“Which is the way to the theatre?” said I to an urchin who stood at the inn door, in that professional attitude of waiting, your street runners, in all cities, can so well assume; for, holding a horse, and ringing a bell, are accomplishments, however little some people may deem them.
“The theatre?” echoed he, measuring me leisurely from head to foot, and not stirring from his place.
“Yes,” said I, “they told me there was one here, and that they played to-night.”
“Possibly,” with a shrug of the shoulders, was the reply, and he smoked his short pipe, as carelessly as before.
“Come then, show me the way,” said I, pulling out some kreutzers, “put up that pipe for ten minutes, and lead on.”
The jingle of the copper coin awakened his intelligence, and though he could not fathom my antipathy to the fumes of bad tobacco, he deposited the weapon in his capacious side pocket, and with a short nod, bade me follow him.
No where does nationality exhibit itself so strikingly, as in the conduct and bearing of the people who show you the way, in different cities. Your German is sententious and solemn as an elephant, he goes plodding along with his head down and his hands in his pockets, answering your questions with a sulky monosyllable, and seeming annoyed when not left to his own meditations. The Frenchman thinks, on the contrary, that he is bound to be agreeable and entertaining, he is doing the honours of La Grande Nation, and it stands him upon, that you are not to go away discontented with the politeness of “the only civilized people of Europe.” Paddy has some of this spirit too, but less on national than individual grounds; he likes conversation, and leads the way to it; beside, no one, while affecting to give information himself, can pump a stranger, like an Irishman. The Yankee plan is cross-examination outright, and no disguise about it; if he shows the way to one place, it is because you must tell him where you came from last; while John Bull, with a brief “Don’t know, I’m sure,” is equally indifferent to your road and your fortune, and has no room for any thoughts about you.
My “avant courier” was worthy of his country; if every word had cost him a molar tooth, he couldn’t have been more sparing of them, and when by chance I either did not hear or rightly understand what he did say, nothing could induce him to repeat it; and so, on we went from the more frequented part of the town, till we arrived at a quarter of narrow streets, and poor-looking houses, over the roofs of which I could from time to time, catch glimpses of the fortifications; for we were at the extreme limits of the place.
“Are you quite certain this is the way, my lad?” said I, for I began to fear lest he might have mistaken the object of my inquiry.
“Yes, yes—there it was—there was the theatre,” and so he pointed to a large building of dark stone, which closed the end of the street, and on the walls of which, various placards and announcements were posted, which, on coming nearer, I found were bills for their night’s performance, setting forth how the servants of his Majesty would perform “Den Junker in den Residentz,” and the afterpiece of “Krähwinkel.” There was a very flourishing catalogue of actors and actresses, with names as hard as the dishes in a bill of fare; and something about a “ballet,” and a “musical intermezzo.”
Come—said I to myself—this is a piece of good fortune. And so, dismissing my little foot page I turned to the door, which stood within a deep porch.
What was my amazement, however, to find it closed—I looked on every side, but there was no other entrance; besides, the printed list of places and their prices, left no doubt that this was the regular place of admission. There’s no knowing, after all,—thought I—these Germans are strange folks; perhaps they don’t open the door without knocking, and so, here goes.
“In Himmel’s namen was ist das?” screamed an angry voice, as a very undignified-looking Vrau peeped from a window of a foot square, above the door—“What do you want with that uproar there?” roared she, louder than before.
“I want to get in—a place in the boxes, or a ‘stalle’ in the ‘balcon’—anywhere will do.”
“What for?” cried she again.
“What for!—for the play to be sure—for the ‘Junker in den Resident.’”
“He is not here at all—go your ways—or I’ll call the Polizey,” yelled she, while, banging the window, there was an end of the dialogue.
“Can I be of any service to you, mein Herr?” said a portly little fellow, without a coat, who was smoking at his door—“What is it you want?”
“I came to see a play,” said I, in amazement at the whole proceedings, “and here I find nothing but an old beldam that threatens me with the police.”
“Ah! as for the play I don’t know,” replied he, scratching his head, “but come with me over here to the ‘Fox’ and we’re sure to see the Herr Director.”
