again in rebellion to the will of God.
_The Vicar._ You shun the church, take refuge in the mountains; This many a month you have not seen the home Where your poor wife sits sighing, while, each day, Your children drink their lonely mother's tears!
* * * * * For this there is no name but madness, And wicked madness. Yes. I speak the truth.
Here stand I, Master, overcome with horror At the relentless cruelty of your heart.
Now Satan, aping God, hath dealt a blow-- Yes, I must speak my mind--a blow so dread That even he must marvel at his triumph...Now--I have done.
Too deep, yea to the neck, you are sunk in sin!
Your Hell, decked out in beauty as high Heaven, Shall hold you fast. I will not waste more words.
Yet mark this, Master: witches make good fuel, Even as heretics, for funeral-pyres...Your ill deeds, Heathen, and secret once, are now laid bare.
Horror they wake, and soon there shall come hate.
* * * * * Then, go your way! Farewell! My task is done.
The hemlock of your sin no man may hope To rid your soul of. May God pity you!
But this remember! There's a word named rue!
And some day, some day, as your dreams you dream, A sudden arrow, shot from out the blue, Shall pierce your breast! And yet you shall not die, Nor shall you live. In that dread day you'll curse All you now cherish--God, the world, your work, Your wretched self you'll curse. Then...think of me!
That bell shall ring again! Then think of me!
Barely does _Heinrich_ escape the deadly clutch of outlined creeds, superstitions, and conventions embodied in the _Vicar_, than he is in the throes of other foes who conspire his doom.
Nature herself has decreed the death of _Heinrich_. For has not man turned his back upon her, has he not cast her off, scorned her beneficial offerings, robbed her of her beauty, devastated her charms and betrayed her trust--all for the ephemeral glow of artifice and sham?
Hence Nature, too, is _Heinrich's_ foe. Thus the Spirit of the Earth, with all its passions and lusts, symbolized in the Wood Sprite, and gross materialism in the person of the _Nickelmann_, drive the intruder back.
_The Wood Sprite._ He crowds us from our hills. He hacks and hews, Digs up our metals, sweats, and smelts, and brews.
The earth-man and the water-sprite he takes To drag his burdens, and, to harness, breaks.
* * * * * She steals my cherished flowers, my red-brown ores, My gold, my precious stones, my resinous stores.
She serves him like a slave, by night and day.
'Tis he she kisses--us she keeps at bay.
Naught stands against him. Ancient trees he fells.
The earth quakes at his tread, and all the dells Ring with the echo of his thunderous blows.
His crimson smithy furnace glows and shines Into the depths of my most secret mines.
What he is up to, only Satan knows!
_The Nickelmann._ Brekekekex! Hadst thou the creature slain, A-rotting in the mere long since he had lain-- The maker of the bell, beside the bell.
And so when next I had wished to throw the stones, The bell had been my box--the dice, his bones!
But even they are powerless to stem the tide of the Ideal: they are helpless In the face of _Heinrich's_ new-born faith, of his burning passion to complete his task, and give voice to the thousand-throated golden peal.
_Heinrich_ works and toils, and when doubt casts its black shadow athwart his path, _Rautendelein_ charms back hope. She alone has boundless faith in her Balder,--god of the joy of Life--for he is part of her, of the great glowing force her spirit breathed into the Heinrichs since Time was born--Liberty, redeemer of man.
_Heinrich._ I am thy Balder?
Make me believe it--make me know it, child!
Give my faint soul the rapturous joy it needs, To nerve it to its task. For, as the hand, Toiling with tong and hammer, on and on, To hew the marble and to guide the chisel, Now bungles here, now there, yet may not halt...But--enough of this, Still straight and steady doth the smoke ascend From my poor human sacrifice to heaven.
Should now a Hand on high reject my gift, Why, it may do so. Then the priestly robe Falls from my shoulder--by no act of mine; While I, who erst upon the heights was set, Must look my last on Horeb, and be dumb!
But now bring torches! Lights! And show thine Art!
Enchantress! Fill the wine-cup! We will drink!
Ay, like the common herd of mortal men, With resolute hands our fleeting joy we'll grip!
