• Racine 13 



subordinate motive as a prick or goad to the former. The per- 

 fection of his drama, therefore, consists in the complication of 

 these two motives — love and jealousy. Hence while Berenice 

 serves well enough as a kind of outline of his tragedy, its fulfil- 

 ment is represented by Phedre. 



To take Berenice, for all its slenderness, as an example of his 

 bare idea, is, I suppose, fair enough, since he himself in the 

 preface seems to offer it as such. In the words of Vinet, whose 

 comments on all this literature are uncommonly pertinent, "Bere- 

 nice n'est pas le chef d'oeuvre de Racine ; mais c'est ce qu'il a fait 

 de plus racinien."^° That the plot is meagre to the point of ema- 

 ciation, may be granted ; but for that reason the scheme itself is 

 only the more salient. It consists obviously, in the author's own 

 words, of "a simple action" — hardly more, to be exact, than a 

 situation. It is a posture and a precarious one, terminating in a 

 single expressive gesture of renunciation and regret : , 



Tout est prest. On m'attend. Ne suivez point mes pas. 

 Pour la derniere fois, adieu, Seigneur. 



Helas 111 



The development, then, will consist of three parts : first an ex- 

 planation or " exposition " of the relations of the parties in con- 

 frontation ; second, a demonstration of the emotional tensions 

 and their potency ; and third, an exhibition of their release and 

 an indication of the outcome. All that is necessary for a repre- 

 sentation of this sort is that the personages should meet and 

 speak together ; and this they may do as well in one room as in 

 the universe at large. As a matter of fact, I am not sure that 

 the impression is not intensified by the sense of confinement and 

 constraint so produced, as it might be with an explosion in a nar- 

 row space, and as it is also to my mind by the absence of blood- 

 letting at the close. " It is unnecessary," says Racine, " that a 

 tragedy should be glutted with blood and death. It is enough 

 that the action should be noble, the actors heroic, the passions 

 excited ; and that the entire piece should be redolent of that ma- 



1" Poetes du Steele de Louis XIV. 

 11 Berenice, V, vii. 



185 



