,,,......iiiJjliiiH^^^^^^ ( tl!t<»Ui("M>»»tua(MHHtHHtiil»»»iHI!»HIKMtHWHinH»iflti»HilUm!UUitil{U3UiiSlit{itin)IUmilUfi{ijl Iff ff !«•»• ■»»♦♦#•»••♦•♦♦' wati«BKaffl«!Hm!KH{aatKtauuia}{Mt8{t{«ffiMtHHttw«HaH {sww iS ^ rawwiB8»wH^^ HUtil^ !| !!""' ili!! I'l^ipj ^/\\ J i 1 j ■ .iij;;|); j 'TTTTTTTTTTTITrrr 1!!l"lii' THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE /^ 1^ ,>U,M? ONE-ACT PLAYS BY MODERN AUTHORS EDITED BY HELEN LOUISE COHEN, Ph. D. Chairman of the Department of English in the Washington Irving High School in the City of New York Author of "The Ballade" m NEW YORK HARCOURT. BRACE AND COMPANY COPYRIGHT, ig2I, BY HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. PRINTED IN THE U. S A. BY THE QUINN a BODEN COMPANY 5AHWAV. N. J. To M. S. S. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Had not both authors and publishers acted with the greatest generosity, this collection could not have been made. Though the editor cannot adequately express her sense of obligation, she wishes at least to record explicitly her indebtedness to Mr. Harold Brig- house, Lord Dunsany, Mr. John Galsworthy, Lady Gregory, Mr. Percy MacKaye, Miss Jeannette Marks, Miss Josephine Preston Pea- body, Professor Robert Emmons Rogers, Mr. Booth Tarkington, and Professor Stark Young. The editor also desires to thank Chatto & Windus, Duffield & Company, Gowans & Gray, Ltd., Harper & Brothers, Little, Brown & Company, John W. Luce & Company, G. P. Putnam's Sons, Charles Scribner's Sons, and The Sunwise Turn, for permissions granted ungrudgingly. Through the courtesy of Mr. T. M. Cleland, director of the Beechwood Players, the pictures of the Beechwood Theatre appear. Miss Mary W. Carter, chairman of the Department of English in the High School in Montclair, New Jersey, contributed the photo- graphs of the Garden Theatre. Other illustrations appear through the kindness of Theatre Arts Magazine, and of The Neighborhood Playhouse. The editor is grateful to Mrs. John W. Alexander, Mr. B. Iden Payne, and Mrs. T. Bernstein for the privilege of personal confer- ences on the subject of the book. To Mr. Robert Edmond Jones, who has allowed three of his designs to be reproduced and who has read and corrected that part of the Introduction that deals with The New Art of the Theatre, the editor takes this opportunity of expressing her warm appreciation. Finally, the editor wishes to thank her friend, Helen Hopkins Crandell for her indefatigable work on the proofs of this book. PREFACE Perhaps the student who is going to read the plays in this collection may have felt at some time or other a gap between the " classics " that he was working over in school and the contemporary literature that he heard commonly discussed, but he does not know that until recently few books were studied in the high school that were less than half a century old. Con- sciousness of the gap often drove him to trashy reading. He recognized Addison as respectable but remote, and yet he had no guide to the good literature which the writers of his own day were producing and which would be especially interesting to him, because its ideas and language would be more nearly contemporary with his own. Even though the greatest literature has the quality of uni- versality, it has been almost invariably my experience that, only as one grows older, is one quite ready to appreciate this quality. When one is young, it is easier to enjoy literature written from a point of view nearer to one's own life and times. Reading good contemporary literature is likely also to pave the way for a deeper appreciation of the great masterpieces of all time. This is a collection of one-act plays, some of them less than five years old, chosen both because their appeal seems not to be limited to the adult audiences for which they were originally written, and because they may well serve the purpose of intro- ducing the student to contemporary dramatists of standing. Some of them, it is true, make use of old stories and traditions, but the treatment is in all cases modern, if we except the lit- erary fashion that we find in Josephine Preston Peabody's Fortune and Men's Eyes. This, though it is a one-act play, a modern development, is written more or less in the Shake- spearian convention ; but whether we are bookish or not, we can hardly help having a knowledge of Shakespeare's plays, because, popular with all kinds of people, they are continually being revived on the stage, and quoted in conversation. The plays in this book, though intended for class-room stud>, may be acted as well as read. The general introduction will vii viii PREFACE be found helpful to groups who produce plays, to those who live in cities and go to the theatre often, and to those who like to experiment with dramatic composition. For this book was planned to encourage an understanding attitude towards the theatre, to deepen the love that is latent in the majority of us for what is beautiful and uplifting in the drama, and to make playgoing a less expensive, more regular, and more intel- ligent diversion for the generation that is growing up. H. L. C Washington Irving High School, New York, i February, 1921, CONTENTS Introduction page I The Workmanship of the One-Act Play xiii Theatres of To-day The Commercial Theatre and the Repertory Idea . xx The Little Theatre xxiii The Irish National Theatre xxvi The New Art of the Theatre xxlx Playmaking xxxiv The Theatre in the School 1 Robert Emmons Rogers The Boy Will xxxviii Booth Tarkington Introduction 3 Beauty and the Jacobin 5 Ernest Dowson Introduction 53 The Pierrot of the Minute 55 Oliphant Down Introduction 77 The Maker of Dreams 79 Percy MacKaye Introduction 97 Gettysburg 99 A. A. Milne Introduction 113 Wurzel-Flummery 115 Harold Brighouse Introduction 139 Maid of France 141 Lady Gregory Introduction 157 Spreading the News 159 Jeannette Marks Introduction 179 Welsh Honeymoon i8i ix X CONTENTS John Millington Synge page Introduction 195 Riders to the Sea 198 Lord Dunsany Introduction 211 A Night at an Inn 213 Stark Young Introduction 226 The Twilight Saint 227 Ladv Alix Egerton Introduction 241 The Masque of the Two Strangers 244 Maurice Maeterlinck Introduction ' 265 The Intruder 268 Josephine Preston Peabody Introduction 287 Fortune and Men's Eyes 289 John Galsworthy Introduction 323 The Little Man 325 ILLUSTRATIONS PAGB Tiuelfih Night on the stage of the Theatre du Vieux Colombler in New York xxiv Design for The Merchant of Venice by Robert Edmond Jones . xxx Design for Good Gracious Annabelle by Robert Edmond Jones . xxxii Design for The Seven Princesses by Robert Edmond Jones . xxxiv The Beechwood Theatre. Exterior and Interior .... Iviii The Garden Theatre. The original site, and the theatre as it looks to-day Ix Setting for The Maker of Dreams at The Neighborhood Play- house designed by Aline Bernstein 79 Costumes for The Masque of the Tivo Strangers designed at the Washington Irving High School. Plate I 240 Plate 2 253 Setting for The Intruder designed by Sam Hume .... 268 INTRODUCTION THE WORKMANSHIP OF THE ONE-ACT PLAY The one-act play is a new form of the drama and more emphatically a new form of literature. Its possibilities began to attract the attention of European and American writers in the last decade of the nineteenth century, those years when so many dramatic traditions lapsed and so many precedents were established. It is significant that the oldest play in the present collection is Maeterlinck's The Intruder, published in 1890. The history of this new form is of necessity brief. Before its vogue became general, one-act plays were being presented in vaudeville houses in this country and were being used as curtain raisers in London theatres for the purpose of marking time until the late-dining audiences should arrive. With the exception of the famous Grand Guignol Theatre in Paris, where the entertainment for an evening might consist of sev- eral one-act plays, all of the hair-raising, blood-curdling variety, programs composed entirely of one-act plays were rare. Sir James Matthew Barrie is usually credited with being the first in England to write one-act plays intended to be grouped in a single production. A program of this character has been un- common in the commercial theatre in America, but three of Barrie's one-act plays, constituting a single program, have met with enthusiastic response from American audiences. There are two new developments in the history of the theatre that have encouraged and promoted the writing of one- act plays: the one is the Repertory Theatre abroad and the other is the Little Theatre movement on both sides of the At- lantic. The repertory of the Irish Players, for example, is composed largely of one-act plays, and American Little Theatres are given over almost exclusively to the one-act play. The one-act play is in reality so new a phenomenon, in spite of the use that has been made of the form by playwrights like Pinero, Hauptmann, Chekov, Shaw, and others of the first xiii xlv INTRODUCTION rank, that it is still generally ignored in books on dramatic workmanship.^ None the less, the status of the one-act play is established and a study of the plays of this length, which are rapidly increasing in number, discloses certain tendencies and laws which are exemplified in the form itself. Clayton Ham- ilton sums up the matter well when he says: "The one-act play is admirable in itself, as a medium of art. It shows the same relation to the full-length play as the short-story shows to the novel. It makes a virtue of economy of means. It aims to produce a single dramatic effect with the greatest economy of means that is consistent with the utmost emphasis. The method of the one-act play at its best is similar to the method employed by Browning in his dramatic monologues. The author must suggest the entire history of a soul by seizing it at some crisis of its career and forcing the spectator to look upon it from an unexpected and suggestive point of view. A one-act play in exhibiting the present should imply the past and intimate the future. The author has no leisure for la- borious exposition; but his mere projection of a single situation should sum up in itself the accumulated results of many ante- cedent causes. . . . The form is complete, concise and self- sustaining; it requires an extraordinary force of imagination." - To follow for a moment a train of thought suggested by Mr. Hamilton's timely and appreciative comment on the tech- nique of the one-act play: All writers on the short-story agree that, to use Poe's phrase, " the vastly important artistic ele- ment, totality, or unity of effect " is indispensable to the suc- cessful short-story. This singleness of effect is an equally im- portant consideration in the structure of the one-act play. A short-story is not a condensed novel any more than a one-act play is a condensed full-length play. There is no fixed length for the one-act play any more than there is for the short-story. The one-act play must have its " dominant incident " and " dominant character " like the short-story. The effect of the one-act play, as of the short-story, is measured by the way it makes its readers and spectators feel. Neither the short-story * See, however, Clayton Hamilton, Studies in Statecraft, New York, 1914, and B. Roland Lewis, The Technique of the One-Act Play, Boston, 1918. " Clayton Hamilton, Studies in Stagecraft,, New York, 1914, pp. 254-255. WORKMANSHIP OF THE ONE-ACT PLAY xv nor the one-act play need necessarily " be founded on one of the passionate cruces of life, where duty and inclination come nobly to the grapple." One has but to consider the short- stories of Henry James or the one-act plays of Galsworthy or of Maeterlinck to be convinced that a violent struggle is not necessary to the art of either form. frf This point is further illustrated in what Galsworthy him- self says in general about drama in his famous essay, Some Platitudes