Page:Musset - On ne badine pas avec l'amour, 1884.djvu/47

'OAT NE BADINE PAS AVEC I? AMOUR? $$ Camille . . , Mme FAVART. Dame Pluche . . Mme Jouassain. Rosette . . . Mme Emma Fleury. The amount of alteration needed to fit the piece for the stage was scarcely greater, if at all greater, than that made in the case of Les Caprices de Marianne, which, it may be noted in passing, has been lately given on the stage just as it was originally written, with the last scene placed in a cemetery instead of being run into the scene outside Claudio’s house. On ne badine pas avec I’amour resembles Les Caprices de Marianne in that it is in reality a tragedy, and a terrible one, lit up by brilliant scenes of character-comedy touched with the finest perception and wit. The central figure, Camille, is, or was when Musset drew it, an original as well as a true type. Mile. Favart was incomparably great in the stage re- presentation of this type, which she seized with unerring fidelity ; and nobody who has seen it can forget the thrilling effect of the last scene between her and M. Delaunay as Perdican. Charming as he alone of actors can be as the lover in the earlier scenes, with their mingled moods of ten- derness, wounded pride, recklessness, and pathos, in this final scene he touched for a few moments the very heights of tragedy in the speech during which he is left alone just before the end, and in the terror-stricken attitude in which he cowered against the wall while he waited for Camille’s tidings. M. Sarcey has given a good description, in a few words, both of Camille’s character and of the actress’s ren- dering. ’Mile Favart,’ he wrote, ’gave to perfection the cold, haughty, scornful character of this girl whom a convent training has put on her guard against the wiles of love, even of the purest kind ; and when, in the fourth act, she threw herself in a storm of passion on a prie-dieu, and burst into a tempest of tears and sobs, we discovered with surprise that she was capable of the highest and deepest emotion. It was a revelation, and we wondered, transported as we were, whether it was art or nature.’ I think that, with the actress as with the poet, it was both, — the finest art interpreting the perceptions and suggestions of the finest temperament. The more subordinate characters are no less complete and U 2