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The carpet, however, had been laid down for their Royal Highnesses the Prince and the Princess of Wales, who had just left for Paris. This news disappointed me, and even annoyed me personally. I had been told that all London was quivering with excitement at the very idea of the visit of the Comedie Francaise, and I had found London extremely indifferent.
It would be easy to compile a book of sayings from Balzac that would make all "Maximes" and "Pensées," even those of La Rochefoucauld or Joubert, seem trivial and shallow. Balzac was the great moral influence of my life, and my reading culminated in the "Comédie Humaine."
Players less perfect in their art would have been disconcerted by it; but these of the Comédie Française were quick to perceive and to utilize its artistic possibilities.
This was a mistake. One day when I was having lunch with my little boy I heard the bells of two horses and a carriage. The road overhung my tent, which was half hidden by the bushes. Suddenly a voice which I knew, but could not recognise, cried in the emphatic tone of a herald, "Does Sarah Bernhardt, Societaire of the Comedie Francaise, reside here?" We did not move. The question was asked again.
The five young men rose and bowed low. Then my poor aunt understood her mistake and excused herself in every possible manner, so confused was she. 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 Duchesse de Septmonts, had come out very well.
The journey was most amusing, as although I was travelling incognito, I was recognised all along the route and was made a great deal of. Three gentlemen friends and Hortense Damain were with me, and it was a very lively little trip. I knew that I was not shirking my duties at the Comedie, as I was not to play again before Saturday, and this was only Wednesday.
Most certainly the Baron did not desire a reconciliation with Silviane, but he vowed that he would overturn everything if necessary in order to send her a signed engagement for the Comedie, and this simply by way of vengeance, as a slap, so to say, yes, a slap which would make her tingle! That moment spent with Barroux had been a decisive one.
The truth is that I had no need, just at that moment, of putting myself into communication with Balzac; for opposite to me in the compartment were a couple of figures almost as vivid as the actors in the "Comedie Humaine." This young man, indeed, was mitigatedly monastic.
"Ah! yes, of course!" he repeated, taking Silviane's hand, which he kissed. "The Madeleine in the morning and the Comedie in the evening... . We shall all be there to applaud you." "Yes, I expect you to do so," said Silviane. "Till to-morrow, then!" "Till to-morrow!" The crowd was now wearily dispersing, to all appearance disappointed and ill at ease.
Readers of the "Comédie Humaine" have no need to be reminded of the author's passion for furniture; nowhere else are there such loving or such invidious descriptions of it. "Decidedly," he writes once to Mme. Hanska, "I will send to Tours for the Louis XVI. secretary and bureau; the room will then be complete.
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