Concerning the Drama, which should be read in connection with his satirical comedy. The Little Man. In that essay Galsworthy writes: "The plot! A good plot is that sure edifice which slowly rises out of the interplay of cir- cumstance on temperament, and temperament on circumstance, within the enclosing atmosphere of an idea. A human being is the best plot there is. . . . Now true dramatic action is what characters do, at once contrary, as it were, to expectation, and yet because they have already done other things. . . . Good dialogue again is character, marshaled so as continually to stimulate interest or excitement." This commentary of Gals- worthy's on dramatic technique offers to the student of The Little Man an unusual opportunity to verify a great critic's theory by a great playwright's practice. It is indeed the char- acter of the Little Man that is the plot in this case; the plot may be said to begin when, according to stage direction, the hapless Baby wails, and to be well launched with the Little Man's deprecatory, " Herr Ober! Might I have a glass of beer?" These words distinguish him immediately from his bullying companions in the buffet. The highest point of in- terest, like the beginning of the plot, is to be found in the play of the Little Man's personality, at the point where he is left alone with the Baby, now a typhus suspect, and after an in- stant's wavering, bends all his puny energies to pacifying its uneasy cry. Again, the end of the plot comes with the tribute of the bewildered but adoring mother to the ineffably gentle Little Man. But a one-act play that has any pretensions to literature must be looked upon as a law unto itself and should not be expected to conform to any set of arbitrary requirements. As a matter of fact, there are only a very few generalizations that can be made with regard to the structure or to the classification of the one-act play. Even this book contains plays that are xvi INTRODUCTION not susceptible of any hard and fast classification. The In- truder and Riders to the Sea are indubitably tragedies, but Fortune and Men's Eyes, dealing, as it does, with the tragic theme of love's disillusionment, belongs not at all with the plays of Maeterlinck and Synge, shadowed, as they are, by death. And though the deaths are many and bloody in A Night at an Inn, the unreality of the romance is so strong that there is no such wrenching of the human sympathies as we associate with tragedy. The Pierrot of the Minute is superficially a Harlequinade, but Dowson's insistence on the theme of satiety brings it narrowly within the range of satire. Beauty and the Jacobin is rich in comedy; so is Lady Gregory's Spreading the News, and in both, the situations change imperceptibly from comedy to farce and from farce back to comedy. The laws of the structure of the one-act play are in the nature of dramatic art no less flexible. It can be said that in order to secure that singleness of impression that is as essential to the one-act play as to the short-story, a single well sustained theme is necessary, a theme announced in some fashion early in the plaJ^ Indeed since the one-act play is a short dramatic form, it may be said in regard to the announcing of the theme that, " 'Twere well it were done quickly." In Spread- ing the News, the curtain is barely up before Mrs. Tarpey is telling the magistrate: " Business, is it? What business would the people here have but to be minding one another's busi- ness?" And at approximately the same moment in the action of The Intruder, the uncle, foreshadowing the theme of the mysterious coming of death, says: "When once illness has come into a house, it is as though a stranger had forced him- self into the family circle." The single dominant theme for its dramatic expression calls also for a single situation developing to a single climax. In the case of Fortune and Men's Eyes, it is the ballad-monger, who in crying his wares, "Plays, Play not Fair, Or how a gentlenvoman's heart was took By a player, that was King in a stage-play," gives us in the first few minutes of the play his ironical clue to the theme. And this theme is worked out in Mary Fytton's WORKMANSHIP OF THE ONE-ACT PLAY xvii shallow intrigue with William Herbert, which culminates in the shattering of the Player's dream on that autumn day in South London at " The Bear and the Angel." The single situation exemplifying the theme of The Intruder is found in the repeatedly expressed premonitions of the blind Grandfather, stationary in his armchair, whose heightened senses detect the presence of the Mysterious Stranger. The unity of effect secured in this play is only rivaled, not sur- passed, by the wonderful totality of impression experienced by the reader of The Fall of the House of Usher. The unity of effect in The Intruder is secured also by Maeterlinck's descrip- tion of the setting, which reminds the playgoer or the reader inevitably of Stevenson's familiar words: " Certain dark gar- dens cry aloud for murder; certain old houses demand to be haunted." In general, as has been said, the plot of the one-act play, because of the time limitations, admits of no distracting inci- dents. For the same reason the characterization must be swift and direct. By Bartley Fallon's first speech in Spreading the News, Lady Gregory characterizes him completely. He needs but say: " Indeed it's a poor country and a scarce country to be living in. But I'm thinking if I went to America it's long ago the day I'd be dead," and the fundamental part of his character is fixed in the minds of the audience. From that moment it is just a question of filling in the picture with pantomime and further dialogue. The characterization of the Player in Fortune and Mens Eyes begins at the moment that he enters the tavern, when Wat, the bear-ward, calls out: " I say, I've played. . . . There's not one man Of all the gang — save one. . . . Ay, there be one I grant you, now! . . . He used me in right sort; A man worth better trades." Wat's verdict on the fair-mindedness of Master William Shakespeare of the Lord Chamberlain's company is borne out by the Player's own, "High fortune, man! Commend me to thy bear." {Drinks and passes him the cup.l xvlH INTRODUCTION The entrance of the ballad-monger gives Master Will an open- ing for a punning jest and, the action continuing, shows him sympathetic to the strayed lady-in-waiting, tender to the tavern boy, magnanimous to the false friend and falser love. One method of characterization which the author allows her- self to use in this play, no doubt to heighten the Elizabethan illusion, is rare in the contemporary drama: when this "dark lady of the sonnets " flees " The Bear and the Angel," the Player breaks forth into the self-revealing soliloquy, found so frequently in his own plays, and continuing as a dra- matic convention until the last quarter of the nineteenth centur}^^ Characterization rests in part on pantomime. In The Little ■Man, the Dutch Youth is dumb throughout the play, but he is sufficiently characterized by his foolish demeanor and his re- current laugh. The part of the Little Man himself is one long gesture of humility and dedication. In those one-act plays in which the old characters of the Harlequinade reappear, like The Maker of Dreams and The Pierrot of the Minute, pantomime transcends dialogue as a method of characteriza- tion. In the plays of the Irish dramatists, Synge, Yeats, and Lady Gregory, pantomime and dialogue contribute equally to the characterization, which is of a very high order, since all these dramatists were close observers of the Irish peasant char- acters of their plays. Synge, especially, illustrates the following critical theory of Galsworthy: "The art of writing true dramatic dialogue is an austere art, denying itself all license, grudging every sen- tence devoted to the mere machinery of the plaj^ suppressing all jokes and epigrams severed from character, relying for fun and pathos on the fun and tears of life. From start to finish good dialogue is hand-made, like good lace; clear, of fine tex- ture, furthering with each thread the harmony and strength of a design to which all must be subordinated." A study of the dialogue of Riders to the Sea reveals just this harmony 1 The Elizabethan platform stage survived until then in the shape of the long " apron," projecting in front of the proscenium. The characters were constantly stepping out of the frame of the picture; and while this visual convention maintained itself, there was nothing inconsistent or jarring in the auditory convention of the soliloquy. See William Archer, Play-Making, Boston, 1912, pp. 397-405- WORKMANSHIP OF THE ONE-ACT PLAY xix between the dialogue and the inevitability of the plot, the dia- logue and the simplicity of the characters. The dialogue in The Little Man is the very idiom one would expect to issue from the mouth of the German colonel, the Englishman with the Oxford voice, or the intensely na- tional American, as the case may be. The characters, though they have type names, are, as Mr. Galsworthy would probably be the first to explain, highly individualized. The author does not intend us to think that all Americans are like this loud- voiced traveler, or all Englishmen like the pharisaical gentle- man who gives his wife the advertisements to read while he secures the news sheet for himself. The function of dialogue is the same both in the long and in the short play. For, of course, both forms have many things in common. For instance, as in the full-length play it is necessary for the dramatist to carry forward the interest from act to act, to provide a " curtain " that will leave the audience in a state of suspense, so in the one-act play, the interest must be similarly relayed though the plot is confined to a single act. In The Intruder, every premonition expressed by the Grand- father grips the audience in such a way that they await from minute to minute the coming of the mysterious stranger. The tension is high in A Night at an Inn from the moment the curtain rises. In Riders to the Sea, the beginning of the sus- pense coincides with the opening of the play and lasts. " They're all gone now, and there isn't anything more the sea can do to me," says Maurya, and the audience experiences a rush of relief and a sense of release that the last words, " No man at all can be living for ever, and we must be satisfied," seem only to deepen. A one-act play, then, has many structural features in com- mon with the short-story ; its plot must from beginning to end be dominated by a single theme; its crises may be crises of character as well as conflicts of will or physical conflicts; it must by a method of foreshadowing sustain the interest of the audience unflaggingly, but ultimately relieve their tension ; it must achieve swift characterization by means of pantomime and dialogue; and its dialogue must achieve its effects by the same methods as the dialogue of longer plays, but by even greater economy of means. But when all is said and done, the success of a one-act play is judged not by its conformity to any set 3bc INTRODUCTION of hard and fast rules, but by its power to interest, enlighten, and hold an audience. THEATRES OF TO-DAY THE COMMERCIAL THEATRE AND THE REPERTORY IDEA The term " Commercial Theatre " is rarely used without disparagement. The critic or the playwright who speaks of the Commercial Theatre usually does so either for the purpose of reflecting on the cheapness of the entertainment afforded, or in order to call attention to spectacular receipts. In this country the Commercial Theatre stands for that form of big business in the theatrical world that produces dividends on the money invested comparable to those earned by the most prosperous of the large industries. This system has been, on the whole, a bad thing for the drama, because managers with their eye on attractions that should yield a return, let us say, of over ten