has come suddenly, as a new sentiment coming suddenly into her life, but
the simple, instinctively loving woman, in whom we see nothing of the
demi-monde, only the natural woman in love. Throughout the play she has
moments, whole scenes, of absolute greatness, as fine as anything she
has ever done: but there are other moments when she seems to carry
repression too far. Her pathos, as in the final scene, and at the end of
the scene of the reception, where she repeats the one word "Armando"
over and over again, in an amazed and agonising reproachfulness, is of
the finest order of pathos. She appeals to us by a kind of goodness,
much deeper than the sentimental goodness intended by Dumas. It is love
itself that she gives us, love utterly unconscious of anything but
itself, uncontaminated, unspoilt. She is Mlle. de Lespinasse rather than
Marguerite Gautier; a creature in whom ardour is as simple as breath,
and devotion a part of ardour. Her physical suffering is scarcely to be
noticed; it is the suffering of her soul that Duse gives us. And she
gives us this as if nature itself came upon the boards, and spoke to us
without even the ordinary disguise of human beings in their intercourse
with one another. Once more an artificial play becomes sincere; once
more the personality of a great impersonal artist dominates the poverty
of her part; we get one more revelation of a particular phase of Duse.
And it would be unreasonable to complain that "La Dame aux Camélias" is
really something quite different, something much inferior; here we have
at least a great emotion, a desperate sincerity, with all the
thoughtfulness which can possibly accompany passion.




V