Dramatic Technique Part 5

_Severine, watching near the window, with the curtain drawn a little aside, then Rosalie_

_Severine._ Rosalie! At last! What a night I have gone through!

Sixteen hours of waiting! (_To Rosalie, who enters._) Well?

_Rosalie._ Madame, the Princess must be calm.

_Severine._ Don't call me Princess. That's wasting time.

_Rosalie._ Madame has not slept?

_Severine._ No.

_Rosalie._ I suspected as much.

_Severine._ Tell me, is it true?

_Rosalie._ Yes.

_Severine._ The details, then.

_Rosalie._ Well, then, last evening I followed the Prince, who went to the Western Railway, as he had told Madame that he would do, to take the train at half past nine; only, instead of buying a ticket for Versailles, he took one for Rouen.

_Severine._ But he was alone?

_Rosalie._ Yes. But five minutes after he arrived, she came.

_Severine._ Who was the woman?

_Rosalie._ Alas, Madame knows her better than I!

_Severine._ It is some one whom I know?

_Rosalie._ Yes.

_Severine._ Not one of those women?--

_Rosalie._ It is one of your intimate friends, of the best social position.

_Severine._ Valentine? Bertha? No.--The Baroness?

_Rosalie._ The Countess Sylvanie.

_Severine._ She? Impossible! She stayed here, with me, until at least nine o'clock. We dined alone together.

_Rosalie._ She was making sure that you didn't suspect anything.

_Severine._ Indeed, nothing. And she came to the train at what hour?

_Rosalie._ At twenty-five minutes past nine.

_Severine._ So, in twenty-five minutes--

_Rosalie._ She went home; she changed her dress (she arrived all in black); she went to the St. Lazare Station. It is true that only your garden and hers separate her house from yours; that she has the best horses in Paris; and that she is accustomed to doing this sort of thing, if I may believe what I have heard.

_Severine._ To what a pa.s.s we have come! My most intimate friend! Did they speak to each other?[10]

This scene wins our attention because it reveals in Severine a mental state which in itself interests and moves us far more than the mere physical action.

What has been said of _La Princesse Georges_ is even more true of the ending of Marlowe's _Faustus_.

_Faustus._ Ah, Faustus: Now hast thou but one bare hour to live, And then thou must be d.a.m.n'd perpetually!

Stand still, you ever-moving spheres of heaven, That time may cease, and midnight never come; Fair Nature's eye, rise, rise again and make Perpetual day; or let this hour be but A year, a month, a week, a natural day, That Faustus may repent and save his soul!

_O lente, lente currite, noctis equi!_ The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike, The devil will come, and Faustus will be d.a.m.n'd.

..........All beasts are happy, For when they die, Their souls are soon dissolv'd in elements; But mine must live still to be plagu'd in h.e.l.l.

Curs'd be the parents that engender'd me!

No, Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer That hath deprived thee of the joys of heaven.

(_The clock strikes twelve._) O, it strikes, it strikes! Now body, turn to air, Or Lucifer will bear thee quick to h.e.l.l!

(_Thunder and lightning._) O, soul, be chang'd into little water-drops, And fall into the ocean, ne'er be found!

_Enter Devils_

My G.o.d, my G.o.d, look not so fierce on me!

Adders and serpents, let me breathe a while!

Ugly h.e.l.l, gape not! come not, Lucifer!

I'll burn my books!--Ah, Mephistophilis!

(_Exeunt Devils with Faustus._)[11]

Though this scene doubtless requires physical action as the tortured Faustus flings himself about the stage, would that action be clear enough to move us greatly were it not for the characterization of the preceding scenes and the masterly phrasing which exactly reveals the tortured soul? Is it not a mental state rather than physical action which moves us here? Surely.

The fact is, the greatest drama of all time, and the larger part of the drama of the past twenty years, uses action much less for its own sake than to reveal mental states which are to rouse sympathy or repulsion in an audience. In brief, marked mental activity may be quite as dramatic as mere physical action. Hamlet may sit quietly by his fire as he speaks the soliloquy "To be, or not to be," yet by what we already know of him and what the lines reveal we are moved to the deepest sympathy for his tortured state. There is almost no physical movement as Percinet reads to Sylvette from _Romeo and Juliet_ in the opening pages of Rostand's _Romancers_, yet we are amused and pleased by their excited delight.

ACT I

_The stage is cut in two by an old wall, mossy and garlanded by luxurious vines. To the right, a corner of Bergamin's park; to the left a corner of Pasquinot's. On each side, against the wall, a bench._

SCENE 1. _Sylvette. Percinet. When the curtain rises, Percinet is seated on the wall, with a book on his knees, from which he is reading to Sylvette. She stands on the bench in her father's park, her chin in her hands, her elbows against the wall, listening attentively._

_Sylvette_. O Monsieur Percinet, how beautiful it is!

_Percinet_. Isn't it? Hear Romeo's reply! (_He reads._) "It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale; look, love, what envious streaks Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east: Night's candles are burnt out and jocund day Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops: I must be gone...."

_Sylvette._ (_Alert, with animation._) Sh!

_Percinet._ (_Listens a moment, then_) No one! So, mademoiselle, don't have the air of an affrighted birdling on a branch, ready to spread wing at the slightest sound. Hear the immortal lovers talking:

_She._ "Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I: It is some meteor that the sun exhales, To be to thee this night a torch bearer."

_He._ "Let me be ta'en, let me be put to death; I am content, so thou wilt have it so.

I'll say yon gray is not the morning's eye; 'Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow; Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat The vaulty heaven so high above our heads; I have more care to stay than will to go: Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so."