Part 9
_Chartier._ When you left the Latin Quarter, you made Loulou a handsome present? She took another lover? or, perhaps, she got married? To-day, if you met each other in the street, you wouldn’t recognise each other? That is what I call a natural ending.
_Lucien._ Yes; that is the way things happen with _you_, and with almost everybody. But not with _me_. I ask myself, What may not still come of it?
Lucien’s forebodings are prophetic. Soon after, Chartier is told by his sister Laure that a young girl (_très jolie, très convenable_) has called to see him. It turns out that the young girl visitor (_très jolie, très convenable_) is _Lucienne_. In other words, _she_ is the visible and terrifying proof of the unlucky Lucien Briant’s conviction that he is not to be permitted, like other men, to bury under the flowers of sentimental memories the irregularities of his Latin Quarter days.
Still, Lucienne had no intention of troubling her father. She was trained to believe that she had no legitimate, no righteous claim on him. Poor Loulou was true to the rule of the game that, for her, had had lifelong seriousness. Even on her death-bed she has kept faithfully to the terms of the unequal bargain. She had told Lucienne that her father had behaved “generously,” that she has no further legitimate claim on him. But she remembers Chartier’s kindness of heart and recommends her daughter to apply to him for advice and recommendations helpful in the way of finding her honest employment. So that this is the reason why Lucienne has sought out Monsieur Chartier. She is now alone in the world—poor “Loulou’s” savings nearly exhausted. Can Monsieur Chartier, perhaps, amongst his friends, find her a situation as secretary or companion, where she may earn an honest livelihood?
Touched to the heart by Loulou’s good remembrance and confidence in him is Chartier, and at once interested in Lucienne’s case.
_Chartier._ Yes, yes, certainly—you did well, mademoiselle, to come to me! I shall at once make inquiries amongst all my acquaintances. We shall find you a charming post; I give you my promise, to set about it at once.
Although the good Chartier is perfectly sincere in his desire and resolution to find Lucienne a “charming post,” he does not feel that there is any need to distress and upset the nervous and despondent Lucien by telling him about the appearance upon the scene of Loulou’s daughter (and his own) and of her need of assistance. But he has no secrets from Laure, and he at once consults his resourceful sister and confides to her his charming and discreet plan of finding Lucienne a pleasant situation as the companion of a lady who travels a great deal; thus Lucienne will see different countries, have a good salary and be as happy as the day is long—_also_, she will be kept out of the way of upsetting the nerves of the timorous Lucien.
Laure, however, the “good genius,” takes another view of the case. It is _Lucienne’s_ homelessness, not Lucien’s nerves, that appears to her the chief question. She remembers, too, the “grave” state of mind of Hélène Briant, the result of her ineffectual efforts to react against her depressing environment—most repugnant to a charming woman still young but arrived at an age when she is forced to realise that one is not _always_ going to be young and charming, and who has no children, and no congenial companionship, and who, nevertheless, is “honest”—so far, Laure then _forms her own plan_. And the first step is to make known the facts of Lucienne’s identity, situation and presence at Trouville to Lucien, and to Hélène also. This is how she announces what, to him, at first appears a desperately indiscreet proceeding, to Chartier, who, ultimately, becomes a convert to her scheme.
Laure begins by assuring her brother that an excess of discretion condemns those who make it their rule to fail in friendly services.
_Laure [to Chartier]._ Let me tell you what you _should_ have done, what you ought to have done. You should have taken Lucien on one side, and, without worrying about the consequences, have simply made him acquainted with the facts. He had to be confronted with his duty. And since at heart he is, in spite of everything, an honest man, and that the very worst actions of his sort—and of your sort—don’t keep you from being thoroughly kind-hearted, he would certainly have found a happier and more consoling solution than to leave his daughter in distress. That is what you ought to have done. And as I saw you were not going to do it, that is what I have done.
_Chartier._ What do you say? Good God! You have seen Lucien?
_Laure._ Half an hour ago; after _déjeuner_.
_Chartier._ It is simply insane, what you have done! He must have been utterly prostrated by such a blow, poor devil?
