This meeting of Sarah Bernhardt, then the greatest feminine personality in Europe, and Damala, who was to be the central figure of the most tragic episode of her life, will remain in my memory for ever.

They were introduced by a mutual friend.

“Damala?” said Sarah, raising her eyebrows, and affecting an ignorance of his name which was in the circumstances really insulting.

“Bernhardt?” replied Damala, in similar accents.

It was flint on stone.

“Sir!” exclaimed the dismayed hostess, “you are addressing the greatest actress in France!”

“And I,” said Damala, in a sceptically belittling manner, “am therefore the greatest man in France!”

Bernhardt shrugged her shoulders at this insolence.

“You do not interest me, monsieur!” she said, turning away.

“Wait,” said Damala, “you have not heard all. I am also the wickedest man in Paris.”

“You sound to me,” replied Sarah, “a fool, and the poorest boaster I have ever met!” And she left him.

He laughed, and the laughter reached her. It struck straight at her most vulnerable trait—her vanity. A man had laughed at Sarah Bernhardt! More, he was laughing still! It was incredible!

Yet it was so, and the memory of that laugh, and of the passage of arms which had preceded it, lingered with her. She was piqued. For the first time in her experience she had met a man who would not humble himself before her.

Sarah was now negotiating for the purchase of the Porte St. Martin theatre, which she proposed to place under the direction of her young son, Maurice Bernhardt. In this capacity, as a possible purchaser, she came face to face with Damala, who had been waiting for her in the theatre.

Sarah would have swept by him, but he stepped in front.

“I have brought you a present!” he said, and held out a bouquet of beautiful lilies-of-the-valley—for it was Springtime, the fÊte of muguet. This flower is supposed in France to be a symbol of good fortune, and many a forlorn lover makes up a quarrel with his sweetheart, on the first of May, by presenting her with a tiny bundle of muguet.

Sarah looked at him, astonished. Here was a new Damala!

But the Greek quickly disillusioned her.

“I give it to you,” he said, “because you will need it—with me!”

This was even greater insolence than he had shown before. Sarah was angry, mortified—and interested. Within a week she confounded her friends by accepting an invitation to dine with Damala alone.

Although his family in Athens had destined him for the diplomatic service, his own private ambition was to be an actor. As I have said, he was an amateur comedian of no small merit, and when Sarah discovered this she invited him to become a member of her company.

He accepted at once, but his family intervened and—a curious case of history repeating itself—had him sent on a diplomatic mission to Russia, whither young de LagrenÉe had gone a few years before.

Sarah was now all ready to depart on her Grand Tour of Europe, during which she was to visit all the principal capitals and was to give performances literally before “all the crowned heads.” In fact, many of those crowned heads were destined before long seriously to feel her powers of attraction.

She had already included in her itinerary Spain, Italy, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden and Norway. It was an enormous undertaking, having regard to difficulties of transport at that time, when the train services in many countries were the worst imaginable. On this tour, I was again included in her company.

When Damala went to Russia, he begged her to follow, and as her itinerary included Denmark, it was not difficult for her to arrange to go from there to Reval, and thence to St. Petersburg. Russia had always possessed an enormous attraction for her.

Voluminous descriptions of this tour have already been given, and I shall not therefore say much about it, except as regards Sarah personally.

In Lisbon, the actor DÉcori jumped into the first place in Sarah’s affections, and DÉcori was extremely jealous of another actor named Dumeny, because he had a better part in the piece.

During the rehearsals for L’Aveu, however, DÉcori pretended to be a great friend of Dumeny’s, and carried him off every day on fishing trips. As a consequence, Dumeny did not properly learn his part, and his performance on the opening night was farcical.

Sarah called him into her dressing-room for an hour, and gave him one of the most frightful reprimands I have ever heard. It was devastating. When Dumeny came out, he was pale and trembling like a leaf.

That night the company were the guests of the well-known de Rosas at a formal banquet, and one of the hosts proposed a toast to the French artistes.

Sarah sprang to her feet and pointed a shaking finger at her unfortunate subordinate Dumeny, who was sitting quietly at one end of the table with his wife.

“Ah, no!” she cried, “I will not drink your toast if it includes that pig there! When I play with him, I never have any applause!”

There was a dead silence for a few moments, and then Dumeny, very pale and with tears in his eyes, rose and left the room, followed by his wife. We drank the toast.

The next day Sarah bore down on Dumeny in the middle of rehearsals and exclaimed heartily: “Ah, my little cabbage!”—and kissed him on the cheek!

