523
THE FREEMAN
7 February, 1923]
quality, he was exquisite to the point of affectation. But a
his Casanova is as simply naturalistic as his prose
French actor in a picturesque röle can do it, where a non¬
style. This little novel is composed with refreshing
Latin type would be ridiculous or effeminate.
candour. In the first chapter, the once fascinating
The Portia was as delightful as only a beautiful and allur¬
Chevalier, no longer young and handsome, is walking
ing French woman can be—and that is indescribable; even
discontentedly along a hot country road on the out¬
the hideous black spectacles failed to dull her brillance or
skirts of Mantua. He is terribly bored. He has only
lessen her charm. The Launcelot Gobbo was the best I
two suits and cohabits with his landlady, having aban¬
ever saw anywhere. The kind of clown, I imagine, Shake¬
doned perforce the ideal pursuit of wonderful girls.
speare knew and used in his own productions.
It is for Venice herself that he now longs; the incom¬
The production itself, viewed from American standards,
was very shabby. An apron with steps was used, as in Barry¬
parable vision of its domes and waters calls to him
more's Hamlet, and in many parts of scenes played on
hkathe mirage to atraveller in a waste land. Suddenly
these steps, the actors were within two feet of the first row
an oid acquaintance overtakes him in a gig and begs
of the audience—easily within touching-distance. No (oot¬
him to pass a few days on his olive-farm near Mantua.
lights were used, but four powerful flash-lights from the
Casanova assents, inwardly cursing all bores. Among
balcony lighted the stage. Every scat was taken, and that
the household is a young girl, Marcolina, beautiful,
means a parquette, a balcony, loge-boxes, three galleries and
studious, chaste; and instantly his senses flame with
a“heaven' above these. I had a seat in the first row of the
the old desire. She has heard of his ill-fame, and
balcony, for which I paid about eighty-nine cents—this as
regards the ageing adventurer with a feeling close to
against §3.zo for Barrymore. Of course there is no compar¬
repulsion. Casanova begins to fear that he has found
ison in the cost of the two productions, but it is the best
Shakespeare Paris affords, just as Barrymore’s production is
the phenomenon whose existence he has always
New York’s best, and it can be had here within reason.
doubted—a virtuous woman. There is an admirable
I am, etc.,
account of a quiet evening at home, a card-party of
HENRY C. KIEFER
Paris.
faded Italian gentry. Early next morning, Casanova,
concealed in an arbour, sees a young man climbing
from the sill of Marcolina’s window. He experiences
BOOKS.
that rage of lust, impotence and sorrow which seizes
a man who sees the beloved and unattainable one
A DEFENCE OF DON JUAN.
easily possessed by another person; he swears to have
AMONG modern writers there are probably only two
Marcolina and he—but one must go to Schnitzler’s
who could have written an original postscript to Casa¬
own pages for an account so joyons and poignant.
nova. Schnitzler is one; the other is, of course, Ana¬
What a lesson this novel is: what an antidote! How
tole France. No one knows better than M. France
it proclaims in the teeth of all Freudians and mysta¬
how to transpose narrative exquisitely into the key of
gogues the sunlit affirmation that in metters of love
the period, however alien, however archaic, that he
2+2=4 and not gero. In this it is true to the period,
treats. Almost all the good fairies of old Gaul must
and, in a very real sense, true to life as it ought to
have been present at M. France’s christening on the
be lived if man could overcome his unaccountable im
grey, leafy Quai Voltaire, and it was only after the
pulse for self-torture. Those endless serpentine inhi¬
last of them had flown away over the chimney-tops
bitions and withdrawals, that thick darkness of emo¬
that his bad fairy arrived and announced porten¬
tional obscurantism with which the feverish and
tously: Ves, you shall be a great writer, but you shall
clinical fiction of Mr. D. H. Lswrence and his imi¬
never be a novelist. Those fatal gifts of irony and
tators has made us familiar, would have astonished the
pity, of which we shall some day hear so much, will
eighteenth century as utterly as they would have
be more to you than art, and they will ever cloud your
puzzled the Greeks. It is true that“ Casanova’s Home¬
finest conceptions. The one thing that has always
coming'' is invested with a certain air of nostalgia and
been impossible for M. France is to be objective. He
melancholy which is wholly modern, but that is only
is always the choragus to his characters, and did he not
because the novelist is writing of Casanova as an age¬
take the leading part so marvellously, he would be
ing man. The senescence of a man who has always
exasperating. Had he written of the last adventure
loved, who continues to love, is this book’s raison
of Cosanova, the result would have been everything
d’être, its problem. Let us grant, without more ado,
exquisite, but it would not have been Casanova. He
that it is not a pleasant problem; that the eternal bad
would have soliloquized in the most enchanting idiom;
boys of literature should always be represented as
the gesture would have been Casanova's but the voice
young and fair, and that when they are no longer so,
would have been that familiar to the Villa Said.
the curtain should fall upon their ardours and adven¬
Schnitzler, on the other hand, has beaten the French
tures. It is to the glory of Schnitzler’s very high talent
master at his own game. He has all of M. France'’s
that he has posed the problem in a manner at once
expertness in temporarily sinking his own modern self
impressive and touching.
into the archaic background, with this single advan¬
So little do we understand the old animalism, the
tage, that he never afterward emerges. There are
ancient candour—so childlike that, beside our own
passages in Casanova’s Homecoming''! that might
muddy introspection in these matters, it seems almost
have been torn from the Memoirs themselves. One is
virginal—that the great philanderers, the semi-mythical
carried back to the eighteenth century; the epoch of
figures of a hundred love-legends, have come down
the supreme diarists who were great precisely because
to us rather in the light of villains and bogies than
they were innocent of the romantic blague and literary
in their true aspect. One of the most vital of modern
self-consciousness which came in with Rousseau. These
writers, Mr. Bernard Shaw, with his usual Puritan
people may manufacture adventures but they never
instinct, has even written a comedy in which the
invent emotions. As Mr. Symons said of the
modern Don Juan is held up to the scorn of multitudes
Chevalier himself, they did not live to write; they
as the prince of rotters. But a moment’s reflection
wrote because they had lived. Happy age!
will convince one that to be a really successful Don
Despite the kind of sparkling delicacy with which
Juan requires a depth of idealism rarely to be encoun¬
Schnitzler contrives to enhance everything he writes,
tered in the modern world. I use the word “success¬
1 Casanova'’s Homccoming.“ Arthur Schnitzler. New York: Thomas
ful' in the Paterian sense; “to burn always with that
Seitzer.