Moving Statues

And saintly visitors on Christmas Day

A Christmas Tale by Maurice Bouchor, translated by Barrett H. Clark

The scene is a simple one. This is a peasant dwelling. It’s a hovel and an artist’s studio, all in one. Onstage, there are only four figures; and two of them are not animate. They’re statues. One the two is of St Nicholas; the other another saint, the patron saint of children. Of the two animate figures, one is a young woman, a mother, and the other is of her very young child, who sits or reclines (we are to imagine quietly) inside a crib that’s veiled.

And the mother is lamenting her lot. She does not ask for much; she never asks for more. But her husband, the man who carved these statues, he misuses his talents and misspends his money. His wife, she knows that he has genius, is a genius. The statues alone attest to it. But he is out, and when he is out money flows like wine, and she knows that he is out now in the foulest and the lowest wine shops that any could find.

Her husband set out to midnight mass, for it is now early Christmas Day and, she knows, he has been waylaid by some of his rascally, vagabond friends. One of them fancies himself a poet. And off they have gone to drink and to soak in the fumes of their wine, all the while her husband’s dinner waits, uneaten, prepared by a goodly wife who still loves her husband, though she despairs at what he does.

Their child lies nearby. Perhaps she is sleeping. It is Christmas Day, and her father ought to be at home. He ought, too, to have bought her toys and gifts of the season; and Christmas is for the children, surely, if it is what a pious man and woman ought to hope it is.

Yet there are no toys scattered around the bed of their daughter, who is now sleeping quietly. And so, as the mother hopes her daughter will sleep and be peaceful, she prays too to the saints (the patron saint of the little girl, and to St Nicholas, who is ever associated with this time of year). The two saints whose images her husband represented in statuary, whose unmoving earthly versions appear on the stage, inside this impoverished home.

Finally, the good woman falls uneasily yet deeply asleep. And the statues begin to move.

If this were perhaps a better play and less of a spiritual fantasy, this movement might be a surprise. But it is so heavily trailed, so heavily hinted at in the monologues of the woman now asleep, that there is nothing else the statues could realistically do than come alive. One, as we have said, is St Nicholas. He is an older man with a great white beard, and he has the temperament of a kindly grandfather. (There seem to be many older men with gentle eyes who have grandfatherly temperament in Western religion and religious art. It would be more dramatic, more surprising, if St Nicholas had come to life and meant someone or something ill.)

And the other saint, almost a girl herself: she wants to see the little sleeping one. And then, after satisfying herself that she is still unwaking and that she is very sweet, brings gifts from the other world for the child. Small toys depicting other saints; cakes made by heavenly bakers. The images here are a little too heavy. I’d call them cloying.

And all the while St Nicholas says, in a great monologue, that the lady has been ill-treated by her husband and that he ought not to waste his genius in the wine shops and that, when he returns, if he returns, he will have to learn the lesson of his ways.

Once or twice, the good woman almost stirs. She sees St Nicholas, perhaps, and the other saint, and sleeps again, assuring herself that though it may all be a dream, there is some good being done: some protection thrown around her small family.

And, to cap it all, the man of the house arrives. As he does, the statues briefly reassume their still postures. But he sees that they appear to have moved.

Who moved them? the sculptor asks.

I did, St Nicholas answers.

And the two of them have a long and fairly to the point conversation about the artist’s shortcomings, after which he is told that his daughter shall have toys (they have been eagerly and thoroughly provisioned from above) and that if he can hold himself to moderate drinking (for this is a French play and no self-respecting continental St Nicholas would ever insist upon temperance), all might yet be well.

This is a mystical play, and I mean that in slightly ill humour. At moments I felt this drama affecting me, but by the end, I did not feel much at all. I’m sure the turn of the century audiences would have felt more from it. Other plays like The Miracle, a sensation in its day, made much use of moving statues. The idea is good.

But I wanted more. I wanted something richer and more attuned to life’s tragedy than I got.