THE GREAT TRAGEDIAN.
Amidst a storm of applause the curtain fell. The applause continued, and the curtain rose once more; and the favourite actor, worn out with emotion and fatigue, reappeared to receive the homage which an enthusiastic multitude paid to his genius.
I saw a proud flush of triumph steal over his wan face, which lighted it for a moment with almost supernatural expression. As he passed behind the scenes, amidst the rustling dresses of the rouged and spangled crowd, I observed his face contracted by a pang, which struck me the more forcibly from its so quickly succeeding the look of triumph. He passed on to his room without uttering a word—there to disrobe himself of the kingly garments in which he had “strutted his brief hour on the stage;” and in a little while again passed me (as I was hammering out compliments, in voluble but questionable German, to the pretty little * * *) in his sober-suited black, and, stepping into his carriage, drove to the Behren Strasse.
I knew he was going there, as I had been earnestly pressed to meet him that very evening; so, collecting all my forces, I uttered the happiest thing my German would permit me, and accompanying it with my most killing glance, raised the tiny hand of * * * to my lips and withdrew, perfectly charmed with her, and perfectly satisfied with myself.
There was a brilliant circle that night at Madame Röckel’s. To use the received phrase, “all Berlin was there.” I found Herr Schoenlein, the great actor, surrounded by admirers, more profuse than delicate in their adulation. He was pale; looked wearied. He seemed to heed that admiration so little—and yet, in truth, he needed it so much! Not a muscle moved—not a smile answered their compliments; he received them as if he had been a statue which a senseless crowd adored. Yet, fulsome as the compliments were, they were never too fulsome for his greed. He had the fever-thirst of praise upon him now more than ever—now more than at any period of his long career, during which his heart had always throbbed at every sound of applause, did he crave more and more applause. That man, seemingly so indifferent, was sick at heart, and applause alone could cure him! Had he not applause enough? Did not all Germany acknowledge his greatness? Did not Berlin worship him? True; but that was not enough: he hungered for more.
I was taken up to him by Madame Röckel, and introduced as an “English admirer.” Now, for the first time, he manifested some pleasure. It was not assuredlywhatI said—(for although,of course, I am always “mistaken for a German,” so pure is my accent, so correct my diction!)—it was the fact of my being a foreigner—an Englishman—which made my praise so acceptable. I was a countryman of Shakspeare’s, and, of course, a discerning critic of Shakspearian acting. We rapidly passed over the commonplace bridges of conversation, and were soon engaged in a discussion respecting the stage.
With nervous energy, and a sort of feverish irritability, he questioned me about our great actors—our Young, Kean, Kemble, and Macready—which gave me an opportunity for displaying that nice critical discrimination which my friends are kind enough to believe I possess—with what reason it is not for me to say.
When I told him that, on the whole, I was more gratified with the performances of Shakspeare in Germany, he turned upon me with sudden quickness and asked—
“In what towns?”
“At Berlin and Dresden,” I answered.
“You have seen Franz, then?”
“I have.”
His lip quivered. I saw that I had made a mistake. I am not generally an ass—nay, I am believed to possess some little tact; but what demon could have possessed me to talk of an actortoan actor?
“Do you think Franz greater than any of your English actors?” he asked, fretfully.
“Why, I cannot say that exactly. But I was amazingly struck with his performance. My observation, however, principally applied to the general ‘getting-up.’”
“But Franz—Franz. I wish to hear your opinion of him.”
“He is young,” I replied; “has a fine figure, a noble voice, a grand carriage, and, although new to the stage, and consequently deficient in some technical matters, yet he has that undefinable something which men call genius.”
“Hm!” was the significant answer.
I then saw whither my stupidity had led me. This, however, I will say for myself, if ever I do get into a dilemma, I have generally readiness of mind enough to extricate myself. I do not say this out of conceit, for I am not at all conceited—I merely mention it as a fact. This is how I turned my blunder to account.
“Although,” said I, “he has notyourmastery, yet he reminded me a great deal of you. I cannot payhima higher compliment.”
To my surprise he did not see the flattery of this, but moved to another part of the room; and I did not speak with him again till supper.
This little incident excited my attention. I puzzled my brain for an explanation of the riddle which his conduct presented, and spoke to several of my friends about it, who could only tell me that Schoenlein was jealous of this new actor Franz.