Our unsought leisure we will fill with life, Not waste it, as the herd, in indolence.
We will have music!
While _Heinrich_ and _Rautendelein_ are in the ecstasy of their love and work, the spirits weave their treacherous web--they threaten, they plead, they cling,--spirits whose pain and grief are harder to bear than the enmity or menace of a thousand foes. Spirits that entwine one's heartstrings with tender touch, yet are heavier fetters, more oppressive than leaden weights. _Heinrich's_ children, symbolizing regret that paralyzes one's creative powers, bring their mother's tears and with them a thousand hands to pull _Heinrich_ down from his heights, back to the valley.
"The bell! The bell!" The old, long buried bell again ringing and tolling. Is it not the echo from the past? The superstitions instilled from birth, the prejudices that cling to man with cruel persistence, the conventions which fetter the wings of the idealist: the Old wrestling with the New for the control of man.
* * * * * "The Sunken Bell" is a fairy tale in its poetic beauty and glow of radiant color. But stripped of the legendary and symbolic, it is the life story of every seeker for truth, of the restless spirit of rebellion ever striving onward, ever reaching out toward the sun-tipped mountain, ever yearning for a new-born light.
Too long had _Heinrich_ lived in the valley. It has sapped his strength, has clipped his wings. "Too late! Thy heavy burdens weigh thee down; thy dead ones are too mighty for thee." _Heinrich_ has to die. "He who has flown so high into the very Light, as thou hast flown, must perish, if he once fall back to earth."
Thus speak the worldly wise. As if death could still the burning thirst for light; as if the hunger for the ideal could ever be appeased by the thought of destruction! The worldly wise never feel the irresistible urge to dare the cruel fates. With the adder in Maxim Gorki's "Song of the Falcon" they sneer, "What is the sky? An empty place...Why disturb the soul with the desire to soar into the sky?...Queer birds," they laugh at the falcons. "Not knowing the earth and grieving on it, they yearn for the sky, seeking for light in the sultry desert. For it is only a desert, with no food and no supporting place for a living body."
The Heinrichs are the social falcons, and though they perish when they fall to earth, they die in the triumphant glory of having beheld the sun, of having braved the storm, defied the clouds and mastered the air.
The sea sparkles in the glowing light, the waves dash against the shore.
In their lion-like roar a song resounds about the proud falcons: "O daring Falcon, in the battle with sinister forces you lose your life.
But the time will come when your precious blood will illumine, like the burning torch of truth, the dark horizon of man; when your blood shall inflame many brave hearts with a burning desire for freedom."
The time when the peals of Heinrich's Bell will call the strong and daring to battle for light and joy. "Hark!...'Tis the music of the "the night is long," dawn breaks, its first rays falling on the dying Heinrichs.
FRANK WEDEKIND THE AWAKENING OF SPRING Frank Wedekind is perhaps the most daring dramatic spirit in Germany.
Coming to the fore much later than Sudermann and Hauptmann, he did not follow in their path, but set out in quest of new truths. More boldly than any other dramatist Frank Wedekind has laid bare the shams of morality in reference to sex, especially attacking the ignorance surrounding the sex life of the child and its resultant tragedies.
Wedekind became widely known through his great drama "The Awakening of Spring," which he called a tragedy of childhood, dedicating the work to parents and teachers. Verily an appropriate dedication, because parents and teachers are, in relation to the child's needs, the most ignorant and mentally indolent class. Needless to say, this element entirely failed to grasp the social significance of Wedekind's work. On the contrary, they saw in it an invasion of their traditional authority and an outrage on the sacred rights of parenthood.
The critics also could see naught in Wedekind, except a base, perverted, almost diabolic nature bereft of all finer feeling. But professional critics seldom see below the surface; else they would discover beneath the grin and satire of Frank Wedekind a sensitive soul, deeply stirred by the heart-rending tragedies about him. Stirred and grieved especially by the misery and torture of the child,--the helpless victim unable to explain the forces germinating in its nature, often crushed and destroyed by mock modesty, sham decencies, and the complacent morality that greet its blind gropings.
