My Double Life: The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt Part 48

I began to murmur:

"_Le voici! Vers mon coeur tout mon sang se retire.

J'oublie en le voyant...._"

That word "_j'oublie_" struck me with a new idea. What if I did forget the words I had to say? Why, yes. What was it I had to say? I did not know--I could not remember. What was I to say after "_en le voyant_"?

No one answered me. Every one was alarmed at my nervous state. I heard Got mumble, "She's going mad!"

Mlle. Thenard, who was playing Oenone, my old nurse, said to me, "Calm yourself. All the English have gone to Paris; there's no one in the house but Belgians."

This foolishly comic speech turned my thoughts in another direction.

"How stupid you are!" I said. "You know how frightened I was at Brussels!"

"Oh, all for nothing," she answered calmly. "There were only English people in the theatre that day."

I had to go on the stage at once, and I could not even answer her, but she had changed the current of my ideas. I still had stage fright, but not the fright that paralyses, only the kind that drives one wild. This is bad enough, but it is preferable to the other sort. It makes one do too much, but at any rate one does something.

The whole house had applauded my arrival on the stage for a few seconds, and as I bent my head in acknowledgment I said within myself, "Yes--yes--you shall see. I'm going to give you my very blood--my life itself--my soul."

When I began my part, as I had lost my self-possession, I started on rather too high a note, and when once in full swing I could not get lower again--I simply could not stop. I suffered, I wept, I implored, I cried out; and it was all real. My suffering was horrible; my tears were flowing, scorching and bitter. I implored Hippolyte for the love which was killing me, and my arms stretched out to Mounet-Sully were the arms of Phedre writhing in the cruel longing for his embrace. The inspiration had come.

When the curtain fell Mounet-Sully lifted me up inanimate and carried me to my dressing-room.

The public, unaware of what was happening, wanted me to appear again and bow. I too wanted to return and thank the public for its attention, its kindliness, and its emotion. I returned. The following is what John Murray said in the _Gaulois_ of June 5, 1879:

"When, recalled with loud cries, Mlle. Bernhardt appeared, exhausted by her efforts and supported by Mounet-Sully, she received an ovation which I think is unique in the annals of the theatre in England."

The following morning the _Daily Telegraph_ terminated its admirable criticism with these lines:

"Clearly Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt exerted every nerve and fibre, and her pa.s.sion grew with the excitement of the spectators, for when, after a recall that could not be resisted, the curtain drew up, M. Mounet-Sully was seen supporting the exhausted figure of the actress, who had won her triumph only after tremendous physical exertion--and triumph it was, however short and sudden."

The _Standard_ finished its article with these words: "The subdued pa.s.sion, repressed for a time, until at length it burst its bonds, and the despairing, heart-broken woman is revealed to Hippolyte, was shown with so vivid a reality that a scene of enthusiasm such as is rarely witnessed in a theatre followed the fall of the curtain. Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt in the few minutes she was upon the stage (and coming on, it must be remembered, to plunge into the middle of a stirring tragedy) yet contrived to make an impression which will not soon be effaced from those who were present."

The _Morning Post _said:

"Very brief are the words spoken before Phedre rushes into the room to commence tremblingly and nervously, with struggles which rend and tear and convulse the system, the secret of her shameful love. As her pa.s.sion mastered what remained of modesty or reserve in her nature, the woman sprang forward and recoiled again, with the movements of a panther, striving, as it seemed, to tear from her bosom the heart which stifled her with its unholy longings, until in the end, when, terrified at the horror her breathings have provoked in Hippolyte, she strove to pull his sword from its sheath and plunge it in her own breast, she fell back in complete and absolute collapse. This exhibition, marvellous in beauty of pose, in febrile force, in intensity, and in purity of delivery, is the more remarkable as the pa.s.sion had to be reached, so to speak, at a bound, no performance of the first act having roused the actress to the requisite heat. It proved Mlle. Sarah Bernhardt worthy of her reputation, and shows what may be expected from her by the public which has eagerly expected her coming."

This London first night was decisive for my future.