Did you ever sup in Berlin, reader? If not, let me inform you that supper there is a most substantial affair. I had not read Miss Bremer’s novels when first I went there; so, not being prepared for the infinite amount of eating and drinking which is transacted in the north, I confess my astonishment was a little mingled with disgust to find a supper begin with white-beer soup, (capital soup, by the way,) followed by various kinds of fish, amongst them, of course, that eternal hideous carp—roast veal, poultry, pastry, and dessert. To see the worthy Berliners sup, you would fancy they had not dined, and to see them dine next day, you would fancy they had not supped, and breakfastedtwice.
Eating is an art. It is also—and this fact we are prone to overlook—a habit. As a habit it may be enlarged to an indefinite extent; and lispingfraüleinshave demonstrated the capacity of the human stomach to be such as would make our beauties stare.
It must not be supposed that I am a coxcomb, since nothing can be farther from the truth; nor must I be held to share with Lord Byron his horror at seeing women eat. In fact I like to see the darlings enjoy themselves: but—and I care not who knows it—to see German women eat, is more than I can patiently endure.
Let me cease this digression to remark that, except myself, the great tragedian was the only person at table who was not voracious—and that because he was unhappy. While knives and forks were playing with reckless energy he talked to me, but there was a coldness and constraint in his manner which plainly told me that my praises of Franz had deeply mortified him.
Poor Schoenlein! Unhappy he came to Madame Röckel’s; for, amidst the storm of applause which saluted him at the theatre, he heard the applause which was saluting his rival at Dresden; and he had left the theatre for a friendly circle of admirers only to hear his rival praised by an Englishman. All the applause of all Berlin weighed as nothing against one compliment paid to Franz!
It was nearly twelve, and the company had gradually departed. I was left alone with Madame Röckel; and, as usual, I stayed half-an-hour later than the others, to have a quiet chat with her. I wanted to ask her for an explanation of Schoenlein’s conduct. Much as I had seen of the vanity of actors—well as I knew their petty jealousy of each other—I was not prepared for what I had seen that night.
Madame Röckel had resumed her knitting—the never-failing accompaniment of a German lady—and I drew a chair close to the sofa, and told her what had passed.
“His story is a strange one,” she said; “and to understand him you must know it.”
“Can you not tell it me?”
“Willingly. Schoenlein is a man well born and well bred, who feels his profession is a disgrace.”
“A disgrace!”
“Very absurd, is it not? but thatishis feeling. At the same time, just as the opium-eater, knowing the degradation of his vice, cannot resist its fascination—so this actor, with an intense feeling of what he regards as the sinfulness of the stage, cannot resist its fascination.”
“You astonish me!”
“He is an austere man—what you English would call a puritan—who looks upon the stage as the theatre of vice, and yet cannot quit it because it is the theatre of his triumphs!”
“But how came he to be an actor!”
“Why, thrown upon the stage when the stage seemed the only means of livelihood open to him—forced on it by necessity, success has chained him there. I have heard him say that every time he performs it is with the conviction that he is performing for the last time. But the fascination still continues—his heart is still greedy of applause—his mind still eager for its accustomed emotions. He goes on the stage sad, struggling, and repentant; to leave it with throbbing pulses and a wild-beating heart. He accepts no engagement, he only plays by the night. He has from time to time made vigorous efforts to quit the stage, but at the end of a fortnight he invariably returns. He once set out for Italy, thinking that if away from Germany he should be able to wean himself from the theatre; but he got no farther than Vienna, and there played for twenty nights.”
“But don’t you think there must be a great deal of humbug in all this?”
“Not a bit.”
“Do you really believe in his scruples?”
“I know him too well to doubt them. There are many men quite as inconsistent. He deludes himself with all sorts of sophistry. He persuades himself that he acts only to realise an independence for his son, and to secure his own old age. But the truth is, he acts because he has an irresistible impulse to act. It is a sort of intellectual dram-drinking which he cannot forego.”
“To be sure, men are strange bundles of contradictions; and I suppose one must give Schoenlein credit for being sincere.”
“He is his own dupe, for to no one but very intimate friends has he ever disclosed his real opinions.”
“Then his life must be a constant struggle?”
