[BRARY 
 
 IE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CAL :FORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGEL ES 
 
A MAGAZINE OF LETTERS 
 
 SPRING NUMBER 
 
 MARCH-APRIL 
 
 RI CHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE POET LORE COMPANY 
 
 BOSTON MCMX VIII 
 
COPYRIGHT 1918, BY THE POET LORE COMPANY 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 SATURDAY NIGHT is fully protected by copyright in the United States and in 
 all other English speaking countries. No performances may be given, whether amateur 
 or professional, for any purpose whatever, exceept by permission of the SOCIETY OF 
 SPANISH AUTHORS, Room 62, 20 Nassau Street, New York. 
 
 Printed in the United Stales of America 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS, BOSTON, LI. S. A. 
 
SATURDAY NIGHT* 
 
 A NOVEL FOR THE STAGE IN FIVE TABLEAUX 
 
 BY JACINTO BENAVENTE 
 
 Translated from the Spanish by John Garrett Under hill 
 
 CHARACTERS 
 
 THE LECTOR. 
 
 IMPERIA. 
 
 PRINCESS ETELVINA. 
 
 THE COUNTESS RINALDI. 
 
 LADY SEYMOUR. 
 
 EDITH. 
 
 DONINA. 
 
 ZAIDA. 
 
 LELIA. 
 
 MME. JENNY. 
 
 MAJESTA. 
 
 ESTHER. 
 
 JULIETTE. 
 
 ROSINA. 
 
 PEPITA. 
 
 CELESTE. 
 
 TERESINA. 
 
 NELLY. 
 
 FANNY. 
 
 MARCELLA. 
 
 LEONARDO. 
 
 PRINCE MICHAEL ALEXANDER. 
 
 PRINCE FLORENCIO. 
 
 LORD SEYMOUR. 
 
 THE DUKE OF SUABIA. 
 
 HARRY LUCENTI. 
 
 THE SIGNORE. 
 
 MR. JACOB. 
 
 NUNU. 
 
 TOMMY. 
 
 TOBACCO. 
 
 RUHU-SAHIB. 
 
 GAETANO. 
 
 CECCO. 
 
 PIETRO. 
 
 COMMISSARY OF POLICE. 
 
 GENARO. 
 
 AN UNKNOWN. 
 
 IST SAILOR. 
 
 2ND SAILOR. 
 
 3RD SAILOR. 
 
 A WAITER. 
 
 CORNAC. 
 
 SERVANT 
 
 LADIES, GENTLEMEN, PERFORMERS IN THE CIRCUS, POLICE, 
 SAILORS, GYPSIES AND ATTENDANTS. 
 
 The action takes place in a Winter Resort upon the Riviera, 
 situated near the boundary between Italy and France. 
 
 *Copyr!ght, 1918, by John Garrett Undi-rh'll. 
 
i 2 8 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 SPOKEN BY THE LECTOR 
 
 It is Saturday night. Earth, sea and sky blend in refulgent 
 harmony' light, waves, mountain tops and groves smile with the 
 freshness of a world new-born, ignorant of sorrow and of death. 
 Gods and heroes, nymphs and fawns should inhabit this enchanted 
 shore, love and wisdom alone are worthy to contemplate its 
 beauty. The idylls of Theocritus and the eclogues of Virgil 
 breathe the spirit of its poesy, or if perchance a poet of our un- 
 quiet time may turn to it to glorify his melancholy, let it be the 
 divine Shelley, worshipper of the eternal harmony of Beauty, 
 Truth, and Good, who refused to set bounds and limits to the 
 infinite, adoring God in all his works. The ritual of his worship 
 shall be the passionate litany of the holy poet of Assisi, the uni- 
 versal lover, who greeted all things with his song of ardent flame: 
 Brother Sun, Brother Sea, Brother Birds, Brother Wolf all 
 brothers! 
 
 Into this enchanted scene, by Nature so lavishly endowed, 
 comes man. It is the fashionable winter season a la mode man 
 has chosen his earthly, paradise well; for paradise indeed it is. 
 He flees from the cold and the chill of the North, but he brings 
 the chill of his life with him; he flees from his life, but his life 
 follows and overtakes him. Every pathway beneath his feet 
 opens into an inferno like Dante's, above whose portals is in- 
 scribed the legend: 
 
 Through me the way is to the city dolent, 
 Through me the way is to eternal dole, 
 Through me the way among the people lost. 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 129 
 
 THE FIRST TABLEAU 
 
 A Hall in a sumptuous Villa. 
 
 The PRINCESS ETELVINA, LADY SEYMOUR, the COUNTESS 
 RINALDI, EDITH, LEONARDO, PRINCE MICHAEL, PRINCE FLOREN- 
 cio, LORD SEYMOUR, HARRY LUCENTI and the DUKE OF SUABIA 
 are seated about the room. EDITH plays upon a lute, while LADY 
 SEYMOUR and LEONARDO listen to the music. PRINCESS ETEL- 
 VINA, PRINCE MICHAEL, LORD SEYMOUR and the DUKE OF 
 SUABIA take tea. PRINCE FLORENCIO, the COUNTESS RINALDI and 
 HARRY LUCENTI examine a number of etchings and engravings, 
 engaging meanwhile in an animated conversation. Several SER- 
 VANTS are in attendance, one of whom hands a telegram to PRINCE 
 MICHAEL. 
 
 Etelvina. News from Suabia? 
 
 Prince Michael. Extraordinary news. (To the PRINCESS.) 
 You should be the first to announce it. Will you read? 
 
 Duke. Is it serious ? (Imposing silence.) The music, ladies, 
 if you please 
 
 Etelvina. I am delighted. Listen, my son. His Imperial 
 Majesty was presented this morning with a prince and heir. 
 
 Prince Michael. Long live the Prince! 
 
 All. Long live the Prince! 
 
 Duke. And viva Suabia! 
 
 All. Viva Suabia! 
 
 Prince Florencio (As he takes the telegram}. At last! A 
 prince after seven princesses! The weight of the Empire had 
 oppressed me long enough. It had become an obsession. Now 
 I shall be able to recover my health. 
 
 Lady Seymour. I must say that you bear the blow cheer- 
 fully. 
 
 Rinaldi.Onc does not lose a throne every day. 
 
 Etelvina (To PRINCE MICHAEL). We must reply at once. 
 Do not delay our congratulations. Our best wishes for the 
 prosperity of the empire. 
 
 Prince Florencio. Nobody will believe that they are sincere. 
 People always misunderstand me. The Empress suggested an 
 absence from Court because she was afraid that I might be in 
 too great a hurry to wear the crown. Now that the life of my 
 august cousin is so closely bound up with mine there is less reason 
 than ever why I should return to Suabia. The responsibility of 
 my own life will suffice me. 
 
i 3 o SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Etelvina. If one may judge by the little care that you take 
 of it. 
 
 Prince Florencio. Since it is my own and belongs entirely 
 to me, perhaps I shall finish by valuing it. I am free! no longer 
 the heir apparent, the center of so many hopes, so much ambition, 
 and so much hatred. However, I am sorry for my cousins, the 
 seven little princesses, as the Salic Law of the Empire does not 
 permit them to inherit themselves. They have been dreaming 
 all these years of becoming imperial consorts at my expense. It 
 will not matter to them now whether or not I behave. 
 
 Etelvina. You have no right to talk like that. Always this 
 flippant tone! 
 
 Duke. Highness, many of us had great faith in you. We 
 watched you from the cradle; we fought beside your father. The 
 heir is a mere babe and the Emperor already old. The state of 
 the country is perturbed. 
 
 Prince Michael. Clearly this is not a solution. 
 
 Prince Florencio (To PRINCE MICHAEL). No, my dear Uncle, 
 not while you are still young. You may be Regent yet, as you 
 would have been with me: the weight of the Empire would have 
 fallen upon your shoulders, and you would have inherited it in 
 the end. My imperial career would have been short. 
 
 Etelvina. Who knows? Life then would have had some 
 object for you it would have acquired meaning. However, if 
 you are satisfied 
 
 Prince Florencio. Absolutely. Do you recall Daudet's 
 11 Rois en exile": "Do you love me less now that I am not to be 
 king?" 
 
 Etelvina. Ungrateful, foolish boy! To see you happy is all 
 that I desire. 
 
 Lady Seymour. Edith was just playing the national air 
 of your lost Empire. A curious coincidence. 
 
 Prince Florencio. Yes, upon the lute. Quite depressing! 
 The theme to do it justice requires drums and trumpets against 
 a background of flashing swords and shining armor. I am told 
 that all the fighting spirit of our country has been put into it 
 although it was composed by a monk who was a foreigner, for the 
 funeral of some poet. 
 
 Duke. A preposterous fabrication. 
 
 Lady Seymour. A monk, did you say, and a poet? The 
 combination is amusing. 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 131 
 
 Leonardo. Tennyson might have composed an occasional 
 poem. 
 
 Lady Seymour. Tennyson was an exceptional poet. He was 
 a gentleman, received in the best society. 
 
 Harry Lucenti (To LEONARDO). Lady Seymour is jealous 
 of me. She will not pardon the Prince my invitation. 
 
 Leonardo. You are the scandal of England. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Run through the boudoirs of the great 
 ladies and in every one of them you will find a volume of my 
 poems, laid away with their love letters. On the table in the 
 drawing room, the Bible and Kipling. 
 
 Leonardo. And a respectable husband at the head of the 
 table. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. After dinner, under it. 
 
 Leonardo. I told you that joke yesterday and you found 
 it in very bad taste. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. On the lips of a foreigner, it continues to be 
 so. It is not easy to forget that one is English, although one has 
 been banished from England like Byron. 
 
 Leonardo. You have not yet succeeded in banishing England. 
 
 .Rinaldi. Byron, did you say? Byron does not seem im- 
 moral to me. I learned English when I was a schoolgirl reading 
 Byron. 
 
 Leonardo. Did you learn nothing but English reading 
 Byron ? 
 
 Rinaldi. We are not like Lady Seymour in Italy. It is 
 impossible to shock us with banished poets. 
 
 Leonardo. The Countess is shock-proof. She has been 
 cured of fear. 
 
 Rinaldi. Rather I am convalescing. That is the reason I 
 come here every winter. 
 
 Leonardo. Always alone. 
 
 Rinaldi. What is there to attract my husband? 
 
 Leonardo. Nothing; he has been cured already. 
 
 Etehina. There will be great rejoicing in Suabia. 
 
 Duke. The Court and the official element, not to speak of 
 the people, idolized Prince Florencio. They could not forget that 
 he was the son of the soldier, of the invincible liberator, your 
 husband, venerated throughout Suabia. 
 
 Etehina. Justly so. Yet during these last years they have 
 hesitated at nothing to discredit my son. 
 
1 32 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Duke. What constitution at his age could support this 
 continual liquidation? 
 
 Prince Michael. If Florencio's conduct had been otherwise 
 pardon, I do not wish to distress you he is your son and I know 
 how you love him. But Florencio's conduct 
 
 Etelvina. What can you tell me that I do not already know? 
 I have shed too many tears. But now it is his health which dis- 
 turbs me. I have brought him here to recuperate. 
 
 Prince Michael. Here? You arrived only two days ago, 
 and already the Prefect has advised me that he is frequenting 
 objectionable resorts. 
 
 Etelvina. Great Heavens! 
 
 Prince Michael. The Prefect is a man of the world; every- 
 body calls him the Signore. He is paid handsomely to keep the 
 peace, and throw an air of respectability over this petty prin- 
 cipality, which is a cosmopolis and Mecca of all the idlers of the 
 earth. 
 
 Etelvina. Do you tell me that Florencio 
 
 Prince Michael. There is no need to be alarmed. The 
 Signore has detailed special agents to watch him; they will protect 
 him should occasion arise. Nevertheless it is deplorable. 
 
 Etelvina. Yes, it is. You sympathize with me. Nothing 
 remained but that he should form an intimacy with this Lucenti, 
 this poet, half-English, half-Italian, a man utterly without moral 
 sense. Lord and Lady Seymour were scandalized to meet him 
 here. 
 
 Prince Michael. -Is it possible? But I thought pardon a 
 moment. I noticed my lady, that you seemed somewhat shocked 
 at the presence of Harry Lucenti. 
 
 Lady Seymour. Really, nobody receives that man. 
 
 Prince Michael. I beg your pardon. I thought I saw you 
 talking with him at the Casino last evening. 
 
 Lady Seymour. Oh, many times: But not before my hus- 
 band. 
 
 Prince Michael. But I have often seen your husband talking 
 with him. 
 
 Lady Seymour. Certainly. But not before me. 
 
 Prince Michael. English propriety is more complicated than 
 I had imagined. 
 
 Lady Seymour. It is respectability. 
 
 Rinaldi (To LEONARDO). I am in no humor for trifling this 
 afternoon. Frankly, I am bored. You have no idea how bored 
 I am. 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 133 
 
 Leonardo. But you are dying to tell me. 
 
 Rinaldi. Artists are such dangerous confidants. After- 
 ward they reveal all one's secrets to the public. 
 
 Leonardo. I am a sculptor. What secrets have you that 
 my art could reveal to the public? By the way, you would make 
 an admirable Juno. 
 
 Rinaldi. You said Minerva yesterday. 
 
 Leonardo. It may be Venus tomorrow; everything in due 
 season. 
 
 Rinaldi. You might have worse models. 
 
 Leonardo. I have no desire to question it. 
 
 Rinaldi. I warn you that I am wearing no stays; this is 
 support a la grecque. 
 
 Leonardo. Now you are encroaching upon my domain. 
 Only spiritual confidences if you please. 
 
 Rinaldi. Why do you suppose I am here this evening? 
 
 Leonardo. How should I know? Probably because you 
 were invited by Prince Michael, like the rest of us, to celebrate 
 the arrival of his sister, the Princess Alexandra Etelvina and her 
 august son, Prince Florencio, the late apparent heir. 
 
 Rinaldi. Invited? On the contrary, I am here precisely 
 because I was not invited. 
 
 Leonardo.- Impossible ! 
 
 Rinaldi. Apparently I am considered a declassee; it is my 
 own fault in a way. In Paris I was presented to the Prince 
 officially by the Italian Ambassador, but here, of course, there is 
 no etiquette. One comes for a change to amuse oneself. One 
 associates with everybody, just as if one were in the country. The 
 Casino, the races, the shooting club are all neutral ground. Well, 
 one day at one of them, I chanced upon the Prince with with 
 his- 
 
 Leonardo. With Imperia. 
 
 Rinaldi. Should I have refused to bow to him? How 
 absurd! I am not a Lady Seymour, afraid to be seen in public 
 with a fellow countryman, an artist like Harry Lucenti. 
 
 Leonardo. It would have been absurd. 
 
 Rinaldi. Art and beauty are sacred in Italy. One of the 
 popes said apropos of Benvenuto Cellini, that such artists were 
 beyond all laws. I did not hesitate to meet the Prince's ina- 
 morata, nor absent myself from the companies at her villa, nor 
 hurry to leave the Prince at the moment she arrived, when only a 
 few remained the intimates, the inner circle. They are the 
 
i 3 4 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 - 
 
 most fascinating. However, the Prince has taken my conde- 
 scension for moral abdication. That is the reason I am here 
 without an invitation. Naturally he did not seem surprised, but 
 when the Princess saw me, she was like an icicle. 
 
 Leonardo. She is very old-fashioned. She receives only 
 dragons of virtue. 
 
 Rinaldi. And discretion, like the daughter of the Duke of 
 Suabia. Romantic creature, is she not? a young lady in waiting, 
 whom the Princess keeps in the family so that Prince Florencio 
 may entertain himself at home and not create such scandals in 
 Suabia. 
 
 Leonardo. Poor Prince! He is very susceptible; a lover of 
 art, indefatigable in the pursuit of beauty. 
 
 Rinaldi. Entirely too much so. Was he not a lover of 
 Imperia before his Uncle? 
 
 Leonardo. I did hear some talk. 
 
 Rinaldi. And after you? 
 
 Leonardo. She was only my model; I was never her lover. 
 She took her name, Imperia from one of my statues. It was at 
 my studio in Rome that she met Prince Florencio. 
 
 Rinaldi. Who left you without a model? You see I am 
 taking your word. Then you fell sick. 
 
 Leonardo. With malaria. 
 
 Rinaldi. And changed your life completely. Your art 
 suffered a collapse. Is it true that you broke into pieces a great 
 block of marble prepared for a gigantic statue, The Triumph of 
 Life: It was to have been a work of genius, and surely not the 
 last. Italy then might have boasted two Leonardos, equally 
 great. 
 
 Leonardo. Leonardo! You have no idea how the name has 
 obsessed me ever since I was a child. It has been to me like some 
 preternatural portent. My father admired the divine da Vinci, 
 so he gave me the name. My father was a lover of beautiful 
 things, an idolater of great artists. It was a mighty name which 
 compelled me from my boyhood's days to dream great dreams. 
 But you see how it was: a great ideal can be realized only when 
 it has been reduced to fragments, shattered into parts. From 
 that block of Carrara marble from which I intended to carve my 
 masterpiece, I made a thousand figurines, such as you have 
 seen in the windows and at the exhibitions, or afterward in the 
 parlors and boudoirs of the rich graceful, if you will, charming; 
 the public was pleased and they sold very well. Instead of a 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 135 
 
 a ^dazzling flash of inspiration in a single work, a spark of artful 
 grace in a thousand toys; instead of a monument to immortalize 
 an heroic deed and embody beauty to posterity, a paperweight 
 perhaps, or a bibelot to support an electric light. And people 
 said that I had realized my ideal! They judged my soul by my 
 work. They see the grains of sand, but they do not know that 
 in their making a mountain crumbled into dust! 
 
 Rinaldi. But suppose the ideal is one of love, as mine is? 
 
 Leonardo. You know the secret. Break the block of your 
 illusions and content yourself with figurines. Love all as you 
 would have loved one. 
 
 Rinaldi. Loving much is not the same as loving many. 
 Consider your_e/xperience. You broke the marble, but have you 
 been able to forget your model, your Imperia? Why are you here 
 if it is not for her? 
 
 Leonardo. We are all here for something. 
 
 Rinaldi. Which we do not tell. The fact is that we wish to 
 escape ourselves, from the false lives which we lead, which our 
 position in the world imposes. That is why we huddle together 
 in this promiscuous place where everybody sees and knows every- 
 thing, but where everybody agrees to see and know nothing. 
 We are cowed into respectability tonight by the presence of the 
 Princess; we are in another world where we are bored beyond 
 speaking. We would give an eternity to be free in body and in 
 soul as our thoughts are at this moment. 
 
 Leonardo. We are shadows of ourselves as we pass through 
 the world. We see those who walk beside us, but we know 
 nothing of what they are. 
 
 Prince Florencio (To HARRY LUCEXTI). I must go with 
 mother. It will never do to have her worry. I can give out that 
 I have gone to bed; and join you later. Will those people be 
 there? 
 
 Harry Luce nil. We might stop for them at the theatre. 
 Do you know Mr. Jacob's new theatre? A gorgeous music-hall 
 in the worst possible taste, but diverting. Of course it has less 
 character than the old puppet show by the port, with its sailors 
 and stevedores, open-mouthed at the sight of the fine ladies ad- 
 venturing slumming. But Cecco's tavern is still there. He 
 gives foreigners their money's worth too the whole performance, 
 popular dances, a duel with knives, winding up with a raid by the 
 police, all engineered and directed by Cecco. You would swear 
 it was the truth. 
 
136 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Prince Florencio. We might take supper there. It will be 
 more amusing than these eternal midnight cafes. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. I think so too. We can have the perform- 
 ance suppressed. He knows we are in the secret. (They con- 
 tinue the conversation.) 
 
 Rinaldi (To LEONARDO). I felt sure of you that you were 
 sympathetic, but this intimacy with the Prince was disconcerting. 
 My husband may be sent as ambassador to Suabia. It would 
 never do to have these people suspect anything. Otherwise I 
 should have consulted the Prefect. 
 
 Leonardo. The Signore? How could you be so foolish? 
 This place would be a paradise but for him. Every winter he 
 imports the picked rogues of Christendom; then they pay him to 
 keep an eye on them; so he contrives to earn his salary. How- 
 ever, leave it to me; don't you worry. You say he works in 
 a music hall? an acrobat, a brute of a fellow? 
 
 Rinaldi. A brute, but wonderful! You understand; you 
 too are an artist. 
 
 Leonardo. Do you mean that he is threatening you with an 
 open scandal? 
 
 Rinaldi. I am in for five thousand francs. 
 
 Leonardo. Incredible. You have been foolish in more 
 senses than one. 
 
 Rinaldi. Not a word of it to anybody. 
 
 Leonardo. No, everybody knows it already. Don't imagine 
 that everybody hears from me what I hear from everybody. 
 
 Rinaldi. But they, do they know? 
 
 Leonardo. Oh! I should not bother. The same thing 
 happened to Lady Seymour with one of her grooms. Now she 
 envelopes herself in the British flag without condescending to 
 notice you during the evening. We become impossible socially, 
 not because of what people know about us, but because of what 
 they imagine we may know about them. 
 
 Etehina. Precisely. We ought always to say what we know 
 about everybody, not out of malice, but in the interest of truth 
 and good feeling. All of us are made of the same clay. Virtue 
 is merely relative it consists of those vices one does not possess. 
 If it had been virtuous not to eat apples, and I had been Eve, 
 man would never have fallen. I cannot abide the sight of apples; 
 although I do not complain of those that eat them. No doubt 
 they have good reasons. 
 
 Leonardo. They seem good to them. 
 
/ 
 
 JACINTO BENAVENTE 137 
 
 Etelvina (Rising). It is growing late. It is time to retire. 
 (To PRINCE MICHAEL). Will you lunch with us tomorrow? 
 
 Prince Michael. Without fail. And we shall write to the 
 Emperor. 
 
 Duke (To & Servant). Her Highness's coach. Gentlemen, 
 Her Highness retires. 
 
 Etelvina. Good afternoon to all. It has been pleasant to 
 meet old friends. My lady, I count you among them. 
 
 Lady Seymour. It is kind of your Highness to say so. 
 
 Etelvina. Countess! (To LEONARDO). Your works, my 
 dear artist, have become indispensable in my house. I trust that 
 you apply yourself now. Like the old masters, you have com- 
 bined art with utility. You make even our necessities charming. 
 Good afternoon. 
 
 Prince Florencio (To Harry). Don't be late. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. I shall be there before you. Good afternoon. 
 
 Prince Florencio. Good-bye, Uncle. 
 
 Prince Michael. Be careful of your health. Have sonic 
 regard for your mother. 
 
 Prince Florencio. You see how it is; I stay at home this 
 evening. 
 
 Etelvina. So Florencio has promised me. 
 
 (PRINCESS ETELVINA, PRINCE FLORENCIO, EDITH and the 
 DUKE OF SUABIA go out, accompanied by PRINCE MICHAEL.) 
 
 Rinaldi. The Princess is remarkably well preserved. 
 
 Leonardo. She almost looks young. 
 
 Lady Seymour. She leads the life of an anchorite a good 
 thing for the poor. 
 
 Rinaldi. Very popular, I am told, in Suabia. 
 
 Leonardo. The virtues of the Princess prove more embar- 
 rassing at court than the vices of her son. That is the reason 
 they advise them to travel. 
 
 Lord Seymour. I never meddle in foreign affairs. 
 
 Leonardo.- I was speaking for myself, my lord, a habit among 
 artists. 
 
 Lord Seymour. Damn bad habit! (To. LADY SEYMOUR.) 
 I shall accompany you, my dear. Where do you pass the evening? 
 
 Lady Seymour. At the Villa Miranda. There is to be cham- 
 ber music. You know what that is 
 
 (PRINCE MICHAEL re-enters.} 
 
 Prince Michael. The Princess was delighted to meet you 
 again. 
 
138 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Lady Seymour. Everybody is delightful to the Princess. 
 Good afternoon, Your Highness. Did you receive the invitation 
 to my concert? 
 
 Prince Michael. A concert such as could be conceived only 
 by an artist of your taste. 
 
 (LORD and LADY SEYMOUR go out, escorted by the PRINCE.) 
 
 Rinaldi. You noticed that she did not invite me. How- 
 ever, it makes no matter. I don't need her invitation. 
 
 Leonardo. You will go without it of course. 
 
 Rinaldi. Depend upon me. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Never permit yourself such a liberty with 
 an Englishwoman; the risk is too great. 
 
 Rinaldi. I shall present myself upon the arm of one of her 
 grooms. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. I should advise you not to meddle in foreign 
 affairs. 
 
 Rinaldi. Ah! Do you defend your hypocritical society 
 after having been made the victim of it? 
 
 Harry Lucenti. I never complain; I do as I like, the others 
 do the same. I scandalize England, but the world is before me. 
 
 Rinaldi. You scandalize the world. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. The world is too dull to be so easily scan- 
 dalized. Fancy if one were obliged to please everybody! 
 Do you please everybody? 
 
 Leonardo. But the Countess does, and no complaints. 
 
 Rinaldi. I am very careful about what people think of me. 
 
 Leonardo. As everybody knows. 
 
 Rinaldi. Without joking. 
 
 Leonardo. Seriously. Of course everybody knows. But 
 I say, if you were not careful! 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Prince Florencio will be waiting. 
 
 Rinaldi. He seems to be a great friend of yours. If he had 
 been Emperor, you would have been always at his side like 
 
 Harry Lucenti. You intended to say like a fool? 
 
 Rinaldi. A rather sad fool. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. You know no English fools; they are always 
 sad. They might pass for diplomatists in other countries. 
 
 Leonardo. All fools are sad. A smile is the most efficient 
 grave digger. We cry over what lives, what suffers, what we still 
 carry in our hearts; but when we laugh at a thing love, faith, an 
 illusion, memory it is dead. Shakespeare's fools are the most 
 tragic figures in his tragedies. Hamlet shrivels up in the pres- 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 139 
 
 ence of the grave-diggers, singing and jesting among the graves. 
 . Their spades grit in the earth, and out comes the skull of Yorick, 
 the king's jester, leering and scoffing with that horrible grin of 
 his bony jaws. Everything dies, but we still smile. What is 
 life, eternally renewing itself, but the triumphant smile of love 
 as it conquers death? 
 
 Rinaldi. But death is the end of all things and then 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Hell then. Fortunately, you Italians have 
 a most alluring Inferno. I see you, Countess, in the same circle 
 as Francesca, always in the best society. 
 
 Rinaldi. You must not joke about such things. I am a 
 believer; I hope to be saved. 
 
 Leonardo. Why not? The lives of all the saints have two 
 parts even the best of them. You are still in the first. 
 
 Rinaldi. Let us talk of something else. Often I leap out 
 of bed shrieking in the middle of the night, mad with terror, 
 because the idea of death crept into my mind as I fell asleep. 
 Sometimes when it is day, a day all holiday and sunshine, in the 
 midst of the crowds and the festival, suddenly I stop and think 
 that within a few years all those people will no longer be there, 
 that they will all be dead, and it seems to me that I must cry out 
 to them and warn them, as if some terrible calamity were im- 
 pending, hanging over their heads! Then all at once a dark veil 
 of silence descends before my eyes I am not well; I have con- 
 sulted physicians. 
 
 Leonardo. What do they say? 
 
 Rinaldi. They tell me to distract myself, to sleep always 
 with a light, with some one near. 
 
 Leonardo. A simple prescription for you to follow. 
 
 (PRINCE MICHAEL and the SIGNORE enter.} 
 
 Signore. Ah, gentlemen! What! The Countess? It is a 
 long time since I have had the pleasure although I have not 
 forgotten her. 
 
 Rinaldi. The Signor Prefect is very kind. Whenever I 
 have had the pleasure before, it has always been because of some 
 disagreeable experience. The last time I lost my jewels. 
 
 Signore. Well, you had no reason for complaint. Do you 
 remember that night you heard rumblings in your villa? And 
 the time that old rascal tried to make you dance to the tune of 
 those letters? 
 
 Rinaldi. They were forgeries. 
 
i 4 o SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Signore. I suppose those anonymous articles were forgeries 
 which revealed such striking knowledge of the details of your 
 life? But I was on hand to protect you. 
 
 Rinaldi. You took care of me, Signore. (To LEONARDO.) 
 I wish I could remember his name . . 
 
 Leonardo. As he never tells the truth, nobody knows his 
 real one. Call him the Signore and make no mistake. 
 
 Prince Michael. I had no idea that the Countess was one 
 of your clients. 
 
 Signore. One of the best of them. That theft of her jewels 
 a trick to make people think they were genuine. They were 
 imitation. She had them valued at three million francs. The 
 anonymous articles she wrote herself, so that she could truthfully 
 say they were slander. 
 
 Prince Michael. Very clever of her. 
 
 Signore. An extreme measure. 
 
 Rinaldi (To LEONARDO). The Signore bows with a myste- 
 rious air, as if he were doing one the favor to keep a secret. 
 
 Leonardo. I hardly think he would go so far. I hear he is 
 about to publish his memoirs. 
 
 Rinaldi. Gracious! I shall have to buy up the edition. 
 Will you see us home? 
 
 Leonardo. As far as you like. 
 
 Rinaldi. You do not wish to wait for Imperia? 
 
 Leonardo. Not in the least. I am at your service. 
 
 Rinaldi. Highness, I was delighted to receive your invita- 
 tion. 
 
 Prince Michael. Are you leaving so soon? Imperia may 
 be here at any moment. Now we are only the intimates, the 
 inner circle. 
 
 Rinaldi. I have decided that it is better not to be too inti- 
 mate. I had supposed that there was only a garden between 
 your villa and that of Imperia a garden with a gate; but I 
 realize now that you have erected an impenetrable wall. 
 
 Prince Michael. Don't be vindictive! It isn't my fault. 
 The Princess Etelvina admits very few to her acquaintance. 
 
 Rinaldi. And she is very wise to do so. Hereafter I shall 
 imitate her example. Good afternoon, Highness. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Highness, good afternoon. 
 
 Prince Michael. Sinister Poet! Dark courier of infernos 
 like Virgil! Be mindful of Prince Florencio; his health is pre- 
 carious. 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 141 
 
 Harry Lucenti. I shall endeavor to be as mindful as Your 
 Highness. You deprived him of his mistress entirely or his 
 good. I shall do the same whenever I have the opportunity. 
 
 Prince Michael. Good day. 
 
 (The COUNTESS RINALDI, LEONARDO, and HARRY LUCUNTI 
 go out.) 
 
 Prince Michael. To what am I indebted for this honor, 
 Sign ore ? 
 
 Signore. I have a difficult duty to perform believe me, 
 solely in Your Highness's interest. Positively it is most disagree- 
 able. 
 
 Prince Michael. Not to me; I am glad to see you. 
 
 Signore. No, but it is to me; I am the one who finds it 
 disagreeable. You will understand when I tell you that the 
 meeting here of two Princes is regarded with suspicion in Suabia. 
 You are both immediate heirs in direct succession to the throne. 
 
 Prince Michael. I beg your pardon were, were until to- 
 day. Haven't you seen the telegram? 
 
 Signore. Another heir? I am delighted! That is, I am 
 disappointed upon your account, although I am relieved. 
 
 Prince Michael. Do not trouble yourself upon my account. 
 You are at liberty to be relieved or disappointed quite as may 
 suit your convenience. 
 
 Signore. Then I am relieved, because a conspiracy had been 
 anticipated and I had been retained to keep you under surveil- 
 lance. Of course, knowing as I do, the sort of life that you lead 
 here 
 
 Prince Michael. To avoid being emperor I would have 
 conspired all my life ! Do you suppose that I would exchange my 
 liberty for an empire? 
 
 Signore. No, no! I beg of you, do not insist. I should 
 not have spoken unless I had been sure. The government of 
 Suabia subsists upon conspiracies. To-day it is an assassination, 
 to-morrow an insurrection. Last year we had a fellow suspected 
 of anarchism, a Belgian who lived in the most extraordinary 
 manner in a wooden stockade which he built for himself. And 
 there he was visited by the most singular people, the most out- 
 landish in dress! We felt sure we had discovered a hotbed of 
 sedition, and took measures to surprise it, with the result that it 
 turned out to be a gallery for taking views for the cinematograph. 
 Yes, sir! And such views! I had him indicted for an assault 
 upon morality; but we have preserved the film?. If some day 
 
I 4 2 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 your Highness would like to arrange a little entertainment for 
 your friends, I should be delighted to lend them to you. 
 
 Prince Michael. Thank you, but I should hardly care to be 
 surprised in a conspiracy of that nature. 
 
 Signore. In my entire career I have never been guilty of an 
 indiscretion. 
 
 Prince Michael. You must have seen a great deal. 
 
 Signore. I hold the key to a whole cabinet of mysteries. 
 For the most part, people know about as much about life as they 
 do about the theatre they see the play, that is all; the real show 
 goes on behind the scenes. 
 
 Prince Michael. By the way, that reminds me; Prince Flor- 
 encio 
 
 Signore. Oh ! I have him always under my eye ! At times 
 it is difficult; that Englishman knows some remarkable places. 
 And what people ! He would have made a good Prefect. 
 
 Prince Michael. You are quite inimitable. 
 
 Signore. Inimitable? Am I not? I should like to see 
 what this Babel would be without me, where everything appears 
 on the surface so quiet and so calm. The difficulty in my pro- 
 fession is not to keep myself informed about my business; it is to 
 prevent myself from becoming informed about what is not my 
 business. However, Your Highness need have no concern. 
 Pardon this intrusion. 
 
 Prince Michael. You are pardoned, you may be sure. 
 
 (The SIGNORE goes out.} 
 
 (During the conclusion of the scene, IMPERIA has been slowly 
 descending the staircase of the hall.} 
 
 Prince Michael. Imperial How are you? I have not seen 
 you all day. I have not had a spare moment. 
 
 Imperia. I also have had guests. 
 
 Prince Michael. So I see. 
 
 Imperia. You must not judge by this. You know that I 
 don't dress for others; I dress for myself. I like to see myself 
 in beautiful clothes. Your friends did not care to wait for me? 
 
 Prince Michael. They all had something for the evening. 
 The Countess is terribly put out with me; it was not convenient 
 to invite her. 
 
 Imperia. And so she invited herself? She was right. In 
 a company which included Lady Seymour and Harry Lucenti, the 
 Countess could hardly have been out of place. Such hypocrisy 
 is odious. 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 143 
 
 Prince Michael. In the first place, with regard to Lady 
 Seymour people say, they don't know. As far as the poet is 
 concerned, he is the Prince's friend, and an artist. 
 
