* * * * *
The darkness of the cave gave place to a burst of dazzling sunlight as Mark and the little Princess, who in the darknesshad resumed her masque, came out suddenly from the unseen opening upon one of the great stone bases by the side of the steps. To the boy's wonderstruck sense the flaring light, the mystic and awful forms, the thronged masques, the shock of surprise and terror, fell with a stunning force. He uttered a sharp cry like that of a snared and harmless creature of the woods. He pressed his hands before his face to shut out the bewildering scene, and, stepping suddenly backward in his surprise, fell from the edge of the stone platform some eight feet to the ground. A cry of natural terror broke from the victim, in place of the death-song she was expected to utter, and she left her place and sprang forward towards the steps. The crowd of masques which surrounded the Prince came forwardtumultuously, and a hurried movement and cry ran through the people, half of whom were uncertain whether the settled order of the play was interrupted or not.
Mark lay quite still on the grass, his eyes closed, the Signorina bending over him; but the herald, who was in fact director of the play, waved his wand imperiously before the masques, and they fell back.
"Resume your place, Signorina," he said, "this part of the play has, apparently, failed. You will sing your death-song, and the priest will offer himself in your stead."
But the girl rose, and, forcing her way to where the Prince stood, threw herself upon his arm.
"Oh, stop it, Highness, stop it!" shecried, amid a passion of sobs; "he is dying, do you not see!"
The Prince removed his masque; those around him, following the signal, also unmasqued, and the play was stopped.
Therewas no change in the bright sunlight or in the festive colours of the gay crowd. The grass was as green, the sky as blue, the rushing leaping water sparkled as before, nevertheless a sudden change and deadness fell upon the garden and its throng of guests. The hush that had preceded Mark's appearance was of a far different kind. That had been a silenceof awe, of expectation, of excitement, and of life; this was the scared silence of dismay. Those who were most distant from the Prince, and who could do so with decency, began to scatter like frightened children, and were lost in the arcaded hedges and walks. The Prince remained standing, his masque in his hand, the Signorina still weeping on his arm; she was too excited to admit of comfort, he stroked her hand kindly, as he would that of a child. The Herald, who was evidently exceedingly disgusted at the turn things had taken, and the quite unnecessary stop that had been put to the play, had retired a few paces, and was in conference with Carricchio, who was apparently trying to console him. The Princess, scared and startled, was drawing the Count after herto leave the scene, when a tall and beautiful woman emerged from a trellised walk and, through the respectful crowd that fell back to give her passage, advanced towards the Prince.
"You may resume your play, Ferdinand," she said, and her voice was very sad but without a touch of scorn; "you may resume your play. It is not you who have killed this child; it is I."
Then, stooping over the lifeless body, she raised it in her arms, and, in the midst of a yet more perfect stillness, as in the presence of a being of a holier and a loftier world, the Princess Isoline disappeared with her burden into the forest depths.
She followed the path under the narrow avenue, where she had once walked with Mark, till she reached her quiet and melancholyhouse; and, entering at once into the hall, she deposited her burden upon the long table, where the household was wont to dine. She laid it with the feet at one end of the board, and, straightening the stiffening limbs, she knelt down before it and buried her face in her hands.
"The good are not happy, and the happy are not good"—was she then good because she was so miserable? Ah no! Or was this wretchedness a wicked thing? Again, surely not!
As she lay thus, crushed and beaten down, her form contorted with sobs, a quiet footstep roused her, and, raising her eyes, she saw the Prince through her blinding tears. He was standing by the table, near the head of the child. His face was very pale, and the eyes had lost the habituallanguor of their expression, and were full of an earnest tender grief. The Princess rose, and they looked each other straight in the eyes. Through the mist of tears the Prince's form became refined and purified, and he stood there with a beauty hitherto altogether unknown, even to her.
"I told this child, Isoline," he said; "I told this child that I had done well to send for him."
"Ferdinand," she said again, "it is not you who have done this; it is I." She stopped for a moment to recover control, and went on more passionately—"I, who pretended to the devoted life! in which alone he could breathe; I, to whom he looked for help and strength; I, who deserted him and gave a false report of the promised land."
The Prince looked at her with eyes full of compassion, but did not reply.
"You did what you could," continued his sister; "your effort was surely a noble one. More, in fact; you came to the help of his faith against evil. It is always so! The children of the world act always better than the children of light!"