“It is. This it is which has made him prematurely old: the struggle of his conscience with his passions. But this it is also which gives such touching pathos to his acting—which makes his voice so mournful that it vibrates through your whole being. As the poet’s sufferings are sublimed into song, and become the delight of mankind, so from the ground of this tragedian’s despair springs the well of his inspiration, which makes him truly great.”
We were both silent for a few moments.
“I have said enough,” added Madame Röckel, “to explain how such a man must necessarily be, above all others, envious—how the success of another must be torture to him. Nothing but intense vanity could keep him on the stage. Hitherto he has really had no rival—he has stood alone; other tragedians have not been named beside him. But now, within the last few weeks, there has arisen this young Franz, who has only played at Leipsic and Dresden, yet whose fame has spread all over Germany.”
“But I have seen Franz, and I assure you he is not so great an actor as Schoenlein. To be sure, he has youth on his side.”
“It is not his success alone which is so exasperating; it is because the critics, as usual, will do nothing but compare the young Franz with the old Schoenlein; while the public, with its natural inconstancy, begins to discover that Schoenlein is no longer young. It is a sad thing,” she pursued, with a faint smile, “for those who have reigned supreme over audiences to feel their dynasty is drawing to a close—sad for those who have swayed all hearts, to feel that another is now to usurp their place. We women know what it is, in a slight degree, when we grow old. Do we ever grow old, andknowit? When our glass still tells us we are young, that the bloom is still upon our cheeks, the lustre in our eyes, the witchery in our smiles, now as of yore—and yet what the glass tells us, what our feelings confirm, we donotsee mirrored in the admiration of those around us! We also know what it is when we see our former adorers pass to newer beauties, and we perhaps overhear such a phrase spoken of us as, ‘Yes, she has been handsome!’ But even we cannot know the actor’s triumph or the actor’s humiliation. To feel that our presence is the signal for applause, that every word we utter is listened to with eager interest, that every part we play is an image which we engrave upon the minds of thousands, there to abide as a thing of beauty and of wonder—this is beyond us.”
“But, my dear Madame Röckel, I see no diminution of admiration for Schoenlein in Berlin. Surely no audience can be more enthusiastic. Why should he fear a rival?”
“You might as well ask a beauty,” she replied, “why she is jealous of a woman less pretty than herself. Thewhyis not to be explained by logic, for envy does notcalculate—itfeels.”
“Yet, when Franz comes to Berlin, which will be next month, there will then be no possible doubt as to which is the finer actor.”
“Perhaps not. But the public will nevertheless applaud Franz; and however slightly they do so, to the envious ears of Schoenlein it will sound like thunder.”
The clock striking twelve warned me to depart, for in Berlin they keep early hours; and I went away thinking of what I had just heard, and feeling no small contempt for Schoenlein’s preposterous jealousy: “What a contemptible feeling is envy!—as if only one person in the world had a right to admiration!”
At that moment I stepped into a droschke, and was driving to my rooms, when I passed that miserable puppy Fürstenberg, whom, I am sorry to say, little * * * admires so much; though, for the life of me, I never could see wherefore. Yet this uncouth German, aping the dandy, usurps all her conversation, even when I am by!
It is not that I am jealous, for that is not my character; but Icannotbear to see so charming a girl so miserably deceived in any one as she is in Fürstenberg!
Schoenlein did not play for a fortnight, and, as the time of Franz’s engagement was drawing near, I imagined he was sulking. I communicated my suspicions to Madame Röckel.
“I would wager fifty thalers,” she replied, “that he has gone to Dresden to see his dreaded rival, and judge for himself.”
It was as Madame Röckel said: goaded by irresistible jealousy, Schoenlein had set off for Dresden to see his rival play.
Arrived there, he was three days before he could summon resolution to enter the theatre. Franz’s name met him every where. At thetable-d’hôtehe heard nothing but praises of Franz: in the newspapers he read nothing but invidious comparisons between Franz and himself, in which the palm was awarded to his rival. “Franz,” it was said, “had all the energy of Schoenlein, with youth, and grace, and beauty in his favour. The same power of distinct conception and unexaggerated execution, without Schoenlein’s tendency to conventional ‘points.’” Strangers asked him if he had seen Franz. The very waiters at the hotel recommended him to go and see Franz!
Schoenlein never hated his profession so much as at that moment. Yet, such was his exasperation, that he was constantly tempted to appear on the stage at Dresden, and crush his rival by acting in the same theatre with him—constantly tempted to show the fickle public the genius of the actor they were fast forgetting.
