The First Actress

by C. W. Gortner

  By now, it was clear we weren’t really discussing my choice in attire, and it pained me to hear us descend to this level, exchanging barbs like aged courtesans over a suitor.

  “Marie,” I told her, “I am not a threat to you. I never have been.”

  “A threat?” She let out a careless laugh that failed to disguise her discomfort. “Sarah, you always did think too much of yourself.”

  “Do I? Or is it you who always thinks too much of me?”

  Despite her obvious dismay that I’d dared broach the subject of our rivalry, which she herself had instigated, she still couldn’t repress a snide chuckle. “I’m quite well positioned here and do not see you as a threat. I simply wished to offer you friendly advice. The Comédie is not the Odéon.”

  “How kind of you.” I made myself lean forward to kiss her cheeks; as she flinched at my unexpected gesture of affection, I whispered, “You haven’t changed a bit, chère Marie.”

  Still, I feared she might be right as I beheld the august players of the House of Molière, all of whom regarded me as if I’d defiled their musty halls with my intolerable modernity. I couldn’t believe that in the nine years since my departure, nothing had changed here. Our empire had disintegrated, our city had been besieged and plundered twice, yet within these walls where the portraits of the deceased testified to the faded glories of the past, time had ceased to move. The assembly looked as ancien as the horsehair-stuffed settees, with Madame Nathalie in particular, grown stout as a hippopotamus, glaring at me from her pride of place among the senior sociétaires, a penciled beauty spot quivering on her jowl as if she were a royal mistress in Versailles.

  What had I done? How could I have voluntarily left a company where I reigned supreme for this antiquated den of famished lions?

  I steeled my resolve. In making my name here, I’d conquer the highest bastion of the theatrical world. More immediately, the extra income was essential, and as I thought this, I bit back the sorrow that was never far from my heart these days.

  My sister Régine was suffering from advanced consumption, confirmed by the physician who’d managed to examine her despite her flailing and insults. When he informed us, I burst into tears, even if Régine would have none of our pity. Through wretched bouts of coughing, she begged me to let her stay, so Madame G. and I set her up in my bedroom, while I took to sleeping in my coffin in the parlor. The physician recommended a drier climate, citing it could extend Régine’s health, but for now she was too weak to travel, so while Madame G. installed herself at her bedside, I’d swallowed my pride and gone to Julie.

  “Paris is too damp in the winter,” I explained, as Rosine began to weep. “She needs the dry air of the Pyrenees. Perhaps among the three of us, we can—”

  Julie gave a regretful sigh. “I always knew that child would bring nothing but grief.”

  I suddenly had no outrage left to vent on her. She made clear by her pronouncement and evident circumstances—her salon devoid of callers, her prized pianoforte draped in silence as Jeanne languished in opiate-induced obliviousness—that Régine’s fate depended on me, as always. Once my sister recovered her strength, I must send her to the spa on my own. Much like the Comédie, nothing had changed in my mother’s house, even as the present devoured whatever remained of the past.

  Hearing my name announced, I brought myself to attention. Perrin stood in the center of the room with the roster. “Sarah Bernhardt will play the lead in Dumas’s Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle. Rehearsals to commence next week at—”

  I started to my feet. Everyone turned to me in disbelief when I said, “I thought we’d agreed on Junie in Britannicus. It’s far better suited to my premiere—”

  “Premiere?” echoed Madame Nathalie, as Monsieur Perrin fixed his glacial stare on me. “How easily we forget. It is not a premiere when one must make amends for past mistakes.”

  I turned to her; she was ensconced on a gilded chair and surrounded by the privileged and outdated pillars of authority who’d lashed me through my training at the Conservatoire. I sorely missed my instructor Provost, now retired due to chronic ill health, as he would have surely taken me under his wing. Instead, I confronted a wall of stolid resistance that might as well have been a firing squad. In their pitiless stance, I saw that every one of them had protested my engagement and was resolved to campaign for my failure, hastening my second and final dismissal from their ranks.

  Madame Nathalie met my gaze. “Yes? Have you anything else to say, mademoiselle?”