 Imperia. In her line, the Countess is also an artist. 
 
 Prince Michael. She is a fool. Now I hear that she is in 
 love with an acrobat. Not only does she frequent the Circus 
 every evening, but she actually goes behind the scenes and mingles 
 with the performers. 
 
 Imperia. Yes. I saw her there myself. 
 
 Prince Michael. You? You at the Circus! 
 
 Imperia. Yes; the last four nights, without missing one. 
 
 Prince Michael. But you said nothing about it. 
 
 Imperia. You didn't ask me. 
 
 Prince Michael. What infatuation is this? 
 
 Imperia. It isn't an infatuation. I go to see my daughter. 
 
 Prince Michael. Your daughter! What daughter? I didn't 
 know you had a daughter. 
 
 Imperia. You never asked me. What do you know of my 
 life? What other people have told you, who know no more about 
 it than you do, what for some reason I have seen fit to tell you 
 myself only I always tell you the truth. 
 
 Prince Michael. But this daughter? 
 
 Imperia. Is the child of the only man I ever loved. 
 
 Prince Michael. Thanks. 
 
 Imperia. And I still love him; I always shall. 
 
 Prince Michael. Where is he? 
 
 Imperia. In prison for life, reprieved from a death sentence. 
 
 Prince Michael. Romantic episode! 
 
 Imperia. He stabbed a foreigner in Rome, attempting to 
 take his money. He killed him. He had been three days with- 
 out food. We models could earn nothing then; the malaria had 
 driven out the artists. 
 
 Prince Michael. Were you living with him at the time? 
 
 Imperia. No; he was living with his mother. I lived at 
 home with my parents and my brothers and sisters, with my 
 child. My father owned a house by the riverside, half-tavern, 
 half-concert-hall. We children did a little of everything. During 
 the day we went out as models; at night we danced tarantellas in 
 the theatre and sang Neapolitan songs. Then Leonardo gave 
 my father five hundred lire to let me come to live with him. 
 
 Prince Michael. But Imperia! This is horrible! 
 
 Imperia.- It is the truth. What was my father to do? He 
 had to live somehow. 
 
i 4 4 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Prince Michael. How old is this daughter? 
 
 Imperia. Fourteen. I was fifteen when she was born. 
 
 Prince Michael. Where has she been all these years? 
 
 Imperia. At home with my parents. 
 
 Prince Michael. Has it never occurred to you to bring her 
 here? 
 
 Imperia. Why should I? I always sent her money, so she 
 wanted for nothing. Besides she was better off there. I should 
 have liked to see her, to have returned home oh, so often! But 
 to bring her here . . 
 
 Prince Michael. What do you mean to do now? 
 
 Imperia. They have just written me that she has fallen in 
 love. 
 
 Prince Michael. At fourteen? Admirable precocity! 
 
 Imperia. No, not in Italy. We are not like you are. It 
 was a young fellow who danced in the theatre with her. She ran 
 off with him. 
 
 Prince Michael. Excellent! 
 
 Imperia. And now they are appearing together at Mr. 
 Jacob's. Donina her name is Donina; that was my name at 
 home is the star of the troupe. She is not beautiful, but she is 
 attractive. Oh, so attractive! very much as I was as I might 
 have been. And the boy is a fine strapping fellow, hello, bello! 
 He looks like one of the Madonna's angels, but they say he is a 
 rogue. All the girls are mad over him and Donina is jealous. 
 Oh, so jealous! As jealous as I was, as I should have been! 
 
 Prince Michael. But Imperia! It makes my blood run cold 
 to hear you. Do you consent to this? Do you abet it? 
 
 Imperia. Abet what? That my daughter should love a 
 man, that she should be happy loving and suffering for him? 
 That is life. I asked her: Would you like to come and live with 
 me in a beautiful villa, bella, bella! and to have clothes like 
 these? But she wouldn't; she didn't want to. It was only 
 natural. She had no affection for me. 
 
 Prince Michael. No affection for her mother? This is 
 horrible. 
 
 Imperia. It is the truth. Why should she love me? I 
 left her when she was two years old. She knew that I was alive 
 somewhere, a great way off, that I sent her presents and kisses, 
 sometimes in my letters. My brothers told her terrible things 
 about me; so did my parents. No wonder! What I was able to 
 send seemed little enough to them. 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 145 
 
 Prince Michael. Is it possible to live like this? 
 
 Imperia. Why not? So long as we love. If anything 
 happens to one of us, we stand together on the instant for ven- 
 geance, without one thought of forgiveness, even after years. 
 But how is it with you? Have you any affection? It is im- 
 possible to insult you. If one could, you would never take to 
 blows. Nobody gives you five hundred lire when he falls in love 
 with or wants to marry your child. Nothing appears to you as 
 it really is nothing that you think, nothing that you say, nothing 
 that you feel, nothing that you do. But with us it is all truth, 
 and that is the reason it seems so evil. 
 
 Prince Michael. It may be so. We face the truth too sel- 
 dom in our lives. 
 
 Imperia. Now I am going to leave you. I am going to see 
 my child. 
 
 Prince Michael. I should like to see her too. I will meet 
 you there. 
 
 Imperia. But you must not let yourself be known. 
 
 Prince Michael. Why not? 
 
 Imperia. She knows that I am living with a Prince, and she 
 imagines that he is like a prince in a fairy tale hello, bellol 
 
 Prince Michael. And she would be disappointed? Isn't 
 it so? How amiable! 
 
 Imperia. It is the truth. She is as I was. All she under- 
 stands is love like his. Youth and happiness and joy! 
 
 CURTAIN 
 THE SECOND TABLEAU 
 
 A cafe in a Music Hall, representing a grotto, fantastically dec- 
 orated. Tables and chairs on both sides. Men and women are 
 seated at the tables, smoking and taking refreshments. Waiters 
 pass in and out continually. At the back an orchestra of gypsies. 
 
 MR. JACOB stands talking with an ARTIST; Runu-SAHiB, at a 
 table; drinks enormously. 
 
 Jacob (To the ARTIST). But this? What do you think of 
 this? Allow me. Here is the best point of view. 
 
 Artist. Marvellous ! Magical ! 
 
 Jacob. You arc surprised to see this, eh? Now what do 
 you say? Pardon, allow me. Here is another point of view. 
 
 Artist. Marvellous ! Magical ! 
 
146 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Jacob. My own idea! It didn't occur to me in a moment. 
 Ideas like this don't occur every day. The entire cafe converted 
 into a grotto rest for the body, recreation for the soul after the 
 brilliancy of the spectacle. In all Europe, in all America, there 
 is nothing to equal it. It is the most magnificent music hall in 
 the world. Four million francs invested in it. You may say so 
 in your paper. 
 
 Artist. In my paper? Oh, Mr. Jacob, I am not a reporter! 
 
 Jacob. What? You are not the correspondent of the 
 Dramatic Courier of Milan, of the Genoa Manager's Monitor! 
 
 Artist. I did not say 
 
 Jacob. But the card you sent into the office ? 
 
 Artist. Was not mine a mistake. I am an artist, a per- 
 former. I come to make you a great, an extraordinary proposi- 
 tion. 
 
 Jacob. An extraordinary proposition? 
 
 Artist. Yes. To engage me. I have references. 
 
 Jacob. And is this what you have kept me talking two hours 
 for, showing you my theatre? Wasting my time! Andate al 
 diavolo! Morte de un cane! Mais fichez moi la paix toute de suite! 
 Wasting my time! Valuable time! 
 
 Artist. Mr. Jacob! Mr. Jacob! 
 
 (MR. JACOB rushes out, followed by the ARTIST.) 
 
 Ruhu-Sahib (Calling a Waiter). Is the first part over yet? 
 
 Waiter. Just over. Don't you see the people coming out? 
 
 Ruhu-Sahib. Take this bottle away; bring another bottle. 
 This time I pay myself. No go on the bill of Madame. 
 
 Waiter. Madame says she will pay for no more bottles after 
 that row you had yesterday. 
 
 Ruhu-Sahib. I pay myself. Bring another bottle. Don't 
 talk so much. I break your head. 
 
 Waiter. Yes, sir. 
 
 Esther. Will you look at the elephant-driver? 
 
 Juliette. He's a case. 
 
 Esther. To add to your collection? 
 
 Juliette. Not for mine; he's too much for me. 
 
 (TOBACCO and JENNY enter.) 
 
 Esther. Here's Tobacco, the nigger clown. I have to 
 laugh. He looks like a monkey. 
 
 Juliette. Is that his wife? 
 
 Esther. Yes; she's English. The funnyr thing is, though, 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 147 
 
 they are married. They love each other, oh, so much! They 
 have seven children. 
 
 Juliette. Blondes ? 
 
 Esther. Not so far; all like their father. My! But it's 
 dull tonight. 
 
 Juliette. There's nobody here but women. 
 
 Jenny (To TOBACCO). Did you stop at the bank? 
 
 Tobacco. I certainly did. (Making notes in a pocket book.) 
 Let me see how we come out. I put five thousand francs in Turks. 
 If the market is as good as it was last week, we clear a hundred 
 francs. 
 
 Jenny. That's handsome. 
 
 Tobacco. I might get a new dress for the act. 
 
 Jenny. Throwing your money away, eh? What do you 
 want a new dress for? Don't you think you look funny unless 
 you wear silk? 
 
 Tobacco. That Russian has a new suit every night. 
 
 Jenny. Yes, and people aren't laughing at him any more on 
 account of his clothes. An artist like you is not in the same class 
 with that Russian. Mr. Jacob is an idiot if he pays that man 
 six thousand francs. 
 
 Tobacco. Mr. Jacob won't pay me ten thousand. Now 
 he wants to throw me out, but the public will only laugh at To- 
 bacco. There is only one Tobacco. So he puts the Russian in 
 the best place in the second half and I am down in the first for 
 the third number. And the audience comes early to see me and 
 they go home early so as not to see the Russian. The public are 
 the ones who pay the artists; the managers don't pay them. An 
 artist is not able to name his own figure. 
 
 Jenny. Mr. Jacob is a rogue. He behaves as if this were a 
 bar-room. 
 
 (CoRNAC enters.) 
 
 Cornac. Mr. Ruhu! Mr. Ruhu! Hurry up! Come quick! 
 Nero very excited. Break the bar of his cage. No let us put on 
 the howdah. 
 
 Ruhu-Sahib. What's the matter? Hurry up? Too damn 
 hot! Waiter! Give him some beer. And I want some beer. 
 Cornac. Madame says elephants must not drink beer. 
 Ruhu-Sahib. Madame says too much so as not to pay for the 
 beer. I pay for the beer. A bottle for me, a barrel for the ele- 
 phants! 
 
 (MR. JACOB enters.) 
 
i 4 8 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Jacob. Ruhu! Ruhu! One of the elephants has broken 
 loose. He has smashed the bars of his cage. Two hundred 
 francs! And the worst of it is, he won't perform. 
 
 Ruhu-Sahib. He will, he will perform. Poor beast! He do 
 no harm. He is a gentle animal. 
 
 Jacob. If you don't hurry and do something to the brute 
 
 Ruhu-Sahib. Nero harm no one. You don't know him. I 
 know him. Wait! He is the gentlest of the seven. 
 
 Jacob. And don't drink so much. The people see how you 
 are, and so do the elephants. 
 
 Ruhu-Sahib. What do they see? I know what they see; 
 and I know what the elephants see. I drink, oh, I drink! But I 
 know what I drink. 
 
 Jacob. Ma andate al diavolo! Damn rascal! 
 
 (RosiNA and PEPITA detain MR. JACOB.) 
 
 Rosina. You are not angry, Mr. Jacob? 
 
 Jacob. That Hindoo savage costs me twelve thousand 
 francs besides the feed of his animals! And don't his animals 
 feed! And the public will have none of them; seen once, seen for 
 always. A fine piece of business! Bah! Business? People 
 see the audience, then they see me; they say: "Ah! Mr. Jacob! 
 Fortunate man! Theatre full, receipts enormous, le maximum 
 tons les soirs." But they don't see behind the scenes; they don't 
 know what artists are; they don't understand management, 
 business 
 
 Rosina. Oh now, please don't be angry, Mr. Jacob! Not 
 when I want to ask you a favor. 
 
 Jacob. Favor? Always favors! 
 
 Rosina. It's for my friend. 
 
 Pepita. Monsieur 
 
 Rosina. I thought maybe you might let her have a pass for 
 the season. 
 
 Jacob. Mon d'uul A girl like her? Is it possible she can't 
 get anybody to pay her way in? 
 
 Rosina. If it wasn't for us, there wouldn't be anybody here, 
 Mr. Jacob. 
 
 Jacob. On the contrary, you drive decent people away; 
 people who 
 
 Rosina. When have we had so many princes as this year? 
 I know you will, eh, Mr. Jacob? 
 
 Jacob. Well, since she's a friend of yours. Go on into the 
 office; but tell her to take more pains with her toilette. 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 149 
 
 Rosina. She's just got in; her trunk hasn't come yet. I'll 
 look out for her. 
 
 Jacob. Where does your friend come from? 
 
 Rosina. From Marseilles. 
 
 Jacob. Ah! From Marseilles? Tell her not to say she's 
 from Marseilles. It's not a recommendation. 
 
 Rosina. She don't look very Parisian either. She might be 
 a Spaniard . . . 
 
 Jacob. That Spanish business has been done to death; 
 however, anything is better than Marseilles. The thing is to 
 have personality, to be some one; not to be just like every one else. 
 There are so many! However, there is something in her face. 
 She may get on, though it is difficult. But there is no reason to 
 be discouraged. Good luck, girls! Good luck! I can't wait; 
 I'm so busy. 
 
 Rosina. Thanks, Mr. Jacob. 
 
 Pepita. Thanks. 
 
 (PRINCE FLORENCIO and HARRY LUCENTI have entered during 
 the conversation, and seat themselves at one of the tables.} 
 
 Rosina. I told you it would be easy. Look! A Prince! 
 The Prince of Suabia. 
 
 Pepita. Do you get many princes here? 
 
 Rosina. Very few real ones. (They go out talking.} 
 
 Jacob (To the PRINCE). Ah! Your Highness! This is a 
 great honor to me and to my theatre. At your Highness's orders. 
 Signor! Ah! I forgot. Next week new and extraordinary 
 attractions. One number alone tw r enty thousand francs! Busi- 
 ness is becoming more difficult, prices continually going up. 
 Your Highness . . . (Backs off, bowing.} 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Delightful old scamp, Mr. Jacob. 
 
 Prince Florcncio. He must lead a gay life with his artists. 
 
 MR. JACOB goes up to MME. JENNY, IT/JO is sitting at a table, 
 knitting busily.} 
 
 Jacob. But Mme. Jenny, must we quarrel always: 
 
 Jenny. \V\\y, Mr. Jacob? 
 
 Jacob. Is this a place for you to do your knitting? 
 
 Jenny. I have to work for the children. What harm is 
 there in it? 
 
 Jacob. You might cook your ir.cals here if you like. 
 
 Jenny. Ye?, it's better to do what the others do. 
 
 Jacob. It's all my fault for allowing the artists to mix with 
 the public. 
 
1 50 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Tobacco. Artists. Does he mean me? 
 
 Jenny. It's easy to see that you're not accustomed to 
 dealing with artists. 
 
 Jacob. I am not accustomed to dealing with artists? 
 
 Tobacco. No. This isn't a theatre; this isn't a circus, it's 
 a ... 
 
 Jenny (Pointing to the cocottes). Those are the artists you 
 want here. 
 
 Jacob. My business is to please the public. 
 
 Tobacco. Well, don't I please the public? Here! Here! 
 (Squaring off to strike him. Several interfere.} 
 
 Some. Mr. Jacob! 
 
 Others. Tobacco ! Messieurs ! 
 
 (CoRNAC enters running.} 
 
 Cornac. Mr. Ruhu! Mr. Ruhu! Nero run away! He 
 break everything! 
 
 Ruhu-Sahib. Can't they let him alone? Give him a chance. 
 Go on ! What more do they want? (Saunters out, after drinking, 
 -eery deliberately.} 
 
 (The bell rings.} 
 
 Jacob. And I waste my time, valuable time! The second 
 part Sottes! Stupid people! 
 
 (MR. JACOB runs out.} 
 
 Tobacco. That settles it; I'm through. I shan't stay in 
 this place another day. I'm through, I tell you. 
 
 (MME. LELIA enters. She carries a large handbag.} 
 
 Lelia. Why, what is the matter, Mr. Tobacco? Have you 
 been fighting with Mr. Jacob? He is an idiot to fight with you. 
 How are you, Mme. Jenny? How are the little ones? 
 
 Jenny. Entirely too healthy for their mother. What they 
 don't eat they break. We cannot keep a thing in the house. 
 
 Lelia. I should think you would be glad they are well and 
 strong; some day they will grow up and earn money. 
 
 Tobacco. Yes, they're pretty fine tumblers as it is better 
 than the Sheffers already. 
 
 Jenny. How is your little one, Mme. Lelia? 
 
 Lelia. She is not well; only so-so. I had to put her on the 
 bottle. You see with my work on the wire, it was impossible 
 
 Jenny. I brought up all seven of mine on the bott e. An 
 artist can do nothing else nowadays, with all the demands on her 
 time. The first thing you know, they eat everything. 
 
 Lelia. What did Mr. Jacob say? 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 151 
 
 Jenny. He didn't like my knitting here a little jacket for 
 my Alex. 
 
 Lelia. Last night he told me this hat wasn't presentable 
 a hat that cost me fifteen francs in Paris the year of the exposition. 
 This is no place for artists, for decent people. 
 
 Tobacco. This isn't a circus. After a man has worked at 
 Rentz's in Vienna, at Wulf's in Berlin or the Corradine in Rome 
 those are dignified establishments. There an artist is an artist. 
 
 Lelia. It used to be so, Mr. Tobacco, but now they are all 
 the same. All you need is a machine; then you turn on the 
 current, and you have an artist. The result is the real artists 
 have to work for nothing. I think my husband is a genius as a 
 contortionist. 
 
 Tobacco. No one could go farther than that. 
 
 Lelia. And on the wire, without vanity, I go myself as far 
 as anybody. I go further. I stand on my head with a pirouette 
 and a double flim-flam; I am the only woman in Europe who dares 
 to do it. 
 
 Tobacco. No more could be asked. 
 
 Lelia. Are you coming in to see the show? 
 
 Jenny. Yes. My husband wants to take a look at the Rus- 
 sian. He's got to pick up a few new tricks. 
 
 Lelia. No! Is it possible, Mr. Tobacco? You are joking. 
 
 Tobacco. Mr. Jacob thinks that Russian is funny. Ha, ha! 
 
 Lelia. I am waiting for my husband. Kisses to the little 
 ones, Mme. Jenny. 
 
 Jenny. And to yours from me, Mme. Lelia. (TOBACCO 
 and JENNY go out.] 
 
 (NuNU and TOMMY enter.} 
 
 Tommy. There they are. See? 
 
 Nunu.- I told you they'd be here. The Prince never goes 
 behind. 
 
 Tommy. Are you going to speak to them? 
 
 Nunu. Wait till they call us. You know the Prince? Sit 
 down. Have something? (They sit down.} 
 
 Tommy. Do we eat there tonight? 
 
 Nunu. Yes. 
 
 Tommy. Donina too? 
 
 Nunu. Donina's a fool; she's crazy. She don't want to 
 come. She's jealous of my running around. 
 
 Tommy. Why don't she take on some one herself? 
 
1 52 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Nunu. She? If she only would! The Prince, say . . . 
 Our fortune would be made! 
 
 Tommy. Why don't you make her? 
 
 Nunu. Make her? You don't know her. You talk like a 
 fool. She wouldn't do it; but she will out of jealousy. Tell her 
 I am out with another woman, and she'd go if it was to hell, and 
 kick the hat off the devil. 
 
 Tommy. What does the Prince want with Donina? 
 
 Nunu. How do I know? He's got the notion; I'm tired of 
 her and I need the money. I need a lot of money, so I can leave 
 this life and settle down like a decent fellow. The Prince is like 
 the rest of them; he doesn't know what he wants. 
 
 Tommy. He doesn't? Did you hear what happened to Fred 
 with the Countess? She gave him money at first and jewels; 
 now she is tired of him and says it was blackmail. She swears 
 she'll call in the police. 
 
 Nunu. Police? He's a fool if he stands for that. If I 
 once get my hands on the Prince, I can tell you he won't call in 
 the police. 
 
 Tommy. The Prince? Why not? 
 
 Nunu. You idiot! Donina's a minor; she's under age. I 
 know the law. The Prince can't stand for a row. Don't you see ? 
 
 Tommy. What's the difference? If I was a Prince I 
 wouldn't give a damn what I stood for. 
 
 Nunu. Neither would I. But that's the way these people 
 are. They want to do as they please, and then they don't 
 want anybody to know about it. That's what costs the money. 
 
 Tommy. You bet; but these fellows always have some one 
 around. They mayn't look it ... 
 
 Nunu. Not this time. Listen! They want to get him in a 
 fix. Some of those chaps were talking to me they saw me with 
 him. There's a party in his country that wants to make him 
 Emperor. That's the reason they sent him away. 
 
 Tommy. Oho! So you are a conspirator? 
 
 Nunu. I? What do I care? I want the money, that's all 
 we can get out of it. Let him be Emperor if he wants to. It's 
 nothing to me; I want to give up this life and go home and marry 
 a decent girl a girl that's straight. Her father won't have me 
 though. He says I'm no good; but when he sees I have money, 
 that I amount to something 
 
 Tommy. But I thought Donina 
 
 Nunu. Donina? I tell you she's the one who's in love with 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 153 
 
 me; I let her like the rest. You know all these actresses are good 
 for: roba di principi. 
 
 Tommy. But I thought that you loved her, that you were 
 happy ? 
 
 Nunu. A man has to live somehow, doesn't he? with his 
 eye on something else, more or less far away ? Isn't that the way 
 that you live? 
 
 Tommy. Yes. But I am tied up with a wife and the boy. 
 What have I to look forward to? 
 
 Nunu. Nothing, for yourself; but you can hope that your 
 children won't be like you that they will amount to something. 
 
 Tommy. Yes 
 
 Nunu. Well, there you are. 
 
 Esther. Which is the Prince? 
 
 Juliette. The youngest the one who doesn't talk. He 
 never talks. Will you look at that? 
 
 (RosiNA and PEPITA have seated themselves meanwhile at the 
 PRINCE'S table. )They' re taking a chance. Won't they be set up? 
 
 Esther. What does the Prince come here for, anyway? 
 
 Juliette. It's the actresses. That Englishman is his secre- 
 tary; he always brings him along. They're to have supper to- 
 night the real thing in a sort of cave; but tough! Awful! 
 
 (RosiNA and PEPITA, who have been sitting with the PRINCE 
 get up and move away.) 
 
 Est her. Look ! They are blushing. And they are laughing 
 at them! 
 
 Juliette. I'll give them a pinch as they go out. 
 
 Esther. No. Don't make a scene. Mr. Jacob will take 
 up your pass. 
 
 Prince Florencio. Ah, Harry, I am bored to death! I am 
 sick. What will you find for me to do next? 
 
 Harry Lucenti. March upon Suabia, proclaim yourself 
 Emperor, and declare war against the world. 
 
 Prince Florencio. Silence, imperalist poet! 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Why not? I am an Emperor myself. You 
 remember what Hamlet says? "I could be bounded in a nut- 
 shell and count myself king of infinite space." 
 
 Prince Florencio. But he had bad dreams. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. I do not; I reign within my nutshell. I 
 have founded an empire of myself, at war with all the world. My 
 spirit is an island more impregnable than the cliffs of my country. 
 
 Prince Florencio. How did you manage it? 
 
154 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Harry Lucenti. By making myself hated by everybody. 
 Do you know to what the weaknesses, the compromises, the petty 
 cowardices of human nature are due? They are the result of 
 kindness, of sympathy. We attribute to others virtues which 
 they do not possess, and then, so as to meet them on an equal 
 footing, we are obliged to pretend to virtues which we do not 
 possess. 
 
 Prince Florenzio. A paradox, I suppose? Well, you haven't 
 made yourself hated by me. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Not yet. Because I have never told you 
 the truth. 
 
 Prince Florencio. Why not bring yourself to it? You may 
 if you like. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. The truth? You poor devil of a Prince, 
 impotent, ridiculous, and rotten to the core! 
 
 Prince Florencio. Bah! Hand me the whiskey! 
 
 Harry Lucenti. The truth, Florencio, it is the truth. Your 
 escapades! Your vices! You imagine that you are scandalizing 
 the world when you are only shocking the old ladies of Suabia. 
 Your bacchantes are all hired by the restaurant at five hundred 
 francs, everything included. You will find them on the bill 
 little runaway school girls, whose heads have been turned by 
 reading a couple of silly novels. The depths of hell and infamy 
 into which you descend with trembling are these! I can see you 
 now. Hail, Emperor! Elagabalus! Child of the sun! 
 
 Prince Florencio. Is that all? You don't suppose you can 
 make me hate you with a few simple truths like that? The 
 times are not propitious to Neros or Elagabaluses. Neither do 
 they produce Shakespeares, though you may both have written 
 the same sonnets. There is one, too, copied from the Italian of 
 the seventeenth century 
 
 Harry Lucenti (Greatly incensed). That's a lie! I steal 
 from no man. These stories were invented by my detractors. 
 I proved that Italian sonnet was a forgery, made up to annoy me. 
 I proved it, and nobody believed me. Only a fool would repeat 
 that story. And you are a fool, too, if you say so. 
 
 Prince Florencio (Laughing). My dear Harry, you see how 
 much easier it is to provoke a poet with the truth, than an Em- 
 peror. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Blockhead! (The PRINCE rises and moves 
 over toward NUNU and TOMMY.) 
 
 Prince Florencio. Come, my dear Harry. Why not arrange 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 155 
 
 something diabolic for this evening, something grandiose? Sure- 
 ly you have credit for more than five hundred francs. Hello, 
 Nunu! Hello, Tommy! 
 
 Nunu. Highness ! 
 
 Prince Florencio. Sit down. Put on your hats. Have 
 you been on yet? 
 
 Nunu. No; ours is next to the last number. We were 
 waiting for you. 
 
 Prince Florencio. Will everybody be there? And your 
 Donina? 
 
 Nunu. Donina . 
 
 Prince Florencio. I told you that you didn't want her to 
 come. Now I see I was right. You want to pass yourself off 
 for a cynic. "Piccola Donina!" You say, "Bah! m' infishchio. 
 I am tired of her!" And all the while you love her and mean to 
 keep her for yourself. 
 
 Nunu. No, Your Highness, she is the one who is in love 
 with me. You know that. (His eye is attracted by a ring on the 
 PRINCE'S finger.} What a magnificent ring! May I see it? 
 
 Prince Florencio. Are you fond of jewels? 
 
 Nunu. Am I ? 
 
 Prince Florencio (His eye lighting upon one of NUNU'S). So 
 I see. , 
 
 Nunu. Oh, that's only glass! At night with the lights it's 
 all right when a man can't afford anything else. What is this 
 stone ? 
 
 Prince Florencio. A ruby. This is an opal. 
 
 Tommy. Opals are bad luck. 
 
 Prince Florencio. Not to me; to others, pe-rhaps. Would 
 you be afraid to wear it? (Tossing him the ring.} 
 
 Tommy. I should say not! (Putting on the ring.} Thanks, 
 Your Highness! Although, I shan't have it long. Hard times 
 come with us; that will be the bad luck. 
 
 Nunu (offended}. Tommy is your friend now. 
 
 Prince Florencio. And you arc not; I have nothing for you. 
 We are enemies. 
 
 Nunu. But suppose I have a surprise for you tonight? 
 
 Prince Florencio. Then I shall give you a ring which will 
 make all your friends die of envy. 
 
 Nunu. Oh! Bella! 
 
 Prince Florencio.- And other things which I know you want 
 besides. 
 
156 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 (The PRINCE takes a gold cigarette case from his pocket and 
 offers cigarettes^} 
 
 Nunu. Another! Gold too . . . everything is gold. 
 But this one has jewels . . . Is this your name? 
 
 Prince Florencio. No. Some English verses, that is all. 
 Keep it, Nunu. 
 
 Nunu. Your Highness ! 
 
 Prince Florencio. Keep it, I tell you. 
 
 Nunu. Oh, bella! Look Tommy! Brilliants; and these 
 are like yours. 
 
 Tommy. Rubies ! 
 
 Nunu. Did you say they were verses? 
 
 (Reading) "O you the master-mistress" I can't read any 
 more. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. You won't be any worse off. 
 
 Nunu. Here come Donina and Zaida. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. That Arab girl? At least that is what she 
 calls herself. 
 
 Nunu. It's a fact though. She's from Constantina in 
 Algiers. She's a Jewess. She did Oriental dances; then her 
 manager turned her over to ours, so since then she has been 
 dancing with us. She'd pass for a Neapolitan. 
 
 Prince Florencio. I thought she was one. 
 
 Nunu. She's always crying that is her sort. She cries 
 over everything. 
 
 Prince Florencio. Who pays the bills? 
 
 Nunu. No one; she isn't that way. She likes me though, 
 pretty well; such a friend of Donina's that if I say anything, she's 
 up in a minute. She's in love with Donina, daft over her. She's 
 fierce as a lion! 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Pretty soon it will be love all around through 
 the triangle. 
 
 Nunu. No, she's a lamb. 
 
 Prince Florencio. No wonder, living with you. We shall 
 meet you then later. Do you go straight from here? 
 
 Nunu. Just as we are; it's all arranged. 
 
 Prince Florencio. Nobody will be missing? 
 
 Nunu. No, I'll show you who's your friend. 
 
 Prince Florencio. Good-bye. Come along, Harry. 
 
 (Discovering IMPERIA, who has entered a few moments pre- 
 viously, and is seated with DONINA and ZAIDA.) 
 
 Ah! Imperial Harry, do you see? 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 157 
 
 (NuNU and TOMMY go over to the group of women. DONINA 
 gets up and begins to dispute with NUNU, somewhat apart from the 
 others.} 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Yes, and I know the attraction: an o'd 
 friendship with Donina's mother, a purely sisterly affair. They 
 belonged to the same troupe. She heard the girl was playing 
 here so she dropped in to see her; now she has dropped in again. 
 At least this is official. 
 
 Prince Florencio. My uncle cannot know that she comes 
 to this place; he would not consider it respectable in his mistress. 
 We must see that he does know. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Of course! Telling unpleasant truths is 
 always a duty. 
 
 (The PRINCE and HARRY LUCENTI go out.} 
 
 Nunu (To DONINA). Did you see who I was talking to? 
 
 Donina. Yes, and I saw you with her on the stage. Haven't 
 I eyes? Can't I see? There's nobody else left; it was that 
 Japanese woman as long as her husband was here with his act. 
 I know there's a supper tonight too; but you haven't counted on 
 me. 
 
 Nunu. But we have though; you're invited. 
 
 Donina. I am, am I? So that before my very eyes Oh! I 
 don't mind so much your fooling with other girls, hugging them 
 and kissing them. It isn't that. But when anybody tries it on 
 me you stand there and laugh. You consent to it. 
 
 Nunu. You're a fool. (He takes the case out of his pocket and 
 lights a cigarette.} 
 
 Donina (Discovering the case}. Whose is that? Who gave 
 that to you? What does it say? 
 
 Nunu. Ha, ha, ha! 
 
 Donina (Furious, stamping on the box}. There! Now it 
 doesn't say anything. No, and it won't say anything either. 
 And I'd do the same to you, too, or to anybody! 
 
 Nunu. Donina! What arc you doing? You've ruined it. 
 I tell you (Threatening her.} 
 
 Imperia and Zaida (Interfering). No, no, Nunu! 
 
 Nunu. If we weren't in this place 
 
 Donina. Yes, strike me! Kill me! Anything better than 
 this! 
 
 Zaida (Throwing her arms about her}. Donina! Poor 
 Donina! 
 
 Nunu. Come along, Tommy, and get dressed. Come 
 
158 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 along! She'll be there all right. 
 
 (NuNU and TOMMY go out.} 
 
 Zaida. You mustn't cry not before all these people. 
 Don't let them see. 
 
 Donina. What do I care? 
 
 Imperia. Don't you want to come with me? 
 
 Donina. No, I must stay with him, even if he kills me! 
 He didn't use to be like this; he used to love me. Of course he 
 went with other girls, I know that, but I was always his Donina. 
 I was always first, the only one among the rest. I was so proud 
 to have them love him, and to think that after he had played 
 with them and laughed in their faces, he would come back again 
 to me, always to me, without ever haying been able to forget. 
 But it is not the same now. He has something back in his 
 mind, something evil. It isn't that he deceives me; it's that he 
 wants me to know it. And since these men came 
 
 Zaida. Nunu is bad; he is all bad now. I loved him before 
 and Donina wasn't jealous. She knew it was on her account 
 it was just from the heart; I was like their sister. Donina knows 
 that. But Nunu is changed now. He doesn't want to play 
 and sing and laugh any more, and he always used to be happy. 
 And when he was happy, everybody about him was smiling. 
 
 Donina. Yes, they were. We were so happy! 
 
 Zaida. We used to spend hours by ourselves, laughing and 
 singing and dancing, just for the joy of it, for our own sakes, 
 without ever getting tired or stopping to think that we would have 
 to sing and dance all night long in the theatre. 
 
 Donina. We were so happy! 
 
 Zaida. And we would have been happy always, just the 
 three of us! 
 
 Donina. It's those men, those terrible men that Prince 
 who is so pale that he freezes your blood with his eye. 
 
 Imperia. Yes, the Prince! I know him. His pleasure is in 
 torture and in being vile. 
 
 Donina. But I'll go tonight. He wants me to. 
 