per cent on the investment, have been unable to produce the superior play with an appeal to a definite, though perhaps limited audience, and have had to offer to the public the kind of play that would draw large audiences over a long period of time. The " longest run for the safest possible play " is thus conspicuously associated with the Commercial Theatre. As Clayton Hamilton says: "The trouble with the prevailing theatre system in America to-day is not that this system is com- mercial; for in any democratic country, it is not unreasonable to expect the public to defray the cost of the sort of drama that it wishes, and that, therefore, it deserves. The trouble is, rather, that our theatre system is devoted almost entirely to big business; and that in ignoring the small profits of small business it tends to exclude not only the uncommercial drama, but the non-commercial drama as well." ^ Here he makes a distinction between an " uncommercial " play, that is, a play that is a failure with all kinds of audiences, and the " non- commercial " play, which is capable of holding its own finan- cially and yielding modest returns. In the days before the pooling of theatrical interests in this ^ Clayton Hamilton, The Non-Commercial Drama. The Bookman, May, 1915. THEATRES OF TO-DAY xxi country there were indeed long runs, but in many of the large American cities " stock companies," composed of groups of actors and actresses all of about the same reputation and ability, were maintained that kept a number of plays, a " reper- tory," before the public in the course of a season and gave scope for experiment with various kinds of plays. But the " star system," which has now become common, has tended to drive out the " stock company " idea, with the result that the average company rests on the reputation of the " star " and dispenses with distinction in the " support." With the decay of the stock company, the repertory system, in the form in which it did once exist here in the Commercial Theatre, has also declined. Both in Great Britain and in America the repertory system, long established on the Continent, has been reintroduced in order to combat the practices of the Commercial Theatre. For the most part the new repertory theatres have been endowed either by the State or by private individuals. " Absolute enn dowment for absolute freedom," ^ has seemed to at least one American the only means of delivering the drama from com- mercial bondage. This phrase of Percy MacKaye's expresses his cherished belief that endowed civic theatres, which should encourage the participation of whole communities in a com- munity form of drama, are what is needed in a democracy, John Masefield, in the following lines from the prologue written for the opening of the Liverpool Repertory Theatre, has found a poetic theme in this idea of an endowed theatre: "Men will not spend, it seems, on that one art Which is life's inmost soul and passionate heart; They count the theatre a place for fun. Where man can laugh at nights when work is done. If it were only that, 'twould be worth while To subsidize a thing which makes men smile; But it is more; it is that splendid thing, A place where man's soul shakes triumphant wing; A place of art made living, where men may see What human life is and has seemed to be To the world's greatest brains. . . . ^ Percy MacKaye, The Playhouse and the Play, New York, 1909, p. 86. xxll INTRODUCTION O you who hark Fan to a flame through England this first spark, Till in this land there's none so poor of purse But he may see high deeds and hear high verse, And feel his folly lashed, and think him great In this world's tragedy of Life and Fate." ^ In Great Britain repertory is associated with the interest and generosity of Miss A. E. F. Horniman, who will be men- tioned in connection with the Irish National Theatre, and through whom, after some preliminary experiment, the Gaiety Theatre at Manchester was opened as the first repertory house in England, in the spring of 1908. Fifty-five different plays were produced in a little over two years — " twenty-eight new, seventeen revivals of modern English plays, five modern trans- lations, and five classics." ^ In Miss Horniman's own words, her interest was in a Civilized Theatre. " A Civilized Theatre," she has written, " means that a city has something of cultivation in it, something to make literature grow; a real theatre, not a mere amusing toy. What we want is the oppor- tunity for our men and women, our boys and girls to get a chance to see the works of the greatest dramatists of modern times, as well as the classics, for their pleasure as well as their cultivation. . . . Young dramatists should have a theatre where they can see the ripe works of the masters and see them well acted at a moderate price. There should be in every city a theatre where we can see the best drama worthily treated." ^ Owing to war conditions, the Manchester project has had to be abandoned, and so, for the most part, have other similar enterprises. They rarely became self-supporting, but depended on subsidy of one kind or another, which under new economic conditions is no longer forthcoming. The Birmingham Reper- tory Theatre continues, however, under the direction of John Drinkwater, and has become famous through its production of his Abraham Lincoln. " John Drinkwater, I see, has recently defined a Repertory Theatre," writes William Archer, in his latest article on the subject, " as one which ' puts plays into ^ Quoted by Percy MacKaye in The Civic Theatre, New York, 1912, p. 114. =" P. P. Howe, The Repertory Theatre, New York, 1911, P- 59- ' A. E. F. Horniman, The Manchester Players, Poet Lore, Vol. XXV, No. 3, p. 212; p. 213. THEATRES OF TO-DAY xxiii stock which are good enough to stay there.' Enlarging this definition, I should call it a theatre which excluded the long unbroken run ; which presents at least three different pro- grams in each week (though a popular success may be per- formed three or even four times a week throughout a whole season) ; which can produce plays too good to be enormously popular; which makes a principle of keeping alive the great drama of the past, whether recent or remote; which has a company so large that it can, without overworking its actors, keep three or four plays ready for instant presentation ; which possesses an ample stage equipped with the latest artistic and labor-saving appliances; and which offers such comfort in front of the house as to encourage an intelligent public to make it an habitual place of resort. " That there exists in every great American city an intelligent public large enough to support one or more such playhouses is to my mind indisputable. But the theatre might have to be run at a loss for two or three opening seasons, until it had attracted and educated its habitual supporters. For even a public of high general intelligence needs a certain amount of special education in things of the theatre." This testimony is in a highly optimistic vein. A talk with B. Iden Payne, once director of the Manchester Players, reveals the fact that in England at the present time the repertory idea is being taken over with more promise of success by the small groups that represent the Little Theatre movement in that country. The repertory theatre there did succeed in arousing in the locality in which, for the time being, it existed an interest in intelligent plays, but it was not equally successful in confirming a distaste for unintelligent plays. The study of these experiments will repay Americans who are in- terested in seeing the repertory idea fostered over here by en- dowment or otherwise. THE LITTLE THEATRE The year 191 1 saw the beginning in the United States of the Little Theatre movement, which has grown with phe- nomenal rapidity and has spread in all directions. The first Little Theatres in this country were located in large cities; but in the course of time the idea has penetrated to small towns xxlv INTRODUCTION and rural communities all over the United States. Barns, wharves, saloons, and school assembly halls have been trans- formed into intimate little playhouses. There were European precedents for this idea. The Theatre Libre, opened in Paris in 1887 by Andre Antoine as a protest against the kind of play then in favor, is generally called the first of this type. In the years from 1887 to 191 1 Little Theatres were opened in Russia, in Belgium, in Germany, in Sweden, in Hungary, in England, in Ireland, and in France. In Europe these theatres came into being, generally speaking, in order to give freer play to the new arts of the theatre or for the purpose of encouraging a more intellectual type of drama than was being produced in the larger houses. There are two conceptions of the Little Theatre current in the United States. According to one, it is a theatrical organi- zation housed in a simple building, that makes its productions in the most economical way, does not pay its actors, does not charge admission, and uses scenery and properties that are cheaply manufactured at home. The Little Theatre is, however, more commonly conceived of as a repertory theatre supported by the subscription system, producing its plays on a small stage in a small hall, selecting for production the kind of play not likely to be used by the Commercial Theatre, most frequently the one-act play, and com- mitted to experiments in stage decoration, lighting, and the other stage arts. The Little Theatre and the one-act play have developed each other reciprocally, for the Little Theatre has encouraged the writing of one-act plays in Europe and in this country. The one-act play is the natural unit of pro- duction in the Little Theatre, both because it requires a less sustained performance from the actors, who have frequently been amateurs, and because it has offered in the same evening several opportunities to the various groups of artists collabo- rating in the productions of the Little Theatre. Though the movement has had the effect of stimulating community spirit and has been the means of solving grave community problems, the Little Theatre is not, in the technical sense, a community theatre; in the sense, that is, in which Percy MacKaye uses the word. It is not, in fact, so portentous an enterprise, because it does not enlist the participation of every member of a com- munity. The community theatre is an example of civic co- o Z IS 6 _o 3 u 3 «4> (8 c o THEATRES OF TO-DAY xxv operation on a large scale ; the Little Theatre, of the same kind of co-operation on a small scale. Notably artistic results have been achieved by such Little Theatres as The Neighborhood Playhouse in New York, built in 1914 by the Misses Irene and Alice Lewisohn, in connection with the social settlement idea, to provide expression for the talents of a community that had been previously trained in dramatic classes for some years; by the Chicago Little Theatre, founded in 191 1, now no longer in existence, but for a few years under the direction of Maurice Browne, a disciple of Gordon Craig's; by the Detroit Theatre of Arts and Crafts, once under the direction of Mr. Sam Hume, also a follower of Gordon Craig's; by the Washington Square Players, who during several seasons in New York gave a remarkable impetus to the writing of one-act plays in America; by the Province- town Players, whose first productions were made on Cape Cod, who later opened a small playhouse in New York, and who gave the public an opportunity to know the plays of Eugene O'Neill; by the Portmanteau Theatre of Stuart Walker, that uses but one setting in its productions, but varies the effect with different colored lights, and as its name implies, is port- able, one of the few of its kind in the world ; by the 47 Work- shop Theatre that has arisen as the result of the course in play- writing given at Harvard University by Professor George Pierce Baker, and the productions of which have served