Never was a more powerful indictment hurled against society, which out of sheer hypocrisy and cowardice persists that boys and girls must grow up in ignorance of their sex functions, that they must be sacrificed on the altar of stupidity and convention which taboo the enlightenment of the child in questions of such elemental importance to health and well-being.
The most criminal phase of the indictment, however, is that it is generally the most promising children who are sacrificed to sex ignorance and to the total lack of appreciation on the part of teachers of the latent qualities and tendencies in the child: the one slaying the body and soul, the other paralyzing the function of the brain; and both conspiring to give to the world mental and physical mediocrities.
"The Awakening of Spring" is laid in three acts and fourteen scenes, consisting almost entirely of dialogues among the children. So close is Wedekind to the soul of the child that he succeeds in unveiling before our eyes, with a most gripping touch, its joys and sorrows, its hopes and despair, its struggles and tragedies.
The play deals with a group of school children just entering the age of puberty,--imaginative beings speculating about the mysteries of life.
_Wendla_, sent to her grave by her loving but prudish mother, is an exquisite, lovable child; _Melchior_, the innocent father of _Wendla's_ unborn baby, is a gifted boy whose thirst for knowledge leads him to inquire into the riddle of life, and to share his observations with his school chums,--a youth who, in a free and intelligent atmosphere, might have developed into an original thinker. That such a boy should be punished as a moral pervert, only goes to prove the utter unfitness of our educators and parents. _Moritz_, _Melchior's_ playfellow, is driven to suicide because he cannot pass his examinations, thanks to our stupid and criminal system of education which consists in cramming the mind to the bursting point.
Wedekind has been accused of exaggerating his types, but any one familiar with child life knows that every word in "The Awakening of Spring" is vividly true. The conversation between _Melchior_ and _Moritz_, for instance, is typical of all boys not mentally inert.
_Melchior._ I'd like to know why we really are on earth!
_Moritz._ I'd rather be a cab-horse than go to school!--Why do we go to school?--We go to school so that somebody can examine us!--And why do they examine us?--In order that we may fail. Seven must fail, because the upper classroom will hold only sixty.--I feel so queer since Christmas.--The devil take me, if it were not for Papa, I'd pack my bundle and go to Altoona, to-day!
_Moritz._ Do you believe, Melchior, that the feeling of shame in man is only a product of his education?
_Melchior._ I was thinking over that for the first time the day before yesterday. It seems to me deeply rooted in human nature. Only think, you must appear entirely clothed before your best friend. You wouldn't do so if he didn't do the same thing.--Therefore, it's more or less of a fashion.
_Moritz._ Have you experienced it yet?
_Melchior._ What?
_Moritz._ How do you say it?
_Moritz._ M--'hm.
_Melchior._ Certainly.
_Moritz._ I was startled as if by lightning.
_Melchior._ Did you dream?
_Moritz._ Only for a little while--of legs in light blue tights, that strode over the cathedral--to be correct, I thought they wanted to go over it. I only saw them for an instant.
_Melchior._ George Zirschnitz dreamed of his mother.
_Moritz._ Did he tell you that?...I thought I was incurable. I believed I was suffering from an inward hurt.--Finally I became calm enough to begin to jot down the recollections of my life. Yes, yes, dear Melchior, the last three weeks have been a Gethsemane for me...Truly they play a remarkable game with us. And we're expected to give thanks for it. I don't remember to have had any longing for this kind of excitement. Why didn't they let me sleep peacefully until all was still again. My dear parents might have had a hundred better children. I came here, I don't know how, and must be responsible myself for not staying away.--Haven't you often wondered, Melchior, by what means we were brought into this whirl?
_Melchior._ Don't you know that yet either, Moritz?
_Moritz._ How should I know it? I see how the hens lay eggs, and hear that Mamma had to carry me under her heart. But is that enough?...I have gone through Meyer's "Little Encyclopedia" from A to Z. Words--nothing but words and words! Not a single plain explanation. Oh, this feeling of shame!--What good to me is an encyclopedia that won't answer me concerning the most important question in life?
Yes, of what good is an encyclopedia or the other wise books to the quivering, restless spirit of the child? No answer anywhere, least of all from your own mother, as _Wendla_ and many another like her have found out.
The girl, learning that her sister has a new baby, rushes to her mother to find out how it came into the world.
