Mother Nature, Progress; two Belgian plays by Gustave Vanzype;

Preface

GUSTAVE VANZYPE AND THE MODERN BELGIAN DRAMA

IT is only natural that the dramatic products of a nation should be known abroad by its most striking examples. It was fitting that the modern French drama should first be introduced to English readers through translations of Cyrano de Bergerac. In the realm of modern Belgian drama, Maeterlinck has stood until recent times as the sole representative. But no one would maintain that Rostand and Maeterlinck are typical dramatists of then- respective nations; they are rather outstanding exceptions. Cyrano and L'Aiglon and Chantecler are products of the Romantic school; Pelleas et Melisande, L'Intruse, and L'Oiseau bleu, are dramatic and poetic embodiments of Maeterlinck's mystical philosophy. Interesting and beautiful as such plays are, they afford us no adequate idea of the day-to-day theater of the countries from which they come. If we wish to know the true French theater, we must turn to the plays of Lavedan, Capus, Lemaitre, Donnay; if we would know of the contemporary drama in Belgium, we must turn to Paul Spaak, Fernand Crommelynck, and above all, to Gustave Vanzype.

The plays of Maeterlinck are already well known, and the dramatic poems of Verhaeren have begun to

2082461 vi PREFACE be talked about if not appreciated, but the relation of these works to the Belgian stage, as distinct from Belgian literature and Belgian thought, has scarcely been touched upon. The reason, as I have already intimated, is not difficult to find: we have, naturally enough, sought only the important and the significant in what Belgium had to offer. But there is another sort of significance which must be taken into account: the significance of the great mass, the average. Our critical treatment of literature and art tends to adopt scientific methods; the process has its advantages, for in the last analysis the art of no country can be judged solely by its most striking products. The plays of Maeterlinck are, on the whole, not successful as drama; the dramatic poems of Verhaeren have little claim upon our consideration as acting plays: these are the striking products of Belgian drama — if by this we mean every similar work cast in the "dramatic" mold. Have the Belgians then no plays? The two plays here translated will, it is hoped, prove that they have. Both were produced in Belgium by Belgian actors, accepted by the limited public interested in indigenous work, and praised by Belgian critics.

Gustave Vanzype has not inaptly been called the Curel of the Belgian stage. Such sobriquets are common among Belgian authors, but their application hardly ever results in anything but confusion. Vanzype's mind is somewhat akin to that of the author of Les Fossiles; both dramatists are interested rather in the curious and the unusual in human psychology than the normal; both have a touch of the morbid, but beyond this the comparison should not be allowed to

PREFACE vii extend. Curel has no message, he is not a writer of thesis plays; he is at bottom an aristocrat; Vanzype believes that dramatists ought to use the stage as a pulpit. Curel takes an individual case and makes of it an interesting story, sometimes a deep study in human character; Vanzype attempts to generalize, to draw conclusions which may affect the morals and the intellect of mankind. In his article on CurePs La nouvelle Idole, he says: "I believe that the stage is a pulpit, and that the dramatist, whether he wills it or not — exercises an influence over his audience; he has no right to neglect or leave to chance the source of that influence, and allow it to spread at random. — He has the right to expose everything, but he ought to give his opinion, indicate his approbation or disapprobation of whatever happens. And if, in order to flatter, please, or amuse, the dramatist refuses to accept the role of preacher and commentator, if he makes evil attractive, or ridicules virtue and beauty, he transforms a great and powerful art into a despicable and dangerous trade. . . . He must keep within the domain of the everlastingly great ideas and conceptions." It is, I think, worth while to quote a few further extracts from Vanzype's own critical utterances, because they form a sort of declaration of faith and express not only this particular dramatist's ideals, but the aspirations of a group of playwrights and critics whose aim was to create a national Belgian drama, distinct from the ordinary importations from Paris. In his criticism of Le Renouveau du theatre, which appeared in 1897, Vanzype writes (in the Revue de Belgique) :

viii PREFACE

"You must first make yourself understood, assemble your audience, and speak the language it understands. This is far more worth while than speaking a more elevated language in the middle of the desert. . . .

