and such a beard that he disgusted me. I refused him, and my G.o.dfather then asked to speak to me alone. He made me sit down in my mother's boudoir, and said to me: "My poor child, it is pure folly to refuse Monsieur Bed----.

He has sixty thousand francs a year and expectations." It was the first time I had heard this use of the word, and when the meaning was explained to me I wondered if that was the right thing to say on such an occasion.

"Why, yes," replied my G.o.dfather; "you are idiotic with your romantic ideas. Marriage is a business affair, and must be considered as such.

Your future father- and mother-in-law will have to die, just as we shall, and it is by no means disagreeable to know that they will leave two million francs to their son, and consequently to you, if you marry him."

"I shall not marry him, though."

"Why?"

"Because I do not love him."

"But you never love your husband before----" replied my practical adviser. "You can love him after."

"After what?"

"Ask your mother. But listen to me now, for it is not a question of that. You must marry. Your mother has a small income which your father left her, but this income comes from the profits of the manufactory, which belongs to your grandmother, and she cannot bear your mother, who will therefore lose that income, and then she will have nothing, and three children on her hands. It is that accursed lawyer who is arranging all this. The whys and wherefores would take too long to explain. Your father managed his business affairs very badly. You must marry, therefore, if not for your own sake, for the sake of your mother and sisters. You can then give your mother the hundred thousand francs your father left you, which no one else can touch. Monsieur Bed---- will settle three hundred thousand francs on you. I have arranged everything, so that you can give this to your mother if you like, and with four hundred thousand francs she will be able to live very well."

I cried and sobbed, and asked to have time to think it over. I found my mother in the dining-room.

"Has your G.o.dfather told you?" she asked gently, in rather a timid way.

"Yes, mother, yes; he has told me. Let me think it over, will you?" I said, sobbing; as I kissed her neck lingeringly. I then locked myself in my bedroom, and for the first time for many days I regretted my convent.

All my childhood rose up before me, and I cried more and more, and felt so unhappy that I wished I could die. Gradually, however, I began to get calm again, and realised what had happened and what my G.o.dfather's words meant. Most decidedly I did not want to marry this man. Since I had been at the Conservatoire I had learnt a few things vaguely, very vaguely, for I was never alone, but I understood enough to make me not want to marry without being in love. I was, however, destined to be attacked in a quarter from which I should not have expected it. Madame Guerard asked me to go up to her room to see the embroidery she was doing on a frame for my mother's birthday.

My astonishment was great to find M. Bed---- there. He begged me to change my mind. He made me very wretched, for he pleaded with tears in his eyes.

"Do you want a larger marriage settlement?" he asked. "I would make it five hundred thousand francs."

But it was not that at all, and I said in a very low voice, "I do not love you, Monsieur."

"If you do not marry me, Mademoiselle," he said, "I shall die of grief."

I looked at him, and repeated to myself the words "die of grief." I was embarra.s.sed and desperate, but at the same time delighted, for he loved me just as a man does in a play. Phrases that I had read or heard came to my mind vaguely, and I repeated them without any real conviction, and then left him without the slightest coquetry.

M. Bed---- did not die. He is still living, and has a very important financial position. He is much nicer now than when he was so black, for at present he is quite white.

Well, I had just pa.s.sed my first examination with remarkable success, particularly in tragedy.

M. Provost, my professor, had not wanted me to compete in _Zare_, but I had insisted. I thought that scene with Zare and her brother Nerestan very fine, and it suited me. But when Zare, overwhelmed with her brother's reproaches, falls on her knees at his feet, Provost wanted me to say the words, "Strike, I tell you! I love him!" with violence, and I wanted to say them gently, perfectly resigned to a death that was almost certain. I argued about it for a long time with my professor, and finally I appeared to give in to him during the lesson. But on the day of the compet.i.tion I fell on my knees before Nerestan with a sob so real, my arms outstretched, offering my heart, so full of love, to the deadly blow that I expected, and I murmured with such tenderness, "Strike, I tell you! I love him!" that the whole house burst into applause and repeated the outburst twice over.

The second prize for tragedy was awarded me, to the great dissatisfaction of the public, as it was thought that I ought to have had the first prize. And yet it was only just that I should have the second, on account of my age and the short time I had been studying. I had a first accessit or comedy in _La fausse Agnes_.

