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Rich Only to Tie Vanquished Herself
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POSITIVELY my lat season positively my last,"
PI so says Sarah Bernhardt, ths oldest and the
I youngest, the homeliest, and at the same time
I the most beautiful actress cm the French stage.
" But please say that I shall play, again In
English before I say good-by. Tea, and in Ger
man, French, and Chinese. I now play In three
languages and I shall soon play la four.
" Say that I am retiring while at the height of my career.
I retire because I am afraid I shall grow old."
Afraid she will grow old. And she Is only In the 60s! That
Is the real reason of the retirement of Sarah Bernhardt. She
Is afraid she may at some time some far distant time
grow old I
In thus yielding to her fear Sarah Bernhardt falls a victim
to the fears which have agitated her all her life. " She is,"
said a French writer of long ago, " a woman of many fears."
One by one she has banlBhed and retired them, vanquish
ing some and temporarily routing others, only to be at last
consumed and vanquished by this, the worst fear o all I
Dreams That Haunt Sarah.
The seven fears of Sarah Bernhardt have been so severe
as to amount almost to tragedies. They are these, as re
luted by one who has been close to her:
The fear of being burled alive. ,
The fear that she wouid become thin again.
The fear that her son would cease to love her.
The fear that she would die rich, for she has always
thought it a sin to have too much money and she has reli
giously squandered her money on this account.
The fear that she would lose her fascinating and almost
uncanny beauty.
The fear that Vlctorien Sardou would think some other
actress as great as she.
The fear that she would grow old on the stage. '
One by one Sarah has routed these only to be now routed
by the lust but worst of all fears, the fear that has been
the greatest bugaboo to her.
She Is afraid of growing old on the stage. And, so, while
at the height of her career, while In the early sixties, " in
stead of waiting to be an old woman," as she herself puts It,.
" I shall retire while I am young."
The Greatest of Her Ambitions.
But before she retires Sarah has decided to do these last
and final things, to again quote the friend who Is nearest
to her:
" To wear the most daring gown on the French stage.
" To drive through the bole once again with the hood of
her carriage filled with violets.
" To return to Constantinople to play before the sultan.
" To bring Queen Alexandra, that haughty but beautiful
sovereign, to her feet.
" To play in Chinese before the dowager empress. ' Tou
can do It,' said the sultan to her In Constantinople a few
weeks ago.
"To see her own playhouse making money,
" And, finally, to play an Ingenue part In order to show
the publlo on her farewell night that she Is Just exactly as
young as she was thirty years ago and even more babyish
In manner."
M When I have done these things," says Sarah, " I shall
retire to Belle Isle happy. There I shall live the rest of
my days,"
Plans for Her Last Years.
These are the things she longs to do the last twenty
years of her life. Her friends tell it la a whispered confi
dence. To quote Sarah's words:
" I long to go barefoot on the rocks of Belle Isle watching
the dashing sea the livelong day.
" I long to live the wild free out of door life to which
I was born snd back to which I shall revert at the first op
portunity. " I, long to eat the food of the fields and the Ash of the
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sea. I long to fill my stomach with wild berries and the fruits
.that ripen In the sun.
" I long to be far from the world and to know nothing
and hear less of the sights of the streets and the noises
of the town.
" I long to gather my grandchildren around me and, like
Niobe, to shed tears for those that are not!
" I long to throw off "ny clothing and live the life of a
flsherwoman who knows nothing of the trammels of fashion
nor the canons of art.
" I long to stand upon the rocks and cry aloud and be
answered only by the sea gulls.
" I long to play my tragedies beneath the skies upon the
drifting sands to an orchestra of beating waves rather than
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of prematupe burial
Sleeping in. a coffiru .
upon the unsympathetic boards to tlntlnabulating music and
o applause which I must work to win.
" And I long O, I long to die happy. I cannot bear to
die In sorrow.
" I long to go out of the world rich in all things save
money to go out with all my faculties with me!"
Says She Will Retire In 1905.
