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My Double Life

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I sprang forward to the front of the stage. "Excuse me, Monsieur
Perrin," I exclaimed, "you have no right to take my moon away. The
manuscript reads, _Berthe advances, pale, convulsed with emotion, the
rays of the moon falling on her_.... I am pale and I am convulsed. I
must have my moon."

"It is impossible," roared Perrin. "Mademoiselle Croizette's words: 'You
love me, then!' and her kiss must have this moonlight. She is playing
the Sphinx; that is the chief part in the play, and we must leave her
the principal effect."

"Very well, then; give Croizette a brilliant moon, and give me a less
brilliant one. I don't mind that, but I must have my moon." All the
artistes and all the employés of the theatre put their heads in at all
the doorways and openings both on the stage and in the house itself. The
"Croizettists" and the "Bernhardtists" began to comment on the
discussion.

Octave Feuillet was appealed to, and he got up in his turn.

"I grant that Mademoiselle Croizette is very beautiful in her moon
effect. Mademoiselle Sarah Bernhardt is ideal too, with her ray of
moonlight. I want the moon therefore for both of them."

Perrin could not control his anger. There was a discussion between the
author and the director, followed by others between the artistes, and
between the door-keeper and the journalists who were questioning him.
The rehearsal was interrupted. I declared that I would not play the part
if I did not have my moon. For the next two days I received no notice of
another rehearsal, but through Croizette I heard that they were trying
my _rôle_ of Berthe privately. They had given it to a young woman whom
we had nicknamed "the Crocodile," because she followed all the
rehearsals just as that animal follows boats--she was always hoping to
snatch up some _rôle_ that might happen to be thrown overboard. Octave
Feuillet refused to accept the change of artistes, and he came himself
to fetch me, accompanied by Delaunay, who had negotiated matters.

"It's all settled," he said, kissing my hands; "there will be a moon for
both of you."

The first night was a triumph both for Croizette and for me.

The party strife between the two clans waxed warmer and warmer, and this
added to our success and amused us both immensely, for Croizette was
always a delightful friend and a loyal comrade. She worked for her own
ends, but never against any one else.

After _Le Sphinx_ I played a pretty piece in one act by a young pupil of
the Ecole Polytechnique, Louis Denayrouse, _La Belle Paule._ This author
has now become a renowned scientific man, and has renounced poetry.

I had begged Perrin to give me a month's holiday, but he refused
energetically, and compelled me to take part in the rehearsals of
_Zaïre_ during the trying months of June and July, and, in spite of my
reluctance, announced the first performance for August 6. That year it
was fearfully hot in Paris. I believe that Perrin, who could not tame me
alive, had, without really any bad intention, but by pure autocracy, the
desire to tame me dead. Doctor Parrot went to see him, and told him that
my state of weakness was such that it would be positively dangerous for
me to act during the trying heat. Perrin would hear nothing of it. Then,
furious at the obstinacy of this intellectual _bourgeois_, I swore I
would play on to the death.

Often, when I was a child, I wished to kill myself in order to vex
others. I remember once having drunk the contents of a large ink-pot
after being compelled by mamma to swallow a "panade," [Footnote: Bread
stewed a long time in water and flavoured with a little butter and
sugar, a kind of "sops" given to children in France.] because she
imagined that panades were good for the health. Our nurse had told her
my dislike to this form of nourishment, adding that every morning I
emptied the panade into the slop-pail. I had, of course, a very bad
stomach-ache, and screamed out in pain. I cried to mamma, "It is you who
have killed me!" and my poor mother wept. She never knew the truth, but
they never again made me swallow anything against my will.

Well, after so many years I experienced the same bitter and childish
sentiment. "I don't care," I said; "I shall certainly fall senseless
vomiting blood, and perhaps I shall die! And it will serve Perrin right.
He will be furious!" Yes, that is what I thought. I am at times very
foolish. Why? I don't know how to explain it, but I admit it.

The 6th of August, therefore, I played, in tropical heat, the part of
Zaïre. The entire audience was bathed in perspiration. I saw the
spectators through a mist. The piece, badly staged as regards scenery,
but very well presented as regards costume, was particularly well played
by Mounet-Sully (Orosmane), Laroche (Nérestan) and myself (Zaïre), and
obtained an immense success.

