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My Double Life

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"I have discovered something about which I am wild with delight!" he
said. He then began to explain to me that his balloon would be able to
carry inflammable matter without the least danger, thanks to this and
thanks to that.

"But what for?" I asked, bewildered by his explanations and half crazy
with so many technical words.

"What for?" he repeated; "why, for war!" he replied. "We shall be able
to fire and to throw terrible bombs to a distance of a thousand, twelve
hundred, and even fifteen hundred yards, and it would be impossible for
us to be harmed at such a distance. My balloons, thanks to a substance
which is my invention, with which the covering would be coated, would
have nothing to fear from fire nor yet from gas."

"I do not want to know anything more about you or your invention," I
said, interrupting him brusquely. "I thought you were a humane savant,
and you are a wild beast. Your researches were in connection with the
most beautiful manifestation of human genius, with those evolutions in
the sky which I loved so dearly. You want now to transform these into
cowardly attacks turned against the earth. You horrify me! Do go!"

With this I left my friend to himself and his cruel invention, ashamed
for a moment. His efforts have not succeeded, though, according to his
wishes.

The remains of the poor lad were put into a small coffin, and Madame
Guérard and I followed the pauper's hearse to the grave. The morning was
so cold that the driver had to stop and take a glass of hot wine, as
otherwise he might have died of congestion. We were alone in the
carriage, for the boy had been brought up by his grandmother, who could
not walk at all, and who knitted vests and stockings. It was through
going to order some vests and socks for my men that I had made the
acquaintance of Mère Tricottin, as she was called. At her request I had
engaged her grandson, Victor Durieux, as an errand boy, and the poor old
woman had been so grateful that I dared not go now to tell her of his
death.

Madame Guérard went for me to the Rue de Vaugirard, where the old woman
lived. As soon as she arrived the poor grandmother could see by her sad
face that something had happened.

"_Bon Dieu_, my dear Madame, is the poor little thin lady dead?" This
referred to me. Madame Guérard then told her, as gently as possible, the
sad news. The old woman took off her spectacles, looked at her visitor,
wiped them, and put them on her nose again. She then began to grumble
violently about her son, the father of the dead boy. He had taken up
with some low girl, by whom he had had this child, and she had always
foreseen that misfortune would come upon them through it.

She continued in this strain, not sorrowing for the poor boy, but
abusing her son, who was a soldier in the Army of the Loire.

Although the grandmother seemed to feel so little grief, I went to see
her after the funeral.

"It is all over, Madame Durieux," I said. "But I have secured the grave
for a period of five years for the poor boy."

She turned towards me, quite comic in her vexation.

"What madness!" she exclaimed. "Now that he's with the _bon Dieu_ he
won't want for anything. It would have been better to have taken a bit
of land that would have brought something in. Dead folks don't make
vegetables grow."

This outburst was so terribly logical that, in spite of the odious
brutality of it, I yielded to Mère Tricottin's desire, and gave her the
same present I had given to the boy. They should each have their bit of
land. The child, who had had a right to a longer life, should sleep his
eternal sleep in his, whilst the old woman could wrest from hers the
remainder of her life, for which death was lying in wait.

I returned to the ambulance, sad and unnerved. A joyful surprise was
awaiting me. A friend of mine was there, holding in his hand a very
small piece of tissue paper, on which were the following two lines in my
mother's handwriting: "We are all very well, and at Homburg." I was
furious on reading this. At Homburg? All my family at Homburg, settling
down tranquilly in the enemy's country. I racked my brains to think by
what extraordinary combination my mother had gone to Homburg. I knew
that my pretty Aunt Rosine had a lady friend there, with whom she stayed
every year, for she always spent two months at Homburg, two at
Baden-Baden, and one month at Spa, as she was the greatest gambler that
the _bon Dieu_ ever created. Anyhow, those who were so dear to me were
all well, and that was the important point. But I was nevertheless
annoyed with my mother for going to Homburg.

I heartily thanked the friend who had brought me the little slip of
paper. It was sent to me by the American Minister, who had put himself
to no end of trouble in order to give help and consolation to the
Parisians. I then gave him a few lines for my mother, in case he might
be able to send them to her.

