Il faut perdre connaissance!
And for the full space of a year Mesa loses, in the arms of Ysé, that consciousness of a fuller life, hidden behind the tattered screen of appearances, which had long been to him the Unum necessarium.
But Mesa has his revenge. We make acquaintance with these four persons on a ship sailing eastwards, just as they cross the line. De Ciz is an errant engineer, in search of employment: Amalric is a trader ruined yesterday, but sure of his million to-morrow; Mesa is, by his worldly situation, a sort of Sir Robert Hart, a great functionary, equally indispensable to the Europeans and the Chinese, but by temperament he is a mystic, meditating the full oblation, hesitating whether or no he shall embrace the life of a monk. Ysé is a new world to the visionary Mesa:—
‘Il fait bon près d’une femme!
On est comme assis à l’ombre et j’aime à l’entendre parler avec une grande sagesse,
Et me dire des choses dures, malignes,
Pratiques, bassement vraies, comme les femmes savent en trouver. Cela me fait du bien.’
The second act is two long duets in the cemetery of the Hong Kong Happy Valley. The first between Ysé and her husband, who leaves her on an expedition to Siam; the second between Ysé and Mesa, who, like a greater mystic, has sent the husband to a place of danger in order that the fair Bathsheba may be his own.
Photo: Dornac To face p. 88