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Alas! if the representations went beyond the single one of Vautrin, they did not exceed twenty; and his share of profits was insignificant. The play is not dull to read, with its flavour of Moliere's comedies, and the keenness of Balzac's observation. But its colour and poesy do not compensate for the diffuseness of the plot and the undramatic conclusion.
There was a verve, a grip about this story; and, what was more, those of them who knew their Moliere realized that far from approaching the original more closely, this canevas had drawn farther away from it. Moliere's original part the title role had dwindled into insignificance, to the great disgust of Polichinelle, to whom it fell.
Rouge had destroyed by this time the diaphanous tints of her cheeks, the flesh of which was still delicate; but although she could no longer blush or turn pale, she had a thin nose with rosy, passionate nostrils, made to express irony, the mocking irony of Moliere's women-servants.
In fact, I do not know which to be the more astonished at, the freedom of your talk or the sad opinion which you have of me. But I see whence all this emanates. Do you take me then for a bad priest? What is that? Do you take me for a simpleton? for one of Molière's uncles?... Enough of playing a farce. You do not take me in, my good fellow.
Thus, his Twelfth noël is set to an air composed by Lulli for the drinking song, "Qu'ils sont doux, bouteille jolie," in Molière's "Médecin malgré lui"; and those who are familiar with the music of his time will be both scandalized and set a-laughing by finding the uses to which he has put airs which began life in far from seemly company.
As M. Hamon reminds us, Molière anticipated Mr. Shaw in outraging the sentiment, for instance, which has gathered round the family. "Molière and Shaw," as he puts it with quaint seriousness, "appear to be unaware of what a father is, what a father is worth." The defence of Mr. Shaw, however, does not depend on any real or imaginary resemblance of his plays to Molière's.
M. Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac is not merely Cyrano, but also Constant Coquelin; Sardou's La Tosca is not merely La Tosca, but also Mme. Sarah Bernhardt; Molière's Célimène is not merely Célimène, but also Mlle. Molière; Shakespeare's Hamlet is not merely Hamlet, but also Richard Burbage.
Plays, as well as novels, have been constructed in this inorganic way, for example, Molière's "L'Etourdi" and "Les Facheux." If the actors, in performing either of these plays, should omit one or two units of the sausage-string of incidents, the audience would not become aware of any gap in structure.
She loved, as it were, in bulk without the slightest imagination of love. Rose was a Catholic Agnes, incapable of inventing even one of the wiles of Moliere's Agnes. For some months past she had counted on chance.
Here, however, as elsewhere, his famous wit is like a bully-fencer, not ashamed to lay traps for its exhibition, transparently petulant for the train between certain ordinary words and the powder-magazine of the improprieties to be fired. Contrast the wit of Congreve with Moliere's.
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