Six Characters in Search of an Author

a⁠—what shall⁠ ⁠… we say⁠—a “character,” created by an author who did not afterward care to make a drama of his own creations. The Father It is the simple truth, sir. The Manager Nonsense! Cut that out, please! None of us believes it, because it isn’t a thing, as you must recognize yourself, which one can believe seriously. If you want to know, it seems to me you are trying to imitate the manner of a certain author whom I heartily detest⁠—I warn you⁠—although I have unfortunately bound myself to put on one of his works. As a matter of fact, I was just starting to rehearse it, when you arrived. Turning to the Actors. And this is what we’ve gained⁠—out of the frying-pan into the fire! The Father I don’t know to what author you may be alluding, but believe me I feel what I think; and I seem to be philosophizing only for those who do not think what they feel, because they blind themselves with their own sentiment. I know that for many people this self-blinding seems much more “human”; but the contrary is really true. For man never reasons so much and becomes so introspective as when he suffers; since he is anxious to get at the cause of his sufferings, to learn who has produced them, and whether it is just or unjust that he should have to bear them. On the other hand, when he is happy, he takes his happiness as it comes and doesn’t analyse it, just as if happiness were his right. The animals suffer without reasoning about their sufferings. But take the case of a man who suffers and begins to reason about it. Oh no! it can’t be allowed! Let him suffer like an animal, and then⁠—ah yes, he is “human!” The Manager Look here! Look here! You’re off again, philosophizing worse than ever. The Father Because I suffer, sir! I’m not philosophizing: I’m crying aloud the reason of my sufferings. The Manager Makes brusque movement as he is taken with a new idea. I should like to know if anyone has ever heard of a character who gets right out of his part and perorates and speechifies as you do. Have you ever heard of a case? I haven’t. The Father You have never met such a case, sir, because authors, as a rule, hide the labour of their creations. When the characters are really alive before their author, the latter does nothing but follow them in their action, in their words, in the situations which they suggest to him; and he has to will them the way they will themselves⁠—for there’s trouble if he doesn’t. When a character is born, he acquires at once such an independence, even of his own author, that he can be imagined by everybody even in many other situations where the author never dreamed of placing him; and so he acquires for himself a meaning which the author never thought of giving him. The Manager Yes, yes, I know this. The Father What is there then to marvel at in us? Imagine such a misfortune for characters as I have described to you: to be born of an author’s fantasy, and be denied life by him; and then answer me if these characters left alive, and yet without life, weren’t right in doing what they did do and are doing now, after they have attempted everything in their power to persuade him to give them their stage life. We’ve all tried him in turn, I, she Indicating The Step-Daughter. and she. Indicating The Mother. The Step-Daughter It’s true. I too have sought to tempt him, many, many times, when he has been sitting at his writing table, feeling a bit melancholy, at the twilight hour. He would sit in his armchair too lazy to switch on the light, and all the shadows that crept into his room were full of our presence coming to tempt him. As if she saw herself still there by the writing table, and was annoyed by the presence of the Actors. Oh, if you would only go away, go away and leave us alone⁠—mother here with that son of hers⁠—I with that Child⁠—that Boy there always alone⁠—and then I with him Just hints at The Father.⁠—and then I alone, alone⁠ ⁠… in those shadows! Makes a sudden movement as if in the vision she has of herself illuminating those shadows she wanted to seize hold of herself. Ah! my life! my life! Oh, what scenes we proposed to him⁠—and I tempted him more than any of the others! The Father Maybe. But perhaps it was your fault that he refused to give us life: because you were too insistent, too troublesome. The Step-Daughter Nonsense! Didn’t he make me so himself? Goes close to The Manager to tell him as if in confidence. In my opinion he abandoned us in a fit of depression, of disgust for the ordinary theatre as the public knows it and likes it. The Son Exactly what it was, sir; exactly that! The Father Not at all! Don’t believe it for a minute. Listen to me! You’ll be doing quite right to modify, as you suggest, the excesses both of this girl here, who wants to do too much, and of this young man, who won’t do anything at all. The Son No, nothing! The Manager You too get over the mark occasionally, my dear sir, if I may say so. The Father I? When? Where? The Manager Always! Continuously! Then there’s this insistence of yours in trying to make us believe you are a character. And then too, you must really argue and philosophize less, you know, much less. The Father Well, if you want to take away from me the possibility of representing the torment of my spirit which never gives me peace, you will be suppressing me: that’s all. Every true man, sir, who is a little above the level of the beasts and plants does not