_Laure._ Yes. He turned very pale. Then he rushed off to consult his father. Now what can happen to him, at the worst? He will have to endure some hours of worry, of anxiety, perhaps of remorse. What then? He deserves it. Lucienne is seventeen—she has in front of her the promise of a long existence, an existence conferred upon her by a light-hearted gentleman in an hour of distraction. Well, it is _Lucienne_ who interests me. You will tell me that it is not my concern—that I am interfering in a delicate matter which is no business of mine?
_Chartier._ Precisely. That was just what I was going to say.
_Laure._ And my answer is, that if one only occupied oneself with one’s own concerns one would only accomplish selfish and mediocre things.
How does Lucien act after he has received the fateful news? All lamentations is he when he bursts into the room after his interview with his father. Chartier, Laure and Hélène wait to learn what, by the counsel, no doubt, of Briant _père_, Lucien proposes to do.
_Lucien._ Ah, mon ami [_addressing Chartier_], who would have believed it? What a fatality! What a drama for my conscience! Well, well—what one has to do is to occupy oneself with the present and possible. You will tell Lucienne from me that she has no longer any need to fear for the future: that shall be _my_ charge.
_Chartier._ Well done. Well done.
_Lucien._ Yes; but upon one condition—oh, a condition of stringent importance. The condition is that she must return immediately to this village, near Limoges. She has lived there up to the present hour—she can quite easily go on living there. I will send her every month, and I will guarantee to her in the event of my death, a yearly pension, that will be sufficient for her support. There. Do you find that I am acting very badly? And you, madame [_to Laure_], do _you_ think I am behaving badly?
_Laure._ Well, not exactly bad.
_Lucien._ Well, that comforts me a little. But what a catastrophe! Ah, if ever I have a son of my own, I shall try that he may profit by my example.
But Lucien has not a son of his own. The only child he has is the daughter he is going to bury alive in the village near Limoges, without even seeing her—this, of course, by the counsel of _l’homme correct_, Briant _père_.
But here Hélène intervenes. She has walked innocently into the trap prepared for her by Laure. In other words, she has seen Lucienne, and her heart has gone out to the motherless girl. Thus she has come by her own path into Laure’s plot and plan; she is resolved to adopt Lucienne. She urges her case, which has the independent advantage of upsetting the counsels of Briant _père_, with warm generosity, but, at the same time, with her usual vivacity.
_Hélène._ Lucien, you are my closest friend; and the object of my dutiful affection, of course—but you can’t be my constant companion and the confidante, whom I want, in sometimes empty and tiresome hours. Understand that; and consent to what I beg of you. Well, the companion I want _is here_; she is your daughter. You have not given me a child; make me the present of Lucienne. I am not a mother; but let me have the illusion of maternity.
Firm in the belief that happiness lies before her and her husband in the adoption of Lucienne, Hélène will hear of no other solution to the situation. And in this she has the good genius, Laure, with her; and next the _bonhomme philosophe_, Chartier; and finally the timid, despondent Lucien himself, who, in the last scene, comes face to face with his daughter.
All emotion is Lucien. And he breaks down completely when Lucienne shows him a photograph taken of him in the Latin Quarter, when he was the lover of Loulou, a wild figure in corduroy clothes, a long, flowing cape and an amazing hat.
Lucienne, who imagines she is going to be sent back to the village near Limoges, and may never possibly see her father again, does not wish to be separated from the souvenir that stood for the image of him, in his young days. She stretches out her hand, asking for the return of the photograph:
_Lucienne._ You will not take it away? You will leave it with me?
_Lucien._ No. I shall keep it. And that is not all, I shall keep—I should be mad to fight any longer against my own heart; against your youth and my own—I shall keep the picture, and _you_ as well!