In Madrid I was asked to play the part of Nanine in La Dame aux CamÉlias. The ThÉÂtre de l’OpÉra at Madrid is an immense building, and the area at the back of the stage is a perfect wilderness of gangways, passages, and turnings between the different sets. It was difficult even for the habituÉs of the theatre to find their way about. As for myself, I never did learn the quickest way from one side of the stage to the other, when a scene was being played. The distance seemed tremendous, and one was always tripping over something.

I was supposed to make my exit by one door and to re-appear at another one, where I was to knock and say a certain line loudly—I have forgotten the exact words.

I made my exit safely enough, but in running round to the other door I lost my way, missed my cue, and, rendered nervous at the prospect of Sarah’s wrath, entered without saying the line. As I did so, Sarah darted a furious look at me, and I realised that she had already explained my absence in such a way that my appearance created a comic situation. The audience was laughing.

In the last act Sarah “died” and it was my duty to pass a garment over her. This was the first time I had been close to her since my faux pas of the third act.

Suddenly, as she sank with glazing eyes on her couch, I was amazed to hear her launch into a perfect stream of low-toned vituperation, directed at myself.

Her breast heaved, her breath came in short gasps. Sarah Bernhardt was “dying” in one of the most magnificent scenes she ever played. Her lips moved—and it is fortunate that the audience could not hear what they said!

They said, in fact: “You ugly cow! You have spoiled everything by your clumsiness! This is not the proper garment!”

And, in truth, I discovered to my horror that it wasn’t! I was in such a nervous state that I had chosen the wrong robe. However, I am certain that nobody except Sarah, not even the others in the company, noticed the fact. But, added to my previous grave fault, this error was enough for her. She kept up her great death scene, taking twice as long as usual, because she kept on thinking of new reproaches to hurl at me. What reproaches they were, too! My ears burned. My cheeks were tingling with indignation.

Finally, when she uttered a really outrageous insult—it was with her supposedly last breath that she said it—I leaned down, and, making the motions of intense and tearful grief, hissed between my sobs:

“You say another word and I’ll smack your face here on the stage!”

I meant it, too, and Sarah must have seen that I did, for she “died” properly this time, and never pronounced another word.

And all this while there was the audience out in the mistiness beyond, tense and grief-stricken, held by the marvellous acting of the great tragÉdienne on her stage death-bed!

In Vienna the Archduke Frederick put one of his palaces at Sarah’s disposal, and in appreciation of his act of courtesy we gave a special performance for him, to which all the ladies of the Court were invited. The Emperor was away, or ill—I forget which.

The last act in La Dame aux CamÉlias, the very one which I have just been describing, made such an impression on one of these ladies, a beautiful Hungarian, that she fainted dead away and had to be carried out of the theatre.

“Had I been a woman I would have fainted too!” said the Archduke, when Sarah expressed her regret at the occurrence.

He gave her an emerald pendant, set in natural gold which had been obtained from a mine on his estate near Bugany in Hungary. For a long time Sarah wore this emerald more prominently than any other jewel. Finally it went the way of most of her precious possessions. Sarah gave out that it had been “lost.” Perhaps it had been, but I think I know the man who found it—and who paid Sarah handsomely for the privilege!

We were asked to play in Prague, but Sarah had refused to go there, as she had refused to go to Berlin. A few years later, in fact, she declined an offer of one million marks to play in Berlin. “Never among those swine!” she would say.

Eventually however—some sixteen years later I believe—Sarah appeared in Berlin and secured triumph. Germany, as I have stated in an earlier chapter, acclaimed her as one of the Fatherland’s own children.

Finally, after returning to France through Switzerland, we went to Holland, and from there to the Baltic states. We played in Stockholm, Christiania and Copenhagen. Our greatest reception was in Stockholm, where Sarah became an idol of the people. I have always thought that the Swedes understand dramatic art better than any other nation except the French.

We passed through Finland, but did not play there. Sarah was anxious to get to St. Petersburg, where a grandiose demonstration and welcome, not to mention Damala, awaited her.

Word came that the Tsar was to command a performance in the Winter Garden, and the whole company was tremendously excited. None of us had ever seen the Tsar. But so many stories had reached us about him that, in our imaginations, he had become a sort of god. Tales of the munificence of his entertainments, the sumptuousness of his Court, the power that he wielded, had combined to weave about his person a truly romantic glamour. And we were to play before this mighty personage! But Sarah was not thrilled—at least, not in anticipation of playing before the Tsar. She might have been, and probably was, thrilled at the prospect of again meeting Damala, the one man who had met and vanquished her with her own weapons.

And, when we actually saw the Great White Tsar, we felt the edge taken off our thrill, too. He was the most insignificant looking monarch in all Europe!