At the end of the banquet the president made a long speech. Sarah, in reply, spoke some harmonious sentences in English. From a distance I once more surveyed my divinity. I heard her say, in my mother tongue, that she was happy, and I still loved her. * * * * * One day in Paris, very recently, Sarah Bernhardt’s business manager was announced. I received him, all the while wondering why my divinity’s manager had come to see me. He explained that Madame Sarah Bernhardt wanted to know if I could give her certain hints on the subject of the lighting of her new play, “La Belle au Bois Dormant.” I was ill enough to be in bed, but I arose to receive him. I promised him that I would go to see Sarah the next day. The arrangement was inaccurately reported and she understood that I was coming the same day. When she learned that she could count on me only for the next day, she declared that I had fallen ill very suddenly. This thing wounded me to the quick, for I still loved Sarah. Next day I went to her house and she saw that I was suffering, for I could not utter a word. She took me in her arms and called me her treasure. That was enough. Everything that I had was at her service, and I would have done anything or given anything to help her. I did remain at rehearsal to familiarise myself with what she needed in the way of illumination. In her turn she came to my theatre after the performance to see some lighting arrangements that I had installed especially for her play, and with the sole object of pleasing her. She brought some people with her. For her sake I received them all cordially. Among them was her electrician. Each time that I took the trouble to show something to Sarah the electrician would be overheard saying: “But I can do that. That is easy to copy. Oh, I can do that, too. That’s nothing at all.” As always during my performances the spectators were in darkness, and one of my friends; who had seated herself near Sarah to hear the admiring things she would say; was staggered by what she did hear. And in going away Sarah thanked me as she would thank anybody, overwhelming me with pretty speeches. On the morning of the next day the managing director of the theatre at which I was dancing announced in the newspapers--without having consulted me--that Sarah Bernhardt had come to see Loie Fuller’s lighting effects with reference to the new play by Mm. Richepin et Cain, “La Belle au Bois Dormant.” I sent some one to Sarah to ask which lighting apparatus she would like. And this was her reply. “My electricians would go on a strike if they thought I was about to associate any one with them. They say they can do whatever I need to have done. Besides, it is only a matter of a gauze curtain and a revolving lamp. A thousand thanks to Loie.” Am I alone to blame for my disillusionment? I had pictured something incomprehensible because Sarah Bernhardt is an inspired artist.