Chapter IV: Part 4

_Moritz._ How should I know it? I see how the hens lay eggs, and
hear that Mamma had to carry me under her heart. But is that
enough?... I have gone through Meyer's "Little Encyclopedia" from A
to Z. Words--nothing but words and words! Not a single plain
explanation. Oh, this feeling of shame!--What good to me is an
encyclopedia that won't answer me concerning the most important
question in life?

Yes, of what good is an encyclopedia or the other wise books to the quivering, restless spirit of the child? No answer anywhere, least of all from your own mother, as _Wendla_ and many another like her have found out.

The girl, learning that her sister has a new baby, rushes to her mother to find out how it came into the world.

_Wendla._ I have a sister who has been married for two and a half
years, I myself have been made an aunt for the third time, and I
haven't the least idea how it all comes about--Don't be cross,
Mother dear, don't be cross! Whom in the world should I ask but you!
Please tell me, dear Mother! Tell me, dear Mother! I am ashamed for
myself. Please, Mother, speak! Don't scold me for asking you about
it. Give me an answer--How does it happen?--How does it all come
about?--You cannot really deceive yourself that I, who am fourteen
years old, still believe in the stork.

_Frau Bergmann._ Good Lord, child, but you are peculiar!--What ideas
you have!--I really can't do that!

_Wendla._ But why not, Mother?--Why not?--It can't be anything ugly
if everybody is delighted over it!

_Fran Bergmann._ O--O God, protect me!--I deserve--Go get dressed,
child, go get dressed.

_Wendla._ I'll go--And suppose your child went out and asked the
chimney sweep?

_Fran Bergmann._ But that would be madness!--Come here, child, come
here, I'll tell you! I'll tell you everything-- ... In order to have
a child--one must love--the man--to whom one is married--love him, I
tell you--as one can only love a man! One must love him so much with
one's whole heart, so--so that one can't describe it! One must love
him, Wendla, as you at your age are still unable to love--Now you
know it!

How much _Wendla_ knew, her mother found out when too late.

_Wendla_ and _Melchior_, overtaken by a storm, seek shelter in a haystack, and are drawn by what _Melchior_ calls the "first emotion of manhood" and curiosity into each other's arms. Six months later _Wendla's_ mother discovers that her child is to become a mother. To save the family honor, the girl is promptly placed in the hands of a quack who treats her for chlorosis.

_Wendla._ No, Mother, no! I know it. I feel it. I haven't chlorosis.
I have dropsy--I won't get better. I have the dropsy, I must die,
Mother--O, Mother, I must die!

_Frau Bergmann._ You must not die, child! You must not die--Great
heavens, you must not die!

_Wendla._ But why do you weep so frightfully, then?

_Frau Bergmann._ You must not die, child! You haven't the dropsy,
you have a child, girl! You have a child! Oh, why did you do that to
me!

_Wendla._ I haven't done anything to you.

_Frau Bergmann._ Oh, don't deny it any more, Wendla!--I know
everything. See, I didn't want to say a word to you.--Wendla, my
Wendla--!

_Wendla._ But it's not possible, Mother.... I have loved nobody in
the world as I do you, Mother.

The pathos of it, that such a loving mother should be responsible for the death of her own child! Yet _Frau Bergmann_ is but one of the many good, pious mothers who lay their children to "rest in God," with the inscription on the tombstone: "Wendla Bergmann, born May 5th, 1878, died from chlorosis, Oct. 27, 1892. Blessed are the pure of heart."

_Melchior_, like _Wendla_, was also "pure of heart"; yet how was he "blessed"? Surely not by his teachers who, discovering his essay on the mystery of life, expel the boy from school. Only Wedekind could inject such grim humor into the farce of education--the smug importance of the faculty of the High School sitting under the portraits of Rousseau and Pestalozzi, and pronouncing judgment on their "immoral" pupil _Melchior_.

_Rector Sonnenstich._ Gentlemen: We cannot help moving the expulsion
of our guilty pupil before the National Board of Education; there
are the strongest reasons why we cannot: we cannot, because we must
expiate the misfortune which has fallen upon us already; we cannot,
because of our need to protect ourselves from similar blows in the
future; we cannot, because we must chastise our guilty pupil for the
demoralizing influence he exerted upon his classmates; we cannot,
above all, because we must hinder him from exerting the same
influence upon his remaining classmates. We cannot ignore the
charge--and this, gentlemen, is possibly the weightiest of all--on
any pretext concerning a ruined career, because it is our duty to
protect ourselves from an epidemic of suicide similar to that which
has broken out recently in various grammar schools, and which until
to-day has mocked all attempts of the teachers to shackle it by any
means known to advanced education.... We see ourselves under the
necessity of judging the guilt-laden that we may not be judged
guilty ourselves.... Are you the author of this obscene manuscript?

_Melchior._ Yes--I request you, sir, to show me anything obscene in
it.

_Sonnenstich._ You have as little respect for the dignity of your
assembled teachers as you have a proper appreciation of mankind's
innate sense of shame which belongs to a moral world.

_Melchior's_ mother, a modern type, has greater faith in her child than in school education. But even she cannot hold out against the pressure of public opinion; still less against the father of _Melchior_, a firm believer in authority and discipline.

