The play was a big success. But the window scene on the night of the first presentation was a veritable triumph. It was a short time after the terrible war of 1870. The play contained frequent allusions to this, and, owing to the patriotism of the public, had an even greater success than it deserved as a play. I had Emile Augier called. He came into my dressing-room with a surly air and called to me from the door: “So much the worse for the public! It only proves that the public is an idiot to make a success of such vileness!” And he disappeared without having even entered my dressing-room. His outburst made me laugh, and as the triumphant Bornier had embraced me repeatedly, I hugged myself in glee. [Illustration: SARAH BERNHARDT PAINTING, 1878–9.] Two months later I played “Gabrielle,” by this same Augier, and I had incessant quarrels with him. I found the verses of this play execrable. Coquelin, who took the part of my husband, had a grand success. As for me, I was as mediocre as the play itself, which is saying much. I had been admitted Associate in the month of January, and since then it seemed to me that I was in prison, for I had undertaken the engagement not to leave Molière’s Theater for several years. This idea made me sad. It was Perrin who had instigated me to ask to become Associate, and now I regretted it very much. Almost all the latter part of the year I played only occasionally. My time was then occupied in looking after the building of a pretty _hôtel_ which I was having constructed at the corner of the Avenue de Villiers and the Rue Fontuny. A sister of my grandmother had left me in her will a nice legacy which I used to buy the ground. My great desire was to have a house that should be entirely my own, and I was then realizing it. The son-in-law of M. Regnier, Félix Escalier, a fashionable architect, was building me a ravishing _hôtel_! Nothing amused me more than to go with him in the morning over the unfinished house. Then afterwards I mounted the movable scaffolds. Then I went on the roofs. I forgot my worries of the theater in this new occupation. The thing I most desired just now was to become an architect. Then, when the building was finished, the interior had to be thought of. I spent my strength in helping my painter friends who were decorating the ceilings in my bedroom, in my dining-room, in my hall—Georges Clairin, the architect Escalier, who was also a talented painter, Duez, Picard, Butin, Jadin, Jourdain, and Parrot. I was deeply interested, and I recollect a joke which I played on one of my relations. My Aunt Betsy had come from Holland, her native country, to pass a few days in Paris. She was staying with my mother. I invited her to lunch in my new, unfinished habitation. Five of my painter friends were working, some in one room, some in another, and everywhere lofty scaffoldings were erected. In order to be able to climb the ladders more easily I was wearing my sculptor’s costume.