It was the fourth day of his presence at Dresden. Hamlet was to be performed that evening, and Schoenlein had resolved to be there. As the hour drew near, he was seated at a table on that beautiful terrace, which no one who has visited Dresden can ever forget, and which the Hahn-Hahn has so graphically set before us in herFaustine. He was smoking a meditative cigar, gazing abstractedly at the promenaders, who, in their gay dresses, passed to and fro in light happy talk, while the sounds of a good orchestra in the Café came mellowed by the distance, and lent another charm to the exhilarating scene. His thoughts were not at all in harmony with that happy scene—they were fixed mournfully on his own condition. He felt the sadness of a fallen favourite.
There he sat, and saw the sun go down over the antique bridge—saw its last rays shimmering on the placid bosom of the Elbe, which winds its undulating course beneath the terrace—saw the groups of promenaders gradually disappear, and the tables all deserted. The calls for ices, for cigars, for “light,” were becoming rarer and rarer. The music had ceased—night had shut in. Still he sat there in the same mournful mood, tempted to go to the theatre, so close at hand, but repelled by the idea of hearing Franz applauded.
At the conclusion of the third act, several playgoers reappeared upon the terrace, to cool themselves in the evening air, and to take an ice. Their conversation, of course, turned but upon one man, and that man was Franz. They spoke of his Hamlet as the finest part he had yet played.
Three men seated themselves at Schoenlein’s table. In the midst of their enthusiastic criticism one of them remarked—
“Well, Franz is certainly very fine; but it is absurd to compare him with Schoenlein.”
“I think him better,” said another.
“Nonsense!—you would not say so if you could see them together. You will find that in a little while the public will come round to my opinion. Let them once get over the novelty, and they will judge correctly.”
A thrill ran through the actor’s frame as he heard this. He called the waiter; paid; rose; departed. In another instant he was in theparterreof the theatre, feverishly impatient for the curtain to rise.
The brief scene between the King and Queen, which opens the fourth act, seemed to that impatient man as if it never would end; and when Rosenkranz was heard within calling, “Hamlet, Lord Hamlet!” the perspiration burst from every pore, and he trembled like a leaf as Hamlet appeared, uttering the “Soft—what news? Who calls on Hamlet?”
Schoenlein heard no more. The tones of that voice raised a mist before his brain—stung and perplexed him with rage and astonishment. He heard nothing, saw nothing—his brain was in a whirl.
The Hamlet before him—Franz, the dreaded rival—was his son!
It is necessary here to take a retrospective glance into Schoenlein’s history, that we may understand the horror which possessed him at the discovery of his son upon the stage.
We may readily conceive how his dislike to his profession made him very sedulous of keeping his child from all contact with it, lest its fascination should mislead him also. He had never permitted him to see a play. He brought him up strictly, religiously, austerely. He had no friends among actors: acting was never spoken of in his presence. Yet, by an inconsistency easily enough explained, the works most constantly read and talked about by him were those of Shakspeare, Molière, Göthe, and Schiller. These were his household gods. Young Franz was early initiated into their beauties, and would declaim, (in private,) with great gusto, all the long speeches.
Franz was sent to the university of Leipsic, where it was his father’s fond hope he would distinguish himself as a student of theology. For the first year he was assiduous enough; but theology grew inexpressibly wearisome, while poetry became irresistibly alluring to him. Göthe’sWilhelm Meisterfell into his hands, and was read with rapture. He fell in love with the actor’s life, and felt secret yearnings to quit the university, and throw himself upon the world in quest of adventure—especially in quest of a Marianne, a Philina, and a Mignon! He had not as yet dared to disobey his father’s strict commands—he had never ventured inside a theatre; but he had imbibed the dangerous poison—he had learned to look upon an actor’s life as a life of poetry. The seed was sown!
About this time my cousin William went to the Leipsic university, and became the fellow-student and companion of Franz. From him I learned most of these details. William was by no means a model of select virtue—in fact, was what, in the jargon of the day, is called “rather a fast man;” and he led Franz into many a debauch which would have driven Schoenlein wild, had he known it; but he could not persuade him to go to the theatre.
