athers between calls,
during rehearsals or performances. Again, it is a check-room for used circus
property, such as gilt armchairs, scenery for pantomimes, and other wares
of the circus household. The walls are covered with circus announcements
and glaring posters.
The time is morning. In the circus hall a rehearsal is going on, and prep-
arations are being made for the evening performance. As the curtain goes
up, the cracking whip and the shouts of the riding-master are heard from the
ring. The stage is empty for a few seconds, then enter Tilly and Polly,



LEONID ANDREYEV
251
the musical clowns, practising a new march. Playing on tiny pipes, they
step from the dark doorway to the window. Their music is agreeable to the
ear, but small, mincing, artificially clown-like, like their mincing steps; they
wear jackets and resemble each other; same smooth-shaven face, same
height; Tilly, the younger, has a scarf around his neck; both have their
derbies on the backs of their heads. Tilly glances through the window, then
they turn about, still marching.
POLLY (interrupting the march): Stop, you're out again! Now, listen-
(He stands close to Tilly and plays into his face. Tilly absent-mindedly
listens, scratching his nose.) There! Come on now! (They resume
their music and marching. As they reach the door they meet the man-
ager and Mancini; the latter walks behind the manager, and is gnawing
at the knob of his gold-mounted cane. Count Mancini is tall and slight.
The seams of his clothes are worn and he keeps his coat buttoned tight.
He assumes extremely graceful manners, takes affected poses, and has a
special fondness for toying with his cane, with aristocratic stylishness.
When he laughs, which happens often, his thin sharp face takes on a
marked resemblance to a satyr. The manager, "Papa" Briquet, is a stout
quiet man of average height. His bearing is hesitant. The clowns
make room for the gentlemen. The manager looks questioningly at the
older man.)
POLLY (with an affected accent): Our moosic for the pantomime! The
March of the Ants !
BRIQUET: Ha! Yes!
(The gentlemen walk in. The clowns resume their music, Polly
marching on, then turning, the younger following.)
POLLY: Papa Briquet, Jack is working very badly to-day.
BRIQUET: What's the matter with him?
POLLY: He has a sore throat. You'd better take a look at him.
BRIQUET: All right. Come on, Jack. Open your mouth! Wider—wider.
(Turns clown's face to the light near the window and examines him
closely and seriously.) Just smear it with iodine.
POLLY:
I told him so. I said it was nothing! Oh! Come on. (They
go away playing, marching, practising their funny mincing steps. The
manager sits down. Mancini strikes a pose by the wall, smiling ironi-
cally.)
MANCINI: So. You give them medical treatment, too! Look out, Papa
Briquet, you have no licence.
BRIQUET: Just a little advice. They're all so afraid for their lives.
MANCINI: His throat is simply burnt with whiskey. These two fellows get
drunk every night. I am amazed, Papa Briquet, to see you pay so little
attention to their morals. (He laughs.)
BRIQUET: You make me sick, Mancini.
MANCINI: Count Mancini is at your service!
BRIQUET: You make me sick, Count Mancini. You poke your nose into
everything, you disturb the artists in their work. Some day you'll get a
thrashing, and I warn you that I shan't interfere.
MANCINI: As a man of superior associations and education I cannot be ex-
pected to treat your actors as my equals! What more can you ask,
a


252
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
a
Briquet? You see that I do you the honour of speaking with you quite
familiarly, quite simply.
BRIQUET: Ha! ha! ha! (Slightly threatening) Really!
MANCINI: Never mind my joke. What if they did dare attack me-ever
seen this, Briquet? (He draws a stiletto out of his cane and advances it
silently.) Useful little thing. By the way, you have no idea of the dis-
covery I made yesterday in a suburb. Such a girl! (Laughs.) Oh, well!
all right, all right-I know you don't like that sort of sport. But look
here, you must give me a hundred francs!
BRIQUET: Not a sou.
MANCINI: Then I'll take away Consuelo—that's all-
BRIQUET: Your daily threat!
MANCINI: Yes, my threat! And you would do the same, if you were as
shamefully hard up as I am. Now look here, you know as well as I do
that I have to live up to my name somehow, keep up the family reputa-
tion. Just because the tide of ill-fortune which struck my ancestors com-
pelled me to make my daughter, the Countess Veronica, a bareback rider-
to keep us from starving-do you understand you heartless idiot!
BRIQUET: You chase the girls too much! Some day you'll land in jail,
Mancini!
MANCINI: In jail ? Oh, no! Why, I have to uphold our name, the splen-
dour of my family, (laughs) haven't I? The Mancinis are known all
over Italy for their love of girls-just girls! Is it my fault if I must
pay such crazy prices for what my ancestors got free of charge? You're
nothing but an ass, a parvenu ass. How can you understand Family
Traditions? I don't drink-I stopped playing cards after that acci-
dent-no, you need not smile. Now if I give up the girls, what will be
left of Mancini ? Only a coat of arms, that's all. In the name of
family traditions, give me a hundred francs !
BRIQUET: I told you no, I won't.
MANCINI: You know that I leave half of the salary for Consuelo—but-
perhaps you think I do not love my child---my only daughter, all that
remains to me as a memory of her sainted mother--what cruelty! (Pre-
tends to cry, wipes his eyes with a small and dirty lace handkerchief, em-
broidered with a coronet.)
BRIQUET: Why don't you say, rather, that she is foolish enough to give
you half her salary. You make me sick-
(Enter Zinida, the lion tamer; burningly beautiful, her self-confident,
commanding gestures at first glance give an impression of languor.
She is Briquet's unmarried wife.)
ZINIDA (to Mancini): Good morning.
MANCINI: Madame Zinida! This barbarian, this brute may pierce me
with his dagger, but I cannot control the expression of my love! (Kneels
facetiously before her) Madame! Count Mancini has the honour of ask-
ing you to be his wife.
ZINIDA (to Briquet): Money?
BRIQUET: Yes.
ZINIDA: Don't give him any. (Sits down wearily on a torn sofa, shuts her
eyes. Mancini gets up and wipes his knees.)


LEONID ANDREYEV
253
MANCINI:
i
MANCINI: Duchess! Don't be cruel. I am no lion, no tiger, no savage
beast which you are accustomed to tame. I am merely a poor domestic
animal, who wants, miaow, miaow, a little green grass.
ZINIDA (without opening her eyes): Jim tells me you have a teacher for
Consuelo. What for?
The solicitude of a father, duchess, the solicitude and the tire-
less anxiety of a loving heart. The extreme misfortunes of our family,
when I was a child, have left some flaws in her education. Friends, the
daughter of Count Mancini, Countess Veronica, can barely read! Is
that admissable? And you, Briquet, heartless brute, you still ask why I
need money!
ZINIDA: Artful!
BRIQUET: What are you teaching her ?
MANCINI: Everything. A student had been giving her lessons, but I threw
him out yesterday. He had the nerve to fall in love with Consuelo and
stood there miaowing at the door like a cat. Everything, Briquet, that
you don't know—literature, mythology, orthography,
(Two young actresses appear, with small fur coats thrown over their
light dresses. They are tired and sit down in the corner.)
MANCINI: I do not wish my daughter-
ZINIDA: Artful!
BRIQUET: You are stupid, Mancini. What do you do it for? (In a didactic
tone) You are fearfully stupid, Mancini. Why does she need to learn ?
Since she is here she need never know anything about that life. Don't
you understand? What is geography? If I were the government I
would forbid artists to read books. Let them read the posters, that's
enough.
(During Briquet's speech, the two clowns and another actor enter.
They sit down wearily.)
BRIQUET: Right now, your Consuelo is an excellent artist, but just as soon
as you teach her mythology, and she begins to read, she'll become a
nuisance, she'll be corrupted, and then she'll go and poison herself. I
know those books, I've read 'em myself. All they teach is corruption,
and how to kill oneself.
FIRST ACTRESS : I love the novels that come out in the newspaper.
BRIQUET: That shows what a foolish girl you are. You'll be done for in
no time. Believe me, my friends, we must forget entirely what is hap-
pening out there. How can we understand all that goes on there?
MANCINI: You are an enemy of enlightenment, you are an obscurantist,
Briquet.
BRIQUET: And you are stupid. You are from out there. What has it
taught you? (The actors laugh.) If you'd been born in a circus as I
was, you'd know something. Enlightenment is plain nonsense--nothing
else. Ask Zinida. She knows everything they teach out there-geog-
raphy, mythology, Does it make her any happier ? You tell them,
dear.
ZINIDA: Leave me alone, Louis.
MANCINI (angrily): Oh! Go to the devil! When I listen to your asinine
philosophy, I'd like to skin you for more than a paltry hundred francs---


254
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
a
CUS.
a
for two hundred-for a thousand. Great God! What an ass of a
manager! Yes, right before every one of them I want to say that you
are a stingy old skinflint—that you pay starvation wages. I'll make you
give Consuelo a raise of a hundred francs. Listen, all you honest vaga.
bonds, tell me—who is it draws the crowd that fills the circus every
night? You? a couple of musical donkeys? Tigers, lions? Nobody
cares for those hungry cats !
ZINIDA: Leave the tigers alone.
MANCINI: Beg your pardon, Zinida. I did not mean to hurt your feelings
-honestly. I really marvel at your furious audacity-at your grace-
you are a heroine—I kiss your tiny hands. But what do they under-
stand about heroism? (An orchestra softly plays the Tango in the cir-
He continues with enthusiasm.) Hear! hear! Now tell me, hon-
est vagabonds, who but Consuelo and Bezano draws the crowds! That
Tango on horseback—it is--it is Oh, the devil! Even his fatuous-
ness the Pope could not withstand its lure.
POLLY: True! It's a great trick—wasn't the idea Bezano's ?
MANCINI: Idea! Idea! The lad's in love, like a cat—that's the idea.
What's the good of an idea without a woman! You wouldn't dance very
far with your idea alone, eh, Papa Briquet ?
BRIQUET: We have a contract.
MANCINI: Such base formalities.
ZINIDA: Give him ten francs and let him go.
MANCINI: Ten! Never! Fifteen! Don't be stubborn, Papa. For the
traditions of my house--twenty. I swear-on my honour-I can't do
with less. (Briquet hands him twenty francs. Nonchalantly) Merci.
Thanks.
ZINIDA: Why don't you
take it from your baron?
MANCINI (raising his eyebrows haughtily, quite indignant): From the
Baron? Woman! who do you think I am that I should be beholden to
a stranger ?
ZINIDA: You're plotting something artful. I know you very little, but I
guess you're an awful scoundrel.
MANCINI (laughs): Such an insult from such beautiful lips.
(Enter an "artist," apparently an athlete.)
ATHLETE: Papa Briquet, there's a gentleman from beyond the grave asking
for you.
ACTRESS : A ghost ?
ATHLETE: No. He seems alive. Did you ever see a drunken ghost ?
BRIQUET: If he's drunk, tell him I'm out, Thomas. Does he want to see
me or the Count ?
ATHLETE: No, you. Maybe he's not drunk, but just a ghost.
MANCINI (draws himself together, puffs up): A society man?
ATHLETE:
Yes. I'll tell him to come in.
(One hears the whip cracking in the ring. The Tango sounds very
low and distant--then comes nearer-louder. Silence.)
BRIQUET (touching Zinida's arm): Tired?
ZINIDA (drawing back a little): No.
POLLY: Your red lion is nervous to-day, Zinida !
ZINIDA: You shouldn't tease him.



LEONID ANDREYEV
255
POLLY: I played a melody from Traviata for him. And he sang with me.
Wouldn't that be a good trick to stage, Papa Briquet ?
(Thomas brings in the gentleman, points out the manager, and goes
heavily away. The gentleman is not young, and he is ugly, but his
rather strange face is bold and lively. He wears an expensive over-
coat, with a fur collar, and holds his hat and gloves in his hand.)
THE GENTLEMAN (bowing and smiling): Have I the pleasure of addressing
the manager ?
BRIQUET: Yes. Won't you sit down, please? Tilly, bring a chair.
GENTLEMAN: Oh! Don't trouble. (Looks around.) These are your
artists? Very glad-
MANCINI (straightening and bowing slightly): Count Mancini.
GENTLEMAN (surprised): Count?
BRIQUET (indefinitely): Yes, Count. And whom have I the honour of-
GENTLEMAN: I don't quite know myself-yet. As a rule you choose your
own names, don't you? I have not chosen yet. Later you might advise
me about it. I have an idea already, but I am afraid it sounds too much
like literature-you know.
BRIQUET: Literature?
GENTLEMAN: Yes! Too sophisticated.
Yes! Too sophisticated. (They all look surprised.) I
presume these two gentlemen are clowns? I am so glad. May I shake
hands with them? (Stands up and shakes hands with clowns, who make
silly faces.)
BRIQUET: Excuse me—but what can I do for you?
GENTLEMAN (with the same pleasant, confident smile): Oh. You do some-
thing for me? No. I want to do something for you, Papa Briquet.
BRIQUET: Papa Briquet? But you don't look like
GENTLEMAN (reassuringly): It's all right. I shall become "like.” These
two gentlemen just made remarkable faces. Would you like to see me
imitate them? Look! (He makes the same silly faces as the clowns.)
BRIQUET: Yes! (Involuntarily) You are not drunk, sir?
GENTLEMAN: No. I don't drink as a rule. Do I look drunk?
POLLY: A little.
GENTLEMAN: No I don't drink. It is a peculiarity of my talent.
BRIQUET (familiarly): Where did you work before ? Juggler ?
GENTLEMAN : No. But I am glad you feel in me a comrade, Papa Briquet.
Unfortunately I am not a juggler, and have worked nowhere I am,
just so.
MANCINI: But you look like a society man.
GENTLEMAN: Oh,
you
flatter me, Count. I am just so.
BRIQUET: Well, what do you want? You see I am obliged to tell you that
everything is taken.
GENTLEMAN : That's immaterial. I want to be a clown, if you will allow
(Some of the actors smile, Briquet begins to grow angry.)
BRIQUET: But what can you do? You're asking too much. What can
me.
you do?
GENTLEMAN: Why! Nothing! Isn't that funny! I can't do a thing.
BRIQUET: No, it's not funny. Any scoundrel knows that much.
GENTLEMAN (rather helpless, but still smiling and looking around): We
can invent something-


256 HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
:
BRIQUET (ironically): From literature?
(The clown Jackson enters slowly without being noticed by the
others. He stands behind the gentlemen.)
GENTLEMAN: Yes, one can find something literary, too. A nice little
speech for instance on, let's say, a religious topic. Something like a de-
bate among the clowns.
BRIQUET: A debate! The devil! This is no academy.
GENTLEMAN (sadly): I am very sorry. Something else then. Perhaps a
joke about the creation of the world and its rulers ?
BRIQUET: What about the police? No, no-nothing like that!
JACKSON (coming forward): The rulers of the world? You don't like
them? I don't either. Shake.
BRIQUET (introducing): Our chief clown, the famous Jackson.
GENTLEMAN (enthusiastically): Great heavens—you! Allow me to shake
hands with you heartily! You, with your genius, you have given me so
much joy!
JACKSON: I'm glad indeed!
BRIQUET (shrugs his shoulders; to Jackson): He wants to be a clown!
Look him over, Jim.
(Jackson makes a motion at which the gentleman hurriedly removes
his coat and throws it on a chair. He is ready for the examination.
Jackson turns him round, looking him over critically.)
JACKSON: Clown? Hm! Turn round then. Clown? Yes? Now smile.
Wider–broader-do you call that a smile? So—that's better. There
is something, yes—but for full developments- (Sadly) Probably you
can't even turn a somersault ?
GENTLEMAN (sighs): No.
JACKSON: How old are you?
GENTLEMAN: Thirty-nine. Too late? (Jackson moves away
with a
whistle. There is a silence.)
ZINIDA (softly): Take him.
BRIQUET (indignant): What the hell shall I do with him if he doesn't
know a thing? He's drunk!
GENTLEMAN: Honestly I am not. Thank
you for your support, Madame.
Are you not the famous Zinida, the lion tamer, whose regal beauty and
audacity-
ZINIDA: Yes. But I do not like flattery.
GENTLEMAN : It is not flattery.
MANCINI: You are evidently not accustomed to good society, my dear.
Flattery? This gentleman expresses his admiration in sincere and beau-
tiful words—and you-you are not educated, Zinida. As for myself,
(Enter Consuelo and Bezano in circus costume.)
CONSUELO: You here, Daddy?
MANCINI: Yes, my child, you are not tired? (Kisses her on the forehead.)
My daughter, sir, Countess Veronica. Known on the stage as Consuelo,
The Bareback Tango Queen. Did you ever see her?
GENTLEMAN: I have enjoyed her work. It is marvellous!
MANCINI: Yes! Of course. Everyone admits it. And how do you like
the name, Consuelo? I took it from the novel of George Sand. It
means "Consolation."
:


LEONID ANDREYEV
257
BEZANO:
.
POLLY:
GENTLEMAN: What a wonderful knowledge of books!
MANCINI: A small thing. Despite your strange intention, I can see, sir,
that you are a gentleman. My peer! Let me explain to you, that only
the strange and fatal misfortunes of our ancient family—“sic transit
gloria mundi,” sir.
CONSUELO: It's a bore, Daddy- Where's my handkerchief, Alfred ?
Here it is.
CONSUELO (showing the handkerchief to the gentleman): Genuine Venetian.
Do
you
like it?
GENTLEMAN (again bowing): My eyes are dazzled, how beautiful! Papa
Briquet, the more I look around me the more I want to stay with you.
(Makes the face of a simpleton.) On the one hand a count, on the
other-
JACKSON (nods approval): That's not bad. Look here, think a bit-find
something. Everyone here thinks for himself.
(Silence. The gentleman stands with a finger on his forehead,
.
thinking.)
GENTLEMAN : Find something—find something
Eureka!
That means found. Come!
GENTLEMAN: Eureka- I shall be among you, he who gets slapped.
(General laughter. Even Briquet smiles.)
GENTLEMAN (looks at them smiling): You see I made even you laugh-is
that easy? (All grow serious. Polly sighs.)
TILLY: No, it's not easy. Did you laugh, Polly?
POLLY: Sure, a lot. Did you?
I did. (Imitating an instrument, he plays with his lips a melody
at once sad and gay.)
JACKSON: "He Who Gets Slapped,” that's not bad.
GENTLEMAN : It's not, is it? I rather like it myself. It suits my talent.
And comrades, I have even found a name—you'll call me “HE.” Iş
that all right?
JACKSON (thinking): “He”-Not bad.
CONSUELO (in a singing, melodic voice): "HE" is so funny-"HE"--like a
dog. Daddy, are there such dogs ?
(Jackson suddenly gives a circus slap to the gentleman. HE steps
back and grows pale.)
GENTLEMAN: What!-(General laughter covers his exclamation.)
JACKSON: HE, Who Gets Slapped. Or didn't you get it?
POLLY (comically): He says he wants more-
(The gentleman smiles, rubbing his cheek.)
GENTLEMAN : So sudden.-Without waiting.-How funny--you didn't
hurt me, and yet my cheek burns.
(Again there is loud laughter. The clowns cackle like ducks, hens,
cocks; they bark. Zinida says something to Briquet, casts a glance
toward Bezano, and goes out. Mancini assumes a bored air and looks
at his watch. The two actresses go out.)
JACKSON: Take him, Papa Briquet—he will push us.
MANCINI (again looking at his watch): But bear in mind, that Papa Briquet
is as close as Harpagon. If you expect to get good money here you are
mistaken. (He laughs.) A slap? What's a slap? Worth only small
.
TILLY:


258
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
change, a franc and a half a dozen. Better go back to society; you will
make more money there. Why for one slap, just a light tap, you might
say, my friend, Marquis Justi, was paid fifty thousand lire!
BRIQUET: Shut up, Mancini. Will you take care of him, Jackson ?
JACKSON: I can.
POLLY: Do you like music? A Beethoven sonata played on a broom, for
instance, or Mozart on a bottle ?
HE: Alas! No. But I will be exceedingly grateful if you will teach me.
A clown! My childhood's dream. When all my school friends were
thrilled by Plutarch's heroes, or the light of science-I dreamed of
clowns. Beethoven on a broom, Mozart on bottles! Just what I have
sought all my life! Friends, I must have a costume!
JACKSON: I see you don't know much! A costume (putting his finger on
his forehead) is a thing which calls for long deep thought. Have you
seen my Sun here? (Strikes his posterior.) I looked for it two years.
HE (enthusiastically): I shall think!
MANCINI: It is time for me to go. Consuelo, my child, you must get
dressed. (To HE.) We are lunching with Baron Regnard, a friend of
mine, a banker.
CONSUELO: But I don't want to go, Daddy. Alfred says I must rehearse
to-day.
MANCINI (horrified, holding up his hands): Child, think of me, and what
a situation you put me in! I promised the Baron, the Baron expects us.
Why, it is impossible! Oh, I am in a cold sweat.
CONSUELO:
BEZANO (drily): She has to work. Are you rested? Then come on.
But-the devil take me if I know what to make of it. Hey,
Bezano, bareback rider! Are you crazy? I gave you permission for
Art's sake, to exercise my daughter's talent-and you-
CONSUELO: Go along, Papa, and don't be so silly. We've got to work,
haven't we? Have lunch alone with your Baron. And Daddy, you for-
got to take a clean handkerchief again, and I washed two for you yester-
day. Where did you put them?
MANCINI (ashamed, blushing): Why, my linen is washed by the laundress,
and you, Consuelo, are still playing with toys. It is stupid! You're a
chatter-box. You don't think. These gentlemen might imagine Heaven
knows what. How stupid. I'm off.
CONSUELO: Do you want me to write him a little note ?
MANCINI (angrily): A little note? Your little notes would make a horse
laugh! Good-bye.
(He goes out toying angrily with his cane. The clowns follow him
respectfully, playing a funeral march. HE and Jackson laugh. The
actors disappear one by one.)
CONSUELO (laughing): Do I really write so badly? And I love so to write.
Did you like my note, Alfred-or did you laugh, too?
BEZANO (blushing): No, I did not. Come on, Consuelo.
(They go, and meet Zinida, entering. Consuelo passes on.)
Are you going back to work, Bezano?
BEZANO (politely): Yes. To-day is a very bad day. How are your lions,
Zinida ? I think the weather affects them.
CONSUELO (from the ring): Alfred!
Alfred says-
MANCINI:
ZINIDA:


LEONID ANDREYEV
259
ZINIDA: Yes. Some one is calling you. You'd better go. (Alfred goes
out.
To Briquet) Are you finished ?
BRIQUET: Right away.
JACKSON: Then good-bye till evening. Think about your costume, He,
and I shall look for some idea, too. Be here at ten to-morrow. Don't
be late, or you'll get another slap. And I'll work with you.
HE: I shall not be late. (He looks after Jackson who goes out.) Must
be a nice man. All the people about you are so nice, Papa Briquet. I
suppose that good-looking bareback rider is in love with Consuelo, isn't
he? (Laughs.)
ZINIDA: It's none of
your
business. For a newcomer you go poking your
nose too far. How much does he want, Papa ?
BRIQUET: Just a minute. See here, He. I don't want to make a contract
with you.
HE: Just as you please. Do you know what? Don't let us talk about
money. You are an honest fellow, Briquet; you will see what my work
is worth to you, and then-
BRIQUET (pleased): Now that's very nice of you. Zinida, the man really
doesn't know anything.
ZINIDA: Well, do as he suggests. Now we must write it down. Where's
the book?
BRIQUET: Here. (To HE.) I don't like to write (gives book to Zinida),
but we have to put down the names of the actors, you know-it's police
regulations. Then if anyone kills himself, or-
(Again comes the sound of the Tango, and calls from the ring.)
ZINIDA: What is your
name
?
HE (smiling): He. I chose it, you know. Or don't you like it?
.
BRIQUET: We like it all right—but we have to have your real name. Have
you a passport?
HE (confused): A passport ? No, I have none. Or, rather, yes. I have
something of the kind, but I had no idea the rules were strictly enforced
here. What do
papers
for ?
(Zinida and Briquet look at each other. Zinida pushes the book
aside.)
ZINIDA: Then we can't take you. We cannot quarrel with the police, just
on your account.
BRIQUET: She is my wife. I hadn't told you. She's right. You might
get hurt by a horse, or hurt yourself-or do something. We don't know
you, you see. I personally don't care, but out there, it's different, you
For me a corpse is just a corpse—and I don't ask anything about
him. It's up to God or the Devil. But they--they're too curious. Well,
I suppose it's necessary for order. I don't know Got a card ?
HE (rubs his head, thinking): What shall I do? I have my card, but
(smiles) you understand that I don't want my name to be known.
BRIQUET: Some story, hey?
HE: Yes, something like that. Why can't you imagine that I have no
name? Can't I lose it as I might lose my hat? Or let some one else
take it by mistake? When a stray dog comes to you, you don't ask his
name--you simply give him another. Let me be that dog. (Laughing)
He-the Dog!
you need
see.
a


260
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
HE:
ZINIDA: Why don't you tell us your name, just the two of us. Nobody
else need know it. Unless you should break
your
neck-
HE (hesitates): Honestly? (Zinida shrugs her shoulders.)
BRIQUET: Where people are honest, their word is good. One sees you
come from out there.
All right. But please, don't be surprised. (Gives Zinida his card.
She looks at it, then hands it to Briquet, then both look at HE.)
BRIQUET: If it is true, sir, that you are really what is written here-
HE: For heaven's sake-for heaven's sake-this does not exist, but was
lost long ago; it is just a check for an old hat. I pray you to forget it,
a
as I have. I am He Who Gets Slapped—nothing else. (Silence.)
BRIQUET: I beg your pardon, sir, but I must ask you again, I must humbly
ask you—are you not drunk, sir? There is something in your eye
something-
He: No, no. I am He Who Gets Slapped. Since when do you speak to
me like this, Papa Briquet? You offend me.
ZINIDA: After all, it's his business, Briquet. (She hides the card.)
Truly you are a strange man. (Smiles.) And you have already noticed
that Bezano is in love with the horse-girl? And that I love my Briquet,
did you notice that, too?
HE (also smiling): Oh, yes. You adore him.
ZINIDA: I adore him. Now go with him, Briquet, show him the ring and
the stables—I have something to write.
HE: Yes, yes, please. I am so happy. At last you have taken me, haven't
you? It is true—you're not joking. The circus, the tan-bark, the ring
in which I shall run getting my slaps. Yes, yes, Briquet, let's go. Un-
til I feel the sawdust under my feet, I shall not believe it.
BRIQUET: All right then. (Kisses Zinida.) Come on.
ZINIDA: Just a minute-He!
Answer me a question. I have a man who
takes care of the cages, a plain fellow whom nobody knows. He just
cleans the cages you know; he walks in and out whenever he wants to,
without even looking at the lions, as if he were perfectly at home. Why
is that so? Nobody knows him, everybody knows me, everyone is afraid
for me, while And he is such a silly man-you will see him.
(Laughs.) But don't you think of entering the cage yourself! My red
one would give you such a slap!
BRIQUET (displeased): There you are again, Zinida-stop it.
ZINIDA (laughs): All right-go. Oh yes, Louis, send me Bezano. I have
to settle an account with him.
(HE and the director go out. Zinida looks at the card once more
then hides it. She gets up and walks quickly up and down the room.
She stops to listen to the Tango, which ends abruptly. Then she
stands motionless, looking straight at the dark opening of the door
through which Bezano comes.)
BEZANO (entering): You called me, Zinida? What do you want? Tell
me quickly, I have no time-
(Zinida looks at him silently. Bezano flushes with anger, and knits
his eyebrows. He turns to the door to go.)
Bezano!
BEZANO (stops, without looking up): What do you want? I have no time.
:
ZINIDA:


LEONID ANDREYEV
261
$
ZINIDA:
BEZANO:
1
BEZANO:
ZINIDA: Bezano! I keep hearing people say that you are in love with Con-
suelo. Is it true?
BEZANO (shrugging his shoulders): We work well together.
ZINIDA (takes a step forward): No Tell me, Alfred, do you love her?
BEZANO (flushes like a boy, but looks straight into Zinida's eyes. Proudly):
I do not love anybody. No, I love nobody. How can I ? Consuelo?
She is here to-day, gone to-morrow, if her father should take her away.
And I? Who am I? An acrobat, the son of a Milanese shoemaker-
She! I cannot even talk about it. Like my horses I have no words.
Who am I to love?
Do
you
love me? A little ?
No. I told you before.
ZINIDA: Still no? Not even a little ?
BEZANO (after a silence): I am afraid of you.
ZINIDA (wants to cry out, indignantly, but masters herself and lowers her
eyes, as if in an effort to shut out their light; turns pale): Am I ...
so terrifying a woman-
BEZANO: You are beautiful, like a queen. You are almost as beautiful
as Consuelo. But I don't like your eyes. Your eyes command me to
love you—and I don't like to be commanded. I am afraid of you.
ZINIDA: Do I command, Bezano? No-only implore.
Then why not look at me straight ? Now I have it. You know
yourself that your eyes cannot implore. (Laughs.) Your lions have
spoiled you.
ZINIDA: My red lion loves me-
BEZANO: Never! If he loves you, why is he so sad ?
ZINIDA: Yesterday he was licking my hands like a dog.
And this morning he was looking for you to devour you. He
thrusts out his muzzle and looks out, as if he sees only you. He is
afraid of you, and he hates you. Or do you want me to lick your hands
too, like a dog?
ZINIDA: No, Alfred, but I-I want to kiss your hand. (With passion)
Give it to me!
BEZANO (severely): I am ashamed to listen to you when you speak like
that.
ZINIDA (controlling herself): One should not torture another as you torture
me. Alfred, I love you. No, I do not command. Look into my eyes,
(Silence.)
BEZANO (turns to go): Good-bye.
Alfred-
(HE appears in the doorway, and stops.)
Please never tell me any more that you love. I don't want it.
Otherwise I will quit. You pronounce the word love as if you were
cracking me with your whip. You know it is disgusting-
BEZANO:
.
I love you.
ZINIDA:
(He turns brusquely and goes. Both notice HE; Bezano, frowning,
passes out quickly. Zinida returns to her place at the desk, with a
proudly indifferent expression.)
HE (coming in): I beg your pardon, but I-
ZINIDA: There you are again, poking your nose into everything, He. Do
you really want a slap?
BEZANO:


262
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
love me
HE (laughing): No. I simply forgot my overcoat. I didn't hear any-
thing
ZINIDA: I don't care whether you did or not.
HE: May I take my coat?
ZINIDA:
Take it if it's yours.
Sit down, HE.
HE: I am sitting down.
ZINIDA: Now tell me He, could you
?
HE (laughing): 1? I and Love! Look at me, Zinida. Did you ever see
a lover with such a face?
ZINIDA: One can succeed with such a face-
HE: That's because I am happy-because I lost my hat-because I am
drunk-or perhaps I am not drunk. But I feel as dizzy as a young girl
at her first ball. It is so nice here-slap me, I want to play my part.
Perhaps it will awaken love in my heart, too. Love-(as if listening to
his own heart with pretended terror) do you know-I feel it!
(In the circus the Tango is played again.)
ZINIDA (listening too): For me? ?
No. I don't know. For everyone. (Listens to the music. Yes,
they are dancing--how beautiful Consuelo is—and how beautiful is the
youth. He has the body of a Greek God; he looks as if he had been
modeled by Praxiteles. Love! Love! (Silence, music.)
ZINIDA: Tell me, HE-
At your service, Queen!
ZINIDA: HE, what shall I do, to make my lions love me?
HE:
HE:
CURTAIN
ACT II
The same room, during the evening performance. Occasional music,
laughter, shrieks, and applause are audible. Through the small windows,
back centre, the light is shining.
Consuelo and Baron Regnard occupy the stage; Consuelo wears her stage
costume; she sits with her feet on the sofa, a small shawl covering her shoul-
ders. Before her stands the Baron, a tall stout man in evening dress, a rose
in his buttonhole; grasping the ground with feet well apart, he gazes at her
with convex spider-like eyes.
BARON:
BARON: Is it true that your father, the Count, has introduced you to a certain
Marquis Justi, a very rich man?
CONSUELO (surprised): No, he is only joking. I have often heard him
speak of a Marquis Justi but I have never seen him-
And do you know that your father is just a charlatan ?
CONSUELO: Oh! Don't say that-Father is such a dear.
BARON: Did you like the jewels ?
CONSUELO: Yes, very much. I was very sorry when Father told me I must
return them. He said it would not be nice for me to keep them. I even
ried a little about it.



