The First Actress

by C. W. Gortner

  “Your son, who’s growing up without a father,” he muttered.

  “And what of it? I grew up without a father. Many children do.”

  “But Maurice doesn’t have to. I would be a father to him, if you and I married.” He let out a harsh chuckle, making me think he was mocking me, using my own son’s words against me. When I realized he wasn’t, I said in dismay, “Marry? Are you mad?”

  “It’s not madness to want to start a family, not where I come from.” He met my appalled gaze. “Your son needs a man in his life. Every boy does. And you’ve achieved more than most women ever do. If you’re so unhappy with it, you can stop now. Marry me and I’ll—”

  “Provide for me, while I birth and raise your brood?” Though I tried to curb it, my voice took on a serrated edge. “Is that what you want? To tuck me away like a prize doll, so you can become the great Mounet-Sully of the Comédie?” My words twisted inside me, sharp as knives. “You don’t love me. You love what I have, only you’re too much of a hypocrite to admit it.”

  He gave a sigh. I almost wished he’d lunged at me with his fist raised, for in that single exhale, I heard utter defeat. “If you truly believe that, there is no hope for us. I do love you, more than I thought I could love anyone. But it’s not natural. You don’t behave as a woman should. It’s always a fight with you. A competition. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “Then don’t.” I stepped to the door, my eyes on him as I reached for the latch.

  “Sarah.” He didn’t move, his shoulders hunched about his neck. “Please…”

  “No apologies,” I whispered. “No regrets.” My fingers twisted the doorknob; as it gave way, I felt the corridor outside beckoning me, the cool draft of my imminent escape.

  “If you go…” He let out a shuddering breath. “You mustn’t return until you have an answer for me.”

  Not until I was on the gaslit street, in the sultry air of the mid-July night, did I start to move faster. Clutching at my skirts, I ran blindly, without destination, toward the river, away from the specters unleashed within me.

  When I reached the turgid waters, sluggish and fetid from the heat, I leaned against the bridge railing and finally let it overwhelm me. It’s not natural. You don’t behave as a woman should.

  I had fled love, no matter what my reasons might be.

  And I had to wonder if there was a deeper truth I sought to flee more.

  * * *

  —

  I wandered the city, losing myself in throngs of pedestrians enjoying the warm night, dressed in light attire, sipping anisette at the cafés and perusing the kiosks lining the banks of the Seine. It had been so long since I’d gone unrecognized among strangers, without vying for attention or applause, that I lost myself in my rare anonymity. After walking for hours until my feet ached, I realized where I’d been heading all along.

  At the building, I paused to look up to her salon window. A single lamp burned there, on one of her useless little tables, but as I strained to listen, I didn’t detect the rumble of male laughter or tinkle of music from her pianoforte.

  Before I lost my nerve, I went inside. The concierge came bustling out from her downstairs flat, wiping her wet hands on her apron. “Yes? May I help you?”

  “It’s me, Sarah. Don’t you remember? Sarah Bernhardt.”

  Her frown lightened at once. “Mademoiselle Bernhardt! Why, I didn’t recognize you at all. Such an honor. It’s been some time since you visited. I was so very sorry to hear about your sister Régine. Such a dreadful loss—”

  “Yes,” I interrupted softly. “Is my mother entertaining tonight?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. It’s been very quiet of late, come to think of it.” A practiced busybody like most concierges, she kept an ongoing tally of every coming and going in the building. “Your aunt Rosine and sister Jeanne did leave earlier in a carriage, to supper and the Opéra, I believe. But not Madame Julie. Shall I announce you?”

  “No need. I have my key.” I climbed the stairs to her door. Once there, I paused. This was a mistake. Why did I expect to find? When had she ever been a fount of wisdom for me, much less one of consolation or comfort?

  Yet I still inserted my key and stepped into the cobweb of my past.

  “Who is there?” I heard her say peevishly from beyond the curtain-draped entry to her salon. Even in the dim light of the lamps, patches of mending and frayed bits of fringe were visible on the curtains. The flat felt empty as a tomb, awaiting its dead.

