Andre Maurois. From Montaigne to Aragon

Close to the psychological study of a new type of personality, generated by post-revolutionary reality, Musset turns in the plays "Whims of Marianne", "Fantasy", "Love is not joking". In all these plays, bizarre in plot and setting, only the portrait of the hero is truly modern - inactive, corroded by reflection, doubt, irony, selfishness. Musset endlessly varies this image, plunges into the depths of his psychological life, overly complicated, devoid of integrity, restless and unsteady. All his characters are seized with anxiety, ironic and subject to the whims of their whimsical imagination. Having discarded all illusions, these young men no longer believe in high human feelings. Skeptical unbelief often leads them to debauchery. The hero of Marianna's Whims (1833), the gambler and drunkard Ottavio, has many positive qualities. He is sacredly faithful to friendship, disinterested, despises hucksters.

He is witty, eloquent, feels beauty, reaches for joy. But he also hides under the mask of a carefree reveler a heavy longing, born of a lack of purpose, faith, ideals. Musset again overthrows love from the pedestal on which the romantics raised it. He proves that love is devoid of creative power. Her quirks are destructive to people. A friend of Ottavio Celio fell deeply and passionately in love with Marianna. Nothing in the world exists for him but his love. "Reality is only a ghost," he says; it is inspired only by the fantasies and madness of man. Such a feeling, completely absorbing the human soul, was also a product of the age, whose sons were torn away from all public affairs and duties. These young men, obsessed with love or debauchery, are not busy with anything, they do not bear any responsibility. Consciousness, chained only to the contemplation of one's own experiences, inevitably comes to a painful exaggeration of the smallest emotions, moods, and thoughts. For a person of this kind, a great feeling is fatal.

Even shared love cannot bring happiness to an unstable subject who has lost faith in himself and in people. Musset showed this in Confessions of a Son of the Age. Unrequited love kills the heroes of Musset. Celio is dying. His great love was powerless to evoke a response in Marianne's soul. But Marianna fell in love with Ottavio, who was indifferent to her. Her love is also hopeless - Ottavio does not know how to love. Fascinated by Shakespeare from his youth, Musset learns from him, first of all, the ability to reveal the inner world of the characters. Shakespeare was inspired by the dialogues of Ottavio and Marianne, which, in their acute tension, originality of humor, and deliberate complexity of turns, resemble the verbal fights of Biron and Rosalind ("Love's Labour's Lost"), Benedict and Beatrice ("Much Ado About Nothing"), Olivia and Viola (" Twelfth Night"). But the heroes of Musset are deprived of the integrity and spiritual strength of the heroes of Shakespeare's comedies. For them, a funny intellectual game almost always turns into a tragedy. Not a triumph, but the collapse of humanistic ideas, says Musset. Musset gave a lot of previous experience in French dramaturgy. Following Mérimée, he brought to French dramaturgy a high mastery of individualization and speech characteristics. When Musset recreates vitally real phenomena, he achieves a realistic relief of the image. This is especially evident when Musset reveals the ugly side of modern reality. In "Marianne's Whims" a satirical image of a tradesman, an evil owner, who is ready to kill in order to protect his rights, appears.

The satirical notes are intensified in the two-act comedy Fantasio (1834), one of the most bizarre, plot-sophisticated plays by Musset. The whole story of how the townsman Fantasio, wearing the costume and mask of a just-deceased court jester, saves a young Bavarian princess from marriage with an absurd fool - the Prince of Mantua, is an almost demonstrative challenge to life's plausibility. The conditional Munich of an unknown age is a perfectly suitable frame for the fantastic events of this play, in which three characters appear in disguise and do things that are contrary to logic and common sense, and the problems of war and peace are solved with the help of a wig pulled off the head of an unlucky groom with a fishing rod.

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ALFRED DE MUSSET

THEATRE

The fate of the Alfred de Musset theater was unusual. Today, some of his plays are considered masterpieces of the French theatre. Modern directors are happy to resume their production. Actors and actresses challenge each other for roles in these plays. Critics compare Musset's comedies with the comedies of Marivaux, Aristophanes and Shakespeare. And we believe they are right.

Quite different opinions were expressed about the author by his contemporaries. Even Sainte-Beuve, a man of rather fine taste, especially when he was not blinded by passion, wrote about the play "Don't bet" in these terms: "There are quite a few nice parts in it, but I was struck by the randomness of the play and the lack of common sense. Her images are truly borrowed from some very strange world; what is the worth of an uncle who constantly reads sermons, a grumbler who gets drunk in the end; or a young man, rather fat and rude than an amiable and witty youth; or a very promiscuous girl, a real milliner from the Rue Vivien, who is given to us as Clarissa ... And all this is extremely superficial, lightweight, inconsistent. All of them are taken from a fictional world or dreamed of by the author when he was tipsy during a fun feast ... Alfred de Musset is a whim of a jaded and free-thinking era.

Surprisingly unfair severity, however, quite explicable by motives that have nothing to do with literature. Musset first fascinated, but then began to annoy Sainte-Beuve and his friends. Both Proust and Alfred de Musset were later rendered a disservice by their all-too-happy childhood and youth. He came from a completely prosperous and enlightened family, was handsome, distinguished by refined manners, was a close friend of the Duke of Orleans, possessed such a poetic gift that he could write such a beautiful poem as "Mardosh" or "Namuna" in a few days. How could his bilious brethren calmly treat such a minion of fate? When the first student in the class is also good as a cherub, one should not be too surprised that he arouses black envy. Alfred de Musset could, perhaps, achieve that he was forgiven for his talent and charm, if he worshiped the gods fashionable at that time. Had he joined some literary school, he would have been assured of the support of a certain group of writers. That was the time when the classics and romantics posed a formidable challenge to each other, when Victor Hugo led rebels, but rebels very close to those in power; that was the time when Sainte-Beuve reigned supreme in magazine criticism. Musset, who made his debut with the romantic work "Spanish and Italian Tales", could well become the standard-bearer in this illustrious army. But here's the problem: he simultaneously felt himself both a classic and a romantic. Like all young writers of that era, he read Shakespeare and Byron with delight, but also admired La Fontaine, Molière and Voltaire:

Yes, I fought in two hostile camps, struck blows and became known to the world. My drum is broken - I sit on it without strength, And on my table Racine, leaning to Shakespeare, Sleeps near Boileau, who forgave them *.

