Withered Leaves Volume Ii Part 13

The party broke up, Blanden made enquiries of the poet as to the singer's abode, and while he walked alone with Kuhl across the moonlit castle yard, said to him--

"With what a trembling heart I pa.s.sed through that door when I went to the Frau Grfin's court, that beautiful witness of the Apocalypse!

Another time has come and wafted away all the spectre, but also has demanded a tardy victim! For me it was a crus.h.i.+ng blow, I did not dare to live any longer. From to-day I dare it again, all the spirits of my life are stirred, because that Signora Bollini is my _principessa_ of Lago Maggiore."

CHAPTER VIII.

IN THE BOURDOIR.

The play-bill announced that in consequence of Signora Bollini's hoa.r.s.eness the performance of the "_Somnambula_" would not take place, "_der Freischtz_" was subst.i.tuted for it.

The theatre was empty, and all the greater was the number of visitors who towards evening came to enquire after the health of the singer.

Beate had trouble to restrain the pressure which, under pretexts of every description, became dangerous for her friend's quiet, nor could she always succeed, inventive as she was in evasions of every kind; the regular visitors would not let themselves be turned away, and even a few others who were particularly pus.h.i.+ng, obtained admittance by force.

Amongst the latter cla.s.s was the student Salomon, who in the interim had relinquished his studies at the gymnasium, and was proudly conscious of his new position in life, which was still more transfigured for him by the brilliancy of the jubilee.

The cunning Italian, with her sparkling eyes, her high, arched eyebrows, the agreeable sly smile upon her lips, one of those beauties that would have been fitted for a queen of hearts for the tricks at cards of a Bosco, felt an unconquerable repugnance to the wearisome youth.

"Signora Beate," said he in reply to all her representations, "your friend may be indisposed and exclude herself from the general crowd, but you really do not act in your own interests when you insult the student cla.s.s; I look upon myself as its representative; I am to give my friends information as to the admired actress' state of health; what, then, would they say if I found these doors closed? Consider that her success is our work; we are the genuine, incorruptible enthusiasts--enthusiasm of the _claque_ always betrays its hired origin--the fate of an evening at the theatre rests in our pure hands."

Beate was not impervious to such explanations, and opened the portals of the sanctuary to the repulsive young man.

Somewhat pale, Signora Giulia lay upon the sofa, her hair unbound, a book in her hand, a red-hued sheeny silk encircled the slender form; the modulated light of a hanging lamp which still struggled with the light of day, imparted a slightly green tint to her n.o.ble features.

Spectre-like stood out the statues of Dante and Ta.s.so, of Rossini and Bellini from the dark red velvet hangings; the Signora loved the art of sculpture and beautiful forms.

There, too, the head of Juno Ludovisti was displayed, a successful copy; here the Venus out of the Florentine Academy, and that group upon the buffet represented the bull of the derricks, the cruel piece of carving out of the Mus...o...b..rbonico.

The Signora greeted the student with a slight movement of her head as he entered; he enquired after her health and the subject of her reading--

"Ta.s.so!" exclaimed he then, "Jerusalem delivered? and the very canto which treats of Armida and Rinaldo? I must confess that Ta.s.so is not my favourite, he takes things so terribly seriously, and describes circ.u.mstances which are really frivolous, with such solemn feeling; he is for ever squinting at the capitoline laurels."

"Oh, who would not," cried the singer suddenly raising herself, "gaze towards those laurels, even with weary expiring eyes, as the poet beneath the oak of San Onofrio gazed across at the Capitol?"

"I personally," said Salomon, "am not susceptible to laurel wreaths; in these days they are much too cheap a prize!"

And at the same time he cast an impertinent glance at the velvet wall which was completely covered with such wreaths.

"But as far as _Gerusalemme Liberata_ is concerned, as Ta.s.so sings of it, it is an old worn-out story which never becomes new, thank G.o.d; because the crusades could only take place in a period so little enlightened as the so-called middle ages, when any monk with a long beard, who sat upon a jacka.s.s, possessed more influence than a minister of war, and who mobilised the whole Reserve and Landsturm of Christianity. Such things are no longer possible in these days. You cannot misunderstand me when I, as an educated man of our times, in connection with the 'Jerusalem delivered,' think of something very different than what that mad poet glorified in his stanzas, namely the emanc.i.p.ation of our faith. Heine is our Ta.s.so, and is indeed a much greater poet; for when he describes an Armida, she is flesh and blood, and with a few strokes of the brush he gives her more vivid colouring than when Ta.s.so absorbs a whole palette full of tints in order to paint her upon canvas."

Signora Giulia paid no attention to the chatterer, and calmly continued to read her poem.