The bombardment of Paris continued. One night the brothers from the
Ecole Chrétienne came to ask us for conveyances and help, in order to
collect the dead on the Châtillon Plateau. I let them have my two
conveyances, and I went with them to the battle-field. Ah, what a
terrible memory! It was like a scene from Dante! It was an icy-cold
night, and we could scarcely move along. Finally, by the light of
torches and lanterns, we saw that we had arrived. I got out of the
vehicle with the infirmary attendant and his assistant. We had to move
slowly, as at every step we trod upon the dying or the dead. We passed
along murmuring, "Ambulance! Ambulance!" When we heard a groan we turned
our steps in the direction whence it came. Ah, the first man that I
found in this way! He was half lying down, his body supported by a heap
of dead. I raised my lantern to look at his face, and found that his ear
and part of his jaw had been blown off. Great clots of blood, coagulated
by the cold, hung from his lower jaw. There was a wild look in his eyes.
I took a wisp of straw, dipped it in my flask, drew up a few drops of
brandy, and blew them into the poor fellow's mouth between his teeth. I
repeated this three or four times. A little life then came back to him,
and we took him away in one of the vehicles. The same thing was done for
the others. Some of them could drink from the flask, which made our work
shorter. One of these unfortunate men was frightful to look at. A shell
had taken all the clothes from the upper part of his body, with the
exception of two ragged sleeves, which hung from the arms at the
shoulders. There was no trace of a wound, but his poor body was marked
all over with great black patches, and the blood was oozing slowly from
the corners of his mouth. I went nearer to him, for it seemed to me that
he was breathing. I had a few drops of the vivifying cordial given to
him, and he then half opened his eyes and said, "Thank you." He was
lifted into the conveyance, but the poor fellow died from an attack of
haemorrhage, covering all the other wounded men with a stream of dark
blood.

Daylight gradually began to appear, a misty, dull dawn. The lanterns had
burnt out, but we could now distinguish each other. There were about a
hundred persons there: sisters of charity, military and civil male
hospital attendants, the brothers from the Ecole Chrétienne, other
priests, and a few ladies who, like myself, had given themselves up
heart and soul to the service of the wounded.

The sight was still more dismal by daylight, for all that the night had
hidden in the shadows appeared then in the tardy, wan light of that
January morning.

There were so many wounded that it was impossible to transport them all,
and I sobbed at the thought of my helplessness. Other vehicles kept
arriving, but there were so many wounded, so very many. A number of
those who had only slight wounds had died of cold.

On returning to the ambulance I met one of my friends at the door. He
was a naval officer, and he had brought me a sailor who had been wounded
at the fort of Ivry. He had been shot below the right eye. He was
entered as Désiré Bloas, boatswain's mate, age 27. He was a magnificent
fellow, very frank looking, and a man of few words. As soon as he was in
bed, Dr. Duchesne sent for a barber to shave him, as his bushy whiskers
had been ravaged by a bullet that had lodged itself in the salivary
gland, carrying with it hair and flesh into the wound. The surgeon took
up his pincers to extract the pieces of flesh which had stopped up the
opening of the wound. He then had to take some very fine pincers to
extract the hairs which had been forced in. When the barber laid his
razor very gently near the wound, the unfortunate man turned livid and
an oath escaped his lips. He immediately glanced at me and muttered,
"Pardon, Mademoiselle." I was very young, but I appeared much younger
than my age; I looked like a very young girl, in fact. I was holding the
poor fellow's hand in mine and trying to comfort him with the hundreds
of consoling words that spring from a woman's heart to her lips when she
has to soothe moral or physical suffering.

"Ah, Mademoiselle," said poor Bloas, when the wound was finally dressed,
"you gave me courage."

When he was more at his ease I asked him if he would like something to
eat.

"Yes," he replied.

"Well, my boy, would you like cheese, soup, or sweets?" asked Madame
Lambquin.

"Sweets," replied the powerful-looking fellow, smiling.

Désiré Bloas often talked to me about his mother, who lived near Brest.
He had a veritable adoration for this mother, but he seemed to have a
terrible grudge against his father, for one day, when I asked him
whether his father was still living, he looked up with his fearless eyes
and appeared to fix them on a being only visible to himself, as though
challenging him, with an expression of the most pitiful contempt. Alas!
the brave fellow was destined to a cruel end, but I will return to that
later.