  I did. Plenty, in fact. The torrent scalded my mouth, but the last thing I needed was a confrontation with her on my very first day.

  She snapped open a fan to stir the dust about her. “I’m relieved that at least you appear to have learned some discretion during your time at that Left Bank playhouse, if not any discernible improvement in your taste in clothing. Is it a Hebraic custom, perhaps, to parade about with a dead creature on one’s head?”

  No one laughed. It wasn’t done at the Comédie. Had the same remark been aimed at me at the Odéon, there would have been an eruption of hilarity, with me storming about in mock outrage while the company nudged my ribs. Here, her pronouncement was absorbed with the solemnity of a religious decree.

  Perrin said flatly, “I believe you and Monsieur Dumas were acquainted before his untimely demise. He would be pleased to see you bring one of his most beloved works back to our stage, as you did with Monsieur Hugo. Lest you’ve forgotten, it was also Rachel’s favorite role.”

  I hadn’t forgotten. “Yes,” I murmured. “Monsieur Dumas would be pleased.” I expected Madame Nathalie to deliver another indictment on my unacceptable conduct with playwrights, but she merely allowed herself a satisfied snort. She was perfectly aware that despite Rachel’s acclaim in the role, the play itself was one of Dumas’s least accomplished—a romantic melodrama without the classical heft required to elevate my stature.

  “This is not the Odéon,” Perrin went on, echoing Marie’s words to me and confirming my assumption that he partook of her mediocre talent after hours. “Here, we perform as a company, devoted to our unique specialties. I trust that is understood.” Specialties, as if actors must be consigned to one specific type of role until the end of their career. I felt ill as I assented, because to say another word would surely result in my dismissal, as I had a mind to inform him precisely what I thought of his selection for my debut, as well as his precious specialties, all of which were destined to undermine me.

  Returning to my seat, I caught Marie’s spiteful glance. As I felt hot anger surge in my chest, I forced out a smile. They’d not get the better of me this time. Much as I longed to give the entire House of Molière another well-deserved slap into our present age, I’d bite my tongue and dedicate myself to the work, until the opportunity presented itself.

  For it would. It must. Much as it might try me, fate always favored me in the end.

  And as I sat there, barely paying heed as Perrin recited the other designations, from lead roles to secondary parts for the new pensionnaires, I saw him, among the new hires, his stare fixated on me from across the room. That dark brooding actor from the Odéon, who had watched me in much the same manner after my triumph in Ruy Blas.

  I averted my gaze.

  Clearly, his contract hadn’t been renewed at the Odéon, and I still couldn’t tell if he admired or disdained me, but his presence gave me unexpected relief.

  At least someone here knew what I was capable of.

  V

  “A disaster.” Gulping down my third cup of coffee, I beckoned the waiter to serve me another. “After I implored Perrin. Why ask me to return, only to humiliate me? My dreadful notices can’t be helping him or the house. And that serpent Marie—she’s sleeping with Perrin, naturally, and everyone knows it. She’s never been discreet and she couldn’t contain her glee when Perrin assigned her the best roles for the season.”


  “Sarah.” Sophie regarded me in exasperation from across the table in the café by the Tuileries, where we’d taken to meeting every month or so, ostensibly to keep up our friendship. “No one forced you to sign with them. You knew how they operate. I suppose Perrin expects you to prove yourself. Marie has been there for several seasons already.”

  I stared at her. “How can I prove myself if he won’t assign me a decent part? Must I declaim my skills during intermission?”

  Sophie sighed. “Do whatever you did to win favor at the Odéon. You’re always so impatient. It was one play. Perrin won’t dismiss you. He risked too much to steal you away, so you must now persuade him to assign you whatever roles you want for the next season. Remember how much he’s paying you. And he has agreed to Britannicus, yes? You’ll shine as Junie, and everyone will soon forget the unfortunate Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle.”

  “Not everyone. Sarcey practically crucified me in his column. After all his fanfare about my poetic entry into the dramatic domain.”

