To those who are conversant with the works of Maeterlinck it may seem
rather far-fetched to discuss him from the point of view of
revolutionary and social significance. Above all, Maeterlinck is the
portrayer of the remote, the poet of symbols: therefore it may seem out
of place to bring him down to earth, to simplify him, or to interpret
his revolutionary spirit. To some extent these objections have
considerable weight; but on the other hand, if one keeps in mind that
only those who go to the remote are capable of understanding the
obvious, one will readily see how very significant Maeterlinck is as a
revolutionizing factor. Besides, we have Maeterlinck's own conception of
the significance of the revolutionary spirit. In a very masterly article
called "The Social Revolution," he discusses the objection on the part
of the conservative section of society to the introduction of
revolutionary methods. He says that they would like us to "go slow";
that they object to the use of violence and the forcible overthrow of
the evils of society. And Maeterlinck answers in these significant
words:
"We are too ready to forget that the headsmen of misery are less noisy,
less theatrical, but infinitely more numerous, more cruel and active
than those of the most terrible revolutions."
Maeterlinck realizes that there are certain grievances in society,
iniquitous conditions which demand immediate solution, and that if we do
not solve them with the readiest and quickest methods at our command,
they will react upon society and upon life a great deal more terribly
than even the most terrible revolutions. No wonder, then, that his works
were put under the ban by the Catholic Church which forever sees danger
in light and emancipation. Surely if Maeterlinck were not primarily the
spokesman of truth, he would be embraced by the Catholic Church.
In "Monna Vanna" Maeterlinck gives a wonderful picture of the new
woman--not the new woman as portrayed in the newspapers, but the new
woman as a reborn, regenerated spirit; the woman who has emancipated
herself from her narrow outlook upon life, and detached herself from the
confines of the home; the woman, in short, who has become race-conscious
and therefore understands that she is a unit in the great ocean of
life, and that she must take her place as an independent factor in order
to rebuild and remold life. In proportion as she learns to become
race-conscious, does she become a factor in the reconstruction of
society, valuable to herself, to her children, and to the race.
* * * * *
Pisa is subdued by the forces of Florence; it is beaten and conquered.
The city is in danger of being destroyed, and the people exposed to
famine and annihilation. There is only one way of saving Pisa. _Marco
Colonna_, the father of the Commander of Pisa, brings the ultimatum of
the enemy:
_Marco._ Know, then, that I saw Prinzivalle and spoke with him.... I
thought to find some barbarian, arrogant and heavy, always covered
with blood or plunged in drunken stupor; at best, the madman they
have told us of, whose spirit was lit up at times, upon the
battlefield, by dazzling flashes of brilliance, coming no man knows
whence. I thought to meet the demon of combat, blind, unreasoning,
vain and cruel, faithless and dissolute.... I found a man who bowed
before me as a loving disciple bows before the master. He is
lettered, eager for knowledge, and obedient to the voice of
wisdom.... He loves not war; his smile speaks of understanding and
gentle humanity. He seeks the reason of passions and events. He
looks into his own heart; he is endowed with conscience and
sincerity, and it is against his will that he serves a faithless
State.... I have told you that Prinzivalle seems wise, that he is
humane and reasonable. But where is the wise man that hath not his
private madness, the good man to whom no monstrous idea has ever
come? On one side is reason and pity and justice; on the other--ah!
_there_ is desire and passion and what you will--the insanity into
which we all fall at times. I have fallen into it myself, and shall,
belike, again--so have you. Man is made in that fashion. A grief
which should not be within the experience of man is on the point of
touching you.... Hearken: this great convoy, the victuals that I
have seen, wagons running over with corn, others full of wine and
fruit; flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, enough to feed a city
for months; all these tuns of powder and bars of lead, with which
you may vanquish Florence and make Pisa lift her head--all this will
enter the city to-night, ... if you send in exchange, to give her up
to Prinzivalle until to-morrow's dawn, ... for he will send her back
when the first faint gray shows in the sky, ... only, he exacts
that, in sign of victory and submission, she shall come alone, and
her cloak for all her covering....
_Guido._ Who? Who shall thus come?
_Marco._ Giovanna.
_Guido._ My wife? Vanna?
_Marco._ Ay, your Vanna.
_Guido Colonna_, in the consciousness that the woman belongs to him,
that no man may even look, with desire, upon her dazzling beauty,
resents this mortal insult. He is willing that all the other women
should face danger, that the little children of Pisa should be exposed
to hunger and destruction, rather than that he give up his possession.
But _Monna Vanna_ does not hesitate. When she is before the issue of
saving her people, she does not stop to consider. She goes into the
enemy's tent, as a child might go, without consciousness of self, imbued
solely with the impulse to save her people.
The meeting of _Monna Vanna_ and _Prinzivalle_ is an exquisite
interpretation of love--the sweetness, purity, and fragrance of
_Prinzivalle's_ love for the woman of his dream--the one he had known
when she was but a child, and who remained an inspiring vision all
through his career. He knows he cannot reach her; he also knows that he
will be destroyed by the political intriguers of Florence, and he stakes
his all on this one step to satisfy the dream of his life to see _Vanna_
and in return to save Pisa.