 Imperia. No! Anything rather than that. Go with the 
 man you love, who is one with you, to whom you have given 
 your heart, no matter who he is; live as he lives, share his sorrows, 
 his joys, let nothing hold you back. But the Prince never go 
 near that man! Nothing can come from him but hatred, igno- 
 miny and death. The women he loves he dresses in rags he 
 maltreats them without mercy. His friends are miserable 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 159 
 
 wretches whom his money can buy; and there is no infamy he 
 does not know. He binds young girls to old men, unutterably 
 vile; strong boys to a loathing and disease. He buys daughters 
 from their parents, sisters from their brothers for his holidays. 
 I have seen him run through the streets in Suabia at midnight, 
 when it was bitter cold and the ground was covered with ice, and 
 gather up the poor, homeless wretches, starving vagrants, sleeping 
 out of doors, and lead them to the morgue, which was filled with 
 suicides and the bodies of those who had been murdered, or who 
 had died in the streets from hunger and cold. There are myriads 
 of them in the winter time men and women and children too. 
 It was horrible ! He threw money on the corpses, and the terrible 
 struggle of that maddened throng, frenzied at the sight of the gold, 
 was an awful thing to see. One coin fell into an open wound; a 
 hundred hands grappled upon it. They pushed the bodies aside, 
 they trampled them under foot, while he he did not even smile; 
 he looked and looked as the devil must look from hell upon the 
 crimes poor wretches can commit who are hungry and cold, 
 crushed beneath the heel of the heartless and the rich. This is 
 that Prince who is so pale that he freezes the blood with his eye. 
 
 Donina. I did not hate him for nothing. Nunu shall not 
 go with him tonight or he will never see me any more! 
 
 Imperia. Will you come with me? 
 
 Donina. No, not without him. I said he would never see 
 me because I would kill myself; I could never leave him in any 
 other way. 
 
 Imperia. Love in life or in death! Be it so. 
 
 Zaida. The music, Donina! The act before our number. 
 We must not be late . 
 
 Donina. No, to sing and dance! But he shall not go to- 
 night! He shall not go! Are you coming in to see me? 
 
 Imperia. -Yes. 
 
 Donina. Good-bye then. Give me a kiss. (Indicating 
 ZAIDA.) And one for her too. 
 
 Zaida. I love you too, Signora all, all who love Donina. 
 
 (ZAIDA and DOXINA go out. The COUNTESS RIXALDI and 
 LEONARDO enter.} 
 
 Leonardo. Having rescued you from one danger, how is it 
 that I surprise you now in the company of Ruhu-Sahib, the ele- 
 phant driver? 
 
 Rinaldi. But surely you do not suppose? ... A Hin- 
 doo, a savage? ... I was merely gathering points about his 
 
160 SATURDAY NIGHt 
 
 elephants. He is a remarkable man. The life of these circus 
 people is vastly more entertaining than ours. I wonder what 
 you would think if I should decide to join the circus? What 
 would people say? 
 
 Leonardo. Probably that you were settling down. In the 
 light of experience it might not appear surprising. 
 
 Rinaldi. This conventional sort of life is a horrible bore. 
 It is unrelieved monotony. 
 
 Leonardo. If you were to suppress the most monotonous 
 feature of your life, it would be a horrible bore. 
 
 Rinaldi. Come, invite me to take something. I'll have an 
 ice, a tutti-frutti. Those things are delicious. 
 
 Leonardo. With pleasure. Ah! Imperia. Do you see? 
 
 Rinaldi. Yes, and I have seen her here before. 
 
 Leonardo. How extraordinary ! And alone. In that gown! 
 
 Rinaldi. She is always gowned imperially. She is an 
 artist, although not in my line. 
 
 Leonardo. I do not understand 
 
 Rinaldi. Why be so innocent? You know your model 
 better than I do. By the way, what was she like when she was 
 with you? I have heard so many stones. 
 
 Leonardo. I met her in Rome. She was one of the models 
 who hang about the Piazza di Spagna. Donina was her name at 
 the time. She was a spare, pinched figure, clad in rags, with a 
 suggestion about her that was indescribably sordid and poor. 
 This terrible poverty of the great cities is not only want of bread, 
 it is hunger for everything which goes to make life dear. Among 
 the other models she attracted no attention. The painters saw 
 nothing in her; neither did I. But one day she stopped me as I 
 was passing to beg some coppers. There was no weakness in 
 her voice, no note of complaint; the tone was firm and strong. 
 It compelled attention. So I spoke to her, and her face lit up 
 as we talked, she became a different person there was another 
 look in her eyes, a new expressiveness in every feature. She 
 was no longer the poor, pinched model; she was a work of art 
 she was my statue, Imperia, which soon afterward made my 
 reputation. Do you remember? There it stood, with feet bare, 
 and tattered skirt, the body half naked as if she had just clambered 
 up a precipice, and by a last, despairing effort, was sinking ex- 
 hausted on the top into a throne, while upon her face there shone 
 an ineffable light, the smile of life triumphant over death the 
 dawn of victory and its calm. It is a long time since I have seen 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 161 
 
 the statue. My ideas of art are not what they were then, but I 
 am sure there was something in it. The combination of the 
 materials was audacious: the rocks of the pedestal were of granite, 
 the figure was marble, and the throne gilded bronze, which shone 
 like gold. 
 
 Rinaldi. What was the significance of the statue ? 
 
 Leonardo. How can I tell? In the beginning an artist 
 believes that he speaks through his works; but the works speak 
 for themselves. The statue was you can see it it was woman, 
 it was Imperia, a wretched creature who has climbed up over the 
 rocks, her body lacerated and torn, until she is about to seat 
 herself upon a throne. Perhaps it was something more the 
 mastery of life and all that is in it, achieved at last by the poor 
 and the outcast! How can I tell? It was the might of the soul 
 to realize its dream! And who of us had not his dream at least of 
 a throne a throne, where our selfishness, perhaps, is absolute, 
 or our disinterested love. 
 
 Rinaldi. How long did you remain with Imperia ? 
 
 Leonardo. A passing moment, that was all. The same 
 breath which inspired my statue infused a new life into Donina. 
 She became my statue made woman; she was Imperia. Prince 
 Florencio met her in my studio as I was finishing my work; she 
 was still the poor, tattered Donina with her hunger-pinched face. 
 You know the Prince. Well, one morning she said good-bye. 
 "Where are you going, my child?" I asked her. "To Suabia 
 to be Empress!" she replied. And I had not the heart to laugh 
 at her; there was such conviction in her words, such burning faith 
 in her eyes, it was impossible not to believe it. That woman 
 might be Empress. 
 
 Rinaldi. Does she still cherish her dream? 
 
 Leonardo. I lost sight of her. Afterward I heard that 
 Prince Florencio had abused her, and she attempted to kill him; 
 so she was banished from Suabia. Later, she fell in with Prince 
 Michael in Paris, and these last years she has been living with 
 him. She has grown rich. 
 
 Rinaldi. Prince Michael is the richest of the princes of 
 Suabia. 
 
 Leonardo. He is as prodigal as a monarch of other days. 
 
 Rinaldi. What empire like riches to dominate the world? 
 Well, so this is the very practical reality to which the imperial 
 dreams of your Imperia have been resolved? Wasn't the throne 
 of your statue gilded until it shone like gold? 
 
162 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Leonardo. Yes, like gold because the sun is gold, and the 
 light. It was the embodiment of light, of hope, of the ideal! 
 
 (IMPERIA rises and moves over to speak with them.} 
 
 Imperia. Countess! Leonardo! You did not see me. 
 
 Rinaldi. I beg your pardon, I am so sorry. 
 
 Imperia. But you were talking about me. 
 
 Rinaldi. You couldn't hear us from there? 
 
 Imperia. No, but it was easy to see. You looked over 
 continually. Were you surprised to find me here? 
 
 Rinaldi. Certainly not; we are here ourselves. 
 
 Leonardo. Perhaps the Countess will explain the reason? 
 
 Rinaldi. It is not necessary. We are all here for the same 
 thing, more or less. We may be perfectly frank if we like; no one 
 will remember tomorrow. 
 
 Imperia. We are like witches, meeting on Saturday night. 
 I was a little girl when I first heard the legend and you remind 
 me of it now. There was a poor woman who lived near our 
 house, she was very old, and apparently very respectable. She 
 lived alone, and you would have said that she was a good woman. 
 Her house was clean; she worked in the garden by day, busy with 
 her flowers, or fed the pigeons; at night she sewed a little on her 
 quaint old clothes. She was never idle it was a calm and peace- 
 ful life, lived openly in the sun. But people said that she was 
 a witch, and every Saturday at midnight, as the clock struck 
 twelve, she mounted a broomstick and flew away to the witches' 
 lair, and there with the other witches she did homage to Satan; 
 and if you could surprise them then, you would see them as they 
 really were. One day, some time later, at dawn on a Sunday 
 morning, the old woman was found dead, out of her bed, at some 
 distance from her house, in an open field, and there was a dagger 
 in her heart. But nobody could ever find the assassin, nor dis- 
 cover any motive for the murder, nor could any one ever explain 
 the reason that woman should have been found in that place on 
 that morning, when she had been seen closing the door of her 
 house as usual the night before and in the morning, when they 
 carried the body there, the door was still closed. 
 
 Rinaldi. But you don't really mean? . . . Nonsense! 
 Then you would have to believe in witches. 
 
 Imperia. No, not in such witches. But there comes a 
 Saturday Night in all our lives, even the most peaceful of them, 
 when our souls like the witches, fly to their lairs. We exist for 
 days to reach one hour which is vital and real. Then our witches' 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 163 
 
 souls take flight, some toward their hopes and ambitions, some 
 toward their vices, their follies, others toward their loves to- 
 ward something which is far from and alien to our lives, but which 
 has always smouldered in us, and at heart is what we are. 
 
 Rinaldi. It is true. And tonight we are in our lair. We 
 may salute each other. Hail, sister! 
 
 Imperia. Sister and brother, hail! Whither away, toward 
 good or toward ill? 
 
 Leonardo. I? Where life dissolves in the desert and is gone 
 like the flower. 
 
 Rinaldi. I? To the Kingdom of Love where joy is joy 
 that outlasts death. 
 
 Leonardo. And you, Imperia? 
 
 Imperia. I ? To find myself, to find Donina, poor, ignorant 
 Donina Donina in love. Your art has revealed to me the light 
 that was in me, and I follow the gleam! 
 
 Leonardo. Which is? . . . 
 
 Imperia. To grow, to become rich! For money is power. 
 With it, all things are possible, for good or for evil, for justice or 
 revenge ! 
 
 Rinaldi. The performance is over. The people are coming 
 out. 
 
 Leonardo. It is time to go. 
 
 (A number of SPECTATORS and PERFORMERS enter, among the 
 latter RUHU-SAHIB.) 
 
 Rinaldi. There! Do you see? The Hindoo ... I 
 wonder if it would be -possible to interest you in the taming of 
 elephants? 
 
 Leonardo. No, but it might in the taming of elephant 
 drivers. We can sit with him if you like. 
 
 Rinaldi. Don't be absurd. You are not accustomed to 
 these adventures. 
 
 Leonardo. I aspired merely to look on. 
 
 (ZAIDA re-enters in tears; she runs up to and throws her arms 
 about IMPERIA.) 
 
 Zaida. Signora! Signora! Didn't you hear? Donina 
 
 Imperia. What is the matter? 
 
 'Laida. She's mad! She wouldn't listen! After what you 
 told her . . . She's gone with Nunu and those people 
 with the Prince! 
 
 Imperia. That wretch Nunu has sold her. Quick! Do 
 you know where they are? 
 
164 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Zaida. Yes! They went without changing, just as they 
 were! I know the place; that is, I don't know the name, but I 
 can find it. 
 
 Imperia. Come with me. 
 
 Zaida. Yes . . . But not like this. You don't know 
 these people. 
 
 Imperia. What difference does it make? I return to my 
 own, and they will know me. I return to prevent another in- 
 famy of the great or to revenge with one blow the ignominy of a 
 thousand. Come! Countess, good-night! Good-night, Leon- 
 ardo! 
 
 Rinaldi. But where are you going, Imperia? 
 
 Leonardo. Good-night, Imperia. 
 
 Imperia. To meet other witches' souls in their lairs. It is 
 Saturday Night! 
 
 (The Cafe has filled with people. The Gypsy orchestra begins 
 to play.} 
 
 CURTAIN 
 
 THE THIRD TABLEAU 
 
 Cecco 1 s Tavern. 
 
 Night. 
 
 SAILORS and evil-looking persons sit about in groups, drinking 
 and playing cards. CECCO and GAETANO move among them serving 
 wine. MAJESTA, an old hag, at a table alone, apparently asleep. 
 PIETRO and others in the background. 
 
 Third Sailor. Hand over the money; it comes to me. Bring 
 more wine. I'll pay. 
 
 Gaetano. You will . . . 
 
 Second Sailor.- Don't play any more. 
 
 Third Sailor. Let go! 
 
 Second Sailor. I've had enough; I take out my money. 
 
 Third Sailor. Take it out, man; take it out. It's quits. 
 Don't talk. 
 
 Second Sailor. No! If you're going to play 
 
 First Sailor. Going to play? Who's going to play? 
 
 Third Sailor. Come on! Hand over. Here's my pile! 
 
 Gaetano (Aside to CECCO). Who are these people? I don't 
 know them. 
 
 Cecco. Off a yacht which got in this morning. Can't you 
 see the name? How does it go? 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 165 
 
 Gaetano. All right; they have money. They keep a sharp 
 watch. 
 
 Cecco. So I see. Play them easy. No trouble tonight, do 
 you hear? Then they won't squeal. They'll be back tomorrow. 
 
 Gaetano. I'll let them go now, if you say so 
 
 Cecco. No. It wouldn't do. We can't empty the place. 
 So long as they are quiet 
 
 (The COMMISSARY OF POLICE enters.} 
 
 Commissary. Hello, Cecco! 
 
 Cecco. Hello ! Anything new ? 
 
 Commissary. No; nothing. We saw the Prince come in. 
 
 Cecco. Yes; he's inside. 
 
 Commissary. Who is with him? 
 
 Cecco. I don't know them all. The Englishman; those 
 circus people. 
 
 Commissary (Consulting a list}. Let's see if I have them. 
 Here; check them off. Lucenti, the Englishman; Nunu and 
 Tommy of the Neapolitan troupe; Donina, Celeste, Teresina, 
 women from the same troupe; Dick and Fred, jockeys of the 
 Duke of Zealand; two English girls; Marcella, a cocotte Are 
 there any more? 
 
 Cecco. No, that's all. 
 
 Commissary. Good. If anything happens, we are outside. 
 
 Cecco. I'll send out something. It's cold tonight. 
 
 Commissary. Yes; and have it hot. There's a fog over 
 the sea. Good night, Cecco. Who are these? 
 
 Cecco. The same as usual. 
 
 Commissary. Those sailors? 
 
 Cecco. A yacht which got in this morning. Don't you 
 know? 
 
 Commissary. Yes, I know. Good night. (The COMMISSARY 
 goes out.} 
 
 First Sailor. Big fish here tonight. Is it all right? 
 
 Cecco. Yes, it's all right. What you sec, you see; under- 
 stand? And shut up! 
 
 An Unknown (Going up to MAJESTA and shaking her). Hi, 
 there, old woman! How is it you're not at the party? Wake up! 
 
 Cecco. Let her alone. She don't trouble you. 
 
 Unknown. The Prince forgot to invite her. Maybe he 
 didn't know she was here. You ought to have told him who you 
 were. 'I am as good as you are, "Your Highness. I was a queen 
 once. They still call me Majesta!' 
 
i66 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Others (Laughing). Ha, ha, ha! Majesta! 
 
 Majestd. Dogs ! 
 
 Cecco. Let fyer alone, can't you? Don't mind them, 
 Majesta. 
 
 Majesta. I? I don't see them or hear them. They are all 
 far away. 
 
 Third Sailor. Is she out of her head? 
 
 Pietro. No, but by this time . . . Don't you see? It's 
 the wine. 
 
 Cecco. It's true though, what she says. Take it from me. 
 We've had people here who know. She was handsome once, and 
 she was loved by a king. She had horses and diamonds and 
 palaces. 
 
 Third Sailor. Palaces ? Lies ! 
 
 Unknown. She must have changed a lot; she must have 
 grown old. It isn't possible! I don't believe it. 
 
 Third Sailor. But when you look at her close . . . 
 
 Unknown. Come, tell us the story. What king was it, 
 eh? Wheie were those palaces? 
 
 Pietro. Come on, old woman! Give us the story. Yes, he 
 was a king, was he? Palaces? They were lies! 
 
 Cecco. Let her alone, damn you! 
 
 Majestd. Fools! Dogs! What have I to say to you? 
 Can you see, except with your eyes? You cannot understand. 
 Look at me. Well, I was beautiful once, aftd pictures of my face 
 and models of my form adorn palaces and museums. But if I 
 took you to them and said "Look! This is I!" you would not 
 believe it. Many have loved me, many that were great, many 
 that were rich, many that were wise- yes, even a king. For one 
 word of mine he would have forsaken his throne. Do you see 
 me now? Then I was dressed in brocades and covered all with 
 pearls pearls that outpriced a kingdom! In a day I spent 
 upon flowers enough to last me the rest of my life You do not 
 believe it? No? Look! Come here! (Pulling off a pair of old 
 woolen mittens.} Here are these hands that never worked. Do 
 you see? They are the hands of a queen. Many have kissed 
 them in their time on their knees and they thanked me for it. 
 I am proud of them. And sometimes it is cold and I have 
 nothing to wear, and sometimes I am hungry and have nothing to 
 eat, but I never want for gloves. Look at them! Are they not 
 the hands of a queen? 
 
 Pietro. It's true. She's right. 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 167 
 
 Unknown. Something had to be left her. You can still let 
 them kiss your hands. 
 
 Majestd. You might have all the riches of kings, you might 
 conquer the earth, you might raise yourselves upon thrones, yet 
 your children would not have such hands. 
 
 Pietro. Slippery hands, to let so much slide through them. 
 
 Unknown. They might have kept something more than 
 their whiteness. She wouldn't be where she is now if what she 
 said was true. 
 
 Majestd. Those hands never learned to save. Jewels ran 
 through them like water through a fountain, and were scattered 
 as they ran. 
 
 Unknown. You must have given away lots of money. 
 
 Pietro. And done much good. 
 
 Majes'.d Good or evil, as it came. People came to me who 
 were poor, people came to me who were bad it was all the same. 
 If one were to stop to think! We must pass the good things of 
 life along. Would you refuse a penny for fear that it was to buy 
 drink? That is enough to make the devil laugh. To some drink 
 is more than meat. Can beggars eat flowers? But the earth 
 g'ves us flowers. The heart is dried up that will not give of its 
 flowers. 
 
 Pietro. She's right. 
 
 Unknown.- She speaks the truth. Poor old woman! 
 
 Cecco. I told you she wasn't crazy. Come boys, buy her a 
 drink. 
 
 Pietro. Let her have what she wants. 
 
 Majestd. I don't care. What you've got. 
 
 Third Sailor. Champagne, eh? Champagne for a queen! 
 
 Unknown. Champagne! At least champagne! Bring 
 champagne! Here's the money. 
 
 Pietro. Have you champagne? 
 
 Cecco. Tonight, yes. I'll bring it if it's not a joke . . . 
 
 Unknown. If the Prince won't invite you, we will. 
 
 Majestd. The Prince of Suabia? I knew the Emperor; I 
 can see him now on his white horse. Then he was heir-apparent. 
 He must be very old. And I knew the Princess Etelvina, the 
 mother of this Prince. She was a little child, and I kissed her. 
 
 Cecco. The champagne. Bring glasses. 
 
 Pietro. To her Majesty! Up! Would you like to live 
 long, Majesta? 
 
 Majestd. Why not? As God wills. 
 
1 68 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Pietro. Then to your health! 
 
 Majestd. And yours, and happiness! It is not too late for 
 you. Yes, it is champagne. 
 
 Cecco. What did you think? 
 
 Majestd. That it was a dream. It is so long since I tasted 
 champagne . . . God reward you for it. Another glass! 
 It is a rare wine, and this is not bad champagne. I know, Cecco. 
 
 Pietro. You are not the only majesty who's here tonight. 
 
 (IMPERIA and ZAIDA appear in the doorway.} 
 
 Imperia. Is this the place? 
 
 2,aida. Yes, Signora. Are you afraid? 
 
 Imperia. Why should I be afraid? My home was like this. 
 Come in. 
 
 Pietro (Discovering IMPERIA). Another Queen! Ha! This 
 is a night of queens! 
 
 Cecco. Silence! 
 
 Pietro. Is that the way you looked, Majesta? 
 
 Unknown. Do you know this queen? 
 
 Majestd. Queen? Bah! No more than I was! No, I 
 don't know her. The queens that I knew are all dead or have 
 grown old. 
 
 Imperia. Where is the Prince? Don't attempt to deny it. 
 I know he is here. I know who is with him. 
 
 Cecco. Was he expecting you? They said nothing ?bout it. 
 
 Imperia. No, he was not expecting me. Wait! (She 
 scribbles something with a pencil upon a piece of paper.} One 
 moment. Give him this and bring me back the answer. At 
 once! 
 
 Cecco. It may . . . but . . . Won't you sit 
 
 down ? 
 
 Imperia. I'll wait here. Is there no other place? 
 
 Cecco. No. Only a hole there upstairs. 
 
 Imperia. Don't be long. 
 
 Cecco. It's all right; they won't hurt you. They're good 
 fellows. Don't be afraid. 
 
 Imperia. I am not afraid. 
 
 Zaida. Signora! I ought not to have told you! 
 
 Imperia. Why not? Why should I be afraid? The place 
 and the people do not seem strange. It is I who seem strange. 
 
 Pietro (To MAJESTA). Yes. Give her a glass. Invite her. 
 You ought to do it among friends! 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 169 
 
 Unknown. Yes! Between queens! Do the honors. You 
 ought. 
 
 Majestd (Staggering to her feet; then, with a drunken leer). 
 Here . . . Let me have it ... (Offering a glass to 
 IMPERIA.) Lady . . . 
 
 Zaida (Alarmed). Ay! 
 
 Imperia. Don't be afraid. What is it, my poor woman? 
 
 Majestd. Your Majesty, I ... I also am a queen 
 a queen . . . Majesta, . . . Don't you know 
 me? 
 
 Pietro. Don't mind her. She won't hurt you. She's only 
 a bit out of her head. 
 
 Majestd. Tonight I'm holding a feast in my palace. I 
 offer you a glass of champagne. Drink! It will not hurt you. 
 It is not poison. I have no reason to wish you harm. You 
 cannot hurt me. I am happy, oh, so happy! Who can take this 
 happiness away? But they are not all like this. No! There 
 are bad people bad! Take care! And they have done me 
 harm, much harm. But I ... I have harmed nobody! 
 Nobody! That's the reason I am so happy! That's the happi- 
 ness that none can take away! 
 
 Zaida. Signora! Come, let us go. 
 
 Imperia. No. I must hear her. These are the discords, 
 the broken harmonies of the mad. They fascinate me. There is 
 something wild and eerie in them which may prove prophetic in 
 the end. Come here, my poor woman. (Offering money.} 
 
 Majestd. Gold! Do you see? It is gold! More cham- 
 pagne! (Throwing down the money .} Champagne! 
 
 Pietro. Here! Pick it up! You'll need it. 
 
 Majesta. Need it? No, no! Never! It's for you! I 
 never need anything any more. Champagne! Bring cham- 
 pagne! (She falls senseless.} 
 
 (HARRY LUCEXTI enters.} 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Imperia! 
 
 Imperia. The Prince? 
 
 Harry Lucenti. The Prince requests me to offer you my 
 arm now that you have come so far. Will you join us? 
 
 Imperia. Docs the Prince know why I have come? 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Pleasure, perhaps; jealousy 
 
 Imperia. Of whom? 
 
 Harry Lucenti. We saw you at the circus this evening. 
 
1 70 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Imperia. And you imagined something monstrous of me, 
 something worthy of the Prince and yourself? 
 
 Harry Lucenti. A little something of the sort. The Prince 
 will be delighted to see you. Will you accept my arm? 
 
 Imperia. Take me in. (A piercing cry.} What is that? 
 
 Cecco (Enters, running). What's the matter? 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Who cried out? 
 
 Cecco (Closing the door). Silence. Sit down! Quiet! No- 
 body moves! (Runs out.) 
 
 Unknown. What's the matter? 
 
 (CECCO re-enters with TOMMY, supporting the PRINCE; also 
 CELESTE, TERESINA, NELLY, FANNY and the two jockeys, followed 
 immediately by NUNU, DONINA and MARCELLA, all in the greatest 
 confusion.) 
 
 Some. What's the matter? What has happened? 
 
 Cecco. The Prince! 
 
 Imperia. Blood ! 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Are you hurt? 
 
 Sailors and Others. Up! Up! What's wrong? Out! Out! 
 
 Cecco (To GAETANO). Lock the door! Stand by! God! 
 Nobody moves! (GAETANO draws a knife and stands by the door.) 
 
 Pietro. Room there! Back! Or ... (They draw 
 knives and daggers.) 
 
 Cecco. No! No you don't! You'd only run into the 
 Police. They'd pull us all. Order! Quiet! Sit down! 
 
 Nunu (Furiously to DONINA). It was you! You did it! 
 We are ruined! 
 
 Donina. Yes! It was I! I! It was not you! You 
 coward ! 
 
 Imperia. You ? 
 
 Donina. He sold me! Do you hear? He sold me! 
 Cowa rd ! Cowa rd ! 
 
 Celeste. But they're not going to let him die like this? 
 
 Cecco. No one leaves this room. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. No blood! He bleeds internally; a bad 
 sign. He'll never get up. 
 
 Cecco. The police! They've heard us. Run! Quick! 
 Sit down! If they knock we'll have to open. Keep cool! This 
 blood (He overturns a bottle.) There! Sit down! And you 
 . Get around him! Back! Hold him up! So ... 
 And you there, sing sing and dance! Music! The Police! 
 Sh! . . . Quiet! . . . (All do as he tells them.) 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 171 
 
 Donina. My God! My God! 
 
 Nunu (Striking her). Dance! Dance, I tell you! 
 
 (The music strikes up.} 
 
 (NUNU, DONINA, ZAIDA and TOMMY begin the tarantella.) 
 (The COMMISSARY and POLICE enter.) 
 
 Commissary. What's this noise? What's the matter? 
 
 Cecco. Nothing! You see . 
 
 Commissary. We heard cries . . . 
 
 Cecco. The supper. Too much wine, eh? Is it so? No- 
 body knows what he's at. They're in fine spirits. The Prince 
 can hardly sit up. Ah! There he is ... We shut the 
 door so that nobody could come in. It's late. Have a drop? 
 
 Commissary. No, thanks. Good night. 
 
 Cecco. Good night! 
 
 (At the door, keeping his eyes riveted on those in the tavern until 
 the COMMISSARY is out of sight; then to those within.) Go on! Go 
 on! Keep it up! 
 
 (The women who have been sitting at the PRINCE'S side, spring 
 up terrified. The PRINCE rolls under the table.) 
 
 Celeste. Dead ! 
 
 Teresina. Ay! 
 
 (Wild confusion. All rush for the door.) 
 
 Cecco. Ruined! Lost! Now what are we to do? No one 
 leaves this room! 
 
 Nunu (Threatening violence). Open the door! Let us out! 
 
 Cecco. No! It's no use. The police have got your names. 
 They'd pick you all up, one by one We stand or fall together. 
 
 Imperia. Harry! "Fake him to my house in my carriage. 
 It's the only way. They must not find him here. Are you ready? 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Yes. Come on! Quick! 
 
 Cecco. Are you going to take him away? Yes, it's the best. 
 But wait . . . There may be people in the street. A mo- 
 ment . . . Wait . . . I'll draw of! the police. Sit 
 down! And you there come on! Come on! One at a time. 
 Pass out as if nothing had happened. Order! Quiet! 
 
 Pietro. The first man who opens his mouth 
 
 Unknown. Not a word! Silence! It's for all. 
 
 Cecco. And you sing and dance! Damn you! Dance! 
 
 Donina (Falling exhausted). I can't dance any more! Not 
 if they kill me! 
 
 Cecco (Going up to MAJESTA). This woman has seen nothing 
 . The others will say nothing. 
 
172 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Harry Lucenti (At the PRINCE'S side). He is dead. Cold 
 already! 
 
 Imperia. Yes. Dead! Dead! How horrible! 
 
 CURTAIN 
 THE FOURTH TABLEAU 
 
 A room in IMPERIA'S Villa. 
 
 IMPERIA is discovered writing a note, which she hands to a 
 SERVANT when finished. The voice of the COUNTESS RINALDI is 
 heard outside. 
 
 Rinaldi (Outside). She is always at home to me. You need 
 not take the trouble. 
 
 (IMPERIA rises and goes hurriedly to meet the COUNTESS, who 
 enters.} 
 
 Imperia. Countess ! 
 
 Rinaldi. Ah! You were not expecting me? The portiere 
 and the servants did not wish to let me come in; they told me you 
 were resting. But it was so very important that I had to see 
 you; so I dispensed with formality. I am pardoned I know. 
 But you are not alone? On my way here I passed Prince Michael 
 at the gate of the Princess's villa, no doubt intending to visit her. 
 
 Imperia. No doubt. Did you speak to him? 
 
 Rinaldi. No, he was driving; I was walking. ]walk a 
 great deal for my health nowadays. We merely bowed, that was 
 all. Well, what was the outcome of your rendezvous of last 
 evening, the denouement of Saturday night? 
 
 Imperia. Saturday night? 
 
 Rinaldi. I am afraid you are not frank with me; you are 
 keeping something back, much as I love you. It would be in- 
 teresting to confide impressions, compare adventures, as it were. 
 I have decided to make a change in my life; I am done with 
 frivolity. Fortunately Heaven has put a man in my path who 
 has proved my salvation. Ah! If I had only met him before, 
 instead of all those worthless scamps who have compromised my 
 reputation. 
 
 Imperia. But who is he? 
 
 Rinaldi. He is not one of the men whom we meet every day. 
 His is a primitive spirit, a simple soul. You know him. 
 
 Imperia. I ? 
 
 Rinaldi. Have you seen the seven elephants at the Circus? 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 173 
 
 Imperia. But my dear Countess! 
 
 Rinaldi. Well, he the elephant-driver. You are laughing 
 at me. 
 
 Imperia. I thought that you said you were done with 
 frivolity. 
 
 Rinaldi. You don't mean to imply that this is frivolity? 
 But you are not acquainted with my plans. 
 
 Imperia. Then explain them to me! Talk, make me 
 understand. Would to God they were never so fantastic, so 
 impossible and strange, dreams, extravagances, anything to take 
 me out of myself, to make me forget this reality which is shutting 
 in around me. Would you believe it? There are dreams, 
 horrible nightmares with all the appearance of truth, which escape 
 from our sleep and enter into our lives. I have dreamed, I am 
 sure that I have dreamed, something which now I seem to have 
 seen, to have heard, but which cannot be, no, which cannot have 
 been. That is the reason I want to hear you talk, to listen to 
 your fantasies, your extravagances, follies, dreams, madness, until 
 all becomes confused and involved in illusion, and we cannot tell 
 whether we are dreaming among visions or waking among facts 
 which are real. 
 
 Rinaldi. But there is nothing visionary about my plans; 
 they are practical. I am putting my house in order; I am de- 
 voting myself to my affairs. Luckily, a unique opportunity has 
 presented itself, a brilliant speculation, which cannot fail to 
 triple my capital in less than a year. 
 
 Imperia. You don't know how glad I am to see you. Really, 
 you put every rational thought quite out of my head. 
 
 Rinaldi. But you mustn't laugh; it is a serious matter. 
 Ruhu his name is Ruhu an Oriental name Well, Ruhu is 
 not the real Ruhu. 
 
 Imperia. I don't understand. 
 
 Rinaldi. The real Ruhu-Sahib was the former proprietor 
 of the elephants; this man was merely his assistant, that was all. 
 When the real Ruhu died, his widow, who was English, inherited 
 the seven elephants, and she proposed to the assistant, that he 
 continue in charge, and manage all seven upon a salary which she 
 was to pay him. But it was exploitation. While the poor Ruhu 
 exposed his life every day for the most pitiful wages, the widow, 
 the proprietress of the elephants, was collecting wholly fabulous 
 sums from the management. What do you think of that? The 
 poor are justified in rising up against such exploitation. Ruhu 
 
i 7 4 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 was broken-hearted. "Ah! if the elephants were only mine," he 
 said to me with tears in his eyes, "If I had a hundred thousand 
 francs! If I could find some one to associate herself with me!" 
 
 Imperia. You need say no more; you were touched. You 
 determined to buy the elephants and present yourself with them 
 in the circus. 
 
 Rinaldi. Not I. How ridiculous! I am to buy them; he 
 is to present them. I shall receive half the profits. You have no 
 conception of what that will amount to. Twelve thousand francs 
 a month, and they are engaged for the entire season. Seven 
 tame elephants for a hundred thousand francs it's a bargain. 
 Really, you have no idea what it costs to buy an elephant. And 
 these are the best Indian elephants. You can tell them by the 
 trunk and the ears. 
 
 Imperia. I see that you have studied the subject. This is 
 not an illusion after all. 
 
 Rinaldi. What did you expect? On the contrary! In 
 what other way could one get so much for a hundred thousand 
 francs? That is the reason I hurried to see you. At the mo- 
 ment, I do not happen to have such a sum at my disposal. My 
 balance at the Credit is not above sixty or seventy thousand 
 francs. But it is only a matter of a fortnight. Of course, any 
 of my friends whom I had cared to approach . . . but I was 
 anxious to afford you a striking proof of my affection. 
 
 Imperia. -I should like to respond in the same spirit, but 
 at present I am unable to give you an answer. I don't know 
 whether or not I have so much money. 
 
 Rinaldi. You don't call that much money? 
 
 Imperia. I shall let you know this afternoon later. 
 
 Rinaldi. Later? I am afraid this is coyness upon your part. 
 Surely the Prince will not deny you; he never denies you any- 
 thing. You see that I am talking to you as a friend, and our 
 friendship has cost me something. Not that it matters to 
 me 
 
 Imperia. I shall send you my answer. 
 
 (A SERVANT enters.} 
 
 Servant. His Highness. 
 
 (PRINCE MICHAEL enters.} 
 
 Prince Michael. Countess! (To IMPERIA.) How are you 
 this morning? 
 
 Imperia. Quite well. The Countess tells me that she saw 
 } ou at the Princess's villa. Were you calling on her? 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 175 
 
 Prince Michael. Yes. I was to have taken luncheon. 
 Haven't you heard? 
 
 Imperia. What ? 
 
 Prince Michael. I will tell you later. I was unable to join 
 you at the circus last evening. Another telegram from Suabia 
 detained me with the Duke. 
 
 Imperia. What has happened? 
 
 Prince Michael. Nothing . . . 
 
 Rinaldi. Your Highness has something private to discuss 
 with Imperia. 
 
 Prince Michael. Nothing that cannot wait. 
 
