.•Vl ' Swv '^ ^:\ ',. <^' .-^^ .'^' A^^ ^^. ^ ^. .-^ V .v\^ •f^/. V .\^ ■-*. / u ^^ Ci vV \^ \' .^•^^ .--^ ■N^ .\^ ^'\" :^\'' S^^.. .0^ ^^^■ : N^ -^^ aN -. v^^ \^^^, ,c^^' ^'^ .v' *-..r^35u, -^ . '^ \0 ^;/^"^% -^^ ^ o>- vV 'c^ o> \' .^^ ^.^ S^^^. ^^'' "-. V A^^' -^"^^^W- i,. SOPHIE PLAYS BY PHILIP MOELLER MADAME SAND FIVE SOMEWHAT HISTORICAL PLAYS MOLIERE SOPHIE SOPHIE A COMEDY BY PHILIP MOELLER it WITH A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER BY CARL VAN VECHTEN ". . . la seule courtisane de Vage d'or des filles: Sophie Arnould" De Goncourt. NEW YORK: ALFRED • A • KNOPF COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY PHILIP MOELLER In its present form this play is dedicated to the reading public only, and no performances of it may be given without the permission of the author who may be addressed in care of the publisher. Any piracy or infringement will be prosecuted in accordance with the penalties provided by the United States Statutes : — Sec. 4966. — Any person publicly performing or representing any dramatic or musical composition, for which copyright has been obtained, without the consent of the proprietor of the said dramatic or musical composition, or his heirs or assigns, shall be liable for damages therefor, such damages in all cases to be assessed at such sum, not less than one hundred dollars for the first and fifty dollars for every subsequent performance, as to the Court shall appear to be just. If the unlawful performance and representation be wilful and for profit, such person or persons shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction be im- prisoned for a period not exceeding one year. — U. S. Revised Statutes, Title 60, Chap. 3. ©CI.A576045 AUG 14 1920 To CARL VAN VECHTEN Who first gave me the key to Sophie's dressing room and to EMILY STEVENS Who was waiting when the knob was turned. A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER One of the favourite theories of the somewhat overrated George Henry Lewes has it that the ap- plause vouchsafed the actor, the interpreter, is pro- portionately much greater during his lifetime than that allotted to the creative artist, because the inter- preter disappears when he dies and is forgotten, while the great creative artist lives in his work even after death, his fame rolling up with the passing generations. It is no purpose of mine entirely to discredit this theory, but the fact remains that there are actors who have a longer lease on fame than equally worthy creative artists. The irony lies in the axiom that the creative artist who is the most applauded by his contemporaries is usually the soonest to be forgotten by succeeding centuries, while the actor who is the most applauded while he is yet alive is the longest remembered by those who come after. And if you make up a com- parative list of players and playwrights of past periods who still haunt the memory and the imag- ination, I am willing to wager that the list of actors will be the longer one. Nell Gwyn, David Gar- rick, Mrs. Siddons, Clairon, Peg Woffington, Edwin Booth, Lotta, Salvini, and Rachel have so impressed vii viii A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER themselves on the popular consciousness through their lives and the accounts of them which still ex- ist, that they have taken as definite a place in the minds and hearts of the people as the great char- acters of fiction, Sancho Panza, Mr. Pickwick, Tar- tarin, Bazarov, and Daisy Miller. We need have no fear, to introduce a modern note, that the name of Sarah Bernhardt, the French Jewess, who defied the laws of the Theatre Frangais, who defied the laws of society to such an extent that on one still- celebrated occasion she permitted her actual lover, Jean Richepin, to enact the role of her stage lover in his own piece, Nana-Sahib, who defied the laws of Nature, making her audience forget that Marguerite Gautier was seventy-five years old and had but one leg — we need have no fear, I say, that this name is not a thousand times more eternal and amaranthine than that of Victorien Sardou, in whose dramas she won the suffrage of the great pub- lic. Her epitaph, indeed, might be that which Vol- taire, or another, wrote for Adrienne Lecouvreur: '^'Uopinioji etoit si forte Quelle devoit toujour s durer; Qu apres merrie quelle fut morte. On refusa de renterrer." Not the least of the names that have come down to us from the mauve and pale-green past of the exquisite eighteenth century is that of the extraor- A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER ix dinary Sophie Arnould, whose fragrant cogno- men might have been perpetuated alone through Gluck's famous remark that without her he never could have presented his Iphigenie en Aulide to Paris. But aside from her eminence as the greatest lyric artist of her period, she was very beautiful and very witty, and the details of her life were dramatic and intriguing enough to have furnished material for a score of epic poems and romances. What verses Alexander Pope might have composed in honour of the goings on of Sophie, had Clio per- mitted him to live a little later! Mademoiselle Arnould was the friend of the great men of her day: Beaumarchais, Marmontel, Duclos, Helve- tius, Diderot, even Benjamin Franklin, all came to her salon. Jean Jacques Rousseau visited her at least once, and Voltaire's appearance on her hearth- stone assumes, in its historical guise, almost the semblance of a pilgrimage. Her wit won their at- tention, and her humanity their hearts. Her tongue, when at its best, was capable of producing masterpieces of word humour; her less acceptable sallies were made in the form of paronomasia. These epigrams wormed their way into many eigh- teenth-century volumes of recollections, memoirs, and letters, and after her death they were collected and issued under the title, Arnoldiana. Many of them are still in daily use in France. The artists of the epoch all desired to reproduce X A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER Sophie's beauty. Greuze'^s portrait is perhaps the most adorable of the list. This picture also repre- sents Greuze at a better advantage than the more celebrated Cruche Cassee in the Louvre. The early engravings of this Broken Pitcher, by the way, were dedicated by the painter to Mademoiselle Amould. Greuze, of course, does not suggest the Iphigenie; it is in La Tour's portrait that we recognize the great tragic actress. There is further a bust by Houdon which, when the revolutionists burst into her house, once served Sophie in good stead. She dubbed the head Marat and saved her own. Sophie Arnould was bom in Paris, February 14, 1740. Her parents appear to have been respect- able members of the upper middle class; her mother, indeed, was a frequenter of literary circles and enjoyed the acquaintance of men who inspired her with an ambition to give her daughter a thor- ough education. So Sophie studied reading and writing, foreign languages, the spinet, and singing. At the age of ten, or thereabouts, her charm, her wit, her beauty, and her talent attracted the atten- tion of the Princess of Modena, who thereafter made herself responsible for the child's educa- tion. It was the custom of the period, more fashion- able than pious, for ladies of the great world to se- clude themselves in convents during the latter part of Lent. At the beginning of Holy Week, 1757, A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER xi the Princess arrived at the Abbey of Panthemont to discover the sisters in a state of consternation. They included in their numbers a nun with an ex- ceptionally beautiful voice who had been counted on to supply the music during the retreat but she had been taken ill. On Wednesday fashionable Paris would come to hear the Tenebrae and there was no one to sing it. The Princess offered Sophie as a solution, and the following day when she sang the Miserere of Lalande the church was crowded, so quickly had travelled the news of the girl's re- markable singing. The Queen heard of this and sent for Sophie; Madame de Pompadour heard of this and sent for Sophie. The Queen desired So- phie for her private choir, but the King, through the royal mistress, destined her for the Academic Royale de Musique. Now it was common knowl- edge that those who entered the stage door of the Opera were forced to leave behind an indispensable part of the definition of the word maiden. Sophie's mother, therefore^ strove to conceal her daughter in a convent, but, in view of the circumstances, it was impossible to find an abbess willing to brave the anger of royalty and its mistress. Sophie, ac- cordingly, was engaged at the Opera. At first it was intended that she should become a member of the sacred choir connected with that institution, but talent was at a low ebb. Looking for a novelty to stir the pulse of the apathetic public, the directors xii A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER injected Sophie into an opera-ballet called Les Amours des Dieux on December 15, 1757. The singer made her debut at the age of seventeen and was immediately launched on a brilliantly success- ful career. In the meantime her father had become an inn- keeper, and a charming Norman painter, hight Dorval, became a paying guest at his house. Dor- val's linen was of the finest; his taste in dress ex- quisite. Indeed he must have been quite as opera- comique as the farmers and shepherdesses of the Trianon. Nevertheless, in spite of the huge bas- kets of game and fruit which arrived from day to day, the Amoulds seem to have suspected nothing until the morning dawned when both Sophie and Dorval were missing. A little later Arnould pere received a letter in which Dorval unmasked and appeared in his true character as Louis Leon Fe- licite de Brancas, Comte de Lauraguais. He adored Sophie, he asseverated, and when his wife died he would marry her. By way of warning to parents who credit such promises, I might state that the Comtesse de Lauraguais only expired on the guillotine some half century later. The love of the Comte and Sophie continued unabated for a few years; then there came a break. During one of his absences Sophie packed her two sons and all the Comte's presents into a carriage and dispatched them to the Comtesse, who established the duties of A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER xiii wronged wives for all time by retaining the chil- dren and bringing them up with her own and re- turning the presents. Later Sophie presented the Comte with two more children. In fact periodi- cally they renewed their romance, the one grand passion in both their lives, although both were as inconstant as rabbits and guinea pigs and for every new lover of Sophie's Lauraguais retaliated with a new mistress. But they remained friends until death parted them, a fact to which Sophie's last letter to the Comte bears touching and con- vincing evidence. The reader may believe that Mr. Moeller has resorted to burlesque in his quaint picture of Lauraguais but, judging by the facts, I feel, on the contrary, that he has underdrawn rather than over- drawn this strange character of whom Voltaire wrote, "He has all possible talents and all possible eccentricities." He did write plays, mad five- act tragedies, and insane comedies, and it is per- fectly true that his pamphlet on inoculation, which at that period was considered as a form of black magic, did cause his detention at Metz. The Comte further dabbled in chemistry and anatomy, endeav- oured to bring about reforms in the theatre, and even became a gentleman jockey. He was con- stantly running into collision with royalty and the courts ; he was one of the early aristocratic radicals. He was a delicious whimsical paraphrase of the xiv A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER eighteenth century encyclopedist and it is to his un- fading credit that, in one fantastic flight of his winged imagination and in order to rid Sophie of an attendant bore, he actually brought and substantiated by scientific authority the charge of the new method oi assassination with which Sophie in Mr. Moeller's comedy ejects the Ambassador of Austria from her triumphant presence. It is prob- able that the Comte was the only real love in Sophie's life, although her subsequent turpitudes were many, including relations with the Prince d'Henin, whom she detested, and Belanger, the ar- chitect, who, with Lauraguais, remained her friend until she died. Sophie Arnould's voice was not powerful. "Na- ture," she has written in her Memoires, "had sec- onded my taste for music with a tolerably agreeable voice, weak but sonorous, though not extremely so. But it was sound and well-balanced, so that with a clear pronunciation and without any defect save a slight lisp, which could hardly be considered a fault, not a word of what I sang was lost, even in the most spacious buildings." It is to be observed that clear enunciation is an inevitable part of the baggage of great dramatic singers. Contemporary critics give her more credit than she gave herself; according to their evidence her voice was sweet in quality, and she possessed the gift of imparting to it colour and expression. The Goncourts have sum- A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER xv marized the case: "She brought to harmony, emo- tion; to the song, compassion; to the play of the voicq, sentiment. She charmed the ear and touched the heart. All the domain of the tender drama, all the graces of terror, were hers. She possessed the cry, and the tears, and the sigh, and the caresses of the pathetic. . . . What art, what genius, must there have been to wrest so many har- monies from a contemptible voice, a feeble throat." These words can hardly be misunderstood. So- phie was, indeed, the first, perhaps, of the great dramatic singers, those who not only act with their bodies but with their singing voices. David Gar- rick pronounced her a greater actress than Clairon. What Mary Garden is to the contemporary lyric stage, Sophie Amould was to the stage of the late eighteenth century. Before Gluck came to Paris, French lyric art was fast ebbing out its life. Pastiches formed most of the bills, opera-ballets with five acts and five plots, or rearrangements of minor masterworks. Even from these Sophie wrested a tremendous rep- utation, just as Sarah Bernhardt has defied the world of actresses with the clap-trap of Sardou, and Mary Garden has won recognition as the great- est lyric artist of her day as much as anything through her performance in Massenet's meretri- cious Thais. The titles of the trifles in which So- phie appeared, however, are very pretty and sug- xvi A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER gest the powder-puffery, the wigs, the flowered gowns, the pregnant artificiality of what must ever remain in the memory as a graceful and gracious period. Alphee et Arethuse, Pyrrhus et Polixene, Dardanus, Les Fetes de Paphos, Castor et Pollux, Psyche, Thetis et Peleus, Les Dieux d'Egypte, Sylvie, Palmire, Aline, Reine de Golconde, and La Terre were some of the fragrant names. Sophie's repertory included works by Lully, Rameau, Mon- signy, and Rousseau, in whose Devin de Village she appeared in a boy's part, but of all the operas she sang only the two works of Gluck retain the stage today. Nature always provides ways and means for those who provide for themselves. Every great reformer in opera has had his corresponding inter- preter who has brought about reforms in her own field as sweeping as those introduced by the com- poser. Debussy had Mary Garden; Wagner, Ma- dame Schroeder-Devrient; Gluck, Sophie Arnould. There is indeed a fascinating similarity to be noted between the personalities and talents of Sophie Arnould and Mary Garden. Like Sophie, Mary is a great actress; she also moulds her voice to suit the new word; she also is a very witty woman. In- deed I can remember story after story about Mary Garden that would be absolutely in character with Sophie Arnould, and if a composer should hit upon the ingenious idea of making a rococo opera of Mr. A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER xvii Moeller's comedy it seems inevitable that Mary Garden should be chosen to enact the role of the heroine. Mr. Moeller, with complete justification, has dis- torted some historical facts in his arrangement of his play. Sophie did, in a sense, resort to intrigue to capture the role of Iphigenie but not in the man- ner he suggests. The production of Iphigenie en Aulide was, of course, one of the four or five de- cisive battles in the history of music drama, and Sophie played by no means a small part in its suc- cess. Later she appeared as Euridice in Gluck's Parisian arrangement of Orpheus, But Rosalie Levasseur "created" Alceste, The causes for Sophie's decline and fall are not difficult to gauge. Her voice, none too good in the beginning, began to fail her, and she could not al- ways depend on it, nor is there reason to believe that on every occasion did she make any effort to please the public before which she was appearing. Then her wickedly witty tongue made her an object of fear, dread, and hate to many of her comrades in the theatre, and her caprices were so flagrant that an opera director of today would probably com- mit suicide in face of them. For weeks at a time she would refuse to sing at all, thereby seriously embarrassing a management which in any case was embarrassed enough for real talent; even the fact that she was announced to sing did not sanction xviii A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER any belief that she would. At the last moment she frequently sent word that she was ill; on one occa- sion she sent no word at all, but came and sat in a box at the front of the house, and when pressed for an explanation declared that she had come to take a lesson from her understudy. In the circum- stances one can understand the hisses that greeted hei^ final appearances, inspired partly by a natural feeling of grievance on the side of the public; partly, doubtless, by a management that wished to rid itself permanently of such a menace to order and discipline. And the presence of Marie An- toinette on more than one occasion did not serve to stem the tide of disapproval, for the very simple reason that the cold Queen was as unpopular in Paris as any royalty could be. Poor Sophie definitely retired from the stage in 1778, when she was but thirty-eight years old, and soon thereafter life for her became a constant strug- gle. She was granted a pension by the Govern- ment but she found it difficult to collect it. When a benefit at the Opera in her behalf was proposed, she refused to consider it when she learned that a condition would be her personal; appearance. The Revolution tore away from her what small means she had, and the last few years of her life were as tragic as those of any of the heroines she had rep- resented on the stage. She did not, however, lose her friends, Lauraguais and Belanger, who re- A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER xix mained faithful to the end, although they too had lost the power to assist her in any material manner. Her letters to these men in her last years are very beautiful. Sophie died on October 22, 1802, and where she is buried nobody knows. She was bom on Saint Valentine's Day, the first words she sang on the stage were "Charmant Amour/' and as she was dying the Cure of St. Germain I'Auxerois leaned over her bed to hear her mutter, "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much." So the love motif was woven through her life like a theme in a symphony. Mr. Moeller has chosen in his charming comedy, the most charming and the most brilliant to my way of thinking that has yet issued from his pen, to ig- nore the tragedy, the heartache, the pain in poor Sophie's history. The hisses of the people, the poverty and squalor of her last years, offer tempt- ing material for another play which he may write later. His fable, in the present instance, is wholly apocryphal, although it is based on history at cru- cial points. The fact to be emphasized is that he has lighted up the atmosphere and the period, and re-created character. Sophie lives in this comedy, lives as she must have lived at the height of her ca- reer; she breathes and exists; we understand her and feel with her; we know that the playwright has set her down with an unerring instinct for essentials. Occasionally he has used some of her own epigrams XX A PROLOGUE FOR THE READER but he has written plenty of others of his own which seem to be born of the same gay spirit. This, to me, is the ideal form of historical play, yielding to history, but not episodic, standing on its own ground and playing lights on period and character, inval- uable to the loving student of the eighteenth cen- tury. To those who have hitherto been ignorant of the name of this fascinating woman it will straight- way have the effect of sending them scurrying through the records, and they will not be disap- pointed, but it would be no surprise to me if the adorable Sophie would henceforth be identified in the public mind with the heroine of a comedy which is as good as any in the best traditions of the Eng- lish stage and which establishes a new standard on the American stage. Carl Van Vechten. September 9, 1919 New York The Characters Are: Marie Guimard, the dancer, Sophie's neighbour. Mlle. Abigalette Heinel, the dancer, Sophie's worship- per. Sophie's Third Lackey. Sophie's Second Lackey. Sophie's First Lackey. The Abb^ de Voisenon, Sophie's confessor. Sophie. Rosalie Levasseur, Sophie's rival. Louis Leon Felicite De Brancas, Count De Laura- GUAis, Sophie's ''Dorval." .j-Vivienne, Sophie's visitor. ^ Christoph Willibald Ritter Von Cluck, Sophie's composer. Mercy D'Argenteau, the Austrian Ambassador, Sophie's thorn. Captain Etienne Mars, Sophie's bridegroom. The Count De Saint-Florentin, the Chief of Police, Sophie's dread. Sophie's soldiers and the Soldiers who come for Sophie's arrest. The Scenes Are: Act I. Half' past seven, which leaves Sophie in a quan- dary. Act II. Half -past nine, which leaves Sophie in danger. Act III. Half -past eleven, which leaves Sophie almost alone. ACT I Half -past seven, which leaves Sophie in a quandary. ACT I The Scene is Sophie's little drawing room adjoin- ing her boudoir in the house of the Austrian Ambassador in Paris, The apartment is the miniature chef d'ouvre of the architect Be- longer, He has put all his talent as an artist and all his adoration of Sophie into the crea- tion of the room and the result is exquisite. All the delicate finesse of the style of Louis Quinze is in the workmanship. Every detail is controlled on the happy side of grace; the chairs are done in petite pointe, each silently telling its noisy tale of love; the designs of the furniture tapestries as well as the painted panels of the harpsichord are in the most deli- cately fragrant style of Boucher, On one of the walls is a La Tour pastel of the Comte de Brancas Lauraguais, on another, over the mantelpiece is Greuze's portrait of Sophie which today graces the Wallace collection in London, All about the room are those ex- quisite, varied, tiny, necessities of femininity. On the harpsichord, for instance, is a small vase painted in cupids which, alas, is later to be splintered on the altar of Sophie's tempera- ment. Here and there are little gilded caskets, pillows of the faintest lace; in fact, all the 7 8 SOPHIE [Act I adorable little things that Sophie loves but which she would not hesitate to throw at your head if the moment so demanded. It is twilight. The room is lit with the glow from the pink shaded candelabra. Surely this is the shrine of a slightly languid but utterly con- tented nymph. But no, the conclusion is too swift. Look a little closer. Is not that a band of lugubrious mourning about the picture of de Lauraguais? Are not the flowers on the harpsichord of the sombre hues of purple and of a cornflower whose blue is almost black? Yes, tragedy is on tip-toe in Sophie's charm- ing drawing-room and that is why Mlle. Hei- NEL is weeping as she speaks. Mlle. Heinel [To Marie Guimard.] That's her coach. Yes — yes — [they are both at the window]^ at last — at last — ^no, it is passing. [She is sobbing.] Sophie! What has become of her? Guimard Abigalette, you must be calm. It's not ten min- utes since she drove away and it takes at least fif- teen to reach the palace of the Minister of State. Mlle. Heinel [With hysterics in the offing.] I know, I know, but I've never seen our Sophie Act I] SOPHIE 9 like this. That is what love does to us fragile women. Love, cruel love! It is because my own heart has bled that I bleed for Sophie. Why has God made us women so sensitive? I never hear of an eruption taking place in Naples but I'm all of a tremble here in Paris. Are you never moved, Marie? GUIMARD Sometimes when I dance before His Majesty and always when Sophie is kind to Rosalie Levasseur. It is when she smiles at Rosalie that I'm most stirred for then I know that behind the rosy petals of her smile her adorable little tongue is waiting to smite. Soon I think Sophie will give her Austrian Ambas- sador back to Rosalie. Mlle. Heinel Surely she doesn't keep him chained for love? My coiffeuse says her husband says — and he is a squint-eyed man, Marie, and sees many things when people do not think he's looking — she says, he says that if the hair dye that the Austrian Ambassador uses were brewed into a soup and if the King could manage to have the Queen, Marie Leginska, drink it that that would be a sure way of sending Her Majesty straight to God. No, His Excellency is old enough to be our Sophie's grandpapa. Surely it is not for love she holds him. 10 SOPHIE [Act I GUIMARD They say not, darling, but then who knows, — ^we women — [the sound of a coach rumbling by] that's she! [They're again at the window.] No, the coach has passed. [She pulls the bell rope,] Per- haps some word has come, perhaps she has sent a message. Maybe there is something we can do. [The Third Lackey enters,] GUIMARD Is there any sight of Madame's coach? The Third Lackey No, Madame, but my neck is nearly broke leaning out and looking up and down the street. Mlle. Heinel Has no word come? Nothing? The Third Lackey Nothing. GuiMARD Are you sure? Mlle. Heinel Hasn't something come? Something with a big seal that you know would be important? The Third Lackey Nothing, Madame, w^hilst I have been at the door telling people that Madame would see no one. One Act I] SOPHIE 11 young lady has come three times and gone away again. Mlle. Heinel [Pulling the bell rope.] I will ask the lackey that we sent to the garden gate, he must have some news. [Then again, ex- citedly.] Marie, I never was so worried in my life. GuiMARD You must be calm, Abigalette. [The Second Lackey enters.] GUIMARD Is there no word from Madame? Has she yet returned? The Second Lackey Not yet, Madame. Mlle. Heinel Has no letter come, something with a big seal? Nothing? The Second Lackey Well, to be precise, Madame, some twenty bills, but Madame Amould never sees the bills. They are immediately sent to the fourth secretary of His Honour, the Ambassador. GUIMARD Where is the other lackey? 