  “Is that you, Rosine?” Her voice lifted. “Did Jeanne forget her gloves again? Honestly, I’m beginning to fear for her reason. How can a daughter of mine be so absentminded?”

  Moving past the drapes, I found her reclined on her settee in her Chinese stork robe, a cigarette in her hand, its smoke floating about her. It startled me. I hadn’t known she’d taken up the vice. Her expression didn’t register any surprise. “Sarah. How unexpected.” She set her cigarette aside in an ashtray. “Have you come to reproach me for some affront?”

  When I didn’t respond—I was distracted by taking in the room, those same ponderous landscapes, darkened from years of her suitors’ cigars; the porcelain figurines cluttering the mantel and the pianoforte draped in its sun-bleached shawl—she said, “It’s rather late for a visit, don’t you think?”

  It was. Years too late. But I unhooked my cape and draped it over the back of one of her tiny chairs, moving to the window to gaze past the glass, remembering how I’d once tried to fling myself out of it in despair. Then I heard myself say, “Do you ever regret it?”

  I didn’t look at her. But I heard the crinkle of silk as she shifted upright on her settee. “What an odd question. I was just about to retire….” Her voice faded when I turned around. She regarded me in silence before she said, “Oh dear. Are we in trouble again?”

  I almost burst out laughing. She was nothing if not consistent. “Jean has asked me to marry him.”

  Now, her surprise surfaced. “Has he? Well. I suppose congratulations are in order. That is what one ought to say on such an occasion, is it not?”

  I returned her impervious regard. “Do you regret it?” I asked again. “The choices you made. Rosine once said you wanted something different for me. Not this life. Is it true?”

  She took up her cigarette, as if she required an object to avoid the moment. “Rosine always did talk too much. She has never learned the value of a confidence.”

  “It is true?” My voice hardened.

  “Does it matter? You never paid me any mind, even as a child.” Before I could erupt, she went on: “Do you question it now? I hardly see the purpose. None of us can undo what’s been done.”

  “Maman,” I said, and she flinched. “Just this once. I—I need to know.”

  She inhaled, her cigarette tip glowing briefly. Exhaling smoke in a plume through her lips, she let the silence between us settle into a chasm.

  “We are not unalike,” she finally said, “much as you think otherwise. It’s probably the reason we’ve never gotten along. I, too, was once young and ambitious. My father was a traveling merchant who sold spectacles, but I later found out he actually was a petty criminal. I refused to take his name of Bernhardt after he abandoned us. My mother raised me and my five siblings on her own as best she could, but I never wanted the life she prepared for me—an upstanding marriage to a boy of our faith, to bear his children and turn old on the very street where I’d skipped rope as a girl, without any say in the matter. I wanted to experience the world. To discover what it had to offer. I was reckless.”

  I sank into the nearest chair, holding my breath, as if I might shatter the moment.

  “Of course, I didn’t anticipate what the world had in store,” she went on, her voice placid, as if she spoke of someone else. “We never do. Not your father, certainly. Nor you. After that—well, I finally had my say
. Not as I’d envisioned, but at least I had it.”

  “Would you have stayed in Holland?” I asked, thinking if we’d had the courage to talk like this earlier, we may not have ended up as we were. “Had you known.”

  “Why? There was nothing for me there.” She extinguished her cigarette. “Do you think because I’m alone in this salon, with one of my daughters estranged from me, another in her grave, and the other unhappily following in my footsteps, that I should find cause for regret? As I said, I see no purpose in it. None of us have the luxury of foresight.”

  “It’s only that…” I kneaded my hands in my lap. “I have a difficult choice to make now, and I don’t know what to do.”

  She smiled. “Have you come here to seek my advice? You never wanted it before. And as I recall, you never wanted his or my kind of life.”

  “He said it wasn’t natural,” I whispered.