 Rinaldi. You remember that I dispense with invitations 
 which are not dispensed to me, yet I hardly need one to withdraw 
 when my presence might prove embarrassing. Good morning, 
 Your Highness. My dear, I shall be at home all afternoon, 
 expecting your reply. 
 
 (The COUNTESS RINALDI goes out.) 
 
 Prince Michael. How much did the Countess's visit cost 
 you? 
 
 Imperia. I see you have had experience. 
 
 Prince Michael. -I most certainly have. However, her 
 adventures are always amusing. This one ought to be worth 
 something. Leonardo sent her to me. She must have told you 
 an affair at the circus. Well, what about Donina? Did you find 
 her last evening? You see what confidence I have in you: I 
 believe everything you say. 
 
 Imperia. You are right to do so. You have been noble and 
 generous with me, and your loyalty deserves mine in return. 
 You have not tried to bind me to yourself through appeals to 
 self-interest. You have given me more than enough to buy my 
 my liberty; you said that you did not want slaves. And in giv- 
 ing me my liberty, you have won my gratitude forever. 
 
 Prince Michael. Forever? Your mind is restless, ambi- 
 tious, filled with great dreams, while I- I am content to have all 
 my days pass alike, to have them seem as one day, undisturbed 
 by trouble or care, flowing smoothly in a calm and even stream. 
 But the shadow of the Empire has fallen upon me again. The 
 baby prince is dead. 
 
 Imperia. Dead ? 
 
 Prince Michael. He was born with a mere spark of life. 
 They telegraphed again just after the announcement of his 
 birth. The Emperor has summoned Prince Florencio and his 
 
I 7 6 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 mother to return to Court; he wishes to become reconciled, 
 perhaps to abdicate. He is not well. The country is on the 
 brink of revolution. A despotic government is no longer possible 
 in these days. Then, Florencio's health is conspiring against 
 me. Once more near the throne! 
 
 Imperia. Very near! Prince Florencio, that is all. Have 
 you seen him today? 
 
 Prince Michael. No, I was to have taken luncheon at their 
 villa, but his mother was horribly disturbed. Florencio had not 
 returned all night. 
 
 Imperia. Don't they know? . . . 
 
 Prince Michael. Nothing could have happened to him. A 
 debauch! Morning surprised him in some tavern; it was im- 
 possible to return home in broad daylight. I have notified the 
 Prefect. 
 
 Imperia. But you say his mother . . . 
 
 Prince Michael. This anxiety will kill her. She cannot 
 stand it; it is one continual agitation. Today she was more 
 affected than usual. She woke up suddenly at midnight; she 
 thought she heard a cry 
 
 Imperia. At midnight ? 
 
 Prince Michael. Yes. Now to her mind it has taken the 
 form of a presentiment, and I confess that I was myself affected 
 by it; although of course nothing could have happened. The 
 police are with him continually; it is out of the question. Besides 
 nobody has seen Harry Lucenti. However, the Signore will 
 know. 
 
 Imperia. Have you any idea where he was? 
 
 Prince Michael. No, but they will have, and they will know 
 who was with him. Otherwise . . . Do you think that 
 anything could have happened to him? 
 
 Imperia. You say that his mother heard a cry? You don't 
 believe that spirits can communicate at a distance, do you, that 
 they can speak with each other through the air? He must have 
 been thinking of his mother. Yes, he called out "Mother!" 
 And his mother heard him call. 
 
 Prince Michael. Imperia, what are you talking about? 
 Are you dreaming? 
 
 Imperia. Something must have happened to him. Yes, we 
 must fear, we must expect the worst! 
 
 (A SERVANT enters.) 
 
 Servant. The Signor Prefect to see Your Highness. 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 177 
 
 Prince Michael. Immediately! Now we shall know. 
 
 (PRINCE MICHAEL and the SERVANT go out.) 
 
 (IMPERIA follows them to the door and listens. Presently 
 HARRY LUCENTI, pale and haggard, still in evening dress, and 
 showing the effects of intoxication the night before, appears at one of 
 the doors.) 
 
 Imperia. Who is there? Ah! What do you want? Don't 
 leave him. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. It won't hurt him to stay alone. He won't 
 move. I heard voices. Do they suspect? 
 
 Imperia. No, they are looking. They will find out soon 
 enough. Perhaps they know already. Go back! Don't let 
 them see you. Don't leave him alone. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. He's covered up with a piece of brocade 
 fit winding-sheet for an Emperor. What a death! Insignificant 
 as his life. Ludwig of Bavaria was the last king. 
 
 Imperia. Oh! Be still! Be still! I can't bear to hear 
 you, to see you ! You are as bad as he was. What difference does 
 it make how he died? He deserved such a death. It does not 
 matter who killed him. 
 
 Harry Lucenti. Don't tell me that Heaven has punished 
 him. Nonsense, Imperia! Accident chance. Many a rogue 
 has died an old man in his bed, amid the benedictions of his 
 children. 
 
 (LEONARDO enters.) 
 
 Imperia. Leonardo! How could you be so long? 
 
 Leonardo. I but this moment received your note. Ah! 
 Harry! What are you doing here? 
 
 Harry Lucenti. I? Imperia will tell you. It is a sad office, 
 which leaves nothing for me to do but to think. Silence! 
 
 (He disappears.) 
 
 Imperia. Leonardo, I don't know what you have thought 
 of me since we drifted apart, what your impressions may have 
 been. I only know that in the decisive moments of my life, 
 when my heart has turned instinctively toward that which is 
 true, I have always looked on you as a loyal and faithful friend. 
 Am I wrong? 
 
 Leonardo. No, Imperia. We parted without ill feeling. 
 You were in love with life, you wanted to icalize my vision the 
 ideal of my statue; I, to retire from the world, to find solace in 
 meditation and dreams. The wall of facts came between us. 
 Why do you send for me now? 
 
178 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Imperia. To destroy those facts which shut in upon our 
 jives. Your ideal, your vision, the throne of your Imperia 
 ah, how near it is! It is not inherited, no, the poor inherit no 
 thrones, but we overthrow them by our might, we take refuge 
 in their shadows and reign by the right of intelligence without 
 being kings. Do you remember? I told you I was going to 
 Suabia to be Empress? Well, I am not an Empress, but I reign in 
 an Emperor's heart. He is mine, I know it; I hold him in the 
 hollow of my hand. He cannot live without me. What do you 
 say now? I am your Imperia, your statue. Your spirit breathes 
 in me. I am the realization of your dreams. 
 
 Leonardo. Yes, my Imperia my love! My first, my only 
 love! Live for me, triumph for me! Alas! I could do no more 
 than dream. 
 
 Imperia. Yes, I shall triumph; but first it is necessary to 
 destroy the facts, to trample reality under foot. The baby 
 Prince of Suabia is dead. The old Emperor abdicates the crown. 
 
 Leonardo. Then Prince Florencio . 
 
 Imperia. Prince Florencio is dead. 
 
 Leonardo. Dead ? 
 
 Imperia. Yes, he is dead, murdered last night before my 
 eyes. No, I killed him myself. 
 
 Leonardo. You! What are you talking about, Imperia? 
 Are you mad ? 
 
 Imperia. Yes, I I did it! Or what is the same thing, it 
 was my Donina, my child! She was defending her youth, her 
 innocence, her love. It was the vengeance of all of us who had 
 fallen by him before. Don't you believe it? Look! this is his 
 dagger, a precious stiletto, a work of art, exquisitely damascened. 
 The handle is gold, set with jewels. He was playing with it, 
 half caressing, half threatening her. "Would you dare to kill 
 me?" he asked her. "A kiss first and it is yours." And he 
 offered her the handle like a jewel. My Donina, when she felt 
 that kiss, plunged the blade into his heart. No, I am not dream- 
 ing; these are not phantoms of the witches' lair. Do you re- 
 member? When we parted I told you! It was Saturday Night! 
 Well, its horrible phantoms have followed me back into life; 
 they hover in my room. Do you want to see him? He is here. 
 Harry Lucenti is watching the corpse. 
 
 Leonardo. But it cannot be possible! These things cannot 
 have happened. Nightmares, hallucinations! 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 179 
 
 Imperia.At first I thought so myself. When I came home, 
 I forgot everything. A moment ago and I was" laughing and talk- 
 ing with the Countess. It all seemed so unreal and far away 
 nightmares from the other world, illusions of our witches' souls. 
 But it is the truth, Leonardo; it is the truth! 
 
 Leonardo. But what are you going to do? They will find 
 out. . . . 
 
 Imperia. I am not afraid. I shall fight; I shall win. 
 Phantoms cannot frighten me. They will be here in a moment; 
 perhaps they already know. You see I am calm. They will say 
 nothing. You will see ... 
 
 Leonardo. No, Imperia. You are trembling. What is 
 that you are staring at? 
 
 Imperia. No, no! I am calm. Hush! They are here. 
 
 Leonardo. They must know. 
 
 Imperia.- I shall tell them if they do not. 
 
 (PRINCE MICHAEL and the SIGNORE enter.) 
 
 Prince Michael. Imperia, the Signor Prefect wishes to 
 speak with you. I beg your pardon, Leonardo, I did not know 
 you were here. 
 
 Leonardo.- Highness 
 
 Prince Michael (To the SIGNORE). Leonardo will retire with 
 me if you prefer to see her alone. 
 
 Imperia. No, I prefer to have him remain during the 
 examination; I assume the Signor Prefect wishes to examine me? 
 
 Leonardo. As you see. 
 
 Imperia.- Then I prefer to answer in the presence of my 
 friends. Otherwise the authority of the Signor Prefect might 
 intimidate me. 
 
 Prince Michael. Unfortunately indications that something 
 serious has happened to Prince Florencio multiply every moment. 
 No one has seen him this morning. It has been impossible to 
 ascertain his whereabouts. 
 
 Signor e. It is known that last night he was at Cecco's 
 Tavern. Here is the list of the persons who were there the 
 complete list. Will you look it over? Is there anyone missing? 
 
 Imperia. No one. 
 
 Prince Michael. Your name is on the list. 
 
 Imperia. That proves that the Signore is well served by his 
 police. 
 
 Signore. Then it may be true also that the Prince left the 
 tavern shortly before daybreak, somewhat intoxicated, as it seems, 
 
i8o SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 supported by Harry Lucenti and the proprietor of the tavern. 
 He was lifted into your coach, and driven to your house. Shortly 
 afterward you returned in the company of a girl named Donina, 
 a circus performer, with whom you must have some connection, 
 as this is not the first time you have been seen with her. 
 
 Prince Michael. The Signore knows who Donina is. He is 
 informed of your relationship. 
 
 Signore. I am informed of everything. Except for the 
 persons who, without doubt, are now in this house, all those who 
 were with the Prince last night are under surveillance as a matter 
 of precaution. The affair is a delicate one. Any indiscretion 
 might compromise persons of quality, who are not to be treated 
 like ordinary offenders. I am questioning you as a friend, Sig- 
 nora. Those who were present assure me that the Prince left the 
 grotto at the same time that you did, as I have already said. 
 Well? Is this an amorous adventure? Or a political intrigue? 
 Is it true that Prince Florencio is now in your house? 
 
 Imperia. Prince Florencio is in my house. I brought him 
 home with me. But I brought him home dead! 
 
 Prince Michael. Dead ! 
 
 Signore.- Dead ! 
 
 Imperia. Yes, Prince Florencio has committed suicide. 
 
 Signore. What is that, Signora? 
 
 Prince Michael. Impossible! 
 
 Leonardo. What do you mean? 
 
 Imperia (Firmly}. He has committed suicide. In spite of 
 everything you may know, in spite of everything you may dis- 
 cover, this is and will remain the truth. 
 
 Signore. But it is utterly out of the question. There is 
 nothing whatever to indicate it. 
 
 Prince Michael. Come! We shall see. 
 
 Imperia. No! Hear me first. He was murdered; that is 
 the truth I was there; I saw it with my own eyes. But nobody 
 can be held responsible for his death. If you attempt to investi- 
 gate, to punish, to lay bare the facts, the facts will become in- 
 volved in falsehood, and calumny and infamy and lies will en- 
 tangle us all in the crime, from those miscreants whose very faces 
 betray the degeneracy of this contemptible Prince, to the Em- 
 peror of Suabia himself, who might very well have suborned an 
 assassin to relieve himself of the incubus of such an heir to the 
 crown. 
 
 Prince Michael. Infamous ! 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 181 
 
 Signore. Signora ! 
 
 Imperia. Yes, I was there your mistress! The mistress 
 of the heir to the throne! But nobody knows why I was there. 
 I can accuse myself; I can accuse you. The Prince has his ad- 
 herents in Suabia. The halo of martyrdom would set very well 
 upon his brow. If you wish to undeceive the world, to proclaim 
 the truth very well. Proclaim it. And I will proclaim it too. 
 Let us tell the life that he led, expose his vices, his crimes, and 
 fix a stain upon his memory, until the contempt and scorn of the 
 world overwhelm us all and all the rest of his kind, the partners 
 of his infamies. 
 
 (A SERVANT enters.) 
 
 Servant. Your Highness! 
 
 Prince Michael. But what is this? 
 
 (THE DUKE OF SUABIA enters.) 
 
 Duke. Highness, the Princess has heard that the Prince is 
 in this house; she insists upon seeing him. It is impossible to 
 hold her back. 
 
 Prince Michael. No! Take her away! At once! 
 
 Duke. Yes, don't permit her . . . Don't allow her to 
 know . 
 
 (PRINCE MICHAEL, the SIGNORE and the DU^E OF SUABIA 
 go out.) 
 
 Leonardo. Do you think they will not tell? 
 
 Imperia.- No; they are afraid. The truth frightens them. 
 I know what his life was, don't you see? his vices, his crimes, 
 his intrigues. They will not tell; my silence for theirs. The 
 Prince \vas not murdered; nobody is to blame for his death. It 
 was an accident, a debauch. Don't you see? It is possible to 
 destroy the facts and triumph over them. Before love, they 
 dissolve like a dream. 
 
 Donina (From an inner room). Let me go! Let me go! 
 (Entering.) Mother! Mother! 
 
 Leonardo. Is this your child? 
 
 Imperia. Yes, my child. Why do you run out? You are 
 trembling. 
 
 Donina. Help me! Hide me! They will get me. I don't 
 want to live; I don't want them to see me, to speak to me. I 
 shan't answer. I shan't say a word! 
 
 Imperia. Leonardo, take her away far away. 
 
 Leonardo. It is useless. We should be seen; it is impossible 
 to escape. 
 
1 82 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Donina. Let them kill me! I don't care. I saw him 
 again! Oh, I saw him again! And I shall see him always . . 
 
 Imperia. You ? 
 
 Donina. Yes! I woke up trembling all over. I wanted to 
 get away; so I ran out without thinking. And I saw him! Oh, 
 I saw him! And I shall see him always! I shall go mad! 
 
 Imperia. What is that? Silence! Do you hear, Leonardo? 
 
 Leonardo. Yes; it is the Princess. She is crying. 
 
 Imperia. No, no! Don't you listen to her. It is nothing. 
 
 Donina. Yes, she is crying! His mother is crying! I can 
 hear her cry. Ah! She is coming nearer, nearer all the time 
 nearer . 
 
 Leonardo. She is coming this way. Surely they will not 
 permit her 
 
 Imperia. Wait! No! . . . Now they are passing by. 
 Come! Let us go! Let us leave this place! 
 
 Donina. Do you hear her call? "My boy! My boy!" 
 
 Imperia. Cornel Come away! 
 
 Donina. No! I shall hear her always . . . always! 
 "My boy! My boy!" 
 
 Imperia. I can bear it no longer. They were not phan- 
 toms, Leonardo; we cannot destroy the facts, they are too strong 
 for us. They creep back into our lives and overwhelm us in the 
 end. This mother weeping for her boy, this child dying of grief 
 and remorse they chill my blood, they freeze me to the bone! 
 I can do no more. Let what will come, come. 
 
 Leonardo. No, Imperia. Your will is strong. Don't throw 
 your life away. Fight on, and triumph! 
 
 Imperia. No! No! It is too late. Leave me! Save my 
 child, Leonardo! Save my child! 
 
 CURTAIN 
 THE FIFTH TABLEAU 
 
 Garden of Imperials Villa* 
 
 DONINA, LEONARDO and NUNU are together in the garden. 
 LEONARDO is modeling a bust of DONINA, who poses for him. 
 
 Leonardo. That will do for today, Donina. 
 
 Donina. I am not tired. Don't stop on my account. 
 
 Leonardo. I know that you are strong now. We need not 
 be careful of your health any more. It isn't the model this time 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 183 
 
 who is tired, it's the artist. Who could work today? What an 
 afternoon! We pray for days like this for our little holidays, 
 but today all nature is on holiday. How much better right she 
 has to ask us not to intrude our petty affairs upon her divine calm 
 Work today? Not even in thought! It is enough to be alive,! 
 to have eyes to see, to drink in the air and sunlight, to breathe 
 the perfumes of the sea and the flowers. You seem sad, Donina. 
 Why are you always sad? 
 
 Nunu. She's afraid she's going to die. 
 
 Leonardo. The doctors say that you are well now. As 
 soon as you are happy, you begin to think of dying. You are 
 happy, Donina? 
 
 Donina. Very happy. That is the reason I am afraid. 
 
 Nunu. Can you see Prince Michael's yacht from there? 
 
 Leonardo. Yes, I think so. There it is. It came in this 
 morning. 
 
 Donina. Why does Prince Michael come back? I thought 
 he went away to be Emperor? 
 
 Leonardo. Don't ask me, Donina. It is nothing to us. 
 The Empire of Suabia is very far away. 
 
 Donina. It is a great deal too near. 
 
 Nunu. Can't we go out in the boat like we did yesterday? 
 Why tfo we have to stay here ail afternoon ? 
 
 Donina. Are you tired, Nunu? 
 
 Nunu. No, but the sea air would be better for you. We 
 never leave this place. 
 
 Donina. It is so beautiful! 
 
 Nunu. Yes, but it's a bore. It's like a prison. 
 
 Donina. Like a prison? 
 
 Leonardo (Aside to NUNU). You're a bad actor, Nunu. 
 
 Nunu. I can't stand this forever. 
 
 (IMPERIA enters.} 
 
 Imperia. You have stopped early today. Doesn't Donina 
 feel well? 
 
 Donina. No, it was Leonardo. 
 
 Leonardo. Yes, it was I, the idler always! We are almost 
 done. 
 
 Donina. It looks just like me. 
 
 Imperia. No, I don't want to see it until it is finished. 
 Does she look as I did when you first knew me, when I was your 
 model ? 
 
i8 4 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Leonardo. No, Imperia. There may be something in the 
 features, but the expression is not the same. You had more life, 
 more will. Donina would never have climbed up over the rocks 
 to seat herself upon a throne. 
 
 Imperia. Why not? You say that because you are copying 
 the sadness of her face; you are making a portrait, not expressing 
 an idea in your work. My statue was designed to challenge 
 attention and triumph eternally; hers is merely for me. Your 
 art is snatching from death all that it is permitted us to save. 
 
 Leonardo. I told her I was tired, but her color frightened 
 me her labored breath. There is no hope. 
 
 Imperia. They say that those who die of this disease are 
 never conscious of the approach of death. But Donina thinks 
 of nothing else. She looks forward to it; she expects it. 
 
 Leonardo. It is the cunning of despair, the fearsome dread 
 of death. She knows that it is a bad sign to be cheerful, so she 
 pretends to be afraid. But she does not deceive herself. 
 
 (DONINA laughs.} 
 
 Imperia. She is laughing! She is happy! Oh, so happy! 
 What are^ou doing, Donina? 
 
 Donina. Picking flowers for you roses. Aren't roses 
 your favorite flowers? I was laughing because Nunu was telling 
 me a story about them. It wasn't very nice, but it was funny; 
 all his stones are. It was about a nunnery with a garden with 
 roses in it, and the devil came and hung a little imp on every 
 bush, just the same in color as the roses, so that they looked like 
 little babies. And when the nuns saw them they thought they 
 were in mortal sin and so as not to make a scandal they ran and 
 hid them in their cells. But the little devils jumped out and 
 began to run and skip and cut up all sorts of capers they sang in 
 the choir and danced while the organ played and rang the bells 
 in the belfry and then finally No, I don't think I'll tell you 
 what they did finally. It might not seem nice; but it was funny. 
 You tell them, Nunu; they'll laugh as much as I did. 
 
 Nunu. Don't be silly. Come on and pick some more 
 flowers. 
 
 Imperia. Yes, laugh Donina, laugh! Ah, Leonardo! Why 
 do we waste our lives in dreams and ambitions? Our true life is 
 the love which springs in our hearts. The happiness of a child is 
 the only lasting joy, the one hint which life gives of the value and 
 meaning of life. 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 185 
 
 Leonardo. Do you mean that you are not going to Suabia? 
 Prince Michael has returned solely for you. Is he to go back 
 alone to rule his Empire? 
 
 Imperia. He says that without me he cannot accept the 
 crown. His ship will be lost forever on the deep, cast up on some 
 unknown coast, where his days will be spent in obscurity, and he 
 will slip from the world unnoticed at the close. By nature he is 
 indolent; all his energy, his hope are in me. 
 
 Leonardo. But you ? 
 
 Imperia. While my child lives, my place is with her. 
 
 Leonardo. It will not be long. 
 
 Imperia. I never wished till now to stop the hand of time. 
 On a day like this, it seems as if we should never die; as if it were 
 impossible that we should be passing through life like shadows, 
 looking out for a little while upon the earth, the sea and the sky 
 which whisper to us of their eternity and our sudden death. 
 Life cannot be all a cheat; it would be too cruel! No, there is, 
 there must be something higher, something more eternal in us 
 than this sea and this sky. 
 
 Leonardo. But what is there in our lives which deserves to 
 endure? Is it what we are, or what we appear to be? the love 
 that was in us once? what we long for and dream? Where are 
 our true selves to be found? 
 
 (DONINA and NUNU come forward with armfuls of roses.) 
 
 Donina. Look what lovely roses! They are all colors. 
 Bring them here, Nunu. We picked them all. What difference 
 does it make? The bushes will be covered with them again 
 tomorrow. 
 
 Imperia. There never were such beautiful flowers. 
 
 Leonardo.- And none more suggestive of life. All the colors 
 of the flesh- red, like blood, like lovers' lips; pink, like the skins 
 of children; amber pale, with a languorous carmine touch, like 
 the warm nudes of Titian; voluptuously opulent, like the great 
 goddesses of Rubens; white and bloodless as a virgin's hands. 
 
 Donina. These are sallow like wax- like the dead. 
 
 Leonardo. No, Donina, they are all alive; they are not like 
 the dead. They live! When I hold them upside down, they 
 are like little ladies, with the petals and the corolla here for 
 skirts. This might be a stately marchioness, a Madame Pom- 
 padour, with her wide rose panniers the stem her slender waist 
 and these two green leaves by the side, her great, puffed-out 
 sleeves. Although something is lacking . . . Wait! Let 
 
1 86 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 us make a foolish little head for our marchioness out of this petal, 
 with a long, tapering neck so thin, as the poet says, that it is 
 shaped for the guillotine. This might be an Infanta of Spain 
 with her spreading hoop skirts, and this a magnificent Dogaressa 
 o f Venice, imperial in her purple! When you hold them like this 
 roses resemble ladies in flowers. 
 
 Donina. Yes; they do. How lovely! They are just like 
 ladies. Look, Nunu! But you won't look! You're foolish 
 enough to be afraid they might be really, and fall in love with you. 
 But I'll spoil them all first. There! There! (Throwing roses 
 at him.} 
 
 Nunu. Look out! (Throwing roses back at her.} It's a 
 ba ttle of flowers. 
 
 Donina. Look out yourself! (They run off, pelting eac 
 other with roses.} 
 
 Imperia. It cannot be death, Leonardo; Donina is so happy! 
 
 Leonardo. Deceptive happiness! You know the cost. 
 
 Imperia. Yes, but Donina could not live without him. In 
 spite of all that he has done to her, I had to bring him here, to 
 keep him, by flattery, by fear. The wretched boy wants to go 
 but I tell him that I will have him taken to Suabia and accused of 
 the murder of Prince Florencio. What does it matter if it is a 
 lie? Donina has forgiven him, and she believes that he loves 
 her as she was never loved before, and she is happy dying happy 
 in the belief. Without it, she would have died long ago in an 
 agony of grief and remorse. His treachery would have killed her. 
 
 Leonardo. Do you think Nunu will be able to deceive her 
 much longer? 
 
 Imperia. It is not his virtue that I count upon, it is his 
 interest. And I am here to attend to it. 
 
 Leonardo. The Countess Rinaldi has driven up to the gate. 
 
 Imperia. She has seen the Prince's yacht, and she is anxious 
 to know whether I am going to Suabia. Tell her I am not at 
 home; get rid of her in any way you can. That woman is odious. 
 
 Leonardo. Why odious? She is another shadow passing 
 through life, indefatigable in the pursuit of her ideal. 
 
 (IMPERIA goes out.} 
 
 (The COUNTESS RINALDI enters.} 
 
 Rinaldi. Leonardo ! 
 
 Leonardo. My dear Countess! Did they tell you Imperia 
 was not at home? 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 187 
 
 Rinaldi. I didn't ask whether she was or not. There was 
 no one at the gate. However, I was certain to find someone, 
 now that Imperia is living en famille. Of course I count you as 
 one of the family. 
 
 Leonardo. Of the artistic family. 
 
 Rinaldi. It is the same thing. We all come back to our 
 starting point sooner or later, unless we run on forever. But I 
 advise you to be careful; Prince Michael has come back too, in 
 spite of everything. 
 
 Leonardo. In spite of it? He always insisted that he would. 
 
 Rinaldi. It seems that after the suicide of Prince Florencio 
 I hope you notice the suicide I confine myself to the truth 
 which is official. 
 
 Leonardo. An unexceptionable sort of confinement. It is 
 all that makes life possible. 
 
 Rinaldi. I know. The trouble is, though, that people have 
 such a weakness for the likely lie. Nobody has been able to 
 account for the suicide. 
 
 Leonardo. Why not ask the Signore? 
 
 Rinaldi. You could never get it out of him. A crime here 
 would horrify the aristocratic element; they are the persons who 
 spend the money. One cannot die here, one cannot kill oneself 
 except in some way that is agreeable. We die of happiness, we 
 kill ourselves so as not to occasion inconvenience to others. 
 Nevertheless, I have decided to swallow the whole story. A 
 reminiscence, eh, of Saturday Night? Like that affair of Lady 
 Seymour's. Of course you have heard the news? 
 
 Leonardo. Not another suicide? 
 
 Rinaldi. ^\ot this time. I met her with her arm in a sling- 
 it seems she fell in her automobile. Last year she had a cut over 
 her eye a fall, so I hear, from her horse. These accidents always 
 happen when her husband is away from home. Two or three 
 months are sufficient for the wounds to heal. 
 
 Leonardo. Physically and morally, I suppose? 
 
 Rinaldi. 1 confine myself to the truth which is official. 
 
 Leonardo. You are a very prudent woman. By the way, 
 your color is particularly fine this morning. You arc looking ex- 
 tremely well. I notice a certain austerity in your toilette . 
 
 Rinaldi. The change in my life. For a time, I was 
 threatened with nervous prostration, but my physician pre- 
 scribed a severe regimen. "Control yourself," he said. "Re- 
 member, neurasthenia is no longer in fashion. The reign ot 
 
1 88 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 nerves is at an end; this season we shall have a renascence of 
 muscle." 
 
 Leonardo. You plan to be the Michael Angelo of this re- 
 nascence. 
 
 Rinaldi. Fortunately, I had no difficulty in accommodating 
 myself to the change. Heaven directed my feet to the path of 
 salvation. 
 
 Leonardo. Without elephants? 
 
 Rinaldi. Don't recall those absurdities! I have put such 
 trifles behind me. During one of my walks in the country, I 
 stopped at the door of a Franciscan monastery. It occurred to 
 me to go in. A pale faced friar with a long, bushy beard was 
 preaching. What a sermon that was! How he did preach about 
 love, human and divine! 
 
 Leonardo. You could have preached upon the former with 
 greater show of authority. 
 
 Rinaldi. You are laughing at me. I was converted upon 
 the spot. Now, I go to hear him preach every afternoon. He is 
 a second St. Francis. I am organizing a series of festivals for 
 the restoration of the convent. 
 
 Leonardo. Poor saint! The temptations of St. Anthony 
 will be nothing to his. 
 
 Rinaldi. You must not say that; you don't know him. 
 
 Leonardo. I know you. 
 
 Rinaldi. I accept the aspersions of the world as penance for 
 my sins; I could even wish to have people think worse of me. 
 In pursuance of my plan, I am soliciting contributions from door 
 to door. Of course, I can count upon you and Imperia. Will 
 you send me one of your works for my kirmess? 
 
 Leonardo. With the greatest of pleasure. Something ap- 
 propriate a Magdalen, perhaps. Do you prefer her before or 
 after conversion? 
 
 Rinaldi. Only see that she has plenty of clothes. 
 
 Leonardo. Better have it before, then. Afterward you 
 recall in what state she ran through the wilderness although 
 the penance today is apparently not in the wilderness. 
 
 (DONINA and NUNU re-enter.} 
 
 Donina (Running after NUNU). Don't you run away! 
 Give me that letter! Give it to me, or ... 
 
 Nunu (Disovering the COUNTESS). Hush! Be still! Don't 
 you see? . . . You're always picking at me. 
 
 Donina. You always 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 189 
 
 Nunu. Let me alone, I tell you. 
 
 Rinaldi (To LEONARDO). Oh, don't bother to explain! 
 Two proteges of Imperia's . . . Daphnis and Chloc? Or 
 Paul and Virginia? This is the Garden of Love. 
 
 Leonardo. Of profane love; it is not for you. 
 
 Rinaldi. Will you tell Imperia of the object of my visit? 
 
 Leonardo. I shall announce your conversion. 
 
 Rinaldi. But merely as a preliminary; I am counting upon 
 her. 
 
 Leonardo. She is certain to hear of it. 
 
 Rinaldi. These lovers are fascinating. Both children of 
 course . . . How old is the boy? 
 
 Leonardo. Countess, a good age. 
 
 (The COUNTESS and LEONARDO go out.} 
 
 Donina. Give me that letter! Give it to me! 
 
 Nunu. That's right. Scream, kick, cry, so that everybody 
 can hear you always do. Then when you get worse, they'll 
 say it's my fault. Didn't I tell you it was for Tommy? Can't 
 you read? What do you want me to say? 
 
 Donina. For Tommy, is it? Yes, the envelope's addressed 
 to him, but maybe there's another letter inside. Maybe you've 
 arranged If you hadn't, you wouldn't have hidden while you 
 were writing it. You would have told me. What do you care if 
 I know what you write to Tommy? 
 
 Nunu. I wish you did. 
 
 Donina. I will then. Give it to me! 
 
 Nu n u . Let go ! Let go ! 
 
 Donina. Oh! ... I can't! I am choking. Oh! . . . 
 Oh! ... 
 
 Nunu. Now you see. 
 
 Donina. My God ! 
 
 (LEONARDO re-enters.} 
 
 Leonardo. What is the matter with Donina? 
 
 Donina. Nothing . . . Nothing 
 
 Nunu. She's crazy. She wants to read a letter I've written 
 to a friend; I can't stand it any longer. Because you pay me 
 you think it's easy; I have an easy life. But I don't. If it 
 wasn't 
 
 Donina. They pay you ? If it wasn't ? What do you mean ? 
 
 Leonardo. Nunu! Why do you tease Donina? 
 
 Donina. That's the only way he can enjoy himself and 
 I have given up my life for him, yes, my soul! Because I am 
 
190 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 dying for him! It was for him that I killed him, it was for him 
 that I lost my soul! 
 
 Leonardo. Donina! What have you done, you fool? 
 (Aside to Nunu.) Couldn't you wait? 
 
 Nunu. Wait? Ijve waited long enough. I can't stand it 
 anymore. So you'd like to read that letter? You want to know 
 what I've written to my friend? Well then, read it! Read it! 
 
 Donina (Snatching the letter). Ah! 
 
 Nunu. Read it! It isn't my fault. 
 
 Leonardo. What does it say? 
 
 Donina (Falling flat upon the ground). Mother of God! 
 
 Leonardo. What have you done? Donina! Donina! 
 
 Nunu. It wasn't my fault. 
 
 (IMPERIA enters.) 
 
 Leonardo. Imperia, Donina is dying. 
 
 Imperia. Donina! My child! 
 
 Donina. Leave me! Leave me! Let me die. You have 
 deceived me. Everybody has deceived me. 
 
 Imperia. What is the matter? This letter? . . . What 
 is in this letter? 
 
 Donina. Leave me ! Leave me ! 
 
 Imperia. You wretch! You have killed her. 
 
 Nunu. It wasn't my fault; she wanted to read it. I've 
 stood it long enough. Let me go! 
 
 Imperia. Go? You forget that I have you in my power 
 you coward! I thought that if I paid your price and bought 
 your soul, I could make of you what I pleased, good or evil, but 
 it was not the life that you led that made you evil, it was your 
 craven heart, you base-born brother of Prince Florencio, inca- 
 pable of pity or of love! 
 
 Donina. No, let him go. Why, did you make him deceive 
 me? Why did you deceive me, Nunu? You can go now. I 
 forgive you. Don't wait here for me to die. They'll give you 
 what they promised you. Give him his pay. He has pretended 
 long enough. I know the truth now. I am dying. It is the 
 only truth that he ever told me. 
 
 Imperia. You wrote that letter on purpose for her to see it. 
 You knew it would kill her. 
 
 Nunu. No. She did it herself. 
 
 Imperia. Leave this house at once! Don't you wait until 
 Donina is no longer here to beg me to let you go! Out of my 
 sight! 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 191 
 
 Nunu. Like this? 
 
 Leonardo. Don't you worry. You'll get your pay. (LEON- 
 ARDO and NUNU go out.} 
 
 Donina. Why did you deceive me? When all my life is a 
 lie, how am I to live? 
 
 Imperia. Donina ! 
 
 Donina. I am a hindrance to you; I know it. They want 
 you there in that Empire, that cursed Empire with its Prince, 
 its ice and its snow. The white ship is there with its white sails, 
 its men that are so pale ... It has come to take you away 
 to that Empire, of which you have been dreaming so long. 
 
 Imperia. No, Donina, no! I shall be here always with 
 you. The white ship will sail away like a white bird, but I shall 
 still be here with you, always with you ! Love is the only reality 
 of our lives. I shall be here with you, always, always with you! 
 