12 SOPHIE [Act I The Second Lackey Madame, not five minutes back you sent him up to the roof to look through Madame's telescope to see if she were coming. Mlle. Heinel Yes, send him down. [The two Lackeys with a very formal bow make their exit.] Mlle. Heinel [Tearfully.] Ah, that adorable telescope. It was through that that he [she points dramatically to the Count's pic- ture] that he used to read the history of the stars. Marie, I am sure something has gone wrong. So- phie has failed. She will fall into a decline. She will be unable to rehearse tonight. Papa Gluck will be so angry with her that he will rush back to Vienna before the premiere of his opera tomorrow night; the Dauphiness, Marie Antoinette, will order the Royal Academy of Music closed. We will dance no more this season and my legs were never so much a-tingle and my toes so primed. All — all this because poor Sophie has — [First Lackey enters.] Mlle. Heinel Have you seen anything of Madame's coach from the roof ? Act I] SOPHIE 13 The First Lackey Madame, the telescope was very difficult to man- age. . When I looked through and thought I was see- ing things very far away I was looking, if you please, at two cats engaged, in love or was it alter- cation? — it is so difficult to tell with canines — on the chimney pots of the house at the comer of the Rue de Roi — ladies, I'm not sure whether it was the Rue de Roi or — Mlle. Heinel Never mind the cats. GUIMARD What of Madame's coach? The First Lackey Of that I saw nothing. Mlle. Heinel Something unforeseen has happened. The First Lackey Yes, Madame. Mlle. Heinel [Tremblingly,] For God's sake what? The First Lackey A young lady in a hood has come to the door three times. 14 SOPHIE [Act I GuimArd And? The First Lackey She insists on seeing Madame. Perhaps she might explain Madame's absence or what has hap- pened to the Count. Mlle. Heinel Why didn't you ask her? The First Lackey [With a sly look.] Madame, I did, but it is Mme. Amould that she must see. Mlle. Heinel You lackeys are all so stupid. Go! The First Lackey Yes, Madame. [With a very formal bow he makes his exit.] Mlle. Heinel Tragedy is brewing! Who is this girl? What has become of Sophie? Where is De Lauraguais? [Then with superstitious awe.] Marie, last night my slipper became untied just before my pas de seul. Signor Tortolini was in a dreadful rage. It always means bad luck. Marie, you know I'm very clairvoyant, very, very. [And then as proof incontrovertible.] Doctor Mesmer, as soon as he Act I] SOPHIE 15 looked at me, told me that my mother had blue eyes. The world — life — is filled with endless mysteries. I know — ^how I know I don't know — but some evil has befallen Sophie. GuiMARD Nonsense, Abigalette. While we are waiting shall I show you some new steps? [She has lifted her dainty petticoat and begins twirling aboiU,^ Mlle. Heinel [Shocked,] What? You would dance in this house of mourning? Don't you see that his portrait is draped in crepe and that Sophie has all the flowers as near black as she can find them? There are no entirely black flowers. That is because Nature does not wish that beauty should be associated with sad- ness. Life is so full of unreadable secrets. [There is a sound of a coach stopping,] Marie, that's she, — she. [They are at the window.] No, that's Rosalie's coach. GUIMARD [Angrily,] Of course, that big crow thinks she smells a corpse. Her footman has brought her card to the door. Surely they will not admit her. [A pause,] 16 SOPHIE [Act I No, she is driving off. The servants will allow no one in. Mlle. Heinel What time is it? GUIMARD Past the twilight. Sophie will be worn out. How can she sing tonight? Mlle. Heinel How cruel love is. Why did they quarrel? Do you know? [She is standing in front of De Lauraguais' picture gazing up at it as though it were a Crucifixion on an altar.] GuiMARD They do not know themselves. Perhaps she wouldn't have wanted him back at all until she heard he was in prison. Mlle. Heinel [As though it were an old story,] But why there this time? GUIMARD Who knows? Perhaps he has insulted the King or been boring the Dauphiness beseeching her to allow him to perform this new disease of inocula- tion on her dog. Maybe his pet bear has been frightening the Royal Household or perhaps the Act I] SOPHIE 17 Count has stood on his head before the Pope's am- bassador. He does as he wishes and there is no place for such people except in jail or bed. Mlle. Heinel [Sadly, very sadly.] Yes, you are right. GUIMARD And the wilder he acts the dearer he is to So- phie. Mlle. Heinel [And the problem is too deep for her.] And now she must have him back. Now, when she is installed as mistress to his honour the Vien- nese Ambassador. I tell you, Marie, that the longer I live the less I know of life. Do you sup- pose that any of these strange passions ever affect us dancers? GUIMARD [With authority.] I think they usually begin after one's seventh lover. You still have time. [Footsteps are heard in the hall-way.] Mlle. Heinel At last it's she. [The voice of The First Lackey is heard outside announcing the Abbe de Voisenon.] 18 SOPHIE [Act I GUIMARD Sophie insists on having him about. He is the only Abbe who can do justice to her confessions. [The Abbe enters.] The Abbe [With urban mansuetude.] Ladies, good evening. [They bow.] Charm- ing, charming. I hope the angels in the courts of Paradise will be as graceful as you. And where is Sophie? GUIMARD We do not know. [Mlle. Heinel is weeping.] The Abbe What is this? Has there been trouble with this pompous German, this Chevalier Gluck, this writer of tunes? Mlle. Heinel No, your reverence, it is something else. [Instinctively the girls turn to look at the portrait of the Count.] The Abbe [Watching them.] Ah! So it is De Lauraguais again. [And Mlle. Heinel deeply sighs.] Act I] SOPHIE 19 The Abbe [Taking a pinch of snuff.] It is always like that with Sophie. For a little while De Lauraguais is in favour, — then pouff! [And he scatters the dust of the snuff in the air,] She sends him off for ever, and then some fine morn- ing — and the mornings are fine in Paris — she hears he is for the thousandth time in the Prison of Fort Eveque. He has broken the code of the terrible Saint-Florentin. He has disobeyed the laws of this odious Minister of the Police. He is again in jail. Then Sophie's heart melts and she will die unless she holds her Dorval in her arms again. What is this love, ladies, this fantastic acrobat called love? GUIMARD [Practically,] Well, what? Mlle. Heinel [Sighing,] What indeed? The Abbe [And he enjoys the telling,] I will tell you, my daughters. Love is self -hood's most subtle disguise. A delicious martyrdom, an ecstatic sacrifice, a lovely mirror in which we see ourselves, pitiful or gay; a great big bother about a 20 SOPHIE [Act I small bright bubble — and then one fine morning — and the mornings are fine in Paris — poufif ! — and it is gone. [And he is again tossing the snuff dust from his finger tips.] Ladies, I am a bachelor. Mlle. Heinel r"^' [Outraged.] j Is it thus you speak of the most precious thing / in life! / ^-'-''^ The Abbe Yes, you are right. The most precious thing in life is love. First the love of God which is eternal hope, then the love of oneself which is our common comfort, then, my children, the love of some one else which is perpetual disillusionment. GuiMARD [Wisely, shaking her head.] You have learnt that from listening to too many sad confessions. The Abbe I have learnt that because I have peered through the veil of life at truth, or perhaps, my daughters, I should say peeped, because one learns more by peeping than by peering. Mlle. Heinel Father! Act I] SOPHIE 21 The Abbe You do not know where Sophie is? GUIMARD She has been spending the day seeking an audi- ence with the Ministers of France. The Abbe Has she so soon tired of the Minister of Austria? Mlle. Heinel One doesn't tire of what has never begun. To His Excellency, the Minister from Vienna, Sophie is, as all Paris knows except Your Reverence, Mis- tress in title only. The Abbe [For the news is news,^ Indeed? GuiMARD Didn't you know that? With Sophie the rela- tionship is just official, but when Rosalie lived at the Embassy that was an intimacy — how shall I put it? [and she hesitates] — an intimacy that wore no slippers. The Abbe And how many weeks has Sophie been gracing the Salon of D'Argenteau? GUIMARD Four, and how triumphantly ! Do you know that 22 SOPHIE [Act I it is only because of the strictest orders from His Majesty that the Dauphiness doesn't come to So- phie's suppers after the opera? [And on she rushes.] Everybody in the world is mad to come, even the Papal secretaries have used the influence of Rome to obtain a card. Don't you know that a nation that isn't represented at our Sophie's parties is considered second rate in our world, your Reverence? Mlle. Heinel [For she has been at the receptions.] On Thursdays her reception is for Ambassadors. It is then that Sophie sometimes consents to be pres- ent, the Ambassadors must take their chances. On Saturdays the attaches are received, but of course Sophie is usually ill on Saturday, and on Tuesdays, when the noble world of Paris treads on each other's names to be admitted, why our dear Sophie is al- ways away in the country. What would you ex- pect. Father, the life of a prima donna is not all song. GUIMARD Listen, a coach has stopped. [She is at the win- dow.] Is it she? No, look, Abigalette, is not that the livery of the Court? Mlle. Heinel [At the window.] Yes, yes. [Ah, if it were only at her house that Act I] SOPHIE 23 the coach were stopping. ] See, one of the footmen leaves a card for Sophie. All the world is at her feet begging to pay her homage and at this very moment she crucifies her heart for the love of De Lauraguais. Life is so complex. Father, is there no key to the mystery? The Abbe Trust in God, my daughters, which locks the Pandora's box on life and throws the key into the sea of faith. GUIMARD [Thinking, with her lips.^ I think you would be better understood in Rome than Paris. The Abbe I had contemplated making myself understood at the Vatican until Sophie sent for me. GuiMARD And now you cannot tear yourself away. The Abbe What would you have, my children, she needs me. Mlle. Heinel [Sophie's heart is a book to her.] Yes, yes. The Abbe And besides I find her house so sympathetic. 24 SOPHIE [Act I [And then as testimony,] Do you know, that next to the books in the library of Mme. du Barry and at the Cathedral, that she has the best collection of the Holy Fathers to be found in France? Mlle. Heinel [Enthusiastically. ] How dear of Sophie. The Abbe Not to the exclusion of all else, Mademoiselle, be reassured. Next to the confessions of St. Au- gustine is an inscribed copy from Voltaire and be- tween the life of St. Louis and the "Little Flowers" of Saint Francis; bounded in citron levant, if I remember rightly, is last year's number of the Se- cret Memoirs of the Police. Mlle. Heinel How dear of Sophie. The Abbe So you see that whilst her piety is catholic her taste is mixed. Mlle. Heinel [Very deeply.] Dear, dear Sophie. I do not see why she should suffer with all those good books in the house. Act I] SOPHIE 25 The Abbe Between ourselves, ladies, I think that she enjoys her tears. Mlle. Heinel [Again outraged.] Oh, what a horrid, cynical idea! Poor Sophie, rushing about like mad, her heart torn with desire and you, you in her very house here say that agony is not agony. I don't see how she can have you for a friend — and to confess to you — why look, Marie, his very eyes are made of ice. I'm sure he's as cold as it must be three feet beyond the North Pole. To my mind, the one thing a priest should have is the milk — the pure white milk of human kindness. Sophie [From the doorway.] Not in too great abundance lest it sour on him. [/ see her, if for the moment I may intrude, in a turquoise blue, a little dim, low and ruf- fled, with a tiny beaver hat sporting a tossed pink feather caught with a bow of mauve. A wrap of plum colour has fallen from her shoulders. Greuze, in one of his most deli- cious and unsentimental moments, has painted her. Look at the picture, it is hanging there over the mantel. There is an air about her of a melancholy that is piquant, a piquancy that is for the moment too sad. It is thus as Greuze 26 SOPHIE [Act I has seen her with immortal grace that she in her mortality should grace the doorway J\ Mlle. Heinel and Guimard [Rushing over to her,] Sophie! Sophie! The Abbe Good morning, my daughter. Sophie [Sinking into a chair.] I'm at death's