them,' said my English traveling companion. On board our vessel I liked Pašič best standing at the rail and gazing across the sea. In his eyes was a distant expression, something like drifting clouds, though at times they seemed to take on gleams of bluish sunshine, like the surface of the Adriatic. At such moments I could not help thinking of what an exiled Russian author once said to me: 'You should have been with me and seen Pašič when the last remnant of the Serbian army, after its death march through the Albanian mountains, finally reached the open sea and sailed for an unknown destination. There he stood with bowed head, gazing back toward his distant home behind the black mountains, where usurping strangers now held sway. I could imagine how that great man looked into the future and foresaw a victorious king entering his liberated land. Pašič always supported the dynasty, and never despaired, never admitted defeat.' No modern statesman in that part of Europe has so many achievements to his credit. Modern Serbia grew up with him. Nobody knew his exact age, but at least it is known that in 1878 Nikola Pašič, the municipal engineer, was elected to Parliament when he returned, full of 'new ideas,' from Liége and Zurich. Pašič soon became one of the leading spirits of the Radical Party, which Svetosar Markovič had founded in the eighties, and which quickly adopted the socialistic doctrines of the period. Serbia in those days suffered great social unrest as a result of the breaking up of the old economic family organization, the Zadruga, which had to give way to something more individualistic. As the national independence of Serbia asserted itself, the desire for individual independence made itself felt with increasing force. A new economic system, demanding more intensive cultivation, resulted from the distribution of land, and led to the formation of a Serbian landed proletariat. Under these conditions liberalism and socialrevolutionary ideas spread rapidly, both among the country people and the few city workers. During the ensuing transitory period an effective agricultural law greatly aided the operation of more modern farming methods. Coöperative associations along the lines of the Reiffeisen system supplanted the Zadruga. The Radical Party quickly adapted itself to the exigencies of the moment and became opportunistic, and around Pašič the so-called 'Old Radicals' formed themselves into a group that included most of those men who later, during the Karageorgievič dynasty, came to occupy the leading offices of the nation. It was during his student days in Zurich that Pašič established close relations with the famous anarchist, Bakunin. The story is told that, during one of their numerous and lengthy discussions about ideal social conditions, Pašič defined his ideas, as differing from the Russian's, in the following words: 'You desire to begin building your future social structure with a beautiful roof, floating free in the air. I, for my part, and as a result of my training as an engineer, prefer to start with solid foundations.' As a fundamental necessity to a sound national existence, Pašič stood for a constitution vested in the people. At that time this political conception was little short of revolutionary, and when in 1884 the peasants rebelled against the despotic rule of Milan it was considered advisable to dismiss Pašič permanently from the political scene. Only a hasty flight to Bulgaria, his mother's alleged birthplace, saved him from the gallows. His life was saved by Russo-Austrian intervention. In 1888 Pašič was Premier. But it was not until the fall of the Obrenovič dynasty that he began to stamp his unique personality on Serbian politics. Serbian parliamentarism is the creation of the Radical Party, and its leader was Pašič. No real economic or social interests underlie the Serbian 'Peasant Party.' It is the creation of intellectuals like Jovan Jovanovič, a former Minister to Vienna and London, and the former Minister of Communication, Avramovič - men to whom political life was a business, since it gave them standing in the nation. This Party had for its motto, 'We are different from all others.' The Radical Party is the real peasant body of Serbia, a nation where eighty per cent of the population are peasants. In the villages the lawyers, physicians, and merchants, to whom political peace and social order are of prime importance, are also members of this Party. In the larger cities, however, like Belgrade, the importance of this Party is much less, and its press exerts but a slight influence in these centres. If you want to attend Radical meetings in Belgrade you will have to go to the gypsy suburb, or to the Spanish Jew quarter. In the old-time Serbia these were the true Nationalists, and all were supporters of the Radical Party. Pašič's Radical Party made Serbia a constitutional conservative peasant State and the leading nation in that part of Europe. What rôle Pašič played in the formation of the Balkan League is not yet clear. In certain circles in Belgrade the supposedly initiated claim that both Venizelos and Pašič were the leading geniuses. Western Europe, however, is less willing to accept this version, and it claims that the Russian Minister to Serbia, Hartwig, was the real originator of the League. This argument is supported by the claim that the very day before the Serbian mobilization Hartwig did not believe that war impended. Certain references to the memoirs of Ljuba Jovanovič have led the Central Powers to charge Pašič, who was the head of his Government when the World War broke out, with being responsible for the Serajevo murder. This theory rests on a connection said to have existed between Serbian army