I was determined to faint, determined to vomit blood, determined to die,
in order to enrage Perrin. I played with the utmost passion. I had
sobbed, I had loved, I had suffered, and I had been stabbed by the
poignard of Orosmane, uttering a true cry of suffering, for I had felt
the steel penetrate my breast. Then, falling panting, dying, on the
Oriental divan, I had meant to die in reality, and dared scarcely move
my arms, convinced as I was that I was in my death agony, and somewhat
afraid, I must admit, at having succeeded in playing such a nasty trick
on Perrin. But my surprise was great when the curtain fell at the close
of the piece and I got up quickly to answer to the call and bow to the
audience without languor, without fainting, feeling strong enough to go
through my part again if it had been necessary.

And I marked this performance with a little white stone--for that day I
learned that my vital force was at the service of my intellectual force.
I had desired to follow the impulse of my brain, whose conceptions
seemed to me to be too forceful for my physical strength to carry out.
And I found myself, after having given out all of which I was
capable--and more--in perfect equilibrium.

Then I saw the possibility of the longed-for future.

I had fancied, and up to this performance of _Zaïre_ I had always heard
and read in the papers that my voice was pretty, but weak; that my
gestures were gracious, but vague; that my supple movements lacked
authority, and that my glance lost in heavenward contemplation could not
tame the wild beasts (the audience). I thought then of all that.

I had received proof that I could rely on my physical strength, for I
had commenced the performance of _Zaïre_ in such a state of weakness
that it was easy to predict that I should not finish the first act
without fainting.

On the other hand, although the _rôle_ was easy, it required two or
three shrieks, which might have provoked the vomiting of blood that
frequently troubled me at that time.

That evening, therefore, I acquired the certainty that I could count on
the strength of my vocal cords, for I had uttered my shrieks with real
rage and suffering, hoping to break something, in my wild desire to be
revenged on Perrin.

Thus this little comedy turned to my profit. Being unable to die at
will, I changed my batteries and resolved to be strong, vivacious, and
active, to the great annoyance of some of my contemporaries, who had
only put up with me because they thought I should soon die, but who
began to hate me as soon as they acquired the conviction that I should
perhaps live for a long time. I will only give one example, related by
Alexandre Dumas _fils_, who was present at the death of his intimate
friend Charles Narrey, and heard his dying words: "I am content to die
because I shall hear no more of Sarah Bernhardt and of the grand
Français" (Ferdinand de Lesseps).

But this revelation of my strength rendered more painful to me the sort
of _farniente_ to which Perrin condemned me.

In fact, after _Zaïre_, I remained months without doing anything of
importance, playing only now and again. Discouraged and disgusted with
the theatre, my passion for sculpture increased. After my morning ride
and a light meal I used to rush to my studio, where I remained till the
evening.

Friends came to see me, sat round me, played the piano, sang; politics
were discussed--for in this modest studio I received the most
illustrious men of all parties. Several ladies came to take tea, which
was abominable and badly served, but I did not care about that. I was
absorbed by this admirable art. I saw nothing, or, to speak more truly,
I _would not_ see anything.

I was making the bust of an adorable young girl, Mlle. Emmy de ----.
Her slow and measured conversation had an infinite charm. She was a
foreigner, but spoke French so perfectly that I was stupefied. She
smoked a cigarette all the time, and had a profound disdain for those
who did not understand her.

I made the sittings last as long as possible, for I felt that this
delicate mind was imbuing me with her science of seeing into the beyond,
and often in the serious steps of my life I have said to myself, "What
would Emmy have done? What would she have thought?"

I was somewhat surprised one day by the visit of Adolphe de Rothschild,
who came to give me an order for his bust. I commenced the work
immediately. But I had not properly considered this admirable man--he
had nothing of the aesthetic, but the contrary. I tried nevertheless,
and I brought all my will to bear in order to succeed in this first
order, of which I was so proud. Twice I dashed the bust which I had
commenced on the ground, and after a third attempt I definitely gave up,
stammering idiotic excuses which apparently did not convince my model,
for he never returned to me. When we met in our morning rides he saluted
me with a cold and rather severe bow.

After this defeat I undertook the bust of a beautiful child, Miss
Multon, a delightful little American, whom later on I came across in
Denmark, married and the mother of a family, but still as pretty as
ever.

