'The Bells' was produced by Mr. Bateman on the 25th of November 1871, and the critics were unanimous in their praise of the acting of the principal character of the piece. Indeed, the play is essentially a one-part piece as completely so as 'Leah' is. It is founded on the story of 'The Polish Jew,' by those great novelists, MM. Erckmann-Chatrian—the twin brothers of modern French romance.
The play is adapted by Mr. Leopold Lewis, who seems to have performed the task of taking other men's ideas as well as adapters generally. His version of 'The Polish Jew' opens as 'The Corsican Brothers' does—with a narrative of the motive incident of the plot.
Mathias keeps an inn in Alsace. In the common room of this inn, Walter and Hans are talking of the murder of the Polish Jew, which happened fifteen years before; when Mathias, the rich innkeeper, returns from a visit to Paris. Mathias was the murderer. He is astonished and alarmed to find the crime still a topic of conversation. When he killed the Jew for the gold he carried in his belt, he was poor and embarrassed. Now he is wealthy and prosperous, and the chief man in the village. His daughter is to be married to Christian, and he can give her a dowry of thirty thousand francs.
In Paris he has seen a mesmerist put people into the mesmeric sleep, and make them disclose their thoughts. This has made a deep impression on his mind. He sups; drinks with Hans and Walter; and after they are gone, is alone with his disordered fancy. The sledge bells ring again in his ears; again he sees the face of the murdered Jew; the soughing wind blows back on him the Jew's blessing, 'God be with you!' Still the sledge bells ring, and Mathias sees his victim driving in the snow. With a wild and terrible cry, he faints and falls.
In the second act he is hurrying on the signing of the marriage contract.