LEONID ANDREYEV
263
BARON:
.
.
.
BARON: Your father is only a beggar and a charlatan.
CONSUELO: Oh, no, don't scold him—he loves you so much.
Let me kiss
your
hand-
CONSUELO: Oh, no, it isn't proper! One may kiss the hand only when one
says how do you do or good-bye. But in the meantime you can't.
BARON: Everybody is in love with you, that is why you and your father
make such a fuss about yourselves. Who is that new clown they call
HE? I don't like him, he's too shrewd a beast. Is he in love with
you, too? I noticed the way he looked at you.
CONSUELO (laughing): Nothing of the kind. He is so funny! He got
fifty-two slaps yesterday. We counted them. Think of it, fifty-two
slaps! Father said, “if they had only been gold pieces."
BARON: And Bezano, Consuelo. . . . Do you like him?
CONSUELO: Yes, very much. He is so good-looking. He says that Bezano
and I are the most beautiful couple in the world. He calls him Adam,
and me Eve. But that's improper, isn't it? He is so improper.
BARON: And does He speak to you very often?
CONSUELO: Yes, often. ... But I don't understand him. It seems as if
he were drunk.
BARON: “Consuelo”! It means in Spanish Consolation. Your
father is an ass.
Consuelo, I love you.
Talk it over with Father.
BARON (angry): Your father is a swindler and a charlatan. He should be
turned over to the police. Don't you understand that I cannot marry
.
.
.
CONSUELO:
you?
CONSUELO: But Father says you can.
BARON : No, I cannot. And what if I shoot myself ? Consuelo, silly girl,
I love you unbearably ... unbearably, do you understand? I am
probably mad ... and must be taken to a doctor, yanked about, beaten
with sticks. Why do I love you so much, Consuelo?
CONSUELO: Then, you'd better marry.
BARON: I have had a hundred women, beauties, but I didn't see them. You
are the first and I don't see any one else. Who strikes man with love,
God or the Devil ? The Devil struck me. Let me kiss your hand.
CONSUELO: No. (She thinks a while and sighs.)
BARON: Do you think sometimes ? What are you thinking about now, Con-
suelo?
CONSUELO (with another sigh): I don't know why, I just felt sorry for
Bezano. (Sighs again.) He is so nice to me when he teaches me
and he has such a tiny little room.
BARON (indignant): You were there?
CONSUELO: No. He told me about it. (Smiling) Do you hear the noise
in there? That's He getting slapped. Poor thing . . . although I know
it doesn't hurt, it's only make-believe. The intermission is coming soon.
(The Baron throws away his cigar, takes two quick steps forward, and
falls on his knees before the girl.)
Consuelo
CONSUELO: Please, don't.
Please leave my hand alone.
BARON: Consuelo!
ÇONSUELO (disgusted): Get up please, it's disgusting-you're so fat.
:
BARON:
Get up:


264
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
(The Baron gets up. Voices are heard near the door and in the ring.
It is the intermission. The clowns come first, talking cheerfully and
excitedly. HE leads them, in his clown's dress, with painted eye-
brows and white nose; the others are applauding him. Voices of the
actors calling: “Bravo! HE.” Then come the actors and actresses,
riding-masters, and the rest, all in costume. Zinida is not among them.
Papa Briquet comes a little later.)
POLLY: A hundred slaps! Bravo, He!
JACKSON: Not bad, not bad at all. You'll make a career.
TILLY: He was the Professor to-day, and we were the students. Here goes
another! (Gives him a clown's slap. Laughter. All bid good evening
to the Baron. He is politely rude to these vagabonds who bore him, and
remains silent. They seem quite used to it. Enter Mancini. He is the
same, and with the same cane.)
MANCINI (shaking hands): What a success, Baron—and think of it-how
the crowd does love slaps. (Whispering) Your knees are dusty, Baron,
brush them off. The floor is very dirty in here. (Aloud) Consuelo,
dear child, how do you feel ? (Goes over to his daughter. Sound of
laughing, chattering. The waiters from the buffet in the lobby bring in
soda and wine. Consuelo's voice is heard.)
CONSUELO: And where is Bezano ?
HE (bows before the baron, affecting intimacy): You do not recognize me,
Baron ?
BARON: Yes I do. You are the clown, HE.
HE: Yes I am HE Who Gets Slapped. May I presume to ask you, Baron,
did you get your jewels back?
BARON: What!
HE: I was asked to return some jewels to you, and I take the liberty of-
(The Baron turns his back on him-HE laughs loudly.)
JACKSON: Whiskey and soda! Believe me, ladies and gents, He will
surely make a career. I am an old clown, and I know the crowd. Why
to-day, he even eclipsed me—and clouds have covered my Sun. (Strik-
ing it.) They do not like puzzles, they want slaps! They are longing
for them and dreaming about them in their homes. Your health, HE!
Another whiskey and soda! He got so many slaps to-day, there would
be enough to go round the whole orchestra !
TILLY: I bet there wouldn't! (To Jackson) Shake!
I bet there wouldn't-I'll go and count the old mugs.
The orchestra did not laugh-
JACKSON: Because they were getting it, but the galleries did, because they
were looking at the orchestra getting slapped. Your health, He!
HE: Your's Jim! Tell me, why didn't you let me finish my speech-I was
just getting a good start.
JACKSON (seriously): My friend, because your speech was a sacrilege.
Politics—all right. Manners--as much as you want.
But Providence
leave it in peace. And believe me, friend, I shut your mouth in time.
.
Didn't I, Papa Briquet ?
BRIQUET (coming nearer): Yes. It was too much like literature. This is
not an academy. You forget yourself, HE.
POLLY:
A VOICE:


LEONID ANDREYEV
265
TILLY: But to shut one's mouth-faugh
BRIQUET (in a didactic tone): Whenever one shuts one's mouth, it is always
high time to shut it, unless one is drinking. Hey, whiskey and soda!
VOICES: Whiskey and soda for the Manager!
MANCINI: But this is obscurantism. Philosophizing again, Briquet ?
BRIQUET: I am not satisfied with you to-day, HE. Why do you tease
them? They don't like it. Your health! A good slap must be clean
like a crystal-fft-fft! right side, left side, and done with it. They will
like it; they will laugh, and love you. But in your slaps there is a cer-
tain bite, you understand, a certain smell-
HE: But they laughed, nevertheless !
BRIQUET: But without pleasure, without pleasure, HE. You pay, and
immediately draw a draft on their bank; it's not the right game--they
won't like you.
JACKSON: That's what I tell him. He had already begun to make them
angry.
BEZANO (entering): Consuelo, where are you? I have been looking for
you—come on. (Both go out. The Baron, after hesitating a while, fol.
lows them. Mancini accompanies him respectfully to the door.)
HE (sighs): You don't understand, my dear friends; you are simply old,
and have forgotten the smell of the stage.
JACKSON: Aha! Who is old, my young man?
HE: Don't be angry, Jim. It's a play, don't you understand? I become
happy when I enter the ring and hear the music. I wear a mask and I
feel humorous. There is a mask on my face, and I play. I may say
anything like a drunkard. Do you understand? Yesterday when I,
with this stupid face, was playing the great man, the philosopher (he
assumes a proud monumental pose, and repeats the gesture of the play-
general laughter) I was walking this way, and was telling how great,
how wise, how incomparable I was—how God lived in me, how high I
I
stood above the earth-how glory shone above my head (his voice
changes and he is speaking faster) then you, Jim, you hit me for the first
time. And I asked you “What is it, they're applauding me ?” Then, at
the tenth slap, I said: “It seems to me that they sent for me from the
Academy ?” (Acts, looking around him with an air of unconquerable
pride and splendour. Laughter. Jackson gives him a real slap.)
He (holding his face): Why?
JACKSON: Because you're a fool, and play for nothing. Waiter, the check.
(Laughter. The bell calls them to the ring. The actors go out in
haste, some running. The waiters collect their money.)
BRIQUET (in a sing-song): To the ring-to the ring-
MANCINI:
I want to tell you something, He. You are not going yet ?
HE: No. I'll take a rest.
BRIQUET: To the ring—to the ring-
(The clowns as they go sing in shrill, squeaky voices. Little by
little they all disappear, and loud music begins. HE seats himself
on the sofa with his legs crossed, and yawns.)
MANCINI: HE, you have something none of my ancestors ever had-money.
Let's have a nice bottle on you. Waiter, please-(The waiter who was
taking up dishes, brings a bottle of wine and glasses and goes out.)


266
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
:
HE: You're blue, Mancini. (Stretches.) Well, at my age, a hundred
slaps—it seems pretty hard. So you're blue. How are things getting
on with your girl ?
MANCINI: Tss! Bad! Complications--parents--(shudders) Agh-
HE: Prison !
MANCINI (laughing): Prison! Mustn't I uphold the glory of my name
HE:
MANCINI:
now, eh? HE, I'm joking--but there is Hell in my heart. You're the
only one who understands me. But tell me how to explain this passion?
It will turn my hair grey, it'll bring me to prison, to the grave. I am a
tragic man. He-(Wipes his eyes with a dirty handkerchief.) Why
don't I like things which are not forbidden ? Why, at all moments, even
at the very moment of ecstasy, must I be reminded of some law-it is
stupid. Hi, I am becoming an anarchist. Good God-Count Mancini
an anarchist. That's the only thing I've missed.
Isn't there a way of settling it somehow ?
Is there a way of getting money, somehow ?
HE: And the Baron ?
MANCINI: Oh, yes! He's just waiting for it, the blood-sucker! He'll get
what he's after. Some day, you'll see me give him Consuelo for ten
thousand francs, perhaps for five!
HE: Cheap.
MANCINI: Did I say it was anything else? Do I want to do it? But
these bourgeois are strangling me, they've got me by the throat. He,
one can easily see that you're a gentleman, and of good society, you un-
derstand me—I showed you the jewels which I sent back to him-damn
honesty—I didn't even dare change the stones, put false ones-
HE: Why?
MANCINI: It would have queered the game. Do you think he didn't weigh
the diamonds when he got them back?
He will not marry her.
MANCINI: Yes he will. You don't understand. (Laughs.) The first
half of his life, this man had only appetites--now love's got him. If he
does not get Consuelo, he is lost, he is like a withered narcissus.
Plague take him with his automobiles. Did you see his car ?
HE: I did.... Give Consuelo to the Jockey-
MANCINI: To Bezano? (Laughs.) What nonsense you do talk! Oh, I
know. It's your joke about Adam and Eve. But please stop it. It's
clever, but it compromises the child. She told me about it.
Or give her to me.
MANCINI: )
Have you a billion ? (Laughs.) Ah, He, I'm not in the proper
,
mood to listen to your clownish jokes, They say there are terrible jails
in this country, and no discriminations are being made between people of
my kind, and plain scoundrels. Why do you look at me like that?
You're making fun of me?
HE: No.
I'll never get accustomed to those faces. You're so disgust-
ingly made up.
He will not marry her. You can be as proud as you please, Mancini,
but he'll not marry her. What is Consuelo? She is not educated.
When she is off her horse, any good housemaid from a decent house has
HE:
HE:
MANCINI:
HE:


LEONID ANDREYEV
267
HE:
nicer manners, and speaks better. (Nonchalantly) Don't you think
she's stupid?
MANCINI: No, she's not stupid. And you, He, are a fool. What need has
a woman of intelligence? Why, He, you astonish me. Consuelo is an
unpolished jewel, and only a real donkey does not notice her sparkle.
Do you know what happened? I tried to begin to polish her-
HE: Yes, you took a teacher. And what happened?
.
MANCINI (nodding his head): I was frightened-it went too fast-I had to
dismiss him. Another month or two, and she would have kicked me out.
(Laughs.) The clever old diamond merchants of Amsterdam keep their
precious stones unpolished, and fool the thieves. My father taught me
that.
The sleep of a diamond. It is only sleeping, then. You are wise,
Mancini.
MANCINI: Do
you know what blood flows in the veins of an Italian woman?
The blood of Hannibal and Corsini—of a Borgia—and of a dirty Lom-
bardi peasant-and of a Moor. Oh! an Italian woman is not of a
lower race, with only peasants and gypsies behind her. All possibilities,
all forms are included in her, as in our marvelous sculpture. Do you
understand that, you fool ? Strike here-out springs a washerwoman, or
a cheap street girl whom you want to throw out, because she is sloppy and
has a screechy voice. Strike there--but carefully and gently, for there
stands a queen, a goddess, the Venus of the Capitol, who sings like a
Stradivarius and makes you cry, idiot! An Italian woman-
HE: You're quite a poet, Mancini! But what will the Baron make of her?
MANCINI: What? What? Make of her? A baroness, you fool! What
are you laughing at? I don't get you? But I am happy that this love-
sick beast is neither a duke nor a prince-or she would be a princess and
1-what would become of me? A year after the wedding they would not
let me even into the kitchen (laughing) not even into the kitchen! I,
Count Mancini, and she a—a simple-
HE (jumping up): What did you say? You are not her father, Mancini?
MANCINI: Tss—the devil-I am so nervous to-day! Heavens, who do
you think I am? “Her father?” Of course (tries to laugh) how silly
you are-haven't you noticed the family resemblance? Just look, the
nose, the eyes- (Suddenly sighs deeply.) Ah, He! How unhappy I
am! Think of it. Here I am, a gentleman, nearly beaten in my strug-
gle to keep up the honour of my name, of an old house, while there in the
parquet—there sits that beast, an elephant with the eyes of a spider ...
and he looks at Consuelo ... and ...
HE: Yes, yes, he has the motionless stare of a spider--you're right!
MANCINI: Just what I say-a spider! But I must, I shall compel him to
marry her. You'll see- (Walking excitedly up and down, playing with
his cane.) You'll see! All my life I've been getting ready for this
battle. (He continues to walk up and down. Silence. Outside, great
stillness.)
HE (listening): Why is it so quiet out there? What a strange silence.
MANCINI (disgusted): I don't know. Out there it is quiet—but here
(touching his forehead with his cane) here is storm, whirlwind. (Bends
over the clown.) He, shall I tell you a strange thing -an unusual trick
a
.


268
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
HE:
.
of nature ? (Laughs, and looks very important.) For three centuries
the Counts Mancini have had no children! (Laughs.)
He: Then how were you born?
MANCINI: Sh! Silence! That is the secret of our sainted mothers! Ha.
ha! We are too ancient a stock—too exquisitely refined to trouble our-
selves with such things--matters in which a peasant is more competent
than ourselves. (Enter an usher.) What do you want? The man-
ager is on the stage.
THE USHER (bows): Yes, sir. Baron Regnard wished me to give you this
letter.
MANCINI: The Baron? Is he there?
THE USHER: Baron Regnard has left. There is no answer.
MANCINI (opening the envelope, his hand shaking): The devil--the devil!
(The usher is going.)
Just a minute. Why is there no music? This silence .
THE USHER: It is the act with Madame Zinida and her lions. (He goes.
Mancini is reading the Baron's note for the second time.)
HE: What's the matter, Mancini ? You shine like Jackson's sun.
MANCINI: What's the matter, did you ask? What's the matter? What's
the matter? (Balancing his cane, he takes steps like a ballet-dancer.)
He: Mancini! (Mancini rolls his eyes, makes faces, dances.) Speak, you
beast!
MANCINI (holds out his hand): Give me ten francs! Quick-ten francs-
here, come on. (Puts it automatically into his vest pocket.) Listen,
He! If in a month I don't have a car of my own, you may give me one
of your slaps !
HE: What! He's going to marry? He's decided ?
MANCINI: What do you mean by "decided ?" (Laughs.) When a man
has the rope about his neck, you don't ask him about his health! Baron
---(Stops suddenly, startled. Briquet is staggering in like a drunken
man, his hand over his eyes.)
He (goes to him, touches his shoulder gently): What is the matter, Papa
Briquet ? Tell me!
BRIQUET (groaning): Oh, oh, I can't ... I can't ... Ah-
HE: Something has happened? You are ill? Please speak.
BRIQUET: I can't look at it! (Takes his hands from his eyes, opens them
wide.) Why does she do it? Ah, ah, why does she do it? She must be
taken away; she is insane. I couldn't look at it. (Shivers.) They will
tear her to pieces, He-her lions—they will tear her-
Go on, Briquet. She is always like that.
She is always like that. You act like a child.
You ought to be ashamed.
BRIQUET: No-To-day she is mad! And what is the matter with the
crowd? They are all like dead people—they're not even breathing. I
couldn't stand it. Listen—what's that? (All listen. There is the same
silence.)
MANCINI (disturbed): I'll go and see.
BRIQUET (yelling): No! Don't! You can't look-damned profession!
Don't go. You will scorch her-every pair of eyes that looks at her-
at her lions-no, no. It is impossible--it is a sacrilege. I ran
away. He, they will tear her-
:
MANCINI:


LEONID ANDREYEV
269
HE:
;
see?
!
!
HE tries to be cheerful): Keep cool, Papa Briquet-I had no idea you were
such a coward. You ought to be ashamed. Have a drink. Mancini,
give him some wine.
BRIQUET: I don't want any. Heavens, if it were only over- (All listen.)
I have seen many things in my life, but this ... Oh, she is crazy.
(All still listen. Suddenly the silence breaks, like a huge stone wall
crashing. There is a thunder of applause, mixed with shouts, music,
wild screams—half bestial, half human. The men give way, relieved.
Briquet sinks to a seat.)
MANCINI (nervous): You see—you see-you old fool !
BRIQUET (sobs and laughs): I am not going to allow it any more!
Here she is!
(Zinida walks in, alone. She looks like a drunken bacchante, or like
a mad woman. Her hair falls over her shoulders dishevelled, one
shoulder is uncovered. She walks unseeing, though her eyes glow.
She is like the living statue of a mad Victory. Behind her comes
an actor, very pale, then two clowns, and a little later Consuelo and
Bezano. All look at Zinida fearfully, as if they were afraid of a
touch of her hand, or her great eyes.)
BRIQUET (shouting): You are crazy--you're a mad woman!
ZINIDI: I? No. Did
you
Did
you
see?
Well?
(She stands
smiling, with the expression of a mad Victory.)
TILLY (plaintively): Cut it out, Zinida. Go to the devil!
ZINIDA : You saw, too! And! ... what-
BRIQUET: Come home-come home. (To the others) You can do what you
like here. Zinida, come home.
POLLY: You can't go, Papa. There's still your number.
ZINIDA (her eyes meet those of Bezano): Ah! Bezano. (Laughs long
and happily.) Bezano! Alfred! Did you see? My lions do love
me! (Bezano, without answering, leaves the stage. Zinida seems to
wither and grow dim, as a light being extinguished. Her smile fades,
her eyes and face grow pale. Briquet anxiously bends over her.)
BRIQUET (in a slow voice): A chair! (Zinida sits. Her head drops on
her shoulder, her arms fall, she begins to shiver and tremble. Some one
calls, “cognac” -an actor runs to get it.)
BRIQUET (helpless): What is the matter, Zinida darling?
MANCINI (running about): She must quiet down. Get out, get out-
vagabonds! I'll fix everything, Papa Briquet. The wrap—where's the
wrap? She's cold. (A clown hands it to him; they cover her.)
TILLY (timidly): Wouldn't you like some moosic?
MANCINI (giving her some cognac): Drink, Duchess, drink! Drink it all
—that's it. (Zinida drinks it like water, evidently not noticing the taste.
She shivers. The clowns disappear one by one. Consuelo, with a sud-
den flexible movement, falls on her knees before Zinida and kisses her
hands, warming them between her own.)
CONSUELO: Dear, dear, you are cold! Poor little hands, dear good one,
beloved one-
ZINIDA (pushes her away, gently): Ho-home. It will soon be over. It's
nothing ... I am ver-very
.. home. . You stay here, Briquet
—you must. I'm all right.
>


268
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
HE:
of nature ? (Laughs, and looks very important.) For three centuries
the Counts Mancini have had no children! (Laughs.)
He: Then how were you born?
MANCINI: Sh! Silence! That is the secret of our sainted mothers! Ha-
ha! We are too ancient a stock—too exquisitely refined to trouble our-
selves with such things-matters in which a peasant is more competent
than ourselves. (Enter an usher.) What do you want? The man-
ager is on the stage.
THE USHER (bows): Yes, sir. Baron Regnard wished me to give you this
letter.
MANCINI: The Baron? Is he there?
THE USHER: Baron Regnard has left. There is no answer.
MANCINI (opening the envelope, his hand shaking): The devil--the devil!
(The usher is going.)
Just a minute. Why is there no music? This silence ..
THE USHER: It is the act with Madame Zinida and her lions. (He goes.
Mancini is reading the Baron's note for the second time.)
HE: What's the matter, Mancini? You shine like Jackson's sun.
MANCINI: What's the matter, did you ask? What's the matter? What's
the matter? (Balancing his cane, he takes steps like a ballet-dancer.)
He: Mancini! (Mancini rolls his eyes, makes faces, dances.) Speak, you
beast!
MANCINI (holds out his hand): Give me ten francs! Quick-ten francs-
-
here, come on. (Puts it automatically into his vest pocket.) Listen,
He! If in a month I don't have a car of my own, you may give me one
of your slaps !
He: What! He's going to marry? He's decided ?
MANCINI: What do you mean by "decided ?” (Laughs.) When a man
has the
rope about his neck, you don't ask him about his health! Baron
-(Stops suddenly, startled. Briquet is staggering in like a drunken
man, his hand over his eyes.)
He (goes to him, touches his shoulder gently): What is the matter, Papa
Briquet? Tell me!
BRIQUET (groaning): Oh, oh, I can't ... I can't ... Ah-
HE: Something has happened? You are ill? Please speak.
BRIQUET: I can't look at it! (Takes his hands from his eyes, opens them
wide.) Why does she do it? Ah, ah, why does she do it? She must be
taken away; she is insane. I couldn't look at it. (Shivers.) They will
tear her to pieces, He-her lions—they will tear her-
MANCINI: Go on, Briquet. She is always like that. You act like a child.
You ought to be ashamed.
BRIQUET: No-To-day she is mad! And what is the matter with the
crowd? They are all like dead people--they're not even breathing. I
couldn't stand it. Listen—what's that ? (All listen. There is the same
silence.)
MANCINI (disturbed): I'll go and see.
BRIQUET (yelling): No! Don't! You can't look-damned profession!
Don't go. You will scorch her-every pair of eyes that looks at her-
at her lions-no, no. It is impossible--it is a sacrilege. I ran
away. He, they will tear her-


LEONID ANDREYEV
269
HE:
ZINIDA:
HE (tries to be cheerful): Keep cool, Papa Briquet-I had no idea you were
such a coward. You ought to be ashamed. Have a drink. Mancini,
give him some wine.
BRIQUET: I don't want any. Heavens, if it were only over- (All listen.)
I have seen many things in my life, but this .
Oh, she is crazy.
(All still listen. Suddenly the silence breaks, like a huge stone wall
crashing. There is a thunder of applause, mixed with shouts, music,
wild screams-half bestial, half human. The men give way, relieved.
Briquet sinks to a seat.)
MANCINI (nervous): You see-you see—you old fool!
BRIQUET (sobs and laughs): I am not going to allow it any more!
Here she is!
(Zinida walks in, alone. She looks like a drunken bacchante, or like
a mad woman. Her hair falls over her shoulders dishevelled, one
shoulder is uncovered. She walks unseeing, though her eyes glow.
She is like the living statue of a mad Victory. Behind her comes
an actor, very pale, then two clowns, and a little later Consuelo and
Bezano. All look at Zinida fearfully, as if they were afraid of a
touch of her hand, or her great eyes.)
BRIQUET (shouting): You are crazy--you're a mad woman!
ZINIDI: I ? No. Did
you
see?
Did
you see? Well? (She stands
smiling, with the expression of a mad Victory.)
TILLY (plaintively): Cut it out, Zinida. Go to the devil!
You saw, too! And!
.. what-
BRIQUET: Come home-come home. (To the others) You can do what you
like here. Zinida, come home.
POLLY: You can't go, Papa. There's still your number.
ZINIDA (her eyes meet those of Bezano): Ah! Bezano. (Laughs long
and happily.) Bezano! Alfred!
Bezano! Alfred! Did you see? My lions do love
me! (Bezano, without answering, leaves the stage. Zinida seems to
wither and grow dim, as a light being extinguished. Her smile fades,
her eyes and face grow pale. Briquet anxiously bends over her.)
BRIQUET (in a slow voice): A chair! (Zinida sits. Her head drops on
her shoulder, her arms fall, she begins to shiver and tremble. Some one
calls, "cognac"--an actor runs to get it.)
BRIQUET (helpless): What is the matter, Zinida darling?
MANCINI (running about): She must quiet down. Get out, get out-
vagabonds! I'll fix everything, Papa Briquet. The wrap—where's the
wrap? She's cold. (A clown hands it to him; they cover her.)
TILLY (timidly): Wouldn't you like some moosic ?
MANCINI (giving her some cognac): Drink, Duchess, drink! Drink it all
-that's it. (Zinida drinks it like water, evidently not noticing the taste.
She shivers. The clowns disappear one by one. Consuelo, with a sud-
den flexible movement, falls on her knees before Zinida and kisses her
hands, warming them between her own.)
CONSUELO: Dear, dear, you are cold! Poor little hands, dear good one,
beloved one-
ZINIDA (pushes her away, gently): Ho-home. It will soon be over. It's
nothing I am ver-very :::
home. You stay here, Briquet.
--you must.
I'm all right.
:


270
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
CONSUELO: You are cold? Here is
my
shawl.
ZINIDA: No-let me. ... (Consuelo gets up, and moves aside.)
BRIQUET: And it's all because of your books, Zinida—your mythology.
Now tell me, why do you want those beasts to love you? Beasts! Do
you understand, He? You too, you're from that world. She'll listen
more to you. Explain it to her. Whom can those beasts love? Those
hairy monsters, with diabolic eyes?
He (genially): I believe-only their equals. You are right, Papa Briquet
.
—there must be the same race.
BRIQUET: Of course, and this is all nonsense-literature. Explain it to
her, HE.
HE (takes on a meditative air): Yes, you are right, Briquet.
BRIQUET: You see, dear, silly woman-everybody agrees.
MANCINI: Oh! Briquet, you make me sick; you are an absolute despot, an
Asiatic.
ZINIDA (with the shadow of a smile, gives her hand to be kissed): Calm
yourself, Louis. It is over-I am going home. (She stands up, shak-
ing, still chilled.)
BRIQUET: But how? alone, dear?
MANCINI: What! fool! Did you imagine that Count Mancini would leave
a woman when she needed help? I shall take her home—let your brutal
heart be at rest—I shall take her home. Thomas, run for an automobile.
Don't push me Briquet, you are as awkward as a unicorn ... that's the
way, that's the way— (They are holding her, guiding her slowly toward
the door. Consuelo, her chin resting in her hand, is following them with
her eyes. Unconsciously she assumes a somewhat affected pose.)
MANCINI: I'll come back for
you, child
(Only HE and Consuelo are left on the stage. In the ring, music,
shrieks, and laughter begin again.)
Consuelo-
CONSUELO: Is that you, He, dear?
Where did you learn that pose? I have seen it only in marble. You
look like Psyche.
CONSUELO: I don't know, HE. (She sighs and sits on the sofa, keeping in
He
her pose the same artificiality and beauty.) It's all so sad here, to-day.
HE, are you sorry for Zinida ?
HE:
HE:
What did she do?
CONSUELO: I didn't see. I had closed my eyes, and didn't open them. Al-
fred says she is a wicked woman, but that isn't true. She has such nice
eyes, and what tiny cold hands—as if she were dead. What does she
do it for? Alfred says she should be audacious, beautiful, but quiet,
otherwise what she does is only disgusting. It isn't true, is it, He?
HE: She loves Alfred.
CONSUELO: Alfred ? My Bezano ? (Shrugging her shoulders, and sur-
prised) How does she love him? The same as everyone loves ?
HE: Yes—as everyone loves—or still more.
CONSUELO: Bezano? Bezano? No—it's nonsense. (Pause; silence.) What
a beautiful costume you have, He. You invented it yourself?
, .
Jim helped me.
CONSUELO: Jim is so nice! All clowns are nice.
HE:
HE:



LEONID ANDREYEV
27 i
HE:
HE: I am wicked.
CONSUELO (laughs): You? You are the nicest of all. Oh, goodness!
Three acts more! This is the second on now. Alfred and I are in the
third. Are you coming to see me?
HE: I always do. How beautiful you are, Consuelo.
CONSUELO: Like Eve? (Smiles.)
Yes, Consuelo. And if the Baron asks you to be his wife, will you
accept?
CONSUELO: Certainly, HE. That's all Father and I are waiting for.
Father told me yesterday that the Baron will not hesitate very long. Of
course I do not love him. But I will be his honest, faithful wife.
Father wants to teach me to play the piano.
HE: Are those your own words—“his honest, faithful wife"?
CONSUELO: Certainly they are mine. Whose could they be? He loves
me so much, the poor thing. Dear He, what does "love" mean? Every-
body speaks of love-love-Zinida, too! Poor Zinida! What a boring
evening this has been! He, did you paint the laughter on your face
yourself?
HE: My own self, dear little Consuelo-
CONSUELO: How do you do it, all of you? I tried once, but couldn't do a
thing. Why are there no women clowns? Why are you so silent, He?
You, too, are sad, to-night.
HE: No, I am happy to-night. Give me your hand, Consuelo, I want to
see what it says.
CONSUELO: Do
you know how? What a talented man you are! Read it,
but don't lie, like a gypsy. (HE goes down on one knee and takes her
hand. Both bend over it.) Am I lucky?
HE: Yes, lucky. But wait a minute—this line here--funny. Ah, Con-
suelo, what does it say, here! (Acting) I tremble, my eyes do not dare
to read the strange, fatal signs. Consuelo-
CONSUELO: The stars are talking.
Yes, the stars are talking. Their voices are distant and terrible; their
rays are pale, and their shadows slip by, like the ghosts of dead virgins-
their spell is upon thee, Consuelo, beautiful Consuelo. Thou standest
at the door of Eternity.
CONSUELO: I don't understand. Does it mean that I will live long?
HE: This line—how far it goes. Strange! Thou wilt live eternally, Con-
suelo.
CONSUELO: You see, He, you did tell me a lie, just like a gypsy!
HE: But it is written-here, silly—and here. Now think of what the stars
are saying. Here you have eternal life, love, and glory; and here, listen
to what Jupiter says. He says: “Goddess, thou must not belong to any
one born on earth,” and if you marry the Baron—you'll perish, you'll
die, Consuelo. (Consuelo laughs.)
CONSUELO:
Will he eat me ?
HE: No. But you will die before he has time to eat you.
CONSUELO: And what will become of Father? Is there nothing about him
here? (Laughing, she softly sings the melody of the waltz, which is play-
ing in the distance.)
Don't laugh, Consuelo, at the voice of the stars. They are far away,
HE:
)
HE:


