We made our entry into St. Petersburg under the most propitious conditions. The sun was smiling, and the effect on the towers, domes and spires of Russia’s wonderful city was indescribably lovely. The Nevski Prospekt was a never-to-be-forgotten sight, with its splendid shops, its magnificent palaces, and its succession of fashionable people in their smart turnouts.

Rooms had been reserved for us at the Hotel du Nord, but on arriving there we found that it had not sufficient accommodation for all of us, so a part of the company, amongst them myself, went on to the European.

Being extremely tired after the long journey, I went straight to my room to get some sleep, though it was only four o’clock in the afternoon. I was awakened by a knock on the door. I lit the gas, and found that the clock said midnight. Who could be knocking on the door at that unearthly hour?

It was a maid, with a message from Hugette Duflos, one of the women members of the company, who had remained at the Hotel du Nord.

“Sarah is ill and wants you,” the message said.

I dressed at once, and asked the maid whether a conveyance could be found to take a very young girl in safety through the streets at night. The maid laughed. “Oh, yes!” she answered. “Evidently madame is not acquainted with our customs! This is tea-time!”

“Tea-time!” At midnight! I must have looked incredulous, for the maid went on to explain:

“Fashionable people do not rise until twelve o’clock in St. Petersburg, and the shops and restaurants therefore keep open very late. When you are having your supper in Paris, we in Russia are taking our tea!”

Going out into the brilliantly-lighted streets I saw that she was right. They were alive with people, and most, if not all, the shops and of course the restaurants were open. It was a novel scene that amused and enchanted me.

We arrived in a few minutes at the Hotel du Nord, and there another surprise awaited me. Sarah Bernhardt herself, accompanied by none other than Jacques Damala, advanced to meet me. Right and left were other members of the company, arriving in a similar state of bewilderment.

“We are going to have a real Russian party!” announced Sarah.

“But—I thought you were ill?” I said.

“Just an excuse—to get you out of bed, ma petite!” she said, to my astonishment. “I knew all of you were so tired that you would never get up for a mere invitation to a party, so I invented the excuse that I was ill!”

Some of the party, especially the men, were very angry and returned to their beds, after telling Sarah what they thought of her. Sarah only laughed. I myself felt nervous and annoyed, and Sarah must have seen this, for she passed her arm round me and led me to a buffet, where she gave me a little hot tea with cognac and lemon in it. This warmed and strengthened me, and I decided to stay.

The party kept on till four o’clock, with Sarah and Damala behaving like two children in their teens. There was a fearfully fascinating Prince there—Dimitri something, his name was—and he devoted himself to me, as the youngest and therefore the most innocent of the party. I was sixteen or seventeen—I forget which. At any rate, it was all perfectly wonderful to me.

People kept arriving and departing as casually as they had come. All St. Petersburg seemed determined to make the acquaintance of Sarah Bernhardt, and the throng round her was tremendous, with the result that many who wanted to talk to her had to content themselves with the other members of the company.

My Prince was courtesy itself. He was quite young, and very distinguished-looking; and I heard it stated that he was related to the Royal family. But I never found out the exact relationship ... in fact, Russia was such a whirl for me that I carried away very few facts and decidedly mixed impressions. Everyone was charming.

We were fÊted night after night in the most gorgeous way. The Grand Duke Michael—I think it was he—opened up his palace, which looked like a fortress, to us one night and we gave a brief performance there. After that we danced. Several of the Grand Dukes were there, and so was my Prince, who presented me to his wife, a gracious lady with that air of innate breeding which only the Russians, the English and the Danes seem to possess. The fact that Prince Dimitri had his wife there did not prevent him paying attention to me, and I had a wonderful time. I could have stayed in Russia for ever.

We did not play in the Winter Palace, but gave a gala performance for their Imperial Majesties at the National Theatre. It was private, in that no seats were sold and could be obtained only through invitations sent out by the Court Chamberlain; but when we saw the vast throng crowding the theatre it looked as if all Russia was there. And all wealthy and titled Russia probably was, for we heard that special trains had been made up to bring “Sarah Bernhardt sightseers” from Moscow and other famous cities. We were not to visit Moscow on this trip.