_Herr Gabor._ Anyone who can write what Melchior wrote must be
rotten to the core of his being. The mark is plain. A half-healthy
nature wouldn't do such a thing. None of us are saints. Each of us
wanders from the straight path. His writing, on the contrary,
tramples on principles. His writing is no evidence of a chance slip
in the usual way; it sets forth with dreadful plainness and a
frankly definite purpose that natural longing, that propensity for
immorality, because it is immorality. His writing manifests that
exceptional state of spiritual corruption which we jurists classify
under the term "moral imbecility."

Between the parents and the educators, _Melchior_ is martyred even as _Wendla_. He is sent to the House of Correction; but being of sturdier stock than the girl, he survives.

Not so his chum _Moritz_. Harassed by the impelling forces of his awakened nature, and unable to grapple with the torturous tasks demanded by his "educators" at the most critical period of his life, _Moritz_ fails in the examinations. He cannot face his parents: they have placed all their hope in him, and have lashed him, by the subtle cruelty of gratitude, to the grindstone till his brain reeled. _Moritz_ is the third victim in the tragedy, the most convenient explanation of which is given by _Pastor Kahlbauch_ in the funeral sermon.

_Pastor Kahlbauch._ He who rejects the grace with which the
Everlasting Father has blessed those born in sin, he shall die a
spiritual death!--He, however, who in willful carnal abnegation of
God's proper honor, lives for and serves evil, shall die the death
of the body!--Who, however, wickedly throws away from him the cross
which the All Merciful has laid upon him for his sins, verily,
verily, I say unto you, he shall die the everlasting death! Let us,
however, praise the All Gracious Lord and thank Him for His
inscrutable grace in order that we may travel the thorny path more
and more surely. For as truly as this one died a triple death, as
truly will the Lord God conduct the righteous unto happiness and
everlasting life....

It is hardly necessary to point out the revolutionary significance of this extraordinary play. It speaks powerfully for itself. One need only add that "The Awakening of Spring" has done much to dispel the mist enveloping the paramount issue of sex in the education of the child. To-day it is conceded even by conservative elements that the conspiracy of silence has been a fatal mistake. And while sponsors of the Church and of moral fixity still clamor for the good old methods, the message of Wedekind is making itself felt throughout the world, breaking down the barriers.

The child is the unit of the race, and only through its unhampered unfoldment can humanity come into its heritage. "The Awakening of Spring" is one of the great forces of modern times that is paving the way for the birth of a free race.

THE FRENCH DRAMA

MAETERLINCK

To those who are conversant with the works of Maeterlinck it may seem rather far-fetched to discuss him from the point of view of revolutionary and social significance. Above all, Maeterlinck is the portrayer of the remote, the poet of symbols: therefore it may seem out of place to bring him down to earth, to simplify him, or to interpret his revolutionary spirit. To some extent these objections have considerable weight; but on the other hand, if one keeps in mind that only those who go to the remote are capable of understanding the obvious, one will readily see how very significant Maeterlinck is as a revolutionizing factor. Besides, we have Maeterlinck's own conception of the significance of the revolutionary spirit. In a very masterly article called "The Social Revolution," he discusses the objection on the part of the conservative section of society to the introduction of revolutionary methods. He says that they would like us to "go slow"; that they object to the use of violence and the forcible overthrow of the evils of society. And Maeterlinck answers in these significant words:

"We are too ready to forget that the headsmen of misery are less noisy, less theatrical, but infinitely more numerous, more cruel and active than those of the most terrible revolutions."

Maeterlinck realizes that there are certain grievances in society, iniquitous conditions which demand immediate solution, and that if we do not solve them with the readiest and quickest methods at our command, they will react upon society and upon life a great deal more terribly than even the most terrible revolutions. No wonder, then, that his works were put under the ban by the Catholic Church which forever sees danger in light and emancipation. Surely if Maeterlinck were not primarily the spokesman of truth, he would be embraced by the Catholic Church.

In "Monna Vanna" Maeterlinck gives a wonderful picture of the new woman--not the new woman as portrayed in the newspapers, but the new woman as a reborn, regenerated spirit; the woman who has emancipated herself from her narrow outlook upon life, and detached herself from the confines of the home; the woman, in short, who has become race-conscious and therefore understands that she is a unit in the great ocean of life, and that she must take her place as an independent factor in order to rebuild and remold life. In proportion as she learns to become race-conscious, does she become a factor in the reconstruction of society, valuable to herself, to her children, and to the race.