In her self-abasement and despair the Princess did not remember Mark's words, that the greatest trial of his faith had been the Prince: a tolerance which is kindly and even appreciative, and yet, as with a clearness of a farther insight stands indifferently aside, must always be the great trial of simple faith.
"It is easier, Isoline," said her brother at last, "to maintain a low standard than a high. It seems to me that we have bothbeen wrong, but yours is the nobler fault. You attempted an impossible flight—a flight which human nature has no wings strong enough to achieve. As for me, this has been a terrible shock—more than I could have thought possible, I who fancied myself so secure and so serene. That such a terrible chance could happen shows how unstable are the most finished schemes of life. I fancied that my life was an art, and I dreamed that it might be perfected—as a religious art. Fool that I was! How can life or religion be an art when the merest accident can dissolve the entire fabric at a blow? No art can exist in the presence of an impalpable mystery, of an unknown, inappeasable, implacable Force."
"No," said the Princess; "art is notenough!—morality, virtue, love even, is not enough. None of these can pierce the veil. Nothing profits, save the Divine Humanity, which, through the mystery of Sacrifice, has entered the unseen. You know, Ferdinand," and she looked up through her tears with a sad smile, "in your art there was always in old times a mystery."
She rose as she said this, and stood more lovely than ever in her grief and in her faith; and the Prince moved a step forward, and put his hand upon the breast of the child. As they stood, looking each other full in the eyes, in the notorious beauty of their order and of their race, it might have seemed to a sanguine fancy that, over the piteous victim of earth's failure, art and religion for the moment were at one.
Thepleasure Palace was deserted. Mark was buried in a shadowy graveyard behind the old manor-house, where was a ruined chapel that had been a canonry. The Princess Isoline gave up her house, and dissolved her family. They were scattered to their several homes. She said that her place was by her brother's side. It would seem that none were sorry for some excuse. The Prince could no longer endure the place; he said that he had neglected his princely cities, and must visit them for a time. The Signorina was inconsolable, buther singing improved day by day. The Maestro began to have hopes of her. He wrote to Vienna concerning an engagement for her at the Imperial Theatre there, without even consulting the Prince, who for the moment was disgusted with the very name of art. Old Carricchio said that the northern sunshine was more intolerable than ever, and that he should return to Italy, but would take Vienna in his way. It might be supposed that this old man would have been much distressed, but, if this were the case, he concealed his feelings with his usual humorous eccentricity. He spent most of his time listening to Tina's singing. Even the Maestro and the pages seemed to miss Mark more.
In the general disorganisation and confusion the Princess even was not entirelyunaffected. She was continually speaking of Mark, whose singular personality had struck her fancy, and whose sudden and pathetic death had touched her with pity. She appeared unusually affectionate to her husband and to his sister, and she despatched the Count to secure a residence in Vienna, where she expressed her intention of taking the entire family as soon as the Prince had satisfied his newly-awakened conscience by a sight of Wertheim. The children were delighted with the thought, and were apparently consoled for the absence of their tutor. Perhaps already his tales had begun to tire.
The Maestro and Carricchio were walking side by side upon the terrace where Mark was used to sit.
"I shall make a sensation at Vienna,"said the Maestro; "that little girl is growing into an impassioned actress with a marvellous voice. I have an idea. I have already arranged the score. I shall throw this story into the form of opera—a serious opera, not one of your farcical things. It is a charming story, most pathetic, and will make people cry. That boy's character was exquisite: 'Ah,' they will say, 'that lovely child!'"
"I don't understand your pathos," said Carricchio crossly,—"the pathos of composers and writers and imaginative men. It is all ideal. You talk of farce, I prefer the jester's farce. I never knew any of you to weep over any real misery—any starving people, any loathsome, sordid poor!"
"I should think not," said the Maestro; "there is nothing delightful in real misery—it is loathsome, as you say; it is horrible, it is disagreeable even! Art never contemplates the disagreeable; it would cease to be true art if it did. But when you are happy yourself, when you are surrounded by comfort and luxury—thento contemplate misery, sorrow, woe! Ah! this is the height of luxury: this is art! Yes, true art!"
"It seems selfish, to me," said the Arlecchino surlily.
"Selfish!" exclaimed the Maestro; "of course it is selfish! Unless it is selfish it cannot be art. Art has an end, an aim, an intention—if it deserts this aim it ceases to be art. It must be selfish."
There was a slight pause, then the Maestro, who seemed to be in great spirits, went on:
"I always thought the Prince a poor creature, now I am sure of it. He is neither one thing nor the other. He will never be an artist, in the true sense."