With these longings tn her heart and with her hopes and
aspirations nearly all fulfilled, Sarah Bernhardt retires from
the stage. She has set lixo as the date of her retirement.
"It shall be next summer." she says. And her friends fy
1 hat tt will be so.
In spite of her brilliant success Sarah Bernhardt has not Is grand.'
been a happy woman. She has been haunted by her fears.
The first of her fears namely: that she would Ret too
thin, was the dread one of her early life. She was as ema
ciated as a skeleton, and for years and years she could not
bare her neck upon the stage. Even now all her gowns are
made high In the throat and are cut low In the back. " The
back of a woman Is beautiful. The front is not," she said
shortly to one of her stage people who questioned her upon
this peculiarity.
The fear that she would be burled alive haunted her
day and night for years. Finally some one suggested that
she try sleeping In her coffin. " It may rid you of this awful
nightmare thought of being burled alive."
So Sarah bought her coffin and for weeks she amused her
self fitting It up. She lined it with costly laces and satin and
she spent a small fortune decorating It on the outside. When
she had tired of her toy she would climb Inside and rest.
Here she would He with roses and palms around her and
here she would take a nnp. Many nights she slept there all
night and, describing It, she said: "I never slept so soundly
In my life.''
Dread of Losing Son's Love.
After awhile the fear of premature burial left her and
she was quite happy for a few weeks. Then came another
fear. It was the fear that her son Maurice would cease to
love her.
" He is grown up and he Is clever and he Is prosperous.
But he is still my baby," she sobbed to a friend. " Suppose
he should cease to adore me. I should not care to live."
In vain Maurice reasoned and her friends reassured her.
It was a nightmare. Luckily Maurice bethought him of a
series of fencing lessons. With the foils In hand mother
and son fenced and the fears of Sarah Bernhardt drifted
away.
Then came the fear of having too much money. She was
paid large sums and her -noney began to accumulate. " But
I must not keep It," she said. And so she began to epend
It. She bought a little place, Belle Isle by the sea. She
bought a theater in ParlH. She purchased a town house and
expensive clothing. And the money drifted away. When
It was all gone and she was in debt she said: "Je euls
content."
Jealous of Sardou' s Admiration.
Her jealousy of Sardou was a matter for all who entered
the theater to note. At rehearsals It was apparent and she
woud drive the other women from the stage while she re
hearsed with the great author alone. If others were neces
sary to the scene they were brought In. But she was at
her happiest when alone with Sardou. " It Is not that she
likes him for himself," said a member of the profession, " but
It Is for her art. As soon as he admires another she will,
know that there is another as great as she."
" I watch him and I tremble. I am full of fears," once
said Sarah.
Then came the last and greatest fear of all. The fear
that she would grow old on the stage. This Is a fear which
a great many have had but few have been routed as utterly
by it as Sarah.
" I cannot bear to think," she said, " that I shall some
day go on the stage a ghastly figure of my former self.
" The poor old actress with her voice half gone, her figure
bent and shrunken, her beauty faded, and her powers dimin
ished, appearing as a mere ghost of her former self Is pitia
ble In the extreme. I should die If I were to go on the stage
like that." I
" Sarah remembers the last days of Jenny Llnd Oold
schmidt," said some one. " She heard that glorious voice
when there were only three whole notes left."
" I should die," said Sarah, " If after one of my greatest
scenes the audience should murmur only murmurs of pity
Instead of the bravos of admiration. I should die If no one
wept with Camilla. I should perish if no one pitied poor
Frou Frou. I should not live if In the audience of L'Alglon
I saw not one sympathetic glance. Pathetio, dreadful, are
words that I could not bear to hear.
"And, so, I am going to retire. Retire while In the
fiuih of my triumph, while in the height of my career.
Listen," she said, and In her rlutcllke voice she read this
paragraph from a French paper translating It rapidly Into
English: s
" The beautiful Sarah swayed her audience last night with'
more than dramatlo fervor, i: was real life. Never has she
been so magnificent. The playwright hiinsulf said, 'Truly, she
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