Theatrical Activity in Paris (6) — Break of Noon (Partage de Midi)

—6—

Break of Noon (Partage de Midi)
By Paul Claudel
At the Théâtre des Nations
Directed by Jean-Louis Barrault (J. L. Barrault)

The time is noon, and the ship plows the waves of the sea on its way to China... The sunlight is dazzling and blazing, the heat raging and oppressive. On the ship's deck a woman of radiant appearance, resplendent with her abundant bright blond hair, which she has raised like a crown around her beautiful, luminous face; she moves swaying with her full womanhood at the middle of life (1). Her long, flowing gown and its trailing

(1) At the beginning of the twentieth century, a woman reckoned her youth to be over once she passed thirty years of age.

ivory folds take us fifty years back — to the opening of the twentieth century... Around this woman are three men who never leave her side. The first is the husband, "De Ciz," a man of handsome face, well dressed, calm in his movements, who leaves no clear impression of his person upon those who look at him... The second is "Amalric," a man of thirty-five, tall of stature, energetic; in his rapid stride and the tone of his voice are the marks of full manhood. He follows "Ysé" like her shadow, for he loved her before her marriage, and now he sees her for the first time after an absence of ten years and this love flares up in his heart anew... He courts her and waits for her to fall into his arms, for he is a man sure of himself and of the power of his mastery... The third is "Mesa," a man of about the same age, but, unlike his friend, slight of body, confused and bewildered; on his face appear the signs of anxiety, as though he were suffering a violent crisis of the soul, and in his burning eyes are a thousand questions and one... He moves among men as if a stranger to them, for God called him in the flower of his youth and he offered himself to be consecrated a monk in the service of the Most High; but after a short trial he felt that he was not created for the austere life of the monastery, and so he returned to the world once more, perplexed, seeking travel in the hope that it might hold the solution to the riddle of his life... Here he is, at the middle of life, face to face with the woman on the deck of the free, speeding ship in the midst of the ocean, under the scorching blast of the equatorial noon... The body has its dominion and its pride, and the heart its insistent beats... And Eve offers the fruit — but the fruit is forbidden, for marriage is sacred...

And "Mesa" the man wrestles in violent conflict between spirit and flesh, and asks his Lord: "Why, O Lord? Why this woman?... Why did she come so late?..."

As for this woman, she is the beautiful "Ysé," the complete female; wife and mother; she is the wondrous creature who carries in the grip of her hand man's salvation and his ruin; she is the tree of good and evil, and she is, beyond all that, the woman who was made for "Mesa"; for between them is a natural harmony, an ease of spirit, and an ember of love blazing in their breasts, all but bursting into a fearful volcano of passion... "Ysé" was accustomed to toying with the hearts of men, and she seems merry and playful; but no sooner did she feel the glances of "Mesa" pierce her than she trembled in her whole being... She makes light of "Amalric's" love and answers his boldness with a natural hauteur and coquetry, for she is equal to that love — the material, bodily love of a man who gives as much as he demands. But "Mesa"?... "Mesa" is another matter... He is not handsome like her husband, nor strong-armed like Amalric; but in his sharp glances there is an insistent plea for a deep response, a searching for something lost, a question about an obscure riddle... This love is a dangerous secret before which "Ysé" stands perplexed and questioning; she cannot disdain it, yet she feels her need of it. What is to be done?... She begs "Mesa" to keep away from her...
— "Mesa"! Tell me that you will not love me... Say to me: Ysé, I will not love you!...
— I will not love you...
— Say it again, that I may hear it well...
— "Ysé"! I will not love you...
— Once more...
And her glances meet a pained, suppressed gaze with which the words are choked...

Act Two: In "Hong Kong," in China.

"De Ciz" is preparing to travel for commercial business awaiting him in a distant port... "Ysé" feels the danger closing around her, for "Mesa" is in "Hong Kong" and wishes to meet her, so she begs her husband not to leave her alone... But the journey is necessary, there is no avoiding it... So Ysé tries by every means to persuade him to stay near her... She is on the brink of the abyss... will he not stretch out his hand to save her?... She is a weak woman, and a stranger, and afraid of everything... The husband laughs at these forebodings, which he is not used to hearing from his wife, and promises her that he will not be away from her more than a few weeks...
— But when you return you may not find me... Perhaps I shall die... Do not leave me in the middle of my life... I feel that something in me has ended... An hour of parting... a single hour is enough...
But "De Ciz" can make no sense of this "hysteria"... a few weeks and it will be over... a woman's fancies... And so the husband forsakes his duty in the hour of trial — namely, the safekeeping of this soul, entrusted to him by her Creator on the day he was bound to her by the sacred mystery of marriage... He, the strong man who lived with this creature ten years without perceiving that this restive thoroughbred mare was searching for her horseman... And Ysé, at the end of her resources, bids farewell to this stubborn man, knowing that he will not find her when he returns...
Let it be as he wished...
And "Ysé" turns — and there is "Mesa" waiting for her.
— Mesa! My husband has gone... and I am left alone... Say that you will not see me... You must leave me alone...
— I will not see you! I will leave you alone...
And he leans his fevered breast upon hers, the tears choking him...
— Poor "Mesa"!
— Ysé! Everything is finished...
Here they are, in a painful, agonizing communion, plucking the fruit of their forbidden love... For "Ysé" left her husband and her children and followed this strange man, and lived with him a whole year under one roof, but... how could this love heal the soul of its pains, and how could it

