My Double Life: The Memoirs of Sarah BernhardtBernhardt, Sarah
General
My Double Life: The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt
Bernhardt, Sarah
Actors -- France -- Biography; Bernhardt, Sarah, 1844-1923
I was informed that the word “barra” meant bread. I hurried at once to
Le Gallec with a large piece of bread. His face lighted up, and taking
it from me with his sound hand, he broke it up with his teeth and let
the pieces fall in the bowl. He then plunged his spoon into the middle
of the broth, and filled it up with bread until the spoon could stand
upright in it. When it stood up without shaking about, the young soldier
smiled. He was just preparing to eat this horrible concoction when the
young priest from St. Sulpice who had my ambulance in charge arrived. I
had sent for him on hearing the doctor’s sad verdict. He laid his hand
gently on the young man’s shoulder, thus stopping the movement of his
arm. The poor fellow looked up at the priest, who showed him the holy
cup.
“Oh,” he said simply, and then, placing his coarse handkerchief over the
steaming soup, he put his hands together.
We had arranged the two screens which we used for isolating the dead or
dying around his bed. He was left alone with the priest whilst I went on
my rounds to calm those who were chaffing, or help the believers raise
themselves for prayer. The young priest soon pushed aside the partition,
and I then saw Marie Le Gallec, with a beaming face, eating his
abominable bread sop. He soon fell asleep but awoke before long and
asked for something to drink, and then died in a slight fit of choking.
Fortunately I did not lose many men out of the three hundred who came
into my ambulance, for the death of the unfortunate ones completely
upset me.
I was very young at that time, only twenty-four years of age, but I
could nevertheless see the cowardice of some of the men and the heroism
of many of the others. A young Savoyard, eighteen years old, had had his
forefinger shot off. Baron Larrey was quite sure that he had done it
himself with his own gun, but I could not believe that. I noticed,
though, that, in spite of our nursing and care, the wound did not heal.
I bound it up in a different way, and the following day I saw that the
bandage had been altered. I mentioned this to Madame Lambquin, who was
sitting up that night with Madame Guérard.
“Good; I will keep my eye on him. You go to sleep, my child, and rely on
me.”
The next day when I arrived she told me that she had caught the young
man scraping the wound on his finger with his knife. I called him, and
told him that I should have to report this to the Val-de-Grâce Hospital.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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