The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-08-29
BERNHARDT
Writes of the Greatest Plot
Ever Woven.
Gives Her Impressions Of the
DreyfusSTrial.
WITH WEARY HEART
The Great French Public
Awaits the End.
Will 1t Bring a Calm or an
Awful Melee.
WITH WEARY HEART

Rennes, Aug. 81 have been follow
ing the stage for many long years.
am acquainted with the stirring stories
devised by the most ingenious brains
the world has ever known.
But the dramatic force and beauty
of what is now going on at Rennes fills
me with unbounded artistic admira-
ton Circumstances and real life have
been combined here into a plot which
no author would have the mental
strength to conserve I do not know
which excites the most wonder, the
bold, general outlines of the splendid
mass movements with the wealth of
colors, or the infinitely clever intricacy
and perfection of details.
What genius ever revealed the secret
workings of human nature as COM
pletely as we can study them in the
course of this trial?
Was even Shakespeare capable of
conce1Ving a drama where in struggled
so hercely and logically, and where
such intensified or finely contrasted
characters were engaged in such a ire
mendOuS situation? We have not yet
reached the end, which expect will be
superb. The last curtain will fall eth
er upon a scene of great calm, as if
peace were descending from heaven to
reconcile all the children of France, or
upon an awful melee in which brothers
will kill brothers and French blood will
drench French soil.
The end is not yet. We wait with it
with troubled hearts.
HAND OF THE ASSASSIN.
But let US speak of what we have so
far seen at RenneS. At the close of the
first act, when the action is well en-
gagged, when all the principal charac-
ters stand out in high relief and the
first clash between the two interests
and the two factions is expected, the
man who embodies the hopes not only
of the poor victim whose life is at
stake, but of all that is best in the ma
ton, that champion suddenly falls. The
hand of a mercenary murderer strikes
him from behind.
When the curtain rises again and for
a week afterward everything goes
wrong. The criminals have things their
own way. The partisans of truth are
dismayed and cry after each charge, as
defeat seems more certain.
We have lost our chief man, the man
who could save us. The center of in
terest in that whole act is not on the
stage, but behind the scenes in that
sick room where the bleeding hero lies,
listening to accounts of the legal bat
tie brought back by friends maddened
by the impudence of the enemies.
He often tries to rise and go back to
the thick of the fight, only to fall back
helplessly.
All this time the universal audience
is kept in suspense as if by devices Of
a masterful playwright, after the great
shock of the attempted assassination.
After the first great disbursement
news is brought in from time to time
to the scene: Labor is better" or
Labor is worse" now the wound is
said to be slight; now there are fears
that the spine is injured.
And you know that all this is real;
that celebrated doctors are bending
over that sick bed.
WILLIAMS IN THE PLAY.
MERCER, Come, Roget-au the lead
ing conspiratOrs go through the same
severe alternatives of hope and des-
pondency as do the partisans of Drey-
fus, only not at the same moments.
They too, await with the same emo
ton the bulletins telegraphed hourly
to all corners of the earth, for they
fear the turn of the languid and pas
sionate young giant who has sworn to
spear them all one after the other, and
deliver them, with proofs of their
crimes, to their executiOners.
At last the moment came when it was
announced that Labor was getting
we'll; that his glorious constitution had
worked the miracle. He would be at
the trial on the morrow.
The morrow came, but Labor, de-
spite his energy, had tainted when he
tried to stand. At this announcement
ripples went over the world as over
pond worked by contrary currents
LabOri's friends no longer dared be-
lieve the reports that he would shortly
reappear. The other side, with hypo-
critical show of sympathy began to
jubilate, believing his condition was
graver than was reported, and that ia
vorabie reports had been circulated
only to check their holiness.
Tuesday morning the situation was
more exciting. Can you imagine how
many dramas were worked in the
minds of men gathered in that court
room before the session opened? For
we must remember that all those gid
ed high-priced men knew as we'll as
those about them that they ought to
be convicts with cropped hair and
striped clothes.
JUSTICE CONQUERORS.
All! how anxiously they are watch
ing the narrow door through which La
bori would come if he came at all.
And suddenly, clad in the majesty
of his toga, Labor entered that great
hall in which friends and foes were as
sembed. He must have appeared the
very incarnation of law and punish
ment. He was wounded like Justice,
but, like Justice, too, stood strong and
unconQuered.
The news flashed over wires, crossed
and skirted continents. and plunged
under oceans to our brothers of other
races.
The momentous climax comes. The
distressful suspense over, wounded
and suffering though he is, with La
bori as our chieftain we are sure of vic
tory, of acQuittaL.
Let us hope another battle will not