"The public has a right to come to the theater for amusement, to throw off all the cares imposed upon it by the preoccupations and cares of life. The whole art of the dramatist consists in introducing an idea or ideas into the events he sets forth. . . .

"But the true power, the true genius, of the dramatist is in not formulating general ideas. Genius in this high form of art is altogether a matter of suggestion, mental suggestion, so to speak. The human event set forth must be presented with such grandeur and largeness of effect that the succession of events which go to make it up, and the characters which determine these events, form a gradual ascent, a logical sequence, which will set forth the idea without having it definitely spoken by the actor: the conclusion must stand forth self-evident. During the play, the auditor must be dominated by the play, become a part of it, and he must be made to think and feel with the author at the drop of the final curtain. He must not think and analyze for himself until afterward, because while the play is being acted before his eyes, he has no time to consider. A play is not a book which you may keep and open at will, and think over. In a play the pages are not turned by the reader: they pass, and he cannot stop them. This is why the dramatist must not set forth any complicated idea; he must be simple and clear, for it is imperative that the audience understand immediately.

PREFACE ix

"If the dramatist refuses to submit to this condition, without which a play fails to accomplish its purpose, if he thus refuses to write for the audience which is the sole excuse for the existence of the dramatic form, why does he write plays? Why not simply write books? . . .

"I firmly believe that the theater needs new blood, and I regret . . . that we have to go to Paris for what we do get. . . .

"What we are interested in is the true play, written by the artist. Our drama needs renovation, doubtless, but not as to form — unless we attempt to make clearer and more concise; we need new and fresh ideas. Let us avoid everything but the rapid exposition of action and keep only what movement and action are absolutely required to force the spectator to reflect. . . .

"The only works of art that survive are those in which the artist has been able to magnify the common things in life, the ideas, sensations, and facts which are common to all ages. If he has been able to do this in all simplicity, and call forth all the power and beauty in them, without additional comment, he has succeeded. This genuine artist has made the spectator his own critic and commentator. . . .

"We must therefore return to tradition, the sane and healthy tradition of the theater. We are forced to it inevitably, because we need no new forms. It is the function of a good play to do this: present characters in action which is proper and fitting to their interests and intelligence, and thereby interest and arouse emotion in the audience. But these characters must be so set forth and then- acts so combined and unified and conducted, that their story shall stand

PREFACE forth as a sort of lesson, not as a result of definitely stated ideas and precepts, but unconsciously, as it were, and spontaneously. This sort of play will differ from the play of the past only in subject-matter, which must be such as to interest the audience of the present time."

In Vanzype's appreciative criticism of Curel's La nouvelle Idole, above quoted, he proclaims the right of the dramatist to preach. The excerpts from the other article prove that Vanzype's ideas are not quite so narrow as they may at first have seemed. He believes that a play may or rather must contain an idea, but on the condition that that idea is not palpably demonstrated. At the very end of his Curel article he says: "Before the audience will consent to listen to ideas in the theater, it insists on seeing human beings like itself, struggling against the problems of life. . . . It is not enough in the theater to express an idea, it must rather be made to develop out of an event or a situation; the audience will not accept an abstract idea until it has been proven by experience."

True to his faith, Vanzype has expressed great ideas and conceptions in his best plays, but as the dramatist must, he has expressed them in specific terms. At times he generalizes, and becomes a sort of preacher, but at his best, as in Les fitapes and La Souveraine, he allows his audience to draw its own conclusions.

