Читать книгу Three Plays by Brieux - Eugène Brieux - Страница 27

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In short, the censorship did what it always does: it left the poison on the table and carefully locked up the antidote. And it did this, not from a fiendish design to destroy the souls of the people, but solely because the passage involved a reference by a girl to her virginity, which is unusual and therefore tabooed. The Censor never troubled himself as to the meaning or effect of the passage. It represented the woman as doing an unusual thing: therefore a dangerous, possibly subversive thing. In England, when we are scandalized and can give no direct reason why, we exclaim ‘What next?’ That is the continual cry of the Censor’s soul. If a girl may refer to her virginity on the stage, what may she not refer to? This instinctive regard to consequences was once impressed painfully on a pious Frenchman who, in Westminster Abbey, knelt down to pray. The verger, who had never seen such a thing happen before, promptly handed him over to the police and charged him with ‘brawling.’ Fortunately, the magistrate had compassion on the foreigner’s ignorance; and even went the length of asking why he should not be allowed to pray in church. The reply of the verger was simple and obvious. ‘If we allowed that,’ he said, ‘we should have people praying all over the place.’ And to this day the rule in Westminster Abbey is that you may stroll about and look at the monuments; but you must not on any account pray. Similarly, on the stage you may represent murder, gluttony, sexual vice, and all the crimes in the calendar and out of it; but you must not say anything unusual about them.