"He is very sorry for that poor child," said Carricchio.
"Sorry!" exclaimed the Maestro. "Sorry! I tell you when the canary died I was delighted, but I am still more delighted now. I predict to you a great future for the Signorina. She will be a great actress and singer. The death of this child is everything to us; it was just what was required to give her power, to stir the depths of her nature.Mio caro," he continued caressingly, putting his hand on Carricchio's arm, "believe me,thisis life, andthisis art!"
"He is a cold-blooded old devil," mutteredCarricchio savagely, as he turned away, "with his infernal talk of art. I would not go to Vienna with him but for the Signorina. I will see her once upon the stage there. Then the old worn-out Arlecchino will go back into the sunshine, and die, and go to Mark."
TheMaestro's romantic opera was a success. He was at least so far a genius that he knew where he was strong and where he was weak.
He reproduced with great exactness the play in the palace gardens, but he kept the person and character of Mark enshrouded in mystery, allowing him to appear very seldom, and trusting entirely to the singing of the principal performers, and especially of the Signorina, to impress the audience with the idea of his purity and innocence. He surpassed himself in theintense wistful music of the score; never had he produced such pathetic airs, such pleading sustained harmonies, such quivering lingering chords and cadences. At the supreme moment the boy appears, and, after singing with exquisite melody his hapless yet heroic fate, offers his bosom to the sacrificial knife. But a god intervenes. Veiled in cloud and recognised in thunders, a divine and merciful hand is laid upon the child. Death comes to him as a sleep, and over his dead and lovely form the anger of heaven is appeased. Incapable as the Maestro was of feeling much of the pathos and beauty of his own work, still, with that wonderful instinct, or art, or genius, which supplies the place of feeling, he produced, amid much that was grotesque and incongruous, a work of delicatetouch and thrilling and entrancing sound. The little theatre near the Kohl market, where the piece was first produced, was crowded nightly, and the narrow thoroughfares through private houses and courtyards, called Durch-häuser, with which the extraordinary and otherwise impenetrable maze of building which formed old Vienna was pierced through and through, were filled with fine and delicate ladies and gay courtiers seeking admission. So great, indeed, was the success that an arrangement was made with the conductors of the Imperial Theatre for the opera to be performed there. The Empress-Queen and her husband were present, the frigid silence of etiquette was broken more than once by applause, and the Abate Metastasio wrote some lines for the Signorina;indeed, the success of the piece was caused by the girl's singing.
"Mark is better than the canary," the Maestro was continually repeating.
In his hour of triumph the old gentleman presented a quaint and attractive study to the observer of the by-ways of art. Amid the rococo surroundings among which he moved, he was himself a singular example of the power of art to extract from bizarre and unpromising material somewhat at least of pure and lasting fruit. He had attired his withered and lean figure in brilliant hues and the finest lace, and in this attire he trained the girl, also fantastically dressed, to warble the most touching and delicious plaints. The instinctive pathos of inanimate things, of forms and colours, was perceived in sound,and much that hitherto seemed paltry and frivolous was refined and ennobled. Mark's death, and even that of the poor canary, was beginning to bear fruit. Nature and love were feeling out the enigma of existence by the aid of art.
The reference to the canary was not, indeed, made in the presence of Tina, for the Maestro found that it was not acceptable. Nevertheless, a strange fellowship and affection was springing up between these two. The critics complained that the Signorina varied her notes; but, in fact, the score of the opera never remained the same—at least as regarded her parts. As she sang, with the Maestro beside her at the harpsichord, imagination and recollection, instructed by the magic of sound, touched her notes with an unconsciouspathos and revealed to her master, with his ready pencil in one hand and the other on the keys, fresh heights and depths of cultured harmony, new combinations of fluttering, melodious notes.
This copartnership, this action and reaction, had something wonderful and charming about it; the power of nature in the girl's voice suggesting possibilities of more melodious, more artistic pathos to the composer, the girl's passionate instinct recognising the touch, and confessing the help, of the master's skill. It seems a strange duet, yet I do not know that we should think it strange.
The girl's nature, pure and loving, was supremely moved by the discovery of this power of realisation and expression which it had obtained; but at times it frightened her.
"I hate all this," she would cry sometimes, starting away from the harpsichord; "they are dead and cold, and I sing!"
"Sing!mia cara!" the old man would say, with, for him, a soft and kindly tone; "you cannot help but sing: and when did love and sorrow feel so near and real to you as when, just now, you sang that phrase in F minor?"