to introduce many new writers; and by the Theatre du Vieux Colombier, that came to New York from Paris in 19 17, and remained for two seasons to illustrate the best French practice. These theatres also enjoy the distinction of having experimented with repertory. The Theatre du Vieux Colombier was organized and is di- rected by Jacques Copeau. It is no casual amateur experi- ment. Its actors are professionals and its director is a scholar and an artist. In preparation for the original opening the com- pany went into the country and established a little colony. " During five hours of each day they studied repertoire but they did far more. They performed exercises in physical cul- ture and the dance: they read aloud and acted improvised dramatic scenes. They worked thus upon their bodies, their voices and their actions: made them subtle instruments in their command." They learned that in an artistic production every xxvi INTRODUCTION gesture, every word, every line, and every color counted. Naturally no group of amateurs or semi-professionals can ap- proach the results of a company trained as M. Copeau's is. When he was over here, he was much interested in our Little Theatres. He said in one of his addresses: "All the little theatres which now swarm in America, ought to come to an understanding among themselves and unite, instead of trying to keep themselves apart and distinctive. The ideas which they possess in common have not even begun to be put into execu- tion. They must be incorporated into life." ^ The native Little Theatres, much simpler affairs than the Vieux Colombier, persist. They have made a place for them- selves in American life, among the farms, in the suburbs, in the small towns, and in the cities. Sometimes, no doubt, they are like the one in Sinclair Lewis's Gopher Prairie; or they hardly outlast a season. But new ones spring up to replace those that have gone out of existence, and meanwhile the ends of whole- some community recreation are being served. THE IRISH NATIONAL THEATRE About 1890 began the movement which has since been known as the Celtic Renaissance, a movement that had for its object the lifting into literature of the songs, myths, romances, and legends treasured for countless generations in the hearts ^ The kind of co-operation to which he looked forward is beg:inning. For instance, the New York Drama League announces a Little Theatre membership. " Its purpose is to serve the needs of the large and con- stantly growing public that is interested in the activities of the semi- professional and amateur community groups who read or produce plays. Under this new Membership there will be issued monthly, for ten issues a Play List of five pages, giving a concise but complete synopsis of new plays, both one-act and longer plays. It will show the number of characters required; the kind of audience to which the play would be likely to appeal; the royalty asked for production rights; the production necessities and other information of value to production groups or individuals. One page will be devoted to three or four standard older plays treated with the same detail of infor- mation. The Little Theatre Supplement . . . will continue to be issued each month, but will hereafter be a feature of the Little Theatre Membership only. It will contain the programs of the Little Theatres throughout the country; short accounts of what is going on among the various groups, and articles on Little Theatre problems, with hints on new, effective and economical methods of production." THEATRES OF TO-DAY xxvii of the Irish peasantry. In the same decade in Great Britain and on the Continent, tendencies were at work looking to the reform of the drama and its rescue from commercial formulas. The genesis of the Irish National Theatre, a pioneer in the field of repertory in Great Britain, and one of the first of the Little Theatres, is due to both of these influences. Its first form was the Irish Literary Theatre, founded in 1899 by Edward Martyn, the author of The Heather Field and Maeve, George Moore, and William Butler Yeats. The first play produced by this organization was Yeats's Countess Cathleen. This enterprise employed only English actors, and did not assume to be purely national in scope. It came to an end in October, 1901. It was in October, 1902, that in Samhain, the organ of the Irish National Theatre, William Butler Yeats made the following announcement: "The Irish Literary Theatre has given place to a company of Irish actors." The nucleus of this new Irish National Theatre was certain companies of amateurs that W. G. Fay had assembled. These companies were composed of people who were unable to give full time to their interest in the drama, but who came from the office or the shop to rehearse at odd moments during the day and in the evening. The Irish National Theatre really developed from these amateur companies. It was strictly na- tional in scope. The advisers, who were to include Synge, Lady Gregory, Padraic Colum, William Butler Yeats, and others, looked to the Irish National Theatre to bring the drama back to the people, to whom plays dealing with society life meant nothing. They intended also that their plays " should give them [the people] a quite natural pleasure, should either tell them of their own life, or of that life of poetry where every man can see his own magic, because there alone does human nature escape from arbitrary conditions." This pro- gram has been carried out with remarkable success. October, 1902, is the date for the beginning of the Irish National Theatre. At first W. G. Fay, and his brother, Frank Fay, were in charge of the productions, the former as stage manager. Frank Fay had charge of training a company, in which the star system was unknown. He had studied French methods of stage diction and gesture, and the Irish Players are generally said to show the results of his familiarity with great French models. In 19 13 a school of acting was xxvni INTRODUCTION organized in order to perpetuate the tradition created by the Fays. Among the most famous playwrights who have written for the Irish National Theatre are Padraic Colum, John Mill- ington Synge, William Butler Yeats, Lady Gregory, St. John G. Ervine, IE (George W. Russell), and Lord Dunsany. At one time the theatre sent out, in a circular addressed to aspiring authors who showed promise, the following counsel: " A play to be suitable for performance at the Abbey should contain some criticism of life, founded on the experience or personal observation of the writer, or some vision of life, of Irish life by preference, important from its beauty or from some excellence of style, and this intellectual quality is not more necessary to tragedy than to the gayest comedy." ^ In 1904 the Irish National Theatre was housed for the first time in its own playhouse, the Abbey Theatre. This change was made possible by the generosity of Miss A. E. F. Horni- man, who saw the Irish Players when they first went to London in 1903. It was she who obtained the lease of the Mechanics' Institute in Dublin, increased its capacity, and rebuilt it, giving it rent free to the Players from 1904 to 1909, in addition to an annual subsidy which she allowed them. In 19 10 the Abbey Theatre was bought from her by public subscription. The next year, the Irish Players paid their famous visit to the United States. The Irish National Dramatic Com.pany was organized as a protest against current theatrical practices. Its founders pur- posed to reform the various arts of the theatre. By encour- aging native playwrights they hoped to do for the drama of Ireland what Ibsen and other writers had done for the drama in Scandinavian countries, where people go to the theatre to think as well as to feel. It was not intended in any sense that these new Irish players were to serve the purpose of propaganda; truth was not to be compromised in the service of a cause. Acting, too, was to be improved: redundant gesture was to be suppressed; repose was to be given its full value; speech was to be made more important than gesture. Yeats in particular had theories as to the way in which verse should be spoken on the stage; he advocated a cadenced chant, ^Lady Gregory, Our Irish Theatre, New York, 1913, p. loi. THE NEW ART OF THE THEATRE xxix monotonous but not sing-song, for the delivery of poetry. The simplification of costume and setting was also included in their scheme, for both were to be strictly accessory to the speech and movement of the characters. They have been faithful to their ideals. The performances at the Abbey Theatre continue, although from time to time certain of the most eminent actors of the company have with- drawn, some to migrate to America. Among the plays pro- duced in 1919 and 1920 by the National Theatre Society at the Abbey Theatre are W. B. Yeats's The Land of Heart's Desire, G. B. Shaw's Androcles and the Lion, Lady Gregory's The Dragon, and Lord Dunsany's The Glittering Gate. ^ THE NEW ART OF THE THEATRE There are certain facts about the artistic transformation that the theatre is undergoing in the twentieth century with which students of the drama need to be familiar in order to picture for themselves how plays can be interpreted by means of design, color, and light. The transformation is definitely connected with a few famous names. In Europe two men, Edward Gordon Craig and Max Reinhardt, stand out as reformers in matters connected with the construction, the lighting, and the design of stage settings. In this country the artists of the theatre are, generally speaking, disciples of one or both of these great Europeans and their colleagues. The new stage artist studies the characterization and the situations in the play, the production of which he is directing, and tries to make his set- ting suggestive of the physical and emotional atmosphere in which the action of the drama moves. Gordon Craig has written several books and many articles embodying his ideas on play production. In all his writings he emphasizes the importance of having one individual with complete authority and complete knowledge in charge of co- ordinating and subordinating the various arts that go to make the production of a play a symmetrical whole, his theory being that there is no one art that can be called to the exclusion of all others the Art of the Theatre: not the acting, not the play, not the setting, not the dance ; but that all these properly har- monized through the personality of the director become the Art of the Theatre. XXX INTRODUCTION The kind of setting that has become identified in the popular mind with Gordon Craig is the simple monochrome back- ground composed either of draperies or of screens. It is un- fortunate that this popular idea should be so limited because, of course, the name of Gordon Craig should carry with it the suggestion of an infinite variety of ways of interpreting the play through design. His screens, built to stand alone, vary in number from one to four and sometimes have as many as ten leaves. They are either made of solid wood or are wooden frames covered with canvas. The screens with narrow leaves may be used to produce curved forms, and screens with broad leaves to enclose large rectangular spaces. The screens are one form of the setting composed of adjustable units, which can be adapted in an infinite variety of ways to the needs of the play. The new ideas in European stagecraft began to be popu- larized in America in the year 1914-15, when under the aus- pices of the Stage Society, Sam Hume, now teaching the arts of the theatre at the University of California, and Kenneth Macgowan, the dramatic critic, arranged an exhibition that was shown in New York, Chicago, and other great centres, of new stage sets designed by Robert Edmond Jones, Sam Hume, and others who have since become famous. The models displayed on this occasion brought before the public for the first time the new method of