_Wendla._ I have a sister who has been married for two and a half years, I myself have been made an aunt for the third time, and I haven't the least idea how it all comes about--Don't be cross, Mother dear, don't be cross! Whom in the world should I ask but you!
Please tell me, dear Mother! Tell me, dear Mother! I am ashamed for myself. Please, Mother, speak! Don't scold me for asking you about it. Give me an answer--How does it happen?--How does it all come about?--You cannot really deceive yourself that I, who am fourteen years old, still believe in the stork.
_Frau Bergmann._ Good Lord, child, but you are peculiar!--What ideas you have!--I really can't do that!
_Wendla._ But why not, Mother?--Why not?--It can't be anything ugly if everybody is delighted over it!
child, go get dressed.
_Wendla._ I'll go--And suppose your child went out and asked the chimney sweep?
_Fran Bergmann._ But that would be madness!--Come here, child, come here, I'll tell you! I'll tell you everything--...In order to have tell you--as one can only love a man! One must love him so much with one's whole heart, so--so that one can't describe it! One must love him, Wendla, as you at your age are still unable to love--Now you know it!
How much _Wendla_ knew, her mother found out when too late.
_Wendla_ and _Melchior_, overtaken by a storm, seek shelter in a haystack, and are drawn by what _Melchior_ calls the "first emotion of manhood" and curiosity into each other's arms. Six months later _Wendla's_ mother discovers that her child is to become a mother. To save the family honor, the girl is promptly placed in the hands of a quack who treats her for chlorosis.
_Wendla._ No, Mother, no! I know it. I feel it. I haven't chlorosis.
I have dropsy--I won't get better. I have the dropsy, I must die, Mother--O, Mother, I must die!
_Frau Bergmann._ You must not die, child! You must not die--Great heavens, you must not die!
_Wendla._ But why do you weep so frightfully, then?
_Frau Bergmann._ You must not die, child! You haven't the dropsy, you have a child, girl! You have a child! Oh, why did you do that to me!
_Wendla._ I haven't done anything to you.
_Frau Bergmann._ Oh, don't deny it any more, Wendla!--I know everything. See, I didn't want to say a word to you.--Wendla, my Wendla--!
_Wendla._ But it's not possible, Mother...I have loved nobody in the world as I do you, Mother.
The pathos of it, that such a loving mother should be responsible for the death of her own child! Yet _Frau Bergmann_ is but one of the many good, pious mothers who lay their children to "rest in God," with the inscription on the tombstone: "Wendla Bergmann, born May 5th, 1878, died from chlorosis, Oct. 27, 1892. Blessed are the pure of heart."
_Melchior_, like _Wendla_, was also "pure of heart"; yet how was he "blessed"? Surely not by his teachers who, discovering his essay on the mystery of life, expel the boy from school. Only Wedekind could inject such grim humor into the farce of education--the smug importance of the faculty of the High School sitting under the portraits of Rousseau and Pestalozzi, and pronouncing judgment on their "immoral" pupil _Melchior_.
_Rector Sonnenstich._ Gentlemen: We cannot help moving the expulsion of our guilty pupil before the National Board of Education; there are the strongest reasons why we cannot: we cannot, because we must expiate the misfortune which has fallen upon us already; we cannot, because of our need to protect ourselves from similar blows in the future; we cannot, because we must chastise our guilty pupil for the demoralizing influence he exerted upon his classmates; we cannot, above all, because we must hinder him from exerting the same influence upon his remaining classmates. We cannot ignore the charge--and this, gentlemen, is possibly the weightiest of all--on any pretext concerning a ruined career, because it is our duty to protect ourselves from an epidemic of suicide similar to that which has broken out recently in various grammar schools, and which until to-day has mocked all attempts of the teachers to shackle it by any means known to advanced education...We see ourselves under the necessity of judging the guilt-laden that we may not be judged guilty ourselves...Are you the author of this obscene manuscript?
_Melchior._ Yes--I request you, sir, to show me anything obscene in it.
_Sonnenstich._ You have as little respect for the dignity of your assembled teachers as you have a proper appreciation of mankind's innate sense of shame which belongs to a moral world.
