Dramatic Technique Part 11

_Bastian._ (_Softly._) Listen!

_Jean._ (_Softly._) A rolling stone in the ravine.

_Ulrich._ Another!

_Jean._ Steps!

_Ulrich._ Of horses.

_Jean._ Well?

_Ulrich._ A patrol!

_Jean._ (_Moved._) Ah!

_Bastian._ The Hussars!

_Jean._ What are they doing?

_Ulrich._ They are keeping watch.

_Bastian._ They are drilling.

_Ulrich._ Always!

_Jean._ Ah!

_Bastian._ Day and night.

_Ulrich._ Never resting.

_Bastian._ Perhaps they are trailing some deserter.

_Jean._ Ah! There are deserters?

_Bastian._ They won't tell you so in the town.

_Odile._ But we on the frontiers see them.

_Jean._ Ah!

_Bastian._ They who go out by the Grand' fontaine pa.s.s this way.

_Odile._ (_Softly._) Near our farm. From our house one can see them pa.s.sing.

_Jean._ Ah!

_Ulrich._ Chut!

_Jean._ I hear the breathing of their horses.

_Ulrich._ Be still.

_Jean._ We are doing nothing wrong.

_Bastian._ Wait.

_Ulrich._ Down there--wait--lean over.

_Jean._ I see--

_Ulrich._ They are coming up.

_Bastian._ They are going by.

_Jean._ They have crossed the road.

_Ulrich._ We can go down for the moment.

_Bastian._ Ouf!

_Jean._ It is strange--twenty times, a hundred times in Germany I have met the patrols of dragoons, or hussars, and admired their fine form.

Here--

_Ulrich._ Here?

_Jean._ Only to see them gives me a queer feeling at the heart.

_Ulrich._ Don't you understand, my dear Jean? There they were in their own country, here they are in ours.[18]

Early in the first scene of _The Changeling_, by Thomas Middleton, Beatrice states clearly, and more than once, the physical repulsion De Flores causes her. Knowing full well, however, the dramatic value of ill.u.s.trative action, Middleton handled the ending of the scene in this way. Beatrice turning to leave the room, starts as she finds De Flores close at hand.

_Beatrice._ (_Aside._) Not this serpent gone yet? (_Drops a glove._)

_Vermandero._ Look, girl, thy glove's fallen, Stay, stay! De Flores, help a little.

(_Exeunt Vermandero, Alsemero and Servant._)

_De Flores._ Here, lady. (_Offers her glove._)

_Beatrice._ Mischief on your officious forwardness!

Who bade you stoop? they touch my hand no more: There! for the other's sake I part with this; (_Takes off and throws down the other glove._) Take 'em, and draw thine own skin off with 'em.

(_Exit with Diaphanta and Servants._)

_De Flores._ Here's a favour with a mischief now! I know She had rather wear my pelt tanned in a pair Of dancing pumps, than I should thrust my fingers Into her sockets here.[19]

Here the dramatist makes repulsion clear by ill.u.s.trative action so emotional that it moves us to keenest sympathy or dislike for the woman herself. Dramatically speaking, then, ill.u.s.trative action is not merely something which ill.u.s.trates an idea or character, but it must be an ill.u.s.tration mirroring emotion of the persons in the play or creating it in the observer.

What is the relation of ill.u.s.trative action to dramatic situation? The first is the essence of the second. A dramatic episode presents an individual or group of individuals so moved as to stir an audience to responsive emotion. Ill.u.s.trative action by each person in the group or by the group as a whole is basal. The glove incident in _The Changeling_ concerns both Beatrice and De Flores. Hers is ill.u.s.trative action when she shrinks from the glove his hand has touched. He shows it when kissing and amorously fondling the glove she has refused. Their ill.u.s.trative actions make together the dramatic episode of the glove,--which is in turn a part of Scene 1 of the first act of the play.