|WHAT would a dramatist make of Gauthier's little idyl of the vision
of the Rose? What would an actor and actress make of it if it could be
dramatized? I am afraid to answer these questions. Fortunately they
need not be answered, as no dramatist now will be fool enough to rush in
where dancers have trodden on such light feet. ("The beautiful is light.
All divine things run on light feet.") A young girl returns from a ball.
She sinks into a chair and, kissing the rose in her hand, which reminds
her of the evening's innocent pleasure, she falls asleep. She dreams
that the rose comes to life and invites her to dance with it. She dances
in her dream. (Does she see the rose, I wonder, or is it invisible to
her while visible to us?) She knows a joy in which there is no fatigue,
a love in which there is no threat to her virginity. The phantom rose
disappears. She wakes. The real rose is at her feet where the dream rose
had lain for a moment. She picks it up and kisses it again, poor little
faded and finite sign of a fresh infinite thing which has shown itself
for a moment and passed out of earth's tiny room.
[Illustration: 0054]