I felt, therefore, that I had the right to refuse. My future lay open before me, and consequently my mother would not be in want if she should lose her present income. A few days later M. Regnier, professor at the Conservatoire and secretary of the Comedie Francaise, came to ask my mother whether she would allow me to play in a piece of his at the Vaudeville. The piece was _Germaine_, and the managers would give me twenty-five francs for each performance. I was amazed at the sum. Seven hundred and fifty francs a month for my first appearance! I was wild with joy. I besought my mother to accept the offer made by the Vaudeville, and she told me to do as I liked in the matter.

I asked M. Camille Doucet, director of the Fine Arts Department, to be so good as to receive me, and, as my mother always refused to accompany me, Madame Guerard went with me. My little sister Regina begged me to take her, and very unwisely I consented. We had not been in the director's office more than five minutes before my sister, who was only six years old, began to climb on to the furniture. She jumped on to a stool, and finally sat down on the floor, pulling towards her the paper basket, which was under the desk, and proceeded to spread about all the torn papers which it contained. On seeing this Camille Doucet mildly observed that she was not a very good little girl. My sister, with her head in the basket, answered in her husky voice, "If you bother me, Monsieur, I shall tell every one that you are there to give out holy water that is poison. My aunt says so." My face turned purple with shame, and I stammered out, "Please do not believe that, Monsieur Doucet. My little sister is telling an untruth."

Regina sprang to her feet, and clenching her little fists, rushed at me like a little fury. "Aunt Rosine never said that?" she exclaimed. "You are telling an untruth. Why, she said it to Monsieur de Morny, and he answered--"

I had forgotten this, and I have forgotten what the Duc de Morny answered, but, beside myself with anger, I put my hand over my sister's mouth and took her quickly away. She howled like a polecat, and we rushed like a hurricane through the waiting-room, which was full of people.

I then gave way to one of those violent fits of temper to which I had been subject in my childhood. I sprang into the first cab that pa.s.sed the door, and, when once in the cab, struck my sister with such fury that Madame Guerard was alarmed, and protected her with her own body, receiving all the blows I gave with my head, arms, and feet, for in my anger, grief, and shame I flung myself about to right and left. My grief was all the more profound from the fact that I was very fond of Camille Doucet. He was gentle and charming, affable and kind-hearted. He had refused my aunt something she had asked for, and, unaccustomed to being refused anything, she had a spite against him. This had nothing to do with me, though, and I wondered what Camille Doucet would think. And then, too, I had not asked him about the Vaudeville.

All my fine dreams had come to nothing. And it was this little monster, who looked as fair and as white as a seraph, who had just shattered my first hopes. Huddled up in the cab, an expression of fear on her self-willed looking face and her thin lips compressed, she was gazing at me under her long lashes with half-closed eyes.

On reaching home I told my mother all that had happened, and she declared that my little sister should have no dessert for two days.

Regina was greedy, but her pride was greater than her greediness. She turned round on her little heels and, dancing her jig, began to sing, "My little stomach isn't at all pleased," until I wanted to rush at her and shake her.

A few days later, during my lessons, I was told that the Ministry refused to allow me to perform at the Vaudeville.

M. Regnier told me how sorry he was, but he added in a kindly tone:

"Oh, but, my dear child, the Conservatoire thinks a lot of you.

Therefore you need not worry too much."

"I am sure that Camille Doucet is at the bottom of it," I said.

"No, he certainly is not," answered M. Regnier. "Camille Doucet was your warmest advocate; but the Minister will not upon any account hear of anything that might be detrimental to your _debut_ next year."

I at once felt most grateful to Camille Doucet for his kindness in bearing no ill-will after my little sister's stupid behaviour. I began to work again with the greatest zeal, and did not miss a single lesson.

Every morning I went to the Conservatoire with my governess. We started early, as I preferred walking to taking the omnibus, and I kept the franc which my mother gave me every morning, sixty centimes of which was for the omnibus, and forty for cakes. We were to walk home always, but every other day we took a cab with the two francs I had saved for this purpose. My mother never knew about this little scheme, but it was not without remorse that my kind Brabender consented to be my accomplice.