"It is wicked!" said the girl; but she sang over again, to the perfect satisfaction of her master, the phrase in F minor.
"It is true," she said, after a pause. "I knew not how to love—I knew not what love was till I learned to sing from you. Every day I learn more what love is; I feel every hour more able to love—I love you more and more for teaching me the art of love."
"Ah,mia cara," said the Maestro, "that was not difficult! You were born with that gift. But it is strange to me, I confess it, how pathetically you sing. It is not in the music—at any rate, not in my music. It is beyond my art and even strange to it, but it touches even me."
And the old man shrugged his shoulders with an odd gesture, in which something like self-contempt struggled with an unaccustomed emotion.
The girl had turned half round, and was looking at him with her bright, yet wistful eyes.
"Never mind, Maestro," she said; "I shall love you always for your music, in spite of your contempt of love, and your miserable, cold——"
And she gave a little shudder. Shewas forming, indeed, a passionate regard for the old man, solely for the sake of his art.
It was not by any means the first time that such an event had occurred, for unselfish love is much more common than cynical mankind believes.
ThePrince soon grew tired of Wertheim. Apart from other reasons, of which perhaps we may learn something hereafter, he felt lost without the accustomedentouragewhich he had attracted to Joyeuse. The death of Mark had made a profound impression upon his delicately strung temperament. It disturbed the lofty serenity of his life, it shocked his taste, it was bad art. That such a thing could have happened to him in the very citadel and arcanum of his carefully designed existence—and should have happened, too, as the result of his ownindividual purpose and action—arrested him as with an archangel's sword; showed him forcibly that his delicately woven mail was deficient in some important, but as yet unperceived, point; that his fancifully conceived prince-life was liable to sudden catastrophe. He had lived delicately, but the bitterness of death was not passed. He left Wertheim, and, travelling with his children and servants in several carriages andchaises de poste, he journeyed to Vienna, whither the Princess had preceded him.
The Prince travelled alone in acarrosse-coupé, or travelling chaise, at the head of his party. The Barotin and the children followed him in the second carriage, which was full of toys for their entertainment; now and again one or the other would bepromoted for a stage or two to their father's carriage, to remain there as long as they entertained him. After a time they entered upon the flat plains of the Danube and approached Vienna.
As they crossed the flat waste of water meadows, over the long bridges of boats, and through the rows of poplars, a drive usually so dreary to travellers to Vienna, the sun broke out gloriously and the afternoon became very fine. For many miles before him, over the monotonous waste, the great tower of St. Stephen's Church had confronted the Prince, crowned with its gigantic eagle and surrounded by wheeling flocks of birds—cranes and ravens and daws. Herons and storks rose now and again from the ditches and pools by the wayside and flitted acrossthe road. The brilliant light shone upon the mists of the river and upon the distant crags and woods.
The Prince was alone; the children were tired and restless from the long journey, and were sent back to the long-suffering Barotin. He lay back upon the rich furs which filled the carriage, and kept his eyes listlessly fixed upon the distant tower. The descending sun lighted up the weather-stains and the vari-coloured mosses that covered its sides; a rainbow, thrown across the black clouds of the north and east, spanned the heavens with a lofty arch.
The Prince gazed wearily over the striking scene. Existence appeared to him, at the moment, extremely complicated.
"It was a terrible mistake," he said, his thoughts still running on the old disaster; "a terrible mistake! Yet they cannot be right—Isoline and the people with her—who talk of nothing but sacrifice and self-denial, and denounce everything by which life is not only made endurable, but by which, indeed, it is actually maintained in being. What would life be if every one were as they? 'Ah!' she says, 'there is little chance of that! So few think of aught save self! So few deny themselves for the sake of others, you need not grudge us few our self-chosen path.' That is where they make the fatal mistake. Each man should carve out his life, as a whole, as though the lives of all were perfect, not as if it were a broken fragment of a fine statue; each should be a perfect Apollo ofthe Belvedere Gardens, not a mere torso; not a strong arm only that can strike, not a finger only that can beckon—even though it be to God. Because all cannot enjoy them, does that make assorted colour, and sweet sound, and delicate pottery less perfect, less worthy to be sought? He should aim at the complete life—should love, and feel, and enjoy."