* * * * *

Pisa is subdued by the forces of Florence; it is beaten and conquered. The city is in danger of being destroyed, and the people exposed to famine and annihilation. There is only one way of saving Pisa. _Marco Colonna_, the father of the Commander of Pisa, brings the ultimatum of the enemy:

_Marco._ Know, then, that I saw Prinzivalle and spoke with him.... I
thought to find some barbarian, arrogant and heavy, always covered
with blood or plunged in drunken stupor; at best, the madman they
have told us of, whose spirit was lit up at times, upon the
battlefield, by dazzling flashes of brilliance, coming no man knows
whence. I thought to meet the demon of combat, blind, unreasoning,
vain and cruel, faithless and dissolute.... I found a man who bowed
before me as a loving disciple bows before the master. He is
lettered, eager for knowledge, and obedient to the voice of
wisdom.... He loves not war; his smile speaks of understanding and
gentle humanity. He seeks the reason of passions and events. He
looks into his own heart; he is endowed with conscience and
sincerity, and it is against his will that he serves a faithless
State.... I have told you that Prinzivalle seems wise, that he is
humane and reasonable. But where is the wise man that hath not his
private madness, the good man to whom no monstrous idea has ever
come? On one side is reason and pity and justice; on the other--ah!
_there_ is desire and passion and what you will--the insanity into
which we all fall at times. I have fallen into it myself, and shall,
belike, again--so have you. Man is made in that fashion. A grief
which should not be within the experience of man is on the point of
touching you.... Hearken: this great convoy, the victuals that I
have seen, wagons running over with corn, others full of wine and
fruit; flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, enough to feed a city
for months; all these tuns of powder and bars of lead, with which
you may vanquish Florence and make Pisa lift her head--all this will
enter the city to-night, ... if you send in exchange, to give her up
to Prinzivalle until to-morrow's dawn, ... for he will send her back
when the first faint gray shows in the sky, ... only, he exacts
that, in sign of victory and submission, she shall come alone, and
her cloak for all her covering....

_Guido._ Who? Who shall thus come?

_Marco._ Giovanna.

_Guido._ My wife? Vanna?

_Marco._ Ay, your Vanna.

_Guido Colonna_, in the consciousness that the woman belongs to him, that no man may even look, with desire, upon her dazzling beauty, resents this mortal insult. He is willing that all the other women should face danger, that the little children of Pisa should be exposed to hunger and destruction, rather than that he give up his possession. But _Monna Vanna_ does not hesitate. When she is before the issue of saving her people, she does not stop to consider. She goes into the enemy's tent, as a child might go, without consciousness of self, imbued solely with the impulse to save her people.

The meeting of _Monna Vanna_ and _Prinzivalle_ is an exquisite interpretation of love--the sweetness, purity, and fragrance of _Prinzivalle's_ love for the woman of his dream--the one he had known when she was but a child, and who remained an inspiring vision all through his career. He knows he cannot reach her; he also knows that he will be destroyed by the political intriguers of Florence, and he stakes his all on this one step to satisfy the dream of his life to see _Vanna_ and in return to save Pisa.

_Prinzivalle._ Had there come ten thousand of you into my tent, all
clad alike, all equally fair, ten thousand sisters whom even their
mother would not know apart, I should have risen, should have taken
your hand, and said, "This is she!" Is it not strange that a beloved
image can live thus in a man's heart? For yours lived so in mine
that each day it changed as in real life--the image of to-day
replaced that of yesterday--it blossomed out, it became always
fairer; and the years adorned it with all that they add to a child
that grows in grace and beauty. But when I saw you again, it seemed
to me at first that my eyes deceived me. My memories were so fair
and so fond--but they had been too slow and too timid--they had not
dared to give you all the splendor which appeared so suddenly to
dazzle me. I was as a man that recalled to mind a flower he had but
seen in passing through a garden on a gray day, and should be
suddenly confronted with a hundred thousand as fair in a field
bathed with sunshine. I saw once more your hair, your brow, your
eyes, and I found all the soul of the face I had adored--but how its
beauty shames that which I had treasured in silence through endless
days, through years whose only light was a memory that had taken too
long a road and found itself outshone by the reality!... Ah! I knew
not too well what I meant to do. I felt that I was lost--and I
desired to drag with me all I could.... And I hated you, because of
the love.... Yes, I should have gone to the end had it not been
_you_.... Yet any other would have seemed odious to me--you yourself
would have had to be other than you are.... I lose my reason when I
think of it.... One word would have been enough that was different
from your words--one gesture that was not yours--the slightest thing
would have inflamed my hate and let loose the monster. But when I
saw you, I saw in that same moment that it was impossible.

_Vanna._ I felt a change, too.... I marveled that I could speak to
you as I have spoken since the first moment.... I am silent by
nature--I have never spoken thus to any man, unless it be to Marco,
Guido's father.... And even with him it is not the same. He has a
thousand dreams that take up all his mind, ... and we have talked
but a few times. The others have always a desire in their eyes that
will not suffer one to tell them that one loves them and would fain
know what they have in their hearts. In your eyes, too, a longing
burns; but it is not the same--it does not affright me nor fill me
with loathing. I felt at once that I knew you before I remembered
that I had ever seen you....

_Vanna_, awed by the character and personality of this despised and hated outlaw, pleads with him to come with her to Pisa under the protection of herself and her husband. She is sure that he will be safe with them, and that he will be hailed as the redeemer of the people of Pisa. Like innocent children they walk to their doom.

_Vanna_ is honored by the people whom she has saved, but scorned by her husband who, like the true male, does not credit her story.

_Vanna._ Hear me, I say! I have never lied--but to-day, above all
days, I tell the deepest truth, the truth that can be told but once
and brings life or death.... Hearken, Guido, then--and look upon me,
if you have never known me until this hour, the first and only hour
when you have it in your power to love me as I would be loved. I
speak in the name of our life, of all that I am, of all that you are
to me.... Be strong enough to believe that which is incredible. This
man has spared my honor.... He had all power--I was given over to
him. Yet he has not touched me--I have issued from his tent as I
might from my brother's house.... I gave him one only kiss upon the
brow--and he gave it me again.