"Ariosto now, is quite a different man! In him there is some of the blood of Heinrich Heine; an ironical light hovers around his creations; his giants bear some resemblance to Atta Troll, and his beautiful women might move about in a drawing-room. But you are surely unwell, Signora?

I must, it is true, confess that I have not perceived any of the hoa.r.s.eness of which the play-bills speak, but they, so far as I am concerned, are very little deserving of credence, I, who, indeed, possess a sceptical nature; but you seem to be exhausted also, and doubtlessly such a conversation as I love to hold, I might say in academical style, fatigues you, because my mind is always devoted to the loftier interests of art and literature, although I am also interested in b.u.t.terflies and other creatures of the animal kingdom.

Indeed, I surely weary you?"

For the first time, Giulia gave him a look of grat.i.tude; she acknowledged that she was unwell, and begged him to thank the brave youth of the Albertina, who had behaved so admirably at the late commemoration. Salomon acknowledged these thanks in the name of all the students, and not without a sensation of dissatisfaction left the singer who had not given him personally that sympathy which his enthusiasm and constant efforts merited.

"A sad lot," said Giulia to Beate, who entered, "this dependence upon the public--is it not the worst slavery? And what is it all for? So that in the general exultant applause, no sound of disapproval, no token of discontent may be mingled. Always fear for this evanescent fame; ever from day to day this begging for the alms of applause!"

"Well," said Beate, "they have always been expended lavishly upon you!"

"Yet how short is the memory of our contemporaries: what is all this fleeting, intoxicating splendour for which we strive with all the fibres of our soul? How soon we are transformed into a legend that each year becomes more obscure, and then the vast storm of oblivion sweeps over us all! Oh, I am weary, often infinitely weary, and would fain fly to a quiet spot where never more the incessant chase after success would shatter my nerves."

Giulia rested her head upon her hand, and closed her eyes; then she continued, opening them again wearily.

"Yes, if the sweet rapture still hold us captive; if we still feel all the magic of renown in its perfect entirety, then we may defy the infinite trouble which the chase after laurels brings with it, for the time has pa.s.sed in which they fall spontaneously like divine favours into the lap of the happy being, but when we have become indifferent to all these triumphs, when we would fain cast aside all this rustling gilt tinsel of fame, and necessity still compels us to labour, for immortality in which we no longer believe, oh, then we could envy the daily labourer the calm happiness of his work, for he only needs his hands--his thoughts and emotions are free, while we must bring spirit and nerve to our daily task, yield up our heart's blood without faith or love."

"In such a frame of mind you probably declined to-day's performance!"

"Perhaps--but you know--I have seen him. How uncertain are my feelings!

I did not wish to see him again, therefore we sought his home when he was absent. With dread I look forward to the moment in which he will speak to me, call me by my name--the step out of that enchanted fairy tale into sober reality, appears inconceivable to me. I feel the burning colour of shame upon my cheeks at the very thought. At one time I appear to myself like a Somnambula who must precipitate herself into an abyss when he calls me, awakes me out of my dreams, then at another like a Melusina, who is surprised by her knight while she, with a fish's tail, splashes about in the crystal stream with other water-witches, that horrible fish's tail, the paper train of unhappy theatrical renown."

"But many a _principe_ has married such a Melusina despite her fish's tail," said Beate with a smile of ready comfort.

"He feels differently, I know it; I wish now not to meet him, not to desecrate a beautiful moonlight memory with the sober light of day, and yet what is it that ever drives me hither to this desolate land? A dark, incomprehensible longing, that I dare not confess to myself; I feel as if I belonged to him when I stand upon the soil of his home, and when I saw him again the day before yesterday, he recognised me--I saw it, felt it; what is all fame, all exultation of the crowd to me? I yearn for one word from him, he will come, he must come, and because I expect him, I have not sung to-day."

"If the stern manager knew that!"

"I tremble at the prospect of meeting him, I start up each time the bell is touched; I listen with feverish expectation; I am boundlessly disappointed at every other face, and yet I could hardly endure to see him."

The bell was rung; in anxious antic.i.p.ation Giulia smoothed the dark curls from her brow. Beate, shrugging her shoulders, announced Herr Spiegeler, the indefatigable, irrepressible operatic reporter, who in addition provided the radicalism for many German theatrical newspapers.

Giulia, after a silent malediction, a.s.sumed a friendly smile and greeted the lame critic, who limped into the room upon his crutch.

"Indisposed, beautiful _prima donna_?" said he, with the air of a protector, "our malicious climate is not created for nightingales."

"And yet I have heard that in Lithuania the nightingales are very numerous and sing wonderfully."

"It may be--in that case they must have been sent to a wrong address, for there is no public there capable of appreciating their melting warbles."

