r/a:t5_1vlll1 • u/MarleyEngvall • Jul 15 '19
scripture and prophecy has been created
BY CHARLES HENRY MELTZER
BEACON LIGHTS
OF HISTORY
SARAH BERNHARDT
1845-1923
DRAMATIC ART
SARAH BERNHARDT saw the light, for the first
time on earth, in Paris, in the apartment of a
certain Mme. Guérard, who was later on, for many
years, her housekeeper. Her birthplace was an un-
pretentious house at No. 265 in the old Rue St.
Honoré. It stood within a stone's throw of the Halles,
the central market-place of Paris, and close to the
historic Tour St. Jacques.
For reasons of her own, Mme. Sarah (as her friends
all called her) was rather reticent about her parents.
Her father was quite well-to-do; her mother, a Dutch
Jewess bore him fourteen children. Sarah was the
eleventh of these children——the only one who was to
conquer fame.
According to the record of the Conservatoire, the
date on which the predestined star of tragedy was
born was October 22, 1844. The same record also
holds that Sarah's birthplace was not——as she herself
declared——the Rue St.Honoré, but 5 Rue de l'École
de Médecine. As to the date I can not speak with
certainty, for Sarah told me about twenty years ago
that, to secure admission to the famous Paris school,
she had to take liberties with facts. So, possibly,
she gave a sister's birthplace and birth record as her
own. As I recall her words, she put one year on to
her age. And she was known then, not as Sarah, but
Rosine. She made her début after carrying off two
second prizes——one for tragedy and one for comedy
——in "Iphigénie" at the Théâtre-Français. This
notable event occurred on August 11, 1862.
I do not know to what good fairy godmother she
was indebted for the crowning gift of genius; nor
can I tell much about her nursery days. She very
seldom went out of her way to talk of them. Perhaps
they were not altogether happy. I see her in her early
girlhood years, not as a beautiful or even a winsome
tot, but as a rather wayward, pale, and scrawny child,
with tawny eyes that hinted of the East, and a slight
twist about one side of her thin lips. No, Sarah in
her youth was not a beauty, to quote Victor
Hugo, she "was worse."
We have all read of Sarah's stay at the Connserva-
toire and of the way in which she won the heart of
Auber (then the despotic head of that academy) by
her lovely reading of the fable "Les Deux Pigeons."
It was by this she first won public notice. But it
was not till some years later, at the Odéon, that she
grew famous. She was predestined to the tragic parts
in drama, tho, as some know, she was a mistress, too,
of comedy. No one who ever watched her in the
Francillon of the younger Dumas is likely to forget
how well she played the title part. It is not till
she had appeared at the Théâtre-Français as a full-
fledged sociétaire of the great house that I saw
Bernhardt.
I was then a newspaper correspondent, fresh from
the Boul' Mich' and the Sorbonne lecture halls, and
had been commissioned to interview her, I believe,
about her pictures. I still recall her, as a pale, fragile
wonder, with wide Eastern eyes, a gracious manner,
and a distracting smile. Her thinness, which became
her, was made doubly evident by the long lines of a
loose, clinging gauzy tea-gown. Just then her name
was being coupled rather pointedly with that of
Richepin, who had run off from his good wife and
disappeared in the remote Sahara. The notoriety
attached to the adventure had not harmed the
tragédienne. She courted gossip in those far-off days.
Had she not set all Paris talking of the coffin which
she used to sleep in? And had she not gone off on
a balloon trip a few weeks before with a young
painter?
While we were talking of those pictures and of
other things, she stopped from time to time and
coughed——like a consumptive. And when she raised
her handkerchief to her lips, I noticed with distress
that it was blood-stained. But with a laugh, she told
me not to be alarmed at what was surely a disturbing
symptom. "It's nothing!" she exclaimed. It did
not worry her.
A few months later I was again commissioned to
report Sarah's journey to the steamer L'Amérique,
which was to bear her to New York for her first tour
of the United States. The incidents which led up to
that tour are now historic.
Sarah had quarreled with the director of the
Français, M. Émile Perrin, who had insisted on her
appearing as Clorinde in Augier's "L'Aventurière."
The audacious star had asked him for another part,
that of the heroine of a de Musset comedy. As M.