272
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
HE:
their rays are light and pale, and we can barely see their sleeping
shadows, but their sorcery is stern and dark. You stand at the gates of
eternity. Your die is cast; you are doomed—and your Alfred, whom
you love in your heart, even though your mind is not aware of it, your
Alfred cannot save you. He, too, is a stranger on this earth. He is
submerged in a deep sleep. He, too, is a little god who has lost himself,
and Consuelo, never, never will he find his way to Heaven again. For-
get Bezano-
CONSUELO: I don't understand a word. Do the gods really exist? My
teacher told me about them. But I thought it was all tales! (Laughs.)
And my Bezano is a god ?
HE: Forget Bezano! Consuelo, do you know who can save you? The
only one who can save you? -1.
CONSUELO (laughing): You, He?
HE: Yes, but don't laugh! Look. Here is the letter H. It is I, HE.
CONSUELO: He Who Gets Slapped? Is that written here, too?
HE: That, too. The stars know everything. But look here, what more is
written about him. Consuelo, welcome him. He is an old god in dis-
guise, who came down to earth only to love you, foolish little Consuelo.
CONSUELO (laughing and singing): Some god!
Don't mock! The gods don't like such empty laughter from beautiful
lips. The gods grow lonely and die, when they are not recognized. Oh,
,
Consuelo! Oh, great joy and love! Do recognize this god, and accept
him. Think a moment, one day a god suddenly went crazy!
CONSUELO: Gods go crazy, too?
Yes, when they are half man, then they often go mad. Suddenly he
saw his own sublimity, and shuddered with horror, with infinite solitude,
with superhuman anguish. It is terrible, when anguish touches the divine
soul!
CONSUELO: I don't like it. What language are you speaking? I don't
understand
HE: I speak the language of thy awakening. Consuelo, recognize and ac-
cept thy god, who was thrown down from the summit like a stone.
Accept the god who fell to the earth in order to live, to play, and to be
infinitely drunk with joy. Evoë, Goddess !
CONSUELO (tortured): He- I cannot understand. Let
my
hand alone.
HE (stands up): Sleep. Then wake again, Consuelo! And when thou
HE:
wakest-remember that hour when, covered with snow-white sea-foam,
thou didst emerge from the sky-blue waters. Remember heaven, and the
slow eastern wind, and the whisper of the foam at thy marble feet.
CONSUELO (her eyes are closed): I believe-wait-I remember. Remind
me further-
(HE is bowed over Consuelo, with lifted arms; he speaks slowly, but
in a commanding voice, as if conjuring.)
You see the waves playing. Remember the song of the sirens, their
sorrowless song of joy. Their white bodies, shining blue through the
blue waters. Or can you hear the sun, singing? Like the strings of a
divine harp, spread the golden rays— Do you not see the hand of God,
which gives harmony, light, and love to the world? Do not the moun-
tains, in the blue cloud of incense, sing their hymn of glory? Remem-
HE:


LEONID ANDREYEV
273
ber, O Consuelo, remember the prayer of the mountains, the prayer of the
sea. (Silence.)
HE (commandingly): Remember-Consuelo!
CONSUELO (opening her eyes): No! He, I was feeling so happy, and sud-
denly I forgot it all. Yet something of it all is still in my heart. Help
me again, He, remind me. It hurts, I hear so many voices. They all
sing “Consuelo-Consuelo." What comes after? (Silence; pause.)
What comes after? It hurts. Remind me, He. (Silence in the ring,
—
the music suddenly bursts forth in a tempestuous circus gallop. Silence.)
HE, (opens her eyes and smiles) that's Alfred galloping. Do you recog-
nize his music?
HE (with rage): Leave the boy alone! (Suddenly falls on his knees be-
fore Consuelo.) I love you, Consuelo, revelation of my heart, light of
my nights, I love you, Consuelo. (Looks at her in ecstasy and tears--
and gets a slap; starting back.) What's this?
CONSUELO: A slap! You forget who you are. (Stands up, with anger
in
her eyes.) You are He Who Gets Slapped! Did you forgot it? Some
god! With such a face-slapped face! Was it with slaps they threw
you down from heaven, god ?
HE: Wait! Don't stand up! I-did not finish the play!
CONSUELO (sits): Then you were playing ?
HE: Wait! One minute.
Consuelo: You lied to me. Why did you play so that I believed you ?
I am He Who Gets Slapped!
CONSUELO: You are not angry because I struck you? I did not want to
really, but you were so-disgusting. And now you are so funny again.
You have great talent, He—or are you drunk?
HE: Strike me again.
CONSUELO: No.
He: I need it for my play. Strike!
CONSUELO (laughs, and touches his cheek with her fingertips): Here, then!
HE: Didn't you understand that you are a queen, and I a fool who is in
love with his queen ? Don't you know, Consuelo, that every queen has
a fool, and he is always in love with her, and they always beat him for
it. He Who Gets Slapped.
CONSUELO: No. I didn't know.
HE: Yes, every queen. Beauty has her fool. Wisdom, too. Oh, how
many fools she has! Her court is overcrowded with enamoured fools,
and the sound of slaps does not cease, even through the night. But I
never received such a sweet slap as the one given by my little queen.
(Someone appears at the door. HE notices it, and continues to play,
making many faces.) Clown He can have no rival! Who is there who
could stand such a deluge of slaps, such a hail-storm of slaps, and not
get soaked? (Feigns to cry aloud.) “Have pity on me. I am but a
HE:
poor fool!”
(Enter two men: an actor, dressed as a bareback rider, and a gentle-
man from the audience. He is spare, dressed in black, very respect-
able. He carries his hat in his hand.)
CONSUELO (laughing, embarrassed): He, there is someone here. Stop!


274
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
:
HE:
HE (gets up): Who is it? Who dares to intrude in the castle of my queen ?
(HE stops, suddenly. Consuelo, laughing, jumps up and runs away,
after a quick glance at the gentleman.)
CONSUELO: You cheered me up, He. Good-bye. (At the door) You
(
shall get a note to-morrow.
THE BAREBACK RIDER (laughing): A jolly fellow, sir. You wanted to see
him? There he is. He, the gentleman wants to see you.
HE (in a depressed voice): What can I do for you?
(The actor bows, and goes away, smiling. Both men take a step
toward each other.)
GENTLEMAN: Is this
Is this you?
u
He: Yes! It is I. And you? (Silence.)
GENTLEMAN: Must I believe my eyes? Is this you, Mr-
HE (in a rage): My name here is He. I have no other name, do
you
hear?
He, Who Gets Slapped. And if you want to stay here, don't forget it.
GENTLEMAN: You are so familiar. As far as I can remember-
We are all familiar, here. (Contemptuously) Besides, that's all
you deserve, anywhere.
GENTLEMAN (humbly): You have not forgiven me, He? (Silence.)
Are
you
here with
my
wife? Is she too in the circus ?
GENTLEMAN (quickly): Oh, no! I am alone. She stayed there!
HE: You've left her already?
GENTLEMAN (humbly): No-we have—a son. After your sudden and
mysterious disappearance—when you left that strange and insulting
letter-
HE (laughs): Insulting? You are still able to feel insults? What are
you doing here? Were you looking for me, or is it an accident?
GENTLEMAN : I have been looking for you, for half a year-through many
countries. And suddenly, to-day--by accident, indeed—I had no ac-
quaintances here, and I went to the circus. We must talk things over ...
HE, I implore you. (Silence.)
HE: Here is a shadow I cannot lose! To talk things over! Do you really
think we still have something to talk over? All right. Leave your ad-
dress with the porter, and I will let you know when you can see me. Now
get out. (Proudly.) I am busy.
(The gentleman bows and leaves. HE does not return his bow, but
stands with outstretched hand, in the pose of a great man, who shows
a boring visitor the door.)
HE:
CURTAIN



LEONID ANDREYEV
275
ACT III
The same room. Morning, before the rehearsal. HE is striding thought-
fully up and down the room. He wears a broad, parti-coloured coat, and
a prismatic tie. His derby is on the back of his head, and his face is clean-
shaven like that of an actor. His eyebrows are drawn, lips pressed together
energetically, his whole appearance severe and sombre. After the entrance
of the gentleman he changes. His face becomes clown-like, mobile—a liv-
ing mask.
The gentleman comes in. He is dressed in black, and has an extremely
well-bred appearance. His thin face is yellowish, like an invalids. When
he is upset, his colourless, dull eyes often twitch. He does not notice him.
GENTLEMAN: Good morning, sir.
HE (turning around and looking at him absent-mindedly): Ah! It's you.
GENTLEMAN: I am not late? You look as if you did not expect me. I
hope I am not disturbing you? You fixed this time yourself however,
and I took the liberty-
HE: ?
No manners, please. What do you want? Tell me quickly, I have
no time,
GENTLEMAN (looking around with distaste): I expected you would invite
me to some other place
to your home.
HE: I have no other home. This is my home.
GENTLEMAN: But people may disturb us here.
HE: So much the worse for you. Talk faster! (Silence.)
GENTLEMAN: Will you allow me to sit down?
HE: Sit down. Look out! That chair is broken.
!
(The gentleman, afraid, pushes away the chair and looks helplessly
around. Everything here seems to him dangerous and strange. He
chooses an apparently solid little gilded divan, and sits down; puts
his silk hat aside, slowly takes off his gloves, which stick to his fingers.
HE observes him indifferently.)
GENTLEMAN: In this suit, and with this face, you make a still stranger im-
pression. Yesterday it seemed to me that it was all a dream; to-day.
you ..
He: You have forgotten my name again? My name is HE.
GENTLEMAN: You are determined to continue talking to me like this?
HE: Decidedly! But you are squandering your time like a millionaire.
Hurry up!
GENTLEMAN: I really don't know .... Everything here strikes me so ...
These posters, horses, animals, which I passed when I was looking for
And finally, you, a clown in a circus! (With a slight,
deprecating smile.) Could I expect it? It is true, when everybody
there decided that you were dead, I was the only man who did not agree
with them. I felt that you were still alive. But to find you among such
a
surroundings I can't understand it.
HE: You said you have a son, now. Doesn't he look like me ?
GENTLEMAN: I don't understand?
HE: Don't you know that widows or divorced women often have children
you ...


276
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
HE:
by the new husband, which resemble the old one ? This misfortune did
not befall you? (Laughs.) And your book, too, is a big success, I hear.
GENTLEMAN: You want to insult me again?
HE (laughing): What a restless, touchy faker you are! Please sit still;
be quiet. It is the custom here to speak this way. Why were you try-
ing to find me?
GENTLEMAN: My conscience ..
HE: You have no conscience. Or were you afraid that you hadn't robbed
me of everything I possessed, and you came for the rest? But what
more could you take from me now ?. My fool's cap with its bells ?
You wouldn't take it. It's too big for your bald head! Crawl back,
you book-worm!
GENTLEMAN: You cannot forgive the fact that your wife ..
To the devil with my wife! (The gentleman is startled and raises
his eyebrows. He laughs.)
GENTLEMAN:
I don't know. ...
But such language! I confess I find
difficulty in expressing my thoughts in such an atmosphere, but if you are
so ... indifferent to your wife, who, I shall allow myself to emphasize
the fact, loved you and thought you were a saint- (HE laughs.) Then
what brought you to such a ... step? Or is it that you cannot forgive
me my success? A success, it is true, not entirely deserved. And now
you want to take vengeance, with your humbleness, on those who misun-
derstood you. But you always were so indifferent to glory. Or your in-
.
difference was only hypocrisy. And when I, a more lucky rival ...
HE (with a burst of laughter): Rival! You—a rival!
:
—a
GENTLEMAN (growing pale): But my book!
You are talking to me about your book? To me ? (The gentleman
is very pale. HE looks at him with curiosity and mockery.)
GENTLEMAN (raising his eyes): I am a very unhappy man.
HE: Why?
GENTLEMAN: I am a very unhappy man. You must forgive me.
deeply, irreparably, and infinitely unhappy.
HE: But why? Explain it to me. (Starts walking up and down.) You
say yourself that your book is a tremendous success, you are famous, you
have glory; there is not a yellow newspaper in which you and your
thoughts are not mentioned. Who knows me? Who cares about my
heavy abstractions, from which it was difficult for them to derive a single
thought? You-you are the great vulgarizer! You have made my
thoughts comprehensible even to horses! With the art of a great vulgar.
izer, a tailor of ideas, you dressed my Apollo in a barber's jacket, you
handed my Venus a yellow ticket, and to my bright hero you gave the
ears of an ass. And then your career is made, as Jackson says. And
wherever I go, the whole street looks at me with thousands of faces, in
which-what mockery-I recognize the traits of my own children. Oh!
How ugly your son must be, if he resembles me! Why then are you
unhappy, you poor devil? (The gentleman bows his head, plucking at
his gloves.) The police haven't caught you, as yet. What am I talk-
ing about? Is it possible to catch you? You always keep within the
limits of the law. You have been torturing yourself up to now because
you are not married to my wife. A notary public is always present at
HE:
I am



LEONID ANDREYEV
277
a
your thefts. What is the use of this self-torture, my friend? Get mar-
ried. I died. You are not satisfied with having taken only my wife ?
Let my glory remain in your possession. It is yours. Accept my ideas.
Assume all the rights, my most lawful heir ! I died! And when I was
dying (making a stupidly pious face) I forgave thee! (Bursts out
laughing. The gentleman raises his head, and bending forward, looks
straight into HE's eyes.)
GENTLEMAN: And my pride?
HE: Have you any pride ? (The gentleman straightens up, and nods his
head, silently.) Yes! But please stand off a little. I don't like to look
at you. Think of it. There was a time when I loved you a little, even
thought you a little gifted! You—my empty shadow.
GENTLEMAN (nodding his head): I am your shadow. (HE keeps on walk-
ing, and looks over his shoulder at the gentleman, with a smile.)
HE: Oh, you are marvellous! What a comedy! What a touching
comedy! Listen. Tell me frankly if you can; do you hate me very
much?
GENTLEMAN: Yes! With all the hate there is in the world! Sit down
here.
HE: You order me?
GENTLEMAN: Sit down here. Thank you. (Bows.) I am respected and
I am famous, yes I have a wife and a son, yes? (Laughs slowly.)
My wife still loves you: our favourite discussion is about your genius.
She supposes you are a genius. We, I and she, love you even when we
are in bed. Tss! It is I who must make faces. My son—yes, he'll
resemble you. And when, in order to have a little rest, I go to my desk,
to my ink-pot, my books—there, too, I find you. Always you! Every-
where you! And I am never alone-never myself and alone. And
when at night--you, sir, should understand this—when at night I go to
my lonely thoughts, to my sleepless contemplations, even then I find
your image in my head, in my unfortunate brain, your damned and hate-
ful image! (Silence. The gentlemen's eyes twitch.)
HE (speaking slowly): What a comedy. How marvellously everything
)
is turned about in this world: the robbed proves to be a robber, and the
robber is complaining of theft, and cursing! (Laughs.) Listen, I was
mistaken. You are not my shadow. You are the crowd. If you live
by my creations, you hate me; if you breathe my breath, you are chok-
ing with anger. And choking with anger, hating me, you still walk
slowly on the trail of my ideas. But you are advancing backward, ad-
vancing backward, comrade! Oh, what a marvellous comedy! (Walk-
ing and smiling.) Tell me, would you be relieved if I really had died?
GENTLEMAN : Yes!
I think so.
Death augments distance and dulls the
memory. Death reconciles. But you do not look like a man who—
HE: Yes, yes! Death, certainly!
GENTLEMAN : Sit down here.
HE: Your obedient servant. Yes?
GENTLEMAN : Certainly, I do not dare to ask you--(makes a grimace) to
ask you to die, but tell me: you'll never come back there? No, don't
laugh. If you want me to, I'll kiss your hand. Don't grimace! I
,
would have done so if you had died.


278
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
HE:
HE (slowly): Get out, vermin!
(Enter Tilly and Polly as in the first act, playing. For a long time
they do not see the two men.)
Jack!
TILLY: Ah! Good morning, He. We are rehearsing. You know it is
very hard. Jack has just about as much music in his head as my pig.
HE (introducing, nonchalantly): My friend ... For the benefit perform-
ance? (The clowns bow to the gentleman, making idiotic faces.)
POLLY: Yes. What are you preparing? You are cunning, He! Con-
.
suelo told me what you are preparing for the benefit performance. She
leaves us soon, you know?
HE: Is that so?
TILLY: Zinida told us. Do you think she would get a benefit perform-
ance otherwise ? She is a nice girl.
POLLY (taking his small flute-pipe): Here! Don't walk as if you were
an elephant. Don't forget you are an ant! Come on! (They go off,
playing.)
GENTLEMAN (smiling): These are your new comrades? How strange they
are!
HE: Everything here is strange.
GENTLEMAN:
This suit of yours.
Black used to be very becoming to you.
This one hurts the eyes.
HE (looking himself over): Why? It looks very nice. The rehearsal has
begun. You must go away. You are disturbing us.
GENTLEMAN : You did not answer my question.
(Slow strains of the Tango from a small orchestra in the ring.)
HE (listening absent-mindedly to the music): What question ?
GENTLEMAN (who does not hear the music): I pray you to tell me: will
you ever come back ?
HE (listening to the music): Never, never, never!
GENTLEMAN (getting up): Thank you. I am going.
HE: Never, never, never! Yes, run along. And don't come back. There,
you were still bearable and useful for something, but here you are super-
fluous.
GENTLEMAN: But if something should happen to you
you are
healthy man, but in this environment, these people ... how will I
know? They don't know your name here?
HE: My name here is unknown, but you will know. Anything else?
GENTLEMAN: I can be at peace? On your word of honour? Of course I
mean, comparatively, at peace ?
HE: Yes, you may be comparatively at peace. Never! (They walk to
the door, the gentleman stops.)
GENTLEMAN: May I come to the circus? You will allow me?
HE: Certainly. You are the audience! (Laughs.) But I shan't give you
my card for a pass. But why do you want to come? Or do you like
the circus so much, and since when ?
GENTLEMAN: I want to look at you some more, and to understand, perhaps.
Such a transformation! Knowing you as I do, I cannot admit that you
are here without any idea. But what idea ? (Looks short-sightedly at
HE. HE grimaces and thumbs his nose.)
a



LEONID ANDREYEV
279
GENTLEMAN: What is that?
HE: My idea! Good-bye, Prince! My regards to your respected wife,
your Highness' wonderful son!
(Enter Mancini.)
MANCINI: You positively live in the circus, He. Whenever I come, you
are here. You are a fanatic in your work, sir.
HE (introducing): Prince Poniatovsky, Count Mancini.
MANCINI (drawing himself up): Very, very glad. And you too, Prince, you
know my queer fellow? What a nice face he has, hasn't he ? (He
touches HE's shoulder patronizingly, with the tip of his cane.)
GENTLEMAN (awkwardly): Yes, I have the pleasure ... certainly. Good-
bye, Count.
MANCINI: Good-day, Prince.
HE (accompanying him): Look out, your Highness, for the dark passages:
the steps are so rotten. Unfortunately I cannot usher you out to the
street.
GENTLEMAN (in a low voice): You will not give me your hand when we
say good-bye? We are parting for ever.
HE: Unnecessary, Prince. I shall still hope to meet you in the Kingdom
of Heaven. I trust you will be there, too ?
GENTLEMAN (with disgust): How you did succeed! You have so much of
the clown in you!
HE: I am He Who is Getting Slapped. Good-bye, Prince. (They take
another step.)
GENTLEMAN (looking HE in the eyes; in a very low voice): Tell me, you
are not mad ?
HE (just as low, his eyes wide open): I am afraid, I am afraid you are
right, Prince. (Still low) Ass! Never in your life did you use such a
precise expression. I am mad!
(Playing the clown again, he shows him to the stair, with a big,
affected gesture, a sweep of the hand and arm from his head to the
floor, the fingers moving, to represent the steps.)
HE (laughing): He is down! Au revoir, Prince. (The gentleman goes
out. HE comes skipping back, and takes a pose.) Mancini! Let us
dance the Tango! Mancini, I adore you!
MANCINI (sitting back comfortably and playing with his cane): Don't for-
get yourself, He. But you're hiding something, my boy. I always said
you used to belong to society. It is so easy to talk to you. And who is
this Prince? A genuine one?
HE: Genuine. A first rater. Like you!
MANCINI: A sympathetic face. Although at first I thought he was an
undertaker who came for an order. Ah, He! When shall I finally
depart from these dirty walls, from Papa Briquet, stupid posters, and
brutal jockeys!
HE: Very soon, Mancini.
MANCINI: Yes, soon. I am simply exhausted in these surroundings, He!
I begin to feel myself a horse. You are from society, still you don't yet
know what high society means. To be at last decently dressed, to attend
receptions, to display the splendour of wit; from time to time to have a
game of baccarat (laughing) without tricks or cheating-
:
:


280
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
HE:
HE: And when evening comes, go to a suburb, where you are considered an
honest father, who loves his children and
MANCINI: And get hold of something, eh? (Laughs.) I shall wear a silk
mask and two butlers shall follow me, thus protecting me from the dirty
crowd. Ah, He! The blood of my ancestors boils in me. Look at this
stiletto. What do you think? Do you think that it was ever stained
with blood ?
HE: You frighten me, Count!
MANCINI (laughing, and putting the stiletto back into its sheath): Fool!
And what about the girl ?
MANCINI: Tss! I give those bourgeois absolute satisfaction, and they
glorify my name. (Laughs.)
(Laughs.) The splendour of my name is beginning
to shine with a force unknown. By the way, do you know what automo-
bile firms are the best ? Money is no object. (Laughs.) Ah! Papa
Briquet!
(Enter Briquet in his overcoat and silk hat. They shake hands.)
BRIQUET: So, Mancini, you have obtained a benefit performance for your
daughter, Consuelo! I only want to tell you, that if it were not for
Zinida .
MANCINI: Listen, Briquet. Decidedly you are a donkey. What are you
complaining of? The Baron has bought all the parquet seats for Con-
suelo's benefit performance. Isn't that enough for you, you miser ?
BRIQUET: I love your daughter, Mancini, and I am sorry to let her go.
What more does she need here? She has an honest job, wonderful com-
rades, and the atmosphere-?
MANCINI: Not she, but I need something. You understand ? (Laughs.)
I asked you to increase her salary, Harpagon! and now, Mr Manager,
wouldn't
you like to change me a thousand franc note ?
BRIQUET (with a sigh): Give it to me.
MANCINI (nonchalantly): To-morrow. I left it at home. (All three
laugh.) Laugh, laugh! To-day we are going with the Baron to his
villa in the country; people say a very nice villa.
What for?
MANCINI: You know, He, the crazes of these billionaires. He wants to
show Consuelo some winter roses, and me his wine cellars. He will come
for us here. What is the matter, my little Consuelo ?
(Enter Consuelo, almost crying.)
CONSUELO: I can't father! Tell him! What right has he to yell at me?
He almost hit me with his whip!
MANCINI (straightening up): Briquet! I beg of you, as the Manager,
what is this—a stable? To hit my daughter with a whip! I'll show
this cub a mere jockey. No, the devil knows what it is, devil
knows, I swear.
CONSUELO: Father....
BRIQUET: I will tell him.
CONSUELO: Please don't. Alfred didn't hit me. It's a silly thing, what I
a
told you. What an idea! He is so sorry himself. ...
BRIQUET: I shall tell him anyhow that-
CONSUELO: Don't you dare. You mustn't tell him anything. He didn't
do a thing.
MANCINI (still excited): He must beg her pardon, the brat.
HE:



LEONID ANDREYEV
281
CONSUELO: He's already asked me to forgive him. How silly you all are !
!
I simply cannot work to-day and I got nervous. What nonsense! The
silly boy asked me to forgive him, but I didn't want to. He, dear, good
morning! I didn't notice you. How becoming your tie is! Where are
you going, Briquet? To Alfred?
BRIQUET: No, I am going home, dear child. Zinida asked me to give you
her love. She will not be here to-day, either. (He goes out.)
CONSUELO: Zinida is so nice, so good. Father, why is it that everybody
seems so nice to me? Probably because I am going away soon. He,
did you hear the march that Tilly and Polly will play ? (Laughs.)
Such a cheerful one.
He: Yes. I heard it. Your benefit performance will be remarkable.
CONSUELO: I think so, too. Father I am hungry. Have them bring me a
sandwich.
HE: I'll run for it, my Queen.
CONSUELO: Please do, He. (Loudly) But not cheese. I don't like it.
(Mancini and Consuelo are alone. Mancini, lying back comfortably
in an armchair, scrutinizes his daughter with a searching eye.)
MANCINI: I find something particular in you to-day, my child. I don't
know whether it is something better or worse. You cried ?
CONSUELO: Yes, a little. Oh, I am so hungry.
MANCINI: But you had your breakfast?
CONSUELO: No I didn't. That's why I am so hungry. You again forgot
to leave me some money this morning, and without money
MANCINI: Oh, the devil . . . what a memory I have. (Laughs.) But we
shall have a very nice meal to-day. Don't eat very many sandwiches.
.. Yes, positively I like you. You must cry more often, my child;
it washes off your superfluous simplicity. You become more of a woman.
CONSUELO: Am I so simple, Father?
MANCINI: Very. ... Too much. I like it in others, but not in you. Be-
sides, the Baron
CONSUELO: Nonsense. I am not simple. But you know, Bezano scolded
me so much, that even you would have cried. The devil knows ...
MANCINI: Tsss. . . . Never say “the devil knows.” It isn't decent.
CONSUELO: I say it only when I am with you.
MANCINI: You must not say it when you are with me, either. I know it
without you. (Laughs.)
CONSUELO: Ha! Listen, Father! It's a new number of Alfred's. He
makes such a jump! Jim says he's bound to break his neck. Poor
fish. ...
MANCINI (indifferently): Or his leg, or his back; they all have to break
something. (Laughs.) They are breakable toys.
CONSUELO (listening to the music): I'll be lonesome without them, Father!
The Baron promised to make a ring for me to gallop over as much as I
want. He's not lying?
MANCINI: A ring? (Laughs.) No, it's not a lie. By the way, child,
when speaking of Barons, you must say, "he does not tell the truth,” and
not, “he lies.”
Consuelo: It's just the same. It's nice to be wealthy, Father; you can do
what you want, then.


282
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
MANCINI (with enthusiasm) : Everything you want. Everything, my child.
Ah! Our fate is being decided to-day. Pray our clement God, Con-
suelo. The Baron is hanging on a thread.
CONSUELO (indifferently): Yes ?
MANCINI (making the gesture with his fingers): On a very thin, silk
thread. I am almost sure that he will make his proposal to-day.
(Laughs.) Winter roses, and the web of a spider amongst the roses, in
order that my dear little fly ... He is such a spider.
CONSUELO (indifferently): Yes, a terrible spider. Father, oughtn't I to let
him kiss my hand yet? ?
MANCINI: By no means. You don't know yet, darling, what these men
are.
CONSUELO: Alfred never kisses.
MANCINI: Alfred! Your Alfred is a cub, and he mustn't dare. But with
men of that sort, you must be extremely careful, my child. To-day he
would kiss your little finger, to-morrow your hand, and after to-morrow
you would be on his lap.
CONSUELO: Foui! Father, what are you talking about? You should be
ashamed!
MANCINI: But I know. ..
CONSUELO: Don't you dare! I don't want to hear such dirty things. I
shall give the Baron such a slap! A better one than He--let him only
try.
MANCINI (with a deprecating gesture): All men are like that, child.
CONSUELO: It isn't true. Alfred is not. Ah! But where is He? He
said he'd run, and he hasn't come back.
MANCINI: The buffet here is closed, and he has to get the sandwiches some-
where else. Consuelo, as your father, I want to warn you about HE.
Don't trust him. He knows something. (Twirls his finger close to his
forehead.) His game is not fair.
CONSUELO: You say it about everybody. I know He; he is such a nice
man, and he loves me so much.
MANCINI: Believe me, there is something in it.
CONSUELO: Father, you make me sick with your advice. Ah! He, thank
you.
(HE, breathing somewhat heavily, enters and gives her the sand-
wiches.)
He: Eat, Consuelo.
CONSUELO: A hot one. But you were running, He? I am so grate-
ful. (Eats.) He, do you love me?
HE: I do, my Queen. I am your court fool.
CONSUELO (eating): And when I leave, will you find another queen ?
He (making a ceremonious bow): I shall follow after you, my incompar-
able one. I shall carry the train of your dress and wipe away my tears
with it. (Pretends to cry.)
MANCINI: Idiot! (Laughs.) How sorry I am, He, that those wonderful
times have passed, when, in the court of the Counts Mancini, there were
scores of motley fools who were given gold and kicks. ... Now, Man-
cini is compelled to go to this dirty circus in order to see a good fool;
and still, whose fool is he? Mine? No. He belongs to everybody who


LEONID ANDREYEV
283
pays a franc. We shall very soon be unable to breathe because of
Democracy. Democracy, too, needs fools! Think of it, He; what an
unexampled impertinence.
HE: We are the servants of those who pay. But how can we help it,
Count?
MANCINI: But is that not sad? Imagine: we are in my castle. I, near
the fireplace with my glass of wine, you, at my feet chatting your non-
sense, jingling your little bells-diverting me. Sometimes you pinch me
too with your jokes: it is allowed by the traditions and necessary for the
circulation of the blood. After a while-I am sick of you, I want an-
other one.
Then I give you a kick and ... Ah, He, how wonder-
ful it would be!
HE: It would be marvellous, Mancini!
MANCINI: Yes.
Yes. Certainly! You would be getting gold coins, those
wonderfully little yellow things. Well, when I become rich, I shall
take you. That's settled.
CONSUELO: Take him, Father ...,
He: And when the count, tired of my chattering, will give me a kick with
his Highness's foot, then I shall lie down at the little feet of my queen,
and shall ...
CONSUELO (laughing): Wait for another kick? I'm finished. Father,
give me your handkerchief, I want to wipe my hands. You have another
one in your pocket. Oh, my goodness, I must work some more !
.
MANCINI (uneasy): But don't forget, my child!
CONSUELO: No, to-day I won't forget! Go on!
MANCINI (looking at his watch): Yes, it is time. ... He asked me to
come over when you were ready. You must change your dress before I
come back. (Laughing.) Signori, miei complimenti.
(He goes out, playing with his cane. Consuelo sits on the corner of
the divan, and covers herself with her shawl.)
CONSUELO: Hello, He! Come and lie down at my feet, and tell me some-
thing cheerful... You know, when you paint the laughter on your
face, you are very good looking, but now, too, you are very, very nice.
Come on, He, why don't you lie down?
HE: Consuelo! Are you going to marry the Baron?
CONSUELO (indifferently): It seems so. The Baron is hanging by a thread!
He, there is one little sandwich left. Eat it.
HE: Thank you, my queen. (Eats.) And do you remember my predic-
tion ?
CONSUELO: What prediction? How quickly you swallow! Does it taste
good?
HE: Very good. That if you marry the Baron, you .
CONSUELO: Oh, that's what you're talking about. But you were mak-
ing fun.
He: Nobody can tell, my Queen. Sometimes one makes fun, and suddenly
it turns out to be true; the stars never talk in vain. If sometimes it is
difficult for a human being to open his mouth and to say a word, how
difficult it must be for a star. Think of it.
CONSUELO (laughing): I should say. Such a mouth! (Makes a tiny
mouth.)