_Guido._ Ah, that was what you were to tell us--that was the
miracle! Ay, already, at the first words, I divined something
beneath them that I understood not.... It passed me like a flash--I
took no heed of it.... But I see now that I must look more closely.
So, when he had you in his tent, alone, with a cloak for all your
covering, all night long, you say he spared you?... Am I a man to
believe that the stars are fragments of hellebore, or that one may
drop something into a well and put out the moon?... What! a man
desires you so utterly that he will betray his country, stake all
that he has for one single night, ruin himself forever, and do it
basely, do such a deed as no man ever thought to do before him, and
make the world uninhabitable to himself forever! And this man has
you there in his tent, alone and defenseless, and he has but this
single night that he has bought at such a price--and he contents
himself with a kiss upon the brow, and comes even hither to make us
give him credence! No, let us reason fairly and not too long mock at
misfortune. If he asked but that, what need was there that he should
plunge a whole people into sadness, sink me in an abyss of misery
such that I have come from it crushed and older by ten years? Ah!
Had he craved but a kiss upon the brow, he might have saved us
without torturing us so! He had but to come like a god to our
rescue.... But a kiss upon the brow is not demanded and prepared for
after his fashion.... The truth is found in our cries of anguish
and despair....

It is only at this psychological moment, a moment that sometimes changes all our conceptions, all our thoughts, our very life, that _Monna Vanna_ feels the new love for _Prinzivalle_ stirring in her soul, a love that knows no doubt. The conception of such a love is revolutionary in the scope of its possibilities--a love that is pregnant with the spirit of daring, of freedom, that lifts woman out of the ordinary and inspires her with the strength and joy of molding a new and free race.

ROSTAND

CHANTECLER

In view of the progress the modern drama has made as an interpreter of social ideas and portrayer of the human struggle against internal and external barriers, it is difficult to say what the future may bring in the way of great dramatic achievement. So far, however, there is hardly anything to compare with "Chantecler" in philosophic depth and poetic beauty.

_Chantecler_ is the intense idealist, whose mission is light and truth. His soul is aglow with deep human sympathies, and his great purpose in life is to dispel the night. He keeps aloof from mediocrity; indeed, he has little knowledge of his immediate surroundings. Like all great visionaries, _Chantecler_ is human, "all too human"; therefore subject to agonizing soul depressions and doubts. Always, however, he regains confidence and strength when he is close to the soil; when he feels the precious sap of the earth surging through his being. At such times he feels the mysterious power that gives him strength to proclaim the truth, to call forth the golden glory of the day.

The _pheasant hen_ is the eternal female, bewitchingly beautiful, but self-centered and vain. True to her destiny, she must possess the man and is jealous of everything that stands between her and him she loves. She therefore employs every device to kill _Chantecler's_ faith in himself, for, as she tells him, "You can be all in all to me, but nothing to the dawn."

The _blackbird_ is the modernist who has become blasé, mentally and spiritually empty. He is a cynic and scoffer; without principle or sincerity himself, he sees only small and petty intentions in everybody else.

_Patou_, true and stanch, is the symbol of honest conviction and simplicity of soul. He loathes the blackbird because he sees in him the embodiment of a shallow, superficial modernity, a modernity barren of all poetic vision, which aims only at material success and tinseled display, without regard for worth, harmony or peace.

The _peacock_ is the overbearing, conceited, intellectual charlatan; the spokesman of our present-day culture; the idle prater of "art for art's sake." As such he sets the style and pace for the idle pursuits of an idle class.

The _guinea hen_ is none other than our most illustrious society lady. Sterile of mind and empty of soul, she flits from one social function to another, taking up every fad, clinging to the coattails of every newcomer, provided he represent station and prestige. She is the slave of fashion, the imitator of ideas, the silly hunter after effect--in short, the parasite upon the labor and efforts of others.

The _night birds_ are the ignorant, stupid maintainers of the old. They detest the light because it exposes their mediocrity and stagnation. They hate _Chantecler_ because, as the old owl remarks, "Simple torture it is to hear a brazen throat forever reminding you of what you know to be only too true!" This is a crime mediocrity never forgives, and it conspires to kill _Chantecler_.

The _woodpecker_ is our very learned college professor. Dignified and important, he loudly proclaims the predigested food of his college as the sole source of all wisdom.

The _toads_ represent the cringing, slimy hangers-on, the flunkies and lickspittles who toady for the sake of personal gain.

"Chantecler," then, is a scathing arraignment of the emptiness of our so-called wise and cultured, of the meanness of our conventional lies, the petty jealousies of the human breed in relation to each other. At the same time "Chantecler" characterizes the lack of understanding for, and appreciation of, the ideal and the idealists--the mob spirit, whether on top or at the bottom, using the most cruel and contemptible methods to drag the idealist down; to revile and persecute him--aye, even to kill him--for the unpardonable sin of proclaiming the ideal. They cannot forgive _Chantecler_ for worshiping the sun:

_Chantecler._
Blaze forth in glory!...
O thou that driest the tears of the meanest among weeds
And dost of a dead flower make a living butterfly--
Thy miracle, wherever almond-trees
Shower down the wind their scented shreds,
Dead petals dancing in a living swarm--
I worship thee, O Sun! whose ample light,
Blessing every forehead, ripening every fruit,
Entering every flower and every hovel,
Pours itself forth and yet is never less,
Still spending and unspent--like mother's love!

