is absolutely right; but the conjuncture is none the less a
grotesque and detestable one, which ought to be talked about and thought
about as little as possible. Every word that is uttered is a failure in
tact. Guido, the husband, behaves, in the first act, with a violent
egoism, which is certainly lacking in dignity; but will any one tell me
what would be a dignified course for him to pursue under the
circumstances? The sage old Marco, too--that fifteenth-century
Renan--flounders just as painfully as the hot-headed Guido. It is the
fatality of the case that "he cannot open his mouth without putting his
foot in it"; and a theme which exposes a well-meaning old gentleman to
this painful necessity is one by all means to be avoided. The fact that
it is a false alarm, and that there is no rational explanation for
Prinzivalle's wanton insult to a woman whom he reverently idolizes, in
no way makes matters better.[1] Not the least grotesque thing in the
play is Giovanna's expectation that Guido will receive Prinzivalle with
open arms because he has--changed his mind. We can feel neither approval
nor disapproval, sympathy nor antipathy, in such a deplorable
conjunction of circumstances. All we wish is that we had not been called
upon to contemplate it.[2] Maeterlinck, like Shakespeare, was simply
dallying with the idea of a squalid heroism--so squalid, indeed, that
neither he nor his predecessor had the courage to carry it through.

Pray observe that the defect of these two themes is not merely that they
are "unpleasant." It is that there is no possible way out of them which
is not worse than unpleasant: humiliating, and distressing. Let the
playwright, then, before embarking on a theme, make sure that he has
some sort of satisfaction to offer us at the end, if it be only the
pessimistic pleasure of realizing some part of "the bitter, old and
wrinkled truth" about life. The crimes of destiny there is some profit
in contemplating; but its stupid vulgarities minister neither to profit
nor delight.

* * * * *

It may not be superfluous to give at this point a little list of
subjects which, though not blind-alley themes, are equally to be
avoided. Some of them, indeed, are the reverse of blind-alley themes,
their drawback lying in the fact that the way out of them is too
tediously apparent.

At the head of this list I would place what may be called the "white
marriage" theme: not because it is ine