 Donina. Yes! Waiting for me to die like he was! 
 
 Imperia. No, Donina, your life is my life! 
 
 Donina. Before the white ship sails away like a white bird 
 I too, shall sail away forever. I shall not know it, but I shall be 
 gone, like a shadow, like a cloud from the sea. I shall have 
 passed out of your life. 
 
 Imperia. No, my Donina! Child of my heart! Of my one 
 my only love! Like shadows all, all shall pass but love that 
 ripens and lives on. 
 
 (LEONARDO and PRINCE MICHAEL enter.) 
 
 Leonardo. Imperia . . . the Prince 
 
 Imperia. You! What arc you doing here? 
 
 Prince Michael. -You have sent no answer. I have waited 
 all day. 
 
 Donina. He has come for you. 
 
 Imperia. I shall not go. 
 
 Donina. I know the truth. I tell you, you will kill me, 
 waiting here for me to die with your lies. It is too cruel! 
 
 Imperia. What do you mean? 
 
 Donina. Promise me that you will not wait; you will go 
 today. Or I shall kill myself. I will not ruin your life! 
 
 Imperia. Yes, I will go today. Leave me a little while. 
 Leonardo, help Donina. 
 
 Leonardo. Donina! 
 
 Donina. No! It was nothing. I am better now . . . 
 But I know that it is death. 
 
 (LEONARDO and DONINA go out.} 
 
1 92 SATURDAY NIGHT 
 
 Prince Michael. You will come? 
 
 Imperia. Yes. 
 
 Prince Michael. I should not have returned without you. 
 
 Imperia. Would you have renounced the throne? 
 
 Prince Michael. Why not? When it is difficult to live one's 
 own life in peace, think what it must be to rule an Empire. Mil- 
 lions of human beings engaged in the struggle to be happy, and 
 depending for their happiness upon our precious laws! 
 
 Imperia. You have no right to talk like that. Do you in- 
 tend to renounce your divine heritage? The millions of your 
 Empire are not dependent for their happiness upon you. We 
 are unable to assure the happiness even of those who are nearest 
 to our hearts. Suffering and death are over all; it is the will to 
 overcome them that makes us immortal, yes, equal unto God! 
 You know nothing of life. Good and evil have no significance 
 for you. They have for me. I have struggled, as many have 
 struggled before, against poverty, against envy and shame, in- 
 justice and outrage, I have suffered and borne all, and I say to 
 you now upon the steps of your throne: Do justly, love mercy, 
 and your Empire will be glorious among men. 
 
 (LEONARDO enters.} 
 
 Leonardo. Donina is asleep. Thanks to an anodyne she 
 has fallen asleep. If you must go, it is better now. The parting 
 would be too sad. I shall remain with her. 
 
 Imperia. Go? Leave her? No, no! I cannot. 
 
 Prince Michael. Bring her with you. 
 
 Imperia. It would kill her. No! No! 
 
 Leonardo. Death cannot be long delayed in any case. 
 
 Imperia. But she is still alive! My place is with her. 
 Can't you wait? Oh, this is horrible! Wait! 
 
 Leonardo. Leave her, Your Highness. She will come, I 
 promise you. 
 
 Prince Michael. Imperia, if you do not come before night 
 my yacht will sail, but without me. Instead, it will bear my 
 abdication. In the morning I shall be here with you to resume 
 our old life, and the Empire of Suabia will be lost to you like a 
 dream. 
 
 (TiiE PRINCE goes out.) 
 
 Imperia.- Leonardo, what shall I do? I am your idea, 
 your Imperia. Breathe your spirit into me! What ought I to 
 do? 
 
JACINTO BENAVENTE 193 
 
 Leonardo. You have fashioned your life by your will, and 
 you know where it lies. 
 
 Imperia. My vision is your ideal. I will go. But Donina. 
 Do you say that she is asleep? I must see her. 
 
 Leonardo. Your courage will fail. 
 
 Imperia. I must see her! I must see her! 
 
 Leonardo. You will not go if you do. Imperia! You will 
 not go! You will not go! 
 
 (IMPERIA enters the house. LEONARDO remains at the door 
 and listens. Presently, IMPERIA reappears.} Imperia! . . 
 
 Imperia. She is asleep. I kissed her upon the forehead and 
 she did not wake. 
 
 Leonardo. You kissed her upon the forehead? 
 
 Imperia. It is my duty to go, Leonardo, is it not? 
 
 Leonardo. Yes! Triumph, Imperia! It is the triumph of 
 my ideal! But first, tell me I must know it when you kissed 
 her forehead 
 
 Imperia. Well ? 
 
 Leonardo. Was it cold? 
 
 Imperia. Yes if you must know. She was dead. And 
 even her death cannot hold me back. Do you wonder? 
 
 Leonardo. Your soul is great. I wonder and admire. 
 
 Imperia. To achieve anything in life we must destroy 
 reality, and thrust aside the phantoms of fact, which confuse and 
 hem us round, to follow the only reality, the flight of our witches' 
 spirits on Saturday Night, as they turn to their ideal some 
 toward evil, to be lost in its shadows forever like spectres of the 
 night, others toward good, to dwell eternally in it, the children of 
 love and of light. Good-bye, Leonardo. 
 
 Leonardo. Good-bye, Imperia. 
 
 Imperia. This is the kiss of the spirit you gave me, grand 
 as your ideal! 
 
 CURTAIN 
 
BENAVENTE AS A MODERN 
 
 BY JOHN GARRETT UNDERBILL 
 
 THE commanding position of Jacinto Benavente in 
 Spanish letters has invited many explanations. A 
 dominant influence in the intellectual life not only 
 of a nation, but of many nations, both old and new, 
 bound together by the tie of a common speech, 
 must be founded upon varied excellence. In some 
 of its aspects this will be apparent at once even to the casual 
 reader; in others it will prove more subtly elusive, especially to 
 the foreigner, accustomed to a literary and critical tradition in 
 many respects distinct from that of the Spanish speaking peoples. 
 Benavente is essentially a modern. This is the key to the 
 appreciation of his art. 
 
 In a country such as ours, which is without any clear stand- 
 ard of critical opinion, where critical judgment is confused by the 
 very quantity and promiscuity of production, it is long before 
 new schools of writing meet with understanding or, indeed, attract 
 attention. And the difficulty of the situation is enhanced by the 
 fact that criticism in the United States is for the most part in the 
 hands of journalists or of college professors, to whom art is too 
 often either so much copy or an excuse for a write-up, or else a 
 matter of rules and traditions, rooted in and most richly produc- 
 tive at some point in the distant past. In this system the writer, 
 the creator as such, has no part, and it is not too much to say 
 that he has little or no influence, except in the most indirect 
 manner in shaping the aesthetic conceptions which prevail. Of 
 course this is a very evil thing, because the creative impulse is 
 the life of art, and to smother it under the false face of adver- 
 tising or the dead-weight of pedantry is to make art something 
 remote, whereas its appeal must be by its nature direct, if it is 
 to live at all. 
 
 In art, as in architecture, we are in need of a zoning system. 
 Calderon is not to be judged as if he were a writer of comic opera 
 librettos, as was recently the case in Chicago, when his Mayor of 
 'Lalamea was played in that city by Mr. Ditrichstein. Neither is 
 
 194 
 
JOHN GARRETT UNDERHILL 195 
 
 a Benavente to be measured by the scale which has been marked 
 upon the dramatic door jamb to register the successive upward 
 shootings of a Jones, or even of a Pinero or an Echegaray. 
 
 Now the essence of modernism is that it rejects the past; 
 it denies it validity in itself. Only as the past is absorbed into 
 the present, only insofar as it becomes a part of the living tissue 
 of emotion and volition in us, and so reproduces itself in our acts, 
 can it be said to be alive. For the rest its value is potential 
 merely. Here is the fault of our liberal education, which it would 
 be an irony to call modern. The student is prepared for life by 
 being taught what is of no use to him, and he comes out of college 
 with a degree and a load of dead rhetoric, obsolete metaphor, 
 meaningless convention, hoary learning, and a farrago of useless 
 conceptions with which his days are thence forward accursed. 
 These things the modern sweeps away. There is no reason why 
 our young men or our elders should write like Shakespeare or 
 Virgil. They cannot, besides it is useless to repeat the old figures 
 with or without the use of quotes. The artist sets down what 
 he sees; he reproduces his experience. To do this the right word 
 is necessary, and the right word must be exact, and so his own, 
 not that of some other man. When he has found the right word, 
 it is all with which either he or his reader has concern. 
 
 With the recognition of this axiom, the great body of school 
 exercises which we are accustomed to speak of as contemporary 
 poetry goes by the board. 
 
 Life, however, is not a mere succession of perceptions and 
 sensations, a process of disjointed thought. It is a complex of 
 members, more or less ordered. The writer must present these 
 complexes with a degree of truth equal to that of his detail. He 
 must not compose his material with his eye upon the effect, lie- 
 must not construct it, so as to insure himself striking scenes, 
 climaxes at fixed points, and trim and outrig it to conform with 
 certain "laws" of art. These things are childish, and belong to 
 the moving picture world, and at best to the simple art of design. 
 The writer's material must grow under his hand, developing itself 
 according to its own nature, which is its law, because its signi- 
 ficance lies in the conclusion which was from the beginning implicit 
 or else it is without significance of any sort. The artist has the 
 option of approaching his subject matter from many sides, but 
 when once it has been approached his problem is determined, 
 and it lies within the province of the critic to appraise the result. 
 But all artificial generalizations are false. For this reason the 
 
I 9 6 BENAVENTE AS A MODERN 
 
 theatergoer avoids masters of "craftmanship" and "technique." 
 It is not easy to surprise the present day audience and it is daily 
 becoming more difficult to shock it. 
 
 Drama does not now suffer from elegance to the same extent 
 as does verse, which is the refuge of antiques; yet it would be 
 discourteous to apply ordinary sense to the consideration of the 
 general run of plays, even to those which make pretentions to 
 rank as what is called "literature." 
 
 I have dwelt upon these fundamentals at such length, be- 
 cause what Benavente undertook to do when he began to write 
 in 1893 was to assure the recognition of their truth as the basis, 
 the foundation principle of the new Spanish art. This spread 
 first to this country in the works of the painters, brilliant color- 
 ists, stylists who needed no translator other than the light. But 
 modern Spanish literature is no less brilliant, and it is far more 
 profound. Of course there have been, and are, modernists in 
 the full sense in other countries, but they have not been able to 
 impose themselves decisively upon a commercialized literature. 
 They are tolerated; they exist. But the important fact is that 
 Benavente succeeded and that with his coadjutors, he actually 
 did impose a new standard upon criticism and in so doing infused 
 new vitality into letters and upon the stage. He was not able to 
 make an end of bad writing in Spain, but he was able to make 
 people call it bad. In doing so he brought back to his country 
 the breadth and directness of the realism of Cervantes not of 
 the Cervantes of the pastorals, but of the best portions of Don 
 Quixote. It is an art which in its frank actuality, its uncom- 
 promising acceptance of the irreducible fact, is above all others 
 suited to the Spanish genius. Small wonder then that during 
 the past twenty years its seeds have multiplied with astonishing 
 effect, until his reputation has attained a height hitherto unsur- 
 passed throughout the Spanish-speaking world. 
 
 The Governor'' s Wife and Saturday Night, the two plays with 
 which Benavente is introduced to readers of POET LORE, previous 
 to their inclusion in the collected edition of his works, represent 
 a double aspect of this development, and will be of interest to all 
 students of the theatre. 
 
 The Governor's Wife is a striking example of objective descrip- 
 tion, particularly in the first and the third acts. It is a play of 
 infinite detail, of detail heaped upon detail. These details speak 
 for themselves; the author has not interfered with them. As the 
 aside and the monologue were dropped from our drama with the 
 
JOHN GARRETT UNDERBILL 197 
 
 close of the past century, so here Benavente frees himself from 
 any suspicion of interpretation of his characters. In the first act 
 they hardly speak in any proper sense even for themselves; it is 
 their minor actions, the inconsequential incidents which count, 
 and these apparently are not ordered to any end, but follow each 
 other in the tumultuous sequence of the bustle of a provincial 
 holiday. There are undoubtedly acts of the nature of this in the 
 French theatre one indeed need look no further than the earlier 
 work of Lavedan; but in Lavedan this wealth of incident is all 
 arranged to contribute to an effect. Similar congeries occur 
 among the Russians, as in Gorky; yet these partake of the wild, 
 and a powerful emotional element soon disengages itself and 
 dominates the rest. In The Governor's Wife the incidents of the 
 first act are approximately all of equal value, nor have they any 
 conspicuous emotional quality. Naturally they have been se- 
 lected, composed, if one will, with exceptional adroitness. Never- 
 theless, the effect arises chiefly from the absolute veracity and 
 minute photographic property of the incidents themselves, 
 wholly objectively and by cumulation. The living scene appears 
 before the spectator, and he participates in it in so many ways 
 that he is taken off his guard, until he actually acquires a sort of 
 citizenship in the town of Moraleda, whose people he knows, not 
 through any literary artifice, but casually upon the street, or at 
 the cafe, some fairly well perhaps, even thoroughly, while there 
 are others of vague outline, or whom he fails to remember at all. 
 If in The Governor's Wife Benavente achieved something 
 typically Spanish, yet without prototype in the Spanish theatre, 
 except in his own work, his example was not to be without imita- 
 tors. Without these plays there would have been no Quinteros, 
 who, abandoning the Gallic farce of Aza and Ramos Carrion, 
 turned for their second manner to this school. In the novel, 
 there would have been no Peo Baroja. Readers of The Governor's 
 Wife will at once recall The City of the Discreet with its multiform 
 provincial life, actively somnolent beneath an Audalusian, not a 
 Castilian sun. The engaging, disengaged cynicism of Quentin 
 and Manolo marks them as brothers. They are both anti-heroes 
 whose soulessness is the soul of the works in which they appear. 
 Baroja, however, remains always strictly objective; his characters 
 must be pieced together laboriously. In Benavente there is a 
 strangely insinuating quality which is never absent; he seems 
 invariably to be subjective, and without visible means, or the 
 appearance of doing so, to turn his character? inside out, and to 
 
198 BENAVENTE AS A MODERN 
 
 view them with us from all sides at once, and at the same time 
 to see through them. He always illuminates; he knows no 
 peripheries, even when preoccupied with what might seem the 
 externalities of art. 
 
 The Governor's Wife marks the ultimate point to which in 
 Benavente's conception, the objective method, with its peculiar 
 limitations, may be carried in drama. Nowhere in the theatre 
 is there a play in which the environment, for its own savor, domi- 
 nates the action so completely. This is not only true in the 
 exposition, but at the climax at the clobe in that most vivid of 
 bull-fights, which is never seen, yet takes place under the specta- 
 tors' very eyes, absorbing the main action entirely, which is con- 
 veyed to the audience less through the characters themselves as 
 individuals, than in the mass as members of the crowd. 
 
 The production of The Governor's Wife was followed within 
 less than two years by that of Saturday Night. This powerful 
 drama is another example of the new theatre, although in a 
 wholly different sphere. Its effect is curiously encyclopedic 
 not chaotic, but vast, unconfined, in a word cycloramic. The 
 suggestion is one of reaching out indefinitely in all directions, of a 
 movement which goes on and on. Benavente has drawn this 
 tragic story out of the environment in which he leaves it, much 
 as a pattern is visible in a brocade. Here dependence upon en- 
 vironment is relied on for the impression of universality and 
 power. The environment ceases to be the subject and becomes 
 the guarantor of the play. It is interesting to note how the 
 absoluteness of the objective method which was employed in the 
 comedy, is tempered in this play. Serious drama must depend 
 of necessity upon emotion. Character and dramatic action are 
 not wholly susceptible of purely objective interpretation, but 
 intimate and personal, and so must be directly conveyed. A 
 sound conclusion is impossible upon data which are imperfectly 
 known. Saturday Night is the furthest advance of Benavente 
 in this method in the realm of serious drama. 
 
 Benavente is the most versatile of dramatists. This is not 
 only true upon the technical side, but in the extraordinary range 
 and complexity of human feeling and motive which is invariable 
 throughout his theatre. Even his first period, vvhich may be said 
 to have ended shortly after the production of Saturday Night, 
 exhibits almost every shade and kind of dramatic experiment. 
 He has tried them all. But he was born with the gift of charac- 
 ter, of penetration into man's mind, insight. He always dis- 
 
JOHN GARRETT UNDERBILL 199 
 
 plays an unusual faculty of interpretation. This appears in 
 the beginning. With the lapse of years it has become more 
 pronounced, and in his later plays Benavente seems to feel that 
 in the immediate, or if the phrase may be admitted, the trans- 
 parent presentation of character, through a style potent in strange- 
 ly fertile suggestion, the truest of dramatic effects is to be attained. 
 Subjective in the extreme, it yields a prompt result, nor does he 
 return again as a chief reliance to the impersonal objectivity of 
 an earlier day. 
 
 For, in the final analysis, the theatre of Benavente is a 
 theatre of character, in the heart, in the will, in the mind, and in 
 the spirit, which vitalizes them and in which they become audible 
 in mysterious undertone. He is an unsurpassed observer of 
 men. He comprehends them; and not only this, but he com- 
 prehends them at a glance. And he comprehends woman at a 
 glance. The machinery of life and in life the machinery ior 
 the most part appertains particularly to what is distinctively 
 man's life plays small part in his scenes. He penetrates to 
 essential character, which, except in superficial instances, lies 
 beyond occupation. The result of problems concerns him, the 
 postulates which inhere in their solution, the working out of these 
 in human terms, in feeling and ways of thought, and in acts 
 afterward of human and irremediable import. Upon occasion 
 his psychology is so keenly subtle, so completely exact that it 
 becomes physical, and embodies the character before our eyes in 
 the fleshly reality of fact. At other times, in more intellectual 
 forms, his people appear to the reader, with an insubstantiality 
 as of disembodied spirits, existing almost impersonally in the 
 domain of the abstractions of pure thought. All classes of men 
 and women are reproduced in his work, but there are no types. 
 Through all his astounding product one will search in vain for one 
 villain; and one will search in vain for one hero. Nature does 
 not mark off from others her favorite sons. There is nothing 
 theatric in his genius. The danger which besets the reader ot 
 Benavente is that of underestimating his worth, or rather of 
 failing at first to estimate it at its true value. He is free from 
 posed problems and sententious precepts, innocent of adventi- 
 tious appeal; he neither courts nor wins the unimaginative, the 
 dull mind, nor is his stage more portentous than life, but from 
 page to page and scene to scene it lives, lives with a strange, 
 vivifying power, always present, always true, which infuses even 
 the slightest detail with the significance of the greatest, and 
 
200 BENAVENTE AS A MODERN 
 
 makes his work in its totality one of the most remarkable human 
 and, in the modern sense, spiritual documents that literature 
 has known. Benavente suffers no illusions; he sees and he knows 
 and in some manner he contrives to make us feel that he always 
 has known. His is the most sophisticated of arts, because it is 
 the finest flower of an old, anciently corrupt, disillusioned civiliza- 
 tion, which has at last awakened spiritually, and searched itself, 
 taking account of the evil with what there is of the good, and 
 set itself bluntly and unflinchingly again to become strong. 
 
 This fascinating theatre, especially upon its idealistic side, 
 has been the most potent force in the upbuilding of modern 
 Spain. 
 
 DEPENDENCE 
 
 BY GUSTAV DAVIDSON 
 
 We need each other: I am weak without 
 
 Your faith in my endeavors, which is crown 
 
 Above the valuing. Whether has flown 
 
 The best of hopes, and, overwhelmed with doubt 
 
 I sink inglorious, or midst the rout 
 
 Of vanquished rivals, honored grows my name, 
 
 It cannot matter: for I count it fame 
 
 If your voice only in acclaim rings out. 
 
 And equally I serve you, having freed 
 Your soul from doubt, to win enlargement, scope, 
 And prove your life more various and wide. 
 Thus are our spirits linked in mutual need 
 And sweet dependence on that valiant hope 
 Which bears us safe across life's ruthless tide! 
 
BENAVENTE AS AN INTERPRET- 
 ER OF WOMAN 
 
 BY MARIANO ALARCON 
 
 JACINTO BENAVENTE is the glory and pride of Spanish 
 letters of the present day. 
 How has the foremost of our contemporary drama- 
 tists been able to attract our minds with such magnetic 
 power, that he dominates and captivates them and 
 plays with them as his own, when and how he will? 
 Simply by letting women talk. 
 
 Despite the fact that Benavente is the flower of the Spanish 
 genius of our time, perhaps this happy faculty with which he 
 imparted to his pages a subtlety akin to that of exquisitely blended 
 perfumes, which can be appreciated only by the most refined 
 tastes, made the rise to popularity of even such an extraordinary 
 genius of the theatre difficult in the beginning. To a certain 
 extent the Spanish and Hispano-American peoples are misogynists 
 by nature, and, moreover, they have been not a little wedded in 
 the past to the more romantic and violent theatrical traditions, 
 which still ruled the naive souls of our fathers with unquestioned 
 sway during the latter half of the past century. 
 
 But it is impossible to stay the laws of Nature. The march 
 of progress is steady and inevitable, and, as spectators, we daily- 
 recognize its inflexibility even in the realm of the smallest and 
 most insignificant details. Evolution was not to stop her course 
 to make an exception which would prevent the ultimate triumph 
 of the plays of this iconoclast of the theatre. 
 
 When Benavente's first comedies were performed, the specta- 
 tors received them with indifference or else with unconcealed 
 contempt. They sat as in a state of apparently arrested develop- 
 ment, whether more childish or more brutally rude in demeanor 
 it would be profitless to inquire. But there was genius in his 
 plays, and in all the controversies which ensued, this genius was 
 the one constant factor. In the end genius rose superior to 
 popular indifference and disrespect. 
 
 201 
 
202 BENAVENTE AS AN INTERPRETER OF WOMAN 
 
 It did not matter greatly that at the outset critical opinion 
 was adverse. This was partly due to ignorance, partly to malice. 
 But again genius was the determining factor, and it soon put to 
 rout the malevolence of hostile critics, and educated those critics 
 who were merely ignorant in good faith. 
 
 Society sought to isolate the dramatist through a conspiracy 
 of silence and neglect, to intimidate him by ostracizing him in so 
 far as it was able. The conspiracy was not successful. The 
 possession of exceptional genius isolated him even more from his 
 fellows by its very nature. He was conscious of superiority over 
 those with whom he came into contact. Again genius was the 
 deciding factor. It enabled him to continue to produce works 
 of such remarkable beauty, that in themselves they were more 
 than sufficient to bring to naught any conspiracy and to trans- 
 mute the activities of its promoters into respectful, submissive 
 applause. 
 
 All opposition and all enemies were equally impotent to 
 depress his spirit, however numerous or in whatever form. They 
 did not discourage him, instead they fired him with determina- 
 tion to overcome, strengthened his resolution, and prepared him 
 to meet the final test in the struggle when it should arrive, surer 
 of the outcome after every trial, and more supremely confident 
 of ultimate victory because certain of himself to the point of 
 triumph, both definitive and complete. Indeed victory was 
 never in doubt from the beginning, Because genius was present 
 from the beginning, and victory always smiles upon genius, and 
 metamorphoses the burden which it bears upon its back, ap- 
 parently without hope, into wings. 
 
 Senavente continued to advance by dint of unceasing labor, 
 an apostle of ideals. At length he opened a narrow footpath for 
 himself through the thick tangle of provincial and national 
 prejudice and preoccupation. His enemies strewed his way with 
 obstacles, and it was not without cost. Time passed, and he 
 still labored on unremittingly, until today the narrow footpath 
 has became a broad highway down which the multitude of art- 
 lovers flock the world over, peering forward to do homage to the 
 once lonely pioneer. All those of his race who are engaged in the 
 production of beautiful things follow down it, eager to learn, and 
 every one of them is treading in the footsteps of the master. He 
 made the path with his own hands, and now fame too has sought 
 him down it through all the horizons of the Spanish-speaking 
 lands, upon which the sun never sets. 
 
MARIANO ALARCON 203 
 
 There have been few instances in the history of any nation 
 in which homage and applause have been bestowed with such 
 unanimity, such consensus of judgment, as upon this versatile 
 creator of beautiful women. In my opinion, it is his gift in this, 
 his singular ability to create, to conjure up the souls of living 
 women, that has won him the affection, respect and admiration 
 of the Spanish-speaking peoples. All his women are absolutely 
 individual and distinct, in spite of the wonderful profusion in 
 which they occur throughout the range of his work; each is differ- 
 ent from every other, each has her peculiar personality, each 
 her own character apart from that of all the others, and yet, 
 although they are so many, not one of them is lacking in elusive 
 feminine charm, which harmonizes all their differences in its 
 persuasiveness. 
 
 We must turn to the drama of Benavente for the purest 
 and finest of all emotions intellectual apprehension of and 
 sympathy with the soul of woman. In bringing this to us, he 
 has redeemed the theatre from another condition, which was not 
 so intellectual, with which the stage of the century which has 
 just closed regaled us through the exhibition of unadulterated 
 feminine sex instinct. 
 
 The Spanish peoples have always been quick of compre- 
 hension. Although their expression may be over voluble at 
 times, it could never be urged with justice that they were deficient 
 in appreciation. They owe to this distinguished dramatist a 
 tremendous debt, because the study, the appreciation of woman 
 is one of the principal occupations of life. It is particularly so 
 among us of the Spanish stock, thanks, nodoubt, to the influence of 
 a Greco-Latin ancestry. In consequence it was impossible for 
 the public long to withold the sanction of its favor. No wonder 
 that it showered its admiration upon this unrivalled psychologist, 
 who first revealed to it the hitherto but ill-understood, bewilder- 
 ing feminine consciousness, and spread its ieatures abroad, and 
 the knowledge of it through every stratum of our nations. Coran: 
 populo, Benavente has made it easy for every one of us to enjoy 
 in imagination for at heart man is an inveterate dreamer the 
 pleasures and passions, the tender sympathies and confidences 
 which lie hidden in our souls, in the depths of ourbeing, waiting 
 forexpression with the woman of our choice, but which we are able 
 to enjoy in his plays vicariously with the very women of our 
 fancy, who seem molded and suited exactly to the individuality 
 and idiosyncrasies of us each. Here are delicate feminine spirits 
 
204 BENAVENTE AS AN INTERPRETER OF WOMAN 
 
 whose motions a cunning hand has caught with the certain 
 mastery of the seer, versed in every convolution and aberration 
 of the feminine temperament, which is presented to the eye, now 
 in the most evanescent and softest of emotional tones, now in rough 
 brusque outline, or now shading to the remote, the vaguely roman- 
 tic. A rare insight has guided his hand. He has practised the 
 precept of Leonardo da Vinci in his Treatise on Painting, giving 
 to each character the maximum force and truth of expression, 
 and illuminating them all outward from within with the light of a 
 varied intelligence, always diverse yet always beautiful, for the 
 simple reason that every one of them has been endowed by his 
 hand with something that is his own. There are innumerable 
 portraits in the Royal Gallery of Noble Women, but the most 
 aptly, the most suggestively drawn will be found in the captivat- 
 ing living collection of the plays of Jacinto Benavente. It is a 
 collection which has been amassed with infinite zest by a taste 
 more congenial to the refinements of a sublimated cosmopolitan- 
 ism, than to the frank and somewhat brutal asperities of historic 
 Spanish life. 
 
 Nevertheless the revelation which Benavente has made of 
 woman to man is not his greatest service. He has revealed woman 
 to herself. She reaches her own soul in his plays, where it seems 
 projected as if in a mirror before her, where, seated, it meets her 
 astonished eyes. 
 
 I have no hesitation in asserting that no other single factor 
 has contributed to so great a degree to Benavente's success since 
 the beginning, nor to the present moment continues so to aug- 
 ment the vogue of his plays, as his revelation of the heart of 
 woman. In this he has conferred upon literature a tremendous 
 boon. But for this appeal, the unresponsiveness with which the 
 Benaventian comedies were obliged to contend for a time, in 
 order to maintain a precarious existence upon the stage, would 
 have endured much longer than it did, although in defiance of 
 justice, and as a stigma upon our intelligence and good name. 
 
 Fortunately, gratitude is a powerful element in all heated 
 controversies, where adequate reason for it exists even in con- 
 troversies which concern the merits of artists and of their work. 
 Perfect impartiality is an empty phrase; we judge things accord- 
 ing as we like or dislike them. Empassioned reason and personal, 
 feeling find their most fertile soil, as we know, in the heart of 
 woman, and these have imposed upon woman a debt of gratitude 
 that is unforgettable to her most searching and profound histori- 
 
MARIANO ALARCON 205 
 
 an. Her gratitude and her appreciation bore the brunt of the 
 fray in the decisive triumph of his theatre, and they have sus- 
 tained it loyally ever since in undiminished popularity. 
 
 In legendary Greece, in the city of Delphos, a temple was 
 erected to Apollo, above whose portal were inscribed the words, 
 so that all men might read: "Know thyself." Another temple 
 has since been erected in another city, not less fortunate, to the 
 goddess Venus, above whose portal are inscribed the words, so 
 that all women may read: "Know too thyself." 
 
 This temple, it is needless to say, is the theatre of Jacinto 
 Benavente. 
 
 RENCONTRE 
 
 BY GUSTAV DAVIDSON 
 
 I felt, when yesterday we met by chance, 
 
 That you were destined in this casual way 
 
 To give new lease of energy and play 
 
 Unto my drooping art. One full, warm glance 
 
 From your love-brimming eyes fell like a lance 
 
 Upon my soul, pricking it to aspire 
 
 As once it had. Now, in the reviving fire, 
 
 I glow again and view the wide expanse! 
 
 You came and smote to life each laggard dream, 
 Visions of attainment made twice fair. 
 And hope renewed, with promise of avail. 
 In your sustaining strength I wage supreme 
 With the contenders for the upper air, 
 Knowing that soon I shall o'er all prevail! 
 
OVID AS A SHORT-STORY WRIT- 
 ER IN THE LIGHT OF MOD- 
 ERN TECHNIQUE 
 
 BY ALEXANDER KADJSON, A. M. 
 
 THE works of Ovid have been the object of a vast 
 amount of critical investigation on the part of 
 classical scholars without number. The Amores, 
 the Tristia, the Heroides, the Metamorphoses, have 
 been explored and re-explored from literally count- 
 less angles. Never yet, however, has the Roman 
 poet been viewed in the light of a potential contributor mutatis 
 mutandis, as the pedants say to the popular magazines publish- 
 ing the best type of short-stories in, say, the year 1900, or 1910, 
 or, better still, 1917. Such an investigation assuredly needs no 
 apology; for Ovid, however interesting to a certain type of mind 
 may be the purely linguistic elements inherent in his poetry, was 
 par excellence the story-teller of antiquity, and his Metamorphoses 
 its most notable collection of short stories. 
 
 What chance, then, would Ovid (or, to speak somewhat more 
 precisely, an Ovid) stand with a present-day editor whose prac- 
 tice it was to reject with unfailing regularity as none, of course, 
 do such "short-stories" as did not illustrate what he conceived 
 to be the correct modern technique? With a view to determin- 
 ing the answer to this question, I endeavored some time ago to 
 analyze half a dozen selections taken at random from the Meta- 
 morphoses. It was evident at the start that, if I was to arrive at 
 any tangible results, I should be obliged to adopt certain canons 
 of criticism before proceeding with the examination proper. To 
 resort to the so-called "method of sympathetic induction," I 
 felt, would have been open to the rather serious objection that 
 the "method " in question may lead anywhither or nowhither, de- 
 pending upon the fancy of the writer. I therefore decided (though 
 
 206 
 
ALEXANDER KADISON A. M. 207 
 
 this course itself is admittedly not without some drawbacks) to 
 accept as authoritative for the time being, at any rate the 
 opinions of some recognized writer on short-story technique. 
 
 With all due respect for, and deference to, college professors 
 as a class, I ventured to assume (and I hope some college pro- 
 fessors may be able to agree with me) that my authority ought 
 preferably to be not a college professor, however excellent a 
 theoretical knowledge of the subject he might command ; but 
 rather, if possible, a man who had actually spent some years in 
 an editorial capacity on one of the better class of magazines 
 affording a market for the writer of short-stories. Thus I came 
 to choose as the authority to be followed Dr. J. Berg Esenwein, 
 than whom there is, I believe, no one more competent to speak 
 on the subject of the short-story. Dr. Esenwein, it may be re- 
 marked, held the position of editor of Lippincott* s Magazine for 
 about a decade, and also is the author of several books treating 
 of the short-story. It was from his work entitled Writing the 
 Short-Story that I derived the canons of criticism by means of 
 which I was enabled to consider, on a purely deductive basis, the 
 six selections from the Metamorphoses to which I have alluded 
 already. 
 
 II 
 
 Without having entertained any foregone conclusions what- 
 soever, I found that whereas four of the six selections I examined 
 could not be regarded as short-stories at all, but were rather 
 tales, one of the six was a perfect short-story from the stand- 
 point of modern technique, and another an almost perfect example 
 of that literary form. The number of instances investigated was 
 manifestly too small to admit of my formulating any very general 
 conclusion as to the frequency of the short-story in the works of 
 Ovid, or even in the Met 'amor -phases alone. It was certain, how- 
 ever, incredible though it might seem, that the Roman poet 
 who, having passed away in the year 17 A. D., has now been dead 
 for exactly nineteen centuries both could and did write stories 
 allied in respect of technique to the most popular form of litera- 
 ture prevalent at the present day. 
 
 Now, this is the more remarkable by reason of the fact that 
 it has been expressly stated that "ancient and early medieval 
 tales are of three kinds: the simple anecdote, the scenario for 
 condensed plot), and, very rarely, the real short-story," (II ntin* 
 
208 OVID AS A SHORT-STORY WRITER 
 
 the Short-Story, p. 4). On the basis of my little study, I feel justi- 
 fied in surmising, to say no more, that in Ovid, at least, the 
 presence of the short-story is probably not so rare a phenomenon 
 as Dr. Esenwein's assertion (which is based upon the opinion of 
 Professor C. S. Baldwin, author of American Short Stories) might 
 lead one to suppose. 
 
