by the 9.39 train—a train which, by the way, does not figure in the
time-table. Another _canard_ stating that M. Guitry had contracted
typhoid fever through drinking water contaminated by the floods. A
third Yellow _potin_ reporting Madame Simone to have “mysteriously,”
“sensationally” disappeared. What chaos, what incoherency! And what a
scene in the Porte St-Martin when at last, on Sunday night, 6th February,
_Chantecler_, in the presence of the most brilliant audience yet
assembled in a Paris theatre, came, crowed and conquered.
A new handsome curtain, new carpets, new velvet fauteuils, programmes
printed on vellum, and red ribbons (also supplied by the management)
in the grisly hair of the middle-aged _ouvreuses_. “I have been an
_ouvreuse_ for twenty years, but never have I seen an audience so vast,
so animated, so _chic_,” said one of these ladies to me as she bundled
up my overcoat, pinned a ticket to it and dropped it on to the floor.
“Not a peg left,” she continued. “Immediately beneath your overcoat lies
the overcoat of Prince Murat. In the heap next to it is a Rothschild
overcoat. And as for that other pile of overcoats in the corner, all
fur-lined, all magnificent, well, they belong to ambassadors, dukes,
American millionaires, English milords, famous writers, politicians,
jockeys—all the great personages in the world. Thus, although it lies
on the floor, your overcoat is in illustrious company.” After warning
me that no one would be admitted into the theatre when the curtain
had risen, the _ouvreuse_ showed me to my seat, held out her hand, was
rewarded, and left me free to admire the jewels, feathers, dresses and
coiffures of _le Tout Paris_. All eyes—or rather opera-glasses—on the box
occupied by Madame Rostand and her two sons. In another box, M. Briand,
the Prime Minister. In the stalls, Academicians, generals, playwrights,
critics, newspaper proprietors, aviators, financiers, leading actors and
actresses. Everyone afoot, or rather on tip-toe, gossiping, laughing,
singling out celebrities with their glasses. But at ten minutes to nine
o’clock the three traditional thuds made by a mallet behind the curtain
(the signal in French theatres that the play is about to begin) caused
a hush. Everyone sat down. “_Chantecler_ at last,” said, emotionally, a
lady behind me. The curtain rose two or three inches. “_Pas encore, pas
encore_,” cried a voice. Consternation, dismay of _le Tout Paris_; was
the play again to be postponed, was it true that M. Rostand had taken
that 9.39 train, and that Madame Simone had “sensationally” disappeared,
and that M. Guitry—— “_Pas encore, pas encore!_” But it was—thank
heaven—only the voice of M. Jean Coquelin who appeared in the front of
the stalls in a dress-suit, mounted a footstool and recited the prologue
to M. Rostand’s fantastic, symbolical _chef-d’œuvre_.
It was a delightfully humorous description of the feathered inhabitants
of a farm-yard; and as M. Jean Coquelin continued to harangue the
audience eloquently from his footstool, the animals were heard becoming
impatient on the hidden stage.
A crowing of cocks. A cackling of geese. The stamping of a horse’s hoof.
The creaking of an old cart. The bray of a donkey. The miaow of a cat.
The hoot of an owl. The whistle of a blackbird. Then—distinctly—three
taps from a woodpecker: “_le bec d’un pivert a frappé les trois coups_”;
and with a cry of “The woodpecker says the play must commence,” M.
Coquelin disappeared, down went the lights: and up amidst thunders of
applause rose the curtain.
Before us, a farm-yard, not an inmate or an object of which is wanting.