_Melchior's_ mother, a modern type, has greater faith in her child than in school education. But even she cannot hold out against the pressure of public opinion; still less against the father of _Melchior_, a firm believer in authority and discipline.
_Herr Gabor._ Anyone who can write what Melchior wrote must be rotten to the core of his being. The mark is plain. A half-healthy nature wouldn't do such a thing. None of us are saints. Each of us wanders from the straight path. His writing, on the contrary, tramples on principles. His writing is no evidence of a chance slip in the usual way; it sets forth with dreadful plainness and a frankly definite purpose that natural longing, that propensity for immorality, because it is immorality. His writing manifests that exceptional state of spiritual corruption which we jurists classify under the term "moral imbecility."
Between the parents and the educators, _Melchior_ is martyred even as _Wendla_. He is sent to the House of Correction; but being of sturdier stock than the girl, he survives.
Not so his chum _Moritz_. Harassed by the impelling forces of his awakened nature, and unable to grapple with the torturous tasks demanded by his "educators" at the most critical period of his life, _Moritz_ fails in the examinations. He cannot face his parents: they have placed all their hope in him, and have lashed him, by the subtle cruelty of gratitude, to the grindstone till his brain reeled. _Moritz_ is the third victim in the tragedy, the most convenient explanation of which is given by _Pastor Kahlbauch_ in the funeral sermon.
_Pastor Kahlbauch._ He who rejects the grace with which the Everlasting Father has blessed those born in sin, he shall die a spiritual death!--He, however, who in willful carnal abnegation of God's proper honor, lives for and serves evil, shall die the death of the body!--Who, however, wickedly throws away from him the cross which the All Merciful has laid upon him for his sins, verily, verily, I say unto you, he shall die the everlasting death! Let us, however, praise the All Gracious Lord and thank Him for His inscrutable grace in order that we may travel the thorny path more and more surely. For as truly as this one died a triple death, as truly will the Lord God conduct the righteous unto happiness and everlasting life...It is hardly necessary to point out the revolutionary significance of this extraordinary play. It speaks powerfully for itself. One need only add that "The Awakening of Spring" has done much to dispel the mist enveloping the paramount issue of sex in the education of the child.
To-day it is conceded even by conservative elements that the conspiracy of silence has been a fatal mistake. And while sponsors of the Church and of moral fixity still clamor for the good old methods, the message of Wedekind is making itself felt throughout the world, breaking down the barriers.
The child is the unit of the race, and only through its unhampered unfoldment can humanity come into its heritage. "The Awakening of Spring" is one of the great forces of modern times that is paving the way for the birth of a free race.
THE FRENCH DRAMA MAETERLINCK To those who are conversant with the works of Maeterlinck it may seem rather far-fetched to discuss him from the point of view of revolutionary and social significance. Above all, Maeterlinck is the portrayer of the remote, the poet of symbols: therefore it may seem out of place to bring him down to earth, to simplify him, or to interpret his revolutionary spirit. To some extent these objections have considerable weight; but on the other hand, if one keeps in mind that only those who go to the remote are capable of understanding the obvious, one will readily see how very significant Maeterlinck is as a revolutionizing factor. Besides, we have Maeterlinck's own conception of the significance of the revolutionary spirit. In a very masterly article called "The Social Revolution," he discusses the objection on the part of the conservative section of society to the introduction of revolutionary methods. He says that they would like us to "go slow"; that they object to the use of violence and the forcible overthrow of the evils of society. And Maeterlinck answers in these significant words: "We are too ready to forget that the headsmen of misery are less noisy, less theatrical, but infinitely more numerous, more cruel and active than those of the most terrible revolutions."
Maeterlinck realizes that there are certain grievances in society, iniquitous conditions which demand immediate solution, and that if we do not solve them with the readiest and quickest methods at our command, they will react upon society and upon life a great deal more terribly than even the most terrible revolutions. No wonder, then, that his works were put under the ban by the Catholic Church which forever sees danger in light and emancipation. Surely if Maeterlinck were not primarily the spokesman of truth, he would be embraced by the Catholic Church.
