Dramatic Technique Part 6

_Sylvette._ Oh, no! I won't have him talk of that; if he does, I shall cry.

_Percinet._ Then we'll shut our book till tomorrow, and, since you wish it, let sweet Romeo live.

(_He closes the book and looks about him._)

What an adorable spot! It seems made for lulling one's self with the lines of the great William.[12]

Here is great activity, but it is mental rather than physical action. To make it rouse us to the desired emotional response, good characterization and wisely chosen words are necessary.

Examine also the opening scene of Maeterlinck's _The Blind_. A group of sightless people have been deserted in a wood by their guide, and consequently are so bewildered and timorous that they hardly dare move.

Yet all their trepidation, doubt, and awe are clearly conveyed to us, with a very small amount of physical action, through skilful characterization, and words specially chosen and ordered to create and intensify emotion in us.

_An ancient Norland forest, with an eternal look, under a sky of deep stars._

_In the centre and in the deep of the night, a very old priest is sitting, wrapped in a great black cloak. The chest and the head, gently upturned and deathly motionless, rest against the trunk of a giant hollow oak. The face is fearsome pale and of an immovable waxen lividness, in which the purple lips fall slightly apart. The dumb, fixed eyes no longer look out from the visible side of Eternity and seem to bleed with immemorial sorrows and with tears. The hair, of a solemn whiteness, falls in stringy locks, stiff and few, over a face more illuminated and more weary than all that surrounds it in the watchful stillness of that melancholy wood. The hands, pitifully thin, are clasped rigidly over the thighs._

_On the right, six old men, all blind, are sitting on stones, stumps, and dead leaves._

_On the left, separated from them by an uprooted tree and fragments of rock, six women, also blind, are sitting opposite the old men. Three among them pray and mourn without ceasing, in a m.u.f.fled voice. Another is old in the extreme. The fifth, in an att.i.tude of mute insanity, holds on her knees a little sleeping child. The sixth is strangely young and her whole body is drenched with her beautiful hair. They, as well as the old men, are all clad in the same ample and sombre garments. Most of them are waiting, with their elbows on their knees and their faces in their hands; and all seem to have lost the habit of ineffectual gesture and no longer turn their heads at the stifled and uneasy noises of the Island. Tall funereal trees,--yews, weeping-willows, cypresses,--cover them with their faithful shadows. A cl.u.s.ter of long, sickly asphodels is in bloom, not far from the priest, in the night. It is unusually oppressive, despite the moonlight that here and there struggles to pierce for an instant the glooms of the foliage._

_First Blind Man._ (_Who was born blind._) He hasn't come back yet?

_Second Blind Man._ (_Who also was born blind._) You have awakened me.

_First Blind Man._ I was sleeping, too.

_Third Blind Man._ (_Also born blind._) I was sleeping, too.

_First Blind Man._ He hasn't come yet?

_Second Blind Man._ I hear something coming.

_Third Blind Man._ It is time to go back to the Asylum.

_First Blind Man._ We ought to find out where we are.

_Second Blind Man._ It has grown cold since he left.

_First Blind Man._ We ought to find out where we are!

_The Very Old Blind Man._ Does any one know where we are?

_The Very Old Blind Woman._ We were walking a very long while; we must be a long way from the Asylum.

_First Blind Man._ Oh! the women are opposite us?

_The Very Old Blind Woman._ We are sitting opposite you.

_First Blind Man._ Wait, I am coming over where you are. (_He rises and gropes in the dark._) Where are you?--Speak! let me hear where you are!

_The Very Old Blind Woman._ Here; we are sitting on stones.

_First Blind Man._ (_Advances and stumbles against the fallen tree and the rocks._) There is something between us.

_Second Blind Man._ We had better keep our places.

_Third Blind Man._ Where are you sitting?--Will you come over by us?

_The Very Old Blind Woman._ We dare not rise!

_Third Blind Man._ Why did he separate us?

_First Blind Man._ I hear praying on the women's side.

_Second Blind Man._ Yes; the three old women are praying.

_First Blind Man._ This is no time for prayer!

_Second Blind Man._ You will pray soon enough, in the dormitory!

(_The three old women continue their prayers._)

_Third Blind Man._ I should like to know who it is I am sitting by.

_Second Blind Man._ I think I am next to you.

(_They feel about them._)

_Third Blind Man._ We can't reach each other.

_First Blind Man._ Nevertheless, we are not far apart. (_He feels about him and strikes with his staff the fifth blind man, who utters a m.u.f.fled groan._) The one who cannot hear is beside us.

_Second Blind Man._ I don't hear anybody; we were six just now.

_First Blind Man._ I am going to count. Let us question the women, too; we must know what to depend upon. I hear the three old women praying all the time; are they together?

_The Very Old Blind Woman._ They are sitting beside me, on a rock.

_First Blind Man._ I am sitting on dead leaves.

_Third Blind Man._ And the beautiful blind girl, where is she?

_The Very Old Blind Woman._ She is near them that pray.

_Second Blind Man._ Where is the mad woman, and her child?

_The Young Blind Girl._ He sleeps; do not awaken him!