Chartier, Hélène and Laure enter and behold, with joy, Lucienne in her father’s embrace. But now arrives the apostle of correctness, Briant _père_. He is not so much astonished, not so much shocked as filled with contempt, and lifted above all contact with the irregular sentiments and ill-directed sympathies of this emotional group of people, whom he attempts to freeze, with his superior disdain. And it is at this moment that he utters the unforgettable sentence which is one of the master-strokes in the play:
_Briant_ père. It is quite sufficient to-day—and believe me, when simply stating the fact, I do not allow myself to be the least bit in the world disturbed by it—it suffices that a child should be illegitimate in order to find itself the object of universal sympathy; in the same way, it suffices that a woman is not a lawful wife to render her immediately the object of universal respect. Let married women, and children born in wedlock, make no mistake about it: they are going to have a bad time.[3]
Lucien attempts to mollify his high displeasure. But Briant _père_ (happily for his family’s welfare, perhaps) insists that he must separate himself henceforth from these offenders. He shakes hands with his son and with Hélène—salutes, stiffly, Laure and Chartier. Then, with a curt bow to Lucienne and the one word, “_Mademoiselle_,” he takes his departure.
_Lucienne [to Hélène]._ Qui est ce monsieur?
_Hélène._ C’est ton grand-père.
3. M. BRIEUX, “LA DÉSERTEUSE,” AT THE ODÉON
“Brieux at the Odéon? Brieux passing from the grim playhouse of M. Antoine, to the calm, placid, highly respectable Odéon?” Such must have been the startled exclamations of hundreds of playgoers when it was announced that the “Second Theatre of France” had “received,” and was actually rehearsing, a new drama by the author of _Les Avariés_ and _Maternité_.
Amazing tidings, certainly. And especially amazing, even alarming, to the regular mature patrons of the Odéon, whose peaceful way of life, whose tranquil train of thought, could not but be upset by the ardent, revolutionary M. Brieux. They desire no disagreeable awakenings, and, above all, no “social problems.”
I fancy the neighbourhood has affected our mature ones! They live round about the Senate, whose members, we know, are renowned for a constant drowsiness. Is not the Upper Chamber popularly described as the “Palace of Sleep”? The alert, frisky Parisian cannot endure the _Palais du Sommeil_. He wants emotions, excitement—and he finds them in the Chamber of Deputies, which never sleeps.
“A restful sanctuary” is Mr Bodley’s idea of the Senate. “It does very little; it is not highly considered. The idea sometimes suggested is that of a retreat for elderly gentlemen.”
Well, the regular mature patron of the Odéon may be likened to the Senator: his intellect is impaired by the same constant drowsiness. And the “Second Theatre of France”—most Parisians dispute its right to that distinguished title—may be likened to the Senate. It is not highly considered; it renders but small services to the dramatic art; and, at times, it presents the appearance of a restful sanctuary.
But—arrives M. Brieux. Arrives, actually, upon this tranquil, drowsy scene, the ardent, revolutionary author of _Maternité_ and _Les Avariés_. What—oh, what—is in store for the regular mature patrons? No doubt they were all anxiety, all indignation, until it was understood that M. Brieux had not arrived in their demure domain alone. With him, M. Jean Sigaux. With him, a collaborator who might be expected to exercise restraint. Has M. Sigaux fulfilled those expectations? Is M. Brieux of the Odéon the M. Brieux of the Théâtre Antoine? Or, has M. Brieux been intimidated by Odéon traditions?
Not unanimous on this point are the leading French dramatic critics. Three or four of them profess themselves disappointed with _La Déserteuse_, because unable to recognise M. Brieux’s change of attitude. They are still under the spell of _Maternité_, where the author so vigorously and so ruthlessly attacked the “established morality” and “dominant passions.” The change of attitude is undeniable. But _La Déserteuse_ is a strong, generous, human play; and all the more interesting from our own special point of view, as students of the French stage in its relation to French life, because it does not represent a dramatic exposure of injustices and impostures, prevalent (if we believe the reformer) in all European societies, but a dramatic illustration of universal passions and emotions, as these manifest themselves under the influence of traditional sentiments and habits of thought and feeling that belong essentially to France.