Musset, by his own admission, suffered from the disease of the century, but was able to laugh at it himself. In his dramatic poem "Mouth and Cup" he imitated Byron, the creator of "Childe Harold" or "Manfred", and his poems "Mardosh" and "Namuna" evoke rather Byron, the creator of "Don Juan". There can be no doubt that Byron himself would have mercilessly condemned and cruelly ridiculed that attitude towards the world that has come to be called "Byronism." A follower of Byron, Musset Byronized, creating the poem "Rolla", and Shakespearianized, creating the play "Lorenzaccio", but he also dared to write "Letters of Dupuy and Cotone", which can be called "Letters to the Provincial" ] of romanticism. In a word, Musset was a partisan, and the partisans were always in greater danger than the soldiers of the regular army. Musset's epoch, a lofty and pompous epoch, reproached the writer for his irony. “A wonderful talent, but only for parodies,” a critic from the Sainte-Beuve romantic camp spoke of him with disdainful arrogance; and Anselo, an academic and classicist, remarked: "Poor Alfred is a charming young man and a charming man of the world, but, between us, he never knew how and never will learn to compose worthwhile poetry."

The funny thing about this story is that few people read Sainte-Beuve's poems these days, and Anselo's poems are completely forgotten, while we and our children know Musset's entire poems by heart. Time is the most honest critic.

Before moving on to Musset's comedies, let's face it: he had a much deeper talent than was commonly believed in his time and than is now believed. He was perhaps the most intellectual among the poets of the first half of the 19th century. Of course, Victor Hugo and Alfred de Vigny were also very educated people, with an amazing creative mind. But neither one nor the other is characterized by the clarity of mind that Musset is endowed with. Both of them were often captured by their own virtuosity. Musset kept his virtuosity in check. He was more insightful than Victor Hugo. However, for reasons already discussed, he did not seem to have the grandeur of Hugo. All his life he played the role of a spoiled child who wants to be pitied by everyone around him, and especially by women. You won't get respect that way. He was considered vain, to a certain extent he was. But vanity often hides an ardent disposition; for Musset, vanity served as a mask for fiery and sincere passions. He expressed these passions in poetry, which never became fashionable, however, because fashion is by no means always right. However, even those who now condemn Musset's poetry because of the carelessness of form recognize the perfect beauty of his comedies.

MUSSE THE DRAMEWORLD

One can become a novelist or a historian, but a playwright is born. There is something of the mastery of an actor in understanding the laws of the stage, in a sense of rhythm, in the ability to compose a spectacular line - in all those qualities that one who writes for the theater should possess. The greatest of dramatic writers - Molière, Shakespeare - were themselves actors. Alfred de Musset in his youth often took part in home performances. His father loved merry company, and the living room of their house was always full of young women and poets. This is where charades were played. In those days, “dramatic proverbs” were in vogue - the plays of Carmontel, Colet, Leclerc were still fresh in my memory. comedies. Sensitive and frivolous, like a page, from early youth he knew the game of love and chance. Life appeared before him in the guise of a comedy full of voluptuousness and melancholy.

If Musset's first experiments in the theater had been successful, perhaps in a few years he would have become a clever playwright, a man who knows the secrets of the craft, who is easily able to compose a well-made play and is more interested in the technique of drama than its poetry. But the young author was lucky: he was booed. His first play "Venetian Night" was staged on December 1, 1830 (when the writer was twenty years old), and the audience of the Odeon Theater took it very badly. The actress who played Loretta was wearing a white dress, she leaned on a freshly painted lattice, and her skirt was covered with green stripes. This caused an explosion of laughter in the hall. The play failed. The wounded author vowed never to deal with this "cruel menagerie" again.

However, Musset passionately loved the theater and therefore continued to write plays, but when creating them, he did not care at all about staging them on stage, did not adapt to the tastes of critics, to the requirements of a capricious public, and did not even want to think about the financial difficulties of theater directors. And the result was not slow to tell: the author's fantasy remained completely free. At that time, the theater was already completely different from what it was in the time of Shakespeare, when the dramatic art was only taking its first steps and creating laws for itself. In France, the classical tradition suppressed all independence; this tradition could be saved only by romantic rebellion, but romanticism worked out its own patterns. Musset, who created his own theater, but not for the theater, remained on the sidelines. The first dramatic works - "Mouth and Cup" and "What Girls Dream About" - he publishes in the collection "Performance in an Armchair"; his next plays were published in the Revue de de Monde magazine, which Buloz had founded shortly before, and then were included in two volumes of Comedies and Proverbs.

Beginning in 1847, Musset's plays, which, in the opinion of people involved in the theater, were unstaged, as they managed to convince the author himself, began to make their way to the stage. Gradually, they all entered the repertoire and never left it. The first was staged at the theater "Comedy Francaise" "Caprice". It was often told how Mrs. Allan, a famous actress at that time, during her tour in St. Petersburg, saw a charming comedy with three characters, asked for a French translation and was surprised to learn that the original text of the comedy was Musset's. This anecdote seems unlikely. Mrs. Allan knew Musset and, of course, read his Caprice. But one thing is true: she really brought this masterpiece from Russia, lost on the pages of some collection. The success of the play exceeded all her expectations.

“This little play,” wrote Théophile Gauthier, “is in fact a great literary event. Many very long plays, which are trumpeted six months in advance, are not worth the line of this comedy ... Since the time of Marivaux, whose talent is based on sparkling wit, nothing so subtle, so elegant and so cheerful. That Alfred de Musset wrote a comedy filled with wit, humor and poetry is not surprising; something completely different can be called unexpected (especially since we are talking about a dramatic proverb that was not even intended for the theater) - extraordinary skill, skillful intrigue, excellent knowledge of the laws of the stage; it is these virtues that are guessed in the comedy "Caprice". Everything in it is so skillfully prepared, coordinated, woven, and everything is kept in balance literally on the point of a needle.

Noting that not only the intellectual elite, but also the widest public will greet this comedy with delight and that it is enough to put up posters around the city to ensure a full collection, Gauthier speaks with indignation about the delusion of French theatrical figures in which they have been living for so long: “Performance The comedy "Caprice", which is played between a tea table and a pianoforte and the decoration for which an ordinary screen may well serve, confirmed to us what we already knew, but what was disputed by theatrical oracles: from now on it is clear to everyone that the audience is very thin, very smart and is very friendly to everything new, and all the concessions that are required from her name are completely unnecessary. Theater directors and actors are the only obstacle to the new. It is they who cling to everything dilapidated, stubbornly follow the routine, adhere to obsolete methods; it is they who adore everything flat and banal and have an irresistible aversion to everything rare, bright, unexpected. Gauthier concludes by declaring that it is precisely this pedantic predilection for a "decent" theatre, which is, in fact, too decent, that has deprived the French stage of two natural playwrights, and at the same time extraordinarily gifted, Mérimée and Musset. Posterity recognized the correctness of the good Theo in relation to these of his contemporaries.