White, black, grey and brown hens strut hither and thither, sharply
discussing the powers, vanities, infidelities of Chantecler, their lord
and master. Ducks and drakes, ganders and geese take sides for or against
the king of the yard. Now and again the lid of a vast wicker-work basket
opens, to reveal the head of the Old Hen—a very old hen, the doyenne of
the place, and Chantecler’s foster-mother. In her, of course, the cock
finds an ardent defender; but whenever the withered old head protrudes
from the basket the Blackbird, hopping about in his cage, holds forth
mockingly, ironically. For the Blackbird, like every other feathered
creature in the play, is symbolical. He represents the smart, shallow,
cynical Parisian, who scoffs at principles, ridicules genius, laughs
at love, denies the existence of disinterested friendship, and is
enormously pleased with his empty, impudent self. So he makes fun of the
Old Hen and of the white, black, grey and brown hens whilst they pay
naïve tributes to the supreme genius of Chantecler—the Cock of Cocks, the
superb creature whose clarion, peremptory call causes the sun to rise and
makes the world radiant, beautiful and cheerful. Chantecler has betrayed
the hens, but they nevertheless admire and love him. As the discussion
continues, bees, butterflies, wasps fly across the stage. On a pillar, a
cat dozes tranquilly in the sun. Two fluffy little chicks play at getting
in and out of a gigantic sabot. To the right, a huge dog’s kennel; in
the background a gigantic cart, with its shafts in the air. In a corner,
a set of enormous harness. The birds and beasts being of Brobdingnagian
sizes, the objects on the stage have been magnified in proportion. But
all is natural; never, from first to last, a note of extravagance,
grotesqueness. Well, on and on goes the discussion, and, as the Blackbird
sneers and scoffs, it becomes heated and shrill. “Silence; here he
comes, here he comes,” cries a pigeon. And not a sound is heard when
Chantecler appears, solemn, majestic, arrogant, on the poultry-yard wall.
The hens gather together, look up at him with submission, admiration.
The two chicks stop their game. The cat wakes up. Even the Blackbird
ceases hopping about in his cage. Magnificent, awe-inspiring, indeed,
is Chantecler in his dark green and light brown feather dress—“the
green of April and the ochre of October.” He is, as on the top of the
wall he recites his _Hymn to the Sun_, Cyrano de Bergerac in feathers.
He represents the artist, the creative genius, the dispenser of beauty
and spiritual light. If he be the lord over the other denizens of the
farm-yard, it is because they will have it so. They believe the sun rises
because Chantecler summons it with his shrill, imperious “Cocorico.” And
Chantecler, the Superb, believes it himself—believes it in spite of the
sceptical Blackbird. Chantecler, in fact, might stand for a great many
types besides the artistic; for example, the statesman who fancies he is
the creator of the social reforms that are advancing with civilisation
like a tide. “I adore thee, O sun,” begins Chantecler, his beak raised
towards the skies.
Je t’adore, Soleil! ô toi dont la lumière,
Pour bénir chaque front et mûrir chaque miel,
Entrant dans chaque fleur et dans chaque chaumière
Se divise et demeure entière
Ainsi que l’amour maternel!
...
Je t’adore, Soleil! Tu mets dans l’air des roses,
Des flammes dans la source, un dieu dans le buisson!
Tu prends un arbre obscur, et tu l’apothéoses!
O Soleil! toi sans qui les choses
Ne seraient que ce qu’elles sont!
Night falls, and Chantecler sends his subjects to bed. Then he and
Patou, the dog philosopher, discuss the situation in the farm-yard.
Excellent Patou might be Anatole France’s M. Bergeret. He despises the
pert, cynical Blackbird. He denounces the snobbishness, the vanity,
the vulgarity of the age. He is for calm, for reflection, for—— A shot
is heard, the Hen Pheasant flies in and implores Chantecler to protect
her from the hunter. She nestles under the Cock’s wing; she looks up at
him admiringly, tenderly—and proud, gallant, idealistic Chantecler there
and then falls in love with the gorgeous black, gold and red Pheasant.
Majestically Chantecler struts round and round her, his chest thrown
outwards, his beak in the air. Curiously, somewhat disdainfully, the Hen
Pheasant surveys the farm-yard. It strikes her as poor, sordid, such an
obscure little corner of the world. How different from the beauty, the
spaciousness, the grandeur of her forest!
