Page:Once a Clown, Always a Clown.djvu/130

ONCE A CLOWN, ALWAYS A CLOWN A great and highly temperamental actress had just completed a strongly emotional scene. Of course she must have collapsed, exhausted and nerveless, into the arms of her devoted maid, and denied herself to all visitors for hours. They always do, we have been told, since the first press agent discovered that we liked to hear it.

I was not backstage to see, but four or five years later Bernhardt was playing Madame X on tour. Somewhere, where our routes crossed, she gave an extra matinée and I was enabled to see that stirring performance again. Her manager, E. J. Sullivan, saw me in the house and asked me backstage to meet her.

"Oh, wait until after the last act," I protested. "She must be fearfully wrought up now."

"Come on, come on!" Sullivan said impatiently, and I followed him. The second act was on, and we waited behind the scenes, listening to the dialogue between the mother and father and visualizing the scene. We heard the man shout "Go!" Bernhardt appeared in the door, swayed a trifle, put her right hand on the jamb for support, then passed through the door, her four fingers still clinging to the casing.

As another audience gasped in agonized