In 1848, the play "Don't Bet" was staged; it happened on the eve of the June Revolution. And yet, despite the fact that the public was preoccupied with more serious matters, the play was a success and was resumed in August. “What a joy it is for a person who is forever doomed to watch vaudeville and melodrama,” wrote the same Gauthier, “to finally see a play in which they speak a human language, in pure French, and feel that you are once and for all freed from the terrible and flat jargon that is spoken everywhere these days. What purity, liveliness and impetuosity distinguishes the phrase! How witty the dialogue is. What slyness and at the same time what tenderness!.. Now that the reception given by the public to this dramatic proverb, intended only for reading, has shown how unfair the prejudice with which theater directors treat any work of art, composed not according to the recipes of gentlemen "drama-makers ”, should have been shown on stage, without changing a single word in them, truly poetic plays by Alfred de Musset: “Fantasio”, “Andrea del Sarto”, “Whims of Marianne”, “No joking with love”, “What are they dreaming about young girls" and especially "Lorenzaccio" - a true masterpiece, reminiscent of the depth of analysis of Shakespeare's creations.

A few days later, Austen staged The Candlestick at the Historic Theatre, "another gem from a precious box that has been left open for so long without anyone ever wondering what was inside." The staging of this play was resumed in 1850 by the Theater of the Republic (as the theater was temporarily called the Comédie Française), and the theater updated its repertoire for ten years thanks to the dramaturgy of Musset. A certain minister considered this play immoral because Jacqueline and her lover find happiness at the expense of marital fidelity. Musset composed a new denouement: the lovers parted with sadness. Virtue was saved, art suffered. Now we have returned to a more reasonable - and more moral - sincerity.

Bettina, Barberina, Karmozina, Louison were less successful, and rightly so. The play "No joking with love" was played on stage only after the death of Musset, in 1861; it was well received, but then the audience, as well as the current ones, experienced a certain feeling of dissatisfaction: it is generated, on the one hand, by the ambiguous and inconsistent character of Camille, who does not remain completely faithful to either love or religion, and, on the other hand, the death of Rosetta. The play "Fantasio" was first shown in 1866, it was not very successful, and this is understandable. The public does not like it when the first lover is dressed up in the costume of an ugly and heartless jester. In short, the dramaturgy of Musset and Marivaux have a common fate: only their masterpieces have firmly established themselves on the stage. Contemporaries sometimes make mistakes, but time judges fairly. 189

THE NATURE OF MUSSET THEATER

How to explain that free fantasy saved the theater of Musset from oblivion, while the cunning intrigues of Scribe bored us to death? Why do Musset's plays, which take place in fairy-tale kingdoms and imaginary lands, seem so much more true to us than many historical dramas? Because the theater is not intended, cannot, and should not simply copy life. The audience comes to the theater not only to see unvarnished reality from the stage. The motionless proscenium curtain frames the play, as a frame frames a picture. Not a single true lover of painting demands that the portrait be only a copy of nature, not a single true friend of the theater demands that the performance only copy reality. Precisely because art has its own laws, and they are, no doubt, essentially different from the laws of nature, works of art allow us to freely reflect on the nature of passions.

Theater in its inception was a solemn action. He showed the life of gods or heroes. The language of the actors was more sublime and harmonious than in everyday life. It would be a delusion to think that the modern public has different requirements. Even today the audience, coming to the theater, is waiting for a solemn action. The mere fact that he is sitting in a hall crowded with people gives rise to feelings in him stronger than those to which he is accustomed. And this explains the special nature of the theatrical dialogue. Which writers become the greatest playwrights? Those wingless copyists who expect to ride on thoughtless imitation of nature and meaningful pauses? No. The most famous playwrights were poets. The success of Aristophanes in his time, the success of Claudel in our day, the success of Musset throughout the century is due to the genuine poetry of their dialogue.

In Musset, as in Aristophanes, the choir intrudes into the action, announcing in a lyrical tone the appearance of Master Briden and Lady Plush: “Lady Plush, shaking violently, climbs the hill on her lathered donkey; her groom, exhausted, beats the poor animal with all his might, and it shakes its head, holding a burdock in its teeth ... Greetings to you, lady Plush; you appear like a fever, along with the wind, from which the leaves turn yellow. Do the villagers speak this language in real life? Of course no. But, as the philosopher Alain subtly noted: “The actor needs a special recitative, and in search of a natural tone, he should by no means imitate everyday speech: there is no more formidable trap for him.” Musset, like Giraudoux, found his recitative, and his theater is extraordinarily carefully "written out." This partly explains the success and longevity of his plays.

On the other hand, and perhaps because Musset composed his plays without worrying about whether they would be staged in the theatre, he adhered to the division into stages, like Shakespeare, regardless of the unity of time and place, which was obediently followed and classicists, and even romantics, at least within one act. Frequent breaks in action reinforce the impression of dreams, dreams. Unexpectedly interrupted dialogues give food to the imagination, just like a crippled statue causes reflection. “Shakespeare does not care about the symmetry of his plays, he does not strive for cunning intrigue,” notes the same Alain. - His creations seem to be assembled from the wreckage: a leg sticks out here, a fist there, an open eye is visible here, and then suddenly a word comes across that is not prepared by anything and for which nothing follows. But all taken together is real life.

Observance of the laws of form when it comes to style, and a certain confusion of composition - this is perhaps the secret of the greatest poetry.

PLOT AND CHARACTER

For Musset, there is only one plot, only one theme - love. But this, perhaps, can be said about many other playwrights. The only difference is that for others, for example, for Moliere, a love affair is just a frame for action, and within it the author creates a satire of morals. And in the Musset theater, love is everything. As in the comedies of Marivaux, the lovers in Musset's comedies do not face external obstacles, such as the stubbornness of the father, family feud; the main obstacle to happiness is their own recklessness. But only the clashes in Marivaux's plays can be likened to "fencing with rapiers", it is "all these tricks, careful approaches, skillfully placed snares that captivate refined minds with their grace"; in a word, when playing Marivaux's plays, the actors themselves do not take them too seriously, while for Musset love is a serious, often sad feeling; love is a captivating illness, caused by the beauty, and sometimes the purity of the beloved being, and without a trace taking possession of a person.