My next bust was that of Mlle. Hocquigny, that admirable person who was
keeper of the linen in the commissariat during the war, and who had so
powerfully helped me and my wounded at that time.

Then I undertook the bust of my young sister Régina, who had, alas! a
weak chest. A more perfect face was never made by the hand of God! Two
leonine eyes shaded by long, long brown lashes, a slender nose with
delicate nostrils, a tiny mouth, a wilful chin, and a pearly skin
crowned by meshes of sunrays, for I have never seen hair so blonde and
so pale, so bright and so silky. But this admirable face was without
charm; the expression was hard and the mouth without a smile. I tried my
best to reproduce this beautiful face in marble, but it needed a great
artist and I was only a humble amateur.

When I exhibited the bust of my little sister, it was five months after
her death, which occurred after a six months' illness, full of false
hopes. I had taken her to my home, No. 4 Rue de Rome, to the little
_entresol_ which I had inhabited since the terrible fire which had
destroyed my furniture, my books, my pictures, and all my scant
possessions. This flat in the Rue de Rome was very small. My bedroom was
quite tiny. The big bamboo bed took up all the room. In front of the
window was my coffin, where I frequently installed myself to study my
parts. Therefore, when I took my sister to my home I found it quite
natural to sleep every night in this little bed of white satin which was
to be my last couch, and to put my sister in the big bamboo bed, under
the lace hangings.

She herself found it quite natural also, for I would not leave her at
night, and it was impossible to put another bed in the little room.
Besides, she was accustomed to my coffin.

One day my manicurist came into the room to do my hands, and my sister
asked her to enter quietly, because I was still asleep. The woman turned
her head, believing that I was asleep in the arm-chair, but seeing me in
my coffin she rushed away shrieking wildly. From that moment all Paris
knew that I slept in my coffin, and gossip with its thistle-down wings
took flight in all directions.

I was so accustomed to the turpitudes which were written about me that I
did not trouble about this. But at the death of my poor little sister a
tragi-comic incident happened. When the undertaker's men came to the
room to take away the body they found themselves confronted with two
coffins, and losing his wits, the master of ceremonies sent in haste for
a second hearse. I was at that moment with my mother, who had lost
consciousness, and I just got back in time to prevent the black-clothed
men taking away my coffin. The second hearse was sent back, but the
papers got hold of this incident. I was blamed, criticised, &c.

It really was not my fault.




XXIII


A DESCENT INTO THE ENFER DU PLOGOFF--MY FIRST APPEARANCE AS PHÈDRE--THE
DECORATION OF MY NEW MANSION


After the death of my sister I fell seriously ill. I had tended her day
and night, and this, in addition to the grief I was suffering, made me
anaemic. I was ordered to the South for two months. I promised to go to
Mentone, and I turned immediately towards Brittany, the country of my
dreams.

I had with me my little boy, my steward and his wife. My poor Guérard,
who had helped me to tend my sister, was in bed ill with phlebitis. I
would much have liked to have her with me.

Oh, the lovely holiday that we had there! Thirty-five years ago Brittany
was wild, inhospitable, but as beautiful--perhaps more beautiful than at
present, for it was not furrowed with roads; its green slopes were not
dotted with small white villas; its inhabitants--the men--were not
dressed in the abominable modern trousers, and the women did not wear
miserable little hats with feathers. No! The Bretons proudly displayed
their well-shaped legs in gaiters or rough stockings, their feet shod
with buckled shoes; their long hair was brought down on the temples,
hiding any awkward ears and giving to the face a nobility which the
modern style does not admit of. The women, with their short skirts,
which showed their slender ankles in black stockings, and with their
small heads under the wings of the headdress, resembled sea-gulls. I am
not speaking, of course, of the inhabitants of Pont l'Abbé or of Bourg
de Batz, who have entirely different aspects.