I have heard many people say that anyone who has visited Russia can talk of nothing else and always longs to return there. I can testify that this is true in my case; and I know also that it was true in the case of Sarah Bernhardt who returned to Russia three times and always spoke of the land of the Tsars with the warmest affection and feeling.

I remember a gracious remark made by the Empress, a woman of no great stature and with evident marks of trouble on her sweet and modest face. When Sarah was presented and dropped her curtsey before her, she said:

“I think, my dear, that I should be the one to bow!”

I thought it one of the most exquisite tributes I had ever heard.

We played FranÇois CoppÉe’s Le Passant, La Dame aux CamÉlias, Hernani, and L’AventuriÈre. The Emperor chose Le Passant for the Command Performance, and Sarah greatly appreciated his choice.

“He must be a poet himself! He looks like one!” she said. This observation came to the Emperor’s ears, and after the command performance was over he came down from his box on to the stage and shook hands with Sarah warmly.

“You are the most wonderful actress we have ever seen in Russia, mademoiselle!” he said, “and one does not need to be a poet to appreciate you!”

Alexander II. presented her with a magnificent brooch, set with diamonds and emeralds, as a remembrance of the occasion. She “lost” it on one of her trips to South America.

What jewels that woman lost or sold! The total would have staggered belief, had it ever become known. I suppose no actress ever possessed, at varying times, such wonderful jewels as did Sarah Bernhardt. Yet when her collection of gems was sold by auction in Paris after her death, most of the articles were found to be paste, and the whole collection fetched only a few thousand francs, and that chiefly for sentimental reasons.

Damala and Sarah were seen together everywhere. He took her about, introduced her into that class of society to which he belonged by virtue of his official position, and seemed wildly infatuated with her. Whether it was really infatuation, or simply the desire to capture the love and be seen in the company of the most famous woman of her epoch, I shall leave to my readers to judge.

To me Damala was the most cold-blooded, cynical and worthless individual whom I had ever met. I could not bear the sight of him. His very touch revolted me. And my feelings were shared by most of the company, so that when Sarah casually announced one day that Damala had resigned his official position in order to join her company, we were all more indignant than astonished. It had been evident from the first that he meant leaving St. Petersburg when she did.

What Sarah saw in him I am at a loss to imagine. He was still extremely handsome—“beautiful” would be a better description. He affected extreme dandyism in dress, and was eccentric in many of his habits.

He was still coolly nonchalant in his dealings with Sarah and in this he was wise, for it was this cynical attitude of his, this disdain of her greatness and success, which had first attracted her to him and which continued to hold her interest and pique her curiosity.

Once get a woman curious about a man, to the extent of wishing to seek his company, and the rest follows as night the day....

To other people, Damala would praise Sarah wildly.

“She is the sun, the moon and the stars!” he would exclaim. “She is Queen of the World! She is divine!”

Sometimes these verbal extravagances reached Sarah’s ears, but she never believed he had uttered them! This was comprehensible enough, for when he was with her his attitude was as different as possible.

On some occasions he actually treated her as an inferior! He would criticise her dress, her manner of doing her hair, her acting, her views on any subject, her deportment, her speech. He was always finding fault with her, and Sarah would fly into the most frightful rages when he carried his sarcasms too far.

A hundred times she would cast him from her, with stormy admonitions never to come near her again, a hundred times she declared violently that she could not bear the sight of him, despised him, and refused to take such treatment from anybody, let alone a “Greek Gypsy.” This was her pet piece of invective, for, as she was aware, it had the merit of piercing Damala’s thick hide. As a matter of fact, Damala was every inch an aristocrat, even though he was a particularly degenerate one.

In reply to these wild outbreaks on Sarah’s part, Damala would adopt a peculiarly irritating attitude. He would take her at her word, leave her, and then send a note to the effect that he was glad to have rid himself at last of such an incubus!

Then he would stay away from her until she came to him and begged to be forgiven. That was what he wished and liked; that was the pleasure his liaison with Sarah Bernhardt gave him—the idea of a proud and beautiful creature, idolised by two continents, crawling to him, Damala, on her knees, for forgiveness!

He would let people know about it, too.