The seductive Jacqueline deceives her old husband with a martinet; in an effort to avert suspicion, she expresses feigned interest in the modest clerk. However, this young man, Fortunio, is madly in love with Jacqueline and almost dies when he finds out that he is just a front for her love affair with another. This is the content of the play "Candlestick". Perdican loves his cousin Camilla, but out of pride and piety she flees from his love; annoyed Perdican turns his attention to the charming, albeit poor girl Rosetta. And then Camilla returns to Perdican, but Rosetta is unable to survive the perfidy of Perdican, who played with her heart - this is the content of the play "Love is not a joke." Dreamy and gentle Celio, in love with Marianna, entrusts his friend Ottavio, a juir, a skeptic and a reveler, with the protection of his interests. Meanwhile, Marianna falls in love with Ottavio himself: "A woman is like your shadow: you want to catch up with her, she runs away from you, you want to run away from her yourself, she catches up with you." This is the content of the play "Whims of Marianne". The eccentric princess is ready for state reasons to marry a fool. The young schoolboy disguises himself as a jester, and the interests of love take precedence over the interests of the state. Such is the content of the play Fantasio.

These plots are sewn on a living thread, but what of that? After all, they are just an excuse. In essence, Musset depicts in his theater only the feelings from which his poems are woven, and indeed his whole life. The fact is that he was both a frivolous and sentimental person, a Parisian who would like to take love as a joke, and a Frenchman who took it seriously. In his youth, he twice knew the pangs of jealousy. The first time it happened at the dawn of his youth, when a young beauty forced him to play the role of Fortunio. And the second time it happened when George Sand, whom Musset passionately loved, left him for the sake of the "stupid Pagello" - her betrayal seriously wounded Musset's heart and overshadowed his whole subsequent life.

Almost all young people in love who act in Musset's plays are, to a certain extent, "portraits of the author himself." Creating images of Ottavio and Celio, Musset seems to split in two. He wrote to George Sand: "You must remember - you told me once - that someone asked you whether Ottavio or Celio was written off from me, and you answered:" I think both of them. My fatal mistake, Georges, was that I revealed to you only one of my hypostases. All the writer's friends said that in Fantasio's lyrical monologues they recognize those monologues sparkling with intelligence and poetry that Musset, a little tipsy, uttered when he felt in love and happy. Musset portrayed himself in the images of Valentin and Perdican, and according to the writer's brother, Paul de Musset, the count from the comedy "It is necessary that the door be open or closed" is "a portrait of Alfred himself."

On the contrary, the women in love who act in Musset's plays are different from those women whom he loved most in life. Musset, who has known impermanence and even encountered licentiousness, woefully seeks purity. Girlish naivety captivates and deeply excites him:

A haven of innocence where ardor and tenderness are hidden, Dreams of love, naive babble, laughter And timid charms that will wound everyone to death (Faust himself trembled at Marguerite's door), Maiden purity - where is it all now?

The young girls we meet in his plays, such as Camille, Cecile, Karmozina, are the most alive of his creations. He likes to portray how a woman barely awakens in a girl. “There is something unusually fresh and tender in her eyes, which she herself does not suspect.” Cecile, perhaps, is naive, or rather seems so, but how much dexterity and cunning appears in this simple woman as soon as she falls in love, and with what ease she conquers a bachelor who considered himself a man jaded. Camilla is a more complex image, however, and she is delightful. She wanted to give up love, because the women in the monastery where she was brought up told her about the deceit and deceit of men. When Perdican, whom she pushed away, becomes infatuated with Rosetta, Camille becomes infatuated with Perdican herself against her will. “A woman is like your shadow...” For such is the doctrine of Musset, like Racine in Andromache, like Proust in The Love of Swann, and it can be formulated as follows: too frankly expressed love rarely causes reciprocity. "If you don't love me, I love you..." This is an old and sad story.

As for the other actors from Musset's troupe - ridiculous and indulgent widows, grouchy but good-natured uncles, gluttonous and eccentric abbots, exaggeratedly virtuous, but loving to feast on governesses, he took them simultaneously from Carmontel's Proverbs and from the memoirs of his own youth. Sainte-Beuve reproached Musset for the monotony of these secondary characters and for the fact that the writer was looking for them in some kind of fictional world. But, in truth, they are no more monotonous and no more imaginary than Molière's cockerels, his rogue lackeys, his marquises, his pedants and doctors. The abbot from the play "You don't have to bet" is characterized by a dozen lines, but he is life itself. And the actors understand this very well. The theater requires such exaggerations, because the viewer perceives the remarks by ear, he cannot, unlike the reader, return to the text. A famous actress once told me: “The audience most often does not listen, when it listens, it does not hear, and when it hears, it does not understand.” Such is the pessimistic and somewhat affected opinion of the artist about the average viewer. But there is some truth in this witty joke: in order to cause excitement or laughter in the audience, even the most subtle dramatic actor is sometimes forced to resort to cheap effects.

SOURCES OF DRAMA MUSSET

Musset and Girodou have a common feature: they are both very educated people, both have read a lot all their lives, and the lyrical tirades of Shakespeare or Aristophanes sound to them like well-known musical phrases. Musset, even in the years of his apprenticeship, achieved brilliant success in the field of belles-lettres and was awarded an honorary prize at the competition; unlike Giraudoux, Musset did not study at the École Normale, however, he was brought up not only on the classic texts of Greek, Latin and French writers, but also on the books of great English and German authors. He penetrated the mystery of Shakespeare; he, as we have already said, was the only Frenchman who really understood Byron in that era.

So, the literary sources of Musset's dramaturgy are very diverse. He owes a lot to Shakespeare, he also owes it to Goethe (the idyllic features in the play “No Kidding with Love” are reminiscent of “The Sorrows of Young Werther”), he owes something to Jean-Paul Richter (in particular, unusual, often grotesque and cynical comparisons). The Italians have always attracted him. He not only read the works of Dante, Alfieri, Machiavelli, he also studied the chronicles of Varca when he wrote Lorenzaccio and searched for materials in Florence for his scenes. Boccaccio's novellas, like those of Bandello, served as a source of plots for him. Among French playwrights - we learn about this from Musset's well-known poem - his idol was Molière. Musset undoubtedly studied - and in every detail - the literary devices of Molière: of course, the genius of the writer is not reduced to his technique, but is manifested in it. Creating his dramatic proverbs, Musset also turned to more modest sources - to Carmontel and Theodore Leclerc, whom he surpassed many times over.

But the main source of inspiration for Musset was his own life and feelings. The widespread opinion that no importance should be attached to the artist's biography is simply ridiculous. Of course, every masterpiece is beautiful in itself, it seems beautiful even to those people who know nothing about the history of its creation. But it is also true that every work is a kind of fusion of thought and feeling; this effect of events on the mind of the artist, and the reciprocal effect of his talent on the events depicted, is an amazing phenomenon, of great interest, and we ourselves will deprive ourselves of the opportunity to engage in fascinating research if we begin to neglect the circumstances, often the most insignificant, which served as the immediate cause of the birth of a play or novel. After all, such research - it can be likened to a play behind the scenes of a play or a novel in the margins of a novel - is often beautiful in itself.