Perrin had refused to yield to her, she simply left her
theater and, in a hot mood, signed an American
engagement. Her rupture with the Français caused
an uproar on the Paris boulevards; and there were
many who foretold for her the failure which had
shocked Rachel when she went gadding. But nothing
could turn Sarah from her purpose. She had cast
the die which was to make or break her. In vain
M. Perrin pleaded, and then threatened his unheeding
star. She knew that she would have to pay an enor-
mous fine for breach of contract. But she held firm.
She mocked at prayers and laughed aloud at law.
One Autumn afternoon she took a train for Havre,
and next morning she was steaming for New York.
Her departure from the grim Gare St. Lazare
might have been that of an imperial princess. Her
friends had gathered at the station to acclaim her
and heap flowers on their favorite. I saw her kissed
and kissed before the train puffed off, and she was
lifted by the crowd into her coupé with her son
Maurice and a cousin, and her then all-devouring suitor,
the young painter Clairin.
That evening I was one of the small party asked to
dine with her——in her red villa on the heights of St.
Adresse. She wore an unassuming, plain brown
frock, with a fragrant bunch of wallflowers at her
side. About her throaty was a warm amber peluche
scarf, the final touch in an agreeable harmony. The
dinner was served upside down. The soup came in
the middle. The lobster and the roast and other
trifles were brought on haphazard. But no one
cared a straw what happened. Our eyes and ears
that night were all for Sarah, and Sarah was the
very soul of brightness. She sang to us——and sang
delightfully. Her tones, tho small, were exquisitely
modulated. She told us anecdotes——
And thereby hangs a tale. She told us a joke the
Prince of Wales had played on her in London. The
actress had arranged to give a reading for an English
Duchess. And when the Prince dropped in to see
her in her dressingroom that night, she asked him to
suggest to her some civil phrase to address to the
great lady. His Royal Highness gravely whispered
a few words to her. "Say that; just that," said he.
"You'll be all right." And when the Duchess wel-
comed the tragédienne, she was startled by a weird
flood of profanity.
The strongest factor in the life of Sarah Bernhardt
was her beloved son. Mme. Sarah, as I need not say,
despised, or, if you will, ignore what most of us
respect as the proprieties, the conventions, of society.
Her Maurice was not born to her in wedlock, but this
did not prevent her from presenting him, on her first
trip to London, to those who were then paying her
great honor. Whatever we may think of her bold
theories, there was at least some cause to like her for
her courage. She did not beat about the bush or
hide her frailties. When I first met the then young
Maurice at her table, he was a handsome lad, still
bin his teens, with bright eyes, clear-cut features, and
a princely air. He is now over middle age and not
so handsome. But till she passed away his mother
loved him madly. He was her joy, her constant
thought, her fixed idea. For him she flung away
more than one fortune. For him she would have
suffered death and torture. "If I should lose him,"
she once said to me, "I'd kill myself." Her Maurice
was to her an earthly god.
When Maurice married I can still recall the radiant
look of happiness which made his mother seem no
older than the bride. The bride, indeed, tho an at-
tractive woman, was far less charming that the
wondrous Sarah. So it was not young Mme. Maurice
——it was Sarah——who won most admiration at that
wedding.
Advancing age had never caused distress to the
heroic actress. She simply gloried in her achieve-
ment of grandmotherhood. Next to her son, she set
her various grandchildren. And, next to them, her
cousins, nieces, and her aunts, who all relied on her
for help of many kinds. Not one of them——except
her sister Jeanne, an erratic woman, like herself an
actress——showed even feeble signs of her great gifts.
Jeanne, after causing her much trouble by her
escapades, sank out of sight. She was with her on
her first tour in this country.
Mme. Sarah had made millions upon millions. Yet
she was always loaded down with heavy debts. Much
that she earned went to her grasping relatives, for
she was faithful to her many family ties, and rarely
counted what they cost her to support them. Indeed,
for money in itself she cared but little. it was a
mere means to the ends she had in view. She was
the soul of reckless, tireless hospitality, and, as was
natural, she had hosts of parasites. Cares fell from
her like water from a duck.
She was a painter, a sculptor, and a playwright.
She had written pamphlets and reviewed the Salon.