I visited nearly the whole of Brittany, but made my chief stay at
Finistère. The Pointe du Raz enchanted me. I remained twelve days at
Audierne, in the house of Father Batifoulé, who was so big and so fat
that they had been obliged to cut a piece out of the table to let in his
immense abdomen. I set out every morning at ten o'clock. My steward
Claude himself prepared my lunch, which he packed up very carefully in
three little baskets, then climbing into the comical vehicle of Father
Batifoulé, my little boy driving, we set out for the Baie des Trépassés.
Ah, that beautiful and mysterious shore, all bristling with rocks! The
lighthouse keeper would be looking out for me, and would come to meet
me. Claude gave him my provisions, with a thousand recommendations as to
the manner of cooking the eggs, warming up the lentils, and toasting the
bread. He carried off everything, then returned with two old sticks in
which he had stuck nails to make them into picks, and we commenced the
terrifying ascent of the Pointe du Raz, a kind of labyrinth full of
disagreeable surprises, of crevasses across which we had to jump over
the gaping and roaring abyss, of arches and tunnels through which we had
to crawl on all fours, having overhead--touching us even--a rock which
had fallen there in unknown ages and was only held in equilibrium by
some inexplicable cause. Then all at once the path became so narrow that
it was impossible to walk straight forward; we had to turn and put our
backs against the cliff and advance with both arms spread out and
fingers holding on to the few asperities of the rock.

When I think of what I did in those moments, I tremble, for I have
always been, and still am, subject to dizziness; and I went over this
path along a steep precipitous rock, 30 metres high, in the midst of the
infernal noise of the sea, at this place eternally furious, and which
raged fearfully against this indestructible cliff. And I must have taken
a mad pleasure in it, for I accomplished this journey five times in
eleven days.

After this challenge thrown down to reason we descended, and installed
ourselves in the Baie des Trépassés. After a bath we had lunch, and I
painted till sunset.

The first day there was nobody there. The second day a child came to
look at us. The third day about ten children stood around asking for
sous. I was foolish enough to give them some, and the following day
there were twenty or thirty boys, some of them from sixteen to eighteen
years old. Seeing near my easel something not particularly agreeable, I
begged one of them to take it away and throw it into the sea, and for
that I gave, I think, fifty centimes. When I came back the following day
to finish my painting the whole population of the neighbouring village
had chosen this place to relieve their corporal necessities, and as soon
as I arrived the same boys, but in increased numbers, offered, if
properly paid, to take away what they had put there.

I had the ugly band routed by Claude and the lighthouse keeper, and as
they took to throwing stones at us, I pointed my gun at the little
group. They fled howling. Only two boys, of six and ten years of age,
remained there. We did not take any notice of them, and I installed
myself a little farther on, sheltered by a rock which kept the wind
away. The two boys followed. Claude and the keeper Lucas were on the
look out to see that the band did not come back.

They were stooping down over the extreme point of the rock which was
above our heads. They seemed peaceful, when suddenly my young maid
jumped up: "Horrors! Madame! Horrors! They are throwing lice down on
us!" And in fact the two little good-for-nothings had been for the last
hour searching for all the vermin they could find on themselves, and
throwing it on us.

I had the two little beggars caught, and they got a well-deserved
correction.

There was a crevasse which was called the "Enfer du Plogoff." I had a
wild desire to go down this crevasse, but the guardian dissuaded me,
constantly giving as objections the danger of slipping, and his fear of
responsibility in case of accident. I persisted nevertheless in my
intention, and after a thousand promises, in addition to a certificate
to testify that, notwithstanding the supplications of the guardian and
the certainty of the danger that I ran, I had persisted all the same,
&c., and after having made a small present of ten louis to the good
fellow, I obtained facilities for descending the Enfer du Plogoff--that
is to say, a wide belt to which a strong rope was fastened. I buckled
this belt round my waist, which was then so slender--43
centimetres--that it was necessary to make additional holes in order to
fasten it.

Then the guardian put on each of my hands a wooden shoe the sole of
which was bordered with big nails jutting out two centimetres. I stared
at these wooden shoes, and asked for an explanation before putting them
on.

"Well," said the guardian Lucas, "when I let you down, as you are no
fatter than a herring bone, you will get shaken about in the crevasse,
and will risk breaking your bones, while if you have the 'sabots' on
your hands you can protect yourself against the walls by putting out
your arms to the right and the left, according as you are shaken up
against them. I do not say that you will not have a few bangs, but that
is your own fault; you will go. Now listen, my little lady. When you are
at the bottom, on the rock in the middle, mind you don't slip, for that
is the most dangerous of all; if you fall in the water I will pull the
rope, for sure, but I don't answer for anything. In that cursed
whirlpool of water you might be caught between two stones, and it would
be no use for me to pull: I should break the rope, and that would be
all."