At first sight La Souveraine (here translated as Mother Nature) belongs to the already too numerous class of plays with an idea; it is, however, one of those plays in which the idea takes shape afterward. As with Brieux's La Robe Rouge, the audience becomes so

PREFACE xi interested in the story and the characters that the central idea is not driven home until after the close of the play. A comparison of La Souveraine with a play like Damaged Goods will at once reveal the difference between a frank thesis play and a play with an idea. Brieux wrote his tract to state certain facts, to educate a certain portion of his public, and to call to the attention of the government the necessity for legal reform. In order to do this, he was forced to interpolate long discourses in his first act, and to sacrifice almost the whole of the last. As a play, Damaged Goods is a failure; its effect on public education and legal reform is another matter. In La Souveraine, Vanzype has no definite lesson to set forth: he is content to allow his characters to work out their destiny in an interesting story. He may justly be criticized, however, for some exaggeration in the character of Olivier. As with Paul Leglay in Les titapes (Progress) we cannot help feeling that the dramatist has forced a note in making Olivier too rigid, in order to secure a more striking contrast with Renee. The dramatist was, of course, interested in Renee 's story, and Olivier is after all only a subsidiary figure, a foil; but wherever any artist exaggerates in one part of his work, the rest must in some degree suffer. Similarly, in Les fitapes, Paul is made a little too rigid, and Madeleine a trifle too stubborn.

Vanzype's indebtedness to Frangois de Curel is apparent in most of his work, though Les Liens is not a little reminiscent of Ghosts. His ideas are thoroughly modern, he sees struggles in the daily Life of the middle classes which are eminently fitted for dramatic presenxii PREFACE tation, but behind the petty struggles of doctors and scientists and artists, we are made to feel the presence of the eternal struggles.

The obvious shortcomings of the two plays in this volume detract very little from their dramatic effect. There is a grandeur of conception, a sweep, an undercurrent of passion and throbbing life which are truly representative of the rather somber but vital character of the Belgians.

Contents

PAGE

GUSTAVE VANZYPE AND THE MODERN BELGIAN

DRAMA v

Act I

The scene is a drawing-room used as a study. At the back is a large French window, with heavy curtains drawn halfway across. There are entrances right and left. To the left is a piano. Various small pieces of furniture of stained wood, English style. Pictures around the walls, plaster casts of Gothic sculpture, and engravings. The general effect is a strange one, for the decorator has evidently sought after novelty.

Renee and Mme. Heurtoux are present as the curtain rises.

It's a sad confession, mother. I don't know whether I have courage to tell you.

But I asked you. And to whom else would you confess if not to your mother? How long has this been going on?

RENEE Always.

Always? But — the first days, Renee?

They were no different from now. 5

MME. HEUKTOUX

What!

I didn't understand then. In spite of all my confusion I felt instinctively that there was something else. I didn't know.

But just after your marriage ? The first few days ?

Even during the first few days, during the moments which other women remember, moments of tenderness, passion, intoxication, he was cold and calm, insultingly calm!

Has he always been that way?

Always.

Did you never talk to him, try to bring him closer to you?

Oh, yes, after I came to see that that was the only possible way he could love me.

What did he say ?

He advanced theories and gave me long lectures on reason — which he never forgets, even when he kisses me!

Does he try to justify himself?

He talked of all sorts of principles. He thinks I'm ridiculous. He gets impatient with me, and sometimes even angry. (She hides her face in her hands) If he'd only left me — ! Oh, mother, how can I tell you — ?

MME. HEURTOUX (going to Renee and taking her hands, then, ill at ease, says hesitatingly) Come, dearie, now — you — see — is — Olivier still your husband?

When — he is — I feel so degraded and ashamed. I'm ashamed because every time I hope my love will change him. But — no — . Oh, mother, I'm so humiliated, so disgusted!

Poor child! But you mustn't give up hope —

What hope? That he will change? That all at once he will become another man, and love his wife in a simple way, without thought and reason and all that? Impossible!

Perhaps — you'll have the consolation — of — some one else — to love, some one who will fill your life — RENEE (burying her face again in her hands)

Dearest mamma, that's just what he doesn't want! I'm desperate. Oh, if I had a child, if I could even hope to have one, I'd be resigned to having my early dreams go as they have gone. The child could give me all the happiness and tenderness that I miss now. But I can't even look forward to that. That is why I can't forget now. He's wounded me — I can't get over it; he himself couldn't make everything all right again. I can't even be the wife I want to be, that I would have been if he hadn't crushed all the good instincts out of me with his scepticism, his talk, and his everlasting analysis. You understand how revolting it all is, don't you, mother?