284 HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
HE:
HE: No, my dear little girl, were I in your place, I would think it over.
And suppose suddenly you should die? Don't marry the Baron, Con-
suelo!
CONSUELO (thinking): And what is death?
HE: I do not know, my Queen. Nobody knows. Like love! Nobody
knows. But your little hands will become cold, and your dear little
eyes will be closed. You will be away from here. And the music will
play without you, and without you the crazy Bezano will be galloping,
and Tilly and Polly will be playing on their pipes without you: tilly-
polly, tilly-polly . . . tilly-tilly, polly-polly ...
CONSUELO: Please don't, He darling- I am so sad, anyway .. tilly-
tilly, polly-polly ... (Silence. He looks at Consuelo.)
You were crying, my little Consuelo?
CONSUELO: Yes, a little. Alfred made me nervous.
But tell me, is it my
fault that I can't do anything to-day? I tried to, but I couldn't.
HE: Why?
CONSUELO: Ah, I don't know. There is something here. (Presses her
hand against her heart.) I don't know. He, I must be sick. What is
sickness? Does it hurt very much ?
HE: It is not sickness. It is the charm of the far off stars, Consuelo. It
is the voice of your fate, my little Queen.
CONSUELO: Don't talk nonsense, please. What should the stars care about
me? I am so small. Nonsense, HE! Tell me rather another tale
which you know: about the blue sea and those gods, you know
who are so beautiful. Did they all die ?
HE: They are all alive, but they hide themselves, my goddess.
CONSUELO: In the woods or mountains ? Can one come across them? Ah,
imagine He ... I come across a god, and he suddenly takes a look at
me! I'd run away. (Laughs.) This morning when I went without
breakfast, I became so sad, so disgusted, and I thought: if a god should
come, and give me something to eat! And as I thought it, I suddenly
heard, honestly it's true, I heard: "Consuelo, somebody's calling you."
(Angrily.) Don't you dare laugh!
HE: Am I laughing?
:
CONSUELO: Honestly, it's true. Ah, He, but he didn't come. He only
called me and disappeared, and how can you find him? It hurt me so
much, and hurts even now. Why did you remind me of my childhood ?
I'd forgotten it entirely. There was the sea . . . and something ...
many, many ... (Closes her eyes, smiling.)
HE: Remember, Consuelo!
CONSUELO: No. (Opening her eyes) I forget everything about it. (Looks
around the room.) He, do you see what a poster they made for my
benefit performance? It's Father's idea. The Baron liked it. (HE
laughs. Silence.) )
HE (slowly): Consuelo, my Queen! Don't go to the Baron to-day.
CONSUELO: Why? (After a silence.) How fresh you are, HE.
He (lowering his head, slowly): I don't want it.
CONSUELO (getting up): What? You don't want it?
he (bowing his head still lower) : I do not want you to marry the Baron.
(Imploring.) I... I shall not allow it ... I beg you!
.



LEONID ANDREYEV
285
:
CONSUELO: Whom, then, would you ask me to marry? You, perhaps, you
fool? (With a rancorous laugh) Are you crazy, my darling? “I
shall not allow.” He! He will not allow me! But it is unbearable!
What business is it of yours? (Walking up and down the room, looks
,
over ker shoulder at HE, with anger.) Some fool clown, whom they
can kick out of here any minute. You make me sick with your stupid
tales. Or you like slaps so much. Fool, you couldn't invent anything
better than a slap!
HE (without lifting his head): Forgive me, my Queen.
CONSUELO: He is glad when they laugh at him. Some god! No, I shan't
forgive. I know you. (Makes same gesture as Mancini.) You have
something there! Laughs ... so nicely ... plays, plays, and then
suddenly-hop! Obey him! No, darling, I am not that kind! Carry
my train, that is your business—fool!
HE: I shall carry your train, my Queen. Forgive me. Give me back the
image of my beautiful, piteous goddess.
Consuelo (quieting down): You're playing again?
He: I am.
CONSUELO (laughing): You see! (Sits down.) Foolish He.
HE: I see everything, my Queen. I see how beautiful you are, and how low
under your feet your poor court fool is lying. Somewhere in the abyss
his little bells are ringing. He kneels before you and prays; forgive
and pity him, my divine one. He was too impudent; he played so cheer-
fully that he went too far and lost his tiny little mind, the last bit of
understanding he had saved up. Forgive me!
CONSUELO: All right. I forgive you. (Laughs.) And now will you al-
low me to marry the Baron ?
HE (also laughing): And nevertheless I will not allow it. But what does
a queen care about the permission of her enamoured fool ?
CONSUELO: Get up. You are forgiven. And do you know why? You
think because of your words? You are a cunning beast, He! No, be-
cause of the sandwiches. That's why. You were so lovely, you panted
so when you brought them. Poor darling He. From to-morrow you
may be at my feet again. And as soon as I whistle, "tuwhooo”.
HE: I shall instantly lie down at thy feet, Consuelo. It is settled! But
all my little bells fell off to-day and
(Bezano appears, confused.)
Alfred! You came for me?
Yes. Will you work some more, Consuelo ?
CONSUELO: Certainly. As much as you want. But I thought, Alfred, you
were mad at me? I shan't dawdle any more.
BEZANO: No. You didn't dawdle. Don't be offended, because I yelled so
much. You know when one has to teach, and
CONSUELO: My goodness, do you think I don't understand? You are too
nice, unbearably nice, to like teaching such a fool as me. Do you think
I don't understand ? Come on!
BEZANO: Come on! Hello, HE: I haven't seen you yet to-day. How are
CONSUELO:
BEZANO:
you?
HE: How are you, Bezano? Wait, wait a minute-stay here a minute,
both of you—that way. Yes!


286
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
CONSUELO:
a
HE:
HE:
man.
HE:
(Consuelo and Bezano stand side by side, the jockey scowling, Con-
suelo laughing and flushing.)
CONSUELO: Like Adam and Eve? How foolish you are! Terribly. (She
runs away.) I shall only change my slippers, Alfred.
HE: Consuelo! And how about Father and the Baron? They will come
soon, to take you with them.
Let them come. They can wait. Not very important people.
(Runs away. Bezano hesitatingly follows her.)
HE: Stay here for a while, Bezano. Sit down.
BEZANO: What more do you want? I have no time for your nonsense.
You can remain standing if you want to. Bezano--you love her ?
(Silence.)
BEZANO: I shall allow nobody to interfere with my affairs. You allow
yourself too many liberties, He. I don't know you. You came from
the street, and why should I trust you ?
But you know the Baron ? Listen. It is painful for me to pronounce
these words: she loves you. Save her from the spider! Or are you
blind, and don't see the web, which is woven in every dark corner. Get
out of the vicious circle in which you are turning around, like a blind
Take her away, steal her, do what you want ... kill her even,
and take her to the heavens or to the devil! But don't give her to this
man! He is a defiler of love. And if you are timid, if you are afraid
to lift your hand against her-kill the Baron! Kill!
BEZANO (with a smile): And who will kill the others, to come?
She loves you.
BEZANO: Did she tell you that herself?
HE: What a petty, what a stupid, what a human pride! But you are a
a
little god! A god, youth! Why don't you want to believe me? Or
does the street, from which I have come, bother you? But look, look
yourself. Look in my eyes, do such eyes lie? Yes, my face is ugly, I
make faces and grimaces, I am surrounded by laughter, but don't you see
the god behind all this, a god, like you? Look, look at me! (Bezano
bursts out laughing.) What are you laughing at, youth?
BEZANO: You look now as you did that evening in the ring. You remem-
ber? When you were a great man, and they sent for you from the
Academy, and suddenly-Hup! He Who Gets Slapped!
HE (laughing the same way): Yes, yes, you are right, Bezano. There is
a resemblance. (With a strained expression, taking a pose) “It seems
to me they sent for me from the Academy!”
BEZANO (displeased): But I don't like this play. You can present your
face for slaps if you want to, but don't dare to expose mine. (Turns
to go.)
HE: Bezano!
BEZANO (turning round): And never let me hear any more about Consuelo,
and don't dare to tell me again that I am a god! It is disgusting.
!
(Bezano goes out angrily, striking his boot with his whip. He is
alone. Wrathfully, with a tortured expression, he makes a step
towards the jockey, then stops, with soundless laughter, his head
thrown backwards. The Baron and Mancini find him in this posi-
tion, when they enter,
:
a



LEONID ANDREYEV
287
:
MANCINI (laughing): What a cheerful chap you are, He! You laugh
when you are alone. (HE laughs aloud.) Stop it fool! How can you
stand it?
HE (bowing low, with a large gesture): How do you do, Baron? My
humblest respects to you, Count. I beg your pardon, Count, but you
found the clown at work. These are, so to speak, Baron, his everyday
pleasures.
MANCINI (lifting his eyebrows): Tsss. But you are a clever man, HE.
I shall ask Papa Briquet to give you a benefit performance. Shall I,
HE?
He: Please do me the favour, Count.
MANCINI: Don't overdo. Be more simple, He. (Laughs.) But how
many slaps will you get at your benefit performance, when even on week-
days they ring you like a gong! A funny profession, isn't it, Baron?
BARON : Very strange. But where is the Countess ?
MANCINI: Yes, yes. I shall go for her at once. Dear child, she is so
absorbed in her benefit performance and her work. They call this jump-
ing work, Baron.
BARON: I can wait a little. (Sits down, with his silk hat on his head.)
MANCINI: But why? I shall hurry her up. I shall be back at once. And
you, He, be a nice host, and entertain our dear guest. You will not be
bored in his company, Baron.
(He goes out. HE strides about the stage, smiling and glancing from
time to time at the Baron. The latter sits with his legs spread apart
and his chin on the top of his cane. The silk hat remains on his
head. He is silent.)
HE: In what
way
would you like me to entertain you, Baron ?
BARON: In no way! I don't like clowns.
HE: Nor I Barons.
(Silence. He puts on his derby hat, takes a chair with a large ges-
ture, and puts it down heavily, in front of the Baron. He sits
astride it, imitating the pose of the Baron, and looks him in the eyes.
Silence.)
HE: Can
Can you be silent very long?
BARON: Very long.
He (taps on the floor with his foot): And can you wait very long?
BARON : Very long.
HE: Until you get it?
BARON: Until I get it. And you ?
HE: I too.
(Both look at each other, silently, their heads close together. From
the ring one hears the strains of the Tango.)
CURTAIN


288
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
ACT IV
Music in the ring. More disorder in the room than usual. All kinds
of actors' costumes hanging on pegs and lying in the corners. On the table
a bouquet of fiery-red roses, put there by some careless hand. At the en-
trance, near the arch, three bareback riders are smoking and chattering; they
are all minor actors. All part their hair the same way; two wear small
moustaches; the third one is clean-shaven with a face like a bull-dog.
THE CLEAN-SHAVEN ONE: Go on, Henry! Ten thousand francs! It's too
much even for the Baron.
THE SECOND: How much are roses now?
THE SHAVEN: I don't know. In winter they are certainly more expensive,
but still Henry talks nonsense. Ten thousand!
THE SECOND: The Baron has his own hothouse. They don't cost him any-
thing.
HENRY (throwing away his cigar, which has burned the tips of his fingers):
No, Grab, you're silly. There's a whole car-load full! One can smell
the roses a mile away. They're to cover the entire arena.
THE SHAVEN: Only the ring.
HENRY:
It's all the same. In order to cover the ring, you must have thou-
sands and thousands of roses. You'll see what it looks like, when they've
covered everything like a carpet. He ordered them to make it like a
carpet! Do you see, Grab?
THE SECOND: What a Baron's craze! Isn't it time yet?
HENRY: No, we have time enough. I rather like it: a fiery-red tango on
a fiery-red cover of winter roses !
THE SHAVEN: Consuelo will be galloping on roses. And Bezano ?
And Bezano on thorns. (Smiles.)
THE SHAVEN: That youngster has no self-respect. I'd have refused.
HENRY: But it is his job. He's got to do it. (Laughs.) Talk to him
about self-respect! He's as angry and proud as a little Satan.
THE SECOND: No, you may say what you like, it's an excellent benefit per-
formance. It's a joy to look at the crowd. They're so excited.
HENRY: Tsss! (All throw away their cigars and cigarettes, like school
boys who are caught, and make way for Zinida, who enters with HE.)
ZINIDA: What are you doing here, gentlemen ? Your place is at the en-
THE SECOND:
trance.
a
HENRY (with a respectful smile): We are here just for a minute, Madame
Zinida. We are going. What a successful evening! And what a glory
for Papa Briquet!
ZINIDA : Yes. Go, and please don't leave your places. (They go. Zinida
.
pulls a drawer out of the desk, and puts in some papers. She is in her
lion tamer's costume.) He, what were you doing near my lions? You
frightened me.
HE: Why, Duchess, I merely wanted to hear what the beasts were saying
about the benefit performance. They are pacing in their cages, and
growling


LEONID ANDREYEV
289
ZINIDA:
ZINIDA :
ZINIDA: The music makes them nervous. Sit down, HE. An excellent
evening, and I am so glad that Consuelo is leaving us. Have you heard
about the Baron's roses?
He: Everybody is talking about them. The Hymeneal roses !
Here are some, too. (Pushes away the bouquet.) You find them
everywhere. Yes, I am glad. She is superfluous here, and disturbs our
work. It is a misfortune for a cast to have in it such a beautiful and
such an ... accessible girl.
But it is an honest marriage, Duchess, is it not?
ZINIDA: I don't care what it is.
HE: Spiders, too, need an improvement in their breed! Can't you imagine,
Zinida, what charming little spiders this couple will create! They will
have the face of their mother, Consuelo, and the stomach of their father,
the Baron, and thus could be an ornament for any circus-ring.
You are malicious to-day, He. You are morose.
HE: I laugh.
ZINIDA: You do, but without joy. Why are you without make-up?
HE: I am in the third act. I have time. And how does Bezano feel about
this evening. Is he glad?
ZINIDA: I didn't talk to Bezano. You know what I think, my friend ?
You, too, are superfluous here. (Silence.)
He: How do you want me to take that, Zinida ?
ZINIDA: Just as I said. In fact, Consuelo sold herself for nothing. What
is the Baron worth, with his poor millions? People say that you are
clever, too clever perhaps; tell me then, for how much could one buy me?
HE (looking as if he were pricing her): Only for a crown.
ZINIDA: A baron's crown?
He: No, a royal one.
ZINIDA: You are far from being stupid. And you guessed that Consuelo
is not Mancini's daughter?
HE (startled): What! And she knows it?
ZINIDA: Hardly. And why should she know it? Yes, she is a girl from
Corsica whose parents are unknown. He preferred to use her for busi-
ness rather than ... But according to the law, she is his daughter,
Countess Veronica Mancini.
HE: It is nice, to have everything done according to law, isn't it, Zinida?
But it is curious there is more blue blood in her than in this Mancini.
One would say that it was she who found him on the street, and made
him a count and her father. Count Mancini! (Laughs.)
ZINIDA: Yes, you are gloomy, He. I changed my mind, you'd better stay
here.
He: Will I not be superfluous ?
ZINIDA: When she is gone, you will not. Oh! You don't know yet, how
nice it is to be with us. What a rest for the body and mind. I under-
stand you. I am clever, too. Like you, I brought with me from out
there my inclination for chains, and for a long time I chained myself to
whatever I could, in order to feel firm.
HE: Bezano?
ZINIDA: Bezano and others; there were many, there will be many more.
My red lion, with whom I am desperately in love, is still more terrible


290 HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
HE:
a
than Bezano. But it is all nonsense; old habits, which we are sorry to
let go, like old servants who steal things. Leave Consuelo alone. She
has her own way.
Automobiles and diamonds ?
ZINIDA: When did you see a beauty clad in simple cotton ? If this one
does not buy her, another will. They buy off everything that is beauti-
ful. Yes, I know. For the first ten years she will be a sad beauty, who
will attract the eyes of the poor man on the side-walk: afterward she
will begin to paint a little around her eyes and smile, and then will take
HE: Her chauffeur or butler as a lover? You're not guessing badly,
Zinida!
ZINIDA: Am I not right? I don't want to intrude on your confidence, but
to-day I am sorry for you, He. What can you do against Fate? Don't
be offended, my friend, by the words of a woman. I like you; you are
not beautiful, nor young, nor rich, and your place is—
HE: On the side-walk, from which one looks at the beauties. (Laughs.)
And if I don't want to?
ZINIDA: What does it matter, your "want” or “don't want”? I am sorry
for you, my poor friend, but if you are a strong man, and I think you
are, then there is only one way for you. To forget.
HE: You think that that's being strong? And you are saying this, you,
Queen Zinida, who want to awaken the feeling of love, even in the heart
of a lion? For one second of an illusory possession, you are ready to
a
pay with your life, and still you advise me to forget! Give me your
strong hand, my beautiful lady; see how much strength there is in this
pressure, and don't pity me.
(Enter Briquet and Mancini. The latter is reserved, and self-con-
sciously imposing. He has a new suit, but the same cane, and the
same noiseless smile of a satyr.)
ZINIDA (whispering): Will you stay?
HE:
Yes. I shan't go away.
MANCINI: How are you, my dear? But you are dazzling, my dear! I
swear you are marvellous! Your lion would be an ass, if he did not kiss
your hand, as I do. ... (Kisses her hand.)
ZINIDA: May I congratulate you, Count?
MANCINI: Yes, merci. (To HE) How are you, my dear ?
HE: Good evening, Count!
BRIQUET: Zinida, the Count wants to pay immediately for the breach of
contract with Consuelo ... the Countess's contract.
Don't you re-
member, Mother, how much it is?
ZINIDA: I'll look it up, Papa.
MANCINI: Yes, please. Consuelo will not return here any more.
We
leave to-morrow.
(Zinida and Briquet search among the papers. HE takes Mancini
roughly by the elbow, and draws him aside.)
HE (in a low voice): How are your girls, Mancini?
MANCINI: What girls? What is this, stupidity or blackmail ? Look out,
sir, be careful, the policeman is not far.
HE: You are much too severe, Mancini. I assun
umed, that since we are
tête-à-tête ...


LEONID ANDREYEV
291
ZINIDA:
MANCINI: But tell me, what kind of tête-à-tête is possible, between a clown
and me? (Laughs.) You are stupid, HE. You should say what you
want, and not ask questions!
BRIQUET: Three thousand francs, Count.
MANCINI: Is that all? For Consuelo? All right. I will inform the
Baron.
You took-
BRIQUET: Don't, Mother, don't.
ZINIDA: Count, you drew in advance, I have it written down, eighty francs
and twenty centimes. Will you pay this money, too?
MANCINI: Certainly, certainly. You will get three thousand and one hun-
dred. (Laughing) Twenty centimes! I never thought I could be so
accurate! (Seriously) Yes, my friends. My daughter Consuelo--the
Countess—and the Baron, expressed their desire to bid farewell to the
whole cast.
HE: The Baron, too?
MANCINI: Yes, Auguste, too. They want to do it during the intermission.
Therefore, I ask you to gather here ... the more decent ones . . . but
please don't make it too crowded! He, will you, sir, be kind enough to
run into the buffet and tell them to bring right away a basket of cham-
pagne, bottles and glasses—you understand?
HE: Yes, Count.
MANCINI: Wait a minute, what's the hurry—what is this, a new costume ?
You are all burning like the devils in hell!
You do me too much honour, Count, I am not a devil. I am merely
a poor sinner whom the devils are frying a little. (He goes out, bowing
HE:
like a clown.)
MANCINI: A gifted chap, but too cunning.
BRIQUET: It's the Tango colour, in honour of your daughter, Count. He
needs it for a new stunt, which he doesn't want to tell in advance. Don't
you want to sit down, Count?
MANCINI: Auguste is waiting for me, but ... it's all right. '(Takes a
seat.) Nevertheless I am sorry to leave you, my friend. High society,
certainly, prerogatives of the title, castles of exalted noblemen, but where
could I find such freedom, and ... such simplicity. ... And besides,
these announcements, these burning posters, which take your breath in
the morning, they had something which summoned, which encouraged.
There, my friends, I shall become old.
BRIQUET: But pleasures of a higher kind, Count. Why are you silent,
Zinida?
ZINIDA: I'm listening.
MANCINI: By the way, my dear, how do you
like
my
suit? You have won-
derful taste. (Spreads out his lace tie and lace cuffs.)
ZINIDA: I like it. You look like a nobleman of the courts of long ago.
MANCINI: Yes ?
Yes? But don't you think it is too conspicuous? Who wears
lace and satin now? This dirty democracy will soon make us dress
ourselves in sack cloth. (With a sigh) Auguste told me that this jabot
was out of place.
The Baron is too severe.
MANCINI: Yes, but it seems to me he is right. I am a little infected with
ZINIDA:


292
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
your fancy. (HE returns. Two waiters follow him, carrying a basket
of champagne and glasses. They prepare everything on the table.)
MANCINI: Ah! merci, He. But please, none of this bourgeois exploding of
corks; be slower and more modest. Send the bill to Baron Regnard.
Then, we will be here, Briquet. I must go.
ZINIDA (looks at her watch): Yes, the act is going to end soon.
MANCINI: Heavens! (Disappears in a hurry.)
BRIQUET: The devil take him!
ZINIDA (pointing to the waiter): Not so loud, Louis!
BRIQUET: No! The devil take him! And why couldn't you help me,
Mother? You left me alone to talk to him. High Society! High
pleasures! Swindler. (HE and Zinida laugh. The waiters smile.)
BRIQUET (to the waiters): What are you laughing about? You can go.
We will help ourselves. Whiskey and soda, Jean! (In a low and
angry voice) Champagne !
(Enter Jackson, in his clown's costume.)
JACKSON: A whiskey and soda for me, too! At least I hear some laughter
here. Those idiots have simply forgotten how to laugh. My sun was
rising and setting and crawling all over the ring-and not a smile!
Look at my bottom, shines like a mirror! (Turns around quickly.)
Beg your pardon, Zinida. And you don't look badly to-night, He. Look
out for your cheeks. I hate beauties.
BRIQUET: A benefit performance crowd!
JACKSON (looking in a hand mirror, correcting his make-up): In the orches-
tra there are some Barons and Egyptian mummies. I got a belly-ache
from fright. I am an honest clown. I can't stand it when they look at
me as if I had stolen a handkerchief. He, please give them a good many
slaps to-night.
Be quiet, Jim. I shall avenge you. (He goes out.)
And how is Bezano?
JACKSON (grumbling): Bezano! A crazy success. But he is crazy, he
will break his neck to-morrow. Why does he run such a risk? Or per-
haps he has wings, like a god? Devil take it. It's disgusting to look
at him.
It's not work any more.
BRIQUET: You are right, Jim! It is not work any more. To your health,
old comrade, Jackson.
JACKSON: To yours, Louis.
BRIQUET: It is not work any more, since these Barons came here! Do you
hear? They are laughing. But I am indignant, I am indignant, Jim!
.
What do they want here, these Barons ? Let them steal hens in other
hen roosts, and leave us in peace. Ah! Had I been Secretary of the
Interior, I should have made an iron fence between us and those people.
JACKSON: I am very sorry myself for our dear little Consuelo. I don't
know why, but it seems to me that we all look to-day more like swindlers
than honest artists. Don't
you
think Zinida ?
ZINIDA: Everybody does what he wants. It's Consuelo's business and her
father's.
BRIQUET: No, Mother, that's not true! Not everybody does what he
wants, but it turns out this way ... devil knows why.
(Enter Angelica and Thomas, an athlete.)
HE:
ZINIDA :
so,



LEONID ANDREYEV
293
ANGELICA: Is this where we're going to have champagne ?
BRIQUET: And you're glad already?
THOMAS: There it is! Oh, oh, what a lot!
ANGELICA : The Count told me to come here. I met him.
BRIQUET (angrily): All right, if he said so, but there is no reason to enjoy
it. Look out, Angelica, you will have a bad end. I see you through
and through. How does she work, Thomas ?
THOMAS :
Very well.
ANGELICA (in a low voice): How angry Papa Briquet is to-night.
(Enter HE, Tilly, Polly, and other actors, all in their costumes.)
TILLY: Do you really want champagne ?
POLLY: I don't want it at all. Do you, Tilly?
TILLY: And I don't want it. He, did you see how the Count walks ?
(Walks, imitating Mancini. Laughter.)
POLLY: Let me be the Baron. Take my arm. Look out, ass, you stepped
on my beloved family tree!
ANGELICA: It'll soon be finished. Consuelo is galloping now. It is her
waltz. What a success she is having !
(All listen to the waltz. Tilly and Polly are singing it softly.)
ANGELICA: She is so beautiful! Are those her flowers ?
(They listen. Suddenly, a crash as if a broken wall were tumbling
down: applause, shouting, screaming; much motion on the stage.
The actors are pouring champagne. New ones come in, talking and
laughing. When they notice the director and the champagne, they
become quiet and modest.)
Voices: They're coming! What a success! I should say, since all the
orchestra seats And what will it be when they see the Tango?
Don't be envious, Alphonse.
BRIQUET: Silence! Not so much noise, please! Zinida, look here, don't
be so quiet! High society! !
(Enter Consuelo, on the arm of the Baron who is stiff and erect.
She is happy. Mancini, serious and happy. Behind them, riders,
actors, actresses. The Baron has in his button-hole a fiery-red rose.
All applaud and cry: "Bravo, bravo!")
CONSUelo: Friends . my dears . . . Father, I can't. ... (Throws
...
herself into Mancini's arms, and hides her face on his shoulders. Mancini
looks with a smile over her head at the Baron. Baron smiles slightly,
but remains earnest and motionless. A new burst of applause.)
BRIQUET: Enough, children! Enough!
MANCINI: Calm yourself, calm yourself, my child. How they all love
you! (Taking a step forward) Ladies and gentlemen, Baron Reg.
nard did me the honour yesterday, to ask for the hand of my daughter,
the Countess Veronica, whom you knew under the name of Consuelo.
Please take your glasses.
CONSUELO: No, I am still Consuelo, to-night, and I shall always be Con-
suelo! Zinida, dear! (Falls on the neck of Zinida. Fresh applause.)
BRIQUET: Stop it! Silence! Take your glasses. What are you standing
here for? If you came, then take the glasses.
TILLY (trembling): They are frightened. You take yours first, Papa,
and we will follow.


292
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
your fancy. (HE returns. Two waiters follow him, carrying a basket
of champagne and glasses. They prepare everything on the table.)
MANCINI: Ah! merci, He. But please, none of this bourgeois exploding of
corks; be slower and more modest. Send the bill to Baron Regnard.
Then, we will be here, Briquet. I must go.
ZINIDA (looks at her watch): Yes, the act is going to end soon.
MANCINI: Heavens! (Disappears in a hurry.)
BRIQUET : The devil take him!
ZINIDA (pointing to the waiter): Not so loud, Louis !
BRIQUET: No! The devil take him! And why couldn't you help me,
Mother? You left me alone to talk to him. High Society! High
pleasures! Swindler. (HE and Zinida laugh. The waiters smile.)
BRIQUET (to the waiters): What are you laughing about? You can go.
We will help ourselves. Whiskey and soda, Jean! (In a low and
angry voice) Champagne !
(Enter Jackson, in his clown's costume.)
JACKSON: A whiskey and soda for me, too! At least I hear some laughter
here. Those idiots have simply forgotten how to laugh. My sun was
rising and setting and crawling all over the ring—and not a smile!
Look at my bottom, shines like a mirror! (Turns around quickly.)
Beg your pardon, Zinida. And you don't look badly to-night, HE. Look
out for your cheeks. I hate beauties.
BRIQUET: A benefit performance crowd!
JACKSON (looking in a hand mirror, correcting his make-up): In the orches-
tra there are some Barons and Egyptian mummies. I got a belly-ache
from fright. I am an honest clown. I can't stand it when they look at
me as if I had stolen a handkerchief. He, please give them a good many
slaps to-night.
HE: Be quiet, Jim. I shall avenge you. (He goes out.)
And how is Bezano ?
JACKSON (grumbling): Bezano! A crazy success. But he is crazy, he
.
will break his neck to-morrow. Why does he run such a risk ?
haps he has wings, like a god ? Devil take it. It's disgusting to look
at him. It's not work any more.
BRIQUET: You are right, Jim! It is not work any more. To your health,
old comrade, Jackson.
JACKSON: To yours, Louis.
BRIQUET: It is not work any more, since these Barons came here!
hear? They are laughing. But I am indignant, I am indignant, Jim!
What do they want here, these Barons ? Let them steal hens in other
hen roosts, and leave us in peace. Ah! Had I been Secretary of the
Interior, I should have made an iron fence between us and those people.
JACKSON: I am very sorry myself for our dear little Consuelo. I don't
know why, but it seems to me that we all look to-day more like swindlers
than honest artists. Don't
you think so, Zinida ?
ZINIDA: Everybody does what he wants. It's Consuelo's business and her
father's.
BRIQUET: No, Mother, that's not true! Not everybody does what he
,
wants, but it turns out this way ... devil knows why.
(Enter Angelica and Thomas, an athlete.)
a
ZINIDA:
:
Or per
Do you
.