 Owing to limitations of space it would hardly be feasible, 
 nor even did space permit could it be very profitable, to record 
 in detail the complete results of my examination, especially since, 
 as has been said, only one of the half-dozen selections analyzed 
 proved to be a perfect example of the short-story. It may be of 
 interest, however, to have the examination in the case of that 
 single selection set forth in these pages, not least because it so 
 happens that the two leading characters, Pyramis and Thisbe, 
 are the literary prototypes of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The story of Pyramis and Thisbe embraces lines 55 through 
 1 66 of the fourth book of the Metamorphoses. Pyramis and 
 Thisbe, two lovers of Babylon whose parents relentlessly oppose 
 their marriage, agree to meet at the tomb of old King Ninus, 
 beyond the city walls. Thisbe, the first to arrive at the ap- 
 pointed spot, encounters a lioness, and while fleeing from the 
 beast loses her veil. The lioness, her jaws all red with the newly- 
 spilt blood of cattle, tears the veil with her gory mouth. Pyramis 
 finds it, and, believing Thisbe to have been devoured, forthwith 
 stabs himself. Both the root and the fruit of the adjacent mul- 
 berry tree are stained with his blood and assume a purple hue. 
 Thisbe, having been in concealment, returns, and slays herself 
 with Pyramis' sword. In accordance with her dying wish, ex- 
 pressed in an impassioned prayer to the gods, the mulberries 
 and thereafter all mulberries retain their dark color, an eternal 
 memorial of the ill-starred lovers. 
 
 Positive Canon No. i: The true short-story is marked by a 
 single predominating incident. (Esenwein, p. 30.) 
 
 Does the story of Pyramis and Thisbe exhibit a single pre- 
 dominating incident? Obviously it does, all that takes place at 
 the tomb of Ninus constituting that incident. In the very first 
 respect, then, the selection conforms to the requirements of 
 modern short-story technique. 
 
ALEXANDER KADISON, A. M. 209 
 
 Positive Canon No. 2: The true short-story is marked by a 
 single pre-eminent character, or rarely by two chief charac- 
 ters that are strictly co-ordinate. (Esenwein, p. 30.) 
 
 Do we find a single pre-eminent character, or two chief 
 characters that are strictly co-ordinate? Clearly, we do; and the 
 two chief characters are announced at the very beginning of the 
 story (lines 55-56): 
 
 " Pyramis et Thisbe, juvenum pulcherrimus alter, 
 altera, quas Oriens habuit, praelata puellis, " 
 
 "Pyramis and Thisbe, he the most beauteous of youths, she 
 the fairest maid in all the Orient." The leading characters, 
 moreover, are strictly co-ordinate and complementary. Without 
 either one of them, the story, manifestly, would not have been 
 possible. 
 
 The only other characters mentioned in the course of the 
 narrative namely, the gods, t.,e respective fathers of Pyramis 
 and Thisbe, and possibly the lovers' guardians play no active 
 part in connection with the events recounted and, far from being 
 chief characters, are on the contrary distinctly subordinate ones. 
 As to King Ninus, long since " dead and turned to clay, " at whose 
 tomb the lovers meet, nothing need be said, the story not being 
 grounded upon spiritism; and as for the lioness, the unsuspecting 
 root of all the trouble, it may be pointed out that as an animal 
 and a merely impersonal agent or tool, she is not properly a 
 character in the technical sense. 
 
 Positive Canon No. 3: The true short-story must display 
 imagination. (Esenwein, p. 30.) 
 
 Is the story under consideration an imaginative one? This 
 question plainly requires no formal answer. It is sufficient to 
 recall that the Metamorphoses was avowedly a compendium of 
 mythological narratives, and that the story ot Pyramis and Thisbe 
 constitutes one of that number. Yet, in addition, Ovid explicitly 
 indicates (line 53) that the story was no common and well-known 
 tale, but one decidedly out of the ordinary: 
 
 " ... haec . . . vulgaris fabula non est" 
 "this is no common tale." And in displaying imagination, 
 the selection again conforms to the demands of modern short- 
 story technique. 
 
210 OVID AS A SHORT-STORY WRITER 
 
 Positive Canon No. 4: The true short-story is marked by the 
 presence of a plot. (Esenwein, p. 30.) "We must look for 
 one essential feature of a true plot complication, by which 
 I mean not complexity, but a happening, a crisis. Strictly, 
 narratives without crises are without plots, and . . . are 
 tales rather than short-stories. In the former, events take 
 a simple course; whereas in the latter this course is inter- 
 rupted by a complication. Something happens, and that 
 happening starts, or sometimes actually constitutes, the plot* 
 The rival interferes with the lover, or the 'villain' carries out 
 his scheme, or an accident happens, or a hidden condition is 
 disclosed; whereupon things are tied up, and the reader re- 
 mains more or less in suspense until the denouement. " (Ibid., 
 P- 74-) 
 
 Now, Dr. Esenwein's description of the one essential feature 
 of a true plot so exactly fits our selection that one might almost 
 suppose that he had the story of Pyramis and Thisbe in mind at 
 the time he wrote that description. Clearly, the "happening" 
 or "crisis" is the tearing of Thisbe's veil by the lioness. "Some- 
 thing happens, and that happening starts . . . the plot." 
 "An accident happens." Our story very definitely has a plot, 
 and thus is characterized by the fourth requisite of the true 
 short-story. 
 
 Positive Canon No. 5: The true short-story is marked by 
 compression. (Esenwein, p. 30.) 
 
 Positive Canon No. 6: It is marked also by organization. 
 (Ibid) 
 
 Positive Canon No. 7: Finally, it is marked by unity of im- 
 pression. (Ibid.} 
 
 In order that this analysis may not be unduly prolonged, let 
 us consider the fifth, sixth, and seventh indispensable character- 
 istics of the true short-story all together, as does Dr. Esenwein 
 when he sums them up in the statement that "the details . . . 
 are so compressed, and the whole treatment so organized, as to 
 produce a single impression." Now, the entire story, with its 
 wealth of details, is related by Ovid within the meagre space of 
 one hundred and twelve lines of hexameter verse. The mere 
 statement of this fact should suffice to show that the story ex- 
 
ALEXANDER KADISON, A. M. 211 
 
 hibits compression; and that compression is so very marked as 
 inevitably to result, of itself, in a unity of impression. And as 
 for organization, a reading of the story itself, or even of a synop- 
 sis of it, such, for example, as the one I have given, is sufficient 
 evidence for me here, to be sure, opinions theoretically might 
 differ, though I fail to see how they could reasonably do so in 
 the present instance that the whole treatment is indeed "so 
 organized as to produce a single impression." One finds, there- 
 fore, compression, the fifth characteristic of the short-story, 
 organization, the sixth, and unity of impression, the seventh. 
 
 To what extent this organization was conscious, and to what 
 extent it was not, is doubtless an interesting question, though 
 probably an insoluble one; but, in any event, the solution to it 
 does not concern us in connection with the present examination. 
 It would manifestly make not a particle of difference, as far as 
 technique went, if the organization (to suppose an impossible 
 case) had been entirely unconscious a result of genius pure and 
 undefiled. It is the finished product with which we are con- 
 cerned the objective condition of certain of Ovid's writings, 
 not the subjective condition of the writer. 
 
 IV 
 
 Remarkable though it must appear and justly Ovid's 
 story of Pyramis and Thisbe is thus shown to be a perfect ex- 
 ample of the short-story in the light of modern technique. It 
 has been tested by all the positive canons of criticism laid down 
 by an authority on the subject of short-story writing, those 
 canons having been drawn up without reference to the selection 
 in question. I myself, as already stated, entertained no foregone 
 conclusions in the matter, and have neither attempted nor desired 
 to force any such conclusions. 
 
 Yet one naturally cannot help being skeptical in the face of 
 such a striking revelation. The question inevitably arises wheth- 
 er the story, after all, may not be something other than a short- 
 story, despite its apparent resemblance to that literary form. 
 Let us, then, see whether it is or not. Just as we have applied 
 our positive canons, let us now impartially apply the negative 
 ones, as a check upon the results thus far arrived at. 
 
 Negative Canon No. I: "The short-story is not a condensed 
 novel . . . The short-story produces a singleness of 
 
212 OVID AS A SHORT-STORY WRITER 
 
 effect denied to the novel ... It must differ from the 
 novel in scope and in structure. Speaking broadly, the 
 novel is expansive, the short-story intensive. The great 
 novelists sought 'the all-embracing view' of life, the short- 
 story writer looks upon a special . . . character, inci- 
 dent, or experience." Unlike the novel, which "is often 
 complicated by episodes and contributory sub-plots," "the 
 short-story exploits a single predominating incident, to which 
 the other incidents few, if any must be subordinate and 
 directly contributory." "In its singleness of effect, in its 
 more minute scope, and in its simplicity of structure, the 
 short-story proves itself to be something quite different 
 from a mere condensed novel." (Esenwein, pp. 19-23.) 
 
 We have seen already that the story of Pyramis and Thisbe 
 produces singleness of effect, or unity of impression, which is the 
 same thing, and that it therein resembles the short-story. Fur- 
 thermore, since the story of Pyramis and Thisbe definitely deals 
 with a special pair of characters who are strictly co-ordinate (the 
 dramatic equivalent of "a special . . . character"); since 
 it definitely deals with " a special . . . incident, " "a special 
 experience;" since it cannot by any manner of means 
 be said to deal with " ' the all-embracing view' of life," it is 
 again like the modern short-story rather than the condensed 
 novel. 
 
 The narrative, moreover, cannot be said to be complicated 
 by episodes or by contributory sub-plots, for it contains no epi- 
 sodes or contributory sub-plots at all. Neither has it any "other 
 incidents. " (The conversations of the lovers, through a chink 
 in the party-wall connecting their homes, are not technically 
 incidents, since they do not involve action in the technical sense.) 
 As has elsewhere been noted, the story exhibits a single pre- 
 dominating incident, or, one might have said more simply, only 
 a single incident of any description whatever. Once more, then, 
 the narrative partakes of the character of the short-story rather 
 than of the condensed novel. 
 
 "In its singleness of effect," which is present in our selec- 
 tion "in its more minute scope," which is likewise present- 
 "and in its simplicity of structure," which similarly character- 
 izes the selection "the short-story proves itself to be something 
 quite different from a mere condensed novel." Metamorphoses, 
 IV, 55-166, is not a condensed novel. 
 
ALEXANDER KADISON, A. M. 213 
 
 Negative Canon No. 2: "The short-story is not an episode 
 . . . While the episode fits in with the rest of the novel, 
 into which it was parenthetically inserted to illustrate some 
 phase of character or of conduct, the short-story is not meant 
 to dovetail into a novel which is to appear later." (This 
 is addressed to the writer, or would-be writer, of short- 
 stories; hence the preceptive phrasing of the second sentence, 
 with which we are, however, not concerned.) (Esenwein, p. 
 23-) 
 
 It is of course not essential, as I understand it, that the main 
 subject should be a novel; it may be an example of any literary 
 form at all. It might seem, then, at first blush, according to the 
 literal wording of the canon just cited, that our selection was an 
 episode, since it "fits in with the rest of" the Metamorphoses 
 Yet it is not actually an episode, inasmuch as it was not "paren- 
 thetically inserted to illustrate some phase of character or of 
 conduct," and does not dovetail into the Metamorphoses The 
 point I wish to make is that the story of Pyramis and Thisbe is 
 related solely for its own sake; it is not related in order to illus- 
 trate the character or the conduct of the daughter of Minyas (a 
 mythical personage who is supposed to be telling the story) or of 
 anyone else. The Metamorphoses, in fact, is not an example of 
 any single literary form, but, on the contrary, is a literary med- 
 ley. For the work is nothing more, nor was it intended to be 
 anything more, than a collection of narratives from Greek and 
 Roman mythology (often with intervening "quasi-justifications, " 
 so to speak, for recounting particular narratives), one of which 
 is the story of Pyramis and Thisbe. 
 
 Thus, even if on superficial consideration it may appear to 
 bear a certain resemblance to the episode, the selection in hand 
 is not actually an example of that literary form, but an inde- 
 pendent narrative. 
 
 Negative Canon No. 3: The short-story is not a scenario, 
 not a synopsis, and not a biography. (Esenwein, pp. 24-25.) 
 
 Obviously it would be superfluous to demonstrate in detailed 
 fashion that the selection under consideration is not a scenario 
 and not a synopsis. Xor is it a biography, for it does not treat, 
 as a biography normally should, of the life of a single character, 
 but treats of the lives of more characters than one. But even if 
 
2i 4 OVID AS A SHORT-STORY WRITER 
 
 a certain latitude of definition were to be here allowed, our selec- 
 tion would still fall far short of being a biography, since it does 
 not depict human life from birth to death, nor even for a con- 
 siderable period, but deals only with the very last (single) incident 
 in the lives of its hero and its heroine. 
 
 Negative Canon No. 4: The short-story "is not a mere sketch." 
 Sketches "are not short-stories, for in them nothing happens; 
 they have neither essential beginning nor necessary ending; 
 they leave no single completed impression; they lack the 
 effect of totality on which Poe so constantly insisted." 
 (Esenwein, pp. 25-26.) 
 
 Is the story of Pyramis and Thisbe perhaps "a mere sketch?" 
 Evidently not. For, whereas in a sketch "nothing happens," in 
 the story under consideration something decidedly does happen; 
 and whereas sketches "have neither essential beginning nor 
 necessary ending," the story of Pyramis and Thisbe has both. 
 And, far from leaving no single completed impression and lacking 
 the effect of totality, the narrative we are examining, as we have 
 previously ascertained, is characterized by the presence of a plot 
 the details of which "are so compressed, and the whole treatment 
 so organized, as to produce a single impression." 
 
 Negative Canon No. 5: "The short-story is not a tale." Dr. 
 Esenwein finds it useful to differentiate between the term 
 "tale" and the term "short-story," even though they are 
 frequently used interchangeably. He defines a tale as "a 
 simple narrative, usually short, having little or no plot, de- 
 veloping no essential change in the relation of the characters, 
 and depending for its interest upon incidents rather than 
 upon plot and the revelation of character." The tale, unlike 
 the short-story, does not "march in all its parts directly and 
 swiftly toward a single impression. The tale admits of 
 digressions, moral or amusing reflections, and loosely con- 
 nected episodes ad libitum." Actually, it may be noted in 
 passing, the magazines of today print not only short-stories, 
 but often tales as well. (Esenwein, pp. 26-28.) 
 
 Finally, let us ask ourselves whether the story of Pyramis 
 and Thisbe may not be a tale, in the technical and specialized 
 sense in which that word is employed by Dr. Esenwein. \Ve 
 
ALEXANDER KADISON, A. M. 215 
 
 have already seen that the story contains a plot a plot distinctly 
 marked by the "one essential feature of a true plot. " The narra- 
 tive, moreover, does develop an essential change in the relation 
 of the characters therein consists the excellence of the plot 
 and the most essential change possible : the two chief characters, 
 separated in life, are united in death. The incidents, too, are in 
 themselves of subordinate interest. It is only for the sake of the 
 plot that they exist. And as for revelation of character, it is 
 precisely that which has ever lent, and doubtless ever will con- 
 tinue to lend, a peculiar, indefinable charm to the story of the ill- 
 fated lovers. Thus far, then, the selection under consideration 
 bears not the remotest resemblance to the literary form known 
 as the tale. 
 
 To continue: the selection presents but a single digression, 
 and that a relevant one. A chink in the party-wall connecting 
 the homes of Pyramis and Thisbe, through which the lovers are 
 enabled to converse prior to their tragic meeting, is discovered 
 by them, though it has previously remained unnoticed for genera- 
 tions. It is in this connection that we have the parenthetical 
 remark (line 68) : 
 
 " Quid non se ntit amor? . 
 
 "What doth not love perceive?" A single digression of this 
 nature, instead of constituting a defect from the standpoint of 
 modern short-story technique, is in fact a merit, owing to its 
 distinctly emotional value. And it is indeed questionable whether 
 a "digression" consisting of only four words is properly speaking 
 a digression at all. In any case, one fails to detect the presence 
 of digressions ad libitum, and it is the words "ad libitum" that 
 evidently constitute the essential part of our authority's reference 
 to digressions in the tale. 
 
 As for moral or amusing reflections, there are none present 
 in the entire selection, unless perhaps the four words to which 
 reference has just been made be included within that category: 
 a reflection they certainly are, and possibly, by a far-fetched 
 implication, a moral reflection. But whatever view be taken of 
 the matter, there are not present moral or amusing reflections 
 ad libitum. 
 
 Then, too, the story of Pyramis and Thisbe cannot be said 
 to contain loosely connected episodes ad libitum; it contains, in 
 
216 OVID AS A SHORT-STORY WRITER 
 
 fact, no episodes of any description whatever. So far, therefore, 
 it has absolutely no affinity with the tale. 
 
 It has been pointed out in another connection that the whole 
 of the narrative is embraced within the narrow limits of one 
 hundred and twelve lines of verse. A careful reading impresses 
 one, even though a tendency to excessive praise be lacking, with 
 the undeniable fact that Ovid made every one of those lines 
 one feels tempted to say every word in them pregnant with 
 meaning, and purposeful. In consequence of this fact, and also 
 in view of the absence of copious digressions, reflections, and 
 episodes, the narrative marches "in all its parts directly and 
 swiftly toward a single impression." It is thus once more dia- 
 metrically opposed in structure to the tale. 
 
 V 
 
 The story of Pyramis and Thisbe has now been tested, dis- 
 passionately and without bias, by all the canons, both positive 
 and negative, which I decided at the outset to apply, and proves 
 to be indeed a perfect short-story from the standpoint of modern 
 technique; and this despite the fact that the short-story of today 
 is a natural outgrowth of previous literary forms which are quite 
 generally regarded as themselves of very recent origin. But, it 
 might be urged, modern short-stories are written in prose form, 
 not in verse form. Should not this fact alone have disqualified 
 all selections occurring in the Metamorphoses, a priori, from being 
 included within the category of short-stories ? To such a query 
 my answer would be that the most that can reasonably be asserted 
 of modern short-stories in this connection (since, here as else- 
 where, one may not assume a universal negative) is that they are 
 usually written in prose form, but that in any event I am able to 
 think of no good and sufficient reason why a verse composition 
 produced in the year 1917 might not be in every sense a short- 
 story, quite as much as a composition cast in a prose mold. The 
 question at issue, it appears to me, involves ultimately nothing 
 more than a matter of definition, and the burden of proof should 
 rest in the first instance upon him who contended that the term 
 "short-story" ought to be so defined as to exclude all verse 
 composition from its scope. Now, toward the beginning of this 
 article, for reasons duly specified, I accepted as final, by hypothe- 
 sis, the dicta of an acknowledged authority on the short-story, 
 
ALEXANDER KADISON, A. M. 217 
 
 and into those dicta, it will be recalled, the matter of prose or 
 verse form did not enter. 
 
 I venture to assert that the query, were it to arise, as it 
 conceivably might, would be one of purely academic interest. 
 My own belief is, as already intimated, that the matter of prose 
 form as opposed to verse form cannot on any reasonable showing 
 be regarded as a valid criterion, for I feel that it would be every 
 bit as preposterous to take the view that a short-story cannot 
 exist in the realm of verse because modern short-stories are 
 usually written in prose form, as it would be to maintain that 
 short-stories cannot be written in Arabic for the reason, forsooth, 
 that the overwhelming majority of modern short-stories are 
 written either in English, in French, or in German. 
 
 And so it seems that Ovid, could he but come to life once 
 more today, and write his charming stories in a modern tongue, 
 with modern settings, might stand some chance with the editor 
 of a contemporary magazine devoted solely to the publication of 
 short-stories. Perhaps though this, it must be confessed, is 
 not at all likely, and is, moreover, distinctly beside the point 
 our editor might benevolently condescend to make an exception 
 in the poet's case, and accept even some of his tales! 
 
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON'S 
 
 FRENCH READING AS SHOWN 
 
 IN HIS CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 BY RUTH LANSING 
 
 AMONG the numerous discussions of matters per- 
 taining to Stevenson, there is one phase that has 
 been passed over more lightly than it deserves. 
 That is the influence of French literature upon his 
 style and ideas more perhaps upon the details 
 and finishing touches than upon the central themes. 
 Let it be understood at once that this study does not claim 
 to trace any definite French influence in the novels and short 
 stories. Nothing is so fascinating, nothing so dangerous, as an 
 attempt to define the influence of one author upon another, of one 
 movement upon its fellow. An analogy is easily found, then 
 another, and the result of continuing this is like wading on a 
 beach that treacherously drops off sheer a few feet from the 
 water-mark. By Stevenson's own words in a letter written from 
 Vailima to Barrie, are we warned away from such an attempt: 
 
 I have been accustomed to hear refined and intelligent critics 
 those who know so much better than we do ourselves trace down my 
 literary descent from all sorts of people, including Addison, of whom I 
 could never read a word. 1 
 
 The aim here is to select from R. L. S.'s published corre- 
 spondence references to various French books included in his 
 reading and to cite the opinions he expressed. It is practical 
 enough to draw inferences as to his mental reactions, for no one 
 can suppose that his impressionable, sympathetic mind was not 
 as able in reaction as in action, or that his books would have 
 been the same without his reading any more than that our own 
 lives would be the same were we not more or less unconsciously 
 guided by others' trend of thought. 
 
 i For Letters, I quote from the "New Edition" in 4 volumes, edited by Sidney 
 Colvin, published by Scribner, New York, 1911. Vol. IV, p. 266. 
 
 218 
 
RUTH LANSING 219 
 
 Stevenson's knowledge of French began early, as we find 
 from a letter sent from his school in 1863, when he was thirteen, 
 asking to join his parents on the Riviera. ~ Of this schoolboy 
 plea, partly in French, Mr. Sidney Colvin says: "This young 
 French scholar has yet, it will be discerned, a good way to travel; 
 in later days he acquired a complete reading and speaking, with 
 a less complete writing, mastery of the language, and was as 
 much at home with French ways of thought and life as with 
 English." 3 
 
 In this same year on some "illustrated dessert plate in a 
 hotel at Nice" he made the acquaintance of D'Artagnan. All 
 who have read A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas, or who have seen 
 Stevenson's contribution to Books Which Have Influenced Me, 
 know that Dumas came first among French writers with him. 
 
 Perhaps my dearest and best friend outside of Shakespeare is 
 D'Artagnan the elderly D'Artagnan of the Vicomte de Bragelonne. 
 I know not a more human soul, nor in his way, a finer; I shall be very 
 sorry for the man who is so much a pedant in morals that he canr.ot 
 learn from the Captain of Musketeers. 4 
 
 \Yhen I suffer in mind, stories are my refuge; I take them like 
 opium; and I consider one who writes them as a sort of doctor of the 
 mind. And frankly . . . it is not Shakespeare we take to when 
 we are in a hot corner; nor certainly George Eliot, no, nor even Balzac. 
 It is Charles Reade, or old Dumas, or the Arabian Nights, or the best 
 of Sir Walter Scott; it is stories we want, not the high poetic function, 
 which represents the world; we are then like the Asiatic with his im- 
 provisatore or the middle-ages with his trouvere. 
 
 Dumas . . . the brave old godly pagan, I adore his big foot- 
 prints on the earth.' 1 
 
 I love Dumas and I love Shakespeare; you will not mistake me when 
 I say that the Richard of the one reminds me of the Porthos of the 
 other; and if by any sacrifice of my own literary baggage I could clear 
 the f r 'icomle de Bragelonne of Porthos, Jekyll might eo, or The Master. 
 and The Black y/rrocr,you may be sure, and I should think my life not 
 lost for mankind if half a dozen more of my volumes must be thrown in." 
 
 In this same article on Books I Thick liars Influenced Mc\ 
 great stress is laid on Montaigne: 
 
 A book which has been very influential upon me fell early into my 
 hands, and so may stand first, though I think its influence was only 
 
 2 Letters, Vol. I, p. 5. 
 
 "^Letters, Vol. I, pp. 5-6. 
 
 ^Books Which Hare Influenced Me in British Weekly Extras, 1887. Vol. I, p. 
 
 ^Letters, Vol. I. p. 322. 
 
 (>L:-:tfrs, Vol. If, p. 1 66. 
 
220 ROBERT L. STEVENSON'S FRENCH READING 
 
 sensible later on, and perhaps still keeps growing, for it is a book not 
 easily outlived: the Essais of Montaigne. That temperate and genial 
 picture of life is a great gift to place in the hands of persons of today; 
 they will find in these smiling pages a magazine of heroism and wisdom, 
 all of an antique strain they will have their "linen decencies" and ex- 
 cited orthodoxies fluttered, and will (if they have any gift of reading) 
 perceive that these have not been fluttered without some excuse and 
 ground of reason; and (again if they have any gift of reading) they will 
 end by seeing that this old gentleman was in a dozen ways a fine fellow, 
 and held in a dozen ways a nobler view of life than they or their con- 
 temporaries. 7 
 
 This passage and these words in A Gossip on a Novel of Dumas: 
 "I have never read the whole of Montaigne, but I do not like to 
 be long without reading some of him, and my delight in what I 
 do read, never lessens," taken together make it a surprise to us 
 to find in all his letters only one direct mention of Montaigne. 
 This is in the form of a message to his parents from Bournemouth 
 in 1884, bidding them when they come to bring among other 
 books: "My Montaigne, or, at least, the last two volumes." 8 
 
 After these two writers, we find in his letters many stars of a 
 lesser magnitude in his mind. It is interesting to note that 
 George Sand is mentioned only in the early letters. 
 
 I have found a new friend to whom I grow daily more devoted 
 George Sand. I go on from one novel to another and think the last I 
 have read the most friendly and sympathetic in tone, until I have read 
 another. It is a life in dreamland. 9 
 
 I feel like a person in a novel of George Sand's; I feel I desire to 
 go out of the house and begin life anew in the cool blue night; never to 
 come back here; never, never. 10 
 
 Mademoiselle Mer quern, Consuelo, Comtesse de Rudolstadt are 
 the only novels of hers which he cites in these letters, all dated 
 between 1873 and 1875. 
 
 Flaubert aroused Stevenson's youthful enthusiasm to such 
 an extent that it is disappointing to find later only one mention 
 of him after the volume of his Letters which the exile expected in 
 1890. The Frenchman's theories on writing and re-writing fell 
 in exactly with Stevenson's, as we find them stated in several 
 places, and he wrote to Edmund Gosse: . . do we not 
 
 know in Flaubert's dread confession that 'prose is never done'?" 1 
 
 7 Books Which Have Influenced Me in British Weekly Extras, 1887, Vol. I, p. 6. 
 ^Letters, Vol. II, p. 257. 
 (^Letters, Vol. I, p. 103. 
 loLetters, Vol. 1, p. 230. 
 1 1 Letters, Vol. Ill, p. 202. 
 
RUTH LANSING 221 
 
 The earlier mention of Flaubert is as follows: 
 
 I read over again for this purpose (to relax myself) Flaubert's 
 Temptation de Saint Antoine; it struck me a good deal at first, but this 
 second time it has fetched me immensely. I am but just done with it, 
 so you will know the large proportion of salt to take with my statement 
 that it's the finest thing I ever read! Of course, it isn't that, it's full 
 of longueurs and is not quite "redd up," as we say in Scotland, not 
 quite articulated; but there are splendid things in it. 12 
 
 At the very antipodes of this art of writing, Balzac comes 
 under severe criticism for violating that rule so dear to Stevenson 
 brevity. 
 
 Were you to re-read some Balzac as I have been doing, it would 
 greatly help to clear your eyes. He was a man who never found his 
 method. An inarticulate Shakespeare, smothered under forcible-feeble 
 detail. It is astounding to the riper mind how bad he is, how feeble, 
 how untrue, how tedious and, of course, when he surrendered to his 
 temperament, how good and powerful. And yet never plain or clear, 
 lie could not consent to be dull, and thus became so. He would leave 
 nothing undeveloped, and thus drowned oat of sight of land amid the 
 multitude of crying and incongrous details. There is but one art to 
 omit. 18 
 
 Barbey d'Aurevilley had a great fascination for Stevenson. 
 In this "Byronic dandy" of French literature was much in com- 
 mon with the Scotch novelist, for both were lovers of Romance, 
 and all their lives followed her shining feet. There is an echo of 
 this longing for a tale wherein there will "some frosty night a 
 horseman on a tragic errand, rattle with his whip upon the green 
 shutters of the inn at Burford" in 14 the comment on Lc Rideau 
 Cramoisi: 
 
 I don't know if you are a Barbey d'Aurevillcv-an, 1 am. I have a 
 great delight in his Xorman stories. Do you know the Chevalier des 
 Touches and L'Ensorcelee? They are admirable, they reck of the soil 
 and the past. But I \vas thinking just now of /, f - Ridrau Cramnisi, and 
 its adorable setting of the stopped coach, the dark street, the home 
 going in the inn yard, and the red blind illuminated. Without doubt 
 there was an identity of sensation; one of those conjunctions 
 that had filled Barbey full to the brim, and permanently bent hi.- 
 
 l2Lrtters,Vo\. 1, pp. 181-182. 
 lT,LetteTs,\'o\. 11, p. 173. 
 I4R. L. Stevenson: A (tos.fip on Romance. 
 I ^Letters, Vol. IV, p. 205. 
 
222 ROBERT L. STEVENSON'S FRENCH READING 
 
 Do you ever read . . . the incredible Barbey d'Aurevilley? 
 A psychological Poe to be for a moment Henley. I own with pleasure 
 that I prefer him with all his folly, rot, sentiment, and mixed metaphors, 
 to the whole modern school of France. It makes me laugh when it's 
 nonsense; and when he gets an effect (though it's still nonsense and 
 mere Poe'ry, not Poesy) it wakens me. Ce Qui ne meurt pas nearly killed 
 me with laughing, and left me well, it left me very nearly admiring the 
 old ass. At least, it's the kind of thing one feels one couldn't do. The 
 dreadful moonlight, when they all three sit silent in the room by 
 George, sir, it's imagined and the brief scene between the husband 
 and wife is all there. Quant au fond, the whole thing, of course, is a 
 fever dream, and worthy of eternal laughter. Had the young man 
 broken stones, and the two women been hard-working, honest prosti- 
 tutes, there had been an end of the whole immoral and baseless business: 
 you could at least have respected them in that case 18 . 
 
 To be the object of an almost unqualified disapproval was 
 the lot of a novelist whose plots and epic moods cause the reader 
 to have anticipated a more favorable reaction on the part of the 
 critic. 
 
 For Zola I have no toleration, though the curious, eminently bour- 
 geois, and eminently French creature has power of a kind. But I would 
 
 he were deleted. I would not give a chapter of old Dumas . . . for 
 the whole boiling of the Zolas. Romance with the small-pox as the 
 great one: diseased anyway, and black hearted and fundamentally at 
 enmity with joy. 17 
 
 I am now well on with the third part of the Debacle. The two first 
 I liked much; the second completely knocking me; so far as it has gone, 
 this third part appears the ramblings of a dull man who has forgotten 
 what he has to say he reminds me of an M. P. But Sedan was really 
 great, and I will pick no holes. The batteries under fire, the red-cross 
 folk, the country charge perhaps above all, Major Bouroche and the 
 operations, all beyond discussion; and every word about the emperor 
 splendid. 18 
 
 Ugliness is the prose of horror. It is when you are not able to 
 write Macbeth that you write Therese 
 
 There is but one reference to Daudet, written in 1882: "The 
 best of the present French novelists seems to me incomparably 
 Daudet. Les Rois en Exit comes very near being a masterpiece. " : 
 
 Yet it seems well to insert here a few lines, taken from Steven- 
 sonia, on Stevenson's library at Vailima: "I came next upon a 
 
 \6Letters, Vol. II, p. 201. 
 17 Letters, Vol. If, pp. 84-85. 
 iK Letter?, Vol. [IT, p. 125. 
 igLelters, Vol. II, p. 169. 
 ZoLf tiers, Vol. If, p. 84. 
 
RUTH LANSING 223 
 
 fine collection of French works, beginning with a complete edition 
 of Balzac, which had evidently been read with care. Much 
 French fiction was here Daudet's Tartarin, Fromont Jeune et 
 Risler Aine, Les Rois en Exil, Guy de Maupassant's, Prosper 
 Merimee, and a complete Victor Hugo besides a swarm of the 
 more ephemeral novels. " 21 
 
 From this it seems probable that Daudet, although not 
 mentioned in the correspondence any more than Montaigne, 
 was, like him, a factor in Stevenson's literary life. 
 
 Through Henry James some of Anatole France's novels 
 reached Vailima, but the first ones did not receive a kindly wel- 
 come. 
 
 (1893) I received from you a book by a man by the name of Ana- 
 tole France. Why should I disguise it? I have no use for Anatole. 
 He writes very prettily, and then afterwards? Baron Marbot was a 
 different pair of shoes. So likewise is the Baron de Vitrolles, whom I 
 am now perusing with delight. His escape in 1814 is one of the best 
 pages I remember anywhere to have read. 2 "' 
 
 (1894) By the by, you sent me long ago a work by France, which 
 I confess I did not taste. Since then I have made the acquaintance of 
 the Abbe Coignard, and have become a faithful adorer. 23 
 
 The essay on Victor Hugo's romances appeared in the Corn- 
 hill Magazine for i874- 24 On the whole, Hugo seems to have 
 made much less impression on Stevenson than one would suppose. 
 Les Travailleurs dc la Mer, Quatrc-Vingt-Treiie, Bug- jar gal and 
 the rest of them may have failed that keen mind in the tendency 
 to overbalance the excitement with antitheses and divagations. 
 Where the romantic heroes of Hugo's dramas would be found 
 lacking, surely the adventures in the novels should have appealed 
 to the man who later lamented that he himself had written 
 Treasure Island because he had so few exciting books to read and 
 desired a new story of adventure. 
 
 Of his visit to Alolokai, the lepers' settlement, Stevenson 
 wrote: "A horror of moral beauty broods over the place: that's 
 like bad Victor Hugo, but it is the only way 1 can express the 
 sense that lived with me all these days."' 
 
 2iStevensonia.-( f'isitto Str.-fnsons Pacific I de (M. F. M.insticld, \. Y '.. IQDD> p. 68. 
 22Lftters, Vol. IV, p. 214.. 
 2 ; Letters, Vol. IV. p. 321. 
 z^Lftters, Vol. I, p. 149 and p. 1,4. 
 25 Letters, Vol. Ill, p. 15:. 
 
224 ROBERT L. STEVENSON'S FRENCH READING 
 
 He wrote of his having said in The Master of Ballantrae that 
 Mrs. Henry thrust the sword up to the hilt in the frozen ground: 
 "One of my inconceivable blunders, an exaggeration to stagger 
 Hugo," 26 
 
 Stevenson's opinion of Bourget, including the personal point 
 of view, can best be given by quotations from his letters to Henry 
 James. 
 