The great tower rose higher and higher above the Prince as he thought these last words aloud; the screaming kites and daws wheeled above his head; the great eagle loomed larger and larger in the evening light. They passed over the wide glacis, threaded the drawbridges and barriers, and entered the tortuous narrow streets. A golden haze lighted the crowded thoroughfares and beautified thecarving and gables of the lofty houses. A motley crowd of people, from east and west alike, in strange variety of costume, thronged the causeways, and hardly escaped the carriage-wheels in their reckless course. The sight roused the Prince from his melancholy, and he gazed with an amused and even delighted air from his carriage-windows. His nature, pleasure-loving and imaginative, found this moving life a source of never-tiring interest and suggestiveness. The fate, the interests, the aims, and sorrows of every human figure that passed across his vision, even for a second, formed itself in some infinitely slight, yet perfectly real and tangible, degree in his mind; and he conceived the stir and tremor of a great city's life with a perfect grasp of all the little detailsthat make up the dramatic, the graphic whole.
The carriage swept through the Place St. Michael, past the Imperial Palace, and, pursuing its course through the winding streets to the imminent peril of the populace of Croats, Servians, Germans, and a mixed people of no nation under heaven, reached theHôtelwhich had been selected for the Prince in the Tein quarter.
Though this quiet quarter is in close neighbourhood to the most busy and noisy parts of the city, the contrast was striking. The Prince saw nothing here but quaint palaces crowded together within a space of a few hundred yards. Here were the palaces of the Lichtensteins, the Festetics, the Esterhazys, the Schönbornes. Antique escutcheons were hanging before thehouses, and strange devices of the golden fleece, and other crests and bearings were erected on the gables and roofs. Vienna was emphatically the city of heraldry, and a tendency towards Oriental taste in noble and burgher produced a fantastic architecture of gables and minarets, breaking the massive lines of fortress-like mediæval palace andhôtel. Here and there a carriage was standing in the quiet street, and servants in gaudy liveries stood in the sunshine about the steps and gates.
The next morning the Prince was seated at his toilette, in the hands of his dresser, who was frizzling and powdering his hair. By his side was standing his valet or body-servant, as he would be called in England—ChasseurorJager, as he was called in North or South Germany. This man wasone of the most competent of his order, and devoted to his master.
"Well, Karl," the Prince was saying, with his kindly air, "thou breathest again here, I doubt not. This place is more to thy mind than Joyeuse—n'est ce pas?There is life here and intrigue. It is better even than Rome? Is it so?"
"Wherever the Serene Highness is," replied Karl graciously, "I am content and happy. I was happy in Rome, in Joyeuse, at Wertheim; but I confess that I like Wien. There is colour here, and quaintness, andesprit."
Karl had picked up many art terms with the rest of the princely household.
"Ah! Wertheim!" said the Prince, rather sadly as it seemed. "I like Wertheim, ah! so much—for a day or two.One is so great a man there. I know every one, and every one knows me. I feel almost like a beneficent Providence, and as though I had discovered the perfection of art in life. When I walk in the garden avenue after dinner, between the statues, and every one has right of audience and petition, and one old woman begs that her only son may be excused from military service, and another that her stall in the market may not be taken away; and one old man's house is burnt down, and he wants help to rebuild it, and another craves right of wood-gathering in the princely forests, and another begs that his son may be enrolled among the under-keepers and beaters of the game, with right of snaring a hare,—and all these things are so easy to grant, and seem tothese poor folks so gracious, and like the gifts of heaven, that one thinks for the moment that this must be the perfection of life. But it palls, Karl; in a day or two it palls! The wants and sufferings of the poor are so much alike; they want variety, they are so deficient in shade, they are such poor art!" and the Prince sighed wearily.
"That is natural for the Serene Highness," said Karl, with a sympathising pity which was amusing; "that is natural to the Serene Highness, who does not see below the surface, and to whom all speak with bated breath. There is plenty of light and shade in the lives of the poor, if you go deep enough."
"Ah!" said the Prince with interest, "is it so? Doubtless now, within a few yardsof us, there are art-scenes enacted, tragedies and comedies going on, of which you know the differentrôles—one of which, maybe, you fill yourself. Eh, Karl?"
"It is a great city, Highness," said Karl. "They are all alike, good and ill, love and hatred, the knave and the fool. All the world over, it is much the same."
At this moment, the hair-powdering being over, the Prince rose.
"Well," he said, "to-night the Signorina sings at the Imperial Theatre. She and the Maestro sup with me afterwards. The Princess sups at the Palace."