As I said before, I did not miss a lesson, and I even went to the deportment cla.s.s, at which poor old M. Elie, duly curled, powdered, and adorned with lace frills, presided. This was the most amusing lesson imaginable. Very few of us attended this cla.s.s, and M. Elie avenged himself on us for the abstention of the others. At every lesson each one of us was called forward. He addressed us by the familiar term of _thou_, and considered us as his property. There were only five or six of us, but we all had to go on the stage. He always stood up with his little black stick in his hand. No one knew why he had this stick.

"Now, young ladies," he would say, "the body thrown back, the head up, on tip-toes. That's it. Perfect! One, two, three, march!"

And we marched along on tip-toes with heads up and eyelids drawn over our eyes as we tried to look down in order to see where we were walking.

We marched along like this with all the stateliness and solemnity of camels! He then taught us to make our exit with indifference, dignity, or fury, and it was amusing to see us going towards the doors either with a lagging step, or in an animated or hurried way, according to the mood in which we were supposed to be. Then we heard "Enough! Go! Not a word!" For M. Elie would not allow us to murmur a single word.

"Everything," he used to say, "is in the look, the gesture, the att.i.tude!" Then there was what he called "l'a.s.siette," which meant the way to sit down in a dignified manner, to let one's self fall into a seat wearily, or the "a.s.siette," which meant "I am listening, Monsieur; say what you wish." Ah, that was distractingly complicated, that way of sitting down. We had to put everything into it: the desire to know what was going to be said to us, the fear of hearing it, the determination to go away, the will to stay. Oh, the tears that this "a.s.siette" cost me.

Poor old M. Elie! I do not bear him any ill-will, but I did my utmost later on to forget everything he had taught me, for nothing could have been more useless than those deportment lessons. Every human being moves about according to his or her proportions. Women who are too tall take long strides, those who stoop walk like the Eastern women; stout women walk like ducks, short-legged ones trot; very small women skip along, and the gawky ones walk like cranes. Nothing can be changed, and the deportment cla.s.s has very wisely been abolished. The gesture must depict the thought, and it is harmonious or stupid according to whether the artist is intelligent or dull. On the stage one needs long arms; it is better to have them too long than too short. An artiste with short arms can never, never make a fine gesture. It was all in vain that poor Elie told us this or that. We were always stupid and awkward, whilst he was always comic, oh, so comic, poor old man!

I also took fencing-lessons. Aunt Rosine put this idea into my mother's head. I had a lesson once a week from the famous Pons. Oh, what a terrible man he was! Brutal, rude, and always teasing; he was an incomparable fencing-master, but he disliked giving lessons to "brats"

like us, as he called us. He was not rich, though, and I believe, but am not sure of it, that this cla.s.s had been organised for him by a distinguished patron of his. He always kept his hat on, and this horrified Mlle. de Brabender. He smoked his cigar, too, all the time, and this made his pupils cough, as they were already out of breath from the fencing exercise. What torture those lessons were! He sometimes brought with him friends of his, who delighted in our awkwardness. This gave rise to a scandal, as one day one of these gay spectators made a most violent remark about one of the male pupils named Chatelain, and the latter turned round quickly and gave him a blow in the face. A skirmish immediately occurred, and Pons, on endeavouring to intervene, received a blow or two himself. This made a great stir, and from that day forth visitors were not allowed to be present at the lesson. I obtained my mother's authorisation to discontinue attending the cla.s.s, and this was a great relief to me.

I very much preferred Regnier's lessons to any others. He was gentle, had nice manners, and taught us to be natural in what we recited, but I certainly owe all that I know to the variety of instruction which I had, and which I followed up in the most devoted way.

Provost taught a broad style, with diction somewhat pompous but sustained. He specially emphasised freedom of gesture and inflexion.

Beauvallet, in my opinion, did not teach anything that was any good. He had a deep, effective voice, but that he could not give to any one. It was an admirable instrument, but it did not give him any talent. He was awkward in his gestures; his arms were too short and his face common. I detested him as a professor.

Samson was just the opposite. His voice was not strong, but piercing. He had a certain acquired distinction, but was very correct. His method was simplicity. Provost emphasised breadth, Samson exact.i.tude, and he was very particular about the finals. He would not allow us to drop the voice at the end of the phrase. Coquelin, who is one of Regnier's pupils, I believe, has a great deal of Samson's style, although he has retained the essentials of his first master's teaching. As for me, I remember my three professors, Regnier, Provost, and Samson, as though I had heard them only yesterday.