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The third, or structural, class of obligatory scenes may be more briefly dealt with, seeing that we have already, in the last chapter, discussed the principle involved.  In this class we have placed, by definition, scenes which the author himself has rendered obligatory by seeming unmistakably to lead up to them—­or, in other words, scenes indicated, or seeming to be indicated, by deliberately-planted finger-posts.  It may appear as though the case of Dick Halward, which we have just been examining, in reality came under this heading.  But it cannot actually be said that Mr. Jerome either did, or seemed to, point by finger-posts towards the obligatory scene.  He rather appears to have been blankly unconscious of its possibility.

We have noted in the foregoing chapter the unwisdom of planting misleading finger-posts; here we have only to deal with the particular case in which they seem to point to a definite and crucial scene.  An example given by M. Sarcey himself will, I think, make the matter quite clear.

M. Jules Lemaitre’s play, Revoltee, tells the story of a would-be intellectual, ill-conditioned young woman, married to a plain and ungainly professor of mathematics, whom she despises.  We know that she is in danger of yielding to the fascinations of a seductive man-about-town; and having shown us this danger, the author proceeds to emphasize the manly and sterling character of the husband.  He has the gentleness that goes with strength; but where his affections or his honour is concerned, he is not a man to be trifled with.  This having been several times impressed upon us, we naturally expect that the wife is to be rescued by some striking manifestation of the husband’s masterful virility.  But no such matter!  Rescued she is, indeed; but it is by the intervention of her half-brother, who fights a duel on her behalf, and is brought back wounded to restore peace to the mathematician’s household:  that man of science having been quite passive throughout, save for some ineffectual remonstrances.  It happens that in this case we know just where the author went astray.  Helene (the wife) is the unacknowledged daughter of a great lady, Mme. de Voves; and the subject of the play, as the author first conceived it, was the relation between the mother, the illegitimate daughter, and the legitimate son; the daughter’s husband taking only a subordinate place.  But Lemaitre chose as a model for the husband a man whom he had known and admired; and he allowed himself to depict in vivid colours his strong and sympathetic character, without noticing that he was thereby upsetting the economy of his play, and giving his audience reason to anticipate a line of development quite different from that which he had in mind.  Inadvertently, in fact, he planted, not one, but two or three, misleading finger-posts.

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We come now to the fourth, or psychological, class of obligatory scenes—­those which are “required in order to justify some modification of character or alteration of will, too important to be taken for granted.”