“But I’ve nothing to do with the Herr Director,” said I; “if there’s no performance I must only go back again—that’ s all.”
“Aye! but there may though,” rejoined my friend; “come along and see the Herr himself, I know him well, and he’ll tell you all about it.”
The proposition was at least novel, and as the world goes, that same is not without its advantages, and so I acceded, and followed my new guide, who, in the carelessnégligéeof a waistcoat and breeches, waddled along before me.
The “Fox” was an old-fashioned house, of framed wood, with queer diamond-shaped panes to the windows, and a great armorial coat over the door, where a fox, in black oak, stood out conspicuously.
Scarcely had we entered the low arched door, when the fumes of schnaps and tobacco nearly suffocated me; while the merry chorus of a drinking song, proclaimed that a jolly party was assembled.
I already repented of my folly in yielding to the strange man’s proposal, and had he been near, would at once have declined any further step in the matter; but he had disappeared in the clouds,—the disc of his drab shorts was all I could perceive through the nebulae. It was confoundedly awkward, so it was. What right had I to hunt down the Herr Director, and disturb him in his lair. It was enough that there was no play; any other man would have quietly returned home again, when he saw such was the case.
While I revolved these thoughts with myself, my fat friend issued from the mist, followed by a tall, thin man, dressed in deep black, with tights and hessians of admirable fit; a pair of large, bushy whiskers bisected his face, meeting at the corners of the nose; while a sharp, and pointed chin tuft, seemed to prolong the lower part of his countenance to an immense extent.
Before the short man had well uttered his announcement of the “Herr Director,” I had launched forth into the most profuse apologies for my unwarrantable intrusion, expressing in all the German I could muster, the extent of my sorrow, and ringing the changes on my grief and my modesty, my modesty and my grief; at last I gave in, fairly floored for want of the confounded verb one must always clinch the end of a sentence with, in German.
“It was to see the play then, Monsieur came?” said the Director, inquiringly, for alas! my explanation had been none of the clearest.
“Yes,” said I, “for the play—but——” Before I could finish the sentence, he flung himself into my arms, and cried out with enthusiasm, “Du bist mein Vater’s Sohn!”
This piece of family information, was unquestionably new to me, but I disengaged myself from my brother’s arms, curious to know the meaning of such enthusiasm.
“And so you came to see the play?” cried he, in a transport, while he threw himself into a stage attitude of great effect.
“Yes.” said I, “to see the ‘Junker,’ and ‘Krähwinkel.’”
“Ach Grott! that was fine, that was noble!”
Now, how any man’s enterprising a five-franc piece or two gulden-müntze, could, deserve such epithets, would have puzzled me at another moment; but as the dramatist said, I wasn’t going to “mind squibs after sitting over a barrel of gunpowder,” and I didn’t pay the least attention to it.
“Give me your hand!” cried he, in a rapture, “and let me call you friend.”
The Director’s mad as a March hare! thought I, and I wished myself well out of the whole adventure.
“But as there’s no play,” said I, “another night will do as well; I shall remain here for a week to come, perhaps longer——”
But while I went on expressing the great probability of my passing a winter in Erfurt, he never paid the least attention to my observations, but seemed sunk in meditation, occasionally dropping in a stray phrase, as thus—“Die Wurtzel is sick, that is, she is at the music garden with the officers; then, Blum is drunk by this; der Ettenbaum couldn’t sing a note after his supper of schinkin. But then there’s Grundenwald, and Catinka, to be sure, and Alte Kreps—we’ll do it, we’ll do it! Come along, mien aller Liebster, and choose the best ‘loge du premier,’ take two, three, if you like it—you shall see a play.”
“What do you mean? you are surely not going to open the house forme!”
“Ain’t I though! you shall soon see—it’s the only audience I ever had in Erfurt, and I’m not going to lose it. Know, most worthy friend,” continued he with a most melodramatic tone and gesture, “that to-night is the twelfth time I have given out an announcement of a play, and yet never was able to attract—I will not say an audience—but not a row—not a ‘loge’—not even a ‘stalle’ in the balcon. I opened, why do I say I opened? I advertised, the first night, Schiller’s Maria Stuart, you know the Maria—well, such a Madchen as we have for the part! such tenderness—such music in her voice—such grace and majesty in every movement; you shall see for yourself, Catinka is here. Then I gave out ‘Nathan der Weise,’ then the ‘Goetz,’ then ‘Lust und Liebe,’—why do I go on? in a word I went through all our dramatic authors from Schiller, Göthe, Leasing, Werner, Grillparzer, down to Kötzebue, whose two pieces I advertised for this evening—”
“But—pardon my interruption—did you always keep the doors closed, as I found them?”
