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....
But to return to our particular jeune fille, Pascaline. In the Second Act, she is seventeen and charming. Nevertheless, it is still necessary to hide from her all dangerous knowledge, all doubts or suspicions, even of the existence of evil outside her own experience. Father, governess, nurse, family friends and all who approach her are in league to keep from her the true history of her mother’s desertion. The legend, as she hears it, is that the brilliant, captivating mother she recollects abandoned her home in order to follow her vocation—to become a great and famous singer. And this passionately interests Pascaline; consequently, she is wild with excitement when, after a four years’ absence, her mother claims the right to see her daughter, and obtains legal authorisation to do so. Then, trouble. For, in the meanwhile, Forjot has married the excellent, trustworthy governess, Hélène, chiefly because she was so devoted to the little Pascaline and would make her a second mother. Pascaline at thirteen—dazzled and overawed by the brilliant Gabrielle—had treated the kind and homely governess as a confidante; but at seventeen—flattered, fascinated and caressed by Gabrielle—she sees in Hélène only the “Stranger,” who has usurped her mother’s place.
Then begins the second struggle; that is once again to make havoc of poor Forjot’s domestic peace! The struggle of Hélène, on the one side, to reconquer by patience and kindness, and sometimes by affectionate reproaches, the confidence of the child she loves, and has cared for as her own; and of Pascaline, on the other side, to resist these attentions and appeals to her feelings and to remain true to her more brilliant mother, who, she is convinced, has been harshly turned out of her home, simply because she was too artistic to make a good bourgeoise housekeeper of the usual type.
The knot in the entangled situation is that Pascaline must not be told the truth. So that misunderstanding the position, she cannot, from her own point of view, without disloyalty to her admired and adored mother, recognise the interloper, Hélène, as the rightful mistress of her father’s home, and with claims upon herself, Pascaline, for respect and gratitude, on account of the care and affection she has shown one whom she has robbed of her natural guardian.
Pascaline comes back from her first interview with Gabrielle fascinated and enthusiastic, and full of anger and disdain for the homelier, much less outwardly demonstrative Hélène. This condition of mind becomes aggravated later on, when Gabrielle is in misfortune. Alas! her voice has failed her. She is no longer able to follow her artistic vocation, for the sake of which she sacrificed her home. She now is directress of a theatrical agency, and she is no longer so gay, although still full of noble courage. All this Pascaline confides to her old nurse, Marion, with whom she is still able to talk about her mother.
Pascaline. Oh, Marion dear! When one thinks of mama coming back; and of her having no right to enter this house, and of someone else installed in her place! If you only could have seen how sad she was when she left me, my poor mama, who is generally so gay! And no wonder she is sad. All alone there at Auteuil in a little pavilion, Rue des Martyrs, at her office, a stuffy little place without sunshine, without air.
The Nurse. At her “office”?
Pascaline. Yes. You must know that, for some time, mama has not been able to sing. It is all the trouble she has gone through. You see to be constantly crying is not good for the voice, so that now she is the directress of an agency for theatrical tours. You can understand that, as I am no longer a child, I have a right to know things. I do know now why papa sent mama away.
Marion. Did your mother tell you?
Pascaline. Yes. Papa would not allow her to sing anywhere! So then mama, who had an admirable voice, felt obliged to follow an irresistible vocation.
This is the legend as Pascaline has received it from her mother. Marion does not contradict it. Nor yet do Forjot and Hélène ever hint at the true facts of Gabrielle’s desertion. Hélène’s reticence is heroic, for Pascaline becomes more and more bitter against the good Hélène and defies her to justify herself by some real fault discovered in Gabrielle, worse than the noble ambition of a gifted artist.
Pascaline [to Hélène]. Of course, you are burning to tell me all about poor mama’s divorce. Well: let me show you I know all about it already. I know that, in spite of my father’s orders, mama would go on singing, and then she was rather extravagant, and, well, she was not domesticated, and chose to follow her artistic vocation. There you have the whole story of her sins. Oh, if there is anything else, I invite you, or rather, I require you to tell me. Was there anything else?
Hélène [avoiding Pascaline’s eyes]. There was nothing else.
Pascaline [triumphantly]. There, you are forced to admit it! Mama’s only fault was that she had an artistic vocation! Again I beg you to contradict me, if you can. Was there anything else against her?
Hélène. No; only that—nothing else.
However, one little awakening, one little shock. In the Third Act Pascaline visits the theatrical agency, sees the tawdriness of the place, hears noisy laughter and is even addressed at length by a shabby old comedian—a veritable cabotin—who mistakes her for an ingénue, in quest of an engagement. The comedian is delightful. He might have stepped straight on to the Odéon stage from one of those dim little cafés haunted by broken-down actors in the neighbourhood of the Porte St-Martin. He appals Pascaline with his grins, grimaces and familiarity. Pascaline’s silence he attributes to worry. And he seeks to console her by declaring that one must always be gay, always be smiling, even if one has eaten nothing all day and the landlord has threatened to turn one out into the street. He calls her mon petit enfant, and mon petit chat, and he tutoies her. Pure, irresistible comedy! The scene deserves to be quoted in full, but we must hasten on to the dénouement.
It is close. Life at the Nantais publisher’s has become intolerable. Constant strife; day after day, scenes between Pascaline and her step-mother. And, at last, Hélène decides on a daring step: to visit Gabrielle, tell her of Forjot’s unhappiness, implore her to interfere no longer between father and daughter. But she fails to move Gabrielle, who is cold and impertinent. And then, believing that if she herself disappeared, Pascaline would be entirely restored to Forjot, Hélène determines to leave Nantes and resume her dull career of governess. And this determination becomes all the stronger when she learns that Pascaline has fled Nantes and taken refuge with her mother. Poor Forjot has aged and withered when next we see him. Pascaline’s flight has been a bitter blow. But the music publisher will not hear of Hélène’s sacrifice, and is passionately bidding her remain, when Gabrielle is announced. Hélène leaves the room. And Gabrielle and Forjot find themselves face to face again.