MME. HEURTQTTX

Of course I understand, dear, but you see, I 'm always afraid of misunderstanding things nowadays. It's all so different from what it was in my day: when I was a young woman, people did less discussing and reasoning. Of course, we were afraid of having too many children — RENEE

Yes, but you had them first! And you didn't force young girls into marriage. I 'm so miserable, mother! If I had only a — child — ! Perhaps I should have understood, afterward. A tender and pure little life would have brightened my own.

But Olivier still loves you ?

He does not love me. He does nothing but talk and talk and try to prove that love is the result of a pathological predisposition. He talks about atavism and neurosis! He doesn't love me. He analyses love too much to know how to love.

He is at least intelligent?

He has a brain, but that's not the same thing, mother. It 's a matter of pride with him to have only a brain, and to stifle everything else that makes a man: love, passion, the sweet and holy follies, sublimely unreasonable — the things that make you happy. He's just a brain. There are many others like him nowadays.

You frighten me, Renee. Don't you love your husband any more?

RENEE

It makes no difference to him whether I do nor not. If he found out I didn't care for him, he would deliver a long-winded lecture on the psychology of my case.

What things you say! Surely you're exaggerating!

Not at all. You don't know him.

You seem almost to hate him.

I don't hate him. But everything about him disgusts me: everything he does and says strikes at what is best in me. His detestable intellect crushes everything good and beautiful in life, everything you have taught me to respect, everything that I feel is true — even life itself.

MME. HEURTOUX (after a pause)

Renee, look at me. You aren't in love with any one else?

RENEE (looking her mother straight in the eyes)

No, mother.

MME. HEUBTOUX (surprised)

Indeed? You don't even protest?

I don't love any one — at least, any one I can name, any one I know. But I do love, as I did when I was a young girl and dreamed of the future, of a husband who would not consider me with his brain alone, but one who would reason and love with his heart and his passions — a man, a real man ! But I give you my word, I am not in love with any one. In spite of all my unhappiness, I am a faithful wife.

You must continue to be that, Renee; you must be brave and do your duty to the end. Who knows, everything passes away and is forgotten? If your husband — RENEE (bitterly)

Poor mother! — Sh, here he comes. If he heard you talking about courage and duty, he would make fun of you and ask you for definitions. \_Enter Olivier, followed by Darchi and Heurtoux.

In your day! Your day! Of course, my dear father-in-law, in your day people didn't think as they do now. Ideas have gone —

Forward or backward?

Why, forward! Humanity never goes back. Progress —

OLIVIER (interrupting)

To adhere to the ideas of your youth is, I repeat, a deplorable thing.

Well, I'm old —

So is my father. He is as old as you.

Nonsense, I'm fifty years younger!

OLIVIER (to Heurtoux)

True. He has been able to discard the sentimentality that clung round him. He has disciplined his mind and adopted the strict methods of modern analysis, which submits everything to the acid test of reason. It is our aim to act with discernment, to escape the ready-made notions which are not under the control of our intellects, and the absurd consequences of giving in to the passions. We bring each thought and act to the tribunal of dispassionate judgment, and base our deductions on the foundation of modern science and philosophy. We deny the intangible. Nietszche —

DARCHI There's a master mind for you!

Have you read him, Monsieur Darchi? Explain his theory. I'm deeply interested.

DARCHI (embarrassed)

I know his theories very well — oh, yes. Olivier often talks about him. But the whole thing is rather complicated. You ought to have some preliminary preparation if I am going to explain him to you. Isn't that so, Olivier?

OLIVIER Of course.

HEURTOUX (to Renee)

Do you know why Olivier tells me all these interesting things? Because I refuse to grant that a husband has the right to deceive his wife! (Smiling) Now you're warned !

I know what he thinks about that.