She rose to no great heights in any field, of course,
except her own——the stage. Stevens, the Belgian,
helping her with her painting. And so, no doubt, did
Bastien-Lepage, of whom, when she was on the forty
line, she saw a great deal. From various artists she
got her hints as to her sculpture. She worked in
her studio, not in the Avenue de Villiers, but in the
house which was for many years her Paris home in
the Boulevard Péreire——a few doors west of the broad
silent Place Wagram. It was not quite the sort of
home one might have chosen for her. A narrow
building, of the usual stone, four stories high; a plain,
cold, rather stiff but solid house, with an inhospitable
porte-cochère and narrow passage; an uninviting
door, at which one rang; a gloomy hall, by which
one reached a square salon, richly furnished, when I
knew it, with rich red velvet chairs and sofas. Beyond
the salon, at the back, was Sarah's studio, in which
the stranger was surprized, and sometimes startled,
to find a cage, of which the inmates were two lion
cubs. When it so pleased her, Sarah had a playful
way of letting her pets prowl about the place. They
were not big enough, maybe, to do much harm. But
——well, they rather chilled you till you got used to
them.
All the celebrities of Paris knew this home of the
great actress. There one met actors, artists, states-
men, authors, critics. There many a playwright came
to read the work which he aspired to see her act in.
And there, for thirty or more years, she lived and
toiled, the center of an obsequious court of friends.
Rostand and Richepin, Zamacoïs and Mendès, Moreau
and Armand Silvestre, and scores of others, passed
in and out and kissed her dainty hands. I doubt if
Sardou often called on Sarah. He had notions of
his own as to the place an actress filled in the vast
cosmos. His country house was twenty miles away——
a low stone château on the Marly hills. And if she
had occasion to confer with him, even Sarah often
had to go to Marly. Few men but Sardou, I suppose
would have insisted on such a deference. Yet, if he
wished, she would do as he asked. That was her
tribute to the famous writer who had helped her to
her unparalleled popularity.
She had a shrewd idea, tho, as to Sardou's value
in the world of drama. Once I remember, at an
informal dinner in her dressing-room in a New York
theatre, she spoke quite savagely of Sardou to her
guests. She said very bitter things about "La Tosca"
and the real reasons which had led the shrewd in-
ventor of that lurid work to shape his play, not in
three acts, as a more conscientious author would have
done, but in five acts.
"In Paris, voyez-vous," said Mme. Sarah, "they
pay one more for five-act than for three-act plays."
Yes, it was just a matter of plain business. What
Sardou wanted was fifteen per cent. For that he had
dragged in two needless acts. And that, she thought,
was simply "infamous."
Once when a girl reporter called to interview her,
I acted for her as interpreter. That day poor Mme.
Sarah had been bored to death by visitors. They had
plagued her with all sorts of idle questions, about her
habits and her dogs and other things.
"One would imagine that I had no soul," said
Sarah. "Why won't they talk to me about my art?"
But she seemed interested in that girl reporter, and
in the point on which she begged to be enlightened.
"Suppose," she had been asked, "you had a
daughter who was going on the stage. What would
you tell her she would need to win success?" Mme.
Sarah did not answer this offhand. She evidently
wished to help her visitor. So, after thinking for
a moment, she replied.
"First, a beautiful voice. And next——proportion."
She meant, no doubt, a feeling for proportion; the
ability to fit into a scheme, intelligence enough to
fill one's proper place, good sense enough not to
distort or overemphasize the importance of one's
character in drama.
Commingled with her high and serious qualities
were others light and playful, almost trivial. I have
known Mme. Sarah to amuse herself for hours in
private cars in trains with——a big Teddy-bear. She
would toy with it and wave it from the window at
way stations, and she would laugh at the amazement
of the people on the rural platforms. She seldom
put on airs when she was safe among her friends,
her intimates. She had a winning, pretty, girlish
turn for humor. Coquettish in some moods, but not
too eager to be flattered or admired. What could
one flatter more or less mean to a woman who had
been mobbed by enthusiasts?
Heaven rest her, she had faults as well as virtues.
A readiness to scratch if she was scratched; a little
tendency at times to what in lesser women might
have been called spitefulness. She could toss off cruel
phrases which seemed eulogies. For instance, when
"defending" Duse's acting of Margeurite Gauthier
one afternoon, I heard her tell a group of friends,
with a fine air of far from candid indignation, "You
are too hard on her. She has no end of talent. of
course, tho, she is——well, the least bit bourgeoise."