Franz was ready enough at a duel, and had spoiled the beauty of some half-dozen faces by the dexterous sword-cut which draws a line over the nose, and lays open the cheek. He was ready enough, too, with his beer—few youths of his age had more promising talents that way: and as to patriotic songs, energetically demanding of the universe where the German’s fatherland might be, or the probability of tyrants long crushing free hearts beneath their heels, together with frantic calls upon the sword, responded to by the clatter of beer-jugs—in these Franz was distinguished.
At last he did brush away his scruples, and accompanied William to the theatre. They played Schiller’sDon Carlos. Conceive his rapture at this first taste of the long-coveted forbidden fruit! He thought the Marquis of Posa a demigod. But words cannot express his adoration of the Princess Eboli, that night played by Madame Clara Kritisch. She was to him the “vision of loveliness and light,” which an actress always is to an impassioned youth, the first time he sees one. Her large voluptuous eyes, her open brow, her delicate nostrils, her full and not ungraceful figure, together with the dazzling beauty of her (theatrical) complexion, made a powerful impression on him. Her acting seemed to him the acting of an angel.
He left the theatre madly in love with her.
We all know what it is to be in love with an actress. We have all of us, in the halcyon days of boyhood, offered up the incense of our young hearts to some painted, plain, conventional, and perfectly stupid actress, round whose head we have thrown the halo and the splendour of our imaginations. We have had our Juliets, our Desdemonas, our Imogens, our Rosalinds, our Violas, our Cordelias, who, though in the flesh-and-blood reality they were good, honest, middle-aged women, mothers of families or disreputable demireps, to us were impersonations of the ideal—fairy visions, to whom we have written verses, whose portraits have hung over our beds!
Therefore, having known a touch of this “exquisite fooling,” we can sympathise with Franz. Never having seen an actress before, any hag painted for the heroine of the night would have charmed him. But Clara was by no means a hag: in fact, his passion was excusable, for on the stage she was charming.
Franz went again and again, only to return home more in love than before. He fancied she had remarked him in the pit; he fancied the smile on her ruddy lips was a smile of encouragement addressed to him. He wrote her a burning love-letter, which she quietly burned. He waited impatiently for an answer, and went to the theatre expecting to read it in her looks. He could read nothing there but her loveliness.
He wrote again; he wrote daily. He sent her quires of verses, and reams of “transcripts of his heart,” in the form of letters. He lived a blissful life of intense emotion. Fatherland was forgotten; the sword was no longer called upon; all tyrants were merged in the cruel one whom he adored.
At length he gained admittance behind the scenes; nay, more—he was introduced to Clara.
Alas! the shock his sense of loveliness received, when he beheld before him the fat, rouged, spangled woman, whom he had regarded as the incarnation of beauty! Her complexion—was this its red and white? were its roses and lilies gathered by the hare’s foot and the powder-puff?
He could not speak; the springs of his eloquence were frozen; the delicate compliments he had so laboriously prepared, faded away in an unmeaning stammer. The first illusion of his life was gone.
Perhaps there is nothing more striking to a young man than his first experience of the stage behind the scenes. That which, seen from the boxes, looks health and beauty, behind the scenes is weariness and paint; that which in the house is poetic, behind the scenes is horrible mechanism. What scene-painting is when looked at closely, that are actresses seen in the green-room.
Franz was staggered, but not cured. He could not divest his heart of her image, and began to see her again as he had always seen her. Growing accustomed to the reality, he again beheld it in its ideal light; and as on the stage Clara was always enchanting, she carried with her some of the enchantment when she left it. Poor fellow! how patiently he stood there, hungering for the merest word—the simplest look! He saw others—a privileged few—speaking to her boldly; jesting with her; admiring her; giving their opinions respecting her costume, as if she were an ordinary woman, while he could only stammer out some meaningless remark. What would he have given to feel himself at ease with her, to be familiar, so that he might be seen to advantage!
At last he thought of a plan for making himself better known to her. He wrote a play, in which the heroine was destined for her; and as hers was the only character in the piece which was effective, she pronounced it the finest thing which had been written since Schiller. Franz was in ecstasies. She read the play herself to the manager, and exerted all her eloquence in its behalf. But the manager saw well enough her motive,—knew that she was so delighted with the play merely because her part was the important one, and declined to produce it. The play gained its author’s end however. It had established him among Clara’s friends. She began to notice his love for her, began to recognise its seriousness. She knew how to distinguish between the real homage of a heart, and the lip-homage which others offered her.