_La Faisane._
Mais tous ces objets sont pauvres et moroses!
_Chantecler._
Moi, je n’en reviens pas du luxe de ces choses!
_La Faisane._
Tout est toujours pareil, pourtant.
_Chantecler._
Rien n’est pareil,
Jamais, sous le soleil, à cause du soleil!
Car Elle change tout!
_La Faisane._
Elle... Qui?
_Chantecler._
La lumière.
Ardently, enthusiastically, then, Chantecler tells the Hen Pheasant
how daylight, as it changes, floods the objects in the farm-yard with
ever-varying colours. That geranium is never twice the same red. Patou’s
kennel, the sabot stuffed with straw, the rusty old pitchfork—not for two
successive moments do they look the same. A rake in a corner, a flower
in a vase, as they change colour in the rays of the sun, fill idealistic
Chantecler with ecstasy.
Still, the Hen Pheasant is not very much impressed. She consents,
nevertheless, to pass the night in Patou’s kennel, which the
dog-philosopher obligingly gives up to her. Owls, with huge, luminous
eyes, appear. Bats dash about in the air. A mole creeps forth. As they
love darkness and detest light, they fancy if Chantecler dies the night
will last for ever. “I hate him,” they say, one after another.—“Je
commence à l’aimer,” says the Hen Pheasant, womanlike, when she thus
hears that Chantecler is in danger.
Owls, bats, the Cat, the Blackbird and strange night creatures are
assembled beneath the branches of a huge tree, when the curtain rises on
the second act. The Big Owl chants an Ode to the Night. “Vive la Nuit,”
cry his brethren, at intervals, in a hoarse chorus. It is determined that
Chantecler must die. At five o’clock in the morning, when the Guinea-Fowl
holds a reception, a terrific fighting-cock shall insult, attack and
slay Chantecler. “Vive la Nuit,” cry the night-birds, their eyes shining
luridly in the darkness. But when a “Cocorico” sounds in the distance the
night creatures fly away, and Chantecler, followed by the Hen Pheasant,
struts on to the dim stage. “Tell me,” pleads the Pheasant, “the secret
of your power.” At first Chantecler refuses, then hesitates, then in a
glorious outburst he declares that the sun cannot rise until he has sung
his song. It is perhaps the noblest, the most exquisite passage in the
play.
Here is the last verse:
Je pense à la lumière, et non pas à la gloire,
Chanter, c’est ma façon de me battre et de croire.
Et si de tous les chants mon chant est le plus fier,
C’est que je chante clair afin qu’il fasse clair.
“But if,” asks the Hen Pheasant, “the skies are clouded and grey?”
_Chantecler._
Si le ciel est gris, c’est que j’ai mal chanté.
_La Faisane._
Il est tellement beau, qu’il semble avoir raison.
Majestically, Chantecler struts to and fro beneath the branches of the
trees. Humbly, admiringly, the Hen Pheasant watches his perambulations.
Night has passed, daybreak is near; the skies above the hillock on which
Chantecler is standing turn from black to purple, and next from purple to
dark grey. “Look and listen,” says Chantecler. He digs his claws firmly
into the turf; he throws his chest out; he raises his head heavenwards:
“Cocorico... Cocorico... Cocorico.” And gradually, delicately, the
skies light up; birds twitter, cottages stand out in the distance, the
tramp of the peasant on his way to the fields tells that the day’s work
has begun—shafts of golden light fall upon the majestic Chantecler and
illuminate the plumage of the graceful, beautiful Hen Pheasant.
And now, in a kitchen garden, the Guinea-Fowl’s “five o’clock”—a worldly,
fashionable reception—at five o’clock in the morning! It is a satire
on elegant Paris _salons_; what tittle-tattle, what scandalmongering,
what epigrams, paradoxes and puns! At a weather-stained old gate stands
the Magpie. One of the first guests he ceremoniously announces is the
Peacock—the _grande dame_, to whom her hostess, the snobbish Guinea-Fowl,
makes a profound curtsy. (The Peacock’s tail is a miracle of ingenuity;
the actress can spread it out fanwise, raise it, let it drop, at will.)