LEONID ANDREYEV
293
POLLY:
ANGELICA:
ANGELICA: Is this where we're going to have champagne ?
BRIQUET: And you're glad already?
THOMAS: There it is! Oh, oh, what a lot!
ANGELICA : The Count told me to come here. I met him.
BRIQUET (angrily): All right, if he said so, but there is no reason to enjoy
it. Look out, Angelica, you will have a bad end. I see you through
and through. How does she work, Thomas ?
THOMAS: Very well.
ANGELICA (in a low voice): How angry Papa Briquet is to-night.
(Enter HE, Tilly, Polly, and other actors, all in their costumes.)
TILLY: Do you really want champagne ?
POLLY: I don't want it at all. Do you, Tilly?
TILLY: And I don't want it. He, did you see how the Count walks ?
(Walks, imitating Mancini. Laughter.)
Let me be the Baron. Take my arm. Look out, ass, you stepped
on my beloved family tree!
ANGELICA: It'll soon be finished. Consuelo is galloping now. It is her
waltz. What a success she is having!
(All listen to the waltz. Tilly and Polly are singing it softly.)
She is so beautiful! Are those her flowers ?
(They listen. Suddenly, a crash as if a broken wall were tumbling
down: applause, shouting, screaming; much motion on the stage.
The actors are pouring champagne. New ones come in, talking and
laughing. When they notice the director and the champagne, they
become quiet and modest.)
VOICES: They're coming! What a success! I should say, since all the
orchestra seats And what will it be when they see the Tango?
Don't be envious, Alphonse.
BRIQUET: Silence! Not so much noise, please! Zinida, look here, don't
be so quiet! High society!
(Enter Consuelo, on the arm of the Baron who is stiff and erect.
She is happy. Mancini, serious and happy. Behind them, riders,
.
actors, actresses. The Baron has in his button-hole a fiery-red rose.
,
All applaud and cry: “Bravo, bravo!")
CONSUELO: Friends
Father, I can't... (Throws
herself into Mancini's arms, and hides her face on his shoulders. Mancini
looks with a smile over her head at the Baron. Baron smiles slightly,
but remains earnest and motionless. A new burst of applause.)
BRIQUET: Enough, children! Enough!
MANCINI: Calm yourself, calm yourself, my child. How they all love
you! (Taking a step forward) Ladies and gentlemen, Baron Reg-
nard did me the honour yesterday, to ask for the hand of my daughter,
the Countess Veronica, whom you knew under the name of Consuelo.
Please take your glasses.
CONSUELO: No, I am still Consuelo, to-night, and I shall always be Con-
suelo! Zinida, dear! (Falls on the neck of Zinida. Fresh applause.)
BRIQUET: Stop it! Silence! Take your glasses. What are you standing
here for? If you came, then take the glasses.
TILLY (trembling): They are frightened. You take yours first, Papa,
and we will follow.
my dears


294
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
BARON :
many times
your suc-
(They take the glasses. Consuelo is near the Baron, holding the
sleeve of his dress coat with her left hand. In her right hand, she
has a glass of champagne, which spills over.)
You are spilling your wine, Consuelo.
CONSUELO: Ah! It is nothing! I am frightened, too. Are you, Father ?
MANCINI: Silly child. (An awkward silence.)
BRIQUET (with a step forward): Countess! As the director of the circus,
who was happy enough .. to witness
cesses
CONSUELO: I do not like this, Papa Briquet! I am Consuelo. What do
you want to do with me? I shall cry. I don't want this “Countess.”
Give me a kiss, Briquet!
BRIQUET: Ah, Consuelo! Books have killed you.
(Kisses her with tears. Laughter, applause. The clowns cluck like
hens, bark, and express their emotions in many other ways. The
motley crowd of clowns, which is ready for the pantomime, becomes
more and more lively. The Baron is motionless, there is a wide
space around him; the people touch glasses with him in a hurry, and
go off to one side. With Consuelo they clink willingly and cheer-
fully. She kisses the women.)
JACKSON: Silence! Consuelo, from to-day on, I extinguish my sun. Let
the dark night come after you leave us. You were a nice comrade and
worker, we all loved you and will love the traces of your little feet on
the sand. Nothing remains to us!
CONSUELO: You are so good, so good, Jim. So good that there is no one
better. And your sun is better than all the other suns. I laughed so
much at it. Alfred, dear, why don't you come? I was looking for you.
BEZANO: My congratulations, Countess.
CONSUELO: Alfred, I am Consuelo!
BEZANO: When you are on horseback; but here—I congratulate you,
Countess. (He passes, only slightly touching Consuelo's glass. Con-
suelo still holds it. Mancini looks at the Baron with a smile. The
latter is motionless.)
BRIQUET: Nonsense, Bezano. You are making Consuelo unhappy. She
is a good comrade.
CONSUELO: No, it's all right.
ANGELICA: You'll dance the Tango with her to-night, so how is she a
countess ?
TILLY: May I clink glasses with you, Consuelo? You know Polly has
died of grief already, and I am going to die. I have such a weak stom-
ach.
(Laughter; Baron shows slight displeasure. General motion.)
MANCINI: Enough, enough! The intermission is over.
CONSUELO: Already? It's so nice here.
BRIQUET: I shall prolong it. They can wait. Tell them, Thomas.
MANCINI: Auguste, the musicians of the orchestra, too, ask permission to
congratulate you and Consuelo. Do you ... ?
BARON: Certainly, certainly.
(Enter crowd of musicians. The conductor, an old Italian, lifts his
glass solemnly and without looking at the Baron.),



LEONID ANDREYEV
295
THE CONDUCTOR: Consuelo! They call you Countess here, but for me
you were and are Consuelo.
CONSUELO: Certainly!
CONDUCTOR: Consuelo! My violins and bassoons, my trumpets and drums,
all are drinking your health. Be happy, dear child, as you were happy
here. And we shall conserve for ever in our hearts the fair memory of
our light-winged fairy, who guided our bows so long. I have finished !
Give my love to our beautiful Italy, Consuelo.
(Applause, compliments. The musicians one after another clink
glasses and go out into the corridor. Consuelo is almost crying.)
MANCINI: Don't be so sensitive, my child, it is indecent. Had I known
that you would respond this way to this comedy-Auguste, look how
touched this little heart is!
BARON: Calm yourself, Consuelo.
CONSUELO: It is all right. Ah, Father, listen!
(The musicians are playing the Tango in the corridor. Exclama-
tions.)
MANCINI: You see. It is for you.
CONSUELO: They are so nice. My Tango! I want to dance. Who is
going to dance with me? (Looks around, seeking Bezano, who turns
away sadly.) Who, then ?
)
VOICES: Baron! Let the Baron dance! Baron!
BARON: All right. (Takes Consuelo's arm, and stands in the centre of a
circle which is formed.) I do not know how to dance the Tango, but
I shall hold tight. Dance, Consuelo. (He stands with legs spread,
(
heavily and awkwardly, like an iron-moulded man, holding Consuelo's
arm firmly and seriously.)
MANCINI (applauding): Bravo! Bravo! (Consuelo makes a few restless
)
movements, and pulls her arm away.)
CONSUELO: No, I can't this way. How stupid! Let me go! (She goes
to Zinida and embraces her, as if hiding herself. The music still plays.
The Baron goes off quietly to the side. There is an unfriendly silence
among the cast. They shrug their shoulders.)
MANCINI (alone): Bravo! Bravo! It is charming, it is exquisite !
JACKSON: Not entirely, Count.
(Tilly and Polly imitate the Baron and Consuelo without moving
from their places.)
TILLY (shrieking): Let me go!
POLLY: No, I'll not. Dance!
(The music stops abruptly. General, too loud laughter; the clowns
bark and roar. Papa Briquet gesticulates, in order to re-establish
silence. The Baron is apparently as indifferent as before.)
MANCINI: Really these vagabonds are becoming too impertinent. (Shrug-
ging his shoulders) It smells of the stable. You cannot help it, Auguste!
Don't be upset, Count.
HE (holding his glass, approaches the Baron): Baron! Will you permit
me to make a toast ?
Make it.
He: To your dance! (Slight laughter in the crowd.)
BARON: I don't dance !
:
BARON:
BARON:


296
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
HE: Then another one, Baron. Let us drink to those who know how to
wait longer, until they get it.
BARON: I do not accept any toasts which I do not understand. Say it more
simply.
(Voice of a woman: "Bravo, HE!" Slight laughter. Mancini says
something hastily to Briquet; the latter spreads his arms in gesture of
helplessness. Jackson takes HE by the arm.)
JACKSON: Beat it, He! The Baron doesn't like jokes.
HE: But I want to drink with the Baron. What can be simpler ? Sim-
pler ? Baron, let us drink to the very small distance which will always
remain 'twixt the cup and the lip! (Spills his wine, and laughs.)
(The Baron turns his back on him, indifferently. The music plays
in the ring. The bell rings.)
BRIQUET (relieved): There! To the ring, ladies and gentlemen, to the
ring, to the ring!
(The actresses run out. The crowd becomes smaller; laughter and
voices.)
MANCINI (much excited, whispers to the Baron): "Auguste, Auguste-
BRIQUET (to Zinida): Thank heaven they're beginning. Ah, Mother, I
,
asked you ... but you want a scandal by all means, and you always
ZINIDA: Let me alone, Louis.
(HE approaches Consuelo, who is alone.)
CONSUELO: HE, deary, how are you? I thought you didn't want even to
come near me. (In a low voice) Did you notice Bezano ?
He: I was waiting for my turn, Queen. It was so difficult to get through
the crowd to approach you.
CONSUELO: Through the crowd? (With a sad smile) I am quite alone.
What do you want, Father?
MANCINI: Child! Auguste .
...
CONSUELO (pulling away her hand): Let me alone! I'll soon be- Come
here, He. What did you say to him? They all laughed. I couldn't
understand. What ?
HE: I joked, Consuelo.
CONSUELO: Please don't, He, don't make him angry; he is so terrible. Did
you see how he pressed my arm? I wanted to scream. (With tears in
her eyes) He hurt me!
HE: It's not too late yet. Refuse him.
CONSUELO: It is too late, HE. Don't talk about it.
HE: Do you want it? I will take you away from here.
CONSUELO: Where to? (Laughs.) Ah, my dear little silly boy, where
could you
take me to.
All right, be quiet. How pale you are! You
too, love me? Don't He, please don't! Why do they all love me?
HE: You are so beautiful!
CONSUELO: No, no. It's not true. They must not love me. I was still
a little cheerful, but when they began to speak so nicely ... and
about Italy . . . and to bid farewell, as if I were dying, I thought I
should begin to cry. Don't talk, don't talk, but drink to
piness. (With a sad smile) To my happiness, He. What are you do-
ing?
I am throwing away the glass from which you drank with the others.
O
.
my hap-
HE:


LEONID ANDREYEV
297
I shall give you another one. Wait a minute. (Goes to pour cham-
pagne. Consuelo walks about thoughtfully. Almost all are gone.
Only the principal figures are left.)
MANCINI (coming to her): But it is really becoming indecent, Veronica.
Auguste is so nice, he is waiting for you, and you talk here with this
clown. Some stupid secrets. They're looking at you—it is becoming
noticeable. It is high time, Veronica, to get rid of these habits.
CONSUELO (loudly): Let me alone, Father! I want to do so, and will do
so. They are all my friends. Do you hear ? Let me alone!
BARON: Don't, Count. Please, Consuelo, talk to whomever you please and
as much as you want. Would you like a cigar, Count? Dear Briquet,
please order them to prolong the intermission a little more.
BRIQUET: With pleasure, Baron. The orchestra crowd can be a little an-
gry. (Goes, and returns shortly. HE gives a glass to Consuelo.)
HE: Here is your glass. To your happiness, to your freedom, Consuelo!
CONSUELO: And where is yours? We must touch our glasses.
HE: You leave half.
CONSUELO: Must I drink so much? HE, deary, I shall become drunk.
I still have to ride.
He: No, you will not be drunk. Dear little girl, did you forget that I am
HE:
your magician? Be quiet and drink. I charmed the wine. My witch-
ery is in it. Drink, goddess.
CONSUELO (lingering): What kind eyes you have. But why are you so
pale?
Because I love you. Look at my kind eyes and drink; give yourself
up to my charms, goddess! You shall fall asleep, and wake again, as
before. Do you remember? And you shall see your country, your
sky. ...
CONSUELO (bringing the glass to her lips): I shall see all this; is that true?
He (growing paler): Yes! Awake, goddess, and remember the time when,
HE
!
covered with snow-white sea-foam, thou didst emerge from the sky blue
waters. Remember heaven, and the low eastern wind, and the whisper of
the foam at thy marble feet. . .
CONSUELO (drinking): There! Look! Just a half! Take it. But what
is the matter with you? Are you laughing or crying?
He: I am laughing and crying.
MANCINI (pushing HE away, slightly): Enough, Countess, my patience is
exhausted. If Auguste is good enough to allow it, then I, your Father-
Your arm, Countess! Will you step aside, sir ?
I am tired.
MANCINI: You are not too tired to chatter and drink wine with a clown,
and when your duty calls you-Briquet! Tell them to ring the bell. It
is time.
I am tired, Father.
Count, it is cruel. Don't you see how pale she has become?
What is the matter with you, dear little Consuelo?
Nothing
She simply needs a rest, Baron. She hasn't sat down yet ...
and so much excitement. ... Sit down here, dear child.
self and rest a little. Men are so cruel !
CONSUELO:
CONSUELO:
ZINIDA:
BARON:
CONSUELO:
ZINIDA:
Cover your.


298
HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
ZINIDA:
1
1
1
CONSUELO: I still have to work. (Closing her eyes.) And the roses, are
they ready?
ZINIDA: Ready, dear, ready. You will have such an extraordinary carpet.
You will gallop as if on air. Rest.
POLLY: Do you want some moosic? We will play you a song; do you
want it?
CONSUELO (smiling, eyes closed): Yes, I do.
(The clowns play a soft and naïve song: tilly-polly, tilly-polly. Gen-
eral silence. HE sits in the corner with his face turned away. Jack-
son watches him out of the corner of his eye, and drinks wine, lazily.
The Baron, in his usual pose, wide and heavily spread legs, looks at
the pale face of Consuelo, with his bulging motionless eyes.)
CONSUELO (with a sudden cry): Ah! Pain!
What is it, Consuelo?
MANCINI: My child! Are you sick? Calm yourself.
BARON (growing pale): Wait a moment. She was too much excited.
Consuelo!
CONSUELO (gets up, looking before her with wide-open eyes, as if she were
listening to something within herself): Ah! I feel pain. Here at the
heart. Father, what is it? I am afraid. What is it? My feet too
my feet too ... I can't stand. ... (Falls on divan, her eyes
wide open.)
MANCINI (running about): Bring a doctor! Heavens, it is terrible! Au-
guste, Baron ... It never happened to her. It is nerves, nerves. ...
Calm yourself, calm, child-
BRIQUET: Bring a doctor! (Somebody runs for a doctor.)
JACKSON (in a voice full of fear): He, what is the matter with you?
It is death, Consuelo, my little Queen. I killed you. You are dying.
(He cries, loudly and bitterly. Consuelo with a scream, closes her
eyes, and becomes silent and quiet. All are in terrible agitation. The
Baron is motionless, and sees only Consuelo.)
MANCINI (furious): You are lying, rascal! Damned clown! What did
you give her? You poisoned her! Murderer! Bring a doctor!
A doctor will not help. You are dying, my little Queen. Consuelo!
Consuelo!
(Bezano rushes in, cries: "Briquet.!" becomes silent and looks with
horror at Consuelo. Somebody else comes in. Briquet is making
.
gestures for someone to close the door.)
CONSUELO (in a dull and distant voice): You are joking, He? Don't
frighten me. I am so frightened. Is that death? I don't want it. Ah,
He, my darling HE, tell me that you are joking, I am afraid, my dear,
golden HE!
(HE pushes away the Baron, with a commanding gesture, and stands
in his place near Consuelo. The Baron stands as before, seeing only
Consuelo.)
HE: Yes, I am joking. Don't you hear how I laugh, Consuelo ? They all
laugh at you here, my silly child. Don't laugh, Jim. She is tired, and
wants to sleep. How can you laugh, Jim! Sleep my dear, sleep my
heart, sleep my love.
CONSUELO: Yes, I have no more pain. Why did you joke that way, and
a
HE:
HE:
1


LEONID ANDREYEV
299
O
.
about you.
a
frighten me ? Now I laugh at myself. You told me, didn't you, that
1... should . . . live ... eternally ?
HE: Yes, Consuelo! You shall live eternally. Sleep. Be calm. (Lifts
up his arms, as if straining with all his forces to lift her soul higher.),
How easy it is now! How much light, how many lights are burning
The light is blinding you.
CONSUELO: Yes, light ... Is that the ring?
He: No, it is the sea and the sun ... what a sun! Don't you feel that you
are the foam, white sea-foam, and you are flying to the sun? You feel
light, you have no body, you are flying higher, my love!
CONSUELO: I am flying. I am the sea-foam, and this is the sun, it shines
... so strong.
I feel well.
(She dies. Silence. HE stays a moment with lifted arms, then
takes a long look, lets his arms fall, and shakingly goes off to one
side. He stands still for a moment, then sits down, drops his head
on his hands, and struggles lonesomely with the torpidity of coming
death.)
BRIQUET (slowly): She has fallen asleep, Mother?
ZINIDA (dropping the dead hand): I am afraid not. . .. Step aside, Louis.
Baron, it is better for you to step aside. Baron! Do you hear me?
(Weeps.) She is dead, Louis.
(The clowns and Briquet are crying. Mancini is overhelmed. The
Baron and HE are motionless, each in his place.)
JACKSON (drawing out a large prismatic clown's handkerchief to wipe away
his tears): Faded, like a flower. Sleep, little Consuelo! The only
.
thing that remains of you is the trace of your little feet on the sand.
(Cries.) Ah, what did you do, what did you do, He!... It would
have been better if you had never come to us.
(There is music in the ring.)
BRIQUET (gesticulating): The music! Stop the music! They are crazy
there. What a misfortune!
(Someone runs off. Zinida approaches the crying Bezano and
strokes his bowed, pomaded head. When he notices her, he catches
her hand and presses it to his eyes. The Baron takes out the rose
from his button-hole, tears off the petals, and drops it, grinding it
with his foot. A few pale faces peer through the door, the same
masquerade crowd.)
ZINIDA (over the head of Bezano): Louis, we must call the police.
MANCINI (awakening from his stupor, screams): The police! Call the po-
lice! It's a murder! I am Count Mancini, I am Count Mancini! They
will cut off your head, murderer, damned clown, thief! I myself will
kill you, rascal! Ah, you! (HE lifts his heavy head with difficulty.)
HE: They will cut off my head? And what more . . Your Excellency?
BARON: Sir! Listen, sir! I am going for the police. Stop it, sir. (He
suddenly takes a step forward, and looking HE in the eyes, speaks in a
hoarse voice, with a cough, holding one hand at his throat.) I am the
witness. I saw.
I am a witness. I saw how he put poison I-
(He leaves the room, suddenly, with the same straight, heavy steps.
All move away from him, frightened. HE drops his head again.
From time to time a tremor shakes his body.)
:
.


300 HE, THE ONE WHO GETS SLAPPED
.
JACKSON (clasping his hands): Then it is all true? Poisoned! What a
vile man you are, He. Is this the way to play? Now wait for the last
slap of the executioner! (Makes the gesture around his neck, of the
guillotine. Tilly and Polly repeat the gesture.)
ZINIDA: Leave his soul alone, Jim. He was a man, and he loved. Happy
Consuelo!
(A shot is heard in the corridor. Thomas, frightened, runs in and
points to his head.)
THOMAS: Baron ... Baron ... his head ... He shot himself ...
BRIQUET (throwing his arms up): God! What is it? The Baron?
What a calamity for our circus.
MANCINI: The Baron? The Baron ? No. What are you standing here
for? Ah!
BRIQUET: Calm down, Count. Who would have believed it ? Such a
respectable ... gentleman!
HE (lifting his head with difficulty; he sees only dimly with his dulled!
eyes): What more? What happened?
THOMAS: The Baron shot himself. Honestly. Straight here! He's ly-
ing out yonder.
HE (thinking it over): Baron? (Laughs.) Then the Baron burst?
JACKSON: Stop it! It's shameless. A man died and you What's
the matter with you, HE?
HE (stands up, lifted to his feet by the last gleam of consciousness and life,
speaks strongly and indignantly): You loved her so much, Baron ?
So much? My Consuelo? And you want to be ahead of me even
there? No! I am coming. We shall prove then whose she is to be
for ever.
(He catches at his throat, falls on his back. People run to him.
General agitation.)
CURTAIN


AN OLD MAN SEES HIMSELF
BY CONRAD AIKEN
Solitary, before daybreak, in a garden
Dark amid the unchanging snow,
Watching the last star fading in a fountain
Whence melodies of eternal water flow,
LILARLSTAHL
Festus, seeing the sky-line burn and brighten
Coldly, far above the hidden sun;
Seeing the golden thread of glory unravelled
Along the wall of mountains run,
Hears in his heart a cry of bewilderment;
And turning, now here, now there-
Like one who pauses a moment before departure
Partakes of the grace of earth and air,
Drinks of the vast blue splendour of the sky,
The mile on mile of dew-blanched grass,
The cloud-swept trees, the stones, bare cliffs of bronze;
And in the pool, as in a glass,
Ringed round with nodding asters, frosted leaf-tips,
Stoops to see his image; and behold,
How faded is the scarlet of his mantle!
His face, how changed and old! ...
Sing now the birds: on every bough a bird sings;
Slowly at first, then fast and faster,
Till the walled garden thrills and shrills with music;
The cricket beneath the violet aster
Cries his joy to heaven as the first beam strikes him-
The foxgloves bend beneath a weight of bees;
Praise! Praise! Praise! the chorus rises,
Drowsily, happily, dumbly, sway the trees.


302
AN OLD MAN SEES HIMSELF
Fades the star in the mountain, and the sun comes.
How motionless stands Festus there!
A red leaf, falling slowly to meet a red leaf
That rises out of the infinite to the air,
Floats, is turned by the wind about its image .
Ah Festus, is this you,
This ruin of man about whom leaves fall coldly
And asters nod their dew? ...
•
Pale, phantasmal, swirls the forest of birches,
It is a dance of witch-girls white and slim;
Delicately flash their slender hands in the sunlight!
Cymbals hiss, their eyes are dim
Under the mist of hair they toss above them ...
But Festus, turning never,
Heeding them not, nor the birds, nor the cricket shrilling,
Stares at the pool for ever,
Seeking in vain to find-somewhere, somewhere! —
In the pool, himself, the sky ? -
The slight, clear, beautiful secret of these marvels,
Of birch, birds, cricket's cry,
Blue sky, blue pool, the red leaf falling and floating,
The wall of mountains, the garden, the snow,
And one old man—how sinister and bedraggled!
Cawing there like a crow ..
Instant the miracle is. He leans bewildered
Over the infinite, to search it through .
Loud sing the birds! On every bough a bird sings;
The cricket shrills, the day is blue.


OUR BEGGAR'S OPERA
BY GILBERT SELDES
IMA
1
N justice to ourselves be it said that if we let The Beggar's Opera
fail, we did not, at any rate, defile a New York theatre with a
run of two thousand consecutive performances of Chu Chin Chow.
That piece, seen in London during the second or third year of its
still continuing run, revealed not one actor or actress, not one come-
dian or singer, not one stage setting or costume, not one ingenuity
of libretto or one bar of fresh and imaginative music, surpassing
the third rank of provincial eye-and-ear shows. The Beggar's Opera
was urgently needed in London. But the revival did not ruin Chu
Chin Chow and Mr Oscar Asche ought to be well on his way to a
knighthood.
If we did not need The Beggar's Opera so much, we were at least
as capable of profiting by it, and it is agreeable to be able to say
that we have not failed to do so. Three men of our time were fit
by their experience and by their intentions to learn every last line
of the lesson conveyed by The Beggar's Opera: Mr Florenz Zieg-
feld, Mr George M. Cohan, and Mr Irving Berlin. A few other
well-defined talents exist. Mr Victor Herbert's happy moments
amount to genius, but he is essentially a grand opera composed who
has consorted too long with the librettists and has lost the sense of
his own motion. Much lower in the scale are Messrs Ivan Caryll,
Jerome Kern, and Louis Hirsch; I see little hope in them. Mr
Deems Taylor's orchestral pieces and arrangements indicate that
his work is or ought to be grand opera. Mr William Le Baron,
the best of our librettists, especially when he is writing plays, seems
pledged to the Viennese. It is not from that capital that our sal-
vation is to come.
Returning to the three possible figures, Mr Ziegfeld has cultivat-
ed his garden expertly, and must be an ideal impresario; Mr Cohan
has temporarily given up his revues and his masterpiece during the
war must have exhausted his lyric cry, but I do not rule him out be-
cause he has a vast and versatile talent; he can do anything. In this
case I do not know what he intends to do and I do know what Mr
Berlin intends to do. Mr Berlin intends to write a Beggar's Opera.
A


304
OUR BEGGAR'S OPERA
I can understand that this statement may seem totally unimpor-
tant to some, and intolerably presumptuous to others. It happens
to be my belief that Mr Berlin's is the only talent capable of im-
mediate action in the production of American light opera; that be-
lief is founded on his two elaborate productions, Watch Your Step
and Stop! Look! Listen! and on certain bits in the Ziegfeld Follies.
His talents as a song writer are, I take it, undisputed. His serious
sentimental songs I detest, but his Girl on the Magazine Cover, with
its fantastically appropriate introduction of several bars from
Lohengrin, is by no means contemptible. He knows one thing per-
fectly: syncopation, and that is precisely the one thing which most
other writers of syncopated music know only in part. His master-
piece, unless I have missed a recent work, is his tribute to the piano,
a bewildering utilization of all the subtleties of broken time, com-
pressed, exciting, tremendously smart. And if he knows syncopa-
tion, he is interested in other things. There are stray evidences of
his being aware of other rhythms, of a few harmonies not so very
recondite, of the modes of music, and of the pleasures of orchestral
colour. If he assisted in these things, he is learning from his
collaborators,
He has, moreover, a penchant for action. His Ragtime Melo-
drama in Stop! Look! Listen! has only Mr Cohan's burlesque of
Common Clay for a rival. He writes faulty but really very
amusing lyrics for his songs, and, in the case of his big shows, writes
them all. When he is writing for the stage he considers every ele-
ment of production: the position of a given number in the course
of the act, the setting, the costumes, the dramatic value to be given
to a song or a dance. His habit is to provide his producer with a
set of directions as detailed as a scenario. And to his experience
as librettist, composer, and producer he is adding, before this year
is out, the joy of owning and running a theatre. It is from The
Music Box that his Beggar's Opera will issue.
I hope that no one has read so far in the wistful hope that a
magic wand will be waved and it will all turn out into a promise
of a new Savoy opera. It will not. It is my earnest but despair-
.
ing hope never to hear the names of Gilbert and Sullivan in con-
nection with American operetta again. The Savoy operettas are,
for one thing, in the Italian manner of operatic construction. And
there is no reason under the sun why we should beat our breasts
because we are not producing more of them. What we want is



GILBERT SELDES
305
operetta which will give us the same satisfactions—to the eye, to
the ear, to the mind. We will never get them in an imitation.
And I hope that no one still seriously believes that syncopation is
necessarily vulgar or bad music; or that the American stage offers
anything comparable to the girl-and-music, eye-and-ear show to
please the intelligent. Our native serious drama, our problem plays,
our social comedy, our melodrama, are far below the musical show
in finish, in expertness, in beauty of production, in all that gives
entertainment and satisfaction. At them, in the words of the im-
mortal Queen, we are not amused. The musical shows have their
faults, their Honey Girls and Magic Melodies; but, however fum-
blingly, they are exploiting many talents in the service of beauty,
and, however slowly, are giving us keen intellectual pleasures with
their aesthetic delights.
The Beggar's Opera is exactly the sort of thing our musical
comedy stage has not ventured to produce. An eighteenth century
wit and poet as impatient of sentimentality as is Mr Bernard Shaw,
a master of parody and burlesque with a pretty ear for music—we
haven't his equal, or if we have he is doing something else. I did
not go to Mr Berlin to ask him if he could do what Gay had done.
I asked him simply what he had got out of The Beggar's Opera.
His answer was "Courage.” And further:
"I always used to say that I would write a rag-time opera and
people laughed at me. People think that because the words which
used to go with rag-time were filthy or foolish, that they have to be
that way. They don't. Take the words away and you've got some-
thing to work with. If they laugh at a rag-time opera I am willing
to say that I am going to write an operetta with syncopated music,
and when I do it I'll be frank and say that I used to wonder if it
could be done until I saw The Beggar's Opera. If he could do
what he did two hundred years ago, we can do it now.”
What he did, as the professional eye saw it, was first to attack
the sentimental conventions and second to attack the musical con-
ventions. For the latter, I can well understand how any composer
abominates the silly little apologetic lines which precede a musical
number, as if the music weren't reasonably, essentially, part of the
piece. In The Beggar's Opera the characters break into song, as
simply as one hums when one is happy or cries when one is sad.
That is why most of the songs have a definite relation to the text.
The frankness and freedom of Gay's use of his musical material


306
OUR BEGGAR'S OPERA
was what impressed Mr Berlin; of the ballads themselves, the
musical content of the songs, nothing needed to be said.
The sentimental conventions which Gay attacked were in part
those of Italian opera, and he announced his purpose grimly in his
introduction. That he had no recitative is not so significant for
us as his precise anticipation of all those absurdities which were to
survive to our time or to come into being in two centuries of musical
shows. Even for Gilbert, love is at least semi-sacred. In The
Beggar's Opera the great emotion is received with incredulous jeer-
ing and mockery. As for the happy ending, Gay reduced it to the
same absurdity as Mr Cohan has so often reduced the plot, by step-
ping completely out of the frame of his piece, gravely consulting
the proprieties, and patching up a satisfactory conclusion. The
element of self-criticism, of self-burlesque, which operates often in
Mr Berlin's music and in Mr Cohan's plays, was active here in per-
fection.
I have mentioned only a few of the qualities of The Beggar's
Opera because they are the ones which have immediate bearing on
the future of the musical show in America; they are exactly the
elements chosen by Mr Berlin as instructive and provocative to
himself. Mr Berlin is therefore in some measure pledged to produce
a musical piece of some proportions. It will have to have an intelli-
gent book, lyrics agreeable to the ear and appropriate to the action,
and music which is dramatically apposite. I do not see any justi-
fication for insisting that it be in the form of a musical play, since
an intelligent book does not necessarily mean an intelligible plot;
he is not called on to write music drama. His own ambitions, I
should fancy, will lead him to try a strict plot, probably bur-
lesqued. It does not matter. What The Beggar's Opera has done
for him is a work of liberation; it has persuaded him that he is not
bound to the forms he has already tried; it has set free a singularly
attractive talent and has shown an ambitious, critical, and funda-
mentally modest practitioner of a great art what can be done in
that art when intelligence is applied to its problems.
If Mr Berlin does not succeed, some one else will. The great
thing is that if he does not try, it will be the better part of a gener-
ation before anyone else will be in such a favoured position to
make the attempt. That is why he is important; and that is why
the announcement of his intentions, which he is good enough to let
me make in this way, ought to be filed for reference.



