Part 7

She shows us the everlasting child in woman,--in the full-grown, experienced woman, who is possessed of an erotic yearning for fulness of life. Woman is not, and cannot be, happy by herself, nor is the sacrifice of a moment enough for her; it is not enough for her to live by the side of the man; a husband’s tenderness is as necessary to her as the air she breathes. His passion, lit by her, is her life and happiness. He gives her the love in which her life can blossom into a fair and beautiful flower. And she accepts him, not with the silly innocence of a child, not with the ignorance of girlhood, not with the ungoverned passion of a mistress, not with the condescending forbearance of the “superior woman,” not with the brotherly affection of the manly woman,--we have had ample opportunity of seeing and benefiting by such representations as those in every theatre, and in every tongue, since first we began to see and to think. They include every type of womanhood as understood and represented by actresses great and small. But into all this, Duse introduces a new element, something which was formerly only a matter of secondary importance on the stage, which, by the “highest art,” was judged in the light of a juggler’s trick, and was considered by the lower art as little more than a valuable ingredient. She makes it the main-string on which her acting vibrates, the keynote without which her art would have no meaning. She accepts the man with the whole-hearted sincerity of an experienced woman, who shrinks from the loneliness of life, and longs to lose herself in the “loved one”. She has the dreadful sensation that a human being has nothing but minutes, minutes; that there is nothing lasting to rely on; that we swim across dark waters from yesterday until to-morrow, and our unfulfilled desires are less terrible than the feverish anxiety with which we anticipate the future in times of prosperity.

Eleonora Duse’s acting tells of infinite suspense.

Her entire art rests on this one note,--Suspense: which means that we know nothing, possess nothing, can do nothing; that everything is ruled by chance, and the whole of life is one great uncertainty. This terrible insecurity stands as a perfect contrast to the “cause and effect” theory of the schools, which trust in God and logic, and offer a secure refuge to the playwright’s art. This mysterious darkness, from whence she steps forward like a sleep-walker, gives a sickly coloring to her actions. There is something timid about her; she seems to have an almost superstitious dislike of a shrill sound, or a brilliant color; and this peculiarity of hers finds expression not only in her acting, but also in her dress.

We seldom see toilets on the stage which reveal a more individual taste. Just as Duse never acted anything but what was in her own soul, she never attempted any disguise of her body. Her own face was the only mask she wore when I saw her act. The expression of her features, the deep lines on her cheeks, the melancholy mouth, the sunken eyes with their large heavy lids, were all characteristic of the part. She always had the same black, broad, arched eyebrows, the same wavy, shiny black Italian hair, which was always done up in a modest knot, sometimes high, sometimes a little lower, from which two curls always escaped during the course of her acting, because she had a habit of brushing her forehead with a white and rather bony hand, as though every violent emotion made her head ache.

No jewel glittered against her sallow skin, and she wore no ornament on her dress; there was something pathetic in the unconcealed thinness of her neck and throat. She was of medium height, a slender body with broad hips, without any signs of the rounded waist which belongs to the fashionable figure of the drama. She wore no stays, and there was nothing to hinder the slow, graceful, musical movements of her somewhat scanty figure. She made frequent gestures with her arms which were perfectly natural in her, although her Italian vivacity sometimes gave them a grotesque appearance. But it was the grace of her form, rather than her gestures, which called attention to the natural stateliness of her person. As to her dresses, they were not in the least fashionable, there was nothing of the French fashion-plate style about them; but then she never made any attempt to follow the fashion,--she set it. There was an antique look about the long soft folds of her dress, also something suggestive of the _Renaissance_ in the velvet bodices and low lace collars.

But her arrangement of color was new; it was not copied either from the antique or the _Renaissance_, and it was certainly not in accordance with the present-day fashion. She never wore red,--with the exception of Nora’s shabby blouse,--nor bright yellow, nor blue; never, in fact, any strong, deep color. The hues which she affected most were black and white in all materials, whether for dresses or cloaks. She always wore pale, cream-colored lace, closely folded across her breast, from whence her dress fell loosely to the ground; she never wore a waist-band of any kind whatever.

She sometimes wore pale bronze, faded violet, and quiet myrtle green in soft materials of velvet and silk. There was an air of mourning about her dresses which might have suited any age except merry youth, and that note was entirely absent from her art, for she was never merry. She had a happy look sometimes, but she was never merry or noisy on the stage. I have twice seen her in a hat; and they were sober hats, such as a widow might wear.

