A King of Story-Tellers
Tux demand for a story began when the cavemen grouped round their hard-won fires in the darkness, wakeful enough to feel the first faint ache that would become in historic time the agonizing curse of ennui, wistful enough to desire some vision of creatures like themselves, escaping from the night, the cold, the primitive tabu and the slaver;7 of fear, and discovering daring new twists in the limited pattern of life. And now, on the western verges of our world, still on windswept islands the folk sit round great fires of turves, lambent with colour like that of the wings of the seraphim, and tell, in ceilidh, the deeds of the Children of lima between their wild lamenting songs. While still, in the rose and blue East, the romancer lays down his carpet ; and, as the listeners gather, from the dragon- broidered jar of his memory -wreathes the exciting smoke of his magic. " Tell me a story," says the child, as the searching test of the quality of a grown-up friend. " Tell me a story," sometimes mutter our own insubordinate hearts when at odd moments they are a little cloyed with the fascination of Proust, or altogether rebellious when requested to dive for treasure into the Cloaca Maxima of Ulysses.
What if the severe stamp of " literature of escape " be branded on sheer story-telling, on the joyous, breathless recital of the gallop from deed to deed, the ambuscades among the willows, the spearpoints just rounding the corner, the duelling swords, the dancing torches, the black-velvet and cramoisie, the dangerous keeps, the flashing fair faces and the cloth of gold, the winding roads through poplars and . hills and waters, and the moon adrift in a rushing sky ? Escape is often necessary from a world over-policed by our own inhi- bitions as well as the minions of the law. Every mortal, if he will but confess it, thirsts now and then for the wild air of absolute liberty, of complete irresponsibility, for a world where the writ of the lawgiver does not run and violence is often a virtue. He desires not to be wicked, but to be really free, not to escape from life, but towards life. At such moments many insubstantial roads are calling ; but one can hardly do better than ride with D'Artagnan, or die des- perately with Bussy d'Amboise, or meet with the four princes at the door of La Reine Margot. One must indeed return to a world where, by a monstrous paradox, some people seek adventure by becoming special constables ; but one's blood is leaping with new oxygen, and having heard great trumpets sound, one can disdain " the sensual world."
The Scots and the French are by far the best story-tellers. (I cannot here argue the matter.) It was from Scott that Dumas caught his first inspiration, and Stevenson is his most sympathetic eulogist. There is perhaps a touch of the Dunutesque quality in the Dickens of the Pickwick Papers, where the adventurers faintly suggest a grotesque and Cockney version of the Musketeers, with Sam Weller for a glorious Planchet. There arc historic romances that are beautiful books but we do not read them for the sake of the story. Even with Sir Walter, the story often drags, existing chiefly in fiery or enchanting moments, vivid conversations, and pauses sweet with all romance. Even with Stevenson the cunning of the style sometimes arrests the speeding move- ment ; the ringing tale is hushed a little as if by the breathing of exotic flutes. Among Dumas' contemporaries he had great rivals—Hugo, Dc Vigny, Gautier. They were seigneurs of romance, and he was only a Free Companion. But he rode the ways of historic France more easily than they.
France possesses a history of rich romantic stuff, and has also been aware of it, since the days when she was the chief force in shaping the beautiful story-cycles of the Middle Ages, since the days when the Normans rode to conquer England with a sword and a song—a song which is among the most deathless of stories. The various dynasties that have ruled the land have been essentially one with their country, carrying its qualities and defects to picturesque extremes, providing all the personal devotions, splendours, conspiracies, rivalries of passionate courts—golden swathes of story. When the Romantic Movement flowered red in France, as it flowered
blue in Germany, and rainbow-like in England, Alexandre Dumas, that vital and fantastic young man, who combined the blood of African kings with the blood of French soldier,, and lived a life that was one long roman d'aventure, instinctively divining the period that would yield him the most perilous, gorgeous, and startling situations, began the new historic drama with Henri III et sa Cour. The matter proved as apt for narrative. Masses of unreticent memoirs lay to his hand ; Auguste Magnet (who called himself Augustus MaeKeat as a compliment to England !) was an industrious and intel. ligent " devil " ; the immortal series went on.