  “It isn’t. Men can never understand why we refuse what they have to offer.” She went quiet, her gaze fixed on me. For the first time, I felt as if she saw me, in my entirety, not as her daughter, but as a woman in my own right. She confirmed as much with her next words. “The path you have chosen isn’t easy; I know it well. To be a woman alone in this world, when everything you have can be taken from you—it requires great sacrifice. I don’t take pleasure in admitting it, but I underestimated what you were capable of. You did what you set out to do: you’ve made a name for yourself. You earn your own living and you kept your son by your side, though to me, that was the most reckless choice of all. If you doubt it now, you must learn to make peace with it.”

  “I don’t doubt the choices I’ve made,” I said, bristling. “I doubt whether to continue with them.”

  Her smile widened. “By marrying the first man who asks you? Do you think I lacked for such proposals in my day? My beloved Morny, God rest his soul, couldn’t take me as his wife, but he declared his abiding love and offered to keep me entirely to himself. It was very tempting, considering my position in life. In the end, however, I had to decline his offer.”

  “Why?” I hadn’t known this. I had never imagined it. I’d always seen her through the resentment of my childhood, of my abandonment and neglect. To me, she had always seemed like a lovely, heartless piece of stone whom no one could ever love.

  “Because when a woman lets herself be kept, be it as a mistress or a wife, she’s no longer free. Freedom was my choice. Like you, I had to accept the consequences.”

  I sat still. Not comfort or consolation, but candor, when I’d least expected it. She did not speak as I rose to retrieve my cape. Yet when I went toward the door, I heard her say, “He would no doubt make a fine husband. So handsome and capable. So assertive. But you’ll forget your own strength. It’s inevitable when we surrender. We forget who we are.”

  I wanted to thank her. For her sincerity, cruel as it was.

  I did not.

  IX

  I couldn’t return to Jean. I knew what my answer must be, but every time I gathered the courage to tell him, I shied away. It was as if twin antagonists battled inside me, tearing me apart. Yet we had to rehearse together every day, spend hours enacting the passion of Zaïre and her Sultan on the stage, and by the time we neared opening night and I beheld his magnificent embodiment of his forlorn, enraged character, it broke my heart. I could see that our estrangement was agonizing for him, that he didn’t know what else to do but funnel his thwarted pride into his work—the very lesson I had sought to instill in him.

  The publicity churned out by Perrin sold out the first month in advance, with Mucha’s stylized posters of Jean and me in costume reproduced in every newspaper and sold in every souvenir shop. By the time Zaïre opened on a sweltering August evening, there weren’t enough seats in the house to accommodate every ticketholder. Fake tickets had circulated, with a riot nearly ensuing when management had to step in to verify that only legitimate purchasers were admitted.

  The storm of protests as people were turned away at the doors reached all the way backstage; as the curtain rose on the first act, I was overtaken by such a resurgence of my dreaded trac that I vomited. I had to discard my soiled sandals in the wings and make my entrance barefoot, to deafening applause.

  In the final act, when the Sultan advances on Zaïre with his dagger drawn, I saw the unfeigned rage in Jean’s eyes; as he lifted his hand, I seized the blunted wood dagger from him and gouged at my own breast, writhing and exhaling my declaration of innocence as I crumpled at his feet. It was a spontaneous sabotage on my part, a death scene so overwrought it should have left everyone appalled. Instead, I made headlines for my ability to portray romantic death so convincingly, obliging me to continue in that vein, with a month of matinées added to the run. Upon the play’s closing, I detested it so much that I vowed never to perform it again as long as I lived.

  Despite the record receipts, Perrin was censorious. “Our productions must stand on their own. I don’t appreciate unauthorized changes to the established choreography or costumes, regardless of any subsequent acclaim.”

  As for Jean, he finally accosted me in my dressing room. “Was it necessary? Wasn’t it enough to humiliate me offstage or must you see me on my knees before all of Paris?”