The sufferings endured through the siege began to have their effect on
the _morale_ of the Parisians. Bread had just been rationed out: there
were to be 300 grammes for adults and 150 grammes for children. A silent
fury took possession of the people at this news. Women were the most
courageous, the men were excited. Quarrels grew bitter, for some wanted
war to the very death, and others wanted peace.

One day when I entered Frantz Mayer's room to take him his meal, he went
into the most ridiculous rage. He threw his piece of chicken down on the
ground, and declared that he would not eat anything, nothing more at
all, for they had deceived him by telling him that the Parisians had not
enough food to last two days before surrendering, and he had been in the
ambulance seventeen days now, and was having chicken. What the poor
fellow did not know was that I had bought about forty chickens and six
geese at the beginning of the siege, and I was feeding them up in my
dressing-room in the Rue de Rome. Oh, my dressing-room was very pretty
just then; but I let Frantz believe that all Paris was full of chickens,
ducks, geese, and other domestic bipeds.

The bombardment continued, and one night I had to have all my patients
transported to the Odéon cellars, for when Madame Guérard was helping
one of the sick men to get back into bed, a shell fell on the bed
itself, between her and the officer. It makes me shudder even now to
think that three minutes sooner the unfortunate man would have been
killed as he lay in bed, although the shell did not burst.

We could not stay long in the cellars. The water was getting deeper in
them, and rats tormented us. I therefore decided that the ambulance must
be moved, and I had the worst of the patients conveyed to the
Val-de-Grâce Hospital. I kept about twenty men who were on the road to
convalescence. I rented an immense empty flat for them at 58 Rue
Taitbout, and it was there that we awaited the armistice.

I was half dead with anxiety, as I had had no news from my own family
for a long time. I could not sleep, and had become the very shadow of my
former self.

Jules Favre was entrusted with the negotiations with Bismarck. Oh, those
two days of preliminaries! They were the most unnerving days of any for
the besieged. False reports were spread. We were told of the maddest and
most exorbitant demands on the part of the Germans, who certainly were
not tender to the vanquished.

There was a moment of stupor when we heard that we had to pay two
hundred million francs in cash immediately, for our finances were in
such a pitiful state that we shuddered at the idea that we might not be
able to make up the sum of two hundred millions.

Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, who was shut up in Paris with his wife and
brothers, gave his signature for the two hundred millions. This fine
deed was soon forgotten, and there are even people who gainsay it.

Ah, the ingratitude of the masses is a disgrace to civilised humanity!
"Ingratitude is the evil peculiar to the white races," said a Red-skin,
and he was right.

When we heard in Paris that the armistice was signed for twenty days, a
frightful sadness took possession of us all, even of those who most
ardently wished for peace.

Every Parisian felt on his cheek the hand of the conqueror. It was the
brand of shame, the blow given by the abominable treaty of peace.

Oh, that 31st of January 1871! I remember so well that I was anaemic
from privation, undermined by grief, tortured with anxiety about my
family, and I went out with Madame Guérard and two friends towards the
Parc Monceau. Suddenly one of my friends, M. de Plancy, turned as pale
as death. I looked to see what was the matter, and noticed a soldier
passing by. He had no weapons. Two others passed, and they also had no
weapons. And they were so pale too, these poor disarmed soldiers, these
humble heroes; there was such evident grief and hopelessness in their
very gait; and their eyes, as they looked at us women, seemed to say,
"It is not our fault!" It was all so pitiful, so touching. I burst out
sobbing, and went back home at once, for I did not want to meet any more
disarmed French soldiers.

I decided to set off now as quickly as possible in search of my family.
I asked Paul de Rémusat to get me an audience with M. Thiers, in order
to obtain from him a passport for leaving Paris. But I could not go
alone. I felt that the journey I was about to undertake was a very
dangerous one. M. Thiers and Paul de Rémusat had warned me of this. I
could see, therefore, that I should be constantly in the society of my
travelling companion, and on this account I decided not to take a
servant with me, but a friend. I very naturally went at once to Madame
Guérard. Her husband, gentle though he was, refused absolutely to let
her go with me, as he considered this expedition mad and dangerous. Mad
it certainly was, and dangerous too.

I did not insist, but I sent for my son's governess, Mlle. Soubise. I
asked her whether she would go with me, and did not attempt to conceal
from her any of the dangers of the journey. She jumped with joy, and
said she would be ready within twelve hours. This girl is at present the
wife of Commandant Monfils Chesneau. And how strange life is, for she is
now teaching the two daughters of my son, her former pupil.

