"
Such is the role of the gardener's wife and her constant lamentation
throughout the play. For it is a genuine, spontaneous, improvised
comedy, played in the open air, on the highways, among the fields,
seasoned by all the incidents that happen to occur; and in it everybody
takes a part, wedding-guests and outsiders, occupants of the houses and
passers-by, for three or four hours in the day, as we shall see. The
theme is always the same, but it is treated in an infinite variety of
ways, and therein we see the instinct of mimicry, the abundance of
grotesque ideas, the fluency, the quickness at repartee, and even the
natural eloquence of our peasants.
The part of the gardener's wife is ordinarily entrusted to a slender,
beardless man with a fresh complexion, who is able to give great
verisimilitude to the character he assumes and to represent burlesque
despair so naturally that the spectators may be amused and saddened at
the same time as by the genuine article. Such thin, beardless men are
not rare in our country districts, and, strangely enough, they are
sometimes the most remarkable for muscular strength.
After the wife's wretched plight is made evident, the younger
wedding-guests urge her to leave her sot of a husband and divert herself
with them. They offer her their arms and lead her away.
Pages:
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155