III

I saw Duse for the first time as “Nora.”[2] I was sorry for it, as I did not think that an Italian could act the part of a heroine with such an essentially northern temperament. I have never had an opportunity of seeing Frau Ramlo, who is considered the best Nora on the German stage, but I have seen Ibsen’s Nora, Fru Hennings of the Royal Theatre of Copenhagen, and I retained a vivid picture of her acting in my mind. Fru Hennings’ Nora was a nervous little creature, with fair hair and sharp features, very neat and _piquante_, but dressed cheaply and not always with the best taste; she was the regular tradesman’s daughter, with meagre purse and many pretensions, whose knowledge of life was bounded by the narrow prejudices of the parlor. There was something undeveloped about this Nora, with her senseless chatter, something almost pitiable in her admiration for the self-important Helmer, and something childish in her conception of his hidden heroism. There was also a natural, and perhaps inherited tendency for dishonest dealings, and a well-bred, forced cheerfulness which took the form of hopping and jumping in a coquettish manner, because she knew that it became her. When the time comes that she is obliged to face life with its realities, her feeble brain becomes quite confused, and she hops round the room in her tight stays, with her fringe and high-heeled boots, till, nervous and void of self-control as she is, she excites herself into the wildest apprehensions. This apprehension was the masterpiece of Fru Hennings’ masterly acting. She kept the mind fixed on a single point, which had all the more powerful effect in that it was so characteristically depicted,--she showed us the way by which a respectable tradesman’s daughter may be driven to the madhouse or to suicide. But when the change takes place, and a fully developed, argumentative, woman’s rights woman jumps down upon the little goose, then even Fru Hennings’ undoubted art was not equal to the occasion. The part fell to pieces, and two Noras remained, connected only by a little thread,--the miraculous. Fru Hennings disappears with an unspoken _au revoir!_

When Eleonora Duse comes upon the stage as Nora, she is a pale, unhealthy-looking woman, with a very quiet manner. She examines her purse thoughtfully, and before paying the servant she pauses involuntarily, as poor people usually do before they spend money. And when she throws off her shabby fur cloak and fur cap, she appears as a thin, black-haired Italian woman, clad in an old, ill-fitting red blouse. She plays with the children, without any real gayety, as grown-up people are in the habit of playing when their thoughts are otherwise occupied. Fru Linden enters, and to her she tells her whole history with true Italian volubility, but in an absent manner, like a person who is not thinking of what she is saying. She likes best to sit on the floor--very unlike women of her class--and to busy herself with the Christmas things. In the scene with Helmer an expression of submissive tenderness comes over her, she likes to be with him, she feels as though his presence afforded her protection, and she nestles to his side, more like a sick person than a child.

The scenes which are impressed with Nora’s modern nervousness come and go, but Duse never becomes nervous. The many emotional and sudden changes which take place, the unreasonable actions and other minor peculiarities of a child of the _bourgeois décadence_,--these do not concern her. Duse never acts the nervous woman, either here or elsewhere. She does not act it, because she has too true and delicate a nervous susceptibility. She can act the most passionate feelings, and she often does so; but she never acts a capricious, nervous disposition. She has too refined a taste for that, and her soul is too full of harmony.

Ibsen’s Nora is hysterical, and only half a woman; and that is what he, with his poetic intuition, intended her to be. Eleonora Duse’s Nora is a complete woman. Crushed by want and living in narrow surroundings, there is a certain obtuseness about her which renders her willing to subject herself to new misfortunes. There is also something of the child in her, as there is in every true woman; but even in her child-like moments she is a sad child. Then the misfortune happens! But, strange to say, she makes no desperate attempt to resist it; she gives no hysterical cry of fear, as a meaner soul would do in the struggle for life. There is something pitiable in a struggle such as that, where power and will are so disproportionately unlike. Duse’s Nora hastily suppresses the first suggestion of fear; but she does not admire her muff meanwhile, like Fru Hennings. She merely repeats to herself over and over again in answer to her thoughts: “No, no!” I never heard any one say “no” like her; it contains a whole world of human feeling. But all through the night she hears fate say “Yes, yes!” and the next day, which is Christmas Day, she is overcome with a fatalistic feeling. She dresses herself for the festival, but not with cheap rags like Nora; she wears an expensive dark green dress, which hangs down in rich graceful folds. It is her only best dress, and sets off her figure to perfection; it makes her look tall and slender, but also very weary. And as the play goes on, she becomes even more weary and more resigned, and when death comes, there is no help for it. Then, after the rehearsal of the tarantella, when Helmer calls to her from the dining-room and she knows that fate can no longer be averted, she leaps through the air into his arms with a cry of joy,--to look at her one would think that she was one of those thin, wild, joyless Bacchantes whose bas-reliefs have come down to us from the later period of Grecian art.