XXVIII

MY PERFORMANCES IN LONDON--MY EXHIBITION--MY WILD ANIMALS--TROUBLE WITH THE COMeDIE FRANcAISE

My intense desire to win over the English public had caused me to overtax my strength. I had done my utmost at the first performance, and had not spared myself in the least. The consequence was in the night I vomited blood in such an alarming way that a messenger was despatched to the French Emba.s.sy in search of a physician. Dr. Vintras, who was at the head of the French Hospital in London, found me lying on my bed, exhausted and looking more dead than alive. He was afraid that I should not recover, and requested that my family be sent for. I made a gesture with my hand to the effect that it was not necessary. As I could not speak, I wrote down with a pencil, "Send for Dr. Parrot."

Dr. Vintras remained with me part of the night, putting crushed ice between my lips every five minutes. At length towards five in the morning the blood vomiting ceased, and, thanks to a potion that the doctor gave me, I fell asleep.

We were to play _L'Etrangere_ that night at the Gaiety, and, as my _role_ was not a very fatiguing one, I wanted to perform my part _quand-meme_.

Dr. Parrot arrived by the four o'clock boat, and refused categorically to give his consent. He had attended me from my childhood. I really felt much better, and the feverishness had left me. I wanted to get up, but to this Dr. Parrot objected.

Presently Dr. Vintras and Mr. Mayer, the impresario of the Comedie Francaise, were announced. Mr. Hollingshead, the director of the Gaiety Theatre, was waiting in a carriage at the door to know whether I was going to play in _L'Etrangere_, the piece announced on the bills. I asked Dr. Parrot to rejoin Dr. Vintras in the drawing-room, and I gave instructions for Mr. Mayer to be introduced into my room.

"I feel much better," I said to him very quickly. "I'm very weak still, but I will play. Hus.h.!.+--don't say a word here. Tell Hollingshead, and wait for me in the smoking-room, but don't let any one else know."

I then got up and dressed very quickly. My maid helped me, and as she had guessed what my plan was, she was highly amused.

Wrapped in my cloak, with a lace fichu over my head, I joined Mayer in the smoking-room, and then we both got into his hansom.

"Come to me in an hour's time," I said in a low voice to my maid.

"Where are you going?" asked Mayer, perfectly stupefied.

"To the theatre! Quick--quick!" I answered.

The cab started, and I then explained to him that if I had stayed at home, neither Dr. Parrot nor Dr. Vintras would have allowed me to perform.

"The die is cast now," I added, "and we shall see what happens."

When once I was at the theatre I took refuge in the manager's private office, in order to avoid Dr. Parrot's anger. I was very fond of him, and I knew how wrongly I was acting with regard to him, considering the inconvenience to which he had put himself in making the journey specially for me in response to my summons. I knew, though, how impossible it would have been to have made him understand that I felt really better, and that in risking my life I was really only risking what was my own to dispose of as I pleased.

Half an hour later my maid joined me. She brought with her a letter from Dr. Parrot, full of gentle reproaches and furious advice, finis.h.i.+ng with a prescription in case of a relapse. He was leaving an hour later, and would not even come and shake hands with me. I felt quite sure, though, that we should make it all up again on my return. I then began to prepare for my _role_ in _L'Etrangere_. While dressing I fainted three times, but I was determined to play _quand-meme_.

The opium that I had taken in my potion made my head rather heavy. I arrived on the stage in a semi-conscious state, delighted with the applause I received. I walked along as though I were in a dream, and could scarcely distinguish my surroundings. The house itself I only saw through a luminous mist. My feet glided along without any effort on the carpet, and my voice sounded to me far away, very far away. I was in that delicious stupor that one experiences after chloroform, morphine, opium, or hasheesh.

The first act went off very well, but in the third act, just when I was about to tell the d.u.c.h.esse de Septmonts (Croizette) all the troubles that I, Mrs. Clarkson, had gone through during my life, just as I should have commenced my interminable story, I could not remember anything.

Croizette murmured my first phrase for me, but I could only see her lips move without hearing a word. I then said quite calmly:

"The reason I sent for you here, Madame, is because I wanted to tell you my reasons for acting as I have done. I have thought it over and have decided not to tell you them to-day."

Sophie Croizette gazed at me with a terrified look in her eyes. She then rose and left the stage, her lips trembling, and her eyes fixed on me all the time.

"What's the matter?" every one asked when she sank almost breathless into an arm-chair.

"Sarah has gone mad!" she exclaimed. "I a.s.sure you she has gone quite mad. She has cut out the whole of her scene with me."

"But how?" every one asked.

"She has cut out two hundred lines," said Croizette.

"But what for?" was the eager question.