Then the man grew pale and made the sign of the cross; he leaned towards
me, murmuring in a dreamy voice, "It is the shipwrecked ones who are
there under the stones, down there. It is they who dance in the
moonlight on the 'shore of the dead.' It is they who put the slippery
sea-weed on the little rock down there, in order to make travellers
slip, and then they drag them to the bottom of the sea." Then, looking
me in the eyes, he said, "Will you go down all the same?"

"Yes, certainly, Père Lucas; I will go down at once."

My little boy was building forts and castles on the sand with Félicie.
Only Claude was with me. He did not say a word, knowing my unbridled
desire to meet danger. He looked to see if the belt was properly
fastened, and asked my permission to tie the tongue of the belt to the
belt itself; then he passed a strong cord several times around to
strengthen the leather, and I was let down, suspended by the rope in the
blackness of the crevasse. I extended my arms to the right and the left,
as the guardian had told me to do, and even then I got my elbows
scraped. At first I thought that the noise I heard was the reverberation
of the echo of the blows of the wooden shoes against the edges of the
crevasse, but suddenly a frightful din filled my ears: successive
firings of cannons, strident ringings, crackings of a whip, plaintive
howls, and repeated monotonous cries as of a hundred fishermen drawing
up a net filled with fish, sea-weed, and pebbles. All the noises mingled
under the mad violence of the wind. I became furious with myself, for I
was really afraid.

The lower I went, the louder the howlings became in my ears and my
brain, and my heart beat the order of retreat. The wind swept through
the narrow tunnel and blew in all directions round my legs, my body, my
neck. A horrible fear took possession of me.

I descended slowly, and at each little shock I felt that the four hands
holding me above had come to a knot. I tried to remember the number of
knots, for it seemed to me that I was making no progress.

Then I opened my mouth to call out, "Draw me up!" but the wind, which
danced in mad folly around me, filled my mouth and drove back the words.
I was nearly suffocated. Then I shut my eyes and ceased to struggle. I
would not even put out my arms. A few instants after I pulled up my legs
in unspeakable terror. The sea had just seized them in a brutal embrace
which had wet me through. However, I recovered courage, for now I could
see clearly. I stretched out my legs, and found myself upright on the
little rock. It is true it was very slippery.

I took hold of a large ring fixed in the vault which overhung the rock,
and I looked round. The long and narrow crevasse grew suddenly wider at
its base, and terminated in a large grotto which looked out over the
open sea; but the entrance of this grotto was protected by a quantity of
both large and small rocks, which could be seen for a distance of a
league in front on the surface of the water--which explains the terrible
noise of the sea dashing into the labyrinth and the possibility of
standing upright on a stone, as the Bretons say, with the wild dance of
the waves all around.

However, I saw very plainly that a false step might be fatal in the
brutal whirl of waters, which came rushing in from afar with dizzy speed
and broke against the insurmountable obstacle, and in receding dashed
against other waves which followed them. From this cause proceeded the
perpetual fusillade of waters which rushed into the crevasse without
danger of drowning me.

It now began to grow dark, and I experienced a fearful anguish in
discovering on the crest of a little rock two enormous eyes, which
looked fixedly at me. Then a little farther, near a tuft of seaweed, two
more of these fixed eyes. I saw no body to these beings--nothing but the
eyes. I thought for a minute that I was losing my senses, and I bit my
tongue till the blood came; then I pulled violently at the rope, as I
had agreed to do in order to give the signal for being drawn up. I felt
the trembling joy of the four hands pulling me, and my feet lost their
hold as I was hauled up by my guardians. The eyes were lifted up also,
uneasy at seeing me depart. And while I mounted through the air I saw
nothing but eyes everywhere--eyes throwing out long feelers to reach me.

I had never seen an octopus, and I did not even know of the existence of
these horrible beasts.

During the ascent, which appeared to me interminable, I imagined I saw
these beasts along the walls, and my teeth were chattering when I was
drawn out on to the green hillock.

I immediately told the guardian the cause of my terror, and he crossed
himself, saying, "Those are the eyes of the shipwrecked ones. No one
must stay there!"

I knew very well that they were not the eyes of shipwrecked ones, but I
did not know what they were. For I thought I had seen some strange
beasts that no one had ever seen before.

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