“Not at first,” responded he, solemnly; “the doors were open, and a system of telegraphs established between the bureau for payment and the orchestra, by which the footlights were to be illuminated on the arrival of the first visiter; but the bassoon and the drum, the clarinette and the oboe, stood like cannoneers, match in hand, from half-past six till eight, and never came the word ‘fire!’ But here we are.”
With these words he produced from his pocket a massive key, with which he unlocked the door, and led me forward by the arm into a dark passage, followed by our coatless friend, whom he addressed as “Herr Stauf,” desiring him to come in also. While the Herr Director was waiting for a light, which the Vrau seemed in no hurry to bring, he continued his recital. “When I perceived matters were thus, I vowed two vows, solemnly, and before the whole corps, ballet, chorus, and all; first, that I would give twelve representations—I mean announcements of representation—from twelve separate dramatists, before I left Erfurt; and, secondly, that for a single spectator, I would open the house, and have a play acted. One part of my oath is already accomplished; your appearance calls on me for the other. This over, I shall leave Erfurt for ever; and if,” continued he, “the fates ever discover me again within the walls of a fortified town—unless I be sent there in handcuffs, and with a peloton of dragoons—may I never cork my eyebrows while I live!”
This resolve, so perfectly in accordance with the meditations I had lately indulged in myself, gave me a higher opinion of the Herr Director’s judgment, and I followed him with a more tranquil conscience than at first.
“There are four steps there—take care,” cried he, “and feel along by the wall here; for though this place should be, and indeed is, by right, one blaze of lamps, I must now conduct you by this miserable candle.”
And so, through many a narrow passage, and narrower door, up-stairs and down, over benches, and under partitions, we went, until at length we arrived upon the stage itself. The curtain was up, and before it, in yawning blackness, lay the audience part of the house—a gloomy and dreary cavern; the dark cells of the boxes, and the long, untenanted, benches of the “balcon,” had an effect of melancholy desolation impossible to convey. Up above, the various skies and moon scenes hung, flapping to and fro with the cold wind, that came, Heaven knows whence, but with a piercing sharpness I never felt the equal of within doors; while the back of the stage was lost in a dim distance, where fragments of huts, and woods, mills, mountains, and rustic bridges, lay discordantly intermixed—the chaos of a stage world.
The Herr Director waved his dip candle to and fro, above his head, like a stage magician, invoking spirits and goblins damned; while he repeated, from one of Werner’s pieces, some lines of an incantation.
“Gelobt sey Marie!” said the Herr Stauf, blessing himself devoutly; for he had looked upon the whole as an act of devotion.
“And now, friend,” continued the Director, “wait here, at this fountain, and I will return in a few minutes.” And so saying, he quitted the place, leaving Stauf and me in perfect darkness—a circumstance which I soon discovered was not a whit more gratifying to my friend than myself.
“This is a fearful place to be in the dark,” quoth Stauf, edging close up to me; “you don’t know, but I do, that this was the Augustine Convent formerly, and the monks were all murdered by the Elector Frederick, in—What was that?—Didn’t you see something like a blue flame yonder?”
“Well, and what then; you know these people have a hundred contrivances for stage purposes——”
“Ach Gott! that’s true; but I wish I was out again, in the Mohren Gasse; I’m only a poor sausage maker, and one needn’t be brave for my trade.”
“Come, come, take courage; here comes the Herr Director;” and with that he entered with two candles in large gilt candlesticks.
“Now, friend,” said he, “where will you sit? My advice is, the orchestra; take a place near the middle, behind the leader’s bench, and you’ll be out of the draught of wind. Stauf, do you hold the candles, and sit in the ‘pupitre.’ You’ll excuse my lighting the foot lights, won’t you?—well, what do you say to a greatcoat; you feel it cold—I see you do.”