answer the question of "Mesa" — the man who one day heard the call of his Lord... And behold, this love turns upon her as a hell, burning them both together with its raging fire; and behold, the woman is the road to perdition, and the man is in a barren spiritual desert... And "Ysé" — the complete woman — wants everything, and feels that this beloved gives her only a little of himself, and grudges her that living ember which she searches for in the depths of his soul... She has taken her share of his body, but... And Ysé slips from the hands of "Mesa" and flees to "Amalric"... and she who dares the first step follows it with the second...

Act Three: Ysé and Amalric in her house in one of the southern Chinese ports. The time is late afternoon and the sun is on its way to setting... From afar are heard the sounds of explosions and fighting, of screaming and wailing... revolution in China... and the victims among the whites grow in number day by day... Ysé and Amalric are in certain danger, with no escape... They await death; the important thing is not to fall into the hands of the rebels, and against that Amalric has taken his precaution with a bomb he has prepared for this purpose, to explode in the house just before morning... And he calms Ysé's terror... But Ysé does not fear death — rather she wants it, for in it is the end of her torment and of her conscience's reproach... And memory carries her back to her past and to the victims of her waywardness... She is the weak woman, weeping and sobbing and finding no consolation... for she has wronged her husband and her children... and her lover, whose child she carried in her womb?

And at her mention of "Mesa," "Amalric" asks her:
— And did this man truly love you?

And Ysé answers him after deep reflection:
— He loved me as you could never love me... and I loved him as I do not love you... But I... never possessed him; there remained in his soul something strange to me... something impossible... So how can he blame me, when he did not give himself?... And I withdrew because I wanted life — life like the rest of mankind... and I wanted to break free of that love which was nothing but death itself...

And Amalric leaves the room, and Ysé remains alone; a dread stillness and an all-covering darkness settle over the place, save for the light of a faint candle that illumines Ysé's face, her image reflected in a mirror at the side; and she looses her hair, and it falls in wavy blond locks upon her shoulders... And suddenly she freezes where she stands... a movement from outside, and the fall of footsteps... The door opens and "Mesa" appears in the darkness. He approaches Ysé until he is a few steps behind her...

— Here I am, "Ysé"! I, "Mesa"!
—
— Here I am...
—

My letters of this past year — did they not reach you? Why did you not answer them?... What is my fault?... Speak... What happened? Why did you leave me?... You carried my child in your womb and fled with the other... My child... where is my child?... Answer...

A broken reproach, like delirium, and "Ysé" frozen in her place, not answering... A little later "Amalric" enters. — A struggle between the two men, at the end of which Mesa falls to the floor unconscious, his arm broken...

Amalric searches Mesa's pockets and finds in them a pass of safe passage, and says to Ysé: — We are saved... Let him die in our place. Our bomb will explode upon him... And Amalric and Ysé go out, leaving Mesa stretched upon a chair in the middle of the room...

The night is full... the sky clear, and the processions of glittering stars are seen through the open windows and the wide, gaping balconies. The moon sends its rays upon Mesa's face; he stirs where he lies, and after long contemplation he says, in supplication and in praise:

Here I am in my burning chapel (1)
On my right hand and my left I see a forest of torches surrounding me!

They are not lighted candles, but mighty stars, like a procession of blazing virgins before the face of God — so is Mary glimpsed in the holy pictures!

And I, the man, the reasoning one,
Cast upon the earth, receiving death,
As though upon a splendid bier
XXXX

Hail, my sisters, you shining ones!
Not one of you carries the soul; but in the midst of you all, the Earth

has brought forth her human, and you, like a million white ewes,

turn your heads toward her, and she is like the shepherd and like the Christ of the worlds!
Hail, O stars! Here I am, alone! No priest,

(1) Chapelle ardente — an expression used among the Catholics of France for the room in which the dead man is laid shortly before burial, usually surrounded by lighted candles...

encircled by the pure flock,
to offer me the last provision (1)
But the gates of heaven
split open, and the army of all the saints, bearing torches in their hands, advance to meet me, surrounding the awesome Lamb!

XXXX

Why?
Why this woman? Why the woman, suddenly, on this ship?
And what could she have come to do among us? Did we have need of her? You alone —
You alone, suddenly, at the bursting forth of life.