Musset, more than anyone else, provides material for such a study. His love for George Sand, the spiritual enrichment brought to him by friendship with this outstanding woman who read and loved to read so much, the ability to take his work seriously, which she taught him in those, alas, too short periods when he submitted to her influence ; finally, and above all, the suffering and anguish of love because of the painful break with her - all this gave many of the plays of Alfred de Musset a deep and sincere sound. Before meeting George Sand, he was a charming young man, and after their breakup he became a man who comprehended the tragedy of life. If the character of Camille in Love Isn't Joking is so complex, it's because George Sand was a complex person. Sand and Musset indulged in the same dangerous game that Perdican and Camilla played. Here is what George Sand wrote to her lover: “You see, what we are doing can be called a game, but our hearts and our lives are at stake in it, and therefore this game is not at all as funny as it might seem.”

These words are reminiscent of one of Perdican's remarks, and this is not surprising: the epistolary syllable of George Sand and the syllable of her diary are like two drops of water similar to Musset's syllable in his plays. This was so indisputable that it sometimes allowed him to take lines from the letters of George Sand and, without changing a word there, include them in his comedy: “I often suffered, I was deceived more than once, but I loved. And I lived, I, and not an artificial creature created by my imagination and my boredom. Where does this beautiful phrase come from? It is an extract from a letter from George Sand to Musset; this phrase became one of Perdican's remarks. Was the writer doing the right thing by taking a letter from his beloved and turning it into one of the elements of a work of art? Did he make mistakes here? In my opinion, on the contrary, he expressed by this the highest tribute of respect and in this way merged with her in immortality (alas, transient!), With which people crown a genius.

The play "No joking with love" was written in the summer of 1834, when Musset, left by George Sand, tried to heal from his spiritual wounds. As for Lorenzaccio, the plot of this play was completely suggested to him by the writer: in 1831, George Sand composed a historical chronicle on the model of those created in those years by Mérimée. She called it "Conspiracy in 1537". Musset made extensive use of the canvas of this work, he borrowed whole scenes from there, ready-made remarks, but it must be admitted that George Sand's text was rather flat, while Musset's play is an excellent creation, and this is all the more striking because the author was twenty at that time. three years.

Speaking about the play "Whims of Marianne", Paul de Musset noted: "Everyone who knew Alfred de Musset understood to what extent the author resembled both heroes at the same time - Ottavio and Celio." In everyday life, Musset was Ottavio - he always smiled, had fun, joked. But as soon as he fell in love, he turned into Celio. Fantasio is also a play, the hero of which is written off from the author, the same can be said about Fortunio, the hero of the play Candlestick. Paul de Musset claims that this play tells about an unfortunate episode that happened to his brother when he was eighteen years old. Young Alfred was in love with a very witty, mocking and very coquettish woman. In words, she treated him like a lover, but in fact she treated him like a child, and this alarmed him. Nevertheless, it took a long time before he realized that he was forced to play the role of a familiar character from Candlestick. The lady had her Clavarosh, but she did not have Jacqueline's heart. Alfred stopped going to her house, but showed neither contempt nor anger. And here is what Paul de Musset says about the play “You don’t have to bet”: “Alfred rotated simultaneously in two overly cheerful companies; one fine day, he suddenly caught himself and decided that he had had enough of a distracted life ... He put on a dressing gown, sat down in an armchair and mentally recited to himself no less strict morality than a father or uncle could do. This silent dialogue subsequently served as the prototype for the scene between Valentin and Uncle Van Boek.

Paul de Musset cannot be considered an absolutely reliable witness; however, we believe that the works of Alfred de Musset are closely related to his life, because this is true for any writer. But the fact is that a real incident from life, which the writer himself experienced or observed, cannot be completely transferred to the drama. This episode lacks what can be called style. Fortunately, Musset - contrary to the opinion prevailing among the theater workers - naturally had the talent of a playwright and a sense of theatrical style. For the stage requires lines that hit right on target, an ending of every event in which the actors can justifiably leave, an ending of every act in which the curtain must fall, applause must be heard, and the spectators must be seized with such a sense of satisfaction that be resolved by mute excitement or stormy delight. Musset instinctively comprehended all this.

COMEDIAN AND LYRICAL BEGINNINGS IN MUSSET'S DRAMA

Musset, like Moliere, achieves comic effect by resorting to repetition and hyperbole. Reread the fourth scene from the second act of the play "Love is no joke" (repeated repetition of the words: "among the mouse peas") or the first scene from the second act of the play "You don't have to bet." Note also the symmetry that marks the scene from the first act between Van Boek and Valentin in the same comedy: “My dear nephew, I wish you good health. “My esteemed uncle, your humble servant.” This opening is reminiscent of Molière's dialogue, but the dialogue continues, as is characteristic of Musset, in a completely peculiar tone. Seeming inconsistency and incoherence are the charm of Musset's style, and large, well-polished and smoothly flowing tirades, such as those of Perdican and Camille, are especially impressive because they stand out clearly from the rest of the text, as if outlined by a dotted line. Only Shakespeare knew how to achieve such an effect, alternating between lyricism and jokes.

One of the clearest proofs of Musset's inherent sense of theatrical style is the swiftness of his lines. If you like, here are a few examples.

In the play "Fantasy":

You are ugly to say the least; it is undeniable. “No more certain than that you are beautiful.

In the play "Caprice":

Don't you think that a dress, like a talisman, protects from adversity? It's a barrier blocking their path. “Or the veil that envelops them.

In the play "Lorenzaccio":

The priest must swear in Latin. - There is also Tuscan abuse, which can be answered.

In the play "Candlestick":

Silence and caution. Farewell. Girlfriend is me; the confidant is you; and the purse lies at the foot of the chair.

I also want to note the final remark in the play "Candlestick": "Oh, this is an old song! .. So sing along, Mr. Clavarosh!" How elegantly this line echoes the words of Clavaros, who in the second act exclaimed: “Oh, this is an old song! So sing, Monsieur Fortunio!”

