Life and Writings of Maurice Maeterlinck

by Jethro Bithell

According to the accepted dramatic canons, a play is a tragedy when death allays the excitement aroused in us by the action, the whole course of which moves onward to this inevitable end. In such tragedies death is a relief from the stormy happenings which bring it; it is not in itself represented as profoundly interesting—it is not an aim, but a result, "it is our death that guides our life," says Maeterlinck, "and life has no other aim than our death."[1] Not only the careers, crowded with events, of the great, but also the simple, quiet lives of lowly people are raised into high significance by this common bourne. Death is not so much a catastrophe as a mystery. It casts its shadow over the whole of our finite existence; and beyond it lies infinity.

Death, however, is only one of the mighty mysteries, the unknown powers, "the presences which are not to be put by," which rule our destinies. Love is another. To these two cosmic forces are devoted a series of dramas which were in 1901-2 collected by Maeterlinck in three volumes under the title of Théâtre. In the preface[2] to the collection Maeterlinck has himself interpreted the plays with a clearness and fullness which leaves the reader in no doubt as to his aims.

"In these plays," he says, "faith is held in enormous powers, invisible and fatal. No one knows their intentions, but the spirit of the drama assumes they are malevolent, attentive to all our actions, hostile to smiles, to life, to peace, to happiness. Destinies which are innocent but involuntarily hostile are here joined, and parted to the ruin of all, under the saddened eyes of the wisest, who foresee the future but can change nothing in the cruel and inflexible games which Love and Death practise among the living. And Love and Death and the other powers here exercise a sort of sly injustice, the penalties of which—for this injustice awards no compensation—are perhaps nothing but the whims of fate....

"This Unknown takes on, most frequently, the form of Death. The infinite presence of death, gloomy, hypocritically active, fills all the interstices of the poem. To the problem of existence no reply is made except by the riddle of its annihilation."

There is another thing to be remembered (this is a repetition, but it is necessary) in reading Maeterlinck's early plays. Behind the scene which he chooses with varying degrees of clearness, lies Plato's famous image—the image of a cavern on whose walls enigmatic shadows are reflected.[3] In this cavern man gropes about in exile, with his back to the light he is seeking.

The mysterious coming of death is the theme of The Intruder, a play by Maeterlinck which was published in 1890. It appeared as the first of two plays in a volume called Les Aveugles (The Sightless). This is the name of the second play in the book; but the grandfather in The Intruder too is blind, and through both plays runs the idea that we are blind beings groping in the dark (in Plato's cavern), and that those who see least see most.

The subject of The Intruder can be told in a few words. In a dark room in an old castle are sitting the blind grandfather, the father, the uncle, and the three daughters. In the adjoining room lies the mother who has recently been confined. She has been at death's door; but at last the doctors say the danger is over, and all but the grandfather are confident. He thinks she is not doing well.... he has heard her voice. They think he is querulous. The uncle is more anxious about the child: he has scarcely stirred since he was born, he has not cried once, he is like a wax baby. The sister is expected to arrive at any minute. The eldest daughter watches for her from the window. It is moonlight, and she can see the avenue as far as the grove of cypresses. She hears the nightingales. A gentle breeze stirs in the avenue; the trees tremble a little. The grandfather remarks that he can no longer hear the nightingales, and the daughter is afraid someone has entered the garden. She sees no one, but somebody must be passing near the pond, for the swans are afraid, and all the fish dive suddenly. The dogs do not bark; she can see the house-dog crouching at the back of his kennel. The nightingales continue silent—there is a silence of death—it must be a stranger frightening them, says the grandfather. The roses shed their leaves. The grandfather feels cold; but the glass door on to the terrace will not shut—the joiner is to come to-morrow, he will put it right. Suddenly the sharpening of a scythe is heard outside—it must be the gardener preparing to mow the grass. The lamp does not burn well. A noise is heard as of someone entering the house, but no one comes up the stairs. They ring for the servant. They hear her steps, and the grandfather thinks she is not alone. The father opens the door; she remains on the landing. She is alone. She says no one has entered the house, but she has closed the door below, which she had found open. The father tells her not to push the door to; she denies that she is doing so. The grandfather, who, though he is blind, is conscious of light, thinks they are putting the lamp out. He asks whether the servant, who has gone downstairs, is in the room: it had seemed to him that she was sitting at the table. He cannot believe that no one has entered. He asks why they have put the light out. He is filled with an unendurable desire to see his daughter, but they will not let him—she is sleeping. The lamp goes out. They sit in the darkness. Midnight strikes, and at the last stroke of the clock they seem to hear a noise as of someone rising hastily. The grandfather maintains that someone has risen from, his chair. Suddenly the child is heard crying, crying in terror. Hurried steps are heard in the sick woman's chamber. The door of it is opened, the light from it pours into the room, and on the threshold appears a Sister of Charity, who makes the sign of the Cross to announce the mother's death.

Already in The Princess Maleine the miraculous happenings could all be explained by natural causes. Still more so in The Intruder. It was not the reaper Death who was sharpening his scythe, but the gardener. If the lamp goes out, it is because there is no oil in it. Accompanying the naturalness of the atmosphere (the atmosphere that is natural when a patient is in danger of dying), there is the naturalness of the dialogue. The family is worn out with anxious watching: how natural then is the sleepy tone of the talking, which is only quickened somewhat by the apparent irritability of the grandfather:

THE FATHER: He is nearly eighty.
THE UNCLE: No wonder he's eccentric.
THE FATHER: He's like all blind people.
THE UNCLE: They think too much.
THE FATHER: They've too much time on their hands.
THE UNCLE: They've nothing else to do.
THE FATHER: It's their only way of passing the time.
THE UNCLE: It must be terrible.
THE FATHER: I suppose you get used to it.
THE UNCLE: I dare say.
THE FATHER: They are certainly to be pitied.

In this play, as also in The Sightless, and later on in The Life of the Bees, Maeterlinck shows himself a master of irony. The passage just quoted is an example.

To Maeterlinck, with reference to The Intruder, has been applied what Victor Hugo said to Baudelaire after he had read The Flowers of Evil: "You have created a new shudder." Certainly, the new frisson is there; but was it Maeterlinck who created it? It will be well to go into this question; for Maeterlinck, in connection with The Intruder, has been charged with plagiarism.