Sarah Bernhardt & Marcel Proust
From Sarah Bernhardt: My Erotic Life (Available Amazon’s)
I received hundreds of letters, flowers and bonbons from admirers every week, including Marcel Proust, who was fast gaining notoriety as the most promising of the bunch of young writers. I subscribe to a number of literary magazines for I have always been interested in art and literature. Articles extolling his qualities as a chronicler abounded in these periodicals, and it was predicted that he would join the likes of Balzac and Hugo as literary giants of the country. The whole world knows that he was a great admirer of mine, and indeed wrote about me in his A la Recherche du Temps Perdu, calling me La Berma, a name I didn’t much care for but got used to. I suppose that when I called him, ‘Mon p’tit Proust,’ it was in retaliation. He did not mind. He was a great gossip, and questioned me in depth about my fellow thespians. He was particularly keen to learn about who were the homosexuals among them and as discretion isn’t one of my virtues, I was happy to spill the beans. He was disappointed about Mounet-Sully being straight.
Inevitably one day I began talking about Charles Haas, and was not surprised when Proust said that he knew the man, though not intimately. He had only met him two or three times, but finding him an interesting case, he had asked questions and had found out a great deal about him. It was then that he exploded his bombshell.
‘The character Charles Swan in A La Recherche is based on Monsieur Haas. He is Jewish, very rich, a lover of art and women, exactly as I describe him. More, Odette de Crécy is based on none other than Laure Hayman.’
He told me many interesting stories about Laure. She had been the mistress of both his father Antoine Proust and his maternal great uncle Louis Weill. As she had the reputation of a deniaiseuse, initiatrix, Antoine, recognising fairly early Marcel’s own preference for his own sex, had made a desperate attempt to ‘straighten’ him up and entrusted him to Laure. He was not sexually attracted to the handsome woman, but was fascinated by her.
‘My dear Mister Proust,’ Laure greeted the younger Marcel in English, ‘delighted to meet you finally.’ She loved showing off her command of the language of Shakespeare. ‘Your dear father has begged me to do you a favour, and instruct you in the delights of normal carnal love,’ she continued, in French. ‘I can assure you, you could not have found a more willing teacher nor one more gifted.’ His lack of self-assurance combined with his lukewarm, if not non-existent interest in the fair sex was no match for his writerly curiosity, and he was game for what lay in wait for him. He realised that the pair of them made for a comical sight, he, pale and frail from his many bouts of illness, and she, a self-assured healthy courtesan. Still he was undaunted.
‘Come sit next to me,’ she ordered, and he timidly did her bidding. She grabbed his hand and guided it round her waist. He found the initial contact quite stimulating.
‘Now put your other hand between my thighs,’ she commanded. He obeyed.
‘Now mon jeune ami, play with my lolos with one hand and let the other one explore my more private regions.’ Marcel hesitated, but began stroking her breasts half-heartedly
‘Don’t tell me you’ve seen more spectacular ones,’ she said merrily. Marcel wasn’t quite sure what to do next, which made her snap at him.
‘No my dear, you must liberate them from their prison first,’ she meant her blouse and brassiere. At this point his hands began to tremble, and Laure hiding her impatience badly, unbuttoned her blouse and unharnessed the titty trap. He had just been feeling a little stirring between his legs, and was hopeful that he might have made a fist of this, but the sight of the whopping mammaries gushing out made him feel nauseous. She grabbed his hand and guided it towards the balcony, but the touch made him shudder, something he was unable to hide from her. Her reaction was quite disconcerting.
‘Why, you gringalet, pipsqueak, what’s wrong with my tits?’
‘Oh no, ma’am, n-no-nothing at all, it’s just tha-tha-that,’ Marcel was unable to finish.
‘Let me tell you that you are the only man in Paris who, given the honour to feast upon my finest jewels has spurned the chance.’
‘Whatever erection I was beginning to experience,’ Monsieur Proust told me, had an instantaneous death at that point.’
‘There was no way I was going to reassure père. His son was destined to be the shame of the family.’ So the great writer went home his tail between his legs. Antoine was furious and it took the combined intervention of Grand Oncle Louis (Weill) and his doting Maman to pacify him.
Marcel tried to avoid Laure, but it was impossible. Their paths often crossed, and when they did, they curtseyed to each other politely and exchanged barely a word.
‘What a shame,’ I said.
‘No, not at all. She gave me an excellent model for Odette, what more does a writer want?’
That, however, was not the end of the story. When a while later, she identified herself as the devious and less than likeable Odette of La Recherche, she wrote an angry letter to him. That despicable woman wasn’t in the least like me, she complained. He had the choice of ignoring it, but finally he wrote an ingratiating letter to reassure her that Odette Crécy was definitely not based on her. “As you yourself noted, Mademoiselle Hayman, Odette, unlike your charming self is completely lacking in warmth and I daresay is quite detestable.” He explained that she was a composite of several other women that he had met in the various salons that he frequented. He did not think that his letter made things better between them.
‘My dear Marcel,’ I said in all earnest, ‘if one day you decide to join the rank of women-lovers, I would be delighted to instruct you, and I assure you that my mammaries are not in the same league as Madame Hayman’s’. He smiled.
‘Ah, to have the Divine Sarah Bernhardt as my déniaiseuse, what a chance! I will certainly take you up on that some day.’
Needless to say that day never came.