_Prinzivalle._ Had there come ten thousand of you into my tent, all
clad alike, all equally fair, ten thousand sisters whom even their
mother would not know apart, I should have risen, should have taken
your hand, and said, "This is she!" Is it not strange that a beloved
image can live thus in a man's heart? For yours lived so in mine
that each day it changed as in real life--the image of to-day
replaced that of yesterday--it blossomed out, it became always
fairer; and the years adorned it with all that they add to a child
that grows in grace and beauty. But when I saw you again, it seemed
to me at first that my eyes deceived me. My memories were so fair
and so fond--but they had been too slow and too timid--they had not
dared to give you all the splendor which appeared so suddenly to
dazzle me. I was as a man that recalled to mind a flower he had but
seen in passing through a garden on a gray day, and should be
suddenly confronted with a hundred thousand as fair in a field
bathed with sunshine. I saw once more your hair, your brow, your
eyes, and I found all the soul of the face I had adored--but how its
beauty shames that which I had treasured in silence through endless
days, through years whose only light was a memory that had taken too
long a road and found itself outshone by the reality!... Ah! I knew
not too well what I meant to do. I felt that I was lost--and I
desired to drag with me all I could.... And I hated you, because of
the love.... Yes, I should have gone to the end had it not been
_you_.... Yet any other would have seemed odious to me--you yourself
would have had to be other than you are.... I lose my reason when I
think of it.... One word would have been enough that was different
from your words--one gesture that was not yours--the slightest thing
would have inflamed my hate and let loose the monster. But when I
saw you, I saw in that same moment that it was impossible.
_Vanna._ I felt a change, too.... I marveled that I could speak to
you as I have spoken since the first moment.... I am silent by
nature--I have never spoken thus to any man, unless it be to Marco,
Guido's father.... And even with him it is not the same. He has a
thousand dreams that take up all his mind, ... and we have talked
but a few times. The others have always a desire in their eyes that
will not suffer one to tell them that one loves them and would fain
know what they have in their hearts. In your eyes, too, a longing
burns; but it is not the same--it does not affright me nor fill me
with loathing. I felt at once that I knew you before I remembered
that I had ever seen you....
_Vanna_, awed by the character and personality of this despised and
hated outlaw, pleads with him to come with her to Pisa under the
protection of herself and her husband. She is sure that he will be safe
with them, and that he will be hailed as the redeemer of the people of
Pisa. Like innocent children they walk to their doom.
_Vanna_ is honored by the people whom she has saved, but scorned by her
husband who, like the true male, does not credit her story.
_Vanna._ Hear me, I say! I have never lied--but to-day, above all
days, I tell the deepest truth, the truth that can be told but once
and brings life or death.... Hearken, Guido, then--and look upon me,
if you have never known me until this hour, the first and only hour
when you have it in your power to love me as I would be loved. I
speak in the name of our life, of all that I am, of all that you are
to me.... Be strong enough to believe that which is incredible. This
man has spared my honor.... He had all power--I was given over to
him. Yet he has not touched me--I have issued from his tent as I
might from my brother's house.... I gave him one only kiss upon the
brow--and he gave it me again.
_Guido._ Ah, that was what you were to tell us--that was the
miracle! Ay, already, at the first words, I divined something
beneath them that I understood not.... It passed me like a flash--I
took no heed of it.... But I see now that I must look more closely.
So, when he had you in his tent, alone, with a cloak for all your
covering, all night long, you say he spared you?... Am I a man to
believe that the stars are fragments of hellebore, or that one may
drop something into a well and put out the moon?... What! a man
desires you so utterly that he will betray his country, stake all
that he has for one single night, ruin himself forever, and do it
basely, do such a deed as no man ever thought to do before him, and
make the world uninhabitable to himself forever! And this man has
you there in his tent, alone and defenseless, and he has but this
single night that he has bought at such a price--and he contents
himself with a kiss upon the brow, and comes even hither to make us
give him credence! No, let us reason fairly and not too long mock at
misfortune. If he asked but that, what need was there that he should
plunge a whole people into sadness, sink me in an abyss of misery
such that I have come from it crushed and older by ten years? Ah!
Had he craved but a kiss upon the brow, he might have saved us
without torturing us so! He had but to come like a god to our
rescue.... But a kiss upon the brow is not demanded and prepared for
after his fashion.... The truth is found in our cries of anguish
and despair....
It is only at this psychological moment, a moment that sometimes changes
all our conceptions, all our thoughts, our very life, that _Monna Vanna_
feels the new love for _Prinzivalle_ stirring in her soul, a love that
knows no doubt. The conception of such a love is revolutionary in the
scope of its possibilities--a love that is pregnant with the spirit of
daring, of freedom, that lifts woman out of the ordinary and inspires
her with the strength and joy of molding a new and free race.