Mlle. Soubise was then very young, and in appearance like a Creole. She
had very beautiful dark eyes, with a gentle, timid expression, and the
voice of a child. Her head, however, was full of adventure, romance, and
day-dreams. In appearance we might both have been taken for quite young
girls, for, although I was older than she was, my slenderness and my
face made me look younger. It would have been absurd to try to take a
trunk with us, so I took a bag for us both. We only had a change of
linen and some stockings. I had my revolver, and I offered one to Mlle.
Soubise, but she refused it with horror, and showed me an enormous pair
of scissors in an enormous case.

"But what are you going to do with them?" I asked.

"I shall kill myself if we are attacked," she replied.

I was surprised at the difference in our characters. I was taking a
revolver, determined to protect myself by killing others; she was
determined to protect herself by killing herself.




XVIII


A BOLD JOURNEY THROUGH THE GERMAN LINES


On February 4 we started on this journey, which was to have lasted three
days, and lasted eleven. At the first gate at which I presented myself
for leaving Paris I was sent back in the most brutal fashion.
Permissions to go outside the city had to be submitted for signature at
the German outposts. I went to another gate, but it was only at the
postern gate of Poissonniers that I could get my passport signed.

We were taken into a little shed which had been transformed into an
office. A Prussian general was seated there. He looked me up and down,
and then said:

"Are you Sarah Bernhardt?"

"Yes," I answered.

"And this young lady is with you?"

"Yes."

"And you think you are going to cross easily?"

"I hope so."

"Well then, you are mistaken, and you would do better to stay inside
Paris."

"No; I want to leave. I'll see myself what will happen, but I want to
leave."

He shrugged his shoulders, called an officer, said something I did not
understand in German, and then went out, leaving us alone without our
passports.

We had been there about a quarter of an hour when I suddenly heard a
voice I knew. It was that of one of my friends, René Griffon, who had
heard of my departure, and had come after me to try to dissuade me. The
trouble he had taken was all in vain, though, as I was determined to
leave. The general returned soon after, and Griffon was anxious to know
what might happen to us.

"Everything!" returned the officer. "And worse than everything!"

Griffon spoke German, and had a short colloquy with the officer about
us. This rather annoyed me, for, as I did not understand, I imagined
that he was urging the general to prevent us from starting. I
nevertheless resisted all persuasions, supplications, and even threats.
A few minutes later a well-appointed vehicle drew up at the door of the
shed.

"There you are!" said the German officer roughly. "I am sending you to
Gonesse, where you will find the provision train which starts in an
hour. I am recommending you to the care of the station-master, the
Commandant X. After that may God take care of you!"

I stepped into the general's carriage, and said farewell to my friend,
who was in despair. We arrived at Gonesse, and got out at the station,
where we saw a little group of people talking in low voices. The
coachman made me a military salute, refused what I wished to give him,
and drove away at full speed. I advanced towards the group, wondering to
whom I ought to speak, when a friendly voice exclaimed, "What, you here!
Where have you come from? Where are you going?" It was Villaret, the
tenor in vogue at the Opéra. He was going to his young wife, I believe,
of whom he had had no news for five months. He introduced one of his
friends, who was travelling with him, and whose name I do not remember;
General Pelissier's son, and a very old man, so pale, and so sad-looking
and woebegone, that I felt quite sorry for him. He was a M. Gerson, and
was going to Belgium to take his grandson to his godmother's. His two
sons had been killed during this pitiful war. One of the sons was
married, and his wife had died of sorrow and despair. He was taking the
orphan boy to his godmother, and he hoped to die himself as soon as
possible afterwards.

Ah, the poor fellow, he was only fifty-nine then, and he was so cruelly
ravaged by his grief that I took him for seventy.

Besides these five persons, there was an unbearable chatterer named
Théodore Joussian, a wine dealer. Oh, he did not require any
introduction.