In the great scene that follows, Gabrielle begins by saying that, as Hélène has determined to leave Nantes, she, Gabrielle, no longer wishes to keep Pascaline away from her father, and has brought her home.
Forjot declares that Hélène shall not be sacrificed; and upon this, Gabrielle proclaims her intention of keeping Pascaline.
Now again we have the Bourgeois Forjot displaying qualities of temper, character and moral sense, of the very highest order: qualities of the chivalrous sort. He does not fly into a passion. He does not taunt this offender against maternal and conjugal obligations. But earnestly and simply he addresses the author of all this trouble; and with a self-restraint that would certainly not have been found in his English prototype, he invites her to examine her own conduct; and to ask herself whether it is Hélène and himself, or whether it is Gabrielle herself, and Gabrielle only, who has behaved cruelly and selfishly to Pascaline, as well as to the husband she betrayed and the good woman who has taken care of the child she abandoned.
Forjot. Gabrielle, just remember. You are the cause of all this trouble. It only depended upon you to stay on here, and never to be separated from your child. I never made your life unhappy! I loved you; and you know very well I should have forgiven you. I begged you to stay and you would not. What harm you have done by obeying your caprice! Just now I saw very well you hardly recognised me—so aged am I by all this. For my part, I have never harmed you. Hélène has never harmed you—what do you say? No, no; she has never harmed you! And yet it is we who are punished. It is because you behaved badly in the past that we are threatened to-day with distress and loneliness. After having poisoned my life, you wish then to hasten my death?
Gabrielle. You know very well that I regret having made you suffer.
Forjot. Let me tell you this: a great many people would not have acted as we have done. They might not have told our child the real story of your desertion; but they would not have invented excuses for you.
Gabrielle. Yes; I know you have been very kind, and I thank you for it.
Forjot. I am not the only one you ought to thank. Hélène has always respected you: she has taught Pascaline to love you! It seems to me that should touch you. Give our child back to us. Now, admit it, you have launched yourself upon a new life. You have made yourself different from us. I can’t well explain myself; and it is difficult to make you understand my feelings because I don’t want to use words that might hurt or irritate you; but I must put the facts before you plainly.
Always generous is Forjot. Not one brutal, not one harsh word does he throw at his wife! He promises that Pascaline shall continue to visit her as often as she pleases, if Gabrielle, on the other side, will promise not to poison Pascaline’s mind against him and Hélène. Gabrielle is touched. Rising, she opens the door, and brings in Pascaline. And Pascaline, seeing her poor father’s anxious, care-worn face, runs up to him.
Pascaline. Oh, father! father! advise me. I am puzzled, bewildered. Something tells me I am acting badly; but I don’t know what I ought to do. Oh, dear, I don’t know what I ought to do!
Forjot. My little Girl, it all depends upon you whether I am to finish my life in misery, or in peace. You can give me happiness in the days I have still to live. But to do that, you must come back to us; and you must try to treat Hélène with the respect and gratitude you owe her. In her despair at not being able to win back your affection, she wants to leave us. She wishes to return once more to the lonely, uncertain life of a governess. She wants to plunge herself into this unknown, uncertain destiny. It is I who appeal to you to have mercy upon her, and upon me.
Pascaline. Ah, if only I might love you without being false to Mama!
Gabrielle [emotionally]. You can, you can, Pascaline! Yes, my daughter, I am not the mother that you believe in! Since I left you I have created for myself a new life, new habits, new affections; and then, Pascaline, I am going to marry again!
Always, emotionally, Gabrielle tells how she once had two paths to choose, and that she chose the wrong one.
But Pascaline interrupts her with a cry of: “What a calumny!” and vows that her mother has never done wrong. And that she knows for certain, as Hélène herself has often told her so.
Gabrielle. Eh bien, va embrasser Hélène pour cela. Je te le demande. Je vous la confie, Hélène.
And so, the end. Not heroic, in accordance with the English poetic sentiment, demanding that Gabrielle should pass out sorrowing and penitent; convicted in her child’s eyes, who flies for safety to the virtuous bosom of Hélène, but à l’amiable, in accordance with the French sentiment expressed by Forjot: “Mon enfant, si l’on n’avait pas d’indulgence les uns pour les autres, la vie des plus braves gens ne serait pas possible.”
But what comes of it all? No argument for or against divorce; no attack upon, no justification of the French method of educating the jeune fille. But a picture of the feelings and emotions bound up with that method; and a picture also of the generous reasonableness, sense of justice, and human kindness that lie at the root of French character—and that may to some extent compensate for a lack of the absolutely sincere and unadulterated love of decency and respectability for their own sakes that are our own distinguishing characteristics.
[3] Briant père. Il suffit aujourd’hui—et je le constate sans en être le moins du monde troublé, croyez-le bien—il suffit qu’un enfant soit naturel pour se voir l’objet de la sympathie générale, comme il suffit qu’une femme ne soit pas légitime pour être immédiatement entourée du respect universel. Que les femmes et les enfants ne se le dissimulent pas, ils sont en train de passer un mauvais quart d’heure.
[4] In a criticism of M. Paul Hervieu’s Le Dédale given in The Fortnightly Review series of articles upon “French Life and the French and the French Stage,” by John F. Macdonald. By the kind permission of the Editor of The Fortnightly Review these articles are reprinted here.—F. M.