Spiegeler belonged to the would-be witty daily writers, who are not alarmed at any impertinence to the descendants of Saphir, whose star at that time was already on the wane; he wished to make himself talked about and feared, he cared not at what cost; in every artist he did but perceive a victim of his wit, and examined that victim until he had discovered the vulnerable heel of Achilles for his dart. He piqued himself upon his rudenesses, his existence depended upon them. In middle cla.s.s life it often befell him that he was turned out of public-houses on account of his unseemly conduct; everywhere he was exposed to a by no means silent contempt; at the same time in literary and theatrical circles he was deemed a magnate, and there all strove to win his good-will. But the latter always remained uncertain, because for the sake of a happy idea he would even sacrifice his friends. He was so touchingly innocent that he was never even conscious of his own impudence; he considered wit to be his profession, and in that profession everything was allowable. Without blus.h.i.+ng he stretched out the hand of friends.h.i.+p to those into whose heart he had on the previous day plunged a dagger with the skill of a literary bravo, and then wondered why his friendly greeting was not reciprocated. Such parasitical existences more than aught else have brought literature into disrepute in middle cla.s.s German life, because the German cannot bring himself to admire that which in other respects he despises!

Certainly in literature the portals are thrown widely open even to these sharks; under the banner of so-called talent even the most miserable characterless creatures are smuggled in, and when such a shameless pretender of wit composes an immature piece which only possesses dramatic joints in however slight a degree, and ill or well can move upon the boards, immediately many court theatres, which have long since learned to treat as rubbish all productions of true talent, hasten to bring out that drama or after-piece, so as to pay homage to a young genius, or much more, to render themselves secure against the ruthless lash of the literary clown.

Spiegeler certainly had not yet made any attempt upon the domain of original art; but in all other qualities he did not deny the type of the so-called wit, above all not in indifference towards every description of chastis.e.m.e.nt which did not extend so far as the laying on of hands. For him moral annihilation did not exist, and he was wont to return with great freedom from embarra.s.sment whithersoever such acts of homage had been his portion.

Never did Giulia feel the degradation of her actress' calling more than in the presence of such German critics and their professional malice: a _prima donna_ who had a.s.sociated on friendly terms with the highest n.o.bility of Italy was compelled to receive with all well-bred affability persons to whom the doors of a drawing-room would never have been thrown open. Often enough had she proudly scorned to wait upon the malicious "gentlemen of the press," while many of her colleagues in velvet trains rustled up the back-stairs to an attic in which some newspaper writer, dangerous to her existence, had his den; but even if her success did not suffer therefrom, at all events on all sides she was told of the witty sallies with which the intellectual reporter revenged himself for this neglect. Of what use to her was all proper indignation?

It troubled her to read in every countenance the knowledge of those spiteful _bon mots_, she was given up to public malice; the air in which she breathed was no longer the pure atmosphere of art, it wafted a poisoned pestilential blast towards her, and she preferred to submit to secret humiliation rather than bear the insults to which she was exposed before the whole world.

And Giulia was obliged to tell herself that such theatrical criticism only flourished upon German soil! In Italy, in England, in Spain every critic was a _n.o.bile_, a gentleman, an _hidalgo_; even censure is offered with a polite bow, every merited acknowledgment is made to talent and beauty. Never is an artistic performance sacrificed to the unsparing spirit that delights in plucking it to pieces; never do newspapers venture to let an inquisitive ray of light fall into the interior of private life as through an open window shutter, and then to gossip about it with _piquant_ allusions. Giulia thought little of the much-vaunted German piety, she saw that not alone the actors and actresses, but also the original poets themselves were often criticisingly ill-treated by most incapable heads, and that the public did not take part with the richly gifted and n.o.bly struggling talents, but rather carried their homage with utmost complacency to the sparkling conceits of the much promising critic. She certainly did not know that a similar lot had fallen to our cla.s.sical poets, that a criticism which had a fig-leaf ready for every bare mediocrity picked Schiller's tragedies to pieces as being schoolboy's work, even shortly before their author's death, and that amid the exultation of a numerous crowd a squib sought to destroy Goethe's laurels.

All the same, these thoughts, the recollections of many an experience in her intercourse with the representatives of German public opinion, caused her blood to boil more than usually to-day; either the sad mood that overcame her was its cause, or a dim feeling that even in daring defiance she would find a protector in the man who breathed the air of the same town with her.

Spiegeler had made himself comfortable, propped his crutch against the easy chair; the spiteful line about his lips, recognisable despite the luxuriant beard, the small dark watchful eyes intimated that some malice was being prepared, but it was no plumed dart, which he this time launched at the singer; he wished to let her feel his superiority, while showing her that she was dependent upon a man who had never troubled himself particularly about her especial art.