Finally, the boat stopped on the 27th of October, at half past six in the morning. I was asleep, worn out by three days and nights of wild storms. My maid had some difficulty in rousing me. I could not believe that we had arrived, and I wanted to go on sleeping until the last minute. I had to give in to the evidence, however, as the boat had stopped. This sudden arrival delighted me and everything seemed to be transformed in a minute. I forgot all my discomforts, and the weariness of the eleven days’ crossing. The sun was rising, pale but rose tinted, dispersing the mists and shining over the river. I had entered the New World in the midst of a display of sunshine. This seemed to me a good omen. I am so superstitious that if I had arrived when there was no sunshine I should have been wretched, and most anxious until after my first performance. It is a perfect torture to be superstitious to this degree and, unfortunately for me, I am ten times more so now than I was in those days, for besides the superstitions of my own country I have, thanks to my travels, added to my stock all the superstitions of the other countries. I know them all now and in any critical moment of my life they all rise up in armed legions, for or against me. I cannot walk a single step, or make any movement or gesture, sit down, go out, look at the sky or the ground, without finding some reason for hope or for despair until at last, exasperated by the trammels put upon my actions by my thought, I defy all my superstitions and just act as I want to. Delighted, then, with what seemed to me to be a good omen I began to dress gleefully. Mr. Jarrett had just knocked at my door. “Do please be ready as soon as possible, madame,” he said, “for there are several boats, with the French colors flying that have come out to meet you.” [Illustration: SARAH BERNHARDT IN TRAVELLING COSTUME, 1880.]