One day Alexandre Dumas, junior, was announced. He came to bring me the good news that he had finished his play for the Comedie Francaise, _L"Etrangere_, and that my _role_, the d.u.c.h.esse de Septmonts, had come out very well. "You can," he said to me, "make a fine success out of it." I expressed my grat.i.tude to him.
A month after this visit we were requested to attend the reading of this piece at the Comedie.
The reading was a great success, and I was delighted with my _role_, Catherine de Septmonts. I also liked the _role_ of Croizette, Mrs.
Clarkson.
Got gave us each copies of our parts, and thinking that he had made a mistake, I pa.s.sed on to Croizette the _role_ of l"Etrangere which he had just given me, saying to her, "Here, Got has made a mistake--here is your _role_."
"But he is not making any mistake. It is I who am to play the d.u.c.h.esse de Septmonts."
I burst out into irrepressible laughter, which surprised everybody present, and when Perrin, annoyed, asked me at whom I was laughing like that, I exclaimed:
"At all of you--you, Dumas, Got, Croizette, and all of you who are in the plot, and who are all a little afraid of the result of your cowardice. Well, you need not alarm yourselves. I was delighted to play the d.u.c.h.esse de Septmonts, but I shall be ten times more delighted to play l"Etrangere. And this time, my dear Sophie, I"ll be quits with you; no ceremony, I tell you; for you have played me a little trick which was quite unworthy of our friendship!"
The rehearsals were strained on all sides. Perrin, who was a warm partisan of Croizette, bewailed the want of suppleness of her talent, so much so that one day Croizette, losing all patience, burst out:
"Well, Monsieur, you should have left the _role_ to Sarah; she would have played it with the voice you wish in the love scenes; I cannot do any better. You irritate me too much: I have had enough of it!" And she ran off, sobbing, into the little _guignol_, where she had an attack of hysteria.
I followed her and consoled her as well as I could. And in the midst of her tears she kissed me, murmuring, "It is true. It is they who instigated me to play this nasty trick, and now they are annoying me."
Croizette used vulgar expressions, very vulgar ones, and at times uttered many a Gallic joke.
That day we made up our quarrel entirely.
A week before the first performance I received an anonymous letter informing me that Perrin was trying his very best to get Dumas to change the name of the play. He wished--it goes without saying--to have the piece called _La d.u.c.h.esse de Septmonts_.
I rushed off to the theatre to find Perrin at once.
At the entrance door I met Coquelin, who was playing the part of the Duc de Septmonts, which he did marvellously well. I showed him the letter.
He shrugged his shoulders. "It is infamous! But why do you take any notice of an anonymous letter? It is not worthy of you!"
We were talking at the foot of the staircase when the manager arrived.
"Here, show the letter to Perrin!" And he took it from my hands in order to show it to him. Perrin blushed slightly.
"I know this writing," he said. "Some one from the theatre has written this letter."
I s.n.a.t.c.hed it back from him. "Then it is some one who is well informed, and what he says is perhaps true. Is it not so? Tell me. I have the right to know."
"I detest anonymous letters." And he went up the stairs, bowing slightly, but without saying anything further.
"Ah, if it is true," said Coquelin, "it is too much. Would you like me to go and see Dumas, and I will get to know at once?"
"No, thank you. But you have put an idea into my head. I"ll go there."
And shaking hands with him, I went off to see the younger Dumas. He was just going out.
"Well, well? What is the matter? Your eyes are blazing!"
I went with him into the drawing-room and asked my question at once. He had kept his hat on, and took it off to recover his self-possession. And before he could speak a word I got furiously angry; I fell into one of those rages which I sometimes have, and which are more like attacks of madness. And in fact, all that I felt of bitterness towards this man, towards Perrin, towards all this theatrical world that should have loved me and upheld me, but which betrayed me on every occasion--all the hot anger that I had been acc.u.mulating during the rehearsals, the cries of revolt against the perpetual injustice of these two men, Perrin and Dumas--I burst out with everything in an avalanche of stinging words which were both furious and sincere. I reminded him of his promise made in former days; of his visit to my hotel in the Avenue de Villiers; of the cowardly and underhand manner in which he had sacrificed me, at Perrin"s request and on the wishes of the friends of Sophie. I spoke vehemently, without allowing him to edge in a single word. And when, worn out, I was forced to stop, I murmured, out of breath with fatigue, "What--what--what have you to say for yourself?"
"My dear child," he replied, much touched, "if I had examined my own conscience I should have said to myself all that you have just said to me so eloquently! But I can truly say, in order to excuse myself a little, that I really believed that you did not care at all about the stage; that you much preferred your sculpture, your painting, and your court. We have seldom talked together, and people led me to believe all that I was perhaps too ready to believe. Your grief and anger have touched me deeply. I give you my word that the play shall keep its t.i.tle of _L"Etrangere_. And now embrace me with good grace, to show that you are no longer angry with me."
I embraced him, and from that day we were good friends.
That evening I told the whole tale to Croizette, and I saw that she knew nothing about this wicked scheme. I was very pleased to know that. The play was very successful. Coquelin, Febvre, and I carried off the laurels of the day.
I had just commenced in my studio in the Avenue de Clichy a large group, the inspiration for which I had gathered from the sad history of an old woman whom I often saw at nightfall in the Baie des Trepa.s.ses.
