My Double Life: The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt Part 6

"Yes, yes. Listen. There's a quarrel going on!"

We were suddenly silent, listening with all our ears.

"Don't be stupid! It's idiotic! It's the Grand-Champs Convent!"

"How am I to get my shako back?"

These were the words we overheard, and then, as a soldier suddenly appeared astride on our wall, there were shrieks from the terrified children and angry exclamations from the nuns. In a second we were all about twenty yards away from the wall, like a group of frightened sparrows flying off to land a little farther away, inquisitive, and very much on the alert.

"Have you seen my shako, young ladies?" called out the unfortunate soldier, in a beseeching tone.

"No, no!" I cried, hiding it behind my back.

"Oh no!" echoed the other girls, with peals of laughter, and in the most tormenting, insolent, jeering way we continued shouting "No, no!"

running backwards all the time in obedience to the sisters, who, veiled and hidden behind the trees, were in despair.

We were only a few yards from the huge gymnasium. I climbed up breathless at full speed, and reached the wide plank at the top; when there I unfastened the rope ladder, but, as I could not raise the wooden ladder, by which I had ascended, up to me, I unfastened the rings. The wooden ladder fell and broke, making a great noise. I then stood up wickedly triumphant on the plank, calling out, "Here is your shako, but you won't get it now!" I put it on my head and walked up and down, as no one could get to me there, for I had pulled up the rope ladder. I suppose my first idea had just been to have a little fun, but the girls had laughed and clapped, and my strength had held out better than I had hoped, so that my head was turned, and nothing could stop me then.

The young soldier was furious. He jumped down from the wall and rushed in my direction, pus.h.i.+ng the girls out of his way. The sisters, beside themselves, ran to the house calling for help. The chaplain, the Mother Superior, Father Larcher, and every one else came running out. I believe the soldier swore like a trooper, and it was really quite excusable.

Mother St. Sophie from below besought me to come down and to give up the shako.

The soldier tried to get up to me by means of the trapeze and the gymnasium rope.

His useless efforts delighted all the pupils, whom the sisters had in vain tried to send away. Finally the sister who was door-keeper sounded the alarm bell, and five minutes later the soldiers from the Satory barracks arrived, thinking that a fire had broken out. When the officer in command was told what was the matter, he sent back his men and asked to see the Mother Superior. He was brought to Mother St. Sophie, whom he found under the gymnasium, crying with shame and impotence. He ordered the soldier to return immediately to the barracks. He obeyed after clenching his fist at me, but on looking up he could not help laughing.

His shako came down to my eyes, and was only prevented by my ears, which were bent over, from covering my face.

I was furious and wildly excited with the turn my joke had taken.

"There it is, your shako!" I called out, and I flung it violently over the wall which skirted the gymnasium and formed the boundary to the cemetery.

"Oh, the young plague!" muttered the officer, and then, apologising to the nuns, he saluted them and went away, accompanied by Father Larcher.

As for me, I felt like a fox with its tail cut.

I refused to come down immediately.

"I shall come down when every one has gone away," I exclaimed.

All the cla.s.ses received punishments.

I was left alone. The sun had set. The silence in the cemetery terrified me. The dark trees took mournful or threatening shapes. The moisture from the wood fell like a mantle over my shoulders, and seemed to get heavier every moment. I felt abandoned by every one, and I began to cry.

I was angry with myself, with the soldier, with Mother St. Sophie, with the pupils who had excited me by their laughter, with the officer who had humiliated me, and with the sister who had sounded the alarm bell.

Then I began to think about getting down the rope ladder which I had pulled up on to the plank. Very clumsily, trembling with fear at the least sound, listening eagerly all the time, and with eyes looking to the right and left, I was an enormous time, and was very much afraid of unhooking the rings. Finally I managed to unroll it, and I was just about to put my foot on the first step when the barking of Cesar alarmed me. He was tearing along from the wood. The sight of the dark shadow on the gymnasium appeared to the faithful dog to bode no good. He was furious, and began to scratch the thick wooden posts.

