Page:The thirty-six dramatic situations (1921).djvu/84

 momentarily turned from a point of view so strict, and quite naturally; through the heresies of the imagination almost anything may evoke a laugh. Do we not laugh heartily at the sight of a fat man tumbling ridiculously down a flight of steps, at the bottom of which he may break his neck? Anything, likewise may evoke our pity; we have pity for the perjuries of the gambler and the drunkard, but it is mingled with contempt. Now, is it this sort of sad contempt which our dramatists wish to claim for their attractive young adulterers, as the reward of so much care and effort? If not, the effort has been a mistaken one.

Second Case: — The Adulterer is represented as less attractive and sympathetic than the unappreciated husband. This forms the sort of play known as "wholesome," which as a matter of fact is merely tiresome. A man whose pocket-book has been stolen does not on that account grow greater in our eyes, and when the information which he is in a position to furnish us is once obtained, our attention is turned from him and directed toward the thief. But if the latter, already far from heroic in his exploit, is in turn portrayed as still less interesting than his dupe, he merely disgusts us - - and the adulterous wife appears but a fool to have preferred him. Then (with that childishness which most of us retain beneath our sophistication), scenting a foregone conclusion in the lesson which the author intends for us, and suspecting falsehood at the bottom of it, we grimace with irritation, disappointed to perceive, behind the story presented for our entertainment, the vinegarish smile of the school-teacher.

Third Case: — The deceived Husband or Wife is Avenged. Here, at last, something happens! But this vengeance, unfortunately, is merely one of the cases of the Third Situation.

Thus we shall not succeed with our Twenty-fifth Situation except by treating it in a broadly human spirit, without dolefulness and without austerity. It will not be necessary to defend the thief nor the traitor, nor to take the part of their dupe. To comprehend them all, to have compassion upon all, to explain them all — which is to say