George Egerton’s life has been of the kind which affords ample material for literary purposes, and it is probable that she has more raw material ready for use at any time when she may require it; but at present she retains it in her nerves, as it were, under lock and key. She had intended from childhood to become an artist, and writing is only an afterthought; yet, no sooner did she begin to write than the impressions and experiences of her life shaped themselves into the form of her two published works. Until the publication of “Discords,” we had thought that she was one of those intensely individualistic writers who write one book because they must, but never write another, or, at any rate, not one that will bear comparison with the first; the publication of “Discords” has entirely dispelled this opinion, and has given us good reason to hope for many more works from her pen.
III
The Modern Woman on the Stage
I
A lean figure, peculiarly attractive, though scarcely to be called beautiful; a melancholy face with a strangely sweet expression, no longer young, yet possessed of a pale, wistful charm; la femme de trente ans, who has lived and suffered, and who knows that life is full of suffering; a woman without any aggressive self-confidence, yet queenly, gentle, and subdued in manner, with a pathetic voice,—such is Eleonora Duse as she appeared in the parts which she created for herself out of modern pieces. When first I saw her, I tried to think of some one with whom to compare her; I turned over in my mind the names of all the greatest actresses in the last ten years or more, and wondered whether any of them could be said to be her equal, or to have surpassed her. But neither Wolter nor Bernhardt, neither Ellmenreich nor the best actresses of the Théâtre Français, could be compared with her. The French and German actresses were entirely different; they seemed to stand apart, each complete in themselves—while she too stood apart, complete in herself. They represented a world of their own and a perfected civilization; and she, though like them in some ways, seemed to represent the genesis of a world, and a civilization in embryo. This was not merely the result of comparing an Italian with French and German, and one school with another,—it was the woman’s temperament compared to that of others, her acute susceptibility, compared to which her celebrated predecessors impressed one as being too massive, almost too crude, and one might be tempted to add, less womanly. Many of them have possessed a more versatile genius than hers, and nearly all have had greater advantages at their disposal; but the moment that we compare them to Duse, their loud, convulsive art suddenly assumes the appearance of one of those gigantic pictures by Makart, once so fiery colored and now so faded; and if we compare the famous dramatic artists of the seventies and eighties with Duse, we might as well compare a splendid festal march played with many instruments to a Violin solo floating on the still night air.
The pieces acted by Eleonora Duse at Berlin, where I saw her, were mainly chosen to suit the public taste, and they differed in nothing from the usual virtuosa programme. These consisted of Sarah Bernhardt’s favorite parts, such as “Fédora,” “La Dame aux Camélias,” and pieces taken from the répertoire of the Théâtre Français, such as “Francillon” and “Divorçons,” varied with “Cavalleria Rusticana,” and such well-known plays as “Locandiera,” “Fernande,” and “The Doll’s House.” She did not act Shakespeare, and there she was wise; for what can Duse’s pale face have in common with the exuberant spirits and muscular strength of the women of the Renaissance, whose own rich life-blood shone red before their eyes and drove them to deeds of love and vengeance, which it makes the ladies of our time ill to hear described. But she also neglected some pieces which must have suited her better than her French répertoire. She did not give us Marco Praga’s “Modest Girls,” where Paulina’s part seems expressly created for her, nor his “Ideal Wife,” into which she might have introduced some of her own instinctive philosophy. Neither did she act the “Tristi Amori” of her celebrated fellow-countryman, Giuseppe Giacosa.
And yet, in the parts which she did act, she opened to us a new world, which had no existence before, because it was her own. It was the world of her own soul, the ever-changing woman’s world, which no one before her has ever expressed on the stage; she gave us the secret, inner life of woman, which no poet can wholly fathom, and which only woman herself can reveal, which with more refined nerves and more sensitive and varied feelings has emerged bleeding from the older, coarser, narrower forms of art, to newer, brighter forms, which, though more powerful, are also more wistful and more hopeless.
II
Eleonora Duse has a strangely wearied look. It is not the weariness of exhaustion or apathy, nor is it the weariness natural to an overworked actress, although there are times when she suffers from that to so great an extent that she acts indifferently the whole evening, and makes the part a failure. Neither is it the weariness of despondency which gives the voice a hollow, artificial sound, which is noticeable in all virtuosas when they are over-tired. Neither is it the utter prostration resulting from passion, like the drowsiness of beasts of prey, which our tragic actors and actresses delight in. Passion, the so-called great passion, which, according to an old legend recounted in one of the Greek tragedies, comes like the whirlwind, and leaves nothing behind but death and dried bones—passion such as that is unknown to Duse. Brunhild, Medea, Messalina, and all the ambitious, imperious princesses of historic drama are nothing to her; she is no princess or martyr of ancient history, but a princess in her own right, and a martyr of circumstances. Throughout her acting there is a feeling of surprise that she should suffer and be martyred, accompanied by the dim knowledge that it must be so—and it is that which gives her soul its weary melancholy. For it is not her body, nor her senses, nor her mind which give the appearance of having just awoke from a deep lethargy; the weariness is all in her soul, and it is that which gives her a soft, caressing, trustful manner, as though she felt lonely, and yearned for a little sympathy. Love is full of sympathy, and that is why Eleonora Duse acts love. Not greedy love, which asks more than it gives, like Walter’s and Bernhardt’s; not sensual love, nor yet imperious love, like the big woman who takes pity on the little man, whom it pleases her to make happy. When Duse is in love, even in “Fédora,” it is always she who is the little woman, and the man is for her the big man, the giver, who holds her happiness in his hands, to whose side she steals anxiously, almost timidly, and looks up at him with her serious, wearied, almost child-like smile. She comes to him for protection and shelter, just as travelers are wont to gather round a warm fire, and she clings to him caressingly with her thin little hands,—the hands of a child and mother. Never has woman been represented in a more womanly way than by Eleonora Duse; and more than that, I take it upon myself to maintain that woman has never been represented upon the stage until now—by Eleonora Duse.
She shows us the everlasting child in woman,—in the full-grown, experienced woman, who is possessed of an erotic yearning for fulness of life. Woman is not, and cannot be, happy by herself, nor is the sacrifice of a moment enough for her; it is not enough for her to live by the side of the man; a husband’s tenderness is as necessary to her as the air she breathes. His passion, lit by her, is her life and happiness. He gives her the love in which her life can blossom into a fair and beautiful flower. And she accepts him, not with the silly innocence of a child, not with the ignorance of girlhood, not with the ungoverned passion of a mistress, not with the condescending forbearance of the “superior woman,” not with the brotherly affection of the manly woman,—we have had ample opportunity of seeing and benefiting by such representations as those in every theatre, and in every tongue, since first we began to see and to think. They include every type of womanhood as understood and represented by actresses great and small. But into all this, Duse introduces a new element, something which was formerly only a matter of secondary importance on the stage, which, by the “highest art,” was judged in the light of a juggler’s trick, and was considered by the lower art as little more than a valuable ingredient. She makes it the main-string on which her acting vibrates, the keynote without which her art would have no meaning. She accepts the man with the whole-hearted sincerity of an experienced woman, who shrinks from the loneliness of life, and longs to lose herself in the “loved one”. She has the dreadful sensation that a human being has nothing but minutes, minutes; that there is nothing lasting to rely on; that we swim across dark waters from yesterday until to-morrow, and our unfulfilled desires are less terrible than the feverish anxiety with which we anticipate the future in times of prosperity.
Eleonora Duse’s acting tells of infinite suspense.