The French bourgeois: wherein he differs from, and as a type of humanity is superior to, the English shopkeeper; the French _jeune fille_—and the French sentiment about her—and wherein this sentiment explains her jealously and tenderly guarded inferiority in attractiveness, intelligence and independence to her English prototype—here are the secrets which _La Déserteuse_ may assist a foreign spectator to penetrate....
We are in the town of Nantes, in the home of Forjot, music publisher, husband, father and confirmed bourgeois. Forjot also gives concerts, but he himself is nothing of a musician and would regard music with contempt, were it not a means of making money. Not so his wife, Gabrielle, young, beautiful and vivacious, who has been assured by the director of the local theatre that she is possessed of a rare voice. Gabrielle sings at little Nantais concerts and is admired and applauded. Gabrielle is told that she would triumph on the operatic stage—and sighs. She loves excitement, she longs for fame, she is full of dreams and ambitions and fancies—but she finds no sympathiser in the music publisher, her husband, who, looking up impatiently from his ledgers, bids her pay more attention to her house, her child and “the rest.”
_Gabrielle._ What do you mean by “the rest”? Do you want me to write out the bills, for instance?
_Forjot._ Never mind the bills: my shopman does that. But I see no reason why you should not stay in the shop and receive clients, and, when there is a press of work, lend me a helping hand with the correspondence.
_Gabrielle._ Don’t expect me to do anything of the sort.
It is the old story: the bourgeois husband and the beautiful, dissatisfied, ambitious wife, who rebels at her dull surroundings, who believes herself “wasted,” who is tempted by a sympathetic admirer; and who falls. Rametty, director of the Nantes Theatre, is Gabrielle’s lover. His ardent prayer that she should accompany him on one of his tours and win the fame that inevitably awaits her, rings constantly in her ears. She resists, chiefly for the sake of her daughter, Pascaline. But the temptation to fly becomes irresistible when, on the night of one of Forjot’s concerts, audience, friends, her lover, and even a popular composer from Paris, delight, intoxicate her with their praise. Forjot, however, stands aloof; the eulogies of the popular composer—respectfully known as _Le Maître_—exasperate him.
_Le Maître._ Madame Forjot has sung admirably. Let me give my testimony. I do not know anyone, you mark me, I say _anyone_, and I am not excepting the most celebrated vocalists—I do not know _anyone_ capable of singing this air with such mastery.
_Forjot._ Oh, you exaggerate, surely, her talent, Master. You are too indulgent.
_Le Maître._ I am not indulgent. Madame is an incomparable lyrical tragedian. But, madame, you must not remain _en province_—it would be a crime.
In ecstasies is Gabrielle. In the heavens is Gabrielle. But she soon comes to earth again, when at last she and her husband find themselves alone. Forjot has returned to his ledgers—is making up his accounts. He has not a word to say of his wife’s success. He is entirely absorbed in the night’s receipts. He counts under his breath; he rustles the pages of his ledgers; he is—to Gabrielle—exasperating, maddening, intolerable.
And the storm bursts when Gabrielle, beside herself with rage, dashes one of the ledgers to the ground.
Now furious, now broken, now contemptuous, now with hoarse, poignant emotion, Forjot addresses his wife.
He knows her to be the mistress of Rametty. His illness of three years ago was due to that humiliating and horrible discovery, but he had thought that she had sinned in a moment of madness and was repentant; and so he resolved to pardon her, generously, without even charging her with her crime:
_Forjot._ After I had discovered your treachery, I had that attack of brain fever, which nearly left you free. As a result of being brought so near to death, thoughts came to me that I might not have had otherwise, and they ripened in the long hours of my convalescence. When I recovered, as I was touched by the care you had taken in nursing me, and by your grief (which I still believe was sincere), I thought you had only given way to a mad impulse; and I forgave you in the silence of my heart. Yes; I know well I am not like the husbands in the novels you are constantly reading. Those husbands are idle men of fortune; their child’s future causes them no tormenting anxiety; they have not the incessant preoccupations of carrying on a large business concern, where many interests of others, as well as one’s own are involved. With men in _my_ class, a false wife does not mean killing someone; it means asking for a divorce. Well, I did not want to make Pascaline the daughter of a divorced woman; nor did I want to expose her to the sense of disgrace of finding out her mother’s degradation. And it is on Pascaline’s account that I am putting you to-day in a position when you can make your choice—either become again the wife and mother you ought to be; or else I _shall_ ask for a divorce. I don’t want to see again what I saw to-day, Rametty embracing _my_ child! Nor do I want that one of these days, Pascaline may be told by some little playmate that her mother is a wanton [which is true], and her father a man who consents to his own dishonour—which is _not_ true.