  “He also said by the third act, you were the Sarah Bernhardt who mesmerized us in Ruy Blas.” Sophie shrugged. “You give him too much credence. Critics are like newspapers. One day, everyone is reading them, the next they’re lining a finch cage.” She sipped her coffee, unperturbed, as well she should, for in the wake of my departure from the Odéon, she’d filled the void with her rubicund glow and shapely figure, assuming my place on the stage and no doubt in Duquesnel’s bed. Not that I could reproach her for it; as she said, I’d done this to myself.

  “I can only shine as Junie if I have someone other than a relic with false teeth to play Britannicus. Perrin clings to his notion of player specialties as if Molière might rise from his tomb should we dare do anything different.” I couldn’t keep the tremor from my voice, recalling the first time I’d beheld Racine’s epic drama and been swept into my ardor for the theater. “I will not play Junie with one of their moldering specialties. It would be a farce.”

  She smiled. “Then you must find yourself another Britannicus. Jean is now at the Comédie and I’m quite sure he’s as eager as you to exalt himself.”

  “Jean?” I pretended ignorance.

  She clicked her tongue. “Mounet-Sully. You know perfectly well who he is.”

  “A lowly pensionnaire,” I said sourly.

  “Who’s been receiving excellent notices for his debut. Why must you mount such resistance? To play Junie, you require a suitable Britannicus. All you need to do is find him and convince Perrin. Surely if you could manage de Chilly, you can manage Perrin.”

  I winced, lowering my gaze. “The poor man. I feel terrible that I never had the chance to ask his forgiveness.”

  “You do not. You feel terrible that de Chilly dropped dead from a paralysis attack before you could counter-file for those six thousand francs he won against you in court. His passing is lamentable, but life must go on. And so must we. With de Chilly gone, we’re staging more modern works now at the Odéon.” She paused. “Had you only waited a bit…”

  Despite my chagrin, I couldn’t curb my laughter. “I never thought I’d say this, but you’ve become a creature of the theater: entirely without scruple.”

  “As are you, when it comes to your moi. Sarah, have you ever seen Jean perform? He’s marvelous. He just needs the role to prove it. I also happen to know he left the Odéon because of you.”

  “He did not,” I scoffed, though the notion intrigued me.

  “Duquesnel himself told me that Jean applied to the Comédie the moment he heard you were going there. I suspect he must be in love, to follow you around like that.”

  “How can he possibly be in love? He doesn’t know me. And what I require is a Britannicus, not another stray dog.”

  “You have a way with dogs,” she said. “All you have to do is collar and train him.”

  * * *

  With my inauspicious play at an end, the Comédie limped toward its season finale, Perrin mandating last-minute changes to the repertoire after the disappointing reception of Mademoiselle de Belle-Isle.

  Still, the hallowed Salle Richelieu in the Comédie’s theater, with its whipped-cream marble balconies and azure velvet curtains—all of which had the faded air of having seen better days—was half-empty when I slipped in to take my seat to see Mounet-Sully perform in the role Sophie claimed was earning him such excellent notice.

  I didn’t expect to be impressed. The play was a wartime drama penned by a new playwright whom Perrin had inexplicably patronized, perhaps as a concession to the current mood in Paris, where classical fare must be counterbalanced by more accessible works. Still, it was hardly the vehicle for an actor to prove his mettle, even less so than my recent effort.

  Yet when he appeared onstage as a wounded Prussian soldier taken in by a naïve country maiden, with whom he predictably falls in love and for whom he must sacrifice himself, I felt the intensity under my skin as the hush fell over the theater. His magnetic presence was undeniable; all eyes were drawn to him, with his robust body silhouetted by his soiled uniform, his mass of black curls disheveled about his forehead. Despite his saccharine lines of regret for what Germany had done to France—a ludicrous sentiment that should have made me and anyone else who’d survived the siege laugh—he delivered his soliloquy in a voice resonant as an incoming storm, enveloping us in his plea to not judge him by his nation’s sins. He made a silly play unforgettable with his pathos, and I was especially moved to see him hold his own against Madame Nathalie as the maiden’s treacherous mother, who betrays him to the Republic.