There is something inexpressibly charming in knowing yourself possessed of a heart’s first love; and women—especially those who have passed the first flush of youth—are more gratified by the love of a boy, than by that of twenty men. A boy’s love has something in it so intense, so absorbing, so self-forgetting! It is love, and love only, unmixed with any thoughts of responsibilities; looking forward to no future, reflected by no past. There is a bloom on first love. Its very awkwardness is better than grace; its silence or imperfect stammerings more eloquent than eloquence; there is a mute appeal in its eyes, which is worth all the protestations in the world.
Clara, who had been accustomed to the admiration ofroués, felt the exquisite charm of this boy’s love. In a few weeks he became her acknowledged lover; and excited no little envy among thehabituésof the theatre, who could not for the life of them comprehend “what the devil she could see in that bumpkin.”
But if boys love intensely, they love like tyrants, and Clara was made a slave. Jealous of every one who approached her, he forced her to give up all her friends; she gave way to every caprice; she began to idolise him.
This connexion with an actress, as may easily be foreseen, led to Franz’s adopting the profession of the stage. Clara taught him in a few months that which ordinary actors take years to acquire; but this was owing to his hereditary dramatic talent more than to her instruction. His appearance on the stage, which would, he knew, profoundly hurt his father, was not the mere theatrical ambition which possesses most young men: it was stern necessity; it was the only profession open to him, for he had married Clara!
Yes! he, the boy of one-and-twenty, had married a woman of five-and-thirty! It was a mad act—the recklessness or delirium of a boy: but it was an act which has too many precedents for us to wonder at it. He had by this act separated himself, he feared, from his father for ever. His only hope of pardon was, as he fondly thought, dramatic success. Could his father but see him successfully following in his footsteps, he would surely forgive him. It was a proud moment—that boy’s triumphant debut; proud because he had succeeded, proud because his pardon was purchased—as he thought!
Franz had only played a few weeks, and Germany was ringing with his praises. So great was his success, that when a few critics and actors whose judgments were alltraditional, objected that he could not be a good actor because he had not gradually worked his way upwards, they were speedily silenced by the incontestible fact that hewasa great actor. A brilliant engagement had been offered him at Berlin; and he was about to appear on the same stage with his father, before that father had the faintest suspicion of his son’s ever having entered a theatre.
The curtain fell. Franz had reappeared to receive the enthusiastic homage of the audience, and was now in his room undressing, when the door opened, and his father stood before him.
Instead of rushing into his arms, Franz stood confused, blushing, trembling. The haggard sternness of his father’s face told but too plainly with what feelings he was regarded.
It was a moment of cruel silence.
The position was humiliating. With his clothes scattered about the room; with the paint still unwashed from his face; with his room in disorder;—swords, playbills, theatrical dresses, a wig, a rouge-pot, and washing-stand, lying about; himself in the undignified attitude of drawing on his stockings;—all combined to present the miserable and prosaic side of his profession to the angry glance of an incensed parent.
“So!” said the old man, “these are your theological studies! This is the end of all my care! you have disobeyed me. You have destroyed all my hopes, and gone upon the stage, for which you well know my detestation. I find youthus!”
Franz could make no answer.
“While I fondly believed you still at the university, pursuing an honourable career—a career useful to mankind and honourable to yourself—you were like a runaway apprentice taking to this odious life.”
“But, sir,—I have succeeded!”
“So much the worse!”
“Is not that my excuse?”
“No; it is your condemnation.”
“Surely, father, it proves that I have chosen right. It proves I have a vocation for the stage?”
“It only proves your disobedience. Vocation, indeed! Any man has a vocation for the stage: any man who has brains, and is not physically too weak to utter the thoughts of an author. Vocation! You might as well tell me you had a vocation for the highway—and if you had robbed a man, by placing a pistol to his head, and bidding him stand and deliver, that your success was your excuse!
“Is it not enough,” pursued Schoenlein, after a pause, “that there should beoneactor in the family: one whose necessities have driven him on the stage, and who, once there, is forced to remain there?”
“But I, for my part, see nothing reprehensible in the life of an actor.”
“I do.”
Franz saw there was no appeal from such a decision, so he dressed himself in silence.