“If not too much trouble——”
“Not at all—don’t speak of it;” and with that he slipped behind the flats, and returned in an instant with a huge fur mantle of mock sable. “I wear that in ‘Otto von Bohmen,’” said he proudly; “and it always produces an immense effect. It is in that same ‘peltzer’ I stab the king, in the fourth act; do you remember where he says, (it is at the chess table,)—‘Check to the Queen;’ then I reply, ‘Zum Koënig, selbst,’ and run him through.”
“Gott bewahr!” piously ejaculated Stauf, who seemed quite beyond all chance of distinguishing fiction from reality.
“You’ll have to wait ten or twenty minutes, I fear,” said the Director. “Der Catinka can’t be found, and Der Ungedroht has just washed his doublet, and can’t appear till it’s dry; but we’ll give you the Krfihwinkel in good style. You shall be content; and now I must go dress too.”
“He is a strange carl,” said Stauf, as he sat upon a tall bench, like an office stool; “but I wish from my soul it was over!”
I can’t say I did not participate in the wish, notwithstanding a certain curiosity to have a peep at the rest of the company. I had seen, in my day, some droll exhibitions in the dramatic way; but this, certainly, if not the most amusing, was the very strangest of them all.
I remember at Corfu, where an Italian company came one winter, and gave a series of operas; amongst others, “II Turco in Italia.” The strength of the corps did not, however, permit of their being equal to those armies of Turks and Italians, who occasionally figure “en scene;” and they were driven to ask assistance from the Commandant of the Garrison, who very readily lent them a company of, I believe, the eighty-eighth regiment.
The worthy Director had sad work to drill his troops; for unhappily he couldn’t speak a word of English; and as they knew little or no Italian, he was reduced to signs and pantomime. When the piece, however, was going forward, and the two rival Armies should alternately attack and repulse each other, the luckless Director, unable to make them fight and rally, to the quick movement of the orchestra, was heard shouting out behind the scenes, in wild excitement, “Avanti Turki!—Avanti Christiani!—Ah, bravo Turki!—Maledetti Christiani!” which threw the whole audience into a perfect paroxysm of laughter.
Come then, thought I, who knows but this may be as good as Corfu. But lo! here he comes, and now the Director, dressed in the character of the “Herr Berg-Bau und Weg-Inspector” came to the front of the stage, and beginning thus, spoke, “Meine Herren und Damen—there arenoladies,” said he, stopping short, “but whose fault is that?—Meine Herren, it grieves me much, to be obliged on this occasion———Make a row there, why don’t you?” said he, addressing me, “ran-tan-tan!—an apology is always interrupted by the audience; if it were not, one could never get through it.”
I followed his directions by hammering on the bench with my cane, and he continued to explain that various ladies and gentlemen of the corps were seriously indisposed, and that, though the piece should go on, it must be with only three out of the seven characters; I renewed my marks of disapprobation here, which seemed to afford him great delight, and he withdrew bowing respectfully to every quarter of the house.
Kotzebue’s Krahwinkel, as many of my readers know, needs not the additional absurdity of the circumstances, under which I saw it performed, to make it ludicrous and laughable. The Herr Director played to the life; and Catinka, a pretty, plump, fair-haired “fraulein,” not however, exactly the idea of Maria Stuart, was admirable in her part. Even Stauf himself was so carried away by his enthusiasm, that he laid down his candles to applaud, and for the extent of the audience, I venture to say, there never was a more enthusiastic one. Indeed to this fact the Director himself bore testimony, as he more than once, interrupted the scene to thank us for our marks of approval. On both sides, the complaisance was complete. Never did actors and audience work better together, for whileweadmired,theyrelished the praise with all the gusto of individual approbation, frequently stopping to assure us that we were right in our applause, that their best hits were exactly those we selected; and that a more judging public never existed. Stauf was carried away in his ecstasies, and between laughing and applauding, I was regularly worn out with my exertions.