"Why, Cesar, don't you know your friend?" I said very gently. He growled in reply, and in a louder voice I said, "Fie, Cesar, bad Cesar; you ought to be ashamed! Fancy barking at your friend!"

He now began to howl, and I was seized with terror. I pulled the ladder up again, and sat down at the top. Cesar lay down under the gymnasium, his tail straight out, his ears p.r.i.c.ked up, his coat bristling, growling in a sullen way. I appealed to the Holy Virgin to help me. I prayed fervently, vowed to say three supplementary _Aves_, three _Credos_, and three _Paters_ every day.

When I was a little calmer I called out in a subdued voice, "Cesar! my dear Cesar, my beautiful Cesar! You know I am the Angel Raphael!" Ah, much Cesar cared for him. He considered my presence, alone, at so late an hour in the garden and on the gymnasium quite incomprehensible. Why was I not in the refectory? Poor Cesar, he went on growling, and I was getting very hungry, and began to think things were most unjust. It was true that I had been to blame for taking the soldier's shako, but after all, he had commenced. Why had he thrown his shako over the wall? My imagination now came to my aid, and in the end I began to look upon myself as a martyr. I had been left to the dog, and he would eat me. I was terrified at the dead people behind me, and every one knew I was very nervous. My chest too was delicate, and there I was, exposed to the biting cold with no protection whatever. I began to think about Mother St. Sophie, who evidently no longer cared for me, as she was deserting me so cruelly. I lay with my face downwards on the plank, and gave myself up to the wildest despair, calling my mother, my father, and Mother St. Sophie, sobbing, wis.h.i.+ng I could die there and then--Between my sobs I suddenly heard my name p.r.o.nounced by a voice. I got up, and, peering through the gloom, caught a glimpse of my beloved Mother St.

Sophie. She was there, the dear saint, and had never left her rebellious child. Concealed behind the statue of St. Augustine, she had been praying whilst awaiting the end of this crisis, which in her simplicity she had believed might prove fatal to my reason and perhaps to my salvation. She had sent every one away and remained there alone, and she too had not dined. I came down and threw myself, repentant and wretched, into her motherly arms. She did not say a word to me about the horrible incident, but took me quickly back to the convent. I was all damp with the icy evening dew, my cheeks were feverish, and my hands and feet frozen.

I had an attack of pleurisy after this, and was twenty-three days between life and death. Mother St. Sophie never left me an instant. The sweet Mother blamed herself for my illness, declaring as she beat her breast that she had left me outside too long.

"It's my fault! It's my fault!" she kept exclaiming.

My aunt Faure came to see me nearly every day. My mother was in Scotland, and came back by short stages. My aunt Rosine was at Baden-Baden, ruining the whole family with a new "system." "I am coming.

I am coming," she kept saying, when she wrote to ask how I was. Dr.

Despagne and Dr. Monod, who had been called in for a consultation, did not think there was any hope. Baron Larrey, who was very fond of me, came often. He had a certain influence over me, and I willingly obeyed him. My mother arrived a short time before my convalescence, and did not leave me again. As soon as I could be moved she took me to Paris, promising to send me back to the convent when I was quite well.

It was for ever, though, that I had left my dear convent, but it was not for ever that I left Mother St. Sophie. I seemed to take something of her away with me. For a long time she was part of my life, and even to-day, when she has been dead for years, she haunts my mind, bringing back to me the simple thoughts of former days and making the simple flowers of yore bloom again.

Life for me then commenced in earnest.

The cloister life is a life for every one. There may be a hundred or a thousand individuals there, but every one lives a life which is the same and the only life for all. The rumour of the outside world dies away at the heavy cloister gate. The sole ambition is to sing more loudly than the others at vespers, to take a little more of the form, to be at the end of the table, to be on the list of honour. When I was told that I was not to go back to the convent, it was to me as though I was to be thrown into the sea when I could not swim.