Then, one after another, arrives an endless procession of cocks. “The
Golden Cock; the Silver Cock; the Cock from Bagdad; the Cock from
Cochin China; the Scotch Grey Cock; the Bantam Cock; the Cock without
Claws; M. le Doyen of All the Cocks,” announces the Magpie. Bows from
these multitudinous Cocks to the Guinea-Fowl, to the Peacock and to the
Blackbird. In all, forty-three amazing Cocks, each of whom is jealous of
Chantecler; who eventually appears at the gateway with the Hen Pheasant.
“Announce me, simply, as _the_ Cock,” proudly says Chantecler. “_Le_
Coq,” cries the Magpie. And the trouble begins.
Coldness from the Guinea-Fowl, scorn from the Peacock, mockery from
the Blackbird, and insults from the Prize Fighting Cock, who has been
commissioned by the uncanny, unwholesome Night Birds to slay idealistic,
sun-loving Chantecler. Then, the duel, which ends in the victory of THE
Cock, and the pain and humiliation of the prize-fighter. All the Cocks,
from M. le Doyen down to the Cock without Claws, are dismayed. The
Peacock is disgusted; the Guinea-Fowl is dejected at the wretched failure
of her “five o’clock”—only the smart, irrepressible Blackbird keeps
things going. But not for long. Contemptuously, Chantecler turns upon
him; taunts him with his vain, miserable endeavour to imitate the true,
delightful wit, gaiety and genius of the Sparrow—the _gavroche_—of Paris.
The Parisian Sparrow is flippant, but warm-hearted. He laughs, he scoffs,
he whistles, he swaggers, but he is faithful and brave. But you, wretched
Blackbird, are a coward. You, shallow creature, are a sneak. And then the
line that would have rejoiced the heart of Victor Hugo: “Il faut savoir
mourir pour s’appeler Gavroche.”
A month passes. The last Act represents the Hen Pheasant’s forest,
where she and Chantecler are spending their honeymoon. For the bird has
enticed the Cock away from the farm-yard; and thus, distress of his old
foster-mother, and much indignation amongst the white, grey, brown and
black hens.
Night in the forest, and how beautifully depicted! Up in a tree sits a
solemn woodpecker; below him, around a huge mushroom, a number of toads
with glistening eyes are assembled. Then, a gigantic cobweb, and in the
middle of it, a spider. Here and there, rabbits peep out of their holes.
Everywhere, birds. “It is time,” says the solemn woodpecker to them, “for
you to say your prayers.”
_Une Voix [dans les arbres]._
Dieu des oiseaux!...
_Une Autre Voix._
Ou plutôt—car il sied avant tout de s’entendre
Et le vautour n’a pas le Dieu de la calandre!
Dieu des petits oiseaux!...
_Mille Voix [dans les feuilles]._
Dieu des petits oiseaux!...
_Une Autre Voix._
Et vous, François, grand saint, bénisseur de nos ailes....
_Toutes les Voix._
Priez pour nous!
_Une Voix._
Obtenez-nous, François d’Assise,
Le grain d’orge...
_La Seconde Voix._
Le grain de blé...
_D’autres Voix._
Le grain de mil...
_La Première Voix._
Ainsi soit-il!
_Toutes les Voix._
Ainsi soit-il!
At length, when Chantecler appears, we perceive that there is something
wrong with the Cock. “Does not my forest please you?” asks the Hen
Pheasant tenderly. “Oh yes,” replies Chantecler half-heartedly. The fact
is, he pines after the farm-yard. Every night in the forest he telephones
to the Blackbird, through the flower of the bindweed, for news of his old
foster-mother, the hens, the chicks, the dog Patou. Then the Hen Pheasant
is jealous of his love for the sun. Cruelly, she has insisted that he is
to crow only once every day.