 (1891) I am delighted beyond expression by Bourget's book: he 
 has phrases which affect me almost like Montaigne: I had read ere this 
 a masterly essay of his on Pascal; this book does it; I write for all his 
 essays by this mail. 27 
 
 The charm of Bourget hag-rides me. I wonder if this exquisite 
 fellow, all made of fiddle-strings and scent and intelligence, could bear 
 any of my bald prose ... I have read no new book for years that 
 gave me the same literary thrill as his Sensations cTItalie . . . Here 
 I broke off and wrote Bourget a dedication: (for Across the Plains] no 
 use resisting; it's a love-affair. O, he's exquisite, I bless you for the 
 gift of him. 28 
 
 (1893) I thought Bourget was a friend of yours? And I thought 
 the French were a polite race? He has taken my dedication with a 
 stately silence that has surprised me into apoplexy. 29 
 
 There are single mentions of Chateaubriand, Renan, Gautier: 
 
 Chateaubriand is more antipathetic to me than anyone else in the 
 world. 30 
 
 ******* 
 
 (1893) I sit up here and write and read Kenan's Origines which 
 is certainly devilish interesting; I read his Nero yesterday, it is good, 
 O, very good! But he is quite a Alichelet; the general views, and such 
 a piece of character painting, excellent; but his method, sheer lunacy. 
 You can see him take up the block which he had just rejected and make 
 of it the corner-stone: a maddening way to deal with authorities: and 
 the result so little like history that one almost blames oneself for wast- 
 ing time. But the time is not wasted: the conspectus is always good, 
 and the blur that remains on the mind is probably just enough. I 
 have been enchanted with the unveiling of Revelations . . . And 
 how picturesque that return of the false Nero! The Apostle John is 
 rather discredited. And to think how one had read the thing so often, 
 and never understood the attacks upon St. Paul. Take it for all in all, 
 UAntechrist is worth reading. The Histoire d'Jsrael did not surprise me 
 
 26Lettfrs, Vol. Ill, p. 278. 
 ijLettcrs, Vol. Ill, p. 576. 
 2%L(tters, Vol. Ill, pp. 377-378. 
 igLetters, Vol. IV, p. 216. 
 ~-,cLet1fr.<, Vol. I, p. 93. 
 
RUTH LANSING 225 
 
 much; I had read those Hebrew sources with more intelligence than the 
 New Testament, and was quite prepared to admire Ahab and Jezebel, 
 etc. 31 
 
 ******* 
 
 (1873) I nave had a day of open air, only a little modified by 
 Le Capitaine Fracasse before the dining-room fire. I must write no 
 more, for I am sleepy after two nights, and to quote my book, sinon 
 blanches, du mains grtiw. 88 
 
 Especially during his stay in San Francisco do the letters 
 mention the reading of modern French Fiction, and a goodly 
 proportion of a rather trashy variety. But this period of reading 
 was probably merely the rest of a weary body and an anxious 
 spirit. 
 
 Indeed I am jack-tired and must go to bed to a French novel to 
 compose myself to slumber. 33 
 
 . . Studying the exploits of one Rocambole by the late Vicomte 
 Ponson du Terrail. 34 
 
 I have read M. Ang-uste and the Crime Inconnu, (by Joseph Mery) 
 being now abonne to a library, and found them very readable, highly 
 ingenious, and so French that I could not keep my gravity. 35 
 
 There is little mention of French verse. A volume of Heredia 
 elicited this to Henry James: "Yes. Les Trophees is, on the 
 whole, a book. It is excellent, but is it a life's work?" 
 
 Baudelaire had interested Stevenson during the same youth- 
 ful phase in which he revelled in George Sand's works: "I am 
 writing Petits Poemes en Prose. Their principal resemblance to 
 Baudelaire's is that they are rather longer and not quite so good. "' 
 
 And in a letter to Mrs. Sitwell he says about the Elgin mar- 
 bles: "And if all goes to the worst, shall I not be able to lay my 
 head on the great knees of the middle Fate O these great knees 
 I know all that Baudelaire meant now with his geante to lay my 
 head on her great knees and go to sleep."' 
 
 In 1875 he wrote to Sidney Colvin: "I offered Appleton a 
 series of papers on the modern French school the Parnassians, 
 I think they call themselves Banville, Coppec, Soulary, and 
 Sully-Prudhomme. But he has not deigned to answer my letter/''' 
 
 3 1 Letters 
 
 Vol. 
 
 IV, pp. 19^-193 
 
 32 Letters 
 
 Vol. 
 
 I, pp. 89-90. 
 
 3 3 Letters 
 
 Vol. 
 
 I, p- 317- 
 
 34/~" 'tiers 
 
 Vol. 
 
 I, p. 310. 
 
 35 Letters 
 
 Vol. 
 
 I, p. 314- 
 
 i>6 Letters 
 
 Vol 
 
 IV, p. 231. 
 
 37 Letters 
 
 Vol. 
 
 I. P. -37- 
 
 38 Letters 
 
 Vol 
 
 1, p. 193- 
 
 ^Letters 
 
 Vol. 
 
 I, p. 203. 
 
226 ROBERT L. STEVENSON'S FRENCH READING 
 
 Two of Stevenson's own rondeaux, imitations in English of 
 this early form of French verse, are in a letter to Mrs. Sitwell in 
 1875; one the exquisite variation on a theme of Banville's Nous 
 n' irons plus au bois. 
 
 We'll walk the woods no more, 
 
 But stay beside the fire, 
 
 To weep for old desire 
 
 And things that are no more. 40 
 
 As we learn in various letters, drama never attracted Steven- 
 son, and so it does not seem strange that among the French 
 authors there are only three dramatists mentioned, Moliere, 
 Musset and Dumas fils. 
 
 (1884) A thousand thanks for the Moliere. I have already read, 
 in this noble presentment, La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas, Le Malade Imagin- 
 aire, and a part of Les Femmes Savantes. 41 
 
 My view of life is essentially the comic and the romantically comic 
 . . . I make an effort of my mind to be quite one with Molifcre, 
 except upon the stage, where his inimitable jeux de scene beggar belief; 
 but you will observe they are stage-plays things ad hoc; not great 
 Olympian debauches of the heart and fancy; hence more perfect, and 
 not so great. Then I come, after great wanderings to Carmosine and 
 to Fantasia.* 2 
 
 (1878) What an inconceivable cheese is Alfred de Musset! His 
 comedies are, to my view, the best work of France this century: a 
 large order They are real, clear, living work. 43 
 
 In 1875 Stevenson spent some weeks of the summer in the 
 forest of Fontainebleau with Sir Walter Simpson. At that time 
 he had been studying fifteenth century French poets, indeed he 
 had been at this for some time, writing to his mother a year before 
 from Menton: "The second volume of Clement Marot has come. 
 \Vhere and O where is the first?" 44 
 
 The result of this work appeared in his essays on Charles 
 d'Orleans and Francois Villon and in some well-known short 
 stories. Besides the work that was finished, there was more 
 that was projected, but, like so many of his ideas, left unexecuted. 
 
 (1877) Then I shall do another fifteenth century paper this 
 
 j, Vol. I, p. 229. 
 4lLetters, Vol. II, p. 249. 
 ^Letters, Vol. II, p. 2 1 8. 
 ^Letters, Vol. 1, p. 258. 
 ^Letters, Vol. I, p. 131. 
 
RUTH LANSING 227 
 
 autumn La Sale and Petit Jehan de Saintre, which is a kind of fifteenth 
 century Sandford and Merton, ending in horrid immoral cynicism, as 
 if the author had got tired of being didactic, and just had a good wallow 
 in the mire to wind up with and indemnify himself for so much re- 
 straint. 45 
 
 History always interested Stevenson from his early days, 
 especially on the human side. In 1873 he wrote to Mrs. Sitwell: 
 
 I wish you would read Michelet's Louis Ouatorze et la Revocation de 
 r Edit de Nantes. I read it out in the garden, and the autumnal trees 
 and weather, and my own autumnal humour, and the pitiable prolonged 
 tragedies of Madame and of Moliere, as they look, darkling and sombre, 
 out of their niches in the great gingerbread facade of the Grand Age, go 
 wonderfully hand in hand. 46 
 
 In 1881 he was hunting for a history of Jean Cavalier, 
 the Protestant leader in the Cevennes. The book planned was 
 never undertaken, but his reading on the subject is attested by 
 his references to "the loud and empty Napoleon Peyrat" and to 
 Vacquerie. 47 A volume on the Duke of Wellington met with the 
 same fate, although in 1885 he was writing to Air. Colvin for 
 material: "A life of the Marquis Marmont (the Marechal), 
 MarmontePs Memoirs . . . Thiers, idle Thiers also. "' 
 
 Taine's work roused his enthusiasm during his stay at Sara- 
 nac: 
 
 1 say, Taine's Origines de la France Contemporaine is no end; it 
 
 would turn the dead body of Charles Fox into a living Tory. 49 
 
 * * * * * * " * 
 
 (1893) Taine is to me perhaps the chief of these losses: I did 
 luxuriate in his Origines; it was something beyond literature, not quite 
 so good, if you please, but so much more systematic, and the pages 
 that had to be "written" always so adequate. Robespierre, Napoleon. 
 were excellent good. 50 
 
 Through the Letters from 1868-1893 are to be found French 
 phrases and sentences, quotations and slang. There are French 
 letters to various correspondents, particularly to Ins San Francisco 
 friend, M. Jules Simoneau. 
 
 ^Letters, Vol. I, p. 252. 
 ^Letters, Vol. I, p. 82. 
 ^Letters, Vol. II, p. 35. 
 ^Letters, Vol II, p. 35. 
 ^Letters, Vol. Ill, p. 32. 
 scl.fiters, Vol. IV, p. 211. 
 
228 ROBERT L. STEVENSON'S FRENCH READING 
 
 The proposal of M. Marcel Schwob in 1890 to translate The 
 Black Arrow into French gave Stevenson great pleasure. He wrote 
 to his translator: 
 
 Comprehend how I have lived much of my time in France, and 
 loved your country and many of its people, and all the time was learning 
 that which your country has to teach breathing in rather that atmos- 
 phere of art which can only there be breathed; and all the time knew 
 and raged to know that I might write with the pen of angels and 
 heroes, and no Frenchman be the least the wiser. 51 
 
 These meagre extracts show to some degree the effect of his 
 French reading upon Stevenson. One result was surely that 
 mentioned in a letter from Vailima about The Wrecker. 
 
 However, I believe The Wrecker is a good yarn of its poor sort, and 
 it is certainly well nourished with facts; no realist can touch me there; 
 for by this time I do begin to know something of life in the nineteenth 
 century,which no novelist either in France or in England seems to 
 know much of. 52 
 
 By comparing the dates of his reading with the time of com- 
 position of his works, perhaps some analogy might be drawn, but 
 enough for a general estimate of the relative importance of French 
 influence in his writings can be inferred from this brief collection 
 of references. 
 
 51 Letters, Vol. Ill, pp. 207-208. 
 ^Letters, Vol. Ill, p. 364. 
 
IBSEN IN HIS MATURITY 
 
 BY PAUL H. GRUMMANN 
 IV 
 
 "JOHN GABRIEL BORKMAN" AND "WHEN WE DEAD 
 
 AWAKEN" 
 
 AN overwhelming public sentiment on any subject 
 always made Ibsen suspicious. At a time when 
 every one was interested in the problem of vast 
 fortunes and every captain of industry was under 
 suspicion, the author of The Pillars of Society 
 raised a timely note of warning, pointing out that 
 the constructive business man may be admirable. 
 
 In The Master Builder, he had portrayed a professional man 
 who becomes false to himself, one who collapses within himself, 
 in spite of the fact that the world crowns him with outward 
 success. In John Gabriel Borkman, he presents a man who, in 
 spite of shipwreck and the loss of all personal happiness, lives a 
 consistent and rather worthy existence. 
 
 As a boy, John Gabriel works in the mines with his father. 
 He is a miner with every fibre of his being. His whole youthful 
 imagination is so centered upon his work that he can hear the 
 metals sing to him, sing to be freed from their prison. He soon 
 rises to a better post in the mines, and conceives the idea of pro- 
 moting the mines to the fullest extent. He would establish 
 industries, develop steamship lines and railroads; all with the 
 intention of bringing the mines to their proper position. 
 
 In order to carry out such a policy, he must control the 
 money market, and therefore he becomes the director of the local 
 bank. As a bank-director, he is in favor of a large, daring policy. 
 He can carry out this policy only if he secures the help of Hinkle, 
 who, unfortunately, shares his love for Ella Rentheim. However 
 much he may love Ella, John Gabriel subordinates her to his 
 business projects, and purchases Hinkle's help by renouncing her. 
 In order to prove that this renunciation is complete, he marries 
 Ella's sister. But P'lla refuses to transfer her affections to Hinkle, 
 
 229 
 
230 IBSEN IN HIS MATURITY 
 
 who now thinks that Borkman is secretly interfering. To avenge 
 himself, Hinkle betrays Borkman in his most daring venture, 
 with the result that he is sent to prison. 
 
 The details of Borkman's difficulty should receive close 
 attention. He has broken the law, but under extenuating cir- 
 cumstances. If he had had another week, his venture would have 
 succeeded. It is quite clear that the jury that condemns him, 
 almost apologizes for its action. The law had been violated, 
 therefore condemnation is inevitable. But the jury fixes the 
 verdict at five years, clearly a very short sentence for a crime 
 that involved such stupendous losses. 
 
 When Borkman returns from prison, he lives in the same 
 house with his wife for eight years without associating with her. 
 She is filled with hatred for him, because he has disgraced her. 
 He, in turn, blames her for adding to their ruin by her extrav- 
 agance. Their son, Erhart, is reared by Ella Rentheim, who 
 has not lost her fortune, because Borkman refused to jeopardize 
 her funds. But Mrs. Borkman refuses to allow Erhart to remain 
 with Ella. She insists that he come home and devote his life 
 to the task of re-establishing the family fortune and restoring her 
 lost position to her. 
 
 For eight long years, Borkman waits for vindication. He 
 has the idea that he will be recalled to the directorship of the bank. 
 This is not an altogether foolish hallucination, for he sees that 
 none of his great plans has been carried out by his incompetent 
 successors. Confident that he could do it, he feels that his day 
 will come. He is so certain of his ground, that he rehearses his 
 reception of the committee that is to tender him his old post. He 
 decides not to appear at all anxious to make the committee plead 
 with him. 
 
 He does not forget that imprisoned bank-directors are not 
 recalled to their posts. He regards his own case as exceptional, 
 a habit of great men since the beginning of time. Alexander thus 
 marched through the desert against the advice of his generals. 
 Caesar repeatedly shocked the common sense of his advisers. 
 Napoleon marched to Russia in the winter. Gabriel, the Na- 
 poleon of finance, can take great risks, and, like Napoleon, he 
 has the rare ability to come back from Elba. 
 
 It is quite clear that John Gabriel is a monomaniac, but 
 Ibsen has been careful not to make him appear in ridiculous light 
 To guard against misinterpretation on this score, he has con- 
 trasted him with Foldal, the petty monomaniac. Foldal has lost 
 
PAUL H. GRUMMANN 231 
 
 his fortune through Borkman's crime, yet he visits him regularly. 
 He often reads Borkman passages from a miserable drama that 
 he has written, and Borkman puts up with the torture because 
 Foldal admires him, and listens to the discussion of his projects. 
 Here again, Ibsen gives Borkman a weakness commonly attri- 
 buted to great men. It is said that Napoleon employed a man 
 to remind him constantly of his greatness. 
 
 Ella Rentheim never has been on very friendly terms with 
 Mrs. Borkman. She now comes to her sister and tells her that 
 she has learned from her physician that her days are numbered, 
 and that she, therefore, has decided to adopt Erhart, the son. 
 She will bequeath her entire estate to him, if he will assume her 
 name. This looks like personal selfishness on the part of Ella, 
 but a careful scanning of the situation will clear up her motive. 
 She sees that Mrs. Borkman is sacrificing the boy to a disgraced 
 name, so she decides to force him to take her name, so he may not 
 be burdened with the past. Ella, of course, has no special dislike 
 for the name of Borkman. It has been the tragedy of her life 
 that she has not been able to bear the name which she desires to 
 take from Erhart for his own good. 
 
 While the two sisters are contending for the possession of 
 the boy, the thing to be expected happens, he resolves to go his 
 own way. The gloom of his home naturally has been repulsive 
 to him. That natural craving for light and joy, which Ibsen 
 depicts so well in Ghosts, allows him to become infatuated with a 
 Airs. Wilton. Mrs. Wilton is a divorcee, who has a reputation 
 that is rather shocking to the correct society of the place. Neithe r 
 Ella's well-considered plans for Erhart's welfare, nor Mrs. Bork- 
 man's puerile selfishness, can keep the son from following the lure 
 of this woman. 
 
 In her attempt to carry out her plan in regard to Erhart, 
 Ella goes to John Gabriel for assistance, for he always has had 
 the plan of re-entering the bank with his son as his lieutenant. 
 This interview leads to a discussion of the past. She tells him 
 that she would have remained loyal to him in all of his trials. 
 He confesses that he has cared only for her, and he now discloses 
 to her the secret of his bargain with Hinkle. Incensed to the 
 utmost, Ella cries out, "You are worse than a murderer, you 
 have killed the love-life in me." All of the superb passion of Ella 
 fails to make the slightest impression on Borkman, which intensi- 
 fies her perturbation still more. 
 
 Borkman now realizes that he has been living on vain illu- 
 
232 IBSEN IN HIS MATURITY 
 
 sions. The departure of his son convinces him that he must 
 undertake something upon his own initiative. He dismisses 
 Foldal unceremoniously and resolves upon action. In spite of 
 the snow storm that is raging, he sets out immediately. Mrs. 
 Borkman is content to let him go, but Ella, in spite of the recent 
 revelations, follows the almost helpless old man. On an eminence 
 overlooking the fjord, the two have their last conversation. In 
 a kind of hypnotic state, he reveals the dream to which his life 
 has been dedicated. He has a vision of the prosperity which 
 was to come from his activity; busy steamships, railroads and 
 factories. To this dream he remains true up to the moment when 
 heart failure claims him. 
 
 Ella's emotions undergo a remarkable change. She has felt 
 that she had been sold; that Borkman wantonly had bargained 
 away her love-life, as she says: "had committed the crime against 
 the holy spirit." Now she realizes that she had been sacrificed 
 to a great constructive dream, which, had it been realized, would 
 have brought economic stability to many. Her attitude also 
 changes toward her sister, that petty, selfish sister, who was such 
 a complete contrast to her in all things. Now she can shake 
 hands with her over the dead body of Borkman, for she realizes 
 that they really never have been rivals. The haunting riddle, 
 why Borkman could have preferred this woman to her, is cleared 
 up in Ella's mind. She realizes that her tragedy has been a part 
 of a well-conceived plan, a plan of such magnitude that she can 
 subordinate herself to it without bitterness. 
 
 The analysis of John Gabriel's character involves some 
 difficulties. Unfortunately, the easiest interpretation has gener- 
 ally been followed. He has been regarded as a man untrue to 
 himself, because he renounces Ella, and it is asserted, that he is 
 punished with a life of misery because he has done this. It is 
 well to remember that Ibsen believed that it is not man's chief 
 purpose to be happy, in the ordinary sense of that word. He 
 constantly preached that the life of each individual should serve 
 humanity, even if that involves personal discomfort. 
 
 Measured by such a standard, Borkman cannot deserve very 
 much censure. He conceives a plan that would bring better con- 
 ditions to very many. He is not entirely unselfish, but his sel- 
 fishness is part of a scheme that benefits humanity. This becomes 
 clear when he justifies his extravagance on the ground that it is 
 in the interests of his great projects, contrasted with the petty 
 vanity that prompts Mrs. Borkman's display. Since Borkman 
 
PAUL H. GRUMMANN 233 
 
 acts in the service of a great ideal, he must be judged accordingly. 
 This does not mean that a captain of industry may engage in all 
 kinds of crooked practices, and still claim the approval of man- 
 kind. It does mean that this type presents a new problem; 
 that what seems repulsive in him, may, after all, be a virtue that 
 serves the ultimate good. The ability to dream and construct a 
 trans-continental railroad should command respect, even when 
 it calls for qualities to which man, in the past, has not given 
 unqualified consent. 
 
 If Borkman were presented as a great poet who realizes that 
 he cannot write his great epic without renouncing Ella, few would 
 object to him. If he were a priest or minister who feels that he 
 cannot adequately preach the gospel without making such a 
 sacrifice, he would not lack approval. If he were a general or a 
 diplomat who subordinates his love to his country, his sacrifice 
 would rouse a very spontaneous enthusiasm. But the industrial 
 and economic ideal is generally rated lower, and Ibsen has the 
 temerity to suggest that this inference is incorrect. 
 
 If Borkman is to be taken seriously however, it must be 
 evident that he has more than an empty vision, an intangible 
 dream; it must be clear that he has the ability to translate the 
 dream into reality. The evidence between the lines is ample. 
 He begins as a poor miner's son. Through thrift and industry, 
 he rises step by step until he not only controls the mines, but the 
 bank as well. His failure is due to betrayal; for his plan would 
 have materialized, if he had had a few days more at the time of 
 the crisis. He foresees the possibility of Hinkle's treachery, and 
 to meet this possibility, he sacrifices his love, the highest price 
 that he can pay. This is good business, whatever else it may 
 be judged from a different angle. 
 
 Having conceived his ideal, he expands it, not only making 
 it greater, but also better for humanity. To this expanding ideal 
 he remains true, no matter what the cost may be. For it, he 
 lives the life of display, for it, he renounces the woman of his 
 choice, for it, he goes to prison, for it, he watches and waits. It 
 is not surprising, therefore, that he tells Ella of his renunciation 
 without the slightest tinge of regret. If he had the same con- 
 tingency confront him, he would do the same thing over, taking 
 greater care and making more sacrifices, if necessary. Borkman 
 ends in defeat, but it must be remembered that Thomas Stock- 
 man was not very prosperous at the end of the drama. He lives 
 his life out with his self-respect unshaken, not like the master- 
 
234 IBSEN IN HIS MATURITY 
 
 builder, prosperous but morally bankrupt. Having been true 
 to himself, he cannot even be untrue to Ella. Her realization 
 of this truth forms the great climax of the play. 
 
 A perusal of his plays will show how fond Ibsen was of this 
 theme. It already appeared in The Fikings. In Brand he por- 
 trayed a man who, although mistaken in his theories, is true to 
 himself. Peer Gynt, by way of caricature, did not even acquire 
 a self to which he could be true. Hardly a play came from his 
 pen, after that, that did not touch this theme somehow, but, in 
 his last years, it fairly became a ruling passion with him. The 
 last plays present it with the deepened insight of maturity, the 
 clarified inspiration of real wisdom. 
 
 Some one has said that Ibsen's plays are ephemeral, because 
 they present the social problems of his own times, and that they 
 will cease to be vital when these times are past. But Ibsen pre- 
 sents great vital problems as they appear in his times, which is 
 quite another matter. The same thing is true of Goethe and 
 Shakespeare. Hamlet's, "This above all, to thine own self be 
 true," reappears in Borkman, but the problem does not worry a 
 prince; it worries a business man of the nineteenth century. 
 
 Dissatisfied with the many misinterpretations of his John 
 Gabriel Borkman, Ibsen once more reverted to the problem of the 
 Master Builder and portrayed a man who became untrue to him- 
 self. 
 
 Rubek, in When We Dead Awaken, is a young sculptor of 
 rare promise and exalted ideals. In spite of his poverty, he lives 
 up to the highest demands of his art, to the highest vision that 
 he has. He undertakes a statue which is to represent the resur- 
 rection, the figure of an unsullied young woman, rising up from 
 the dross of the world. 
 
 He might have presented many figures instead of a single one, 
 but that would have meant the violation of the sculptor's highest 
 ideal. A group would have been more popular and would have 
 sold more readily, but Rubek refuses to make any concessions to 
 his own comfort. The young woman, Irene, who serves him as 
 a model, makes this sacrifice for him at the expense of her family 
 ties. If he is to maintain the conception of unsullied purity, he 
 must, in the nature of the case, refrain from making advances to 
 her. In spite of his strong inclination, he does this so successfully 
 that he comes to refer to their common experience as an interest- 
 ing episode. 
 
PAUL H. GRUMMANN 235 
 
 As Ibsen had already shown in The Master Builder, the pro- 
 fessional man has the duty to observe professional ethics, and not 
 confuse his personal emotions with his professional interests. It 
 is therefore proper for Rubek to regard Irene as a model and 
 nothing more. Irene, the woman, however does not have this 
 professional attitude. To her this posing is an act of personal 
 devotion and she naturally expects the lover's response. There- 
 fore, when Rubek refers to her great sacrifice as an episode, she 
 is wounded in her very soul and disappears. 
 
 After Irene's disappearance, Rubek's conception of the work 
 gradually changes. The main figure is placed more and more into 
 the background. New figures are added and he even introduces 
 himself in the pose of a repentant sinner. The changes are sig- 
 nificant. He has substituted many figures for one, and has intro- 
 duced himself. Before, he had kept his personal feelings detached: 
 now he parades them not unlike the poet who publishes his love- 
 letters. Moreover, the group takes on a maudlin, sentimental 
 character which he had scorned before. 
 
 But the group now attains great approval. It is purchased 
 by a museum, and the sculptor is honored by the title of pro- 
 fessor. This experience makes him resolve to capitalize his shame 
 and to prostitute his ideals. Instead of scorning the comfort? o! 
 lile, he makes his art the means of securing them. Instead ot 
 pondering upon noble conceptions not popularly understood, he 
 now makes portrait busts of commonplace magnates. As he 
 models these, he sees in each countenance the features of some 
 animal, Ibsen's way of saying that he has become entirely cynical 
 about his art. 
 
 He also decides to marry. Not some woman who might give 
 him such inspiration as Irene had yielded him. but one that will 
 give him the largest sensual returns. The prime requisite is that 
 she be an excellent animal. For very good reasons, he d<x v s not 
 choose a wealthy woman. He does not need money, for he i> 
 being paid royally for his disreputable art. A wealthy girl would 
 maintain a certain independence, a poor one is more subject to hi> 
 pleasure, is under obligations for what he lavish.es upon her. 
 
 For a while, this arrangement is highly satisfactory. Rubek 
 in his enthusiasm, tells his stunning young wife that he will take 
 her up on a high place and show her all the glories of the world. 
 His spectacular words mean that he has come to the conclusion 
 that plodding and preparation are quite useless, and that the 
 glories of the world may be conferred upon Maja by Rubek in 
 
236 IBSEN IN HIS MATURITY 
 
 rather an easy manner. Rubek not only has ceased to work 
 seriously at his art, he loses faith in the necessity of serious work. 
 
 It is not surprising that Maja should fail to understand his 
 words. She takes them literally and expects a trip to the moun- 
 tains. In time this becomes a mania with her and she forces him 
 to make the trip. Meanwhile, however, a certain void has come 
 into his life. He would like to conceive ideal creations again, 
 but he is unable to give them form and content. In the hope of 
 finding some diversion from his awful ennui, he departs for the 
 mountains with her. 
 
 On the way, he has an interesting mental experience. The 
 train stops in a village in the night, and he is appalled by the 
 silence. Two men with lanterns appear and talk in muffled tones. 
 No one seems to leave or board the train. The whole experience 
 seems symbolical of his own aimlessness to him. All that happens 
 is really in harmony with definite and rational arrangements. A 
 train stops where it is scheduled to stop. If the men have any 
 consideration for the passengers on the sleepers, they will speak 
 in muffled tones. To the disordered Rubek, however, all this 
 becomes symbolical of his own state of consciousness. 
 
 They stop at a small resort, the former home of Maja. She 
 desires to display the catch that she has made to the envious 
 villagers. Here they see a woman who is in charge of a nurse. 
 This proves to be Irene. Her haggard, haunted face immediately 
 suggests aphasia. After her experience with Rubek, this woman 
 threw herself away completely. She had posed for Rubek only 
 after a supreme effort and because she loved him. Later she 
 divested herself of every trace of chastity so completely, that she 
 posed as a nude in cheap museums. She married twice, one 
 husband committed suicide, and she murdered the other. The 
 plausibility of Irene's character has been questioned. It is 
 asserted that the radical lapse is improbable, but this conclusion 
 docs not take European conditions of her time into consideration. 
 Woman's only career was marriage, and failing in this, she fre- 
 quently lost her moorings entirely. 
 
 When Rubek meets Irene again, he sees her as she had been, 
 not as she is. Her grotesque account of her experiences does not 
 disturb him at all. He feels that she has the key that will unlock 
 the recesses within him, that she can again afford him the rare 
 pleasure of real creative activity. It is clear that Rubek's ideal 
 is returning to him, but this ideal is not the unspoiled dream of his 
 youth as presented to Solnesz by Hilda, but an ideal that has 
 
PAUL H. GRUMMANN 237 
 
 degenerated. This conception of the degenerated ideal may have 
 been suggested to Ibsen by the figure of Rautendelein in Haupt- 
 mann's Sunken Bell. 
 
 When Rubek confronts the shattered ideal of his youth, he 
 throws its pristine halo about it. For this reason he sees many 
 possibilities in Irene that she does not possess and really has not 
 possessed in the past. Instead of breaking with Maja and 
 resolutely following the ideal again, he proposes a compromise. 
 He would like to have the pleasure of artistic creation, but he 
 is not willing to forego what Maja means to him. He therefore 
 proposes that Irene come and live with him and Maja. This is 
 very much like the error of Solnesz who builds dwellings with 
 steeples. 
 
 Maja would be willing enough to part with Rubek, for he is 
 not the man who can yield her the pleasures that she is seeking. 
 His moroseness bores her unspeakably, and she is constantly look- 
 ing for an opportunity to live her own life. This opportunity is 
 offered by Ulfheim, a brutal bear-hunter, a beast man of the low- 
 est order. She accepts his invitation to climb the mountain with 
 him. Although he treats her most ungently on this occasion, she 
 still prefers him to the morose brooder Rubek, whom she now 
 forsakes. Having lost Maja, Rubek now follows Irene up the 
 mountain, but both are overtaken by an avalanche and are 
 killed. 
 
 The pivotal theme of the drama seems to be the conflict 
 between pleasure and the claims of the ideal. Rubek ignores 
 pleasure in his youth and experiences the joy of creative work 
 in the pursuit of a worthy ideal. He renounces this ideal to seek 
 pleasure, but finds that his pleasure does not compare with the 
 joy that he has experienced in real creative effort. Having ac- 
 quired a taste for the shallower pleasures, he has neither the 
 courage nor the strength, to go back to his higher levels. His 
 distraction makes him incapable of retaining his pleasure, for 
 he loses Maja. His pursuit of pleasure has made him incapable 
 of rightly estimating and following an ideal, ior the avalanche 
 overtakes him in the attempt. 
 
 A number of writers have suggested that this, the poet's 
 last drama, gives evidence of his impending collapse. It is very 
 difficult to find a real justification for such a position. It is 
 probable that an unwillingness to seek the poet's intentions has 
 led to such rash conclusions. The play has been compared with 
 The Master Builder and subordinated to it. It is quite possible, 
 
238 IBSEN IN HIS MATURITY 
 
 however, to find points of excellence in the later play that quite 
 overshadow corresponding points in the former. The conception 
 of the ideal has changed. Hilda brings back exactly the ideal of 
 youth, Irene brings back the shattered ideal which is then phan- 
 tastically adorned by Rubek. Solnesz never gave evidence of a 
 capacity to do great things; Rubek has this capacity, and throws 
 it away. Tested for plausibility the figure of Irene surpasses 
 that of Hilda. In addition to this, it must be remembered that 
 the suggestiveness of the later play is unmistakable. 
 
 That the play employs symbolism, no one can deny, but the 
 extremes to which the symbol-hunters have gone is a trifle funny. 
 With Spenserian instincts, they have found a symbolic meaning 
 for the nurse, whose function plainly is to remind the reader at 
 every step that Irene is a patient. But the train must symbolize 
 something, and the two men, not to forget the lanterns which 
 they are carrying. If all that has been read into this last drama 
 were true, it would give unmistakable evidence of aphasia in the 
 poet. If it is mystic, it is mystic because too cheaply understood! 
 All of the figures are clearly conceived. The plot is a model of 
 simplicity, and the individual passages are worked out with a skill 
 and care, astounding in a man at the very end of his career. 
 
 The most inspiring characteristic of Ibsen's activity is his 
 constant growth from drama to drama. "As for myself, " he says, 
 "I am conscious of constant change." He remains at work on 
 many of his old problems, but he never allows his attitude on a 
 problem to become fixed. Each drama is a document of his 
 temporary attitude at its best. In addition to this gradual 
 growth, he experienced a number of violent revolutions. One 
 occurred when he renounced poetry for prose, the Sartor Res art-its 
 period when he resolutely parted company with all that he con- 
 sidered sham. Another revolution came when he entered the 
 period of Hedda Gabler and The Ai aster- Builder. His language 
 then took on a deeper poetical content and his mind ran to sym- 
 bolism. Most important of all, his problems became more 
 -erious. They derived their inspiration more and more from his 
 beloved Bible. Their real import was, "What shall it profit a 
 man, if he gain the whole world and lose his soul ?" 
 
 After the publication of When We Dead Awaken, this man of 
 eighty wrote: "If I appear in the literary arena again, it will be 
 in a new armor." Here, there is evidence that another revolu 
 tion was taking shape. It is not altogether rash to suppose tha 
 he was preparing to write verse again. His later dramas show 
 
PAUL H. GRUMMANN 239 
 
 consistent growth in poetical content, and a gradual but unmis- 
 takable intensification of diction and imagery. The next logical 
 step would have been metrical language, which, after all, is the 
 natural vehicle for emotions as strong as those that were expressed 
 by Ibsen in his last plays. 
 
 The bitterness and note of revolt in Ibsen's plays gave cur- 
 rency to the notion that he was a pessimist. This he denied in 
 the words: "I have been called a pessimist and I am, in so far as 
 I do not believe in the everlastingness of human ideals, but I am 
 also an optimist, because I believe in man's ability to procreate 
 new and better ideals for himself." Bitterness and revolt are 
 not definite proofs of pessimism. A careful reading of Ibsen 
 impresses one with this fact. The young Ibsen fairly bubbles 
 with humor. Pure, unalloyed joy has rarely been expressed more 
 beautifully than in certain passages in Brand. Peer Gynt teems 
 with rollicking fun. Later, the demand for joy became a philo- 
 sophic conviction with him, the true basis of the really 
 moral life. 
 