headquarters and the Bosnian Irredentists. It is also claimed that there was an agreement between the Chief of Staff and Pašič. On the other hand, however, it is a well-known fact that the two men had been deadly enemies for more than two years. And as for the hypothesis that the Serbian Government was behind the murder, the attitude of the Austrian Army leaders, both before and after that event, quite does away with that charge. At the beginning of the new century the Serbian Radical Party had three great leaders - the 'Three P's,' as they were called collectively: Pašič, the man with the brains; Protič, the man with the fluent pen; and Paču, the spokesman and orator. Always it was Pašič's strength to work along a given line. In foreign affairs Pašič was first of all the friend of Russia, with France second, though on certain occasions he would lend an ear to Austria in matters of economic import. Soon after the Karageorgievič dynasty came into power and the Radical element began to show its strength, Pašič negotiated commercial treaties with France, Italy, Bulgaria, and Rumania. In this way he hoped to establish a counterweight to the economic domination of Austria. As a matter of fact, and in spite of its socialrevolutionary past, the Radical Party was always strongly pro-Russian. Albert Mousset, the great French authority on Yugoslavia, is no doubt right when he asserts that this is due to the Party's traditional opposition to King Milan, who, after being left in the lurch by Russia at San Stefano, became decidedly pro-Austrian. The foreign policies of Ninčič caused Pašič no little concern during his later years. He had long been in close touch with Masaryk, the great leader of the Austrian Slavs, and at one time the two men were active in founding the Little Entente. What Pašič desired was a Slav foreign policy closely connected with France, and possibly with Italy. He did not understand why the little Balkan nation, Serbia, should be made the most influential country in Southeastern Europe. The French General Staff believed that, next to France, Serbia was the most militaristic State on the Continent. Pašič felt that all this was superfluous. In Serbian domestic politics he continued to occupy a pronounced central position. When the Democrats, at the close of the World War, wanted an immediate application of the Serbian agricultural law to the liberated regions, he insisted on a gradual change. When Communism threatened to spread from the near-by provinces to the State itself, Pašič took up the fight begun by Vesnič and brought his whole strength to bear against the danger. If he did not understand much of what transpired beyond the Danube and the Save, at least he knew what his Serbia needed, and his Serbia understood him. One of the most famous Serbian generals in the war once told me how, on the approach of spring, the peasant soldiers sent a deputation to ask to be allowed to return to their homes and sow their fields. At first he was at a loss how to proceed, but after some thought he made the following little speech: 'I am not one of those who want to continue the war; I myself should like nothing better than to go home. But it is Pašič who mobilized you, and he does n't want us to go home and give up. Who elected Pašič?' The peasant soldiers had to admit that they had done it. 'All right,' replied the general; 'you yourselves then are responsible, and it is I who should complain to you, and not you to me.' After that speech there were no more complaints in that brigade. Pašič stood with both feet firm in his country's soil. To the Serbian peasant he was Serbia, the native land. The King was merely a necessity. For, as an old peasant once said to me, if they had no king all Serbians would want to be number one. 'And that would n't do at all,' he added. Pašič stood for the old Serbia, with its virtues and faults - the patient son of the soil who could wait years as well as days, the shrewd peasant who could play with two packs of cards at once. He was in league with Time, and years might pass before he had anything to say, and months before he would answer. New ideas were not for him in his later years. His tenacity in clinging to old customs has become legendary. In spite of his many political friendships, he remained to the last a lonely man. Like Masterbuilder Solness, he loved youth - and feared it. Pašič's young lieutenants never became captains of his guard; always he looked for new men, for fear of being pushed aside by the old. Davidovič, Jovanovič, and Uzunovič were all his enemies in his later years, and, in so far as they belonged to his own Party, men whom he feared. But none of this was known in the villages. And even if it had been known, it would not have mattered. For in the villages Pašič with his eighty-six years still ruled the State. He was the living symbol of Serbian toughness and faith in the future qualities that had won many battles and had saved the Serbian nation in its hours of peril. AN HOUR WITH JACQUES COPEAU1 BY FRÉDÉRIC LEFÈVRE We had the good fortune to run into Jacques Copeau on the way out from a meeting that was being held under the auspices of the Revue de Jeunes in the Salle de Géographie, where the eminent tragedian had given an appealing lecture about the chief scenes in Paul Claudel's Annonce faite à Marie. Jacques Copeau was leaving the next day for Switzerland, but by going to his house with him that evening we were able to enjoy the conversation that we have tried to reproduce here. Giving as excuse the enthusiasm with which he had been greeted in Paris, we asked if he would not come back here soon, either to take up the Vieux Colombier again, or to establish his company, which has remained