Itis difficult at the present day to realise such scenes as that presented by the Imperial Theatre during the performance that evening. The comparative smallness of the interior and dimness of the lights, combined with the incomparable splendour and richness in the appearance of the audience which filled every portion of the theatre, even to the gallery of the servants, with undiminished brilliancy, produced an effect of subdued splendour and of a mystic glow of colour which we should look for in vain in any theatre in Europe now.
The Empress-Queen and her husband occupied a central box, and the Court, graduated according to rank, and radiating from this centre, filled boxes, pit, and gallery. The Prince's box was on the royal tier, not far from the Empress. He was accompanied by the Princess and his sister.
"I am delighted with Isoline," the Princess said; "that poor child's death has worked wonders upon her in a way no one would have expected. She seems to have thrown off her singular fancies, and behaves as other people do."
"Isoline never was very easy to understand," said the Prince.
Whether or not she were inspired by the presence of the Prince, the Signorina had never sung so wonderfully as she didthat night. The frigid silence of Imperial etiquette, so discouraging and chilling to southern artists, gave place, now and again, to an irrepressible murmur of emotion and applause. The passionate yearning of the purest love, the pathos of unselfish grief, found a fit utterance in notes of an inimitable sweetness, and in melodies whose dainty phrases were ennobled and mellowed at once by delicate art and loftiest feeling. The house gave way at last to an uncontrollable enthusiasm, and, regardless of Court etiquette, the entire assembly rose to its feet amid a tumult of applause.
Not far from the Maestro, who was conducting the music from the centre of the orchestra, was seated Carricchio. He had, of course, discarded his professionaldress, and had attired himself, according to the genius of his countrymen, in rich but dark and plain attire. Any one who could have watched his face—that face which the little Schoolmaster was used to wonder at—and could have marked the quaint mingling, on the large worn features, of the old humorous movement with the new emotions of wonder and of love, would not have spent his moments in vain.
But the success was too complete. The Empress-Queen was shocked at the breach of decorum. She was not in the least touched by the Signorina's singing, and the story of the opera was unintelligible to her. It was suggested by those who were offended and injured by the success of the piece, and by the displacement of otheroperas, that this arrangement entailed increased expense upon the royal treasury, and, amid the penurious and pettifogging instincts of the Court of Vienna in those days, this was a fatal thrust. The theatre, it was said, was required for other pieces, notably for a new opera by Metastasio himself.
"It was very beautiful, Ferdinand," said the Princess, as they left the box; and, struck by her tone and by the unaccustomed use of his name, the Prince looked at her with surprise, for it was years since he had seen the sweet, softened, well-remembered look in her eyes. "I liked that boy!"
"I will convey your approbation to the Signorina," replied the Prince; "it will complete the triumph of the night."
"Where do you sup to-night, Ferdinand?" said the Princess.
"I—I sup in private with the Maestro and Tina," said the Prince.
"Ah!" said the Princess, still with the same wistful, unaccustomed look. "There is a cover laid for me at the Imperial table—I must go."
It is absurd to talk of what would have happened had the threads of our lives been woven into different tissues, else we might say that but for that Imperial cover the issues of this story would have had a different close.
The Maestro waited at the theatre till the Signorina had changed her dress. When she appeared she was radiant with triumph and delight, but the old man was sad and depressed. Some intimation ofthe fatal resolution had been conveyed to him in the interval.
"What is the matter with you, Maestro?" said the girl; "you ought to be delighted, and you look as gloomy as a ghost. What is it?"
"It is nothing," said the Maestro. "I am an old man,mia cara, and the performance tires me. Let us go to the Prince."
They entered a fiacre, and were driven to the courtyard of the Prince'sHôtel.
The supper, though private, was luxurious, and was attended by all the servants of the Prince. Inspired by the success of the night, the Prince exerted himself to please; but, apart from all other circumstances, the Signorina would have delighted any man. She was at that delightful age when the girl is passing into the woman;she was increasing daily in beauty, she was perfectly dressed, she was radiant that night with happiness, and with the consciousness of success; she was touched by the recollection of the past, and profoundly affected by the power of expression which she had found in song; more than this—much more—she was drawn irresistibly by a feeling of pity and sympathy towards the old man; she could not understand his depression and gloom; she paid little attention to the Prince, but lavished a thousand pretty arts and delicate attentions on the vain endeavour to rouse her friend. No other conduct could have rendered her so attractive in the eyes of the Prince. To his refined and really high-toned taste, this pretty devotedness, this manifestly pure affection and gratitude, as of adaughter, commended by such loveliness and vivacity, were irresistible. It was exactly that combination of pathos and grace and art that suited his cultured fancy and the long habit of his trained life. He was inexpressibly delighted and happy. Forgetful of past mistake and misfortune, he congratulated himself on his success in attaching to his person and family so lively and dulcet a creature. His scheme of life seemed complete and authorised to his conscience by success.