1
1
5
Courtesy of the Bourgeois Galleries
BY ALFEO FAGGI
YONE NOGUCHI.


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1

Courtesy of the Bourgeois Galleries
BY ALFEO FAGGI
PIETA.


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Courtesy of the Bourgeois Galleries
MADONNA.
BY ALFEO FAGGI


.


UNKNOWN COUNTRY
BY HAROLD MONRO
Here, in this other world, all people go
With easy dream-like movements to and fro.
They stare through lovely eyes, yet do not seek
An answering gaze, or that a man should speak.
Had I a load of gold, and should I come
Bribing their friendship, and to buy a home,
They would stare harder and would slightly frown:
I am a stranger from the distant town.
Oh, with what patience I have tried to win
The favour of the hostess of the Inn!
Have I not offered toast on frothing toast
Looking toward the melancholy host,
Praised the old wall-eyed mare to please the groom,
Laughed to the laughing maid and fetched her broom;
Stood in the background not to interfere
When the grave ancients frolicked at their beer;
Talked only in my turn, and made no claim
For recognition or by voice or name,
Content to listen, and to watch the blue
Or
eyes, or what good hands can do?
grey of
Sun-freckled lads, who at the dusk of day
Stroll through the village with a scent of hay
Clinging about you from the windy hill,
Why do you keep your secret from me still?
You loiter at the corner of the street:
I in the distance silently entreat.
I know too well I'm city-soiled, but then
So are to-day ten million other men.
My heart is true: I've neither will nor charms
To lure away your maidens from your arms.
Trust me a little. Must I always stand
Lonely, a stranger from an unknown land?


308
UNKNOWN COUNTRY
There is a riddle here. Though I'm more wise
Than you, I cannot read your simple eyes.
I find the meaning of their gentle look
More difficult than any learned book.
I pass: perhaps a moment you may chaff
My walk, and so dismiss me with a baugh.
I come: you all, most grave and most polite,
Stand silent first, then wish me calm good-night.
When I go back to town someone will say:
“I think the stranger must have gone away.'
And “Surely!” someone else will then reply.
Meanwhile within the dark of London I
Shall, with my forehead resting on my hand,
Not cease remembering your distant land,
Endeavouring to reconstruct aright
How some treed hill has looked in evening light,
Or be imagining that blue of skies
Now as in Heaven, now as in your eyes,
Or in my mind confusing looks or words
Of yours with dawnlight, or the song of birds;
Not able to resist, not even keep
Myself from hovering near you in my sleep:
You still as careless to my thought and me
As flowers to the thought of honey-bee.
ง


A ROMAN LETTER
BY RICHARD ALDINGTON
YOUR
OUR letters, my best Rufinus, were handed to me late in
the afternoon as I was returning from the chase. I had
spent most of the day in the immense oak and beech forest which
darken the northern parts of this province with their green
shadow. As I emerged from the last fringe of these trees on
my way home, bringing, I must confess, fuller tablets than nets,
glowing with beneficent exercise and tranquil from my hours of
woodland silence, I looked across the wide undulating plain at
my feet, noticing with pleasure the deep golden haze which lay
upon its fields and dwellings. The rich warmth, the tranquillity
of this spectacle, coinciding so precisely with my own sensations,
bred in me a contentment I can hardly explain, and I asked my-
self if anything could increase my immediate delight in living.
At that moment, as if in answer, your messenger appeared guided
by one of my slaves and presented me with your letters.
The news you give me of Rome is curious. Congratulate
Sulpicius for me on his appointment as proconsul. This dignity
is, I suppose, the price of some shameful complaisance? Strange
that reasonable men should so degrade themselves! But yet,
how natural! Such infamies will be common just so long as
men place felicity in a prince's favour. I should not have thought
it possible that so well-bred a woman as Calpurnia could ever
-
have deserved the infamous words of the satirist:
“Nulli, Thai, negas: sed si te non pudet istud
Hac saltem pudeat, Thai, negare nihil.”
But I am become such a rustic that the manners of the court are
foreign to me. This lack of self-control, this disregard of ele-
mentary prudence seem to me remarkable in so distinguished a
woman. Doubtless, her greatest fault is her inability to con-
ceal the others—that our sophisticated and, I fear, corrupt society
does not easily pardon.
1


310
A ROMAN LETTER
I congratulate you on the birth of a son, a felicity which I
know you have long desired. Your reflections on this subject
and the delicacy of your reference to the death of my little
Marcus, please me. Your opinion that marital affection is only
rightly completed by the birth of children is wholesome and true,
yet what anxiety, what trembling (and, alas, what bitter grief
perhaps!) we create for ourselves with the lives of these fragile
and tender beings! Be the omen null! I must not disturb your
happiness with my sad memories.
And now, my Rufinus, I must remonstrate with' you seriously.
The news which you communicate with so much complacence;
that the Emperor is inclined to yield to your importunities and
to recall me from exile; fills me with apprehension. Let me ex-
plain. When, on the receipt of a false delation, the Master of
the world was pleased to order my sequestration to this remote
solitude, I thanked the lying tongue which rendered me this ser-
vice and the imperial credulity and severity, which, in seeking
to punish me, conferred on me a long-desired reward. To be free
of Rome, of its artifices and interminable intrigues, its huge
crowds, its vacuous and febrile energy, its vanity, its profligacy-
what happiness, what good fortune! Fiducia and I left that
immense, murmuring metropolis, which had so cruelly robbed us
of our beloved child, with hearts more jocund than we dared
show. To the last I dreaded the Emperor might recall his
sentence!
Here I live tranquilly, here I possess that best of gifts praised
by the Attic songster-hygiainein men ariston—and, in addi-
tion to health, solitude and peace of mind which he forgot to
praise. Among these vast woods which are sometimes enchanted
by the noon silence sacred to Pan, sometimes vocal with the
susurrant sea-wind, on this sun-drenched hillside fertile in olives
and grapes, among these countrymen whose lives are sober idylls,
my mind has been charmed and my thoughts have been busy with
meditation. Not that I have thought deeply or well, but I have
lived in a half intellectual ecstasy—perhaps I am a nympholept!
You tell me that the fashionable ladies of the capital are
amusing jaded nerves with the cult of a new Eastern sect.
not surprised. Cities, with their enervating, artificial influences,
must expose trivial minds to superstition and religious folly.
I am


RICHARD ALDINGTON
311
a
Here it is not so; here, under this sky, on the breast of the divine
earth, that noble maternal Demeter who nourishes me, I am
liberated to feel mysterious springs of life and death. Here I
do not need to evoke the gods; they are at hand, manifest; pal-
pable; even the gross rustic deities have a peculiar and fitting signi-
ficance. But they are so familiar, so companionable that I look
continually beyond them for some greater more pervading truth,
which I apprehend rather by intuition than by logic. As you
know, I have never been an enemy to the religious myths; I have
held that they are necessary to impose on the slow imagination
of the common people those truths which we perceive immedi-
ately. The destruction of this convenient symbolism, unneces-
sary to finished souls, would lead to unsuspected evils, perhaps,
absurd as the idea must seem, to the extinction of the Empire.
The truth which I seek will not dispossess the gods; it will make
life clearer, more rational for choice spirits.
I am struggling, you see, to express something I have felt rather
than thought; you must have noticed that solitude is more apt
to fill us with pleasureable emotions than with exact ideas. The
latter are the coin with which we pay our entrance into refined
society, but with these intimate emotions, so vague but so deli-
cious, we entertain ourselves. Sometimes it seems to me that we
speculate too much on the nature of the gods—whom we cannot
know-and investigate too little the earth and the mind of men,
which we can know. If such an investigation is ever carried out
thoroughly and reasonably I suspect that the necessity for any
but popular religion will disappear. We shall not have to de-
plore the fact that our learned men waste so much time on use-
less arcana of priest-craft. Yet I wish I could make you feel
the attraction of the religious beliefs of these peasants. Their
faith and my skepticism are singularly at one, for the natural
forces which I try to understand by investigation they accept and
comprehend by deification. To them as to me the revolution of
the seasons, the lights of heaven, the forces of germination, fecund-
ity, and decay, the green envelope of the rugged earth which feeds
and clothes us and receives our ashes, are all mysterious and
holy. The only difference is that they require to worship
in their own idealized form representations of these forces which
I am content to perceive direct, without symbolical and poetic


312
A ROMAN LETTER
interpretations. The aloofness of Artemis (I prefer the Greek
names), the splendour of her brother, the opulence of Demeter,
and the gross desires of Priapus are conceived by them in these
visible images; but since they are truths which must exist as long
as human life, and longer, what matters the symbolism by which
they are apprehended? As for these unwholesome speculations
and grotesque myths which enervate our urban people, be assured
they are figments which will never overcome the profound com-
mon-sense of our peasants.
You must find my chatter as persistent and as strident as that
of the cicada in the olive-tree above me, but if I have wearied
you I have at least had the pleasure of imagining that I was talk-
ing idly to you. My mood will show you that I am generally
content and not at all anxious to encumber with my person the
Emperor's ante-rooms. From this moss-grown marble seat, on
which I write, I can see two young women placing flowers beneath
the rough wood figure of Dionysus. What permanence have our
philosophizings or those unhealthy Eastern myths beside this sane
human humble acceptance of natural facts? Long after all
memory of us and of those Syrian charlatans has vanished other
peasant girls will lay similar offerings before the figures of their
gods which, like ours, will symbolize wine, wheat, the death of
autumn and the rebirth of spring, maternity, and desire. Doubt-
less their floral tributes will not make the harvest any less ample.
Vale.


DUST FOR SPARROWS
BY REMY DE GOURMONT
Translated by Ezra Pound
165
Bismarck in repudiating the paternity of the aphorism: might
makes right, committed an act of inconsequence, or more probably
of diplomatic hypocrisy.
166
Revolutions are necessary incidents in progressive evolution. It
would be preferable to avoid them; but history shows, unfortunate-
ly, that humanity has never made a step forward . . . or let us
say, rather, that the demands of the majority have never forced a
concession from the egoism of the minority save across blood
and fire. St Paul said, it is some time ago: Sine sanguinis effutione
nulla fuit remissio. (No remission of sins without blood.)
167
The privileges of the aristocracy before the (French) revolution
were not less grounded than those of the present bourgeoisie, yet
how indignant are the great-grand-nephews of those who had
Louis XVI guillotined, when some other strata of future bourgeois
wants to make effective this motto of Liberty-Equality-Fraternity,
which has up to now been used only as a decoration.
168
Without the sentimental cult of the fatherland, nations are to-
day only great commercial houses, united or separated by interest,
and carrying the egoism of alliances to such a pitch that it is per-
missible to hate one's ally of last evening, and to arm against him,
since for reasons of supremacy or of frustrate cupidity, he will be
your enemy on the morrow. Italy and Austria, for example.


.
314
DUST FOR SPARROWS
169
The divorce law is useless and hypocrite, first because it has no
effect upon custom; secondly because free love, if honest, should
not hide behind legal formulas.
H
170
Because of the fatality of relation of government over the gov-
erned, there is often nothing so like a tyrant as his implacable en-
emy when the latter has come into power.
171
What is most to be feared from the participation of women in
government is that they will adopt a morality and sensibility as
precarious as those of the male; which will cause an appreciable de-
cline in the forces which maintain the cohesion and equilibrium of
society.
1
172
The wishes of public opinion are always accomplished in the long
run, despite the bias speeches of politicians and the vicious prac- .
tices of governments; as life triumphs over "Dulcamara's Mixture"
and the impostures of apothecaries.
173
It is quite probable that the gravity of social demands as well as
the anarchist madness comes from the enormous and ill-distributed
funds spent on public instruction, which forms a pernicious intel-
lectual proletariat, while leaving thousands of unfortunates in ab-
solute intellectual indigence.
174
If there is no social problem, but only a working-man's problem,
in the Argentine, we must despair of the ideality of a country in
which the masses are stirred only for the sake of bettering an im-
mediate situation and without any plan or higher aspiration what-
soever for the future.


REMY DE GOURMONT
315
i
!
175
There are only two differences between the constitutional and
parliamentary monarchies of Europe and the South American re-
publics: first, in the monarchies the head of the state is more or
less hereditarily legitimate, which doesn't much matter; and in the
republics he is apocryphally elective; second, in the monarchies
there is a true democracy and in the republics there is a false aristo-
cracy of plebeians.
175
A monarchy where a socialist minister comes into power is
plausible, but as sincere as a papacy with an academy of atheists
serving for sacred college.
177
A religion, moral code, civilization, politics which have not the
fundamental intention of aiding the well-being and happiness of
mankind are necessarily false and pernicious.
178
A politics which would sacrifice the happiness of present genera-
tions for that of future generations would be suicidal, for being in-
capable of its own perfection humanity would live in a perpetual
and useless sacrifice.
179
There is no indignation more sincere or more comic than that of
a capitalist fighting with workmen who demand successive increases
in pay.
“But where will they stop, the lunatics ?”
Yes, they will stop when they are as cracked as you are your-
self, sir.
180
The best thing in republics is the loyalty and almost religious
affection of the people for the great men who incarnate the national
tradition. That is to say, it is precisely the same force which has
preserved monarchies through the ages.


316
DUST FOR SPARROWS
181
What sincerity can we find in public indignation against func-
tionaries who profit by their public place to transact private busi-
ness-in countries where the politicians cheat the State, where the
business men smuggle, where no one has the slightest scruple about
making declarations contrary to the fiscal interest.
182
Political and social constitutions founded on bourgeois criteria
can go on without pains of opposition if the favoured do not abuse
their privileged position. The people, as ages' experience and the
realities of the moment demonstrate, if it attains small but secure
situations, if it escapes, from above, the excitements of those who
would exploit it without pity; from beneath, the excitements of
those who would do so with some moderation, the people is anti-
revolutionary.
183
Everyone pities orphans. But children set between a base father
and a brutal mother!
184
Civil wars are by far harsher and more cruel than international
wars, because blows are more painful from friends than from
strangers; because one fights with more rage against people one
knows and whom one knows to be conscious and voluntary enemies
than against those who attack us only in obedience to a will exterior
to themselves. Two soldiers of different nations embrace without
bitterness when peace arrives, two protagonists in civil war separate
huffily because they hated each other before, because they have
fought with hate, and because after to-morrow they will start
"getting ready for the next.”
To be continued


POMEGRANATE
BY D. H. LAWRENCE
You tell me I am wrong.
Who are you, who is anybody, to tell me I am wrong?
I am not wrong.
!
1
In Syracuse, rock left bare by the viciousness of Greek women,
No doubt you have forgotten the pomegranate trees in flower,
Oh, so red, and such a lot of them.
Whereas at Venice,
Abhorrent, green, grey-bearded,
Whose Doges were old and had ancient eyes,
In the dense foliage of the inner garden,
Pomegranates like bright green stones,
And barbed, barbed with a crown,
Oh, horrible crown, of spiked green metal,
Actually were growing.
Now, in Tuscany
Pomegranates to warm your hands at,
Braziers,
And crowns,
Kingly, generous, tilting crowns,
Over the left eyebrow.
And, if you dare, the fissure!
Do you mean to tell me you will see no fissure?
You prefer to look on the plain side?
For all that, the setting suns are open
The last day fissured open with to-morrow,
Rosy, tender, glittering within there.


318
POMEGRANATE
.
Do
you mean to tell me there should be no fissure ?
No glittering compact drops of dawn?
Do you mean it is wrong, the gold-filmed skin, integument, shown
ruptured?
11
For my part, I prefer my heart to be broken.
It is so lovely, dawn-kaleidoscopic, within the crack.



DEAD MATTER IN AFRICA
BY LLEWELYN POWYS
TAfrican landscape
HE sun was exactly overhead beating down upon the parched
I was riding with a friend over the plain of Lol-Dureto which
lies under the Eburu mountains.
A hundred yards away two zebra, a male and female, stood
playing together. The stallion would whinny at the mare and trot
round her. They were evidently lovers. With their thick necks
and striped flanks they looked typical productions of Africa, obsti-
nate, and fantastic. “Look at those two damned zebra,” I said to
my friend, “I bet you a rupee, I send a bullet into the guts of one
of them.” I got off my pony and raising my rifle took steady aim.
A moment later and the mare zebra was down and kicking about in
the dust and dry grass. At the sound of the report the stallion had
stopped short in its gambols and galloped away; but it did not go
far. It soon stood still and turned to look at us; and, as I remount-
ed, and we rode away, I saw it trotting slowly back to its mate who
was now lying quite still on her side.
“You made pretty good practice,” said my
friend. “Yes, it was
“
not bad shooting,” I answered.
We continued on our way together, but for some reason or an-
other I felt over-sensitive that day and was troubled by what I had
done.
It seemed to me that it was quite unpardonable to have taken
the life of that zebra so carelessly, for no reason at all.
Far up in the zenith the equatorial sun blazed down upon us.
I knew that in the sight of that heartless Gorgon's eye of Africa it
was no hellish thing that I had done. I knew that he was far too
used to African ways and the cruelty of tooth and claw.
The next day I rode to the Nagum valley and spent many hours
dosing two thousand hoggets with blue-stone and mustard. The
incident of the day before had completely gone out of my mind;
and even if I had remembered it the occasion hardly offered much
opportunity for sentiment over a shot zebra, with so many sheep


320
DEAD MATTER IN AFRICA
waiting for their medicine in the heat and dust of the boma. I
dosed them until I was too tired to speak. Pushing the narrow
neck of the Worcester-sauce bottle into the sides of their mouths
and holding it there, while they swallowed the proper quantity of
liquid.
When at last I had finished, I mounted my pony and began riding
home. For no especial reason I selected to return by way of the
Lol-Dureto plain; I fancied perhaps that it was shorter.
I was tired and my pony was tired; oppressed by the late heat of
the African afternoon.
In a half dazed condition I noticed subconsciously that there were
a number of vultures circling about the sky before me. What is
disturbing them? I wondered. At that moment my mind received
a strange jolt and I was wide awake.
The vultures were circling over the zebra I had shot the day be-
fore; but they had not so much as plucked out her eyes, because the
stallion was still there, at her side, trotting to and fro, and furious-
ly driving away any bird that settled on the ground near his dead
mate. And as I sat on my pony watching the scene, I knew that
this untamed fantastical animal, restlessly running to and fro, in
the vivid sunshine of that tropical noon, had thrown out a challenge
against the material universe, more desperate, more beautiful, and
more convincing than any I had ever heard from pulpit or plat-
form.



TWO POEMS
BY ANDRE SPIRE
DAGMARA
Petite fille, petite fille,
Tu erres depuis hier dans mon esprit.
Tu jouais au croquet.
Je passe. Je te photographie.
Tu me surprends.
Je te dis: Je vous photographie,
Mademoiselle!
Tu reponds: oh! Monsieur!
En redressant ton cou brulé, et tu souris.
Oui, je te tiens dans ma boite magique,
Et j'emporte avec moi, pour toute ma vie,
Tes yeux noirs, tes cheveux tombants sur tes sourcils,
Ta face mince, tes dents d'arabe, ton teint d'olive,
Et ton corps souple et maigre, que peignirent mille fois
Sur des cratères d'argile rouge
Des artisans de ton pays.
Tu es fâchée, tu es fâchée fillette?
Je vais m'asseoir. Je lis. J'entends des
pas.
Tu n'as plus ton maillet; tu t'approches, cambrée.
Contre le mur chaud de l'hôtel tu t'arcboutes;
Et y graves ton nom comme un chevrier sur un hêtre.
Dagmara, Dagmara, petite grecque.
.



322
TWO POEMS
MI DI
Quand midi t'allonge à terre,
Suant,
Les oreilles bruissantes,
Au milieu des abeilles trépimant les lavandes
Et les agaves turgescents,
Au milieu des fourmis, des aiguilles de pins,
Des résines, des gommes, des seves condensées, des fleurs
écarquillées,
Et qu'à tes pieds la mer
Dort abrutie entre les rochers rouges..
Quand midi te colle à terre,
Au milieu des oiseaux engoncés, muets,
Ton linge brûlant ta peau comme le foyer d'une lentille,
La gorge sèche, la bouche sans salive,
La nuque étreinte, les yeux aveugles,
L'esprit vide.
Connais, connais ton Dieu !



DYNAMIC ARCHITECTURE
New Forms of the Future
BY HERMAN GEORGE SCHEFFAUER
M
a
ANY have been the efforts of the architect-creator of our
day to form or even formulate an architecture which might
be something greater and truer than the existing anomalies and
anachronisms. The old forms of by-gone ages and civilizations
not only survived as shells and skeletons, but they imposed them-
selves upon us tyrannically as norms and standards and dominated
all architecture with a kind of mock life. Every building erected
according to tradition became a kind of prison in which new
forms, births, and possibilities perished. And one of the great
failures of our modern civilization became monumentally visible-
the inability of our culture to produce a vital architecture, bred of
the spirit of our time, a concentration and a crystallization of the
soul of an epoch or of a people. A visitor from ancient ages would
be lost amidst our machines and the other products of our civiliza-
tion—but our buildings would still be familiar to him-poor
copies or bloodless simulacra of his own.
The sky-scraper is both an adaptation and an evolution or rather
an aggregation. It is the multiple stratification of the story, a
liberation, it is true, but almost wholly in the engineering of alti-
tude, the result of abnormal local pressure. It is the forced fruit
of financial speculation rather than artistic inspiration—it has
nothing in common with the unconscious forces that determine true
architecture. In its forms it is still pent within the trammels of
tradition. A new liberation, a new reformation becomes neces-
sary if our art of building is not to sink into greater and greater
sterility.
There have been signs of a period of transition, of hints and
prophecies in the work of such men as Olbrich, van de Velde,
Wright, Mackintosh, and Poelzig, but the entire mass was still too
rigid, too frozen to permit of the efflorescence of a new spirit of
building. Then came the war, that great destroyer of forms-


324
DYNAMIC ARCHITECTURE
a
human, national, and cultural. This meant annihilation to much
that was already lifeless and soulless. It meant freedom of space
and action for new forces, thoughts, and buried aspirations.
The war has thus brought a new vision to many a young archi-
tect in Europe. The war performed in spirit that which Marinetti
the Futurist in a ruthless anarchism of destruction longed to per-
form in actuality when he declared war against the palaces and
churches of Venice. Among those aspirants towards a new archi-
tecture who proceed most scientifically with the synthesis of new
forms, we must reckon Erich Mendelsohn. His inventions and
innovations are inspired by a great revolutionary force, by vision,
intuition, and structural logic. He exhibited a number of his
designs and models a short time ago and these aroused intense in-
terest and speculation among the architects of his own land and
their foreign colleagues.
The work of this young builder seems to point the way which
architectural development will pursue in the future. His break
with the past is definite and clear. His creations determine their
own forms out of the nature of modern building materials, out of
function, use, and expediency. From the clarity and simplicity
of their structural organization, the strength and purity of the
architectonic will which they display, and the inherent power as
expressed in their control of great masses, we obtain the impres-
sion that we are face to face here with a new conception, a new
philosophy of the feeling for space—that sixth sense all great
architects must possess.
Something of the austerity and inevitability of that law which
dominates the monuments of the great original epochs of archi-
tecture—the Greek temple and the Gothic cathedral—and decrees
that these are to be understood only in the light of their construc-
tional conditions, is visible in these new shapes. This law is
simple: the external form is to be conceived merely as flesh and
skin in relation to the structure of the skeleton.
Thus the appearance of steel as a new building material was
bound to postulate a new method of architectural expression, pre-
cisely as the architectural system of direct support and load, the
figure T as expressed in classic architecture, and of pillar and vault
as expressed in Gothic architecture, brought forth the organic
architectural form inherent in the material and the method. This
ought to be a natural and logical conclusion, after we have seen



HERMAN GEORGE SCHEFFAUER
325
how wonderfully the energies latent in iron have expressed them-
selves in mechanics, in machinery, in the means of transportation
—and in war.
It is chiefly because the possibilities of iron and steel have been
exploited in a mechanical instead of in an aesthetic sense owing to
the supremacy of the stationary or the moveable machine that the
architect has failed to take advantage of the great opportunities
presented to him by this material. He has been untrue to the very
soul of architecture and has confined himself to draping and gar-
nishing first-rate works of engineering with all kinds of nondescript
decorative lumber and non-consequentialities. He has distorted
and repressed the freedom and the “reach" of steel by crushing and
confining it within the rigid limits of some cubicular scheme or
system derived from the past.
It was necessary, as I have said, that this entire world of con-
gealed and petrified tradition be convulsed to its roots—that all
human relationships be shaken, strained, and shattered before
it could be freed from the bondage of the merely expedient and
the calculative, as well as from the tutelage of decadent efforts at
a renaissance of renaissances. The means by which enlightenment
came were brutal, mad, and ruthless, but the great cataclysm has
proved to us that architecture as a modern art must begin pre-
cisely at that point at which the nineteenth century imagined its
task had already been completed.
It is significant that Erich Mendelsohn's basic principle of a
new language and of a new liberation for architecture came to him
shortly before the great catastrophe which engulfed the hollow and
jerry-built structure of our civilization. The young architect had
-
already seen some fragments of his visions realized in steel, glass,
and concrete, and the music of new forms erect itself into a har-
monious system. These anticipations have now been overtaken
by the new tendencies and the new aspirations in all fields of in-
tellectual and spiritual activity.
The load in construction was no longer to be directly related to
the support or the pillar, but was able to distribute and diffuse it-
self over great areas, or concentrate itself on small foci. The wall
was no longer to be subject to the immutable law of the perpen-
dicular; if the architect chooses to slant a wall outward like a limb
of the V, in order to capture more sunlight, steel and concrete re-
main loyal to him. Steel and concrete give men a freedom in
a


326
DYNAMIC ARCHITECTURE
architecture almost analagous to that which nature gives to many
of her forms. Thick glass, clear or coloured, for roofs or walls
or floors, opens up unconjectured vistas of luminosity and crystal-
line splendour, causing a house to vibrate with light, to unfold like
a jewel of many forces, of dynamics and design. “Movement"
and mass are given a new significance when contemplated from
the viewpoint of Einstein's Theory of Relativity.
It will prove interesting to analyze a few of these astonishing
yet organic structures, most of them industrial.
The Aerodrome is the central unit of a large and comprehensive
plant. Here the component forms of the structure are clearly co-
ordinated—the airship halls, the hangars, and the workshops.
The construction of the central shed reveals a bold and majestic
use of the girder, giving a gesture of great liberty and power.
This earlier design of Mendelsohn's discloses an almost puritanic
use of material in relation to the skeleton of the building. The
building itself seems to resist the accretion of the slightest super-
fuity. His later designs, equally grandiose in conception, are
based upon a greater compactness, a more rounded and sculptur-
esque expression—the edifices seem eloquent of an intense and
tenacious experience. The central core of the structure or group
of structures now rises tower-like; great arches and bays surround
it and rivet themselves to the whole or mount like terraces toward
the dominant block.
In the structures of the classical historical period, the body or
bulk of the building remains entirely passive, dead masses resting
in ponderous inertness on their foundations. But in this new
architecture-as we may see in the example of the Boxing Estab-
lishment, the vertical lines and masses impart a kind of driving
force or impetus to the separate bulks and give movement to them.
The lines then flow and mount and leap higher until the entire com-
plex is given architectural activity and tension—the whole an
interplay of bending, rising, superincumbent, and protuberant
"tracts."
The architect of the future will not be limited by his material
nor cursed by the blight of mere utilitarianism. His phantasy
will not be borne down by the weight of huge ashlars nor the
breaking-point of a stone lintel or a brick arch. Material is merely
a premise, a means whereby the artist may achieve freedom, realize
his purpose, and find incentives for ever new audacities.



.
BY ERICH MENDELSOHN
AN AERODROME.


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BOXING AND PACKING ESTABLISHMENT.
BY ERICH MENDELSOHN







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BY ERICH MENDELSOHN
FACTORY FOR OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS.






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BY ERICH MENDELSOHN
THE HOUSE OF FRIENDSHIP.





HERMAN GEORGE SCHEFFAUER
327
The architect will proceed in part like the sculptor who has
made his model and is about to cast it in bronze or plaster. The
architect will shape his matrix in ribs of steel and casings of wood
and cast the children of his fancy in enduring concrete.
For ex-
ample the Factory for Optical Instruments has become an actual
monolith. We have the powerful surrounding base-rings of the
mounting or assembling shops, the turrets of brilliant glass for the
mechanical workshops in which the most delicate instruments are
made, the tracts of the staircases and elevators between the tur-
rets, the offices and mailing-rooms—the whole a live organism of
concrete, steel and glass, pulsating with the currents of modern
industry. The masses of the walls are no longer fettered to the
traditional form of a four-cornered surface-one of the faces of
an eight-cornered cube-to be cut up into doors and windows.
No, the walls themselves have become a function; their openings
are no longer limited to purposes of light, communication or ven-
tilation. The glass-bays of these towers are "gates of light,” each
an apex, a culmination, a pole to which all the other members are
subordinated.
The classic principle of load and support, as has already been
pointed out, had for its goal the balance and repose of all the
various masses. But in the structure of the future the masses are
to overcome gravity and inertia and find their centres or cores of
energy within themselves.
The examples shown here have been entirely industrial—but
the next step, the creation of the home or the sacerdotal edifice,
depends merely upon the creative instinct accepting its inspiration
from the message or the purpose of such a building. It is thus
with The House of Friendship, a crystalline, polychrome, cathe-
dral-like structure, radiant and luminous. Great Halls of the
People are to rear themselves on city summits or outlying emi-
nences, the religion of peace and international understanding is to
erect its domes. Colour in masses or in line, broad bands of white
or black or gold outlining coloured walls or crestings, as well as
a studied use of metals will serve to give a still greater vitality and
beauty to the new architecture.
The intuitive element in building plays its part here. The end
in view will always produce its own form if the architectonic in-
stinct be properly experienced, for once form in all its universality


328
"I REACHED UP FOR YOUR HEART”
has been liberated from the dark secrecies of being and becoming,
then all its inflections are but as reflexes of the same creative will
that recognizes the law and brings it into play.
It is clear that these examples are but the first tentative efforts
towards the materialization of a new architecture. Unconsciously
the rococo and the bizarre may still operate in them. They stand
in the same relation to the fully developed or final form that the
first automobile or aeroplane bore to its heirs and successors. А
pathfinder has found a way out of the architectural impasse.
In the accompanying sketches Erich Mendelsohn has merely
given visible form to his principles—these drawings are mere notes,
data, fixations of compositions suddenly conceived, not out of the
air, but as projections of definite plans. They are abstractions
which await their birth in matter.
Owing to the immense difficulties which beset the building
trades the projects upon which the young innovator is at present
engaged are few, but in these few his ideas are already emerging
triumphantly. They prove that the artist, the master-builder, is
not defunct; that the true creator need only place his ear to the
giant heart of the epoch and link himself to the chain of its energies
in order to find those forms in which the
age would
express itself.
"I REACHED UP FOR YOUR HEART—"
BY G. O. WARREN
My Love, I reached
up
for
your
heart
And broke it from your sweet, secluded tree
For fear it would not ripen there for me.
I know I hurried your faint spring,
And would not wait for summer, or fruit-fall.
I seemed to hear wild harvest voices call
Across your fields, to see your dew
Blurred by the hurrying feet of what might be
Unless your April self were plucked by me.