Want of light—Stauf’s candles swilled frightfully from neglect—compelled them to close the piece somewhat abruptly; and in the middle of the second act, such was the obscurity, that the Herr Berg-Bau und Weg-Inspector’s wife, fell over the prompter’s bulk, and nearly capsized Stauf into the bowels of the big fiddle. This was the finale, and I had barely time to invite the corps to a supper at the Fox, which they kindly accepted, when Stauf announced that we must beat a retreat by “inch of candle.” This we did in safety, and I reached the Fox in time to order the repast, before the guests had washed off their paint, and changed their dresses.
If it has been my fortune to assist at more elegant “reunions,” I can aver with safety I never presided over a more merry or joyous party, than was our own at the Fox. Die Catinka sat on my left, Die Vrau von “Mohren-Kopf,” the “Mère noble” of the corps, on my right, the Herr Director took the foot of the table, supported by a “bassoon” and a “first lover,” while various “trombones,” “marquis,” waiting maids, walking gentlemen, and a “ghost,” occupied the space at either side, not forgetting our excellent friend Stauf, who seemed the very happiest man of the party. We were fourteen souls in all, though where two-thirds of them came from, and how they got wind of a supper, some more astute diviner than myself must ascertain.
Theatrical folks, in all countries, are as much people in themselves as the Gypsies. They have a language of their own, a peculiarity of costume and a habit of life. They eat, drink, and intermarry with each other; and, in fact, I shouldn’t wonder, from their organization, if they have a king in some sly corner of Europe, who, one day will be restored, with great pomp and ceremony. One undeniable trait distinguishes them all—at least wherever I have met them in the old world and in the new—and that is, a most unbounded candour in their estimation of each other. Frankness is unquestionably the badge, of all their tribe; and they are, without exception, the most free of hypocrisy, in this respect, of all the classes with whom it has ever been my fortune to forgather. Nothing is too sharp, nothing too smart to be said; no thrust too home, no stab too fatal; it’s a mêlée tournament, where all tilt, and hard knocks are fair. This privilege of their social world, gives them a great air of freedom in all their intercourse with strangers, and sometimes leads even to an excess of ease, somewhat remarkable, in their manners. With them, intimacy is like those tropical trees that spring up, twenty feet high in a single night. They meet you at rehearsal, and before the curtain rises in the evening, there is a sworn friendship between you. Stage manners, and green-room talk, carry off the eccentricities which other men dare not practise, and though you don’t fancy “Mr. Tuft” asking you for a loan of five pounds, hang it! you can’t be angry with Jeremy Diddler! This double identity, this Janus attribute, cuts in two ways, and you find it almost impossible to place any weight on the opinions and sentiments of people, who are always professing opinions and sentiments, learned by heart. This may be—I’m sure it is,—very illiberal—but I can’t help it. I wouldn’t let myself be moved by the arguments of Brutus on the Corn Laws, or Cato on the Catholic question, any more than I should fall in love with some sweet sentiment of a day-light Ophelia or Desdemona. I reserve all my faith in stage people, for the hours between seven and twelve at night; then, with footlights and scenery, pasteboard banquets, and wooden waves, I’m their slave, they may do with me as they will, but let day come, and “I’m a man again!”
Now as all this sounds very cross-grained, the sapient reader already suspects there may be more in it than it appears to imply, and that Arthur O’Leary has some grudge against the Thespians, which he wishes to pay off in generalities. I’m not bound to answer the insinuation; neither will I tell you more of our supper at the Fox, nor why the Herr Director Klug invited me to take a place in his wagon next day, for Weimar, nor what Catinka whispered, as I filled her glass with Champagne, nor how the “serpent” frowned from the end of the table; nor, in short, one word of the whole matter, save that I settled my bill that same night, at the Kaiser, and the next morning, left for Weimar, with a very large, and an excessively merry party.
NOTE.
Should the Reader feel—as in reason he may—some chagrin at the abrupt conclusion of this volume, I have only to beg the same indulgence, which I set out by asking, for a memoir so broken and fragmentary. If any curiosity should be found to exist regarding Mr. O’Leary’s future wanderings, or any desire to learn further of his opinions on men, women and their children, the kind Public has only, like “Oliver,” to “ask for more,” and the wish, unlike his, shall be complied with.
Ed.