Memories of My Life: Being My Personal, Professional, and Social Recollections as Woman and ArtistBernhardt, Sarah
General
Memories of My Life: Being My Personal, Professional, and Social Recollections as Woman and Artist
Bernhardt, Sarah
Actors -- Biography; Bernhardt, Sarah, 1844-1923; Women -- Biography
On the 10th of January, Mme. Guérard and I were sitting up at night, on
one of the lounges in the _artistes’ foyer_, awaiting the dismal cry of
“_Ambulance!_” There had been a fierce affray at Clamart and we knew
that there would be many wounded. I was telling her of my fear that the
bombs, which had already reached the Museum, the Sorbonne, the
Salpétrière, the Val-de-Grâce, would fall on the Odéon.
“Oh, but my dear Sarah,” said the sweet woman, “the hospital flag is
waving so high above it, that there could be no mistake. If it were
struck it would be purposely, and that would be abominable.”
“But Guérard,” I replied, “why should you expect these execrable enemies
of ours to be better than we are ourselves? Did we not behave like
savages at Berlin, in 1806?”
“But at Paris there are such admirable public monuments,” she urged.
“Well, and was not Moscow full of masterpieces? The Kremlin is one of
the finest buildings in the world. That did not prevent us giving that
admirable city up to pillage. Oh, no, my poor _petite dame_, do not
deceive yourself! Armies may be Russian, German, French or Spanish, but
they _are_ armies, that is, they are beings who form an impersonal
‘whole’—a ‘whole’ that is ferocious and irresponsible. The Germans will
bombard the whole of Paris, if the possibility of doing so should be
offered them. You must make up your mind to that, my dear Guérard.”
I had not finished my sentence when a terrible detonation roused the
sleeping neighborhood. Mme. Guérard and I had been seated opposite each
other. We found ourselves standing up, close together in the middle of
the room, terrified. My poor cook, her face quite white, came to me for
safety. The reports continued rather frequently. The bombarding had
commenced from our side that night. I went round to the wounded men, but
they did not seem to be much disturbed. Only one, a boy of fifteen, whom
we had surnamed “pink baby,” was sitting up in bed. When I went to him
to soothe him, he showed me his little medal of the Holy Virgin.
“It is thanks to her that I was not killed,” he said. “If they would put
the Holy Virgin on the ramparts of Paris the bombs would not come.”
He lay down again then, holding his little medal in his hand, and the
bombarding continued until six in the morning.
“_Ambulance! Ambulance!_” we then heard, and Mme. Guérard and I went
down.
“Here,” said the sergeant, “take this man. He is losing all his blood,
and if I take him any farther he will not arrive living.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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