I sing of thee, and will be thy high priest,
Who disdainest not to glass thy shining face
In the humble basin of blue suds,
Or see the lightning of thy last farewell
Reflected in an humble cottage pane!

...

Glory to thee in the vineyards! Glory to thee in the fields!
Glory among the grass and on the roofs,
In eyes of lizards and on wings of swans,--
Artist who making splendid the great things
Forgets not to make exquisite the small!
'Tis thou that, cutting out a silhouette,
To all thou beamest on dost fasten this dark twin,
Doubling the number of delightful shapes,
Appointing to each thing its shadow,
More charming often than itself.

I praise thee, Sun! Thou sheddest roses on the air,
Diamonds on the stream, enchantment on the hill;
A poor dull tree thou takest and turnest to green rapture,
O Sun, without whose golden magic--things
Would be no more than what they are!

In the atmosphere of persecution and hatred _Chantecler_ continues to hope and to work for his sublime mission of bringing the golden day. But his passion for the _pheasant hen_ proves his Waterloo. It is through her that he grows weak, disclosing his secret. Because of her he attends the silly five o'clock function at the _guinea hen's_, and is involved in a prize fight. His passion teaches him to understand life and the frailties of his fellow creatures. He learns the greatest of all truths,--that "it is the struggle for, rather than the attainment of, the ideal, which must forever inspire the sincere, honest idealist." Indeed, it is life which teaches _Chantecler_ that if he cannot wake the dawn, he must rouse mankind to greet the sun.

_Chantecler_ finds himself in a trying situation when he comes into the gathering at the _guinea hen's_ five o'clock tea, to meet the pompous, overbearing cocks representing the various governments. When he arrives in the midst of these distinguished society people, he is plied with the query, "How do you sing? Do you sing the Italian school or the French school or the German school?" Poor _Chantecler_, in the simplicity of his idealism, replies, "I don't know how I sing, but I know why I sing." Why need the chanteclers know how they sing? They represent the truth, which needs no stylish clothes or expensive feathers. That is the difference between truth and falsehood. Falsehood must deck herself out beyond all semblance of nature and reality.

_Chantecler._ I say ... that these resplendent gentlemen are
manufactured wares, the work of merchants with highly complex
brains, who to fashion a ridiculous chicken have taken a wing from
that one, a topknot from this. I say that in such Cocks nothing
remains of the true Cock. They are Cocks of shreds and patches, idle
bric-a-brac, fit to figure in a catalogue, not in a barnyard with
its decent dunghill and its dog. I say that those befrizzled,
beruffled, bedeviled Cocks were never stroked and cherished by
Nature's maternal hand.... And I add that the whole duty of a Cock
is to be an embodied crimson cry! And when a Cock is not that, it
matters little that his comb be shaped like a toadstool, or his
quills twisted like a screw, he will soon vanish and be heard of no
more, having been nothing but a variety of a variety!

The _Game Cock_ appears. He greets _Chantecler_ with the announcement that he is the Champion fighter, that he has killed so and so many Cocks in one day and an equal number on other occasions. _Chantecler_ replies simply, "I have never killed anything. But as I have at different times succored, defended, protected this one and that, I might perhaps be called, in my fashion, brave."

The fight begins. _Chantecler_ is wounded and about to succumb, when suddenly all the guests present rush to _Chantecler_ for protection: the common enemy, the _Hawk_ is seen to approach. _Chantecler_ mistakes the cowardice of those who come to seek his aid, for friendship; but the moment the danger is over, the crowd again circles around the fighters, inciting the _Game Cock_ to kill _Chantecler_. But at the critical moment the _Game Cock_ mortally wounds himself with his own spurs, and is jeered and driven off the scene by the same mob that formerly cheered him on. _Chantecler_, weak and exhausted from loss of blood, disillusioned and stung to the very soul, follows the _pheasant hen_ to the Forest.

Soon he finds himself a henpecked husband: he may not crow to his heart's content any more, he may not wake the sun, for his lady love is jealous. The only time he can crow is when her eyes are closed in sleep.

But leave it to the _pheasant hen_ to ferret out a secret. Overhearing _Chantecler's_ conversation with the _woodpecker_, she is furious. "I will not let the sun defraud me of my love," she cries. But _Chantecler_ replies, "There is no great love outside of the shadow of the ideal." She makes use of her beauty and charm to win him from the sun. She embraces him and pleads, "Come to my soft bosom. Why need you bother about the sun?"

_Chantecler_ hears the nightingale and, like all great artists, he recognizes her wonderful voice, her inspiring powers compared with which his own must seem hard and crude. Suddenly a shot is heard, and the little bird falls dead to the ground. _Chantecler_ is heart-broken. And as he mourns the sweet singer, the dawn begins to break. The _pheasant hen_ covers him with her wing, to keep him from seeing the sun rise, and then mocks him because the sun has risen without his crowing. The shock is terrible to poor _Chantecler_, yet in his desperation he gives one tremendous cock-a-doodle-do.