_Gabrielle._ Well, then, ask for a divorce. Adieu.
_Forjot._ What is your decision?
_Gabrielle._ To leave you.
_Forjot._ Think well of what it means. It means throwing over, once and for ever, a regular life.
_Gabrielle._ It bores me to death this “regular” life. And then, do you imagine I could endure to go on living near you when I knew that you despised me enough to hold your tongue about what you had discovered?
_Forjot._ If you stay, I promise that, by my attitude towards you, you may be able to suppose that everything is forgotten.
_Gabrielle._ No! I refuse to lead here the life of eternal humiliation you offer me. Good-night.
_Forjot._ Good-night. You have given me all the pain it was in your power to give.
But even now the music publisher does not believe that Gabrielle will desert him. Shortly after she has left the room his little daughter enters and asks for her mother. The servant is sent in quest of Gabrielle, but returns to announce that she is nowhere to be found. When Forjot realises that his wife has left him he covers his face with his handkerchief and trembles all over and sobs.
_Pascaline [running up to him]._ Father! Father! What _is_ the matter?
_Forjot._ Nothing, nothing. [_He uncovers his face, which is tragic with sorrow and stained with tears._] My child, your mother has gone away from us on a long journey.
In a former paper[4] I spoke of the prodigious importance of the child in France; the Child, the great indestructible bond between the parents. Of course, exceptions—as in Gabrielle Forjot’s case. But, as we shall see, Gabrielle seeks to recover Pascaline; and it is around this struggle that the vital interest of the play centres. It is also around this struggle, and in the feelings, language and conduct of those engaged in it that we realise the different conditions of sentiment, morals and manners that characterise respectively the French bourgeoisie and the lower English middle class.
Pascaline is the typical _jeune fille_. In the First Act she is a child of thirteen; thirteen, _l’âge ingrat_, for at that period the French _jeune fille_ is plain. It is considered right—imperative—that she should be plain. If she be not so by nature she is made so. See her in her convent dress, her “Sunday best”—the one that most successfully conceals her natural grace—when Mademoiselle is most nearly a fright. Pascaline, for instance, first appears before us shy, awkward, with her hair dragged back from her forehead and falling down her shoulders in depressing little plaits, and arrayed in a dreadful white dress which no English girl of her age would don without a struggle and a tearful outburst. Nevertheless, the _jeune fille_ is adored, and she knows it. She is strictly, terribly _surveillée_—but that, after all, is a proof of her importance. She must be protected from dangers, so precious is she. Has she, at the age of fifteen, only to cross the street the servant (I can see the indignant glances and hear the expressions of pity of her English sisters) must be close at her elbow. Plenty and plenty of time to wear fine dresses and make the first exciting bow to the world, and to be surprised, and to wonder. Says the French mother, speaking from experience: “It is delicious to be a _jeune fille_. And I tell my Yvonne so, when she grumbles.” But Yvonne’s grumblings do not betray a tragic, desperate state of mind. As a matter of fact, Yvonne, in spite of those dresses and that constant strict, terrible surveillance, is delightfully happy. And I expect her first bow to the world will be made all the more exciting by that long, rigid training, and that she will don her elegant dresses with all the more rapture, and that she will find life the more brilliant, exhilarating and extraordinary. The parents preserve those old, ugly dresses. When Cosette left her convent, and discarded her depressing dress for tasteful finery, and did what she pleased with her hair, and became all of a sudden beautiful—Jean Valjean kept the dress, and often brought it forth in secret, and looked upon it with infinite tenderness and emotion....