door, but still I remember it is evening. Mlle. Heinel Tell us all — all. Sophie What is there to tell? Seven times I implored admission to Minister Choiseul. Always some stu- pidity prevented my admittance. A delegation from the Farmers of Auvergne. Are there any farmers in Auvergne, Father? Though I am de- spondent I do not like to be inexact about any part of France, perhaps they were from Provence. Then Choiseul was occupied with a tedious inter- view with the more tedious minister from England. Statesmen take days to leave undecided what a woman could settle in a second. [And her fingers snap in quick dismissal.] Then a summons to the King for Choiseul, a conspiracy of stupidities to Act I] SOPHIE 27 keep me waiting. It was all I could do to keep my heart from breaking right there in the Courts of the Hall of Justice but I said to myself: Sophie, you are Sophie, remember you are an artist. It will never do for the supreme prima donna of the Royal Academy of Music to die in the Courts of the Hall of Justice just as anybody might die in the Courts of the Hall of Justice. Mlle. Heinel [Commiseratingly. ] Sophie, poor Sophie! Sophie I drove back here. At first I could not enter. I knew his gentle, accusing eyes would try to smile at me. [Tearfully she gazes at the portrait of De Lauraguais.] Surely, that is the masterpiece of La Tour. Yes, I must try and control myself. All ministers are liars. Your pardon. Father, I mean ministers of State. Why did Choiseul listen to me at all? Last night after my triumph I went down on my knees to him. His eyes were still dim from the divine pathos of my singing. I beseeched him to intercede for my adored one. I implored him to set him free. He promised help tomorrow. This is tomorrow, this is tomorrow, this is tomorrow. [And the hope lies buried in a grave of sobs.] 28 SOPHIE [Act I Mlle. Heinel Sophie, dear, for the sake of art control yourself. Sophie This is the cruel day. Choiseul has forgotten, tonight he leaves for Vienna and at this moment my poor Dorval lies swooning in the Prison of Fort Eveque. It isn't nice in Fort Eveque. I have been there, — a night and a day because I told a lieutenant of the police that his nose was so long that he couldn't see beyond it to his wife's disloyalty. Never be honest in a dishonest world. And now my DorA^al is there with only one little window to his cell through which to hear the swal- lows sing. [Then to The Abbe.] Do swallows sing? Ah well, never mind. Poor Dorval, think of it. Father. The Abbe [Quietly.] Yes, my child, I am thinking of many things. Sophie There is no place for genius in the world except in prison or out of France. He has defied the Academy of Medicine. He has sent broadcast the truth of his discovery. He would save suffering humanity by this exquisite new method of his. What is it called? Ah yes, this system of inocula- tion — it is marvellous. [She is weeping.] Act I] SOPHIE 29 Mlle. Heinel [And she is iveeping, too,] Yes, miraculous, very miraculous, Sophie [After all, it must be.] I do not understand it but I know it is and for this he is in a dungeon now. The Abbe But there are rumours at Court that this time it is for some insult to the King. Sophie Nonsense, it must have been a misunderstood courtesy. And besides Dorval is a genius. What has courtesy to do with genius? GuiMARD Be calm, Sophie, remember you must rehearse tonight, Sophie Rehearse tonight! That is the life of us artists. We are slaves to beauty, though our hearts are bursting we must sing. How can I ever reach my top notes when I know that my Dorval is in Fort Eveque? And we parted in anger. [She is in front of his picture now.] My love, can you ever forgive me that? Can you ever pardon your rash, your wayward Sophie for not knowing that your 30 SOPHIE [Act I whims were but misread blessings? Dorval! Dor- val! My adored one! Marie, from where you stand is the bow on tlie pieture straight? Father, quiek, that ehair. [The cluiir is brougJit, The ladies assist. The Abbe is holding Soi'iiiE as slie arranges the bow of crepe.] GuiMARD Be careful, do not fall, remember you rehearse tonight. Sophie Marie, you're growing thin from worry about my rehearsal. Now that I look down on you I can see nothing but a hairy Hag of despair flying at the end of a pole. The Abbe Madame, hasten down, the chair is perhaps not very strong. Sophie W ould you deprive me of even these few mo- ments witli liim? [Her face is close to the face of the portrait.] Ah, my adored one, will I ever see you again in this life? [The door opens and The First Lackey enters.] Sophie Well, what is it? Act I] SOPHIE 31 The First Lackey [Bowing.] Miulanie, a docuinent has just come from the Min- ister of State. Sophie [From the chair.] Dorval is dead, ho's dead, I know he's dead! Give me that terrible paper! [The document is Jwndcd to Sophie. The Lackey makes his exit. With a trembling hami Sophie opens the letter,] Mlle. Heinel [Aside to Guimard.] That is the way she's going to look before she sings tlie first act aria in Iphigcnia tomorrow night. The Abbe My child, come down. Sophie Leave me to my woe. Leave me alone on the lieighls with my suffering. [She has opened the paper. They are watching her in apprehension. Suddenly with a cry of joy she jumps to the floor.] Sophie Choiseul has listened. Dorval is free! He is on his way to me, his Sophie. Listen. [She 32 SOPHIE [Act I reads.] "Madame, your divine art has moved me. I realize that to make you suffer is an insult to the gods of song. De Lauraguais for the sixth time is free. Urge him to control his whims. Urge him, Madame, to set a curb on yours." Mlle. Heinel Outrageous! Outrageous! Sophie [Continuing,] "For need I more than hint, Madame, that neither the Count nor his admirable protectress, Mme. Arnould, are in too high favour with the Count Saint-Florentin, Minister of Police." [Sophie looks up.] What a mean little serpent in this otherwise paradisial document. GUIMARD Go on. Sophie There is nothing else save three quarters of a page of space and then the name Choiseul. [Then angrily.] I will save this letter seal and all some day to fling into the face of this Minister. But now, now — Marie, Abigalette, rush into the garden, pluck all the roses you can find. I am done with sadness. [She tears down the crepe from the picture. GuiMARD and Mlle. Heinel run out. She Act I] SOPHIE 33 snatches the lugubrious looking flowers from the harpsichord and flings them through the window.^ Sophie Why aren't you dancing, Father? Go down on your knees and dance. Sing a hymn of praise. No, you are right. There is never room in one room for the joy of two people unless they are — ah well, never mind. Be merciful, Father, for to- morrow I shall have an abundance to confess. Dorval, my genius, my adored one. The Abbe Madame, remember you must sing tonight. You will be weary. Sophie I am a prima donna. I sing with a bit of my heart and a bit of my mind. The rest of my life I save for my life. And besides. Papa Gluck never stays too late. Why do you suppose I have a tem- perament? Tonight I will sing divinely because I know that each aria will bring me nearer to the blissful hours that I will spend alone with Dorval. What is more blessed than the love of a man? The Abbe The deeper love for all men. The love that lifts itself to service and sacrifice, the forgetting of oneself. 34 SOPHIE [Act I Sophie No, no, that is putting wings to facts. Altruism is but egoism gone into society. The Abbe Society, Sophie. You have made a fetish of all this superficial gaiety. The things of this world are but things of the moment. Sophie You are right but what is life but a series of moments? Little moments which, if we are wise, we will crown with an ecstasy that seems eternal. You see Sophie can be serious. [Yes, and she is.] You do not know how very serious Sophie can be, sad, spiritual, even religious. Do you know that my debut as a singer was in church? There, as a little girl of six I sang the Miserere so sincerely, so divinely, — I was barely six but already I had learnt the agony of life — ^that for several Sabbaths at least the house of prayer was more popular than the Royal Academy of Music. [She calls from the window.] My friends, hasten with the roses lest Dorval come back before the room is gay and be- fore this melancholy prelate convince me [she has turned to The Abbe] that life is nothing but a thorny path through a forest of thorns. There, we've been talking about heaven and you haven't had your wine. [She pulls the bell rope.] Act I] SOPHIE 35 Father, don't you think we have a little right to a heaven here on earth before we gamble for a gam- bler's paradise hereafter? The Abbe There is no paradise on earth save a duty that is done. [The Third Lackey enters,] Sophie The Abbe's wine in the library. [The Lackey exits.] Duty! What is duty but a holy name that people give to the things they do not want to do? When I sing I do my duty. When I am happy I do my duty for then I am thanking God with happi- ness, — for the happiness of life. [And now she is smiling.] I wonder if you took your cassock off whether you would be so good? The Abbe [Shocked.] My daughter! Sophie My Father, is it my fault that you are so literal? [The girls return with their arms full of flowers.] Sophie That's it, my darlings. Now the room will look 36 SOPHIE [Act I like a temple of love. Scatter them about as though for a bacchanal. [She throws some roses at The Abbe.] The Abbe [Getting up,} I think I will wait in the library. Sophie No, stay here. You are as safe as a pilgrim be- fore the shrine of Venus provided he is blind and over ninety. [Then to the girls.] Put some be- hind my Dorval's picture, Abigalette. How charm- ing you girls are! I adore having you about! The Abbe Then why do they say you hate to have women with you? Sophie They mean singers, singers, Father. I do not object to these ballet girls. What difference does it make to me that they can twirl their toes higher than I can sing? Mlle. Heinel [Laughing.] Sophie, Sophie! Sophie [Gaily.] Life is a holiday of love. The first words I Act I] SOPHIE 37 ever sang in my life were "love, charming love." Love, sweet after agony, blessed after pain. Dor- val, Dorval! [The First Lackey appears in the door- way,] The First Lackey Madame, now that you are at home are you at home? Sophie Is it he, the Count de Lauraguais? [Then hope- fully.] Not yet? not yet? The First Lackey [With a sly look.] The carriage of Mme. Levasseur is at the door. Sophie [And her lips knot.] So! She knows I have been unhappy and has come to pity me. [She clenches her tiny pink fist as though for a battle.] Show her in. [The First Lackey exits.] Sophie Anything to wing the time before he comes. [Then to Mlle. Heinel and Guimard.] Do not be offended, dears, you are my friends. I do not have to be nice to you. But to Rosalie, ah, that is different, she hasn't yet forgiven me for taking her 38 SOPHIE [Act I Ambassador. [The voice of the Lackey is heard.] Crouch down, my children, for the eternal hills are upon us. [Rosalie, an enormous, blond and dullish woman is announced by the Lackey.] Sophie Rosalie, how sweet of you. Rosalie Sophie, you are in trouble — tongues are wag- ging. Madame that says this and Madame this says that. Sophie Rosalie, you haven't listened? Rosalie Why not? Sophie Why not? Ah yes, you are justified. It is the easiest way for some to learn. Rosalie [Nodding to the others. '\ So your sweet little friends are here and your good, good Abbe. Good evening, ladies. Father, tongues are wagging. They say that Sophie's little boudoir is more sunny for you than the cloisters of the cathedral. You are deserting your sinners. Act I] SOPHIE 39 Sophie Rosalie dear, he is sharpening his piety and pity at the very fountain head of sin. Aren't you ashamed to be seen entering my house? Rosalie I have come because I heard you were sad. I wish to help those who are sad. Sophie Yes, dear, always when the victim is a woman whom you love. Rosalie [Very seriously.] Sophie, I would go to the end of the earth to you if I heard that you were suffering. Sophie [Patting her hand, a quaint expression in her eyes.] Yes, dear, I know, I know. Rosalie Can I be of help? See, I forget that you are not always nice to me with your tongue. I have a big heart. Sophie [So kindly, so sweetly.] Of course, dear, look at the size of the rest of you. 40 SOPHIE [Act I Rosalie Soon I am to sing for the Dauphiness. I have influence. Do you need some money, say ten thou- sand francs? Sophie Darling, you are insulting your memory. Our Ambassador, Mercy d'Argenteau, can be very lively when it comes to tossing francs, and you, dear, never had the reputation of being economical, that is, when it came to some one else's money. Look about you, dearest, does it seem that your Sophie has been hungering for discarded crusts? Rosalie Darling, I have not been lonely. Sophie How could you be when you take up so much room in the world. They tell me that you have turned ever so intimately to the companionship of music. Rosalie [Largely,] It is all to us singers. It is my life, my soul. Sophie How does your life look without his wig? You will come with your soul, that is with Papa Gluck, to hear me sing tonight? Act I] SOPHIE 41 Rosalie If my Sophie doesn't