In "Monna Vanna" Maeterlinck gives a wonderful picture of the new woman--not the new woman as portrayed in the newspapers, but the new woman as a reborn, regenerated spirit; the woman who has emancipated herself from her narrow outlook upon life, and detached herself from the confines of the home; the woman, in short, who has become race-conscious and therefore understands that she is a unit in the great ocean of life, and that she must take her place as an independent factor in order to rebuild and remold life. In proportion as she learns to become race-conscious, does she become a factor in the reconstruction of society, valuable to herself, to her children, and to the race.
* * * * * Pisa is subdued by the forces of Florence; it is beaten and conquered.
The city is in danger of being destroyed, and the people exposed to famine and annihilation. There is only one way of saving Pisa. _Marco Colonna_, the father of the Commander of Pisa, brings the ultimatum of the enemy: _Marco._ Know, then, that I saw Prinzivalle and spoke with him...I thought to find some barbarian, arrogant and heavy, always covered with blood or plunged in drunken stupor; at best, the madman they have told us of, whose spirit was lit up at times, upon the battlefield, by dazzling flashes of brilliance, coming no man knows whence. I thought to meet the demon of combat, blind, unreasoning, vain and cruel, faithless and dissolute...I found a man who bowed before me as a loving disciple bows before the master. He is lettered, eager for knowledge, and obedient to the voice of wisdom...He loves not war; his smile speaks of understanding and gentle humanity. He seeks the reason of passions and events. He looks into his own heart; he is endowed with conscience and sincerity, and it is against his will that he serves a faithless State...I have told you that Prinzivalle seems wise, that he is humane and reasonable. But where is the wise man that hath not his private madness, the good man to whom no monstrous idea has ever come? On one side is reason and pity and justice; on the other--ah!
_there_ is desire and passion and what you will--the insanity into which we all fall at times. I have fallen into it myself, and shall, belike, again--so have you. Man is made in that fashion. A grief which should not be within the experience of man is on the point of touching you...Hearken: this great convoy, the victuals that I have seen, wagons running over with corn, others full of wine and fruit; flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, enough to feed a city for months; all these tuns of powder and bars of lead, with which you may vanquish Florence and make Pisa lift her head--all this will enter the city to-night,...if you send in exchange, to give her up to Prinzivalle until to-morrow's dawn,...for he will send her back when the first faint gray shows in the sky,...only, he exacts that, in sign of victory and submission, she shall come alone, and her cloak for all her covering..._Guido._ Who? Who shall thus come?
_Marco._ Giovanna.
_Guido._ My wife? Vanna?
_Marco._ Ay, your Vanna.
_Guido Colonna_, in the consciousness that the woman belongs to him, that no man may even look, with desire, upon her dazzling beauty, resents this mortal insult. He is willing that all the other women should face danger, that the little children of Pisa should be exposed to hunger and destruction, rather than that he give up his possession.
But _Monna Vanna_ does not hesitate. When she is before the issue of saving her people, she does not stop to consider. She goes into the enemy's tent, as a child might go, without consciousness of self, imbued solely with the impulse to save her people.
The meeting of _Monna Vanna_ and _Prinzivalle_ is an exquisite interpretation of love--the sweetness, purity, and fragrance of _Prinzivalle's_ love for the woman of his dream--the one he had known when she was but a child, and who remained an inspiring vision all through his career. He knows he cannot reach her; he also knows that he will be destroyed by the political intriguers of Florence, and he stakes his all on this one step to satisfy the dream of his life to see _Vanna_ and in return to save Pisa.