  “None of your notices mention you on your knees.” I brandished a newspaper from my table. “Even Sarcey, who until now reserved his opinion, acknowledges the Comédie has finally engaged an actor capable of assuming all the roles made legendary by our late Talma.” My smile felt taut on my lips. “Another comparison to the great ghost. You must be elated. You’re becoming as celebrated as me—and in far less time.”

  His expression darkened. “Is this your answer to my proposal?”

  I felt myself falter. There was no avoiding the truth now.

  “I have no other,” I said quietly. “It would be impossible. We are too different. And too alike. We both want too much to ever be satisfied by each other.”

  He looked stunned, though it couldn’t have come as a surprise. “You’re refusing something you will regret,” he said, his voice resolute, as if he’d been practicing his response for weeks. “No one will love you as I do. No one will understand you.”

  “Do you understand?” I met his pained eyes. “Because you want someone who isn’t me. If you truly understood, you’d know that.”

  “You never loved me,” he said. “That much I understand.”

  As he turned on his heel, I had the sudden urge to call him back, to soothe him with endearments and vague promises. He loved me and wanted to make me his wife. Women plotted the course of their entire lives for such a declaration. How could I turn away from something so coveted, when I might never hear it again? But I resisted my weakness, knowing it was my personal bane: my terror of ending up like my mother, fading into obscurity among the detritus of my choices. Instead, I let his footsteps pound down the passageway into silence, and only then did I let myself weep.

  Nothing that went on in the theater was private; within days, spurred by Jean’s morose expression and my avoidance of him, rumor spread that the Comédie’s lead attractions had had an altercation. I couldn’t bear the thought of preparing for another season with so much tension between us, and when I caught Marie Colombier whispering my name backstage to another actress, I gave her a cold stare. “If you have something to say,” I told her, “please do me the courtesy of saying it to my face.”

  “Why must you think everything is about you?” she replied as the other actress—a newly hired ingénue—scuttled away at the flick of my hand.

  I rounded on Marie. “Enough. You must be suffocating in your own venom by now. Just say what you think of me and be done with it.”

  “Very well.” She drew herself erect. “You are turning this company upside down with your impossible temperament and—” She paused, as if she didn’t dare say more.

  “And…?” I prompted, w
ithout taking my stare from her.

  “Perrin doesn’t condone personal affairs that interfere with our work,” she added primly, as if her own personal affairs were of no consequence.

  I could have clawed her eyes out. “What would you know about our work?” I stepped so close, she had to step away against a backdrop. “You’ve never worked a day in your life, save to further your own interests—backstage.”

  Her gaze hardened. “At least I know my limitations.”

  “I should hope so.” I turned from her in disgust. “Limitations are all you have.”

  I went straight to Perrin, barging into his office and, before he could so much as look up from his papers, declaring, “I’ve been working without respite for two years at this house. I must have some time off, lest you wish to see me at my wits’ end.”

  He gave me a penetrating look. “Our own Mademoiselle Révolte at her wits’ end? Perhaps we should charge admission for such an event.” Wiping his pince-nez on his sleeve, he added, “It so happens a reprieve is impossible. I intend to stage Racine’s Phaedra for our next season—”

  “Phaedra!” My voice lifted even louder in disbelief. “After the demands of Zaïre? Is there not a single play written in this century that you find worthy?”

  “If you find one, don’t hesitate to bring it to me. For the time being, however, you will accept whichever roles I see fit to assign.”

  I couldn’t tell if he’d decided to embark on his own act of sabotage. The classical role of the ancient Greek queen was extremely challenging, considered the culmination in an actress’s repertoire, and that he had chosen me for it indicated his trust not only in my public appeal but also in my talent. Phaedra is no innocent wronged by fate; unyielding in her incestuous love for her stepson, Hippolyte, she wreaks mayhem until she kills herself. To embody her, I’d have to devote myself body and soul to the part; and as I wrestled with elation that he’d think me ready for such a task and with despair that it would entail brutal months of rehearsal under his merciless eye, I said, “I cannot possibly play that role until I’ve had time to rest. I’m an actress, not a mule. I can’t keep trudging onto the stage at the call of a bell.”