HEURTOUX (still smiling) Aren't you worried?

OLIVIER (seated at his desk, turning the pages of a book) Renee knows I am master of my passions. It is my aim to be a strong man. Now, the strong man can be strong only after freeing himself from the bondage of his senses, his passions. But just because I am freeing myself, I can see that others are still slaves. Those who have succeeded ought to be free to dispose of their persons as they see fit.

Certainly. You must look at it from the point of view of the artist. Heavens and earth, my poor Heurtoux, how out-of-date you are!

Perhaps I am. But you see, I can't make up my mind, and never will, to abolish everything that has brought me peace and happiness. I don't know whether it's because I'm prejudiced or, as you say, out-of-date, but I always held what were called in my day liberal ideas, and I never had much respect for the conventions. But there are some conventions that are absolutely necessary, that are based on the necessities of human society and the consideration of one man for another. Conjugal fidelity or if you prefer, the fidelity of one lover to the other, is one of them. A man and a woman who love each other are naturally jealous, and even when they don't love each other or if one of them ceases to love the other, it seems to me a beautiful thing for them to remain faithful; it spares pain and wounded pride. Of course, you call that rank sentiment — OLIVIER

Yes, because among intelligent people, people who use their reason, there is no such thing as jealousy and that sort of pride. Those things are mere words.

DARCHI They've gone out of fashion long ago!

They are as old as the world, because they express sentiments and passions whose very existence you complain of. But the things themselves have not changed since man was first created, since the first human being said "I love you!" to the other, and his mate naturally asked, "For always?" — I prefer that. It makes the function of love a noble and beautiful act, and not a base instinct.

DARCHI (laughing}

"For always!" Ha! ha, For always! Poor little Renee!

OLIVIEB

The same delusion, the same mistake! You try to impose an unnecessary yoke on the man. Why?

To spare others' pain.

That is not his affair. Let them defend themselves, together with their absurd sentimentality.

My dear Olivier, if I didn't know you, I would think you quite ferocious.

OLIVIER (disdainfully)

Not at all; I am simply a reasonable human being, and I have great respect for logic. You don't understand me, you cannot understand me, because you are not ready to look at these things dispassionately, and analyze them on the basis of the great scientific and philosophical facts of which you are quite ignorant.

HEURTOUX (good-naturedly) That's true.

You see, old man, you must know!

I don't know, but I believe that there are certain human relationships in which science and philosophy count for nothing. I've been married for thirty years, I've made my wife happy, brought up children — OLIVIER (interrupting)

Who are needlessly suffering because you have developed their emotions — your daughter, for instance.

HETJRTOUX (seriously)

Suffering? Renee, have you anything to complain

of? Were you ever unhappy through any fault of

mine?

RENEE

I am happy, and I am glad to be what you made me,

father. If I suffer sometimes, it is not your fault.

I am proud that I can suffer that way. HEURTOUX (anxiously)

But you do suffer? Why? Aren't you happy ? OLIVIER (indifferently)

I really didn't know — RENEE

It makes no difference, father. I meant I suffer

once in a while, the way every one does. You mustn't

worry about it.

MME. HEURTOUX (taking Renee's hand)

Brave girl!

OLIVIER

I don't think Renee knows what she's talking about.

Very often she is upset and worried, and — HEURTOUX (conciliatory)

She is very sensitive, Olivier. You must take that

into account. I don't think you'd be capable of

wounding her intentionally, but — RENEE

Please, father!

DARCHI

Now, now, let's not have a family quarrel! Tears

and all that! Octave Feuillet nonsense! I'm going! HEURTOUX

Be serious, Darchi.

Never! It's too stupid.

HEUBTOUX

Isn't it only natural that I should consider my daughter's happiness? Of course, I have confidence in your son — DARCHI

My dear fellow, do you imagine a boy like Olivier, a keen observer and psychologist, doesn't know how to handle women? My son!

We are not discussing "women"; this concerns Renee.

Father! Mother! This is all very painful to me. Please don't worry about what I just said. I was speaking generalities.