He was hurt, angry. He expected that his father would have been delighted with his performance, would have rejoiced in his success. To be treated like a schoolboy, to hear such tones and see such looks, irritated him.
“Come with me to my hotel,” said Schoenlein, as Franz completed his dressing.
They had not taken many steps before a stout middle-aged woman, enveloped in a fur cloak, said to Franz:
“Lieber Franz, the carriage is waiting.”
Schoenlein did not hear the whispered reply, but strode hastily onwards: his son followed.
“Who was that,” he inquired, as they came out into the street, “who called youLieber Franz?”
“Oh! that—an actress—one of our company—Madame Kritisch.”
“Hm!” growled the old man; but he did not speak again till they reached the hotel. Arrived there, they went up into his room.
“Franz, my dear boy,” said Schoenlein, with great tenderness, “you must promise me to quit this life, and I will forget that you have ever disobeyed me. Let us look on it as a boyish freak, now over.”
Franz was silent.
“It is your father who speaks. Remember he is your best friend; and he earnestly implores you to quit a career which even success can only make a gilded disgrace. Will you promise me this?”
He felt very uncomfortable, and knew not what answer to make.
“You are young,” pursued his father; “young and hopeful. You look as yet only to the bright side of life, and see only the pleasures of the stage. You think it glorious to be applauded, to have your name in the mouths of men, your portrait in shop windows. In a little while all this applause will pall upon your ear; all these portraits will look like so many signs of your disgrace, and caricatures of yourself. The charm will pass away, and you will feel yourself to be a mountebank, painted to amuse a gaping crowd! Then the wear and tear of the profession, its thousand petty irritations and miserable anxieties, will be as stings of wretchedness, and you will curse the day you first trod upon a stage.
“Look at me!” he said, suddenly pausing in the angry walk which he was taking up and down the room. “HaveInot been successful? haveInot been flattered, envied? haveInot known what it is to be a great tragedian, to dictate terms to managers, to sway audiences? HaveInot known all this? And yet, since you can remember me, have you ever seen me happy? Is not my life an example? Does not my whole life cry out to you, Beware! Will you not profit by the bitter lessons of my experience?”
“But, my dear father, you forget one thing: you have always looked upon the profession with disgust. I do not.”
“You will learn to do so.”
“I cannot believe it. You are the only actor in Germany who thinks so. Besides, I have, as it seems to me, a real vocation.—You may sneer, but a vocation is necessary in this as in all other professions. It is quite clear that I have none for theology. I must get my bread somehow.”
“Your bread? Franz, listen to me. So fixed is my opinion, that if you will obey me, from this time forward you shall have the whole of my earnings. I have already saved enough to satisfy my own humble wants. I will devote every shilling to furthering and maintaining you in any profession you choose to select. You shall not say that necessity made you—as it has mademe—an actor.”
“I cannot accept such a sacrifice.”
“It is none. I would sacrifice every thing rather than see you on the stage! Besides, in another year or two you may make a rich marriage. I have already agreed with our old friend Schmidt, that you should be united to his daughter Bertha, and her dowry will be very large.”
A deep, deep blush overspread Franz’s face, which was succeeded by a deathlike paleness, as his father mentioned marriage.
“How can I ever break my marriage to him!” was his mental exclamation.
“Will you promise me?”
“I cannot. Believe me, it distresses me thus to disobey you, but I cannot quit the stage.”
“I have failed to convince you then? You misapprehend my motives. You think, perhaps”—and here an affected laugh of irony gave tenfold force to the words—“that I am jealous of you?”
“Oh, father!” exclaimed Franz.
But his father’s words and tone had, as in a flash of light, suddenly revealed the real feeling in his heart: hewasjealous, and his son perceived it.
Do not, however, suppose that the old man was aware of this feeling; he would have shuddered at the accusation. Blinding himself with all sorts of sophistications, he attributed his horror at Franz’s adoption of the stage to his very sincere disgust to that profession; and because he really did in his own person feel an actor’s life was disgraceful, even sinful, he fancied his objection to Franz’s being an actor was wholly derived from that feeling. But in the depths of his heart he was horribly jealous. He had learned to hate Franz as a rival, before he knew him to be his son. Critics had maddened him by their comparisons. Franz had been pointed out as the actor who was to eclipse him. And now that he found Franz was his son, instead of rejoicing in his success, instead of feeling proud that at any rate his rival was his son, and that the genius which dethroned him was derived from himself—instead of the consolation which another father would have received, he was assailed by the bitterest thoughts at the idea of his son being an actor! He was incensed at such disobedience, at such violation of all his wishes; and attributed to his anger all he really felt of jealousy.