The third act:--Nora and Helmer return from the mask ball. She is absent-minded and quite indifferent to everything that goes on around her. That which she knows is going to happen, is to her already a thing of the past, since she has endured it all in anticipation; her actions in the matter are only mechanical.

When Helmer goes to empty the letter-box, she does not try to stop him with a hundred excuses, she scarcely makes a weak movement to hold him back; she knows that it must come, nothing that she can do will prevent it. While Helmer reads the letter, she stands pale and motionless, and when he rushes at her, she throws on her mantle and leaves the room without another word.

He drags her back and overwhelms her with reproaches, in which the pitiful meanness of his soul is laid bare. Now Duse’s acting begins in earnest, now the dramatic moment has come--the only moment in the drama--for the sake of which she took the part.

She stands by the fireplace, with her face towards the audience, and does not move a muscle until he has finished speaking. She says nothing, she never interrupts him. Only her eyes speak. He runs backwards and forwards, up and down the room, while she follows him with her large, suffering eyes, which have an unnatural look in them, follows him backwards and forwards in unutterable surprise,--a surprise which seems to have fallen from heaven, and which changes little by little into an unutterable, inconceivable disappointment, and that again into an indescribably bitter, sickening contempt. And into her eyes comes at last the question: “Who are you? What have you got to do with me? What do you want here? What are you talking about?”

The other letter drops into the letter-box, and Helmer loads her with tender, patronizing words. But she does not hear him. She is no longer looking at him. What does the chattering creature want now? She does not know him at all. She has never loved him. There was once a man whose sympathy she possessed, and who was her protector. That man is no more, and she has never loved any one!

She turns away with a gesture of displeasure, and goes to change her clothes, anxious to get away as quickly as possible. He stops her. What then? The woman is awake in her. She is a woman in the moment of a woman’s greatest ignominy,--when she discovers that she does not love. What does he want with her? Why does he raise objections? He----? _Tant de bruit pour une omelette!_ She throws him a few indifferent words, shrugs her shoulders, turns her back upon him, and goes quickly out at the door. Presently we hear the front door close with a bang. There is no mention at all about the “miracle.”

That is how Duse united Nora’s double personality. Make it up! There is no making it up between the man and wife, except the kiss and the shrug of the shoulders. She ignores Ibsen’s principal argument. Reason, indeed? Reason has never settled anything in stern reality, least of all as regards the relationship between husband and wife. One day Nora wakes up and finds that Helmer has become loathsome to her, and she runs away from him with the instinctive horror of a living person for a decomposed corpse. Of course nothing “miraculous” can happen, for that would mean that the living person should go mad and return to the corpse.

Eleonora Duse treats all her parts in the same independent manner that she treats the text of Nora. When we are able to follow her, and that is by no means always, we notice how she alters it to suit herself, how another being comes to the front,--a being who has no place in the written words, and whom the author never thought of, whom he, in most cases, could certainly not have drawn from his own views of life and his own inner consciousness. Duse’s heroine is more womanly, in the deeper sense of the word, than the society ladies in Ibsen’s and Sardou’s dramas, and she is not only more simple than they are, but also far greater. Eleonora Duse is not a dialectician like Ibsen and Sardou; their hair-splitting logic is no concern of hers, and it certainly was not written for her. She has an instinctive, unerring intuition of what the part should be, and she throws herself into it and acts accordingly. She does not vary much; she is not a realist who makes a careful note of every little peculiarity, and arranges them in a pattern of mosaic; she is truthful to a reckless extent, but not always true to the letter; sometimes like this, sometimes like that, she differs in the different parts. She is true, because she is proud and courageous enough to show herself as she really is. There is no need for her to be otherwise. There is danger of uniformity in this great simplicity of hers, and she would not escape it if it were not for her emotional nature, and an intense, almost painful sincerity, which was perhaps never represented on the stage before her time, and which was certainly never before made the groundwork of a woman’s feelings. She comes to meet us half absorbed in her own thoughts, a complete woman,--complete in that indissoluble unity which is the basis of a healthy woman’s nature: woman-child and also woman-mother, a woman with the stamp which is the result of deep, vital experience, with a woman’s tragedy ineffaceably engraved on every feature,--this same woman’s tragedy which she reproduces upon the stage. It is the fact of her not troubling herself about anything else that imbues her acting with an air of simplicity, and because she is such a complete woman herself, there is an air of indescribable stateliness about her acting. She not only simplified all that she took in hand, but she also improved it. For all these characters which she created were the result of the completeness of her womanly nature, and that is why they never had but the one motive, for all the evil they did, and for their hate: they revenged themselves for the _crimen læsæ majestatis_, which sin was committed against their womanly nature, and which a true woman never forgives, as when the priceless pearl of her womanhood has been misused. That is why they made no pathetic gestures, no noise or tragic screams, but acted quietly and silently, as we do a thing which is expected of us, with a quiet indifference, as when intact nature bows itself under and assists fate.