 It is interesting to follow Ibsen from his first ample exposition 
 of this craving for joy in Ghosts, through some of his later plays. 
 Mrs. Alving cannot find this joy in her village, not in the sensuous 
 life of Captain Alving, nor in Regina's conception of it. She 
 dreams of joy more in the terms of Oswald, who sees it in the 
 activity of poor, inspired artists in Paris. Dr. Stockman has a 
 real capacity for joy. Ellida finds joy finally by assuming re- 
 sponsibilities and Dr. Wangel has an optimism that carries him 
 unscarred through all of his difficult trials. According to Ibsen, 
 joy comes to those who do not make a miserable failure of life by 
 violating the laws of their own being. It is not surprising, there- 
 fore, that Professor Richard Meyer should sum up Ibsen in the 
 words: "One of the most significant figures of modern literature, 
 whose work is dominated by a towering optimism." 
 
 The tendency to recall the harrowing scenes in Ibsen's dramas 
 as a proof of his pessimism, rests upon a failure to understand 
 the very nature of tragedy. The hero must die in order that 
 the audience may see how he endures the supreme test. As Ibsen 
 says in Brand, "God does not relent when His beloved son in 
 supreme anguish asks to be spared." What would Oswald be, 
 without his tragic experiences? What would become of Nora as 
 a dramatic figure if she really experienced the miracle which she- 
 expects? But the deatli of Ophelia and Hamlet by no means 
 proves that Shakespeare was a pessimist. 
 
2 4 o IBSEN IN HIS MATURITY 
 
 Ibsen came at a time when industrialism and commercialism 
 were creating a new world order. Old moorings were being lost 
 and there was imminent danger of superficiality and laxness in the 
 new socitey that was springing up. Ibsen saw this danger and 
 tried to scourge men into the consciousness that his age was 
 burdened with new problems and responsibilities. Like a Hebrew 
 prophet, he shook men out of their philistinism and moral repose. 
 
 To live, is to war with fiends 
 That infest the brain and the heart; 
 To write, is to summon one's self 
 And play the judge's part. 
 
 Wholesome as such judicial activity may be, it does not 
 constitute the highest work of the poet. The poet, after all, 
 should reveal new realms of beauty to the world. Ibsen main- 
 tained the judge's attitude, but the poet in him was so strong 
 that new beauty was revealed incidentally. But the incidental 
 should have been dominating. The aging poet, in spite of his 
 optimism, lacked exuberance. The bubbling wit and abandon 
 of his early years had been lost to such an extent by the constant 
 scrutinizing, that the author of When We Dead Awaken naturally 
 longed for a new armor. As Lowell did, he became conscious 
 of the fact that he had not sufficiently distinguished between 
 singing and preaching. In spite of his optimism, he became 
 rather a disappointed old man, failed where Goethe and Shakes- 
 peare succeeded, because "the gulf stream of their youth flowed 
 into the polar regions of their lives." 
 
SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE 
 
 A MEMORY AND AN APPRECIATION 
 BY ARTHUR Row 
 
 THE name of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree is linked with 
 the most curious coincidence in my acting experi- 
 ence, for it was on the stage of the New Amsterdam 
 Theatre, that I acted in The Parisian Romance 
 with Richard Mansfield in the last performance he 
 was fated ever to give on any stage, and it was on 
 this same stage that I found myself with Sir Herbert Tree, years 
 later, in Colonel Newcome, which now proves to be the last per- 
 formance to close the memorable career of this more than distin- 
 guished English actor-manager, litterateur and bon vivant. Mans- 
 field's last performance concluded with a death scene as did 
 Colonel Newcome with the famous and fitting line " Adsum!" 
 
 In speaking of Tree I say "more than distinguished," for 
 indeed he was so much more than an actor he was a personage. 
 Around his personality hung much of the charm and grace that 
 characterized the beloved Colonel Newcome of Thackeray's pages. 
 It has been said by some one au courant with affairs in London 
 that it was incredible the extent and variety of the interests that 
 engaged the mind of England's most conspicuous figure in the 
 theatre. He was a cosmopolitan in the truest sense of the word, 
 and it was this quality that made his productions so brilliant, 
 hectic and compelling. 
 
 My first view of Tree was as Hamlet at the Tremont Theatre 
 in Boston in 1894. It was Harvard night. I was in the gallery 
 which was packed with students. The main part ot the theatre 
 was occupied by the faculty with their wives and sweethearts. 
 Electric enthusiasm ran high and there were many recalls ending 
 with a speech from Tree when, with hand on heart, he said it was 
 the summit of an actor's ambition to play Hamlet and to appear 
 before such an audience and "to thank you I haf no words." tor 
 Tree in moments of excitement spoke with a slight lisp and a 
 German accent. 
 
 241 
 
242 SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE 
 
 The picture he made of Hamlet was memorable much more 
 like Hamlet than any I ever have seen. This performance in 
 Boston was eulogized by the press and rapturously received by 
 the audience. Its poetry and exquisite refinement made a strong 
 appeal to Bostonians. 
 
 With all allowances for the impressionableness of my early 
 teens, he certainly played upon my mind, heart, and sensibilities 
 as few artists have in a long career of constant theatre-going. In 
 the same theatre about the same time, I saw Bernhardt in Izeyl, 
 and the effect on my nerves and sensibilities was similar. 
 
 When one considers that Hamlet is two-thirds a poet, indeed 
 it was his abnormal sensibility that was his undoing, is it any 
 wonder that Boston responded rapturously to a Hamlet so 
 ethereal? 
 
 I did not see Tree again until I acted Lord Sands with him 
 in Henry Fill at the New Amsterdam Theatre during the Shakes- 
 pearean Tercentenary in the Spring of 1916. 
 
 I have been in many first nights in New York, but none that 
 equalled the magnificence of this. The house fairly blazed with 
 the wealth, beauty, culture, and distinction of the nation. It 
 was an opera night plus! 
 
 Tree was given a royal welcome. At the close of the per- 
 formance, he discarded his Cardinal's robes for evening clothes 
 and took many calls with a huge laurel wreath in one hand and 
 the other clasping that of Cecil King, his stage manager to whom 
 much of the success of the production was due. 
 
 The success of this production exceeded that I think of 
 any single Shakespearean production on the New York stage. 
 For nine weeks, audiences packed the vast New Amsterdam 
 Theatre. The enthusiasm was overwhelming. 
 
 "There are moments in one's life that become music, and 
 the universe seems to pause an instant that you may not lose the 
 slightest overtone of their melody. Years after those moments 
 are recalled with almost bated breath. I have heard people 
 speak with a note of awed reverence of their memory of Edwin 
 Booth. And that is the way they will speak in years to come of 
 the great Shakespearean play, Henry VIII, as it is rendered now 
 by Sir Herbert Tree and the brilliant cast of actors with him. 
 
 "The glory and beauty of the early English Court the subtlety 
 and depth of Cardinal Wolsey, whose living spirit seems to return 
 at the call of Sir Herbert Tree's genius, grip and hold you spell- 
 bound. 
 
ARTHUR ROW 243 
 
 "Every member of the cast, which will be remembered al- 
 ways, fulfills his or her part with a perfection worthy of a leading 
 part. Living, breathing, suffering, happy, the royal throng surge 
 back to the land of the living, with all their pomp and glitter, yet 
 with their hearts utterly human and fascinating. What a feast 
 for the gods is the rare rendering of this Shakespearean play, that 
 we are permitted to add to our treasure sheet of memory." 
 
 So wrote a brief chronicler of the time. 
 
 Tree's Wolsey was not wholly appreciated, I fear, by the 
 critics. To those who remembered Henry Irving in the part, 
 he did not satisfy. "We live not to be gripped by meaner ones," 
 was one line I personally missed from the Tree production a 
 line of concrete value in sketching the Wolsey character and 
 delivered by Irving in his telling and wholly inimitable style. 
 
 But comparisons are ever odious, and after the death of 
 Irving it is doubtful if there could be found an actor who could 
 bring to the impersonation the distinction, crafty cunning, and 
 striking pictorial, graphic qualities that Tree lavished on the 
 character so successfully. 
 
 It was a happy incident that his final appearance in America 
 should be as Colonel Newcome the fine, old English gentlemen 
 and many critics liked him best in this Thackeray role. His 
 acting here had a flavor, an aroma about it like old wine. The 
 pathos of the old man he realized fully and his disdain for those 
 "who made of life a business!" His drawing of the character 
 was a mosaic of fine lines, all telling, all cumulative in final effect. 
 
 It was redolent with that ineffable, exquisite Thackerean 
 quality almost too fine for the theatre but to the few it was a 
 rare delight. It was caviar. It was during this engagement 
 that he made almost daily recruiting speeches. One night at the 
 theatre, one of the supers had his wig imperfectly blended. It 
 caught Tree's eagle eye. "If you icill not join the army, at least 
 you can join your wig," he said. 
 
 At one of the dress rehearsals, a stage manager was berating 
 an assistant for not ringing a bell on a given cue. "Any/oc/^ could 
 ring it," he finished with furiously. "Oh!" broke in Tree, ever 
 suave and benign "that is precisely the trouble. Mr. Irving, 
 not being a fool, therefore cannot ring it !' 
 
 As a raconteur, 'Free was famous. A group ot actors were 
 discussing around a table in London what an actress s. and what 
 alas! so often she is n<A'. Finallv Tree was asked his definition ol 
 
244 SIR HERBERT BEERBOHM TREE 
 
 an actress. "An actress" said Tree with that peculiar, misty 
 accent, "an actress is a woman in trouble!" 
 
 This story makes one most reminiscent of the frequent and 
 countless unfortunate females arrested and picked up in the 
 streets; when interrogated at the police court they are invariably 
 "actresses" by profession! 
 
 Apropos of this, the Jefferson Night Court in New York is 
 peopled not only with alleged actresses but the dear things ever 
 pick out favorite names and blithely tell the officer they are 
 Julia Marlowe or the dignified Mrs. Fiske or the demure Maude 
 Adams. According to the books, almost every prominent actress 
 has been an unwilling guest at Jefferson Court. But the bitter 
 truth remains that no woman, no matter how unfortunate or 
 deranged, has acknowledged she was our immortal Eva Tanguay! 
 
 Once, in speaking of an actress as famous for her nobility, 
 spirituality, and virtue, as for her talents, Tree concluded by 
 remarking she lacked only one thing the sin of magnetism! 
 
 Tree was most precise in his use of words. A few years before 
 the Legion of Honor was conferred upon Sarah Bernhardt by the 
 French Government, Tree gave an elaborate party in honor of 
 this illustrious actress who was then acting in London. In his 
 address of welcome, he very aptly and brilliantly said that while 
 she had not (then) been decorated it was really a misnomer for 
 had she not bestowed the Legion of Honor upon France ? 
 
 Years afterwards in recalling this incident to him he corrected 
 me sharply "No! No!" said Sir Herbert, "Meanwhile mean- 
 while she had bestowed the Legion of Honor upon France. " 
 
 Much virtue in the "if" also it would seem in the "mean- 
 while. " 
 
 With all his sophistication and worldliness, Tree could appear 
 to supreme advantage in a Cathedral. At a service in St. John 
 the Divine in New York to commemorate Shakespear's birthday, 
 Tree occupied the pulpit, delivering an address on the universality 
 of Shakespeare. To prove this he quoted from five of his plays, 
 peculiarly happy and effective and conclusive quotations, too, 
 by the way. The chancel was presided over by a Bishop and 
 filled with clergymen, yet Tree looked more conclusively clerical 
 than any of the clergy! And his address was more effective than 
 any of the many speeches, not omitting the exquisitely noble 
 rendition of some of Hamlet's lines by the spiritual and ascetic 
 Forbes-Robertson. 
 
ARTHUR ROW 245 
 
 Coincident with the news of Tree's death, has come a chorus 
 of writers hastening to assure the public that he was not really a 
 good actor, certainly not a great actor, indeed quite a mediocre 
 actor! If this is so, then he was possessed of more than extra- 
 ordinary mesmeric powers, for he successfully duped and fooled 
 theatre-goers of two continents for thirty years to an incredible 
 degree, in fact, these statements simply prove the English-speak- 
 ing world a fool. Perhaps it is significant that in none of these 
 denunciatory articles on his acting is there one who writes con- 
 structively on just what Tree did do, or how he managed to delight 
 so many people for so many years. 
 
 It is so easy to tear down, especially when a man is dead. 
 How many can analyze or appreciate? 
 
 DEATH 
 
 BY HUGO vox HOFMANNSTHAL 
 
 Translated by C. A 7 . Stork 
 
 What hours arc those! when, shiningly outspread, 
 The ocean lures us, and we lightly learn 
 The solemn lore of death, and feel no dread: 
 
 As a small child, whose great eyes seem to yearn, 
 A girl with pallid checks and limbs a-cold, 
 One evening looks far out and does not turn 
 
 Her feebly-smiling gaze, for, loosing hold 
 Upon her slumber-drunken limbs, the flood 
 Of life glides over into grass and wold; 
 
 Or as a saint pours out her martyr blood. 
 
AMONG FRIENDS 
 
 It must be wonderful to write 
 an autobiography and be able to 
 talk about yourself to your heart's 
 content without any one's inter- 
 rupting rudely to talk about his 
 affairs. Some time when the price 
 of paper is not so high, I am going 
 to take a vacation and write an 
 autobiography. Of course I shall 
 destroy it afterwards, but after 
 that wild orgy, I believe I shall be 
 able to come back and listen polite- 
 ly when my friends tell me how 
 many sweaters they have knit for 
 the Red Cross. Perhaps I shall 
 be able even to show an intelligent 
 interest in the habits of their latest 
 servants, and I might even go so 
 far as to give a moderate amount 
 of attention to anecdotes concern- 
 ing their husbands. 
 
 I will say, however, that I had 
 no desire to interrupt when I was 
 reading These Many Years by 
 Brander Matthews (Scribners). As 
 is the case with most autobiogra- 
 phies, the first part is the most 
 interesting. The vivid pictures of 
 life in New York in the eighties 
 are particularly enjoyable. 
 
 Richard Harding Davis prac- 
 tically wrote his autobiography in 
 his letters. Fortunately they are 
 available for us in his Adventure* 
 and Letters (Scribners). All his 
 tenderness, humor, good fellow- 
 ship, and high-heartedness are re- 
 flected in his letters. 
 
 Unicorns (Scribners) is a very 
 noteworthy addition to the works 
 of James Huneker. In it, he dis- 
 cusses unicorns, the strange dream- 
 
 creatures in the field of art, the 
 artists whose works are unintelli- 
 gible except to those who have 
 deep artistic appreciation. 
 
 As a child, I thought there were 
 real unicorns; as a matter of fact, 
 they are not nearly so impossible 
 as a rhinoceros, a giraffe, or a hip- 
 popotamus! Perhaps, after all, 
 for once I was right and the uni- 
 corns, the mystical creatures, the 
 dreamers, are the real people; and 
 we others are only shadows. 
 
 A quaint little volume is Divers 
 Proverbs by Nathan Bailey (1721) 
 published by the Yale University 
 Press. The book is worth reading 
 just for its rare common sense, but 
 its artistic printing and old-style 
 woodcuts make it delightful. 
 
 Some one has said that the two 
 rarest things in the world are com- 
 mon sense and a well baked potato. 
 Last year, thanks to the exigencies 
 of war, we learned to do without 
 well baked potatoes, but goodness 
 knows that life among people de- 
 void of common sense would be 
 unendurable. Perhaps good breed- 
 ing is a quality even more import- 
 ant, if we care anything at all about 
 making life endurable for other 
 people. Show me a person with 
 both common sense and good 
 breeding and all the things that 
 Hamlet said about Horatio, I'll 
 say about him. Lord Chester- 
 field, the first gentleman of Europe, 
 tried to cultivate both these quali- 
 ties in his son. Judge Robert 
 McMurdy has done a great ser- 
 vice by his admirable editing of 
 
 246 
 
AMONG FRIENDS 
 
 247 
 
 Lord Chesterfield's letters to his 
 son, in The Modern Chesterfield 
 (Badger). 
 
 A book concerned with the well- 
 being of the younger members of 
 society is The Child That Does 
 Not Stumble (Badger) by Wilhel- 
 mine Putnam Willson. It is grati- 
 fying to come across a book on 
 child rearing written by one who 
 knows whereof she speaks. Mrs. 
 Willson is the mother of six very 
 lusty children who have prospered 
 under her treatment, just as they 
 should. 
 
 The book is written in a popular 
 way, but it is evident that the 
 author has a sound knowledge of 
 the fundamental truths of psycho- 
 logy. She docs not believe in the 
 old way of spanking a child when- 
 ever he proved himself a nuisance 
 to grown-ups. She believes in 
 keeping a child from stumbling 
 physically, mentally, or morally, 
 just as the child wants to do when 
 he is given a fair show. 
 
 A book which, of course, all 
 mothers will believe written for 
 their offspring, is The Exceptional 
 Child (Scribners) by Maximilian 
 P. E. Groszmann. 
 
 Child Behavior (Badger) by Dr. 
 Florence Mateer marks a new 
 epoch in child study. Scientific 
 men always have claimed that the 
 exact study of the mind of the 
 young child was impossible, and 
 certainly I always had thought so 
 myself. Through the new objec- 
 tive and animal psychology, Dr. 
 Mateer has presented for the first 
 time a critical and experimental 
 study of young children by the 
 method of conditioned reflexes. 
 
 A book whose title alone is sub- 
 ject for thought is The Privilege of 
 
 Education (Badger) by George L. 
 Jackson. Think what a valuable 
 book it is to have lying around 
 on the table for small boys with 
 truant tendencies to look at! The 
 volume is an admirable history of 
 the extension of the privilege of 
 education from early times when 
 no women were educated and only 
 a few of the more fortunate men 
 received any education at all, down 
 to the present when the deaf, 
 blind, and feebleminded are sup- 
 posed to receive their share of 
 training. 
 
 Professor Jackson has gone back 
 to source material in making his 
 deductions concerning the differ- 
 ent periods. One of the quotations 
 which he cited was a particularly 
 significant one from St. Jerome. 
 
 "Put letters into Paula's hands 
 and teach her the meaning of 
 them. Take care that she does 
 not conceive a dislike for study that 
 may follow her into a more ad- 
 vanced age. " 
 
 Perhaps if St. Jerome had ar- 
 ranged our present educational 
 system, I should not be obliged 
 to shudder every time I pass a 
 school building. 
 
 A book which also considers 
 education is The Philosophical 
 Basis of Education (Badger) by 
 Rolland M. Shreves. The author 
 considers the deeper questions and 
 theories of the subject in a very 
 thorough manner. Most import- 
 ant of all, he emphasizes the su- 
 preme importance of self-realiza- 
 tion which he conceives to be the 
 real aim of education. As Dr. 
 Shreves says, a person must be 
 made to see that a life that has no 
 plan is a life that is not worth 
 living. If a life is to be made 
 harmonious and significant, it is 
 possible only through lo\ al de- 
 votion to an ideal or purpose. 
 
248 
 
 AMONG FRIENDS 
 
 Diderot's Early Philosophical 
 Works (Open Court) have been 
 excellently translated and edited 
 by Margaret Jourdain. 
 
 J. Arthur Hill has written ver- 
 batim records of sittings with cer- 
 tain well-known mediums in Psy- 
 chical Investigations (Doran). 
 
 In Harvard Lights and Shadows 
 (Gorham Press), the author, Victor 
 Rine, has considered an important 
 college group, too often neglected. 
 Just as academic courses pale into 
 insignificance before the superior 
 radiance of athletics and fraterni- 
 ties, so the freaks and grinds are 
 considered nonenties in the college 
 world. Mr. Rine gives a decided- 
 ly interesting picture of college life 
 as viewed by the intellectual and 
 egocentric. 
 
 Tenderfoot Days (Badger) by 
 George R. Bird takes us back to 
 the times before war prices had 
 swooped down on the demon rum. 
 As the author says, those were 
 the clays of corn whiskey as yellow 
 as gold, and as hot as fire. It 
 keeled over the drinker at forty 
 yards. The front streets of the 
 Western towns were given up to 
 saloons of vigorous titles. 
 
 George R. Bird was one of the 
 multitude of young men who 
 heeded Horace Greeley's advice 
 '"Go West, young man, Go West!" 
 He went through the closed terri- 
 tory of Utah where there was no 
 welcome for outsiders. In fact, 
 there were strange stories of deaths 
 encountered by pioneers who pass- 
 ed through. Between the Indians 
 and hostile Mormons, the tender- 
 foot's days were not the most care- 
 free. Great was the power of the 
 Prophet, and what he could not 
 accomplish through his special 
 
 police appropriately called the 
 Destroying Angels he managed 
 to bring about through drunken 
 Indians. 
 
 The whole book is filled with 
 humor and adventure and human 
 nature. 
 
 As a rule I fight shy of religious 
 books. That is the sad part about 
 them, the people who really need 
 them, don't read them. I refrain 
 from saying, vice versa. I have 
 found one, however, that is un- 
 usual, Unofficial Christianity by 
 Shelton Bissell (Richard G. Bad- 
 ger). Unofficial Christianity is 
 just Christianity without bigotry, 
 superstition, or dogma. Shelton 
 Bissell presents the Christianity of 
 Christ, not the Christianity of 
 creed. The book will appeal to 
 the person who considers himself 
 unorthodox. I really can't say 
 how it will appeal to the other 
 kind. 
 
 As the author says, Christianity 
 should not only preserve itself, 
 but also reproduce goodness by 
 contagion. 
 
 "But in many quarters and for 
 many generations a contrary view 
 has prevailed. Goodness' chief 
 business was to quarantine itself 
 against the devilishness of the 
 world. The Church was an ark 
 of safety, a city of refuge, a strong 
 fortress of defense against the 
 spiritual hosts of wickedness. 
 Thus the Church became the 
 official patron and custodian of 
 Goodness, which was to be pre- 
 served only by keeping its skirts 
 clear of the contaminating in- 
 fluence of evil." 
 
 In speaking of orthodoxy's atti- 
 tude towards intelligence, the au- 
 thor says, "Official Christianity 
 may not be acquitted of an atti- 
 tude of suspicion toward ripe 
 
AMONG FRIENDS 
 
 249 
 
 scholarship. Ceasing to burn her- 
 etics, it abuses them. Stupid- 
 ity has been termed less dangerous 
 than learning. Orthodox theol- 
 ogy and heterodox science have 
 fought and bled and lived to fight 
 again. When Genesis and geology 
 disagree, there is a verdict in favor 
 of the former only." 
 
 Shelton Bissell devotes a very 
 significant chapter to The Use and 
 Misuse of the Bible. One of the 
 deepest grudges I have harbored 
 against orthodoxy is the way it 
 has taken all the zest from read- 
 ing the bible. One of my earliest 
 recollections is of compiling a scrap 
 book of very miscellaneous litera- 
 ture for it was before I could 
 read and presenting it to my 
 mother so she would not have to 
 read the bible to me every Sunday. 
 
 Other notable religious publica- 
 tions are: 
 
 The Righteousness of Jehovah 
 by Richard F. Chambers (Gorham 
 Press). 
 
 True Christian. True Chi.rch, 
 True Teachings by Albert Torbet 
 (Gorham Press). 
 
 Creation Ex Nihilo by L. Frank- 
 lin Gruber (Gorham Press). 
 
 The Democracy of the Trees by 
 Edward Andrews (Gorham Press). 
 
 Help H hen Templed and Tried 
 by Jeremiah Zimmerman (Gorham 
 Press). 
 
 The Silent Nazarene by Everett 
 Sperow (Gorham Press). 
 
 The Rose of Sharon by Everett 
 Sperow (Gorham Press). 
 
 Theological Essays by A. \ an C. 
 P. Huizinga (Gorham Press). 
 
 The Christian Religion by Ed- 
 ward F. Williams (Gorham Press). 
 
 The Compass by Edwin L. Mc- 
 llvaine (Gorham Press). 
 
 The Treeof Ileaven by May Sin- 
 clair (Macmillan) presents the life 
 
 history of a whole family includ- 
 ing the inevitable wife's relatives. 
 As is the case with most novels 
 where we are introduced to the 
 characters when they are children, 
 we regret the inevitable law of life 
 which forces them to grow up. 
 In this book it is not because the 
 characters become less interesting, 
 for they do not; but May Sinclair 
 proves herself a true Spartan 
 mother to the children of her 
 brain, for she sends them all to 
 war. All of them are killed, ex- 
 cept the last one, and we arc 
 mercifully spared that pang by 
 bidding him farewell before he 
 goes away. I said all were killed, 
 but I was wrong. The wife's 
 mother, the three maiden aunts, 
 the drunken uncle, the suffragette 
 daughter, and the uncle who 
 nourishes a variety of diseases, all 
 weather the storm. I was sorry 
 to see the others die, because the 
 author had made her characters 
 really live. I recognized a num- 
 ber of my own acquaintances 
 among those who survived. 
 
 The Three Blank Penny s by 
 Joseph Hergesheimer (Knor!) is 
 another novel including the whole 
 family, but Mr. Hergesheimer goes 
 Miss Sinclair one better by earn- 
 ing the Penny family through 
 three generations. The part 1 
 regret is that there should have 
 been two more generations when 
 thev could not be a good as the 
 first. It is, of course, unfair to 
 say that, because the author shows 
 remarkable artistry in tracing the 
 natural development of a family. 
 
 A decidedly different novel con- 
 cerning war conditions is The 
 Return of the Soldier by Rebecca 
 West (Century)- 
 
250 
 
 AMONG FRIENDS 
 
 Twentieth Century Athenians by 
 Ray Robinson (Badger) is the story 
 of a group of unusual young 
 people. The book is filled with 
 conversations about Broadway, 
 about business, about books, about 
 universal law, about Schopenhauer 
 and Nietzsche, about destiny, and 
 about Platonic dreams. 
 
 That the author doesn't limit 
 himself to philosophizing is proved 
 by the fact that he is at present 
 first lieutenant of engineers. 
 
 Different (Gorham Press) is a 
 college story published anony- 
 mously. 
 
 The Story of a Pass in the Adiron- 
 dacks by A. L. Byron-Curtiss 
 (Gorham Press) is the story of a 
 pasteboard pass instead of one of 
 mountain crags, overhanging cliffs, 
 and enticing valleys. Yet the 
 pass led to all these, because it 
 gave three people a chance to 
 enjoy an exclusive Adirondack 
 club. 
 
 Saturday Night Sketches by J. L- 
 Herring (Gorham Press) are stories 
 of Wiregrass Georgia with its can- 
 dy-pullings, singing school, cane- 
 grinding, and cotton-picking. 
 
 The Tale of Tom Rabbit by Mary 
 Covert (The Gorham Press) is a 
 charming story for children. It is 
 interesting to learn how many 
 wonderful adventures one small 
 rabbit can live through. 
 
 Willy Pogany has furnished de- 
 lightful illustrations for a new edi- 
 tion of Gulliver's Travels (Mac- 
 millanj. The book is worth look- 
 ing at merely for the sake of the 
 grotesque little faces at the ends 
 of the chapters. 
 
 Arthur P.ackham's illustrations 
 for The Romance of King Arthur 
 come up to his usual high stand- 
 ard. He has achieved the almost 
 impossible feat of giving each 
 face a unique personality, a per- 
 sonality which is startlingly real 
 and yet which corresponds to the 
 costumes and to the period. 
 
 The book leads me back to read- 
 ing those wonderful stories again. 
 Those were the times! A knight 
 would ride up and say, "Know you 
 of any adventures?" When he 
 heard of a really good exploit, off 
 he would go to compass it. 
 
 The Soy's King Arthur by Lanier 
 (Scribners) presents the stories in 
 attractive form for younger read- 
 ers. 
 
 Limehouse Nights by Thomas 
 Burke (McBride) is a volume of 
 startling stories laid in London's 
 Chinatown. The book is the most 
 original volume of fiction I have 
 read this year. 
 
 Finished by H. Rider Haggard 
 (Longman) forms the third of the 
 trilogy of which Marie and 
 Child of Storm are the first two 
 parts. 
 
 Recent military publications are: 
 
 A History of the Great War, by 
 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Doran). 
 
 No Man's Land, "Sapper" 
 (Doran). 
 
 Under Fire by Henri Barbusse 
 (Dutton). 
 
 Militarism by Dr. Karl Lieb- 
 knecht (Huebsch). 
 
 Our Army and How to Know It 
 Our Navy and How to Know It 
 published by the Scientific Ameri- 
 can. 
 
 The Rebuilding of Europe by 
 David J. Hill (Century). 
 
 Private Peat (Bobbs-Merrill). 
 
AMONG FRIENDS 
 
 251 
 
 Ralph Adams Cram has pre- 
 sented to posterity The Substance 
 of Gothic (Marshall Jones), six 
 lectures on the development of 
 Architecture from Charlemagne to 
 Henry VIII. Perhaps the most 
 imposing thing about the hook is 
 the portrait of the author in full 
 academic panoply. 
 
 A significant and inspiring vol- 
 ume on the history of music is 
 Critical and Historical Essays by 
 Edward MacDowell (Schmidt). 
 
 Creators of Decorative Styles 
 by Walter A. Dyer (Doubleday) 
 considers eleven of the great lead- 
 ers of artistic thought in England 
 including Inigo Jones, Thomas 
 Chippendale, Adam, Josiah Wedg- 
 wood, Hepplewhite, and Sheraton. 
 
 These people who sigh for de- 
 parted childhood make me sick. 
 Any one might as well wish him- 
 self back in the stone age. I will 
 say, however, there is one time 
 when I wish myself a child again, 
 and that is when I see a marvclous- 
 ly complete toy theatre. It is 
 unnecessary to do that now that 
 there are so main charming little 
 theatres all over the country. I 
 wish there were one in every town. 
 There ought to be. These toy 
 theatres for grown-ups are dis- 
 cussed in The Little Theatre in the 
 L ' mteJ States by Constance D'Arcy 
 Mackay (Holt) and The Art Theatre 
 by Sheldon Cheney (Knopf). 
 
 Two new plays of wide difference 
 are Esther and Harbonah by II. 
 Pereira Alendes (The Gorham 
 Press) and Efficiency by Robert H. 
 Davis and Pcrley Poore Sheehan 
 (Doran). The former written in 
 verse, is the dramatic version o! 
 that wonderful biblical stor\ o: 
 
 Esther. The work is accomplished 
 with sympathy and artistry. Ef- 
 ficiency deals with Prussian mili- 
 tarism. 
 
 I was interested in the title 
 Tricks of the Trade (Putnams). 
 "Ah," I thought, "Here is a 
 chance to learn something." I 
 did learn that the author J. C. 
 Squire seems to consider himself 
 superior to Wordsworth, Swin- 
 burne, Masefield, Pope, Gray and 
 Byron, for he has written parodies 
 of all of them. I am glad to think 
 that some of the authors are dead, 
 so that they ma}' not realize the 
 crushing disgrace of being parodied 
 by J. C. Squire. 
 
 Chanticleer Poems (The Gorham 
 Press) by Edward F. Jackman arc- 
 filled with the same cheery hearti- 
 ness as the matins of the birJ that, 
 gives them their name. 
 
 Caro!iu:><s and Merone (Gorham 
 Press) by Irene Angclc Baber is a 
 volume of poetry which tak.-s up 
 even- phase of the love life of a 
 woman of deep emotions and artis- 
 tic sensibility. 
 
 Hear! SOK^S (The Gorham Press) 
 is a volume of religious verse by 
 Henry \\ cston Frost who went 
 from successful business life into 
 the ministry. The order of vo- 
 cations is the reverse of the or- 
 dinary one. Needless to say. the 
 poems arc tilled with the same 
 religious ferv<>;- as the life <>! the 
 author. 
 
 Mulford Doughty, author of that 
 charming little volume of poems 
 called T:ceni\-()ne (The Gorham 
 Press), is an out-and-out reaction- 
 ist against the new school ot poetry 
 and against all crude, unfinished 
 verse. The writer is old-fasioncd 
 
2 5 2 
 
 AMONG FRIENDS 
 
 enough to believe that harmony, 
 melody, and music are essentials 
 of all poetry, and has gone so far 
 as to fill the book full of them. 
 
 Other noteworthy volumes of 
 verse are: Anthology of Swedish 
 Lyrics, admirably translated by 
 Charles Wharton Stork (The 
 American-Scandinavian Founda- 
 tion), Poems, selected from John 
 Masefield's works (Macmillan), 
 Beggar and King by Richard 
 Butler Glaenzer (Yale University 
 Press), The Tower of Ivory by 
 Archibald MacLeish (Yale), Yale 
 Review Verse (Yale), Sonnets and 
 Other Lyrics by Robert Selliman 
 Hillyer (Harvard University Press) 
 A Book of Verse of the Great War, 
 edited by W. Reginald Wheeler 
 (Yale),5oo& of New York Verse, 
 edited by Hamilton Fish Arm- 
 strong (Putnam's), A Garden of 
 Remembrance, by James Terry 
 White (James T. White & Com- 
 pany), Songs of the Stalwart by 
 Grantland Rice (Appleton), At 
 
 Vesper Time by Ruth Baldwin 
 Chenery (Putnam's), The Wind 
 in the Corn by Edith Franklin 
 Wyatt (Appleton), With the Colors 
 by Everard Jack Appleton (Stew- 
 art and Kidd), Souls by Glenn 
 Hughes (Elder) // / Could Fly by 
 Rose Strong Hubbel (Putnam's), 
 A Banjo at Armageddon by Berton 
 Braley (Doran), A Collection of 
 Patriotic Poems of Walt Whit- 
 man (Doubleday Page); Sea Dogs 
 and Men at Arms by Jesse Edgar 
 Middleton (Putnam); The English 
 Sonnet by T. W. H. Crosland 
 (Dodd, Mead); Poems: 2908-1914 
 by John Drinkwater (Dodd, 
 Mead); Star Drift by Brian Pa- 
 draic O'Seasnain (Four Seas); 
 Twenty-Six Poems by Cecil Rob- 
 erts (Dodd, Mead); The Masque 
 of Poets edited by Edward J. 
 O'Brien (Dodd, Mead); Georgian 
 Poetry, 1916-1917 (Putnam); No- 
 vember by Henry Bryan (Dodd, 
 Mead); The Potter's Clay by Marie 
 Tudor (Putnam); Lustra by Ezra 
 Pound (Knopf). 
 
FEB 17 1953 
 
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