As for the symmetrical structure of the dialogue, an excellent example of this can be found at the beginning of the play “You don’t have to bet,” another example can easily be found in the third act of the first act of the comedy What Girls Dream About. Such symmetry is a favorite device of Moliere, and if we talk about tragedy, then - of Corneille; in general, it is very characteristic of French speech. You won't find it in Shakespeare. It slightly softens the seriousness of lyrical tirades. But on the other hand, Musset owes to Shakespeare the passionate excitement of intermittent monologues: remember Madame de Lery's speech in the play "Caprice" ... This passionate excitement comes to an exaggeration in the play "You Can't Think About Everything at Once".

And all this is completely conscious of the author. In Musset, as in any great artist, obsession coexists with writing technique. And technology usually wins. He knows perfectly well that, deviating from Scribe's "straight line", he is moving in the right direction. “I, on the contrary,” Musset admitted, “when composing some scene or a poetic stanza, I can suddenly change everything, overturn my own plan, oppose my favorite hero and allow his opponent to defeat him in a dispute ... In a word, I was going to go to Madrid, but I went to Constantinople.” Musset, like no one else, knows how to calmly choose the moment when it is necessary to put into action the "key scene", as one should say, using his terminology. “In order to properly arrange an important scene,” he wrote, “one must know the era, the circumstances well, and accurately determine the moment when the viewer’s interest and curiosity are sufficiently aroused, and therefore the development of the action can be suspended, and it must be replaced in all their fullness of passion, pure feeling. Such scenes, when the author’s thought, so to speak, leaves the plot in order to return to it soon, and, as if forgetting about the intrigue, and indeed about the whole play, plunges into the element of universal humanity - such scenes are extremely difficult to create. Hamlet's famous monologue is an excellent example of such a scene. Musset learned the lessons of his teacher well.

One can only admire how he was able to feed his creativity with the dramatic events of his own life. Sometimes it even seems that he subordinated his own life to the tasks of his dramaturgy. It is infinitely difficult for an artist to give up mistakes and hobbies that sharpen his talent. He is aware that certain sensations evoke a particularly strong and pure response in his soul. Chateaubriand knew that he should "show his broken heart". No matter how much pain this or that feeling causes the poet, no matter how dangerous they may be for him, he will never want to voluntarily heal from the disease that feeds his genius. Musset's poetry is a painful fusion of love and bitterness, hope and madness. The poet's lovers always found in him, as it were, two different people: one was "soft, gentle, enthusiastic, naive, modest, sensitive, ardent, with an easily vulnerable soul"; the other is "violent, blunt, tyrannical, suspicious, touchy" and "weighted down with a burden of bitter memories, as is characteristic of a man who was a rake in his youth". Ottavio and Celio coexisted in it until the very end.

MUSSET AND WE

The success of Giraudoux's dramaturgy and the revival of the poetic theater brought Musset fame. Nevertheless, many of those who recognize the exquisite charm of comedies are rather dismissive of his poems and essays. The traditions of poetry of a completely different kind, at the origins of which stands Mallarme, instilled in us more stringent requirements for the harmony of verse. The greatest poet of our time wrote: "A poem is composed not of feelings, but of words." Musset, who composed poems precisely from feelings and who, as if out of protest, preferred poor rhyme and simple verse, found himself aloof from the mainstream path of French poetry.

But this is just a delusion. While Musset is treated with the greatest disdain by critics and literary historians, he retains his power over the hearts of readers. When his poems are read, you see how the eyes of those who listen light up, and the sincere feelings expressed in these verses give rise to a response in the souls:

That evening I was alone in the theater hall... My friends, when I die, Plant a willow at my head... Don't you feel sorry for those times when the firmament hung over the earth, breathing with a host of gods?

What French youth does not know these verses? And did we not discover an extraordinary resemblance between Musset's poems and those which appeared in France during the last war? You can love Debussy, but it is not at all necessary to neglect Beethoven. You can admire Valerie, but you don't have to stop admiring Musset.

No, Alfred de Musset is not “a whim of a jaded and free-thinking era,” as Sainte-Beuve said of him in one of his unkind days; Musset is a true friend of people with a subtle soul, he is one of the greatest French writers, and, if you like, he is our Shakespeare.

Notes

* In this article, poetic translations belong to Y. Lesyuk

** Musset A. Fav. prod. M., Goslitizdat, 1952, p. 192-193.

*** Musset A. Fav. prod. M., Goslitizdat, 1952, p. 214.

Comments

ALFRED DE MUSSE. THEATRE

Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) made his debut in literature with the poetry collection Spanish and Italian Tales (1830) and quickly became one of the leaders of the younger generation of French Romantics. His lyrics, comic-parody poems ("Mardosh" - 1830, "Namuna" - 1832), the novel "Confession of the son of the century" (1836) enjoyed fame; the most important part of his heritage is dramaturgy (“Whims of Marianne” - 1833, “Lorenzaccio” - 1834, “No one jokes with love” - 1834, “Candlestick” - 1835, etc.). Musset, more boldly than any of the romantics, transformed the canons of dramatic genres, combining the tragic and the comic, emphasizing the conventionality of the theatrical performance. He combines an apology for passion, "immediate feeling" with a mockery of it in the spirit of romantic irony.

1 Duke of Orleans Ferdinand Philippe Louis Charles Henri (1810-1842) - son of King Louis Philippe.

2 "Letters to a provincial" (1656-1657) - a polemical essay by B. Pascal.

3 Anselo Arsen (1794-1854) - playwright of the conservative-classical direction.

4 "Dramatic proverb" - a dramatic genre, a play illustrating a proverb; Carmontel (Louis Carrogi, 1717-1806), Colle Charles (1709-1789), Leclerc Michel Theodore (1777-1851) - comedians of the 18th century.

5 Gauthier Theophile (1811-1872) - romantic writer, prominent theater critic.

6 This refers to the June uprising of the Paris workers (1848).

7 Austen Jules Jean-Baptiste Hippolyte (1814-1879) - playwright and director of a number of theaters.

8 Scribe Eugene (1791-1861) - playwright, master of entertaining comedies.

9 Claudel Paul (1868-1955) - poet and playwright of the "Catholic" direction, one of the classics of French literature of the XX century.

10 It is about the love affair between George Sand and the Italian physician Pietro Pagello (1807-1898) in 1834. According to one of the memoirs, George Sand handed her lover a declaration of love in an envelope without an inscription and, in response to the question to whom this letter was addressed, she wrote on the envelope: "Stupid Pagello."

11 Ecole Normal - Higher Normal School in Paris, an educational institution that trains teachers.

12 Jean-Paul (Johann Paul Friedrich Richter, 1763-1825) was a German writer.

13 Alfieri Vittorio (1749-1803) - Italian playwright.

14 This refers to the work of the Italian humanist Benedetto Varca (1502-1565) "The History of Florence", first published in 1721.