mind. Sophie Mind? Put yourself for a moment in my boots. [Her tiny foot is suddenly stuck out.] No, I can- not ask you to perform miracles. Why should I mind, my friend? You threw yourself at Papa Gluck before it was decided who should sing Iphigenia. You threw yourself at his head and you landed in his bed, but nevertheless, my friend, it is Sophie Arnould who creates the role tomorrow night. Rosalie Sophie, aren't you ashamed to repeat all this gossip in front of these two children? Sophie These two children are members of the ballet. Besides, what matter, all Paris knows. I'll wager you that the women in the market place sing their babies to sleep to the tune of the ballad of Rosalie. You say you came to do me a service. Now I shall do you one. I shall give you some advice. Noth- ing is so free to give, or so expensive to take. This is my advice: thin your body and fatten your wit. Rosalie [Literal to the end.] 42 SOPHIE [Act I No, no, we singers need deep chests. [She points to her own,^ Sophie [Disregarding the physical geography,"] For on the very pinnacle of things, my enormous sister in the art of song, there is very little room to move about in. But do not go too far. Do not waste away to the shadow of a shadow like my poor little Guimard here. That is too much. [Then to Guimard.] Marie, you are rapidly be- coming the skeleton of the Muses. Why the other evening when you were dancing with those two gentlemen of the ballet it looked for all the world like two dogs fighting for a bone. There, what a nice time I'm having and I haven't asked you to sit down. [And how happy she is.] Rosalie Then I can be of no help? Sophie Oh, yes, you can. You can give me the satisfac- tion of telling you that the agony I was suffering is appeased and whilst it might have been a pleasure to you to have seen your Sophie the most miserable woman in Paris that now you may have the brighter joy of beholding me the happiest lady in France. You see I have really read your kindness. If you came here to pity me I hope your trouble has been Act I] SOPHIE 43 repaid. If you were curious about what was hap- pening to Madame Arnould be assured that Paris need no longer be curious about what is happen- ing to you. If it is not already common gossip, I will tell the tale with a flourish and embellishment which I am sure will rebound most genuinely, Rosalie dear [and her smile's angelic] , most justly to your credit. Rosalie Sophie, Sophie, how you misjudge me. Shall we not call quits? As for me I will not speak any more of you and you in your turn must say nothing either good or bad of me. Sophie Rosalie, my dear, half of that promise I will keep. [Then to The Abbe.] Can you despair of humanity when you see such an exhibition of sis- terly love? The Abbe Ladies, ladies, is there no room in your heart for charity? Sophie You dear, simple soul you. How could there be when we have each other's reputation to think of? [The First Lackey enters and speaks low to Sophie.] 44 SOPHIE [Act I Sophie [Involuntarily, 1 He has come! Rosalie Who? m Sophie [Quickly on her guard.] My larynx, my larynx. The doctor has come to spray my throat. [She sings a phrase.] La la — la-la. How can I do justice to Gluck tonight after all this chatter? [She begins a scale.] Do-re- me-fa-sol — Mlle. Heinel [In a rapture.] How beautiful. Rosalie She sings that with her head, I can go as high as that with my chest. [She sings a few notes.] La-la-la. [The two women glare at each other like two unfriendly kittens that are not on singing terms.] The Abbe God's children should love each other. Sophie Not even God could expect that when they're Act I] SOPHIE 45 singers. Now you must all go, all of you. My larynx, my larynx. Rosalie [Sounding a note.] Let me finish this phrase. You will hear some- thing. Sophie [Insinuatingly, militantly.] So will you if you do. My physician is waiting. [Then to The First Lackey.] In a minute. Have him wait. Ladies, if I seem expeditious it is the fault of my larynx. The Abbe [Aside to Sophie.] That is a queer name for the heart. Sophie [Shaking her finger at him and with ever so deep a meaning,] There are queer names for many things. [Then to the ladies,] Good evening, friends, my dear, dear, friends. Mlle. Heinel Sophie, until tonight. GuiMARD You must rest before rehearsal. 46 SOPHIE [Act I Sophie Yes, dear. [Then with purling sweetness, hold- ing out her hand.] Rosalie — until rehearsal! Rosalie I'm not angry, Sophie. I never mind what you say. Sophie Don't, dear, the only way to get the better of the truth is not to mind it. [She bursts into song.'\ La-la la la-la-la. [Mlle. Heinel and Guimard kiss Sophie. Then Rosalie and the girls are gone,] Sophie [Excitedly to The Abbe.] He has come, De Lauraguais has come. The Abbe I knew it was something beside the larynx. Sophie Why, whatever do you mean? The Abbe [Very, very seriously.] With your permission, Madame, I will wait in the library. Sophie And for goodness' sake don't come in without knocking at the door. Act I] SOPHIE 47 The Abbe My daughter. Sophie An Abbe need never do that. If he is curious there is always the confessional. But you wicked old man you, I meant do not come in without knock- ing during the rehearsal. [She has taken his hand and speaks very genuinely.] Dear, dear Father, it is such a comfort having you in the house. One never knows when one may need God. [The Abbe with his hands behind his back goes into the library and Sophie rushes over to the main door centre and flings it open.] Sophie [In an ecstasy.] Dorval! Dorval! [And De Lauraguais enters. He is charm- ing to women but to men he might seem "un- understandable." His whimsies are the women's adoration, — his "differences" the key to their hearts. He is childlike and petulant, passionate and mad, but withal he is so hand- some, handsome in that furtive, unconscious way, and as to his esprit, listen for a minute to Voltaire: ''He has all possible talents and all possible eccentricities" — and a friend, writing to the sage of Verney describes him as ''the 48 SOPHIE [Act I most serious fool in the kingdom." Can you blame Sophie for her adoration? Blame, if you will, I cannot.]^ Sophie [Rushing over to him,] Dorval, Dorval! De Lauraguais Darling, do not crush the parrot. [He takes out a bedraggled bird from under his coat.] It was all I could do to keep him quiet in the coach. He kept on calling out: "Sophie, dearest Sophie." He had been listening to me in my cell. Sophie [Brushing away the thought,] Don't, Dorval, don't, the memory of you in prison is more than I can bear. De Lauraguais Why, I had a rather nice time. Sophie What? De Lauraguais So many hours for thought. When I wasn't thinking of you, dear, I was busy, part of the time on my new tragedy and the rest in finishing my essay about the wild men of America. I do not know anything at all about these wild men but Act I] SOPHIE 49 where one has no facts to work on there is so much more room for the imagination. [He looks about him.] And you, Sophie, you do not seem to have pined away. Sophie Dorval, dear, you haven't yet kissed your Sophie. De Lauraguais Haven't I, Sophie? Well— well— [Her arms are held out to him. He is about to embrace her.] Sophie Darling, darling! [She is nearer to him.] De Lauraguais There — I'd almost forgotten Minnette. Sophie Who is she? De Lauraguais Next to Polly, the wisest of living beings because she is silent. [He takes from under his coat a tiny marmoset.] My wife, after a letter of implora- tion, sent me Minnette to prison from my little menagerie at home. She is a perfect specimen, Sophie, Minnette, not my wife. [He holds up the tiny monkey.] Look, her little chest is all marked with gapphire stars. How charming she looks. 50 SOPHIE [Act I though I am afraid I have been sitting on her in the coach. Sophie Dorval, I haven't had my kiss. De Lauraguais Sophie! [She comes eagerly towards him. He is about to embrace her, then he stops.] Let me see, there is something else, isn't there? Have you a Homer in Greek in the house? I need a quota- tion for my essay. Sophie [Petulant now.] Dorval, I haven't had my kiss. De Lauraguais Ah well, never mind the Greek. My darling, how I have missed you. Sophie! Sophie! [And at last they are in each othefs arms.] Sophie Have you forgiven me, Dorval? De Lauraguais Have you forgiven me, Sophie? Sophie Why did we quarrel? De Lauraguais I have forgotten. Let us not try to remember. Act I] SOPHIE 51 Sophie Was it because you said there was something I couldn't sing? De Lauraguais Now you are trying to remember so you can feel how sweet it is that you've forgotten. Sophie My dear, quaint Dorval. De Lauraguais Paris is changed. I have been gone a month. Sophie [Sitting down,] I have been so lonely. De Lauraguais And is Sophie still queen of the Royal Academy of Music? Sophie Still, Dorval? I have twenty years ahead of me to decide who is the next divinity. De Lauraguais [Looking about.] Ah, it is so nice to be home. Sophie Home? 52 SOif>HlE [Act I Di: Lahraguais T ditiirt like sleeping on the little cot at Fort. Eveqiie tliough there was one advantage, Sophie, 1 tlul have a fnie view of the stars. If I were a god I sJioultl hop from star to star just to surprise the planets, (hi \ tMuis I shoukl only speak the lan- guage ot Mars and on Jupiter that of the earth. Don't you think your Dorval would cause an awful stir among tht* i>lauets? Sophie Look, Minnette is eating the carpet. De Lauracuais Tlu^ hungry little darling. [He lifts the monkey up.\ There, I think sheMl be much happier on the harpsichord. Sophie What ai-e you doing? She will scratch the panels. Those lovely landscapes are by Boucher. De L\UKAGI)A1S [ Comforting her, ] Tt*s all right, Sophie, Mimu^tte loves landscapes. She was born in one. By the way, what have you done with the telescope. Sophie [Tenderl)\] I had it brought with me and pxit on the roof hen>. For the memory of the dear old times. Act 11 SOPITIF S3 IH: Lahuacuais Ah, liow good it is to he \\oi\u\ When ilitl voii come here, Sophie? 1 lohl the driver to go straight to the Kiie des Petils ('liainps aiul when 1 got to the olil honse yi)n were goi\e. Only an inhospilahlo sign on the di>or. Ihil it dnesn't mailer. I have found you and it is eharnung here. \\ liere is our hedrotun, darling? I think 1 sliall j;o to heil and sleei> tor a week. Ihit please wake me at twelve Utnigiit. Sot'lUK [And her voice is warm.^ At twelve* tonight. De Laiu^acuais Yes, so I can go up on ll\e roof to the telescope. You know at any moment there n\ay be a neW star in the sky. [tlis arm is about her.] It is so sweet to be home. SoiMUE [ A little iiueniliuisl) . | Home? De Laitraouais [Not understanilin^ her tone.] Of course; wherever Sophie is, is home. SopuiK Hut — 54 SOPHIE [Act I De Lauraguais [Reassuringly.} Oh, I shan't mind a bit if you have to be singing your scales as you used to. I'm sorry I ever minded, Sophie, indeed I am. Very often when I lay in my cell in jail I kept saying to myself how much sweeter it was to hear my Sophie singing than the prisoners' sawing wood. And you won't mind, will you, darling, if I go round without anything on? Sophie What? De Lauraguais Later on you must, too. I have decided to re- turn to the primitive life. I shall put myself in the mood and condition of Adam and then begin reforming the world. And you will help me, Sophie, dear? Everything is to be different, but don't be alarmed; we shall go about it naturally. Kiss me, dear. There are so many ancient cus- toms that can't be improved upon. Wait and see, darling, our home here will be the Mecca of all thinkers of the new school. What's the matter, dear? But don't stop pouting. There now, I shall kiss away all that's bothering you. Sophie! Sophie [Not knowing how to begin.] Dorval — Act I] SOPHIE 55 De Lauraguais [Encouragingly, ] Darling, I assure you our new mode of life isn't going to interfere at all with your career. Sophie No? De Lauraguais [As a final concession.] I don't in the least mind your wearing clothes when you go to rehearsal. Sophie [Knowing that sooner or later he must be told.] Dorval, I have something to tell you. De Lauraguais [Smilingly expectant.] Of course you have. No woman ever lived who didn't have something to tell. Sophie My house is no longer in the Rue des Petites Champs. My home is here. De Lauraguais [With a denying shake of the head.] That is too literal, metaphysically speaking, one's home is the world, one's home is the journey twixt life and death, and the wise are those who 56 SOPHIE [Act I pick the most beautiful flowers of opportunity along the way. Kiss me, dear. Sophie [Kissing him,^ I know all about that. De Lauraguais Of course, my little Sophie does. Is there any- thing in the world my Sophie doesn't know? And if there is, her Dorval knows it. But my Sophie is a prima donna and what does a prima donna know of the realm of the spirit? It will take you a while perhaps to understand our new mode of life. Sophie [Hesitatingly, 1 But there are so many things — De Lauraguais [Again profoundly agreeing,] Things, things, the ever abiding curse of the ma- terial, but as far as I am concerned this house is empty. I won't let anything stand in the way of truth. You are its only reality. Saint Francis knew. He knew that he who has nothing, has all. You are the only nothing that I want, you and silence. [He takes her in his arms. There is a long, delicious embrace, 1 Act I] SOPHIE 57 Sophie [Timidly,] Dorval. De Lauraguais [As he kisses her.] Yes, yes, it is sweeter here than in jail. Sophie Darling. De Lauraguais Now we are alone upon a mountain top. Sophie I wish we were. De Lauraguais We are. Sing, Sophie, we are so near heaven that I think the angels will bend down to hear and take lessons from your throat. What a sweet, throbbing throat. It's as white as my kitten's and your eyes are like two planets. See, I can look down upon the whole smiling landscape of your face. Sing like a host of nightingales. Sophie That's very elaborate, Dorval dear, but I must save my voice, for tonight I rehearse. De Lauraguais The divine Arnould to lift her voice in an empty theatre? 