rst edition (1882). I asked the
price, and to my horror the attendant hesitated and said that he would
"see." I feared the price was going to be fancy. He came back and named
four francs, adding, "It's our last copy." I paid the four francs
willingly. On examining my trophy I saw that it was published by Tresse.
Now Stock became Tresse's partner before he had that business to himself.
I had simply bought the play at the original house of its publication. And
it had fallen to me, after some twenty-five years, to put the first
edition of "Les Corbeaux" out of print! I went home and read the play and
was somewhat disappointed with it. I thought it very fine in its direct
sincerity, but not on the same plane as "La Parisienne."

* * * * *

Antoine, founder of the Theatre Libre, director of the Theatre Antoine
during brilliant years, and now director of the Odeon (which he has raised
from the dead), was always a tremendous admirer of Becque. It was through
Antoine that Paris had such magnificent performances of "La Parisienne."
He had long expressed his intention of producing "Les Corbeaux," and now
he has produced "Les Corbeaux" at the Odeon, where it has been definitely
accepted and consecrated as a masterpiece. I could not refrain from going
to Paris specially to see it. It was years since I had been in the Odeon.
Rather brighter, perhaps, in its more ephemeral decorations, but still the
same old-fashioned, roomy, cramped, provincial theatre, with pit-tier
boxes like the cells of a prison! The audience was good. It was startingly
good for the Odeon. The play, too, at first seemed old-fashioned--in
externals. It has bits of soliloquies and other dodges of technique now
demoded. But the first act was not half over before the extreme modernness
of the play forced itself upon you. Tchehkoff is not more modern. The
picture of family life presented in the first act was simply delightful.
All the bitterness was reserved for the other acts. And what superb
bitterness! No one can be so cruel as Becque to a "sympathetic" character.
He exposes every foolishness of the ruined widow; he never spares her for
an instant; and yet one's sympathy is not alienated. This is truth. This
is a play. I had not read the thing with sufficient imagination, with the
result that for me it "acted" much better than it had "read." Its sheer
beauty, truth, power, and wit, justified even the great length of the last
act. I t