Omaha Sunday Bee Magazine Page
This
Is the Sonnet "To Sarah
By Edmond Rostand, the Famous French Poet
... mm .a
To thy one heel the world respondetn now.
Remorse is not for thee, for thou hast aimed
To make thyself like those ,our martyrs
maimed
The while they bled, thou bledst for all thy
rfHOU whn madeat of e-eniua one loner test
h Of Heroism, how thou must have craved
The destiny of those who would have saved
The valley where they lie at glorious rest I
"Oh, let me have a wound like theirs!" saidst
thou.
"And let it tear and bring me close to death."
Thy shoulders have two wings while tho'y
hast breath.
race.
So set thy sail where blows the wind most free!
The steel with which we sought a Samothrace
Has marred the Muse and made Victory!
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The Surprising Rev
elation By the Great
Poet That Mme. Sarah
Bernhardt Had Her
Right Leg Amputated
As An Heroic
Example to the Brave
Soldiers Who Are
Facing Death and
ilation in the
Trenches
Mui
Mme. Bernhardt Sleeping in the Specially designed Coffin That She Used for
9 wu u iu ccccninciiies 01 me vreai Actress
That Makes Rostand's Extraordinary Revelation Credible.
doubtless I should always hare spells of suffering. If
this had happened twenty years ago or thirty years
r
X.
f .
The Divine barah" in the Costumo
She Designed for ilersel
as r noltress.
Ihe bkull Given nr by Victoi
Hugo Which She Carrie
With Her Always.
v Paris, May J.
THE apotheosis of Sarah Bernhardt Is achieved.
Id the eyes of trery French soldier the great
actress must henceforth appear as little less
than a saint Her greatest and closest friend, the
poet Edmond Rostand, has brought this about
Rostand In a sonnet addressad "To Sarah" makes
to the world the remarkable declaration clothed In f
poetic Imagery thai It was not necessary for Sarah
Bernhardt to hare her leg amputated. She con
demned herself to that ordeal because of an almost
trended deMre to share in the sufferings and muti
lations endured by the brare soldier defenders of her
country; and. perhaps, as an example" to them of forti
tude, not exacted by duty but roluntarlly Imposed on
herself for an Ideal
"Oh, let me share their cruel wounds!" Rostand
makes her cry.
Ihe had borne the painful lameness in her right
knee for sereral years. The injury was not a
menace to her life, or even to her general health.
co her phynlclans agreed. But with that plead
ing exclamation for permission to face death
as French soldiers face It eysry hour of the
day, she overruled her doctors and went to the
operating table. ,
News of the operation that removed Sarah
Bernhardt's right leg above the knee was cabled
to every part of the world. The physicians who
Issued bulletins of Its success and of the actress'
rapid recovery let It be assumed that Bernhardt'a leg
could not hare been saved. It was not for these scien
tific gentlemen to divulge the sentimental, or patriotic,
motive which Inspired the world's greatest tragedienne
to complete her career as a cripple.
As the sequel shows, that was Rostand's task. And
who could have accomplished it with more splendid
effect? Let his sonnet "To Sarah." a translation of
which Is herewith transmitted, speak for Itself.
It is quite true that Bernhardt's knee had become
very troublesome. A few months ago Its persistent
swelling kept her In bed for more than a week. And
there were times when it did not bother her at all.
The original Injury occurred six years ago, when she
knocked her knee against something while travelling
on an ocean steamship. In an Interview early la the
present year she said of It:
"I thought
nothing of the
Injury at first,
and would not
have it attend
ed to. That
was unfortu
nate, for water
gathered under
the knee cap
and - corroded
the smooth sur
face of the
bone, some
times giving
me a great deal
of bother, and
then, for weeks
at a time, hard
ly troubling me
at all. Lately
I hare - had
much trouble
with It. and
ago or forty It might have been a serious handlcanl
All of which adds to the credibility of Rostand's as
tonishing statement that thj greatest actress in the
t world voluntarily sacrificed her right leg through her
patriotic imperative desire to stand shoulder to shoul
der with the crippled soldiers of France.
Presto! Then this wonderful woman gets busy and
supplies her beloved, crippled French soldiers with
anomer nonie example. Even berore ahe is out of bed,
following the amputation, she busies herself with
plans to go right on with her acting! She cables to
her agent in America about a, tour of that country,
looks over her list of plays, selects a repertory and
refreshes her memory of lines Just as though she still
had two legs on which to subjugate the biggest stages
demanded by her big productions. ;
Then still flat on her back, wincing occasionally
.'rom pangs In her bandaged stump she laughs at the
thought of presently having .herself fitted out with S
wooden leg! As a matter of fact, the divine Sarah was
reading catalogues of artificial limb manufacturers be
store her brain was wholly clear. of the fumes of the
anaesthetic.
During all this period the friend of all her thou
sands of friends who was most attentive was the poet.
Edmond Rostand. This great French personality, gen
erally cold and unapproachable, baa for years paid the
most flattering homage to Bernhardt, not only to the
- enlus, hut to the woman, , When he learned that she
was suffering and was preparing for the amputation
of her leg, the poet emerged from his retirement in the
Pyrenees, hurried to Paris and became an hourly caller
at the actress' bedside. '.