  It wasn’t until the final act, as the curtain dropped upon his bullet-riddled corpse and grieving maiden, that I realized I had actual tears on my cheeks.

  Opportunity had not failed me. I had found my Britannicus.

  * * *

  I sent a note backstage, inviting him to tea at my home. It was proper enough; although we hadn’t spoken a word, he struck me as a man who valued propriety. I had no qualms about what I planned, however. He was still an actor, and actors were ambitious; I was certain he’d rather not toil in mediocre crowd-pleasers for the rest of his career. Already in his thirty-second year—I had made inquiries—which made him only a little older than my twenty-seven, his window of opportunity was narrowing. If he didn’t gain a leading classical role soon, he might never achieve one.

  Still, I took extra care that my household was put to rights, or as right as it could be with a half-dozen dogs, which I kept rescuing because I couldn’t bear to see them starve in the streets, the myriad birds I let loose because I despised cages, and my motley assortment of cats, few of whom I’d bothered to name after they managed to slink in through the kitchen door, lured by raw chicken left by Maurice and braving pursuit by my dogs to perch atop my overcrowded bookcases like sphinxes.

  Oh, and my puma, Clotilde. She had come to me from the zoo, where I’d donated a large sum toward its restoration after the ravages of the siege and the Commune. Born in captivity from a mother who died in wretched conditions during the upheaval, the cub fell sick when her claws and fangs were cruelly removed. The zoo director told me he would have to sell her or put her down, as he was severely understaffed and unable to provide for her care. I offered to take her off his hands; armed with raw meat and plenty of goat’s milk, I nursed her back to health. She was perfectly tame, like an oversized house cat, though my other cats took care to keep out of her way. My dogs, on the other hand, braved her lazy swipes to entice her to play. Her favorite spot was at Régine’s feet. For hours, she reclined there, a sleek guardian, meticulously grooming herself as she oversaw my sister.

  Despite the dire prognosis, Régine had begun to improve, if not enough for a trip to the Pyrenees. Madame G.’s attentions returned sparse color to her gaunt cheeks and abated her cough, especially when she gave her a medicinal syrup brewed by a nearby apothecary. I suspected this mysterious syrup must c
ontain laudanum, for after she imbued it, Régine seemed to drift away, more serene than I’d ever seen her, murmuring nonsensical endearments to Clotilde.

  Hardly a regular household, but I wasn’t asking Mounet-Sully to move in. Still, on the day of his arrival, I set the maids and Caroline to shooing the cats from their fur-infested nests atop the bookcases and luring the screeching parakeets and canaries into the white-wicker cages that usually sat empty in the corners, surrounded by a jumble of potted ferns in chinoise urns and my sculptures-in-progress on clay-spattered pedestals.

  “See Monsieur Mounet-Sully directly into the parlor and serve the tea,” I ordered Caroline, who regarded me in amazement, for I often had callers, as well as many friends who came by whenever they pleased, and I never dictated their reception. Indeed, I often forgot anyone was due, going off to a luncheon or to sit for Nadar or visit with Clairin, only to return to find my parlor full of grumbling guests who’d waited for me for hours.

  I couldn’t understand my own anxiety as I selected a discreet mauve gown with lace at the cuffs and asked Madame G. to assist with my coiffure as I sat in my bedroom at the dressing table, while Régine dozed. I’d moved back into my room to sleep by my sister at night, having seen how ma petite dame limped about in the morning, her arthritis exacerbated from the truckle cot at Régine’s side, which she had been using instead of her own mattress in her bedroom down the hall. Madame G. chided: “Only if you don’t bring that dreadful casket back in here. Do you think it appropriate for your sister, in her condition, to see you in a coffin night after night?” I complied and used the cot instead, though Régine gave a weak laugh. “I don’t mind the coffin,” she said. “I like to see Sarah playing a corpse.”

  As Madame G. now attempted to wrangle my hair into a suitable chignon, I found myself straining to hear the bell at the door until she said, “If you don’t sit still, you’ll be greeting your new gentleman caller with your tresses loose.”