There is no need to discuss the question of " collaboration." It was beyond even the immense vitality of Dumas, whom Michelet called " a force of nature," to write all the books he signed, living, as he did, a life as various as a phantasmagoria. But his peculiar quality predominates in all the really famous books. Whatever was supplied to him, it could only be said that :— " Nothing in him but doth change Into something rich and strange."
So the great Alexander told French history in his own way. Michelet, who was doing the same thing in his way, was one of his most cordial admirers. For Dumas certainly does retain the spirit of his periods, and his anachronisms are few and trivial. For the Valois period he had a flair. He lets the story take its way, like one too familiar with time and place to consider them curiously, though casual details are glit- teringly accurate sometimes. The more the reader's mind can supply of the golden gracious poetry of Ronsard, the wise witty comment of Montaigne, the precious affected sculpture of Goujon, and the broidered stones of the Louvre, the exquisite chateaux built for lovers and assassins, the books of images, all the luxurious strange flowers springing from Italianate grace grafted on French chivalry, the more he loves his Dumas, riding careless of these things. This gross, delicate, perverse, sumptuous world of Brantome and L'Estoile, with its haunting blood taint, is alive within La Reine Margot. Dumas sees the flashing of clean swords and the " bright eyes of danger," and gives you an inexhaustible story. I think La Heine Margot is probably the most artistic thing that Dumas ever did. It is a piece of narrative complete and concen- trated as a finely cut ruby ; but, though thus impeccable, it is all motion, breathless with ardour. La Mole is a desperate, gracile young lover, the beautiful libertine queen is at her kindest, the mortal game of hide and seek in the corridors of the Louvre is a pulsating affair. La Dame de Monsoreau is hardly less exciting, from the opening scene when Bussy d'Amboise comes walking into the wedding festival of Saint Luc, a black-velvet figure with five golden pages, to his Homeric death-combat, and the arrogant but gallant Duel of the Mignons. The pages are thronged with vivid figures, agitated round Henri III, that French Elagabalus with his feminine toilettes and his fits of devotional frenzy, and Chicot the incom. parable jester.
Superb also is Les Quarante-Cinq ; but I have not yet saluted D'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers. Why praise them ? Since first they galloped within the vision of the lovers. of romance they have been beloved ; and no more is left to say of them. Let us but ride again to save the honour of the fair Anne of Austria ; and hide under the scaffold while Charles Stuart bows his comely head " within that memorable scene ; and gaze, not without tears in the heart, at the titanic death of the great and sweet Porthos. " It is too heavy," said Porthos. Dumas' style has -flashes that often seem of Elizabethan quality.
There are the novels of the Regency Period, and the adven- tures connected with the Queen's Necklace, in which latter he is not so happy, for psychic stuff is too cobwebby for swords- men. There is the tale of Olympe de Cleves, a lovely lady. I confess that I remember Monte Cristo only for the Chateau d'If. And here, concluding an admirably produced series of translations for those who will not read their Dumas bl French, is that amiable story of The Black Tulip, charming in itself but not written by the magician of La Reine Margot and Les Trois Mousquelaires.
Farewell for the moment, heroes of Dumas, unchanging friends ! Let not the psychologist scorn your breathing, loving, fighting shapes. You are not " introverts,' certainly. You do not " lie awake at nights and weep for your sins." But do you not speak a dialogue sharp with hints of danger, challenge, invective, recognition of honourable enemies tenderness for unwearying friends ? You were brave and kind and reckless ; and you had your own codes. Like all soldiers, you did not search for the motives of your riding. It was the riding that mattered to you, and that still matters to us and is our dear delight.
RACHEL ANNAN]) TAYLOR.
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