To Partsluns this was not amazing. They still re
membered Rostand's telegram yielding everything v
Bernhardt wbeu he learned her wishes In regard to hla
drama. "L'Alglon," motion picture rights of which be
had sold greatly to his own fiuancUl advantage. Bern
hardt considered that great character as her own, and
' applied for au Injunction. Learning this. Rostand
wrote to her counsol. using these expressions':
I have the honor to Inform you that I would rather
cut off my hand than go to "law with Mme. Sarah Bern
hardt Uefore any one else I would maintain
a principle which Interests all my confreres, but to er
I yield, as they would all do.
"I declare that what ahe wishes is always good. I
. abandon to her, if this compensation may aatlsfy her
lawyers, my entire rlghta In the cinematographic re
productions which are worrying her. and I embrace
wirn respect and gratitude her fin
gers, in which a legal summons as
sumes for me the grace of a Illy."
This brought actress and poet into
: a deadlock of friendship in which
neither would accept sacrifices on
the part of the other and they have
remained In that attitude ever since,
Rostand never' missing an oppqr
tunlty'to exalt Bernhardt and re
minding France that it, too, was
quite of the poet's opinion.
Actresses, as such, are never deco
rated with the ribbon of the French
Legion of Honor, but Bernhardt
could not have escaped it if she had
wished to.
The outbreak of the war found her
ablaze with patriotism. She promptly
gave her theatre, the Sarah Bern
hardt, for a military hospital "It is
the holiest war man has ever been
engaged In," she said. "The French
soldiers are not dying for the flag,
tout for humanity."
When she heard that the tricolor
was floating again over Alsdce, she
fainted. On coming to, she said:
"I am sorry I cannot tight the bar
barians, who have too long been the
plague of the world."
But as Rostand's sonnet
proclaims she was in spirit
in the trenches with French
soldiers, and their sufferings
. were In her mind when she
unnecessarily yielded her
body to the same tortures
which so many of them are
forced to endure.
This is the Sarah Bern
hardt of to-day, who is In her
seventy-first year. Throughout her long career, coin
cident with universal admission of her genius and
solid artistio attainments, she has been celebrated for
eccentricitlee which outdid those of any other llring
woman.
In the Interests of her art she sought erery 'imagin
able human experience that was within the range of
possibility. She frequented all sorts of places, as
sociated with all sorts of persons to gain vivid im
pressions at rst hand. She made the acquaintance
of murderers and thleres and was familiar with the
grewsome sights at the morgue. Also in the hospitals
she studied from actual models the subjects of mortal
illness and death in various forms.
She studied to put herself Into the closest possible
association with the mysteries of death, littering up
her abode with human skulls and skeletons, and sleep
ing in a coffin.
Probably moat women will agree that this last was
a feat requiring considerable fortitude. Accounta of
11 were punilabed all or th wnrM t ...
transient caprice, either. Bernhardt alept In that cof-
CoprrisjUt. 1111. by ths Btar Company. Great Britain Hlafeu IUmtv
nn nearly every ntxht for month. Kh rA 1.
nr on one or ber sereral American tours. It was a
real coffin, but a handsome one, upholstered in white
silk, worthy of the last sleep of one so distinguished.
In her trarele, when not accompanied by this cof
fin, she always had with her for use in lieu of a
nightgown a handsome ehroud of white silk. In those
oays people would not bellere that such eccentricities
were Inspired by any serious artistic motlre. Th
Comooaita Photoirrank nf Mm. RmkrJ T... u
t7.i t 1. ft if 1 - it t . .. . T: . '
iTiaue up inu rasxenea to tne stump to Her Kight
Leg. The Photograph Shows Her in Her Famous Chara-
a M.M9 ft a
cier or "iAigion.
were credited to "Sarah's pose'1 her desire for ad
vertisement Her habit of carrying with her two half
grown tiger cubs was set down to the sanr pose."
The members of her company, however, knew bet
ter. The great roles which she interpreted with such
thrilling effect upon ber audiences required her to
give realism to all sorts of emotions. She had to meet
death by hanging, by polBon. by the dagger, by fire,
by suffocation, by being drowned or strangled, or by
falling a victim to her own unbearable emotions and
she had the true artist's passion for first-hand in
formation on the eubject
Her tomb, built with her own hands for she has
won honors as a sculptress awaits her veritable
death and burial This work which most women at
ail equal to It would look upon as the most melan
choly of tasks was performed In the period when
Bernhardt waa most active in seeking morbid sensa
tions for the benefit of her art and figured then as
another "eccentricity."
Bernhardt's self-faahloned burial place stands withla
the reach of high tide on Belle Iale, off the Brittany
coast, opposite the spot on the mainland where Ilea
the French poet Chateaubriand.
ihJI'K111. ?T MTb-e in France, no more
hard? in! oc"Wclues" of Sarah Ber?
f ardt She U that country's greatest woman. In the
alwiys'good." 08UD, "Wh4t ,he Wih" ooe.) 1.
hatd't uhVnl fMt m t,kule towr Sr" Bern
hardt la by no means confined to the people of her own
Dined world has mmi t u . .. . .
mirn ni.,.-. uvr M greatest or
no
ith
Hei