lighting which, as much as any- thing else, differentiates the new theatre art from the old. It introduced the device of a concave back wall made of plaster, sometimes called by its German name " horizont," and a light- ing equipment that would dye this plaster horizon with colors that melted into one another like the colors in the sky; a stage with " dimmers " for every circuit of lights, and sockets for high-power lamps at any spot from the stage. In the same year that the Stage Society showed Robert Edmond Jones's models, he was given an opportunity to design the settings and costumes for Granville Barker's production of Anatole France's The Man Who Married a Dumb Wife, which may be said to have advertised the new practices in America more than any other single production. Writing of his own work shortly after, Mr. Jones says: " While the scenery of a play is truly important, it should be so important that the audience should forget that it is present. The Merchant of Venice. A room in Belmont. Design by Robert Edmond Jones. A great round window framed in the heavy molding of Mantegna and the pale clear sky of Northern Italy. THE NEW ART OF THE THEATRE xxxi There should be fusion between the play and the scenery. Scenery isn't there to be looked at, it's really there to be forgotten. The drama is a fire, the scenery is the air that lifts the fire and makes it bright. . . . The audience that is always conscious of the back drop is paying a doubtful compli- ment to the painter. . . . Even costumes should be the handiwork of the scenic artist. Yes, and if possible, he should build the very furniture." ^ Robert Edmond Jones has not only designed settings and costumes for poetic and fantastic forms of drama, but he has also been called upon to plan the productions of realistic modern plays. Three of his designs introducing three different aspects of his work have been here reproduced. The model for Maeterlinck's The Seven Princesses is an example of an attempt to present the essential significant structure of a setting in the simplest way conceivable and by so doing to stimulate the imagination of the spectator to create for itself the imaginative environ- ment of the play. His design for a room in Belmont for The Merchant of Venice shows a great round window framed in the heavy molding of Mantegna and the pale, clear sky of Northern Italy. The scene for Good Gracious Annabelle is a corridor in an hotel. This scene is a typical example of a more or less abstract rendering of a literal scene. It was de- signed primarily with the idea of giving as many dift'erent exits and entrances as possible, in order that the action of the drama might be swift and varied.- When Sam Hume was connected with the Detroit Theatre of Arts and Crafts, he used a symbolic and suggestive method for the setting of poetic plays the scene of which was laid in no definite locality. In this theatre he installed a permanent setting, including the following units: "Four pylons [square pillars], constructed of canvas on wooden frames, each of the three covered faces measuring two and one-half by eighteen feet; two canvas flats each three by eighteen feet; two sections of stairs three feet long, and one section eight feet long, of uniform eighteen-inch height; three platforms of the same height, respectively six, eight, and twelve feet long; dark green ^ Robert Edmond Jones, The Future Decorative Art of the Theatre, Theatre Magazine, Vol. XXV, May, 1917, p. 266. * Robert Ednaond Jones himself has suggested the phrasing of these descriptions. xxxii INTRODUCTION hangings as long as the pylons; two folding screens for mask- ing, covered with the same cloth as that used in the hangings, and as high as the pylons; and two irregular tree forms in silhouette. " The pylons, flats, and stairs, and such added pieces as the arch and window, were painted in broken color . . . ^ so that the surfaces would take on any desired color under the proper lighting." ^ The economy of this method is illustrated by the fact that in one season nineteen plays were given in the Arts and Crafts Theatre at Detroit, and the settings for eleven of these were merely rearrangements of the permanent setting. This kind of setting is sometimes called " plastic " — a term which refers to the fact that the separate units are in the round, and not flat. The effect secured in settings represent- ing outdoor scenes was made possible only by the use of a plaster horizon of the general type described in connection with the exhibition of the Stage Society. Robert Edmond Jones and Sam Hume are two of an in- creasingly large number of artists in America, among whom should be mentioned Norman-bel Geddes, Maurice Browne, and Lee Simonson, who are experimenting with design, color, and light. Underlying the work of all of these is the belief that the whole production, the play, the acting, the lighting, and the setting, should be unified by some one dominating mood. In the work of these new artists, there is no place for the old-fashioned painted back drop, the use of which emphasizes the disparity between the painted and the actual perspective, though their backgrounds are by no means neces- sarily either screens or draperies. Another new style of back- ground is the skeleton setting, a permanent structural founda- tion erected on the stage, which through the addition of draperies and movable properties, or the variation of lights, or the manipulation of screens, may serve for all the scenes of a play. A permanent structure of this sort, representing the Tower of London, was used by Robert Edmond Jones in a recent production of Richard III in New York, at the Plymouth Theatre. When Jacques Copeau conducted the Theatre du Vieux Colombier in New York he had a per- manent structure built on the stage of the Garrick Theatre, ^ See p. xxxiii. ^ Sheldon Cheney, The Art Theatre, New York, 1917, pp. 167-168. X.S-C3 « > C 'a. ©"^ D §^ e ^'^ c ^ E c >, w ^ u ■^ O l> 5 ^ a> w & 2 Q 4-^ _o go « •"• .5 t- J3 u U, Hh <" 00 « u ^ £ R W C K f « C « -t; n V C !;~ 'u o tt: ^ artistic and beautiful place for outdoor performances, either plays or pageants. On the slope nearest the building are semi-circular rows of concrete seats accommodating about fifteen hundred people. A brook spanned by two arched bridges separates the audience from the stage. Back of the turf stage is a graveled stage slightly raised and reached by two flights of steps. The pergola and trees make a beautiful background. The house in the rear is a part of the plant and is used for dressing and make-up. The Beechwood Theatre within the school has a proscenium opening of t^venty-seven feet and a stage depth, back to the plaster horizon, of the same dimensions. There are two com- plete sets of drapery, one of coarse ecru linen and one of blue velvet; there is also a stock drawing-room set of thirty pieces. Back of the stage are ten dressing-rooms. The lighting ar- rangements are extraordinarily complete: the theatre has a standard electrical equipment of footlights and borders and a switchboard of the best type to which has recently been added the latest lighting devices, consisting of an X-ray border, the end section of which is on a separate dimmer, a thousand- watt centre floodlight, six five-hundred watt-spotlights, each on separate dimmers, in the false proscenium or tormentor,^ and a line of one-thousand-watt floodlights for lighting the plaster ^ For the explanation of this and kindred technical terms, see Arthur Edwin Krows, Play Production in America, New York, 1916. Cf. Maurice Browne, The Temple of a Living Art. The Drama, Chicago, 1913, No. 12, p. 168: "Nor is this just a question of stage jargon; that man or woman who would establish an Art Theatre that is an Art Theatre and not a pet rabbit fed by hand, must be able to design it, to ventilate it, to decorate it, to equip its stage, to light it (and to handle its lighting himself, or his electricians will not listen to him), to plan his costumes and scenery, aye, and at a shift, to make them with his own hand." Ix INTRODUCTION sky. All of this recently added equipment is controlled from a separate portable switchboard. Though this plant was built primarily for the school, it is used also by the Beechwood Players, a Little Theatre organization, and by other community clubs which comprise an orchestra, a chorus, a group interested in the fine arts, and a poetry circle. Mr. Vanderlip looks forward to the development of a school of the arts of the theatre from the nucleus of the Beechwood community clubs. With this idea in mind he has just built a workshop for the Beechwood Players in a separate building. It contains power woodworking machines, and rooms for paint- ing scenery and for the costume department, the latter con- taining power sewing machines. There is no doubt but that these two schools have unique facilities for developing an interest in the acted drama. But artistic results have often been secured in the school theatre with equipment falling far short of the ideal standards achieved at Montclair and at Scarborough. Other less fortunate schools are, moreover, at no particular disadvantage when it comes to the class-room study of the drama for which this book is pri- marily planned, this work being the first step in the direction of a more intelligent attitude toward modern plays and modern theatres. A class-room reading of modern plays without any accessories, as Shakespeare is often read from the seats and the aisles, is one of the most practical methods of speech and voice improvement. Louis Calvert, the eminent actor, speaking of this kind of training says: " After all it is one of the simplest things in the world to learn to speak correctly, to take thought and begin and end each word properly. ... A little atten- tion to one's everyday conversation will often work wonders. If one schools himself for a while to speak a little more slowly, and to give each syllable its due, it is surprising how naturally and rapidly his speech wnll clarify. If we take care of the consonants, the vowels will take care of themselves." At the present time, then, the theatre in the schools means a variety of things. It means first and foremost, as suggested by the latest college entrance requirements, the study of modern plays, side by side with the classics. It means also the improve- ment of English speech, through the interpretation and the reading aloud of the text. It means a study of the new art of the theatre such as the present book suggests. It means often Ravine where the Garden Theatre was built. The Garden Theatre. THE THEATRE IN THE SCHOOL Ixi the presentation of plays before outside audiences and the con- sequent strengthening of the ties that should exist between the school and the community. It may mean the co-operation of several departments of the school in the production; and, in this case, it usually results in the establishment of some kind of a workshop. And finally, in certain favored schools, it means the erection of model Little Theatres. It seems fair to suppose that this newly aroused interest in modern drama and in modern methods of production in the schools will have far- reaching results. BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN By BOOTH TARKINGTON * * Copyright, 1912, by Harper and Brothers. Copyright in Great Britain. All acting rights both amateur and professional reserved by the author. Since the days of Edward Eggleston, Indiana has been ac- cumulating literary traditions until at the present time it rivals New England in the variety of its literary associations. Newton Booth Tarkington, born in Indianapolis in 1869, and continu- ing to make his home there still in the old family house on North Pennsylvania Street, is one of the most distinguished of the Hoosier writers. As a lad of eleven he began his friend- ship with James Whitcomb Riley, then a neighbor. " He acknowledges (shaking his head in reflection