OLIVIER

It was wrong of you, my dear, especially before your highly emotional and excitable parents. [Blanche opens the door.

May I come in ?

Surely.

[Enter Blanche, followed by Andre and Heryac, who

wears hunting clothes.

Here we are! How are you? We've brought your cousin Meryac. We just happened to meet him, but he didn't want to come.

He didn't think he looked beautiful enough. MERYAC (to Renee)

I beg your pardon, Madame, these clothes — I've

been hunting.

RENEE

But this is the country, Monsieur Meryac, and we

are neighbors.

OLIVIER

What a singular passion !

What?

Hunting.

It is not a passion with me. But I love movement and outdoors. Hunting serves as a good pretext for riding up hill and down dale. I delude myself into thinking I have a definite end in view.

Can't you ' satisfy your desire without actually hunting?

I hardly hunt at all, only, as I told you, I like to have an object in view. I need it. When I have a little leisure time from business and go even for a walk, I must have some destination.

Action mania!

MERYAC (smiling) The desire for action, yes !

BLANCHE (to Olivier)

You all look so serious. What were you discussing,

Monsieur Brother?

OLIVIER

A very involved matter. You wouldn't understand. HEURTOUX

I think she would understand very easily. ANDRE (to Olivier)

Would I?

No.

Unfortunately, because every one should understand in the family.

HEURTOUX (to Meryac, who now stands by Renee)

You were speaking of your factory. I 'm very much interested. Shall we go into the garden? I want to ask you something. \_They go out, Renee following them with her eyes.

DARCHI (to Blanche)

You talk like a middle-class housewife. When you're dealing with a great intellect like your brother's, a man engaged in such deep thinking, isn't it only natural that the points discussed should reach a level to which no woman's mind can attain?

Oh? You're very gallant. Andre always explains when I don't understand, and I always see. And Andre is no fool. We "raise each other," as it were, to that "level" you were speaking of. And when we get there, we don't talk, we are glad enough merely to feel, like good middle-class people — which we are. But with the two children, I haven't much

time for the "heights." I bring up my children —

which is more important.

ANDRE (who has meantime seated himself, rises and

goes to another chair)

And just as "elevated."

RENEE

How are they?

Bab had an attack of tonsilitis. We were very much upset.

Poor little dear!

Is he better now?

He's well. Otherwise, you may be sure we shouldn't be here.

OLIVIER (nervously) Of course, of course.

Never have a moment's peace with those messy youngsters!

Papa, don't you philosophize! You know you adore them.

There they are! I don't dislike them, but I could easily dispense with them.

ANDRE (who shifts to another chair) You yourself didn't dispense with children! (Pointing to his wife) There's the proof. Thank you.

I wasn't thinking of you at the time. No, I didn't dispense with children, because when I married there were still prejudices. But if I had my life to live over again —

You would follow Olivier's example, and not be in any hurry. He isn't in a hurry about anything at all. We're waiting for his book. What is it called ?

OLIVIER (piqued) What?

DARCHI (respectfully) Cogitations.

Illustrated?

A complete book needs no illustrations.

That's not the same title you gave us a short while ago?

It's not the same book.

What about the other?

OLIVIER

I'm not going to write it. I wasn't satisfied.

Well, try to finish this one.

OLIVIER

It makes no difference if I don't. I write in order to think.

How funny! I thought people wrote after they had thought.

How unkind of you, Blanche!

OLIVIER (disdainfully)

I am used to my sister. She doesn't bother me. (To

Andre, who has just left his chair again) What on

earth are you doing?

ANDRE

I 'm tired, and I 'm trying to rest. OLIVIER

Then sit still!

I 'd like to, only I can't find a chair — OLIVIER

You have plenty to choose from.

I see that, but not one of them seems made to sit in. They're pretty, and interesting, but every one of them's damned uncomfortable. What I want is a vulgar, simple, old-fashioned armchair, with nothing artistic about it, where I can rest my arms and legs and neck. Have you anything of that sort in your house ?