We get a foolish young millionaire and a foolish young
person in a flower shop, who take up a collage together in the most
casual way possible, and they are presented as two very ordinary people,
neither better nor worse than a great many other ordinary people, who
do or do not do much the same thing. They at least do not "wink or
giggle"; they take things with the utmost simplicity, and they call upon
us to imitate their bland unconsciousness.
"La Veine" is a study of luck, in the person of a very ordinary man, not
more intelligent or more selfish or more attractive than the average,
but one who knows when to take the luck which comes his way. The few,
quite average, incidents of the play are put together with neatness and
probability, and without sensational effects, or astonishing curtains;
the people are very natural and probable, very amusing in their humours,
and they often say humorous things, not in so many set words, but by a
clever adjustment of natural and probable nothings. Throughout the play
there is an amiable and entertaining common sense which never becomes
stage convention; these people talk like real people, only much more
a-propos.
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