But on the whole we
expect to find that the scene presently yields to some kind of
chronicle or summary, and that this in turn prepares the way and leads
into the occasion that fulfils it. The placing of this occasion, at
the point where everything is ready for it, where it will thoroughly
illuminate a new face of the subject and advance the action by a
definite stage, is among the chief cares of the author, I take it, in
planning his book. A scene that is not really wanted, and that _does_
nothing in particular--a scene that for lack of preparation fails to
make its effect--is a weakness in a story that one would suppose a
novelist to be always guarding against. Anyhow there is no doubt that
the scene holds the place of honour, that it is the readiest means of
starting an interest and raising a question--we drop into a scene on
the first page and begin to speculate about the people concerned in
it: and that it recurs for a climax of any sort, the resolution of the
question--and so the scene completes what it began. In Madame Bovary
the scenes are distributed and rendered with very rare skill; not one
but seems to have more and more to give with every fresh reading of
it. The ball, the _comices_, the evening at the theatre, Emma's
fateful interview with Leon in the Cathedral of Rouen, the remarkable
session of the priest and the apothecary at her deathbed--these form
the articulation of the book, the scheme of its structure.
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