Once more he uttered the fatal words, "I will havethis girl."
"You are the happiest man I know, Maestro," he said; "you are truly a creative artist, for you not only create melodious sounds and spirit-stirring ideas, but you actually create flesh and bloodsirens and human creatures as lovely as your sounds, and far more real. The Signorina is your work, and see, as is natural, how devoted she is to her maker."
"Every one thinks others happier than himself, Prince," said the old man, still gloomy. "As for the Signorina, she has much more made me than I her. I shall only injure and cripple her."
The girl looked at him with tears in her eyes.
"The Maestro is not well," she said to the Prince; "he will be more cheerful to-morrow. Success frightens him. It is often more terrible than failure."
"He fears that you will forsake him, when you are courted and praised so much," said the Prince in a low voice, for the old man seemed scarcely to noticewhat passed; "he fears you will forsake him," and as he spoke the Prince kept his eyes fixed inquiringly on the girl's face.
The Signorina said nothing. She turned her dark great eyes full on the old man, and the Prince wanted no more than what the eyes told him.
"She is a glorious creature," he said to himself.
Thenext morning the crash came. The Maestro was informed that only one more performance could be allowed at the Imperial Theatre, and that, further, there were difficulties in the way of the performance being permitted in any theatre in Vienna. The old man was crushed: he came to the Signorina with the notice in his hand.
"Mia cara," he said, making great efforts to be calm, "this is the end. I am a broken and a ruined man. I have been all my life waiting for this chance—thisgift of inspiration. I thought that it would never come; it tarried so long, and I grew so old. At last it came, but only just in time. I have never written anything like this music, and never shall again. Now it is stopped. I must go. I cannot stay where it must not be played; I must go somewhere, and take my music with me. It will not be for long. The Prince will not leave Vienna. He is pleased with the city and with his reception. I must leave you all."
The girl was on her feet before him, with flashing eyes which were full of tears.
"Maestro!" she said; "what mean you to talk in this way? Do you suppose that I will ever leave you, that I will stay if you go? I owe everything to you. I cannot sing without you. I will followyou to Paris—anywhere. Whatever fortune awaits you shall await us both."
"Ah, Tina," said the old man, "you are very good, but you mistake. I am not the great master you suppose. I know it too well. There is always something wanting in my notes. When you sing them, well and good. Even as they are they never would have been scored but for you. When I leave you the glamour will be taken out of them. They will be cold and dead: no one will think anything of them any more."
"If this be true," said the girl, almost fiercely, "it is all the more reason why I will never leave you! You have made me, as the Prince said; I am yours for life. Wherever you go I will go; whatever you write I will sing. If we fail, wefail together. If we succeed, the success is yours."
She paused for a moment, and then, with a deeper flush and a tender confidence which seemed inspired:
"And we shall succeed! I have not yet sung my best. I, too, know it. You have not yet made me all you may. Whatever you teach me I will sing!"
The old man looked at her, as well he might, deeply moved, but he shook his head.
"Tina," he said, "I will not have it. You must not be ruined for me. You must not go. Other masters, greater than I, will finish what it is my happiness to have begun. The world will ring with your name. Art will be enriched with your glorious singing. I shall hear of itbefore I die. The old Maestro will say, 'Ah, that is the girl whom I taught.'"
The girl was standing now quite calm, all trace of emotion even had past away. She looked at him with a serene smile that was sublime in its rest. It was not worth while even to say a word.
* * * * *
The decision of the Maestro and the Signorina filled the princely household with distress. Tina had been, at Joyeuse, the light and joy of a joyful place; and, although the household saw much less of her at Vienna, yet the charm of her presence and of her triumphs was still their own. The Prince heard the news with absolute dismay. It was not only that he had begun to love the girl, he conceived that she belonged to him of right. TheMaestro was his; he had assisted, maintained, and patronised him; by his encouragement and in his service he had discovered the girl and trained her in music. They were both part of his scheme, of his art of life. It was bad, doubtless, that, when he had attempted still higher flights, when he had wished to bring, and, as he had once thought, succeeded in bringing, religion, faith, and piety, with all their delicate loveliness, to grace the abundance of his life's feast—it was bad, doubtless, that, at the moment of success, a terrible catastrophe should have cruelly broken this lovely plaything, and left him with a haunting conscience as of well-nigh a deliberate murderer. All this was bad, but now he seemed about to fail, not only in these original and highefforts, which perhaps had never been attempted before, but in the simplest schemes of art; and to fail, to be foiled by the perversity of a girl! He had great influence in Vienna; he doubted not but that he could soon overcome the opposition of interested rivals, or, if not exactly this, there were other masters besides this one, there was other music for the Signorina to sing. He believed with him that her future would be brilliant, and he considered himself the rightful possessor of her triumph and of her charm. He imperiously ordered the Maestro to remain.