One day I went up to her, wishing to speak to her, but I was so terrified by her aspect of madness that I rushed off at once, and the guardian told me her history.
She was the mother of five sons, all sailors. Two had been killed by the Germans in 1870, and three had been drowned. She had brought up the little son of her youngest boy, always keeping him far from the sea and teaching him to hate the water. She had never left the little lad, but he became so sad that he was really ill, and he said he was dying because he wanted to see the sea. "Well, make haste and get well," said the grandmother tenderly, "and we will go to see it together."
Two days later the child was better, and the grandmother left the valley in the company of her little grandson to go and see the ocean, the grave of her three sons.
It was a November day; a low sky hung over the ocean, narrowing the horizon. The child jumped with joy. He ran, gambolled, and sang for happiness when he saw all this living water.
The grandmother sat on the sand, and hid her tearful eyes in her two trembling hands; then 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, her little lad of eight years old, who was laughing right merrily, paddling as well as he could with one oar that he could hardly hold, and crying out, "I am going to see what there is behind the mist, and I will come back."
He never came back. And the following day they found the poor old woman talking low to the waves which came and bathed her feet. She came every day to the water"s edge, throwing in the bread which kind folks gave her, and saying to the waves, "You must carry that to the little lad."
This touching narrative had remained in my memory. I can still see the tall old woman, with her brown cape and hood.
I worked feverishly at this group. It seemed to me now that I was destined to be a sculptor, and I began to despise the stage, I only went to the theatre when I was compelled by my duties, and I left as soon as possible.
I had made several designs, none of which pleased me. Just when I was going to throw down the last one in discouragement, the painter Georges Clairin, who came in just at that moment to see me, begged me not to do so. And my good friend Mathieu Meusnier, who was a man of talent, also added his voice against the destruction of my design.
Excited by their encouragement, I decided to hurry on with the work and to make a large group. I asked Meusnier if he knew any tall, bony old woman, and he sent me two, neither of whom suited me. Then I asked all my painter and sculptor friends, and during eight days all sorts of old and infirm women came for my inspection. I fixed at last on a charwoman who was about sixty years old. She was very tall, and had very sharp-cut features. When she came in I felt a slight sentiment of fear. The idea of remaining alone with this female _gendarme_ for hours together made me feel uneasy. But when I heard her speak I was more comfortable. Her timid, gentle voice and frightened gestures, like a shy young girl, contrasted strangely with the build of the poor woman. When I showed her the design she was stupefied. "Do you want me to have my neck and shoulders bare? I really cannot." I told her that n.o.body ever came in when I worked, and I asked to see her neck immediately.
Oh, that neck! I clapped my hands with joy when I saw it. It was long, emaciated, terrible. The bones literally stood out almost bare of flesh; the sterno-cleido-mastoid was remarkable--it was just what I wanted. I went up to her and gently bared her shoulder. What a treasure I had found! The shoulder bone was visible under the skin, and she had two immense "salt-cellars"! The woman was ideal for my work. She seemed destined for it. She blushed when I told her so. I asked to see her feet. She took off her thick boots and showed a dirty foot which had no character. "No," I said, "thank you. Your feet are too small; I will take only your head and shoulders."
After having fixed the price I engaged her for three months. At the idea of earning so much money for three months the poor woman began to cry, and I felt so sorry for her that I told her she would not have to seek for work that winter, because she had already told me that she generally spent six months of the year in the country, in Sologne, near her grandchildren.
Having found the grandmother, I now needed the child.
I pa.s.sed a review of a whole army of professional Italian models. There were some lovely children, real little Jupins. The mothers undressed their children in a second, and the children posed quite naturally and took att.i.tudes which showed off their muscles and the development of the torso. I chose a fine little boy of seven years old, but who looked more like nine. I had already had in the workmen, who had followed out my design and put up the scaffolding necessary to make my work sufficiently stable and to support the weight. Enormous iron supports were fixed into the plaster by bolts and pillars of wood and iron wherever necessary.
The skeleton of a large piece of sculpture looks like a giant trap put up to catch rats and mice by the thousand.
I gave myself up to this enormous work with the courage of ignorance.
Nothing discouraged me.
Often I worked on till midnight, sometimes till four o"clock in the morning. And as one humble gas-burner was totally insufficient to work by, I had a crown or rather a silver circlet made, each bud of which was a candlestick, and each had its candle burning, and those of the back row were a little higher than those of the front. And with this help I was able to work almost without ceasing. I had no watch or clock in the room, as I wished to ignore time altogether, except on the days I had to perform at the theatre. Then my maid would come and call for me. How many times have I gone without lunch or dinner. Then I would perhaps faint, and so be compelled to send for something to eat to restore my strength.
I had almost finished my group, but I had done neither the feet nor the hands of the grandmother. She was holding her little dead grandson on her knees, but her arms had no hands and her legs had no feet. I looked in vain for the hands and feet of my ideal, large and bony. One day, when my friend Martel came to see me at my studio and to look at this group, which was much talked of, I had an inspiration. Martel was big, and thin enough to make Death jealous. I watched him walking round my work. He was looking at it as a _connoisseur_. But I was looking at _him_. Suddenly I said:
"My dear Martel, I beg you--I beseech you--to pose for the hands and feet of my grandmother!"
He burst out laughing, and with perfectly good grace he took off his shoes and took the place of my model.
He came ten days in succession, and gave me three hours each day.