Shorter Notices
THIS last work of Bernanos, written during his fatal illness, is hard to classify. It is described as a film scenario, but is in fact a chronicle play which might be adapted for broadcasting, but which suggests no parti- cular suitability to the screen. The speeches are long, and the scenes static. It tells of the death of sixteen Carmelite nuns at Compiegne, in 1794, at the hands of the Revolutionaries. The incident is historical, but Bernanos' work is a rehandling of a previous film scenario, in its turn based on a German novel on the subject. His own chief additions to it are a fictitious novice, Blanche de la Fort, and the theme of fear, which he treats in her person. For Blanche is pathologically timorous and deeply ashamed of her fear ; yet it is only when she comes to accept it and to see that it is as much part of her as her religious fervour that she is able to overcome it and voluntarily to die a martyr's death. This single motif of her transformation is not strong enough to carry the rest of the play. For although Bernanos has developed the characters of others among the nuns, and even suggested an interesting clash of interest and personality between the prioress and the sub-prioress, he has not permitted himself to build up a supporting plot. The book, though short, is therefore rather tiresome, since one waits too long for the denouement which has been too thoroughly prepared. The language of the original French is somewhat stiff, and the translator, Michael Legat, seems deliberately
to have stiffened his English sentences by preserving the French syntax. This, though no doubt intentional, contributes to the faint air of the church hall which pervades
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