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The critics nowadays would apply to the actress the phrase of the auctioneer to his wife, and implore her to "get on with her dying." There was the famous Mlle. Croizette in Le Sphinx, by that detestable dramatist Octave Feuillet; she squirmed horribly after taking poison from a ring; and it was alleged that she had studied the death of patients in hospitals a brutal, horrible thing to do.
Here Sir Tilton coming up, decidedly objected to the move, wishing to monopolise Vaura. "You are cruel, Lady Esmondet; ask Miss Vernon, if I have not been more amusing than the Sphynx. You know," he said audaciously, "we actually did not see the little by-play between the rivals Mlle. Croizette and Sara Bernhardt, which is a proof we were not doing badly in the way of entertaining each other."
The party strife between the two clans waxed warmer and warmer, and this added to our success and amused us both immensely, for Croizette was always a delightful friend and a loyal comrade. She worked for her own ends, but never against any one else. After Le Sphinx I played a pretty piece in one act by a young pupil of the Ecole Polytechnique, Louis Denayrouse, La Belle Paule.
I then said quite calmly: "The reason I sent for you here, Madame, is because I wanted to tell you my reasons for acting as I have done. I have thought it over and have decided not to tell you them to-day." Sophie Croizette gazed at me with a terrified look in her eyes. She then rose and left the stage, her lips trembling, and her eyes fixed on me all the time.
"In my big scene with Croizette?" "No." "Well then, read what I left out," I insisted. When he had read this he exclaimed: "So much the better. It's very dull, all that story, and quite useless. I understand the character without all that rigmarole and that romantic history."
I forced my character in order to appear the haughty and voluptuous siren; I stuffed my bodice with wadding and the hips under my skirts with horse-hair; but I kept my small, thin, sorrowful face. Croizette was obliged to repress the advantages of her bust by bands which oppressed and suffocated her, but she kept her pretty plump face with its dimples.
I was in that delicious stupor that one experiences after chloroform, morphine, opium, or hasheesh. Clarkson, had gone through during my life, just as I should have commenced my interminable story, I could not remember anything. Croizette murmured my first phrase for me, but I could only see her lips move without hearing a word.
This was exactly what Perrin wanted; he had from the earliest moment thought of Croizette, but he wanted to have his hand forced for private and underhand reasons which he knew and which others guessed. At last the change took place, and the serious rehearsals commenced. Then the first performance was announced for November 6 .
The principal part was for Croizette, but on hearing the play read I thought the part destined for me charming, and I resolved that it should also be the principal role. There would have to be two principal ones, that was all. The rehearsals went along very smoothly at the start, but it soon became evident that my role was more important than had been imagined, and friction soon began.
The advance booking, however, was more than L400, and the committee would not hear of it. "Oh well," Got said to Mr. Mayer, "we must give the role to some one else if Sarah Bernhardt cannot play. There will be Croizette, Madeleine Brohan, Coquelin, Febvre, and myself in the cast, and, que diable! it seems to me that all of us together will make up for Mademoiselle Bernhardt."
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