"It is an error to believe that pantomime is merely a way of doing without words," writes Arthur Symons," that it is merely the equivalent of words. Pantomime is thinking overheard. It begins and ends before words have formed themselves, in a deeper consciousness than that of speech. And it addresses itself, by the artful limitations of its craft, to universal human experience, knowing that the moment it departs from those broad lines it will become unintelligible. It risks existence on its own perfection, as the rope-dancer does, to whom a false step means a down-fall. And it appeals democratically to people of all nations.... And pantomime has that mystery which is one of the requirements of true art. To watch it is like dreaming. How silently, in dreams, one gathers the unheard sounds of words from the lips that do but make pretence of saying them! And does not every one know that terrifying impossibility of speaking which fastens one to the ground for the eternity of a second, in what is the new, perhaps truer, computation of time in dreams? Something like that sense of suspense seems to hang over the silent actors in pantomime, giving them a nervous exaltation, which has its subtle, immediate effect upon us, in tragic and comic situation. The silence becomes an atmosphere, and with a very curious power of giving distinction to form and motion. I do not see why people should ever break silence on the stage except to speak poetry. Here, in pantomime, you have a gracious, expressive silence, beauty of gesture, a perfectly discreet appeal to the emotions, a transposition of the world into an elegant accepted convention."
Arthur Symons wrote these words before he had seen the Russian Ballet, before the Russian Ballet, as we know it, existed, indeed, before Nijinsky had begun to dance in public, and he felt that the addition of poetry and music to pantomime—the Wagner music-drama in other words—brought about a perfect combination of the arts. Nevertheless, there is an obvious application of his remarks to the present instance. There is, indeed, the quality of a dream about the characters Nijinsky presents to us. I remember once, at a performance of the Russian Ballet, I sat in a box next to a most intelligent man, a writer himself; I was meeting him for the first time, and he was seeing the Ballet for the first time. Before the curtain rose he had told me that dancing and pantomime were very pretty to look at, but that he found no stimulation in watching them, no mental and spiritual exaltation, such as might follow a performance of Hamlet. Having seen Nijinsky, I could not agree with him—and this indifferent observer became that evening himself a fervent disciple of the Ballet. For Nijinsky gave him, he found, just what his ideal performance of Shakespeare's play might have given him, a basis for dreams, for thinking, for poetry. The ennobling effect of all great and perfect art, after the primary emotion, seems to be to set our minds wandering in a thousand channels, to suggest new outlets. Pater's experience before the Monna Lisa is only unique in its intense and direct expression.
No writer, no musician, no painter, can feel deep emotion before a work of art without expressing it in some way, although the expression may be a thousand leagues removed from the inspiration. And how few of us can view the art of Nijinsky without emotion! To the painter he gives a new sense of proportion, to the musician a new sense of rhythm, while to the writer he must perforce immediately suggest new words; better still, new meanings for old words. Dance, pantomime, acting, harmony, all these divest themselves of their worn-out accoutrements and appear, as if clothed by magic, in garments of unheard-of novelty; hue, texture, cut, and workmanship are all a surprise to us. We look enraptured, we go away enthralled, and perhaps even unconsciously a new quality creeps into our own work. It is the same glamour cast over us by contemplation of the Campo Santo at Pisa, or the Roman Theatre at Orange, or the Cathedral at Chartres,—the inspiration for one of the most word-jewelled books in any language—or the New York sky line at twilight as one sails away into the harbour, or a great iron crane which lifts tons of alien matter in its gaping jaw. Great music can give us this feeling, the symphonies of Beethoven, Mozart's Don Giovanni, Schubert's C Major Symphony, or César Franck's D Minor, The Sacrifice to the Spring of Strawinsky, L'Après-midi d'un Faune of Debussy, Chabrier's Rhapsody, España; great interpretative musicians can give it to us, Ysaye at his best, Paderewski, Marcella Sembrich in song recital; but how few artists on the stage suggest even as much as the often paltry lines of the author, the often banal music of the composer! There is an au delà to all great interpretative art, something that remains after story, words, picture, and gesture have faded vaguely into that storeroom in our memories where are concealed these lovely ghosts of ephemeral beauty, and the artist who is able to give us this is blessed even beyond his knowledge, for to him has been vouchsafed the sacred kiss of the gods. This quality cannot be acquired, it cannot even be described, but it can be felt. With its beneficent aid the interpreter not only contributes to our pleasure, he broadens our horizon, adds to our knowledge and capacity for feeling.
As I read over these notes I realize that I have not been able to discover flaws in the art of this young man. It seems to me that in his chosen medium he approaches perfection. What he attempts to do, he always does perfectly. Can one say as much for any other interpreter? But it is a difficult matter to give the spirit of Nijinsky, to describe his art on paper, to capture the abundant grace, the measureless poetry, the infinite illusion of his captivating motion in ink. Who can hope to do it? Future generations must take our word for his greatness. We can do little more than call it that. I shall have served my purpose if I have succeeded in this humble article in bringing back to those who have seen him a flashing glimpse of the imaginative actuality.
Epilogue
as a substitute for a preface to the new edition.
I
IT was formerly the custom, in England at any rate, to publish one book in two or three volumes. Judge, therefore, of my dismay and delight on discovering, shortly after the first appearance of "Interpreters and Interpretations," in 1917, that I, abetted by my always delightfully agreeable publisher, had issued two books in one volume! Even the title itself fell apart. This practical detail has made it a comparatively simple matter to exhibit these twins separately in the future, and such is my intention. This volume, then, contains the first half of the longer book.
I have been asked occasionally why I devote so much attention in my writing to interpreters. The answer is, of course, that I devote very little attention to them, not enough, I sometimes think. This book, indeed, says nearly all that I have said up to date on the subject. But I am not at all in sympathy with those critics of music and the drama who lay stress on the relative unimportance of interpreters. Sometimes I am inclined to believe that interpreters, who mould their own personalities rather than clay or words, are greater than creators. I think we might have a more ideal theatre if interpreters could be their own creators, like the mediæval troubadours or the gipsies of Spain. For there are many disadvantages about creative art. One of them is its persistence. Beethoven and Dante wrote notes and letters down on paper and there they remain, apparently forever. It is very annoying. Legends hover round the names of these artists, and for centuries after their deaths all the stupid creators in the world try to do something similar to the work these men have done, and all the really inspired artists have to pass a period of probation during which they strive to forget the work these men have done. "You will find," remarks sagaciously one Henry C. Lunn, "that people will often praise a bad fugue because Bach has produced so many good ones." It would be much better for everybody if a law were passed consigning all creative work to the flames ten years after it saw the light. Then we would have novelty. If Beethoven recurred again, at least nobody would know it. Any knowledge about books or pictures or music of the past would have to be carried in the memory and in a few decades all memory of anything that was not essential would have disappeared. It must have been a thrilling experience to have lived in Alexandria at the time the library was burned. Just think, twenty years after that event, philosophers and professors probably could be found in Alexandria who did not go round with long faces telling you what had been done and what should be done. No references to the early Assyrians and the Greeks until the papyruses were replaced. The Renaissance and the Revival of Learning, on the other hand, doubtless pleasant enough at the time, smeared a terrible blot on the future of art.