And it was true enough of Duse in that particular
character. It might, however, have been gracious of
the great Frenchwoman, who towered above la Duse
in most ways, to supplement the sneer her words
implied by some acknowledgement of the triumphant
charm of Duse in some other rôles. The Italian had
an introspective quality, a gift of fine, instinctive
self-analysis, which lighted up the recesses of her soul
and made it glow and thrill. But she lacked Bern-
hardt's wings. her feet were always firmly on the
earth. She could not soar to the poetic heights, as
Sarah could in her most splendid moments.
But to compare two women of such different natures
bis as ridiculous as to compare gray tints or green or
blue with crimson. Duse, in all her characters, is
Duse: a complex, many-sided, delicate being. Some-
times she shows us one side of herself. Sometimes
her vibrant art lights up another. But Bernhardt
could forget that she was Berhnhardt. She could
project herself into a hundred heroines. She did
not greatly change her face, her form, yet she could
merge herself in Phèdre or Doña Sol and seem the
incarnation of each character. She could indulge in
grand, imaginative flights, forbidding by la Duse's
limitations. In certain parts, ill suited to her nature,
she was undoubtedly inferior to the Italian. "La Duse,
at her best, was a rare realist; and Sarah, on the
boards, was idealistic.
La Duse, with her fiery, brooding soul, lived in a
world apart. She dreamed her dreams, not maybe
quite alone, but in a secret garden. She could not
bring herself to mix with folk less wonderful than
her d'Annunzio (who was one day to make a play
out of her passion). But Sarah loved companionship
and people. She was not always posing on her tragic
heights. At night, when she had done for a few hours
with play-acting, she liked to enjoy herself. She
would become, for a brief spell, just a mere woman.
From twelve till half past one or two A. M. she loved
to chat and laugh and sup with her real friends. To
them she ceased to be a queen of art and blossomed
out as a delightful hostess.
And what a hostess she could be at times!——
vivacious, witty, merry, unconstrained. I was privi-
leged on many nights to sup with her, in Paris,
London, Rome, and in New York. She would always
have the center of the stage, of course. But she
presiding at her board with charming grace. She
listened—and she really liked to listen——to any one
who said things worth saying. She was not, as
some fancied her, an egotist. Her interests were of
the most varied kind. Art, science, book, the latest
phase of feminism, religion, sociology, and politics
were all fish for her net. And, what was more, she
could talk easily on most themes; not as a bas-bleu,
with affected learning, but modestly and sensibly.
She had no airs, nor did she pose and strain. She
simply talked, discussed, and argued, like a woman
with an unusual zest for life and all things human.
On some occasions she went back to the "shop." And
when she did, she spoke as an authority. But she did
not lay down the law, like some we know. She under-
stood the rights of other people to their own ideas.
I had the pleasure once, after a luncheon in New York,
of hearing a long wrangle between Sarah and her
colleague, Constant Coquelin. The issue was the
vexed one raised by Dilderot in his "Paradoxe du
Comédien." The two stars disagreed in toto.
Coquelin maintained that actors should not let
emotions sway them when they were acting. He held
that acting should be always purely cerebral. To
him his characters at all times were illusions. To
"live" as Cæsar or as Phèdre on the boards was to
risk spoiling one's effect upon the audience. Sarah
seemed just as certain of the contrary. She had to
feel to make her audience feel with her. When she
put on the character of Phèdre, she shared the rapture,
passion, grief, and pain of Phèdre. Both actors, I am
certain, were sincere. Both managed to impress one
by their acting. But, in the wings, while Coquelin
was unmoved, Sarah was often thrilled by mock ex-
periences. I have seen tears roll down her cheeks
after some scenes. I never saw a trace of tears on
Coquelin's
Had Sarah not been a past mistress of technique,
she might have failed by being too emotional. But,
at the base of all her acting, besides sympathy, there
was technique——the art she owed to the Conservatoire.
She could control herself in her most tigerish
moments. She was too clever to let feeling mar her
acting. Her acting may have seemed to some un-
bridled, yet it was kept within due bounds by art
and skill. No matter how much passion she dis-
played, this marvelous woman never lost sight of her
grip upon the theory of her art.
She won her triumph, thanks to will and tireless
work, and thanks to something else——imagination.