"How do you do, Madame?" he began. "How fortunate that you are going to
travel with us. Ah, the journey will be a difficult one. Where are you
going? Two women alone! It is not at all prudent, especially as all the
routes are crowded with German and French sharpshooters, marauders, and
thieves. Oh, haven't I demolished some of those German sharpshooters!
Sh----We must speak quietly, though; these sly fellows are very quick of
hearing!" He then pointed to the German officers who were walking up and
down. "Ah, the rascals!" he went on. "If I had my uniform and my gun
they would not walk so boldly in front of Théodore Joussian. I have no
fewer than six helmets at home...."

The man got on my nerves, and I turned my back on him and looked to see
which of the men before me could be the station-master.

A tall young German, with his arm in a sling, came towards me with an
open letter. It was the one which the general's coachman had handed to
him, recommending me to his care. He held out his sound arm to me, but I
refused it. He bowed and led the way, and I followed him, accompanied by
Mlle. Soubise.

On arriving in his office he gave us seats at a little table, upon which
knives and forks were placed for two persons. It was then three o'clock
in the afternoon, and we had had nothing, not even a drop of water,
since the evening before. I was very much touched by this
thoughtfulness, and we did honour to the very simple but refreshing meal
offered us by the young officer.

Whilst we lunched I looked at him when he was not noticing me. He was
very young, and his face bore traces of recent suffering. I felt a
compassionate tenderness for this unfortunate man, who was crippled for
life, and my hatred for war increased still more.

He suddenly said to me, in rather bad French, "I think I can give you
news of one of your friends."

"What is his name?" I asked.

"Emmanuel Bocher."

"Oh yes, he is certainly a great friend of mine. How is he?"

"He is still a prisoner, but he is very well."

"But I thought he had been released," I said.

"Some of those who were taken with him were released, on giving their
word never to take up arms against us again, but he refused to give his
word."

"Oh, the brave soldier!" I exclaimed, in spite of myself.

The young German looked at me with his clear sad eyes.

"Yes," he said simply, "the brave soldier!"

When we had finished our luncheon I rose to return to the other
travellers.

"The compartment reserved for you will not be here for two hours," said
the young officer. "If you would like to rest, ladies, I will come for
you at the right time." He went away, and before long I was sound
asleep. I was nearly dead with fatigue.

Mlle. Soubise touched me on the shoulder to rouse me. The train was
ready to start, and the young officer walked with me to it. I was a
little amazed when I saw the carriage in which I was to travel. It had
no roof, and was filled with coal. The officer had several empty sacks
put in, one on the top of the other, to make our seats less hard. He
sent for his officer's cloak, begging me to take it with us and send it
him back, but I refused this odious disguise most energetically. It was
a deadly cold day, but I preferred dying of cold to muffling up in a
cloak belonging to the enemy.

The whistle was blown, the wounded officer saluted, and the train
started. There were Prussian soldiers in the carriages. The
subordinates, the employés, and the soldiers were just as brutish and
rude as the German officers were polite and courteous.

The train stopped without any plausible reason, it started again to stop
again, and it then stood still for an hour on this icy-cold night. On
arriving at Creil, the stoker, the engine-driver, the soldiers, and
every one else got out. I watched all these men, whistling, bawling to
each other, spitting, and bursting into laughter as they pointed to us.
Were they not the conquerors and we the conquered?

At Creil we stayed more than two hours. We could hear the distant sound
of foreign music and the hurrahs of Germans who were making merry. All
this hubbub came from a white house about five hundred yards away. We
could distinguish the outlines of human beings locked in each other's
arms, waltzing and turning round and round in a giddy revel.

It began to get on my nerves, for it seemed likely to continue until
daylight.

I got out with Villaret, intending at any rate to stretch my limbs. We
went towards the white house, and then, as I did not want to tell him my
plan, I asked him to wait there for me.

Very fortunately, though, for me, I had not time to cross the threshold
of this vile lodging-house, for an officer, smoking a cigarette, was
just coming out of a small door. He spoke to me in German.

"I am French," I replied, and he then came up to me, speaking my
language, for they could all talk French.

He asked me what I was doing there. My nerves were overstrung. I told
him feverishly of our lamentable Odyssey since our departure from
Gonesse, and finally of our waiting two hours in an icy-cold carriage
while the stokers, engine-drivers, and conductors were all dancing in
this house.

"But I had no idea that there were passengers in those carriages, and it
was I who gave permission to these men to dance and drink. The guard of
the train told me that he was taking cattle and goods, and that he did
not need to arrive before eight in the morning, and I believed him----"

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