A STORY OF DICKENS' NERVOUSNESS.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XVII, Issue I, 4 July 1896, Page 27

A STORY OF DICKENS' NERVOUSNESS.

M. Jules Claretie, the manager of the Comedie Franyaise, a man of wide and kindly sympathies, and a keen observer, is fond of England, which he understands extremely well, and where he has enjoyed hospitality. Above all, he likes to visit London and its galleries. He is just back in Paris from such a journey, and in the Ugaro he relates, in the course of an article on London past and present, the following anecdote about one of the English writers of stories —I speak only of the dead—who is the best-known in France, Charles Dickens:—

* I have thus seen disappear Charles Dickens, who now lies in Westminster Abbey like Lord Tennyson. My last recollection of the latter was receiving his plays, in one of those little editions which charm the book-lover's heart, with his handsome signature on tke first page. I never saw him, but Dickens, whom 1 have always profoundly admired, I had met, not in London, but in Paris. I still see him, as on a certain summer evening he sat at one of the tables in front of the cate, which, in the Place de la Bourse, was then bard by the Vaudeville Theatre, now, alas ! demolished. The Vaudeville of the Place de la Bourse was giving on this particular evening a piece by Charles Dickens which he had had played in his own house with a few friends among whom was Wilkie Collins, the author of “ The Woman in White," In Paris the piece was called “L’Abime.” Charles Dickens had taken the trip from England to Paris for the express purpose of being present at the representation of his work before the French public. There he sat in front of his table taking a glass of whisky while the tout Paris of the first night was entering the theatre, and passing by this man in a grey hat, with a superb head, the long hair, and the little twisted tuft of a beard, little imagining that there was in Paris that summer evening one of the master novelists, the most original of writers, one of the geniuses of the Nineteenth Century. As for him, he looked at the people as they entered, but did not go in himself.

* Speaking to a friend Dickens said :—“ I am waiting for the first act to be played. Besides, it is so pleasant in Paris in the evening. How can one shut oneself up in a theatre ?” The truth is he was afraid of the result of the evening. He dreaded the Parisian public. It seemed to him that be had become the little unfortunate reporter of former days, the little Boz, but now inimitable. He was seeking a pretext for not facing a French house. This man who was afraid of nothing, who managed to finish a piece while talking to the workmen, smeared with coal dust, about pity, about duty, about resignation, about the smiles of babies, and about the consolations of the stars, as in “ Hard Times”—this man, who braved the mob and whose utterances were a charm, trembled before a dozen Parisian critics and a public of Parisian ladies.

•]“ Come, let us go to Mabille,” said he to his friend, “ I will come back to know the result when the fate of L’Abime is sealed.” So there he was finally at Mabille. But in the presence of the danseuses, then famous, he thought of nothing else but L’Abime, his actors, and the Vaudeville. The time drew near when the play must have either triumphed or gone down. Charles Dickens takes a carriage and flings an address at the driver : “Theatre du Vaudeville, Place de la Bourse but between the Champs Elytees and the Place de la Bourse the peculiar fear which agitates the author of ** David Copperfield,” that fear of the Parisian which is all to the credit of his modesty increases, and suddenly he exclaims, after having looked at his watch, ** No, cabman. drive to the Northern Railway Station, we have still time to catch the

Boulogne train.” And he took it after having urged his friend to send him a telegram immediately announcing the result of the representation of L’Abime. It was from Boulogne-sur-Mer that Charles Dickens thanked the successful actors of his piece, players whom he did not know in a French play that be never saw.’