Chapter XI

But it could be, and was, for the time being forgotten--as the play went on with a smooth perfection, and with a constantly increasing dramatic force, as the action strengthened and quickened in accord always with the requirements of dramatic art.

Without any apparent effort to secure picturesque effect, with a grouping seemingly wholly unstudied and always natural, the stage presented a series of pictures ideal in their balance of mass, and in their colour and tone, while the turning off and on of the electric lights produced effects analogous to those in music when the soft and hard pedals are used to give to the more tender passages an added grace and delicacy, and to the stronger passages a more brilliant force. And always, be it remembered, the play thus presented was one of the most tenderly beautiful tragedies possessed by the world, and the players--by natural fitness and by training--were perfect in their art.

Presently came the end--not a climax of action; not, in one sense, a climax at all. With a master-touch, Sophocles has made the end of "Antigone" the dead after-calm of evil action--a desolate despair. Slowly the group upon the stage melted away. _Creon_, with his hopeless cry upon his lips, "Death! Death! Only death!" moved with a weary languor toward the palace and slowly disappeared in the darkness beyond the ruined portal. There was a pause before the chorus uttered its final solemn words. And then--not as though obeying a stage direction, but rather as though moved severally by the longing in their own breasts to get away from that place of sorrow--those others also departed: going slowly, in little groups and singly, until at last the stage was bare.

The audience was held bound in reality by the spell which had seemed to bind the chorus after _Creon's_ exit. Some moments passed before that spell was broken, before the eight thousand hearts beat normally again and the eight thousand throats burst forth into noisy applause--which was less, perhaps, an expression of gratitude for an artistic creation rarely equalled than of the natural rebound of the spirit after so tense a strain. In another moment the seats were emptied and the multitude was flowing down the tiers--a veritable torrent of humanity--into the pit: there to be packed for a while in a solid mass before it could work its way out through the insufficient exits and so return again to our modern world.

And then the Roman Theatre--with a fresh legend of beauty added to the roll of its centuries--was left desert beneath the bright silence of the eternal stars.

SAINT-REMY-DE-PROVENCE,
_December, 1894._

THE END

FOOTNOTES

[1] _Recipe for Poumpo_: Flour, 101/2 oz.; brown sugar, 31/2 oz.; virgin
olive oil (probably butter would answer), 31/2 oz.; the white and the
yolk of one egg. Knead with enough water to make a firm paste. Fold
in three and set to rise for eight or ten hours. Shape for baking,
gashing the top. Bake in a slow oven.

[2] _Vin cue_, literally cooked wine, is made at the time of the vintage
by the following recipe: Boil unfermented grape-juice in a well
scoured cauldron [or porcelain-lined vessel] for a quarter of an
hour, skimming thoroughly. Pour into earthen pans, and let it stand
until the following day. Pour again into the cauldron, carefully, so
as to leave the dregs, and boil until reduced to one-half--or less,
or more, according to the sweetness desired. A good rule is to boil
in the wine a quince stuck full of cloves--the thorough cooking of
the quince shows that the wine is cooked too. Set to cool in earthen
pans, and when cold bottle and cork and seal. The Provencal
cooked-wine goes back to Roman times. Martial speaks of "Cocta fumis
musta Massiliensis."

[3] The admirable edition of Saboly's noels, text and music, published
at Avignon in the year 1856 by Francois Seguin has been reissued by
the same publisher in definitive form. It can be obtained through
the Librarie Roumanille, Avignon.

[4] As yet (1902) these high hopes have not been fully realized. In the
past eight years dramatic performances repeatedly have been given in
the Orange theatre, and always with a brilliant success; but their
establishment as fixtures, to come off at regular intervals, still
is to be accomplished.

[5] The dimensions of the theatre are: width, 338 feet; depth, 254 feet;
height of facade and of rear wall of stage, 120 feet; radius of
auditorium, 182 feet.

[6] The conventions of the Greek theatre--and, later, of the Roman
theatre--prescribed that through the great central portal kings
should enter; through the smaller side portals, queens or princesses
(on the left) and guests (on the right); from the portals in the
wings, natives of the country (on the left) and strangers (on the
right). The conventional entrances from the wings arose from the
fact that the spectators in the Dionysiac theatre, on the Acropolis,
saw beyond the stage on the one side the white houses of Athens and
on the other the plains of Attica: and so to them the actors coming
from the Athenian side were their own people, while those entering
from the side toward Attica were strangers. In the modern French
theatre the "court" and "garden" entrances still preserve this
ancient tradition.

* * * * *

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE

Obvious printing errors were repaired; these changes are listed below. Other variation in hyphenation is as in the original text.

Felibrien changed to Felibrien
"it was the drink of the young Felibrien poets"

builded changed to built
"long before Lyons was built or Paris even thought of"