Evening star., 1928-10-22
THIS AND THAT
BY CHARLES E. TRAcEWELL.

Alexandra Dumas ends his she
| Wolves OF Macheooul" with a kick
which would have done credit to thai
master of the trick. ending. o. Henry
| The final scene in this very long ro-
nance, which took us week to finish
| reading diligently every day, is han-
died with the consummate skill of a
master of the narrative art.
Here we have. on one hand one of the
very finest, although least known, tales
of the great French story teller, and, or
the other, moving melodrama which
might descend to absurdity in less Ca
pable hands.
There is enough running to and fro,
enough dovetailing of entrances and
exits. to permit of hopeless tumble OF
a lack of realism. All this, of course,
had this book been written by any other
than Dumas.
The peerless Alexandra, however, had
something which saved this romance
as it did most of his others from ex-
travagance. This quality is nothing
more nor less than the magnificent
gllsto of the writer.
A great, hearty fellow himself, imbued
with a love of life, adventure and ex-
citement, he combined these traits, as
much mental as physical, with the in
nate ability of the born story teller.
The runnings to and fro in 'The, She
Wolves of Machecoul" seem eninently
natural under the circumstances. The
grand climaxes, even the coming OF
Certain persons Just in the proverbial
hicks of time, take on aspects OF reality
under the influence of the spell woven
in words.
Especially is this true of the cli-
macteric vengeance which the faithful
peasant, Jean Oullier, metes out to the
miserly. treacherous peasant Courtln
who sticks to the other people IN the
book like a burr, to come to a proper
end in the very last chapter
4 y X X
ONLY Dumas would have dared add
the eight pages of the epilogue, in which
occurs the "kick" of which we have
spoken. Most writer's would have been
satisfied to have brought the story to
such a Just conclusion.
Alexandra Dumas, however, knew
that his readers expected more OF him
and he did not fail them Few Will be
able to read that epilogue without f1nd-
ing their eyes misty. There Is no melo-
drama just straight statements. yet
handled with such telling force that the
NAAAOeANNA~N-
depths are stirred. How can one sepa-
rate emotions and thoughts? One runs
into another, each becomes the other,
upon occasion. One is the motive force
at times, the other maybe the next
time. with no psychologist so bold as 10
tell precisely where one begins and the
other leaves of. ..
The denouement is effective because 1t
brings together and sums up in a few
lines the tangled threads of the long
tale. with a dash of the unexpected
dear to the heart and mind of readers
the world over 1t must be remembered
that this whole story deals with the
love of two girls for the same man,
thus reversing the usual situation.
Michel the first man in the lives of
Bertha and Mary, the twin She
wolves" has become the adored OF both.
Bertha, being the more forceful OF the
two, manages to bulldoze the youthful
and timid Michel into a promise OF
marriage, although he really loves Mary
Now there is a pretty how-de-do In the
forest of Machecoul! The story deals
with these mixed loves, working UP TO
the climax of Bertha at last finding
out that Michel really loves Mary. So
Bertha renounces the world, goes into
0 nunnery, and finally becomes mother
superior.
The forceful epilogue shows the death
scene of Bertha, who has become Mother
Sainte Marthe. She slips into her earthly
sisters hand a small locket And when
Mary is pushed out of the cell by the
stern sisters, she opens the locket, and