That is how Duse acted Nora, but she acted Clotilde in “Fernande” in the same mood, also Odette in the play, called by the same name, both by Sardou, and that was more difficult. Clotilde and Odette are a couple of vulgar people. Clotilde, a widow of distinction, revenges herself upon a young man of proud and noble family, who has been her lover for many years, but has broken his marriage vows, by encouraging his attachment for a dishonored girl, whom she persuades him to marry, and afterwards triumphantly tells him his wife’s history.

Odette’s husband finds her one night with her lover, and he turns her out of the house in the presence of witnesses. For several years she leads a dissolute life, dishonoring the name of her husband and grown-up daughter. This stain on the family makes it almost impossible for the latter to marry, and the husband offers the fallen woman a large sum of money to deprive her of his name. She agrees, on condition that she shall be allowed to see her daughter. She is prevented from making herself known to the latter, and when she comes away after the interview, she drowns herself in a fit of hysterical self-contempt. Such are the contents of the two pieces into which Duse put her greatest and best talent.

IV

She comes as Clotilde into the gambling saloon, to inquire after the young girl whom she had nearly driven over. She is simply dressed, and has the appearance of a distinguished lady, with a happy and virtuous past. The manner in which she receives the girl in her own house, talks to her and puts her at her ease, was so kind and hearty that the audience, very unexpectedly in this scene, broke into a storm of applause before the curtain had gone down. Her lover returns from a journey which arouses her suspicion, and she, anxious not to deceive herself, elicits the confession that he no longer cares for her, and is in love with some one else. That some one is Fernande. He goes to look for her, finds her in the same house, and returns immediately. Clotilde thinks that he has come back to her. Her speechless delight must be seen, for it cannot be described; her whole being is suffused with a radiant joy, she trembles with excitement. When it is all made plain to her, and there is no longer any room for doubt, she bows her head over his hand for an instant, as though to kiss it, as she had so often done before, then she strokes it softly with her own.... She will never look into his face again, yet she cannot cease to love the clear, caressing hand, which calls to mind her former happiness.

She lets things take their course, and when it is over she has the scene with Pomerol, when she defends her conduct. Duse has a form of dialectic peculiar to herself, which is neither sensible nor deliberate, but impulsive. When she does wrong she does it--not because she is bad, but because she cannot help herself. A part of her nature, which was the source of her life, is wounded and sick unto death, and a gnawing, burning pain compels her to commit deeds as dark and painful as her own heart. She goes about it quietly, doing it all as a matter of course; to her they seem inevitable as the outer expression of a hidden suffering.

She is at her best in the passionate “Fédora,” when she represents this state of blank amazement, mingled with despair, taking the place of what has been love. If she afterwards comes across the French cynic, she reasons with him too--but like a woman, _i.e._, she drowns his arguments in an extraordinary number of interjections, with or without words. She never crosses the threshold of her life as an actress, she never once attains to the consciousness of objective judgment.

When the man whom she loves is married to the dishonored girl, Clotilde comes to bring him the information which she has reserved until now. Suddenly she stands in the doorway, and sees that he is alone, and there comes over her an indescribable expression of dumb, suppressed love. She seems to be making a frantic appeal to the past to be as though it had never taken place, and in the emotion of the moment she has forgotten what brought her there. Not until he has unceremoniously shown her the door, and opened the old wound, does she tell him who his wife is.

The same with “Odette.” She is in love, and she receives her lover. At that moment her husband comes home. (Andó, Duse’s partner, is almost as good an actor as she is.) He is a shallow, restless, hot-tempered little man, who seizes her by the shoulders as she is about to throw herself into the other man’s arms. She collapses altogether, and stands before him stammering and ashamed. He thrusts her out of the house, although it is the middle of the night, and she is lightly clad. In a moment she has drawn herself up to her full height,--a woman deprived of home and child, on whom the deadliest injury has been inflicted in the most barbarous manner; in the presence of such cruelty, her own fault sinks to nothing, and with a voice as hoarse as that of an animal at bay, she cries, “Coward!” and leaves him.

Many years have gone by, and we meet Odette once more, this time as a courtesan in a gambling saloon. She is very much aged,--a thin, disillusioned woman, for whom her husband is searching everywhere, with the intention of depriving her of his name. There is still something about her which bears the impress of the injured woman. She recalls the past as clearly as though it happened only yesterday; for she can never forget it, and time has not lessened the disgrace. She treats him with wearied indifference, and her voice is harsh like an animal’s, and she chokes as though she were trying to smother her indignation.