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78 MELODRAMA
Charles Warner, recently seen as Robinson in a revival of It's Never Too Late To Mend, was Coupeau, and he won fervent praise for his acting in this scene. Since the sternest puritans were forced to admire it, there might seem no reasonable complaint against either Zola or the playwrights for having provided the actor with his opportunity.
Consistency was no obstacle. ' What moral end is to be gained by the spectacle of two passionate women drenching each other with buckets of water, or of a man dying of delirium tremens, when these spectacles are merely the illusions of the stage, we confess ourselves unable to comprehend," was a pronouncement that ended, " Such subjects have no place in the legitimate province of art ". This view must not be called old-fashioned. It was new-fashioned by the standard of playgoers who admired O. Smith in a similar display. In The London Stage, Barton Baker says that in " one of the old dramas, I believe it was Peter Bell ", he played the part of a drunkard, and in one scene he had to upset a cup of liquor. With a cry of horror he cast himself upon the stage and ravenously licked up the spilled drink. Had it been weakly done it would have raised a laugh ; the way he did it sent a shudder through the house.
Similarly Warner now, in the words of another critic, " sent a sensible thrill of horror through the crowded and excited audience ". His voice, looks and gestures were " horribly realistic " — the unsteady walk, the thin yet bloated face, the wandering eyes, the lean, live fingers that clutch at nothingness and are never quiet. When his eager wife goes out, Coupeau is left alone with the supposed claret which Virginie has sent in. With trembling hands he unwraps the bottle and takes out the cork. Then a spasm of horrible delight thrills him as he finds it is brandy. He crouches at the other end of the room, putting all the space possible from table to wall between himself and the tempter. The doctors say it will kill him, " but then, doctors tell such lies ". He will just taste it. With gleaming eyes and convulsive fingers, he approaches the table and seizes the bottle. When his wife comes back it is empty and he dies raving.
Feelings were still more violently outraged by " Nana ", which Zola published in 1880 and which he assisted Busnach to dramatize a year later. Public modesty had recovered from the affronts put upon it by Dumas fils, whose daughter-of-shame had, at least, been repentant. This new one was as unblushing as Shakespeare's Bianca in Othello. There was an outcry, of course, because Nana was not in historical dress, and the only English adaptation to be granted the Lord Chamberlain's licence was a curious hybrid between Zola's novel and La Dame Aux Camelias. It was by a Mrs. Kennion, who called her work Nina ;