at the depth of it) that the spirit of Riley has exercised over him a strong, if often unconsciously felt, influence all his life." The delicious stories of Penrod and of the William Sylvanus Baxter of Seven- teen that Booth Tarkington has told for the unalloyed delight of old and young are said to reproduce quite accurately the author's recollection of his own boyhood pranks and associations in the Middle-Western city of his birth. Tarkington went first to Phillips Exeter Academy and later to Purdue University at Lafayette, Indiana, before he became a member of the class of '93 at Princeton. His popularity and his good fellowship are still cherished memories on the campus. It seems that he was infallibly associated in the undergraduate mind with the singing of Danny Deever; so much so, that whenever he appeared on the steps at Nassau Hall there would be an immediate demand for his speciality, a demand that often caused him to retire as inconspicuously as possible from the crowd. These old days are commemorated in the following verses, a copy of which, framed, hangs on the walls of the Princeton Club in New York. RONDEL " The same old Tark — just watch him shy Like hunted thing, and hide, if let, Away behind his cigarette, When ' Danny Deever ' is the cry. Keep up the call and by and by We'll make him sing, and find he's yet The same old Tark. 3 4 BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN No ' Author Leonid ' we spy In him, no cultured ladies' pet: He just drops in, and so we get The good old song, and gently guy The same old Tark — just watch him shy! " No biography of Booth Tarkington, no matter how brief, should omit to mention that he was elected to the Indiana State Legislature and sat for a time in that body, where he accumu- lated, no doubt, some data on the subject of Indiana politics that he may afterwards have put to literary use. He has found the subject for most of his novels and plays ^ in contemporary American life, which he treats unsentimentally, spiritedly, and vigorously. Beauty and the Jacobin, like his famous and fascinating tale, Monsieur Beaucaire, is exceptional among his works in deserting the modern American scene for an Eighteenth Century situation. The story and the play are likely, for this reason, to be compared. The tone of Monsieur Beaucaire is more urbane, more whimsical, more romantic than the mood of Beauty and the Jacobin which " breaks with the pretty, pretty kind of thing. There is a new quality in the texture of the writing. . . . The plot here springs directly from character, and the action of the piece is inevitable. Beauty and the Jacobin gives evidence of being the first conscious and determined, as it is the first consistent, effort of the author to leave the surface and work from the inside of his characters out. . . . The whole of the little drama is scintillant with wit, delicate and at times brilliant and somewhat Shavian, which flashes out poignantly against the sombreness of its back- Beauty and the Jacobin was published in 1912 and has had at least one performance on the professional stage. On No- vember 12, 19 12, it was played by members of the company then acting in Fanny's First Play, at a matinee at the Comedy Theatre, in New York. It has always been a favorite with amateurs and quite recently was performed in St. Louis by one of the dramatic clubs of that city. 1 For a bibliography of his works through the year 1913, see Asa Don Dickinson, Booth Tarkington, a Gentleman from Indiana, Garden City, no date. * Robert Cortes Holliday, Booth Tarkington, Garden City and New York, 1918, pp. 155-156; p. 157. BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN Our scene is in a rusty lodging-house of the Lower Town, Boulogne-sur-Mer, and the time, the early twilight of dark November in northern France. This particular November is dark indeed, for it is November of the year 1793, Frimaire of the Terror. The garret room disclosed to us, like the evening lowering outside its one window, and like the times, is mysterious, obscure, smoked with per- plexing shadows; these flying and staggering to echo the shif tings of a young man writing at a desk by the light of a candle. We are just under the eaves here; the dim ceiling slants; and there are tivo doors: that in the rear wall is closed; the other, upon our right, and evidently leading to an inner chamber, we find ajar. The furniture of this mean apart- ment is chipped, faded, insecure, yet still possessed of a haggard elegance; shajned odds and ends, cheaply acquired by the proprietor of the lodging-house, no doubt at an auction of the confiscated leavings of some emigrant noble. The single window, square and mustily curtained, is so small that it cannot be imagined to admit much light on the brightest of days; however, it might afford a lodger a limited view of the houses opposite and the street below. In fact, as our eyes groiu accustomed to the obscurity we discover it serving this very purpose at the present moment, for a tall woman stands close by in the shadoiu, peering between the curtains with the distrustfulness of a picket thrown far out into an enemy's country. Her coarse blouse and skirt, new and as ill-fitting as sacks, her shop- woman's bonnet and cheap veil, and her rough shoes are naively denied by her sensitive, pale hands and the high- bred and in-bred face, long profoundly marked by loss and fear, and now very white, very watchful. She is not more than forty, but her hair, glimpsed beneath the clumsy bonnet, shows much grayer than need be at that age. This is Anne de Laseyne. 5 6 BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN The intent young 7nan at the desk, easily recognizable as her brother, fair and of a singular physical delicacy, is a finely completed product of his race ; one would pronounce him gentle in each sense of the word. His costume rivals his sister's in the innocence of its attempt at disguise: he wears a carefully soiled carter's frock, rough neviX gaiters, and a pair of dangerously aristocratic shoes, which are not too dusty to conceal the fact that they are of excellent make and lately sported buckles. A tousled cap of rabbit-skin, exhibiting a tricolor cockade, croiuns these anomalies, though not at present his thin, blond curls, for it has been tossed upon a dressing-table which stands against the wall to the left. He is younger than Madame de Laseyne, probably by more than ten years; and, though his features so strikingly resemble hers, they are free from the per- manent impress of pain which she bears like a mourning- badge upon her own. He is expending a feverish attention upon his task, but with patently unsatisfactory results; for he whispers and mutters to hirnself, bites the feather of his pen, shakes his head forebodingly, and again and again crumples a written sheet and throws it upon the floor. Whenever this happens Anne de Laseyne casts a white glance at him over her shoulder — his desk is in the center of the room — her anxiety is visibly increased, and the temptation to speak less and less easily controlled, until at last she gives way to it. Her voice is low and hurried. Anne. Louis, it is growing dark very fast. Louis. I had not observed it, my sister. [He lights a second candle from the first; then, pen in mouth, scratches at his writing with a little knife.] Anne. People are still crowding in front of the wine-shop across the street. Louis [smiling with one side of his mouth]. Naturally. Reading the list of the proscribed that came at noon. Also waiting, amiable vultures, for the next bulletin from Paris. It will give the names of those guillotined day before yesterday. For a good bet: our own names [he nods toward the other room] — yes, hers, too — are all three in the former. As for the latter — well, they can't get us in that now. BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN 7 Anne [eagerly]. Then you are certain that we are safe? Louis. I am certain only that they cannot murder us day before yesterday. \As he bends his head to his writing a woman comes in languidly through the open door, bearing an armful of garments, among which one catches the gleam of fine silk, glimpses of lace and rich furs — a disordered burden which she dumps pell-mell into a large portmanteau lying open upon a chair near the desk. This new-comer is of a startling gold-and-ivory beauty; a beauty quite literally striking, for at the very first glance the whole force of it hits the beholder like a snowball in the eye; a beauty so obvious, so completed, so rounded, that it is painful; a beauty to rivet the unenvious stare of women, but from the full blast of which either king or man-peasant would stagger away to the confessional. The egregious luster of it is not breathed upon even by its over- spreading of sullen revolt, as its possessor carelessly arranges the garments in the portmanteau. She wears a dress all gray, of a coarse texture, but exquisitely fitted to her; nothing could possibly be plainer, or of a more revealing simplicity. She might be twenty-two; at least it is certain that she is not thirty. At her coming, Louis looks up with a sigh of poignant wistful- ness, evidently a habit; for as he leans back to watch her he sighs again. She does not so much as glance at him, but speaks absently to Madame de Laseyne. Her voice is superb, as it should be; deep and musical, with a faint, silvery huskiness.] Eloise [the new-comer]. Is he still there? Anne. I lost sight of him in the crowd. I think he has gone. If only he does not come back! Louis [with grim conviction]. He will. Anne. I am trying to hope not. Eloise. I have told you from the first that you overestimate his importance. Haven't I said it often enough? Anne [under her breath]. You have! Eloise [coldly]. He will not harm you. Anne [looking out of the window]. More people down there; they are running to the wine-shop. Louis. Gentle idlers! [The sound of triumphant shout- ing comes up from the street below.] That means that the list of the guillotined has arrived from Paris. Anne [shivering]. They are posting it in the wine-shop win- 8 BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN dow. [The shouting increases suddenly to a roar of hilarity, in which the shrilling of women ?ningles.\ Louis. Ah! One remarks that the list is a long one. The good people are well satisfied with it. [To Eloise] My cousin, in this amiable populace which you champion, do you never scent something of — well, something of the graveyard scav- enger? [She offers the response of an unmoved glance in his direction, and slowly goes out by the door at which she entered. Louis sighs again and returns to his scribbling.]