I besought my G.o.dfather to let me go back to the convent. The dowry left to me by my father was ample enough for the dowry of a nun. I wanted to take the veil. "Very well," replied my G.o.dfather; "you can take the veil in two years' time, but not before. In the meantime learn all that you do not yet know (and that means everything) from the governess your mother has chosen for you."

That very day an elderly unmarried lady, with soft, grey, gentle eyes, came and took possession of my life, my mind, and my conscience for eight hours every day. Her name was Mlle. de Brabender, and she had educated a grand d.u.c.h.ess in Russia. She had a sweet voice, an enormous sandy moustache, a grotesque nose, but a way of walking, of expressing herself, and of bowing which simply commanded deference. She lived at the convent in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, and this was why, in spite of my mother's entreaties, she refused to come and remain with us.

She soon won my affection, and I learnt quite easily with her everything that she wanted me to learn. I worked eagerly, for my dream was to return to the convent, not as a pupil, but as a teaching sister.

VI

THE FAMILY COUNCIL AND MY FIRST VISIT TO A THEATRE

I arose one September morning, my heart leaping with some remote joy. It was eight o'clock. I pressed my forehead against the window-panes and gazed out, looking at I know not what. I had been roused with a start in the midst of some fine dream, and I had rushed towards the light in the hope of finding in the infinite s.p.a.ce of the grey sky the luminous point that would explain my anxious and blissful expectation. Expectation of what? I could not have answered that question then, any more than I can now after much reflection. I was on the eve of my fifteenth birthday, and I was in a state of expectation as to the future of my life. That particular morning seemed to me to be the precursor of a new era. I was not mistaken, for on that September day my fate was settled for me.

Hypnotised by what was taking place in my mind, I remained with my forehead pressed against the window-pane, gazing through the halo of vapour formed by my breath at houses, palaces, carriages, jewels, and pearls pa.s.sing along in front of me--oh, what a number of pearls there were! There were princes and kings, too; yes, I could even see kings!

Oh! how fast one's imagination travels, and its enemy, reason, always allows it to roam on alone. In my fancy I proudly rejected the princes, I rejected the kings, refused the pearls and the palaces, and declared that I was going to be a nun, for in the infinite grey sky I had caught a glimpse of the convent of Grand-Champs, of my white bed-room, and of the small lamp that swung to and fro above the little Virgin all decorated with flowers by us. The king offered me a throne, but I preferred the throne of our Mother Superior, and I entertained a vague ambition to occupy it some far-off day in the distant future; the king was heart-broken and dying of despair. Yes, _mon Dieu_! I preferred to the pearls that were offered me by princes the pearls of the rosary I was telling with my fingers; and no costume could compete in my mind with the black barege veil that fell like a soft shadow over the snowy-white cambric that encircled the beloved faces of the nuns of Grand-Champs. I do not know how long I had been dreaming thus when I heard my mother's voice asking our old servant Marguerite if I were awake. With one bound I was back in bed, and I buried my face under the sheet. Mamma half opened the door very gently, and I pretended to wake up.

"How lazy you are to-day!" she said. I kissed her, and answered in a coaxing tone, "It is Thursday, and I have no music lesson.'"

"And are you glad?" she asked.

"Oh yes," I replied promptly.

My mother frowned; she adored music, and I hated the piano. She was so fond of music that although she was then nearly thirty, she took lessons herself in order to encourage me to practise. What horrible torture it was! I used, very wickedly, to do my utmost to set my mother and my music mistress at variance. They were both of them as short-sighted as possible. When my mother had practised a new piece three or four days, she knew it by heart and played it fairly well, to the astonishment of Mlle. Clarisse, my insufferable old teacher, who held the music in her hand and read every note with her nose nearly touching the page. One day I heard, with joy, a quarrel beginning between mamma and this disagreeable Mlle. Clarisse.

"There, that's a quaver!"

"No, there's no quaver!"