The old man begged to be excused.
He was old and broken down, he said; he had taught the Signorina all he knew. Henceforward he must pass her on to abler teachers. It was no wish of his thatshe should accompany him, he had urged her to remain.
In truth, as was not wonderful, his whole heart was in this last music of his; as a matter of selfish pride and enjoyment even, apart from his narrow, though to some extent real, conceptions of art, he must hear it again performed in a great theatre, and that soon.
The vexation of the Prince became excessive. He lost his habitual ease and serenity of tone. He sent for Carricchio.
The Princess Isoline was with him.
"Let the girl go, Ferdinand," she was saying. "Let her go for a time. She will improve by travel, and by singing in other cities. She is of a grateful and affectionate nature; be sure that she willnever forget you: she will return when you send for her."
Then, as Carricchio was announced, the Princess rose and left the room.
"Carricchio," said the Prince impetuously, "you must stop this nonsense of the Banti's leaving Vienna. If the Maestro chooses to stay, well and good. If he chooses to go, also good. He will be a stupid old fool! But it is his own business. I have nothing to do with it; but Tina shall not go. She belongs to me. I will not have it. You have influence with her, and must stop it."
"Highness," said Carricchio, "she will not go for long. The Maestro is old and broken; he will be helpless among strangers, hostile or indifferent. She will be friendless; she will be glad to comeback;" and there passed over Carricchio's face an unconscious habitual grimace.
"I tell you," said the Prince, "she shall not go at all. She belongs to me: voice and body and soul, she belongs to me."
He was flushed with excitement. In spite of the habitual dignity of manner and of gesture which he could not wholly lose, his appearance, as he stood in the centre of the room before Carricchio, was so strange, so different from its usual lofty quiet, that the latter looked at him with surprise, and even apprehension.
"Mon Prince," he said at last, "beware! Take the warning of an old man. Let her alone. God warns every man once—sometimes twice—seldom a third time. My Prince, let her alone!"
"What, Carricchio!" said the Princelightly. "Are you also one of us? Are we all in love with a little singing-girl?"
"My Prince," said Carricchio, "it matters little what an old fool like me loves or does not love. I am a broken old Arlecchino, you a Prince. She will have none of us. She alone of all of us—Prince and Princess and clown alike—has solved the riddle which that boy, whom we killed, was sent to teach us. She alone has made her life an art, for she alone has found that art is capable of sacrifice. She alone of all of us has based her art upon nature and upon love. She is passionately devoted to her master—her father in art and life, for he rescued her from poverty and shame. She will follow him through the world.Mon Prince, let her alone."
"To let her go," said the Prince, "wouldbe to spoil everything. Shall I give up a deliberate plan of life, finely conceived and carefully carried out, to gratify the whims of a foolish girl? Why is religion to interfere always with art? Why is sacrifice always to be preached to us? Life is not sacrifice: it is a morbid, monkish idea. Life is success, fruition, enjoyment. Life is an art—religion also should be an art."
"Where there is love," said Carricchio, "there must be sacrifice, and no life is perfect without love. There are only two things capable of sacrifice—nature and love. When art is saturated with nature and elevated by love, it becomes a religion, but religion never becomes an art; for art without nature and without love is partial and selfish, and cannot include the whole of life. You will find, believe me,that if you follow art apart from these two, you have indeed only been following a deception, for it has not only been irreligion, it has been bad art."
"The sphere of religion," said the Prince, "is the present, and its scope the whole of human life. It is, therefore, an art. If art is selfish, so is religion. The most disinterested martyr is selfish, for he is following the dictates of his higher self. I tell you Tina is mine, I want her. She shall not go!"
"You said the same of the boy, Highness," said Carricchio gravely; "yet he went—went a long journey from us all.Mon Prince, beware!"