Identifier: memoriesofmylife00bern (find matches)
Title: Memories of my life : being my personal, professional, and social recollections as woman and artist
Year: 1907 (1900s)
Authors: Bernhardt, Sarah, 1844-1923
Subjects:
Publisher: New York : D. Appleton
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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g on every occasionthe public declares that the artiste who is either being slanderedor pampered is an ardent lover of publicity. Alas! three timesover alas! We are victims of the said advertisement. Thosewho know the joys and miseries of celebrity when they havepassed the age of forty know how to defend themselves. Theyare at the beginning of a series of small worries, thunderboltshidden under flowers, but they know how to hold in check thatmonster advertisement. It is a sort of octopus with innumer-able tentacles. It throws out its clammy arms on the right andon the left, in front and behind, and gathers in through itsthousand little inhaling organs, all the gossip and slander andpraise afloat to spit out again at the public when it is vomitingits black gall. But those who are caught in the clutches ofcelebrity at the age of twenty know nothing. I remember thatthe first time a reporter came to me I drew upself up straightand was as red as a coxcomb with joy. I was just seventeen 338
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SARAH BERNHARDT AS THE DUG DE RICHELIEU. I AGAIN LEAVE THE COMEDIE FRANCAISE years old—I had been acting in a private house and had takenthe part of Richelieu with immense success. This gentlemancame to call on me at home and asked me first one questionand then another, and then another—I answered and chatteredand was wild with pride and excitement. He took notes and Ikept looking at my mother. It seemed to me that I was gettingtaller. I had to kiss my mother by way of keeping my composureand I hid my face on her shoulder to hide my delight. Finally,the gentleman rose, shook hands with me, and then took his de-parture. I skipped about in the room and began to turn roundsinging, Trots pctits pates, ma chemise hriile,^ when suddenlythe door opened and the gentleman said to mamma, Oh,madame, I forgot, this is the receipt for the subscription to thejournal! It is a mere nothing, only sixteen francs a year.Mamma did not understand at first. As for me, I stood stillwith my mouth open, u

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