"Why are you crowing?" the hen asks.

"As a warning to myself, for thrice have I denied the thing I love."

_Chantecler_ is in despair. But now he hears another Nightingale, more silvery and beautiful than the first. "Learn, comrade, this sorrowful and reassuring fact, that no one, Cock of the morning or evening nightingale, has quite the song of his dreams."

A wonderful message, for there must always be "in the soul a faith so faithful that it comes back even after it has been slain." It Is vital to understand that it is rather the consciousness that though we cannot wake the dawn, we must prepare the people to greet the rising sun.

BRIEUX

DAMAGED GOODS

In the preface to the English edition of "Damaged Goods," George Bernard Shaw relates a story concerning Lord Melbourne, in the early days of Queen Victoria. When the cabinet meeting threatened to break up in confusion, Lord Melbourne put his back to the door and said: "Gentlemen, we can tell the house the truth or we can tell it a lie. I don't give a damn which it is. All I insist on is that we shall all tell the same lie, and you shall not leave the room until you have settled what it is to be."

This seems to characterize the position of our middle-class morality to-day. Whether a thing be right or wrong, we are all to express the same opinion on the subject. All must agree on the same lie, and the lie upon which all agree, more than on any other, is the lie of purity, which must be kept up at all costs.

How slow our moralists move is best proved by the fact that although the great scientist Neisser had discovered, as far back as 1879, that supposedly insignificant venereal afflictions are due to a malignant micro-organism often disastrous not only to the immediate victim, but also to those who come in touch with him, the subject is still largely tabooed and must not be discussed.

To be sure, there is a small contingent of men and women who realize the necessity of a frank discussion of the very important matter of venereal disease. But unfortunately they are attempting to drive out the devil with fire. They are enlightening the public as to the gravity of gonorrhea and syphilis, but are implanting an evil by no means less harmful, namely, the element of fear. The result often is that the victims who contract an infection are as little capable of taking care of themselves now as in the past when they knew little about the subject.

Brieux is among the few who treats the question in a frank manner, showing that the most dangerous phase of venereal disease is ignorance and fear, and that if treated openly and intelligently, it is perfectly curable. Brieux also emphasizes the importance of kindness and consideration for those who contract the affliction, since it has nothing to do with what is commonly called evil, immorality, or impurity.

Therein lies the superiority of "Damaged Goods" to most scientific treatises. Without lacking logic and clarity, it has greater humanity and warmth.

But "Damaged Goods" contains more than an exposé of venereal disease. It touches upon the whole of our social life. It points out the cold-blooded indifference of the rich toward those who do not belong to their class, to the poor, the workers, the disinherited whom they sacrifice without the slightest compunction on the altar of their own comforts. Moreover, the play also treats of the contemptible attitude towards love not backed by property or legal sanction. In short, it uncovers and exposes not only sexual disease but that which is even more terrible--our social disease, our social syphilis.

* * * * *

_George Dupont_, the son of wealthy people is informed by a specialist that he has contracted a venereal disease of a most serious nature; but that with patience and time he will be cured. _Dupont_ is crushed by the news, and decides to blow out his brains. His only regret is that he cannot in the least account for his trouble.

_George._ I'm not a rake, Doctor. My life might be held up as an
example to all young men. I assure you, no one could possibly be
more prudent, no one. See here; supposing I told you that in all my
life I have only had two mistresses, what would you say to that?

_Doctor._ That would have been enough to bring you here.

_George._ No, Doctor. Not one of those two. No one in the world has
dreaded this so much as I have; no one has taken such infinite
precautions to avoid it. My first mistress was the wife of my best
friend. I chose her on account of him; and him, not because I cared
most for him, but because I knew he was a man of the most rigid
morals, who watched his wife jealously and didn't let her go about
forming imprudent connections. As for her, I kept her in absolute
terror of this disease. I told her that almost all men were taken
with it, so that she mightn't dream of being false to me. My friend
died in my arms. That was the only thing that could have separated
me from her. Then I took up with a young seamstress.... Well, this
was a decent girl with a family in needy circumstances to support.
Her grandmother was an invalid, and there was an ailing father and
three little brothers. It was by my means that they all lived.... I
told her and I let the others know that if she played me false I
should leave her at once. So then they all watched her for me. It
became a regular thing that I should spend Sunday with them, and in
that sort of way I was able to give her a lift up. Church-going was
a respectable kind of outing for her. I rented a pew for them and
her mother used to go with her to church; they liked seeing their
name engraved on the card. She never left the house alone. Three
months ago, when the question of my marriage came up, I had to leave
her.

_Doctor._ You were very happy, why did you want to change?

_George._ I wanted to settle down. My father was a notary, and
before his death he expressed a wish that I should marry my cousin.
It was a good match; her dowry will help to get me a practice.
Besides, I simply adore her. She's fond of me, too. I had everything
one could want to make my life happy. And then a lot of idiots must
give me a farewell dinner and make me gad about with them. See what
has come of it! I haven't any luck, I've never had any luck! I know
fellows who lead the most racketty life: nothing happens to them,
the beasts! But I--for a wretched lark--what is there left for a
leper like me? My future is ruined, my whole life poisoned. Well
then, isn't it better for me to clear out of it? Anyway, I shan't
suffer any more. You see now, no one could be more wretched than I
am.