“I had my proud Sarah on her knees last night,” he would say, “but I refused to forgive her; she has not yet been punished enough!”

What a brute the man was—but how well he knew women!

The worse he treated her, the more she became his slave. The more sarcastic he became, the humbler was she. It had from the first been a struggle between two arrogant natures, and Damala had won—for the time being. There came a day, however, when his victory seemed empty enough.

St. Petersburg talked much of Sarah’s affair with Damala, as may be supposed. The two were so open about it. The Court, and the gentle little Empress, were shocked. There were no more command performances. Russian high society was beginning to look askance at this beautiful genius, who was so scornful of convention.

The code in Russia was that a man could do what he liked. If his rank was high enough, he could commit murder without losing caste. But a woman had to walk within a strictly defined circle, which was drawn by the Empress herself. Once she stepped beyond that circle she could never get a footing inside it again. Sarah had stepped outside, and she did not care.

Soon after this we left St. Petersburg, but not before an incident occurred which will bear relating, even though Sarah was not directly concerned in it.

We were playing one night when, during the third entr’acte, I received a message from a call-boy who looked very awed and yet very important.

“The Grand Duke V—— desires that you will go to his box,” was the message.

Grand Dukes counted for little in my life and I, a Republican to the backbone, was vexed at the peremptory fashion in which the request was framed.

“Tell His Imperial Highness that I am not in the habit of going to private boxes during a performance!” I said.

The boy looked a little startled, but took my reply. In a few minutes he was back.

This time there was no mistaking the character of the message.

“His Imperial Highness presents his compliments to Mademoiselle ThÉrÈse, and wishes to inform her that he will await her for supper, after the performance.”

In consternation I went to see Sarah. “What shall I do? I asked. “I can’t go to supper with the man!”

“Tell him to go away, then!” suggested Sarah, who had not taken much interest in my story. But another member of the company, who knew Russia well, held up his hands in horror.

“You can’t do that—it would be disobeying a Royal command!” he exclaimed. “When a Grand Duke puts a message in that form, it admits of but one reply. You will have to go to supper with him!”

“I won’t!” I replied, obstinately decided.

“Then you will be thrown into prison!”

“What! Thrown into prison because I refuse to sup with a Grand Duke? What a ridiculous idea!”

“It’s true, none the less. These men wield an enormous power. A mere word from them, and you would disappear and never be heard of again, and Grand Duke V—— is the worst of the lot. You must remember that this is Russia!”

I was now terribly frightened. I looked for Sarah again, but she had disappeared.

“What shall I do?” I inquired of Pierre Berton, who had always been most kind to me.

“I will go to His Highness and tell him you are ill,” he suggested. But I would not hear of Pierre getting himself into trouble over me.

So, after the performance, I waited in fear and trembling in my dressing-room. Several other members of the company were there also, curious and disturbed as to the outcome, while Pierre Berton had a positively ferocious expression on his face. He looked as though he would like to eat all the Grand Dukes in Russia.

This was the first intimation I had had regarding the true state of Berton’s feelings towards me. His declaration of love and our marriage did not come until years later.

Finally the Grand Duke came in. He was in full evening dress, and when seen near at hand appeared a most amiable gentleman.

He bowed to the company, and when one of the ladies dropped a curtsey, his eyes twinkled. I was thoroughly frightened, but when he held out his arm to me, I stepped forward in spite of myself. He was so thoroughly courteous! Berton blurted out something indistinguishable, but fortunately did not interfere. I went out with my Grand Duke.

Well, the story has not the ending the reader may have been led to expect. The supper was a gay one, but all the men present behaved themselves quite properly and the Grand Duke was more like a father to me than a lover. Afterwards, he took me for a ride in his open barouche, and then accompanied me home.

At the hotel, when they saw who had brought me back, they received me with open mouths. It was the Hotel Demouth, a little place but very smart, opposite the statue of Catherine the Great. I had moved there because the European was too noisy.

The manager himself escorted me upstairs to my room and bowed me in. I had become a personage!

I told Sarah about it the next day, and she complimented me. “However,” she said, “nothing would have happened to you if you had not gone! That same Grand Duke wanted me to dine with him the other night, and I said I would if I could bring Damala, and that finished it!”