Page:The thirty-six dramatic situations (1921).djvu/88

 TWENTY-SIXTH SITUATION CRIMES OF LOVE (The Lover; the Beloved) This is the only tragic situation of all those built upon Love, that subject being one essentially belonging to comedy (see XXVIII and XXIX). Eight species of erotic crimes may be pointed out: — First: Onanism, that "solitary vice" which does not lead to action, can furnish only melancholy silhouettes such as the legend of Narcissus and "Chariot s'amuse," or certain grotesqueries of Aristophanes, unless it be made the basis for a study of the weakening and collapse of the Will, in which case it might be grouped with drunkenness, gambling, etc., in Situation XXII. Second: Violation, like murder, is but an act, generally a brief one and not a situation; at most it approaches "Abduction." Even the consequences to the perpetrator, like those of the Third: Prostitution and its succeedant gallantry and Juanism (repetition of acts), do not become dramatic unless pursued by punishment, in which case they belong to the Fifth Situation. Nevertheless, if impunity be secured, the taste for violation and for prostitution tends toward the Twenty-Second. Fourth: Adultery, whose character of theft has given rise to special situations already studied. Fifth : Incest is divided in two principal directions. It may be committed in an ascendant-descendant line, in which case it implies either filial impiety or an abuse of authority analogous to that which we shall find in the Eighth variety of criminal love. It may also occur upon what may be called a horizontal line; that is, between consanguines or persons related by marriage. 86