PARIS LETTER
February, 1921
.
!
ARIS is very
tired this winter. The Theatre has sunk so low
that to think of the matinée or evening which one had the im-
prudence to dedicate to it is like remembering an ocean voyage: sea-
sickness sets in at once.
At the Comédie Française, heroines, centenarians for the most part
(and all perforce mistresses of marshals or cabinet ministers), are
playing the tragedies of M Lavedan, doing honour to that member
of the Academy, and those of Corneille, causing that ancient intran-
sigent to blush in his tomb.
Take the three best actresses in Paris. Mme Bertha Bady who
"created" all of Bataille's works out of affection for the author
and, by a more literary inclination, declaims with genius the poems
of Baudelaire, is ill. Mme Véra Sergine, the belle-fille of the great
painter Renoir, has a talent as high-tempered and nobly popular
as the face of a Muse of the Faubourgs on a night during the Rev-
olution; she is absent on tour. More happy is Mme Eva Francis,
our only real lyric artist. Her natural pathos is never in peril of
becoming banal, and her beautiful large arms are always compos-
ing fresh gestures. She is lending a little of her forces to the same
Bataille (in l’Homme à la Rose) and reserving them all for her
favourite poet, Claudel, whose three heroic virgins, Cygne de Cou-
fontaine, Loumyir, and Pensée, she will presently embody. The
presentation in March at the only theatre where the acting is al-
ways good and often delicious, the Vieux Colombier, will be an
event, with such an interpreter of the Cycle of three generations on
which Claudel worked for ten years (l'Otage, le Pain Dur, le Père
Humilié, a single family through seventy years, and two Popes,
Pius VII and Pius IX, one off stage and the other on).
In the interest of thoroughness let us not forget to note that Mme
Sarah Bernhardt-professor of energy for a whole century--play-
ing the part of a young man at this moment, is stealing bright
splendours from the very limbo of Death, and with a desperate gift
of giving pleasure which will illumine her to the end, still finds the
secret of touching and conquering our hearts.
.



328
"I REACHED UP FOR YOUR HEART”
has been liberated from the dark secrecies of being and becoming,
then all its inflections are but as reflexes of the same creative will
that recognizes the law and brings it into play.
It is clear that these examples are but the first tentative efforts
towards the materialization of a new architecture. Unconsciously
the rococo and the bizarre may still operate in them. They stand
in the same relation to the fully developed or final form that the
first automobile or aeroplane bore to its heirs and successors. А
pathfinder has found a way out of the architectural impasse.
In the accompanying sketches Erich Mendelsohn has merely
given visible form to his principles--these drawings are mere notes,
data, fixations of compositions suddenly conceived, not out of the
air, but as projections of definite plans. They are abstractions
which await their birth in matter.
Owing to the immense difficulties which beset the building
trades the projects upon which the young innovator is at present
engaged are few, but in these few his ideas are already emerging
triumphantly. They prove that the artist, the master-builder, is
not defunct; that the true creator need only place his ear to the
giant heart of the epoch and link himself to the chain of its energies
in order to find those forms in which the age would express itself.
"I REACHED UP FOR YOUR HEART"
BY G. O. WARREN
My Love, I reached up for your heart
And broke it from your sweet, secluded tree
For fear it would not ripen there for me.
1
1
I know I hurried your faint spring,
And would not wait for summer, or fruit-fall.
I seemed to hear wild harvest voices call
Across your fields, to see your dew
Blurred by the hurrying feet of what might be
Unless your April self were plucked by me.


PARIS LETTER
February, 1921
PARIS is very tired this winter.
a
The Theatre has sunk so low
that to think of the matinée or evening which one had the im-
prudence to dedicate to it is like remembering an ocean voyage : sea-
sickness sets in at once.
At the Comédie Française, heroines, centenarians for the most part
(and all perforce mistresses of marshals or cabinet ministers), are
playing the tragedies of M Lavedan, doing honour to that member
of the Academy, and those of Corneille, causing that ancient intran-
sigent to blush in his tomb.
Take the three best actresses in Paris. Mme Bertha Bady who
"created” all of Bataille's works out of affection for the author
and, by a more literary inclination, declaims with genius the poems
of Baudelaire, is ill. Mme Véra Sergine, the belle-fille of the great
painter Renoir, has a talent as high-tempered and nobly popular
as the face of a Muse of the Faubourgs on a night during the Rev-
olution; she is absent on tour. More happy is Mme Eva Francis,
our only real lyric artist. Her natural pathos is never in peril of
becoming banal, and her beautiful large arms are always compos-
ing fresh gestures. She is lending a little of her forces to the same
Bataille (in l'Homme à la Rose) and reserving them all for her
favourite
poet, Claudel, whose three heroic virgins, Cygne de Cou-
fontaine, Loumyir, and Pensée, she will presently embody. The
presentation in March at the only theatre where the acting is al-
ways good and often delicious, the Vieux Colombier, will be an
event, with such an interpreter of the Cycle of three generations on
which Claudel worked for ten years (l'Otage, le Pain Dur, le Père
Humilié, a single family through seventy years, and two Popes,
Pius VII and Pius IX, one off stage and the other on).
In the interest of thoroughness let us not forget to note that Mme
Sarah Bernhardt professor of energy for a whole century--play-
ing the part of a young man at this moment, is stealing bright
splendours from the very limbo of Death, and with a desperate gift
of giving pleasure which will illumine her to the end, still finds the
secret of touching and conquering our hearts.


330
A PARIS LETTER
The magazines aren't a bit better than the shows. All the same
we can hope for happy effects from the singular things which are
happening to some of the most important of them. Like fresh-
water hydras, they are being cut in half and the two parts at once
begin to wriggle and to live.
It is by this process that La Revue Hebdomadaire (which only
recently printed an edition of thirty-five thousand copies and was
the most widely read review in France) is, while it remains the
Revue Hebdomadaire, becoming La Revue de la Semaine: more
virtuous in this new form but a little less Catholic; however both
of them rest blessed by the Pope and by the representative of the
King in France: M Leon Daudet-proving that the sleeping bour-
geoisie of France is still tenderly attached to the institutions of the
Past.
These two organs are divided by personalities alone. The for-
mer director and the former secretary-both editors-in-chief at
present-M Laudet and M Le Grix, engaged in an attempt to poi-
son one another and, in spite of the efforts of their mutual friends,
among whom Mme de Noailles manœuvres with much charm, have
not yet renounced their fell design; a drama of passion at which
all Paris assists, in awe.
Sweeter and more suggestive is the division of La Revue de
Paris. Its new half will begin to burgeon in March, with M Mar-
cel Prévost-of whom nothing remains to be said; the directors
will be M Paul Bourget, the greatest financial-literary success in
France; M Bédier, historian and epic poet in one, the admirable
author of Tristan et Yseult; and the clou” on this half, which will
be called Revue de France, will be M Pierre Benoît's new novel,
Le Lac Salé (devoted to the customs of the Mormons).
The old Revue de Paris has had rare good luck. It has retained
the more venerable of its two directors, M Lavisse, the celebrated
historian who was for several generations an impassioned preacher
and prophet at the Sorbonne; and it has discovered an intelligent
man, M André Chaumeix, who is at the same time editor-in-chief
of the Débats and was lately concerned in the Florentine tragedy
of the Revue Hebdomadaire. At once-a thing unheard of in the
annals of our great reviews for twenty years—he dared to call in
the most distinguished of the young novelists, M Alexandre Ar-
noux (La Nuit de Saint Barnabe), M Louis Chadourne (Terre de


ANDRE GERMAIN
331
Chanaan, a novel composed last year on the banks of the Orinoco
and in the latitude of the Antilles), and finally he has acquired the
new novel (Suzanne et le Pacifique) by Jean Giraudoux, of the
lacy-hands and spirit like a foil, the perfect dandy of our days,
whom having seen, America so justly loves.
The young
reviews continue to be innumerable and insignificant.
Between them and the great established reviews there are two de-
voted to letters, La Nouvelle Revue Française, to the austerity of
which due homage has been rendered, and Les Ecrits Nouveaux
(chez Emile-Paul) of which more may have to be said some time.
I must speak now of the two different explosions which have
alone wakened Paris from its weariness. On one side there is the
increasingly rumbling (and increasingly noticed) activity of the
Dadaists (last night at the varnishing for the Exposition of the
most fauve of them all, the painter-poet Picabia, they were like
puppies barking around a carved bone as they surrounded Jean
Cocteau, dressed in a high-hat à la Murger; they are preparing
various atrocities to annoy M André Gide, to charm Princess Soutzo
and Princess Lucien Murat, and to affright the French bourgeoisie
which is sad enough already with its uncertain income). On the
other side of the world, the last fires of Olympus attacking the
too lively lights of Montmartre—the new efflorescence of Mme de
Noailles, whose Forces Eternelles has just come off the press.
ANDRÉ GERMAIN


DUBLIN LETTER
February, 1921
>
T:
HE peculiarity of Irish authors is that they seem to be no
wiser than their public. The notion that one man may be
wiser than his fellows, that an individual may receive the gift of a
novel and great idea, is foreign to the atmosphere of Irish litera-
ture. The Irish writer, to a remarkable degree, derives his ideals
from the Irish demos. And the Why is plain as way to parish
church. Irish nationality, as interpreted by the writers of the
“Literary Renascence,” is an ideal entity: the real Irish nation,
though it may differ as much from the romantic Ireland of
song
and story as did Queen Elizabeth personally from the Gloriana
of her courtiers and poets, is Catholic Ireland, which preserves a
deep and unalterable conviction that there is no true Ireland out-
side itself. The Lost Sheep of the House of Israel, the Anglo-
Irish, have hitherto represented Ireland to the world, and as it
turns out, have misrepresented it. How indeed could the Anglo-
Irish, without a religion and never even quite sure of a country-a
race as naturally cosmopolitan as the Graeco-Roman Jews, and to
which the Union opened out its natural destiny in the far-flung
British Empire-become the interpreters of that immobile and
exclusive tradition? Their romantic treatment of reality was
from the first an offence: for the Anglo-Irish of the nineteenth
century had the genial notion of treating the whole matière
d'Irlande romantically. Infatuated mortals! As well might the
Graeco-Roman Jews have had the notion of treating romantically
the Babylonian Captivity. American and English collectors of
.
Anglo-Irish literature should be warned that the bulk of this liter-
ature is uncanonical.
It would be an amusing exercise to draw up the true canon of
modern Irish literature, but only amusing, for a canon is deter-
mined in the light of events, when the false prophets have been
sifted from the true, and the fires of poetry have burned through
the changing tastes of four or five generations. Perhaps, after all,
Anglo-Irish literature, interrupted and disorganized by the events


JOHN EGLINTON
333
a
of 1916, had a vision of the truer Ireland, to which Irish literature
will yet return; but it was inevitable, while the inner and exclusive
Ireland remained preoccupied with the language-question, that
Anglo-Irish literature should never feel fully entitled to speak
directly in its name. Since 1916 however a number of writers
have appeared who speak with a new note of confidence out of the
heart of the formerly tongue-tied nationality. Of these the ablest
perhaps is the militantly Catholic Mr Aodh de Blácam, whose
mood may be described as one of genial bitterness: you have to
accept the doctrine which he preaches in its extreme form, that
Catholic Ireland is nothing less than the Peculiar People of the
modern world, before you can be diverted or instructed by his
undoubted sprightliness and culture. One wonders in reading
Holy Romans, the story in which he tells of a young London Irish-
man who returns to the land and to the faith of his fathers, whether
the interest is not autobiographical; for it is generally the convert
who takes so much delight as he in defaming the religion from
which, like his hero, he may happen to have escaped. Grant his
assertion that “Protestant people want nationality at less than cost
price, and they never get the real article”; grant that the New
Jerusalem is being built somewhere in the West of Ireland; and
perhaps your feelings will suffer no jar in reading of saintly old
men and generous young visionaries manufacturing bombs and
concerting assassination in the heart of London. Somehow how-
ever those who have been used to reading of such doings in the
good-humoured world of Mr Chesterton's detective-stories, will
find the biblical unction imparted to them by Mr de Blácam a
little frightening.
A far more considerable novelist, though not possessed of so
briskly-tripping a pen as Mr de Blacam, is Mr Daniel Corkery, a
writer of growing importance in Irish literature. The student of
human nature in Ireland frequently catches a glimpse, amongst
those who used to be called the "peasantry,” of strange enigmatic
types, who give a hint for a short narrative or drama. It is never
quite enough to go on with, or to elaborate into a life-story or
romance: short violent tales of a folk which these Catholic writers
naturally know far more intimately than any Anglo-Irish writer
who has preceded them, are perhaps the most distinctive product of
recent Irish literature. The masterpiece in this kind is probably


334
DUBLIN LETTER
The Weaver's Grave, by the late Seumas O'Kelly; and Mr Cork-
ery, in A Munster Twilight and in The Hounds of Banba, often
rises to a quiet mastery in this form of art. On the other hand, a
work written with so much skill and power of observation as The
Threshold of Quiet-a long story—was almost a demonstration
that this inner and exclusive Catholic Ireland is not a rich enough
field for a novel of human life at the full. How can we interest
ourselves in the dim psychology of a handful of helpless people
when we feel that all the tragedy would lift if one of them should
go out into the morning woods and conceive a glorious idea?
Mother Nature enfolds Cork City with divine allurements, but no
one thinks of doing so.
In The Hounds of Banba all is changed, and the "quiet despera-
tion” of The Threshold of Quiet is now the desperate resolution of
gunmen. Someone appears to have conceived an idea, but it is
not an idea which has come out of the morning woods or which
makes one man wiser than his fellows. It is nothing more or less
than the sombre idea of Catholic Ireland, embodied in the quatrain
of the old Irish poet translated by Mr Corkery:
“Life conquereth still: as dust the whirlwinds blow-
Alexander and Caesar and all their power and due!
Tara is grass, and Troy itself lieth low-
It may be that Death will find the English too!"
This idea, which from century to century issues out of the bog-
lands in the semblance of a ravening dragon, might seem a chal-
lenge to the fated sword of some Irish Siegfried of the Literary
Renascence, the champion of a liberating culture, but for its power
of transforming itself in the intervals into the likeness of a beauti-
ful woman, Kathleen ni Houlahan, the common muse of Anglo-
Irish literature and of the inner and exclusive Catholic Ireland.
The situation is a difficult one, and the facts would seem to suggest
that the dragon is really an enchanted princess, herself pining to be
delivered from these agonistic transformations. Whence will the
Deliverer come? From the old Irish culture which clings to the
ancient language and traditions, or from musings in the morning
woods of the modern world?
It is scarcely surprising, in the present national mood of almost


JOHN EGLINTON
335
religious exaltation, that certain visionaries have begun to fore-
tell a kind of Irish Messiah. They appear to take for granted that
he will come of Gaelic stock, feeling justified, I suppose, in ignor-
ing to this extent the lesson of human experience, that fixed precon-
ceptions are liable to disappointment. Perhaps he will come as a
jester, causing a ripple of oblivious laughter to pass over the
countenance of the Ireland of Sorrows: a whimsical Cachullin of
whose beneficent prowess Mr James Stephens might in his extreme
old age be the devout St John.
JOHN EGLINTON


BOOK REVIEWS
!
THE SACRED WOOD
The Sacred Wood. By T. S. Eliot. 155 pages. 10mo.
Alfred A. Knopf. New York. .
TH
THE Sacred Wood is a thoughtful book; its well-knit architec-
1
has "no appearance of having been thrown out of its own windows."
As a revival of enjoyment it has value, but in what it reveals as a
definition of criticism it is especially rich. The connection be-
tween criticism and creation is close; criticism naturally deals with
creation but it is equally true that criticism inspires creation. A
genuine achievement in criticism is an achievement in creation; as
Mr Eliot says, “It is to be expected that the critic and the creative
artist should frequently be the same person.” Much light is
thrown on the problems of art in Mr Eliot's citing of Aristotle as
an example of the perfect critic--perfect by reason of his having
the scientific mind. Too much cannot be said for the necessity in
the artist, of exact science.
What Mr Eliot says of Swinburne as a critic, one feels to be
true. “The content,” of Swinburne's critical essays “is not, in any
,
exact sense, criticism.” Nor, we agree, is it offered by Swinburne
as such; he wrote “as a poet, his notes upon poets whom he admir-
ed.” Mr Eliot allows Swinburne, perhaps, a sufficiently high
place as a poet; to imply that he does not, is to disregard the posi-
tively expressed acceptance of his genius; nevertheless, in the course
of the essay on Swinburne as Poet, he says, "agreed that we do not
(and I think that the present generation does not) greatly enjoy
Swinburne," et cetera. Do we not? There is about Swinburne
the atmosphere of magnificence, a kind of permanent association
of him with King Solomon "perfumed with all the powders of the
merchants, approaching in his litter”—an atmosphere which is not
destroyed, one feels, even by indiscriminate browsing--and now in
his verse as much as ever, as Swinburne says of the Sussex seaboard,


MARIANNE MOORE
337
"you feel the sea in the air at every step.” There is seeming sever-
ity in stripping a poet of his accepted paraphernalia and bringing
him forth as he is, but in the stanza from Atalanta:
“Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time with a gift of tears;
Grief with a glass than ran
.
is it not undeniable, as Mr Eliot says, that “it appears to be a tre-
mendous statement, like statements made in our dreams; when we
wake up we find that the 'glass that ran' would do better for time
than for grief, and that the gift of tears would be as appropriately
bestowed by grief as by time?" True, Swinburne "is concerned
with the meaning of the word in a peculiar way: he employs, or
rather 'works,' the word's meaning.” The “flap of wings and fins”
in him—to quote from A Cameo, is very apparent. As for “the
word” however, invariably used by him as a substitute for "the ob-
ject,” is it always so used ? “When you take to pieces any verse
of Swinburne,” says Mr Eliot, "you find always that the object
was not there~-only the word.” What of
“The sea slow rising
the rocks that shrink,
the fair brave trees with all their flowers at play?”
One of the chief charms, however, of Mr Eliot's criticism is that
in his withholding of praise, an author would feel no pain. But
when his praise is unmixed, the effect is completely brilliant as in
the opening paragraphs of the essay on Ben Jonson. In his pro-
found appreciation of the genius of Jonson, Mr. Eliot is perhaps
more revealing than in any other of the studies in this volume and
is entirely convincing in his statement that Ben Jonson is not
merely the “man of letters” but is the “literary artist,” who if
played now, would attract thousands. The eminent robustness of
Jonson appears in the lines from The Silent Woman, which Mr
Eliot quotes:



338
THE SACRED WORD
“They shall all give and pay well, that come here,
If they will have it; and that, jewels, pearl,
Plate, or round sums to buy these. I'm not taken
With a cob-swan or a high-mounting bull,
As foolish Leda and Europa were;
But the bright gold, with Danaë. For such price
I would endure a rough, harsh Jupiter,
Or ten such thundering gamesters, and refrain
To laugh at 'em, till they are gone, with my much suffering.”
One recognizes the truth of the statement that Jonson's "skill is
not so much skill in plot as skill in doing without a plot" and that
“what holds the play together is a unity of inspiration that radiates
into plot and personages alike.” The distinction made in Ben Jon-
son's case between brilliance of surface and mere superficiality, is
well made. As Mr Eliot notes, the liveliness of Fletcher and
Massinger covers a vacuum, whereas the superficies of Jonson is
solid; "the superficies is the world.” Could the victim of an all-
conspiring luxury inspire a thorn more commensurate with him-
self than:
"I will have all my beds blown up, not stuft;
Down is too hard; and then, mine oval room
Fill’d with such pictures as Tiberius took
From Elephantis, and dull Aretine
But coldly imitates. Then, my glasses
Cut in more subtle angles, to disperse
And multiply the figures, as I walk ...
.
“He did not get the third dimension, but he was not trying to get
it.”
In these studies it is interesting to note that truth is to the author
a fundamental attraction. He defines the strangeness of Blake as
"merely a peculiar honesty, which in a world too frightened to be
honest, is peculiarly terrifying.”
He says:
"And this honesty never exists without great technical accom-
plishment. Being a humble engraver, he had no journalistic-social
career open to him, nothing to distract him from his interests, and



MARIANNE MOORE
339
he knew what interested him and presents only the essential—only
what can be presented and need not be explained. He was naked,
and saw man naked, and from the centre of his own crystal. He
approached everything with a mind unclouded by current opinions.
There was nothing of the superior person about him. This makes
him terrifying.”
Blake's humanly personal approach to any subject that he treat-
ed, preserves him to us; he is a greener figure to the eye
than Dante.
It is not personal transcendence; it is as Mr Eliot observes, the com-
bination of philosophy, theology, and poetry, which makes Dante
strong and symmetrical. A conclusion with regard to Dante which
has been largely held no doubt by many, is accurately expressed by
Mr Eliot when he says that “Dante, more than any other poet, has
succeeded in dealing with his philosophy in terms of something
perceived." We enjoy, furthermore, the critic's ability to separate
the specious from the sound when he says apropos of Landor's fail-
ure to understand Francesca: "Francesca is neither stupefied nor
reformed; she is merely damned; and it is a part of damnation to
experience desires that we can no longer gratify. For in Dante's
Hell souls are not deadened, as they mostly are in life; they are
actually in the greatest torment of which each is capable.”
Although Swinburne was not as Mr Eliot says he was not,
“tormented by the restless desire to penetrate to the heart and mar-
row of a poet,” it is apparent that Mr Eliot is. In his poetry, he
seems to move troutlike through a multiplicity of foreign objects
and in his instinctiveness and care as a critic, he appears as a com-
plement to the sheen upon his poetry. In his opening a door upon
the
past and indicating what is there, he recalls the comment made
by Swinburne upon Hugo:
.
“Art knows nothing of death; all that ever had life in it,
has life in it for ever; those themes only are dead which never were
other than dead. No form is obsolete, no subject out of date, if
the right man be there to rehandle it.”
MARIANNE MOORE



THE LAST STAND
THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. By Edith Wharton.
365 pages. D. Appleton and Company. New York.
IN CHANCERY. By John Galsworthy. 12m0. 373 pages.
Charles Scribner's Sons. New York.
SHOULD hate to prejudice any one against these two novels
by suggesting that their significance is, in chief, due to the kinds
of fiction they are not. Mrs Wharton and Mr Galsworthy have
returned, as at a signal, to the work which God intended them to
do: the work of The House of Mirth and not of The Fruit of the
Tree or of Summer; the work of The Man of Property and not of
Beyond and of Saint's Progress. That means, above all, that both
these books are interesting, capable of giving satisfaction to the in-
telligent. Mr Galsworthy's book is another in the Forsyte Saga;
Mrs Wharton's is a companionpiece, in theme and treatment, to
James' Portrait of a Lady; both of them are exceedingly well writ-
ten, written precisely in the style of the earlier works; both are
evocations of the past, and in each the author is avowedly outside,
a generation beyond, the social scene presented.
The difference between them is the difference between a family
group (however mordant, however real) and a group of family
)
portraits. The distribution of Mr Galsworthy's interest, his com-
position and proportion, are all faulty because, essentially, he has
only created Soames Forsyte, his protagonist, by enlargement with-
out proportion. Soames is not real, and no amount of building
up the Forsyte background will give him actuality. Whereas Mrs
Wharton's gentleman, Newland Archer, is essentially right and the
social scene from which he emerges has exactly the same reality,
though it is infinitely more detailed, as that of the Val d'Arno in a
hundred Florentine portraits of the Renaissance. Mrs Wharton,
whatever she intended, became interested in character; and the slips
and errors of her novel do not detract in the slightest degree from
the psychological accuracy of her creations. Mr Galsworthy is really
done with the individual Forsytes: he is interested now in that


GILBERT SELDES
341
House, he is writing a social history of England. He has more
humour and, thank Heaven, less pity, than before. He is sufficient,
satisfactory. These are not harsh words. Mrs Wharton has still
the old trick of concentration; her toxins and her tonics are equally
essentialized. Even in her worst work, I do not know a single
episode which has been diluted. That is why, I understand, Mrs
Wharton is supposed to deal only negatively with the passions.
I have never felt myself cheated by her in that way; the renuncia-
tion, and the frustration of purpose, which are prime elements in
her fiction, are so passionately and so intensely tragic as to be al-
most unbearable. They are hardly less than a tribute to the un-
attainable joy of fulfilment.
What concerns me most is not the separate value of these novels
in themselves. They impress me rather gallantly as the last stand
of the old order of novelists. When Mrs Wharton and Mr Gals-
worthy betrayed their talents (or, let us say, had an off year) they
did not utilize their weakness by experimenting in fiction. (They
actually wrote very bad magazine stories in part, and did war work
of various sorts.) If one has written novels rather finely in one
tradition it is probably perilous to try another. There was the
documentary fashion-it is almost the manner of the younger
English novelists and is becoming our own—the manner of say
Romain Rolland and Compton Mackenzie; or that of May Sin-
clair's Romantic, of Winifred Bryher's Development; of Dorothy
Richardson; of James Joyce. The art of the novel is going
through its private Sturm und Drang; it will never be as it has
been and one is tempted to impatience with those who practise it in
the least exciting of its forms. Unfairly tempted, because their
form-especially Mrs Wharton's adaptation of it-has not only
its place, but a definite freshness and validity.
It is, in brief, the novel as written by Henry James—the novel
which is composed, with a definite centre of interest, a defined pro-
gression in scenes, a planned incidence of stress: it is the novel in
which everything that has bearing must be put in and everything
else must be left out. It is, I suppose, the art-novel. If
as I do, that that is the method which gives the highest degree of
satisfaction, which gives the sense of life at its most vivid and the
sense of beauty at its most profound, you will be glad that its
enormous difficulties have not deterred Mrs Wharton from clinging
you find,


342
THE LAST STAND
to it, and you will rejoice in the felicities which the method allows
her. No doubt, the novel of the immediate future will not be cast
in this mould. No doubt that writers of far less delicacy than Mr
Galsworthy will attempt it and, in a way, belittle it. I am in-
clined to think that it will remain—not as a dead formula, but as
a living, a classic, form. For I have never heard it assailed except
on the ground that it is not realistic, not true to life, not in keeping
with the spirit of our time. And that objection, I am afraid, will
have to be over-ruled as irrelevant.
GILBERT SELDES


1
ORCHESTRAL POETRY
The HOUSE OF Dust. By Conrad Aiken. 12m0. 148
House
pages. The Four Seas Company. Boston.
III
а
F it is true that all the arts strive towards the conditions of music,
it is also true that the art of poetry most closely approaches
chamber music. Only recently have the poets begun to realize the
possibilities of a medium which, to the lyric intensities of a Richard
Strauss, can add the contrapuntal sonorities of a César Franck.
John Gould Fletcher in his Black and Gold, and Green, and Violet,
and Scarlet Symphonies, Amy Lowell in her poetic transcription of
Strawinsky, and finally Conrad Aiken, are all alive to the subtler
and richer qualities which music offers. Alfred Kreymborg and
Ezra Pound talk about the use of musical notation. Poets diverg-
ent in spirit and in method are at least united in an effort to squeeze
the last fragrant drop out of the glowing orange of aesthetic syn-
thesis.
There are certain clear difficulties, and some not so clear. Poet-
ry that is a mere imitation of music is dull, even if it may not be
banal. Poetry that seeks to discover and transmute in accepting
the general laws of musical composition may widen its own horizons
without trespass. So Conrad Aiken writes a symphony.
Curiously enough, The House of Dust is synthetic in its mu-
sical aspect, but eclectic in its aspect as a poem. Aiken states his
theme, embroiders upon it in lovely variations, states other minor
,
themes, passes from largo to scherzo, from scherzo to adagio, re-
turns in his coda to the theme with which he opened. But for all
the charm, one is recurrently arrested and disturbed by something
too familiar in the melody, and sometimes it is as though one forgot
the author of the symphony in listening to the “assisting artist":
T. S. Eliot. Nor does it much damage the charge of eclecticism
to find that among the poets whom Conrad Aiken echoes is one,
Conrad Aiken. If Prufrock is here, so too is Senlin, and there are
even atavistic traces of Earth Triumphant. It cannot be mere
chance that offers such comparisons as these:


344
ORCHESTRAL POETRY
From House of Dust,
“We sit at tables and sip our morning coffee,
We read the papers for tales of lust or crime.
The door swings shut behind the latest comer.
We set our watches, regard the time.”
From Eliot's Portrait of a Lady,
•
“_Let us take the air in a tobacco trance,
Correct our watches by the public clocks.
Then sit for half an hour and drink our bocks .....
“You will see me any morning in the park
Reading the comics and sporting page.
Particularly I remark
An English countess goes upon the stage,
A Greek was murdered at a Polish dance
From House of Dust,
"Sometimes, I say, I'm just like John the Baptist-
You have
my head before you ... on a platter."
From Eliot's Prufrock,
“Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald)
brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet, and here's no great matter.”
From House of Dust,
“I watch
my silver thoughts ascending;
Saying now this, now that, hinting of all things,-
Dreams, and desires, velleities, regrets."
From Eliot's Portrait,
"And so the conversation slips
Among velleities and carefully caught regrets.


BABETTE DEUTSCH
345
It is not the mere phrasal repetition which one remarks, but rather
the insistence upon a certain attitude, the harking back to a sad,
vague, somewhat amused disillusion, as though Aiken had caught
from Eliot not a trick of thought, but a trick, when the thought
came, of lifting his eyebrows in the same way. There is indeed
one passage which might serve as the story of the author's literary
adventures, concluding with the delicate "mauve” which must be
caviar to the general:
"... You tried, as I remember,
One after one, strange cults, and some, too, morbid,
The cruder first, more violent sensations,
Gorgeously carnal things, conceived and acted
With splendid animal thirst. ... Then, by degrees,-
Savoring all more delicate gradations
In all that hue and tone may play on flesh,
Or thought on brain,--you passed, if I may say so,
From red and scarlet through morbid greens to mauve.”
It is odd to consider that the poet whose first book was so clearly
influenced by the earlier Masefield should in this most recent vol-
ume be obviously indebted to Eliot.
This is not to presume that the House of Dust is simply a history
of influences. As was noted above, Aiken echoes Aiken. The meta-
physical preoccupation which distinguished Senlin, beyond its
purely psychological import, is patent here as well. But here it is
touched with a philosophy of aesthetics which is at once controver-
sial and fascinating. It may be summed up in a passage toward
the end of the poem, which serves also as a key to its title:
"We are like searchers in a house of darkness,
A house of dust; we creep with little lanterns,
Throwing our tremulous arcs of light at random,
Now here, now there, seeing a plane, an angle,
An edge, a curve, a wall, a broken stairway
Leading to who knows what; but never seeing
The whole at once We grope our way a little,
And then grow tired. No matter what we touch,
Dust is the answer-dust: dust everywhere.
If this were all—what were the use, you ask?
.


