Yet some day it may chance, in England or Germany, to find a niche in some wounded breast, some quivering soul—in France and Italy it is a hopeless alien.
Coming away from Hamlet, I vowed that never more would I expose myself to Shakespearian temptation, never more singe my scorched wings in his flame.
Next morning Romeo and Juliet was placarded. In terror lest the free list of the Odéon should be suspended by the new management, I tore round to the box-office and bought a stall. I was done for!
Ah! what a change from the dull grey skies and icy winds of Denmark to the burning sun, the perfumed nights of Italy! From the melancholy, the cruel irony, the tears, the mourning, the lowering destiny of Hamlet, what a transition to the impetuous youthful love, the long-drawn kisses, the vengeance, the despairing fatal conflict of love and death in those hapless lovers!
By the third act, half suffocated by my emotion, with the grip of an iron hand upon my heart, I cried to myself: “I am lost—am lost!”
Knowing no English I could but grope mistily through the fog of a translation, could only see Shakespeare as in a glass—darkly. The poetic weft that winds its golden thread in network through those marvellous creations was invisible to me then; yet, as it was, how much I learnt!
An English critic has stated in the Illustrated London News that, on seeing Miss Smithson that night, I said:
“I will marry Juliet and will write my greatest symphony on the play.”
I did both, but I never said anything of the kind. I was in far too much perturbation to entertain such ambitious dreams. Only through much tribulation were both ends gained.
After seeing these two plays I had no more difficulty in keeping away from the theatre. I shuddered at the bare idea of renewing such awful suffering, and shrank as if from excruciating physical pain.