15 Bandello Matteo (1485-1561) - Italian short story writer.

16 These are Mérimée's plays from the medieval history Jacquerie and The Carchaval Family (1828).

17 Stephane Mallarmé (Etienne Mallarmé, 1842-1898) - symbolist poet, art theorist.

18 Referring to Paul Valery.

19 Debussy Claude (1862-1918) - composer; founder of musical impressionism.

There is no small difference between my venerable family and a bunch of asparagus...

Alfred de Musset, "The Caprices of Marianne"

The younger generation of the family, who by the year forty-five was equal to twenty years old, was a rather picturesque and cosmopolitan relative. The spirit of Franklin Street was a thing of the distant past, and after Marguerite's death it was even difficult to understand how this fearless woman managed to defend her little world against the winds and forces of the outside world for so many years.

In the Poiraton branch, a planter from Abidjan who died in a shipwreck left behind completely unpaired sons. The eldest, Charlot, whose skin shone with the most beautiful soot, but ugly to the point of impossibility, inherited his father's activity: the same spirit of curiosity, the same thirst for life, new discoveries and the same tendency to make far-reaching plans. Deeply devoted to his mother and the country where he was born, Charlot enthusiastically prepared to become a certified agronomist. His younger brother, much fairer-skinned and much more graceful, loved songs, dances, long afternoon naps, and led a lazy, merry life, without any worries, without any curiosity, happy to have inherited this beautiful harmonious body, quite his satisfied.

Charlot came to Paris to continue his studies. His Poitevin grandmother, not without emotion, saw this grandson, who arrived from Africa, whose unimaginable appearance she could not foresee, like a devil and yet the son of her son, taken away by the sea. Charlot had a deep low voice, he did not pronounce the "r". But a thousand lines in him felt not only a memory, not only the influence of his father - his living presence. The old lady had tears in her eyes. Very soon she stopped even noticing that Charlot had black skin. They both laughed at the same thing: she - out of habit covering her mouth with her palm, he - rolling, throwing back his head, sparkling with white teeth and pink gums, uncontrollably. And yet it was the same laugh.

At the end of the school year, Charlot said goodbye to his grandmother gently but decisively: his father’s plantation badly needed him. Old Madame Poiraton became somehow strange and silent. Loneliness was too much for her. For some time it seemed to her that she was being pursued, besieged by invisible enemies. She lived for several months, barricaded, then died without inviting a doctor.

The son of a Hungarian Jew, for his part, shone. His mother got him to change his name - for who could pronounce all this block of consonants at once? The father disappeared a long time ago. A family legend, whispered to each other, was that a nostalgic Hungarian traveled to Central Europe in the snowy winter, already gravely ill. Fleeing, as they say, from the persecution of a loving wife, he drove the horses, borrowing a sleigh from someone and spending nights in straw on abandoned farms in the wilderness. A terrible and wonderful story - it remains unknown whether there is even a particle of truth in it.

Be that as it may, having received his mother's maiden name - one of those super-French names that Labish loved so much - the Hungarian son considered that the spot of exoticism was completely washed away from him. The gifted, industrious, knowledgeable, tenacious young man was made for a brilliant medical career and was already thinking of marrying one of his beautiful classmates - so full of health that she, with her tanned face, always seemed to have just returned from the holidays. The girl did not remain indifferent to the courtship of a friend. The day came when she spoke of wanting to introduce him to her father. It was too late to retreat, and the student gathered all his courage to take the inevitable step.

The meeting stunned him. In fact, the father of the swarthy girl turned out to be a notorious African. The young man hid his surprise. He was above prejudice. Mentally, he scolded himself for the barely perceptible spiritual embarrassment that he felt when he saw his future father-in-law. He showed himself to be a truly sincere person. Unfortunately, he himself was not free from preconceived ideas and could not resist unnecessary talk: “Well, young man! he cried. - You, like my daughter, I see, showed courage, not being afraid to choose this field, where all sorts of half-breeds and Jews labor, having captured all the best places. I hope you will be able to get the better of this offspring and do not give way to him! .. ”- and further in the same vein. It was too much. The son of the Hungarian backed down, deciding in his heart that he would not enter a family showing such intolerance. And bowed out pretty quickly. A young girl, thin enough, felt that he was dissatisfied with something, and went to see off the one who almost became her fiancé. "Alas," she said weeping, "it's always like this with my father: you are already the fourth one he dares." After these words, the student only quickened his pace.

He married a year later. By a strange whim of fate, he fell in love with an Englishwoman, blond and pink, who did not know a word of French. He had the pleasure of teaching her. Their children are said to show great aptitude for languages.

Who could have foreseen that the family would be so scattered in all directions? And that this tribe, squeezed into its provincial microcosm, will spread throughout the world with such unrestraint and such a clear taste for the other and unlike?

The feeling of foreignness, strangeness, which seized the ingenuous Germaine when she first crossed the threshold of the house on Franklin Street, stirring up the whole family, was, however, only a timid harbinger of everything that happened next. My head is spinning, it's worth imagining a sequel.

What would Marguerite think of all this? One, the daughter of a doctor, the wife of a doctor, the mother of a large family, refuses everything in order to join, when she was already well over thirty, in the troupe of Antillean dancers. The other one gives up teaching Greek and Latin in order to devote herself, as passions do, to the art of marionette theater and to show avant-garde performances in Parisian cabarets.

At Charlotte's funeral, an attempt was made to gather all the members of the family that could be found. The attempt is rather sluggish, to tell the truth, since the organization of the funeral meeting was not specifically entrusted to anyone. Therefore, some major pieces of the mosaic were missing from this meeting. Those present formed a variegated and motley company, in which memories of Charlotte wandered. But different generations had completely incompatible ideas about her: a young girl, an inveterate old maid, an elderly lady - each generation buried its Charlotte.

A huge cemetery in the vicinity of Paris looked like a factory of the dead. At the entrance to it, they handed over a plan, where an ink cross marked the place of burial. Without this plan, the grave could not be found. The most sincerely upset, much stronger than all the others, was the pastor; after all, he was the one who knew her best. Relatives lowered their noses, listening to his speech. Humiliated, sacrificed, a loser in love, the miserable Charlotte was not at all what her brothers, nephews and nieces thought she was. Everyone reproached himself for neglecting her, not knowing her properly, and more than once laughing aloud at her incorrigible naivety.

At the edge of the grave, everyone felt some kind of awkwardness. A light, merciful snowball swirled over the dull plain, powdering the wretchedness of this place with some grace. No one thought to bring a single flower for Charlotte.