There is something so painful in the idea of a father being jealous of his son, that many will be tempted to pronounce it impossible. Rare it fortunately is, but not impossible. Who has not known women jealous of their daughters: women preserving their beauty, and followed by homage, till their girls are old enough to dispute and bear away the palm from them? If this is not uncommon—and more than one instance must occur within every reader’s experience—what is to prevent the same principle applying in a man’s case? You have only to imagine the vanity pampered by flattery into an unhealthy condition, and then bring in a rival—no matter whom—and the thing is done. Either the father’s vanity will be caressed by the reflection of the child’s success, (and this, happily, is the commoner case,) or it will be irritated at the child’s interference with its claims.
In Schoenlein’s case must be added the strange but intense dislike with which he regarded the profession of an actor. Had there been no rivalry in the case, had Franz been only a tolerable actor, he would still have been excessively irritated. But for his son to be an actor, and for the public to prefer him as an actor to his father—this was agonising!
He grew eloquent in his exhortations. Finding it was in vain to make Franz share his religious opinions, he endeavoured to dissuade him by painting all the dangers of the profession—its pangs, its weariness, its disappointments—painted the disagreeable ordeal he himself had been forced to undergo; and speaking, as he thought, to accomplish his son’s welfare, he was eloquent.
This much is to be said for fathers who object to their sons following their own careers: the struggles by which they have won their way, the sorrows which have been forced upon them, the dangers they have escaped—these are all so vividly present to their minds, that they believe them inseparable from the career. Who shall say that another will escape these perils? All the delight, all the rapture of hope and of success are forgotten, or else weigh but as a feather in the scale against these perils. A father says:—
“It is true I escaped; but I was fortunate. Besides, I had genius,—I had rectitude,—I had strength of will. My poor boy, (and fathers are apt to look with a sort of compassion on their children: is it because the children have, from infancy upwards, looked to them for pity and protection?)—my poor boy will not be able to buffet with the world as I did! He will be led away by temptations; he will succumb beneath adversity!”
In proportion to the precariousness of the profession is the reluctance of the parent. Poets never wish their sons to be poets; certainly not to trust to poetry for their livelihood. Nor do artists desire their sons to be artists. Actors almost universally shudder at the idea of their children becoming actors.
So that Schoenlein’s remonstrances would have been vehement, even had he not been tormented with jealousy. But, from the moment Franz perceived the real state of his father’s mind, all compunction vanished. No arguments could have made him quit the stage; but now he felt his father’s arguments to be insults.
“I hope you do not misunderstand me,” said the old man. “You must know me well enough to believe that no one would more rejoice in your success—that to no one should I be so proud to transmit my laurel crown, if it were not lined with iron, which brands the forehead with disgrace. I am growing old, and am soon about to leave the stage for ever: to whom could I so fitly leave the inheritance of my renown, did I not perceive that it would entail lasting misery upon him, as it has entailed it upon me? No, no, you must relinquish this boyish notion,—you shall marry Bertha Schmidt, and quit the stage for ever.”
“Oh, do not ask it!”
“I do more than ask it—I command!”
“Do not—dear father—do not force me to disobey you.”
“You—you willnotleave the stage?”
“I—I cannot! It would be hypocrisy in me to pretend it. I have a passion for the stage; and whether that passion lead me to happiness or to ruin, Imustgratify it.”
“And think you Bertha will marry an actor?”
“Perhaps not.”
“Are you indifferent to that?”
“Why—the truth is—I cannot marry her.”
“You cannot? You shall!”
“I love another!”
“You love another!” angrily exclaimed his father; and then adding, with a sneer—
“Someactress, I presume!”
Franz coloured.
“Itisso,” said his father. “Old Clara Kritisch, I shouldn’t wonder!”
A deeper blush overspread Franz’s face, and a look of anger shot from his eyes, as his father contemptuously let fall those words.
Franz loved his wife; but he knew the disparity between them. She was not old to him, for he loved her,—was happy with her; but although to him she was as young as a bride, he knew what others said of her—what others thought of her. For himself he felt that