346
ORCHESTRAL POETRY
But this is not: for why should we be seeking,
Why should we bring this need to seek for beauty,
To lift our minds, if there were only dust ?"
a
This hints both at the poet's philosophy and at his fault. The
supreme fault of this book is its beauty. The quoted passage is
itself a quotation from a letter. But “the need to seek for beauty"
is so self-evident on every page, in every singing line, that it belies
its quotation marks. Again and again Aiken is betrayed by his
sense of melody into forgetting the use of dissonance. It is as
though he tried to convey the majesty of Beethoven by the charm
of Schubert.
The final impression of the book is that of a hopeful experiment.
The author has attempted something not too large for him to han-
dle, but which he has not yet fully apprehended. There is a rich
quality about the whole, and it is almost continually lovely. In
spite of his fond eclecticism, Aiken is unique. But his emphasis
should be rather upon his own peculiar individual vision, nor
should he cover with melody the ugliness whose beauty he clearly
recognizes.
BABETTE DEUTSCH


i
POETRY AND THE PROFESSORS
A STUDY OF Poetry. By Bliss Perry. 12m0. 396 pages.
Houghton Miflin Company. Boston.
The Kinds Of Poetry and Other Essays. By John Ers-
kine. 12mo. 186 pages. Duffield and Company. New
York.
PROFESSOR PERRY'S
book is inaccurately named. His
.
observations on poetry are confined almost exclusively to the
metrical aspect of the art, and in making this arbitrary limitation
he should have chosen a title consistent with the text. By avoiding,
to a large extent, analysis of the intransigent rhythms of prose, he
has not imperilled his critical position among the schoolmasters, and
he has permitted himself to discuss Free Verse with admirable con-
descension. Not in a long time has a volume come forth so com-
prehensive in its knowledge of other men's ideas, and so exasper-
atingly deficient in its own; it is written with ripe academic deli-
cacy, shows wide scholarship, is rich in apposite quotations, and
yet it is committed to no opinions that will hinder its adoption by
English teachers. The book is a digest of all the doctrine pertain-
ing to poetry; the author's love for his subject, both sustained and
sensible, will appeal to beginners; and though the last chapters
dwindle down into pedantry, A Study of Poetry is indisputably the
best student's manual that has yet been published.
Philosophically the book is neutral. Professor Perry enters the
field heavily armed, appears, now in one cause, now in another, and
swears allegiance to no one, unless we except Croce whom he does
not thoroughly understand. The exposition of the processes of
poetic creation stated as “impression, transforming imagination
and expression” is a summary of the famous Italian's aesthetic,
and while it is, in a measure, final, it is by no means applicable to
art alone, and in the present case would have to be systematically
directed to be of much importance. Philosophic idealism such as
Croce's, itself borders closely upon art, and is for this very reason
a dangerous medium for interpreting the essential meaning of


348
POETRY AND THE PROFESSORS
Form so
poetry, but the one dominating idea propounded so brilliantly by
the Italian bears upon the problem with becoming emphasis.
Croce postulates as inseparable the meaning, that is, the signifi-
cance, and the form of art. When one subscribes in a general
way to the underlying principles of Expressionism one should
naturally accept its central argument, and Professor Perry's con-
tinual allusions to poetry as an idea dressed up in a form are
somewhat shocking. With all its faults the theory of Expres-
sionism arrives at truth when it establishes the artist as the mani-
pulator of forms which have their own significance, when form
and content coincide, when the meaning of the artistic fact is
indissolubly associated with the expressive material.
regarded is, of course, subjectivistic, and exists apart from tech-
nique which serves only as a means of presentation. Thus the
form of a poem is merely externalized by the technique of metre
-its rhythm is more fundamental than the accuracies of periodic
beats.
The basic rhythm of all the arts is the same. In painting and
sculpture it may be defined as an accented series of bulk forms
or contours so proportioned that the observer feels the sequence
and is impelled from one part of the object to another easily and
without need of intellectual effort. No law has been discovered
by which a sequence of this sort can be produced, but there is a
device, analogous to the metrics of poetry, whereby the action and
reaction of variant lines may result in a pattern which assists
the movement of the rhythm, in either two or three dimensions.
This device, however, without the significant formal proportion-
ments of genius ends in a chain of monotonous repetitions. Rhythm
in the profounder sense is something far more important than
exact alternations, and in some of its strongest manifestations,
the canvasses of El Greco, for instance, even approximate peri-
odicity is entirely disregarded, and no two shapes follow definitely
the same direction of movement. Divested of individual charac-
teristics it is true that all the forms are related mathematically
to a point of equilibrium, but at the same time, they appear
when so abstracted to be frozen and lifeless, and to lose their
rhythm in everything but name. The proportionment of un-
usual and personal accents which allow an unlimited range of
temperamental distinctions in values is the first requisite of a
rhythm that is more than a simple time or space pattern. It has


THOMAS JEWELL CRAVEN
319
been proved irrefragably that no two persons approach a work
of art, or are affected rhythmically by it, in an identical man-
ner, though both may feel its order and recognize on analysis the
relation of the constituent elements. Laws of pattern-designing
can be laid down with precision, but the rhythm of a plastic com-
position depends entirely on the genius of the artist who, by
force of feeling and acute intellectual discernment, juxtaposes
harmoniously the varying phases of his experience and makes
his work live and flow to a stronger beat than that of mathematical
progression.
Professor Perry does not penetrate the subtleties of the poetry
embodied in prose-he discourses of feet and stanzas, where his
knowledge is large and secure. The rhythm of poetry, while cap-
able of reinforcement by metrical divisions, lies beyond these
mechanical relations. As in the other arts it is a problem of ac-
centuations so disposed that a sequence is felt even when the in-
tegral parts are individualized to the point where the metrical
accuracy is undone. When the imaginative Auctuations transcend
completely all recognized syllabic schemes, verse disappears--but
the poetry remains in prose. The co-ordination of what may be
termed emotional forms, the massing of words into fluid groups
which, by the union of sound and sense, induce certain feeling-
attitudes, constitutes the interior rhythm that distinguishes poetry
from verse. The rhythm has no more need of exact conformity
with the regularity of metrical stress than have the highly indi-
vidualized forms in painting with the geometrical pattern upon
which they are imposed. Sometimes a line of verse defines a
rhythmic unit; more often the flow is from line to line and from
stanza to stanza, here spending its force in the middle of a verse,
there breaking a poetic foot to achieve a full stop. The regula-
tion of the cadences rests with the reader; no two persons respond
to the movement in the same fashion—this is easily shown when
a poem is rendered aloud, but everyone in reading is conscious of
a succession of feeling-attitudes from which emotional satisfac-
tion is derived. Poe understood this in his advocacy of the short
poem; he maintained that after a limited period the rhythm de-
generated into the deadening monotony of fixed stresses.
Professor Perry approaches Free Verse with a Laodicean smile.
He is interested in it--no one with his unbounded reverence for
poetry could be otherwise, but it is the interest one takes in a new


350
POETRY AND THE PROFESSORS
toy of ingenious contrivance, the tender toleration of the old man
for the vagaries of youth. He relegates it to the "neutral zone,”
that fugitive borderland between verse and prose which has never
been successfully defined. Unfortunately this vigorous movement,
like the kindred heresy in painting, has been argued beyond all
intelligibility by a maze of technical irrelevancies. The name itself
is misleading: it were better called Free Poetry. As Wordsworth
said, “The only strict antithesis to prose is metre," and metre from
one viewpoint implies bondage. Since there can be no verse with-
out metre it is hard to justify the contradictory title. There is, of
course, no essential difference between the rhythm of prose and the
rhythm of verse; both are raised to the dignity of poetry when
charged with imaginative expression. Milton was aware of this,
and Sidney as well, and Shelley's utterances on the question are so
pregnant with psychological sense that they really foreshadow
modern aesthetics. Whether verse is a better medium for poetic
thought than prose is an open question; to the present time men
have preferred the assistance of uniform stress; if the insurgents
of to-day are encumbered by the fetters of metre there is no possible
reason against their use of prose, or of a vehicle that partakes of
prose in one part and of verse in another. But there is no "neutral
ground.” The instant Free Verse assumes an arrangement of
words in which the recurrence of stress approximates a pattern it
becomes metrical, whether more or less regular makes no difference
-accent is incapable of exact formulation; when the periodic
beats are dissolved by cadences that defy scansion, then Free Verse
adopts the rhythms of prose. If the result is poetry the choice of
means has been vindicated. Those critics who label the new en-
deavours "lazy verse” or “easy verse” are wanting in acumen.
It is no easier to compose than the orthodox metres, and any one
who has ever written a line of verse knows that it is far more
difficult to evolve a passable poem in the new order than it is to
stir up one hundred and forty syllables into an impressive pudding
called a sonnet. Metre as such represents nothing; a child can
learn it; it has no more significance than the ticking of a clock,
than the pattern of cheap wall-paper.
The Free Verse movement carries with it the usual number of
impostors and eccentrics that attend every revolt in art. In this
respect it resembles modern painting. Young men and women
with nothing to say have seized upon the absurd mannerisms of


THOMAS JEWELL CRAVEN
351
English and French experimentalists, and have concocted amor-
phous medleys of erotic words which are profanely called poems:
and ignorant worshippers of Picasso have missed the import of the
remarkable Spaniard's studies, and have thrown upon canvasses a
coagulated chaos of pigment which they solemnly exhibit as art.
Happily the spurious element is rapidly perishing by its own efforts,
and the artists of genuine talent are coming to intelligent recog-
nition. The aim of Free Verse is the readjustment of form and
content, not superficially, using form to denote a mould and con-
tent the idea, but on the foundation of all the arts where form
and content become one, the objective symbol of the relation of
impressions after undergoing fusion in the imagination. In this
complex modern world new poets are rising, who, out of the un-
limited disorder of their experiences, are building a rhythmic
domain of poetry, an art close to life, bold and impetuous and
beautiful.
Professor Erskine's book is less ambitious but not less interesting.
It is a slender, sensitive work comprising four essays, three of which
first appeared in collegiate magazines, the fourth is new. Him-
self a poet, the author is equipped with creative wisdom and with
full knowledge of the poetic mind, and his English, always refined
and often beautiful, is never marred by the habit of professional-
ism. He shows finely the overlapping of the literary genres, and
the impossibility of exact definitions, and yet he reveals with ex-
quisite clarity the meaning of the kinds of poetry when the art is
considered "as an invariable function of life.” He has rare in-
sight into the aims of the new poetry, takes into account the dif-
ferences between verse and prose, and analyses the work of Mr
Masters with more intelligence than has been displayed by any
other critic. He calls attention to the similarity of the Spoon
River Anthology and the old Greek inscriptions, and commends
Mr Masters for the unity of thought which holds this collection
of epitaphs together, and which distinguishes it from the frag-
mentary poems of the Imagists.
It is hard to see how Professor Erskine could have done more
in the small compass of his book: his essay on The Teaching of
Poetry is testimony to his own eminence in this field; and his plea
for the use of native legends should be an encouragement to every
young American.
THOMAS JEWELL CRAVEN



BRIEFER MENTION
KORA IN HELL: Improvisations, by William Carlos Williams (8vo, 86
pages; Four Seas). What the doctor has made here may be less "pleas-
ing" than the sometimes perfect, sometimes rather 1914 poems of Al Que
Quiere, but one is hanged if it isn't quite as "significant." These phrases
stand on their feet or sit on their bottoms well outside the family circle.
One walks round and round the little well-born atrocities rubbing one's
hands, though not precisely with pleasure. ... For theory a severe ro-
manticism of the local-fresh tincture of the old opium, may be: “The
senses witnessing what is immediately before them in detail see a finality
which they cling to in despair, not knowing which way to turn.
so-called scientific array becomes fixed, the walking devil of modern life.
He who even nicks the solidity of this apparition does a piece of work
superior to that of Hercules when he cleaned the Augean stables.” Nicked
then, Hercules, what next?
DOMESDAY Book, by Edgar Lee Masters (8vo, 396 pages; Macmillan) is the
record of a coroner's inquest over the body of Elenor Murray. The in-
fluence of one girl's death is traced in widening circles until it has affected
people all over the country. Evidently the outline is similar to that of
La Mort de Quelqu'un; it may even have been borrowed from that source.
There is this difference however: that where Romains' novel can be judged
as great poetry, the poem by Masters can be considered only as a magni-
ficent, but badly written novel.
ANTHOLOGY OF MAGAZINE VERSE, FOR 1920, by William Stanley Braith-
waite (12mo, 182 pages ; Small, Maynard). This globule, dropped an-
nually into the literary ferment of the country, precipitates its inevitable
controversy. Whatever other raison d'être exists for the book, such as its
convenience as a reference volume, or as a pat on the back to the aspiring,
the certain flurry of debate it causes must be healthy. But as every reader
resents some omission or inclusion, and each a different one, we can dis-
miss the argument on Mr Braithwaite's discrimination as futile, and note
merely what an excellent showing the younger poets make, and also, as
with his own belabouring of asterisks, what a remarkably excellent dis-
play is credited to those magazines not reputed as "literary” or “artistic,”
but so often tartly snubbed as "commercial.”
Miser's Money, by Eden Phillpotts (12mo, 305 pages; Macmillan), sinks
its teeth into the emotional centre of a living story, handled in the deliber-
ate, craftsmanlike manner inseparable from the serious work of Phillpotts.
As the story gathers depth and power sure-footedly, so the writer's style
keeps pace, neither leaping ahead nor lagging behind. His resourceful
palette supplies colour and romance to what might otherwise be a flagging
theme.


BRIEFER MENTION
353
THE CAPTIVES, by Hugh Walpole (12mo, 464 pages; Doran) “To Ar-
nold Bennett” and of Arnold Bennett, one is reminded by the dedication
and by the quality of this new novel of Mr. Walpole's. The story is
wound up in the atmosphere, very chilly and damp, of one of those nar-
row, painful, religious sects that build chapels in remote districts of Lon-
don. But long and liberal as much of it is, a love affair which is im-
pressive serves as a brazier in the general chill and damp. The lovers
have a definite character, and their situation is arresting. But for them
one gets the impression of a sequence of elderly relatives dying more or
less shockingly, if they are not on their way to chapel.
FIFTY CONTEMPORARY ONE-Act Plays, selected and edited by Frank Shay
and Pierre Loving (8vo, 582 pages; Stewart Kidd). We can note this
book as a sign-post on how far the little-new-art-theatre-movement has
come from the regions of the precious and the amateur. There was a day
not long ago when one-act plays were always presented to us in delicate,
tinted brochures, or hid in the scented bosom of rare periodicals as love
letters in the corsage.
But with this book such childish things are put
aside; there is a donning of working clothes, a hand-to-the-spade posture
which means they've come to stay and fight for the survival in the prac-
tical world. This tome is as robust as The Collected Works of Milton or
Hints to Housewives, and stands doubtless sturdily between them on many
a bookrack. The selection of plays is liberal and discriminating, and the
necessary translations are generally well made.
A CYCLE OF Adams LETTERS—1861-1865, edited by Worthington Chauncey
Ford (illustrated, 2 vols. 8vo, 579 pages; Houghton Mifflin Company),
sheds fresh lustre upon the family name, while at the same time it admir-
ably serves to reanimate the crucial years of the Civil War. The cor-
respondence of the American minister and his two sons has the distinction
which comes from scholarship fused in men of action, and the triangular
interplay of the three keen minds—all absorbed in the same problems--
gives this collection of letters an exceptional value. They will be read
not alone for their vivid and incisive commentary on social conditions and
public questions, but for their intrinsic literary qualities and the new per-
spective which they afford on the formal biographical works--the Edu-
cation of Henry Adams and the Autobiography of Charles Francis Adams.
RUSKIN THE PROPHET, and other Centenary Studies (12mo, 157 pages; Dut-
ton). Under the capable editorship of J. Howard Whitehouse, seven
well-known authors meet within the covers of this volume to celebrate the
memory of the man who worked so hard to make art more social and
society more artistic. To that large and ever-growing class of readers to
whom John Ruskin is but a name and a legend, the essays of John Mase-
field, Laurence Binyon, H. W. Nevinson, J. A. Hobson will give refresh-
ing and often stimulating accounts of the various phases of Ruskin's work;
all the contributions, moreover, are pleasantly free of the uncritical adula-
tion usually distinguishing "memorial volumes” on our established cele-
brities. An intelligent sobriety is the chief note of this work.


354
BRIEFER MENTION
THE PASSING OF THE OLD ORDER IN EUROPE, by Gregory Zilboorg (12mo,
287 pages; Seltzer). A discussion of the Russian revolution and Soviet-
ism by the Secretary to the Ministry of Labour under the Kerensky Gov.
A good many phases of the subject are touched on, but the
main contention seems to be that Kerensky fell because he was the one
uncompromising idealist of the movement, whereas Lenin had the adapt-
ability to forgo pure theory when yapped at by the Allied wolves. This
book of deliberate judgements shows a grasp of modern international re-
lationships which may or may not be just, but is always illuminating. It
is significant to note that nationalism is the mainstay of Russia's resist-
ance, a paradox which was forced upon the Russian leaders.
BOOKPLATES, by Frank Brangwyn, R. A. (illus., 8vo, 69 pages; Lippincott),
represents a vast talent in its little-known but most artistic phase. Here
Brangwyn's love of big surfaces has been conditioned by the limited com-
pass of the wood-block; he has put aside his huge illustrative machinery
and confined himself to the rigid purity of black-and-white design, thereby
advancing an art in which England has long excelled. The drawing is
sharp and solid; there is an abundance of form in the incised outlines; and
the execution of the plates is faultless.
DESIGN AND TRADITION, by Amor Fenn (illus., 8vo, 376 pages; Scribner),
contains too much tradition. The book, which purports to give the historic
development of architecture and the applied arts, is rich in omissions; the
influence of the Orient is ignored and there is no mention of the striking
contributions of the modern schools. A manual for the student who
wishes to turn design to practical account-dry, but very thorough, and
judiciously illustrated.
A HISTORY OF JAPANESE COLOUR-Prints, by W. von Seidlitz (illus., 8vo,
222 pages; Lippincott), is an English version of a valuable book. The
author, appreciating the genius of Fenollosa, the Goncourts, and other
writers, has produced an exhaustive historic catalogue. He approaches
the oriental mind with wisdom and sanity, understands thoroughly both
periods and processes, and traces the evolution of xylographic art from the
black-and-white to the polychrome. Ninety-four reproductions are in-
cluded, all well-selected, but some badly printed, especially those in colour,
which have a garish quality entirely foreign to the originals.
LE LIVRE ET LA BOUTEILLE, by André Salmon (Camille Bloch, Paris).
The Laforgian tendency remains one of three or four strongest
in current French poetry, justifiably in so far as it has relation to modern
reality, yet the two most satisfactory Laforgians are T. S. Eliot and Jean
Cocteau who most strive against the influence; Eliot with his Marlowe-
Webster admixture and Cocteau with his ideographic psychology. In
this his fifth book of poems Salmon is acceptable, readable, polyglot, the
Museum d'Histoire Naturelle, refrain de Longfellow, orchestré pour jasz-
band and the Boulevard Anspach, are hung against the moon, “sempiter-
nelle affiche," and there is in the highly accomplished result, no apparent
struggle against the melancholy-ironic originator of the rhyme-schemes.


BRIEFER MENTION
355
ANOMALIES, par Paul Bourget. (Plon, Paris). Comme il avait découvert
une nouvelle langue, le jargon de la psychiatrie, Monsieur Paul Bourget
crut avoir découvert de nouveaux sentiments, et c'est ainsi
que
le menteur
devint le mythomane, etc.; le petit argot des observations médicales ne
suffit malheureusement pas à nous donner le change et n'arrive pas à
cacher la hâte de ce vulgarisateur à nous éblouir d'une érudition ingénue.
Il est bon de signaler au passage cette marque de sénilité chez un écrivain
médiocre, lequel fait encore illusion à quelques-uns.
ALBUM DE Vers ANCIENS (1890-1900), par Paul Valéry (A. Monnier et
Cie., Paris). Le secret de la poésie, de la pensée, du génie, vaut-il la peine
de dépenser une vie à sa recherche ? Au seuil du livre, le sourire de
l'auteur nous met en garde: n'a-t-il pas mille fois prévenu ses amis de ne
voir que des gammes dans ces essais, qui conduisirent assez promptement
leur auteur à un sincère et durable éloignement de la poésie ? L'homme le
plus mystérieux que je connaisse, Monsieur Paul Valéry sur lequel mille
gens se croient dès aujourd'hui fixés, joue une partie singulière ou ce livre
n'est qu'une pièce destinée à faire dame. Comment se contenterait-il de
cette gloire dont le bruit s'élève peu à peu à travers le monde ?
LA CONFESSION DE MInuit, par Georges Duhamel (Mercure de France,
Paris). Pour la première fois de sa vie, M Georges Duhamel a
voulu écrire un roman. Depuis la Vie des Martyrs, ce farouche unanimiste,
ce poète de tour d'ivoire, s'efforce de plaire à son public. Car M Georges
Duhamel a un public bien à lui, composé d'étudiantes mystiques, de faux
artistes, et de vieilles dames sentimentales.
Cette Confession de Minuit est faite par un pauvre diable, stupide et
méchant, envieux et lâche. Malgré tous ses efforts M Duhamel n'arrive
pas à nous intéresser aux malheurs de son héros. Il a beau tirer sur
toutes les vieilles ficelles usées, pas une seule ligne de son livre ne nous
émeut. Par contre à la lecture de presque toutes les pages on a peine à
contenir une sérieuse envie de bailler.
est
un
MADEMOISELLE Irnois, par Comte de Gobineau (Nouvelle Revue Fran-
çaise, Paris). L'absence
moyen certain de connaitre le
succès. “Cachez-vous, dira un jour quelqu'un, et l'on vous cherchera.”
Ce passe-temps, si amusant soit-il, ne peut suffire à ceux qui aiment lutter
et à ouvrir les yeux. Ces quelques pages du Comte de Gobineau permettent
de retrouver l'atmosphère énervante du premier empire. Napoléon I
faisait évanouir ces courtisans d'un regard. Singulier effet de la puissance
militaire! Autour de cette ombre végétent un pauvre homme qui, trop
riche, ignore la valeur de ce qu'il possède, une petite bossue, malade et
solitaire (Mlle Irnois) qui ne sait que mourir en commencant à vivre. Ce
récit, limpide "comme de l'eau de roche," rapide et courtois, enchante puis
désenchante le lecteur attentif. Toute l'oeuvre de Gobineau laisse cette
trace. On ne peut l'admirer complètement, on ne peut l'aimer absolument.
On abandonne ses livres sans regret, on les retrouve avec plaisir.-C'est
sans doute ce que Gobineau, dillettante passionné, voulait par dessus tout.
Emouvoir et décevoir, soupirer et sourire. On ne saurait penser à tout.


i
:
MODERN ART
man
HE pictures by “the douanier” now at last given a belated one-
show in the De Zayas Galleries vividly recall two sponsors
of this artist and both now dead-Guillaume Apollinaire of Paris
and Robert J. Coady of New York.
I met the first but once at one of those lightly arranged dinners
that were always happening in the days when tourists were thick
in Paris. An American traveller just in from Budapest with a
pocketful of introductions to "chic types” asked me to meet some
of them in one of the best restaurants on the left bank of the Seine.
There was more than the usual animation when it came to fixing
upon a menu. The carte du jour was so abominably written that
our host who was new to Paris threw himself upon our mercy and
asked us for suggestions. Immediately a hubbub arose that could
be likened now to a peace conference but which at that time had
had no parallel! A young gypsy musician, "of the female persua-
sion,” as George Borrow puts it, expressed a longing for dishes of
such startling extravagance (the restaurant was an expensive one
even before the war), that others of the guests who had been re-
cruited from the Cour de Dragon and had more modest hopes, ex-
postulated loudly, doubtless fearing that the entire "feed" would
be called off. Possibly the dinner never would have been realized
had it not been for Guillaume Apollinaire, who somehow managed
to gain the ear of one of the least inflammable of the garçons and
impressed upon this worthy's memory the details of a perfectly
gorgeous dinner which shortly began to come in.
I saw at once that he had exceptional powers but the name which
the young gypsy person whispered to me at my request meant noth-
ing to me for at that time the literature of the modern school had
not begun to cross the seas. Beyond assuring himself that the
dinner orders were exactly carried out, he said little—the young
gypsy being the dominating figure at the feast. Later in some-
body's rooms he signed a copy of his Alcools which our host pre-
sented for that purpose, and gave me a copy of his Soirées de Paris
which he was then editing. When I got home I found my copy
of the review to be entirely devoted to an appreciation of Henri


HENRY MCBRIDE
357
Rousseau, whose works I had only just that summer encountered,
and to my delight, at the Salon des Independents. Apollinaire
was at home one day a week, he amiably told me, in rooms on the
Boulevard St Germain. We had agreed on several things, among
others that the singing of the gypsy girl was disgustingly affected,
so I meant to look him up thinking we might agree some more-
but the principal reason was my curiosity in regard to Rousseau.
However, the débâcle of 1914 put an end to studio life, and Apol-
linaire marched away to the war. Long before the bit of shrapnel
sent him home to die in Paris I had learned to know his singular
force as a writer. I yielded to it sometimes when actually think-
ing the words puerile, but I yielded to the tone rather than the
words. Apollinaire spoke as one with authority, and the most
unlikely specimens in Paris took from him what they would have
taken from no one else. He was a “110i,” decidedly; the “moi,”
in fact, of the modern school.
Coady, who died last month in Brooklyn, was a great might-
have-been. He was as keen for the art of Rousseau as Apollinaire
was, and at once, upon his return from Paris, began proselytizing
for it in New York, as well as for the work of Derain, Picasso, and
the other notables of the new school. He was not an artist, how-
ever, and preached with difficulty. Besides, the local deafness,
blindness, and general obtuseness bewildered him. He at once
saw, for Paris had opened his eyes, immense possibilities for art
in America, and lavished serious praise upon the distinctly native
artists that the populace had already cottoned to in advance of the
critics, such as Bert Williams, Tom Powers, Charles Chaplin, and
the window-dressers of Broadway. He catalogued lists of desir-
able motives for artists that were as lengthly and as impressive as
certain similarly intentioned poems of Walt Whitman. But the
sluggish public that had smiled at his enthusiasm for the abstract
paintings of the modern Frenchmen laughed outright at the idea
that America could develop an art of its own. Coady died with-
out much recognition from the public. He did not die, however,
without vividly impressing his ideas upon a few of his contem-
poraries and ideas potent as his were have a vitality of their own.
I met him first in his Washington Square Gallery, attracted to
the place by a curiously worded advertisement. The pictures on
the walls were of the latest; Picassos, Derains, et cetera.
I was


358
MODERN ART
I was.
.
i
1
t
not shocked by them, but Coady, who conversed with me, suspected
He was a wiry, undersized man, excessively pugnacious
in manner. He slammed the New York critics unmercifully and
I joined in heartily. For every bad word he heaped upon the breed
I heaped two more. We got along famously, but he did not guess
my identity until he read my review in the newspaper which con-
tained a few quotations from what we both had said about critics
and a hint that I envied the cigarette-smoking and high talk that
must go on about his fireplace of an evening.
Thereupon he wrote me to join in, mentioning even all the kinds
of cigarettes that would be at my disposal. He did not quite
trust me, however, at first, but the young man's belligerency was
largely of the surface, or perhaps an armour he had assumed in pro-
tection against fools, and when I made it plain that I respected him
and desired his friendship, he melted and handed it out lavishly
as he had the cigarettes.
A Rousseau of his is in the present exhibition, a funny cow pic.
ture, but the pièce de résistance is the big Jungle, a grandiose remi-
niscence of Rousseau's stay in Mexico, with exotic monkeys peer-
ing out from the fronds of luxuriant ferns. It is extraordinarily
,
handsome, and happily it is now owned in America and can be
loaned to the Metropolitan Museum when the museum wishes.
If that precious événement were to occur soon, and it is not so un-
likely as it sounds, for things are changing fast, what laughter there
would be in Heaven from poor Coady and poor Guillaume!!
HENRY MCBRIDE


MUSICAL CHRONICLE
WH
1
E here in New York have been permitted, lately, to savour
fully the music of the young Italian symphonists. The cur-
rent season has been given a well-nigh distinguishing colour by the
increased attention bestowed by orchestras and chamber-music or-
ganizations on their works. To be sure, not all the members of the
group represented were names, merely, to our public. Some of their
compositions have been performed here in bygone years. A tri-
partite symphonic poem of Zandonai's was played several seasons
since by the New York Orchestra. Varese, in his single adventure
with the National, tried to give us Notte di maggio by Casella.
Ornstein, at Mrs Reis', played the Nove Pezzi of the same com-
poser; his sonata for cello and piano was introduced in one of
Casal's much too infrequent recitals. But this winter, due probably
quite as much to the skilful propaganda of one of their compatriots
established in American musical life, as to the fact that the number
of their compositions available for performance is being increased
rapidly by their indefatigable industry, the music of the young
Italians has been served up in bulk and carried inevitably into our
consciousness. Italia by Casella was given us, finally, after it
had appeared on the programme of all the “pop” concerts of the
universe, by the Philadelphia Orchestra'; the New York played a
suite drawn from his ballet Le couvent sur l'eau. Toscanini per-
formed Le fontane di Roma by Respighi, and Juventus by de
Sabata. The sonata for violin and piano of Ildebrando Pizzetti
was played by the Blochs and by Kathleen Parlow. Of the members
of the group, it is Malipiero, however, who has been most favoured.
Three of his pieces were exhibited. The second set of his Impres-
sioni dal vero were conducted by Bodansky at a concert of the Na-
tional Symphony. His Grottesco for small orchestra was played,
for the first time in any land, by the same leader at a concert of the
Society of the Friends of Music. The string quartet, Rispetti e
Strombotti, which won the Coolidge Prize last summer, was served
up by Letz and his associates. And it is said that other novelties,
by these already savoured and other of the
Italian symphon-
ists, are being prepared for performance.
young
!
:


360
MUSICAL CHRONICLE
The exhibition has been a genuinely refreshing one.
It has been
quickening despite the fact that scarcely any of the compositions
heard here, the in so many respects powerful sonata of Pizzetti in-
cluded, have won one completely. To be sure, the potentialities
of Pizzetti and Casella and Malipiero have impressed vigorously.
The sincerity and passion of the first, the orchestral colour of the
second, the verve and agility of the last, have appeared to promise
it may be
great things. But, of course, none of them have given quite
the thrill of new pleasure which must have been felt by the men
upon whose ears there fell for the first time the tones of Boris and
Proses lyriques. The Italian is no renascence of music in the sense
that the French and the Russian movements were. None of the
cisalpine symphonists have yet quite succeeded in coining music
afresh. What, after all, the presentation impressed upon one most,
and refreshed one with, was the evidence that a veritable revolution
is commencing to take place in Italian culture. The appearance
of this school signifies that there is a new sort of life in the Penins-
ula; that the long physical night of the folk is commencing to pass.
More than all industrial adjustments, more than all the l