Page:Prophets of dissent essays on Maeterlinck, Strindberg, Nietzsche and Tolstoy (1918).djvu/62

Rh in "Princess Maleine," the action of this dramolet attains its high point in a scene where murderous treachery is about to spring the trap set for an innocent young prince. Intuitively he senses the approach of death, and in vain beats his little fists against the door that imprisons him. The situation is rendered more piteous even than in the earlier treatment of the motif, because the door which bars his escape also prevents his faithful sister Ygraine from coming to the rescue.

We have observed in all the plays so far a marked simplicity of construction. Aglavaine et Selysette, (1896), denotes a still further simplification. Here the scenic apparatus is reduced to the very minimum, and the psychological premises are correspondingly plain. The story presents a "triangular" love entanglement strangely free from the sensual ingredient; two women dream of sharing, in all purity, one lover—and the dream ends for one of them in heroic self-sacrifice brought to secure the happiness of the rival. However, more noteworthy than the structure of the plot is the fact that the philosophic current flowing through it has perceptibly altered its habitual direction. The spiritual tendency is felt to be turning in its course, and even though fatalism still holds the rule, with