But it is the Hen Pheasant’s design to make Chantecler forget the dawn.
He, of the farm-yard, has never heard the song of the nightingale. So
glorious are her notes that Chantecler, the poet, the idealist, will be
enraptured by them—and lose count of time.
And the nightingale sings; and Chantecler, enthralled, listens
attentively—and as he stands there, spellbound, beneath the nightingale’s
tree,—_the sun rises and lights up the forest_.
A peal of mocking laughter betrays the presence of the Blackbird. So it
is not the imperious “Cocorico” who summons the sun! So the day breaks
without Chantecler’s shrill crow! At first the Cock refuses to admit it:
“That is the sun I summoned yesterday.” But when his illusions are gone
he returns, humbled but not despairing, to the farm-yard. If he has not
the supreme power to create the day, at least he can herald it.
When Chantecler has vanished, the Hen Pheasant, out of love for the Cock,
deliberately flies into a trap set by the owner of the poultry yard. She
remembers Chantecler having described the farmer as an admirable man:
Car le propriétaire est un végétarien.
C’est un homme étonnant. Il adore les bêtes.
Il leur donne des noms qu’il prend dans les poètes.
So the farmer, after releasing the Hen Pheasant from the trap, will
restore her to Chantecler.
More and more golden becomes the forest. A strident “Cocorico” from the
distance announces Chantecler’s return to the yard. When footsteps are
heard, the birds stop singing. And the curtain falls.
It falls on a _chef-d’œuvre_.
X
AFTER _CHANTECLER_
More than a fortnight has passed since I witnessed the dress rehearsal of
_Chantecler_: and what an odd, what an exhausting fortnight it has been!
First of all dreams—or rather nightmares. Strangely, preposterously, I
am majestic, cock-crowing “Chantecler” himself. A few minutes later,
with wild, delirious rapidity, I turn into the Blackbird. M. Rostand’s
Blackbird can hop in and out of his cage, and mingle with the hens, the
ducks, the fluffy little chicks, and the other feathered creatures in the
farm-yard; but I—am a prisoner in my cage—no one heeds my cries, no one
releases me, and to add to my panic huge owls with shining eyes gather
around my cage and hoot lugubriously at me.
Nor is this all. I get hopelessly entangled in the gigantic cobweb,
which is one of the most wonderful scenic effects of the Fourth Act (the
“Hen Pheasant’s Forest”) of _Chantecler_. Also I stumble over the great
toadstools, fall heavily to the ground; and the gorgeous Hen Pheasant
herself appearing, I feel humiliated and ashamed that so elegant and
beautiful a creature should find me sprawling thus awkwardly on the
turf. “What a nuisance these toadstools are,” I observe. “What are you
doing in my forest? Leave it immediately,” commands the Hen Pheasant. But
I have sprained my ankle; impossible to rise, even to move. And I burst
into tears, and I implore the beautiful Pheasant to pardon me, and then a
great bat gets caught in my hair, and——
Enough. Although my sufferings in these nightmares have been acute, I
have one thing to be thankful for. Up to now I have not been attacked,
as “Chantecler” is in the Third Act, by a fierce, bloodthirsty Prize
Fighting Cock.
Gracious goodness, this _Chantecler_! Rising unrefreshed from my
troubled, restless sleep, I find, on the breakfast-table, letters from
London, Birmingham, Manchester, which show that M. Edmond Rostand’s
masterpiece has interested those cities as much as it has agitated and
excited Paris.
“MY DEAR BOY” (writes a frail, silver-haired and very charming
old lady who gave me half-crowns in my schooldays),—“I live
very much out of the world, as old people should do; but I
confess to my curiosity having been aroused by a very peculiar
play now being acted in Paris. I mean _Chantecler_, by a M.