^ Anne [nervously]. Haven't you finished, Louis? Louis [indicating the floor strewn with crumpled slips of paper]. A dozen. Anne. Not good enough? Louis [with a rueful smile]. I have lived to discover that among all the disadvantages of being a Peer of France the most dangerous is that one is so poor a forger. Truly, how- ever, our parents are not to be blamed for neglecting to have me instructed in this art; evidently they perceived I had no talent for it. [Lifting a sheet from the desk.] Oh, vile! I am not even an amateur. [He leans back, tapping the paper thoughtfully with his pen.] Do you suppose the Fates took all the trouble to make the Revolution simply to teach me that I have no skill in forgery? Listen. [He reads what he has written.] " Committee of Public Safety. In the name of the Republic. To all Officers, Civil and Military: Permit the Citizen Balsage " — that's myself, remember — " and the Citi- zeness Virginie Balsage, his sister " — that's you, Anne — " and the Citizeness Marie Balsage, his second sister " — that is Eloise, you understand — " to embark in the vessel Jeune Pierrette from the port of Boulogne for Barcelona. Signed: Billaud Varennes. Carnot. Robespierre." Execrable! [He tears up the paper, scattering the fragments on the floor.] I am not even sure it is the proper form. Ah, that Dossonville! Anne. But Dossonville helped us — Louis. At a price. Dossonville! An individual of marked attainment, not only in penmanship, but in the art of plausi- bility. Before I paid him he swore that the passports he forged for us would take us not only out of Paris, but out of the country. Anne. Are you sure we must have a separate permit to embark? BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN 9 Louis. The captain of the Jeune Pierrette sent one of his sailors to tell me. There is a new Commissioner from the Na- tional Committee, he said, and a special order was issued this morning. They have an officer and a file of the National Guard on the quay to see that the order is obeyed. Anne. But we bought passports in Paris. Why can't we here ? Louis. Send out a street-crier for an accomplished forger? My poor Anne ! We can only hope that the lieutenant on the quay may be drunk when he examines my dreadful " permit." Pray a great thirst upon him, my sister! {He looks at a watch which he draws from beneath his frock.] Four o'clock. At five the tide in the river is poised at its highest; then it must run out, and the Jeune Pierrette with it. We have an hour. I return to my crime. [He takes a fresh sheet of paper and begins to write.] Anne [urgently]. Hurry, Louis! Louis. Watch for Master Spy. Anne. I cannot see him. [There is silence for a time, broken only by the nervous scratching of Louis's pen.] Louis [at work]. Still you don't see him? Anne. No. The people are dispersing. They seem in a good humor. Louis. Ah, if they knew — [He breaks off, examines his latest effort attentively, and finds it unsatisfactory, as is evinced by the noiseless whistle of disgust to which his lips form them- selves. He discards the sheet and begins another, speaking rather absently as he does so.] I suppose I have the distinction to be one of the most hated men in our country, now that all the decent people have left it — so many by a road something of the shortest! Yes, these merry gentlemen below there would be still merrier if they knew they had within their reach a for- feited " Emigrant." I wonder how long it would take them to climb the breakneck flights to our door. Lord, there'd be a race for it ! Prize-money, too, I fancy, for the first with his bludgeon. Anne [lamentably]. Louis, Louis! Why didn't you lie safe in England? Louis [smiling]. Anne, Anne! I had to come back for a good sister of mine. Anne. But I could have escaped alone. lo BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN Louis. That is it — " alone " ! [He lowers his voice as he glances toiuard the open door.] For she would not have moved at all if I hadn't come to bully her into it. A fanatic, a fanatic! Anne [brusquely]. She is a fool. Therefore be patient with her. Louis [warningly]. Hush. Eloise [in a loud, careless tone from the other room]. Oh, I heard you! What does it matter? [She returns, carrying a handsome skirt and bodice of brocade and a woman's long mantle of light-green cloth, hooded and lined with fur. She drops them into the portmanteau and closes it.] There! I've finished your packing for you. Louis [rising]. My cousin, I regret that we could not provide servants for this flight. [Bowing formally.] I re- gret that we have been compelled to ask you to do a share of what is necessary. Eloise [turning to go out again]. That all? Louis [lifting the portmanteau]. I fear — Eloise [with assumed fatigue]. Yes, you usually do. What now? Louis [flushing painfully]. The portmanteau is too heavy. [He returns to the desk, sits, and busies himself with his writ- ing, keeping his grieved face from her view.] Eloise. You mean you're too weak to carry it? Louis. Suppose at the last moment it becomes necessary to hasten exceedingly — Eloise. You mean, suppose you had to run, you'd throw away the portmanteau. [Contemptuously.] Oh, I don't doubt you'd do it! Louis [forcing himself to look up at her cheerfully]. I dislike to leave my baggage upon the field, but in case of a rout it might be a temptation — if it were an impediment. Anne [peremptorily]. Don't waste time. Lighten the port- manteau. Louis. You may take out everything of mine. Eloise. There's nothing of yours in it except your cloak. You don't suppose — Anne. Take out that heavy brocade of mine. Eloise. Thank you for not wishing to take out my fur- lined cloak and freezing me at sea! Louis [gently]. Take out both the cloak and the dress. BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN ii Eloise [astounded]. What! Louis. You shall have mine. It is as warm, but not so heavy. Eloise [a?7ffrily]. Oh, I am sick of your eternal packing and unpacking! I am sick of it! Anne. Watch at the w^indovv, then. [She goes swiftly to the portmanteau, opens it, tosses out the green mantle and the brocaded skirt and bodice, and tests the weight of the port- manteau.] I think it will be light enough now, Louis. Louis. Do not leave those things in sight. If our landlord should come in — Anne. I'll hide them in the bed in the next room. Eloise! [She points imperiously to the window. Eloise goes to it sloiuly and for a moment makes a scornful pretense of being on watch there; but as soon as Madame de Laseyne has left the room she turns, leaning against the wall and regarding Louis with languid amusement. He continues to struggle with his ill-omened " permit," hut, by and by, becoming aware of her gaze, glances consciously over his shouder and meets her half-veiled eyes. Coloring, he looks away, stares dreamily at nothing, sighs, and finally writes again, absently, like a man under a spell, which, indeed, he is. The pen drops from his hand with a faint click upon the floor. He makes the move- ment of a person suddenly awakened, and, holding his last writ- ing near one of the candles, examines it critically. Then he breaks into low, bitter laughter.] Eloise [unwillingly curious]. You find something amus- ing? Louis. Myself. One of my mistakes, that is all. Eloise [indifferently]. Your mirth must be indefatigable if you can still laugh at those. Louis. I agree. I am a history of error. Eloise. You should have made it a vocation; it is your one genius. And yet — truly because I am a fool I think, as Anne says — I let you hector me into a sillier mistake than any of yours. Louis. When? Eloise [flinging out her arms]. Oh, when I consented to this absurd journey, this tiresome journey — with you! An "escape"? From nothing. In "disguise." Which doesn't disguise. 12 BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN Louis [his voice taut with the effort for self-command]. My sister asked me to be patient with you, Eloise — Eloise. Because I am a fool, yes. Thanks. [Shrewishly.] And then, my worthy young man ? [He rises abruptly, smart- ing almost beyond endurance.] Louis [breathing deeply]. Have I not been patient with you? Eloise [with a flash of energy]. If / have asked you to be anything whatever — with me! — pray recall the petition to my memory. Louis [beginning to let himself go]. Patient! Have I ever been anything but patient with you? Was I not patient with you five years ago when you first harangued us on your " Rights of Man " and your monstrous republicanism? Where you got hold of it all I don't know — Eloise [kindling]. Ideas, my friend. Naturally, incom- prehensible to you. Books! Brains! Men! Louis. "Books! Brains! Men!" Treason, poison, and mobs! Oh, I could laugh at you then: they were only begin- ning to kill us, and I was patient. Was I not patient with you when these Republicans of yours drove us from our homes, from our country, stole all we had, assassinated us in dozens, in hundreds, murdered our King? [He walks the floor, ges- ticulating nervously.] When I saw relative after relative of my own — aye, and of yours, too — dragged to the abattoir — even poor, harmless, kind Andre de Laseyne, whom they took simply because he was my brother-in-law — was I not patient? And when I came back to Paris for you and Anne, and had to lie hid in a stable, every hour in greater danger because you would not be persuaded to join us, was I not patient? And when you finally did consent, but protested every step of the way, pouting and — Eloise [stung]. "Pouting!" Louis. And when that stranger came posting after us so obvious a sp3' — Eloise [scornfully]. Pooh! He is nothing. Louis. Is there a league between here and Paris over which he has not dogged us? By diligence, on horseback, on foot, turning up at every posting-house, every roadside inn, the while you laughed at me because I read death in his face! These two days we have been here, is there an hour when you could BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN 13 look from that window except to see him grinning up from the wine-shop door down there? Eloise [impatiently, but with a somewhat conscious ex- pression]. I tell you not to fear him. There is nothing in it. Louis [looking at her keenly]. Be sure I understand why you do not think him a spy! You believe he has followed us because you — Eloise. I expected that! Oh, I knew it would come! [Furiously.] I never saw the man before in my life! Louis [pacing the floor]. He is unmistakable; his trade is stamped on him ; a hired trailer of your precious " Nation's." Eloise [haughtily]. The Nation is the People. You malign because you fear. The People is sacred ! Louis [with increasing bitterness]. Aren't you tired yet of the Palais Royal platitudes? I have been patient with your Mericourtisms for so long. Yes, always I was patient. Al- ways there was time; there was danger, but there was a little time. [He faces her, his voice becoming louder, his gestures more vehement.] But now the Jeune Pierrette sails this hour, and if we are not out of here and on her deck when she leaves the quay, my head rolls in Samson's basket within the week, with Anne's and your own to follow! Now, I tell you, there is no more time, and now — Eloise [suavely]. Yes? Well? "Now?" [He checks himself; his lifted hand falls to his side.] Louis [in a gentle voice]. I am still patient. [He looks into her eyes, makes her a low and formal obeisance, and drops dejectedly into the chair at the desk.] Eloise [dangerously]. Is the oration concluded? Louis, Quite. Eloise [suddenly volcanic]. Then "noiu" you'll perhaps be " patient " enough to explain why I shouldn't leave you in- stantly. Understand fully that I have come thus far with you and Anne solely to protect you in case you were suspected. "Now," my little man, you are safe: you have only to go on board your vessel. Why should I go with you? Why do you insist on dragging me out of the country? Louis [wearily]. Only to save your life; that is all. Eloise. My life! Tut! My life is safe with the People — my People! [She draivs herself up rnagnificently.] The 14 BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN Nation would protect me! I gave the people my whole for- tune when they were starving. After that, who in France dare lay a finger upon the Citizeness Eloise d'Anville! Louis. I have the idea sometimes, my cousin, that perhaps if you had not given them your property they would have taken it, anyway. [Dryly.] They did mine. Eloise [agitated] . I do not expect you to comprehend what I felt — what I feel! [She lifts her arms longingly.] Oh, for a Man! — a Man who could understand me! Louis [sadly]. That excludes me! Eloise. Shall I spell it? Louis. You are right. So far from understanding you, I understand nothing. The age is too modern for me. I do not understand why this rabble is permitted to rule France; I do not even understand why it is permitted to live. Eloise [with superiority]. Because you belong to the class that thought itself made of porcelain and the rest of the world clay. It is simple: the mud-ball breaks the vase. Louis. You belong to the same class, even to the same family. Eloise. You are wrong. One circumstance proves me no aristocrat. Louis. What