Fiction
A Sincere Writer, and an Historic Charlatan
Cagliostro. A Novel by Johannes Von 'Guenther: Translated by Huntley Paterson. -(Heinemann. 10s. 641.) Dewdrops. By Margaret Kennedy. (Heinemann. Is.) THE clear gratitude with which we close Adion and Other Stories,is double-edged with regret, fOrcOntemPorary literature can ill afford to lose the qualities of C. E. Montague. Among so much that is formless and cheaply cynical, so much that is either exhausted or indolent, so much that is " hospitalized," these stories come like the call of evening bugles or the sudden sight of the lifted hills. Once more we delight in the dart and reach of a style as supple and clean as a sword, capable of many a lovely flourish too, like all fine blades. Once more we assent to an estimate of life and humanity that, with no easy optimism, declares the one a high adventure and the other a lovable affair on the whole, still flaming out into fantastic chivahies at times. Like the poets, C. E. Montague remained a seeker after ecstasy ; and in this matter, those who seek do find. He tells you, in Action, of the lonely man who, realizing-that age and malady have touched him, goes, to challenge death in an all but
impossible feat in the mountains above -the Rhone. The description of the staircase cut in the overhanging breast of
ice, while the great " sabbatical sunset " fades behind the desperate climber, has a giddy magnificence ; and the restora- tive trance in which he accomplishes the hopeless curve, when, all spent, he must answer the surprising cry for help, is a luminous piece of psychology. Some of the stories are of the War. Keenly awake to all the chaos, the horror, the incompetence, the ghastly ignorances and petty vanities in high places, they testify with profound sympathy to the endurance, the pride, the royal foolhardiness even, of the common man. " Judith " is a remarkable incident , that lacks the piercing sincerity of a slighter thing like "7Wood- jabet " ; . it seems as if the author's head wished to do .honour to Intelligence work, while his heart, no lover of disguises) came rather reluctantly to attention. The richness of his humorous regard provides different flavours for " A Fatallsti" " A Prettf Little_ PriTertyl"- and -that superb comedy, " The Great Sculling Race." We are moved by
" The Man Who Didn't Take Care " ; and we understand " Man Afraid," who thought nothing of flaming boats, wild beasts, carnivorous horses, tightropes, or deadly fevers, but for whom, in the quiet valley of the Thames, his fear " breathed so hard as to tarnish the morning candour of day." " The Wisdom of Mrs. Trevenna " leaves us a little sceptical, as it seems to leave the narrator, for all his anxious tolerance, That graceless group of young talkers are certainly not concealing the same " burst of dream and desire " that lightened his own youth. Their language is too crude. But his own wise, humorous, and tender comments on human nature are so expressed as to revive any fainting faith in the unconquerable beauty of the English tongue.
Germany is- working hard at the historical novel. The prevailing method of construction consists in arranging a series of concentrated representative scenes, with long lapses of time between. The atmosphere is of a portentous, vaguely mystical kind, so that the figures are invested with an inde- finable authority. CagliostrO is a good example of this cinema-like manner. The novel has a sensational, nightmarish quality ; its psychology is rhetorical, redundant, violent. Some historic figures and incidents are so startling in themselves that fiction cannot heighten them. The amazing transit of Cagliostro across Europe, and all the figures involved in the dark affair of the Diamond Necklace, are phenomena almost too vivid for the novelist. Johannes von Guenther, taking it for granted that Joseph Balsamo was indeed Count Alessandro Cagliostro (there are still some who doubt it), uses much of the documentary material. We see the mysterious charlatan as a fat little boy in a cowl escaping from the Benfratelli in Palermo. We see him in London with his wife Lorenza, passing from a prison to become a Grand Master of the Freemasons. He is next revealed in St. Petersburg, causing much astonishment, but not quite succeeding with either Potjemkin or Catherine. Presently we find him in Strassbourg, the idol of the Cardinal-duke of Rohan, the Grand Almoner of France. The most exciting part of the book deals with Cagliostro's intrigues in Paris, and his contact with Louise de in Motte Valois, the corrupt and subtle creature who stole the Diamond Necklace, suffered such a fearful punishment, and poisoned the public mind with calumnies concerning the unfortunate Marie Antoinette. Cagliostro is supposed to be helping the Freemasons to destroy the lilies of the Bourbon ; he founds his own lodges of Egyptian freemasonry, eastern, occult and erotic. The back- ground of eighteenth-century existence is loosely sketched in; and the decor is not detailed. The great feast of folly given by Baudard de St. James before the arrest of Cagliostro and Louise de la Motte, does, however, affect the imagination like a feverish dream. The chief defect of the novel lies in the entire lack of continuity in Cagliostro's character. He is so intolerably loud, brutal, and offensive that it becomes impossible to believe in his achievements. That he suddenly inspires love in his long-neglected wife, Lorenza, a figure of oversweet sensuous piety, seems quite incredible. But for those who like the cinema-novel, there is plenty of excitement. Most of us will prefer Dumas on the subject.
By expending one shilling you may obtain a charming comedietta of a story by Margaret 'Kennedy. Dewdrops tells how two schoolgirls, in an élan of rapture towards a romantic-looking lecturer who read " St. Agnes Eve " to their class, imagined him one with Keats and Shelley, and vowed themselves to a sad adoring future. But they were suddenly disillusioned, and had to turn to their favourite picture-theatre for comfort. It is a truthful and amusing little note, and Somehow rather touching.
RACHEL ANNAND TAYLOR.
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