58 SOPHIE [Act I Sophie No, dear, 1 have progressed. The first condition I made to Gkick before I consented to save his opera for liini was that we should rehearse where I wished. De Lauuaguais Is his music beautiful? Sophie Yes, but it needs the singing, and what Gluck has left out your Sophie will put in. De Lauraguais Before I left Levasseur was to create Iphigenia. Sophie [Loohiiig up at hiiti.ll And now it is your Sophie. De Lauraguais Yes, I knew you would manage it somehow. Sophie I have, Dorval. [She turns away and tears are beginning on her lashes.^ De Lauraguais How sweet of Sophie to feel so sadly about Levasseur. Act I] SOPHIE 59 Sophie I think it has cost me too much. De Lauraguais What, dear? Sophie It means that you must be careful, Dorval, very careful. De Lauraguais I, Sophie? What have I to do with this? The intrigues of the opera have never touched me. [And then as a finality for all tinie.^ When two singers are at the game the only safe place for sen- sitivity is death or a dungeon. Why should I be careful? Sophie Dearest, you cannot start your nude Utopia here. De Lauraguais Why not? Is this not virgin soil? Sophie Yes, dear, so to speak but only so to speak. [She turns further away.] Dorval — [She stops.] De Lauraguais I hope all this indecision has not got into your art. 60 SOPHIE [Act I Sophie No, in singing my attack is still perfect, though the critics rave. De Lauraguais Come then, darling, what is it? Sophie [For she must begin.] This is no longer the little house in the Rue des Petites Champs. De Lauraguais No? Sophie My Dorval will not find it the garden of Eden. De Lauraguais Where you are, dear — Sophie Yes, adored one, but your Sophie is, so to speak, not alone in Eden. De Lauraguais What? Sophie [Ever so reticently now,] That — that is, darling, — De Lauraguais You mean the serpent is lurking bare? Act I] SOPHIE 61 Sophie I think that's putting it a little too fiercely, Dor- val, but this is the home of Mercy d'Argenteau, the Ambassador from Austria. De Lauraguais [Suddenly jumping up,] And you? Sophie Oh, sit down, darling. I am the mistress of the menage. De Lauraguais My God, Sophie, you have not done that? Sophie Dearest, only for my art. De Lauraguais Sophie! Sophie Or my ambition, call it what you will. I have never lied to you, Dorval; now, then, take my two hands in yours and listen to your Sophie. [Re- luctantly he sits down next to her.] This Gluck arrives with his opera. The Dauphiness orders its production for the greater glory of Austria. It is the most magnificent part that has ever fallen to the lot of a prima donna. It is the most famous pre- 62 SOPHIE [Act I miere that will ever be sung at the Royal Academy of Music, perhaps anywhere in all the world, Dor- val, all the world. Who was there to create such a part but your Sophie? Months ahead Levasseur began her campaign. She played the game, so Paris thought, triumphantly. Two weeks after Gluck arrived he was lord and master of her boring menage. During all this Paris pitied Sophie — your Sophie, darling — ^pitied me! But the morn- ing Rosalie awoke to see Gluck's wig hanging on her bedpost, Sophie awoke as mistress of Mercy d'Argenteau, Ambassador from Austria. Rosalie had got her composer but Sophie had got the Court. And she who has got the Court of Austria has got the delicious, wilful Marie Antoinette, and she who has got the delicious, wilful Marie Antoinette has got the power and so because of my unequalled genius, though the part was always rightly mine, by a little swifter shuffling of the aces, Dorval, to- morrow night your adored one creates the role of Iphigenia; Paris will go mad with ecstasy, Levas- seur will die of rage, and I shall be done for ever with His Honour, the Ambassador from Austria. De Lauraguais Good God, Sophie! Sophie What is it, darling? Act I] SOPHIE 63 De Lauraguais I am ever prepared for newness to the mind but when it hits the heart — Sophie Has my triumph touched your heart? Here, a kiss for that. [She bends towards him.] De Lauraguais [Shrinking back.] Sophie, has God gone blind in your heart? Sophie Whatever do you mean, Dorval? De Lauraguais What do I mean! Do you mean to say that you do not know that even though you are the most generous woman in the world there are certain things which cannot be shared? Have you forgot- ten that I was the first man you ever loved? That when we eloped together from your parents' house we swore that I should be the only one? [And now it is Sophie's turn to spring up.] Sophie Dorval, can I ever forgive your words? De Lauraguais Sophie, can I ever forgive your disloyalty to me? 64 SOPHIE [Act I There I lay in prison, all the while I kept saying to myself, life is bitter, what is there left for me, what, what? And then my heart would whisper: So- phie's love, Sophie's loyalty, and the parrot would echo: Sophie's loyalty. [And now his voice is quivering.] Ah, bitter mockery from that chest of feathers. No, this is too much even for a scientist to bear. Now I see why I cannot start here the beautiful free life that I resolved upon in prison. Now I see why I will not be able to go about re- turning to Nature with nothing on. I have come back but to go away again. [He gets up, putting the marmoset back into his pocket,] Life should have spared me this at least. Sophie What, darling? De Lauraguais The terrible, unbearable indignity of seeing you belong to another. [At this Sophie bursts into a long and re- lieving laugh,] Sophie Dorval, the Ambassador is nearly seventy and his left eyebrow is pasted on. De Lauraguais You mean — Act I] SOPHIE 65 Sophie This, my adored one, is only a relationship of form. I will explain. The exchange on Austrian notes had fallen off. The credit of the Austrian Empire was at stake. Some great play had to be made to recoup its reputation. The moment was auspicious for your Sophie. What could the Am- bassador from the nation beyond the Rhine do to win back the loss of its financial prestige? What sudden move to prove that its financial power was still intact? What would be best known in Paris? What helpful news would be boomed through half of Europe? Why this, this, Dorval [and her voice is vibrant], that Sophie Amould, the greatest and most costly prima donna in all the world was mis- tress of the Embassy to Austria. No nation that was tottering could afford the graceful presence of your Sophie at the Embassy. That's a luxury which might be called extravagant but which Eu- rope knows is worth the price. De Lauraguais And you, my darling? Sophie Marie Leginska is queen of France but Du Barry is recipient of all the Royal intimacies. Your Sophie, Dorval, is the Marie Leginska to the Em- bassy. 66 SOPHIE [Act I De Lauraguais Sophie! Sophie And with great success. The Austrian notes are over par and I myself from investments on the Exchange have put away enough for you to have a beautiful new menagerie for all the beasts that roam the world. De Lauraguais [Joyfully taking the marmoset from his pocket, ^^ What do you think of that, Minnette? I will im- port from Asia, from the most perfumed depths of Cashmere, a tiny mate for you. Polly, my faithful friend [and out comes the parrot], didn't I whisper to you through all the hours of the night that Sophie was a genius? Sophie But everything must be managed nicely, at least whilst His Honour is about. Dorval, your Sophie must retain the form. It wouldn't be proper to have you about the house except at certain times,— certain exquisite, blissful but — ^prearranged times, particularly, darling, now that you intend going about clad only in your sincerity. De Lauraguais Ohj what a delightful way you have of saying Act I] SOPHIE 67 things. One kiss because you are as wise as Hypatia, two others because you are more beautiful than Cleopatra and three because — Sophie [Amid the kisses.]^ I'm Sophie. After tomorrow night all will be as it used to. De Lauraguais [Softly.] And tonight? Sophie [In his arms.] It is of tonight that I have been dreaming, of to- night, dearest. After the rehearsal you will climb up by the balcony — that will be so romantic — it will be almost as though we were beginning para- dise again. De Lauraguais Sophie! Sophie! Sophie We have so much to tell each other I think it will take till dawn. De Lauraguais And when will the rehearsal be over? Sophie Whenever I am ready. All I have to do is to lift 68 SOPHIE [Act I my little finger and Papa Gluck trembles. At mid- night, Dorval. De Lauraguais Sophie, it is twenty years till midnight. Sophie Every minute until then I shall speak your name out loud, — tliough not too loudly, — like this [and her hands are clasped in ecstasy tvhile she whispers] Dorval, Dorval! De Lauraguais Every minute I shall kiss tlie air like this [and he catches her in his arms and rains kisses on her lips, saying softly] Sophie, Sophie! Sophie Dorval, until midnight. De Lauraguais And tlien for ever. But on tlie way I saw the moon over my left shoulder. Sophie Well, what of it, it was still the moon, wasn't it? De Lauraguais It is an omen. All truth is hid in omens. Once I consulted an astrologer, it was in Baluchistan. He said if one sees the moon on Tuesday over the Act I] SOPHIE 69 left shoulder it means that to attain the heart's de- sire will take much wit and sudden tact. Sophie [Ever so tenderly,] Dorval, at midnight. Nothing in the world can prevent it, my own lover. De Lauraguais [Echoing her tone.] Nothing, you are right, nothing. [They are in a mad embrace. Suddenly there is a knock at the door.] Sophie What's that? I have forbidden the servants even to knock. [The sound is repeated.] It's from the library. Why, that's his Reverence. [She lifts her voice.] Come in. [The Abbe enters cautiously with a letter in his hand.] Sophie [Presenting the two gentlemen.] Father, let me introduce my first sin to my last confessor. The Abbe [Bowing to De Lauraguais.] Sir. [Then to Sophie] My daughter, you will forgive me, but one of the lackeys gave me this 70 SOPHIE [Act I letter saying tihat you had forbidden them even to knock. Sophie Is it so urgent? The Abbe The lackey said that the third secretary of the Ambassador delivered it dispatched to you and that therefore you might care to see it immediately. Sophie What is it? [She is about to take the letter, 1 De Lauraguais Don't touch it. I have again just seen the moon over my shoulder through the window. Father, you must first bless the letter. Sophie Don't be silly, Dorval, we are not in Baluchistan. The letter. Your Reverence. The Abbe I hope its news is blessed. Sophie, I will make it so. [She takes the letter and sits down to read it. First a smile comes into her face, then a look of intense surprise, then one of raging anger as she springs to her feet,^ Act I] SOPHIE 71 Sophie By all the circles of the hell of Dante, no! no!! The Abbe Is the premiere postponed? Calm yourself. Sophie [Storming up and down.] This is too much, too much. Dorval, you've looked at the moon to some purpose. Curse the moon, curse your looking and most of all curse this! [The letter, of course.] De Lauraguais What is it, dear? The Abbe Shall I go? Sophie Go or stay. What difference does it make? This is a matter past your praying. [She has sunk down on the seat of the harpsichord and in a paroxysm of rage begins hitting the keys.] The Abbe You will break the strings. Remember the re- hearsal. Sophie Damnation to the rehearsal. To hell with every- 72 SOPHIE [Act I thing. Your pardon, Father. Never, never, never! [She is beating the letter with her clenched fist,] De Lauraguais Very well, my darling, "never" — but never what? Sophie This. Listen [and she reads the letter], "Hon- oured and Adored Mademoiselle: You have crowned my house and table with the glory of your presence and the distinguished wit of your mind. Tonight after the rehearsal for the first time I shall avail myself of the privilege of tasting the charming graces of your beauty in a less distant way. Surely to a lady of your swift intelligence I need write no more. With a thousand most profound respects, I sign myself, Your most obedient servant, and may I say, your lover, D'Argenteau." [She crushes the letter in her hand.] The ridiculous old imbecile. The dusty, unbelievable jelly-fish. Father, call down the wrath of heaven on him. The Abbe That is a most unusual demand. Sophie Are you referring to the letter? Of course it is. Outrageous! If he'd only waited until after the Act I] SOPHIE 73 premiere tomorrow night I would have sent him flying, the old conglomeration of ancient impu- dence. De Lauraguais And now, now? Sophie Now what? De Lauraguais What are you going to do? Sophie How do I know? Father, can you give me no spiritual advice? The Abbe The situation, my daughter, I am afraid is not in the catechism. Sophie Of course, of course, when one needs your help what good are you with all your hymning? Heaven forgive me but I'm all distraught. The Abbe My daughter, control yourself. De Lauraguais Yes, for the Lord's sake, Sophie, do, — for with- out you we will all be lost. [Dejectedly he sits down.] And I was to climb up the balcony and it was to be so romantic. 