4.9. Ana
1
Z
box 8/7
is a clever amateur hypnotist and, suggests
Max, could easily find out what he wants to
know by putting her to sleep and asking
straight questions. But when she is asleep
Anatol cannot ask the question of questions.
For one thing, he is a gentleman. For another,
he dare not risk the loss of his illusions. Cupid,
with the bandage off his eyes, would be
an ugly little monster. Hilda, reawakened,
is obviously afraid that she may have been made
to say too much obviously to all but Anatol,
who has saved his ideals. Max remarks cheer¬
fully that momen toll lies just as well when
they're asleep.
Anatol, as methodical as his great prototype,
who kept an accurate list of the thousand and
three, has all his old lovo-letters tied up in
assorted bundles, and goes through them all
with Max. The impudent little liar, the one
who married a milkman, the one who always
carried her curling tongs, and the rest. Phantom
now, all of them save Bianca. Bianca really
did love him and, he is sure, will never forget
him. The lady-killer cannot help being sorry
for that poor little victim, Bianca. At that
moment Bianca arrives on a visit to Max.
She has clean forgotten Anatol. Thus does
your idealist inhabit a world of illusion, and
see in others what is only the externalization¬
as the pedants say of his own amorism.
Then there is Mimi, of the corps de ballet, fond of
champagne-suppers at Sacher's. She doesn't
know it, but this is to be her last supper there
with Anatol, who has formed another attachent
and cannot abide deceit. The humour of it is
that she, too, has formed another attachment,
and also cannot abide deceit, so that she gets in
first with the breaking-off speech. The would¬
be biter bit! Anatol, furious and forgetting the
proprieties, tells Mimi that his new attach¬
ment has gone to greater length than she
may have supposed. Mimi retorts. Only a
man could be so
unpleasant ! After
all . . . I never told you that." Then she
settles down with gusto to an ice.
At last, of course, Anatol must settle down,
too to marriage. But the night before the
wedding he turned in out of the snow into the
Opera Ball, and oh ! that wish of a silk petti-
coat ! He met Lona, one of his anciennes,
wishing, and now Lona is in the next room,
asleep. How on earth is he to get rid of her ?
Max helps him in his distress, but not before
hysteries and much smashing of crockery.
Anatol has got safely off to the wedding, but
after all, says the consoling Max, Jonas turn
may come again later. And you feel that it
will. The Anatos of this world remain
Anatolians to the end.
Probably, however, as he grows older, he will
seek less facile loves. Before his marriage you
see him once, only once, in amorous parley
with a lady not of the Bohemian world. As
she is married she tactfully ignores his daring.
He tells her of his present little girl
lady sighs, but sentiment goes no further,
for they are standing under a boarding out of
the rain, and she is merely waiting while he
tries to get her a taxi, & sende her bouquet,
however, to the little girl, with a message
which says much, From some one who might
have been as happy as you
if she
hadn't been quite such a coward! If the
cynical Max had been there he would, perhaps,
have hinted to Anatol that, in the years to
come, ladies might be encountered who would
not be quite such cowards. Or they might not.
Vienna is a long way off, and you never can
This edifying biography of Anatol is re¬
lated amid the most modern surroundings¬
Post-impressionists on the walls, and at the
footlights a fireplace of which you can see
the fender and have to imagine the grate.
Mr. Granville Barker plays Anatol with
delightful tact and finish, and with a certain
freshness which, agréable as it is in itself, is
so far out of the character as to be almost
cherubic. In fact he misses the difference
between a cherub and Cherubino. Perhaps a
little more fervour is what is wanted; this
Anatol's amorism is just a shade too cerebral.
Mr. Nige Playfair is pleasantly stolid and
terre-à-terre as Max. The ladies who present the
soveral light-o-loves certainly demonstrate
that Anatol was no bad judge. But they rather
overdo the what shall we call it the
Bohemianism.
1
Z
box 8/7
is a clever amateur hypnotist and, suggests
Max, could easily find out what he wants to
know by putting her to sleep and asking
straight questions. But when she is asleep
Anatol cannot ask the question of questions.
For one thing, he is a gentleman. For another,
he dare not risk the loss of his illusions. Cupid,
with the bandage off his eyes, would be
an ugly little monster. Hilda, reawakened,
is obviously afraid that she may have been made
to say too much obviously to all but Anatol,
who has saved his ideals. Max remarks cheer¬
fully that momen toll lies just as well when
they're asleep.
Anatol, as methodical as his great prototype,
who kept an accurate list of the thousand and
three, has all his old lovo-letters tied up in
assorted bundles, and goes through them all
with Max. The impudent little liar, the one
who married a milkman, the one who always
carried her curling tongs, and the rest. Phantom
now, all of them save Bianca. Bianca really
did love him and, he is sure, will never forget
him. The lady-killer cannot help being sorry
for that poor little victim, Bianca. At that
moment Bianca arrives on a visit to Max.
She has clean forgotten Anatol. Thus does
your idealist inhabit a world of illusion, and
see in others what is only the externalization¬
as the pedants say of his own amorism.
Then there is Mimi, of the corps de ballet, fond of
champagne-suppers at Sacher's. She doesn't
know it, but this is to be her last supper there
with Anatol, who has formed another attachent
and cannot abide deceit. The humour of it is
that she, too, has formed another attachment,
and also cannot abide deceit, so that she gets in
first with the breaking-off speech. The would¬
be biter bit! Anatol, furious and forgetting the
proprieties, tells Mimi that his new attach¬
ment has gone to greater length than she
may have supposed. Mimi retorts. Only a
man could be so
unpleasant ! After
all . . . I never told you that." Then she
settles down with gusto to an ice.
At last, of course, Anatol must settle down,
too to marriage. But the night before the
wedding he turned in out of the snow into the
Opera Ball, and oh ! that wish of a silk petti-
coat ! He met Lona, one of his anciennes,
wishing, and now Lona is in the next room,
asleep. How on earth is he to get rid of her ?
Max helps him in his distress, but not before
hysteries and much smashing of crockery.
Anatol has got safely off to the wedding, but
after all, says the consoling Max, Jonas turn
may come again later. And you feel that it
will. The Anatos of this world remain
Anatolians to the end.
Probably, however, as he grows older, he will
seek less facile loves. Before his marriage you
see him once, only once, in amorous parley
with a lady not of the Bohemian world. As
she is married she tactfully ignores his daring.
He tells her of his present little girl
lady sighs, but sentiment goes no further,
for they are standing under a boarding out of
the rain, and she is merely waiting while he
tries to get her a taxi, & sende her bouquet,
however, to the little girl, with a message
which says much, From some one who might
have been as happy as you
if she
hadn't been quite such a coward! If the
cynical Max had been there he would, perhaps,
have hinted to Anatol that, in the years to
come, ladies might be encountered who would
not be quite such cowards. Or they might not.
Vienna is a long way off, and you never can
This edifying biography of Anatol is re¬
lated amid the most modern surroundings¬
Post-impressionists on the walls, and at the
footlights a fireplace of which you can see
the fender and have to imagine the grate.
Mr. Granville Barker plays Anatol with
delightful tact and finish, and with a certain
freshness which, agréable as it is in itself, is
so far out of the character as to be almost
cherubic. In fact he misses the difference
between a cherub and Cherubino. Perhaps a
little more fervour is what is wanted; this
Anatol's amorism is just a shade too cerebral.
Mr. Nige Playfair is pleasantly stolid and
terre-à-terre as Max. The ladies who present the
soveral light-o-loves certainly demonstrate
that Anatol was no bad judge. But they rather
overdo the what shall we call it the
Bohemianism.