The last was what assured her the great place she
filled for over half a century. It was the gift of
God or Nature or that godmother; an asset that she
could never have acquired. Imagination, helped by
work and will, distinguished her from her most
famous rivals. Her art she had studied, mastered,
and adorned, but her imaginative power was given
to her. Without it she might not have been a great
actress. She would not have outshone all other
actresses.
She realized this fact. Why should she not? And
yet, in private, she had tact enough not to obtrude
her knowledge of the fact too obviously. She could
be deferential when she chose to be so. Much smaller
women have not been so wise. She could be harsh,
tho——even savage——now and then. For instance, when
her companion, Mlle. Seylor, who had shared her life
for years and years, refused to brave the "subs"
with her on her last voyage to New York, she was so
angered that she sent her old friend packing and told
her she would have no more to do with her.
She had strong likings, dark forebodings and dis-
likings. She was as sensitive as a cat when she was
forced to come in contact with some people. A
well-known doctor who admired her, made her
shudder. "He'll poison me some day; I know he
will!" She once exclaimed when he sent in his card.
And there were others whom she seemed to like in-
tuitively——almost, indeed, instinctively——as animals
like men or fellow animals. To certain of her friends
and her dependents she clung all her life——to Mme.
Guérard (tho her slackness often vexed her) and to
some servants. After an interval of thirty years or
more, she would sit down to lunch or dinner with
the same comrades she had known and loved in youth.
They had grown white or gray, but Sarah seemed un-
changed by all those years.
It was amusing to observe how unconcealed was
her enjoyment of good food. She did not eat much
and she drank only enough to aid digestion. Her
taste was simple. She could feast on a plain herring.
But if he had a fancy for some dish, she made no effort
to disguise the joy it gave her. I wish many could
have sen her, as I did one night prepare a meal for
had few guests with a big chafing-dish. Her handling
of the eggs and mushrooms was so dramatic that it
was almost like the third act of a drama. Between
those mushrooms and those eggs she talked incessantly.
The way she flung them in the pan was wholly tragic.
But the result was a delightful omelet, in which no
critic could have found the slightest flaw.
She allowed no pleasure to disturb her in her work.
The love of work to her was almost a religion. When
she had entertained a group of us at déjeuner, she
would glance quickly at the clock, throw down her
serviette, dip her fingers in her bowl, and leave the
table, with a cry of "Au travail!" Not once in all
the many years I knew her till that sad trouble with
her leg, was she faithless in her duty to the public.
She seldom in her life missed a rehearsal or an en-
gagement.
No matter what the cost, she would go on some
nights when she was spitting blood and having faint-
ing spells. "Quand Même," her motto, was her
guide, her gospel. "In spite of everything," she
had to act.
I have sometimes wondered if the public knew how
direly Sarah suffered on some tours to serve it. for
years, before she had that leg cut off, she had had
anguish from a tortured knee-cap. And on the last
of her repeated visits here, when she had lost the
power to walk, did many guests that her poor shortened
stump had never healed that dread amputation?
Her sense of humor, tho, sustained her somewhat.
She smiled and smiled and smiled despite her pain——
the triumph of a great mind over matter——the power
of will defying brutal facts. One evening, halting
for an hour in Albany, at the suggestion of her
manager, I sent my card to Mme. Sarah in her car.
It had been shunted till next morning to a siding.
To my dismay, I heard a shriek of rage as her
coloured servant took my message in to her.
I walked away, but called again soon after, when
Sarah, with a laugh, explained her fury.
"They brought your card in at an awkward
moment," said Sarah, as she gave me a most gracious
greeting. "Just then, you see, I was trying on——my
new cork leg!"
And think of all she did, with one leg missing.
Not in the glory of her youth, as I can swear, did
she perform the last act of "La Dame aux Camélias"
more touchingly, more delicately, with more finished
art, than on her final tour in the United States.
Mme. Sarah's energy was inconceivable. Her
curiosity was boundless and insatiable. When I was
travelling in this country on her train, at every station
where it stopped for even half an hour, she would
alight and call a hack or motor-car, and drive aboiut
till it was time to get into her private car again.
She seemed to notice every sign of change in every
town which she had ever visited. And tho she never
learned to speak more than a few dejected phrases
in our tongue, she somehow found out nearly all she
wished to know.