74 SOPHIE [Act I Sophie [With a sob, half anger, half despair,^ Don't, don't, you are killing me. The Abbe Will you drink a glass of wine? Sophie Rather a goblet of tears and those my own. Dorval! Dorval! De Lauraguais [Not knowing what to do.l^ Sophie, Sophie! Sophie Oh, don't keep saying Sophie, Sophie, just be- cause I keep saying Dorval, Dorval. Sophie, Sophie! Don't you suppose I know I'm Sophie? Let me think, let me think! De Lauraguais By all means do — do. [She is again storming up and down.] The Abbe My daughter, with your permission I will wait in the library. Sophie That's it, bury yourself in the Fathers of the Act I] SOPHIE 75 Church and leave us living people to our living problems. Would to God you had never come in. The Abbe My daughter — Sophie [Excitedly.] I mean with the letter — oh, I don't know what I mean. The Abbe Why don't you pray? Prayer works miracles. Sophie Pray! Pray that a man that has been showering me with money and whose power I needed, pray that that man should be damned to eternity because he has dared to ask me for the favour of my beauty. Oh, such a thing has never been heard before either in heaven or on earth. And because of that you tell me to pray. The Abbe [Calmly.] I must acknowledge, my dear, that the circum- stances are slightly peculiar, but nevertheless I shall be waiting in the library if you need me. [And with his hands behind his back he most thoughtfully makes his exit.] 76 SOPHIE [Act I Sophie The sly old libertine. De Lauraguais [Looking after The Abbe.] What, he? Sophie No, not he, not he. [And she has thrown the letter to the floor and is stamping on it. Suddenly her mood changes and she says very tenderly:] Dorval, my darling, what has become of our mid- night? De Lauraguais Love will find a way. Sophie [Fairly shrieking at him.] "Love will find a way." Oh, spare me that, not that. Not love, but Sophie. I haven't been yearn- ing for you for weeks and weeks to give you up now when you've just come back. De Lauraguais But you can be ill tonight. Sophie 111? Tonight I must rehearse. Gluck will never open tomorrow if we do not rehearse tonight. So much satisfaction I cannot give to Rosalie. And as for D'Argenteau, if I were to swear I were at Act I] SOPHIE 77 death's door, that infamous old reprobate would be waiting on the other side, till either I was well or had in earnest died. De Lauraguais [As though indeed it were hopeless.li Well, and what will you do? Sophie Something, something. I am Sophie Arnould. If only by some means we could be rid of this Am- bassador until tomorrow. [She stops in front of the harpsichord.] If only there were a way. De Lauraguais [Coming towards her.] Darling, have you forgotten me? Sophie No, darling, do I act as if I had? De Lauraguais Sophie, you have not counted on me. Am I for nothing the best swordsman in France? Have I for nothing studied every herb which has the slightest pretension of being called a poison? Do I not know the secret botany of Persia? Is it to be wasted in the time of direst need that I can shoot a gold ring hung from a pigeon's neck, said pigeon being at the time of shooting in full flight? Sophie, have you forgotten me? 78 SOPHIE [Act I Sophie No, there must be no killing. I do not see the use of a lover who is hanging from a gibbet. I am a realist. Wait, wait, I will find a way. [She stops deep in thought.] There must be some way, Dorval dear. [And now she is over next to him and they are again in each other's arms.] If all goes well at midnight, Dorval, — ^midnight. De Lauraguais Sophie! Sophie We shall see what the wit of France can do against this Austrian. [She glances up, a look of mighty cogitation in her eyes. Then suddenly] Yes, that would do if somehow I could manage it. De Lauraguais [Magnificently. ] If all else fail, my darling, I will sacrifice my life to save your innocence! Sophie Dorval dear, you are very brave and very in- genious, but even you cannot save what doesn't exist. [And as they kiss again the curtain falls.] ACT II Half-past nine, which leaves Sophie in danger. ACT II De Lauraguais is discovered at a table near the harpsichord, assiduously writing with a big quill. The Abbe with a sort of curious ad- miration stands watching him. On the table, beside the sheets of De Lauraguais' manu- script, is a flask of wine and several glasses. The Abbe Monsieur, I admire your separation, to be able thus to write when the air seems tinged with tor- ment for you and Madame Sophie. De Lauraguais [Looking up.] Sophie is at the helm. The higher the sea the more expert will be her steering. She is an ador- able captain. The Abbe At what are you at work? De Lauraguais On my new tragedy. The great Voltaire is wait- ing at Verney to hear it. Are you fond of tragedy? Will you hear a scene? It is in seven acts and its theme is the conquest of the spirit over the flesh. That is why I call it a tragedy. 8i 82 SOPHIE [Act II The Abbe So? De Lauraguais Man's greatest desire is to be his deepest undo- ing. The theme's a deep one but I think my genius, if I let it go unbridled, can encompass it. The Abbe Do you find it difficult to write great plays? De Lauraguais Not at all. All I do is write many very compli- cated scenes which no one can understand and I am immediately hailed as a genius. Playwriting I take as a pastime. My profounder thoughts are for something else. The Abbe [Glancing towards Sophie's boudoir,'] My son, I understand. De Lauraguais [But you see The Abbe doesn't,] Yes, for my History of Arithmetic. That will be something that will startle the world. It will earn for me an invitation into the Academy of the Immortals but I shall spurn it. Honours are not for the honourable. Who are these immortals? [He goes on scratching away.] In a hundred Act II] SOPHIE 83 years they will be entombed in the cenotaph of the world's forgetfulness. The Abbe Sic transit — De Lauraguais Are you interested in the more abstract problems of arithmetic? The Abbe I would have to be if I were to number the num- ber of souls to be saved. De Lauraguais Have you ever asked yourself why there should be only three dimensions? Have you ever con- sidered why two and two should make four and not something else? [From Sophie's boudoir comes a beautiful voice in a shower of scales,^ De Lauraguais That is Sophie oiling up for Papa Gluck. [And now a cadence sung in purest legato style sustained in pianissimo,!^ De Lauraguais Listen, all of hope, all of despair crowded into a perfect phrase. 84 SOPHIE' [Act II The Abbe You're something of a musical critic, too? De Lauraguais I am everything that time will let me be. [Two or three notes soaring and then the voice is stilL^ De Lauraguais Now she is still and the silence seems like silver, like the silence in a meadow when a rabbit suddenly sticks up its ridiculously long ears. Have you had much to do with rabbits? If we knew all about rabbits we would know all about everything that ever was. Abstractions are the only realities. [Now a series of leaps and trills from the boudoir. 1 De Lauraguais Listen, she is trilling like a lark whose tiny bosom is too small for so great a passion. [He calls in to /ler.] Darling, do you mind not singing quite so loud? I am just in the midst of a splendid scene in Act Six. How extraordinary my Sophie is. She can face a climax with a song on her lips. [More scales and trills.] Would you mind closing the door? [The Abbe is about to.] Sophie's Voice What are you doing, Dorval? Act II] SOPHIE 85 De Lauraguais Dimming your voice, darling. Sophie What? De Lauraguais It's so beautiful that in another moment your rapt confessor here will believe that he is in heaven and will have to kill himself to prove it. [The Abbe has closed the door, De Lauraguais finishes scrawling his page and is pleased with what he has written to the verge of tears,] The Abbe It's going well, isn't it? De Lauraguais Magnificently. Listen! [He stands up and is about to read.] The Abbe [Starting for the library, a thin little smile about his lips.] I will leave you to your genius. I think that perhaps my soul is too simple for all this glory. De Lauraguais As you will. But don't go on my account. You don't disturb me in the least. I'm bubbling over with inspiration. [He again sits down to his 86 SOPHIE [Act II tragedy,] Nothing can disturb me now. Nothing. [But at this moment the door of Sophie's boudoir is opened and she stands on the threshold, radiantly gowned, her hair done in a fantastic coiffure, "d la Iphigenie," a cres- cent of diamonds ablaze above a cloud of chiffon, cerulean blue.] De Lauraguais [Glancing up from the splendid scene in Act Six,] Admirable, my darling, admirable, but why all the astronomy? Sophie I shall start a new fashion for Papa Gluck. Iphigenia is the virgin priestess of Diana. The moon, the chaste white moon is her symbol. Lest you have any doubts this is the moon. [And she points to the crescent in her hair.] For the next few months every lady in Paris will wear her hair like this. There are already pastries a la Sophie and sachets a la Sophie and babies named for Sophie. Why should there not be a headdress a la Sophie? I am a prima donna ; w*hen I am not in people's ears it is well that I should be in their heads. [Then to The Abbe.] Have you had your supper, Father? Act II] SOPHIE 87 The Abbe Delicious chicken stuffed with truffles, souffle, al- mond cake and iced wine. Sophie Listen, Dorval, how he smacks his lips, and these remote Fathers of the Church are supposed to be removed from all earthly joys. Piety has its nice rewards. It makes it so easy to sin without sinning. The Abbe Madame, I shall be waiting in the library if you need me. Sophie [And right is hers,^ Who knows, I may. I always have my coach at the door, my blankets perfumed and a priest in the library. Life is so complicated. [And thoughtfully, his hands folded behind his back, he walks into the library,] Sophie Dorval, dear, for the first time in her life I think your Sophie is a little nervous. De Lauraguais What is it, dear? Sophie As a child of five I sang before the Queen with no more tremor than you might feel milking a 88 SOPHIE [Act II cow in Brittany — of course I take it for granted that you know how to milk cows — but tonight, dear, events come cro.wding. You, Dorval dear, and Papa Gluck and then a way, a sure, quick, sudden way to be rid of this Ambassador. De Lauraguais And what will my sly little Sophie do? Sophie Something, dear. The instant you entered the house I knew that life which is sweet as a duet can never be sung as a trio. Dorval darling, D'Argen- teau must go. De Lauraguais Tell him, dear. Sophie Tell him! Hasn't that horrid old man found a sufficient reason for staying? De Lauraguais Hasn't my little lark a little influence? Sophie Of what use is all that now? De Lauraguais If my songstress could reach the King, His Maj- esty will understand. None better than His Maj- Act II] SOPHIE 89 esty. Tell him we haven't even said good morning in a month. Sophie Du Barry doesn't love me. I cannot reach the King. De Lauraguais Well, then, there's Minister Choiseul. Sophie [Despondently, ] And he has left this evening for Vienna. De Lauraguais Ah, that's too bad! A word from him, a little letter, his word is law. The jails are filled with people Y/hom Choiseul doesn't love. Sophie Darling, it was Choiseul sent you back to me. Here's the dear letter that told me you were com- ing. [She takes the letter from the table, ^ Dor- val! Dorval! De Lauraguais [Again at his tragedy.] Darling, are there many rhymes for pageantry? [But Sophie doesnt know or at least she doesnt answer as she stands there deep in thought.] 