Edmond Rostand. It seems that the characters in it—if one can
call them characters?—are animals. How very remarkable! I
wonder how it can be done! Such things are seen, of course,
in pantomimes (do you remember my taking you to Drury Lane
Theatre many, many years ago to see _Puss-in-Boots_?). But
the newspapers here say that this play is wonderfully natural,
and full of true poetry and feeling. When you can spare
half-an-hour, pray satisfy an old lady’s curiosity by giving
her an account of the piece.”
Then, with innumerable dashes, exclamation marks, and words underlined,
the following appeal from fascinating, lovely, irresistible Miss Ethel
Tempest:—
“Of course, lucky man, you have seen _Chantecler_, and if you
don’t tell me all about it by return of post I shall never
write to you, and never look at you, and never speak to you
again. I don’t want to know anything about the plot of the
play, as I have read all about that in the papers. You have
got to be a dear, and tell me about the hat that Madame Simone
wears as the Hen Pheasant. It’s made of straw and feathers,
and it’s going to be the rage in London. Sybil Osborne tells
me chic Parisiennes are wearing it already. No; on second
thoughts, send me all the fashionable illustrated papers that
give sketches of the hat. As you’re a man, you won’t understand
it. Mind, _all_ the papers: you can’t send enough. If you could
get a special sketch done by one of your artist friends in the
Latin Quarter, it would be lovely.”
Well, of course I write to the gentle, kindly silver-haired lady who
once took me to a Drury Lane pantomime; and of course, too, I send
illustrated papers—thirteen of them—to exquisite Miss Tempest, and ask
Raoul Fauchois, a gay, sympathetic art student, to “do” me a sketch of
the Hen Pheasant’s straw hat. He consents, and I fancy he will keep his
promise. “Naturally, the sketch is not for you,” he says, at once wisely
and poetically. “It is for one of those blonde English misses whose
_chevelure_, so radiant, so golden, lights up the sombre streets of old
London. You may rely upon me, _mon pauvre ami_. I understand; I know
exactly how you feel—for I myself have had affairs of the heart.”
Again, always from London and the provinces, requests for picture post
cards of the principal scenes in _Chantecler_; for gilt brooches (3 f. 50
c. in the tawdry shops of the rue de Rivoli) representing “Chantecler”
crowing and crowing with his chest thrown outwards and his beak raised
heavenwards; for the Porte St-Martin theatre programme of _Chantecler_;
and for—“if you possibly can manage it”—the autograph of M. Edmond
Rostand.
And then a telegram:
“Wife and self arrive Gare du Nord Wednesday 5.45. Please meet
us. Not understanding French wish you accompany us see and
interpret _Chantecler_.”
What worry, what exhaustion!
“Monsieur would be kind to explain this extraordinary ‘Chantecler’ to
me. I am from the country, and have had much to do with poultry; but I
have never seen a cock like Chantecler,” says my servant, a simple, naïve
soul from Normandy.
Then my concierge, a practical lady: “But it’s ridiculous, but it’s mad!
Cocks and hens cannot even speak, and yet this M. Rostand makes them
recite poetry. What is France coming to? What will be the end of us all?
Think, just think, what has been happening since the New Year. That
sinister comet, the terrible floods, and now _Chantecler_.”
Very unwisely, I explain to my servant and to my concierge that M.
Rostand’s glorious _chef-d’œuvre_ is symbolical.
_Chantecler_ is a symbolic play in verse.
The feathered creatures in the farm-yard represent human beings.
“Chantecler” himself is the artist, the idealist. The Hen Pheasant is the
coquettish, seductive, brilliant woman of the world. The Blackbird——
But here I stop, silenced by the startled expression of the concierge
and the servant. It is plain they think I have become irresponsible,
light-headed. “Monsieur is tired. Monsieur should lie down and rest.
Monsieur is not quite himself,” says my servant.
“The comet—the floods—_Chantecler_, have been too much for Monsieur,”
sighs the concierge.
XI
AU COURS D’ASSISES. PARIS AND MADAME STEINHEIL