_Prinzivalle._ Had there come ten thousand of you into my tent, all clad alike, all equally fair, ten thousand sisters whom even their mother would not know apart, I should have risen, should have taken your hand, and said, "This is she!" Is it not strange that a beloved image can live thus in a man's heart? For yours lived so in mine that each day it changed as in real life--the image of to-day replaced that of yesterday--it blossomed out, it became always fairer; and the years adorned it with all that they add to a child that grows in grace and beauty. But when I saw you again, it seemed to me at first that my eyes deceived me. My memories were so fair and so fond--but they had been too slow and too timid--they had not dared to give you all the splendor which appeared so suddenly to dazzle me. I was as a man that recalled to mind a flower he had but seen in passing through a garden on a gray day, and should be suddenly confronted with a hundred thousand as fair in a field bathed with sunshine. I saw once more your hair, your brow, your eyes, and I found all the soul of the face I had adored--but how its beauty shames that which I had treasured in silence through endless days, through years whose only light was a memory that had taken too long a road and found itself outshone by the reality!...Ah! I knew not too well what I meant to do. I felt that I was lost--and I desired to drag with me all I could...And I hated you, because of the love...Yes, I should have gone to the end had it not been _you_...Yet any other would have seemed odious to me--you yourself would have had to be other than you are...I lose my reason when I think of it...One word would have been enough that was different from your words--one gesture that was not yours--the slightest thing would have inflamed my hate and let loose the monster. But when I saw you, I saw in that same moment that it was impossible.
_Vanna._ I felt a change, too...I marveled that I could speak to you as I have spoken since the first moment...I am silent by nature--I have never spoken thus to any man, unless it be to Marco, Guido's father...And even with him it is not the same. He has a thousand dreams that take up all his mind,...and we have talked but a few times. The others have always a desire in their eyes that will not suffer one to tell them that one loves them and would fain know what they have in their hearts. In your eyes, too, a longing burns; but it is not the same--it does not affright me nor fill me with loathing. I felt at once that I knew you before I remembered that I had ever seen you..._Vanna_, awed by the character and personality of this despised and hated outlaw, pleads with him to come with her to Pisa under the protection of herself and her husband. She is sure that he will be safe with them, and that he will be hailed as the redeemer of the people of Pisa. Like innocent children they walk to their doom.
_Vanna_ is honored by the people whom she has saved, but scorned by her husband who, like the true male, does not credit her story.
_Vanna._ Hear me, I say! I have never lied--but to-day, above all days, I tell the deepest truth, the truth that can be told but once and brings life or death...Hearken, Guido, then--and look upon me, if you have never known me until this hour, the first and only hour when you have it in your power to love me as I would be loved. I speak in the name of our life, of all that I am, of all that you are to me...Be strong enough to believe that which is incredible. This man has spared my honor...He had all power--I was given over to him. Yet he has not touched me--I have issued from his tent as I might from my brother's house...I gave him one only kiss upon the brow--and he gave it me again.
_Guido._ Ah, that was what you were to tell us--that was the miracle! Ay, already, at the first words, I divined something beneath them that I understood not...It passed me like a flash--I took no heed of it...But I see now that I must look more closely.
So, when he had you in his tent, alone, with a cloak for all your covering, all night long, you say he spared you?...Am I a man to believe that the stars are fragments of hellebore, or that one may drop something into a well and put out the moon?...What! a man desires you so utterly that he will betray his country, stake all that he has for one single night, ruin himself forever, and do it basely, do such a deed as no man ever thought to do before him, and make the world uninhabitable to himself forever! And this man has you there in his tent, alone and defenseless, and he has but this single night that he has bought at such a price--and he contents himself with a kiss upon the brow, and comes even hither to make us give him credence! No, let us reason fairly and not too long mock at misfortune. If he asked but that, what need was there that he should plunge a whole people into sadness, sink me in an abyss of misery such that I have come from it crushed and older by ten years? Ah!
Had he craved but a kiss upon the brow, he might have saved us without torturing us so! He had but to come like a god to our rescue...But a kiss upon the brow is not demanded and prepared for after his fashion...The truth is found in our cries of anguish and despair...It is only at this psychological moment, a moment that sometimes changes all our conceptions, all our thoughts, our very life, that _Monna Vanna_ feels the new love for _Prinzivalle_ stirring in her soul, a love that knows no doubt. The conception of such a love is revolutionary in the scope of its possibilities--a love that is pregnant with the spirit of daring, of freedom, that lifts woman out of the ordinary and inspires her with the strength and joy of molding a new and free race.
ROSTAND CHANTECLER In view of the progress the modern drama has made as an interpreter of social ideas and portrayer of the human struggle against internal and external barriers, it is difficult to say what the future may bring in the way of great dramatic achievement. So far, however, there is hardly anything to compare with "Chantecler" in philosophic depth and poetic beauty.