A light movement... Ysé enters like a specter in her trailing white gown and drifts through the house in the pitch darkness like a moving mist; then she appears on the balcony, pure white, her loosened hair upon her shoulder glittering in the light of the moon...

— So I saw you once before, on the ship...
— Mesa! I am Ysé! Here I am!...
— Do I dream this?
— The dreams are ended; here we are, face to face before the truth... This is the woman... She has come to give back the answer to the man's question... She has left the world and all who are in it, to die with the companion of her soul... The Magdalene atones for her sins by her great love; for what was impossible to love will become possible through sacrifice, and "Ysé" will find that lost thing she was searching for in the man's soul... She believes now in her salvation, for she will offer this beautiful body as incense to the victorious spirit... And Mesa lays his hand upon Ysé's head, completing his hymn of praise:

— And if the veils are torn away, then I am myself the active, unbound flame, the great Male in the glory of God,

Man in the splendor of August, the victorious Spirit in the transfiguration of Noon!

XXXX

"Break of Noon" is a verse play which Claudel wrote in 1905, but it did not appear on the stage until 1949, and that by the mighty efforts of "Jean-Louis Barrault" and after violent insistence to persuade the author to allow its production at the "Marigny" theater. The reason is well known: the events of the play are torn from the author's own life; he is "Mesa," and he knew an "Ysé" once in his life, and this love left in his soul wounds that did not heal with the passing of the years; in the days of his old age he could not recall this violent stage of his life without his limbs trembling and his innermost being shaken. He once said to "Barrault": "It is a cry from the depths which I bled forth with my blood; were the multitude to hear it, I should feel as though naked before God's creation." But he finally consented to its production after consulting a Dominican father whom he loved and on whose opinion he relied, for this latter told him that the conversion of many souls had come through the influence of this play...

And Barrault says that when he chose "Edwige Feuillère" to take the role of Ysé, he presented her to Claudel, and the author was astounded at the great resemblance between her and the original. And he would attend the rehearsal with his eyes brimming with tears at certain of the moving scenes. And no wonder, for "Edwige Feuillère" is a singular personality in the world of the French theater, to whom the greatest roles are entrusted; it is enough to mention that she recently took the role of "Phèdre," Racine's immortal heroine. Her greatness defies description, for to the beauty of a fresh body she has joined a living vitality and an artist's power to express conflicting passions: now the strong and commanding, now the weak and tender; the yielding and self-sacrificing, and the violent rebel. In the role of Ysé she is a blazing torch that illumines and burns at once; she commands the stage and the players, and casts a spell over the listeners, who call her out dozens of times to appear before them after the performance is done...

And "Barrault" himself took the role of Mesa, and with his short stature, his sharp glances, and his head of genius he was an exact copy of the character of "Mesa"... It is he who has worked with Claudel since 1942 on the production of his plays, from "The Satin Slipper" (Le Soulier de Satin) to "Christophe Colomb" to "Break of Noon"... And whoever sees this play in its present form at the "Théâtre des Nations" understands "Barrault's" theatrical greatness and his message of the total theater, of which he has spoken in his articles in the Marigny magazine. The role of De Ciz was given to the well-known actor "Jean Desailly" (Jean De Sailly), and the role of Amalric to Jacques Dacqmine (J. Dacqmine), and each of them won the admiration of the public and the esteem of the critics...

As for the stage setting, it was astonishing; and the form of the white ship speeding through the waves of the deep under the glare of the equatorial sun was the height of artistic mastery, expressing the picture in the author's mind and the central point into which he cast his ship...

"Claudel" is a towering edifice in the heritage of modern French literature, vast in its reaches,

(1) Le viatique — the last receiving of the Holy Sacrament before death.

wide in its balconies; but it is a building of clear lines and firm foundations, whose roots strike down into the rural French earth, into a solid classical culture, and into the deep Christian heritage. And the corners of this building are three: God, man, and the world... God the Creator of all — the earth and all upon it are the work of His hands — and man the voice of God and His conscience, singing nature as an anthem to the glory of God.

And to grasp the essence of Claudel's anthem in the whole of his literary production, we must recall the night of Christmas in the year 1886, when Claudel was a youth of eighteen, an unbeliever like most of the educated young men of that time. Claudel says that he went that night to the church of "Notre-Dame" in Paris to look on at the religious rites, and suddenly, as he listened to the church hymns, he felt grace fill his heart, and he fell prostrate to the ground "because the Lord had spoken to him," and he came out filled with a spiritual experience that would not leave him all his life long. As for the painful trials that followed this call, and the many intellectual stages, and the years of searching that Claudel passed through before his anthem burst forth as praise from the depths — there is no room to set them out in detail now. It is enough to say that "Break of Noon" is torn from the noon of his life, casting light on what precedes it and on what follows it of his literary and spiritual heritage, and on his call for the victory of the spirit over the flesh.