The family landed at Port d'Italia. Wrapped in winter coats, the group stomped around, shifting from foot to foot like a flock of penguins.

Who decides what to do next? And leave here, in the middle of the street? We went to discuss it in the nearest cafe. Everyone looked at each other with curiosity. The old people were surprised - how their peers have aged. The young people were lost in names and family legends, confusing uncles among themselves, who looked completely different from what they imagined.

All this was very reminiscent of the old family debate in Poitiers, when they could not decide where to direct their feet - to Blossac Park or to the city. They still voted to have dinner together. The most businesslike ran to call on the phone that they were being delayed. The family warmed up. Here, in the warmth, red noses turned pale, and eyes sparkled over a glass of aperitif.

The heavy colossus started moving in search of a suitable restaurant. “We,” someone said, “are indecisive, like a heron from a fable.” The elders thought of Marguerite. At last the crowd settled down in some tavern.

An ancient stove rumbled in the back room. They undressed, dropping their coats on a lame hanger. The family suddenly lost weight, rejuvenated. They began to sit down, politely showing signs of attention to each other. No one was willing to take the risk of taking a position that another might have liked. They offered to change: “Would you like to sit closer to the stove?” "Would you like to sit next to your cousin?" Finally everyone was seated. And they felt tired.

The waiter, not very well trained, rudely hurried the meeting. No one has chosen anything yet. The young people were outraged. The elders apologized. Everyone focused on studying the menu. And everyone thought of Charlotte lying alone in the ground, who would surely say: “I eat very little in general,” and would be content with some salad.

All the smoking dishes exuded one smell - the corrosive smell of stagnant stew, firmly and obtrusively reigning over the table. We paid attention to one chair between the brothers of the deceased, which remained unoccupied. A clear place for Charlotte, who would be happy to attend such a gathering. But how to gather so many people, if not on the occasion of someone's death?

Charlotte, accustomed to living alone when she had to receive two guests, swung wide, even too wide. At the last minute before the planned dinner, she again rushed downstairs, seized with anxiety, to buy something else. And, wishing not to miss anything from the conversation, she put everything on the table at once, in advance, so as not to leave the guests for a minute. There was pate, sausage, sardines, butter, mackerel with white wine, four or five different salads, chicken, three or four vegetable dishes, a large selection of cheeses, all sorts of creams, cakes, cookies, sweets and lots of fruit. Then she became terribly sad and upset, because almost everything remained uneaten. She feared that the dinner offered was not good enough. She begged that the guests, when leaving, take with them what they did not eat. At the moment of parting, with tears in her eyes, she fussed, picking up bags and jars. It often happened that from her, in order to please her, they left with full hands.

This was what the family was thinking, sitting without her at the table dedicated to her.

The cold outside was quickly forgotten. As well as about the stinking smell of the stew, because, having plunged into it, everyone was saturated with it. Everyone was thirsty. Wine, not thin, but strong, invigorated. There were scathing remarks. They laughed at the uncle who converted to Catholicism and became famous for his belated hypocrisy, pilgrimages and participation in religious processions. An Antillean dance specialist cast fiery glances at her hated mother-in-law. But everything is pretty harmless. In this assembly, held on by a thread, no one was too savage. Mutual sympathies awakened among the youngest, their own conversations began. Address books and self-records were taken out. We exchanged phones. They made appointments. In short, they forgave each other's consanguinity. Neither Charlotte nor Marguerite would have disapproved of these meetings and these plans.

Upon leaving, the family was almost surprised that they found themselves in this outlying area, unusual for everyone. The sky was still swelling with snow, the first night of the buried Charlotte was beginning to descend.

After the heat and hum of this long dinner, the oldest suddenly felt very tired, and the youngest that their patience was exhausted. They parted without much hesitation.

It occurred to some that the next joint meal of Marguerite's children would probably take place on the occasion of the next funeral. They pondered - ineffectually and fleetingly - about which of them would be absent from it.

The image of one of the main characters, the sovereign Prince of Mantua, is written by Musset in a mockingly mocking, caricatured manner. Fantasio calls this narcissistic monarch, who threatens to start a war if the princess is not given to him, "a vile animal" "to whom fate has dropped a crown on his head." By creating this figure, Musset, in his characteristic ironic manner, continues, in essence, the tradition laid down by the democratic dramaturgy of France. Monarchical illusions are alien to the playwright. But opposed to the crowned jester, Fantasio is deprived of a socially creative ideal. A careless reveler who squandered his property and hiding from creditors, Fantasio, like Ottavio in Marianna's Whims, is immersed in melancholy reflections on the insignificance of the age, on the emptiness of life. The thought of the loneliness of people torments him, the merry crowd inspires him with disgust. His keen mind allows him to pinpoint the cause of his longing: he and his friends are missing a vital business. But he does not want to do anything - everything is meaningless, says Fantasio, every business is useless. In this play, the image of a dying, powerless age is again repeated. In the second chapter of The Confessions of a Son of the Century, Musset pinpointed the great social catastrophes that "clipped the wings of the century." He doesn't talk about it in the play. But the image of the wingless age is felt in the whole atmosphere of comedy, and even Fantasio's jokes give a taste of bitterness and tears. The only value that Fantasio finds is two tears that have fallen from the eyes of a princess who is being married for reasons of state to the Prince of Mantua. To save the girl, Fantasio performs an eccentric feat - he catches the prince's wig with a bait. He knows that what is at stake is the happiness of two states, the tranquility of two peoples. But the fate of the peoples does not excite him. Musset's humanistic thought narrows. The lyrical theme of the play is openly opposed to the theme of public duty, civic feat. In Andrea del Sarto, in Marianne's Whims, in Fantasio, Musset, with the same careless ease as in his first dramatic experiments, destroys the classicist regulation. He resolutely renounces the unity of place and time, much more subtly than other authors of the romantic drama weaves the tragic and the comic in his plays. Ironic intonation arises in him at the most dramatic moments, and a funny idyll suddenly ends in a tragic denouement.

Such a construction of plays is deeply connected with Musset's perception of modern reality as a tragedy of the death of human ideals and, at the same time, as a disgusting comedy of a well-fed complacency of a tradesman. Some came to despair, says Musset in "Confessions of a Son of the Century", others, "children of the flesh" - the bourgeois, counted their money. "The soul sobbed, the body laughed." This duality of attitude, given the position of non-intervention taken by the artist, dictated by mockery and despair, determines the originality of Musset's dramatic poetics. In no other play by Musset does the internal inconsistency of his consciousness come out as clearly as in the three-act comedy “You Don’t Play with Love” (1834), determining both the composition of the play, the construction of its images, and the emotional life of the characters.