The doctor explains to him that there is no need for despair, but that he must postpone his marriage if he does not wish to ruin his wife and possibly make her sterile for life. It is imperative especially because of the offspring, which is certain to be syphilitic.

_Doctor._ Twenty cases identical with yours have been carefully
observed--from the beginning to the end. Nineteen times--you hear,
nineteen times in twenty--the woman was contaminated by her husband.
You think that the danger is negligible: you think you have the
right to let your wife take her chance, as you said, of being one of
the exceptions for which we can do nothing! Very well then; then you
shall know what you are doing. You shall know what sort of a disease
it is that your wife will have five chances per cent. of contracting
without so much as having her leave asked. ... But there is not
only your wife,--there are her children, your children, whom you may
contaminate, too. It is in the name of those innocent little ones
that I appeal to you; it is the future of the race that I am
defending.

But _George Dupont_ will not postpone the marriage for several years. He would have to give an explanation, break his word, and lose his inheritance,--things infinitely more important than any consideration for the girl he "adores" or for their children, should they have any. In short, he is actuated by the morality of the bourgeoisie: the silly conception of honor, the dread of public opinion and, above all, the greed for property.

* * * * *

The second act is laid at the home of _George Dupont_. _George_ and his wife _Henriette_ are childishly happy, except for the regret that their marriage could not have taken place six months earlier because poor George had been declared consumptive. How stupid of doctors to suspect the healthy strong _George Dupont_ of consumption! But, then, "all doctors are stupid." But now that they are together, nothing shall part them in their great happiness, and especially in their great love for their baby. True, a little cloud obscures their sunny horizon. The baby is not very strong; but with the care and devotion of the grandmother, out in the country air, it is sure to recover.

The grandmother unexpectedly arrives, announcing that she has brought the baby back to town: it is very ill and she has consulted a specialist who has promised to come at once to examine the child. Presently the doctor arrives. He insists that the wet nurse be dismissed immediately, as the child would infect her and she in return would infect her own husband and baby. _Madame Dupont_ is scandalized. What, leave her precious grandchild! Rob him of the milk he needs!

_Mme. Dupont._ If there is one way to save its life, it is to give
it every possible attention, and you want me to treat it in a way
that you doctors condemn even for healthy children. You think I will
let her die like that! Oh, I shall take good care she does not!
Neglect the one single thing that can save her! It would be
criminal! As for the nurse, we will indemnify her. We will do
everything in our power, everything but that.

_Doctor._ This is not the first time I have found myself in this
situation, and I must begin by telling you that parents who have
refused to be guided by my advice have invariably repented of it
most bitterly.... You propose to profit by her ignorance and her
poverty. Besides, she could obtain the assistance of the court....
You can convince yourself. In one or two cases the parents have been
ordered to pay a yearly pension to the nurse; in the others sums of
money varying from three to eight thousand francs.

_Mme. Dupont._ If we had to fight an action, we should retain the
very best lawyer on our side. Thank heaven we are rich enough. No
doubt he would make it appear doubtful whether the child hadn't
caught this disease from the nurse, rather than the nurse from the
child.

Indeed, what matters a peasant woman! They are so numerous. In vain the doctor tries to convince _Mme. Dupont_ that it is not a question of money. It is a question of humanity, of decency; he would not and could not be a party to such a crime.

After the doctor leaves to examine the child, _Mme. Dupont_ and her worthy son clinch the bargain with the unsuspecting and ignorant servant. They tell her that the baby has a cold which it might communicate to her. The poor peasant girl had lived in the cold all her life, and as she justly says: "We of the country are not as delicate as the Parisian ladies." She realizes that a thousand francs would mean a great fortune to her, and that it would help her people to pay the mortgage and become independent. She consents to stay and signs away her health.

The doctor returns with the dreaded news that the child has congenital syphilis. He informs them that with care and patience the child might be cured, but that it will have to be put on bottle milk, because otherwise it would be disastrous to the nurse. When he is told that the nurse has consented to remain, he grows indignant, declaring:

"You must not ask me to sacrifice the health of a young and strong
woman to that of a sickly infant. I will be no party to giving this
woman a disease that would embitter the lives of her whole family,
and almost certainly render her sterile. Besides, I cannot even do
it from a legal standpoint.... _If you do not consent to have the
child fed by hand, I shall either speak to the nurse or give up the
case._"

But there is no need for the doctor to interfere. Fortunately for the servant, she discovers the miserable transaction. She learns from the butler the real condition of the child, and announces to the Duponts that she must refuse to stay. "I know your brat isn't going to live. I know it's rotten through and through because its father's got a beastly disease that he caught from some woman of the streets."

At this terrible moment the unsuspecting, light-headed and light-hearted mother, _Henriette_, arrives. She overhears the horrible news and falls screaming to the floor.

The last act takes place in the hospital--the refuge of the unfortunate victims of poverty, ignorance and false morality. _M. Loche_, the Deputy, is announced. The doctor is overjoyed because he believes that the representative of the people comes to inform himself of the causes of the widespread misery. But he is mistaken. _M. Loche_ is the father-in-law of _George Dupont_. He wants to secure the signature of the doctor as evidence in the divorce sought by his daughter.

