have mattered so much (the Tōkyō drama is mostly melodrama) if the author had avoided Adelphi psychology. No Japanese woman indulges in the independence or the invective of Naniwa. "What stupid owls men are!" might pass for a maidenly jest in this country; never in that. If Arumo were truly a Nagasaki priest, he would never condescend to solicit the advice and affection of the other sex. The fatal substitution of Occidental for Oriental particulars in "the way of a man with a maid" vitiated Mr. Fernald's claim to interpret Japanese romance. His men and women lacked the dignity and severity of Eastern etiquette.
In adapting "Madame Butterfly," a popular American story, for the Anglo-Saxon stage, Mr. David Belasco was on far safer ground. Since M. Pierre Loti set the fashion, many romancers have exploited the pathos of temporary marriage between the faithless Westerner and the trustful Oriental girl, but hitherto, in spite of the obvious opportunities for scenic effect, the theme had not been handled by a serious dramatist. Now, Mr. Belasco relies greatly, as all who saw his version of "Zaza" will remember, on the electrician and the limelight man. To them belongs the credit of the most exquisite and typical episode in "Madame Butterfly." As poor little O Chō San sat patiently at her window, with her baby asleep beside her and her face turned towards the harbour where lay the newly arrived ship of her fickle lieutenant, for full twenty minutes there was silence behind the footlights, while through the paper panes of the shōji could be seen the transition of dusk to darkness, of darkness to twilight, of dawn to day. All the poetry of the play was in those twenty minutes, and a great deal of its truth.