faithful to him and been in part rejuvenated, in another theatre. After a long silence, Copeau spoke as follows: Yes, indeed, it would be most tempting. I have felt the presence of the popular soul close to me. Wherever I have gone my lectures have been extremely successful a fact that does not, however, prevent the French press from ignoring them completely. I am just back from America, and, as you know, this was not my first visit. After my first seven months with the Vieux Colombier in Paris in the 19131914 season, I was suddenly ordered by the French Propaganda Service to go to America to study the possibilities of installing a permanent French theatre From Les Nouvelles Littéraires (Paris literary weekly), February 19 in New York; for at that time there was a flourishing German theatre in town. I made my first visit to the United States toward the close of 1916, and after a series of conferences about the French theatre I had the opportunity of obtaining enough generous American support to permit me to install the Vieux Colombier troupe in New York at a playhouse called the Garrick Theatre. Returning to France to reorganize my troupe, I went back again in October 1917, and installed myself definitely in New York with my players, my repertory, and my equipment. We played two full seasons, from November 1917 to June 1919, putting on daily performances of both classic and modern works, and attracting an audience of from six to seven hundred every evening. During my second season people were turned away at the door, and as a result of our experience several similar enterprises were launched, all with the idea of bringing new life to the dramatic art. When I left, one of these enterprises, the Theatre Guild, took up my quarters in the Garrick Theatre, and was so successful that three years ago it was able to build a much larger playhouse of its own on Fifty-second Street. It was this same Theatre Guild that invited me last summer to come and produce with its company a play that I had presented in French in New York in 1917 The Brothers Karamazov. It was an adaptation of Dostoevskii's novel, which I had written in 1910, and which had been played for During our two New York seasons we put on more than thirty different productions, and in the second season alone more than twenty-five different plays in as many weeks, which proved that we could succeed in what someone had called an impossible experiment. the first time at the Théâtre des Arts time, and the second or third of them, with Jacques Rouché. During my recent visit I was able to see how clearly the memory of what we had done still lingered, although eight years had passed since we left. In fact, only two influences have been brought to bear on the young American theatre one being the Vieux Colombier, and the other the Moscow Art Theatre. In America I did a great deal of work in the universities. Nearly all of them have a department for dramatic study, and even a theatre where the students perform. These theatres are wonderfully equipped, but the performances that are put on in them are rather less interesting. As for my own career, my father was a bourgeois who lived in the Faubourg St.-Denis, where I was born on the fourth of February, 1879, and my family, in accordance with the good bourgeois tradition of that honorable faubourg, were passionately fond of the theatre, and took me to it often. While at school, where one of my first pieces was played, I was presented to a celebrated critic, who gave me a write-up in Le Temps. These dramatic beginnings flattered and worried my family, who naturally had determined to send me to the École Normale. Just at this time my father died, which made it necessary for me to earn my living sooner than we had expected. Getting married at twenty-three to a Danish girl, I went with her to her native country, where I stayed a year, earning my living by giving French lessons. My first articles that appeared in L'Ermitage date from this in which I dealt with André Gide's Immoraliste, marked the beginning of my relations with this man. In 1904 I grew tired of Denmark and returned to France, where I installed myself in the village of Raucourt in Ardennes, as director of a little iron factory that my father had left me. I stayed there a year, thoroughly discontented with the kind of life I had to lead. I made little enough money at first, and when I sold my factory I returned to Paris. But I had to keep alive and find a trade. I therefore entered the employ of Georges Petit, where for four years I sold pictures to all Paris. It was during this time - in 1909, to be precise - that the Nouvelle Revue Française was founded. L'Ermitage had just expired, and the little group that it had sheltered found themselves homeless. At the same time Les Marges, financed by Eugène Montfort, suspended publication, and there was a rapprochement between Ducoté, Gide, Schlumberger, Michel Arnaud, Ruyters, and myself on the one hand, and Montfort on the other. We first met the evening my son was born, in a little room that Montfort, who to us represented capitalism, had taken in Montmartre. It was decided that Montfort should be the director of the paper. He made up the first number, and we read it with real consternation. From the first page to the last it supported points of view to which we were violently opposed, and we broke off relations with him at once. I was the one appointed by our party to take charge of negotiations that would lead to a break with Montfort, and I still possess a file of letters that may be edifying some day. After this experience we kept quiet for several months, but appeared again under the auspices of Marcel Rivière. This was our real start. The first num |