_Doctor._ I regret that I am unable to furnish you with such a
certificate.... The rule of professional secrecy is absolute. And I
may add that even were I free, I should refuse your request. I
should regret having helped you to obtain a divorce. It would be in
your daughter's own interest that I should refuse. You ask me for a
certificate in order to prove to the court that your son-in-law has
contracted syphilis? You do not consider that in doing so you will
publicly acknowledge that your daughter has been exposed to the
infection. Do you suppose that after that your daughter is likely to
find a second husband?... Do you think that this poor little thing
has not been unlucky enough in her start in life? She has been
blighted physically. You wish besides indelibly to stamp her with
the legal proof of congenital syphilis.

_Loche._ Then what am I to do?

_Doctor._ Forgive.... When the marriage was proposed you doubtless
made inquiries concerning your future son-in-law's income; you
investigated his securities; you satisfied yourself as to his
character. You only omitted one point, but it was the most important
of all: you made no inquiries concerning his health.

_Loche._ No, I did not do that. It is not the custom.... I think a
law should be passed.

_Doctor._ No, no! We want no new laws. There are too many already.
All that is needed is for people to understand the nature of this
disease rather better. It would soon become the custom for a man who
proposed for a girl's hand to add to the other things for which he
is asked a medical statement of bodily fitness, which would make it
certain that he did not bring this plague into the family with
him.... Well, there is one last argument which, since I must, I will
put to you. Are you yourself without sin, that you are so relentless
to others?

_Loche._ I have never had any shameful disease, sir.

_Doctor._ I was not asking you that. I was asking you if you had
never exposed yourself to catching one. Ah, you see! Then it is not
virtue that has saved you; it is luck. Few things exasperate me more
than that term "shameful disease," which you used just now. This
disease is like all other diseases: it is one of our afflictions.
There is no shame in being wretched--even if one deserves to be so.
Come, come, let us have a little plain speaking! I should like to
know how many of these rigid moralists, who are so shocked with
their middle-class prudery, that they dare not mention the name
syphilis, or when they bring themselves to speak of it do so with
expressions of every sort of disgust, and treat its victims as
criminals, have never run the risk of contracting it themselves? It
is those alone who have the right to talk. How many do you think
there are? Four out of a thousand? Well, leave those four aside:
between all the rest and those who catch the disease there is no
difference but chance, and by heavens, those who escape won't get
much sympathy from me: the others at least have paid their fine of
suffering and remorse, while they have gone scot free! Let's have
done, if you please, once for all with this sort of hypocrisy.

The doctor, who is not only a sincere scientist but also a humanitarian, realizes that as things are to-day no one is exempt from the possibility of contracting an infection; that those who are responsible for the spread of the disease are they who constantly excuse themselves with the inane "I did not know," as if ignorance were not the crime of all crimes. The doctor demonstrates to _M. Loche_ a number of cases under his observation, all of them the result of ignorance and of poverty.

There is, for instance, the woman whose husband died of the disease. He "didn't know"; so he infected her. She, on the other hand, is poor and cannot afford the treatment she needs. A private physician is beyond her means, and she has too much pride to stand the indignities heaped upon the poor who are at the mercy of dispensaries and charity. Therefore she neglects her disease and perhaps is unconsciously instrumental in infecting others.

Then there is the man whose young son has contracted the disease. His father "didn't know," and therefore he did not inform his son, as a result of which the boy became half paralyzed.

_Man._ We are small trades-people; we have regularly bled ourselves
in order to send him to college, and now--I only wish the same thing
mayn't happen to others. It was at the very college gates that my
poor boy was got hold of by one of these women. Is it right, sir,
that that should be allowed? Aren't there enough police to prevent
children of fifteen from being seduced like that? I ask, is it
right?

The poor man, in his ignorance, did not know that "these women" are the most victimized, as demonstrated by the doctor himself in the case of the poor girl of the street. She was both ignorant and innocent when she found a place as domestic servant and was seduced by her master. Then she was kicked out into the street, and in her endless search for work found every door closed in her face. She was compelled to stifle her feeling of motherhood, to send her baby to a foundling asylum, and finally, in order to exist, become a street-walker. If in return she infected the men who came to her, including her erstwhile seducer, she was only paying back in a small measure what society had done to her,--the injury, the bitterness, the misery and tears heaped upon her by a cruel and self-satisfied world.

It is to be expected that a political representative of the people like _Loche_ should suggest the same stereotyped measures as his predecessors: legal enactments, prosecution, imprisonment. But the doctor, a real social student, knows that "the true remedy lies in a change of our ways."

_Doctor._ Syphilis must cease to be treated like a mysterious evil,
the very name of which cannot be pronounced.... People ought to be
taught that there is nothing immoral in the act that reproduces life
by means of love. But for the benefit of our children we organize
round about it a gigantic conspiracy of silence. A respectable man
will take his son and daughter to one of these grand music halls,
where they will hear things of the most loathsome description; but
he won't let them hear a word spoken seriously on the subject of the
great act of love. The mystery and humbug in which physical facts
are enveloped ought to be swept away and young men be given some
pride in the creative power with which each one of us is endowed.