SARAH BERNHARDT'S MEMOIRS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2809, 15 January 1908, Page 79

SARAH BERNHARDT'S MEMOIRS.

Mme. garali Bernhardt, in her "Me* moirs" (Heinemann), illustrates the disgust of some of her contemporaries with her celebrity by the following inecdote. "I will only give one example of tihe great _ annoyance of some of my contemporaries at my continuing to live. Alexaudre Dumas fils, who" Was present at the death of his intimate friend Charles Narrey, heard him say with his last breath: ' I am content to die, because I ©hall hear no more of Sarah Berahardt and of the Grand Francais' — i.e., Ferdinand de Lesseps." The Grand Francais, alas! survived his celebrity, while the Great Sarah, has survived contemporary hatred an«* malice.

— Defying an Audience. —

Mme. Bernhardt , made herself so un« , popular by her caprice and her temper that on her return from London to Paris • she was warned by M. Perrin-against"put-ting in an appearance at the' opening • ceremony of the Comedie Francaise. And, indeed, at the opening ceremony, "though it was the rule for the actors to advance two and two for their welcome by the audience, no one would venture to make his bow in the company of the unpopular Sarah. When her turn came she advanced alone, " pale and livid, with a will that was determined to conqueT. I went forward slowly towards the footlights, butinstead of bowingj as my comrades had don 6, I stood up erect and gazed with my two eyes into all the eyes turning towards me. . I had been warned of tha battle, and did not wish to provoke it, but I would aot fly from it. I waited a second, and I felt the thrill and emotion, that ran through the house ; . and. then suddenly, stirred by as impulse, of generous kindness, the whole house burst into wild applause and shouts. The pubUc so beloved and so loving was intoxicated with joy. That evening was s certainly one ol the finest triumphs of my "whole career."—A Dramatist's Defiance. —

Congreve, when "The Way ( of the World," upon its first presentation, was heartily hissed by the audience, stroked coolly forward ' to the> front of the stage and drawled out: "Is it your intention to damn this play?" "Yes, yes, yes! Off, off ! " the audience shouted back furiously. "Then," answered Congreve, " I can tell you this play of |nine will ba a living play when you aie all dead and damned ! " And he strolled nonchalantlyback behind the scenes before the audi* ence had recovered'irom its stupefaction. ~ — Elliston's Taming an Audience. —

Carles, a popular actor in Elliston's company, having been arrested for debt whila on the way to the, theatre, was replaced by an understudy, to the great" indignation of the audience. Shouts, of "Carles! Carles! " interrupted 'every actor or actress till Elliston strode forward and asked haughtily, " Ladies and gentlemen, what is your pleasure?" "Carles! Carles 1 -We want Carles. His name is on th« bill !" "Oh, you want Mr Carles,, do you? And his name is on the bill, is itl I admit, ladies- and gentlemen, that M« CaTles'e name is on the bill; but hava I really to remind you how many accidents may intervene between the issue ol that bill in the morning and the opening in the evening of the theatre? Have I really to remind you that the -chances and changes of human life' aye wholly out of our own control? And you, sir," he eaid, v .turning suddenly and savagelj upon a. certain pittite who had been specially clamorous for Carles — "and you-;' 'sir,' who arc so loud in your demand- for Mr Carles, cannot even you imagine that his absencd may be occasioned by some dire or dread* ful distress? What ! You cannot, I sup< pose, picture to yourself Mr Carles at this moment, at this moment, sir, lying on a sick, even perhaps a dying, bed, sur« rounded by his agonised wife and weeping children? " (Carles, by the way, was a gay young bachelor.) "And yet you, sir," cried Elliston 'with rising tfrath, " will perhaps repeat your demand to have Mr Carles brought before you upon his dying bed, torn from his weeping family! Are you a. husband, sir? Are you a father'/" "Shame! shame! ehame!" echoed now from every part of the house. "You are right, sirs ; you -are right. H is a ehame. I blush at such inhumanity." "Turn him>out! Turn him out!" shouted now the very voices-thathad two' in mute* since joined that of the unfortunate pit* tite in clamouring for Carles. Elliston, affecting to understand this cry as a«^' quest to himself, replied with infinite dignity: "If you please, gentlemen." - And the wretched pittite *ras forthwith . seized and shot roughly out of the house. '.