90 SOPHIE [Act II De Lauraguais How beautiful my Sophie is. [And he is up and has taken her in his arms,] Sophie Dorval, if it could be managed somehow. De Lauraguais Yes, dear? Sophie But what are we going to do? De Lauraguais Anything you say, dear, but you mustn't inter- rupt me again. A beautiful speech has just come to me. [And now he is back at the table writing.] And my Sophie ought to know that often murder is simpler than a beautiful speech. Sophie Murder, my gentle Dorval? [Her eyes are crinkled in consideration.] Ah, there's a thought on which to hang a deed. De Lauraguais [Oblivious.] This line should have a noble ending. [And he writes it, pleased.] Act II] SOPHIE 91 Sophie [To herself,] If there were only a way. De Lauraguais Quiet, dear, quiet, quiet! Sophie There must be. [Dejectedly her head drops and she is looking at Choiseul's letter which is hanging from her hand.] There must be. [Then suddenly the idea comes to her,] Why not? There's half a page of space. Why not? [A sec- ond more and she has folded over the edge of Choiseul's letter and has torn off the lines that he has written,] If needs be, this, beside the soldiers. Why not, why not? De Lauraguais [Finishing the speech he's writing.] I've got it, dear! Sophie [And now she is seated at the table opposite to him,] And so have I. De Lauraguais Listen! [He reads from his manuscript.] "The purple blare of pageantry." What do you think of it? 92 SOPHIE [Act II Sophie I don't think of it, darling. Go on with your tragedy. I'm beginning a pretty drama of my own. [And for a little while there is quiet whilst they both sit writing.] Sophie [With a flourish as she finishes.] I think by now the water will be hot enough to boil this ancient goose from Vienna. [And she has folded the letter and has stuck it in her bodice.] De Lauraguais [Still in flowing inspiration scribbling on.] Beautiful! Exquisite! This evening, dear, the muse is fluid. Beautiful! Beautiful! Sophie [Lovingly bending over him.] Have you no pity for that poor quill making it say all those pompous things? De Lauraguais [Finishing the sentence he is writing and sprinkling some sand on the manuscript.] And what is it my Sophie intends to do this eve- ning? Act II] SOPHIE 93 Sophie All that is needed, Dorval, when his Excellency arrives. [Then in anger.] Oh, I can see him now, strutting in at the very moment when Rosalie will be enjoying the happiness of hearing me sing a beautiful B Flat — my B Flats are famous, Dorval. [Suddenly she bursts into song,] La-la-la la la la. Thank God, thank God, I still have it here. [She is pointing to her throat,] Ah, what an artist I am to retain my voice when at this very moment I know what is going on in the mind of that unblush- ing octogenarian of an Ambassador. First I must be rid of Gluck and his attendant angel, Rosalie. But that will be simple, Dorval, as simple as pluck- ing marigolds in May. Do marigolds grow in May? Ah well, no matter, and then for my Am- bassador. De Lauraguais [Still writing away,] Sophie, if he insists. Sophie Heaven, Dorval, will not desert a prima donna who has had the forethought to have a few gen- darmes, if necessary, waiting in the house, and if needs be a little letter. [And her hand is on her bosom.] De Lauraguais But has my Sophie forgotten that if she goes too 94 SOPHIE [Act II far there is always the Count de Saint-Florentin and his dull, dark dungeons to make my Sophie behave? Sophie [Her voice the harbinger of a rage about to be born.^ Saint-Florentin! Dorval, if it weren't for him all Paris would be Sophie's [And then her voice is like a flute heard at the far end of a lane,] But Sophie and her sisters, the angels, will find a way. [The First Lackey enters,] Sophie What is it? The First Lackey Madame, there is a lady at the door who begs to see you. Sophie There always is. The First Lackey She is in need. Sophie Give her fifty francs. If she is no longer hand- some give her sixty. Where there is less beauty there is sure to be more need. Act II] SOPHIE 95 The First Lackey Madame, she beseeches a moment's speech with you. Sophie Tell her I rehearse tonight and can see no one. The First Lackey Madame, your pardon, but it is the fourth time today that she has come whilst you — [He hesitates.] Sophie Oh, go on; don't you suppose I know that you know all that is happening in this house? I under- stand servants. My papa didn't keep an inn for nothing. The First Lackey [And in his eyes is the suggestion of a twinkle.] No, Madame, I don't suppose he did with wine fifty francs a keg. Sophie You were saying? The First Lackey That the lady has called four times today whilst you were riding back and forth to the Minister of State enquiring whether or no Monsieur the Count de Brancas Lauraguais would be set free so that 96 SOPHIE [Act II you and he — if all goes well — would have the charming pleasure of each other's society at mid- night. Sophie Bravo! You are so frank that now I know you are not a spy of the Minister of Police. The First Lackey That would be so simple, Madame, and not nearly so enjoyable as serving you. Madame, we who serve in this world must also have our little pleasures. We can choose the employer who amuses us the most. And your house, Madame, is, I assure you, the most delightful one in Paris. Sophie Indeed? The First Lackey Ah, yes, indeed, Madame. Whilst the lackeys elsewhere have to wait several months to find out what is happening by reading the Secret Memoirs of the Police, I am proud to say that with you, my lady, it is much more diverting to get all the news first hand. Sophie [To De Lauraguais still busy on Act Six,] Dorval dear, that is how I retain my servants. I make life so piquant for them. Act II] SOPHIE 97 The First Lackey Ah, Madame, if you only knew. [Perhaps he is laughing deep down his throat. 1^ How could I de- sert the services of a lady who said what you said to the Police Inspector when he questioned you the night after that very gay little supper party in the Rue des Petits Champs? It was Tuesday in a February, if I remember rightly. Sophie And what did I say? The First Lackey The talk had been very intimate about His Sovereign Majesty, the King. Your pardon, Madame, if I drink a glass of wine to the King. [He pours out a glass from the flask at the table at which De Lauraguais is writing.] Sophie [As the Lackey drinks.] Well, what did I say? The First Lackey [Putting down the glass and barely able to conceal his mirthful admiration.] Madame, when he came to question you as to what had been said you said you did not remember. Sophie Of course^ why not? 98 SOPHIE [Act II The First Lackey And when he said that a woman like you should remember, you replied; — Madame, you will per- mit me [and he giggles behind his hand] you re- plied: "That before a man like him you were not a woman like you." Whilst I can expect some- thing as droll as that any day, Madame, I have no intention of living and listening in the house of any one except the divine Sophie Amould. Sophie Thanks. The First Lackey May I show the lady in? Sophie Any other time, but tonight — ^tonight — The First Lackey As you command me, Madame, but there is a look in her face as sad and as tragically beautiful as your own, Madame. That is, in your best mo- ments at the opera. Sophie You have heard me at the opera? • The First Lackey Indeed yes, Madame. You see, in my spare mo- ments I write the musical critiques for the First Act II] SOPHIE 99 Lackey's Gazette, They have a first hand inti- mate tone but, of course, you do not read the Lackey's Gazette, I'm sorry you will not admit the lady. Sophie It is some silly child who wishes me to scrawl my name on the panels of her fan, or to stand god- mother to her unborn illegitimacy. They are al- ways coming to me for help and for advice. If it were not tonight I would aid her, I would help all my suffering sisters, but tonight I rehearse and besides — The First Lackey [Smoothly.] I shouldn't be worried if I were you, Madame. I think you will carry off with success whatever it is you are planning to do this evening to get rid of your honourable protector, the Ambassador from Austria. Now as to this young lady on your door- step — Sophie Go. I have heard enough of this lady on my doorstep. The First Lackey Again your pardon, Madame, but unless I am very much mistaken the lady is an aristocrat. 100 SOPHIE [Act II Sophie [A little more interested.^ Indeed? The First Lackey Yes, my lady, each time she came back I left word that she was to come back again because I thought that you would care to speak to her. De Lauraguais [Writing away.^ But, Sophie, if you see all the people that stand on your doorstep — The First Lackey [ Very significantly. ] Madame, I should see her if I were you. Sophie [Reading his tone.} She is a woman. We women, the weak of the world, should stand together. The First Lackey Madame, I assure you, the young lady's emotion is very genuine. I am a judge of acting. I have studied the art of Madame Arnould. Unless I am greatly mistaken the matter with the lady is some- thing of the heart. [He is looking curiously at Sophie.] Act II] SOPHIE 101 Sophie [Quickly.^ Show her in. Show her in. [And The First Lackey makes his exit,] Sophie Something of the heart? De Lauraguais Of course, when a woman is in trouble it is al- ways trouble with the heart. Sophie [Perhaps a little bit sentimentally.] Love wounds us and if we are not wounded we die because we're not. De Lauraguais And has my Sophie ever thought that the passion of love is as strong in a widow as in a young girl in whose trembling bosom the flame of love has been for the first time lighted? Sophie That is so. De Lauraguais But the widow hasn't the same excuse as the young girl, which is curiosity. Sophie No, Dorval, but habit, confirmed habit. Go, 102 SOPHIE [Act II she is coming. Wait in the library with the Abbe. Woman to woman is fairer with no man about. [De Lauraguais exits and Sophie goes over to the mantelshelf and looks at the clock.^ Sophie Ten minutes before Papa Gluck arrives. [She sings a passage.] Tra la la la la la. Still there! still there! [The First Lackey stands in the door,] The First Lackey [Bowing.] Madame. [A young girl enters. Over her dress she wears a long cloak with a hood that all but hides her face.] Sophie Madame, you wish to speak to me? [The girls inclines her head. Sophie mo- tions to the Lackey and he exits.] ViVIENNE Madame, I am Vivienne de — [Suddenly she stops. She advances a step nearer to Sophie.] Madame Arnould, I have come to you — [Her voice falters.] Sophie Yes, Madame, sit down, sit down. Act II] SOPHIE 103 ViVIENNE If you can spare me some few moments from your crowded life? Sophie You are right, my child. Never was my life more crowded than this evening. [ViVIENNE instinctively turns toward the door, a sob checking her voice,] Sophie [Tenderly, to stop her,] What is it, Madame? [Suddenly the girl rushes over and throws herself at Sophie's feet,] ViVIENNE Madame, you will pardon my rash impetuous- ness? Sophie My child, my child. [And she lifts the girl's hood, starting back in amazement but controlling her surprise,] How pale you are, how very pale! ViVIENNE Madame Arnould, I have come to you because you know the human heart. Sophie And your mother, child? 104 SOPHIE [Act II ViVIENNE My mother, she is dead. Sophie [Quietly.] So! ViVIENNE Madame, you will know, you will understand. To my father, Madame, your name stands for all that — that — is evil. Sophie [Her lips tightening a little.] Indeed, my child? ViVIENNE But, Madame, you will tell me what to do. My father does not understand. To you life is no snare of blind prejudices. You will know, you will understand. To you life is no bitter tradi- tion to be followed but a gorgeous, free pattern to be made. Madame, you will help me. I have come to you because of all women in Paris you know the human heart. Sophie If I do it is because I have listened to life and not to lies. You are not the first girl, my child, who has come to Sophie Arnould. There, there. Act II] SOPHIE 105 [ViviENNE is weeping now, her head is in Sophie's lap. Sophie is stroking her hair.] ViVIENNE You will tell me what to do? You will under- stand my suffering. I am on my knees to you as though to the Madonna. Sophie The Madonna? Do not let your imagination run away with you. Vivienne I am on my knees begging, beseeching you for your advice. Madame — Sophie [Quietly taking her hand.] So, it is something of the heart. Vivienne Madame, madame — Sophie We women! What are we but big children, amused with toys, lulled to sleep with flatteries and seduced with promises. I know, my child, you've given everything, your life, your love to some one who has cast it off as nothing. Vivienne [Hysterically.] Would to God I had. 106 SOPHIE [Act II Sophie [And she is more surprised than she knows,] What? ViVIENNE Would to God I had! Sophie It is a gift, Madame, that deserves the giving and the taking. Vivienne [Sobbing.] I will tell you all, all. Sophie [Expectantly.] All? [She bends forward, looking into the girl's eyes and instinctively again Vivienne turns away. There is a pause.] Sophie All or nothing, Madame, as you will. Vivienne What am I to do? What? I am so terribly in love that — Sophie When are we women not? Act II] SOPHIE 107 ViVIENNE And now he is going away for ever. Sophie I do not understand. I thought love to most men was like an enigma. When the puzzle is solved then the interest ceases. ViVIENNE We love as none have ever loved before. Sophie Yes, it is thus each time and each time it is true. ViVIENNE But my father, Madame. [Suddenly the light dawns on something not quite so near to Sophie's knowledge, for she, even as a young girl, had taken her own des- tiny into her hands and eloped with De Laura- GUAIS.] Sophie Your father? Then this is a tragedy of a father and not a step too far. [She is again peering into the girl's face.^ ViVIENNE [In terror.] Madame, you know who my father is? Sophie [Avoiding the intenseness of her gaze."] 108 SOPHIE [Act II A gentleman, I am sure, Madame, for you are his daughter. ViVIENNE He has forbidden it, Madame. Never will a pen- niless soldier, even though he is a captain, be his son-in-law. Today he has driven Etienne from