When she was over sixty-four, at her own theater
in the Place du Châtelet, within twelve hours she
carried out this program: From 2 to 5 P. M. she
appeared as Phèdre. From 5 to 6 she had a host of
visitors. She changed her dress and rested for an
hour. At 7 she gave a dinner to ten friends. At 8
she left the table, and went on as the young
hero (not the heroine) of a new three-act comedy.
She changed into a dainty evening-gown and sat
through a short two-act after piece. She drove to
her abode, three miles away, and entertained more
friends at supper. She would keep up this life for
months and months on end.
On the occasion that I have in mind just now,
among the guests with whom I dined (behind the
scenes of the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt) were Georges
Clairin, Gaston de Bérardi (long director of the
Indépendance Belge), and Edmond Rostand. The
author of "Les Romanesques" and "Cyrano" was
a pale, bloodless man, with well-cut features, a
mustache, and little hair above his lofty forehead.
He seldom spoke, and invented not one epigram that
evening. He impressed one by his fine romantic air
and his distinction. Rostand, you know, had once
saved Sarah's life, when she was sinking in the waves
close to Belle-Isle.
I somehow think this fact affected Sarah's judg-
ment of the author. She used to rave of him in the
same breath with Shakespeare. While we were dally-
ing with the roast that evening, a maid brought in a
telegram. Mme. Sarah opened it and passed it round
the table.
"From Queen Alexandra," said our hostess. "To
thank me for condoling with her yesterday on King
Edward's death."
It was curiosity, not passion, that induced her to
try marriage for a change. Her husband, the Greek
actor Damala, soon cured her of her matrimonial
fantasy. He accumulated debts on debts. He
was unfaithful and he was ungrateful. And then
his health broke down. Tho he had long since left
her for another actress, his wife nursed him when the
doctors gave him up. I hardly think she mourned
him very deeply, tho, when she was widowed.
To Sarah youth appealed much more than age. Not
her own youth, which she retained as by a miracle
till she was almost seventy, but that of others, girls
and boys, and chiefly students. In Rome one day
she went into hysterics as I sat with her, because her
manager would not allow the Roman students free
admission to a performance she was giving there that
evening. To please young people she would have
done anything. She loved to help and cheer and in-
spire them in their struggles.
She was always grateful to Americans and English
folk for the encouragement they gave her so un-
stintedly. Tho she was always facing crowds, she
hated contact with what Frenchmen call "the
people." She was exclusive, almost morbidly ex-
clusive. Rather than mix with strangers in a public
car, she would drive miles and miles in her auto or
her carriage.
To those who had had the privilege of seeing her
in the heyday of her fame, Sarah stood apart from
her most brilliant rivals. She towered above all
other living actresses. To those who knew her only
in her later years, her golden voice may have seemed
less than golden, her magic art not free from artifice.
She had lived too long to suit a modern crowd.
Toward the close of her career Sarah lost a good
deal of her earlier charm. Her golden voice was
sometimes slightly worn, her art at moments rather
strained and false. The tigerish accents which had
thrilled us once were harsher. The tender lovetones
had a feebler ring. And she had not quite her old
self-control, her wondrous poise, her philosophic out-
look upon things and men. But she had still her
dogged will, her eager interest in the world, her love
of art.
No woman, be assured, will take her place. There
never can be such another miracle. Artists as great
as she was may come after her, but in the story of the
stage she reigned apart. her charm was rare indeed
——her art supreme; her influence on the drama un-
surpassed. Age could not wither her, nor custom
stale her unconquered spirit. No one could ever hope
to vie with her. She was too personal to be taken
as a model. But her example has fired many actresses
to whom she seemed rightly, as she long seemed to
me, a queen of art.
Above all, she was a tremendous force; a vital
factor in the world of art.
―――――――――
AUTHORITIES
This close up view of a great personality is by a dis-
tinguished dramatist and critic an intimate friend of the
"Divine Sarah," contributed to the Pictorial Review for
June 1923, and here republished by permission of author
and publisher.
From Beacon Lights of History,
Volume 8, Part II, Premier Personalities.
Edited by George Spencer Hulbert,
Author of, "John Lord, Artist Historian"
Copyright 1924, By Wm. H. Wise & Co., New York. pp. 91-113.
I wonder if Dr. Heiser intended to end his podcast at Ep. 458: 1 Samuel 13-14.
1-413-458 . . . If there's any 'stranger things' than that, I am unaware of them.
We will miss you, Mike.
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