' — Death Foretold. —

But to return to Mme. Bemhardt's .inter" esting " Memoirs. A party given by "Vic-* tor Hugo to the artistes who had made such a success of his "I^uy Bias" was broken, up in the "most- admired disorder" by the- sudden death at the tabla of Chilly, the manager of the Odeon. As Mme. Bernhardt was hurrvjng away from the feast chamber, now become a chamber of death, she encountered a fellow-actress, Mme. Lambquin, who, slightly under the influence of wine, was dancing with an / actor, Talien. " Don't dance any" more, Mamma Lam'bquin — OMly is dying," whispered Mme. Bernhardt. Mme. Tjambquin turned •■vhite as chalk, while "her teefhchatte" ?4. " Drive me home. ( I have somef.xlni to tell you," she falteved. Ob .the way 'home she said she had been, to consult a fortune-teller on the preceding Friday, who told her, "You will die \ week after a man who is~<Urk and nob young, and who is one^of the two , men who support you." Mme. "Lambquin, thinking the fortune-teller suggested that she had a liaison with these two men, waa

arious, but not so furious as the Sibyl erself when she presumed to doubt the *ruth of her prediction. Seizing Mme. Lambquin's hands, she screamed : " I tell you there are two men who support you •—one dark and the other fair — and you Tall die a week after the death of the dark one." TK * it occurred to Madame

I Lambquin that the two men were the two j managers of the OdeoD (who certainly were her support), Chilly and Duquesnel, the one dark and the other fair. Hence her horror at the death of Chilly, which was, as she feared it would be, followed a week later by foac wi^-

— Victor Hugo's Chivalry. — I Here is a chivalrous glimpse Madame Bernhardt had of Victor Hugo. After ' one of the rehearsals of "Ruy Bias," which ! the poet attended, Madame Bernhardt was I idly watching him from a window cross- j ing the road, when she perceived an old ! woman, who suddenly arrested the atten- j tion and the steps of Victor Hugo. "The j old woman had just put a heavy bundle J of linen down on the ground, and was wiping her forehead, on which were great beads of perspiration. Her toothless mouth was half-open as she was panting, and her eyes had an expression of distressing anxiety as she looked at -the wide road she had* to cross with a crush of carriages and omnibuses passing each other. Victor Hugo approached her, and 1 after a short conversation drew & piece ! of money ffom. his pocket, which he handed to the old woman. Then, taking off hie hat, which he handed to her, with a quick movement and a laughing face he lifted the bundle on to his shoulder J and re-oroesed the road, followed by the j bewildered old woman." 1

— Mad Through Misery. —

Madiam© Bernhardt owed the inspiration of one of the most successful of her sculpture groups to foer acquaintance with an old woman, whose story ia the most tragic I have ever read.: — "She was the mother of five eons, all sailors. Two had been killed by the Germans in 1870, and three Jiad been drowned. She had brought tip the little son of her youngest boy, always keeping him far from the sea, whrlcxi she tried to teach him to hate. But he fell ill, through, he said, his longing just to eeie the sea*. 'Well, get well, and we eihall see it together,' said the grandmother tenderly. Two days later the child was so much better that his grandmother lefit hei native valley witli her lfittJe grandson to go and see the ocean — the grave of his father and uncles. It was a November day ; the low sky hung over tlhe ocean, narrowing the horizon. The child jumped for joy. He ran, gambolled, and sang for very happiness when he saw all thiie living water. Meanwhile the grandnnothe-r sat on the sand and hid her tearful ©yes in her trembling hands. Suddenly struck by the silence, she looked up in! terror. There in front of her she saw a boat drifting, and in the boat her boy r her little "eight years old, who was laughing right merrily, paddling as well as he could with one oa-r that he could hardly hold. He shouted back to her, 'I un going to see what there i® behind 1 the mist, and I will soon, com© back.' He never came back. The following day they found the poor old woman talking low to the waves which bathed her feet. Every day she came to the water's edge, throwing in the bread which kind folks gave her, and saying to the waves, ' You must take that to my little lad.' "— T. P.'s Weekly.