circumstance? Eloise. That I happened to be born with brains. I can account for it only by supposing some hushed-up ancestral scandal. [Brusquely.] Do you understand that? Louis. I overlook it. [He writes again.] Eloise. Quibbling was always a habit of yours. [Snap- ping at him irritably.] Oh, stop that writing! You can't do it, and you don't need it. You blame the people because they turn on you now, after you've whipped and beaten and ground them underfoot for centuries and centuries and — Louis. Quite a career for a man of twenty-nine! Eloise. I have said that quibbling was — Louis [despondently]. Perhaps it is. To return to my other deficiencies, I do not understand why this spy who fol- lowed us from Paris has not arrested me long before now. I do not understand why you hate me. I do not understand the world in general. And in particular I do not understand the art of forgery. [He throws down his pen.] Eloise. You talk of "patience"! How often have I ex- BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN 15 plained that you would not need passports of any kind if you would let me throw off my incognito. If anyone questions you, it will be sufficient if I give my name. All France knows the Citizeness Eloise d'Anville. Do you suppose the officer on the quay would dare oppose — Louis [with a gesture of resignation]. I know you think it. Eloise [angrily]. You tempt me not to prove it. But for Anne's sake — Louis. Not for mine. That, at least, I understand. [He rises.] My dear cousin, I am going to be very serious — Eloise. O heaven! [She flings away from him.] Louis [plaintively], I shall not make another oration — Eloise. Make anything you choose. [Drumming the floor with her foot.] What does it matter? Louis. I have a presentiment — I ask you to listen — Eloise [in her irritation almost screaming]. How can I Af//> but listen ? And Anne, too! [With a short laugh.] You know as well as I do that when that door is open everything you say in this room is heard in there. [She points to the open doorway, where Madame de Laseyne instantly makes her appearance, and after exchanging one fiery glance with Eloise as siviftly withdraws, closing the door behind her with out- raged emphasis.] Eloise [breaking into a laugh]. Forward, soldiers! Louis [reprovingly]. Eloise! Eloise. Well, open the door, then, if you want her to hear you make love to me! [Coolly.] That's what you're going to do, isn't it? Louis [icith imperfect self-control], I wish to ask you for the last time — Eloise [flouting]. There are so many last times! Louis. To ask you if you are sure that you know your own heart. You cared for me once, and — Eloise [as if this were news indeed]. I did? Who under heaven ever told you that? Louis [flushing]. You allowed yourself to be betrothed to me, I believe. Eloise. " Allowed " is the word, precisely. I seem to recall changing all that the very day I became an orphan — and my own master! [Satirically polite.] Pray correct me if my memory errs. How long ago was it? Six years? Seven? i6 BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN Louis [with emotion]. Eloise, Eloise, you did love me then! We were happy, both of us, so very happy — Eloise [sourly], "Both!" My faith! But I must have been a brave little actress. Louis. I do not believe it. You loved me. I — [He hesitates.] Eloise. Do get on with what you have to say. Louis [in a low voice], I have many forebodings, Eloise, but the strongest — and for me the saddest — is that this is the last chance you will ever have to tell — to tell me — [He fal- ters again.] Eloise [irritated beyond measure, shouting]. To tell you what? Louis [swalloiuing]. That your love for me still lingers. Eloise [promptly]. Well, it doesn't. So that's over! Louis. Not quite yet. I — Eloise [dropping into a chair], O Death! Louis [still gently]. Listen. I have hope that you and Anne may be permitted to escape; but as for me, since the first moment I felt the eyes of that spy from Paris upon me I have had the premonition that I would be taken back — to the guil- lotine, Eloise. I am sure that he will arrest me when I attempt to leave this place to-night. [With sorroiuful earnestness.] And it is with the certainty in my soul that this is our last hour together that I ask you if you cannot tell me that the old love has come back. Is there nothing in your heart for me? Eloise. Was there anything in your heart for the beggar who stood at your door in the old days? Louis. Is there nothing for him who stands at yours now, begging for a word? Eloise [frowning]. I remember you had the name of a disciplinarian in your regiment. [She rises to face him.] Did you ever find anything in your heart for the soldiers you ordered tied up and flogged ? Was there anything in your heart for the peasants who starved in your fields? Louis [quietly]. No; it was too full of you. Eloise. Words! Pretty little words! Louis. Thoughts. Pretty, because they are of you. All, al- ways of you — always, my dear. I never really think of any- thing but you. The picture of you is always before the eyes of my soul; the very name of you is forever in my heart. BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN 17 [With a rueful smile.] And it is on the tips of my fingers, sometinaes when it shouldn't be. See. [He steps to the desk and shows her a scribbled sheet.] This is what I laughed at a while ago. I tried to write, with you near me, and uncon- sciously I let your name creep into my very forgery! I wrote it as I wrote it in the sand when we were children; as I have traced it a thousand times on coated mirrors — on frosted win- dows. [He reads the writing aloud.] " Permit the Citizen Balsage and his sister, the Citizeness Virginie Balsage, and his second sister, the Citizeness Marie Balsage, and Eloise d'Anville " — so I wrote! — "to embark upon the vessel Jeune Pierrette — " You see? [He lets the paper jail upon the desk.] Even in this danger, that I feel closer and closer with every passing second, your name came in of itself. I am like that English Mary: if they will open my heart when I am dead, they shall find, not "Calais," but "Eloise"! Eloise [going to the dressing-table]. Louis, that doesn't interest me. [She adds a delicate touch or two to her hair, studying it thoughtfully in the dressing-table mirror.] Louis [somberly]. I told you long ago — Eloise [smiling at her reflection]. So you did — often! Louis [breathing quickly]. I have nothing new to offer. I understand. I bore you. Eloise. Louis, to be frank: I don't care what they find in your heart when they open it. Louis [with a hint of sternness]. Have you never reflected that there might be something for me to forgive you? Eloise [glancing at him over her shoulder in frowning sur- prise]. What! Louis. I wonder sometimes if you have ever found a flaw in your own character. Eloise [astounded]. So! [Turning sharply upon him.] You are assuming the right to criticize me, are you? Oho! Louis [agitated]. I state merelj' — I have said — I think I forgive you a great deal — Eloise [beginning to char]. You do! You bestow your gracious pardon upon me, do you? [Bursting into flame.] Keep your forgiveness to yourself! When I want it I'll kneel at your feet and beg it of you ! You can kiss me then, for then you will know that "the old love has come back"! Louis [miserably]. When you kneel — i8 BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN Eloise. Can you picture it — Marquis? [She hurls his title at him, and draws herself up in icy splendor. \ I am a woman of the Republic! Louis. And the Republic has no need of love. Eloise. Its daughter has no need of yours! Louis. Until you kneel to me. You have spoken. It is ended. [Turning from her with a pathetic gesture of fare- well and resignation, his attention is suddenly arrested by some- thing invisible. He stands for a moment transfixed. When he speaks, it is in an altered tone, light and at the same time ominous.] My cousin, suffer the final petition of a bore. For- give my seriousness; forgive my stupidity, for I believe that what one hears now means that a number of things are indeed ended. Myself among them. Eloise [not comprehending]. "What one hears?" Louis [slowly]. In the distance. [Both stand motionless to listen, and the room is silent. Gradually a muffled, multi- tudinous sound, at first very faint, becomes audible.] Eloise. What is it? Louis [with pale composure]. Only a song! [The distant sound becomes distinguishable as a singing from many un- musical throats and pitched in every key, a drum-beat booming underneath; a tumultuous rumble which grows slowly louder. The door of the inner room opens, and Madame de Laseyne enters.] Anne [briskly, as she comes in]. I have hidden the cloak and the dress beneath the mattress. Have you — Louis [lifting his hand]. Listen! [She halts, startled. The singing, the drums, and the tumult swell suddenly much louder, as if the noise-makers had turned a corner.] Anne [crying out]. The "Marseillaise"! Louis. The " Vultures' Chorus " ! Eloise [in a ringing voice]. The Hymn of Liberty! Anne [trembling violently]. It grows louder. Louis. Nearer! Eloise [running to the window]. They are coming this way! Anne [rushing ahead of her]. They have turned the corner of the street. Keep back, Louis! Eloise [leaning out of the window, enthusiastically]. Vive la — [She finishes with an indignant gurgle as Anne de BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN 19 Laseyne, without comment, claps a prompt hand over her mouth and pushes her vigorously from the window.] Anne. A mob — carrying torches and dancing. [Her voice shaking wildly.] They are following a troop of soldiers. Louis. The National Guard. Anne. Keep back from the window! A man in a tricolor scarf marching in front. Louis. A political, then — an official of their government. Anne. O Virgin, have mercy! [She turns a stricken face upon her brother.] It is that — Louis [biting his nails]. Of course. Our spy. [He takes a hesitating step toward the desk; but swings about, goes to the door at the rear, shoots the bolt back and forth, apparently unable to decide upon a course of action; finally leaves the door bolted and examines the hinges. Anne, meanwhile, has hur- ried to the desk, and, seizing a candle there, begins to light others in a candelabrum on the dressing-table. The noise out- side grows to an uproar; the " Marseillaise " changes to " Qa ira " ; and a shaft of the glare from the torches below shoots through the window and becomes a staggering red patch on the ceiling.] Anne [feverishly]. Lights! Light those candles in the sconce, Eloise! Light all the candles we have. [Eloise, re- sentful, does not move.] Louis. No, no! Put them out! Anne. Oh, fatal! [She stops him as he rushes to obey his own command.] If our window is lighted he will believe we have no thought of leaving, and pass by. [She hastily lights- the candles in a sconce upon the wall as she speaks; the shabby^ place is now brightly illuminated.] Louis. He will not pass by. [The external tumult cul- minates in riotous yelling, as, with a final roll, the drums cease to beat. Madame de Laseyne runs again to the ivindow.] Eloise [sullenly]. You are disturbing yourselves without reason. They will not stop here. Anne [in a sickly whisper]. They have stopped. Louis. At the door of this house? [Madame de Laseyne, leaning against the wall, is unable to reply, save by a gesture. The noise from the street divindles to a confused, expectant murmur. Louis takes a pistol from beneath his blouse, strides to the door, and listens.] 20 BEAUTY AND THE JACOBIN Anne [faintly]. He is in the house. The soldiers followed him. Louis. They are on the lower stairs. [He turns to the two women humbly.] My sister and my cousin, my poor plans have only made everything worse for you. I cannot ask you to forgive me. We are caught. Anne [vitalized with the energy of desperation]. Not till the very last shred of hope is gone. [